Chapter Text
It was their twelfth day crossing the Neck when Arya Stark came at Prince Joffrey with a knife.
She would have rather have a sword, but hadn’t been able to get her hands on one before they had to leave Winterfell. Arya had begged Mikken the swordsmith to give her one, a small one even; but the man had only laughed her away. You won’t need no swords in the South, Lady Arya, Mikken had told her. They’ll make you into a proper lady, and you’ll only get bored and throw it away.
Arya had hated him for it.
They all kept saying that, Mother and Father and Septa Mordane even. King’s Landing will be good for you, Arya, they repeated, and she scoffed. Arya wanted to go to King’s Landing, and see the Red Keep and Baelor’s Sept and the sun rising from the Narrow Sea at dawn, but she liked herself just fine.
Mother, of course, didn’t agree. Arya looked just like Lady Catelyn, everyone said so, and expected Arya to act like her as well, to Arya’s great dismay. All of her brothers looked like Father instead, and they only laughed whenever they saw Arya hiding up somewhere, trying to escape Septa Mordane’s watchful eyes. Arya Spitfire, they called her, for her red hair; and she pretended to be angry even though she liked the name quite a lot.
And yet her brothers were back home in Winterfell and she was going South with only Sansa for company, and she missed them terribly already. There was Father, of course, but Father did not count, because he was the new Hand of the King and always off riding with King Robert somewhere. Still there was some good in Father stay away all day, though, because it meant that the king wasn’t around to stare at Sansa, which was staring to get on Arya’s nerves. Sansa looked a lot like Aunt Lyanna, she knew, who had been to marry the king before she had died, but still, Arya didn’t like it one bit. The king was too old for Sansa, and fat.
Still, the king had gone looking for aurochs somewhere today, and Sansa riding with the queen.
“You should come, too,” her sister had told her that morning, but Arya had only made a face.
“I like riding better,” she had said, and Sansa had shuddered. Sansa did not like riding, no one bit, not since Father had broken one arm and a leg on a bad fall, when they had both been very small. Arya couldn’t even remember it, but her sister did; and she had always been scared, afterwards.
Arya went riding off on her own after that, with half a mind of going looking for the fallen rubies in the water. Rhaegar’s rubies. They must be worth a lot, she thought. Surely enough to buy a sword.
She almost went looking for Mycah to see if he wanted to help her, but he had refused to talk to her since his master had seen them together. What are you doing, boy, wastin time on the Hand’s daughter like that? the man had said. That kind of meat ain’t for the likes of you. Arya had tried to tell him that Mycah was her friend, but the man wouldn’t listen.
“And now I’m alone,” she told Nymerya, annoyed, and the wolf raised her head to look at her. “I didn’t mean like that,” Arya promised. “I like you just fine, don’t worry.”
She resigned herself to remain between the trees instead, because the sun burned too hot on her neck to go looking for lizard lions. Nymeria had wandered off somewhere, and she was welcomed to the heat. Arya would pick every new flower she saw, she decided, and bring them to Father; and she had found four new one by the time she saw Prince Joffrey arrive.
He had a strange reaction at seeing her, halfway between confusion and his stupid arrogant face, and Arya thought he looked like one of the seals she had seen once in White Harbor. She laughed, and he scowled.
“Are you mocking your Prince?” he asked; and Arya remembered that he was Sansa’s betrothed, as stupid as his curly hair was, and only shrugged instead of answering.
“What are you doing here?” she said instead; and, at that, he smiled.
He’s no charming at all, no matter what Sansa says.
“Your sister and I went riding,” Joffrey said. “I think I lost her.”
Arya frowned. “But Sansa doesn’t like riding.”
The prince laughed at that. “So I saw,” he said, sliding off his own horse. “I think it was funny.”
“You should have stayed with her,” Arya accused him. “Sansa doesn’t like riding but she did it for you anyway, because…” because she’s stupid, Arya thought, but did not say that to Joffrey. “Because she’s your betrothed, and wanted to make you happy,” she concluded. It was the absolute truth, she knew; but then again, Sansa always liked stupid things.
“As well as she should,” Joffrey agreed. “I’m her Prince.”
You are a little shit, she wanted to tell him, like she had heard Theon Greyjoy say to Robb.
“What about you, Arya?” Joffrey asked, and she frowned right at him.
“What about me?” Arya asked, glaring at the prince. He had green eyes just like Queen Cersei, she saw, surprised. When did he get so close?
“Do you want to make me happy?” he asked, and Arya snorted.
“I don’t even want to see you,” she said. “Go away.”
But Joffrey didn’t move. If anything, he came closer. “I’m going to be King one day, you know,” he offered, as if she didn’t know.
He looked disappointed at her lack of an answer and continued. “I would rather marry you than Sansa,” Joffrey said. “You’re prettier.”
And you’re stupid. She took a step back. “Well I don’t,” Arya told him. “Go back to Sansa.”
“I don’t care for Sansa,” he said, smiling like he had before. “The Others take Sansa.”
She tightened her hands into fists, and he went on talking. “Or my father. You know, he keeps on saying how much she looks like Lady Lyanna, perhaps he should take her. A king can have all the women he wants, even the Hand’s daughter.”
“When I’m king,” Joffrey informed her. “I’m going to have you brought to my bed.”
Arya punched him in the face.
“How do you dare…” he began, but she didn’t let him talk, running for her horse as she took her knife from her belt.
Where’s Nymeria?
“Stay away,” Arya said. “Stay away or I’ll stab you.”
Joffrey laughed, but he was red with anger. “You speak treason,” he said, his voice oddly cold, as Mother’s did when she did something very, very bad.
“You go away,” Arya told him, trying to sound brave. “Or I’ll tell Father. And the king.”
“I’ll remember this.” Joffrey made for his horse, and Arya breathed in relief, trying not to be too obvious.
“I’ll remember this,” he repeated as he rode away; and once he was gone Arya Stark let herself fall down to the ground, breathing in the smell of flowers and grass and summer, and she was trembling.
I'll remember this, too.