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Chapter Text

Welcome to the new age...

A slender girl stood on the deck of a Braavosi ship, its gentle rocking at odds with the violence of what boiled inside of her. She was cloaked in the damp of the predawn mists and though her grey eyes appeared to pierce the gloom of the hour before sunrise, what occupied her mind was nothing which could be spied upon the dark and distant shore. Her cool fingers wrapped delicately over the railing as she listened to the lapping of the black waters against the wooden hull below her feet. She was perfectly silent and perfectly still, but she was not lulled.

And she was not at peace.

The vessel, a trading galleas with the elegant name of Titan's Daughter, had been her home for a seemingly immeasurable stretch of days and nights; days filled with a particular type of dancing (the type which required Valyrian steel in her hand and could be good sport but could just as easily be deadly); days of shouldering some of the work commonly done by men who made up a ship's crew (when she grew too bored or too consumed by her own troubled thoughts to remain inert, lest she go mad); days spent trading bawdy insults in three languages with the men who surrounded her (and, early on, trading blows when the men grew too bold for her liking. The crew had learned rather quickly what they could and could not say to Arya Stark). The days could be tiring, or fruitful, or frustrating, or monotonous in turn. The girl could no longer recall how many days it had been since she had spent time staring at anything other than a vast expanse of rolling, green water, with nothing but sea and sky to answer her gaze.

But if the days were often a trial, then the nights were always an affliction; an homage to suffering and misery and torment; a tribute to pain.

For her nights were filled with dreams of wolves she had abandoned and solemn fathers admonishing her to come home when she had no home (when she felt herself to be an exile who belonged nowhere). Her dreams were plagued by a silver king she had never met yet somehow knew, and by a dark knight she had once known but who was now a stranger (and whose sincere blue eyes and smiling face made her think only of abandonment and rejection). She was caught between fiery dragon's breath and icy crypts; she cried out for those lost to her, begging their forgiveness; begging for their return. Her nights were blessed and cursed with dreams of a voice whispering to her in Lorathi (by all the gods, I am yours), and a particular set of piercing, bronze eyes (bronze eyes that made her chest ache to gaze upon, the pain of it often waking her from deep sleep with a start). Bleeding one into the next without respite, hers were agonizing, endless nights.

Nights filled with silent tears scrubbed away roughly with small, tight fists.

Nights filled with quiet vows to avenge those who had been taken from her.

Nights filled with choking down grief and hate, storing them up and saving them for later.

Nights spent pacing the decks of Titan's Daughter when she could no longer stand to keep to her bed, snarling into the darkness as stinging winds and roiling seas coarsened her hair with salt.

Days were for sparring and plotting; working and improving and tiring oneself to the point that thought and contemplation finally failed. Days were for distraction. Nights, though... Nights were for mourning. Nights were for whispering names and calling it prayer. Nights were for malice and resolve.

And nights were for regret.

Regret for leaving Nymeria in the wilderness with stern words and some precisely aimed rocks.

Regret for her own inability to save her father from a fate he did not deserve.

Regret for not fleeing the dim halls of the House of Black and White sooner, as she had been urged, and for not taking Jaqen with her when she did.

Jaqen.

At the thought of him, the girl closed her eyes and breathed out slowly; raggedly.

A voice broke her reverie.

"Will you leave us today, Salty?" asked the captain's son from just behind her. He spoke in the common tongue, heavily accented by his native Braavosi.

Arya continued staring into the gloom, her eyes tracing the faint, shadowy outlines of the trees in the distance. Saltpans. It was fitting that they had come back here. After a moment, she answered Denyo, her voice soft but sure.

"I will."

The boy moved to stand next to her, his shoulder close enough that she could feel the warmth he emanated but not close enough to brush against her. He would not be so daring. Even with the recklessness so emblematic of youth, Denyo was not foolhardy. One did not reach out his hand to pet a feral wolf, no matter how beautiful the beast.

"And shall we ever meet again?" This he asked her in Braavosi, his tone wistful. His ability to speak the common tongue was rudimentary at best, though Arya had tried at various points during their journey over the Narrow Sea to help the captain's son improve. The girl turned her head and regarded the boy's profile. He was gazing out into the same grey that she had been contemplating when he approached her. She answered him in his native tongue, her own accent flawless.

"There are things I must do here first, but when my duty is done, I will return to Braavos. Perhaps when that time comes, it will once again be you who carries me back over the sea." She paused for a moment. "If the Many-Faced god wills it," she added. "I think I should like that, if it was you."

"But isn't this your home?" Denyo asked, sounding confused. "Why would you wish to return to Braavos?"

At her friend's question, Arya's mind filled with the images of two men, two sides of an iron coin, just as different, and just as connected. Two men—Faceless masters, both. One man, she longed for with all that was within her. The other, she would kill, fueled by the hatred which burned like wildfire in her gut.

Jaqen H'ghar and the Kindly Man.

Black and white.

Love and hate.

Why would you wish to return to Braavos?

"Because," the girl replied, her voice becoming harder as she spoke, "there is someone I must find, and there is a debt that I must pay."

Her tone prevented her friend from questioning her further. Though he had known her when she was little more than a half-starved stowaway just shy of her twelfth nameday and though he now found her to be wholly magnificent and wild and thrilling to be around, he did not forget how her passage was paid and he did not pretend that her two companions were simple travelers. Denyo was a man of Braavos, and with that distinction came a certain understanding about the mysterious order from which the girl had recently emerged. There were perhaps things he did not truly wish to know and things about which it was simply better not to ask.

A long journey over the seas in a confined space is an undertaking which most would find taxing, even under the best of circumstances. Arya's crossing from Braavos to the muddy shores of Westeros had certainly been long, and hers were definitely not the best of circumstances.

Exiled from her home of four years, the first place she had ever chosen for herself.

Grieving the loss of yet another person she loved, the first man she had ever chosen for herself.

Thrust toward an uncertain future, a life vastly different than the one she had spent four years shaping for herself.

And all while sequestered aboard a ship with an assassin who had hated her since before he even knew her.

That nuisance, at least, she had been able to allay, to an extent (however reluctantly). At the urging of her Lyseni friend, a Faceless assassin whose immense stature and broad build had earned him the appropriate moniker of the Bear, Arya had finally confronted the rat-faced boy who had been directed to return her to the seat of Northern power, Winterfell; the home of her birth. A fortnight into the crossing, the Bear had confronted her, admonishing her to make things right between herself and the other Faceless Man aboard the ship. It had taken her a few days to finally give in, but after a time, she found her avowed foe and demanded that he tell her once and for all why he had disdained and abused her for years.

"Why do you hate me so much?" Arya pressed. She had the Westerosi boy cornered in the small area of the hold where he slept. He had not heard her approach, as she had employed the cat-like stealth for which she had been so well-known among her order (her former order). Garnering such a reputation was really quite a feat, considering that in the clandestine society which served Him of Many Faces, furtiveness was not only admired, but was often akin to survival. To be known as the shadow among shadows was no small thing.

