A/N: Soooo… quick note here. Something I forgot to mention.

I reworked the first part of the first chapter a while ago, and only just now got it together.

Not sure if it's any good, but it should have cleared a few things up. This story has changed a lot since I first started it, especially since the manga hadn't even ended when I did. Now that I think about it, even the TV show was only up to its second or third season back then. Wow.

But anyway. Enjoy.

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Chapter 16

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"Damn, here we go again."

Ned glanced back at his blond friend. "What's the matter?"

Naruto glared at the horizon, where a city was slowly coming into view, gleaming in the midday sun. Extremely developed senses were par for the course for even an average ninja, and he was hardly average. He could see the auburn towers of the Red Keep and the tall arches of the Great Sept of Baelor in great detail, even from miles away.

His problem at the moment wasn't sight, however. Oh no.

His problem was smell.

"Ugh, it's gotten worse," he coughed, pinching his nose shut.

He had no idea how it was possible. The last time he'd been in the city was only a few years ago, and even then it had smelled disgusting. Now, though, it had somehow gotten even worse.

"Hell no," he growled. "I ain't livin' even remotely close to you, stink. Either you go, or I do."

"What are you mumbling about?" Ned asked. Several guards were looking at the ninja oddly.

"I'm trying to come up with a plan to get rid of that stench without either burning the city to the ground or making the tide sweep it away."

"Naruto..." Ned chided. "How many times do I have to tell you? No unleashing demonic powers on the poor, defenseless city."

Naruto blew him a raspberry.

"Oh, very mature."

Sansa tried not to snicker and Arya dissolved into giggles as the horses plodded on down the Kingsroad. They were getting close to King's Landing, as evidenced by Naruto's revulsion to the stink.

"Bleh, I don't know how I'm gonna stand it."

"Well, you'll have to," Arya piped up. "You still have to teach me to fight!"

"Yeah, yeah," Naruto said, throwing his arms up in a magnificent stretch. "I have a few plans in the making for your training, little wolf."

Pouting at the nickname, she reached into her saddlebags and threw a piece of bread at Naruto's head.

Her pout increased when he simply caught the small amount of food and began to chew on it with a grin.

To be honest, he was actually pleased to be in the South. He enjoyed the sun on his skin and the smell of trees and fresh-tilled farmland after so long in the snowy North. The trip had lasted another month because of various delays, especially the wheelhouse the King's family stayed in.

His mood dropped a little as he remembered the last time that had happened, chewing thoughtfully.

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"Oh, come on!"

His yell followed on the heels of the sound of splintering wood, as the axle underneath the back wheels of the carriage gave way for the third time that day.

The King cursed as well and called a halt to the entire procession. By the time the immense bunch of nobles and guardsmen had slowed to a stop, Naruto had shimmied underneath the wheelhouse, making his legs stick out as he took a look at the damage.

Ned stood near, leaning over to see what was going on. "Naruto, if you would just let the artisans underneath—"

"Those idiots have been trying to fix this thing for weeks now! I keep telling them, they put too much gold on the rear end of the carriage, the axle is too thin to support that much weight! Whoever decided to make the thing out of maple should be fired this instant, that wood's too brittle for something like this!"

The older man rolled his eyes. This complaint was one he'd become intimately familiar with over the course of their journey. The ninja griped constantly over the ineptitude of the artisans who'd designed the thing, to the exasperation of anyone who listened.

"Have you fixed the bloody wheel yet, boy?" Robert asked, his wife and two Kingsguard trailing behind him.

"It's not the wheel that's the problem, moron," Naruto griped back. "As I keep saying, this thing is carrying too much damn weight."

Cersei heard him and tried not to blush in embarrassment. It had been her idea to bring the thing all the way North, to make sure her children were protected from the elements. Unfortunately, with the sudden malfunctions that the wheelhouse constantly suffered from, Tommen and Myrcella had grown to hate the thing and spent nearly every waking moment outside, managing to talk Robert into letting them learn how to ride horses.

Her only daughter even managed to use her cuteness to wheedle piggyback rides from Naruto, which he provided with long-suffering smiles.

Indeed, Joffrey was the only one who spent his time in there, shutting the curtains and turning it into his own private area, refusing to speak to anyone.

His silence had become unnerving. Even now, when such a malfunction would have normally sent him rushing outside, cursing at anyone in earshot, there was only silence from inside the carriage.

