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Arya had just finished scraping the pan free of egg bits when Shireen comes to her and tells her she’s being summoned.

“What for?” Arya asks, confused. Renly has only on rare occasion summoned them, and he was not an early riser.

Shireen shakes her head. She has grown up lovely, though none of the young men of the court seem to have noticed, even though she carries with her name Dragonstone.

“I’m not supposed to say. I’m supposed to bring Gendry too.”

“He’s already on his way to the forge, I was going to join him.”

They were finishing up a helm for one of the new guard recruits. It was nearly done, but they really should get on it, and Arya doesn’t appreciate having to delay it.

“I’ll go get him too,” Shireen says before taking off, knowing that Arya can make it to the castle on her own.

Arya slips on her boots, slides Needle into its sheath, throws on her cloak (it’s raining lightly), and makes her trek up to the castle with no idea what could possibly be waiting for her.

She pulls her hood back down under the cover of the castle entrance. She tells one the guards who she is, and he makes to lead her into the keep.

Arya had no idea what to expect, but the last thing in the world she thought she would see were Father and Mother.

Suddenly, running to embrace them both, Arya feels like a child again, as if she hasn’t been married and on her own for five years. She has written them of course, extensively, as she has to her siblings, but being here and feeling them hold her tight, is different.

“Why are you here? And how come you didn’t send a message?”

“Oh, we were about to send a proper letter,” Mother starts, fussing with the straps of Arya’s tunic.

“But we had business to attend to in King’s Landing anyway, so we thought we’d surprise you.”

Business? Arya wonders. It must have something to do with the King’s recent marriage to that Tyrell girl. She hadn’t paid the news much attention, wouldn’t have felt it her concern at all, but the girl’s brother was a frequent visitor to Storm’s End.

“Is this about…” Arya starts to ask when another guard leads in a confused looking Gendry. His expression slips suddenly seeing Arya’s parents. His demeanor among highborns other than her had always ran the gamut, from his head ducked low in deference, to his eyes steeled and penetrating. She steps back and grabs his hand, hoping to steady him.

“Officially, we’re here to invite the both of you to Bran’s wedding. It’s a bit short notice, but he really wants you there.”

Suddenly Arya feels a weight lift from her stomach.

“They finally decided to take the jump?”

Shortly after him and Robb had returned to Winterfell, Meera and her father had come as well, under the guise of renewing House Reed’s oath of fealty. Unofficially, it had allowed the possibility of Bran’s betrothal to Meera to be laid out. Secretly, Arya had wondered if Meera even had a part in the discussion, but it would have been easy enough for her to just forget about Bran and keep deep in the Neck. Sansa had wrote her that by the last day the two were in Winterfell, that Bran had led Meera up the outside of the library tower and onto the roof, and the other girl had seemed more than happy to follow.

That had been nearly five years ago.

Bran’s letters had confessed to Arya, that while he had been besotted by Meera immediately, neither of them were truly in a rush to wed. Arya had nearly been jealous, Gendry and her having had to be so careful for so long.

“Your brother has finished training with Ser Rodrick,” Father explains, “And we’ve discussed arrangements with regards to inheritance. They both agreed it was time.”

“When are you leaving?” Gendry interrupts to ask.

Ned tells them, “We’re leaving Storm’s End in three days time, just long enough for everyone to rest up.”

Arya and Gendry turn to meet each other’s gaze.

“Do we have anything that will take longer?”

“That stupid helm should be done as soon as I can get that damned faceplate to fit.”

“Still?” Arya rolls her eyes.

“Dot?”

“On the road. Will that jackass who got ten pounds of nails at once be back?”

“I can dodge him or pass him off Kyn, he owes me anyway.”

“No mason appointments right?”

Gendry shakes his head, and suddenly Arya realizes they’re being watched as though they aren’t speak Common. She clears her throat.

“Go and try to fix that godsforsaken faceplate. I’ll bring us lunch and try to help.’

After he leaves, Arya returns her eyes again to her parents. It’s so strange having them near again.

“I should be getting back.”

Her mother steps forward, her expression borderline unreadable, as it had been through much of Arya’s childhood.

“I’ll walk back with you.”