The boy had whirled on her, his too-close eyes hard and his mouth curling into an ugly sneer. It was an expression the girl knew well, as it was the one with which he most often favored his sister.

His former sister.

The way the young man's lips pulled away from his teeth made him look more a rodent than ever. Arya fought to keep her face neutral though a frown tried to form. She crossed her arms over her chest and waited.

"Alright, then," the Rat ground out as he took a step closer to the girl. She remained absolutely still while the newly-minted assassin encroached and as he bent to bring his face so near to hers that she could smell his fetid breath as he spoke, she gazed intently into his eyes, reading the animosity she found there. "I'll tell you exactly why I hate you so much."

There was a pause and Arya nearly vibrated with impatience. She stifled the urge to scream at her brother to get on with it. The boy pinched his face and breathed in hard before spitting out his seething words.

"Your father killed my father!"

The Cat had trouble sleeping that night. Her mind was turning over all she had learned from the Rat.

Justan Carver, she corrected herself.

The Rat had once had a name, like everyone else who dragged themselves through the ebony and weirwood doors of the House of Black and White. It was a name he gave up at a tender, young age, but he had not forgotten. Somehow, through years of training, through ceaseless lessons on the value of being no one and countless faces worn and changed whenever the need arose, the Westerosi assassin had held onto who he had been, a piece of himself fixed in place with a nail made of sorrow and a hammer made of hatred. That was certainly something that Arya could understand, even if she felt his blame had been unjustly heaped upon her shoulders.

As the girl tossed in her bunk aboard the Braavosi ship, the Rat's accusing words ran through her mind.

"Your father killed my father!"

"That's impossible," Arya had nearly laughed. "My father has been dead for years!"

"And mine has been dead for years longer, thanks to Lord Eddard Stark," the boy spat at her, his words becoming a hateful hiss as he pronounced her father's name.

"Did your father fight for the Mad King during Robert's Rebellion, then?" It was the only thing that made any sense to the girl. Her father hadn't traveled the countryside indiscriminately slaughtering the smallfolk on a whim. A powerful lord tasked with the responsibilities of running a great castle and the whole of the North would have little occasion (and little inclination) to kill one insignificant common man.

"No. He didn't take part in that. Why would he? He was no soldier! He was just a simple woodsman." He said it in a way that indicated how stupid he found her question.

"Well, then, I don't understand how..."

"What's not to understand, my lady?" the assassin sneered, the use of the honorific obviously meant as an insult. "Your noble father cut off my father's head!"

"Even if that's true, there had to be a reason for it!"

"When have the great lords and ladies of Westeros ever needed a reason to crush the common folk?" The Rat's voice was bitter, and he was glaring at her. He was nearly shaking with his anger.

"My father would have had a reason!" Arya barked shrilly, and the Rat visibly flinched. She was surprised at her own lack of control, but this petty boy was daring to question her father's honor; honor that he died for; honor that he lived by, always. It was not to be borne!

"Oh, sure. He had his reason. Ask my mother if it was enough of a reason! Ask his children, who died without him to provide! All but me."

"What was the reason?" the Cat demanded. "Come now, you must know. You can't just accuse my father of some cruel deed without telling the whole story. What was the reason? Was your father a poacher? A raper? A thief? Did he murder his neighbor? What was it?"

"Does it matter? Men do what they must to survive when they're lowborn. And highborn men judge them and tear them away from their families and send them off far away to freeze and suffer."

Arya drew up short. Freeze and suffer? Far away? Was the Rat saying that his father... was a brother of the Night's Watch?

"Was your father... at the Wall?" she asked hesitantly. The Rat said nothing and so she continued. "Was he sent to the Wall for some crime?"

"He left that place and tried to come home to his family, to keep us from starving without him!" the boy cried. "He never made it, though. Some men sworn to your father found him. They took him to the warden of the North for the lord's justice, and you know what that means."

The girl did know. She knew very well.

"How could you be sure of this?" she asked. "You must have been very young. How could you know?"

"My mother told me!" the Rat bellowed, affronted that the girl seemed to be questioning the veracity of his story. "I was very young, but not too young to watch the twins starving, and then get sick and die."

She tried to picture it. The Rat, he must have been... four? Perhaps five? His brother and sister (the twins) must have been younger. Possibly infants. Infants were not always hardy, and starving infants would certainly be susceptible to illness and, without the treatment of a maester, death.

"He tried to come home to us, but he never made it," the boy said again, looking off as he added, "and I watched my sister and my brother die because of it."

Arya was horrified. She felt torn. It was perhaps not a common occurrence, but she knew her father had meted out such punishments to men who cast aside their vows. To desert the Wall was unforgivable. But to desert your family... wasn't that unforgivable too? Could a man be blamed for trying to protect his family? And could a man be blamed for adhering to his duty, no matter how unpleasant? How could she condemn the Rat's father? And how could she condemn her own? She wasn't sure what to say.

After a moment, a whisper escaped her lips. Her own words surprised her.

"I... I'm sorry."

The boy glared at her, not trusting her words, but she meant what she said. She understood loss. She understood what it was to have a father struck down in the name of justice, whether that justice was true or false. She knew what it was to love siblings, only to have them torn away. She suddenly felt a kinship with the boy with whom she had known only rivalry and acrimony for years. They had both been marked by the death of siblings. Both of their fathers had lost their heads, likely to the bite of the same Valyrian steel blade.

Arya considered how unlikely were the circumstances that had drawn the two Westerosi outcasts together, but when she did, she was confronted with the image of a great man kneeling on the steps of a great sept. She was reminded of being so weak, so powerless, so frozen with her own horror that all she could do was crouch at Baelor's feet, clutching uselessly at her little blade. She pushed the memory away before it could overcome her and repeated her condolence, her voice made hoarse by emotion.

"I'm so sorry about your father."

Her tone was sincere. It gave the Rat pause. The angry heaving of his chest slowed and he looked down at the Cat, his pinched expression softening. The two assassins stared at each other for what felt like an eternity; she, not knowing what else to say and he, unsure if she was being earnest..

"Jaymes Carver," he finally said. He sounded tired. "His name was Jaymes Carver. He named me Justan, for his own father."

"Justan Carver," Arya said softly. The boy just looked sad when she spoke the name he had cast aside so long ago.

"Not anymore," the Rat answered, shaking his head slightly as he backed away from her. He sank down to sit on a crate pushed against the wall, his shoulders sagging. He dropped his head.

The girl was left feeling confused. She understood her father's sense of honor and duty; his faithful adherence to his obligations. She had grown up with it, the steadfastness of it as much sustenance to her and her kin as mother's milk. Such ideals had shaped her; they lived on in her; her bones were steeped in them. Yet, as she grew older, she also began to understand that the world was not a simple place and that what seemed right to one man would seem like sin to another. What was it that the handsome man had said to her back in the temple?

Do you know what the interesting thing about the right choice is, little wolf? It's that the look of it changes depending on where you are standing when you make it.

