Chapter Text
Arya woke to the sound of her own screaming. It was a shrill noise, caught between a howl and a shriek that came with the twisted phantom of white-hot pain, searing the side of her neck. Without cause her throat constricted, threatening to suffocate her. Frantically her hand shot out unbidden, rubbing where her skin burned to the touch as she sought to sit up. Small fingers covered with mud looked for a wound that wasn’t there, and quick as it came the scream died at her throat, replaced by a cough that was deep and full of bile. The familiar scorch of acid in her mouth had become as much an anchor to ground her as it was a reminder of the nightmare that she couldn’t run from. Of her father watching her be dragged away.
Of the Strangers face, when she stabbed him in the neck. Of Lord Eddard’s face, when he stabbed Arya in hers.
Arya was quicker this time than she’d been the day prior, turning over on her side before she emptied her stomach on the ground in pained heaves. Three weeks of travel off the Kingsroad caked her hands and legs as her body shook, and she held back the choked sob that wracked through her. The tears had dried weeks ago, though her eyes still spiked with pain. She squeezed them shut in an attempt to banish the nightmare, the memories, gritting her teeth tight in what she hoped was a snarl.
A wolf was strong, she thought, and a wolf does not cry. I am a direwolf, and they are stronger still. She grimaced when her hands shook beneath her. The pain behind her eyes throbbed again.
It was several moments before Arya felt she’d be able to keep whatever fluids she had left, and several more still before she felt the courage to test that feeling. Eventually though, she leaned back, bracing her hands on her thighs while Arya attempted to center herself. Her breaths came in short, rattling starts that took all her concentration to settle as her body slowly remembered it wasn’t in any danger. But it was the cool touch of steel pressed against her waist, and the weight of it in her palm when she latched on to it that finally stopped her tremors entirely. Arya’s thumb rubbed the blackened bone pommel in a familiar pattern.
The blade was a dagger, plain and unassuming. Small even for herself, with a hilt of smooth dragonbone unadorned of any markings that would lend itself to its origins; though the telling ripple of the dark metal meant it could only be one thing. Valyrian steel, Arya thought. Like the blades of legends. It had been a surprise to find out when she’d finally had time to look at it, and the marvel of it had not yet left her. Beyond its unique coloring, the edge never needed sharpening, and was lighter than any material had any right being. It was one of the rarest metals in Westeros, and the skills to craft it had been lost in the Doom. Arya knew only a handful of houses in the North that owned a part of Old Valyria, and though she knew there must be more, she’d only ever seen one. The ancient greatsword Ice was the heirloom of House Stark, and it commanded a presence all its own. Dozens of times she’d watched from her father’s lap as he polished the steel, an oiled cloth running the length of a blade taller than herself by half and wider than her palm. His hands had moved steady, continuing long after it shined free of any visible blemish. Arya always dreamed of sitting with him, going through those same motions with a Valyrian steel sword of her own. The Lord of Winterfell often sported a grim look when his mind was elsewhere, but in the quiet of the Godswood and alone with his troubles, Arya had thought his eyes looked tired and sad. She had hoped for a day where he could share what made him grieve, and she could in turn lessen the burden that seemed to her to match the greatness of the sword he carried. Her new blade was not as great, but Arya thought she might have begun to learn something of that same sadness anyway. She’d had it less than a full turn of the moon, but already it felt to her to span an entire life.
A life, Arya’s mind whispered. A lump formed in her throat. Yes, a life. Just not mine.
She looked at the dagger in her hands with grey eyes that betrayed nothing, though she could feel her heartbeat quicken at the sight. The metal’s coloring was like smoke that gave way to a lighter mist when it caught the morning light. Yet whenever Arya’s eyes had chanced a look the past few weeks, the blade flashed an ugly red. Red like the rubies her and Mycah had hunted for in the ford, and the pelt of the Lion she had stolen the blade from. To her, blood still soaked its wicked edge, reminding her of the life she had traded for her own.
Arya wondered not for the first time how a Lannister guard had come to carry such a weapon. It was one of many questions surrounding the events of that night, and the easiest for her mind to ponder, but always other questions rose to challenge the first, as they had every day since she’d first seen a Strangers weapon, and taken it for herself. Chief among them was Why? And Who?
