Chapter 19
Sea Dragon Bay, Third moon, 283 A.C., Five moons later…
Even though this is the fourth time I've inhabited this orca, it still feels surreal to be looking through the murky waters of Sea Dragon Bay, the small bay where Wolfsport and Castle Warg were located. Seeing underwater through an orca's monocular vision instead of a human's binocular vision was as disorientating as it was trippy, the closest thing I could compare it to was like wearing an oddly rigged VR headset while completely shitfaced. A large school of minnows swims by and I realize two things.
One, my thoughts felt clearer and less muddled, like I wasn't on Quaaludes or something. The second was that it was during the day, all the previous times were when I was asleep at night. That explains the increased visibility though it turns out orcas have great vision in low light conditions. I then hear an orca call out in a whale like sound to my human ears but for some reason, my instincts tell me it's a calling for us to swim to them. After a moment, my "driver" begins to swim towards the call.
So far, my experience with skinchanging can best be described as strapped to the passenger seat of a car with a curtain between myself and the driver, who speaks a completely foreign language. I've always felt the driver with me but so far, I've been unable to communicate and the only thing I get from my driver is vibes or feelings, such as the excitement it seems to be feeling at the moment. We swim towards the northern shore of the bay toward the rocks that seals frequent but instead of swimming straight for the seals, the call, that I now realize is a female orca's call for some reason, directs down towards the bottom.
There we meet a fully grown, female orca over twenty feet in length hovering over the sea floor. One that I've come to recognize as the mother of the calf I inhabit. The mother orca turns to look at us and makes a short high-pitch squeal-like noise that's returned by the driver, whose excitement I feel grow. Mama orca then swims to get a closer look at us, and I swear her eye is staring at me and not the driver when she makes fast-paced clicking sound that I vaguely interpreted as threatening. The driver suddenly intervenes with a short burst of high-pitched whines in different tones that appear to placate his mother. She begins to gesture to the surface with her flipper and makes a series a widely different noises like high pitch squeaks, low clicks of various speeds and rhythms, and a few sounds that I swear sound like they came from a computer.
After done with her "instruction" she suddenly darts towards the surface toward the shadow of a seal that could be seen from below. Right before I think she's about to open her maw and tear into the defenseless prey with her razor-sharp teeth, she suddenly turns at the last moment and flings her tail at the seal. It makes contact with a loud slap as the water at the surface is splashed around and the seal vanishes. After a few seconds, the seal falls into the water dazed and motionless at the surface and I realize the orca launched that poor seal good twenty feet for it to be airborne that long. Mama orca makes a series of clicks and gestures with her flipper and the driver explodes in a burst of speed towards the motionless seal, attempting to copy its mother but getting the angle of the sharp turn wrong and grazing the seal with the tip of its tail, sending the seal sideways a few feet. I hear a high-pitch squeal of frustration and I think about how if it angled its tail so that it hit the base instead of the tip, it goes up instead of sideways. I also thought about how the driver should flick their tail to maximize its momentum and how that's why its mother hit the seal so high in the air.
To my shock, I feel the driver consider my thoughts before attempting the slap again, this time attempting to implement my suggestions to mix results. It was better on the sharp turn but still couldn't get timing of the tail strike down. It swam down again and turned around, I could feel it's determination. I decide to send it thoughts of encouragement and visualize in my mind how the tail should hit the seal as I feel the driver speed up for another try. The orca nails the sharp turn and to my joy, flicks its tail in the right way to maximize its use of momentum to slap the seal harder than Tyrion slapped Joffrey.
I couldn't tell whose joy was who's as the driver let out a triumphant series of clicks and squees with Mama, for her part, giving high-pitch squeals of what I interpreted as praise. The strangest thing was in the brief moment of emotional unity, I got the impression my driver was male for some reason.
The seal lands in the water still stunned, she snatches it in her teeth and began to thrash her head and a cloud of blood erupts from the seal. After a few thrashes, mama orca releases it from her jaws and allows it to float away from her, slowly spreading the cloud of blood and gestures again with her flipper. The driver doesn't hesitate to swim at the floating meal and proceeds to tear into the carcass and I'm immediately hit with a strong mix of salty and savory flavors in surprisingly chewy meat. He tears off another piece and drifts away, allowing his mother to take a bite of her own before she allows her son to take one. They continue taking turns biting into the meal for some time until they're satisfied, with what little of the carcass remained floating down on the sea floor.
