Three brothers riding by the Gods Eye

An unfamiliar ceiling.

Titus woke in the room he had booked, with a slight headache from his hangover.

This was the inn where Robert and Eddard were staying.

Hanging around with young people had made him let loose a little, too.

They had talked late into the night yesterday, so Titus, Bowen, and Oswin had stayed here.

Oswin was quite amusing. After repeatedly coming off worse against Robert last night, he had genuinely begun to resent losing.

He kept saying baffling things like "I ate too much" and "I'm still not sober," making everyone roar with laughter and filling the room and the space outside with a cheerful air.

Titus pinched the bridge of his nose, slowly drawing his thoughts back from last night's memories.

He stood and walked to the window, looking at the white thorn trees outside. He thought that peach trees would have suited the occasion even better.

Having unexpectedly made Robert and Eddard's acquaintance, Titus planned to let Davos's ship go ahead while the three of them joined the Eyrie's pair of wards, traveling overland on horseback along the lake, north toward Harrenhal.

The seat of House Whent was currently the largest castle in the Riverlands, and indeed on the entire continent. It had been built by House Hoare's last "King of the Isles and the Rivers"-Harren "the Black."

It was said that, to commemorate his achievements, Harren had spent a full forty years building this majestic, immense black fortress, with thousands of captives from other kingdoms worked to death in the quarries or beneath its five towering towers.

Countless weirwoods in the Riverlands had been felled to supply the castle's rafters and beams... this had also left the lands south of the Neck almost entirely stripped of weirwoods.

Once it was finished, the black-hearted king had boasted that his castle was impregnable, and so it was.

He simply had not accounted for Aegon the Conqueror and his dragons.

Walls and towers could not stop dragons, no matter how high they were built.

In the end, Harren "the Black" and his family had been burned alive by dragonfire in the highest tower of his castle. That tower had later become known as Kingspyre Tower. The dragonfire's extreme heat had left its summit in a hideously charred, melted shape that remained to this day...

The five did not linger long in Whitegrove. They soon left the town and set off toward that battle-damaged version of Harrenhal.

Along the way, they drank and chatted or raced their horses, growing closer. Titus also followed Robert's example and began calling Eddard by his nickname, "Ned."

Titus felt that the unassuming Ned was not actually quite so easy to overlook.

During their races, he discovered that the young man from northern Winterfell was an excellent rider. He always managed to lead the way on his bay warhorse and could briefly keep pace with Titus's Black Pearl. The two often got together to exchange riding tips.

Robert, perhaps because of his size, could not be called an outstanding rider.

This delighted Eddard. His attempts to look composed often failed when he could not suppress the corners of his mouth, earning him Robert's mockery. Ignoring the jealous Robert, Eddard told Titus that he had learned all his riding skills from his elder brother, who rode even faster and more wildly.

It was hardly surprising that Eddard felt this way.

Although his achievements in every area of study at the Eyrie fell short of those of Robert, his fellow ward, taken on his own, he was still a promising young man with a tall frame and a rather cool-looking face, certainly nothing to be ashamed of.

It was just that, over the past two days, he had been going about with Robert and Titus. Walking beside eldest brother Robert and third brother Titus, second brother Eddard was neither as tall and imposing as the former nor as dashing and handsome as the latter. Inevitably, he ended up looking like a follower, lumped together with the rough-looking Bowen and Oswin.

Eddard merely felt envious, with no other thoughts about it. From corners where no one paid him any attention, he secretly observed how Robert chatted up girls and how Titus spun out tall tales to fool people. He felt he had learned quite a lot, and also discovered that the two actually bore a certain resemblance.

Both had black hair and blue eyes, looked alike, and were handsome. Walking together, they looked like actual brothers, except that the "eldest brother" was more ruggedly masculine, while the "third brother" was clearly younger.

Eddard told the pair about his great discovery, and Robert and Titus actually examined their family lineages in detail to see whether they could claim any kinship.

As it turned out, although the Baratheons, who liked marrying into the royal family, had also intermarried with nobles of the Dornish Marches, most had been from their own side in the Stormlands. There was no record of any marriage to House Peake of the Reach, so Eddard put it down to coincidence.

As they grew more familiar, Titus learned a great deal about the North from Eddard. People south of the Neck had always known little of what happened in that vast land populated mainly by First Men. They had neither channels of information nor any interest.

This situation had improved in recent years, as the North was actively reaching out to the south.

Eddard's father, Lord Rickard Stark, Lord of Winterfell, had not only sent him to the Eyrie as a ward to maintain the closeness between the North and the Vale, but had also strongly advocated closer ties between Winterfell and the great southern houses. He had successively arranged betrothals between Eddard's elder brother Brandon Stark and Catelyn Tully, Riverrun's eldest daughter, and between Eddard's younger sister Lyanna Stark and Robert Baratheon...

By that reckoning, Eddard was also Robert's future brother-in-law.

Titus marveled inwardly. The elder Stark was certainly capable, playing a very large game.

As expected of a man bold enough to propose to King Aerys, whose head was full of "wonderful ideas," a plan to "raise another Wall a hundred leagues north of the Wall, bringing the vast lands between the two Walls into the realm."

Unfortunately, the south seemed to be their family's natural bane. Wolves that went south seldom came to a good end.

The longer they stayed, the truer that became...

That day, Robert suggested that they go hunting.

As their main hunter, he went to considerable trouble only to bag a few wild rabbits, leaving Bowen and Oswin, both experienced outdoorsmen, to show their skill at preparing a roast.

The three brothers sat on a grass-carpeted slope, passing a silver flask around and around.

Young Eddard had a flowing mane of dark brown and black hair, quite the showy sight, though the wind had now tousled it. He tilted his head back and took a swig of berry wine, which trickled down his chin onto his leather vest, making Robert slap his knee and burst out laughing beside him.

Titus always liked wearing dark, tight-sleeved hunting clothes, and did not mind at all when bits of grass stuck to the expensive fabric. As he snatched the flask from Eddard, he deliberately shook it, splashing amber wine onto the ends of the laughing young man's hair. Robert hurriedly wiped it with his cuff, only to smear a faint wine stain across it.

Before the strapping young man could retaliate, Titus changed the subject. "I heard from the farmers here that there are wolves around these parts."

He unstrapped the longbow from his back and waved it, making the feathered arrows in the quiver behind him rustle softly.

Robert said dismissively, "Your archery is only good enough to show off among us. If there really were wolves, they'd be running so fast you couldn't aim properly."

As he spoke, he waggled his eyebrows at Eddard, whose House Stark bore a direwolf on its sigil.

Titus did not argue. His aim was actually very accurate, but his hand-eye coordination and shooting technique were indeed not yet fully trained. He had yet to reach the point where every arrow would hit a fast-moving animal.

Sure enough, after eating the bunnies, the three competed again that afternoon and all came back empty-handed.

It was all Robert's fault!

Toward evening, they sat beside a stream and lit a fire to roast meat, cutting the fragrant rabbit left over from noon with their daggers. They planned to finish eating on the soft meadow before pitching their tents.

One by one, the stars climbed into the night sky, quietly imprinting the breeze by the Gods Eye, the scent of wine, the delicious food, and the laughter and conversation into their memories, where they would mature into golden years worth savoring again and again...

The Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei of Westeros: