"Why the hell are they not here yet?" Sarella complained with a pout on her face as she leaned against the handrail of the ship and searched the forest a few leagues away with her eyes, but found nothing.
At this moment, the girl and her father were standing on the deck of a mighty galleon that was being helmed by the man named The Advisor.
This fellow from Essos, who seemed to revere Jon, had been the one to pick them up outside the port, before he and his men led them through the port town towards the docked ship waiting for them.
And the process had been incredibly smooth all the way through, so much so that Oberyn and Sarella didn't even have to show their faces, and it was only when boarding the ship, and loading their prisoners, did they even got out of the carriage.
And now, after setting off in the morning and sailing for a while, they were back at the empty coast where the four of them had disembarked for their mission a few days ago, their ship bobbling up and down in the ocean at the same location where Dacey's had been, waiting for their other two members to appear.
But it had already been more than three hours since their agreed pick up time had passed, and the sun behind them was almost reaching down to the horizon, but there was still no sign of those prodigals yet...
"Maybe they got lost..." Oberyn said with a frown on his face, wondering if the two of them had encountered some kind of obstacle, like a troublesome beast or if one of them had gotten injured climbing up and down the mountains, slowing down their pace. Still, it was hard for him to imagine these kinds of mundane problems being able to stump Jon for long.
"As if," Sarella grumbled with a snort as the girl could easily guess the real reason those two scoundrels were so late, and what they had probably been up to the whole night.
After all, knowing her sister's appetite, she wouldn't let go of the fruit in her hand until she had squeezed it dry, 'Hmph! That slut!' she thought with a somewhat envious look on her face.
"Huh, what do you mean?" Oberyn asked with a confused look on his face.
"I-I mean, how could Jon get lost," The girl stammered with a hint of evasivenes in her eyes, after all, no matter how open the Dornish were, she did not think that her father would be too happy to know that his other daughter was out having wild forest sex all night yesterday, so she could only make things up, "Do you not remember how Jon led us through the forest during the night? That man could probably walk the way back with his eyes closed... so I think they were probably just tired, and decided to take it easy,"
"You think so?" he asked back with a pondering expression on his face.
"The girl is right, Prince Oberyn," Both of them suddenly heard a deep male voice from behind them and turned around to see the Advisor leaning against the door of his cabin, looking at them with a smile while waving a thin line of parchment in his hand, "Jon just sent word saying that they are going to be here in no more than an hour."
"Oh," Oberyn said as his eyes flickered towards the small colourful bird sitting on top of the Volantene man's cabin, and realised that this small critter, which he had seen around Jon a few times, must have been the deliverer of the letter, "So did he say why they are so late?"
"He said that they woke up a little late in the morning..." The Advisor replied with a shrug, "Probably just tired from your previous night's shenanigans," he said while jerking his head down towards the lower deck where the prisoners were being kept.
"Makes sense," Oberyn nodded with an understanding expression on his face. After all, even though all four of them were equally tired after the fight, Oberyn and Sarella had been able to travel all the way here on a carriage, so had adequate time to get rest, unlike the other two, who still had to use their exhausted legs to walk the rest of the way back.
"Speaking of which, how is your injury now?" The Advisor asked as he looked at the white cotton cloth wrapped around the Dornishman's chest, peeking through his vest.
"Much better now," Oberyn replied with a grin as he rotated his right arm, "Your ship healer was quite good at his job. His salve worked wonders on numbing the pain."
"The pain is gone, but the wound is still there, Father," Sarella berated as she forcefully pulled down her father's arm with a tick on her forehead, "So why don't you stop being an idiot, and stay put without worsening your injury?"
"Ow, ow, fine, fine." Oberyn groaned with a flinch, "I won't do it again, so can you let go, dear daughter?" he asked with a pained, helpless smile, as his daughter probably gave him more damage than his own recklessness ever did.
"Oh, sorry," Sarella apologised sheepishly as she immediately let go.
