4th Moon 137AD
"This is going to be a tricky one." I mused, looking into the cradle before me. My eyes darted between the two sleeping parasites that happened to be in a peaceful sleep. I moved up from the babes to the father. "So which one's which?"
My son-in-law or in westerosi parlance, goodson, coughed to clear his throat. "We thought hard and long about the names, your-."
"By the Seven kid," I cut in with a wave of the hand. "I'm your goodfather now, you can just call me dad."
Jon just stared at me.
Thankfully, he had Zhoe for help who pinched me at the sides, but this being a recurring action throughout our marriage, by now, I had gotten used to them. She smiled at our goodson with a maternal smile on her face. "You are family now." the queen said with all the motherly affection she could muster, which was a lot considering she had been cooing over the twins for the past few hours. "such formalities can be dropped with us."
He looked unsure for a moment before he inclined his head slightly. "As you wish..." he licked his lips. "mother, father."
I beamed and I could feel the sense of achievement in Zhoe beside me. "See? Was that so hard? No? I didn't think so." I nearly brought my hands together to clap in this advancement of personal relations before I realised I was in the presence of sleeping little babies (parasites). My attention turned back to the children. "So what are their names?"
A true, wide smile came across the young lord's face as he pointed to the one on his left but on my right. "Ciri was able to win the naming right's away from me for our first children," he admitted with enough class to show that he didn't care. He looked at me for what seemed to approval. Oh god, I could see where this was going. "I hope you don't mind your grace, but we named him after your lord father, Lord Forrest," I liked that and as I nodded, I noticed the smile on his face. "And the other is Edmund." he finished, indicating to the last of the twins.
I nearly fell over.
All Zhoe did was raise an eyebrow in queer interest. "Edmund?" she then turned to face me, the amusement plain to see on her face. "I see you are quite pleased about this. Another poor soul named after you. How many does this make now?"
I bothered not to mention that she had named our youngest after me, so I don't know what she was on about. So I shrugged instead. "Not enough." only a couple of young lordlings named after me came to mind. "Nowhere near enough and thus, I approve of more young ones being named after me. It's only proper."
Jon just blinked, probably wondering what he had got himself into.
"I hope you are happy with yourself, young man," Zhoe said, turning her attentions to the young lord. "As if he wasn't insufferable enough before."
"My..." his eyebrows furrowed for a moment. "apologies...?"
I raised a finger as I held back my mirth. "I wouldn't worry about it too much, Jon. Obviously young Edmund here is destined for great things, though me and my lady wife here have called the rights to calling our own son Ned. You shall have to find your own."
A faint smile came across the young lord's face in good humour. "I think we will be able to manage, your gr-father." he finished with a nod in my direction.
I had not expected to be a grandfather so soon nor so young.
I was quite aware that being in my early forties did not mean I was anything but young, but considering I still held vestiges of modern life, I had not expected to be a grandparent so early. Hells, my parents had been in their fifties when my older siblings started having children of their own.
It was also amusing that there was less than a year between Ned and his nephews. For some reason, I found that particular situation all the amusing more than it really should have brought me.
"Prince Alfred saw the babes when he passed." Jon said as we walked down the corridors his castle and centre of administration. Zhoe had been left behind to coo over her first grandchildren, leaving me and my goodson alone to talk. "Ciri nearly had thrown a fit with the way he played with them. She had nothing to fret over really, he was more than gentle with the babes."
"I suppose its a new mother thing?" I suggested with a rising and lowering of the shoulders. "She feared Alfred might do something stupid with the children."
"Stupid?"
"Drop them."
A moment passed.
"I don't think she would have appreciated that."
My lips quirked in some amusement. "No she would not have." Even if in her current state, I was sure Ciri would have been more than able enough to thrash her little brother for endangering her children so. "They are fine babes. From first impression, they look healthy. Strong. You have got yourself some nice looking kids there and I'm sure you will raise them to be able men."
"Me and Ciri." he corrected with a small smile on his lips. "We will raise them to be respectable. It will take the both of us, you-father. When they are not sleeping they can be quite the handful."
"They probably picked that up from their mother then." i said with a snort. "Alas, my visit to the southern marches isn't the only reason I'm here, though I wish it was."
Jon nodded, the smile have long disappeared to be replaced by a stoic face of a man that was about to carry on with business. "I wish the same to, your gr-father. I appreciate the extra man that have been brought. The chaos of the stormlands has turned from a low burning cinder into a roaring flame."
