Lie and Truth
Her forehead was still hot, even if it seemed to have cooled slightly since he had arrived, but it also seemed like there was little Naruto could do to change that with his limited knowledge. He had a theory for why it was that way, but nothing more than that. She would just have to be strong for the remaining time.
"Better," was all he said, trying for a smile, and replaced the moist wrapping on her forehead. Worrying her needlessly would help no one. She was young, and still strong after weeks like this, all while pregnant. He could only hope she would pull through it all.
Lyanna smiled too, small and tired. "Thank you."
And those words hurt because she still didn't know the truth. She shouldn't be thanking him, certainly not for doing so little. For easing her fever slightly, for being another person to talk to while she was cooped up in her bed in a tower in the middle of nowhere, for getting her white-cloaked protectors to allow her outside for at least a few hours every day. Small, simple things, compared to giving her the truth.
But as things stood, he couldn't do it. Hearing what had happened since she had disappeared would destroy her. Her family in tatters, the realm engulfed by the flames of war, all because she just wanted to be free of an unwanted betrothal? He might as well do the deed himself at that point.
"Rest now. You need to save your strength while your body tries to heal. I'll come by again later."
Neither Arthur nor Oswell were waiting outside the room this time, nor was Wylla for that matter. It suited him just fine. Closing the door to Lyanna's room he descended the winding stairs of the Dornish watchtower and thought on this whole mess again.
She should have been told right away and Rhaegar was just lucky that there were hundreds of miles between them. The man deserved a kick in the teeth at the very least, king or not, though a broken nose, poorly healed to disrupt the charming exterior, might also do the trick.
And after that, Naruto would laugh in his face.
He had stopped himself from doing so with his own child, but considering the situation here, curiosity had burned far more strongly in one moment and he had felt for the nature of the babe.
A boy, not another girl, and he would have gleefully told Rhaegar right then and there had he been present, if for nothing else than to see all the talk of prophecy and destiny crumble to dust around the king.
But prophecy and destiny and princes and princesses were far from the biggest concern for him here.
His plan of getting the war to end by bringing Lyanna back was another bust. He could cover that distance before any armies would clash if he wished, but even the strongest horse would probably collapse from the toll miles before reaching the capital, which was to say nothing of the time a carriage would take. Carrying a pregnant girl in his arms for days was obviously out of the question too.
And even if he did get her to her brother and betrothed, considering her state, would either of them see it as a good enough reason to make peace? More importantly, would Rhaegar see himself forced to accept negotiations?
He didn't think so, for either side.
Which left him precious little to work with and no clear path forward, concerning the war.
Arthur was waiting in the tower's second story, calmly peering from one of the arrow slits while clad in his pristine white armour. Naruto felt sweat trickle down his back just thinking about wearing his own in the dry heatwave that had rolled in to end summer. Apparently, not an uncommon occurrence in Dorne.
The white sword turned at his entrance, Dawn casually balanced against his shoulder. "Lady Lyanna is well?"
"As well as I can help her get," Naruto admitted, taking a seat on a simple wooden stool on the other side of the vertical hole.
"You do not sound satisfied with that," Arthur said lightly, eyes once again on the world outside the tower.
"Because I'm not. Maybe a chained Maester could do something more, but I simply cannot say." He didn't like the feeling, at all, and if it was only a glimmer of what Tsunade and Sakura might have gone through sometimes, Naruto's respect for them was even higher now.
Arthur faced him full-on for a moment. "You do not know what the problem is?"
"No, I don't. I have a suspicion, but nothing more than that. Her fever is still there, even if it seems to be weakening slightly. Beyond the things I have already done, there is nothing else."
"Is there not some concoction that might help?"
"With a babe in the mix?" Naruto shook his head. "None I would dare try, and it is unlikely they would help either way."
He might have considered tapping into Kurama's chakra, which always managed to make him perfectly fine afterwards, superficial scarring aside, but people here didn't naturally have even the small bit of chakra civilians in his old word carried. Considering what had happened back in Qarth, and the effect Kurama's chakra could have on others, he felt it safer not to try.
"Hmm. What is this suspicion, then?"
