BAELOR

"Ahhhhurgghhh" moaned Baelor as he clung to the rail of the moving ship, the taste of vomit fresh in his mouth. Yes he, newly anointed knight, Ser Baelor Stark, suffered from the great and horrible affliction known as Sea Sickness.

A whole month had passed since he had set sail for the Free Cities, a whole month since he had left everything he had ever known behind, and a whole month since he had officially been knighted.

If he closed his eyes he could still recall the knighting ceremony with such vividness that it felt as if he was right back in that very moment, surrounded by his friends and family, and the entirety of King's Landing, as he swore to be a protector of the faith and to uphold his vowels of chivalry, bravery, and honor.

His parents and siblings hadn't been in attendance of course. His announcement of becoming a knight being such short notice meant that they were unable to make it from Winterfell to the Capital in time. They had congratulated him of course and were happy for him, his mother more so than his father. Knights didn't exist in the north, and no doubt his father thought that such a title meant little until he had proven himself worthy enough to bear it.

After the ceremony, a large feast had been held in his honor. Oh, and what a feast it was. The food, the company, the entertainment, all of it was positively brilliant. While most of his evening was spent talking to the various guests that had been invited to the feast, the rest of his time was spent in the admirable company of the King, his two brothers, and his two brothers-in-law.

Ser Jaime was someone he had looked up to for his entire life. Not only was he the youngest Kingsguard ever, but he was also one of the finest swordsmen in all of the Seven Kingdoms, as such he was very easy to get along with, their conversations mainly focusing on fighting techniques and the like.

Tyrion, on the other hand, was someone he got along with mainly for the reason that he was quite possibly the most amusing person he had and would ever meet. Tyrion had been criticized for being what he was his entire life, it was because of this that he had learned to make cruel japes at everything and everyone, telling the world exactly for what it was. Not to mention the fact that Tyrion was by far one of the smartest people that he knew and as such was quite the conversationalist, and it was these refreshing qualities that made him like the sarcastic, shrewd and calculating dwarf.

Never where their two more dissimilar people than Stannis and Renly Baratheon. Renly was young, fun-loving and easygoing. Free from the responsibilities that his older brothers were subjected to. Stannis, on the other hand, was serious, dour and humorless, not the type of person you'd sit around the ol' tavern and share a joke with. Yet despite Stannis' less than jovial disposition, there was no denying that he was the noblest, honorable and law-abiding person that he knew ... except perhaps his father.

Whilst he didn't get along that well with Stannis, his rigid and humorless nature not something that endeared him to people, yet he couldn't help but have respect for the man, especially after the events that transpired after the feast.

As the feast wore on well into the morning, more and more people retired to their chambers, until the only ones remaining where himself, King Robert, Tyrion, Ser Jaime, Lord Stannis, Renly and the cleaning servants.

They sat scattered around the table, each grasping a goblet of wine as they joked, laughed and celebrated him becoming a man, telling stories of war and of their many sexual conquests, a topic that made his face burn with embarrassment. It wasn't long before someone had come up with the great idea to have him lay with a woman, and before he knew it he was being whisked from his comfy seat and down to one of the many brothels that occupied Flea Bottom.

It wasn't that long before he was being shoved into a room with a beautiful blonde, who happened to be wearing very little clothing. Yavanna, as he later found out, pushed him onto the bed, her hands making quick work of his tunic as she swung her legs over him and straddled his waist, his face blushing all the way. Things started to heat up, and it was just as Yavanna started to remove her clothes that he knew that what was happening before him wasn't right. He was supposed to save himself for someone that he could share his life with, someone who he truly loved and who loved him in return, and not for some beautiful women who was being paid to sleep with him. Not to mention it would stain his honor if it was to get out that he, a son of Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell, had cheapened himself by lying with a person of ill-repute, let alone someone not of his station, nor his lineage.

He remembered rushing from the room only minutes later, his shirts and boots in his hands as he shut the door behind him, and right into the laughing faces of the very men who had brought him to the whore house in the first place.