"Sigh, it looks like it's finally time for me to experience what those elders were talking about," Oberyn said while shaking his head, with his hands behind his back, as if he were an eighty-year-old elder who was dissapointed with the next generation, "To think I would live to see the day where I would be bullied by my own children in my old age,"
"Don't exaggerate, father," Sarella huffed with a roll of her eyes.
The Advisor smiled as he watched the father and child bickering in front of him, but the warm atmosphere on the deck was abruptly broken by an anxious shout.
"Father!" A young boy shouted as he came running towards the Advisor, "T-The man! The Big One!" he said to the Advisor while pointing his finger behind him, "His eyes are moving again!" he exclaimed while breathing heavily as if he had sprinted all the way up here from the hold.
"Calm down, boy," The Advisor gently chastised his son, "How many times have I told you not to get so panicked over every little thing?" he said while roughly rubbing his boy's head before turning toward the two Dornish, "You heard the boy. What do you want to do?" he asked turning towards Sarella, "Increase the dosage to let them go back to sleep?"
Since the two prisoners they brought were so controversial, and with their ship still roaming in the waters under Westserland's control, the Advisor decided to be careful and not let too many people know that there were two extra passengers on board.
So, other than the two Dornish, only the Advisor and his son knew about the additional passengers abroad, and since the boy was free labour, the Advisor decided to give him the important job of guarding the unresponsive prisoners and keeping a watch over them.
After all, he had checked them carefully beforehand and knew that those two were as helpless as a chicken in that strange contraption of Jon's, so he knew there was no danger involved.
And while it was indeed a little unsuitable for a young child to guard someone like those monsters, the boy had been a captive of pirates for years and had been exposed to far worse things, so in the end it wasn't actually too much of a burden.
"No need for that," Oberyn answered with a dark look on his face before Sarella could even open her mouth, "We are already out of the port now, so it doesn't matter if those two are awake or not. It was already too comfortable for them that they stayed asleep all the way until here, so from now on, it would be much better to keep them awake and let them suffer a little rather than going to the trouble of keeping them sedated."
Now that his enemies were finally in his hands, Oberyn could barely control himself from torturing them and avenging himself. He wanted those two to regret ever having thought that they could hurt his sister and her children and then get away with it.
He still had nightmares about the grim fate that his little niece and young nephew had suffered, as well as the torture that his sister had gone through before death.
Now he wanted nothing more than to return all that debt of agony back to those two beasts, along with all the interest that had been accumulated over the years.
Unfortunately, they were still out at sea, and both Jon and Sarella had warned him more than once that even a small injury can turn life-threatening out here at sea without proper treatment.
And Oberyn definitely could not accept them dying so easily on him after all the trouble he went through to capture them alive.
So for now, he could only hold back on his impulses and make their lives a little uncomfortable to soothe his soul.
After all, these animals had lived in too much luxury for far too long, so it was finally time for them to starve and experience what it felt like to live in a box.
"Fine then," Sarella replied with a shrug, "But I will only decrease the dosage, as I'll still need to administer a little to keep them weak, or else they could get rowdy and injure themselves, and then that would create the hassle of needing a healer."
"Fine," Oberyn said a little reluctantly.
"Enough about that," The Advisor declared with a wave of his hand, "The cook must have had the food ready by now, so come, let us go have our meal while we wait for Jon."
"Ah, perfect timing," Oberyn said with a smile on his face as he rubbed his stomach, "I was just about to faint from hunger."
"Yeah, right," Sarella rolled her eyes at her father's lame jest, but followed after him nonetheless as she was also quite hungry at the moment.
And as for the prisoners... well, that could wait, as Sarella was quite sure that it would still be a while before the drugs fully wore off.
Their dinner was fish, vegetable stew and fresh bread purchased the day before at the port, and there was enough that all of them ate till they were full.
And only a few minutes after they were finished with their meal, and came out to the deck to digest their food, they finally caught sight of two lost souls coming out of the forest and waving their hands at them to catch their attention.
"I'll take a boat to go pick them up," The Advisor said with a smile as he hurried towards his first mate to have him lower the prepared boat.
...