It was the hour of the wolf, the darkest time of the night just before the first rays of the Sun washed away the darkness.
In a medieval world like Planetos, the night represented the unknown, the terrifying, the time when even the bravest of knights were hesitant to go outside and this fear of the unknown was magnified a hundred times out on the open ocean.
Or at least it should be... for normal people...
Fifteen huge but sleek ships unhesitatingly cut through the vast turbulent ocean water during the hour of the wolf as if uncaring of the boundless darkness surrounding them.
All the ships were moving in a bird-like formation with adequate distance between them. The ships all had some kind of lamps on them spreading the light but the foremost ship, also the largest one, was leading the way using five massive torches that didn't go out no matter how fierce the wind got.
In a cabin inside the leading ship, sat a middle-aged man with black lustrous hair, a sharp nose, and black viper eyes. His face was set in a permanent gloomy expression as he sat on his bed contemplating some things while sharpening the tip of a spear in his hand, meticulously.
A sharp knock on the door broke the man out of his concentration and he looked up as a voice called from outside, "Father, are you awake?"
"Yes, come in," Oberyn replied while placing the spear vertically against the wall beside his bed.
The door to the room opened and in came Obara, Oberyn's oldest, looking much more like a woman now than during their time with the Company of Cats. Her hair had grown up to shoulder length and she had also stopped binding to her chest to hide her gender now as she had decided that they were in 'safe' company... for now.
"You're up early today," Oberyn asked with a raised eyebrow, "Something happened?" The Dornish man knew from the view outside his small window that there should still be about an hour before the sun rose on the horizon.
"We have reached, father," Obara replied in a peculiar tone.
"Hmm? Reached where?" Oberyn asked distractedly while putting on his leather armour that he never left his room without.
"The shore," Obara clarified while still looking at her father with a strange look as if she didn't know whether to laugh or cry, "We have reached the shore of Disputed Lands near Tyrosh where we were supposed to pick up the Company of the Rose..."
Oberyn's fingers which were in the midst of tying the knots on his armour froze for a few moments before he looked up at Obara with an amused smile, "Did that sellsword put you up to this? I know that we had a bet but still... he didn't have to be so desperate," he shook his head while finishing his getup, "How could we have reached Tyrosh so soon when it's barely been a week since we left Braavos... we should have barely crossed Pentos by now..."
"Just... come out and see for yourself," Obara interrupted with a look of sympathy on her face before she left his cabin.
Oberyn wryly smiled at his daughter's impatience but followed after her nonetheless.
After closing the door to his room he walked a dozen steps down the hallway before he reached the stairs and climbed them to reach the deck only to find more than a dozen sailors going to and fro all over the place doing... sailor things.
He wasn't too surprised to see this flurry of activities so early in the morning as he had learned over the past week that he had travelled with this Northern Wolf company that all the ships in it had sailors working in shifts which meant that sailors would be toiling over sails even during the darkest part of the night when not a single thing would remain visible in the surroundings... except of course, that bright torches on the uppermost portion of the ship acting like a lighthouse.
He had obviously been very curious about how it was possible for these ships to not only navigate the open sea during the night but also to do it without hugging the shore.
In fact, Oberyn hadn't seen any sign of land since they had left the city of Braavos and it would have been quite concerning if it weren't for the nonchalant way that all the crew behaved around him as if they hadn't even contemplated the notion that they could get lost on the ocean.
But sadly even after he set aside his pride and 'nonchalantly' asked Jon about his secrets his curiosity didn't get sated as the boy just smiled at him and pointed towards the sky in answer.
Oberyn had taken a while but had eventually managed to gather that the boy was maybe pointing towards the possibility of using the position of the sun and the moon in the sky to navigate... or at least that was the most prevalent theory amongst the sailors whom he had befriended during this time.
Shaking his head and deciding to forget about it for now, Oberyn walked past all the sailors to reach the edge of the ship where he found Obara waiting for him along with Gared, the leader of Company of the Rose.
"Haha, you finally came Viper," the massive man immediately guffawed after seeing Oberyn's face, "I thought you would stay hiding in your room from the shame of losing the bet."
"Lose the bet?" Oberyn snorted with an amused look on his face, "Are you perhaps still drunk from last night? Because I am not sure if you correctly remember how many days had passed since we left the shore so unless you mean to tell me that we traversed all the way from Braavos to Tyrosh in under a week... how exactly did I lose that bet..."
"Hehe, I mean to tell you exactly that..." he said before turning and pointing towards the distance with a shit-eating grin, "Look there! We've indeed reached the shore of Tyrosh,"
"I... can't see shit," Oberyn replied with a deadpan expression on his face while squinting and trying but unable to see more than a few meters ahead of him even though the darkness had begun to lighten up a little as the sunrise wasn't too far away.
"Ah! Apologies," Gared murmured as he rummaged through his vest before taking out a far-eye, "Here,"
Oberyn looked at Gared with a curious look on his face wondering how far the man was going to take his prank but he took the far-eye from his hand nonetheless. He raised the contraption and put it on his right eye before peering into the distance.
For the first few seconds he couldn't see anything but then abruptly out of nowhere, he began to see faint small dots of lights in the distance.
As he narrowed his eyes further, he finally caught sight of the shore in the distance occupied by what looked like tents upon tents of a sellswords company with hundreds of men hurriedly running everywhere and haphazardly moving things around as if they had just been given the order to pack up.
The scene left Oberyn mute for a few seconds before he managed to ask, "Are you sure they are the Company of Rose? Maybe we accidentally found some other group..."
"Yes, Yes, I am sure what my own company looks like," Gared replied while rolling his eyes.
"But... how exactly is this possible," Oberyn asked after finally taking the far eye off his face with a frown on his face, "I know that we were sailing day and night and we didn't take any breaks but still... it is too absurd to clear the distance between Braavos and Tyrosh in just six days." It was too much for the Dornish man to even fathom all the implications... of what one could achieve with speed such as this on their hands.
"As I told you before, my friend, I don't know and I don't care to know," Gared shrugged with an unconcerned look on his face, "I don't question too much and just believe in the boy when he tells me shit with that look of conviction on his face... and I haven't been led wrong with it yet."
When Jon had told them that they would only take about a week or so to reach their destination from Braavos, Oberyn had of course taken it as a joke and laughed it off, but Gared hadn't. The sellsword Commander believed in the Northerner boy completely and after seeing the disbelief in the Westerosi noble he had gleefully proposed a bet with him... a bet that Oberyn lost.
'Just how many more shocks is this boy going to give me,' Oberyn mused while placing 10 gold dragons in the eagerly waiting palm of the sellsword.
...