The Stag and The Frog - (GendryxMeera GOT fanfic) Part 1: Alone

2: The only path

Gendry knew only one man who could help him walk the path he had decided to walk. A man who could help him become Lord Gendry Baratheon. A man who had saved his life once.

The only man who had ever cared for him in the way he imagined a father would. Davos Seaworth.

Davos would be able to answer his questions about the lands that his father had ruled and what he could do to claim them as his.

Gendry exited the forge and looked around the courtyard for Winterfell for Davos. The destruction from the recent battle was still apparent. Walls had caved in and roofs had burned. There was snow on the ground, but it had started to melt. But it would never be warm enough here for him, Gendry realized that now. He was not a northerner and this would never be his home. It was Arya's home. Her family's home. And he was not her family. He needed to find his own home and his own family.

He found Davos in the soldier barracks, as always helping in the preparations for the coming battles, and asked him aside for a conversation. Davos obliged and they made their way up on the walls of Winterfell.

"I guess I should bow down to you, Lord Baratheon," Davos said.

It was the first time someone called him Lord Baratheon. It felt weird.

"Don't be silly," Gendry said with a sigh. "I don't need anyone to bow down to me. I've bowed down to too many masters myself. But I do want to claim it, the title, the castle, my father's last name. I want to be Lord Baratheon. But... I have no idea how to do any of this. You know I'm just a simple commoner. I need your help, Davos.."

Davos reached out and put his hand on Gendry's shoulder.

"There's nothing simple about you lad," he said. "Don't ever think that. I see the same fire in you as I saw in your uncle Stannis. But you have a better heart than him. I will help you, of course, I will. And... maybe the Stormlands need you. The lands have been in disarray for years, with no one to unite under since the death of your uncle Renly. The castle of Storm's End is occupied by the Lannisters, and the Stormlords fight both them and each other. A new Baratheon lord could perhaps unite them again."

Gendry looked out over the snowy plains surrounding Winterfell and imagined what it would be like to stand in his own castle. He who had never even had his own house.

"No one has ever needed me before, " he said. "I want to be that man, the one they need. I want to be Lord Baratheon of Storm's End. I want to be like my father and my uncle Renly. But how? Where do I start?"

Davos pondered the question briefly before replying.

"There's an easy way and a hard way," he said. "The easy way would be to wait out the war and have the queen give you the castle when she's taken the throne. But then you would just be a figurehead lord, with no support from your bannermen. They would probably try to usurp you as soon as they could. They would unite against you instead of behind you."

"And the hard way?" Gendry asked.

"The hard way is to not wait. To go there now. To claim your father's armies and march them there. To convince the Stormlords to trust you. To take the castle from its current occupants without the queen's assistance."

Gendry thought for a second, considering the options. But there really was only one option. He didn't want to be an easily displaced figurehead lord. If he was going to be a lord he was going to be it for real.

"I don't care if it's going to be hard. I have to try. I have to try to do this for real. I want to do it in a way that would have made my father proud."

Davos smiled and nodded. "The hard way it is then," he said. "I knew that would be your choice."

"How did you know?"

"You're a Baratheon. Through and through. And a Baratheon always does everything full force."

So they made a plan together. A plan where the consequences for failure could be death by dragon fire or beheading for being a traitor to the crown. Neither which sounded very appealing.

It wasn't going to be easy. Maybe it was even impossible. But it was the only way, the only path he could walk. Gendry had made his choice and he wasn't going to back down now. He would become Lord Baratheon of Storm's End or he would die trying.

The path would lead him to happiness and joy, but also to pain and sorrow.

The path would make him a lord, a husband, and a father.

The path would take him down a treacherous route that his father had walked before him.