ASOIAF : Creed

Chapter 31: Jon IX



The world had shrunk to a circle of churning water under a grey, unforgiving sky. The Sea Serpent was a tiny, insignificant speck in the vast emptiness of the Narrow Sea, rising and falling with a relentless, lurching rhythm that Jon felt deep in his bones. He was not seasick, not in the way that sent other first-time sailors heaving over the rails. But he was deeply uncomfortable. This constant, unpredictable motion was an alien thing, a challenge to his every instinct.

He his first day mostly in his small, cramped cabin, the air thick with the smell of tar and salt. Ghost was even more miserable than he was. The direwolf hated the confinement. He would pace the small space endlessly, his red eyes full of a restless energy, his paws making no sounds on the wood. Jon would use his [Beast Sense] to try and soothe him, sending waves of calm, but he could feel the wolf's own discomfort bleeding back into him—a feeling of being trapped, of the world being unstable beneath his feet.

Driven by a need to understand this new, hostile environment, Jon forced himself on deck. He watched the sailors, memorizing the intricate web of ropes, the way they read the wind in the sails, the subtle shifts in the color of the water. He was not just enduring the sea; he was studying it. He would ask quiet questions of the crew, his politeness and genuine curiosity slowly wearing down their initial wariness of the strange boy with the white "dog".

It was during one of these observations that he met Kaelo. The boy was perhaps a year or two older than Jon, with sun-bleached hair, a wiry, muscular build, and old, tired eyes. He moved with a startling efficiency, coiling a heavy rope with an ease that spoke of long practice.

"You ask a lot of questions for a lordling," Kaelo said one afternoon, his voice raspy, his Common Tongue accented.

"I'm not a lordling," Jon replied, a bit too quickly. "And I've never been on a ship before. I wish to learn."

Kaelo gave him a long, measuring look, then shrugged. "Better to learn than to drown." He showed Jon how to tie a proper sailor's knot, his fingers moving with a deftness. Jon noticed the scars on the boy's knuckles, the faint, crisscrossing white lines of old wounds on his forearms.

"You've been a sailor long?" Jon asked.

A bitter, humorless smile touched Kaelo's lips. "A sailor? No. A free man? Only for a year. Before this..." He looked down at his scarred hands. "Before this, I was in the fighting pits of Meereen."

Jon stared at him, a cold feeling creeping into his stomach. "The fighting pits? But you're... you're not much older than I am."

"The masters don't care how old you are," Kaelo said, his voice flat, devoid of self-pity. "Only if you can provide a good show. The only mercy is they make you fight other boys your own age. It is... entertaining for the crowds, they say."

A wave of pure, cold disgust washed over Jon. He thought of Bran and Rickon, of their mock battles with wooden swords in the safety of Winterfell's yard. The idea of them being thrown into a pit to fight for their lives for the entertainment of others was a barbarism he couldn't comprehend. "That's... monstrous," he said, the word feeling small and inadequate.

Kaelo just shrugged again, as if discussing the weather. "It is life. Or it was. I got lucky. I escaped during an uprising. Now I coil ropes."

A camaraderie, easy and unexpected, formed between them in the days that followed. They were two boys from different ends of the world, both outcasts. Their friendship was forged in the quiet moments on the deck. Kaelo, with a patient, world-weary sigh, would teach Jon the language of the ship—the difference between a sheet and a halyard, how to read the clouds for a coming squall.

"You learn fast, Snow," Kaelo noted one afternoon, watching Jon tie a perfect bowline knot. "Faster than any green boy I've seen."

"I've had good teachers," Jon replied, thinking of Maester Luwin and Ser Rodrik.

In return, Jon would share his rations, the good Northern bread and cheese a welcome change from the ship's hardtack. One evening, as they sat watching the sunset, Jon took out his dagger and began to sharpen it with a whetstone, the rhythmic scrape of stone on steel a familiar comfort.

"You know how to use that?" Kaelo asked, his eyes on the blade.

"A little," Jon said. He showed Kaelo the basic stances Ser Rodrik had taught him, the proper way to hold a blade for a thrust. Kaelo watched with a hungry intensity.

"In the pits, there was no form," Kaelo said, his voice low. "Only survival. You find a weakness, you press it. You get knocked down, you get up faster. Or you don't get up at all." He looked at Jon, a flicker of something vulnerable in his tired eyes. "To fight with skill... to be a warrior by choice, not a dog thrown in a cage... that is all I want. To join a real company. The Stormcrows, maybe. Or the Second Sons."

Jon listened, and for the first time since leaving Winterfell, he felt a genuine connection. Kaelo's dream of being a warrior by choice resonated with his own desperate need to forge a path that was not defined by his blood. They were both fighting for the same thing: a life of their own making.

On the seventh day of their voyage, as Jon stood on the deck, his feet now moving in perfect time with the roll of the ship, a notification chimed in his mind.

[Prerequisite Met: Spend one week traveling by sea.]

[Skill Available for Purchase: Sea Legs]

He spent the skill points without a second thought. The world seemed to settle, his balance becoming absolute. The deck of the ship now felt as solid and reliable as the ground of the training yard. He felt a small, quiet sense of victory. He was adapting. He was learning. He was surviving. And for the first time since leaving Westeros, he had found something that felt almost like a friend.

