❝ Men always demand the truth, but it rarely comes to their liking.
❞
– A Clash of Kings
***
The ship with its slanted black sails seemed to emerge from the gray-blue haze itself, its hull gliding smoothly across the waves and leaving a trail of white foam in its wake.
One could almost believe the vessel was part of the sea itself, wild, free, and beyond reach.
Arthur was gradually growing accustomed to life aboard ship.
The rough wooden planks, soaked through with salt and moisture, creaked beneath his feet, while the sharp scents of tar, fish, and the sea hung constantly in the air.
The wind humming through the rigging had become familiar music to him.
As a cabin boy, he knew little rest.
Scrub the deck, polish the brass fittings, haul the sails, carry crates of provisions, tie knots.
There was always work to be done on a large ship.
Yet the more he worked, the more confident he felt in this strange new life.
The days passed in a steady rhythm of labor, but the sea itself never ceased to change.
Each day revealed something new.
Calm blue waters would give way to leaden swells, while tiny islands on the horizon beckoned with the promise of the unknown.
Now and then other ships appeared in the distance, but the Black Betha stubbornly held to her course, making only a single stop near Dragonstone without entering any harbor or making contact with other vessels.
The constant labor, training, and plentiful food had transformed the once-skinny Arthur.
He had grown taller and broader, his shoulders widening and his muscles filling with strength.
He could feel the changes himself.
Especially whenever his gaze drifted toward the shimmering symbols lingering at the edge of his vision.
The moment he focused on them, they appeared clearly before his eyes.
[ Name: Arthur Snow
Level: 2
Physical Strength: 2
Agility: 3
Health: 93/100
Mind: 2
Endurance: 3
Magic: 40/100
Magical Power: 1
Luck: 2 ]
At first, Arthur had tried to ignore the strange signs, hoping they would eventually disappear.
The fear that they might be some curse or proof that his soul had been stolen hardly encouraged him to spend much time studying the unfamiliar words.
The symbols, however, showed no intention of disappearing.
Quite the opposite.
They constantly changed, and new information appeared among them.
Was it sorcery?
A gift from the Seven?
The questions tormented him every night before sleep.
In truth, the boy had nearly convinced himself that it was some ancient curse attached to him after the cave.
Over time, however, his fear faded.
The curiosity that had always been part of him, buried beneath recent events, slowly returned.
He even began noticing certain patterns.
After every training session, every effort, his abilities improved.
The skill called One-Handed Weapons, which he practiced with Mattos, had already reached thirty.
Some numbers changed almost daily.
His health, for example, immediately dropped whenever Mattos left him bruised during sparring.
Then it recovered after a good night’s sleep.
The other numbers were interesting as well.
Though Arthur would have fiercely argued with anyone who claimed his Mind deserved only a single point, he had to admit that his agility was indeed better developed than his strength.
As for endurance, he had always been resilient.
The only thing he could not understand was the line marked Magic.
It filled painfully slowly and produced no noticeable effect whatsoever.
Of course, Arthur had not forgotten the mysterious sorcerers beyond the Narrow Sea, nor the stories of magical creatures and dragons.
Yet he felt no magical power within himself beyond the symbols themselves.
Those certainly seemed magical.
Or divine.
Or cursed.
Still, if it was a curse, it had done him no harm so far.
What pleased him most was the fact that his Mind had recently increased to two.
The strange thing was that he had no idea how he had earned it.
Nor had he felt any dramatic change, unlike when his strength had increased.
One morning he simply woke up and found a two where a one had been before.
What had he done to deserve it?
None of his actions seemed important enough.
And he certainly did not feel noticeably smarter.
When his strength increased, he had felt it immediately.
This?
Nothing.
Another useful aspect of his strange ability was that he could see people’s names and occupations.
Only the symbols beside the word Level stubbornly refused to reveal themselves.
Arthur was genuinely curious to compare his own with those of the crew.
For some reason, he was certain Ser Davos or Ray possessed much higher levels than he did.
The question was by how much.
As always, there were more questions than answers.
Still, Arthur sincerely enjoyed his freedom, the regular if somewhat monotonous meals, his new though worn clothing, and the feeling of belonging to the ship’s crew.
Better yet, they were carrying out an important mission.
Despite all the ominous signs of war, it felt as distant to him as the mysterious Empire of Yi Ti that Pol had once told him about after visiting those lands.
Arthur was content with his new life.
The war was somewhere far away.
And he cared little about it.
Far more important was figuring out how to defeat Mattos even once so the second boatswain would finally give him a few lessons.
Or whether lunch might contain something other than fish for a change.
Or what story Pol would tell that evening.
The ship continued its voyage, living its own life, untouched by outside troubles.
But that could not last forever.
The midday sun glittered across the sea, its rays reflecting from the calm water and dazzling the sailors’ eyes.
The wind filled the black sails, giving the vessel a somewhat sinister appearance against the serene blue horizon.
The ship, occasionally aided by her oars, rounded the continent and sailed confidently along the coast of Dorne, drawing nearer to the famous desert Arthur longed to glimpse with his own eyes.
Then another ship appeared ahead.
At first it was only a speck on the horizon, spotted by the lookout and reported to the captain.
Gradually the dark dot grew into a magnificent warship rushing toward them under full sail.
Its bright sails seemed woven from sunlight itself, adorned with a golden sun pierced by a spear.
Proudly they billowed in the wind.
A Dornish warship.
Beautiful, majestic, and unmistakably dangerous.
Arthur froze, unable to look away.
His heart beat faster.
His mouth went dry.
He did not know what the approaching vessel meant, but the unease spreading among the common sailors soon infected him as well.
Tension settled over the deck of the Black Beta.
The men exchanged glances while doing their best not to reveal their concern.
“Dornishmen,” Ray muttered, squinting into the distance.
“And not a simple patrol, by the look of it.
That banner…
I’d wager all the gold in Westeros the Martells themselves are aboard.”
According to Matthos, the second boatswain had spent years fighting as a sellsword in countless conflicts before eventually settling into Davos’s crew.
He was rarely wrong.
As the ships closed the distance, it became obvious that Ray’s guess had been correct.
Davos Seaworth emerged onto the upper deck and watched in silence as the Dornish vessel came to a halt.
Its sailors lowered a boat decorated with the arms of House Martell.
At a signal from Davos, the crew hurried to lower their sails and demonstrate peaceful intentions.
“Hells,” Ray muttered, frowning as the delegation climbed aboard.
“That’s Oberyn Martell.”
A/N:
While everyone else is waiting for updates, com / Captain_Lag (remove the spaces)