Right. Wrong. Good. Bad. Hadn't she seen enough of the world to know that there were no absolutes? Hadn't she done things that others would condemn? Who could say what was justice and what was corruption when the look of it changed with your vantage point?

She felt all her animus melting from her. Looking at the Rat with his head bowed low, almost touching his knees, she found herself pitying him. That drew her up short. She would have never guessed she could feel anything but contempt for the boy. But didn't she understand his loss better than most? And hadn't their common losses led them to the same place? She sank down to a squat, staring at the top of the Westerosi's head, using her eyes to trace the strands of his light brown hair as they fell forward, creating a curtain that hid his face from her gaze. Tentatively, the girl reached out a hand and placed her fingers lightly on his calf. Her gesture caused him to look up at her, and she saw that he had been silently crying.

"Go ahead," the Rat gritted out. "Laugh."

"I'm sorry you lost your father," Arya repeated. "I wish I could undo it. At least now I understand."

The boy's brow wrinkled and his eyes narrowed. He seemed perplexed by her words. She endeavored to explain.

"My father was sacrificed in the name of someone else's justice, and I hate the people who killed him. I want to see them all dead, everyone who had anything to do with it." She paused for a moment, and then said, "I will see them all dead."

It was her way of absolving him of his years of maltreatment. It was her way of saying that he was not alone; that she knew his pain. The girl rose to stand but before she could turn to leave, the rat-faced assassin reached out and grabbed her wrist, squeezing it hard. Arya tensed, preparing to defend herself, but the boy began to speak quietly, so quietly that she had to strain to hear him.

"I know it wasn't your fault," he admitted. "I shouldn't have blamed you."

It obviously cost him to say it. She could tell by the way he did not meet her eyes as he spoke. She did not know if she should nod and leave, or if she should sit and invite him to unburden himself further. The girl did not have long to wonder, though. Her brother had dismissed her, asking her to tell the Bear that he did not feel like sparring that evening but was going to retire early.

Now, hours later, Arya turned over in her bed once again, wondering what her exchange with the Rat would mean for the future. She wasn't quite sure that they would ever be friends, but at least it seemed as if her Westerosi brother (for that was how she still thought of him) would no longer make it a point to cross her whenever he could.

What will that be like? she wondered.

You'll find out when you wake up tomorrow, her little voice answered.

The girl bunched her pillow under her head, closed her eyes again and waited for sleep to descend.

Titan's Daughter was a well-provisioned vessel and the passengers and crew did not lack for food. Still, their fare could not compare to even the most mundane of Umma's offerings in the small hall of the House of Black and White. That fact, coupled with all the cares and worries which Arya wore constantly, almost as a shroud, ensured that the girl often found she did not have the appetite to eat as she ought.

Her blonde, bear-like brother would not allow her to starve, however, and harangued her mercilessly when he saw her picking at her plate and pushing her food around rather than putting it in her mouth. Even still, Arya had grown leaner and more angular during the course of their voyage.

"We have a ways to travel yet," the Bear told her one day as they sparred on the deck at dusk. "When we make landfall, our journey is only half-complete."

"So?" the girl replied, seemingly disinterested in the particular line of conversation. She sliced the air near his shoulder with her slender Bravos blade, stopping just short of cutting him and admonished her brother. "That would have been a grievous wound. You're not even trying."

"I am trying," he countered over the clanging of steel as he met her blow and turned it. "It's you who aren't trying."

"Why are you spouting nonsense?" Arya grunted, slapping the boy's hip with the flat of her bastard blade. "If I was trying any harder, you'd be dead."

"I mean you aren't trying to take care of yourself. You aren't making any effort to care."

"Don't be ridiculous," the Cat growled as they circled one another.

"Sister, what is it that ails you?"

The girl whirled around, lightning quick, positioning herself at her brother's side. In an instant, she brought the sharp tip of Frost, her water dancer's blade, to rest just under the Bear's ear.

"You're a dead man."

The Bear blew out a loud breath, his frustration palpable.

"You aren't sleeping," he began.

"I sleep. Every night." She lowered her blades and stepped away from her brother.

"I see you pacing the deck."

"Then it seems that it is you who are not sleeping," Arya replied with a smirk. Her expression reminded the Bear of the Rat's master, the so-called handsome man. It rankled him to see it.

"You aren't eating."

"I eat. Every meal, if only to stop your nagging."

"There is something troubling you, Cat," the large Lyseni insisted. "I wish you would just tell me what I can do."

"Honestly, brother, if you keep this up, I'll have to stop calling you Bear and start calling you Mother Hen."

"Cat..."

"Can you kill the principal elder? Can you bring Jaqen back to me? Can you replace my father's head on his shoulders?" she asked, her voice emotionless. "No? Well, can you make my mother as she was? Can you stop my damnable dreams?" As she spoke of her dreams, her voice cracked, betraying her dilemma.

"What are you talking about?"

"Nothing," she muttered. "Forget it."

"I won't," the assassin insisted. "Tell me."

She frowned at her brother, then sighed.

"I don't want to talk about it."

"So it's your dreams that disturb you, then?" the Bear pressed.

Before she could answer, the Rat approached the pair. He nodded to her, then began speaking to his brother. Arya didn't pay much mind to their conversation. It had been this way for weeks, ever since she had confronted the Westerosi and he had revealed the truth about his father. About their fathers. That is to say, things were slightly awkward but no longer so tense or hostile. They didn't speak much, and the boy seemed to have trouble meeting her eyes most days. She wasn't sure if he was ashamed of the way he had treated or her or just uncomfortable that he had revealed so much of himself to her.

The girl's contemplation of the things which drove the Rat's inner turmoil was cut short when something he said to the Bear caught her attention.

"Captain Terys says we should make Saltpans in a few days. He said we passed..."

"What?" the girl interrupted. "What did you say?"

"That... we should make landfall in a few days?" the Westerosi replied hesitantly.

They were almost there. All at once, that thought superseded all of her other concerns. She went very still, willing her heart to stop pounding beneath her breast. A feeling began awaken in her, something that seemed to stir in her gut and spread from there. It was a sort of apprehension, and an excitement. It was the feeling that she was near to a goal; that she was about to get something she had desired for so long that she could hardly remember a time before wanting it. It was the feeling of being close. So close. But to what?

"Cat, what's wrong?" the Bear asked, grabbing her shoulder and peering at her face. The Rat was also staring at her, though he remained silent.

"Nothing," she said automatically. "Why?" She regarded the Lyseni's down-turned mouth and furrowed brow. He looked worried.

"You... just looked suddenly pale."

"I'm always pale," she replied dismissively. "I'm a Stark."

Without another word, she turned and left her companions on the deck and made her way to her cabin. When the Bear came to her later, carrying a platter from the supper she had missed, he found her sprawled in her bunk, fast asleep.