Arya takes her mother’s arm as they walk out of the palace and up the small hill. The rain seems to have stopped, she really should do the wash later if it sticks. She realizes that Mother is glancing around at the ground, suddenly feeling self-conscious of the broken wheels and other debris.

“It’s like looking at your childhood bedchambers,” Lady Catelyn comments idly. Arya smothers a comeback. She had not been a neat child, and had been the subject of frequent admonitions that it was not the servants’ jobs to keep her cloak and books off the floor and her boots free of mud and snow. Arya feels her ears grow pink.

“It may not be much, but it is home.”

When they reach the house, Lady Catelyn stands in the doorway looking around as Arya steps into the cellar. Soft white cheese, bread and blackberry preserves, enough for the two of them. She pauses, then splits off a piece of the bread and offers it to her mother.

She takes it and eats it cautiously.

“Why does everyone seem to think I might accidentally poison them? Even Sansa didn’t know the secret of baking bread.”

That does makes Catelyn laugh.

There’s a long moment where Arya is considering.

“I...I don’t really, either of us, have anything really appropriate to wear to a wedding.”

“Sansa’s offered to take care of it.” Catelyn assures her, “She remembered that you only brought a single dress with you when you left.”

Arya’s ears burn at the reminder of how she’d left her home. Seeking a diversion, she remembers a book Shireen had lent her a fortnite before. She reaches and takes the book from its place on the table and hands it to her mother.

“Can you return this to Shireen? I meant to give it to her earlier, we’re done with it.”

Catelyn takes the book.

“It’s good to know your father’s efforts in educating Gendry were not wasted.”

Arya feels her stomach pinch in Gendry’s defense. Father had gone to great efforts to ensure Gendry and all his siblings could read and do their sums. Gendry often brushed it off, and Arya ended up reading to him from Shireen’s books more often than not, but he wasn’t dumb.

Her desire to defend him is cut short when they step outside, and Arya realizes that the mason who had come a few days before had finished the first layers in the circle completely and the rain had filled it.

“Hell, give me a minute,” Arya says, climbing the side.

“Can you hand me the bucket?”

It’s not too much, but if she doesn’t do this it will start attracting insects.

When the two walk down the hill as a pair, Catelyn asks her about the roof.

“We’re in the process of adding another room above us, but we can’t afford to do it all at once. And if the ring is complete, rain gets trapped. I should find something to cover it in the time being.”

She doesn’t ask about why they wanted to add on. The little cottage had been plenty enough for the two of them. Then several months ago, Arya had missed her moon tea for several days, and they’d been forced to consider.

And they’d decided it wouldn’t be the worst time.

Gendry, however, had immediately jumped onto the logistics. They might be able to squeeze an infant in a cradle in with them, but once it began to grow it just wouldn’t do. And Gendry had insisted that they would not want to deal with the masons and the plans and the scraping and moving when she was with child or caring for a very young infant, so they should get it done as soon as they could.

Arya was still grappling with the idea of being responsible for a tiny person, and Gendry was stuck on his own avenue. No wonder the others in Flea Bottom had called him the Bull.

Arya and her mother part ways at the crossroads outside the palace, and she goes forth to bring Gendry his lunch.

Later that night, they’re in bed going over what they need to do before leaving.

“What are we going to bring for a gift? I understand that sort of thing is traditional.”

Arya purses her lips in thought.

“We could give them that half barrel of blackberry wine down below.”

Gendry groans. They hadn’t known what to do with the massive oversupply of berries that the vine produced, until one of the fishwives gave Arya instructions of how to mash and ferment them.

They’d both been looking forward to it too.

“There was something I wanted to make Meera too, I’ll do that tomorrow at the forge.”

She sighs deeply. She’s happy to be getting to see everyone again, but…

“I wish being around your parents didn’t make me feel so small.”

Gendry’s rolled over with his back facing her when she says this.

Arya snorts.

“It’s not just you. Even just walking back here with my mother today made me feel like I was going to be scolded for getting muddy.”

Gendry rolls back to face the ceiling and Arya reaches over and pats him on the shoulder.

“The things we do for family.”

Leaving in three days is actually easy, the two of them have shockingly little to pack. The only reason Arya even chooses to take Needle is it’s pretty much the only thing they own that might be worth stealing.

