*Sam*
Gilly collapsed onto his body, breathing heavily. Sweat made both of their bodies slick and sticky to the touch, but Same didn't mind. He had once told Gren at Craster's Keep that he liked seeing women walk away, implying that he was an ass man and would enjoy taking women from the rear. Yet, he found Gren's statement that the front was far more intriguing. Gilly's perky breasts now pressed against his own hairy chest, the two nipples like fingers poking his skin.
"Wow, you're getting much better Sam," Gilly breathed in his ear.
"I've had a good teacher," he admitted, to which he was rewarded by a nibble on his ear, giving him another thrill of excitement.
He wished he could stay there all day, but that simply wasn't going to be the case. With a gentle nudge, he nudged her off him and swinging his legs around, put them on the cold floor of their small apartment. He had heard that word the other day from a lesson being taught by Archmaester Janes, whose focus was on consutruction and buildings. According to him, any building with multiple living quarters were called 'apartment buildings' and the individual living spaces were 'apartments'. Sam had never heard that term before, but somehow it seemed appropriate.
"When will you be back?" Gilly asked, laying as naked as the day she was born on their bed, laying on her front with her shapely ass in the air. "Are you going to be back before little Sam falls asleep?"
"Right….." Sam said, flushing. They had carried out sex while Little Sam had played in the corner, absolutely oblivious that his mother was being literally screwed over. He seemed not to have even noticed as Gilly had screamed in sheer ecstasy. "I'm really not sure. Archmaester Ebrose has me on scroll collection duty the rest of the day. Me and Manual are both taking opposite ends of the Citadel and working towards the middle. We're to collect the scrolls and put them away in main library. You remember Manual? He's that funny little Dornishman."
"Wouldn't you rather have me collecting your scroll Sam and put it in my main library?" she asked, giving a toothy mischievous grin.
"Oh my," Sam's face must have been scarlet by now. Gilly had a wicked tongue at times.
He turned and splashed water over his face, and taking a cloth he wiped himself down. Once he felt significantly less stinky, he began to pull on his breeches and maester robes. As he did so, he looked at Gilly. He remembered her being a completely terrified girl, shy, begging for help of strangers. Now, she was more fit, better fed, looking healthy, by far than with Craster.
When was the first moment I loved you? He wondered to himself. Was it when you asked me to sing a song around the campfire? Was it when she called me a wizard? Or was it when she had begged him not to take her to Mole's Town, preferring being surrounded by a hundred sex-deprived men than with other women?
With gentleness he put a hand on her well-shaped ass and squeezed gently, and with the other hand brushed aside her coppery locks for her face and gave her a kiss on her forehead. He pulled back, and she gave him a bemused smile.
"What was that for?" she asked.
"I love you, Gilly," he replied, "Do I need another reason?"
"Why Sam," she poked him in his stomach. "I believe that's the first time you've ever said that."
"No it's not."
"Yes, I think it is."
"No!" he argued, "I have to have said it loads of times before!"
"Sticking your massive scroll in my library doesn't count."
I wish I was doing that more that this.
That thought passed his mind for perhaps the thousandth time. He picked up a large scroll, nearly a foot thick which had been left on a table. Not only was he supposed to collect all the scrolls and books, he was also supposed to make sure that they were rolled up so that the title was sticking firmly out.
A History of the Concubines of King Aegon II by Maester Doogle. Who would want to know about that? This was perhaps the seventieth scroll he had so far collected, along with three books. And he was only perhaps only five done in the entire Citadel. He only hoped that Manual was making better progress. His own cart could hold only a few more, then he'd have to go make his way to the library and deposit these scroll in the correct locations. It would not do to have a Study of Dragon Anatomy with The History of the Last Seven Winters.
"Good lad!" a maester said, coming from the side. Sam had been so 'enraptured' by his task he had failed to take notice of him. "Take this with you. I have too important of business in this part of the Citadel to make the trip."
With that, he dropped a heavy book carelessly on the pile of scrolls. Sam lunged for the book, pulling it out. Yet it was too late. Several were flattened, and one scroll with a wooden roller had been bent. Sam cursed to himself, although he did not speak aloud. The cart was split into two sections. The upper section was for scrolls and the bottom section was for books.
Without checking the title, he shoved it into the book section without a second glance. Back and forth he made the trip through the Citadel. Only twice during this time had he seen Manual, who was cursing that someone had vomited on a leather covered book and hadn't had the decency to clean it.
He was making his last trip, several hours into the affair, when he entered a room filled with archmaesters. They were having a pretty late discussion. Sam didn't listen in, too busy doing this rather ridiculous task. Although it was hard to completely ignore what they were saying.
"….trust me," one of them was saying, "We can deal with the dragons as we did of old. All we need to do is wait for Daenerys Targaryen to get on the throne. Then, it wouldn't be hard to poison them."
"That's not what troubles me most about the whole situation," another one put in. "It's the fact that instead of focusing on preparations for the Winter, we now have a full-scale war about to commence. The Kingdoms were already ravaged by the War of the Five Kings, now we have Dorne and the Reach in bitter conflict with the Lannisters and Targaryen loyalists."
"I've heard the Reach has switched sides and are now working with the Lannisters," a third put in. "They killed Lady Olenna Tyrell and her two last grandsons. House Tyrell has been completely wiped off the map, and Randall Tarly is now Warden of the Reach."
"Randall Tarly?" the second one put in. "What makes you think so?"
That last perked up Sam's ears. He turned to the group and without thinking about his position, he interjected himself.
"Wait!" he said. The group turned to him, annoyance in their eyes at being interrupted. "I'm sorry, but you said Randall Tarly is now Warden of the Reach?"
"What is it to you?" The first one asked, giving a disapproving glare at Sam.
"I'm Samwell Tarly," he told them, "He's my father."
Those words had an effect on the group. Instead of being annoyed, sudden comprehension dawned and they weren't so hostile towards him. The first two archmaester returned to the fire that was crackling merrily in the room.
"So, the reports I've heard state," the third archmaester, a man with jet black hair and a short mustache said. "In return for killing off the Tyrell's and plundering Highgarden for Queen Cersei, he was promised the Wardenship."
Sam pondered that. Randall Tarly had always been very angry at the fact that House Tyrell didn't get the position of Warden of the Reach after the Targaryen conquest. He had been especially angry at Robert Baratheon when he hadn't given Randall the position, despite his clear leadership abilities. When Sam had pointed out that defeating the King in battle didn't exactly win him any favors, Randall had backhanded him so hard, that Sam had required ministrations to fix his jaw.
"I'm sorry, but we are in the middle of a discussion here, Tarly," the archmaester pointed out. "So if you could finish whatever it was you were doing in here, it would be appreciated."
"Of course," Sam replied, and collected books from off the large table in middle of the room. Legends of the Long Night. Sam rolled his eyes and put it in the book shelf. He continued collecting scrolls and books, varying in subject from matters of body, mind, and history.
His time as a maester was being wasted. Jon had sent him for a single purpose. To discover all he could about ways to fight the White Walkers. To this point in time, he had only discovered that ironically, there was dragonglass on Dragonstone. He really hoped that that bit of information helped. No, instead he was being forced to collect books, like the one he was picking up right now A Dance of Dragons. Or this other scroll he was retrieving from a chair, Lessons to be Learned from the Disease Called Greyscale. Who gave a fuck or two shits about Chronicles of the Targaryen Dynasty or the Complete Set of the Letters of the Last Targaryens?
He wheeled the cart into the library, the squeaky wheel seeming to be laughing at him. 'Fool!' it seemed to be cackling, 'No one cares about White Walkers or the Army of the Dead.' That seemed true enough. No one seemed to want to confront the possibility of something like this actually happening. He replaced the scrolls and books in their rightful places, but at long last, he was down to two books. Legends of the Long Night and The Story of the Night's King. He noted the difference in these books. The outline of the books were painted in a light red. Signifying they were supposed to be in the restricted section.
So, he walked over to the restricted section. It was firmly locked, and no one was inside. Shit! The one time I have a legitimate excuse to get into the restricted section of the library, and I can't even get the books in there! Gods damn it!
The other book cart had already been parked, signaling that Manual was already done for the night. Perhaps if Sam just slid them onto the ground and left them, then the maesters would put them away in the morning. It was late at night, a new moon in the sky so no light was filtering into the Citadel's windows except for starlight.
They fit well enough into the bars and he stacked them on the other side. Letting out a deep breath, he turned and began to leave the library. He bemoaned how close he had been to the restricted section. The rows passed him by.
"Jon will kill me!" he muttered aloud to himself. "So close to where the knowledge of the Long Night….." Sudden realization hit him like a thunderclap and he slapped himself on the forehead. "Think Sam! You are an idiot!"
With that, he sprinted back to the restricted section. Please let no one have removed the books! As he rounded the corner, he saw the books still on the floor. Praise be to any God that was listening to him. Reaching in, he grabbed the books.
