Robb
The Isle of Skagos was hardly what Robb had been expecting. He had anticipated it to be something out of Old Nan's tales, filled with savage cannibals mounted on unicorns. Instead, he had encountered few people, often alone or in small groups, and had yet to see a unicorn. The one legend that did have some truth to it was that the Skagosi spoke only in the Old Tongue, like the Wildlings beyond the wall.
Robb knew little of the Old Tongue, little more than simple courtesies that his father had taught him when he was a boy. The oaths of fealty given by Skagos had always been in the Old Tongue, and so Robb had had to learn a small amount, though he had to use a translator in general conversation.
Robb rode at the head of several hundred men at arms who he had brought to Skagos. He had taken almost half Winterfell's guard, and several dozen more from surrounding minor houses, but the main bulk of his forces came from Karhold, Last Hearth and the Dreadfort, and even a few men of house Manderly, but they had stayed with the ships they manned.
Those from Karhold were commanded by the grandson of Rickard Karstark's Uncle, the Umbers were led by the Greatjon's eldest son, the Smalljon who seemed to have some of the giant on his sigil in him. The men from the Dreadfort by several different captains whose names he had hardly been able to commit to memory.
Robb had wondered if this had been a folly, and if he had been underprepared. The land was far more inhospitable than he had anticipated, and his forces only had a few weeks worth of supplies. He was not the first Stark who had tried to pacify Skagos either, it had taken armies sometimes as large as twenty thousand men and years to do it. He only had about three thousand.
He wondered if they thought this entire mission was folly, that he was riding forward towards his death. Robb had faced death before though, and he didn't feel afraid, especially not now.
As they rode, Robb's thoughts began to turn towards Winterfell, and Robb could only wonder what had become of him. It was Daenerys who bothered him, and Robb remembered when they had last spoken, the day that he had left.
She didn't want to go south, he knew, but he hadn't expected her to try and charm him to stop it, nor for them to truly work. 'Your father had Lady Ashara, why not you have me?' She had said. He could still picture her as she had been in bed, her warm naked body laying atop his, able to lose himself in her violet-purple eyes.
Robb hadn't been able to bring himself to tell Myrcella about it before he left, not wanting to see the scornful look on her face when he told her, or to bring down her wrath upon Daenerys either.
He had soiled Daenerys and dishonored Myrcella. But it was himself who he had shamed the most he realized. Father would not have been pleased, that much was certain. He could only hope for Myrcella's forgiveness, and pray his seed had not quicked and that he had not impregnated her with a bastard.
In his youth, he had been told little of Skagos, save from Old Nan's stories, which Robb was not sure what to believe any more. The island was certainly strange to him, and he couldn't deny that something felt weird here. Greywind had been on edge ever since they had set foot on the island.
They had arrived at the Bay of Seals in only ten days after they had left from Winterfell, and it had only taken half a day to cross the bay. The waters there were treacherous, but they had made it across with seemingly no issue with Cotter Pyke of Eastwatch-by-the-Sea providing them with ships and even four men who knew the common tongue. Robb hadn't known what to make of the men though, three of them had once been wildlings, while the fourth did not say how he learned the Old Tongue, just that he had.
The men had begun teaching Robb a few words of it, though Robb still knew little of it, and could hardly even understand it, let alone speak it.
He could see that in the west, the sun was beginning to set, which meant they would soon need to begin setting up their camp for the night. Robb was not pleased to be sleeping on the isle. Three thousand men had crossed the Bay of Seals today, and a thousand more would be crossing on the morrow. They had divided into three parties as they went through the island. Robb led the largest part with a half of all the men, while the others had seven hundred and eight hundred men each. All were mounted and armored, which he hoped would ensure that the Stoneborn would not descend on them, and kill them all, but Robb was still nervous.
As they approached a cave, Robb ordered his men to halt, and told them they would make camp here for the night. He gave orders for some men to explore the cave, though none that they had found so far had anything worth particularly noting so far.
