Simple Servant - Game of Thrones

Chapter Ten

AN: Just a short chapter for now. I really want to get this story going before I burn myself out writing filler. I'm sorry about it being somewhat lackluster, but I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! :P

Braavos 297 AC.

Arthur. (Nolan)

Just looking up at the precipice made the exile feel as though death was creeping up on him, its icy fingers tightening around his throat. Swallowing, he wondered again why he was humouring the old woman about climbing this bitch of a mountain. 'So I can know why my mother tried to kill me,' he thought, 'and why my father let her.' Anger twisted him inside out, and the exile ground his teeth together and squeezed his eyes shut.

"Is that fear I smell, young king?" An irritant grumble escaped his lips as the crone's voice spoke behind him. "Such a pungent stench. Quite a bit like rotten eggs, don't you think?" Arthur turned around and saw the crone observing him with a knowing gleam in his shrunken black eyes. "Why are you afraid? Don't tell me heights rattle you, young king."

Arthur had stopped questioning how she'd been creeping up on him despite his years of honing his senses after their second meeting—she had come to warn him that putting off the climb for much longer would not end well for him... "I read that Casterly Rock was 2,100 feet high, the greatest mountain in Westeros," he explained, crossing his arms as he glanced over his shoulder. "Do you know what happens when people hit the ground from a fall that high?"

"Hold on; I know this," the crone smiled. "Splat?"

He threw his hands up. "This is three times that!"

The crone laughed. "Don't we all?" Arthur stared at her annoyedly. "You will not fall. This is not where you die. You do not die for a good while, and it will be a death which brings about an age of peace and prosperity that lasts a hundred generations. Rest easy knowing that much." She tapped her cane on the ruins beside her. "Sit. There is still time."

Her "warning" of his death ushering in an age of peace irked him more than he could say, but Arthur ignored it for the time being and sat in pensive silence beside the crone, wringing his hands and scowling up at the ascent. There had been tales of those who'd risked the climb and tales of what caused their falls—the wind, sudden rains, lightning. The exile inhaled deeply, tasting the sweet—like death—air that seemed to always surround the witch beside him.

"What is the farthest someone has made it?"

The old woman hummed and opened her little black eyes to peer up at the spider-webbing lightning overhead. "You'll know him by the Last Dragon or the Silver Prince," she informed, and Arthur frowned. He'd read nothing about Prince Rhaegar ever even setting foot in Braavos, and he'd even gone through the previous Sealord's documents. "Rhaegar reached just below the clouds before falling to his death, but the gods were not done with him just yet."

"When did this happen?"

The crone grinned toothlessly at him. "After the birth of his daughter, before the birth of his sons," she told him. There was something going on that was bigger than him, bigger than anyone if what she was saying was true. A cackle tore from the witch's throat as she closed her eyes again. "Now, I think it is time. Be a dear and fetch us that sword."

With a resigned sigh, Arthur dropped from the ruins and grabbed his bag that had been leaning against a stone. He'd already spoken with Rosie—that in itself had been mentally exhausting; she had gone through every emotion about it in the span of thirty seconds before kissing him deeply and tearfully pleading with him to come back to her. After he'd said his goodbyes to his love, the exile found the Black Pearl and asked her to take care of Rosie if he didn't return.