But then one day, in the midst of all this, just as she was getting used to this peaceful routine, Merchant Sam came to her house and gave her a message from Jon about how there was an opportunity for her to fulfil her wish to travel the free cities.
The girl had immediately jumped on the chance and boarded the next trade ship departing for Lys, but it was only after she arrived here that she learnt that this would not be a solo trip; rather, she would be travelling all over Essos with Jon's family... The Starks.
And while Daenerys had stopped thinking of the Starks as the faceless monsters who had killed her mother, or as the Usurspers' dogs, as her brother (and even her) liked to frequently call them, but she still felt a little uncomfortable meeting them face to face.
As if she were subconsciously afraid that they would hate her and want to hurt her, though that was very absurd, as they didn't even know her.
But knowing this in her mind didn't really stop her from feeling squirmish, feeling as if she really shouldn't have come here.
"Don't worry, Dany," Merchant Sam said soothingly, "I know Lord Stark personally, and he is a good man, and his family would definitely welcome you wholeheartedly. You will see."
She didn't really get another chance to argue her case as they entered the mansion door in the next moment, and came across a small, beautiful garden where the whole Stark family were sitting in the middle of shrubs filled with flowers, having a light breakfast.
"Lord Stark!" A young guard standing behind the Lord spoke up and alerted him to the presence of guests.
All four of the Starks present there looked up to see the two newcomers entering the yard, and almost immediately, Eddard's face lit up with recognition as he stood up from his seat to greet the merchant, "Sam, you are here," he greeted with a nod.
"Lord Stark, I can't describe how good it is to see you in Essos," Merchant Sam said with a wide smile on his face as he came forward and greeted his liege with a deep bow.
"Enough, no need for such courtesies here," Eddard said with a small smile as he placed his hand on the jovial merchant's shoulder before raising him up, "We are no longer in Westeros; here we are simply two Northerners stuck between foreign people in a foreign land."
"If you say so, My Lord," Sam replied with a small chuckle.
"Oh, I know you," Arya suddenly propped into the middle of their conversation as the three Stark females came to stand beside Eddard, "I've seen you before in Wintertown. You are Becca's father, aren't you?"
The girl remembered faint memories from when she was little, and used to travel on Jon's back to Wintertown to sell the hides of the animals Jon had hunted in Wolfswood, and he was the Merchant whom Jon always sold to.
"And, I know you too, Lady Arya," Merchant Sam said, looking down with a grin on his face, "You have grown up quite a lot since the last time I saw you."
"I am not a lady," she replied intinctively with a scrunched up look on her face and then immediately ducked away from her mother, whose eyes as she expected were already twitching with irritation at her, but then Arya's whole attention was captured by the sight of a very pretty girl, who looked just a few years older than her sister, standing there behind the Merchant Sam, looking at them with interest and caution in her eyes, "Who are you?" Arya asked curiously.
"Arya! That's rude," Sansa immediately admonished, as she turned apologetically towards Daenerys.
"No, it isn't," Arya argued back, before turning back to Daenerys with a wary look on her face, "I wasn't rude, right?"
"No. No, you weren't," Daenerys replied with a shake of her head, while trying hard to fight back a grin, 'These Starks aren't so bad,'
Sansa rolled her eyes, but didn't forget her manners, and immediately introduced herself, "I am Sansa Stark, and this is my sister, Arya Stark. It is a pleasure to meet you."
"I am Dany, and it is a pleasure to meet you too," Daenerys replied with a bow that was every bit as graceful as Sansa's had been, drawing an appreciative glance from both Sansa and her Mother.
At this moment, Eddard, who had been deep in his conversation with Merchant Sam, also happened to glance over, and in the next second, his eyes widened in shock, and his face paled as if he had seen a ghost.
But this shock only lasted for a moment before the Eldest Stark regained his bearing as he looked towards Daenerys with grave eyes.
'Perhaps it was just a trick of the light,' he mused to himself, as now that he looked closer at the girl, except for a faint resemblance to the old queen in her features, she had nothing else in her that could signify a relation to that family; most importantly, the girl was sporting hair darker than his own daughter's.
"And this is?" Catelyn asked Merchant Sam with a polite smile, wondering why he brought a stranger along with him.
"She is Dany," Merchant Sam introduced Daenerys with a smile as he pushed her towards the Stark couple, "She is the relative of a friend that Jon made in Essos, and since she speaks fluent Valyrian, Jon thought that it would be good for you to have her join you in your travels."
"You can speak Valyrian?" Sansa asked with a surprised expression on her face, as she had assumed that the girl was from Westeros, seeing as how her common tongue was completely devoid of any accent.
"Yes, I have been learning it since I was little," Daenerys replied with a shy look on her face, as no one had ever praised her simply for speaking her mother tongue before.
"That is so impressive," Sansa said with a look of envy on her face, as she took the girls hands into her own just like she would with her girlfriends back in Winterfell, "I, on the other hand, can only understand it a little bit, that too if one speaks slowly enough, and I still have problem remembering most of the big words and I just can't get the pronounciation correct for the life of me."
Daenerys was a little taken aback by the sudden enthusiasm of the young Stark girl, but the girl also felt a warm, fluttering feeling inside of her, as she had never had a girl her age as a close friend before.