There was a good deal of Dragonglass all throughout the island, more than he had ever seen. Myrcella had told him she had once visited Dragonstone, where there was a lot there too, but Robb had never seen so much himself.
Robb and Ty were nearly finished setting up his tent for the night when some of the men he had sent into the cave had returned.
"It is safe m'lord," said the first man. "We searched the whole cave and didn't find anyone."
Robb wanted to feel a bit relieved, knowing the Skagosi weren't here yet, but instead it left him feeling anxious as to where the Skagosi truly were then.
"You will wish to see what we found though, m'ord," said the second man, before he bid Robb go into the cave system as well. He still wore his mail and had his sword in its scabbard on his belt, so after Robb had been given a torch, he began to follow them into the cave system with Greywind.
It was quite a cavernous tunnel, larger than what Robb had thought it would be from the outside, the ceiling much higher than their heads. They walked together deeper and deeper.
At first it seemed just another cave, but as time went, Robb noticed some things were strange. Some of the stone seemed blackened in places, and he started to see bones more.
Greywind didn't seem to like this place very much, but he went ahead of Robb, as though he were trying to protect him from something. He had half a mind to turn around and leave for that, but he pressed on anyway to see what it was these men had discovered. These men were to be his one day, and he couldn't show weakness, certainly not on the account of his wolf not liking this cave very much.
Robb took his focus off the ground ahead of him and tried to keep his eyes on what was ahead when he felt a small pain in his foot. He had nearly tripped on a stone that seemed so perfectly shaped that Robb could've sworn that it was an egg of some sort, but Robb didn't know of any eggs that looked like that. It was perfectly stone though, when he held his torch closer to it.
A unicorn perh aps, he thought to himself, remembering the island was rumored to have unicorns as well as cannibals. Or at least, that was what Old Nan had always said.
After some time, they finally reached a point where it seemed that they were in the last cavern of the cave, where there were more men standing around something with their torches than he had seen as they were walking through the cave system.
Robb walked closer to it, and the men allowed him through to see what they had found.
For a moment he had thought they had found some monster, but he realized it was a skeleton, larger than any he had ever seen before. Not just any skeleton either, but a dragon skeleton he realized.
He touched the bone, which was smooth and cold and hard to the touch. It was blacker than any bone Robb had ever seen before, and the beast's jaw seemed larger enough that Robb might have been able to walk through it if it were opened.
"A dragon?" Robb asked curiously. Old Nan had never told any tales of a dragon on Skagos. He wasn't sure that he was not dreaming any more, or seeing things.
Maester Luwin had always taught him that most of the Targaryen dragons died during the Dance or within a few years after. And according to what he had heard from father, the Targaryens had hung the skulls of their dragons in the throne room after they were gone, putting them on full display until King Robert won the throne.
The dragon, Dreamfyre had lived at Winterfell for some years he knew, and both Silverwing and Vermax had come to the North as well, but none of them had died in the North, and certainly not on Skagos.
"We do not know my lord…" Said one of the men with a flayed man of Bolton on his surcoat.
Robb studied the bones a little more while the men were chattering about it. He had never seen a dragon skeleton before and never thought that he would, yet there was one here and now, right in front of him.
He seemed to most lose himself in the empty holes where the dragon's eyes once were. For a moment Robb could've sworn that it felt as though they were watching him, but he knew that was folly. Whatever dragon this had been was long dead by now.
At some point, Jon came, and saw the beast too, before he and Robb walked back out of the cave together, though Robb didn't have much memory of it.
It was only when he was in his tent that he remembered. Jon was sitting in there with him. It must have been completely night by then, and they sat alone.
Robb didn't doubt they ought to be discussing the Skagosi people, but all he could think about was what they had found in the cave.
"There had been a dragon on Skagos," Jon said bewildered. "How?"
Robb shook his head. "It must have died here," he said, though he was not certain. How could he? It was a dragon, every bit of it went against what he knew.
Jon nodded. "But when?"
