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[NSFW] - Cold Comfort

Steve Crowl
Get older, get stronger.
"Again, boy."
My father is old, the wooden swords we practice with are battered, but it's important I know how to fight. As soon as I can speak I do so, as soon as I can walk I do so. Life is simple for me: I get up, I grow food. It's been 4 years and the people here like me, mostly because of the food.
"Surprised I don't see any taxmen."
"They don't come round here very often, as long as we send tribute the Starks care very little what happens here. Mostly because the Northerners are shit sailors."
I look at him.
"Shit sailors with enough numbers that they can overwhelm good sailors, but the Starks can't keep that kind of pace up forever and they know the cost of occupying the island is larger than anything they can squeeze out of us."
"Then why force us to be a part of the north? We don't like them, they don't like us. Why not let us be on our way?"
"Because if we were independent they wouldn't be allowed to steal our fish. When we are free and independent we defend what is ours and the Northmen have never much liked it when the people they victimize fight back."
"Like the wildings."
He looked at me and shrugged.
"I have no quarrel with those people, as long as they stay on their lands they can live as they please."
"So you don't want to civilize them?"
My father rolled his eyes.
"Every people have their own ways of doing things for a reason. The ways of Dorn, for example, would be insanity here and what we do to survive here would be madness over there. People are shaped by the land they live in and the cultures they spring from. What bothers me most of all about the North men is their hypocrisy."
"What do you mean?"
"Every single thing they bitch and moan about the south doing to them? They do to us, only much worse. For all of their complaints, the North has actually been treated quite fairly by the other kingdoms. They have been allowed their autonomy, allowed their religion, allowed their way of life. For the most part not even the crown pries into northern affairs. Meanwhile, they try to suppress our culture and our people every chance they get. It's just who they are. Though, for all of their boasting about their strength and power, the moment they faced dragons they knelt."
He clenched his hands.
"Never judge a Northman by his words, because what they say and what they do are two very different things."
I look up.
"What if we could buy our freedom?"
He stopped.
"Explain."
"The cost of occupying our lands is large, and there are places like lost Valyria where there is treasure. If we could trick the Starks into giving us our freedom with coin then we wouldn't have to deal with them."
"The word of a Stark has no worth."
"True but words on paper are a contract and they have to suck the cock of the south. So if they take the coin after we have paid them then they have to let us go."
He took it in.
"With your power... You might just pull it off, but they won't listen to me and would kill me for proposing it out of hand."
"But I'm a child and if I propose it they can't kill me out of hand. If we can get an agreement on paper we could be free."
"It wouldn't be nearly as easy as that."
"Are you happy with the way things are?"
He closed his eyes deep in thought.
"Upon your 6th nameday I will send you out with some of my men. Even if this gambit fails we will have lost little but If we somehow pull this off... Then it would be everything we wanted for centuries."
He pulled out the sword.
"This of course means you must train harder."
"Fair enough."View This ThreadUnread Watched Threads
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