She awoke suddenly without having been aware she was ever asleep. She felt as if she had been startled awake, and so she pricked her ears to see if she could pick out what had disturbed her. All she heard were the soft snores of exhausted men and the occasional popping of hot embers in the dying fire. There were no unusual sounds, nothing to suggest danger, but there was a feeling, and it told her that it was finally time to move.

The great beast rose and whined softly, nuzzling a sleeping knight's neck with her snout. She watched him flinch and bat at her lazily as he rolled over. Whining again, she licked his face with her scratchy tongue. Moaning, the knight opened his eyes, squinting at the wolf in the dim light of the cave.

"What is it, m'lady?" he yawned, wiping at his moist cheek. "I thought you were hunting."

The wolf whined once more and looked at him with her golden eyes for a long moment. Her scrutiny appeared to give him pause. He was instantly more alert. Nymeria padded away a few steps then turned to look at him again, seeming to will him to follow her.

"What, now?" Gendry whispered, sitting up. "You want me to leave now?"

Another whine was the only answer he would get, but then he was sensing it too; that feeling. It caused him to hasten his movements, rolling up his bedroll and blanket, dressing quickly, and gathering some food and skins of wine and water. Within minutes, he had thrown a heavy cloak over his boiled leather and mail. His armor, he would leave behind, so he could travel fast and light.

When he emerged into the cold night, the moonlight shone across the light blanket of snow that covered the land. The ground seemed almost to glow with it. Winter had come to the Riverlands, but he knew they were just on the very edge of it; that it would get worse, colder, the snows deeper. He found Nymeria waiting for him, sitting up tall on her great haunches just past the entrance to the cave the Brotherhood without Banners used as their main encampment. The dark knight threw the wolf an irritated look and then set about saddling his horse.

"You couldn't have waited until morning?" he asked, his breath creating small puffs of floating frost just visible in the bright moonlight that filtered through the bare branches of the surrounding trees. "I was having a dream."

Nymeria simply looked at him. She seemed... judgmental and even aloof, if such a thing can be said about a wolf.

"No need to be so haughty, m'lady," Ser Gendry groused. "I'm coming, aren't I?"

The knight fastened his pack to his mount and then seated himself in the saddle, taking off in a trot in the direction which would eventually bring them to the road. It would be safer and faster to keep to the road at night. He did not wish to risk a broken leg for his horse or more nights in the cold than were absolutely required. For a man of his size and strength, the other dangers of the road at night posed little threat, and he would have formidable companions guarding his flank, for Nymeria would not leave her cousins behind. Indeed, bandits, brigands, and raiding parties would consider Ser Gendry of the Hollow Hill at the head of a savage wolf-army as the danger to be avoided, not the other way around.

"We need to be away," the knight muttered. "Lady Stoneheart won't take kindly to desertion, and I'd rather not wind up swinging on the end of a rope among these trees before I've had a chance to even see her."

Nymeria whined, and to him it seemed that she had understood. In fact, it appeared to him that the direwolf understood a great deal. There was too much purpose in her actions, and an intelligence in her eyes that made it nearly impossible to believe otherwise. And sometimes, like tonight, it was very much like she was speaking to him, without words, and sometimes it felt... it felt almost as if the beast was somehow... just more. More than an animal. More than a wolf. As he spoke of his own desire to see Arya Stark once again, he had no doubt that this was also the direwolf's wish. Nymeria craved this reunion, he was certain. Perhaps even more strongly than he did himself.

The logical part of his mind told him he was being foolish. To leave the warmth of the cave in the dead of night, alone, risking the ire of the those who had taken him in when he had nothing (and risking the punishment for desertion, a sentence to be passed down from the least merciful among them), at the supposed urging of a four-legged creature, was tantamount to madness. The reasonable part of him said he should turn around, make haste for the hill, unpack his horse and go back to sleep before anyone found him missing.

But there was something deeper than reason at work. There was something more pressing than logic that pulled him further away from the dying fires and the Brotherhood. Whatever it was, it lived in his skin and wrapped itself around his heart and his head. It was as if his dreams had taken root deep within him, and what they told him was as real as any memory he could conjure. What they told him felt as true as anything he could claim to know. What they told him compelled him to ride on, direwolf at his side, leaving comfort and certainty far behind.

"It was her I was dreaming about, you know," he said, grinning down at the wolf.

The direwolf answered him with a growl and then nipped at his horse's hindquarters, causing the beast to buck wildly and take off in a run. Gendry let out a yelp and haphazardly grabbed at the horse's mane, barely hanging on. After the knight was finally able to rein in his mount and calm the animal with soothing words and pats on the neck, he turned to chide the wolf who trotted up to the knight with little apparent concern.

"That wasn't nice, m'lady! Weasel may have grown used to you but no one likes being bitten on the arse!"

Nymeria pranced regally past the knight and his mount, looking indifferent to his correction.

"Oh, come now! It wasn't that kind of dream! Nothing improper!"

The wolf whipped her head around and stared hard at her companion. He broke into another wide grin and she growled menacingly again, causing Weasel to start dancing a bit.

"Alright! I'm sorry! Just leave my horse alone!" the knight acquiesced. "There, there, Weasel. Nymeria won't hurt you." Gendry patted the horse's neck again and then mumbled, "I hope."

When they had put a league between themselves and the camp, Nymeria stopped and let out a series of howls. All at once, the forest came alive with rustling, snarling, growling, and yips. Within moments, Gendry and his massive companion were joined by more than six score of wolves, all rendered grey and black by the darkness. Their eyes, though, glowed white in the moonlight. The effect was somehow both frightening and comforting to Ser Gendry.

"Well, then," the dark knight said, raising his eyebrows at the great direwolf while giving a grand, sweeping gesture with his hand, "shall we, m'lady?"

"Cat, wake up!" the Bear called again, this time shaking his sister a bit by her shoulders. She was mumbling in her sleep and her face was screwed up into an expression of displeasure. He thought she might be having a nightmare and after their talk earlier, he wanted to spare her what he could. "Cat!"

Arya gasped, her eyes flying open as she grabbed the Lyseni by his collar and pulled back a small fist, aiming for his nose.

"Whoa!" the Bear cried. "Sister, stop!" He thrust his hands up defensively and watched as recognition washed over the Cat's features. Slowly, she released her grip on his collar and dropped her fist back onto the bed. After a moment, she pushed herself up into a seated position, still breathing heavily.

"You really shouldn't wake a trained assassin that way," the girl finally said.

"How would you recommend I wake a trained assassin, then?" her friend asked, dropping to sit next to her on the bed.

"I don't know. Just not like that."

He laughed lightly.

"You were having a bad dream, I think."

She shook her head slightly, saying, "A dream. Not precisely a bad one..."

"You appeared... agitated."

She remembered Gendry's suggestive grin and thought that yes, she had been agitated.

"Was I... howling?"

"Howling?" the Bear queried. He sounded puzzled. "No, not howling. You just looked unsettled. Or, maybe disturbed. And you were mumbling."

Arya cocked her head, scrutinizing her brother. She asked him how he happened upon her if she was merely mumbling. He did not appear to comprehend her question.

