Braavos

And so, Viserys was now called Vimero, and little Daenerys, was now Daella. Their hair was dyed -both of them now seemed to have black hair- and I could claim that they were my long lost half-siblings.

Of course, boredom is a terrible thing for a young man. And while Annaria and Taella had taken to little Daenerys, I had some... issues with Viserys.

It was so that on the second morning of his stay with me, I took him to the small garden.

"Tormo, you taught me how to fight, do you think you could do the same with him?" I asked the Norvoshi Giant. He raised an eyebrow, and shrugged. With that I patted Viserys on the back. "Now, I hear that Ser Willem Darry neglected your martial education... I don't care if you go back and conquer Westeros, or if you do something in Essos and stay, but in either case, you should know how to fight.

Tormo here is one of the best, he taught me, and now he will teach you. You'll be bruised more often than not, and very sore, but you'll thank him for it some day."

I also needed to keep him busy. He could not be left to brood, nor could he be allowed to become restless. If he was staying with me as his hiding place, he'd need to learn how to behave as anything other than a princeling -and Ser Darry had obviously not taught him that, treating him as royalty despite their condition as exiles-

Tough luck kid, I'm in charge now.

I supervised them for an hour or two, Tormo was going easy on him -after all, he barely knew anything about fighting, and had seen too many Bravos, that tended to give you some bad habits as Bravos were as much performers as they were fighters -save, perhaps, for the Swords of the Sealord. Now that I thought about it, one of them had become a good friend and even acted a minor part inCaesarlast year.

His name sounded... familiar, but I couldn't figure out why.

Oh well, I'd ask Syrio if he would mind tutoring my supposed half-siblings one of these days.

After a couple of hours, Tormo let go of Viserys, and true to my promise, the boy had some bruises and was quite sore. With a nod I looked at him.

"I'll have Annaria prepare you a bath. You know, the Westerosi start practicing with their weapons when they are your sister's age, so you have a lot of catching up to do." With that we went back into the house, while Tormo returned to his place at the gates.

Life slowly settled down for the day. I spent most of the afternoon on my study -I was, after all, finishing the draft of the next play. I may have lifted the title from Shakespeare, but then again, what else could you call such a play if notAntony and Cleopatra?

I was almost done for the day when I saw a little girl looking at me, her large violet eyes full of curiosity and childish wonder.

"What are you doing?" She asked, and I could not help but chuckle.

"Finishing some work for the day, do you know what a Playwright is little one?"

She denied with her head and climbed on my lap, looking at the papers I was working on.

"Is it a story?" She asked once more, "Myla used to tell me stories." She added, and I nodded before putting her back on the ground.

"It is, I write stories for mummers to play on a stage little one." She seemed fascinated, and, figuring that maybe I could tell one that I had not yet put to paper, I looked at her.

"Have you heard the tale ofDon Quijote?" When she denied, my grin only grew. "I thought not, it is not a story the Andals would tell you."

Even after all these years, I still enjoyed doing such a thing way too much. But hey, these kinds of little things are part of what has kept me sane. If it works it works after all.

Soon enough I was sitting with her on the fireplace, Viserys was here too, but he seemed to be trying -and failing- to flirt with Taella. Normally I would have put a stop to this, but Taella seemed more amused than anything by the Princeling's attempts.

So long as he did not grow forceful, I figured there was little wrong on this. Of course, if he did, Taella was more than capable of... showing him the error of such ways...

We had sausages that afternoon, and small ale. Still, seeing Little Daenerys so engrossed in the tale of the mad knight and his misadventures seemed to calm Viserys a bit.

The next day I was due to meet with Maelio, the chief of the Sea Dragon Troupe of mummers. They had an exclusive contract with me, they played my stories and I didn't give the scripts to anyone else for the next five years. It had made us both quite rich.

He was coming here, so I hoped that the two would not blow their cover. At least Viserys seemed to understand what was at stake.