"Can you fix it? We're all waiting out here!" Robert's shout snapped her out of her thoughts.

"I agree," Ned said, nodding. "Even I'm getting tired of this thing. Work your magic, Naruto, we'd like to get moving."

"For the twentieth damn time, I don't use magic! Ignorant pricks."

"Bah, who cares what you use," Robert said, waving a hand. "Do whatever needs doing, boy, I'm getting impatient."

"O-hoh? Impatient, are you?" he growled, crawling fully underneath the carriage. "Fine."

They lost sight of him for a few moments, even as two groups of clones appeared on both sides of the carriage. The ones on the far end promptly grabbed at the front wheels, holding them in place.

And a second later, they all found out why.

The wheeled structure began to tremble.

Those farther afield, who had already begun to take notice of their argument, stopped what they were doing and stared, whispering frantically to friends and colleagues.

They watched, noble and common alike, as slowly, the carriage began to shift.

Naruto, both eyes closed with exertion, bracing his back and both hands against the bottom of the colossal wheeled structure, pushed.

The back wheels lifted clear off the ground.

Everyone watched with open mouths and wide eyes, even as his clones began to set the axle back into its proper alignment, hands aglow with green chakra, the splintered ends of the wood meeting and fusing into a single whole, strengthened by his Wood Release.

Finally, Naruto hopped out from beneath the carriage, letting it fall back to the ground with a single deafening crash.

Dusting off his hands, he looked around at everyone who was goggling at him with open mouthes, and glared at them all with a gimlet eye. "What are you all standing around for? Let's get moving!"

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"Anyway..." he said, swallowing the morsel. "I have a few things I need to do, so I'll see you all later."

"Like what?" Ned asked suspiciously.

"...Things."

"Don't even—"

And without further ado, he disappeared in a swirl of leaves.

"NARUTO!" Ned roared after him. "Damn that boy! Why does he always have to leave right when I need him!?"

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Miles away, on a solitary rooftop, Naruto groaned in pain. "Uuuuugh! Oh, that's so nasty!"

In a flash, he'd appeared on top of one of the tallest buildings in the city, right above the Street of Steel, where most of the cities' blacksmiths practiced their craft.

It was just as well that he hadn't done so in Flea Bottom, otherwise he may have actually passed out.

Him! A mountain dropping on his head couldn't knock him out!

It smelled.

Like... the worst stench he'd ever smelled, somehow mixed with a bunch of other terrible ones specifically to smell even worse.

With the amount of chakra that naturally circulated through his body, his senses had all been elevated to superhuman levels. His sense of smell alone rivaled an Inuzuka's! And he couldn't even fix it, because as far as his body was concerned, it wasn't broken!

Pinching his nose shut and blinking away the moisture in his eye, his attention was drawn to the sound of a woman's scream.

"Oh, there's so much I'm gonna have to do here to get this place back into shape," he muttered, breathing through his mouth and flexing his fingers. "Might as well start with that."

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"I still don't see why I have to be here."

"You're here because they asked for you, hun," Ashara said, a small frown on her face. "And we didn't think to refuse. They are your family after all."

Rhaenys snorted and crossed her arms. "No one decides that for me but me, auntie. They're no family of mine until I say they are."

Elia and Naruto exchanged looks. That sort of talk was exactly what they were worried about.

Ever since the two Targaryen children had been brought here, Naruto had thought that things had been going well. Rhaella and Daenerys had spent near every waking moment together, speaking at length on every subject they could think of, laughing, eating and occasionally crying, but doing so with each other.

He'd never seen either look so happy. Rhaella had come alive, in more ways than one. Every second she spent in her daughter's presence, all the years of pain and torment that still haunted her all seemed to fall away, leaving a woman who could simply enjoy being around people who cared about her.

Daenerys simply glowed, really, truly happy for the first time in years.

Viserys, however, was still locked in his room. Rhaella had shown next to no desire to even look at him, and there was no one that lived there that would even think of forcing the issue. Except for her younger son, but Elia and Ashara had gotten enough of a measure of him to scoff at the idea. His shrieks of rage had interrupted more than one tender moment before Naruto finally put a sound-dampening seal on his room, for which everyone was grateful.

That was a confrontation that no one was looking forward to.