"If I wasn't crying out, how did you know you needed to wake me?"

He explained that he had come into the cabin to bring food to her and found her sleeping restlessly.

"You came into my cabin unbidden..." she started.

"Sister, how many times did you enter my cell unbidden as I slept?"

"It's not the same."

"Oh? And how is it different?"

"I... I could have been naked!"

"I seem to recall you climbing into my bed once when I was naked!" the Bear reminded her. "And since when are you so timid, anyway?"

Arya shrugged, pulling her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. She wasn't timid, not really. And she wasn't particularly modest. She couldn't recall a time when she hadn't felt she was simply one of the boys. She was just out of sorts, was all. That dream, and Gendry...

"Seven hells," the girl grumbled. "We're just getting so close to home, I guess. I'm not myself."

"Cat, you haven't been yourself in two moons, at least," the Lyseni commented softly. He gave her a kind smile. "You know, I never said thank you..."

"Thank me?" the girl asked, unsure of his meaning. "For what?"

"For making things right with our brother."

"Oh, that."

The Bear laughed. "Yes, that. I know it couldn't have been easy, but I can't tell you how much I appreciate it."

It was true. Though it was only an uneasy peace that had settled between the three of them, the Lyseni was relieved. He had grown tired of walking the treacherous tightrope between his brother and sister. The balance was too hard to maintain, and he was glad to be without the continued strain.

"Well, you were right," Arya acknowledged. "It needed to be done."

Her companion chose not to bask in the glow of his sister's concession, rare though it was, and instead tried to accomplish what it was that had brought him to her quarters in the first place.

"Will you have something to eat now, since you're awake?"

She started to refuse, but then thought the better of it, reaching out her hand in silence, docile for once. The Bear gave her a genuine smile and put a chunk of hard bread in her hand. The girl tore off a piece and began to chew. She then noted a covered bowl.

"What's in the bowl?" she asked, her mouth full, making her difficult to understand. When her companion gave her a look of confusion, she pointed to the vessel.

"Oh! That's fish stew. It's quite good, really. Here, dip your bread in it."

Arya did as she was bid and she ate while her brother talked. She knew he was trying to distract her; that he was worried. She began to feel bad for being so distant and guarded for the last few weeks. The girl had always hated to feel helpless, and so had rebuffed the Bear's efforts at cheering her for the most part. She could see now that it had taken a toll on him, though, and it filled her with regret. She swallowed down another bite of bread soaked in stew and then reached out to place her cool palm over her brother's heart.

"Listen," the girl began, "I know I haven't been an easy companion lately..."

The boy snorted.

Arya ignored him and continued, "You have your own burdens to bear, and I haven't made much effort to make things easier for you. I certainly didn't want you worrying over me..."

"You made that plain, sister," the Lyseni cut in, "but what you want to be true and what is are not always the same."

"This is a lesson I have learned well," she lamented. "Too many times."

"Oh, sister," the boy said sympathetically, reaching for her. She fell into his arms. Arya allowed herself to be comforted, if only for a moment. The Lyseni pressed his lips gently to the Cat's forehead, and then spoke again. "You know, it might be that you will find peace once we have returned you home. It could be that once you are back in Winterfell, things won't seem as dire."

The Bear sounded so sincere, his words so heartfelt, that his sister felt a lump form in her throat. To keep from disgracing herself with tears, she started to tease him.

"You have an awfully soft heart for an assassin," Arya japed.

"I just want you to be happy."

"It's not happiness that I'm after," the girl replied. "I had that already. It doesn't last. It can't."

"You're no longer obligated to the order. You don't have to take missions. You don't have to give up who you are to be who someone else says you must be. You have a chance, a real chance, to have a life as full and as rich as you choose to make it," the Bear told her, placing a finger under her chin and tilting her face up so that he could look her in the eye. "If not happiness, then what?"

He watched in dismay as her mouth curled itself into a malicious smile. It was a look familiar to him, but one he had not seen since well before they departed Braavos. Finally, she answered him.

"A reckoning."

Her last night on the ship, Arya managed to fall asleep despite all her warring emotions about the coming day, but once unconscious, her dreams became a tangled mess that afforded her no rest. Voices tumbled one over the other, striving to be heard. A voice murmuring, "You are a man's reason. For everything" meshed with another asserting, "You are my grey daughter. Come home." She heard Syrio command her to be "Calm as still water," but then his voice was supplanted by that of the Kindly Man, who said, "You must learn to serve in stillness. Who are you, child?" Men and beasts crowded her head; wolves and dragons, bastards and kings. Eels, cats, enemies and friends. She saw one brother with the crowned head of a wolf and another with a dagger through his heart. She saw a man with hair as pale as the moon but whose eyes burned bright like amethysts held up before the firelight. She saw a dark knight with a snarling army at his back. She saw the Lord of Winterfell, seated upon his tomb, oblivious to the frost creeping around his feet. She saw Jaqen.

When the girl bolted upright in her bed, there were tears on her cheeks. She wiped them away roughly, using the sleeve of an overlarge blouse she wore; a man's favorite shirt. As she sat trembling among her blankets, she felt the slow rocking of the boat, and it was different than she was used to; it had changed somehow. As sleep receded and her head cleared, she realized why. The boat was not moving. They were anchored.

Quickly, Arya grabbed a pair of doe skin breeches from the end of her bunk (a gift from the Captain's son; a pair he had worn as a skinny boy, when he had first made her acquaintance, long since outgrown). She dressed, slipped on her boots, and stepped out of her cabin door and onto the deserted deck. A single lamp flickered from its hook on the mainsail mast. It cast just enough light for the girl to make her way to the center of the ship without tripping over coiled ropes and other gear. It was too dark to say exactly how far off shore they were, but she could tell that they were not yet docked. Likely, Captain Terys would wait for first light to navigate the Bay of Crabs and bring the ship into Saltpans. At low tide, the bay could be treacherous. Better to have a clear view of the obstacles.

The air was the coldest she had felt since leaving the North, seven years ago now. She knew she ought to have donned her cloak, but she wasn't yet chilled enough to turn around and go back for it. She continued walking toward the mast with the hanging lantern, strangely drawn to the flame. As she moved closer, she took on a look of concentration, staring into the light. She cocked her head slightly, narrowing her eyes. It seemed that there was something there, moving in the fire...

A dragon, painted in red and orange, yet somehow black with glowing embers escaping from beneath each scale, eyes burning like coals. It was only when the great creature opened wide his mouth and sent a rushing stream of white flame exploding forth that Arya noticed the man standing before the dragon, hand outstretched as if seeking to touch the monster. She had seen this spectacle before, in a dream once, early on in her journey. But the man was all shadow then; a dark silhouette against the rising sun behind a hill. Now, though... Now she saw that he was bright, like polished alabaster, with hair as pale as the moon. Instantly, he was engulfed in a torrent of fire. She stepped closer to the lantern; closer to the fire, staring with eyes wide, the lantern light and dragon's breath turning them from grey to bright silver. A second passed, then two. The flames around the man evaporated and she saw that he still stood, tall and unburnt before the dragon. His hair was gone, now only ash on the ground, but he was as pale and perfect as before. He turned and it was as if he were looking at her; beckoning her.

