A few days later, the commander arrived back at the Company of Rose with a wide smile on his face as if he had gotten very good news on his venture to the city of Myr.
But on the very next day that he returned a party of seven consisting of Jon, Sam, Oberyn, Obara, Commander Gared and a few others from the company, left the Camp on the fastest steeds that the company could provide towards the nearest port city.
And on that very same day, the Company of Rose also began to dismantle their camps under the supervision of young Bran, their Commander's son. The boy had been tasked by his father to begin transporting all of the company's warriors to a deserted coastline nearby where there would hopefully be ships ready to pick them up.
Since the Company travelled mostly on foot they would be a lot slower than them so Jon hoped that he would have enough time to make a trip to the city of Braavos, and then arrive back at the pickup location with all the ships in his company before the warriors reach there.
...
The first thing Prince Oberyn noticed about the boy during their travel was that unlike other Noble lads his age, Jon seemed to actually know what he was doing... instead of just pretending.
He always had this look of absolute surety on his face when guiding them as if he had never even considered that he could be wrong and while Oberyn knew quite a lot of young people with that unflinching confidence he could see that unlike others Jon's was one born out of conviction and self-assurance rather than arrogance.
Even Oberyn with his years of experience would sometimes get confused with which path to take and would have to stop every now and then to get his bearings. But not Jon... the boy was so sure of his path that it was almost uncanny.
In the beginning, he was quite sceptical when it was revealed that Jon would be the one to lead them and that too through a so-called shortcut.
He had imagined that in his haste to cut the time the boy would take a wrong path and would lead them in a circle or into a dead end and then they would have to backtrack and waste even more time.
But then he began taking them through all kinds of convoluted paths some were well trodden while others were deserted, sometimes they had to take a trek through a small forest while other times they had to go through the middle of a field of tall yellow grasses the height of men...and ever so slowly Oberyn began to feel that maybe he was wrong.
Because never once did the boy hesitate...
He was like a sure-footed Dothraki scout who had roamed the wilderness for decades. Except for the fact... that the boy was barely more than a decade old. So it was quite a conundrum for Oberyn to understand.
Even the commander of the company of Rose whom Oberyn had befriended along the way, was in awe of this and said that Jon was gifted by the Gods.
'Well... his ancestors considered themselves to be the Gods of the sky so maybe they were showing him the path through their 'magic'...' Oberyn mused before snorting at his absurd inner thoughts.
But then they reached the city of Myr in almost half the time according to Gared, and it made him question if there really was magic involved in this...
Oberyn couldn't have imagined how close he was to the truth there...
And that wasn't even the end of surprises.
When they entered Mry, they were greeted by a forty-year-old man, who called Jon Captain and was waiting for them with a carriage right outside the city.
Not only had the man prepared the carriage so that it could directly take them to the port, but he had also purchased tickets for all of them to a ship that was leaving for Pentos that very same day in just a few hours... which was just insane.
How in seven hells did he even know that they were going to reach the city at that time on that day... or did he fucking purchase so many tickets to Pentos every single day while waiting for them. Because no one could be that stupid and rich...
'Well... unless their surname's Lannister...'
And the same fucking thing happened when they reached Pentos, they had a man waiting for them at the port with seven tickets booked for them on the fastest ship that was leaving for Braavos the morning next day... it was just fucking mind-boggling.
After all, they had to know the exact date and the exact time the ships they were sailing on were going to reach that port... which he hadn't thought was possible for sea travel until then...
And how in the seven hells did he even get the message to them...
Anyway, the sheer logistics associated with doing something like this was something Oberyn didn't think possible for a bastard all alone in Essos because you would need to have a lot of money and a lot of ever-alert subordinates situated in all of the big cities who were ready to do your bidding at all times...
And whatever happened to travelling from city to city, staying at shit inns... arduously searching for the right ships while making sure that the captain wasn't a slaver or a pirate in disguise who would loot and sell you the moment their ship left the port.
Travelling the world of Essos was supposed to be hard, adventurous... and not this constant jump from ship to ship... He didn't think that even Essosi noble could have travelled like this...
Thankfully Braavos was their final destination so at least that would be the end of travelling on the sea for a while...
Or at least that was what Oberyn had hoped.
The moment their ship docked in Braavos, Oberyn wasn't much surprised to find that they once again had people waiting for them... and this time there was a whole group of them.
Most of them looked like sailors and almost all of them were Northerners. And Oberyn could somewhat understand that as from what he could gather, Braavos was the main base for Jon's shipping company.
"Good to see you, Uncle Sam," Jon said with an exhausted but warm smile on his face at seeing the familiar face of his Merchant friend after such a long time.
"You too, Captain. It's been too long." Merchant Sam replied while shaking Jon's hand.
"And these two must be Jarl and Nal," Jon said while looking towards the two young boys who stood out a bit amongst the burly rough sailors around them. They were both about 15 years old with brown hair and had common Northerner features with one of them being thin and tall while the other being short and thick.
"Ah! Yes, these are the—Er—helpers that Lord Robb sent us," the Merchant said changing his words midway after a quick glance at the unfamiliar faces behind Jon. "Come on, Lads, come greet him. He is the Jon Snow I was talking about, the owner of our shipping Company and Lord Robb's brother."
"Y-Yes," The boys immediately nodded and quickly forward to awkwardly bow to Jon, "Greetings, Milord."
"Don't be so nervous, and both of you can just call me Captain like the rest of them," Jon said with a small smile on his face and both of them immediately nodded their heads. Jon then turned back to Sam, but with a serious expression this time, "Where is he?"
The Merchant instantly understood what Jon was implying and replied with an equally grim expression, "At the shop. I told him to take some days rest but the boy is too stubborn and says that he was used to the shop during the last few months and that he couldn't stay in the room any longer..." he finished with a wry smile.
"Very well, then. We'll go straight to the shop," Jon nodded his head before he suddenly remembered something and turned towards his companions, "Ah! If you're tired then all of you can head towards the mansion first... It'll be a bit cramped with all of my sailors but it's still a lot more comfortable than an inn."
The only thing Jon had told Oberyn was that he had run afoul of some pirates and that they were going to retaliate using the Company of Rose but other than that, he was in the dark... So the prince was quite curious about who Jon was going to meet and how he was related to this venture, but then again he was also very tired from all the Sea travel...
"Perfect! A bed is exactly what I need," Obara nodded with a hint of relief in her voice, "Let's go, Father," she said making the decision for both of them.
Oberyn smiled wryly at that before nodding towards Jon and then followed Obara towards the two carriages that had already been prepared for them by Merchant Sam.
"Well, then boys. Let's follow them," Gared slammed his palms on the back of his two 'guards' who looked a lot smaller and weaker than him, "I want to go to this mansion and see our boss's as rich as he says he is..." he said with a wink at Jon before he chuckled and moved with his subordinates towards the other carriage.
"I know it from your letters but are you sure that this man has really not been in North all this time," Sam asked in a weird tone while watching the massive man who wouldn't look out of place amidst Umbers or Mormonts.
Jon shook his head in answer to that before turning to Sam, "Sam you should go with them, and make sure that no one... fights anyone." Jon had wanted to say 'kill' instead of fight but Sam had already gone pale at the thought of handling a group of people consisting of a Dornish prince, Essosi sellswords, and Northern sailors, so he didn't want to scare him too much.
"Yes," The Tarly boy nodded with a heavy expression on his face before going towards the carriage with Oberyn in it.
"Let's go, then Uncle Sam." He said turning towards the Merchant who nodded and they immediately began walking towards their shop.
///