The mother calls out with a longer high-pitch squeal and they both swim in a random direction. I look toward the surface and wonder if anything if happening up there. I feel a spike of curiosity from the driver and they swim up to the surface and break contact.
I briefly see the Wolfsport and its docks miles away before entering the water again, still following his mother. He breaks the surface again and I see a paved road leading from the city to Castle Warg further in the distance before being submerged in the water again. I hear a faint series of rapid clicks in the distance from an orca that wasn't one of the two I was with. The mother and son duo eventually swim up to five other orcas, three female adults and two juvenile orcas like the driver. The three adults begin clicking and squealing at each other in what I interpret as greeting and the driver does the same with the other juveniles.
Eventually, the largest adult, that I realize was an older female, turned to me and like before I felt it look at me directly, not the driver. It makes the same series of threatening clicks before being interrupted by mama orca with her own clicks. The grandma orca continues to stare at me but decides to leaves us be.
The driver is distracted by the calls of his fellow juveniles that might be his sibling but I was unsure. One makes a noise and gestures with their flipper toward something behind us. The driver turns around and sees a fast-moving dark spot on the surface that I realize must be the hull of a ship. As I observe it moving closer but not on an intercepting path, I thought it strange how narrow it was for a ship that large and where were the oars? I decide to ask the driver to look at the surface and the driver's brief surge of curiosity is the warning I get as it speeds towards both the ship and the surface. Soon enough, it breaks the surface again and I'm greeted with the sight of a ship over two hundred feet long with a pointed narrow hull, no oars, and three large masts of square sails before descending into the depths again.
The juveniles continue to swim towards the ship I recognized as the Swiftwind, first clipper ship of the Seven Kingdoms returning from its first sea trials. Considering the ship is sailing into the bay twice as fast as a galley looking no worse for wear, I'd say it's been a success. I feel a poke of inquiry from the driver and I think up a mental image of the clipper, outsailing a galley and a cog, with my thoughts emphasizing how fast the ship compared to other ships. A brief moment of silence before the driver calls out to his companions in whale noises and the three orcas speed up towards my ship.
Soon enough, they're with twenty feet of the ship and turn to swim alongside it, matching its speed, which if I had to guess was seven or eight knots. The orcas, despite being juveniles, easily kept up with the Swiftwind, whose crew I could see watching us in the brief moments the driver would bring his head above the surface.
In one glimpse, I saw my three-and-ten nameday old younger brother Edric amongst the marvellers in the Seastark colors, holding a feathered hat on his head. After resurfacing again after a moment, I suddenly see Edric plummeting into the water to my horror, feathered hat flying off in the wind. I felt a tsunami of panic wash over me when the driver submerged again and I saw my brother land in the water, arming beginning to fail about trying to claw his way back to the surface despite not knowing how to swim. I try desperately to surge forward and aid my brother but the orca remains motionless, not moving a single flipper with the other juveniles stopping to watch the struggling human with curiosity.
The driver notices my panicked thoughts and sends me another questioning poke through our metaphorical mental curtain and I send him frantic thoughts of Edric being my younger brother and that I needed to save him, accompanied by images of my brother and myself with our mother to show the resemblance. For several heartbeats, the driver is silent, as if deciding whether to indulge me or not before shooting forward towards my brother, reaching him just as he was starting to lose fight. The orca positioned its head beneath my brother and swam upwards towards the surface. My brother, still barely conscious, begins flailing again when he felt the contact on the orca, probably thinking it he's being attacked by a shark.
Soon enough, we surface with my brother, still on the orca's head, stops his panicked failing to cough up sea water before taking huge gulps of air. The driver continues pushing him towards the Swiftwind, being mindful to keep him out of the water as much as possible while still maintain a brisk pace to catch up to the ship. My brother seems to have finally gotten enough air to satisfied his desperate lungs and slays on the orca's head, wet and shivering, but look directly into the eye of the driver with a mix of fear and astonishment. He says something but instead of Common Tongue, all I hear is gibberish.
