Kapitel 181: Arthur 58 294 AC
The first of my New Years' parties, while a fairly small affair compared to what I expected in the future, was nonetheless successful. Even after the fireworks show had ended I was still sitting around on the balcony with my Father, Uncle, and future mother in law, probably past midnight itself, though I didn't have a proper clock to tell. Something that would probably become a problem for my shipping as time went on.
Anyhow, we all ate and drank and had a pretty good time I thought. I had a tiny bit of the Arbor Red, and while I didn't particularly like it I think I got an idea of why it was so revered. It was one of the few alcoholic drinks I had ever sipped that didn't actively taste bad.
Surprisingly, Lady Mellario was the heaviest drinker besides my uncle, and I honestly wasn't sure how she held it so well, given the fact that she was less than half his size. Maybe Norvos had a drinking culture I wasn't aware of. I'd have to ask once she actually woke up.
I didn't particularly want to sleep, given the scale of the duties I was neglecting just hosting my family. Since I didn't really need the sleep anyway, and the underwater dreams hadn't been coming to me as readily recently, I decided to spend the time working on the reorganization of the ships my father had just dumped into my lap, not quite doubling my fleets strength overnight, but easily doubling it's size with all of the cutters and galleons he had conscripted. Now I was faced with the fact that not only had my navy undergone a significant reorganization under my own policies before the invasion of the Stepstones, but my father had also reorganized the royal fleet to a degree entirely separate from my own model.
In short, I was having to scrap nearly the whole command structure, and figure out a way to politely reassign an awful lot of extraneous officers to positions that didn't exist yet because I had too many boats. Not to mention that the royal fleet was nowhere near as thoroughly screened as my own forces by nature, and was most likely full of spies who would bring back copies of my weapons to their masters if I let them get away with it.
Of course, stopping them would be basically impossible, because my Father's navy hadn't kept a strict inventory on ammunition.
I couldn't blame him, not really, he was working on a medieval mindset, and managing a fleet of three-hundred ships without a staff officer corps. Honestly, it was a miracle that he could get ships moving. But he measured ammunition in barrels, not shots, and as a result, there was little to no way for me to keep tabs on it all.
Whatever, if Tywin Lannister wanted to steal my weapons, then let him, he might be able to get his iron cannons working by the time I ended up leveling Casterly Rock.
I was disturbed from my writing by a knock on the door around sunrise, the first light of day peaking into my room over the stacks of half-melted candles. I hadn't yet gotten electric lighting into the building. Too much wiring.
"Come in," I said, putting my pen away. Though I raised an eyebrow in surprise as my father entered, sure he had stayed soberer than the others last night, but he had still gone to bed quite late and lacked the ability to juice himself with lightning.
"Arthur." He said, stepping through the door. "I'm here to deliver your punishment."
"Oh, what is-?" I felt before I saw as his fist hit my Jaw, knocking me back in my chair a bit. Fortunately it had wheels, but still. It was a solid punch, and entirely unexpected. Whenever I recovered from being briefly dazed I found my father in front of me pulling his gloves on.
His eyes had a hint of something I didn't quite recognize as he pronounced his judgment. " As you are quite aware, good acts don't wash away the bad or the opposite. A boy lying to his father warrants a solid hit on the head, as I've heard it. That will be all of it then." He nodded once, before walking out of the room, leaving me rubbing at my rapidly purpling jaw in confusion before I realized what he'd done.
'Oh… fucking hells dad.' I grunted, turning back to my scattered papers. I appreciated the lack of actual punishment, but still, he could have at least let me know it was coming.
Then again, it was probably all about rectifying such a light punishment with his own worldview. He was probably feeling awful guilty about me agreeing to disinherit myself.
As much as I enjoyed being all macho myself, it was a pain when my father and uncle did it.
Pulling out a mirror I snorted, yeah, that had been a good punch, and left a pretty recognizable mark if my eyes didn't deceive me.
'I think maybe I'll skip breakfast today, give it a bit of time to settle down.' I rubbed at the bruised flesh. 'Wonder if I have any high-collars around?'
Still, if it had to be a choice between enormous geopolitical consequences for my future empire and getting socked in the jaw for being a rebellious brat, I think I knew which one I'd pick, most days at least.
I winced, catching the light of the sun. Even with a high collar, this thing was probably going to be visible for a week.
'I wonder if Maena knows anyone in town who sells Ointment…'
Wöchentlicher Energiestatus
-- Power-
Rangliste 
-- Power-
Stein