(A collab with @MrDidact and @Greenie)

It was not the end that Taria would have wanted, having the pirates bend their knees and keep their lives, but she had kept quiet. She didn't know everything and she didn't presume to act that way. Not only that, she trusted the prince's judgement, having seen enough proof during this journey that he wasn't someone who did things willynilly and actually put thought behind his actions. She also supposed she should be grateful that her own family had been given a chance years ago; Greyjoys never had the cleanest of slates.

She would have probably ended up returning to the ship if the prince hadn't approached her and asked her to come along to the tavern. She had been surprised but had readily accepted nonetheless. [i]"Of course, my prince,"[/i] And so here she was now, standing at the table near Prince Aemon's chair, hand on the pommel of her sword. She looked the smuggler over and blinked. [i]Hmm...[/i] A woman, and that too, one with a familiar face. Taria could have sworn she had seen this person once or twice in King's Landing.

The statement caused Tamsyn to snap out of her stupor with a jolt, spilling remained of her drink across the table. Cursing herself for dropping off, she pinched the bridge of her nose before focusing on the figures that were looming over her though she regretted it almost immediately. The man in front of her was tall, well built and rather noticeably, his clothes were covered in droplets of dried blood. More importantly though he was not alone, several other equally battle stained men were spreading themselves out through the room. Her buyers knew to send one man to meet her if they wanted their goods.

"I think you're mistaken mate, I'm just a traveler passing through, I don't work here." Tamsyn said before turning in her seat so as to wave at the rest of the room, her eyes darting between the few windows as she wondered what was underneath the outside of them. "I'm sure the girls will be more than happy to entertain you and your men if you have the coin.

Aemon smiled, taking a seat and motioning for Taria to stand close by, "Oh, I have coin and plenty of it, and that's why I'm here. A mutual friend referred me, you won't be meeting with the Maiden's Men tonight. But work out a deal with me and you'll be set for life." Aemon retrieved a heavy coin bag and jingled it for effect, showing her the contents before placing it back." 

"What do you say? Are you amenable to a chat?" 

The glittering contents of the coin purse had a near magnetic effect on Tamsyn, her eyes glued to to the bag until it disappeared back amongst the man's clothes. "Let's say I am interested in having a chat" Tamsyn said picking her words carefully, she couldn't help but speculate on why this blood flecked man knew she wouldn't be meeting the Maiden's Men. "What goods did our friend say I had to offer exactly?"

Aemon leaned in, speaking lowly so as not to be heard over the general ruckus of the tavern, "Castle-forged steel. Spears, shields. Bodkin arrowheads. Full-metal plate. Incendiary trebuchet rounds. Even some ship-mounted scorpions. Not the shit that the pirates sling, but quality armanents. Destined for the Scorpions is that true?" 

"It seems we have a very talkative friend" If the Maiden's Men were still alive that was going to cost them a lot of coin. Still at least she could drop the irritating double talk, if there was trouble ahead then she had already been dropped well and truly in it. "But yes I can help you get your hands on those items for a price, though I'm sure you can pay it. I should warn you though, me and you are in for quite a walk to go find it."

Aemon nodded, "Very well, show me to them. I hope you don't mind if my friend comes along. Show us the way." Aemon stood, his mind running over the possibilities. They couldn't allow such weapons to fall into the hands of the Scorpions, if indeed this woman did have them. The question was how she was able to procure such armanent. And if she were so great a smuggler to do so, perhaps she could be of further use to them? He warily followed, ready for any sudden violence as he also pondered what to do with the apparent criminal. 

For a moment Tamsyn hesitated as she debated about whether or not to insist that her new buyer’s associate stayed behind. She hadn't trusted the Maiden's Men enough to let more than one of them follow her and she'd known them. On the other hand maybe it was better to go along with the man's wishes, if he was going to cause trouble, and the state of his clothes told Tamsyn he might; well then she'd prefer to be somewhere with better escape routes and less of his men around. 

"As you want" Tamsyn sighed as she got to her feet. "Stay close to me once we leave the town, it's a difficult path and I'd hate for all that coin to fall into the sea." 

After placing a coin in her cup Tamsyn spent a moment reattaching the sword she'd brought with her to her belt before heading for the door. The sword wouldn't be much use if these two companions decided to cross her but she tried to ignore this fact and focus on the fat purse she would earn if everything went well.

Aemon nodded and followed, keeping his hands in clear view of Tamsyn's peripheral vision and keeping a reasonable space away from her in order to set her at ease as much as possible while still keeping close. Indeed the path was dark, and somewhat ardous to tramp through, but Aemon had spent years on Dragonstone and was used to navigating such damp, cramped, dark paths. 

After several moments of this Aemon spoke up, "You do not look like a Stepstoner. I see no Essosi blood in you. Indeed, your accent seems to be mainlander. Where do you hail from?" It was true, most native Stepstoners had eastern features due to the eclectic mixture of blood in the isles and the vast majority were thoroughly suntanned. This woman however was of much fairer skin and hair. And though she may have been somewhat slender, she did not have the lifelong leaness of smallfolk from any land, much less the Stepstones. Her accent was somewhat refined as well. Much different from the pidgin of islanders or the ruder speech of the peasantry. Curious indeed. 

The question caught Tamsyn off guard, normally people were more interested in trying to find out where she was taking them, where she got her wares or in the case of the pirates how much it would cost for her to perform some extra favours for them. Where she was from was something she hadn't discussed for some while and her first instinct was to tell the nosey git to mind their own business but thought better of it. "You're right that I'm no Stepstoner, I grew up not to far from Highgarden but my ancestors came from north of The Wall."

Aemon looked at the woman with fresh eyes, "I see. Not many of the first men find their way here. I wonder what took one such as you to these parts. I'm sure you have quite the tale to tell. How much further to the supplies?"

"Just through these trees, as for how I ended up here, that's not much of a story. I came for the coin, ame as most of the merchants, whores and sellswords on this island. The only reason you don't see more free folk is that few of us came as far south as my family did" That was a more or less true account of Tamsyn's life, with admittedly one or two slight omissions. "Which company are you with? I thought you Lyseni kept to yourselves, not mixing with people like your lady friend here."

Aemon accepted the answer without comment but did not entirely believe her, suspecting that there was something more to the story that was being unsaid. But now was not the moment to seek more answers, lest the smuggler grow overly cautious or paranoid. Aemon replied, "Many do, but more of us are just fine working with people of all bloods. I work with the Silver Serpent." Hopefully the woman had heard of the now deceased but infamous Captain Draxos and would leave it there. 

"How did a free folk smuggler come across such armanent?"If there were traitors to the king, Aemon needed to know. 

"Oh easily enough, from Bravos to the Iron Islands there's always someone looking to make a little extra coin willing to make sure some boxes get lost" Tamsyn mumbled. "Errm the Silver Serpent, the Silver Serpent, that's that mad arsehole Draxos's ship right? Huh, no wonder you want good steel, um just hold up here a moment." The trio had reached a small clearing in the scrubby trees and propped against the last tree was a crude rag torch. After a few industrious moments with her flint and steel Tamsyn stood up and turned to face the *man* torch burning heart in her hand.

"You'll need this, I think you'll find what you want boxes at the back of that cave." Tamsyn  said pointing to what seemed like a small hole in the rock face across the little clearing from the group.  "I'm sorry I only made the one, I wasn't expecting to need more. I'll be waiting here for you to decide".

"Very well, stay here Taria." Aemon retrieved the torch and went into the hole, crawling on hands and knees in the dark and cursing to himself at the cramped quarters. Eventually however he reached it and he stood to behold an armory's worth of weapons. Flammable trebuchet rounds. Scorpions and piercing bolts. Rows and rows of crossbows and bodkin points for arrowheads. High-quality steel weapons of all description, not the sort that even a middling noble could easily buy on the Street of Steel, but better than the crap that the Scorpions had for the most part. Even armor. Enough to arm a company of men well enough to fight royalists. 

Taria had done as Aemon told her, giving a little nod in his direction before looking over at the smuggler, unsure of what to make of her. She was sure her eyes weren't deceiving her and she had seen the smuggler before, but she hardly wanted to give the woman a reason to get feisty and brandish her weapon.

"You don't look like a typical smuggler," she stated, breaking the awkward silence.

"I'm sorry, what?" Tamsyn said, her forehead wrinkling as she turned to face the speaker; what in the seven hell's was she meant to look like. Up until now the woman hadn't commanded much attention, she'd just sort of faded into the shadow of her companion.

It was hard for Taria to keep a straight face and not roll her eyes. "You don't look like a typical smuggler," she repeated, voice matter of fact, one shoulder lifting slightly in a half shrug. "Most I've seen are men..." Old and grimy and not very pleasant to look at, at least those were the thoughts in her mind.

"Well you don't look much like a pirate but here we are." It wasn't the smartest of replies but it would do, there were more pressing things on Tamsyn's mind, like the fact that the woman hand was clutched to her sword. "There's no need for you to grip your blade like that you know.”

Taria raised an eyebrow at that statement, a touch of a smirk on her lips. "Hm... I'll be the judge of that... I don't look like a pirate, right? So you can expect me not to be so... trusting of others who don't seem as they say they are." In truth, if it was merely herself she may have been a little less tense. However, with the crown prince around, she was not going to let her guard down even a little. 

That said, her eyes shifted away from the smuggler toward the mouth of the hole where she could hear noise of crawling. [i]Good, he's coming back.[/i]

Aemon returned and nodded, "I am satisfied. But I must admit to you, I'm not looking to buy myself. I was hoping you could help sell them for me." He looked around, made sure they were alone, "I'm not a mercenary." He showed her his signet ring, with the three-headed dragon upon it.

The bottom dropped out of Tamsyn's stomach as her eyes focused on the ring that had been thrust under her face. “Shit!” The bastard was an agent of the fucking crown. Without waiting to give the lying arsehole a chance to grab her Tamsyn spun on her heels and ran as fast as she could back into the thicket of trees. The idea of fighting wasn’t one Tamsyn even thought about, there was two of them and the man looked like he could cut her in two with one slash of his sword. She’d had thought they might try to rob her, but fucking agents of the crown, she’d not expected that, not here.

"Bloody- Seven hells!" Taria looked at Aemon for a hint of a moment before jerking in the direction the smuggler had run off. "I'll go after her!" She should have been paying more attention, instead she let something stupid happen on her watch! There was absolutely no way she was going to let that slippery woman out of her grasp. [i]F*cking hells...[/i] The darkness of the night as well as the trees weren't very helpful, but at least that meant it would be hard for the other one too. 

"There's no point in running," she called, still hurrying, though now she was using her hearing, following after the not too subtle sounds of someone crashing through leafy grounds. "There's no [i]need[/i] to! Bloody woman..." The last part was whispered to herself.

Branches whipped at Tamsyn's face as she ran through the dimly lit trees. She heard the woman's shout but ignored it, there was every point in running. If she could just get enough distance from them then maybe she could get back to The Eel and get the hell off this damned rock with her head still attached. Suddenly Tamsyn felt her foot catch on something and before she could process what was happening there sharp blow to the side of her head as she careered into something and blackness closed around thte edge of her vision.

Taria paused in her step, noticing the lack of sound from the direction in which she had been following. Unsure of what may have happened, she slowly drew out her sword from its sheath, carefully making her way, trying not to trip over any roots or other objects littering the ground. Her eyes hadn't adjusted yet to the darkness, but her boot sure as hell touched something... or rather somebody.

"She's here!" she called out for Aemon to hear. Even as she did she knelt down, pressing her knee against the woman's back, sword pointed at her just in case the smuggler made a move.

Aemon came a few moments later, breathing a bit hard as he came to a stop after sprinting through the woods while trying not to trip on a branch and break his neck. He called out to Taria, "Good work. But don't be too hard on her, it's understandable why she would react that way." 

He stepped around to look the prone woman in the eye, kneeling and spreading his hands in a pacifying gesture, "Don't be alarmed. We're not looking to harm you. We're not going to take you in for smuggling. Instead, I have a job offer for you. Do it right, and you'll have a heavy bag of gold and a pardon. And if you say no, we'll let you walk after we confiscate your goods. You can sail away unharmed and we will make no pursuit. But if we cross paths again and I find you trying to smuggle weapons to the rebels, then I can make no promises as to your well-being. So I believe it's in your best interests to listen to what we have to say. I vow on my word as a knight that we will offer no harm to you for the duration of this conversation and this night even if you walk away. As long as you agree to hear us out and not try anything. Do we have an accord?" 

Tamsyn struggled to understand what was happening. The side of her head throbbed with pain, her whole world felt like it was spinning, something was digging into her back and now a knight was offering her gold and a pardon to work for him. "Okay" Tamsyn replied with a grunt somewhat muffled by the leaf litter in her mouth. She wouldn't of put any money on herself being able to walk to The Eel right now, let alone run, at least not without being sick. Besides if this knight was going to take her prisoner or worse, well he already had her, she might as well try doing as they wanted.