Arya retrieves Sandy from the stables. The pale brown mule had been a belated wedding gift from Mya, but they had no place to keep her, and ultimately she had ended up just another of Mya’s pod. She fits both her and Gendry with only minor discomfort though, and brays in impatience when the horses need to be rested more often than her.

“We’re just going to pass through King’s Landing right?” Arya asks her father when they get close to the city. They’ve stopped to water the animals, and Gendry is adjusting Sandy’s saddle to make sure she isn’t too exhausted.

Ned nods back to her,

“We did our duty on the way down.”

“What was that business anyway?”

It is strange too, Arya thinks, no longer finding out the most of official business through gossip. She hasn’t missed it in Storm’s End, the alliances and feuds and machinations. But it wouldn’t be true to say she wasn’t curious.

“Queen Margaery has given birth to a healthy baby boy, and we went to give our congratulations.”

Ah, Arya had heard rumblings of that fact. Not as loud as they had been when King Robert remarried, but enough.

She cocks her head at her father.

“Was that really it?”

Ned pauses, as if debating whether he should tell the next part.

“Robert has chosen to disavow Tommen and Myrcella. He believes the assessment both me and Jon Arryn came to.”

That shocks Arya flat.

“What will become of them now?” Unlike their brother, Tommen and Myrcella had both been nothing but kind to Arya, and though neither of them were gifted with great wit or talent, they did not deserve the fates that most likely would be coming to them. Being labelled a bastard would be bad enough, much less labelled a bastard born of incest.

“Thankfully, he’s chosen to do it quietly, and leave out the more scandalous parts of the equation,” Ned replies. Arya lets out a sigh of relief. “Myrcella was promised years ago to a prince in Dorne. The two are fond enough of each other that the marriage will still stand. Tommen’s the one left up in the air.”

Ned stops and eyes both her and Gendry.

“King Robert also asked if I could try and convince you two to let him lay eyes on you.”

“That depends,” Gendry interjects, “Is he still a drunken whoring lout?”

Arya nods in agreement. The residents of Storm’s End had told them both the stories of Robert and Arya’s aunt Lyanna as soon as the two were recognized for who they were. Neither had been moved by it. Gendry resented any comparison to his father, long disdaining of his attitude towards women and lacking in his fondness for drunkenness. Arya too, had no fondness for her own apparent resemblance to her dead aunt. It was the kind of tragic love story that Sansa might have gone starry eyed over, not thinking of the needless death.

Ned nods, understanding. “Though as his health continues to decline, he seems less and less himself. “

“What of his queen then?”

“Margaery seems more interested in her own position than any of sort of connection between her and the King. She will remain, no matter what becomes of him.”

Her father’s words sit bitterly in Arya’s mind. Ambition, they would call it, Arya herself had no taste for it.

When they get closer to the Neck, the summer heat has truly shown itself, pressing down upon all of them. Arya had absolutely no need for the cloak she had packed, so it became a pillow.

When they reach the stopping point, Arya quietly asks her mother what’s been on her mind since the trip began.

“How much have I missed while I’ve been gone?”

“Somehow both so much and nothing at all.” Is Cat’s response.

“Did Bran ever end up taller than me?”

Her mother laughs at that. It had been a joke during Arya’s younger years, that the two of them were going to reach adulthood neck in neck.

“An inch or two. He’s barely even taller than Meera, and none of the peoples from the Neck are very large. He claims Robb and Sansa must have stolen all the family height and left you two and Rickon with the scraps.”

Cat gets a wistful look in her eye.

“What of Robb and Sansa?” Arya asks. She has written Sansa extensively over the last few years, but her sister seems to have more interest in how Arya was, and often dodges inquiries into her own life.

“Your brother seems so far away now. He’s been like this ever since Balon Greyjoy died and we sent Theon back to Asha. He’s had numerous offers of marriage, but hasn’t accepted any of them. He seems preoccupied, but can’t seem to say with what. Sansa is much the same.”

Arya feels her mother’s sadness deep within her. Of the few communications they had exchanged sense, Cat had told her that she did feel sad that she hadn’t gotten to see her wed, and Arya did feel guilt at having denied her that.

