Simple Servant - Game of Thrones

Chapter Eight

Braavos 297 AC.

Arthur. (Nolan)

Regardless of how convincing the old bat before him was, Arthur refused to believe that he'd be the one to draw that ancient blade thrust into the summit of the massive mountain at some point very long ago by the First King, whose name was lost throughout the millennia since his death.

"I don't want it," Arthur said again, aware that he must sound rather petulant. "I don't want it or the trouble it will bring me." He gestured with his hands as he spoke to get the point across.

"We don't always get what we want, young king," the crone told him softly. "Our destinies are set in stone, and all we can do is follow the pre-determined path laid out for us at birth."

Arthur frowned. "Fuck that." The thought of everything he had ever done being pre-planned was not one the exile appreciated. Perhaps the Seven had weaved their webs of fate with those who worshipped them, but the Old Gods hardly cared. They were spirits of the departed, and Arthur didn't believe those who'd lived already would bother controlling the paths of those still to live.

The crone cackled, tapping her weirwood cane on the bricks underfoot. "Believe what you will," it wasn't an argument. "But the truth is simple. Your blood is that of kings and gods, and your heart has decided the path you will take ready, yet still your mind refuses you."

"You're mad, woman."

Her paper-thin lips twisted into a wicked grin. "Age does this. It is known," she said sagely. "And yet there is wisdom within madness." Arthur couldn't believe that even a little; he had read about Aerys Targaryen's reign, and there was hardly any wisdom from the Mad King's side.

"Regardless of how wise you might be," Arthur said dryly, crossing his arms over his chest. "This is pure madness. How can I be of the blood of kings? I'm bastard-born." Arthur felt his lips twist into a frown as he gazed down at the mouse of a woman leaning lazily on her old cane.

She raised a grey brow. "Are you?"

The exile hesitated. "Well, what else? I'm no dragon." He looked himself up and down. Yet, a little whispering—a woman's voice, by the delicacy—told him it was not a dragon who sat on the Iron Throne these days. Arthur ignored it utterly; it wasn't possible. "I don't see any scales."

"There were kings yet more ancient than the dragons, young one," the crone replied in that quiet voice that demanded attention. "Even one as old as I would be hard-pressed to name them, but two lines stick out in the sea of kings." She smiled knowingly, little beetle eyes hard, black, but in them, Arthur saw the warmth of a grandmother. "I'm sure you know which, somewhere inside."

"Say what you will," Arthur snapped. "I don't care."

The ancient sighed and tapped her cane—tap tap tap—on the bricks underfoot. It was grating on Arthur's nerves now, but he said nothing. "It does not matter what you believe; the truth is bare before you; you are the Born King, cast aside and left to die but favoured by the gods of old."

Cast aside and left to die... A pang shot through the exile at the words. Cast aside. Cast aside. So Arthur had been abandoned by choice? The exile fought off the fury twisting within his stomach with his eyes squeezed shut. "You knew my parents...?" The question burst from him before Arthur could contemplate if he honestly wanted to know the answer.

"I do." The crone nodded slowly—tap tap tap—and smiled. "For it was my granddaughter who did escape with you before your mother could finalise the heinous act of murdering you in your crib."

Dread's icy fingers curled around his throat, and Arthur felt as though he would faint. "My mother wanted to kill me?" He didn't want an answer to that. "And my father... whoever is he was allowed it?" The exile allowed the wrath instead of the sorrow that fought within him to win.