Aemon nodded to Taria, "Let her up Taria. But keep an eye on her." Aemon waited for the woman to collect herself and for Taria to position herself near the smuggler before saying, "My companion is Taria Greyjoy, trueborn daughter of Theon Greyjoy."

"I am Prince Aemon Targaryen, heir to the Seven Kingdoms. And you are no mere freefolk born smuggler, that much is clear. What is your true name, pray?" 

When the weight was lifted from her back Tamsyn didn't try to stand up, chosing instead to slump against the nearest tree trunk. "Call me Tamsyn" she mumbled carefully forgetting to add her house name before waving her hand in a little circle and adding "Your Grace" with just a hint of sarcasm. This was all to strange. If someone had told her that the crown prince of the Seven Kingdoms was going be on Bloodstone offering her a fat purse, well she would thought them a mad, drunk fool and yet here he was with a sword toting Greyjoy to boot.

"Do your self a favour and put your sword away before someone takes it from you Greyjoy. Your family doesn't exactly have the best record of holding on to them." It was a cheap insult, a variation on what her father had said anytime the Greyjoy had been mention whilst she had been growing up, but the sword was getting on Tamsyn's nerves and it felt good to watch the woman's face as she said it. 

Taria couldn't help the sudden clenching of her jaw, nor could she stop her hand from tightening around the hilt of her sword. It had bothered her as a child, hearing people talk about her father's condition, but not as much as it did at this very moment, after finally knowing what a great man he was, after knowing that he did indeed care about her. [i]Not the first time,[/i] she reminded herself, softly letting out a breath. Her face relaxed and her hold on her sword remained, though not as harshly as before.

She sent a placid smile in Tamsyn's direction, deciding it was best not to say a thing at the moment. Her sword, of course, remained unsheathed. 

Leaving the Greyjoy spawn to stew Tamsyn turned to look Aemon in the face. "How may I assist you? My Leige." Again she didn't quite manage to keep the sarcasm entirely out of her voice and Tamsyn couldn't help but feel that her mother would of been quite proud of that.

It was too dark to tell whether Aemon was annoyed or amused, but he responded evenly, "I will learn your full name someday. But for tonight, Tamsyn will suffice. It is no secret that the Stepstone Rebellion has cost countless lives. I intend to stop it once and for all. There will be a secret meeting in Blackguard Bay between the Scorpion captains and their king. You will deliver your goods there and provide a cover for my men to slip into that meeting. And you will help us put paid to those rebels once and for all. I will not lie to you, it will be incredibly dangerous. But you will be well paid." He tossed a coin bag on the ground, where it fell with an appreciable thud, "Half now, half when the job is done. And you'll be sailing with my ships close by and some of my men onboard to watch you and ensure your honesty. Fair enough?" 

For near on a minute Tamsyn said nothing, instead she  just rolled the coin bag between her hands feeling the weight of it and listerning to the clinking of it's contents. The prince, if that was who he really was and Tamsyn wasn't sure she could quite beleive that, knew how to pay generously, very generously. She didn't much like the idea of sailing into a meeting of rebel and she liked the idea of crown men aboard The Eel as she did so even less but on the other hand it was really was quite a heavy purse she was holding and there was promise of another.

In the end the allure of gold won out and Tamsyn used the tree for support as she pushed herself up right so she could look the prince in the eyes without straining her neck. "Very well you have a deal." 

Aemon nodded, a wry smile on his face as he extended his hand to shake and seal the deal, "Very good. We'll set sail in the morning, I'll have men come and load these weapons back onto your own ship and then join you. Moor next to the Silver Serpent and the Harlot after they finish." 

He looked at Taria, "Taria here will come with you and ensure you don't run off. And it'll give you two some time to get to know each other." 

[i]Drowned God, Mother, Warrior, anyone listening... please give me patience. Thank you.[/i] Taria could tell the smuggler didn't like her, which made sense all things considered; she didn't see that berating attitude leaving anytime soon. She wasn't going to say no to the prince however, as much as she wanted to right now.

"Of course," she replied, bowing her head in Aemon's direction before straightening. Time to resign to her fate.

"Just tie me to a tree and take your pet Greyjoy with you" Tamsyn muttered as she kicked a few leaves aimlessly.