"You’re Nicolas?"
Standing beside a wrecked ship that had just been dragged onto shore, Vira asked the question directly, studying the young man with silver hair standing before her, salt crusted along his sleeves from what had clearly been a rough return.
His clothes clung to him, drenched thoroughly in both blood and seawater, though his eyes remained remarkably steady as they drifted downward to take in the three figures gathered below him, unbothered despite the state of the wreckage looming behind him.
"You want to buy fish? I’ll have them finished processing by afternoon. Maybe come back then. The Nick Display of Great Sea Beasts is always open for business!!"
He said it with the practiced enthusiasm of a man who’d repeated the line more times than he could count.
His expression shifted almost instantly, a genuine glow lighting up his eyes the moment he registered potential customers standing nearby.
The truth was, Nicolas amounted to little more than a broke shipwright who genuinely loved the thrill of sailing, though unfortunately the Great Sea itself proved a relentless monster, wrecking his ships without hesitation seemingly every time he ventured out. As a result, he’d been forced to find some other reliable way of scraping together income, hence the fish, gutted and salted along the deck behind him in neat, practiced rows, the smell of brine and blood still thick in the air around them.
"We’re not here for fish. We need someone willing to take us past the five-kilometer mark, deep into the Great Sea."
Vira said, pointing firmly out toward the churning water stretching beyond the harbor, her tone leaving no room for negotiation.
For a moment, Nicolas froze completely, then shook his head firmly.
"No way. I’m not doing that shit again for at least a week."
He shook his head again, climbing down carefully from the wrecked hull of his ship.
Just last week, someone had forced him at knifepoint to sail well past the five-kilometer boundary. That same person had kept pushing him further and further out, refusing to let him turn back until the boat physically couldn’t push any deeper into the churning waters ahead, the hull groaning under pressure it was never built to withstand.
Then, without warning, the man had knocked him unconscious and taken a small secondary boat out alone into the open sea.
Even Nicolas, who’d remained aboard the larger vessel throughout the ordeal, had barely survived the return trip. He couldn’t imagine how that particular individual had fared venturing out completely alone, and honestly, he hadn’t wanted to find out.
"You’ve done it before? That’s good."
Kang stepped forward, extending a folded piece of paper toward Nick, who accepted it hesitantly, clearly wary of whatever it might contain.
"Ahh, Punishment Hall, huh? That’s a favor I really can’t turn a blind eye to..."
He sighed heavily, reading through the contents of the paper carefully, his earlier enthusiasm draining visibly from his posture.
Back when he was younger, Nicolas and a small group of childhood friends had all attempted to join the kingdom’s military together. It had been a grueling, exhausting trial from start to finish. In the end, he’d been the only one among them who failed to make the cut, a memory that still stung faintly whenever it resurfaced.
One of those same friends had gone on to join the Punishment Hall directly.
"My ship’s wrecked, though, so maybe..."
Nick glanced toward Kang with a smile that didn’t quite qualify as genuine, clearly angling for some form of compensation.
Obviously, he was fishing for payment. After all, the Punishment Hall stood as one of the kingdom’s premier organizations, and a modest sum of coin certainly wasn’t beyond their means to spare, not when weighed against a favor tied to an old friend still serving within its ranks.
,,,,,,,,,,,,,
"Someone spotted His Majesty out at sea, and they’re preparing to embark on a journey to stop him."
Deep within a dark clearing tucked inside a thick forest, a man in black robes spoke calmly, unbothered by his own restraints, his hands bound tightly by thick vines that stretched and coiled around his entire body like living restraints, pulsing faintly with a slow, deliberate rhythm that mirrored breathing.
Standing before him, a group of thirty men dressed in sailor’s clothing waited attentively, led by seven summoners positioned at the front of the formation.
"The World Tree covers all."
The seven leaders bowed deeply in unison, genuine respect evident on their faces as they addressed the bound old man before them, none of them questioning why their lord remained restrained despite his authority over them.
"Remember, you are not to interfere directly in His Majesty’s ritual. Your task is simply to prevent anyone else from interfering as well. Should any of you fall in the process, know that you won’t merely be welcomed into the World Tree’s embrace. Your families will be cared for permanently, without exception."
The man added, his gaze sweeping steadily across the assembled group as he spoke.
The Great Sea remained a genuinely feared place for anyone raised within High Hanger, its reputation for swallowing ships and sailors alike well earned over generations of lost vessels and unreturned crews. Still, these particular men carried no real choice in the matter.
Most of them were convicted criminals pulled directly from death row, save for the seven summoners leading them, who served as true devotees of the cause, their loyalty carved from genuine belief rather than desperation.
The rest of the group mattered little in the grand scheme of things. What genuinely mattered here was Tywin’s ultimate success, and every man standing in that clearing understood exactly where he ranked in that priority.
"May the Great Vine be with you."
He said finally, his voice carrying clearly across the clearing.
"Thank you, Lordship."
The gathered men echoed back in unison, their voices blending together and rolling outward across the surrounding trees, fading slowly into the quiet dark long after the last syllable had left their mouths.
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