"Why are you not here yet? How much longer will it take you?" Robb grumbled to the bird on his shoulder as he alighted from his horse outside the Mud gate.
The Stark heir looked quite exhausted at the moment, as if he had not gotten enough sleep, which was to be expected for someone who had spent the night out drinking and partying.
But it wasn't the boy's fault, as he had been forced into it by his dear Uncle Edmure, who had pulled him out of his mansion, kicking and screaming(Metaphorically).
The man had, for some reason, taken it as his own responsibility to show this nephew of his how to live a little and have fun, and had taken him to a prestigious Noble Gathering, or in simple words, an unlimited drinking feast.
After all, what else would a bunch of nobles, who had never worked a day in their lives, do in King's Landing other than drink, dance and shit.
And then sometime later, they had even been joined by Blackfish, Lord Manderly, Lord Tyrion, and even King Robert for a short while. So safe to say, as the youngest and the lightest amongst these drunkards, the boy had been the one to suffer the most.
So now, being forced to wake up so early, just a few hours after sunrise, without having gotten sufficient rest, to wait for his carefree brother, Robb felt that he had fair reason to look so disgruntled.
Behind him came Ser Rodrick and Lord Manderly, with the fat man looking quite cheery and fresh despite having consumed almost three times as much as everyone else on the table.
Along with them came fifteen grim Northern guards, which was the minimum amount of men a Noble needed while travelling through the Capital these days, considering how crowded it had recently gotten, and this was while taking into account the usual Northern frugality. Otherwise, someone like the Tyrell Lord would not even leave his Mansion without at least 30 to 50 men.
"Chi!" The colourful hummingbird tilted her head, as if thinking about her answer, before she suddenly jumped up and stood on one leg, triumphantly raising the other claw in answer, "Chi!"
"And what does that even mean?" Robb asked in exasperation, massaging his forehead to relieve his headache, "Is that a one or a three? You know that I don't speak bird very well."
"Chi!" But the bird just nodded cheerfully, as if to answer, 'Yes!'
"So, one to three hours then?" he asked, to which the silly bird nodded again, "Perfect!" Robb groaned tiredly in exhaustion, quietly adjusting his sticky clothes that felt stifling even in the morning coolness here in South, but he would rather die in leather than strut around in bright silk like the other noble dandies, "Ugh! I can't believe I am missing lunch for this..."
"Chi?" The bird trilled mournfully with a wronged expression that would have melted the heart of even the most cold-hearted maiden out there.
"Oh, don't give me that expression! It may have worked on Arya and Sansa, but I am—"
"Lord Stark?" A clear bell-like voice interrupted Robb's whispered berating of the bird, as the startled boy turned around, only to see the Young Tyrell maiden standing a few feet behind him, somehow having charmed her way through the blockade of Ser Rodrik and the others without alerting him.
"Lady Margery?" Robb asked confusedly, his expression very clearly asking, 'Why are you here?'
"Pretty bird, you have there," The girl replied with a warm smile while ignoring his silent question, as she stared intently at the hummingbird, "But was it not Jon's? I remember it quite clearly, him carrying her around during his trip to Highgarden. Tweety was her name, right?"
"Yes, it is his. I am just taking care of her for him." Robb replied subconsciously, as a frown appeared on his face, and then due to his sleep deprivation, he decided to be direct, "I don't mean to be rude, but it is very early for you to be out here at the port, so why..." he trailed off as his eyes flickered to her half a dozen guards wearing the Tyrel cloaks standing with Ser Rodrick, who kept glancing this way with a strange smirk on his face, as if...
'Damn it! Is the old knight under the delusion that this girl is pining for me?' Robb thought as his guts twisted in embarrassment, 'Fuck you, Jon!'
"Oh, I was just out here taking a stroll in the market with my Grandmother," Margery replied while pointing towards a tall, luxurious inn, which had a clear view of the Blackwater rush, and the Harbour, "We wanted to see the sights of Kingslanding before it becomes too crowded, and then I saw your party from afar, and I remembered you telling us that your brother was set to arrived today, so I assumed that you were waiting for him. And since I had nothing to do while my Grandmother was taking a rest in the Inn, I came here," she finally finished while maintaining her smile, "Is that not fine?"
"No, it's fine. Why would it not be?" Robb answered with a forced smile, very much unable to digest this intricate but lame excuse.
'I would eat my right arm right here and now, if your arrival here was any kind of coincidence,' Robb scoffed internally, 'But still to think that she woke up this early, and came all the way here just to meet that idiot brother of mine... Exactly what kind of magic have you performed on this girl, Jon?'
'Not to mention, the time the girl must have invested in getting ready,'
Even Robb, a complete novice in the art of women's get-up, could tell that the girl had spent at least an hour looking pretty and dressing up for this, and no one would do that just for a casual meeting with a 'friend' you have not seen in years.
