Chapter 2: Finding out the timeline
Garen Kept riding for the rest of the day, in a few hours he meet a small coastal village, not more than 30 huts were erected some 100 yards from the shore on some high ground, it had a few fishing boats on the sand near the water, his full armor and the rather imposing figure was noted as he approached on his horse at a slow pace.
"milord!" a lonely fisherman said as he bowed, he was wearing rags, he had taken off the small cap made of some rough cloth that held his hair in place. over all the man was old, at least old for Westeros peasant standards, his sun kissed skin had wrinkles and his hair was dark but greying out giving him a salt and pepper look, with quite more salt than pepper to be honest. Garen estimated that he was around his mid 40s.
"hail fisherman!" Garen said as he stopped Shadowmare a few feet from the man, he tried to sound strong and confident and as medieval as possible, but this had an awkward effect, as the fisherman flinched at his words and squirmed intending to look as small as possible, still looking at the ground, while Garen tried to think of what to say next he noticed the man started to sweat, breathing heavily and his hands were trembling slightly.
He cleared his throat which made the man flinch. "Goodman, how far away is the closest town?" the fisherman tried to speak but he was stammering and Garen could not understand a word he said
"Goodman, do not fret, for I'm just a wanderer with no ill will towards you or your people" Garen then dismounted Shadowmare and with a light tap to her hindquarters sent her to go eat some grass more inland than the beach they were at.
He approached the fishing boat and saw what the fisher was trying to do, he had the full bottom of the boat filled with fish, some crabs, and lobsters, quite the haul, and no wonder that he was having trouble getting it all into dry land. now that He stood next to the man he noticed that he was at least 3 and a half heads shorter than him, maybe even 4.
"Can you repeat that?" Garen was not standing right next to him, the man had his eyes fixed on his boots.
"M-milord, you are t-two days r-ride from S-Seagard, Milord." the fisherman looked like he was about to piss his pants. Garen felt really uncomfortable with this whole situation. the feeling of power that gave you making the smallfolk shit their pants because of your fancy armor and weapons was quite invigorating, but he felt that if he continued this path he would develop an ego the size of mount Everest in just a few weeks.
*hummm* Garen hummed as he undid the leather strap under his chin that held the Ebony helmet attached to his head. removing the helmet and tying it to his belt he felt the fresh wind coming from the sea hitting his face and scalp unrestricted and smiled.
It was getting late, he has been riding for at least 4 hours and with the cloudy weather and the sunset approaching, he felt that he had around one hour before it became dark. time to strike a deal.
"say goodman, do you have a place in your village where I can spend the night? be it an inn or some tavern?" as the man was about to answer Garen grabbed the side of the boat with his left hand and started to walk inshore while dragging the boat with him. he heard the wood lightly creak, it was hard to get a decent grip on the wet sand but he was making progress.
"Milord! you don't need to…" the man looked like he was having a panic attack at this moment until Garen interrupted him
"less talking. more pulling," he said with a chuckle that transformed into a belly laugh as he saw the fisherman pulling with all his might, in less than 20 seconds they had made it far away inshore, close to a wooden post where the fisherman started to tie up the boat so it would not drift away with the rising tide.
"Seven blessings to you Milord!, Seven blessings!" the man bowed repeatedly.
"well is there an inn in this small village?" Garen asked while the man kept apologizing for him dirtying his hands with his boat.
"There is not, we have Old Garth's, he has ale and warm food if you can barter or have the coin, when the lord's taxmen come they sometimes stay at his home the night." He finished saying as fast as he could.
"Old Garth it is then, show me the way and if you come by after you are done sorting your haul your drinks are on me" Garen walked away from the shoreline and into the grass, then he whistled for Shadowmare who came running towards him, he petter her nose and main. rewarded with happy horse noises.
"Your… Your horse eyes" the man stammered as he took a step back. "by the seven!"
"Don't be scared, it's just the way her breed is, she is a good girl" he said as he received a Huf from Shadowmare as if saying 'of course I am' while she tapped the grass in front of her with her front hooves. "who is a good girl? yes, you are. yes, you are" he said as he kept petting her.
"Old Garth's?" Garen said while turning towards the fisherman
"right this way Milord" the man walked at a hurried pace towards the town that was now around 75 feet away from them. Garen grabbed Shadowmare from the reins and followed him.
~~~~~~
Old Garth or just Garth was an older man, he also brewed some ale from the local flora, too old to go fishing anymore he and his wife made a living out of the necessity of people to get drunk to live in this shithole of a continent.
His Grandson, a kid of around 15 years old or should he say five and ten now?… took Shadowmare to the small stables that were adjacent to the two-story house.
The first floor had a kitchen, a few tables already occupied with some local folk drinking and chatting, and a small staircase to the second floor where Garen thought the old couple slept, they were in their late 50s, Garth was wrinkled, gray, half bald and he liked to kiss ass.
His wife Bertha on the other hand had a no-nonsense attitude, she asked if He wanted food and drink while Garth kept on sweet-talking and trying to get on the good side of Garen, which annoyed Garen a bit.
