A trip to the Neck • TAG Nita

(( What a lame title... ))

Garrett had woke up early that day, he and his family were still guest of the Reed's and he was still engaged to Nita. Not that he didn't like her, but it was mostly the idea to be forced to marry her that made him sick. But how could he refuse his parents will? It was his duty as the next Lord of Bear Island after all.
So here he was: on the Neck with his future wife. At least those little trips would have helped to keep his mind busy and to know Nita better.

Garrett got off his horse and admired the scenery, not a waste of time after all.
He turned to see if Nita needed any help with her horse, even if he was pretty sure that she was able to handle it. She was a strong girl even if she seemed little and fragile.

She had barely slept the night. She was thinking of how she should tell Garret about her ability's. Nita thought that it was fair to let him know. She had woken up early and dressed herself with pants, tunic and braided her hair. She smiled when she that Garret admired the surroundings. He really seemed to like it.

He turned around to her and she got off her horse. She held the reins as she walked to Garret. Her horse started to push it's head at her back, it could smell the apples she had in her bag. She giggled. "All right. All right," she said. "Just give me a moment." She found a little knife and cut one apple in two. She gave the horse the half one and offered the other one to Garrets horse.

"Did you know that the Children of the forest used to live here around The Neck?" she asked suddenly.

(The title is fine. Don't worry ^^)

Garrett smiled to himself as Nita reached him with her horse, he knew that she didn't need any help from him. He kept the horse still when Nita gave it the apple. After all it was a break also for the horses.

Actually... no. he chuckled as Nita spoke, history wasn't his strong subject "What can you tell me about the Neck?" he smiled sightly caressing his horse's head and watching Nita. Maybe in that way time would have passed faster.

Nita giggled when Garrets horse took the apple. It's mule tickled her hand.

"It's said that the swamps at the Neck were caused by the Children of the forest or the Greenseers. During the Andal Invasion, the children prayed to the gods to send down the Hammer of the waters. But it didn't work. The result was that it flooded the land, creating bogs and swamps in the Neck." She let go of the reins and watched her horse eat the grass. She knew that it wouldn't go near the swamps. "So now it contains huge flowers, lizard-lions and many snakes. The trees are half-drowned and covered in fungus, and beneath the water, quicksand. Therefore we never use armours, because the weight only will make people sink."

Garrett let his horse go, following Nita's example, and turned his fully attention to Nita.
"Woh..." he titled his head and smiled sightly at her "You know a lot of things! I don't know so many things about Bear Island.." he laughed sightly, he should spend more time listening to his preceptors than just training or go around with Cedric.

Nita blushed by Garrets compliment and smiled. She found a little stick and knelt down on the ground and started to draw a map of the Neck. "The quicksand is far to north-west here, a dangerous place there, so it's not a good place to take the horses." She made a little mark of where they were. "The crannogmen's village isn't far from us. If we pass there, we'll arrive at the smaller swamps." She looked at the horses from time to time to see if they were okay.


(I'm just making up things with the locations of the swamps now, since I don't know so much.   )

((It's good! Neither I know much >.< ))

Garrett walked closer to Nita to see better the map. He was curious to know something more after all.
He knelt near her and doing so he accidentally bumped in her arm; making her draw an unnecessary line.
"Sorry!" he immediately woke up, feeling like an idiot. He usually was never so clumsy, but around her it was totally different!

Nita's heart pounded faster when Garret knelt near her. And to be honest, she liked to have him near her. As he knelt down, he accidentally bumped her arm and made her draw the unnecessary line on the map. "Don't worry. No harm done," she said when Garret apologized. She looked again at the horses when they whinnied. It almost looked like they were laughing at them. She looked back at Garret and cleared her throat. "There's something I want to tell you," she started. "Like the Children of the Forest, some of the crannogmen actually have been gifted with the greensight. Others with skinchanging." She took a deep breath. "Remember back at the coronation? When I interfered you and Cedric? How could I know that the queen was beautiful when I hadn't seen her yet?" I feel like an idiot! "I... actually have been gifted with the greensight. When Daenerys Targaryen passed away, I had a vision that Marina Targaryen was to be crowned as the new queen." She felt that she talked nonsense and just wanted to sink through the ground.

Garrett was standing in front of her, still feeling like an idiot; but it seemed that Nita didn't take it wrong. He couldn't help but turned at the horses too, it seemed that they were observing and judging the whole scene. Stupid horses...

He moved his look to Nita again, sightly confused when she started to talk again; her tone seemed more serious now. As she spoke there were a lot of times where he wanted to interrupt her and make his questions, but forced himself to stay silent. It seemed that she really wanted to tell him everything and that she was keeping it inside for too much time.
"Oh..." Really? The only thing that he could say when Nita finished was 'oh'?! He couldn't help but observe her, he had heard stories about Skinchanger - apparently his grandmother was one of them - and the greensight, but he had never meet someone who had that gift.
"Is it true?" he titled his head, this time really feeling stupid for his question, but he just couldn't believe it.

She was scared. Now she had told him about it. She nodded at Garret's question. "When I was a child, I discovered that I had been gifted with the greensight. My uncle, Jojen Reed, also possessed that gift." She looked at him for a moment. "But he died long before I was born. If he had been alive, he could have taught me more about it." She walked toward the horses and patted their necks. "Years later, I learned that I also am a skinchanger." What if he became angry at her? Maybe he would think that she was a freak. She looked back at Garret again. "I... I thought that you deserved to know about it. I've always been told by mother to be careful about telling it." From time to time she looked down at the ground and looked at Garret again. "I'm sorry. I'm just talking all the time." She wished that she had prepared it better.

Garrett bit his lips, what could he do now? What could he say? He moved his look to Nita, who was observing him, waiting for something.

"You don't have to apologize..." he waved his hand at her "It's just that..." he sighed, at the moment he really didn't know what to say, but he HAD to say something. She had just opened to him, telling one of her deepest secret and he wasn't saying a word.

"Thank you for your sincerity." he said, smiling heartfelt at her "I don't know if I would have been so brave."

It felt like someone had lifted a heavy stone from her shoulders as she sighed in relief. He didn't get angry and ran away from her. She looked at him when he said that he didn't know if he would have been so brave. She didn't feel brave at all when she told him her secret. But she was glad that he wasn't angry. "Thank you for not getting angry," she said after a little while. She looked toward the swamps. "Shall we continue?" she asked looking at Garret.

"Why should I getting angry?" Garrett couldn't help but smiled, surprised, a bit shocked, but angry?! There was no reason to be angry for her gifts and especially for her sincerity.
"In our family we think to have bear blood..." he smiled at her scratching his head, it was a weird story, but maybe it would help them "Grandma Alysane had always claimed that her children were fathered by a bear and that Mormont women were skinchangers." he smiled at her, biting his lip. He didn't know if that was exactly necessary in the conversation, maybe he had just said a lot of nonsense.
He turned to the swamps too and nodded, some walk would help.

"Well, we have always been looked down by other people in Westeros. So I'm afraid that people will think I'm a freak!" Nita said. It felt good to talk about it. She listened with interest when Garret told about the bear blood and the skinchanging among the women. "Wow," she said. "That's amazing."

Garrett tilted his head scratching it a bit "Obviously I don't know if it's true or our grandmother was just crazy..." he chuckled as he started to walk towards the swamps, it would help to reduce the tension.

"What exactly can you see with the greensight?" he asked after a while, turning towards Nita.

"The things that will happen in the future," Nita replied to Garret's question. She walked beside him and tried to find words of how to describe it better. "It's almost like dreaming," she said after a while. "Only that it's more different. It's filled with symbolic meaning, images, and metaphors of what is to come." She stepped up on a tree trunk, they were almost close at the swamps now. She looked back at Garret to see if he needed help. "But when I first learned that I had the greensight, I only had harmless visions."

Garrett kept walking and listened carefully at Nita, he honestly had heard only stories and rumors about her power, nothing more. Listening the story from her point of view would have been useful and also instructive, like the walk at the swamps.

"And is it safe?" he asked following Nita on the tree trunk, another possible stupid question. But if Nita could see things in her 'dreams' maybe she was able also to interact with them.
"I mean... they're just 'dreams', aren't they?" he smiled sightly tilting his head.

"The visions aren't supposed to hurt people," Nita replied and jumped toward another tree trunk. She turned back and walked backwards carefully. "But these 'dreams' is also like... how to describe it... like you also get a warning if something bad is to happen." She did her best to describe how it was like. "Sometimes, one can also see the past and the present. Not just the future." Nita looked back, they were almost near the remaining weirwood trees. She had once heard stories that the Children of the Forest lived here. When she looked back at Garrett again, her sight started to get blurry and her eyes turned green as she got a vison.

Garrett nodded as she spoke, walking carefully on another tree trunk. It wasn't difficult to imagine how the greensight could work, but some times his imagination could really run wild and probably just detach too much from reality: for what he knew, during her vision she could have started to glow like a torch and to speak like a spirit. Garrett smiled to himself as he kept image how she could be in her 'vision' state.

"How can you tell the difference?" Garrett moved his look towards the path and then he turned to her smiling sightly, but his smile disappeared as soon as he realized that something was wrong with her. "Nita? What's wrong?" he took a step closer to her, stretching his hand to almost touch her arm.

It was so blurry, like seeing through a thick fog. She barely saw the weirwoods around and the flowers around. It seemed so familiar and at the same time not. She could hear someone laughing and saw the figures running around, like they were playing.

Slowly her conscious were returning and she saw Garrett's face who looked worried. "Sorry," she said embarrassed. "It was a vision. Hope I didn't frighten you." Her cheeks started to blush. By the gods. Why did it have to happen in front of Garrett? She just wanted to bang her head into a tree now.

Garret kept his gaze on Nita, something was wrong. Was she having a vision?! In that precise moment?! What could he do?! What should he do?! He didn't know, all Garrett could do in that moment was to wait. Wait till the end of the vision, even if it would have took hours.

He couldn't help but smile in relief as Nita seemed to be back to normal. He probably would never admit it, but the vision did scared him. Thinking about it, imagining about it was totally different than seeing it firsthand.
"No, no... I wasn't frighten..." Garrett smiled sightly helping her to stand "Are you alright now?" he asked making her sit down on the trunk.

As Garrett made her sit down on the trunk, she had to admit she felt a bit dizzy, but she was fine. "I'm fine," she said. "Just a bit confused, but I'm okay." It felt like she talked nonsense, but it was true. She really didn't understand what that vision was about. "But than you for your caring," she said as she looked at him smiling. She didn't want to destroy their trip because of the vison.

Garrett couldn't help but smile as Nita reassured him; not that the vision scared him, but it was still a new thing for him and he still had to get used to it.

"I have to care about you." he smiled giving Nita a hand to help her to stand. In fact as her future husband Garrett had to protect her, it was one of his duties, but he was starting to really care about her, not only for their arranged marriage.
"Do you want to go back? If you don't want to continue I understand..." he smiled sightly at her pointing in the direction they just arrived.

Nita shook her head. She didn't want to go back yet. She wanted to be here. With him. She didn't know what came over, but with a playful smile she grabbed his hand and dragged him deeper to the neck. There was one place she wanted to show. After a little while they were there. This place wasn't far from the water and a heart tree stood peacefully surrounded by beautiful flowers. This was the most peaceful place Nita loved. Especially at the night. Then the fireflies would lighten up and it looked like the stars were dancing over the water suffice. The way the sun lightened at the tree, it looked like that the tree was smiling and enjoyed the event. She looked at Garrett. "My father loved to spend time with mother and me here," she explained and sat down on the grass. She barely recalled a moment when she was little and her father lifted her up and played with her and singing 'The Bear and Maiden Fair'. "That's why I that song is my favourite. He always used to sing it for me!" Nita told when she told Garrett about her father.

Garrett wasn't sure that continue their trip was wise, but since Nita seemed so determined to continue he just let her drive him through the Neck till a very beautiful place. He couldn't deny that the place had amazed him: on Bear Island it was difficult to find such places. At least for what he knew.

"It's indeed a beautiful place." Garrett smiled at her after she spoke. He knew that Nita's father died time ago, but that their relationship was strong. Losing a family member was surely hard, even if he -luckily- never experience it.
"He must have been a great man." Garrett sat down near Nita on the grass.