"Do you think he got us lost?" Nymeria asked her sister in a whisper, as they gazed at the silhouette of their guide in front of them, located between two trees with a torch stuck in the ground beside him, standing there as if he was trying to see through the veil of night's darkness.
"Perhaps," Sarella answered with an uncertain expression, "But he seemed so sure of the path when he was leading us before, so... I don't know,"
"Maybe he was just posing," Nymeria supplied with a snort, "Trying to act like he knew what he was doing, but in fact was just randomly guessing,"
It has been an hour since the four began their journey into the forest, and at the beginning, their night trek had gone surprisingly smoothly.
With the faint light of the moon as well as the glow from the small torch they were carrying, their group of four had been making good time, especially since Jon seemed to have a knack of choosing the most flat of forest paths for their route, leaving very few roots, knots, and big rocks that they had to be careful not to stumble on.
But then, just when they were getting into the groove of traversing through the dense forest at night, Jon had suddenly come to a stop, and after a short comment about needing a few minutes of silence, he just stood like a rock staring into the empty darkness.
"Father doesn't seem to mind," Sarella murmured, jerking her towards Oberyn, who was standing there quitely with his back against a tree and his eyes closed, resting and conserving his energy for the trek ahead, "Besides, it's only been five minutes, so maybe give him some benifit of doubt... he has not lead us astray yet, has he?"
"I would give him the benefit, if he was actually doing something, like tracking or scanning the ground for some clues, but instead he is just standing there like an—"
"An Idiot?" an amused voice interrupted her rant, and both of them looked up to see Jon looking at them with a raised eyebrow, "Is that what you were about to say?"
"No... That's not what I was about to say at all," Nymeria denied with a completely straight face.
"Then what?"
"I—Why does it matter?" she retorted with a defensive snort, "Are you done doing whatever you were doing, or does your highness need some more time to rest? Because, if I remember correctly, then were you not the one who told us that we were on a 'schedule', and that we need to hurry up."
"I wasn't actually resting, you know," Jon replied with a small smile, "I was, um, just checking to make sure that we not on the path through the local tiger's territory... but if you don't mind running into a few of them, then I won't do it the next time," he said with a shrug as he casually made up a good excuse.
In truth, Jon was in fact focusing his mind on his wargs in Pentos, and while normally he could have done this without having to stop and concentrate, this time it was different.
Because it was not just about attacking indiscriminately there in Pentos today, but rather, he had to make sure that Frost stops her skill at an appropriate point, and that her cry doesn't reach the innocent bystanders in the crowd, while making sure that the guards are completely incapacitated.
It was just too much work for Frost, who would probably get frustrated with the complicated instructions and could just end up killing the lot of them in anger.
So when things abruptly got tough on the other side, Jon had to stop in the middle of their journey to take control...
"There are tigers around us?!" Sarella exclaimed in a somewhat high-pitched voice as her eyes widened in alarm, "Where?"
"About a league or two in that direction," he said, pointing towards the dark forest to the right, "So if you want to meet some, I could take you there to see them, that is, unless you're scared..." he added teasingly.
"Hmph! Who said we are scared? If you dare—"
"And how did you determine which area is the tiger's territory?" Sarella interrupted before her stupid sister, before she could say something idiotic and get her into trouble once again.
"That, my friend, shall remain a secret," Jon said with a mischievous wink. "Now, if you are done with all the questions, then shall we get back on the road? Because we do have a lot of ground to cover,"
"Good, let's move." Oberyn nodded as he opened his serene eyes and then immediately began to walk right behind Jon. He had paid no attention to the previous conversation between his daughters and Jon, as his mind at the moment was focused on one thing and one thing only.
"As if he wasn't the reason we stopped in the first place," Nymeria murmured as she followed after the others with a pout.
Their path from there onwards was continuous and completely unhindered.
They passed by flowing rivers, climbed through rocky mountain paths, jumped over broken trees and even ducked under a waterfall. And along the way, all kinds of eerie, strange noises entered their ears.
From the soothing creaking of critters to startled cries of monkeys who were alarmed to see two-legged strangers walking under their home in the middle of the night.
At one point, they even heard loud, scary howls from more than a dozen wolves that did not seem too far away from them, considering the number of leftover gnawed bones they passed by in that area. Thankfully, though, they were upwind from the pack, so they passed through the area harmlessly.
Sometimes, around midnight, they stopped for a quick snack, but other than that, they were constantly on the road, just walking, and walking...
All the way until faint sunlight started peeking out on the horizon, and that was when Jon finally decided to take mercy on them and stopped their hike to make camp.
"Ugh, finally, my feet are killing me," Nymeria grunted as she unhesitatingly plopped on the forest ground with her sister Sarella following soon after her, just with a little more dignity.