Naruto considered the other man for a quiet moment and sighed, facing the room. "That taking a young girl from the North and keeping her in the mountains of Dorne during the summer might not be the best of ideas. Especially when she is pregnant." He shook his head, thinking back. "I have been up there in winter. It's not exactly comfortable. And from what I have heard, summer up there isn't like it is down here either."
Arthur was quiet for a beat, fingers drumming on the adorned, white scabbard. "True enough," he began and tipped his head back. "They are quite different, from what I was taught. The Maesters speak of summer snows sometimes, and in Dorne snow is rare even during a long winter, though some might be found here. I advised against this choice of location, but when lady Lyanna asked for a spot she might hide until the babe was born, my king offered this tower."
Naruto whipped his head around. "You advised…?" Arthur was looking directly at him, unfazed. "You think this is wrong too, and yet you are still here."
"And yet I am still here." Arthur dipped his head in acknowledgement. "I swore a solemn vow, the day I put on my white cloak, that I would follow my king into death and beyond and be his shield and sword. That I would advise when asked, but never to judge. That I would obey without question, until my death."
"Even now?"
"Even now," he replied calmly. "I made my oaths to Aerys, though he was another man back then, fully aware of what keeping them might entail. I will not break them now."
And Naruto could sort of understand that. He had disliked everything about court in the capital, where no one would stick to a word they said if they didn't need to. When he had become a Shinobi, he had sworn to follow orders too, whether from the Hokage or his current superior. But not without question.
He was devoted to his promises, and he always would be. But he promised to do things, or not do them, he didn't sign away control of everything he would ever do from that point onward. Especially not to someone like Rhaegar, much less Aerys.
"When your king died in his bed, you were right here, accomplishing nothing," Naruto snapped, feeling himself getting angry at all this again. If they hadn't hidden themselves away, maybe this war could have been stopped before it got this far. There would have been no battle at Dragonstone, and no two dozen men clawing their way to land through waves and broken ships.
"Don't misunderstand me," Arthur explained. "I'm aware of the world that surrounds me. Aerys was a madman, more so at his death than ever before. Rhaegar dislikes hearing it said, much less admitting it, but even he sees the truth of his late father. Yet I made my oaths and meant every word. He commanded me to guard his son and heir, and I did as he wished, exactly."
He shook his head and allowed a moment of thoughtful quiet. "Even mad, Aerys was not immune to appeals. Especially those that spoke to his pride. He wished the Kingswood Brotherhood burned with Wildfire, and every peasant that aided them in even the smallest way rounded up and thrown on the same pyre, but he was convinced otherwise, and no innocent blood was spilled in the end. What he might have become in time, I don't wish to consider, but either way Aerys is the past now. He is dead and burned, and the son is not the father."
"Not exactly, no." Even Naruto could admit that much after a few weeks. "But he still started a war by being either foolish or thoughtless or both. I don't know which you would consider worse in a king, but I don't like either." Though it was the honest belief in prophecy that was still at the top of his list.
"Aerys started this war by murdering his lords," Arthur countered correctly. "But even had this rebellion been Rhaegar's fault alone, what matters now is who brings it to an end."
"If simply ending the rebellion was his intent, he would have done so already. He had the chance to, and more than once. I was in the capital long enough to know that much." Naruto unclenched his hands. No use getting angry over this again. He wanted to take out a kunai to spin around his finger, but he refrained. "Whatever his true goal with the rebellion, simply ending it isn't the main one."
Arthur looked troubled by that, for some reason, but only for a moment. Naruto had assumed that he would know all there was to know about Rhaegar's plans and intentions, but it seemed like the king kept secrets from even his closest associates.
"Then plans have changed since we spoke last, as they must when new information is learned. I trust that my king will do the right thing." The Kingsguard sounded like he was trying to convince himself as much as he was Naruto.
"Just like that?"
Arthur's purple eyes were calm, giving a simple answer. "Rhaegar is my king. He will do what is necessary."
And Naruto could not for the life of him understand that being enough. Being the man's friend and confidant or knowing him for the man he truly was, sure, but for being king alone? Rhaegar was still lacking in all those categories of course, but it was Arthur's view on the matter that befuddled him.
At this point the only notable thing about Rhaegar was the blood flowing in his veins, and he did not think that alone should be enough. For anyone.
