Brad I
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"Hey."
Brad looked up, scythe in hand and a handful of wheat in the other. Behind him were bundles of tied up wheat, waiting to be dried out by the sun. Standing just behind the stone fence that separated the wheat field and the dirt path was a tall man, dressed head-to-toe in heavy iron plate that shone in the afternoon light. He had no horse, and his armour lacked any form of identification. He was probably a hedge knight, trying to make his way to fame and glory. The knights face was somewhat plain, neither ugly nor handsome, and he had brown hair, judging from the small tuff of his fringe that peek out from under his iron helm. Every part of his armour looked squarish, and his pale arms were unprotected. There seemed to neither leather nor chainmail underneath his armour, and he lacked a sword at his waist. Brad begun to sweat, wondering why someone dressed for battle seemed to want to talk to him.
"Do you like my diamond sword?"
In his hands, which were empty just a moment ago, was a sword that was made of a pale blue metal. The edge seemed to be sharp to the touch and looked to be just as durable- but it couldn't be made of diamond. Brad had never seen a diamond before, nor was he an expert on swords, but swords were made of iron, not jewels. But if this knight said it was made of diamonds, then it was made of diamonds… no matter what it was truly made of.
"Um… yes. It looks v-very gallant, ser knight." Brad was terrified, his heartbeat like a horse's gallop and his brow dripped sweat. What if he said the wrong thing and enraged the knight? His family's cottage was just a little bit away and could be seen clearly from where the were. The small wooden cottage with a straw roof rested atop a small hill, just a little bit over a kilometre away. That place was where his ill father spent his remaining days, cared for by his mother and younger sister. He doubted that a old cooking pot could best that dia- strange sword of his.
"Knight? Hmm, I guess with this armour, I do look the part. And I never thought that villagers could speak actual voice lines… not very Minecraft-y."
"I'm… sorry?" Brad, despite himself, felt strangely insulted by what the knight uttered. As soon as the sentence left his lips, the farmer just barely stopped himself for pissing his pants. His tone was without a doubt rude, filled with irritation and annoyance.
Oh fuck, oh fuck. I'm dead. I'm dead. I shouldn't have said that!
The knight looked around, as if seeing the world around him for the very first time, gazing from the wheat field towards the forest just a couple of kilometres behind them. He seemed to not care about the Brad's rude remark one bit- but that didn't make the farmer feel better. Then the knights eyes returned to look at the farmers fear-shrunken form; a nervous smile played upon his lips. "Nah, just realised something that I should have already figured out. You need a hand with the fields."
"N-no, ser. I couldn't trouble you with something so laboursome." Brad's voice cracked; he just wanted this man gone. He wanted to just pretend that he had never seen the knight or his strange pale blue sword. He wanted his life to go back to what it had been like just a few short moments ago. And most of all, he wanted to find a quiet place to cry without being shamed.
"Wasn't asking." The diamond sword disappeared from his grasp, as if he had never held it in the first place. He jumped over the small stone fence and walked towards the nearest stalk of wheat, and then lightly tapped his hand against it. The stalk broke, along with those of its like around it, and in its place floated a small bundle of wheat. Next to the bundle was a couple of floating green seeds. He reached down towards it, and both the bundle of wheat and the seeds disappeared. Somehow, Brad found his voice and pushed the shock into a small box.
"H-hey. Give it back."
"Don't worry, I'll be done in a jiffy."
The knight promptly ignored him and continued his work. Brad couldn't hope to beat someone dressed in steel, especially when he could just summon a weapon at any given moment. The nearest neighbouring farm was kilometres away, and the farmer doubted he could make it far before he found a sword in his back. The knight walked in a straight line along the wheat field, reached the stone fence on the other side of the field, and turned around. The wheat fell before him like some sort of dastardly fairy tale villain, with him being the courageous hero- like the ones he had made up and told his sweet sister years ago whilst they had been nothing more than young children. True to his word, the knight had done the work fast. What took Brad and his once-healthy father a couple of days was finished in no more than half an hour.
The fields were once again barren, ready to be seeded once more. The knight walked back to him and placed two wooden chests before him, which combined to become just one. Brad wisely pretended that he didn't see that. It opened on its lonesome, which he ignored once more and the knight reached out a hand, before he nodded to himself. "There you go, the wheat is in there. Want me to plant the seeds?"
He nodded dumbly, opening the chest to find an entire fields-worth of his family's crop stuffed into the small double chest. There were no seeds within it though, the farmer observed. The knight turn away with a long iron hoe in his grasp, and Brad dumbly wondered why it too wasn't made of that strange blue metal. The hoe tapped the ground, and the area around it was prepared for seeding. However, the knight didn't plant any seeds, instead he just continued to cultivate the land whilst humming a random song. It took another half an hour, but by the end of it, the field had been readied and the seeds had been planted. The knight just stood there, looking at his work and smiled.
"It feels different… more fulfilling. Still a little Minecraft-y though, but it seems that that goddess spoke the truth and didn't send me into the game like I had thought. Hmmm, hey, mate- where are we anyway?"
"Um… you don't know ser?"
"I'm a tourist from down south."
"From the Reach? Or Dorne? Maybe the Stormlands?"
"Nah, the good ol' land of green and gold. And why would someone call a town the 'reach'."
That's the Tyrells house colours though, and the Reach is no mere town, Brad wanted to say, but he refrained- obviously the knight was jesting, since not even a lackwit would not know that they stood upon the soil of the Westerlands of Westeros. The knight had helped him and his family quite a lot, and the Brad wasn't one to insult a benefactor- no matter how queer he was. "Do you want a something to quench your thirst, ser? My family doesn't have much, but we can spare a mug of ale for a job well done."
"Sure, but I'll have a water. I'm a year too young to drink anything alcoholic." You look my age though, Brad took a couple steps away, but when he turned his head back, the knight didn't move to follow. He looked contemplative, and his expression was one that the farmer couldn't quite figure out. He looked lost, and lonely- but surely, that was just a figment of his imagination. But he asked anyway, just to be sure.
"You okay, ser?"
"Yeah. Yeah I am." He walked, his steps light despite the iron plate that should have weighed him done. The soles of his shoes remained just as clean as his iron helm that sat atop his head, and he didn't look like he had tended to the fields for an hour. Dressed in his armour, and with strange sword, he looked very gallant. Brad was just a little jealous- just a little. "Anyway, not to be rude but what's your name? Should have been the first thing I asked, but it slipped my mind."
"Brad. Yours, ser?"
"You can call me Jaxon."
A strange name for a strange man, Brad thought. He had thought ser Jaxon frightening before, but now the he just thought the knight strange. Yet, he wasn't what Brad would call a bad man.