I shook my head as my thoughts turned towards one of our southern neighbours. The stormlands was now a free-for-all by the sounds of it, with Storm's End wielding power into its immediate surroundings and that's about it to be honest, which was actually quite good for me. With a little push from me, the borderlands between the reach and stormlands have seen raid after raid after raid.
Prince Gawen had even launched a raid into House Grandison lands, reaching as far as Grandview before turning back.
The Dornish, being Dornish had smelt blood in the water and had jumped onto the weakened stormlands, launching raid after raid into the Dornish marches, well, the ones in the control of the stormlands that is. Surprisingly enough, the marcher lords of Dorne and the reach were working in concert together.
It was a bad time to be anyone from the stormlands.
Which sort of it made it annoying that I had to transfer men into the southern marches, particularly the lands around Riverdale and the valley that entered into our kingdom, some a couple dozen leagues south-east of here. I didn't really think of anything about the place, but it was better to be safe rather than sorry.
"You shouldn't have too much trouble really." i said, thinking of the future. "with the reach and stormlands at each others throats, they won't be raiding our southern frontier." well, at a lesser rate than they were doing already as the knights and men they had moved onto greener pastures of better glory and honour and all that pizzazz. "We'll use that chance to build some forts on the frontier, fortify that region and when it calms down in the borderlands, if they so try it again, they would be in for a surprise."
Jon nodded, an air of relief around him. "Though the chaos and inaction of the Storm Queen and King makes me wonder about the future of the stormlands."
I suppose it is, considering the southern marches were one of my more heavily militarised regions to begin with anyway. "Eh, every kingdom has this sort of period happen throughout its life time. Hells, the riverlands have had more than enough share of such a period before someone rose up and put an end to it. Give it a couple of years and Storm's End will come back resurgent in strength."
And that would be annoying for me if they decided to create a goddamn empire like they had done before in the past.
"I don't know whether to find such a notion to be applauded or dreaded." Jon admitted.
"Neither can I really." I admitted as well. "But I think it will be some time yet before that happens, until then, let's see what happens."
*****
3rd Moon 138AD
The old badger was right.
Jaime couldn't help but think back to his youth in the Citadel, forging the links of his chain so that he could become a maester underneath the watchful eye of Maester Colman. The old badger had been a good teacher to his acolytes if a little demanding and demeaning of their achievements and of the strictly conservative thinking when it came to the role and duties of the maesters of the realm.
Colman had been the one to tell him that even if he forged every single link underneath the sun (something that had been done a few times in the Citadels history) he should be mindful enough to not think himself having learned everything their ever is to learn in the world, for their is always new knowledge to be learned. "Don't think these lessons in these cold rooms are all their is to a maester's lessons," the old badger had remarked one day in his offices to him and a couple other of his acolytes. "the lessons will never stop when you forge your chain. They only stop when you close your eyes for the last time."
It seemed as if he had something of a point then.
Here, in the flickering light of several candles, Jaime found himself learning new things once more. Having seen the cog of the machine that called itself the Citadel but with enough of an independent mind and his circumstances, Jaime had come to accept that the Citadel and the Order of the Maesters was not the font of all knowledge that they liked to portray themselves as.
The signs were there.
The essosi had better understanding of matters of finance, accounting, economics, law, agriculture (that could only explain as to how they were able to continuously feed their massive cities that dwarfed any in Westeros) and civic planning than they did, having spent enough time with the freed slaves of the bank that the king had built had more than shown him the errors of his ways. They had words for concepts that existed in Westeros but had never been truly studied for the effects they could cause that could effect a lord's economies.
And it seemed as if the further east one went, the more knowledgeable the people became.
Though he had yet to truly master the language of the eastern civilisation called Zabhad, he had mastered to make out most of it, though not enough to truly understand the depths of the text that he found himself reading. It was quite amicable of the Zabhadians enough that with their text came drawings. From his understanding from the text that he had been trying to decipher and translate into the Common Tongue, no easy task considering some words were difficult to truly get the handle off, whatever this medical text spoke about some sort of urn like device that transmitted some sort of force/energy/spirit (He had yet to come translate the word with a suitable enough translation for the Zabhadian word of ara'ad ) that could help with the ease of pain to the muscles.
Though why there was a drawing of some kind of fish and snake that was emitting something was beyond him. Perhaps the fish contained some sort of toxin that could help with pain? Some fish did have that sort of effect if carefully applied.