"So, do you have an idea of when Jon is going to arrive?" Margery asked a few seconds later, breaking the awkward silence.
"About an hour or three," Robb immediately replied, giving her the answer that he himself had been given by the bird.
The grimace reappeared on his face as the boy imagined waiting out here for such a long time, especially taking into consideration the imminent arrival of the scorching mid-day Sun, 'Shit! I can't even bail out now that she is here,' Robb thought as he sighed internally.
"Huh? So is that not his ship then?" Margery curiously asked while pointing into the distance behind Robb.
"What ship do you—"
Robb began as he turned his head to follow her fingers, but in the next moment, his eyes widened as he saw the very familiar shape of his Brother's personal Galleon rising on the horizon, coming out of a cloud of morning mist. It was the same one that he had 'gotten' from the Pirate King, later adorning it with a large White wolf at the front.
'Why... is he here already?' Robb had a very taken aback expression on his face at that moment, but in the next second his head whipped around as he looked down at his shoulder, where he found the little critter, squeaking(laughing) her ass off.
'You damn bird!!' The boy cursed in his head as he made to grab her, having finally realised that it was just a prank by his brother to irritate him.
Sadly, his pathetic human hands were no match for the small bird, as she immediately disappeared from his eyes, only to appear a few inches high, still cackling like a mad chick.
"Lord Robb?!"
The Tyrell girl's confused voice broke Robb out of his haze of irritation as he took a deep breath to calm his anger, and turned back to her, "Yes, that is indeed my brother's ship. It seems I had recieved faulty information before," he replied through gritted teeth while glaring at the bird, who had retaken her seat, from the corner of his eyes.
"That is wonderful, then," Margery replied with a bright smile as she clapped her hands, "We shall not have to wait for too long, then."
'Yes, yes, very wonderful,' The Stark heir thought sarcastically, but before he could start preparing various ways in which he could take revenge on his dear brother for fooling around with him while he was sleep-deprived, he heard another exclamation from the Tyrell girl, 'Now, what?'
"Eh? Why are there two more ships there?" she asked confusedly as she pointed in the distance where, as she called it, two more similar Galleys had appeared on either side of Jon's flagship, "Are they Jon's too?"
"Uh, yes, they should be." Robb nodded with a sagely expression on his face, "The seas can be a very dangerous place, especially for my brother, who regularly travels between Essos and Westeros, so he has a habit of always bringing a couple of ships filled with armed men along with him for protection, and to intimidate any pirates they encounter along the—"
But before Robb could finish with his 'reasonable' deduction, his words abruptly died in his throat the very next moment, as the three ships on the horizon suddenly turned into five with two more appearing on each side.
And that was not the end, as barely a few seconds later, another two appeared...
And then two more...
And more...
In just a matter of minutes, the horizon had been completely taken over by this large trade fleet sailing towards the capital in a fearsome formation, with their sails fully unfurled. This was such a terrifying sight that it could even put some pirate fleets to shame.
And these were not those thin little Ironborn longships that could only hold a little more than two dozen men.
These were proper behemoths that looked as if they came straight out of the best shipyard in Braavos, with each of them capable of comfortably carrying more than 100 men.
"Isn't this a little much for just protection?" Margery asked out loud in a stunned voice as she looked at the big armada that was somehow still adding ships to it at that moment, "He could carry an army of more than two thousand men in there, right? Is he perhaps going to war after this?" the girl asked with a nervous laugh.
This time, Robb had no ready answer for her as he, too, had been caught off guard by this showy display of might, which seemed very much unlike his brother. 'What could he be up to?'
Unfortunately, he did not get the chance to ruminate over it for long, as a loud horn suddenly blared from behind him, and both of them simultaneously turned around only to see a huge commotion happening over at the walls of the Mud gate, with all the Goldcloaks running around wildly in panic, as if their pants were on fire.
'Oh, Shit! This situation is getting out of hand now.'
It seems that Margery was not the only one who had noticed the potential army that Jon's fleet of big ships could carry, and considering how high-strung these guards had been lately, because of the constant arrival of all those big-shot nobles, it was not a surprise that their reaction was so extreme.
"They don't really think that Jon is coming to attack the city, do they?" Margery asked with an anxious expression on her face, as the girl was unable to comprehend why and how things were so quickly spiralling out of control here.
"My Lady, we should head back," one of the Tyrell guard suddenly appeared by the girl's side and began persuading her with an anxious expression, "They are closing the gates over there, and we should go back to your Grandmother just to be safe."
"I-No! This is just a misunderstanding. That is Lord Stark's son out there who is coming, the one in whose name the king is holding the Tourney. It is not an enemy for us to be afraid of—"
"But My lady, your Grandmother—"
Robb stopped listening to them as he turned back to the ship with a deep frown on his face, 'What the hell are you planning here, Jon?'
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