A hand rose to massage the headache Naruto felt creeping in, loosening his tongue. "How can he, when he thinks one bastard boy is going to save the world from ending?"
He almost bit the inside of his mouth reflexively. He had not meant to share that piece of truth quite yet. But he had and he did not. Act like nothing was amiss, and Arthur might overlook the words.
"Natural born, or not, Visenya will grow up lacking for nothing, as befit a Princess of the Blood. If only one by courtesy," Arthur rebuked quickly, making him relax. "She will be the third of three, so that dragons might stop what is coming. They are what is necessary, though no dragon is complete without a rider." The knight shook his head and let a short silence linger. "You do not think much of kings, do you?"
"No. I don't," Naruto answered after a moment of thought, obliging. The change of topic suited him well enough.
"You did not have them, where you came from in the East?"
"Not exactly, no." Though the Daimyo had been basically the same, as far as he knew. "We called our leader Hokage, but we didn't choose them based on blood."
"Choose them? You chose your leader yourself?"
"Well, I didn't, not personally." Naruto frowned and waved a dismissive hand. "A Hokage chose their own successor and usually groomed them for command. If they couldn't, the council decided on a choice. I guess it would be like the Small Council choosing the next king, sort of. Though… well, it doesn't really matter."
"How very strange, but interesting as well," Arthur said, seemingly giving the matter some amount of thought. "Though I would question what man would not prefer choosing their own son over a stranger. Matters of succession are matters of war, in the end."
Naruto thought about that, really thought about it.
The First had chosen his own brother to succeed him as the Second, and Granny Tsunade had been his granddaughter, but he had never heard much of anything about the man's own children, except that they had died at some point.
The Third had been the student of both Senju brothers, and Naruto's own father had been Jiraiya's student as well. All of the five Hokage Konoha had seen were sort of connected in some way, even if there were no father-son connections between them.
If he had managed to earn his way to the office, it would have been the first time, though not quite the same way as with the Targaryen kings.
Would anyone have cared? His parentage hadn't exactly been widely known and his father would have been dead for decades, but would that matter? If no one did, would they have started caring if Naruto decided to promote a capable enough son of his to follow him as well? He honestly didn't know.
A piece of information learned months ago pushed itself to the forefront of his mind.
"The Night's Watch works the same way," Naruto said eventually, trying to recall all the details. Some Lord Commander had tried to make the post hereditary once, if he remembered correctly. A Hightower, maybe?
"True enough," Arthur agreed. "And for good reason. It is no kingdom, with lands and subjects to be governed and ruled. The Night's Watch is the Wall and their oaths, with some tracts of land to feed them. They are not what they once were, though there is hope for them yet, especially with war's end, but a kingdom they are not."
Naruto matched his gaze, quickly understanding the plan in those words.
'Mad with prophecy but not incapable,' he repeated silently to himself, facing the door. He almost reached for a kunai again, but stopped himself a second time, though the urge lingered. Instead, he stood and walked for the stairs to the bottom of the tower.
"Konoha wasn't a kingdom either," he concluded without turning. He waved distractedly over his shoulder. "I'm going out. To train, and clear my head."
Looking north from his perch in the mountain range shadowing the Dornish watchtower, he saw a familiar shape in the distance, sailing through the late morning air on powerful wings. There were no details to make out so far away, but he was still sure.
Naruto went higher, beyond the tower's upper limits, until he had gained the uppermost point of the rock formation. Morning's eyes were far sharper than his own, and she would have picked him out among the red stone around him even had he remained lower down, but he felt like climbing.
Hot rocks and dry air or not, he was in a good mood, especially now that he might get an explanation for Morning's recent departure. There was the most likely reason, but who could know. Communicating directly with Morning beyond the bare minimum was rather difficult.
A few minutes of flight later and brown feathers began descending towards him. Soon, Morning carefully grasped onto his forearm, talons just on the edge of piercing his skin. Gold-rimmed black faced him, though this time there was no hint of his wife's attention in the sharp gaze.
Reaching for nature, he felt only the presence of Morning herself, without that glimmer of Other joined to her when her skin was being shared.
