Far and Away

“Well if there is, I haven’t had much want to seek it out.”

“Don’t want to get too big of a head on your shoulders?”

“Don’t want to pay some bastard singer to do my name dirty.”

“Stag pincher.”

“Rose fucker.”

In a faintly aghast manner, Grandon let slip the knot which would have secured a palette of olive oil jars on-deck. Were it not for the clamoring caused by the ebb and flow of the Torentine and Bryar’s quick foot, they would’ve surely gone overboard. Not that the Dornish bastard who helmed their vessel cared much, given the abuses he indiscriminately hurled. After the shouting was done and the knot finally tied, Bryar huffed and leaned against the mainmast. His acquaintance soon joined him.

“I do swear though.”

“Your mother would be ashamed.”

“M’serious! You’re fit for a song. Dark eyes, dark hair, sword and shield in hand-” Grandon must’ve been a mummer in a previous life, what with the way he mimed the good mercenary’s fighting style so elegantly. Almost made Bryar smile.

“Standing tall, like a wolf amongst sheep.”

“Too Northern for my tastes.” An impish smile made Bryar continue, “Were I to care what my songs would sing.”

“Oh, of course. Something more flowery? Take after your namesake and rend your enemies asunder.”

“Under what?”

“What?”

“Rend my enemy’s ass under what?”

Another feigned look of horror befell Grandon. “Thick as pig shit, you are. Asunder!” A blank stare.

“Apart, rend your enemies apart! Tear them to shreds!”

“Well, say that then!”

“Thick as pig shit, I swear!”

“You do that too much and your mum’ll have to come get you.”

They scuffled for a moment afterward, idiot grins on their faces.

Bryar was a man of 20 then. Grandon wasn’t too far ahead of him. Or at least, he didn’t act like he was. Four years had been spent on the road since his departure from Fox Hollow, and in those four years, not a man had made Bryar feel at home on the job. Grandon hadn’t either, which soothed the young and restless sellsword. Home made him feel uneasy, unsafe. He’d gone by that cursed hole-in-the-mountains this past half-moon, gone to see his brother be lauded for his acceptance into the Devoted’s ranks

In celebration, Bryar drank himself blind and scurried away in the early gloom of the morning after his father, Corrad, had tanned his hide for being a disgrace. A son of his, becoming a sellsword working for Dornish coin? Corrad would have none of it.

And so he didn’t. Bryar spent the lot of it on the solace of a whore in Atranta. Once it was gone, he found a trader looking for guards with good steel and better manners. He had better steel than most, so the manners were set aside from consideration.

"Stag pincher!" Grandon shouted, clapping his hands in front of Bryar’s nose. The younger man had been lost in thought, yet again. The Dornishman barked out orders, and all the guards upon the vessel followed them to the approximate letter. Half of them couldn’t read, and the other half never really bothered to learn. And so Bryar's 20th year of life was spent, patrolling in the employ of this hard-assed Dornish spice trader, in the company of a good man who’d be run through by a bandit’s spear in ten days time.

The young Bryar minded that. The randomness of it all. But it didn’t seem to matter to the Stranger and soon, it’d hardly matter to him either. Not for a very long time.

Songs be damned, he came to say to himself. The world is cruel. Men die. Best not to dwell, especially when the coin’s good. His was a harsh worldview, but a heart of velvet soaked in blood lay underneath. Not until the Redgrass would it be wrung out…