Arya gasped and shook her head, trying to dislodge the image. She muttered something about fanciful imagination and not enough sleep as she commenced her patrol of the ship. She preferred to think of it that way, rather than aimless pacing. Often, when she could not sleep, she strolled in just this way, listening to the sounds of the sea at night and the creaking of the ship. It afforded her time to think. If her bed would grant her no rest, then perhaps she could use this time to sort out some things.

There was so very much to sort out, after all.

She had crossed the Narrow Sea, but her journey had barely begun. If she had been asked the day she boarded Titan's Daughter, the girl would have said that two moons would be plenty of time to settle on a plan. The time it would take to traverse the waters which divided Essos from Westeros was more than enough time to decide who it was she wanted to be; who she was. Surely, in two moons time, she would have found her way and would no longer be caught between all of the different versions of herself, unable to decide which one really defined her.

But she had had her two moons, and still she was unsure. When she stepped onto Westerosi soil, who would she become?

Lord Eddard Stark's youngest daughter, and perhaps his only surviving child, the most likely heir to Winterfell and her fallen brother's crown? The grey daughter, urged in countless dreams to come home and fulfill her destiny as the hope of the North? A warg who walked in the skin of beasts, both near and far, and who was privy to the secret thoughts of men? An assassin gifted with the ability to move in silence and shadow, all but invisible? A marriageable lady of both breeding and fortune? A woman with a grudge (half a dozen grudges) and the freedom and will to settle them all? A disgraced acolyte, part believer and part rebel, expelled from the very order which had plucked her from obscurity and given her purpose? Servant to a foreign god, daughter of a great house brought low, she was someone and no one, both mourner and celebrant, woman and child, and she was not sure how to weave all these disparate parts of herself into one, coherent whole. So many hands had formed her. So many circumstances had impacted her. So many losses had marked her.

Shaped by family, duty, honor.

Bred for winter.

Trained to kill as a form of devotion.

Changed by the love of a nameless assassin.

She was being marched toward her beckoning fate while being dragged from the life she had thought she earned.

Agitated, Arya turned and strode toward the ship's stern, bounding up the steps to the quarter deck and flinging herself against the railing there. She pounded her fist against the smooth wood which served as a barricade to keep her from falling overboard, mindless of the bruises her angry rapping was sure to raise. The pain cleared her mind of the chaos. With the absence of the tumult, she began to imagine that she could gain control. She began to see that it was all her choice.

No more being marched anywhere!

No more being torn from anyone!

No more being dragged, or pulled, or pushed. No more being told, no more being prevented. No more being made to do anything!

The girl leapt up onto the rail, the wood pressing into the soles of her boots. She stood straight, staring out into the darkness, lithe and graceful, swaying with the slow rock of the ship, moving like the black waters below. She called up the words of her mentors. Eddard Stark. Syrio Forel. Jaqen H'ghar. The Kindly Man. She was calm. She was brave. She was determined.

And inside, she was still.

She was Arya Stark, daughter of a fallen house that she would restore. She was the ghost in Harrenhal and she would not be afraid. She was the shadow among shadows and could not be caught. She was the Cat who could create death with roots and fire as easily as with steel. She was a dark heart, a wolf, an evil child, and a lovely girl.

She was rage made flesh.

"Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, Queen Cersei," she whispered, her words carried away on the breeze. "Traitorous black brothers."

She paused for a moment, remembering. Balanced on the high rail, she closed her eyes and tilted her face toward the stars. She spread her arms wide, as if embracing the night. She could almost feel the warm pad of a calloused thumb pulling her lip from between her teeth. She could almost smell the cloves and ginger. She could almost hear his whispered words. I will not allow death to part us. A man will find you, no matter where you may have wandered. She blew out a slow, measured breath before speaking again, and this time, she did not whisper.

"The Kindly Man."

Denyo grew quiet as he stood next to his friend, his Salty, the girl who had gone to Braavos and become a woman while he sailed the seas with his father; the fearless orphan girl who had turned assassin while he carried cargo between the free cities and western ports.

He had asked her if they would ever see each other again, and she had surprised him by saying that she hoped to return to Braavos someday. His joy at her answer had faded, though, when she had explained her desire to return.

"There is someone I must find, and there is a debt that I must pay."

Her voice was like steel and her words made him feel cold.

The Captain's son remembered the skinny, dirty girl who had bought her way aboard Titan's Daughter with iron; a payment any man of Braavos would be foolish to refuse. He remembered the weeks spent in her company, watching the sadness and fear that she brought with her blow away with the warm winds and salt spray as they voyaged across the sea together. He had admired her for her pluck, and she had an enviable imagination, using a mixture of the little common tongue he knew and broken Braavosi and High Valyrian to tell him stories of giant ice spiders and skinchangers and other terrible things which lived in a land of frost far and away. They would play together, when he was done with his work, and they laughed from their bellies as they rolled on the deck or collapsed against the masts.

This woman, though, she was different than that Salty. And her tales were different as well. Dragons and wolves; treachery and intrigue; revenge. These were the things she spoke of, when she spoke at all. He watched her dance with her menacing companions amid the crash of steel and there was a grace about her violence, but there was a rage in it too, which always seemed on the verge of breaking free from her control. He noted with disappointment that her sadness and her worries did not seem to blow away with the wind and salt this time. She never laughed from her belly; indeed, she barely smiled.

Still, she was so beautiful and mysterious and strong that Denyo thought he might love her. What he knew was that he feared her, but even so, he did not truly understand her.

And, being a man of Braavos, he knew enough to realize that perhaps it was better that way.

Radioactive-Imagine Dragons

Chapter Text

So we carry every sadness with us

Every hour our hearts were broken

Tendrils of steam rose from the surface of the water and curled lazily into the cold air surrounding Arya's bare shoulders before disappearing above the wet hair piled atop her head. She was submerged from her chest down, but the size of the wooden tub in which she soaked did not allow for her to sink any further. Hair washed, skin now clean and pink, the girl leaned her back against the smooth, oaken planks surrounding her. Once settled, she became still as a stone (calm as still water), letting the heat of the bath warm her through as she stared at the fire crackling across from her.

Earlier, a grim-looking boy had lit the fire which now blazed in little hearth that occupied the far wall of what passed for the best guest room in all of Saltpans (a settlement which boasted exactly one inn). A second, even grimmer boy had filled a tub with hot water for her bath at the same time as his compatriot poked at the kindling and logs, but the flame had barely caught in the grate before Arya chased the pair from her room and barred her door. She had been impatient to shed her salty clothes and did not wait for the drafty chamber to warm before lowering herself into the first real bath she had been offered in two months. While crossing the narrow sea, she had often stood on the deck of Titan's Daughter for hours on end, constantly buffeted by the sea winds. At the time, the salt coating her skin, crusting her eyelashes and stiffening her hair had felt right, somehow appropriate for a seafarer, but here, on land once more, it made her feel somehow tight and heavy and she wished to be rid of it altogether.