“Though, you will see them both for yourself soon. “

There is a bit of confusion,

“Both are coming? Then who remains at Winterfell?”

Cat shakes her head softly.

“Maester Luwin agreed with us, that he and Vayon Poole were confident in their ability to keep things running on their own, and that it would be good to try and give Rickon some responsibility.”

Rickon, Arya thought. Her youngest brother, who even as he entered young manhood, still seemed a wild boy.

“Rickon…” she starts.

Catelyn carries on, “Is much the same as when you left. He still wanders outside into the woods whenever allowed, sometimes for the entire day. I would almost believe that he was somehow a wildling changeling if I didn’t know better.”

Arya stares off into the forest thinking, deep in her mind, of her youngest brother.

Gendry comes up beside her, asking.

“Your father says they’ve spotted the guide.”

Greywater Watch moves, it being built upon one of the floating islands that fill the Neck. Which also means it cannot be found by raven or map, and they must wait to be guided in.

The man who eventually appears is rather small, with sandy brown hair. Ned steps forward to shake his hand, and then embrace him.

“Lord Reed, it is an honor to see you again.”

“Lord Stark, it is an honor to host you, especially in this situation.”

Reed turns, and the party begins to follow his lead, stepping their steeds carefully around the deep water and quicksand,

By the time their trek into the marshes and bogs reaches its end, Arya is soaked head to foot in sweat, and though only parts of him are pressed into her back, Gendry feels like he’s much the same. The air feels thicker here, heavy with moisture.Just when she feels like she’s had enough, Lord Reed announces they’ve arrived.

Greywater Watch may not be large as far as castles go, but it still looms before the party, rising suddenly out of the bog and drifting ever so slightly atop the water. The only guards Arya sees are a pair of boys of about ten with three-pointed spears. One of them ducks his head in deference when he rows out in a canoe to bring them aboard, and the other runs to the keep to announce their arrival, coming back out fairly quickly with the rest of the party come to greet them.

What her mother had told Arya was right, Bran looked much the same as she remembered, slightly taller than herself, his dark hair just a bit long. Sansa, who had resembled a woman grown even before she was one, was somehow even more immaculate, even in the swamp air. Robb stands beside her, confident and proud, even if he looks a bit out of place.

Arya suddenly feels herself taken over by a childish giddiness, and rushes forward to embrace all of them. She’s not sure who she manages to grab first, but everyone gets a turn.

Sansa reaches and touches the top of Arya’s right arm.

“Gods, you do have a smith’s arm,” she says, half disdainful, half admiring.

Robb pats her on the head.

“Still so small,” Arya sticks her tongue out at him.

Bran claps Gendry on the shoulder. Arya sometimes forgets that Bran hung around the forge as often as she did.

“Honestly, part of me thought Arya actually pushed you off into the sea as soon as we left and just never told anyone.”

The reunion is broken by Meera finishing greeting the rest of the party and stepping to do the same to Arya and Gendry.

From Bran’s description, Arya hadn’t been sure what to expect from Meera Reed. She’s about as tall as Arya, and lean. Her short, curly hair is tied back at her neck. And dressed in a linen tunic and leathers, she isn’t exactly the image of a fine lady who men fell in love with at first sight.

She’s wearing a huge smile though, and she adds,

“You’ll have to excuse my informal attire, there’s still quite a bit of work to be done.”

Arya hears Bran snort beside her.

“I can count the number of times I’ve seen her wear a dress on the fingers of one hand. Sansa didn’t know what to do with her. ”

Arya feels Gendry stiffen up.

“Milady,” slips from his mouth,

Meera’s smile crinkles,

“None of that, not here. We’ll all be family tomorrow.”

Gendry relaxes against her, and Arya feels Meera jump much higher in her esteem.

There is much to do, to prepare for the ceremony tomorrow. A few servants offer to carry their things inside, though Arya and Gendry choose to stay in one of the tents set up in the courtyard (it’s just been so hot, most of the people here are sleeping on porches as it is, or else just straight up outside”). Bran’s been in one since he’s been here, and he assures Arya they’re find, but reminds her to roll down the netting on the outside (“or the chiggers will feast upon you”). Mother and Father are discussing the seating with Lord Reed, Robb is helping Lady Jyana with preparation for the feast, and Sansa is sitting up with Meera’s brother Jojen while she finishes up some of the embroidery on Meera’s gown.