When we catch up to the ship, I hear multiple shouts from the crewmembers and they fling a rope overboard towards my brother. We are close enough to the ship for my brother to catch the flung rope and he is soon pulled, first briefly back into the sea only to almost immediately be pulled up by what I can guess are multiple men pulling on the rope. I see him reach the edge of the port side, still shivering and yanked back onto the ships by three men, one of who I recognize as captain of the ship, Captain Calon. My brother is immediately swarmed and wrapped in thick wool blankets both to dry him and warm him up. Hypothermia was a just as big a threat as drowning as even in summer, when the water temperature rises, you can succumb to its effects within half an hour. The crew stares at us in mixture of awe and wonder, talking and gesturing amongst themselves and towards us. I still can't understand what's being said, but their tones sounded confused and excited as the driver submerged back into the water as I sent him thoughts of thanks and gratitude to no reply.
The other juveniles had continued their impromptu race at a blazing speed, deciding their race was more important than my brother simply because he wasn't considered food. They pull ahead of the ship for a while before suddenly shifting directions away from their current route before eventually slowing down and making clicks and whines that to me, sounded triumphant.
As the passenger heads towards his pod mates, I start to hear faint knocking…like someone knocking on a door!? But where is there a door underwater? As the knocking gets louder, I feel myself violently pulled from the driver and my vision begins to go black before I suddenly jerk awake and look around to find myself sitting at the desk in my solar just as the door opens.
"My lord? Are you alr- Oh? My lord I have news!" A servant in Seastark colors peeks his head into my solar.
"Er, yes. What is it?" I say a bit groggy from waking up from my afternoon nap/skinchanging session.
"You instructed us to alert you if the-" I cut him off. "The Swiftwind's return, yes." I ignore his look of surprise and look down at my desk to find a drool-covered raven from my friend and quill pal, Prince Stannis. The words about the birth of his daughter Shireen and the launching of the Royal Trade Fleet blurring together with his inquires to my health's and the condition of Myrra's pregnancy. The Mannis tended to write similar to how he spoke, blunt and direct, with little love for flowery language or unnecessary words and my letters to him in turn tended to reflect that.
"My lord, should we prepare horses for you and your cousins to ride to the docks?" The servant asks me and I think for a moment.
"Aye. My mother will stay with my wife, goodsister, and sister." I order and the servant affirms them before his head retreats and the door shuts, leaving me alone. I glance at Stannis' letter, deciding I'll write a response later as I move to get ready…
Later…
My black stallion trotted down the newly paved castle road with my four-and-ten nameday old cousin Yara and her three years younger brother Jonnel, each with their own horses. We made our way to the city and I see the clipper pulling into the harbor on the north side of the city, opposite of the southern Wolf Gate we'll be entering. I notice Jonnel is particularly interested in the clipper as I see his eyes constantly follow the ship.
"I still can't believe this road is paved." My cousin Yara says out of the blue. "And that it was done in a little over three moons when Maester Armond said it would take at least five or six is amazing!"
"How much road are you going to pave?" Jonnel asks me as we pass by the walled compound with multiple kilns running near non-stop to make Roman-style concrete or quickstone as it's called in this world. Next to it is the now paved road that branches off the castle road and bypasses the city to connect directly with the Wolfswood Trail. Nearly two moons of construction after the first league of road was completed, the shorter connecting road was just now being finished, with work on the main trail itself about to begin, starting from the eastern Main Gate of the city.
I'm fortunate that I have easy access to limestone and seawater with volcanic ash having to be imported from the hill clans since there are several dormant or extinct volcanoes known in the Northern Mountains. A pleasant bonus is that when I inquired the Big Bucket on the ash from a nearby volcano to Ice Harbor, he offhandedly mentioned finding small quarries of dragonglass. I immediately bought as much as I could, which was only enough for some two hundred or so arrowheads but at least the word was out among the western hill clans that I was interested in purchasing ash and dragonglass.
