Chapter 35: Almost There

"Long time since we've been in Riverrun" Vesemir broke the silence in the group as they all rode closer and closer to the city.
"Should be about two years now?" Edwyn joined in the conversation.
"Remember our little incident in the Riverrun brothel" Tarkus also joined in, clicking and clanging his armor with every move of the head and wave of the hand.

Cregan's companions continued in their little smalltalk while he rode in front, completely ignoring them. Their journey wasn't quite eventfull so they had to find a way to pass the time. While Vesemir, Tarkus and Edwyn continued to chuckle and laugh Rodrick and Lily kept to the back and remained silent, out of the five, they seemed to be the most quiet of them.

On the road to Riverrun Cregan learned more about all of them. Tarkus, Rodrick, Edwyn and Lily all owe Vesemir their lives.

Tarkus was once a reaver from the Iron Islands. During the last Greyjoy rebellion Tarkus was fighting on Great Wyk and during the battle he was gravely wounded, he would have been dead if not for Vesemir and Edwyn the then still lone traveling scholar. After the battle on Great Wyk Vesemir managed to drag Tarkus to a healer who just happened to be Edwyn, who was then just a traveling scholar that was also saved by Vesemir amidst the battle with a nack for healing. There the three first meet and quickly became friends. Tarkus was reluctant at first to trust Vesemir and Edwyn while Edwyn was also skeptical on why he should bandage up the enemy but Vesemir quickly ended the two's squabble and in the end, Tarkus lived.

While the story on how Tarkus and Edwyn meet Vesemir was touching, Rodrick and Lily's story was the most tragic of the four.

The two are brother and sister, something that can be noticable if you look at their features you could see that they share some aspects. Rodrick was seven and Lily was only four years old when they lost their home, friends and family. The two lived in The Westerlands in a small fishing village on the northern coast, the coast nearest to the Iron Islands. Their lives were fairly normal until reavers attacked, razing their entire village to the ground and killing anyone they saw. The only reason Rodrick and Lily survived was because of Vesemir. Before the reavers could kill them Vesemir stumbled across just in the nick of time and, almost like in the stories, the brave adventurer saved the young children. This story didn't have a happy ending though, well, not in the usual sense. Rodrick and Lily were now homeless and orphans, they had nowhere to go and were too young to take care of themselves. Vesemir, in a spout of kindness or simpathy, took the two under his wing and taught them everything he knew.

Cregan didn't know if they all followed Vesemir out of respect, gratitude or if they didn't have anywhere else to go. But one thing was sure, they were all close to one another and have been fighting together for years.

Many things ran through Cregan's mind, with every step closer to Riverrun he got, Cregan became more and more worried. He didn't know why he was worried but something kept scratching at the back of his head. Ever since that nightmare Cregan wanted to get to Riverrun as fast as he could, only stopping to eat, drink and sleep. As usual, Cregan rode in front, always being ten steps ahead of everyone else. He kept a slightly faster pace than the others, the breeze made him close his eyes for a second, his auburn hair flickering in the wind. The cold wind had Cregan letting out a small sigh of relaxation before he heard someone calling for him, resulting in Cregan opening his eyes.

"Oi Cregan!" a voice kept calling for him resulting in Cregan turning his head backwards.
"How long till we get to Riverrun?" Vesemir was the one who seemed to be calling out to him.

Cregan narrowed his eyes towards his companions, annoyed that they broke his little moment of silence, before slowing his horse down and finally responding.

"Should be about two or three days now, maybe more" Cregan rejoined the group while still staying at the front.
"And you think that your brother will still be there?" Vesemir asked while turning his head towards Cregan.
"He'll be there..." Cregan put it bluntly, while his tone didn't give out anything Vesemir could hear a hint of worry in his voice.

Later in the night...

Cregan and his group had made camp off the road. Rodrick, Tarkus, Edwyn and Lily were sleeping while Cregan and Vesemir were indulging in their usual conversations. During their travels he had also learned some things about Vesemir, but most of them were from his stories.

From what little Cregan could figure out, Vesemir was a bastard born in King's Landing. His mother was a serving girl that was raped by some up-stuck noble wanting to have a night of fun. He spent most of his early life in FleaBottom working as a thief, smuggler, extorter and many other suspicious things that he didn't want to mention. When he turned fourteen he managed to make enough money for him to leave King's Landing and buy a small house in The Reach. Four years later he joined a mercenary group and was one of the lucky ones who managed to survive. The rest of his thirty or so years he spent traveling all across both Westeros and Essos. Vesemir didn't praise himself much though. Through his journeys he earned many riches but the only things he would always carry was his black leather armor and his longsword FlameSinger.

"Vesemir, can I ask you something?" the mention of Vesemir's longsword snapped a thought into Cregan's mind.
"Ask away Stark" Vesemir said while taking a sip from his skin of water.
"Where did you get your sword?" the mention of FlameSinger made Vesemir stiffen up a bit, his skin started to become pale and his eyebrows completely raised in suprise.
"Oh... this old thing... I uh-... I..." Vesemir started to stutter, something incredibly odd for him, usualy, whenever someone would ask him a question he would start some grand story.
"I got it from a blacksmith in Qohor" he regained his composure and once again started to speak clearly.

Normally this would have been a good enough response, but this wasn't a kind of response Vesemir would give. This was just a simple sentence, no overembelishing, no grand tale, nothing, for someone like Vesemir it almost seemed like an excuse.

"That's it, you didn't take down a dothraki horde or something?" Cregan had a cinycal tone as he continued to interrogate Vesemir.
"We'll there was this gang that was extorting the blacksmith..." Vesemir said rather non-chalantly and more like it was a joke.

As the old man continued the story it seemed like every other story he would tell but Cregan was smarter than to believe him now. Vesemir was lying through his teeth, making everything up as he went. Before he could continue his story however Cregan cut him off.

"Cut the shit Vesemir" Cregan saw right through his lies, cutting him off mid-sentence.

"All right, all right, listen, if you want the true story then I'll t-"

Before Vesemir could even start speaking the truth a thunderstorm could be heard coming from the south. Vesemir emediately sprang upwards and stood on his feet as he strapped his longsword to his side.

"Oh would you look at that, rain's coming, we should probably find a cave for cover, Cregan, we can continue this conversation never!" Vesemir said in a rather jolly and relieved tone, almost sliding towards the others and waking them up while Cregan kept sitting on the ground staring at the old man with his soul piercing stare while Vesemir continued to lightly tap his companions, waking them up in the process.

'What do you think he's hiding?'
'I don't know'
'But your curious aren't you'
'Yes, I am'
'I doupt he's going to just flat out tell you though'
'Maybe, but one way or another, every secret is spilled, be it now or later'

Triston's POV

Triston continued to train in the courtyard as the moon lit the entirity of Riverrun and the water of their rivers glimered the entire night. Many of his days and nights in Riverrun were spent training, it seemed that his days as Cregan's squire rubbed off on him. Triston might not have been the best fighter and he was certainly not the best swordsman but his speed alone made him formidable enough in a fight. Triston wielded a shortsword that was very much similiar to Demonsteel, it was had a curved guard that was intended for parrying and a blade that would become slimer as it reached the tip, meant for stabbing.

He continued to bash, slash and stab the training dummy with all his force but sadly his strength had to be traded for speed in Triston's situation. Whilst he drove his sword into the dummy's head Triston recalled one of Cregan's lessons during one of their many sparing sessions.

'Never drive your blade to deep into your enemy, if you do, then it will probably get stuck and leave you unarmed and open for attacks'

And just on point, the blade got stuck into the dummy's head. "Seven hells..." Triston murmured to himself, forcefully trying to pull the sword out of the wooden head but to no avail. No matter how much he struggled Triston would just slip off from the handle and fall to the ground.

"Need any help?" a female voice came from behind Triston which made him emediately spring from the ground in suprise.

When Triston turned around he saw Arya standing there with a small smile on her face, she wore an ever so slightly tattered blue and white dress and held her hair in a ponytail. As Triston shook the dirt of his clothes Arya slowly walked over to the training dummy and now was standing beside Triston. While he was dusting himself off he didn't even notice Arya standing next to him and jumped away from her in suprise, once again falling to the ground resulting in Arya letting out a small giggle.

"I'm sorry my lady, you startled me" Triston's cheeks flushed red out of embarasment.
"Don't worry about it, I am quite known for suprising people" Arya once again let out a small giggle as she offered a helping hand.
"Thank you my lady" Triston gladly accepted Arya's helping hand as the two now were at equal height.

As Triston got up he notice something nugging his leg. When he looked down he noticed a pair of wolf eyes staring directly at him, it was Nymerya, Arya's direwolf. The wolf seemed to have remembered Triston from their last meeting in King's Landing when Triston managed to free both her and Lady from their pens. Triston was suprised by this to say the least, not a lot of people would notice him, especially not animals. Much of his life he has in lived in other people's shadow, especially during his time as Cregan's squire. The little people who would notice him would always think of him not as Triston, but as Triston Stone. That wasn't the thing with the Starks though, they seemed to keep good relations with all their household, high and low alike.

"She seems to like you" Arya snapped Triston from his thoughts.
"Yes, looks like she does" Triston lightly petted the direwolf on her head.
"Sansa told me how you rescued Nymerya and Lady..." Arya said, her face becoming slightly softer and her voice more calming.
"I... well, I wanted to thank you. For saving both my sister and Nymerya." Arya blushed a bit as she scratched the back of her foot with her other leg.
"Oh... I- It's was nothing my lady truly, I simply followed your brother Cregan's instructions" Triston tried to play it off as casualy as possible but he wasn't use to getting any sort of praise, especially from a noblewoman.

The two stood in awkward silence before Arya once again spoke up.

"So... you still need help with your sword?" Arya stopped blushing as she looked past Triston towards the dummy who still had a blade through it's head.
"Ah, yes... the sword..." Triston once again started mumbling awkwardly but then quickly shut up as the two put their hands on the handle of his sword.

It took some effort, both Triston and Arya weren't that strong but together they barely managed to pull out the shortsword as they both stumbled back. Arya almost fell onto the ground if not for Triston, who managed to catch her before she could fall. The two took a quick glance towards each other as their eyes meet, they quickly separated from each other as they both awkwardly cleared their throats.

"Th-..." Arya tried to let out a response before clearing her throat and trying again.
"Thank you Triston" she turned around and smiled towards Triston who returned the smile.

"Of course my lady".

Note:

Sorry that this chapter took a bit longer, had a bit of writers block but don't worry the next chapter will come out sooner I promise and I think a lot of you Robb Stark fans are going to love the next chapter (*if you know what I mean*).

As always I hope you enjoyed the chapter, please do post your reviews and tell me your thoughts on the story so far, your advice etc. Thank you for all the reviews, favorites and follows and I will see you all next time.