In the middle of the training ground hidden in the shade of trees near Old Mark's house. I stood at the starting position while holding the bow in a form called the relaxed stance.
I just gazed at the target for a whole minute before finally taking a deep breath and without any break, strung the arrow, raised the bow, and shot it in a single motion.
The arrow swiftly flew and hit the target a bit left of the dead center. I took another arrow from the quiver beside me but didn't string it, instead went back to the relaxed position, and closed my eyes.
I replayed my last shot inside my head and tried to find the mistake I made during the execution.
Was my posture wrong? Was it the wind?
Was the arrow a bit crooked? Should I have held the Bow a bit higher?
The one thing Old Mark always insisted I do, is try to find mistakes in every single arrow I shoot during training.
He didn't believe in learning by repetition, as he believes only stupid people should learn using that method. He thinks that there are basically two ways to learn archery.
The easy way is to learn the bow by the process of repetition. If a person shoots thousands of arrows mindlessly until the routine becomes a bodily instinct then they would eventually get good at shooting the target. But those who learn like this are rigid in Old Mark's eyes.
In his words, "Their body learns to shoot, but their mind didn't do the work involved,". So these kinds of people would be good at shooting at a stationary target or the target they are used to but if a new mark appears then their arrows start to go wide.
The hard is, that from the beginning you learn by deliberating every single step associated with shooting the arrow, and by taking into account every single factor. If they do this then while it could take longer and may be more difficult, eventually they would become one of the few truly versatile archers in Westeros, those who can shoot a bullseye in every situation.
After finding the problems with my last try, I opened my eyes and once again went through my routine, and after observing the target for a few moments, I raised the bow and shot the target in a single breath.
Looking at the target a small grin appeared on my face, this time the arrow stuck closer to the target, which meant I diagnosed the issue correctly.
Observe—Shoot—Diagnose—Repeat
I kept on training my archery like that, and when my right arm started to ache, I switched my arms and started shooting with my left hand while holding the bow with my right hand.
A whole different kind of calculation is associated with shooting from the opposite arm, you need to change the posture, place the arrow differently, take the wind direction differently, etc. Basically, you would need to rewire your brain to respond to foreign situations.
I shot arrows for a couple of hours and whenever my arms got tired I alternated them. But no matter how much rest I gave my arms, ultimately they started to get weary, so after my arms started to really ache I decided that I was done for the day.
I put down the bow on a rock and slowly started to collect the scattered arrows, about a fourth of them were not reusable, but the rest of them could be used a few more times.
While I was collecting the arrows from some bushes, I suddenly felt a ping go inside my head, and immediately looked up, and there she was, drifting through the air at an incredible speed toward me.
The color of her feathers was such a perfect camouflage with the blue sky, that if I didn't have a bond with her, I wouldn't have been able to locate her even if I was looking at her directly.
Reaching an appropriate distance from me, Frost braked silently and glided towards me gracefully before landing on the rock in front of me, as she had gotten too huge to be able to sit on my shoulder.
"Hey, Frost," I cheerfully said while patting her feathers gently, "How was your hunt?"
Frost immediately started chirping and screeching, and simultaneously, I started to get some emotions and faded images from her inside my head like an MMS, which immediately made me understand her.
"What! That shitty bird tried to steal from you again," I exclaimed while listening to Frost chirp, and jump around trying to explain the entire situation to me.
Apparently, a Snow Eagle, the discount offshoot species of the Ice Eagles from which Frost originates, had taken to occupying Frost's nest, located at a high cliff in Wolfswood, whenever she was away from it.
And the second she sees Frost coming, the snow eagle runs away, so Frost didn't bother with her at first just considering her an annoyance but lately, she had even started to steal berries that Frost had hidden inside her nest, so Frost finally decide enough was enough and ambushed the intruder today, and after injuring her heavily she scared the snow eagle away.
"Oh, you showed her who's the boss didn't you, Frost," I said to the smug-looking Frost, who basked in her own glory.
I showered her with praises for quite a while before I remembered and asked her, "Hey, Frost did you notice anyone around here?"
Frost tilted her head for a moment, before shaking her relatively tiny head, I immediately understood the point she was trying to convey. She had seen some animals but didn't see any two-legged creatures.
"Alright then, since you are already here, let's complete our warging quota for the day," I said before moving toward a large flat rock nearby and sitting on it cross-legged.
It's been about 5 months since my first foray with warging into Frost, and I had been diligently practicing it at least once a day since sometimes even more if I find the time for it.