She couldn’t recall when he had first arrived outside her makeshift prison, and she never heard him until he was already inside. When she’d been sentenced, guards garbed in red and gold had dragged her with hard hands from the inn and through the village, in plain sight for those around to see. Arya hadn’t fought them for more than her balance, even when they’d gripped her hair and pulled her more roughly than necessary. The tears had been flowing freely then, and when her escort slid her through a patch of stones that littered the road, she’d shrieked as the pain had speared through her ribs. There had been many faces in the crowd outside, and briefly the one grabbing her had stopped, barking orders to those around him, ordering the Stark bannermen nearby who had their swords gripped tight to back off. There had been shouts of confusion, of outrage, but Arya couldn’t remember what had been said. The blood had rushed in her ears from her forced fall, with the sobs that had ripped out of her sounding muffled and far away.
Many of the men she knew must have come back with her father after their search. They hadn’t seen her state, hadn’t seen the prince’s blood that had long dried on her clothes. Hadn’t been there when she had been betrayed by her sister and abandoned by her father. Their looks were ones of anger towards the Lannisters, but they had eyed her openly as well. What were they thinking? Arya had wondered. What did they see? The questions had scared her at the time, and to her great shame that same fear churned in her stomach now.
More of the King’s party had come to give aid to her captors, and Arya had been pushed towards the storehouse once more. The guards grip hadn’t lessened while they’d passed the northern party, but she never hit any more stones the rest of the way.
They’d left her strewn on the mucked floor of the same storehouse she’d been held before, and it was only when the door had closed with the lock latching behind her, that she had truly cried. Left alone with her thoughts and her crushed, sticky apples, Arya had finally let all her fear and anger and misery leak into the ground around her. She had wept at the tenderness in her side and the ripped feeling at the base of her scalp where her hair had been pulled too tight. She had wept at the loss of Nymeria, who was scared and alone and confused; but mostly she had wept and begged for her sister and her father. The anger and hurt she felt towards Sansa had been sharp and painful as it had ever been, and now three weeks later was still something that caught her off guard. The sting was fresh and violent whenever she thought of the betrayal. But that moment, in the storehouse, Arya had begged the Old Gods and the New for her sister’s forgiveness and a chance to say she was sorry. She had only wanted to hug her father and have him tell her it was going to be okay. She remembered wanting the night to turn to day, and to have been woken up from a terrible dream that had not come to pass. Arya didn’t know how long she’d lain there, though her wails had eventually petered out to a soft whimper, and her choked prayers at first strong and desperate, had turned to fervent whispering into the ground between sniffles and uneven breaths.
It had been luck, Arya thought absently. Her eyes were lost in the memory, unseeing, while fingers traced the swirls trapped in the blade on her lap. Luck that tasted like ash.
The distant rumbling of the storm that night had drawn her attention enough to hear the creak toward the door. Arya had never heard it open, and when she’d turned to look there had been no torch to shed light on who had entered the room. Naively, Arya had allowed herself to think her prayers answered.
“Hello?” she’d asked the dark. The hope in her voice had been raw and unguarded. “F-father?”
There had been nothing for a moment, and then another creak in the floor as the shadow of a man crept closer. Arya had remained still, though her heart had hammered loudly in her chest. There was a feeling that had risen in her, raising the hairs on the back of her neck as she waited for a reply, but it had taken her too long to recognize it as fear. Too long, and too late.
“I ain’t yer father girl,” The response came with what Arya had thought to be a laugh, though it felt to her more like a wheeze. She had gasped at the sound, and her heart had hammered so loud she’d wondered how no one heard it. Another pause. Another creak. The shadow spoke again.
“What’d you do, girl?” It asked. “Somethin’ bad I reckon. Out ‘ere locked up, keeping yer gods for company. I’ll keep you company, girl.”
The words spoken had not been warm, and Arya hadn’t believed they were something she was supposed to answer. She didn’t think she would have been able to if she’d tried. To her they’d been the scrape of dead bark, ripped from a tree lost to rot after a long snow, and a longer thaw. When they had reached her, they coiled around her chest and squeezed. That fledgling hope for safety had withered and died, taking her voice with it.