Bran has spoken a bit of Jojen, that the young man is quite sickly and prone to strange visions. He has told her that the Reeds call it “greenseeing”, and it’s always sounded like something out of Old Nan’s stories. But when he’s lucid, Jojen is perfectly welcoming, and Bran seems to enjoy talking to him.

Just when Arya is trying to figure out where she can fit herself in, Meera taps her on the shoulder.

“Arya, I dropped a fishing net this morning in a nearby pond. Would you like to come and help me pull it in?”

Arya perks up, then spares a glance back at Gendry.

“The canoes will fit three if Gendry wants to come too.”

Gendry shakes his head violently,

“No, no thank you.”

“Really? You’d rather stay here by yourself with Father and all my brothers?”

When he nods in agreement, Arya cocks an eyebrow in confusion, but turns back to Meera.

“Guess it’s just us then.”

The canoes are docked back in a corner of the crannog where the horses are also hitched. Horses, she’d been told, were not always useful in the Neck, and there were only two kept at Greywater Watch. Arya feels an urge to suggest that a mule or two might suit the terrain.

Arya gets in first and Meera hands her an oar, before getting in and push them off. The only other things in the boat with them are two empty buckets. Meera offers her a tub of thick, foul smelling green paste, saying the bugs would eat her alive otherwise.

“Do you have a knife on you?”

Arya nods before marveling that she was being asked that question by a lady.

“Bran mentioned you and Gendry eloped? How many years has it been?”

“Near on five, “ Arya admits, She hopes Meera’s not about to ask for marital advice, because she’s not comfortable discussing such matters when they involve her brother.

“I tried to tell him we should do the same, just run off one night and avoid all this fuss.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Well it would be rather awkward once we came home. Besides, people love a wedding.”

That is true enough, Arya must admit.

“It’s not like we had much of a choice. Gendry’s a bastard with no name, my parents would have never approved the marriage.”

Meera laughs at that.

“Sometimes I forget that things are so different outside the Neck. My mother’s a commoner too, and no one here said a word.”

Arya’s shocked silent. Oh. It seemed her and Meera were going to get along famously.

She gazes out over the water. None of the plants here look like ones she’s seen anywhere else, though she does recognize a bright purple flower from when they had passed through once before. Not touching that one again, she thinks.

It is rather nice out here, Arya notes. Despite the oppressive heat and humidity, the waters are calm, and the trees give plenty of shade. And everywhere her head turns, it seems there’s something new to look at.

“Does Bran like it here?” She asks idly.

“More than I could have hoped,” Meera admits, “I...I know what people from outside say about us, about this place. But he really seems to have taken to it. The first day, the keep was moored near one of the highest trees in the swamp. He disappeared after dinner, turned out he’d gone out to climb it.”

“That’s Bran for sure, Mother was always convinced he was going to plunge off something and break his neck.”

Meera points ahead of the canoe, “The turns up here.”

After they make it, she continues.

“He says he wants to try and organize the fighters here better. First night he was here, a settlement was raided by Freys.’

“He did always want to be a knight,” Arya says, “Though there are none here in the North. Mother called his training with our master-of-arms a squirehood, but he knew.”

Meera finds the net’s floater with ease, and the two of them haul the net onto the boat.

“Do you know how to gut a fish?”

Arya pulls out her knife. She’d forged it herself, her first big project, figuring no one’s standards were higher than her own.

“Knife goes in, guts come out.”

Though, she had only really gutted a few in Storm’s End, the one’s Dot had taught her to fish for off one of the piers. The fishermen usually did it on the boat. And Arya will admit, it is rather disgusting work.

After tearing off a rather stubborn bit of entrail, Arya fights to distract herself.

“I hope Bran’s not asking Gendry too many questions, he’s standoffish enough around my family without having to involve himself in matters that might involve being interrogated about what happened on our wedding night.”

Meera very quietly says, “He probably won’t ask.” When Arya stares at her, and slowly raises an eyebrow, she admits, “We didn’t quite make it.” Her cheeks have suddenly gone very red.

Well, it seems Arya has accidentally stumbled onto the exact subject she’d so wanted to avoid.