The two assassins who made up the rest of her traveling party had departed to conduct their business immediately after depositing her at the mean little inn. The Bear, now styled Ser Willem for the purposes of his mission, informed her that he would secure horses while the Rat (or rather, Baynard, squire to Ser Willem) was to oversee the movement of their supplies from the hold of Captain Terys' ship to the inn. When Arya protested being left alone in her room to do nothing, the Bear shushed her.

"You have been here before, my lady. You may be recognized."

My lady. He was already playing his role. She wasn't sure if it was the title or the her brother's impeccable facelessness which rankled her more.

"It was so many years ago, and I was here only briefly before Captain Terys took me aboard..." Arya attempted to protest. The Bear cut his sister off.

"Just stay in. Rest," he suggested, and then, upon hearing her dissatisfied grumbling, added, "or have a bath. Gods know you could use one."

The Lyseni barely made it to the safety of the corridor before a dagger hit the doorjamb with a thunk. The girl heard the large assassin chuckling as he retreated, seemingly not bothered by either the stream of profanities she rather vehemently directed toward him or her accusations of hypocrisy as she declared he needed a bath worse than she (punctuated by her insistence that he smelled of a particularly foul area of a camel's nether regions).

Now that Arya was in the bath, however, her irritation melted away and she found her tense muscles relaxing as she gazed at the flames in the hearth. Stillness has descended upon her and her mind seemed to clear itself of all her concerns and worries and dark thoughts. After a few moments, all that remained was the warmth of the water on her skin and the dancing orange tongues of fire which she regarded through half-closed eyes. It was then that Syrio's voice came to her. She wasn't sure if it was a memory or a dream. Had she fallen asleep?

All men are made of water. Do you know this? Arya allowed her eyes to close briefly, and she could see him as if he were actually there, his dark eyes piercing her beneath his raised eyebrows. In his swarthy hand he held a wooden sword and he pointed it at her, the tip brushing her chest, just over her heart. If you pierce them, the water leaks out and they die.

An ember popped, jumping from the grate and landing in a small puddle. Arya opened her eyes at the sound. One of the inn's servant boys had not been especially careful when filling her tub. The grimmer one, she thought. The brief hiss made by the glowing cinder as it hit the water sounded like a viper. That, too, made her think of Syrio's words. Quick as a snake. Her gaze moved back to the hearth and she watched the undulating flames as she allowed her dancing master's voice to fill her head.

The heart lies and the head plays tricks with us, but the eyes see true. Look with your eyes.

The girl sighed.

Look with your eyes.

She looked.

The flames licked up higher, hopping to and fro, wavering in the draft coming through a crack in the wall near the floor. The movements of the fire created shapes and figures, then disassembled them, then reworked them into different shapes and figures, over and over again. Images moved before her, some familiar, and some both foreign and nonsensical.

She saw a large direwolf with golden eyes burning bright, moving ever east. She saw a dark knight riding high upon a horse at the wolf's side. She saw the familiar face of a man she had never met, a silver prince-turned-king who had braved a dragon's flame yet lived. He beckoned to her from a hill of ash. For a tiny moment, she saw her father, and he beckoned too, not from a burnt hill, but rather from the top of his own frozen tomb. She saw a torn and tattered cloak as yellow as the sun laid at the feet of a hooded woman with dark wounds and an even darker heart. She saw a man with wrists shackled by a silver chain, a grizzled beard masking his face. As she watched, a tiny hand raised a tiny sword, striking at that chain and breaking it. She saw the man become a giant. He rose, roaring, and turned away, lumbering down a corridor which ran red with blood like a rushing river. She saw Syrio Forel, his face lit so brightly on one side that it looked as if his flesh had been carved from polished weirwood. The other side was cast in the darkest shadow, as black as ebony.

A tapping from the corridor caused her to start, her eyes jerking from the fire to the door. She frowned, not at the interruption but at herself for not hearing the footsteps which brought her visitor so close to her, undetected. A Faceless assassin should never be surprised; it was a reason for shame.

Of course, she wasn't really a Faceless assassin, was she?

Her frown deepened.

"Yes?" Arya called.

"My lady," said the Bear, clearing his throat. "May I come in?" He spoke in the common tongue, his accent quite convincing. But then, he wasn't really the Bear anymore, she supposed. Here, in Westeros, he was Ser Willem Ferris, her sworn sword, a knight from the northernmost reaches of Dorne. She could almost believe it. His Lyseni appearance, which he had not bothered to alter, fit nicely with his claim to be a Stony Dornishman; a man from the Red Mountains, trained and knighted in the shadow of Skyreach.

"One moment, ser," she called back, reaching down for the linens left piled next to the tub.

Reluctantly, Arya rose from her bath. She swathed herself in the linen and moved to the bed where her satchel sat, a small bag she had brought with her from the galleas. Unceremoniously, she dumped out the contents of the leather pack: an assortment of clean clothes, two small knives, a deep blue scarf patterned with cats embroidered in silver thread, and a carefully folded letter signed with a precise and elegant J. The sight of the paper stopped her for a moment, but then she snatched it up and stashed it back in the sack from which it had fallen.

"My lady?" Ser Willem said hesitantly. "Are you alright?"

Arya rolled her eyes. She had meant to dress herself quickly and spare her brother his inevitable embarrassment, but if he could not be patient, he would have only himself to blame. She swiftly crossed the chamber, removed the bar from the door and invited the assassin in.

"Beg pardon!" he stammered, gaping at her dripping hair and damp, clinging wrap. The reaction seemed to be that of Ser Willem, yet Arya was sure there was a bit of the Bear in it, too.

"You're the one who said to take a bath," she shrugged, leaving him hovering in the corridor just beyond her door. She found her blouse and dropped it over her head with her back turned to the Lyseni. "Are you coming in? Or would you rather let all my precious heat escape?"

"My lady?" He sounded confused.

"Pick which side of the door you wish to be on and then close the bloody thing!" she snapped. "This room is drafty enough as it is!" She heard him shuffle in, shutting the door as she allowed the wet linen to fall and pulled on her small clothes. The Bear gave a small, hoarse cough. She smirked a little as she imagined him turning around and staring into the corner. "I won't be but a moment, ser." With that, she slipped into her breeches and turned to look at him. Just as she'd imagined, his back was to her. She snorted. The sound of it caused him to spin around and glare at her.

"Is there something amusing about my sparing your dignity?" Ser Willem demanded.

"Just that it seems to cause rather a lot of exertion," Arya retorted, "unless there is some other reason why your face looks like a summer beet. And if you're so concerned for my dignity, you ought not visit my bedchamber at all. Gods only know what the good people of Saltpans might think of me if the word got out that my sworn sword had attended my bath."