Stroking a finger along her plumage, which earned him a pleased trill, he reached for the parchment tied to her leg.
Unfurling the message, Naruto read the few short sentences contained inside, mind already at work judging distances and times and just how many supplies he would need for the way to the capital.
Tucking the piece of parchment into his belt, he scratched his chin, thinking. He had made Elia a promise to help, so staying here was out of the question, but he disliked leaving Lyanna here even if her fever had finally broken yesterday.
If he couldn't take her with him, he could at least give her the truth now. Lyanna might not appreciate learning those things in the moment, but she was better of knowing what was really going on than remaining ignorant.
At least, Naruto thought so.
"I won't leave until later. You can go hunt until then." He thought Morning understood him. She ruffled her wings in preparation for flight. With a push of his arm towards the air, she took off.
Turning towards the tower, he began quickly descending the sharp ridges of rock. He jumped the last stretch, knees bending to absorb the fall without the need for chakra, and then walked up the circling stairs to the tower's entrance.
Arthur met him inside, busy putting the rest of his armour on. "Returned already?"
"Yes," Naruto answered, moving towards the stairs. He was usually outside for a while longer, getting in some training in the cooler morning air. "Change of plans. I'll be leaving you soon. Tomorrow at the latest."
Armour rustled behind him as mail links rubbed against each other. "That seems rather sudden. Is there some reason for this change?"
He stopped just before reaching the stairs and scratched the back of his head. "I made a promise and now it's time to keep it. Is Lyanna awake?"
"I cannot say. I was just about to relieve Oswell from his watch. What do you need with the lady?"
Naruto tightened his mouth into stubborn line, turning his head enough to see Arthur strap on a silver-enamelled vambrace. "To tell her the truth."
Arthur stopped short of fully tightening the strap he had been working on. "My king commanded she not be told anything of the happenings in the realm, not until the Princess Visenya is born."
"He commanded that of you, and I'm not asking you to break your word to him," Naruto said and shrugged. "But I made no such oath, and I don't care what Rhaegar thinks is the right thing to do. She should have been told from the very start." He pointed behind him, towards the stairs spiralling their way up the tower. "So you can either come with me and let me talk or stay down here and stand watch. Either way, I'm telling her today."
Drumming his fingers on the hilt of his dagger, Arthur considered him carefully. Naruto knew the man felt conflicted about all of this, his oaths on one side and his personal views on the other. But conflicted alone didn't mean Arthur would stand down.
Naruto rested his scarred left hand on the hilt of his sword, not backing down an inch and making it more than clear where he stood on this matter.
Arthur sighed, relenting, and under the armour his shoulder fell slightly. "Go on then."
Nodding once, he took the stairs upwards, ignoring Ser Oswell on the floor above and Wylla even higher up. It was no surprise when Arthur followed shortly behind him, only stopping once to exchange a few quick words with his sworn brother before his footfalls sounded on the stairs behind Naruto again.
"Come on in!" came the cheerful response to his knocking at the highest room and Naruto entered without fanfare.
Lyanna was leaning on the windowsill and looking south into the Prince's Pass, barely shaded from the Dornish sun by the stone arch above her head. Her fever had broken only yesterday, but it was a good sign that she was out of bed under her own strength, even if he had advised a few more days of taking things slow.
There were still bags under her eyes and the tired slant to her shoulders spoke of the many restless nights with little in the way of sleep she had endured, but there was more pink in her cheeks as well and her gaze clearer than it had been since he had arrived to this watchtower.
"How are you today, my lady?" he asked as Arthur stepped into the room behind him.
"Better already." Lyanna smiled somewhat shyly, leaning part of her weight on the stone sill. Up here, even the mornings were already hot.
"That is good to hear," Naruto answered, before slowly dropping his own smile. "But there is something we must speak of. An important matter. You should sit."
She seemed to grasp the seriousness of the situation quickly, a queasy expression ghosting across her face. "Did something happen in the night? Is it my lord father? Or-or Robert?"
Naruto glanced at Arthur standing to the side. The knight seemed intent on staying silent. "Something like that." He motioned for the chair. "Please, sit."
Worry and unease were in alliance on her features, but she took a seat on one of the simple, cushioned chairs nonetheless. "What is it? What happened?"
