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Chapter 2Notes:(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter TextFaircastle - 32 AC

After I'd figured out the tiny detail that the environment of my second life was identical to a show series on Earth, I had a bit of an existential crisis. Just sat there for a bit, thinking, while everyone around me wondered what had caused my sudden catatonia. Eventually, I came back to reality (in a sense), and took stock of the situation.

The fact that I was in Westeros allowed me to see earlier knowledge in a new light. My siblings' names were Franklyn and Elissa, two somewhat common names on Earth but in tandem gave me some clues as to my specific situation.

Franklyn and Elissa Farman were two nobles during the reign of Jaehaerys Targaryen I, known as 'Jaehaerys the Conciliator', or later, 'the Old King'. Elissa was the far more notable of the two, having several paragraphs in the book Fire and Blood and even a mention in the Game of Thrones show (or at least, I think so. It's been a while since I've seen it). She was known for being the secret love of one Princess Rhaena Targaryen, as well as the captain of the Sun Chaser, the only boat to sail West of Westeros all the way to Asshai.

The names of my siblings and their stories gave me a pretty good guess as to who I was. Androw Farman. So they had said my name earlier.

Androw Farman, at least what I remembered of him, was a rather unpleasant and unremarkable individual. He was the second son of Lord Marq Farman of Fair Isle, and he had been one of the most ineffectual people in the entire book. He was a rather handsome man with blond (flaxen?) hair and blue eyes, but he quickly gained weight after puberty and basically wasted his entire life.

The man wasn't good at anything. He failed as a squire, he wasn't allowed to become a maester because he was "not clever enough", and he was unable to swim despite living on an island his entire life.

At the age of seventeen Androw was married to a twenty-six-year-old Rhaena Targaryen (ew, gross, no), who happened to be hardcore gay for his sister Elissa. He lived in a loveless relationship for years and was completely ridiculed by everyone around him, both before and after his brother Franklyn kicked the couple off of Fair Isle. Finally, after years of ridicule, Androw poisoned and killed all of Rhaena's retinue of partners, before being eaten by the dragon Dreamfyre.

Fuck... I don't want that to be my life.

My previous life was nearly as pathetic as Androw's, minus that bit at the end about mass murder. I'm mentally twenty-two years old, and I was born on Vancouver Island in Canada. Specifically, in the town of Victoria. I'd spent much of my childhood goofing off with friends and online, reading, playing video games, and pissing off every single authority figure I could.

I'd ended up stumbling near the end, being unable to get enough grades to get into university, and not bothering to apply to college. It'd been a downward spiral from there, with the exemplary decision to take a gap year to work my job at a Harvey's extending into a full four years as an employee, and eventually, a manager at one of the only burger places still owned by a Canadian company.

And then... nothing. I couldn't remember. That last day I could recall was December 30th, but only in a vague, nebulous sort of way that I knew that the day had happened, but nothing beyond that. Maybe I had worked? I didn't know.

Whatever the case, my last life had essentially amounted to nothing. There was no way that I'd let that happen again. I would make something of myself. As Androw Farman, I would be a far more successful and all-around-worthy person than when I was... damn. I couldn't remember my name, either.

I didn't want to think about that, so I didn't. Compartmentalization, go!

The next few months (moons, I guess) of my life were pretty boring. As a baby, I could barely move and definitely couldn't speak, so my days consisted of watching, listening, and biting onto stuff to drive the castle's inhabitants up the wall.

Speaking of the inhabitants, I barely saw anyone but Faircastle's servants during my time. My brother and sister (roughly five and three years old respectively, if I had to guess) visited occasionally, but they were young enough that they had to be taken care of by other servants for the majority of the time. I only caught glimpses of my father, Ser Marq Farman. I assumed he was my father because everyone around him acted deferentially toward him and my grandfather, Lord Humphrey.

My father would eventually become lord of Fair Isle, after Lord Humphrey and Marq's brother died in the Battle Beneath the Gods Eye. Which, if I recalled correctly, was ten or eleven years from now. Until then, the Lord of Fair Isle was my grandfather, and the heir, my uncle Flement. Neither had been named in Fire & Blood or if they had, I didn't remember them. Eh. Didn't matter all that much. They had them now.

