2: Family Shit

A wise man (me, it was totes me,) once said "There's no shit like family shit," and boy howdy was I right.

I shouldn't be here. I stopped watching the show after about Season 4, and just switched to outraged friend rants and Chrysreviews' handy pictorial summaries. If I was in the showniverse. I don't know. The Tarly Household itself was simple enough, this Sam only had tiny Talla and ickle Dickon to kick around, (Not literally, they're good kids) but I'd checked with the Maester and Balon Greyjoy's daughter's name was Asha, all the book Tyrells were here, and Doran Martell had three children, so I just assumed I was in for a melange of contradictions. Presumably R+L equaled J here too, but I didn't want to ask about the Starks just yet. Or at all if I could help it.

While mourning my lost life in the back of my mind every time I thought about it, (which was pretty much all the time,) I decided to make the most out of my present, and generously gave myself seven years to find an escape plan or nice little bolt-hole to tuck myself into. Because despite being the oldest son of a rich and powerful lord, the Fucking Westeros Corollary (FWC) I just invented to describe a particular permutation of Murphy's Law indicated that I'd probably be closer to 14 than 18 when the notional manure made contact with the extremely notional rotary impeller, and might still be "Voluntarily Exiled" to the Night's Watch to make room for my more promising younger brother.

Also, like my own self and Show!Sam, I couldn't see for shit at a distance. Which, along with being shit at sprinting was a further liability in perfecting the Twinkling Constellation of Manly Things I exhaustedly categorized as "War Stuff."

Then there was the Maester.

Maester Lewys was proof that if there was a god or gods, they enjoyed a good joke. Squat, irascible, and loud, he thundered around his chambers and suffered no one's bullshit. I decided not to ever ask if his last name had been "Blacke."

Randy kept out of his way, and let him fiddle his tax receipts as he diddled the occasional chambermaid. Largely because he was so good at the tax-farming part of his job he left Daddy Dearest free to do the things he loved most. Which, in any civilized country, would be called extrajudicial murder with a break for a spot of barely-environmentally sustainable and fundamentally unsafe hunting.

So naturally I was there frequently, soaking up what passed for a lordly education in Medieval Fun-Time Land any time I could get away from the yard.

Fuckssake, hadn't Randy ever heard of a recovery day?

Outside some general glowering, parenting did not make the cut at our present ages, and so Mother, Lady Melessa Tarly, nee Florent, she of the impressive height and even more impressive ears, was left holding the bag.

She was actually really sweet with all of us, and the castle jumped to answer her every whim. It's easy to see how Samwell might have grown up, torn between the example of the parent who showed up for him and the parent who just angrily demanded perfection in an incredibly narrow field.

So. As my mother Melessa and I quietly sang or told stories to my brother and sister on late nights when my father couldn't or didn't hear, I drifted off to sleep thinking of possibilities in my bed, in the yard, and at the table.

Possibility the first: Faking my death. Classic. Too overwrought with too much potential for danger while creating a body-less death, plus if he didn't do it himself, Randy would probably turn his lands upside down searching for me, before finding me as a humble Inn cook or something and executed everyone around me. Or the Mountain killed me on his way through the area or something. Pass.

Possibility the second: Arrived at while sitting in the sept of a very early morning: Joining the Faith and removing myself from the line of succession. I didn't have much of a head for all the intricate legends or philosophies, and currently the prospective Marriage Mart stuff held negative appeal to me, so somehow joining the Faith and rising to prominence seemed like a nice way to keep my head attached to my neck… Until I remembered that the rises happened quickly because of how many of the Faithful in the capital get killed off at various points and because of 'prophecy McAllegorical Futureknowledge' Martin's fundamental simplicity when discussing the Faith as polytheistic Catholicism lite looked like a great way to either be "axed" questions by Ironborn in Oldtown or burned alive in King's Landing. Pass.

Besides. I didn't hold much with the kneeling, and while the candle-lighting was familiar it wasn't enough to build a life on, muttering half-remembered benedictions in my head, and the Septon, a spare, dry sort of man with the painfully awkward name of name of Runcifer actually helped me with an ethical dilemma when he noticed me looking worried one day as my mind wandered idly.

Because you see, unknown to everyone else, and somewhat atypically, my moral dilemma had a name, and her name was Gilly (And her sister-mother-aunts. Yuck).