The shadow had crept close enough by then that she had seen him for what he was. Clad in Lannister armor that fit too loosely on his gaunt frame had been a man who stared at her with unblinking, sunken eyes. The creak in the floor had come again as he’d made his way closer still, the source of which had been a slight gait that shifted him unnaturally as he moved towards her. He’d had no sword that Arya noticed, but there’d been a dagger tied misshapenly to his waist that had seemed out of place, like an afterthought. His hands had twitched slightly at his sides whenever he moved. The man had felt wrong, she remembered thinking. Wrong in the way she’d always felt when trying to sit through Septa Mordane’s sewing lessons, or when she was forced to wear a dress and curtsy and not jump in any of the snow banks back home. Like he hadn’t belonged.
It had unnerved her, and Arya had shuffled back as best she could. It hadn’t been enough. The ache in her side had slowed her and the cramped space she’d been in had done little to stop his progress. She had only mustered a whimper as his presence loomed over her. She’d hardly breathed, the fear had been so thick in her lungs.
“Can’t talk, huh girl?” He’d gotten close enough for Arya to smell the foul breath of a man who chewed sourleaf often, and red stained teeth had smiled down on her. There’d been a wildness in his eyes, pale dead eyes that never left hers, never blinked once. His hands had twitched again. “I heard you prayin’, girl. But yer father ain’t coming. Only me.” He’d whispered the last part, stock-still and tensed, and she’d felt the shift before he moved. Arya had tried to get away, to get up and run. She had tried to will her voice to work, but it hadn’t been enough, and the shout that had been building in her throat never made it past the door.
Quicker than she thought he could, the man had sprung, grabbing her throat with two twitchy hands and squeezing. The air had been knocked out of her in surprise, but instinct had her scratching at his arms, trying to reach his face, willing her nails to tear through whatever she could find. Her legs had flailed wildly underneath as she kicked, not knowing where to hit. His breath had been rancid, and he’d wheezed that rotten laugh as he kept his hold. “Only me, girl” he’d said again, smiling down at her through that red-stained maw. “Only the Stranger”
Those words had filled her with dread, and Arya had tried her hardest to get a noise, any noise out from her mouth, but nothing had come. Dark spots had spread across her vision and she had closed her eyes, panic surging through her. No! She’d wanted to scream. No! No! No! With a desperate whine left lodged in her throat refusing to leave, and tears streaking down her face, Arya had believed she was out of time. No time to have said her goodbyes, or see her mother and siblings far back home at Winterfell, or her bastard brother Jon Snow, further still at the wall. She’d miss Jon Snow the most. Arya had wanted to sob, to say his name, but that had been denied her as well.
The blood that went rushing to her head had been the only roar she could muster, a far-cry from the howl she had wanted. The Stranger’s hands had twitched as she squirmed, but they had never let up. Her strength had begun to fail her and her legs had long since stopped their futile motions. But Arya’s mind had still raged, demanding action. It had been instinct, an urge to fight, to not give up, that made her hands leave their hold on the Stranger’s arms, scrambling in one last attempt to find something, anything that could help her when they’d brushed the dagger at his waist.
Luck, Arya thought again, worrying her lip as the memory played out like it had before a dozen times over. Luck that stained my fate forever.
All her thoughts had been drawn to that dagger, to pulling it from his side. She had stilled her frantic struggle long enough to look him in the eyes, before small hands clenched around a worn grip had slammed it back towards his chest. The dagger had made no real sound, but to her it had sung as it found its mark. A soft song, Arya recalled. Prettier than any of the ones Sansa always fawned over. The blade had met no resistance, and she had pulled it from him before her would-be killer even realized he’d been struck.
His hands had slackened immediately, and that awful wheeze had turned into a hack as he stumbled forward. There’d been no strength in her to follow up or move out of the way. She had only taken a few frantic gulps of air before his body toppled over hers, and the air had left her again. The panic had not left her, the need to kill too strong. She hadn’t hesitated before using the knife again, this time plunging it into his neck. Arya had growled something fierce, twisting the dagger again and again with snarl on her face until his head was more off than on. Her breathing had come through gritted teeth and heavy heaves that she took freely, but she refused to take her eyes off the man’s face. His mouth frozen in a look of surprise, though it was blood that stained his smile now. The sour smell of his breath had been replaced with a scent of iron so strong she wouldn’t be rid of it for days to come.