After being silent for a time, Meera continues.

“Bran’s been having strange dreams since he came here. A couple of nights ago, I woke and he was pacing the courtyard by where all the tents are. I climbed out my window to ask him what was wrong.

He told me he’d had a terribly vivid dream about being trapped in a cave and being unable to move his legs. He said there were monsters outside, but he couldn’t do anything to get away.

I tried to reassure him that it was probably just from being away from home- I mean, when Father and I went to Winterfell the first time I dreamed multiple times about being surrounded by blinding snow on all sides and somehow still be pursued by something- but he was really shaken up. So, I pulled down one of the canoes, and we went night boating.”

“That’s a thing?” Arya asks. It even sounds euphemistic.

“There was a full moon out, and the fireflies are thick in the summer. There’s the swamp gas too- pockets of air that sometimes catch fire. People have occasionally mistaken them for ghosts or spirits.”

“And did either of you see any of these spirits that night?” Arya asks wryly.

“Not a single one.”

They’ve finished up the fish, and Arya is happy for the rowing to escape her from this conversation.

Meera whistles on the way back.

“What is that song, it sounds familiar.”

“It’s just an old lullaby, though mothers don’t usually sing all the words. It’s just been back in my head lately.”

The sun is low and golden by the time they return, and Meera’s song perfectly suits the day.

When they disembark and Meera makes to take the bucket of fish to the kitchen, Arya is seized upon by Sansa and forced to spend the rest of her day being fitted.

The dress Sansa has brought to put on her is a soft blue silk, with yellow embroidery, and a blessedly loose skirt and short sleeves. It is rather lovely, even if wearing it makes her feel like some sort of fancy confection.

And even if she still flinched when Sansa pushed a pin too close.

Once she’s finished, Sansa brushes her hair. Arya generally can keep it free of snarls, even if she doesn’t do anything with it, so the action is almost soothing. She remembers having her hair brushed by her mother as a child, and for once does not remember the scolding.

“What about you, Sansa?” Arya asks after a long time. “No marriage prospects for you? No great romance I missed out on teasing you for?”

Sansa smiles, but her smile is a little sad.

“None. I’ve been given offers...but I feel nothing for them.”

“Nothing?” Sansa has always spoken of her own marriage, and Arya had been certain she would return to her sister having immediately latched onto the nearest handsome knight, and she’d simply been left in the dark for some unknown reason.

Sansa shakes her head, “They are young and old, handsome and not, gallant and greedy, and yet I feel nothing for any of them.”

“I used to think you could fall in love with a stick if it stood still long enough.”

“A stick Arya, really?”

Sansa pauses a long time on a rough section in Arya’s hair.

“Do you ever feel Arya, as if you’re waiting for something, and you can feel it coming, but it’s just out of reach? I have odd dreams sometimes…”

“Don’t talk to me about dreams.”

Bran has interrupted his sisters, sticking his head through the door.

“Have either of you seen Jojen?”

“He left earlier,” Sansa tells him.

Dreams...

“Yes, Meera did mention to me that you’ve had some rather...intense dreams being away from home.”

Her gaze is hard, and mocking. She hadn’t intended to bring what her and Meera had discussed on the boat up, but she could rarely resist the urge to tease a sibling. And even though Bran’s eyes dart towards her, Sansa doesn’t seem any the wiser.

Once Bran sees certain she’s not going to spill his secret in front of their more proper sister, he continues.

“Intense is putting it mildly. They feel as real as life when I’m having them. They- they feel like the way Jojen describes his visions.”

Visions.

“Do you think being here has somehow made you into a greenseer too?” Arya isn’t sure whether something like that is ridiculous or not, but the swamps here do feel like a whole different world.

“Even if that were possible, it’s wrong. Jojen sees visions of what has happened in the past, or will soon come to pass, or sometimes things that are happening right now. The dreams I have...they’re impossible. Sometimes I’m much younger than I am, and places I’ve never been. The worst one I woke up not being sure that my life was even real.“

Sansa stands and puts the brush down.

“I could go and ask where he went if you wish to speak to him so badly.”

She’s as confused as Arya feels, it seems. She wants to avoid the discussion, even if from her own admission, it seems she might understand.