He felt the urge to play with a kunai — sensitive conversations weren't exactly his speciality — but he pushed that down. "I have not been entirely honest with you," Naruto began, and then corrected himself with a small grimace. "Really, I have lied to you since coming here.
A worried hand flew to her pregnant belly in a familiar, protective gesture. "Is it the babe? Is there something wrong?"
"No!" Naruto hurried to answer. "No, it has nothing to do with your child." He shook his head, grimace deepening. "The realm is at war, Lyanna, it has been for more than half the year. And it began shortly after you disappeared."
Lyanna inhaled sharply, eyes blown wide, and face and body frozen in the moment. "But, I thought no one… I wrote to Brandon, what I was doing, so he wouldn't..." Her gaze flew to Arthur, scared and confused and betrayed. "No one was supposed to get hurt."
The Kingsguard remained silent.
"That is not all," Naruto said, before they could linger on this part. There was worse to get to. "Whether Brandon got your message or not, I don't know, but he rode for the capital looking for you and Rhaegar. Aerys imprisoned him for demanding… retribution, for your abduction."
He shook his head, thinking back on Brandon's actions. There was no point in regret or blame now. "The king called your lord father to the capital, as well as the fathers of his companions." Lyanna gave him a pained look, already expecting the worst, even before the words left his mouth. "When they had all arrived, Aerys made a mockery of justice and trials and murdered them all."
"No," she whispered, horrified. Lyanna looked at him in disbelief, retaining a fragile hope for lie or poor jape. It hurt to kill it, even if he had to do nothing at all. "No, please no."
A keening sob worked its way out of her throat, grey eyes dark with pain and guilt. Soon tears spilled over her cheeks, and sweat began to bead her forehead from the Dornish heat and the exertion of agony both, and she cried. She hugged herself tightly, swaying from side to side and shook her head again and again. "Please not that. I didn't want that."
Naruto forced himself not to look away. He could do nothing about the pain she felt. From him, words would only be words, well-intentioned or not. So he kept silent, and tried to do something about the only thing he could change and prodded the wind with his chakra.
He flicked his right hand, a short, slow motion as a guide, and then a cooling breeze blew in through the window, taking some of the unbearable heat with it. Lyanna slumped into her chair, drawn into herself and the chair she was using, as if she was trying to hide from them and the world.
"Why?" Lyanna asked eventually, once the sobs had quietened into short, wet hiccups. She looked up, her eyes red and puffy and cheeks still trailing tears, but there was a spark of anger now, beneath the hurt and loss. "Why hide this from me? Why did you keep me in the dark? Why did you lie to me?!"
Naruto belatedly realised that her gaze was not on him but on Arthur, though the knight looked none too keen to be its recipient. She did not truly know him, but she had spent months with Arthur, Oswell, and Rhaegar.
The Sword of the Morning averted his eyes. Seconds passed in silence, and he realised that the other man truly had no intention of responding.
"Rhaegar commanded him and Ser Oswell to keep silent," Naruto answered in the Kingsguard's stead. "I assume it was to make sure you stayed here until the babe is born." He sighed deeply and scratched his temple, guilty despite himself. "As for me. Considering your state and sickness, I thought it wise to wait and see. But it still wasn't right." Naruto lowered his head. "I apologise for not telling you immediately."
He did not raise his head, even as he heard the shift of clothing against skin that spoke of movement from Lyanna.
"Leave me."
Arthur's armour rustled behind him, and the old wooden door moved on hinges in need of oiling. Naruto straightened and hesitated a moment before moving for the door as well.
Instead of leaving the room, he waved Arthur off and closed the door in his face. Turning back towards the room's interior, Naruto leaned back against the iron-banded wood and ignored the muffled complaints from the other side.
Lyanna was at the window again, looking at the mountains that marked the border of Dorne. She turned an angry eye on him, hands fisted on the stone sill. "I told you to leave me. I do not wish to see you."
"And I will do so shortly," Naruto said. "After I have said a few other things."
Her mouth was a tight line and she continued to look at him in stubborn anger for nearly a minute of silence, before seeing that for the hopeless endeavour it was. Wrinkling her nose, she looked out the window again.
"Your brother Eddard leads the North now, and is fighting with Robert, Jon Arryn, and Hoster Tully by his side. They are marching to face Rhaegar in the battle that will most likely decide this war." Her shoulders had risen slightly at her hearing her brother's name, and her hands grasped the windowsill so hard the skin looked white once he mentioned the coming battle. "Their forces are evenly matched, and victory will depend entirely on the commanders on the field. Robert intends to crown himself king, should Rhaegar fall."
With another quiet sob, Lyanna sank to her knees, forehead pressed against the hard rock. Her bare whisper was filled with regret and loathing, and meant for herself more than him. "Why could I not have found some second son. Some lordling from the Reach."
'No point in regret,' Naruto reminded himself and let it go with a deep sigh. "Your brother is desperately searching for you even now. I told him I would find you and I have, but if you do not wish him to know, he will not learn the truth from me."
He allowed her some quiet to think on his words and stopped leaning against the door. Arthur had stopped trying to be heard some moments earlier.
"I don't know what you were planning to do once a babe was born. I assume those plans aren't really viable anymore, considering…," he gestured vaguely at the room, though Lyanna could not see him, "everything that happened. I need to make my way to the capital, to keep a promise I made, but I could return afterwards, no matter what state the realm is left in."
Lyanna was quiet for a few minutes, sitting on the floor of her chamber with her eyes facing the stone under the window.
"My parents always used to say that the Starks had taken the direwolf for their sigil for a good reason. That we were like them in some ways." Lyanna's quiet voice took on a different tone then, clearly repeating words heard many times in the past. "When the snow falls and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives." Her breath caught and she sniffled before composing herself again. She gave him a short glance, quietly miserable. "I think I made a mistake, but I don't know what to do to make it right."
Naruto scratched the back of his head, struggling with himself. "I'm not sure if you can. What's done is done, and this war is much bigger than your disappearance by now."
Maybe he could have stopped it all by acting immediately and going to the extreme, but that was one gigantic maybe. Naruto wasn't fool enough to believe that murdering a dozen powerful lords would suddenly make everything better, much less stop further violence from occurring.
Suppressing a grimace, Naruto turned towards the door, and pushed those thoughts away. There was no point now. He threw a half-smile over his shoulder, though he didn't think it was particularly convincing, and opened the door. "He'll know. Until then."
Stepping outside, he closed the door and faced an annoyed Sword of the Morning slowly drumming his fingers on crossed arms.
"Let's leave her to her peace," Naruto said, descending the stairs, and refused to answer any of the questions that followed.
A few hours later, after gathering all of his belongings into a tightly secured pack, he was ready to set off.
Kneeling on the floor of the watchtower's second floor, Naruto struggled with himself for only a short moment before deciding. He had already started handing out unwelcome truths today, he might as well continue.
"Arthur," he said. "I don't know how much you know, about the things Rhaegar believes in and why." Naruto frowned, thinking. "I'm not even sure how much I know about it. But to be honest I think it's all madness."
Arthur's eyes narrowed, a retort on his tongue, but Naruto did not let him interrupt.
"Think what you want about the disrespect, but hear me, Arthur. I don't know about any dragons or any eggs, so maybe he is right about that part. But the rest?" He shook his head. "Three heads of the dragon, the conqueror's reborn? It's not true. It can't be true that way."
"And why could it not? To many, names are only names, a reminder of the past or a token to curry favour with others, but they are not always so meaningless. House Targaryen fallen from grace, and one lord of the family with three children left to return them to glory. They will have their names, grow up learning of their lives and victories, and know that the hopes of their House and the realm rest upon their shoulders."
Naruto scowled and crossed his arms. He didn't much like that line of thought. "They might be great or they might not be, but that doesn't matter at all right now. Things aren't going to happen the way you expect them to."
"And why would they not? You—"
"The babe is a boy," Naruto interrupted sharply. "Not the third head of the dragon or your Visenya. Just some boy who will be born on the wrong side of the blanket." Maybe he would be great, maybe all of them would be, but certainly not because their father had wrangled them all to fit into his deluded ideas.
"But…" Arthur looked at him in wide-eyed shock before catching himself. He leaned forward with narrowed eyes. "How could you possibly know?"