If I was Sam (and I was) then Gilly and the women in her life had no chance, not to mention they were being subjected to horrible abuse, and I actually knew something about it.

Was I going to kick off the long night a few years early by depriving the White Walkers of their sacrifice? Fuck. Who knew. Was I going to use a piece of juicy blackmail to leverage the rescue of a bunch of girls and women and possibly an infant lad who didn't fucking deserve Creepy Caster's Creepy Cabin In The Creepy Woods?

He pulled me up with a "You look troubled, Young Lord Tarly." and then it was off to the races.

"If you knew something bad was going to happen that no one else did," I asked uncertainly, "But you weren't sure you could stop it, and it might hurt people if you went ahead with it anyway, what do you do?"

"Well, In the name of the Mother," Runcifer said, licking dry lips, "Knights are charged with protecting the innocent. So if through inaction you hazard someone else, are you not culpable for their fate?"

Well fuck. Jon Snow was innocent and if a raven getting intercepted meant… Well fuck.

Yeah. So Was this the right thing to do? According to the Septon, and my own mind when I tore it apart from every angle?

Yeah.

FWC again I suppose. This meant I still had to formulate the perfect letter and find a busy or unguarded rookery and a bird marked for Winterfell.

While Talla and Dickon were delighted at the series of "Angry Rand" comic strips I made with woodblock stamps depicting our erstwhile Pater as a murder-crazed barbarian warlord, I figured they wouldn't go over well in the keep itself for some reason or other, and I considered fucking around in the Westerosi equivalent of college, which led me to...

Possibility the third, arrived at after an interminable experience memorizing the Reacher houses under Maester Lewys. Joining a literal chain gang and possible ancient conspiracy. See Randy bellowing NO TARLY SHALL EVER WEAR A CHAIN at odd mealtime moments when my own love of books presented itself,while also leaving me either in Oldtown or subject to the whims of child lords or actual sociopath adult lords and ladies in a randy-m castle or holdfast. Pass.

So, while I explored the surrounding lands paced by a couple of guardsmen happy with a change in routine, I pondered other avenues of escape. Which might possibly involve me getting on a ship. So...

4. Ships. Escape meant ships. Paxter Redwyne? I remembered an unimpressive book performance while Randy tried to get me in good with his family, and a possible betrothal. See being roasted for seasickness one time and also aforementioned nearby Ironborn. Pass.

Like I said. There's no shit like family shit. Which actually led me to an interesting possibility. Stannis the fucking Grimace, the Middle Child From the Seven Hells.

5. Stannis. Escape meant ships and decently-run ships meant Stannis. And I might just have an in. My actually fairly-kind-and-warmhearted-for-a-chatelaine-mother Melessa Tarly used to be Melessa Florent, a cousin to the probably-miserable and mustachioed Lady Selyse.

This put me a continent away from Randy (the short way, but it's still a whole bloody realm). But it put me within possible striking distance of an uncertain prophetess with creepy witchy powers who might burn me. Alive.

It might also put me in a position to get to Braavos or the Summer Islands with greater ease, or to at least find out more about them than the older information our library held. Braavos had the death cult dealibopper but I wasn't sure if the Summer Islands were as rosy as Martin painted them either.

And it's not like my ass was getting any better in the yard. It was the long, stubborn work of weeks to get my father to tell just the right sort of war stories, where I claimed inspiration from the Holder of Storm's End and the Victor of Fair Isle and fought extra-hard under his nose while proclaiming myself the breaker the Ironborn.

Because you see, Stannis Baratheon was getting hitched, and my father had never met an asshole he didn't want to sphincter his son-insulter onto. I could have told him that as Reacher Scum Like The Ones What Besieged The Castle Stannis Resented Not Having, it was useless to try and ingratiate himself with the tooth-grinder extraordinaire, but I sensed opportunity on the wind and quietly worked both my mother and father hard for the chance to accompany them to Storm's End.

It was time for a Westerosi wedding with at least two Baratheons, two Lannisters and all the sycophants a young dynasty could need.

And I was still at the age where I could only get my pudgy mitts on cups of small beer, so I couldn't treat the whole thing with the respect it deserved. My brain was still developing too, but since when did anyone in Westeros use one of those?

Surely, I thought, with absolutely no idea of what I was about to get myself into, Surely popcorn could be an easy thing to make and enjoy ironically.