"Huh? Why is the ship staying still?" Nymeria asked curiously as she looked back at the Galleon that had been their transportation, all the way from Dorne to here in the Westerlands, standing still in the ocean water as if it was waiting for something, "Are they not going to leave?"
All four of them, the ones who were going to take part in this dangerous secret mission, were at the moment sailing in a tiny boat, the same one that had picked them up in Dorne.
Their destination was a completely deserted coast hidden on three sides by a dense green forest, located somewhere between the lands of Tarbeck Hall and Crakehall in Westerlands.
"Perhaps they are waiting for us to return their boat," Sarella guessed with a shrug, "Though that would mean that one of us would row it to them and then swim back ashore," she murmured to herself before turning towards Jon with a raised eyebrow, "Unless, that is, also our escape ship?"
Over the past week that they had spent together on the ship, the Dornish girls had become quite familiar with the Northern boy, and as the girls learned more about the kind of person Jon was from Oberyn, and all that he had achieved at his young age, they became impressed with him and began losing their first impression of him being a smug brat.
This was especially after they learned the fact that their father, the Viper of Dorne, had lost to him in a fight, and though Oberyn, somewhat embarrassingly, had explained that it had been because of a dirty trick, he would definitely not lose if they fought again.
But the girls did not care, as to them beating their cunning father with a ruse was even more impressive than if Jon had done so fairly.
And Nymeria, who was as impatient as she was pretty, had not wasted any time challenging him to a duel.
Jon had avoided it at first, but after much persistence and provocation, he gave in, thinking that it would shut them up and make it easier for them to follow his order willingly... so he had duelled and defeated her... easily and overwhelmingly.
But unlike what Jon had expected, the defeat had not forced the girls to distance themselves from him; instead, they had become even more curious about him and began to follow him everywhere, asking him all kinds of questions as if he were a puzzle that they could not crack.
And though their nosiness made it hard for him to perform some of his secret activities, forcing him to move his schedule to the night, their sarcastic jokes and witty comebacks more than made up for it, as it was hard for one to find anything interesting on an otherwise dull sea life.
So all in all, the Dornish girls turned out to be a better company than Jon had expected, and of course, Jon entering his teenage years and them being beautiful lasses with sinful figures did not hurt much.
"No, that is not our escape ship," Jon answered with a grunt as he rowed the boat along with Oberyn, with both of them sitting on either end, facing the same direction, with the girls and their luggage in the middle, "I will have a different one ready at that time."
"So, someone really will have to swim all the way back after returning the boat, then," Nymeria exclaimed as she looked back at the ship that now looked smaller than a spoon in the distance and gulped, "Not me! I am definitely not going to be the one to do it."
"Me neither," Sarella added, right after her sister. "I hate cold water more than anything," she said with a shudder.
"Oh, don't even look at me," Oberyn said without turning his head, as if he knew that his girls were staring at him, "I am almost an elderly here, so you definitely can not give this kind of back-breaking work to me."
And with that, both the girls exchanged glances with each other and simultaneously turned their heads towards Jon with mirth in their eyes.
"No," Jon replied wryly to the smirking girls' silent query, "Sadly for you, someone else will be taking care of this issue for us."
"Who?" Sarella asked curiously.
"You will know soon enough," Jon replied with his usual mysterious smile.
"Ugh! Why are you making this all so complicated?" Nymeria groaned as she leaned back, trying to find some space to spread her long legs in this cramped boat, "We could have easily docked at the Lannisport and taken the kingsroad from there, skipping all this stupid skulduggery."
"You are really asking me that?!" Jon said with a raised eyebrow, "Have you even looked at yourself?"
"Why?" Nymeria asked with a gleam in her eyes, "Do I look particularly ravishing in the light of the sunset?" she whispered while leaning towards Jon with a teasing wiggle of her eyebrows.
"I don't know about ravishing," Jon replied slowly, looking completely unfazed by the devilish figure with a hint of cleavage looking up at him seductively, "But you do look like a Dornish girl who is just too pretty to be a smallfolk. And with the number of eyes in a port, it would only be a matter of time before everyone and their mother knew that the Dornish are here in Westerlands to do something wicked."
"You are exaggerating," Nymeria replied with a sceptical look on her face.
"I assure you, I am not," Jon said with a shake of his head, "The total amount of direct trade between the Westerlands and Dorne is unsurprisingly very little, so even a single Dornish man looks out of place here, making even the dumbest smallfolk look unkindly at them, remembering their faces to later report to their lords. Otherwise, why do you think we are landing here in the middle of nowhere?"
"Wait! Does that mean that we will not be moving through any of the towns or villages on the way?" Sarella asked with narrowed eyes.
"Exactly," Jon nodded with a smile, "You get it now."
"No, I do not get it." Sarella exclaimed in a high-pitched tone, "Because what the fuck are we going to eat and drink on the way. I can tell you now that the stuff we brought would not even last us two days, especially with the way this one here has been eating recently," she whispered the last part while jerking her head towards her father.
"Oi! Oi! Don't talk behind your father's back," Oberyn scolded without turning his face away from the shore, making the girls roll their eyes. "But seriously, Jon, if food is going to be a problem, then we really should have taken more rations along with us, even if it slowed us down. In fact, I think it is still not too late to—Wait! I think I see someone on the shore!" The Dornish prince exclaimed mid-sentence, his eyes squinting, trying to see the figure waiting for them under a tree at the shore, "Is that Dacey? Dacey Mormont?"
The sun was almost on the horizon, leaving them very little light to see far, but even with her vague visage, the prince easily recognised her as the valiant warrior woman who had given him a lift from Essos to Westeros in Jon's fleet.
"Indeed, she is," Jon said with a warm smile on his face.
A few minutes later, Oberyn greeted Dacey with a friendly wave, "Lady Mormont, how do you do on this fine evening?" as their boat touched the shore and they began climbing down.
"Prince Oberyn," Dacey nodded calmly as she came forward, "Jon... and two extras," she said as her narrowed eyes scrutinised the two girls who had suddenly been added to the mission at the last moment.
"Blame this one," Jon mouthed while sneakily pointing towards Oberyn, who just smiled embarrassingly.
"Did that woman just call us extras?" Nymeria whispered to her sister in an incredulous tone as they took off their luggage from the boat.
"I think she did," Sarella nodded with a relaxed expression on her face.
"That is insulting, isn't it?" Nymeria asked with narrowed eyes, "Should I teach her a lesson?"
"Please don't," Sarella quickly said while holding onto her eager sister's elbow, "Have you seen the muscle on that woman... she will pick you up and throw you into the sea."
"Hmph! I can take her." Nymeria retorted indignantly, but the unsure look in her eyes said otherwise; after all, she could not use poison against an ally, and without her most powerful weapon, she did not like her chances against this Northern warrior who seemed as if she had been born with a mace in her hand.
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