Chapter Text
Winter’s Fire
Arya was a child of just four summers when she found herself hating Winter.
Wintertown, northern people, Winterfell, and the ruling family of the North. She's four years old and future Lady Sansa Stark made it very clear that she did not belong.
As if Catelyn Stark hadn’t already.
She was Snow living amongst the Starks of the Winter. A stain on her father’s good name. A soiled mark on Lady Catelyn’s honor. She already knew she was a bastard, that much she had always known. But now, with Sansa’s frostbitten word’s in her head, she knew that meant she was never going to have anything that could ever compare to the Stark children.
You're just a bastard girl.
You’re something to feel sorry for.
No one will ever marry you.
No one would ever want you.
She had yelled back that she wouldn’t have wanted to marry but…there was a cold truth to Sansa's words. Who’d want Arya Underfoot with her horse face and her wild nature? She had no future, Gods knew no one here in the North kept their daughters. And bastard boys... they...
That night she almost considered listening to her Septa-to stop being a wild wolf to become a pale copy of a lady to live easier but one look up at Catelyn and a fiery defiance burned in her chest. Coming back to life with a fury and warming her in the cold air in her room.
That dragon breathed fire again
She stayed out of both of their ways. For a near month, she kept up a routine. Out of bed before dawn, no septa or Lady Stark to wake her. Swiping bread and cheese from the kitchens and heading into the forests to avoid the Starks. No one would see nor hear of her until dusk where she’d sneak into the kitchens again for dinner.
She was young and fretful. Arya was young and spurned with spite. She was young and so, she forms a plan for when she turns five. She told herself early one morning as walked to the forests, I’ll hunt. I learn to live out here on my own and I won't ever have to set my eyes on Lady Stark or Sansa again-
And a thought struck her.
Her father, honorable Lord Stark. Her brothers. They matter. They love-
They're her half brothers and, he, her father is Lord Stark. And she-
Tears burned her eyes and she stops her thoughts from going any further.
“I’m not a Stark” she says to herself and stops her avoidance of her family that night.
She was docile for a moon or two. Listening to her Septa not causing trouble and her father comes to see her.
“What’s wrong, love?”
And without thinking she says, “You call Sansa that.” the look he gives makes her chest hurt and Arya's never felt more alone as she clung to her father.
“I’m not a Stark, am I.” and it’s a question she knows the answer to, though she doesn't know what that means, and still it burns her throat when she says the words aloud. The blood in her runs cold and she feels her fingers numb.
Without realizing, she starts to cry and her father wordlessly holds her.
Unknowing to the little wolf, he cries with her. Ned Stark feels for the girl who he swore to protect. He thinks of his sister, he thinks of the late prince, and he thinks of the little girl who was born from their union.
And hopes to the gods that he can continue to protect her
Arya hates sewing. Hates song lessons. And hates dinner etiquette even more. But she loves the history lessons with Maester Luwin. Loves the battles and war stories, she loves the heroes and heroines and lands they fought in. Arya had always walked to these lesson with a smile and a bounce in her step. At times going early to nag Maester Luwin to retell some stories.
But the most recent lesson has her thinking and under one of the great trees in the Gods Wood, she thinks privately to herself. Robert's Rebellion. Sansa had not been present for the lesson but Arya can see her swooning over the "romanticness" of it all. But Arya think of what Maester Luwin said. Robert was promised to Lyanna, and Rhaegar Targaryen took her. King Robert started a war to get her back but... she had died just before the war ended.
She knows the story of how King Robert was in his youth. Strong, powerful and unstoppable with a Warhammer, a true fighter of the Stormlands. Maester Luwin had told them of the King and his current state. Robert was known as the Wandering King he left Kings Landing every chance he got to travel and he'd spend so much time away from his wife and boys. Maester Luwin hadn't said it, but Arya had been in Wintertown and heard the people talk of the Wandering King. He was whore monger they said. He liked to drink himself into a sadness. One woman said she was in Ashford in the Storm Lands and that she saw Robert in a pitiful state, she said the Wandering King looked pitiful as he cried into his wine cup and quietly spoke of his lost love Lyanna. She said that late at night the King gave lunatic cries to the Gods.
Arya feels contempt for the King, fro becoming the shell of the revered warrior he once was but it isn't long before Mycah comes and tells her Lady Stark is looking for and she goes into the Godswood to hide.
The Wandering King called Ned Stark to the Stormlands. Now returning back to the North, Ned enters the gate of Winterfell and sees his boys, his daughter, his wife and notes his little wolf was not in line. but he breathes in the cold air and lets that remind him that he has returned home.
Lord Stark met with Robert, who asked him of the Targaryen siblings in Essos. The Stag sought council to bring an end the Targaryens for good. and Lord thinks back to his riled friend. He did not help, did not give Robert the council he wanted, ending their meeting with “You can’t get your hands on this Targaryen, can you?” and obliged his friend's harrowing to a hunting trip.
When returns to Winterfell it’s early in the morning and Arya was on the wall waving at him from the distance.
When he comes into the castle, Lady Stark is there to greet him. His sons and his daughter greet him with the same enthusiasm. And the little wolf is off to her own devices.
Later that day he sees her riding, swift and easy and unbothered by the world. She’s smiling and he’s sure she’s laughing and he can’t help but feel the sadness of it all. Arya was wild and he hoped she’d remain that way but he thinks of her future and what that means for her. Matches were scarce and there was no place for her to live as she did. And until then he hoped to have his little wolf near and in his sight.
He goes back to his study and catches site of the foreign bird perched on his shelf. It doesn’t make a sound as he walks near, trained, he notes. And when he offers his arm the bird obediently gets on. Removing the small parchment on the bird’s leg, he lets the bird fly back to the shelf
Unraveling the note, he finds his blood running cold.
I hope this finds you in good health, My Lord.
I write this with the hopes of receiving an answer, you see,
I would like to inquire about my sister, Arya.
I hope she is well in your care….
He feels faint. The boy lived and was asking for his sister.
Aegon Targaryen.
The world seemed to spin and the floors felt uneven as his legs lost their strength.
He stayed in the study examining the letter wondering at the sender and then thinking upon what it could entail. Was this a ruse?-Was Arya in danger?
He wondered if the boy was angry, Arya was born from a union that resulted in the death of his entire family. He wondered if Arya had become a target. As a precaution he burns the letter and he turns to the bird used to send it-he should kill it remove all the evidence- but he lets it fly free and prays to the gods for Arya’s safety.
Thanks for reading. -V