Chapter Text
It wasn’t fair, Arya thought with no small amount of resentment. None of it was fair. All she had wanted to do was spend an afternoon along the river with Mycah, hunting for rubies and reenacting the Battle of the Trident. Sansa could eat her lemon cakes with the sour Queen all she liked, but Arya was going to have fun. Her sister hadn’t gone in the wheelhouse like she’d planned, though. No, instead she’d gone riding with the Prince.
Arya let out a snort from where she lay, limbs spread across the floor of a small building near the inn where they’d been staying. It was more of a shack, really. She assumed it was at one point meant for additional food storage, but two stops from the King on his way to and from Winterfell had left the stores looking rather bleak. What little remained of the food looked to be nothing but a few bad apples, and the floor was sticky from where some had been crushed and mixed with the dirt that stained the floor. Her own clothes were muddied from hiding in the woods all day, and idly she picked at a barb that still clung to the bottom of her fraying hair, wondering how Sansa always managed to look so clean traveling with company so foul.
She recalled Sansa declaring riding to be a dirty, stinky affair only hours before. Yet there she’d been, looking beautiful with all the grace of a Tully, smiling from ear to ear as she rode next to the Prince – a little shit, and heir to the Seven Kingdoms. In a way, Arya supposed Prince Joffrey could be considered handsome, if only he didn’t strut like a rooster whenever he got particularly full of himself. It’s just that she had yet to see him go anywhere without doing it, and eventually she resigned herself to the fact that her future King must suffer from some sort of affliction in his legs. They simply didn’t seem capable of managing the weight of his head.
Her theory had been proven correct. Joffrey had crumpled like a leaf after she hit him over the back of the head with her stick for hurting Mycah. She hadn’t meant to injure him, not really. He hadn’t seemed weak back in Winterfell, but then again, he’d been heavily padded when sparring with Robb. Perhaps he really did suffer from an affliction. Still, down he’d gone, and there’d been a brief moment of satisfaction at having downed him so easily. There was blood on his neck, and a rich color to match that painted her stick as a more menacing weapon that what it actually was.
From her position on the dirty floor, Arya raised her hands in front of her face, and her eyes picked out the brown stains of Joffrey’s blood that had long since mixed with the mud that caked her skin. It hadn’t always been brown. She still remembered the violent, red color that had sprung from the Prince’s body. It made her wonder whether the rubies from the story of Prince Rhaegar’s defeat had been from his armor, or from what lay beneath it.
It hadn’t seemed to keep the Prince off his feet for long though. Joffrey had been up and swinging his flashy sword before she’d even had a chance to apologize. There’d been a fury in his eyes, a madness she hadn’t noticed before. Arya shivered at the thought of where she’d be if Nymeria hadn’t latched on to his arm. She’d had to set the direwolf loose, of course. The Queen wasn’t known for her benevolence, especially when it came to her children. And though Arya knew that, it pained her deeply to think of Nymeria alone, so far away from home. She hoped she’d be alright.
As it was, everyone in the King’s Party must have heard what happened by now, and she was unsure why her father had not come for her right away. She had tried to ask the guard that brought her here where her father was, but the Lannister man didn’t deign her with a response. Now however, with the moon set high in the night sky, there was movement outside her door, and an exchange of muffle words as a new person took the place of the first one.
There was a lull then, making Arya sit up from the floor, her heart pounding in her ears. When they’d first brought her here, she had desperately wanted to see her father, but now she wasn’t sure she could handle seeing the disappointment on his face.
A knock came, and the thumping in her chest echoed its message. But most of the tension she carried left her when she recognized the voice of the Starks' captain of the guard.
“It’s Jory, my Lady,” he announced. “I’ve come to take you to your father.”
His voice was still the friendly tone he’d always shared with her, but there was a nervousness to it all that prevented her from relaxing completely.
“I’m ready,” Arya said the words with a shaky exhale as she stood on wobbly legs. “I’m ready to go.”
Jory opened the door, and paused a moment to take her in. With a shake of his head he frowned. Arya knew she was a sore site, and it brought a little more shame than usual to think she had upset the nice man.
“Oh, this won’t do,” he muttered, finally moving into the room. “Did they not give you anything to wash yourself?”
Arya shook her head once, willing her embarrassment away. “No, but I don’t care!” The words came out forced. “They haven’t said a word to me about Father. They can deal with a bit of mud!”
