A few days later I was approaching Old marks house while carrying my bow and quiver full of arrows on my back. Old mark and his family had returned from their vacation to White Harbour, where they had gone to attend the wedding of Becca's Cousin.
And after coming back the only thing his students could talk about was how awesome the only city in the North was, how clean the city was, how beautiful the New Castle was, and how they had never seen so many people in a single place ever.
Even the usually reticent Emily was gushing about the City, she was very impressed with the various kinds of books she saw on the markets there, but unfortunately, she didn't buy any as they couldn't afford them, while all Becca could talk about the various ships she saw there and how her brother had taken them on a tour of his ship which had been docked at that time.
While looking at them chattering away, I suddenly had an idea and immediately decided to execute it. I focused on Emily and intently used my mind sense on her, about a second later my eyes widened as the results astonished me.
"Mr. Jon, Emily is going to turn into a tomato if you keep on glaring at her like this," Becca said with mirth, and indeed Emily had started blushing from his staring, but I didn't bother with that as she was very shy and instead turned to check Becca.
"Um... Why are you staring at me now— Oh! Is it the game where whoever blinks first loses? Alright! I won't lose," Becca said enthusiastically but I wasn't listening and just used my mind sense on her too and the results once again left me flabbergasted.
Surprisingly both of my students had the talent to be wargs, and while not as big as Robb's they both had their SOC a lot larger than usual and the shape was also almost a sphere. There must have been a Warg somewhere in their ancestry, or else, it would be a very unlikely coincidence that both of them happened to be potential wargs.
"Aha! You blinked. I Won! Now you need to buy me something," Becca said unreasonably, but I didn't pay her any mind as the wheels inside my mind started spinning rapidly as I thought about the massive opportunity this presented.
Considering that both of my students were almost 11 years old, the age said to be the safest for a child to begin his training in the art written in the Maester's diary I found in Winterfell's library. The only reason I didn't teach Robb was that he was young, but now I finally have people I could teach and find out if the techniques can make wargs out of non-starks or not.
If they did become eventually learned the art of warging then it would be a Jackpot for me. Before I could spiral into my thoughts about me having an army of wargs, I saw Old mark coming up behind me in my periphery.
I turned around and found him beckoning me over, so I left my students or my future minions behind and started following my teacher into the forest.
The second Old Mark arrived back from his trip to White Harbour, he had taken me to the training ground and run me into the ground through a series of tests so that he could check on the progress I had made while he was away, and he must have been satisfied because the very next he told me that I was finally ready for a real hunt, and after that, he started taking me into the Wolfswood.
But, while I had started going on a hunt with him I wasn't really part of the action yet. The only thing I had done was shadow him as he went through a hunt. I wasn't allowed to shoot or speak, so I just watched as he tracked the prey from little clues, how he set up an ambush, how he skinned it before eventually carrying it to the market and selling various parts to different people.
"You are going to lead today," Old mark said while stopping in front of the place where the trees started getting denser and the real forest started, "I will just observe,"
A surge of adrenaline ran through my vein as I heard him say that, finally after days of just watching I got to hunt for real. I took a deep breath to calm myself down and after looking at Old Mark just standing there patiently, I started silently rushing through the forest with my teacher shadowing me from behind like a ghost.
About 10 minutes into the forest, I found what I thought to be tracks of a boar so I got really excited. But after following the tracks for about half an hour, I lost the trail, and my first potential lead turned out to be a dud.
I didn't get sad after that as I had quickly found another lead, but after that one too turned into a failure, my excitement started waning. I started getting a bit frustrated as after half hour I didn't have anything to show for it, and while I had come across some small animals, I just ignored them which made Old Mark shake his head in disapproval, but I didn't want my first hunt to be a rabbit.
In my mind, I knew that being patient was the most important thing while on a hunt but my heart desired glory and felt that I should have already hunted the biggest stag or boar by now, so when my patience finally ran out, I decided to cheat a little.
I looked around and after finding the tallest tree and I quickly climbed it. Old mark didn't follow me up as he must have thought that I was looking around for prey, but that wasn't the idea I had in my mind.
After climbing high enough and ensuring I was out of my teacher's sight, I found the right branch and sat on it. After making sure that I was properly secured and wasn't at risk of falling, I closed my eyes and quickly warged into frost.
My point of view abruptly changed and I was suddenly flying over an infinite green forest, after communicating with frost I found that she wasn't very far away from where I was, so I quickly urged her to find prey for me, the bigger the better. And she rose up to the challenge like a boss and promised me that she would not disappoint, so I thanked her and went back inside my human body.
I opened my eyes and got over the disorientation quickly before climbing down the tree. Not more than ten seconds had passed, so Old Mark didn't suspect anything at all. I started purposely leading him toward the direction I knew frost was in as if I had already found my mark.
I didn't have to pretend for long because I felt a ping go inside my head about 15 minutes later, and after telling Old Mark that I need to pee, I went into some bushes and quickly warged, and immediately Frost started bombarding me with all the various animals she had found.
I quickly sorted through them and after eliminating the small animals, a few bears, and a pack of wolves, I finally found a perfect match, it was a lone stag and it was in the larger size. After making sure that I got the location, he was roaming in, right, I exited frost's body after thanking her.
I went back to the old hunter and immediately started leading him in a different direction than the one I was going into before. Old Mark didn't ask anything about that or even ask me why I was changing directions suddenly, in fact, he hasn't spoken or offered me any advice even once since the hunt started, so he was really just an observer as he said.
After a while, I came across the huge sentinel tree which I was searching for. It was the halfway mark between me and my prey, and if the direction I had seen the stag going from frost was right then it should be passing from this area in a while.
After looking around for a while, I found the perfect tree for an ambush and climbed it, but this time asking Old Mark to climb too, and not remain on the ground.
We both hid in the greenery of the tree, him a lot more skillfully than me. About five minutes of silence passed before I suddenly heard a branch snapping, and I immediately got even more alert. A few seconds later the Stag I had seen came wandering into the view while occasionally eating the berries from the bushes along the way and looking up every few seconds warily.
I took a slow breath and silently knelt while holding the bow in my hands with an arrow in the relaxed stance with the quiver just beside my feet. I focused on the wind's direction while taking my elevation as well as the stag's eventual reaction into account.
After making sure that I took everything into account, I calmly stared at the grazing stag for two seconds before I smoothly raised my bow and shot him in a single motion. Without waiting for my arrow, I immediately strung another arrow, and adjusting the bow a little I shot again before I followed the routine and shot once again.
The first arrow flew through the air swiftly, the stag immediately looked up to run away but it was a little slow as the arrow pierced straight through its neck which made it jump and immediately start to run away when the second arrow which seemed to have eyes of its own penetrated through its hind legs.
It immediately fell and slid through the ground when the third arrow passed through the eyes of the whimpering stag, like a nail in the coffin, and put the mighty beast out of its misery.
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Check out my other fic Sirius Black SI