"Tarly?" a voice asked him, and he turned, to see Archmaester Ebrose standing behind him. "What are you doing?"
"I dropped some books in here by accident," Sam replied, begging silently to all the Gods, Old and New, that Ebrose wouldn't ask too closely. "They aren't actually supposed to be here, but in another section."
"Foolish Tarly," the old man shook his head and stepped up by his side. "Foolish indeed. You should really work on not being so air-headed. We have brains to…..Tarly? Why are you trying to remove restricted books from the library?"
"Restricted?" Sam asked with a nervous laugh. "No, no. They aren't restricted. They belong in the History portion."
"I can see the red paint on the covers borders."
"You must be seeing things," Sam replied with a smile and a shrug. He almost had the book out…..almost! A sharp jolt of pain shot across his wrist as Ebrose whacked him with a slender wooden stick. The book dropped to the floor…..on the wrong side of the door.
"You can't be taking books from the restricted section," Ebrose said, standing up and unlocking the door with a large ring. "They are only meant for maesters. How many times must we tell you before you finally understand?"
Sam was rubbing his elbow. The door swung open, and Ebrose stepped through. Suddenly realizing that he had a chance to actually get in and wrestle control of the books away from him, Sam jumped to his feet and scrambled to grab the bars of the door. But Ebrose was too quick. He closed the door and locked it from the inside.
"We are all going to die without the knowledge in here!" Sam shouted, his voice angry and distressed. "You want to kill Daenerys Targaryens dragons, who could do a ton of damage to the Army of the Dead. And you are still denying me the chance to research what the Lord Commander…..no, the King in the North himself asked me to come here to study! Why?"
"There are reasons for everything in this life, Samwell Tarly," the ancient maester explained, bending over and picking up the books. Sam's heart dropped as he watched the archmaester beginning to put them back, sliding them in their respective places. "What does the legends of old matter compared to the needs of the present day? There are larger forces at work in the world, Sam. We are the ones who keep the balance in the world. Should we allow any one person to have such terrible weapons as dragons? Perhaps the Army of the Dead is a thing or not. Yet there are living men who will be dead if we allow dragons to continue in the world."
Sam didn't want to hear this! All the hopes of the world surviving were in there! Just out of reach! And he had been an utter fool by dropping the books on the other side. He could have slipped them in the massive pouches in his robes and escaped with them.
These thoughts dogged his every step as he made his way to his apartment. He had never much believed in conspiracy theories. Yet, there was a conspiracy theory he had heard more than once. That the Order of Maesters was manipulating the entire world. Manipulating it so that the poor remained illiterate and dependent on a few wise men for answers. That they had great stores of knowledge that could advance the technology of Westeros by five hundred years yet they refused to, in order to keep their hold on the world. He had even heard that they had manuscripts detailing a horse-less wagon that ran on steam.
He found that to be far-fetched. Yet, he was beginning to believe in this particular conspiracy theory. As he opened the door, he let out a long breath, feeling defeated. Yet what he saw, made him smile. What he saw was almost as good as Gilly's naked body.
"Hello older brother," Dickon said, sitting in a chair next to the fire.
"Dickon!" Sam said, his face breaking in a smile. "What brings you here? I am glad to see you."
Dickon did not look nearly as happy to see Sam as Sam was to see him. Infact, he seemed rather uncomfortable. Sam frowned, feeling that something else was what brought Dickon here, and not to see his older brother. He glanced at the bed, and saw Gilly had fallen asleep with Little Sam in her arms.
"You stole Heart's Bane," Dickon said, without preamble. "Give it to me, Sam, while you still have a chance. I have respected your privacy and not gone searching for it. Yet if you refuse to….."
Sam's jaw hardened. "You'll what?" Sam snapped. "You think I'm scared of you? I helped fight off a hundred-thousand man army that attacked the Wall! I killed a White Walker! What can you possible do that I'd be scared of."
"Father has told me," Dickon breathed out slowly, clearly not enjoying this, "If you don't give me Heart's Bane, then he will come and kill you and take it by force. But not before you are forced to watch his men use your woman as they will before killed her and the boy."
Sam was having a really rough day. And to hear that his father was threatening Gilly and Sam? That pushed him over the edge. He probably was going to regret saying this, but he crossed his arms, stepped close to Dickon and bent over him. The fierceness of his approach made Dickon shrink back from how close they were.
"Oh really?" Sam hissed. "You tell Father that if he ever tries to come near my family, I'll kill him."