"At minimum, the Wolfswood Trail from here to the border with the Glovers or fifty leagues. Hopefully, long-term, from here to Winterfell or two hundred leagues." I say as if constructing six hundred miles of paved road through mostly thick forest was a quick and easy task and it certainly wasn't. The current rate of one moon a mile sounds slow to Earth ears but was blazing fast by Westerosi standards, since they used only gravel, dirt and stone. Another benefit is, as expensive as roads get, making slabs out of quickstone is a lot cheaper than cutting stone, saving me roughly a third of the cost per mile. I'm pulled out of my thoughts when I see my brother's horse trail off to the side near the edge of the road and I speak out.
"Careful, Jonnel! Your horse could trip itself on the drainage systems next to the road!" My cousin immediately becomes alert and steers his horse away from the sides. We arrive at the southern or Wolf Gate and are let through by the guard, who cheerfully bow and salute us. As we make our way through the cobblestone street buildings made from wood and gray stone towards the docks Jonnel turns to me.
"Hugo, do you know when brother's returning?" He asks of Wyman's return. We reach a large intersection where the Wolf's Street meets the high street of Wolfsport: Market Street, just as I calculate the answer.
"Considering it's been near six moons since they sailed from Lannisport, they should be finishing up in the islands and starting the journey home. So, mayhaps another three or four moons." He nods his head and looks west down Market Street towards the sea.
I look east down the same, wide street to see the entrance to the bustling marketplace full of vendors and customers, spying some of the King's Landing smallfolk that followed me up from the capital among the crowd. The perfumer from the capital that works on my perfumes walks with a merchant from a well-known family in Wolfsport, the perfumer's near of age daughter walking with a lad around her age just behind them. I see the youngest of the three blacksmith brothers that couldn't get work on the Street of Steel due to the intense competition, arm-in-arm with his new wife, the sister of a local blacksmith. The two older brothers were already married with young kids when they arrived and they told me they've already had a child each in Wolfsport.
The blacksmith brothers have been working on forging the iron used in my Seastark plows, a new plow I've designed based on the Rotherham or "Dutch plow" as it was sometimes known as on Earth. This in tandem with the new Hames horse collar I've worked with a young tanner from Flea Bottom, who won the heart of a local tanner's daughter he works for. These two inventions working in tandem meant that not only did I have a faster and more efficient plow, but a horse collar and harness that requires half as many horses to uses, two instead of four. They've been making them for use in farmland owned directly by House Seastark to use along with the four-field crop rotation I was introducing. Only a few have been made so far but they've been successful put to great use and have the smallfolk whispering and coveting them.
The speed that the southern smallfolk were assimilating into Wolfsport surprised me, at least if the number of marriages between the recent arrivals and locals was anything to go buy. Most of the Southron immigrants seemed to conclude that it was easier to work with and marry into local businesses than set up their own as competition. This in turn, made the local Wolfsporters more accepting of the strange newcomers, seeing them as working with them rather than against them.
"Aren't a bunch of lords arriving with Wyman for your company meeting?" Yara suddenly asks as we approach the northern docks.
I see several warehouses full of both goods and naval supplies such as timber for ship making with a new addition being a building finished a few moons ago now extracting tar, pitch, and turpentine by longleaf pines floated down the Salmon River. The northern docks are where the Sunset Fleet sits and where timber and small river barges bring goods up and down the river that is navigable a full twenty leagues inland including into the Wolfswood. The western docks were the main commercial docks used by fishermen and merchants and would be where the Northern convoy sets anchor in a few moons' time. We dismount our horse walk to the Swiftwind, finding Captain Calon, who gives a quick bow, and my brother disembarking the ship, the wool blanket still wrapped around his shoulders but at least he didn't look wet and wasn't shivering anymore.
"Good to see you back safely! Captain Calon, why does my brother have a blanket wrapped around him with damp hair?" I inquire despite knowing the answer. I successfully fight a smirk that was forming when the captain eagerly jumped into an explanation about today's earlier events but from their perspective. The crew hauled my brother back aboard after being carried by a milky-eyed spotted whale. This apparently has sparked a major debate within the crew as to whether the spotted whale was blind or being skinchanged, with the crewmembers evenly split on the cause of the miraculous save.
"Are you alright, Edric?" I ask my brother as my cousins crowd around him, inspecting his wellbeing.
"Aye, Hugo. I'm fine. I… I was underwater, thinking I was going to drown when the spotted whale saved me, or rather, the one controlling it did." He said, still clearly shaken from the near-drowning experience but his eyes met mine, convinced the orca that saved him was being skinchanged into.