"I can teach you if you want me to," Daenerys offered with a nervous smile on her face.
"Really? That would be wonderful," Sansa said excitedly with a bright smile on her face. "It will definitely surprise Jon if I suddenly start speaking to him in Valyrian," she whispered with a mischievous smile on her face.
"That would indeed be funny," Daenerys replied with a playful nod.
"Wait! You know Jon?" Arya suddenly interjected with an excited look on her face, "Do you know where he is?"
"I would like to ask the same thing?" Eddard suddenly spoke up with a frown, "Because I was under the impression that he would be here to meet with us."
"He was, my lord," Merchant nodded with a regretful look on his face, "He was right here living in this very mansion waiting for you, and had a whole plan ready on where he would take you all and which places he would show you, but then at the last moment, an urgent situation cropped up in Braavos at our Northern Wolf Company, and he was forced to leave," he finished regretfully, giving him the excuse that Jon had told him to say.
"What happened? Is it dangerous?" Eddard asked with a worried look on his face.
"He did not say, My lord. But if I were to guess, then I think it must have to do with a problem with the order of new ships for our company, because we have been buying a lot of them over the past months."
"Oh..." Eddard nodded as his face relaxed after knowing that Jon was not in any danger.
"But then, will our trips go smoothly without him here?" Catelyn asked with a worried look on her face, making Eddard sigh and Sansa roll her eyes, as it was just like her to be more concerned about their trip than for Jon's well-being.
"You can rest assured of that, Lady Stark. Jon gave all the information to me before leaving," Merchant Sam said with a small bow towards Catelyn, "Your ship, the places you are going to stay during your tour, and all your supplies had already been prepared, so we can set off whenever you want."
"Really? Then what are we waiting for? Let's go!!" Arya jumped up with an excited look on her face.
"Er, then do you not want to tour the city of Lys first?" Daenerys interjected with a confused look on her face, "There are many places in the city that are popular among tourists, do you not want to see them?"
"Ahhh, I forgot about that," Arya replied with a sheepish look on her face.
"Then we shall tour this city today, and then depart tomorrow," Eddard said, to which the Merchant nodded his head.
"You can follow me then, I have been here for almost five days. So I know the best places to visit and the liveliest markets that have the prettiest silk dresses," Daenerys said with a small smile on her face, and this immediately captured the attention of the two redheads present there while simultaneously eliciting a groan from the two dark-haired Starks.
"We should hurry then. We don't want to lose any more daylight," Catelyn urged with an impatient look on her face, that made her look eerily similar to her youngest daughter when she was given leave to practise her weapon, "Let us see the famous sights of the free cities that I have been hearing so much about."
...
Kingslanding
"Is this true?" Tywin whispered in a dangerous voice as the small piece of parchment in his hand crumbled around the edges, showing the anger that the Lord was feeling at the moment.
"Yes. Yes, it is... as far as we can tell," Kevan cleared his throat as he answered with an uncomfortable look on his face, "Multiple sources have already sent the same piece of information, and I am sure Varys should also have received about this news by now or maybe even earlier, so he should mention this to the King during the next meeting."
At this moment, they weren't staying inside the Red Keep; instead, they were in a luxurious mansion just a few minutes away from the Red Keep that belonged to the Lannisters.
Their family had, of course, been given rooms to board at the Red Keep, but the Lannister Lord decided to forgo that and stay here, as in his opinion, the less contact he came into with the Drunkard King, the better it was for both of them.
"I don't care who knows by now; they will all know about it sooner or later," he said with a dark look on his face. "What I care about is why we are only hearing about this now? They were able to enter my home, take my man, and I only learn of this when they paraded him around Dorne? Are the lords back home all dead?"
He didn't scream, didn't shout, but the menace in his voice made it clear that someone was soon going to die for this mistake; he just hadn't found out who.
Kevan just silently looked at his feet without answering the question, as he knew that there was no answer he could give that would satisfy his brother, and he also agreed with him that this was a gross blunder by the people under them.
After all, Tywin is the kind of man who wouldn't even tolerate someone talking badly about their family behind their back.
So for someone to do this and for them to find out about it so late...
This was the ultimate disrespect; as if someone came into your home and then slapped your son right in front of you.
"I heard Doran Martell is going to be attending the Tourney?" Tywin suddenly asked as Kevan looked up to see his brother leaning back in his chair, and looking out the window with a calculating look on his face, his previous anger having disappeared as if it had never been there.
"Yes, he arrived in the Capital this morning," Kevan answered reflexively, before he hesitatingly asked, "Do you want me to go ask him for an explanation?"
"The time for explanations has long passed now," he turned back with a cold look on his face, "Have him summoned to the Red Keep. Let the King be useful for once."
"As you say," Kevan nodded as he turned to leave, having understood his brother's intention, but then he stopped at the door and asked, "Who else do you want to be there?"
"...Every Noble in Kingslanding!"
///
You know to go here if you want to travel to the future: [email protected]/Lazywizard
A little Shoutout:
My cousin has started a new fanfiction of his own about a man who finds himself as a slave and then a gladiator in Meereen. Check that out if you can:
Name: The Gladiator King
Author: LazyWarrior