Game of Thrones: Path of the Hungry Bear

Late 277 Summer

Though I'd been gone just four months shy of a year, Princess Elia dragged me around Sunspear continuing on like we'd left off our conversation yesterday. It didn't hurt that I arrived this year even more laden with gold than before, allowing me to experience everything Sunspear and Planky Town had to offer with a princess in tow.

Following my dreams, I'd gone south after finalizing the procedures for my copper mine up in the Frostfangs. I stopped in Seaguard to pick up another Triple Crown at a tourney held by the Mallisters, then stopped on Fair Isle to trade with a man I identified from a few vague signs from my dreams, walking away with a purse of gold and trade goods that netted me another fat purse in Planky Town.

I picked up two more Triple Crowns in Lannisport and Old Town, as well as setting up certain deals that panned out brilliantly whenever I managed to piece together the signs and portents of my dreams. It greatly pleased me to think that I may be the very first Greenseer to say fuck it to destiny and instead dream about supply and demand. The guiding invisible hand of the free market is way more powerful when a major player in the economy has prescience on his side.

That foreknowledge, however difficult to interpret gave me the confidence to move away from low risk low margin trading and into high risk high reward markets. Trading luxury goods up and down the coast is a hard field to break into, let alone stand out in. Firstly is the high cost of goods serving as a barrier to entry. You have to already have a solid fortune to even begin trading in silk, lace, velvet, gems, jewelry, wine, and spices. Next is customers. Every Lady Rottencrotch and her friends has a preferred supplier for whatever expensive object has her interest, and you can't just show up with a smile and a bolt of silk and expect profit. Green Dreams showing me who is waiting on a late ship for her fix on financially ruinous luxury allows me to slip into the DMs for easy money.

Dorne used to look like a money sink, but now I'm dreaming its a gold mine. Or maybe that's just wistful thinking caused by the petite princess dragging me into the ritziest brothel I've ever been inside of and proceeding to ride my cock like her life depends on it, and believe me when I say that I am familiar with the experience. It's nice to have it come from someone whose life doesn't actually depend on pleasing me sexually.

After her legs stopped shaking the princess got dressed and we were back to seeing everything Sunspear had to offer, all the while I built up a supply of luxury goods to sell on my way back north. My merchant ways stalled when we took the fifteen mile ride west on a coastal road to a palace by the sea, the Water Gardens the Martells built when the Targaryens married a princess into their line to bring the final of the Seven Kingdoms into the fold.

While I admired that the Starks piped hot water through their walls to keep Winterfell from becoming a meat locker freezer, could they not have attempted to build beautiful fountains and pools like they have here in the far off land of Dorne. While not as absolutely glorious as the fountains of Rome, the Martells certainly had an eye for colorful tile work that no doubt delighted the throngs of naked children running around.

The practice of sending noble children to the Martells to grow up frolicking together in the Water Gardens almost made the place feel like home. Of course I wasn't single handedly responsible for all these rugrats. Of course I could be if the Martells gathered the company of bastards I sired on my last visit. Nothing brings the confidence up like running into over two hundred women I plowed eight months prior with swollen bellies and eyes hungry for more.

I'll need to figure out what to do with all the bastard boys. I'm already out of room back home, and had to build longhouses near Rockhall for the Salt Wives and their hordes. I fathered an entire neighborhood, and was fortunate that offering work to widows was considered charitable and generous as my child care needs are the greatest in all of Westeros.

The naked children playing below are attributed with developing the basic human empathy of many Dornish leaders starting with the very woman for whom the palace was built for, Daenerys Targaryen. Supposedly she couldn't tell the difference between the noble children and those of the small folk when they were all naked together. This sentiment along with the prevalence of raising children among the Martells forms the core of their ruling policies.

I'd probably engage in more empathy if I didn't live directly below the frozen apocalypse and with the knowledge that all the houses that have ruled Westeros for thousands of years are going to be embroiled in a war of annihilation within my lifetime. The English would raise the Dragon Banner for the War of Five Kings for sure, the laws of chivalry be damned.

"You don't seem impressed by that story." Ellia pouted and I shrugged in return.