"And do you know who was controlling it?" I asked despite the fact I didn't control the orca I was in. If the driver wanted to ignore my brother and let him drown, there was not a gods damn thing I could have done about it.
"No. But I know it was a skinchanger." He said with conviction.
"Well, if we ever meet them, I will be sure to reward them handsomely for saving you." I lie with a poker face. I didn't want to reveal to my family that I was a skinchanger, at least until I can gain control over the orca, assuming I can even do so.
I told my cousins to take Edric on the one unridden horse we brought specifically for him and head back to Castle Warg. They agreed and left while I stayed and asked the captain to give me performance report of the Swiftwind with the shipwrights. We went to the headquarters of the shipwrights and the captain gave his report to myself and the Wolfsport shipwrights with Horesso, the Braavosi man amongst them.
"It took some time for the crew to get adjusted but after sailing around Sea Dragon Point, they earned their colors. We averaged about six, seven knots but when we had the wind behind our backs with all those sails hoisted…" The middle-age captain sports an excited grin around his short, salt and pepper beard. "…We hit as fast as six-and-ten knots!" He says ecstatically and all eyes in the room widen at the speed. A normal galley sails at an average of three to four knots an hour with them hitting seven under the right conditions of wind, weather, currents, and crew training.
"What of conditions of little to no wind?" I hear Horesso ask in Braavosi-accented Common Tongue. The captain grimaces.
"Less than a knot, if that. It's their one flaw, when there's no wind or the it's against them, they make little progress and are sitting ducks for Ironborn or pirates." He grouses.
"That's what the Seawolves are for, Captain. Armed men to fight off boarders while also assisting the crew with running the ship." I say and the captain and shipwrights look only half convinced. The Seawolves were the marine infantry I was forming to be both armed escorts of merchant ships and shock infantry against the Ironborn if need be. I was giving the first one hundred recruits training reminiscent of the United States marine corps, or at least what I knew of it considering I've never been in the military. They were also working a weekend each month on my road construction projects for strength conditioning as well as simply helping to speed up the progress.
The meeting goes on for a bit longer, finding out how things like the crew's thoughts on the ship: "They loved the ship!", or if the watertight bulkhead compartments worked: "Dunno, there was no leak.". It finally ends with me giving the order to construct two more clippers and that there was to be no construction on anymore galleries until the two clippers were done. I got back on my black stallion and left for my castle, passing by the many inns, alehouses and brothels near the western docks. The strangest attraction was a small, somewhat ram shackled-looking building housing a mummer's hall where I saw smallfolk paying a few coppers for a show. Soon enough, I'm out through the Wolf Gate and trotting up the castle road back home. I'm let in through the gates by the castle guard only to be immediately ambushed by a servant.
"My lord, come quickly! Lady Elsa's water broke over an hour ago and she's in labor. Your mother and the wet nurses are with her now." He says frantically before leading me to where my goodsister is giving birth…
That evening…
We were finally let in to meet the newest member of House Seastark. My mother, siblings, cousins, a nearly six moons pregnant Myrra and I gathered around a bed with a tired and exhausted Elsa holding a small bundle that had my blonde, blueish-gray eyed niece, Arsa Seastark, named after my late aunt. I glance over to the midwife, using a small rag to wipe a pair of wood and iron forceps I invented the first moon I returned from Winterfell. I have had her and several other midwives testing the forceps on small folk and so far, when needed to be used they saved the mother and child four out of five times.