Arya also feels the pull to push away the discussion of the impossible dreams. And so, once Sansa has left, she returns to her earlier needling.

“I’ll keep quiet if you can do the same. Though Meera couldn’t, so you two might be in trouble.”

Bran has gone very red. His cheeks have the barest hints of a beard upon them, though it looks like he shears it off. Its strange, even though he’d been as tall she was even years before, Arya still had a hard time thinking of him as a man.

“I could barely look her in the eye over breakfast without breaking into laughter, and she didn’t stop smiling all day, I’d be surprised if the whole castle didn’t already know.”

“So you couldn’t hold out a few more days, I never would have taken you for someone to be a stickler for tradition.”

Bran’s sat beside her, where Sansa had been. Arya had begun to regret that the two of them were never closer, they really were much more alike than her and Sansa were.

“If we were sticklers for tradition, Meera would be the one leaving home tomorrow. She would be coming to Winterfell and learning about our bannermen and how to prepare for being snowed in. Instead, I get to come and learn about how to hunt frogs, and how to grow vegetables in bales of straw.”

“Straw?” Arya asks looking at him funny.

“Oh, it keeps them out of the water so they don’t rot. You have to spread them with fish guts first…”

Arya cuts him off. Enough of her day has already involved fish guts.

“Her family’s known for years that Jojen wouldn’t be fit to inherit on his own. Meera tells me he’s always needed help, and she’s always been happy to give it. Though she did seem convinced I wouldn’t marry her knowing that.”

Arya’s feeling so much better about everything over this day,

“So you think you’ll be happy here? Even with the weird dreams?”

“That’s a joke. All these dreams have been making me do is be grateful for everything I have here.”

Sansa sticks her head back in and asks if Bran still wants to talk to Jojen, so their conversation ends on that note.

The fireflies are out heavy that night. They didn’t have them in Wintefell, or in Storm’s End. They look just like the stories describe though, though they don’t stay lit. The seconds of light as they hover over the water make the view from the tents on the ground borderline magical.

Gendry’s stretched out beside her. The other men apparently just made him carry and haul things all day, so he’s rather tired out and not inclined to talk much, or to appreciate the sights. Eventually, Arya pulls down the netting, stretches out and tries to sleep too.

Maybe it was the influence of hearing Bran’s stories, but Arya’s night is filled with strange dreams.

In one, she’s staring off a boat into the ocean, but she doesn’t know where she’s going. In another she’s back in King’s Landing, surrounded by screaming. That one ends blissfully quickly.

In the last, there’s a fire, and men she can’t get a good look at. She’s crying, and yelling, and Gendry is holding onto her, and it just won’t stop.

Gendry shakes her awake from that one, and it takes all her strength not to fight him, before her mind comes back to her, comes back to the day.

“Bad dream?”

She nods silently.

“I’ll blame the swamp.”

Getting ready in the morning is blissfully quick. Sansa frets about her own hair, she hadn’t planned to put it up apparently, but the heat is getting to her.

“Wait,” Arya suddenly remembers, fishing in her own bags for the hair pin she made her.

“It’s a wolfs-head, like the one Gendry made me.” She’d made one of a lizard-lion for Meera, but she’d already given it to her when she saw her heading off after breakfast.

“Did you make this?” Sansa asks, touching it with one finger.

Arya nods excitedly.

“The shapes are hard because the metal is so thin, but it’s one time that my small hands is an advantage. I can do the best chain around now too.”

Sansa twists her hair up, and Arya helps her slide the pin in the middle and close it. It holds nicely.

The godswood at Greywater Watch is tiny, everyone is pressed close together in front. The heart tree here is an enormous willow, with branches that shade nearly the entire ground from the blazing sun. For once, Arya pities the men having to wear their long sleeves and long pants. Bran’s in gray wool and leathers and looks like he might faint, though that might be from nerves.

Father and Mother stand behind Bran under the tree, and Arya is a few down, pressed between Sansa and Gendry, when Howland walks Meera in.

Her gown is white linen, flowing and short sleeved, with the neckline loosely laced. The skirt is embroidered with flowers of every color- Sansa had done that. She’s also wearing the pin Arya gave her, she notes with pride. She’s still smiling, and looks radiant. When he sees her, Bran can’t stop smiling either.