It went against every instinct of the human body for one to suddenly go a whole night, not only awake but also constantly exerting themselves by being on the move, especially for someone with a relatively normal sleep schedule.
The girls had suffered too much through the last half of their trek, and one could even say that they were half asleep, just stumbling along putting one foot in front of another by the end.
So at the moment, they were already on their last leg, and in fact, if it wasn't for their pride and ego, they would have given up a long time ago.
But their innate stubbornness would not let them admit defeat before the other two, so they held on, and now that they finally got the chance to rest, their stressed muscles immediately relaxed, and they completely let go, and lay there on the ground covered with leaves, uncaring of dirtying their clothes.
But unlike the girls, Jon and Oberyn were actually not too tired because of the night trek, as one was already used to spending whole nights warging and collecting information, while the other had experienced way too many sleepless nights in his long, dangerous life to let this bother him.
Which was why, after putting their luggage on the ground, both men immediately went to work.
Jon took out a small saw from his luggage and immediately went inside the forest to find long, thin dead trees to cut into logs to build a shelter in their camp, while Oberyn silently began collecting firewood and kindling.
In under half an hour, Jon used his years of experience and managed to create a big makeshift shelter with a cliff as one of the walls.
He used a thick log to create a base for the roof and gathered many long, dense branches to place on either side of that log to create shade.
It was a crude shelter, but it was big enough for four of them to simultaneously lie down inside without feeling cramped.
And not only could it keep them safe from wind, rain, and sunlight, but Jon also had a wide, airy mosquito cloth inside his bag that he could cover the entrance with, so that they could have a good, long rest before they began the final leg of their journey.
"Ah, this is just perfect," Nymeria sighed with a smile of satisfaction as she jumped inside the cool shelter with no hesitation. "Good work, Jon," she praised as the girl shamelessly used his hard work.
"Thank you, Jon," Sarella mumbled with a small nod as she joined her sister inside and immediately stretched her legs to take a short nap. Out of the four of them, she was, in fact, the most tired, as unlike her sister and her father, long-enduring physical activities were not her strongest suit.
Jon wryly shook his head at the carefree sisters and went towards the fire that Oberyn had skillfully prepared a few meters away.
Opening the luggage filled with rations that Dacey had prepared for them, Jon began taking out one thing after another, from little earthen jars to small and medium-sized cloth bags filled with all kinds of ingredients.
When he finally finished laying these items beside him, it created a small kitchen right there in the middle of the forest.
Taking a small metal can out of his stuff, Jon cleaned it with a cloth and emptied all the water remaining in his pouch inside it, and then hung it on a stick over the fire to boil.
"Can you bring us some water from the river? We are completely out." Jon said while handing all four of their empty pouches to Oberyn.
"Sure." Oberyn nodded his head as he stood up from the log he was sitting on, "Which direction is the water source in?"
"There should be a clear stream about fifteen minutes in that direction," Jon replied while pointing towards a mountain opposite to the direction they had arrived from.
Oberyn carefully took note of the direction Jon was pointing towards, decided on an optimal path and immediately took off from the camp, bringing along just his dagger and his spear with him.
When the water in the pot had started to boil, Jon opened an earthen jar and poured almost one-third of its contents into the can, making the new mixture thick, tasty and red.
"What was that you put in?" Nymeria asked curiously as she sat up at the sudden appetising smell coming from the simmering soup in the can on the fire.
"A specially prepared sauce," Jon answered with a shrug, "It is made of tomatoes, chillies, onion, garlic and a few other spices. It is my very own secret recipe that I never forget to bring along when I am on the road," he said with pride in his voice.
"Ooh," Nymeria let out in a somewhat impressed tone, as to someone like her, who was a complete illiterate when it came to cooking, anything more than roasting meat on fire was a magical skill.
Next thing, Jon did was take out two potatoes, three carrots, and one onion from a thin cloth bag, placed them on a wooden board, and began cutting them into small pieces. When he had cut enough pieces, he gathered them all and dumped them inside the stew in the can before covering it back with a lid.
"Watch the stew, will you?" Jon said to the sisters as he stood up and picked up his bow and his quiver, "I will go get us some meat."
"Now?" Sarella asked in a doubtful tone, "But wouldn't that take too long? This stew will probably be burnt by the time you find tracks of a suitable game."
"Don't worry, I'll be back before you even finish counting to a thousand," Jon replied with a confident smirk, before he turned around and dashed into the forest, not giving them a chance to come up with a response.
"I be back before you finish counting." Nymeria mimed in a childish voice as she made a face at Jon's back, "Will it hurt this brat to not boast every single time?" The girl grumbled with a fed-up expression, making Sarella giggle as she knew that it wasn't the boasts that got to her sister but his uncanny ability to somehow always follow through with these boasts.
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