"I just do," he answered curtly and shouldered his pack. "Believe me or don't, that's your choice, but I'm telling you right now, Rhaegar got it wrong. It's simply not true."
Some of the tension left Arthur's body beneath the polished armour and a note of thoughtfulness entered his brooding expression. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Because you are Ashara's brother, which makes you mine as well. And because I don't believe that everything bad that happens in the world is down to unchangeable evil." Naruto shook his head and picked up his bow, ready to leave. "I'm giving you a choice. That no matter how this rebellion ends, when the time comes you will do the right thing, even if that should mean disobeying your king."
His piece said, Naruto left the man to think on his oaths.
I hope you enjoyed this chapter.
Not a lot to say on this one. My writing has obviously slowed down quite a bit, but I hope that will change once I am finished with part 2. Shouldn't be much longer. Chapter 50/51, I hope.
It came up in some responses, and is touched on in this chapter, so let's talk about kingship for a moment. Arthur and Naruto cover some relevant points in the first part of the chapter, but I want to add that as things currently stand in this part of the story I cannot imagine Naruto wanting to be king of the Seven Kingdoms.
The fact is that being king isn't the same as what we are shown being Hokage entails, and Naruto's interest in being Hokage in canon has nothing to do with the actual powers and privileges of the position in the first place. As I see it, Naruto specifically wants to be the leader of Konoha, not just be a leader/Kage/king in general.
That aside, being Hokage is also really different from being King, especially of a continent-spanning empire like the Seven Kingdoms. The Hokage is, first and foremost, the military leader and chief protector of Konoha. How much legal and judicial power he is granted from the Daimyo, I'm not sure we know from canon. The king is the ultimate authority. A good one might lead his men in war and from the front, but he doesn't have to, and his management of internal affairs and the court are for more important for the immediate consequences to his reign than any personal skill at arms is. Some of that is due to George and not necessarily the actual history, but the point still stands.
Add to that Naruto's exposure to the viper's nest that is the Red Keep, I can't see it at all. Now, if we are talking something other than the Seven Kingdoms and King's Landing, well... You'll see.
Oaths are a bit of a sore spot for many, intentionally. George does a lot of that through Jon and Jaime, and also Ned. Blind obedience is obviously wrong in modern times. Militaries in the west, as far as I have been exposed to their current methods, generally say that no soldier is obligated to follow an unlawful order. Those things still happen, for a variety of reasons.
Even taking Gods and faith out of the equation for a moment, which would have been a big deal, there are very rational reasons for strict obedience to your oaths even in the face of evil. Societies like in Westeros depend much more on the value of your personal word than we do in modern times. See Ned, for example. People know he is honest and his word is good, therefore no one suspects the white lies and deceptions around Jon/the ToJ/Lyanna/Ashara/whatever else. There is also some intentional sacrifice and idealism in the act of giving your judgement over to the king or whatever else. A sacrifice of self, in some ways.
For those connected to the Night's Watch, there is another reason. Desertion is death. You swear an oath to guard the Wall and not to abandon your post, no matter what. Deserters, those outside the Watch, are looked at with suspicion or outright hostility. They are often executed as well. Because they can't be trusted. Why would anyone think they could be trusted. Add gods and faith to that, and you have a very complicated situation.
All that said, blind obedience is obviously wrong.
I can't believe I seemingly have to say this, but cruelty in all its many forms is never right or justified. I don't care what somebody else did first, I don't care if they were dumb or foolish or malicious or blind or whatever else, it is never justified. Kill them and be done with it. A character that is human might still engage in cruelty and feel justified and even be a hero, but the act itself never is.
Considering some of the things being said in them, I feel forced to start moderating guest reviews on this story. I was happy to leave them as they were until now, but last chapter has spawned some genuinely vile things. Seriously, I don't know what is wrong with some people. Say about me and the story what you want, though I would prefer proper sentences and even paragraphs so I could at least understand it. Call it boring or dumb, call me an idiot, whatever, I don't care, but the kinds of actions some people seem to be endorsing honestly make me lose what little faith I still had.
For those that care, there will be a new chapter on Humanity's Stranger soon.
As always, thanks for reading and reviewing. Until next time.