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The day before the wedding, Arya found herself led by her lady mother and good sister to the bedding chamber she would share with Aegon on the morrow. The queen's apartments in Maegor's Holdfast. As they closed the chamber door behind them, leaving the guards on the other side, Arya tried to smooth out her features and prepare for a completely unnecessary discussion. Though her impatience must have shown through if the arch look her mother gave her was any indication.
“Stark colors were included alongside the Targaryen,” Lady Catelyn noted, as if to distract from the distasteful business that brought them there. “Very considerate.”
The chamber was done up beautifully with Stark white and grey meeting Targaryen crimson and black, the dragon and the wolf appearing in equal prominence. It had been the same in the streets when Aegon met them at the city gates a less than a week past and led them in procession to the Red Keep, as the common folk cheered. The pale and vibrant banners made clear that the dragon was wedding the direwolf.
“My lady mother wished to highlight Arya’s House,” Dany said. “We have a long history of queen consorts who are Targaryen or related to our family by blood. Mother wishes to shatter that tradition for good and all. There is no better way than by giving the bride’s sigil equal place with the groom’s.”
Arya had to admit that the gesture made her feel a shade less homesick. The past two weeks had been exciting and she had been happy at being reunited with Aegon after nearly a year apart. But as the days passed, the knowledge that this time when her family departed their trip home, this time she would be left behind was settling in on her. She wasn’t stupid. Arya knew that the entire point was to leave her there with her new family, but the reality approaching made her stomach twist. Gods be good, mayhaps she was stupid.
“What do you want to tell me?” Arya blurted out.
Lady Catelyn sat down in the window seat and proceeded to give her a more detailed explanation than what Septa Florence had given of what Arya would endure on the morrow. Arya nodded and bit back a smile every time her gaze fell on the openly smirking Dany.
“There is naught to fear,” Lady Catelyn said. “Any pain will be brief. But you will be expected to bleed afterward.”
The phrasing and the pause that followed sparked an alarm in Arya. “Expected?”
Her mother nodded. “It will be expected.”
Arya’s stomach dropped. Her mother was about to ask if her maidenhead was intact. She knew it. Arya debated whether or not to tell her that she and Aegon had lain together a few times in Winterfell once their engagement was announced. Lady Catelyn would be cross, but since they would wed the next day, the lecture she would give couldn’t be too severe. There was absolutely no question of telling her how she had first lain with their former stable hand, Lark.
“While it will be expected…” Catelyn hesitated. “…it is known among women and even some maesters that women don’t always bleed their first time.”
Arya felt her eyes widen. This was not at all how she anticipated this discussion proceeding. Then she recalled that she hadn’t bled her first time, like the septa said she would. It was awkward and a bit uncomfortable, but not painful or bloody. In truth, she had been disappointed at how unremarkable it had been. It wasn’t until their second time that she figured out how to enjoy the experience.
“I was about your age when I wed your father,” Catelyn continued, pulling a blue stoppered vial from her sleeve. “Lady Whent was our closest kinswoman, so she explained this to me and your Aunt Lysa before our wedding. She gave each of us one of these to hide under our pillows for the bedding.”
Taking the vial, Arya examined the dark liquid inside. Somehow her eyes widened even further upon the realization that there was blood inside.
“You want me to lie?” Arya blurted.
Lady Catelyn stared at her levelly. “I will not have any rumors going about questioning your virtue nor the legitimacy of your children.” She closed her eyes and took a breath before continuing. “Lysa and I had far less to fear. We were in our father’s castle surrounded by servants we had known all our lives. This is the Red Keep. You will be surrounded by strangers, some of whom may mean you ill. If it were to get out that your sheets remained clean, some might use that in some conspiracy.”
Arya had been chewing her lip through that statement. “You didn’t bleed?”
“I bled a little,” Catelyn said. “The pain was brief and I was a little sore the next day. But it wasn’t the bloody mess our septa warned us of.”
When Septa Florence spoke to her of “unpleasant and terribly painful” marital duties, Arya had asked endless questions just to torture the furiously blushing middle-aged maiden. But hearing her own mother speaking of this was close to driving Arya to step out the window to the sharp spikes in the dry moat below.
Dany laughed. “Septas aren’t like to know what lying with a man is like.”
“Was it the same with you?” Arya asked her good sister.
“I shed no blood,” Dany said. Turning to Lady Catelyn, she added, “Forgive me, good mother. Robb and I had been kissing and a little more than kissing for some time. When we wed and he claimed my maidenhead, we were very familiar with each other and there was no pain.”
“You have also been riding since you could walk,” Catelyn reminded her. “In all likelihood, you gave your maidenhead to your horse.” She turned her gaze back onto Arya. “That is my fear for you. You are even more active than my sister and I were. Lysa didn’t bleed at all and she told me she had to use the vial Lady Whent gave her. I’m certain you will be the same.”
“I won’t bleed and it’s known that not every woman does bleed, but I have to pour this on my bed sheets anyway?” Arya asked, her face warring between a grimace and a smile. “That’s stupid.”
Catelyn and Dany began to chuckle and her lady mother pulled her into her arms. Arya hugged her back, feeling a shade of that homesickness coming over her again. Mayhaps she hadn’t embraced her family members enough. She would make up for that in the weeks to come. It was a long moment before she realized that the laughter had faded.
“I know, I know,” Catelyn said. “This mummer’s show is a foolish pretense. But this is the game we must play. I fear it’s far from the only game you must play in the years to come.”