We like to look upon the eastern civilisations as nothing more than barbarians, he couldn't help but think in mild amusement. but they seem to have a better grasp of certain philosophies than us. To be honest, if it was not for the...king opening his mind his possibilities of broadening his horizons, he might have continued to not think much of eastern academies.
The door to his office opened.
"Still up old man?"
"Prince Alfred." he greeted with warmth as he rose up from his seat, taking his attention away from the texts in front of him. "I still have a spring to my step, therefore, not at all that old. How can I be of help? I doubt you have seeked me out this late at night for extra lessons."
The prince laughed sheepishly as he crossed the room, having closed the door gently behind him. "No particular reason really. I couldn't sleep, so I decided to take a walk, lost in my old mind and somehow, before I knew it, I was here."
"Clearly that means that your subconscious is clearly telling you that it is time for you to make up for the lessons you missed."
The prince shied away with an uneasy laugh, instead, finding interest on the texts that sat on his desk. "What's this about then?" he asked, studying the diagrams and script that was most likely unintelligible to him. "Is this some new way to torture someone? I fail to see the point of sticking so many things into a person unless you want to kill them."
Jaime turned to the page that the crown prince had his eyes trained on. "From my understanding, it seems to be some sort of medical procedure that involves this urn like object that... transfers something to ease the pain of the sufferer."
The prince hummed as he raised an eyebrow. "Something?"
"Something." Jaime repeated with a shrug of the shoulders. His understanding of the Zabhadian script could not be anything even close to fluent and he was sure this was the first translation of such a script into the Common Tongue.
"Do these easterners not have anything like milk of the poppy? Wine even. That should be more than enough to ease pain."
Jaime moved to mark the page for later as he decided that it was best that he rest his eyes lest they fall out from overuse. "Development in the sciences does not follow a linear path, my prince. Different thoughts, different questions asked, could lead to two civilisations on the other side of the world to come to the same conclusion from entirely different view points." he paused to make sure that the prince was listening though he had nothing to fear as the prince was paying the most attune attention onto his little tirade. For what the creature was, he had raised a fine prince that would carry on the Tully name. "For all we know, this could be a superior method to pain management that what the milk of the poppy can provide."
"Superior?" Alfred asked, rubbing the beginnings of what looked to be a beard on his chin with idle curiosity. "Seems a bit wieldy really. Give me barrels of milk of the poppy any day in the field rather than," he waved a hand over the diagram. "Whatever this is. It all seems a bit wieldy really."
"I agree." Jaime said as he put the diagrams together into a neat stack as well as the books. "Though it seems wonderful, I can't help but question of the utility of such a device. We might not be able to find a use for it now if we are able to recreate it, in the future, that might be different."
Alfred hummed, the sort of tone he had come to learn the prince used whenever he was beginning to lose interest in a subject. "Have you been working on that flying monstrosity of fathers?"
"As grand maester of the realm, whatever pursuits of knowledge the king sets upon, it is up to me follow through on them and provide advise on the proper cause of action."
The prince raised an eyebrow. "Is that your way of saying yes?"
He stopped to ponder for a moment and then gave a quick, curt nod. "Yes."
Amused laughter escaped from the crown prince's throat. "Will it even fly?" he asked. "It looks like a gods to honest tear, nothing like a bird. I doubt it's even going to work! Man don't fly, unless on the back of dragons."
Jaime stopped for a moment from shoving the books into the bookshelf to glance at the prince. "Do you doubt your father?" he asked.
"I'm sceptical." Alfred admitted with ease. "Father says its a good trait to have. When men speak of flying, they think of birds, of dragons. Not-not-not" he struggled for his words before he finally spoke. "whatever that thing is."
"It will work." he admitted with a sigh. "believe me, when your father came to me with the notion, I thought it silly myself, but after experiments, we might be onto something. Dare I say, there might come a time when men can fly and not atop dragons."
Alfred couldn't help but shake his head in disbelief. "But have you seen that thing? It looks ridiculous!"
Jaime chuckled some, working his old lungs for air. "Then I suppose a glider would be more to your liking? Though I fear that would be more dangerous than the balloon."
The prince stopped for a moment, blinked and then corked his head to the side. "Glider? Jaime, what are you talking about?"
Jaime's lips spread into a smile as he looked around for the journal that held all the diagrams and workings of the glider. "Allow me to enlighten you, my prince."