But then, nearly a week ago, Elia had suggested that her own daughter come meet her grandmother and aunt. The two Targaryens were shocked, which rapidly turned into delight at the prospect of yet another family member, though Naruto and Ashara were being slightly more circumspect. Rhaenys may have been quite grown up in a lot of ways, but the one place that her reason failed was whenever anyone brought up her father or grandfather.

Doran was still replacing most of the tableware from the last time that had happened.

But Naruto and Ashara had been outvoted, hence why they, Elia and Rhaenys were standing in a room near the entrance to the dining hall, the youngest having been brought there by Naruto from Dorne only an hour ago.

"Are you ready?" he asked, one hand on the doorknob.

Rhaenys looked askance at him, and asked in turn. "Are they?"

He winced. "Good point."

With a twist of a wrist, he opened the door, letting them all through into the chamber beyond.

Rhaella and Daenerys were waiting near the opposite end of the room, standing close together as if for support, while floating balls of fire lit the room with a pleasant orange glow. Even from a few meters away, he could see the tension in their stances.

Maester Aemon at Castle Black may have been a Targaryen, but he wasn't in their immediate family, not the same way that Rhaenys was. He'd been a maester for longer than most of them had been alive, and though Elia and Ashara had met him several times over the years, always in secret, Rhaenys had always refused.

Rhaella and Daenerys were more closely related perhaps, but that was hardly a guarantee of a good meeting. Aerys and Rhaegar were closely related to Rhaenys too, after all.

With some apprehension, the group approached the pair, nervousness filling the room from more than one occupant.

Rhaenys stopped a few feet away, expressionless, and cast an amethyst eye over her aunt and grandmother.

Seeing that she was making no move to speak, the elder of the pair took a hesitant step forward. "Hello, Rhaenys. I— I doubt you'd remember me, but—"

"I remember," she murmured, stepping closer. "I may have been a stupid, stubborn kid at the time, but I remember those years in the Red Keep, the moments spent with mom and auntie, when you'd come visit to lift our spirits."

Elia and Ashara both felt a surge of emotion as they remembered that time, when they tried to find a few moments of happiness when everything around them seemed so harsh and dangerous.

"I remember seeing you after my grandfather had spent a day with his flames— and with you," she growled, her dark look and shining purple eyes making her look truly formidable in the flickering light. "Even then, even when I had only the faintest idea of what kind of monster he actually was, I still remember wanting to kill him."

Rhaella began to shake, memories and the fury of her granddaughter making her start to breathe more erratically. 'When did this girl get so tall?'

Then Rhaenys stepped forward, gently taking the older woman's hands in hers, a soft smile lighting up her features, stilling the anxiety as soon as it could form. "And I remember you being there, always ready with a soft smile or gentle word, when even holding me was causing you pain. So I suppose I only have one question."

Without any hesitation, she enfolded the silver-haired woman in a gentle hug.

"Do you mind if I call you grandma?"

With a choked sob, Rhaella returned the embrace. "T—That would make me… very happy."

Withdrawing with the gentleness she only exhibited with members of her family, Rhaenys held her grandmother's hands in her own and turned to look at Daenerys, who stared back with wide eyes.

"You must be Daenerys. " she murmured, quirking a half-smile at the younger girl. "I hope we can be friends, even if you're technically my aunt."

The silver-haired girl beamed and nodded happily, thrilled at having a new family member.

They stood there for a long few moments, while Ashara, Elia and Naruto looked on, the two women holding hands, Ashara grinning proudly as Elia gave a watery smile.

Naruto snorted once and ran a hand through his hair, grinning ruefully at a prank well played. "...Making us worry like that. Little scamp."

Rhaenys turned her head his way and gave him a grin of her own. "Worth it to see the expression on your face, blondie."

They both began snickering, making Ashara roll her eyes and Elia shake her head, still smiling.

"Shall we adjourn to another room with more comfortable seating arrangements?" Naruto asked, to which they all agreed, only to pause as he suddenly stiffened. "Ah. On second thought, maybe we should head outside."

They all looked at him oddly.

"Why?" Daenerys asked.

He favored her with a strained smile and ran a hand through his hair. "Seems your brother got tired of being locked in his room and broke down the door. He's coming this way, and seems somewhat upset."

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A/N: Certainly not as long as I would have liked, but I figured I might as well in celebration for finishing my finals and for Christmas.

In the meantime, it is my great honor to announce that the moment has come at last. There shall indeed be smut in the next chapter.

Happy holidays, everybody.

Wolf out.