She had dared him to move, Arya remembered, wanted him to move so she could kill him again. She wanted to rip into him and tear, and smell his fear. His sunken, filmy eyes had lost their focus before long though, staring off into the void he’d tried to send her to. Arya didn’t think she’d ever forget them. She’d seen them in her dreams every night since. Sunken pale eyes mixed with green, and on bad nights, they turned grey.
The memory had her hand massaging the mottled skin around her throat without thought for the hundredth time. She knew the worst had mostly faded in the twenty days that had passed. Arya had chanced a look in the Trident some two days past, and while she was still sporting a mess of blues and greens, the mud had mostly covered it up. And there was no shortage of mud. The storm that had cracked open the night she ran was still going strong and steady despite the weeks that stretched between then and now. The cluster of trees she had taken refuge in the night prior did little to block the downpour, but it was what had been available to her as shelter as she fled towards Riverrun, and hopefully, safety.
Family, Duty, Honor. The words were her prayer, and often the only thing that kept her going. They were the words of House Tully and her mother, and Arya desperately wanted them to be true. She wasn’t close with the Tully’s by any means, hadn’t seen them since she was little. But she hoped her grandfather and uncle and the Blackfish would take her in, and not cast her aside. She didn’t know where else to go. Often, she wished somehow that the flooding would go north. She would ride the current back home to Winterfell, and Robb would laugh at her for sailing better than Theon. Her mother would call her unbecoming of a Lady, but would hug her tightly anyway. But to think of home also made her think of her Sansa and her father, and she knew Winterfell wasn’t an option. The betrayal and fear were mixed in with happier memories now, and home no longer felt safe.
There wasn’t really a choice, Arya had decided that first night. No better choice or time to make one. With a dead Stranger slumped over crushed, sticky apples, Arya had fled her prison just as the rain had begun in earnest. There hadn’t been time to grab anything of her own. Not any supplies, or food. Not even Needle, her only reminder of Jon. To part with it had broken her heart, but Arya had held her sobs back until she was well enough away. All she had brought when she ran was a dagger held in a white knuckled grasp, and the blood that still clung to it.
She had broken off west up the River Road before cutting into the woods to avoid being seen. Hadn’t gone more than a mile before she’d stumbled into some underbrush, sobbing and shaking and panicked. But there hadn’t time to succumb to her grief. With her body pressed against a tree and a bloodied blade clutched tightly at her side, Arya had focused on that…presence at the edge of her mind, letting her eyes roll back into her head as grey turned milk-white. And a mile away, a horse had bolted through the village going the opposite direction, with only a wet Hound as a witness.
A life and a Husband. Arya thought sadly. A lifetime and a day. It’s all the same. Her throat burned a familiar burn, and her head pounded behind her eyes even as she busied herself with gathering the very few supplies she had managed to collect, being sure to remain behind the bushes she’d used as cover from the road.
Avoiding the River Road in favor of traversing the fields and sparse woodlands that spanned the Riverlands had been a decision Arya had made to ward off discovery. But through the course of her trek the reasoning had become a moot point. The downpour had long since filled the Trident’s banks, and often when she sneaked a look towards where the road should be, Arya could not see it. The waters had claimed it whole. Still, she wouldn’t risk an easier path. Less than a fortnight had passed since she had spotted some riders bearing the crowned stag on their banner riding through the rain. There was no doubt in her mind they’d been sent to find her. I’m a criminal, a murderer. I deserve to be captured. I deserved the knife to my—.
Arya closed her eyes with a quiet sigh, willing the thoughts away, and dragged herself to her feet with a groan. Her body ached deeply, and she wondered for a moment if she should just rest for the day before she ultimately shook her head. The movement brought a dizziness that threatened to send her staggering back down to the wet ground, but Arya willed her feet to remain steady, glaring at the spinning earth below. Her lady mother had always done the same to her when she’d done something wrong; It had never failed to stop her in her tracks, if only for a little while. And for a moment, as her world slowly came back to focus, Arya allowed herself a smile.