It turned out that my mother, Cerenna Swyft, had died giving birth to me, which explained a lot about why most of the family avoided me whenever they could. It was likely that both Franklyn and Elissa were a bit too young to fully understand what death even meant, but they still probably weren't in the best place at the moment. My father, on the other hand, was decidedly old enough for such a concept. I don't know if the book had ever mentioned Lord (sorry, Ser) Marq's birth year, but he seemed to be in his early thirties or late twenties at the moment. To be honest, I had no idea how much the fact it was around the medieval ages affected my father's age. He could've been as young as I my mental age, for all I knew.

My uncle, Flement, visited me the most. At first, I hadn't understood his importance, but I picked up on context clues and gradually understood. He seemed to be a kind man, a bit like Benjen Stark before he went off and became a White Walker. He was around the same age as my father at the moment and was huge. In my past life, I'd met people that had been on the larger side, but no one as tall or broad as Flement. They must have been feeding him extra mini wheats for decades. His blond hair brushed past his shoulders, and his blue eyes twinkled as if he were enjoying a joke only he was privy to.

Flement was delighted as I began to move around of my own volition, squirming in his arms to get him to set me down. With his careful observation, I crawled around, forcing my weak baby muscles forward determinedly. Flement laughed.

"My my, nephew. Have you someplace to be, perhaps?"

I turned to look at him and stuck out my tongue. He laughed again, with some of the nearby servants picking up on their lord's mirth.

I didn't mind this.

I kept at it for the next half year or so, doing my best to develop as soon as feasibly possible. I spoke gibberish and exercised my tongue, working to create the same understanding I had of my new mouth that I had of my old one. Additionally, I crawled all over, to the amusement and sometimes the shock of whoever watched. I pulled myself up at four months, after working on it for weeks. I stood on my own at six months and walked at seven.

Hell yeah.

Uncle Flement was there for all of it, taking care of me when my father busied himself with other things. Flement sometimes spoke to me when we were alone about his inner thoughts, treating me as a soundboard for his different ideas. He worried a lot, my uncle. He cared, too. Cared about me, my siblings, my father, and even the castle staff. I liked him.

I also got to know my brother and sister some more during that time. Franklyn had just reached "six namedays", and had just begun to squire for Faircastle's master-at-arms, Ser Benedict Kenning. Ser Benedict was the second or third cousin of the current Lord of Kayce (from what I had heard) and was a master combatant. My grandfather had been really lucky to gain his service.

Elissa, on the other hand, spent plenty of time with me. She was about two or three years younger than Franklyn and spent plenty of time in the nursery as I did. Her adventurous spirit was already visible as young as she was, and the precocious young girl bustled around the semi-childproofed area with confidence I seldom saw in most adults. Sadly, as much as I enjoyed spending as much time with my new sister as I could, she didn't.

As a baby, I was quite possibly one of the most boring things in existence to her, as was the nursery that she was so often plopped into. Elissa made it her mission to escape every time, climbing any obstacle that was put in place and outmaneuvering any guard placed on duty to guard her. How a girl of three was able to weave past a man three times her height and ten times her weight was beyond me, but she made it work.

Over time, my father began to visit. It wasn't all at once, instead occurring over a series of weeks. He would pop in, talk to a guard or a servant, glance at me, and leave. He held me once in a while and even started to walk around with me in his arms. It was a surreal sensation, being held by someone so much larger than you, but I was used to it at this point.

I was getting used to all of this.

Notes:So that's the second chapter.

It's slow going for now, but I've got to do a lot of work regarding developing both the SI and the characters around him. I hope it wasn't too much narration.

Both Humphrey and Flement are unnamed in lore, simply listed as "Lord Farman" and "Lord Farman's heir". Humphrey isn't too important to the story, but I'm giving Flement an "Uncle Iroh" or "Benjen Stark" role for the earlier parts of the fic. I hope that I'm able to put some charisma into the character.

Anyways, that's it for today. See ya next time.