Jory looked at her for a moment, probably recognizing that not all that stained her skin was dirt, and debating the right course of action. In the end he sighed, and Arya knew she’d reached an agreement when he gave her a small smile. “Alright, little lady. Let’s take you to your father. Lord Stark’s been out looking for you for hours, he’s only just now returned.”
Arya’s face scrunched up at the thought, her eyes idly taking note of how many people stared at them as they moved out of the storehouse and towards the Inn. “I’ve been here for ages, though. The sun was still up when I was brought in here.”
Her escort looked upset at the news, but didn’t give a response. It was only when they’d reached the door to the common hall that they stopped. Arya could hear the raised voices of an argument raging on inside; her father’s voice was one of the loudest.
“Now I need you to listen to me, my Lady,” Jory spoke with a quiet hush that drew her attention, bending down to keep her eyes level with his. “The Queen is mightily upset with you. I’m not sure what happened between you and the Prince, but you need to remain calm when you tell your part. Can you do that for me?”
Arya’s face flushed with anger at the thought of Joffrey, but she nodded regardless. Now was not the time for fighting. Fighting got her in this mess. She wouldn’t disgrace herself more than she had already.
She guessed Jory saw what he was looking for in her set face, because he gave another small smile of reassurance before standing up and entering the room. The bellowing voices gained both clarity and volume as she entered, and she realized with a start that her father was in an argument with the King.
The two men had yet to notice the new arrivals, but Arya felt the Queen’s eyes on her immediately. The Prince stood by her side, with a cloth tied to his neck, and his arm in a sling. She could see the red stains on both. His eyes held open hostility, but the Queens were colder, and tinged with a certain smugness that made Arya wish, for once, she was properly clean.
“Your Grace, this is madness!” The desperation in her father’s voice startled her, and she broke away from Cersei's stare to look towards him. “She’s just a little girl!”
“She doesn’t look like a little girl. She looks like a wild little beast.” The Queen's words weren't as loud as the two men, but they cut through the room with an ease that had both King Robert and her father turning to see where she was looking. Cersei's emerald green eyes never wavered from where she stood.
Her father sagged in relief, and for a moment Arya forgot about the Queen's mean gaze and the stupid Prince; she forgot the tension in the room entirely as she ran towards his open arms, stammering an apology into his chest. “I’m sorry,” she said, and found that she meant it. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
Her father held her tightly, and she basked in that silent comfort her father's presence provided just as much as his next words. “It’s alright, little one. You’re safe.”
To soon for her comfort Lord Stark broke his hold on her, and he finally caught notice of her state of dress. “What is the meaning of this?” he demanded, turning to face the Queen outright. “These stains are hours dry! Why wasn’t she brought to me at once?”
Cersei scoffed. “And have you wash away her savagery? I think not.”
King Robert slammed his hand on the arm of his chair. “Quiet, woman! Damnit Ned, I can’t just ignore the fact that your daughter shed the blood of the Crown Prince. If the girl had hit any harder, my welp of a son wouldn’t be shriveling in the corner like some frightened mare, he’d be in a bed.”
Joffrey, for his part, paled under his father’s harsh criticism and said nothing. But Arya could feel his eyes burning into her side as she stood before the King.
“Now then,” Robert mused aloud, focusing his attention on her. “What to do with you? Do you have anything to say for yourself?”
Arya tried to take an even breath, but it was difficult with so many pairs of eyes dissecting her every motion. “I-it was an accident your Grace! I only meant to get him to stop,” quickly she added “He was hurting Mycah!”
The Queen sneered from beside her husband. “Joffrey told us what happened. You and that boy beat him with clubs while you set your wolf on him.”
The lie made her angry. “That’s not what happened!” she declared loudly.
“Yes, it is!” Prince Joffrey yelled back, finally finding his voice. “They attacked me!”
Arya might have attacked him then too, but her father placed a hand on her shoulder like he knew what she was thinking. “It wasn’t like that at all!” she insisted. “Joffrey pulled his sword out on Mycah! I was the only one who hit him. He was hurting him!”
“And where is this butcher’s boy, then?” Cersei asked, idly searching the room for a boy she knew wasn’t there. “There’s been no sign of him. He ran away, just like you. Why would he run if he wasn’t guilty?”