A wolf never fairs well south of the Neck, she thought. It was a common phrase she’d heard spoken in hushed tones back home, when no one thought she was listening. But I’m a Tully too. The Riverlands will not best me. Arya’s stomach tightened uncomfortably in response. Hunger, like the storm that stalked her, had been a constant companion she’d traveled with since her journey began. She didn’t lack for water, but food was another thing entirely. The Trident on its own was known for its currents, but at its size Arya would not risk getting swept away trying to catch dinner. Instead, she took to stealing crops from the fields she passed, and once when she’d been lucky, a lump of hard cheese and some bread left overnight on the window of a cottage. Guilt had followed her after that for a while, but Arya didn’t let it stop her. She was wanted for attacking a prince and killing a guard. Stolen food would not change her fate. Finding meat was proving to be difficult task though, and a fire to cook it over an impossible one, so she stopped attempting to. Most recently her meals had been cabbage and onions, and not nearly enough to sate her hunger.
She thought of Nymeria, just as alone and hungry as her, and cursed when she stumbled into a bush and scraped her leg. Her body ached terribly, and Arya felt a warmth trickle down from where the branches had torn the thin fabric of her breeches. She tried not to pay it much mind. It was not the first scrape and bruise she’d suffered, nor the worst, and she knew it wouldn’t be the last either. Instead, she picked herself back up and made her way through the brush, spilling out into the fields beyond. Her direwolf remained out of sight, but nearby, she knew. Arya could feel her distress, and knew Nymeria could tell she’d been injured. Arya tried to ignore it, that pressure in the back of her head that waited patiently to be acknowledged. The connections with her companions used to fill her with joy, with a sense of wholeness. Now it made her nauseous and afraid. She was starving, weak, on the run for murder, and fleeing two death sentences; but it was Nymeria that Arya was terrified of the most. She was terrified to live apart from her direwolf. And she was terrified to have her back. To be one mind, body, and soul, as she had once also shared with her horse. It was a terror that chilled her more than the northern winds that blew through the Wolfswood. It was the terrible burn of a blade that did not break skin and yet filled her throat with blood. It was her father’s eyes, those grey eyes of the North that looked sad and tired and sad, and the pain and horror she’d felt when he had run Husband through with his knife. When he had run her through as well.
I am a wolf, Arya thought numbly. The words sounded right to her, though the world had started to spin again when she continued to move. A wolf and a fish. But I died a horse. Her mind was a jumbled mix of memories and feelings bleeding into one another, even as she kept stumbling forward, across a field, and then another, and then another, on and on. Nymeria’s distress spiked, but Arya ignored it. She had to. She walked if only in hopes to outpace her torment, and continued to walk when they never fell behind, only growing closer. Images of Jeyne Poole laughing prettily flitted through her head, with bright brown eyes that glowed with malice as the girl neighed at her, calling her names. “Horseface! Horseface! Arya Horseface!” The words chased her thoughts through the Vale on powerful legs and up the High Road, only falling silent when the knife came down again. The shade of Eddard Stark’s grey eyes looking down in contempt while his mouth twisted into something cruel, whispering to her. “The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you would take a man's life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die.” Cruel words from a cruel mouth that Arya knew tainted their meaning. They were words she wished she could not hear, even as her mind, body, and soul cried out for mercy. A plea disguised as a whinny that fell on deaf ears, and a Stranger’s Valyrian steel dagger already tipped red never slowed as a Father passed his judgement.
Arya’s head burned, and her neck burned again. But her hand didn’t go to rub the wound she knew wasn’t there. Her hand didn’t do much of anything, trapped as it was between herself and the ground she’d fallen to amidst the cabbages and onions. She tried to glare again as the world spun around her, tried to snarl too, but she couldn’t focus, and the world blurred together entirely.
It’s all the same. It was a truth, though to which question, Arya did not know. Could not remember. The questions blended with the cabbages and onions and all the rest, even as the world faded from view entirely. It’s always the same. Eyes, Neck, Mind, Body, Soul. It was a truth she could not bear.
A wolf howled somewhere waiting to be acknowledged, and the rain kept on falling.