They say their words (without anyone forgetting their names, Arya notes), and Bran removes his cloak, and it’s at this point that Sansa starts crying (“again?” Arya says in mild disbelief), and when Bran leans in Meera tilts her head at the wrong moment and his lips meet her nose by mistake, and everyone still applauds, and Arya notes that her mother’s face has that same smiling-but-a-little-sad look that seems to be Sansa’s default now.

Half of the tents in the courtyard have been pushed aside to make room for the three long tables. It’s not a large crowd really. The castle itself has maybe only a dozen staff, and even though there’s a number of other houses in the Neck, it was not nearly as crowded even as the Great Hall could be in Winterfell.

The feast is modest, but delicious. The fish they brought in yesterday are fried, the extras made into a stew thick with roots and rice. The salad is nearly all wild greens, dotted with nuts. There’s cakes of bright orange yam fried in fat, and a pie of apples and blackberries, all washed down with a jug of strawberry wine.

There’s talk that Arya only half listens to, Hunters discuss sightings, rice farmers the rain. Gendry has managed to find a bronzesmith and is flooding him with questions. Lady Jyana, apparently, grew up a duck hunter, and tells Arya of the flock she’s kept and raised here for it’s eggs. A couple of archers mention the raids from the Crossing again, and are quickly shushed.

The food isn’t even all cleared before the music begins. Wooden stringed instruments Arya doesn’t know the names of, and pipes and homemade drums. There are no musicians it seems, everything having been brought by the people attending. Even Sansa whips out a reed flute, Arya didn’t even know she could play one.

Arya doesn’t know the tune, but after one song ends, she turns to Gendry’s, who’s finishing up his piece of pie.

“Want to dance?”

He looks uncertain.

“I don’t know any steps.”

She stares at him.

“What makes you think I do? I don’t even know most of these songs.”

And it Gendry steps on her feet more than a few times, she pays him back in kind. Robb manages to dance with nearly every unattached girl in the place. Sansa accepts a single dance from Jojen, who dances just a bit stiffly.

Gendry spins her at one point, and Arya catches her father’s eye. Ned meets her gaze long and steady, and Arya merely grins at him in return.

At one point, Lady Jyana touches her elbow.

“Can you call your parents over here? The bride and groom wish to make a silent getaway.”

Arya gestures Cat and Ned over and the group stand in front of the exit, allowing Bran and Meera to escape with ease.

“Barbaric practice I’d say, the bedding ceremony,” Arya comments once her parents have returned to the dance floor.

“We don’t really do that here,” Jyana agrees, “But someone got it in their heads, and neither yours or mine wished to risk it.”

And for not the last time, Arya is deeply happy that the only witness to her own wedding had been her sister.

Soon, though the night has already begun to fall, the music begins to wind down, and the guests begin to retire, and the few servants come and move the tables. The last song they stay for, Arya recognizes as the one Meera had been whistling the day before. It is odd for a lullaby, being about being left by someone who is the light of one’s life.

In the tent later, Gendry asks.

“So you have three more siblings right? So at most, we’ll only have to deal with three more of these things.”

“Fou, though Jon’s not supposed to be able to now that he’s taken the black. I can’t really see Rickon marrying anyone either. Perhaps we’ll luck out, and only have two more.”

Gendry’s on his back, hands behind his head.

“That’s still two too many.”

Arya rolls her eyes and settles back.

She’s woken a bit later by Gendry grabbing her arm rather tightly.

“What is it?”

But he remains silent, his eyes fixed upon her as if he thinks she might disappear. She reaches her other hand out to shake him.
“Bad dream? Is it the swamp?”

His hand slackens around her arm, and he slides his hand down to intertwine with her own.

She remembers her own dreams previous night, and suddenly stands, tugging him by his hand.

“Come one, if you can’t sleep, we’ll go out in one of the boats. I hear there are lights we might get to see out here.”

Gendry follows her reluctantly, and looks at her like she’s grown a second head when she hands him an oar.

They see no lights that night, and the moon is only half full, but Gendry has no more bad dreams. The next morning comes soon enough. And if they end up flipping the canoe and walking back soaking wet, no one says a word to them about it.