Ra was just about to fabricate some blatant bullshit excuses to explain his sudden absence, but he was interrupted by the loud sound of blaring horns.
The deep noise clearly indicated that new ships were rapidly approaching their position on the rocky shore.
Ra looked back over his shoulder while Ned Stark walked up closely beside him to carefully observe the fluttering banners of the approaching vanguard ship.
The Lord of Winterfell released a sigh of relief the very moment he recognized the familiar stag banners, confirming it to be Lord Stannis Baratheon arriving.
They had received a raven earlier that morning informing them all about the younger Baratheon brother's his victory, along with the fact that he was currently sailing directly toward their conquered island.
Ra and Ned stood in comfortable silence and watched the massive ship move closer to the docks for a few long moments before Ned finally turned back to face the golden giant, his eyebrows raised in clear expectation.
"You still have not answered my initial question," Ned said, his stern tone prompting Ra to let out an exhausted sigh.
"I was simply out exploring some of the nearby small islands," the Custodian answered with a casual, dismissive shrug of his massive armored shoulders.
"You could have at least told someone in the camp before you vanished," Ned chided in a completely defeated voice.
The northern lord was not actually worried for the golden warrior regarding his physical safety against ordinary men.
But the treacherous sea was a completely different beast, and the crashing waves could have easily taken him under in the deep night.
"Yes, mother. I certainly will make sure to do so next time. Can I please go find something to eat now?" Ra said with a flippant wave of his hand, pure mischief dripping heavily from his deep voice.
"The fucker is every bit as big as he is utterly dumb," Ned muttered under his breath, though he was deliberately grumbling loud enough for the towering Custodian to easily hear him as he followed Ra away from the docks.
Ra wisely bit his sharp retort back right then and there. He knew he honestly deserved that much petty insult for the genuine worry he may have caused his friend.
The Custodian eventually found some decent roasted food and a very quiet, isolated corner in the castle to eat in absolute peace.
Ned walked quietly beside him and sat down right beside him as both men ate their warm meals in a comfortable, companionable silence.
The Lord of Winterfell seemed much more relaxed as he chewed his food without speaking.
There was absolutely nobody around to constantly pester him with trivial lordly matters, and he was finally completely absent from the constant, deafeningly loud laughter of King Robert Baratheon.
"You look like a man who no longer carries the entire weight of the world upon those small, fragile shoulders of yours," Ra commented smoothly after he had completely cleared his wooden plate, leaving it looking as if it had been newly washed.
"And you look exactly like a man who has never held a single intelligent thought anywhere between those big, ears of yours," Ned shot right back in the very next moment before promptly getting up from his wooden bench.
Ra stood up to his full height as well. Both men exchanged brief, amused glances before openly chuckling.
They then began moving purposefully toward the main keep and the grand throne room, where they suspected Lord Stannis must already be giving King Robert all the bloody details of his recent battle.
Ra and Ned entered the damp throne room as quietly as they could manage, as they truly did not wish to interrupt Stannis in the middle of his military report.
Though with Ra's towering size and full golden plate armor, real stealth was practically an impossible feat.
"Ah. Ned, I was waiting for you to arrive. And I see you have successfully found the butcher," Robert Baratheon interrupted his younger brother's dry report. The king had not really been listening to Stannis anyway.
He happily beckoned Ned over to his side by the Seastone Chair and eagerly urged Stannis to sit down as well. Robert truly did not care at all for how the actual naval battle went, only that they had won it.
"Bring me Balon Greyjoy immediately. I will now hold his official royal trial," Robert loudly announced, his booming voice prompting a royal guard to quickly run off into the dark dungeons to carry out the king's order.
"I thought you gave him seven full days. It has only been two days," Ned muttered in confusion, though he secretly preferred this sudden change of plans.
The quiet northern lord absolutely did not wish to waste any more of his valuable time staying on this miserable, shit covered island.
"Let us just finally get this shit over with," Robert muttered dismissively, purposefully giving the severely brooding Stannis a meaningful, lingering glance.
The true, hidden reason for King Robert giving Balon extra time was that he wanted his grim brother Stannis to be present during the royal hearing.
The king trusted his younger brother to give good, solid council during the trial.
It truly did not take very long for a terribly weak, haggard Balon Greyjoy to be roughly brought out into the open space of his very own throne room, the exact place where he himself was now to be judged by his conquerors.
"This foolish man right here stands formally accused of high rebellion against the royal crown. What exactly shall his punishment be, my lords?" Robert bellowed his loud question out to Stannis, Ned, and several of the other high ranking lords that were currently present within the damp, gloomy walls of the throne room.
Balon was just about to defiantly speak up, but he was sharply interrupted by the chorus of lords aggressively announcing their own loud opinions regarding what exactly his ultimate fate should be.
The vast majority of them simply wanted the rebel dead, while the smaller remaining portion wanted him to be publicly humiliated and broken for as long as he might live.
Robert occasionally nodded his head and hummed a few times at their angry words. Although he was not really considering their opinions in the slightest.
He truly only listened carefully when Stannis Baratheon and Ned Stark finally stepped up and said their respective parts, even though the king's expression did not change a single bit.