"Tell me, Garth, what news of the kingdoms?" Garen asked as soon as his food and drink arrived, it was some fish soup, a piece of dry bread tow horn mugs of ale followed by a pitcher full of the foul liquid.
"you would know better than me Milord, we barely get any news in these parts" the man said nervously.
"you must have heard rumors, any news? anything of note? I have been away in seclusion for quite some time training with my teacher, he is a bit of a hermit so I have been in the dark for the last two years" This made Garth's eyes almost pop out of their sockets.
"two years!? by the seven what kind of training were you doing?" he asked incredulously.
"martial training with the sword, my teacher is the best there is, but a high reward comes at a hefty price, now what of this news?" The vaguer he could answer the better, sooner or later people will start to ask questions, due to his size and quite eye-catching horse and armor they might track him down to this little town, not that It would matter of course.
"Well. King Aerys still rules" he said in a bitter tone "Lord Whent is about to host a tourney in harrenhall to celebrate his daughter's Name Day all the major and minor houses should be there, it is supposedly going to be the biggest tourney of all times, Lord Tully has increased the patrols so the squids do not get smart while they are busy preparing for it for what I'm thankful, at least the raise in taxes makes us sleep better at night" Garen nodded while he ate his food and drank the piss poor ale.
'crap, crap, crap, I have landed right before the rebellion, this is fucking great, the Mad King is still in power and thinking people are better becoming overcooked stakes. a delusional prince is going to start a war because of some prophecy from hundreds of years ago. ether he kidnaps Lyanna or just straight up manipulates the naive girl, Wasnt she like 13 in the books? for christ's sake, he was married with two kids.'
"Interesting, and when is this tourney going to take place?" Garen asked while he finished his fish soup, it tasted decent enough if not a bit salty, it had a decent amount of meat and some root vegetables, it lacked spice that is for sure.
"Dunno, Two maybe three fortnights from now?" Garth turned around and yelled at his wife something with a thick accent using passant lingo, she barked something back "aye, what she said three fortnights for lord Whent daughter's name day. women I swear, how in seven hells can they keep up with all the lords, names, and dates? tell ya, if you ask her what she ate this morning she would not know, but she knows every gossip in the river *ouch*" the man grabbed his head, his wife has snuck up on him and swatted him with her ladle.
"that is for bad-mouthing your wife in front of guests. Milord" she then bowed slightly, Garen smirked and winked at her while Garth had his back turned towards him yelling at his wife for hitting him.
"Garth, Garth!" after the second time he got the attention of the old man back. "how can I get to Harrenhall?"
"well you have two ways Milord, one would be to ride south, south passing the old stones until you reach the red fork, there pay for a barge to cross it, after that southeast on the river road until you reach lord Harroway's town, it's a two-day ride from there to Harrenhall. the other way would be a tad faster and safer but will cost you some coin, reach oldstones and follow the blue fork until you make it to Fairmarket, grab a barge down river to Lord's harroways town, and same from there. it would save you three to four days ride, and there are fewer chances of being attacked by bandits." he finished explaining
"bandits attacking a river barge? what are they? river pirates?" Garen laguhed Garth just chuckeld.
"aye, that they are." after a few more jokes and stories from Garth the door to the tavern opened and the fisherman entered. just like Garen promised he invited him to drink with him. and Garth left for the kitchen.
Time passed and it was close to midnight, due to Garen's size and the piss pour ale he was only tipsy, the fisherman was quite drunk. he excused himself and was the last villager to leave, except for a man passed out under a different table snoring like a hibernating bear. Garen discreetly pushed some magica into his inventory ring and took out a simple silver ring without any decorations from his stash he also knew he had 137.843 septums but did not know how many golden dragons would be the exchange, so he approached Garth who was cleaning up the place before getting ready to throw the drunkard out.
"Garth, we might have a problem. you see I don't have any coin at the moment" this made Garth stiffen and he frowned as he looked at him "but I do have this" he showed the silver ring " I don't know how many silver stags would it be worth"
Garth took the ring from him and bit it, then examined the ring "it's silver alright" he then went to the back and took out a small scale made out of what looked like bronze. "I use this to measure when brewing for certain ingredients, it's not the most accurate one, but it should do." He then placed the ring on one side and started to pile silver stags on the other, after three of those the scale balanced more or less, the man then placed a silver stag on the end of the ring and two on the sides of the coins. "ring weighs three and a half stags, but because of the craftmanship I will give you 4, how about that?" he said with a grin
"4 stags, the meal, drinks and the bed for tonight and you have a deal," Garen said, not wanting to haggle much but still not wanting to look like a gullible idiot, "and that is only because you have provided me with valuable information" he finished with a small grin.
"deal well struck" Garth pocketed the ring and Garen the 4 silver stags. "your bed is upstairs, bertha will show you the room"
Garen walked up the creaky stairs while he heard Garth cursing and pushing the drunkard out of the house and dropping him just outside the door on the ditch before locking the door with a wooden bar that he dropped.
Bertha showed him his room, it was a straw mattress with some "fresh" cloth on top of it.
"might not be much, but better than being outside with the wind in your bones" Little did she know that Garen was a Nord and he did not feel cold as a regular human with his natural frost resistance.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone