The rain began without warning.
It wasn't a storm. It wasn't dramatic. It was that kind of thin, stubborn rain that doesn't wash anything away but soaks everything. The city's ground slowly turned to mud, the smell of the harbor shifted, and people began to move differently—faster, more closed in.
Osborn was alone at that moment.
Bill had stayed in the tent with a mild fever, nothing serious, but enough that Osborn didn't risk taking him outside. He went out under the same simple pretext as always: to observe. To see the flow. To see what changed when the weather changed.
Rain revealed things.
Improvised stalls sagged. Fabric clung to bodies. People who usually hid their scars now showed them without meaning to. The city became more honest when it was wet.
That was when he saw the ship.
It wasn't like the others.
Osborn had seen enough vessels to recognize patterns. Merchant ships—heavy, full of pale wood and simple symbols. Smaller, faster boats used by smugglers. Even a few more heavily armed ships tied to the island's Pirate Lord.
But that one wasn't any of those.
The hull was dark. Not just aged—black on purpose. The sails, even furled against the rain, carried deep tones, almost black. And hanging high, visible even from a distance, was the symbol.
A kraken.
Osborn stopped.
It wasn't fear. It was recognition.
Something inside him shifted before his thoughts organized themselves. An old discomfort, like seeing a word spelled wrong and knowing it's wrong without being able to explain why.
That symbol wasn't common.
And it didn't belong to that island.
He approached slowly, blending in with the people watching from afar. No one got too close. No one needed to say that it wasn't a good sign.
That was when he saw the indigo man.
He usually stayed near the smaller shops, helping here and there, carrying things that weren't his, living off favors and scraps. His skin had that strange bluish tint—not natural, the result of dyes, herbs, and old habits. His eyes were far too attentive for someone pretending not to care.
Osborn had seen him before.
They had never spoken much.
But they recognized each other.
"You saw it, didn't you?" Osborn asked, without pointing.
The man looked at the ship, then at the boy.
"Hard not to."
"What ship is that?"
The indigo man took his time answering. Not from ignorance. From caution.
"That's not from here," he said. "Not a merchant ship. Not a common pirate either."
Osborn waited.
"That's Greyjoy."
The name sounded strange to his ear—and at the same time… right.
Greyjoy.
The word forced something open in his mind, like a stuck door being pushed loose. It didn't all come at once. It came in fragments. Disconnected images. Cold islands. Violent seas. Men who didn't ask permission for anything.
"Greyjoy…" Osborn repeated softly.
"People from the Iron Sea," the indigo man continued. "Where they pass, you either kneel… or you bleed."
The world rearranged itself.
Not as shock.
As alignment.
Islands. Lords. Pirates who weren't just pirates. A world where power came from blood, from name, from force imposed.
He wasn't just anywhere.
He was in Westeros.
The confirmation didn't arrive with grand words. It came with the uncomfortable sensation that everything—absolutely everything around him—made too much sense.
The harbor. Casual brutality. How disposable children were. The way authority was exercised without explanation.
Game of Thrones.
The thought came almost like bitter irony.
"Shit…" he muttered.
The indigo man gave him a strange look.
"What?"
Osborn shook his head.
"Nothing."
There was no way to explain it.
Not there.
Not to anyone.
He stepped away before the man could ask more. Walked without hurry, but with a heavy mind. The world looked the same, but now it had a name. And that changed everything.
It was only later, when the rain grew heavier, that the second discovery came.
He was heading back to the tent when he saw the barrel.
Large, dark wood, forgotten near a building. The rain had filled it halfway. The water's surface trembled with each drop, creating distortions.
Osborn walked past it.
Then stopped.
Took two steps back.
Knelt down.
And saw a face he didn't recognize at first.
It was strange to look and not see yourself.
The boy in the reflection was taller than he imagined himself to be. Thin, but not as fragile as he thought. His face was pale—too pale for that island. His hair, wet, fell unevenly. His eyes… alert. Tired. Too old for someone so young.
He touched his own face.
The reflection copied him.
"So… that's me," he murmured.
Two months there.
Two months using the body without really seeing it.
The faint scar near his head was still there, almost hidden by his hair. The narrow nose. The jaw beginning to take shape, promising something harder in the future.
He didn't look like anyone else there.
That was what bothered him most.
"Pale-foot…" he thought, almost laughing without humor.
A misplaced boy in a world that devoured those who were different.
The rain kept falling, warping the reflection, but this time he didn't step away. He stayed there, staring at his own image until it blended into the water.
He knew where he was.
He knew who he was on the outside.
And for the first time, he began to understand the true scale of the problem.
Westeros did not forgive.
And he was just a boy… with a sling hidden away, a sick friend waiting in the tent, and a mind that needed to be sharper than any blade.
When he stepped away from the barrel, he didn't look back.
He didn't need to.
Now, finally, he had a face.
And he had a world.