A few more days passed, the easy rhythm of the ship a welcome lull. Then, one morning, the cry came from the crow's nest, sharp and full of terror. "Pirates! Off the starboard bow!"

Jon's head snapped up. A longship, low in the water and built for speed, was closing on them fast, its single, tattered sail the color of dried blood. The mood on the ship changed instantly, the calm routine shattering into a panicked, frantic energy.

The pirate ship was faster, more nimble. It cut through the waves, gaining on them with a terrifying certainty. Within the hour, it was close enough for Jon to see the men on its deck—hard, cruel-looking men armed with axes and scimitars. Their captain, a huge man with a scarred face and a booming voice, hailed them.

"Surrender your ship and your cargo," the pirate captain yelled across the water. "And we may let you live to serve us!"

The Sea Serpent's captain, Tregar, spat into the sea. "I'd sooner serve the fish at the bottom of the sea than a dog from the Stepstones!" he roared back. "To arms!"

The pirates threw grappling hooks, the iron claws biting into the Sea Serpent's railing. The two ships crashed together with a splintering groan, and the fight began. It was a brutal, chaotic melee on the cramped, swaying deck. The Tyroshi crew, merchants and sailors, not warriors, were outmatched by the hardened, desperate men who swarmed over the side, their yells a cacophony of violence.

Jon pushed Kaelo towards the small armory chest. "Get a weapon!" he commanded, before drawing his own longsword, the wolf's-head pommel a cold, familiar weight in his hand.

He met the first pirate to leap onto the deck, a screaming man with a scimitar. Jon's [Perfect Parry] turned the wild swing aside with a sharp ring of steel, and he ended the man's life with a single, precise thrust to the heart. He moved into the fray, a whirlwind of steel. He saw Kaelo, now armed with a short, heavy axe, fighting with a raw, desperate fury. He was not skilled, but he was terrifyingly effective, a berserker driven by the memory of the fighting pits, his axe rising and falling in brutal, killing arcs.

Jon used the ship's rigging to his advantage, leaping onto a stack of crates to gain the high ground. He saw the pirate captain, a giant of a man, cut down one of the Tyroshi sailors and advance on Tregar. Jon knew he had to end this. Now.

He leaped from the crates, grabbing a loose rope and swinging in a short, breathtaking arc. He landed on the deck behind the pirate captain, his [Hidden Blade] shooting out from his bracer with a soft shink. The captain turned, his eyes wide with shock, but it was too late. Jon drove the blade into the gap between the man's gorget and his breastplate, a silent, shocking kill that ended the man's life before he could even scream.

The pirates, seeing their captain fall, faltered for a moment. It was all Jon needed. He let out a sharp, commanding yell. "Press them! Drive them back!"

He and Kaelo found themselves fighting back-to-back, a strange, effective partnership forged in the chaos. Jon was a dancer, his movements precise and deadly, his longsword a blur of parries and thrusts that found every opening. Kaelo was a storm, his axe a whirlwind of pure, untamed aggression, his every blow a killing blow. A pirate lunged at Jon's side, and Kaelo's axe came out of nowhere, cleaving the man's helmet in two. Another tried to flank Kaelo, and Jon's longsword ran him through.

But they were still outnumbered. Just as a huge pirate with a spiked club was about to bring it down on them, the door to Jon's cabin burst open. Ghost, no longer a pup but a half-grown wolf, exploded onto the deck, a silent, white phantom of fur and fury. He hit the pirate's legs, his powerful jaws locking onto a thigh, and the man went down with a scream of agony. The direwolf was a terror, a creature from a nightmare, moving with a speed and savagery the pirates had never seen.

The pirates, their leader dead, their charge broken, and now faced with a literal monster, lost their nerve completely. They scrambled back to their own ship, cutting their grappling lines in their haste to escape. The battle was over. The deck of the Sea Serpent was slick with blood, the bodies of a half-dozen pirates and three of the ship's crew.

The surviving sailors stared at Jon and Kaelo with a mixture of awe and gratitude. Jon was no longer just a strange passenger; he was their savior. And Kaelo was not just a deckhand; he was a fighter. The attack had been thwarted, and in the bloody aftermath, a new, unspoken bond had been forged between the two boys.

Tregar, the captain, approached them, his arm bound in a rough bandage, his face a mask of awe and disbelief. He looked from the bodies of the pirates to Jon, then to Kaelo, and back again. "By the Black Goat of Qohor," he breathed, his voice rough. "I have never seen fighting like that. Not in all my years sailing these cursed seas." He looked directly at Jon, his eyes full of a respect. "You saved my ship. My cargo. My life."

He was a merchant, a pragmatist. "The cargo we saved... a quarter of it is yours when we reach Braavos." He reached into a pouch at his belt and pulled out a small, oddly shaped coin made of a dark, oily-looking metal. It was stamped with the image of a kraken devouring a serpent. "Take this," he said, pressing it into Jon's hand. "It is a Tyroshi trade marker, but it is my own. Show this to any captain sailing under my banner, and they will know you are to be given free passage and aid, no questions asked."

Jon closed his hand around the cool, heavy coin. He simply nodded, the battle-trance fading, leaving him with a trembling exhaustion. He looked at the blood on his hands, then at Kaelo, who gave him a grim, tired nod in return. They had survived


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