I pulled an hourglass out of my pocket and placed it beside me. It was made out of glass and had numerous markings made of charcoal outside it. It had been a bit of an expensive purchase, costing about two months of my earnings from teaching Becca, but it was worth it, watching my progress every day reassured me that I wasn't stagnating.
After getting into a comfortable position, I closed my eyes, took a couple of deep breaths, and immediately went into my zone of consciousness.
The sphere of my mind had grown a lot since I first accessed this place, and it's also gotten a lot more firm the image training I still did had paid off. The bumps and flailing on the surface of the orb, which represented distracting thoughts have also been smoothed out a lot.
After admiring my inner world for a few moments, I focused on the needle poking at my sphere from outside and sent my consciousness toward it.
Immediately I felt myself connect to a door leading into a tunnel, and without hesitation entered it by concentrating on it. Almost instantly I experienced a feeling of weightlessness, and before I could fully appreciate the sensation, I was suddenly bombarded with all kinds of new sensory information.
I could suddenly see everything, I had an almost 360-degree vision, along with being able to see a new range of colors, and could even zoom at an ant or bug crawling on the ground, I could listen to whole new varieties of sounds.
While feeling all those senses at once was very disorienting, it also made me feel powerful like I was the most dangerous predator around and nothing could stop me.
Frost's thoughts were very erratic and predatory, most of the thoughts passing through her mind classified every living thing she saw as prey and predator. Thankfully when I looked at my body slumped on the rock, she categorized me as family.
'Fly,' I tried to send my request through a series of images and feelings, and while Frost's thoughts were very scattered, she was able to understand my desire and immediately flapped her powerful wings and suddenly I was flying away.
My body felt light as a feather, I felt like could go anywhere and the whole world was just my playground.
The feeling of freedom, the wind rushing across my feathers, the euphoria from this liberation from the solid ground was so addictive, it made me giddy and made me want to remain inside her forever, to leave the domain of earth and fly for eternity.
But thankfully while those thoughts were very prevalent, the meditation in the morning along with the mental exercises I did before going to bed made my mind very resilient, and firm so I was able to suppress those seductive thoughts.
The whole of Winterfell and the town outside were in my view, I could even see the facial feature of every single person inside the town.
And on the other side was the forest of Wolfswood, and almost immediately I could spot about 6 prey located at various distances every single of them was hiding using a different technique, but I was still able to spot them all.
'Higher,'
Immediately Frost flapped his powerful sets of wings again and started flying higher. I didn't actually command her or anything. So instead of being a driver, I was actually just a passenger, and whenever I wanted something I just asked her...politely, and she complies.
I tried not to wrestle the control of Frost's body away from her because while I felt like I could do it, it would detrimental in the long run for the trust between us, and besides I don't think I could control Frost's body better than her, so I just left the steering wheel in her hands while nudging her occasionally.
Frost stopped rising and just started gliding in huge circles, I was so high up that it was cold enough to give my normal body frostbite, but in Frost's body, the cold winds just felt comfortable, almost... soothing.
Alas, all too soon I started to feel the solid orb of my mind start to wear down around the edges. The firm grip I had on my thoughts started to loosen slowly, as Frost's fleeting thoughts and predatory emotions started to affect me so I reluctantly but quickly exited Frost's mind and went toward the tunnel leading toward mine.
It had been written inside the notes I found in the Winterfell Library that one should never stay inside the mind of an animal beyond their mental capacity allows because if they do then the animal's mind swings will slowly but surely start to affect the warg and make them more... animalistic.
The one thing written inside that I had taken to heart was that 'The sign of a good warg was their ability to introspect and to be able to evaluate their mental condition at all times,'
*Whoosh*
I entered back inside my body and immediately felt a sense of incongruity, even though I had only been in Frost for a short while. I was a little uncomfortable having hands instead of wings, and losing all those additional senses also made me feel weakened.
I took a few seconds to get assimilated before standing up from where I had been slumped on the rock. I mostly always warg from inside my own room after locking the door, so I didn't take into account the comfort of my unconscious body.
I looked toward the hourglass and marked the fallen sand with a piece of charcoal. Looking at the previous mark I was a bit happy that I had improved once again and was able to stay a bit longer inside Frost.
After stretching a bit, I collected my bow and the quiver of arrows before heading out. I passed through the dense foliage of trees before taking the familiar path and arriving at Old Mark's house. The door was locked and there were signs outside showing that the home had been empty for a while.
"They haven't arrived back huh," I sighed before leaving toward Wintertown.
Becca, Emily, and Old mark had all left for WhiteHarbour a while back, along with them went Becca's father and mother. They had all gone to attend the wedding of Becca's older brother, who was a sailor on a merchant ship.
'A Merchant father and Sailor son, what a perfect combination' I thought, 'And they said that the woman Becca's brother is marrying owns a storefront in WhiteHarbour, so almost the whole family works and earns, except for that musclehead, Becca... Sigh, I don't think she's going to ever work on a normal job,'
Leaving the shade of trees I moved on to the well-worn but somewhat clean path leading into Wintertown. With the full advent of summer, Wintertown was back to only hosting its permanent residents along with the occasion travelers and merchants.
While passing through the main street I suddenly saw a congregation of people in the middle of the road, with constant chattering of villagers and someone shouting prices as if auctioning something.
Curious, I went toward the gathering and through the throng of people, when I started hearing the neighing of horses.
What I saw in the middle left me very excited. A small herd of horses, small and big, were tied to some carts in a single line, and the villagers were going around and evaluating the various breeds of horses. A young boy about 12 years old was shouting about the various prices and qualities of horses. The owner was in the corner negotiating with the resident innkeeper who wanted to sell his old horse and buy a new one.
I immediately ran toward the young boy and yelled, "Hey! Hey!" The lad stopped mid-shout and looked toward me, "Did your master get any Foals this time?"
"Yes, we got about...Umm," He looked behind him for a moment before turning back, "...Four young ones this time,"
"Alright, Don't sell them! I am coming back right away," I urged him, already running toward Winterfell.
"Don't take too long," He shouted toward my back and I waved my hand without turning back.
I quickly navigated through the streets of the town before going through the open gate of the Castle and hurrying toward the Great Keep. After rushing up the stairs, I quickly opened my room and deposited my bow, before moving toward Robb's room, but he wasn't inside.
I looked around for quite a while, in the courtyard, the library, and the Maester's Turret but I just couldn't seem to find him.
Ultimately a guard told me where my brother was and I immediately ran toward the empty part of Winterfell and found them outside FirstKeep.
Robb was napping at the patch of grass outside the oldest tower of the Castle while Sansa was sitting on the stairs trying to braid baby Arya's hair.
"Don't Squirm, Arya," Sansa said while Arya just babbled incoherently while playing with the sand in front of her, "And don't put that in your mouth," Sansa admonished while emptying her little sister's hand.
Arya's eyes shot up as she noticed me walking toward them and immediately a gummy smile appeared on her face as she tried to crawl toward me, "Where are you going Arya—Oh hey, Jon," Sansa said while holding Arya back.
I smiled and waved toward them while moving toward Robb. Looking at the innocent face of my brother sleeping, I immediately got bombarded with lots of pranks opportunities.
But alas, I didn't have time for that, so while shaking my head in regret, I took a deep breath and shouted just beside the Sleeping Princess's ears, "WAKE UP!"
"I AM UP M-MOM! I-I am looking after them—Oh...it's you," Robb said while flailing around for a moment before his eyes fully opened and found me, "Did you have to wake me up like that,"
"Of course I did," I said smugly, "Now come on, let's go get Father. Shawn is back here in WinterTown,"
"Shawn Who?" He asked while yawning.
"Shawn—The breeder from Barrowtown," I reminded him while pulling him up, "Don't you remember what Father promised us the last time he was in WinterTown?"
"Oh yes! Let's go quickly," Robb said perking up.
"Can we come too?" Sansa asked when we were leaving, coming behind us while carrying Arya who immediately pushed her hands toward me.
"Alright, Come on then," I said while taking Arya into my arms and all three of us ran toward the Lord's Solar, where Father would most likely be.
Climbing the stairs we found the door closed with a guard standing outside, and the moment the guard spotted us he stepped up and barred us with his hands.
"Lord Stark is busy with the Steward, he asked not to be disturbed," the guard said evenly.
"We need to speak with Father. It's urgent!" Robb said.
"I am sure it is!" the guard replied while rolling his eyes, "But it shall have to wait,"
No matter how Robb tried to dissuade him, the guard didn't budge, so I took drastic measures. I turned my head toward Sansa and winked conspiringly.
She tilted her cutely, a bit confused but I kept on winking while pointing with my finger toward the door, while hiding my hand from the guard, her eyes lit up as she immediately understood and pecked her head like a bird.
I moved Arya in my hands in such a way that Sansa was completely blocked from the guard and while Robb was distracting him, Sansa went behind the guard and immediately opened the door.