The question made her pause. “I don’t know,” she whispered. Arya was beginning to panic. The King and her father were both staring at her with masked expressions, and she could tell those around her were starting to look at her with suspicion. She feared to guess what they were thinking. “I don’t know.”
Cersei leaned back in her chair; her lips pressed in a tight line that Arya thought to be holding back a smile. Her father’s oldest friend sighed from where he sat, a look of unease on his red face as he rubbed his brow.
“Your Grace, please—” her father began.
“What of your other daughter, Ned?” King Robert asked, stopping his friend. His tone had lost much of its vigor of the last hour. He sounded more resigned. “Where is she?”
Her father only paused a moment before answering. “In bed, asleep.”
Cersei smiled from her seat. “She’s not. Sansa, come here, darling.”
Arya’s head snapped to the door behind her, where her sister stood. Her normally fair skin had taken a more ashen appearance, and Arya felt a brief surge of resentment towards her. She wasn’t the one being accused of assaulting a Prince. But still, Arya had hope. She was quick to note that her sister wouldn't make eye contact with her on the way, but passed it off to the tenseness of the situation. She supposed Sansa could be nervous; she wasn’t used to being in such situations, ever the "perfect southern lady" like their mother.
When she had finally reached her place in front of the King, Arya felt a bit of the stiffness leave her shoulders; It would be over soon. She glanced up at her father, hoping to find the same reassurance she felt on his face as well, but he wasn’t looking at her. His eyes were on Sansa, and his brow was furrowed.
“Now, child,” the King began, drawing Arya’s attention back to her sister. “Tell me what happened, and tell it true. It’s a great crime to lie to a King.”
Briefly, Arya thought Sansa hadn’t heard the King’s command, but she finally raised her head and looked the younger girl in the eye. Arya gave her sister a grateful smile, but her sister’s face was not one of confidence, and Sansa quickly averted her eyes back to the king. Arya felt her blood freeze in her veins, the hair on her neck standing on end.
What was she doing?
“I don’t know,” Sansa stammered. “I don’t remember. Everything happened so fast, I didn’t see.”
Arya took an involuntary step back as the words slammed into her like a punch to the gut. What she heard couldn't be real, it wasn’t possible. Arya waited briefly to see if Sansa would break out in laughter. It had to be a joke. She would tolerate being the butt of a thousand of her sister and Jeyne Poole’s insults if it meant this was one of them. But her sister still refused to look her in the eye; Sansa just timidly stood there with her head to the ground. Arya’s eyes blurred with tears at the sting of the betrayal. But the sadness burned away when she saw the triumphant look on the Queen’s face. Arya knew then who convinced her sister to turn her back on her family. To turn her back on her.
“Liar! she shrieked, tackling Sansa to the ground. “Liar, liar, liar!” Each declaration was followed by a fist, as Arya tried to make her sister feel the same pain in her chest that the older girl had just delivered.
Multiple people yelled her name, and she was aware of arms pulling her off of the wretched thing sobbing on the ground below her, but she didn’t care. Though her arms were locked in the vices of someone behind her – her father, no doubt – Arya continued to kick her legs at her betrayer, and landed one solid hit to the underside of the girl's chin before she was pulled too far away. “Liar, liar, liar!” she screamed again.
“Stop! Arya!” her father bellowed, finally twisting her to face away from the older girl as Jory went to help her up from off the ground. Even still, she continued to struggle out of her father’s iron grip.
“She’s as wild as that animal of hers. She must be punished.” Queen Cersei’s words were poison, Arya knew. But the strength behind them was only made more potent paired with the sounds of crying that followed. To Arya, it was better than any Southron song she'd ever heard.
“Enough!” the King bellowed, turning to one of his guards. “You, fetch a maester, see to the girl's wounds. Quickly now, go!” Sansa still sobbed in the arms of the man who had helped her up, desperately trying to leave the hall, with a hand covering her mouth where blood dripped from her pretty face.
Less pretty now, Arya thought. She hoped it scarred.
The echo of the hall’s door closing made Arya cease her struggles. As the sorrowed tones grew fainter, the quiet in the room only grew more pronounced. Cersei’s demand was still on the minds of everyone remaining in the hall. Jory’s warning to behave seemed like a distant memory now, but Arya couldn’t muster the will to care. What would have been the point? The thought came unbidden. Sansa lied anyway.
