Over the Horizon Beckoning
First Day of the Second Month 294 AC
Black Walder Frey was not a man easy to startle. He had learned early and learned well the lessons of his House. Any sign of weakness would see you pinched and prodded from every angle in an attempt to grasp some scrap of advantage, and that was absent the misfortune of drawing the Old Man's eye in such a moment. But a man would have to be made of stone not to start when the dragon king from across the sea stepped out from behind a tree while he was hunting, like a devil in a parable.
And oh how like the devil he was then, the offer of lordship as sweet as it was sudden. Ten thousand dragons and a Valyrian Steel sword to match the dagger he had won at the tourney, if he accepted to be Prince of Omber.
"They asked for kin, but Dany was not minded to run off to the other end of Essos to rule," the Dragon added with a shy smile that made him look young and old all at once. "I have an understanding with the Brackens and Blackwoods, but distant kin though he might be, Hoster Blackwood is too young by half to be tossed into deep waters of rule, even though his Bracken bride-to-be has a steadier head on her shoulders. With you, my lord, I trust that I am leaving Omber and its princelings in good stewardship to accustom them to being part of a wider realm."
Perhaps unsurprisingly given the very offer of which the king spoke, Black Walder had been looking at maps of Essos with more care than ever he had done as a boy under the different tutoring of a now dead measter. "Omber... that's far to the north and east. I know little of those lands save that there are no great cities there and few traders dare the waters."
At that the king nodded, accepting his unspoken reservations without affront. "Far lands and not the most populous, but you will have trading partners from Morosh and Salosh the restored in those waters, and now that the yoke of the Dothraki is off their necks the people there should grow and prosper in peace." From some hidden place of sorcery he drew a map finer than any Walder had ever seen, to show these places.
"A new lordship that size will draw quite the buzzing swarm, and not all bees diligent to their tasks," the knight mused, already considering which of his kin would be worth approaching with the offer. Trust was a rare and precious thing in the Twins, but not unheard of, especially when you knew the other person's weaknesses, and they knew you knew but did not use it.
"Aye it would be of some use to bring some trusted hands from home to the ducal court, though not too many lest the locals get skittish," the dragon said as though reading his thoughts, though probably,
hopefully only his face. From the same
other place he drew a couple of leather bound books, plain but with pages finer than any Walder had ever seen. "These are the trading possibilities my envoys identified. They weren't experts, but it's a place to start at least and
this..." he motioned to the other book features turning more grave, "is a book on foes you are likely to face under the Shivering Sea."
Walder leafed through both tomes quickly, ambition warring with the hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach at the accounts of horrors washing in on tainted tides to twist the minds of men and
feed on them. He was a brave man but not a foolish one, and for all the Dragon King's promises he knew he would be out on the ragged end of a new realm, the last to get help if there was even a need to portion it out.
But I'd never get a full dukedom with people in it closer to the Narrow Sea, he reasoned, snapping the book shut. Wider lands than the Twins and if he was wise in rule, soon to be more prosperous ones.
"I'm your man, Your Grace. I just need a few more days to talk to some of my kinsmen and then we'll ride out to hunt again and vanish without a trade in the woods. There's all sorts of unchancy things out here, after all..."
"There are, aren't there?" the king laughed, clearly pleased with the day's work.
Lost 10.000 IM
Lost a Valyrian Steel Sword
As he vanished, Walder wondered what beyond another kingdom falling in his lap had put the dragon in so fine a mood. If he had been told it was something as simple as a nameday, he likely wouldn't have believed it.
Who is invited to Viserys' nameday?
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OOC: Keep in mind this isn't a court event, try to keep it to family and friends. Not yet edited.