"Hey Stop—" By the time the guard noticed it, Sansa had already gone inside and when he turned toward Sansa, both of us also took the opportunity to barge into the Solar while dodging the guard. Spotting Father all four of us siblings started shouting at the same time:
"Father you promised that when Shawn came—" "I just saw him in Wintertown Father. We have to go quick before—" "I wanna come too, Father—" "WaWaWa,"
Lord Stark who was talking to the steward Vayon Poole sitting opposite, just looked at us in exasperation for a moment before taking a deep breath, "Alright SILENCE!" He shouted and all of us stopped except for Arya who kept on babbling.
"I am sorry, Milord," The guard said from the door while bowing, "I tried to stop them but..."
"It's alright, Mike," Lord Stark said while sighing before turning towards his children, "Now what is this about—Not all at the same time! Jon, you tell me,"
"Father, the breeder from last time, Shawn, is back in town and he's got some new foals, and you promised to buy Robb and me our own Horses," I said excitedly.
"Couldn't this wait?" Eddard said while waving his hands toward the book opened before him.
"No, he only has limited stock!" I exclaimed.
"Yes father, Come on, you promised," Robb joined me in persuading him and even Sansa turned her big eyes toward him.
"Alright! Alright! Fine," Eddard said while closing his book, "Vayon we shall go over the books later,"
"Yes, My Lord," The steward said while bowing and collecting his stuff.
"Let's go then," Father said while moving toward us before taking Arya from me into his own hands and leading us out.
We set a quick pace toward the gates where some household guards immediately joined our group. Cutting through the townspeople who bowed and saluted when they recognized the Lord of the Castle and his brood.
The second we approached the crowd still surrounding the horses, Shawn the breeder immediately spotted Lord Stark and came towards us eagerly while leaving the innkeeper who was negotiating with him, behind him.
"Lord Stark," Shawn said while bowing, "What would you like to purchase, Milord? I have some of the best breeds of horses this time, all in the prime of their life,"
"I don't come to buy for myself this time," Lord Stark while waving his free hand toward his children who were already closing in on the horses, "Two of my sons want to look at your Foals,"
"Of Course, Milrod. Follow me," Shawn said while moving toward a section behind where all the adult horses were tied up, "Here are my youngest horses, this brown and red one is my best one, comes from a long line of Warhorses and is sure to grow up to be very strong, and it's very docile too,"
"I want this one, Father," Robb said excitedly while jumping up and down in front of the small horse.
I looked toward the foals but didn't feel that any of them were particularly special, I was moving toward the last horse when I found a small foal sitting down and just looking at everyone curiously, it was as white as snow and actually looked bored, if a horse can convey that emotion.
"Hey," I shouted toward the breeder who immediately turned toward me, "What about this one?"
"Oh, that one I am afraid is somewhat of a defective product," the man said while moving toward me, "It's one of the smartest horse I have ever seen, but alas that also make him the laziest one. It would only do something if he was bribed properly and is prone to using his legs and teeth quite skillfully if someone talks shit about him, I would say he would make a very bad companion,"
"Oh, is that so," I pondered while looking at the beautiful creature in front of me, I don't know what it was but I had a strange feeling it was a special horse.
I closed my eyes instinctively and went inside my mind zone, but instead of approaching the needle tunnel leading toward Frost, I just sent a small spike of a tendril in front of me, in the direction of the horse, and immediately I felt myself touching the surface of the horse's mind before my mind snapped back inside my body. I had never done this before with any animal besides frost.
I opened my eyes and found the horse looking at me with curious eyes as if he had also felt what had happened, the horse slowly stood up and approached me. I just stood there and when he stopped in front of me, I brought my hand up and slowly stroked his face, and he closed his eyes enjoying it before he nudged me softly.
"I'll name you, Pegasus," I whispered and he neighed his approval. I turned toward the breeder with a grin and shouted, "I'll take this one,"
"Are you sure?" he said while looking at the suddenly docile horse skeptically.
"Yes, I am,"
Father approached me with Robb and Sansa following behind, "Did you choose this one, Jon,"
"Yes father," I said with a grin before saying to baby Arya, "Look Arya, he's my horse and his name is Pegasus. I'll take you on a ride when you grow some,"
"Howse," Arya babbled and all of us were astonished and exchanged incredulous looks with each other.
"Nobody mention this to Catelyn," Lord Stark said sternly while looking at all of us before he sighed, "I don't think she could take it if she found out her daughter's first word was 'Horse',"
/
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