"Surprised by it mostly." I responded, "Valyrians are a unique looking people. I'm surprised she thought any of us were a breed apart from the others to begin with. I thought the Targs always married within the family because they found the idea of sleeping with the rest of us absolutely revolting."

You know she thought that was funny because she snorted. Glad to see my sense of humor lands even this far from home.

"Borderline treasonous!" the princess squealed as she laughed.

"It's only treason if you provide three humorous takes in a row." I rebutted then grinned, "Otherwise the execution is just bad taste."

"And when are executions in good taste." she inquired after regaining her composure minus the wide smile.

"It a matter of... TIMING!" I raised my hands with the punchline and set her off again.

Good times.

The pair of us spent the remainder of my stay together, and when I returned we met up once more and were once more inseparable till my need to return home for the coming action in the New Year.

With my work finished and the road to the Shadow Tower complete, we were set to begin a new era of great raids, finally ready to invade the Haunted Forest and get our hands on those rich woods. By this time I had enough lumber curing to build hundreds of ships and all the castles we planned for, even with my regular trading down south. Personally I doubt that we will finish with even a quarter of the area before we have to pull out due to undead activity. The place is twice the size of the Wolfswood and even more dense, the densest forest in all of Westeros.

And absolutely chock full of animals over qualified to take a man of the census.

The Starks could contend with the other wealthy great houses handily if they willingly exploited the resources of this region, a region held by hostile forces, but they were content with mediocrity. I am not content. I want more and am willing to put in the blood, sweat, and tears to make it happen. My sweat, other people's blood and tears.

Unfortunately my drive to succeed ran counter to the desires of the Night's Watch, who wanted me to chill with the genocide as they have many wildling collaborators and there is more commerce between the Wildlings and the Watch than an outsider would expect. While they were happy to be rid of the men of the Frozen Shore, my strat of go in, cut everything down, and burn what I can't eat or take south for profit will completely cramp everyone's style and the castle's commander, Denys Mallister, was willing to cut my access to the Land's Beyond the Wall and petition Lord Stark to command me to cease should I insist.

I respected the man's balls.

The ultimate compromise we came with was that I would take the Shadow Tower's Rangers with me and their leader Qhorin would advise me on the coming expedition. By hard selling my bloodthirsty barbarism I managed to secure a hundred experienced local guides. A truly masterful stroke. My noble companions and I decided to donate a small cut of our proceeds to help restore the decrepit castle and see the men there outfitted in proper equipment for a monastic military order.

The biggest change of 277 came in the form of a letter I received in between my visits to Dorne. Rickard Stark extended an offer of fostering for my son, Ulfric. All of my contemporaries would wonder which lucky star shined on them that the Stark wanted to create such a lasting bond with their heir, but I wanted to reject the offer outright. Only good sense stayed my hand.

While I didn't want Ulfric infected with the kind of stupidity displayed by Brandon and Lyanna Stark, I also didn't care about the boy enough to piss off the man whom my current authority derives from. Risk my heir being a disappointment, or risk the wrath of my overlord? I obviously accepted and would take the boy to Winterfell in 278 after my great raid, but maintained the caveat that the boy had to return in 280 to marry his Wull bride.

I doubt Stark expected that he would only have two years to influence the thinking of my heir, but I had agreements in place for all my sons from Alysa to marry brides from my neighbors and trade partners after they turned fourteen. My sons from other sources would marry the daughters of my best warriors, also at age fourteen. I took over Bear Island at fourteen, leading thousands of people. If my boys can't handle leading a household by then, what hope is there? Sure, most Lords hold onto their sons a little longer, but our family magic is in our testicles, and if we aren't using it are we even really wizards?

For what is a wizard without his magic testicles?

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The 20th through the 25th is my busiest time of the month. Billing all my customers, jumping through all their specific hoops, it's exhausting. Especially since my current highest value customer changes the billing procedures every month. You'd think that an interstate contractor with connections to a multi billion dollar corporation would have all this stuff carved in stone, but no. There's a new asinine and nonsensical step for me to figure out nearly every month.

That's my rant for the day.

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