"Balon Greyjoy knowingly took a royal crown that was certainly not his to claim, and he bathed the Sunset Sea in the fresh blood of your loyal people. The only true price for such high treason is a bloody block and a sharp axe."
"To grant this rebel anything less than death is to loudly tell every single lord in all the Seven Kingdoms that an oath sworn to the Iron Throne is worth no more than the breath spent speaking it aloud. Shorten him by a head right now, and let the bottom feeding crabs have the rest of him," Stannis announced coldly, his flat voice sounding exactly as if he were merely stating an undeniable, universal fact.
Stannis' chosen words were perfectly concise, and the harsh, unyielding wisdom buried within them was glaringly apparent to almost everyone currently standing inside the grand hall.
"He is a defeated man right now, Your Grace, but he is still the ruling lord of a Great House, and the ancient blood of the First Men runs in his veins. If you forcefully take his life today, you simply leave the entire Iron Islands to a bloody succession of grieving brothers and an endless cycle of brutal vengeance that will not cleanly end with this current generation," Ned Stark started calmly after taking a slow, steadying breath.
"Let the man keep his useless life, but fully strip him of his unearned pride. I shall personally take his last remaining son back with me to Winterfell. Let the young boy properly grow up living among my very own trueborn sons, serving as a ward and a royal hostage both. If Balon ever foolishly rises up in rebellion again, the price will immediately be his own bloodline," the northern lord added logically, making the beaten Balon fiercely glare at him with pure hatred.
"This entire farce is nothing but a mummer's trial. There was no rebellion here for I am certainly no traitor to your crown. If you remember, I never once swore any sort of oath to you," Balon addressed King Robert with pure defiance radiating from his weak form.
Robert fell deep into thought for a long moment. He valued Ned Stark's steady opinion far over Stannis Baratheon's unyielding harshness, so the ultimate decision was already crystal clear within his royal mind.
And he was just about to formally announce it aloud, but he suddenly paused when he saw Ned and Ra seemed to be having a very intense, hushed conversation near the throne.
The whispered words were still loud enough that the sitting king could hear most of it.
"Those were quite possibly some of the dumbest, most foolish noises you have ever made in your entire life," Ra bluntly told Ned in a harsh whisper.
"I take it you wholeheartedly agree with Lord Stannis Baratheon then," Ned stated quietly with a highly raised eyebrow, receiving a very slow nod and an indifferent shrug from the towering Custodian in response.
"These miserable fuckers literally take innocent people as slaves, Ned. The very fact that they try to call them 'salt wives' does not make those poor women any less victims of rape," the golden Custodian stated fiercely, giving Ned plenty of, uncomfortable food for thought right there on the spot.
"His death right here would still cause massive chaos and endless misery for years to come," Ned stubbornly countered the giant, firmly sticking to his previous, honorable words.
"That exact misery is entirely what their whole damn culture is built upon. The so called Iron Way, in simple summary, is absolutely fuck everyone else in the world."
"We will completely refuse to contribute to the actual world to sustain our own lives. We will just selfishly take whatever we want by violently killing you in your beds," was Ra's immediate, biting response that was completely full of pure mockery and disgust.
"Please forgive me for speaking out of turn, my lord. However, I must agree with Ser Ra," Alysane, who was quietly standing right beside the golden Custodian, said in a very small, hesitant voice.
Ned sharply chided his own foolish thoughts within his own mind. He was the sworn Warden of the North, and the vast North was undeniably one of the most heavily affected kingdoms in the realm because of these constant Ironborn raids.
He looked directly at Balon Greyjoy then, his grey eyes suddenly turning incredibly cold like winter ice, and he was just about to change his previous words.
Though, Robert's booming, thunderous voice interrupted him before he could speak a single word.
"Balon Greyjoy. You not having properly sworn your fealty and oath to me is a terrible mistake that will definitely be rectified this very day," King Robert loudly boomed out into the hall.
He had heard Ned and Ra's entire hushed conversation, and he actively made his final royal decision largely as a massive, spiteful slight directly aimed at Ra.
Though the king did make some consideration during his silence, as even he reluctantly had to admit within his own mind that the golden warrior actually had a very solid point regarding the reavers, though he would never ever actually say that out loud.
"Immediately after you kneel down to me right here and solemnly give me your undying fealty, your very last remaining son will be warded in the North directly with Lord Stark," the king added very slowly, maliciously letting every single heavy word loudly bite and fiercely claw away at Balon Greyjoy's spirit.
"And not only that. You will be fully compensating every single ruling lord who gave their loyal men for this utterly half witted, rebellious whim of yours."
"Furthermore, while you do that, every single one of my innocent subjects that your rotten, thieving men have wrongly taken as so called thralls will be returned back to their homes," Robert loudly announced with a vicious grin, happily adding salt straight into Balon's open, festering wounds.
The assembled lords standing around the great hall immediately began wildly cheering their loud agreement at that royal pronouncement as they triumphantly chanted King Robert's name with approval and fervor.
That loud, roaring approval stood with the exception of Lord Stannis, who was angrily grinding his teeth together, and Ned Stark, who was deeply regretting his own merciful words that had ultimately allowed Balon Greyjoy to walk away with his pathetic life.