บท 17: Naath
Naath is west of the Basilisk Isles and northern Sothoryos. It is located east of the southernmost and most prominent of the Summer Isles, Jhala, and due south of the Valyrian peninsula. Naathi have a unique look to them with flat faces, dark skin, and golden eyes. They are called the Peaceful People due to their belief in extreme pacifism. They make music rather than war and kill nothing, not even animals, eating only fruit and never flesh. They are widely sought after by slavers who consider them to make the best slaves.
Sirius sits foot on the beautiful island filled with butterflies, silk farms, and peaceful people. He spent the first day on a faraway isolated shore that had relatively shallow water. He spent the day like he is on one of the beaches of his previous world. He went swimming, caught some fish with a wooden harpoon, grilled the fish with a flint fire, and cracked a couple of coconuts to drink the juice. He slept under the stars and had a dream about his past life. His peaceful sleep was interrupted by the sound of screams.
He moved to the sounds, and he found a small village being pillaged by men who appear to be slavers from the Basilisk Isles. These are islands west of Naath and have the most pirates' dens in the world. They are one of Sirius's targets as they threatened his trade routes in the Summer Sea and affected his trade and reputation in the nearby areas. He could see four armed men killing wantonly, with one of them killing a mother with three young boys and a teenage girl behind her. He was about to kill one of the boys when an arrow pierced his skull from the side.
The slavers looked towards the source of the arrow when another arrow rested in another man's heart, leaving the other two raising wooden shields and hiding beside a boulder. Sirius seeing that he managed to reduce their numbers by half, fastened his dragonbone recurve bow to his back and unsheathed his Damascus steel scimitar, and charged at the closest man. The man tried to cleave Sirius with his axe only to have Sirius dodge it to the side with inhuman speed and slash the man's side. He turned around and beheaded the pirate in one fluid motion. He clashes swords with the last man and quickly overpowers him breaking the rusty sword his enemy wielded and stabbed right through the man's heart.
He looked around at the dead bodies and checked the only ones alive, the teenage girl and her three brothers. That's when all hell broke loose. He looked at her round face, dusky skin, and eyes like molten gold. Although only ten, she looked very strong- willed and intelligent with her golden eyes shining like two bright orbs fixed on a girl's head. She looked completely terrified and only holding her anguish and grief for her mother's death because she fears Sirius will harm her or her brothers. It did not help that the man kept staring at her like he is bewitched, and that is exactly what happened to him.
He started seeing visions of his future with the girl. He saw them being in love, he saw her accompanying him in his conquests and he saw her giving herself to him on their first night. Sirius started literally falling in love with her maybe because of her being the first beautiful girl he meets up close since his phasing and starting to mature into a man, or maybe because he liked the girl in his previous life, yet the result is the same. He imprinted on Missandei of Naath. Although he hulked over the girl who barely stood at 5 ft, which while considered very tall for her age, looks like a man with his daughter, except for his young facial features.
The girl kept fidgeting under his gaze and was suddenly surprised by him taking her in his arms. Although such an action would have frightened her to see such a huge man hugging herself, she unknowingly felt a calming presence surrounding her till she feels at peace and starts wailing and crying her mother. Sirius keeps her in his arms and consoles her till she falls asleep, he looks at her bewildered brothers and calls the eldest "What is your name boy?"
"Mossador, m'lord" The boy replies fearfully.
"Mossador, go to the fort you will find soldiers with flags of black and a white wolf head drawn on it. Give this to their leader and repeat the word I tell you and bring them here" Sirius flicked him a golden coin with a weird looking key inscribed on it. He made him remember some words and made him leave.
Mossador finds the ancient yet small fort on Naath, he finds many soldiers rounding up the slavers who sneaked into the island but never did manage to leave it. He kept pestering these fully armored soldiers in scales like serpents and asked them to meet their leader no matter the price. He meets the leader after a while in his command tent, their leader was the 15th Mamluk Legion Commander Salador, a former slave from Tyrosh. He looks at the man seriously and presents him the coin while saying "Ankh".
Immediately after, Salador trembles as he scrutinized the coin, he bowed down to the dumbfounded Mossador and asked agitatedly "Please bring me to meet him"
Salador leaves in a company of his trusted men with Mossador riding clumsily with them. He finds his sacred prince sitting on a rock, covered in blood while hugging a young sleeping beautiful girl. Salador immediately dismounts and kneels on one knee, slapping his hand into his fist forcefully shouting "Soldiers of the 15th Mamluk Legion, with their Legion Commander Salador reporting to your highness."
Mossador and his brothers stared in awe as Sirius rose while releasing the awakening Missandei, "Salador, dispense the formalities, my presence in Naath should not be known, find me a parchment and a quill to write a letter to Memphis, our fleet should clean up those islands in due time. Also, take the three boys with you and give them some food and wait for me at the shore."
"Yes, your highness"
Sirius turned to look at the frightened yet curious girl who did not understand why an apparent 'prince' suddenly appeared to save her and let her cry herself to sleep in his arms.
He sighed and followed his feelings "Missandei, my name is Sirius Wolfborn Stark, Crown Prince of the Winter Kingdom." He pauses slightly to see her reacting to his words by nervously biting her lips, probably regretting sleeping in a prince's arms. Particularly, since the Winter Kingdom practically rules the island since its peaceful people are weak, the legions stationed on the island protect them from raids, in return, they have a complete monopoly over the silk produced by the Naathi people.
He continues "I was passing by the island on my way west and found you here so I saved you and your brothers, I can give them a better life where they will be the most affluent Naathi as they will manage the silk farms and production, but the price will be their loyalty and you following me for a fewyears." He cleared his throat nervously at his direct almost stupid courting words "I find myself bewitched by your beauty and I want to have you as my woman when we grow up, so my offer is that you follow me for a few years and travel the world, then by the time you reach the age of womanhood, you will have the choice to either be mine or come here again to live with your brothers"
Sirius also explained to her that he will not have her as his only wife, as he might imprint unknowingly on someone else, he won't have a choice then and will have to have any woman he imprints on. Fortunately, imprinting vaguely chooses women who will be a good fit to him or will love him, so he was not too worried about it. He waited for Missandei to answer as he understood how weird that offer would sound for a young girl like her.
Missandei was intrigued by the idea of traveling as her passion is to leave this island and travel to many places and learn their tongues and languages. She also feels a weird feeling of attraction towards this giant young man. His icy eyes charmed her even though her innocent mind does not comprehend love or attraction towards men yet. More importantly, she could potentially secure the life of her three brothers as she felt the lack of safety after her only parent left died in the raid.
Sirius would have liked to imprint on older women to match him mentally, yet it seems imprinting considers his physical age, not his mental one. He likes Missandei, though, or rather liked her character portrayal in his previous life, so he is optimistic about their future as she will grow into the beautiful young woman he saw in his visions matching his image of her from his previous life.
After a long silence, she raised her head shyly whispering "I will follow you."
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