Jojen Reed One Shots

The Witch Of GreyWater Watch

I don't remember the time when a relationship between the Reeds of GreyWater watch and my Family. My family for as far back as the reeds ruled the watch we had lived in the chambers below, it was dirty, it was muddy, and damp always as the swamps from outside often forced their way in but it was an agreement from a time long before I was born that our family lived there and worked for the reeds. 

I remember my mother doing many things for them, she cleaned, she cooked and the one I remember the most was that she cared for the lady when she was pregnant with her second child. Her first child, a young girl named Meera, was a few months older than me and we grew up almost like sisters. She taught me her ways of fighting and hunting, and I in turn taught her reading and spells. 

I remember sitting beside meera as we both sat in our little dresses as the lady laid in bed heavily pregnant with my mother taking care of her.

But I also remember another time, that was all together less of a happy time.

I remember the darkness had crawled across the marsh of GreyWater, the people of the keep seemed on edge, The dark clouded sky hung over the watch with a calm looming presence. The tall towers and hallowed halls of GreyWater echoed with the one sound any human can't ignore, Crying.

But worse so the crying of a child. 

I followed close behind my mother as we came up from the protection of our rooms below the house hurrying thought with her books and bottles we past the room where meera sat alone on her bed haunted by those sounds she didn't want to see him she hated the idea of seeing him this way and wanted nothing to do with it. We hurried along passing the lord and lady's bedchamber where the lady passed with silent tears she knew the likely fate he had she knew there was nothing she could do and yet still blamed herself for it anyway, 

Lastly I saw the lord himself standing outside the door arguing with his men, he never cried he only grew more angry with delays and with the lack of answers.

"Thank the gods, took you long enough" he said to my mother

"I'm sorry my Lord I shall begin immediately" she says pulling me inside the room with her.

The room was much like the lord and ladies if a little smaller not too dissimilar from meeras just differently laid out, a thick wooden bed sat on a raised platform, the balcony open the dark green curtains fluttering in the chilling breeze the lord followed us and sat on a chair by the bed, the room was filled with wooden toys, books and such all of them gifts from houses sworn to house reed and from people in the keep, and there in the bed laid a boy the second born of house reed the lord only son, the heir to GreyWater and to the head of house reed, he was so small a little younger than me and Meera, thought we never saw him much as he was wisped away almost as soon as he was born, for lessons and training being a boy much more was expected of him when there was off Meera and even at his younger age he wasn't allowed to play with me and Meera, but even so he was tiny his body frail and skinny almost every bone clear though his skin, his skin had a red hue to it in his sickness and he cries out in pain A fever or so the lord said. But I knew it wasn't something that was truly wrong with him, something dark and evil was trying to take hold of him. 

"Please… he's my son" the lord pleaded my mother nodded and began to work I helped where I could mostly passing bottles, books and herbs as she worked but all of it only made the poor boy worse and cry out louder, he was dying… and there was little anyone could do, even my mother. "Please there has to be something else, anything" 

"There is something, I can't promise it will work and I can't promise he'll be the same after if it does" she warned "and it's not easy, the cost is high"

The lord looked at his crying son his body almost lifeless as he only moved in painful torcheres movements

"Whatever the cost, if there's a chance then… do it" he says 

"Very well, but if it does I ask for one thing"

"What?"

"I ask that my family is protected"

"Your family as been protected since the reeds took up the neck" 

"Well the price is an assurance of our continued protection and for a future for my daughter" 

I tried not to listen it was all grown up stuff paying attention to that poor boy, I moved closer to him and for a moment his crying stopped I would even dare to say he looked at me 

"You can't be serious?"

"My family as protected yours for generations-"

"And we protect you, supply you with homes, and defense from those who hunt you"

"And we in turn risk ourselves and our magic for you, I ask not out of jealousy, or for position, or even for gold, I ask only for a future of my daughter, for the concrete proof of our survival onward" 

"... I will allow it only and if only it succeeds" he warned 

"Yes my Lord" she nodded "y/n!" 

"Yes mother" I nodded 

"Say your prayer darling" she told me 

"You cannot be intrusting the survival of my son on your child?"

"I am, my daughter holds a magic that is closer to the eldest gods then anyone else, I trust her magic in this matter" she answered "go on darling" she says I was nervous looking to the lord who didn't seem happy 

"Go on y/n, try" he says so I nodded getting a couple of books so I could stand on them being able to reach the boy in his bed I rested my hand on his head he was burning like a roaring fire on an iced cold night, my other hand took his rubbing my fingers across his hand I could see his eyes flicker a little more open looking at me with those chocolate coloured orbs, I smiled at him before I began my prayer, it was one my grandmother had taught only me a prayer that can go on forever a call to the old gods for help and for hope, I must have been around the prayer ten times before my mother grew nervous and the lord even more so.

As I spoke I could hear the fluttering off the curtains get worse and worse faster as if the wind grew stronger and all of a sudden the quiet of the room with only my small voice and the cries of this boy was broken by the harsh loud screech of a raven.

It fluttered in the open doors of the balcony thought the dark green curtains and flash of black in this green and wooden room the raven perched on his bed frame stopping to look I continued on Saying my prayer as quickly and as quietly as I could as the raven sat there looking at him I glanced to the raven seeing it's three eyes watching me as I continued, The raven screeched and flew out the doors again.

"...y/n?" A voice asks I stopped and saw he looked better, his hand holding my own back his other hand moved to my face resting on my cheek 

"Hello Jojen" I smiled 

"Hello…" he smiled to me 

"Then we are agreed?" My mother asked 

"You did as you promised, then I can agree to it." The lord nodded "as of this day, y/n y/l/n is Jojen of house reeds betrothal, the assurity of your family to be protected as it join's with the house of reed"