Yet as his eyes landed on the face of Stannis Baratheon ( the only one who had protested against taking him to a whore house) he didn't see mockery or amusement, but what he did see, or at least what he thought he saw, was a look of newfound respect, respect for not going through with something that he had vocally admonished.

And that was why he respected Stannis, out of all the guys who had practically forced him to have sexual relations before he was ready, he was the only one who had voiced his disproval of the idea, and was the only one to not to laugh in his face about not sleeping with a women who wasn't his wife. No matter what could be said about Stannis or his many less than admirable qualities, there was no denying that he knew how to do his duty, giving no thought to his personal feelings on the subject.

It was a fortnight later, after all of his affairs were in order, that he said his farewell to those he called family and to the place he'd called home for many years. The King and he had decided that it would not be safe to reveal the true nature of his departure from the Capital, and so everyone besides Ser Barristan, Varys and King Robert, believed him to be traveling to Winterfell in order to visit his family. Even the Queen was unaware of his real reason for leaving Kings Landing, something that he wasn't quite comfortable with. Cersei had been like a mother to him whilst he had been fostered at King's Landing, something that most people would find unbelievable.

Seven years had passed since he had last walked the ancient halls of his forefathers, an awfully long time for one so young to be away from one's family. The last time he had seen his father and mother and his siblings for that matter, was when his youngest sister Arya had just had her second name day, to think that she would have already had seven more without him was astonishing. He hadn't even met his two younger brothers, Brandon and Rickon, having left Winterfell to be fostered whilst his lady mother was still pregnant with Brandon. He had intended to return home every couple of years in order to visit his family, but as he got older his schedule became more so demanding that he had little time to breathe let alone take time off to travel north. Now that he had become a fully-fledged knight, he was looking forward to returning home in order to see what kind of people his siblings had grown to be, something that had sworn to do as soon as he returned from the Free Cities.

Baelor was brought abruptly out of his musings by the loud blast of a horn, soon followed by the sound of the captain bellowing at his crew to pull hard to starboard, to turn the sails to the wind and to go forward with all haste.

Raising swiftly on shaky legs he turned around wildly as he tried to see what all the commotion was about, which was kind of hard considering the crew was running from station to station as they hurriedly followed out the captain's orders.

Getting up from the floor he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, cleaning any leftover vomit from his lips as he searched the length of the ship for the captain.

Several moments passed as he looked the ship up and down until he finally spotted the person he was looking for at the very back of the ship, Spyglass pressed against his right eye as he looked off into the distance.

Captain Martyn Santagar was a portly, middle-aged man with short dark hair, suntanned skin, and a large bushy beard. He was of average height, yet his strict posture hinted at a military background and wore an intricate leather tunic with brown trousers and heavy black boots. A deep red belt hung around his waist, upon which a number of objects were hanging, most notably a large steel sword, simple of design yet deadly in the wrong hands.

Martyn's ship, so named "The Challenger", was a large trade ship, used for the import and export of various items, mainly cotton, marble, spices, salt, sugar, silver, and fur. The reason Baelor had found himself aboard this particular vessel was that it would be unwise to travel across the Narrow Sea in a ship bearing the royal emblem, something that would draw all kinds of unwanted attention.

Baelor began to weave his way through the many crew members carrying out their duties, and as he made his way to the rear of the ship he tried very hard not to throw up again as his stomach turned uncontrollably and his completion took on a slightly green hue.

Climbing the steps that lead up to the back of the ship he hurried over to the Captain, who was still looking off into the distance with his spyglass.

"What is it? Why have we change course" exclaimed Baelor in

Captain Santagar removed his spyglass from his eye and closed it slowly, his face ashen gray and his eyes wide as he turned to face the young knight, whispering a word that Baelor had hoped he wouldn't hear on his voyage to the Free Cities. Santagar's voice was filled with such hopelessness that Baelor knew that what was about to happen couldn't possibly go in their favor.

"Pirates"