Chapter 2

The process of learning how to keep your Mind together was a very slow one, and only when you gained the Ability to walk shortly after your first Birthday were you sure, that you could continuously endure the passive strain of your Ability, without it affecting your Day-to-Day Life anymore. Yet, you are confident that you will have to master your Mind to an even greater extent to prepare for the future, but a few more Years of Training should suffice for that.

With the mental Stress handled the World actually seems brighter each Day, it's a bit disgruntling that from your Point of View a lot of nothing is affecting you to such an extent, and that it will do so for Years until you will have gained the Ability to fully ignore it. But you won't let that stop you, especially since Casterly Rock is indeed as awe-inspiring to behold as you first thought, and since you were now finally able to walk, exploring the greatest Fortress in the World as you were told, will surely become your favorite form of entertainment for the coming Months.

You soon decide that walking along the outer Wall would be the best way to go about the exploration of the Castle, for you already made yourself a halfway decent Plan of the Rock and its deeper Levels from within just a few Weeks ago. Adding your understanding of how to defend a Structure, and the at least thus far accurate feeling that you already know what would lie around any one Corner, the actual Art around your Home became more of a focus than you had first anticipated, leaving you now to find places where said Art could be found in abundance, and Quality.

Those places would obviously be the Towers of Casterly Rock, and from up here you will now simply have to find the Tower which looks the most promising to you. You did so for Days, and you even consider taking pity on your Guards for having to follow you at the current pace while you made your Rounds on the Wall each and every Day of the Week, if it weren't for the Fact that it only takes so long because they are here in the first place.

Despite being watched over every Hour of the Day, you advance your Search tirelessly until only five of the Castle's Towers were able to hold your Interest for any significant amount of time, and you give them a few more glances while you continue your lazy stroll on the Wall. You are enjoying the company of your Grandfather quite a lot, but visiting his Tower isn't all that appealing to you, simply because of the company he so happily keeps. With all the influence said company should have on the inside, you can be decently sure that compared to its majestic outside, that Tower of his would be a massive disappointment.

With the Tower of your Grandfather being out of the Question for the moment, you contemplate your number two on the List, and with the second most appealing Tower being that of your Father you at least know that this one wouldn't disappoint you. Seeing as your Father is extremely concerned with his public Image and all that pointless stuff the Tower should be filled with enough Masterpieces of Art to buy someone his own Keep, so finding enjoyment for a few Weeks would hardly be the problem, but your Father isn't here, and well, the Art in it could buy someone a Keep so, good luck getting in there.

Yeah, exploring that one will have to wait for the Day your Father returns Home, but on the other Hand that would also make for a better excuse as well, so that is fine. The third Tower was for equally obvious reasons on this little List of yours, the Workshop of the Masons would hardly contain any interesting Paintings or the like, but every Statue and every Stone-pattern had to come from somewhere, and you have the feeling that no one had any interest in hauling them all the way up here, or to pay for someone to do it.

But then there would be the inconvenience of actually having to come up with a decent reason to stick around as well. Daughters of Noble Houses aren't exactly known for their love of dusty Workshops, and what soon to be two Year old Girl would express interest in actual Art of all things. It really doesn't feel like it would be worth the effort just to see something you could surely find somewhere else in the Rock, and then without all the draining explanations, you try to unwind here after all.

Eventually you realise that you have been working yourself up on something that was supposed to help you rest your Mind for a bit, and simply decide on the fifth Tower to just get on with it. The thing that made you consider this one in the first place was that it was being dismantled, it would explain the interest of a Child quite easily, and while you would hardly find any Paintings to admire, Stone Statues and the like would certainly be stored nearby for further use, so your Decision was essentially one of little risk, and small reward.

With a Tower finally chosen, you enjoy the rest of the Day in this little Garden of Statues, but with a good number of them being bigger than you your Guards became quite stressed the moment it became apparent that this makeshift Garden of all places was what took your interest. In the end you decide to take pity on them, seeing as Statues cleaned of all Paint aren't really yours anyway, and just play a bit with one of the small ones a good few meters away from the towering Statues that can squish a grown Man without a problem, though you can't help but wonder just why that little White Lion of yours is feeling fluffy.