Her father had remained silent through it all, though his grip had not relaxed. Arya noticed now that he hadn’t defended her against the Queen’s latest claim, and felt a sinking feeling in her stomach. Was it because he agreed?
“Gods be damned,” Robert groaned. Her father took the time to say his piece.
“Your Grace, let me send Arya home. We can keep her in the North, she won’t be a trouble to you or yours again.”
The Queen wouldn’t let it go. “And let her leave unpunished? My son will bare these scars for the rest of his life, to say nothing of the damage she’s just done to your own daughter. No. I demand she be punished appropriately, and I want her beast put down.”
Though Arya knew Nymeria was out of harms way, the statement still caused her stomach to turn. This vile woman was truly a heartless Queen. Arya despised her more than anyone in her entire life.
Robert groaned again. “I forgot the damned wolf.”
“We found no trace of the direwolf, your Grace,” a soldier said.
The King got up from his chair, waving off the soldier. “So be it.”
“We have another wolf.”
Everyone stopped.
They couldn’t mean Lady, could they? Arya thought to herself. It appeared that was her father and the King's thought as well, but Cersei was still looking at her. There was a gleam in her eye, and for the first time, Arya saw the same madness that overtook Joffrey earlier that day, fixed now in his mother's face.
“You can’t mean it,” her father whispered. He sounded horrified, and Arya peered up at him to see the color had drained from his face. She had never seen her father look so shaken, and briefly she felt guilt burn through her for being the reason. "She's just a child!"
"What of it?" the Queen snapped. "Joffrey is the Crowned Prince, and he was assaulted! Disfigured by a pack of wolves when his back was turned!" She gestured harshly towards the her son, whose face was red from the attention directed towards his wounds. Joffrey glared at Arya with open malice. She thought he looked like an angry toad.
"I won't hear this insolence!" her father seethed, and Arya jumped at the sound. She'd never heard her father so angry. "You southerners wield your words like an artist would a brush, and before we've even reached the Capitol you seek to paint us as wildlings off to steal your women and murder your sons!"
The King looked sharply at Lord Stark, opening his mouth to respond when Cersei's laughter, sharp and false, cut him off. "And what paint are we to use Stark," she spat the name like it was something vile. "that could compete with the Princes blood? No. I demand that beast be punished. I want her put down."
“She doesn’t mean Lady, does she?” Arya asked aloud, though it didn't sound right. There was a tightness that was growing in her chest the longer she heard the Queen and her father argue, like she was missing something. Her father was still glaring at the Queen, his face grim, but there was a sad desperation in those grey eyes so very much like her own that terrified Arya. She tried again to voice her opinion, but this time she directed her words to the Queen herself, who fixed her with those mad emerald eyes. “Lady wasn’t there! You leave her alone!”
No one responded.
The King remained silent through it all, which Arya thought odd. His expression was pained when her lord father turned to him, demanding a verbal answer to the question Arya still wasn’t sure had been asked. “Is this your command… your Grace?”
The Stag King sighed, long and suffering, before turning to his wife. His blue eyes were filled with such contempt that for an instant, Arya was shocked, but Cersei stood through it with a lazy smile on her face. Whatever happened between the two royals in that silent battle of wills apparently ended with the Queen as the victor, as the king muttered his final words before exiting the hall.
“So be it.”
Her father said nothing, though his face was the very image of rage. Or it would have been, if Arya hadn't felt the way his arms trembled around her shoulders. He gave the Queen a murderous look, but there was a prayer at his lips when he bowed his head. The fight seemed to have gone out of him all at once, and Arya thought he’d never looked so old as he did in that very moment.
It clicked to Arya then, with horrifying clarity, that it hadn’t been Lady at all that Cersei had demanded put to the sword. It had been her. Her father only gave a brief show of resistance before a Lannister guard pried her from his arms to be dragged away, back to the room with the sticky floor and rotten apples. Her mind was too numb from what had transpired to fight back. The will had simply abandoned her. Arya’s grey eyes never once wavered from the face of her father, sad and old, who stared back. Lord Stark looked as if he was already committing his daughter's face to memory, but he did nothing to stop the ones taking her. Arya waited for him to demand her release, or to do something to stop the men from locking her away. But he did nothing, and she watched him until he too turned his back on her.
And only then, did she see Cersei's smile. A smile so sweet and full of honey, it would haunt her until the day she died.
Until tomorrow.