Honestly I'm not sure why you're still here. Go home. Go read something better. Go hit up Dwellingondreams. You've been like, so totally warned.
1: Oh Shit
Boiiiiiiiiing.
I felt the rapid shift of padding and helmet wall as my ears rang with the sound of my opponent's weapon. Then I fell to the ground.
As I clumsily batted out with the wooden waster in my right hand to gain distance and used my shield to lever myself up again, the heavy, restricting weight of the training armor made it even tougher.
It turned out that buying space wasn't necessary. The other page had stepped back to give me room, and as I rose, I took a break from wondering what the fuck I was doing to try and tease out why the fuck I was here.
It was becoming a familiar tune by my third day in Westeros. Horn Hill specifically, stuck driving a rotund seven year old body that never quite seemed to do what I wanted it to. I suppose it could have been worse. I could have been born a peasant. I could have been born Lollys Stokeworth, or I could have been Morros Slynt, who probably ended up dead halfway to Harrenhall, courtesy of some of Littlefinger's machinations, the poor dumb bastard.
I wasn't a miserable neetcel feeling like an adventure complete with hot and cold running waifus was owed to me, I wasn't an ex-marine special-forces all weather tinkerer. I was decently employed, at best fenced for fun, and worst of all, I was happily married with as peaceful a life as it got in the worst year of world events of my life so far. The reason that's bad is that one incredibly shitty morning, I woke up in fucking Westeros.
There was no car crash, no fever. No random omnipotent being shaped like Gurm Himself. No rush of convenient memories and exposition, and no time to adjust and take stock. Just landed straight into the driver's seat of Samwell Motherfucking Tarly, Esquire. Pudgy paws, squinty eyes, and all.
The 'esquire' was my own addition. It's to show I'm a nerd who makes obscure nerd references about popular eighties movies. I should write a book about VR games and gen X geek culture from the perspective of a mediocre boy-man who deserves a romance arc with a thinly-characterized female. It would probably go over great here, when I've singlehandedly shat out a printing press and upgraded it into a steam-powered Babbage differential engine so people can truly appreciate my- Boiiiiiiiiing.
Right. I'm fighting someone.
"They will stop when you shout 'Yield', Samwell," My father's voice came from above.
Well. Sam's father. The sinewy slut-shaming manliness-obsessed sonofabitch called Randyll Tarly, who resembled a stringy turkey with a beakish face, long neck and perpetually sneering smirk. He was currently walking the wall above one of Horn Hill's smaller training yards with light armor, full gauntlets, and the weebtacular ornate hilt of our house's giant ancestral Valyrian greatsword protruding over one shoulder.
Freud would have had a fucking field day with Randy.
What was the quote? "Get me a child when he is seven and I will show you the man?" I think it was a knight or a monk who said it about training at arms in the medieval period. Well, I was seven again and had a fat head full of thirty years of largely useless trivia, personal memories, and half-remembered song lyrics. I was so beyond fucked.
"I get knocked down," I said, struggling to rise, "But I get up again." and suited action to words, hauling myself to my feet. To Lord Tarly, words meant nothing without action.
Again, I held up my waster and shield, staring at the other page across from me whose name I had promptly forgotten. Pate probably. Every sixth Reacher was a Pate or a Jeyne.
"You're never going to keep me down," I declared in a voice that sounded pitchy rather than determined.
Then Randyll Fucking Tarly, my erstwhile pater, gave a gruff nod. He motioned with a single gauntleted hand. Two other pages in full training armor entered the sparring circle, flanking Pate.
And outflanking me. Then the sinewy bastard sent a thin smile down at me. Must have been a real Proud Poppa moment for Randy.
Heh. Randy.
Sounds like a shit-tier stepdad from central casting, and not far off from how I viewed Tarly Pere. Long on posturing and perpetually hungry for status and respect.
Oh, and instead of packing a badly ceracoated Hi-Point in the center console of his non-emissions-checked Suburban as he searched for a reason, any reason, to brandish it, this Randy had a Magical Anime Greatsword, the power of judgment and gallows and the martial ability to kill anyone in his demesne who displeased him. Which, being himself, was a unit of so large it could best be measured by the fuckload.
Well. Lord Ser Child-torture McShitforbrains wasn't my dad. Fuck him.
No wife. No family. No friends. No foam mattress tops. No penicillin. No vaccines. No glasses. And no motherfucking GUACAMOLE ever again.
Yeah. Newly seven year old me had some anger issues to work out.
I shook myself once, got my head back in the game, and waded in.
Shuffle, shuffle shuffle. THUNK. BONK. Boiiiiiiiiing.
I ate dirt again.
And the three other pages stepped back once more, like they wouldn't have in battle as I struggled up to my feet one more time.
Fucking Westeros.