I let out a satisfied smile at saving not one but two family members today. I turn back to see Elsa holding little Arsa with Yara and Jonnel doting on her while Edric, my mother and Myrra were all staring at me from across the bed. My brother leaned over to whisper into my mother's ear, while Myrra looked on with an anxious smile. Edric has been telling everyone in the castle about the spotted whale and the skinchanger that saved him and I'm starting to think they're suspecting me, not that they'd be wrong. I feel Myrra's emerald eyes piercing me, and I gaze into them to see her anxious, excited, and most of all, scared. Whether she feared her upcoming childbirth with the twins, yes twins, or the idea of me being a skinchanger, I wasn't sure…
Mid-Sixth moon, 283 A.C., Three and a half moons later…
After hours of anxiously waiting after Myrra's water broke, she gave birth overnight after hours of labor to two beautiful twins, no forceps required. She never looked more beautiful than now: frazzled hair, exhausted look, bags under her eyes, no make-up but smiling down at the eldest twin. Our baby girl, Myranda Seastark, named after Myrra's late mother Myranda Kayce. I'd hug and kiss her and Myranda but my arms were currently full with the younger twin, my son and heir, Torrhen Seastark, named after my father to my mother's joy, both looking like a complete mixture of Myrra and I. Instead of golden blonde or dark brown hair, they have dirty blonde hair and when they opened their eyes, I could see they were a greenish-gray.
My siblings and cousins were all there playing and cooing at my children while my mother beams proudly at her grandchildren. It's still wild for me to think about: that I'm a father at the age of eight-and-ten, barely considered an adult on Earth. My thoughts and gaze are torn from my son when I hear the door opening and Castellan Martyn walks in.
"My lords and ladies, congratulations on the successful birth! I come here with urgent news. The Northern convoy with a few Southron ships have been spotted and are expected to arrive in Wolfsport in a little over an hour!" He informs us to our shock.
"Of course, they arrive back the day of your births." I snort, looking between the twins before back to the castellan.
"Thank you, Martyn. Begin preparations for a feast! Both for my cousin's return and the birth of the twins!" I order and quickly bows and leaves to carry out my orders. I hand Torrhen to my mother, give Myrra a grateful kiss on the cheek and my thanks. I walk out with my siblings, cousins and Elsa to get ready to meet Wyman.
We walk quickly through the halls of the inner keep, that had some new paintings adorning it's walls curtesy of Lucos the painter. One was a landscape portrait of Wolfsport and it's surroundings with the paved road leading from the city up to the castle and another was a family portrait of House Seastark after Wyman and Elsa's wedding. But the one I treasure most is the one of the battle at the Tower of Joy, showing my uncle Walton sacrificing himself for Lord Dustin. We walk out to the ramparts to get to another part of the inner keep and I look out to see hundreds of workers finish paving the second league of the Wolfswood Trail before my gaze turns to the Sunset Sea.
In the distance I spot the six trade cogs and five galley escorts that made up the Northern convoy along with two galleys each from the Riverlands and Westerlands. The Southron ships carrying the lords or representatives sent in their place for the second annual Director's Meeting of the Sunset Trade Company before we went back into the keep to access stairs to take us down to ground floor. From the raven Wyman sent me from Casterly Rock when Tywin hosted them for their return, Gerion Lannister was coming because he was both the Lord Director and Head Captain of the expedition, but instead of Tywin, his sons were attending in his stead. He didn't mention any maps but that could be to avoid anyone finding out through reading our ravens.
One of the three things he mentioned about the expedition was he got a trading post in Port Malthar, but in return Prince Makathar Xaq demanded a trading post run by her house be built in Wolfsport. The second was Gerion Lannister got a trading post in Lotus Port, where Prince Dalazhar Zoko would only allow it if they married one of his daughters. Luckily, Gerion fell in love with his fourth daughter, Princess Keeori Zoko and they wed, building an alliance between the Lannisters and the Zokos. I idly wondered what his eldest brother thought of his actions and having a Summer Islander princess for a goodsister.
We made our way out of the inner keep towards the gates when I thought about the third thing Wyman mentioned. He mentioned we were taking in a young, reckless prince that got himself exiled from the Summer Islands two namedays younger than me, one whose name I vaguely recognized: Jalabhar Xho of the Red Flower Vale.
A/N: We see skinchanging (Can you even call it that if they have no control?), the clipper in action, more inventions from Hugo that affect agriculture and childbirth, the roads, the births, and the return of the trade expedition. I've been researching how quickly a Roman style road and gotten a big range so I'm going with the rate the Romans built the Appian Way, which was 132 miles from Rome to Capua in four years. Wolfsport to the border with the Glovers is 150 miles (50 leagues) so I'm shooting for 4-5 years (Not counting winter years!). Tell me is that realistic? Too fast? Too slow? I want to hear your thoughts.