He couldn't think of a good answer. Robb wondered how long it would take for the bones to be completely gone. His father had once mentioned that the skulls of the dead dragons had hung in the throne room during the reign of the Targaryens, and that he had seen them, the day of the Sack, which must have been hundreds of years old.
"Mayhaps the people of the island will know?" Robb suggested. It seemed a hopeless notion though, if there wasn't anyone who spoke the common tongue among the people here.
"Mayhaps," Jon echoed.
"But where are they?" Robb asked. No one had seen any of the people even after they had made their camp for the night.
Jon gave a shrug. "They can't remain hidden forever. On the morrow they'll turn up."
Robb could only hope they would. He would rather face a foe that he could see in front of him than an enemy of shadows. The Stoneborn could be all around them even now, preparing an ambush of their camp tonight, even with the sentries posted all around them.
Greywind lay curled up in the bed and for a moment Robb thought to join him when he caught eye of a dragon at Jon's belt.
"Your sword…" Robb said confused. Jon had been carrying live steel on his person ever since he decided he was going to the Wall, which seemed so long ago to Robb. But the sword, or at least the hilt was different from the sword he remembered Jon leaving with. Certainly not something that Mikken would've made, or even something he likely would have gotten from the Night's Watch he was sure.
The hilt was also very slender, which seemed unnecessary for Jon whose grip seemed fine as he put his hand on the sword's hilt and pulled it out.
Robb was slightly in awe to see that it was Valyrian Steel. "When did you-" he started to say before Jon cut him off.
"Beyond the Wall… Ghost led me to it," he said. Robb wondered if perhaps there was some truth to what Jon had said in the woods, that the gods had meant for them to have them.
"What sword is it?" Robb asked. He felt he ought to know what sword he was looking at, and figured it must have a name or history for Jon to have kept it with him, and not carried another sword with him.
"Dark Sister…" Jon answered.
For a moment Robb didn't register what his brother had just told him, though once he did, a quick rush of thoughts came over him. He remembered Dark Sister was one of two lost ancestral Valyrian Blades for House Targaryen, but it had been lost some time ago.
"By rights it should belong to Aegon… Or… Or... Daemon..." Robb said. He wasn't sure that giving the sword to Daemon was the wisest choice, but he still had more of a claim to it.
"Uncle Benjen said that I found it… It's mine… I spoke with Aegon about it," he said.
Robb was not sure Aegon would allow Jon to keep the sword, or how Daemon would take to Jon holding a sword that he could argue should by rights be his. "Truly?" He asked.
Jon nodded. "When we are done I need to go south… Promise me that when we are done here you will not stop me."
"I promise," Robb said. He didn't see any reason why he would need to keep Jon behind at Winterfell, and if he wanted to go see Jeyne or father in the south Robb would allow him. Rickon might not take too well to it, but Robb would not have a need for Jon.
He figured there were some secrets Jon was keeping from him, but it would serve to ask about them. Whatever truths his brother had learned at the Wall were not for him to know. And he had no right to demand Jon turn over his secrets when he was keeping secrets of his own.
"Good," Jon said back before he got up and left.
Robb felt extremely tired after days of hard travel, and he was now alone in his tent. He began to take off his armor on his own, and left it for Ty to finish putting away before he made for his cot and laid down.
Sleep came quickly to him, and before long Robb found himself dreaming of home.
Author Notes:
This chapter had been bugging me for a while and I didn't really have a clear idea for how Robb on Skagos would work out, and I guess I felt a little happy with this.
The problem is that Skagos doesn't have much that we know about from canon, which does still certainly serve as a guide for my writing.
Eventually this is what I got, and so here it is.
And yes, Robb has been a very naughty boy since he returned to Winterfell after the last chapter. Most the information on that will be delivered from Daenerys's POV though, not Robb's, as he tries not to think about it very much.
Thank you guys for reading and please be generous in your leaving of reviews, follows and favorites.
ASOIAF belongs completely to GRRM, I own nothing.