"Your reputation is safe enough," he assured her gruffly. "The good people of Saltpans have no idea who you are, and they'll be at our backs soon enough."

"Does that mean you found horses?"

"Aye. We'll rest here one night and leave out at first light tomorrow."

She marveled at the Lyseni's effortlessly assertive manner. It was almost as if he were truly a trained Westerosi knight, used to command.

"You are well-suited for this work, brother," she whispered, not realizing he had heard until she saw the Bear's sour expression.

"First light," he repeated acidly. He gave her a hard look, but then his eyes softened a bit and he said, "You should sit by the fire and dry your hair before you become ill." Arya cocked her head and stared at her brother, baffled by his mood. The assassin did nothing to clarify it for her and bid her good evening before taking his leave.

Arya took her supper in her room and as she finished her fare, Baynard paid her a visit. Unlike his brother, the Westerosi boy had changed his face. The assassin's rat-like features may not have been comely, but they were certainly memorable, a quality which was less-than-desirable for their task. Now, rather than beady, too-close eyes and a narrow, pointed nose, he had adopted a perfectly plain look of brown hair, brown eyes, and smooth, boyish cheeks. He was supposed to be a squire, after all.

"Everything's been packed up, ready to be loaded on the horses tomorrow," he told her, "but I was supposed to make sure this was delivered into your hand." The Rat—Baynard, she reminded herself—thrust a small package toward her. It was some sort of object in a black velvet pouch.

"What is it?"

The boy shrugged but he seemed ill at ease. The Cat reached for what he offered her and felt the heft of the object in her palm before pulling at the strings of the pouch to loosen them.

"Who told you to give it to me, then?"

"The principal elder."

The girl froze and looked at the disguised assassin. Baynard merely shrugged again, then turned to leave. He stopped when he heard her speak.

"Why?" she asked.

"Why does he do anything?" the squire replied. Arya knew he meant it rhetorically, but she could think of a hundred unpleasant reasons why the Kindly Man did what he did. Still, she said nothing but watched her brother retreat, closing the door behind him. When he was gone, the girl cautiously reached into the velvet bag and retrieved her gift.

Arya was up before the sun the next morning. She stuffed her satchel with the few things she had brought with her to her room, save for her swords and the gift from the principal elder. She picked up the cat-shaped hair comb and inspected it once more. The girl considered throwing the thing into the fire, but instead, she reached up and twisted her hair into a loose chignon, pinning her locks in place with her new comb. When she first opened the velvet pouch the night before, she had found a small scrap of paper together with the gift . It was a note from the Kindly Man and it simply said, "So you will remember."

And that was why she decided not to burn the gift. Because she wanted to remember. Because she refused to forget. And because the cat's curling, jeweled tail was actually the handle of a slender finger-knife hidden in the comb. She set her jaw, hatred flaring up from deep within her, making her feel as if a hot coal had been placed in her chest where her heart should be. Over the past two moons, the girl had thought of a thousand ways to end the Kindly Man. Now, she had thought of a thousand and one.

Perhaps the dainty hair ornament set with obsidian and pearl could do more than crown her head; this black and white cat in the dim corridors of the temple might prove useful for more than just catching mice. The elder had given her a gift and she hoped to give him one in return; the gift most valued by the god he claimed to serve. She stared off for a moment, the set of her face hard, her look nearly a sneer. The sheer effrontery of sending her a gift, any gift, after what he had done...

He must be properly thanked, she thought.

Arya pulled the strap of her pack over her shoulder and left her room.

The inn was still dark and quiet when Arya left for the stables. She meant to inspect the horses her brother had procured and give the innkeeper time to wake before looking for some bread to break her fast. She was surprised to see that the Bear had beaten her there. She found him fastening a bedroll to a pack already attached to a saddled palfrey. Her steps were light, but he heard her nonetheless and looked up as she approached.

"You shouldn't be out here without a cloak," he said by way of greeting her. He himself was wearing a heavy brown cloak with a thick sable collar. It looked like something Robb or her father would wear while out riding on particularly cold days and it was a great deal finer than anything she would suspect a person could find in Saltpans.

"And a good morning to you, ser," she returned. He inspected her, eyeing her up and down, and then shook his head slightly.

"I know you think of yourself as somehow impervious to the cold, but I mean to deliver a live girl to Winterfell, not a frozen corpse."

Her brother seemed quite serious, but the truth was, she barely registered the chill in the air. Though she wore her typical breeches and thin blouse, she had thrown a plain, woolen gown over them to disguise her boyish dress. Much like the Rat's true face, the Cat felt a girl garbed in boy's clothes was like to be more memorable than was desirable or prudent.

"This isn't cold. You won't understand cold until we are north of Moat Cailin."

"You shouldn't be out here without a cloak," he repeated.

"I didn't pack one," she said. "It's not like fur-lined cloaks are the common fashion in Braavos."

"If you would have just waited a bit, I would have brought you one."

Arya blew out a frustrated breath. "How was I to know that? It's not as if you told me. You've barely spoken three sentences to me since we landed." It was clear to her that something was bothering her brother; that he was unsettled or angry about something. She was unused to him being so terse with her. She reached out to him, not with her hand but with her mind. She tried to determine where his thoughts were and what it was that had him behaving as if they were cross with one another. All she got was an overwhelming sense of worry before he glared at her and she pulled back. She had not moved through his thoughts as smoothly as she ought, apparently. After allowing her to practice her gift on him almost daily during their journey from Braavos, the Bear was adept at knowing when his sister was in his head. He had felt her intrusion and did not welcome it.

"Please just go back to the inn. I'll be there directly. With your cloak."

A part of her bristled at being directed so, especially by her brother, but it was a very small part; just the bit that remained of the girl she had once been (the girl she was when she last came to Saltpans). The woman she had become was wiser and less prone to lashing out without consideration. Had she not learned the benefits of subtlety and restraint within the walls of the temple? There were times for blood and steel, and there were times for a more delicate touch. She would discover the cause of her brother's mood soon enough. It did not have to be now.

When she returned to the inn, the innkeeper and his wife were in the common room chatting with the Faceless squire who was eating hard bread and cold venison left over from the previous night's supper.

"Baynard," Arya greeted.

"My lady," the Rat said, rising respectfully from his seat and bobbing his head at her like a proper squire.

"I'll fetch you some bread and meat," the innkeeper's wife said when she saw the girl. "I understand you'll be leaving soon."

"Yes, we cannot tarry if we wish to reach the Eyrie before the storms make the High Road impassable."

The party would, in fact, be traveling in the general direction of the Eyrie, at least initially, but upon arrival at the crossroads, their path would turn due west, taking them in the opposite direction. She would not step one foot upon the High Road. In the girl's estimation, no one who might be asking after them had need to know that information however, and so they had settled on their story before leaving the Titan's Daughter. It was unlikely that anyone would be seeking her out, she knew (it was unlikely that anyone in Westeros who might wish her harm even believed her to be alive), but they had no wish to make themselves easier to track, just in case.

One could never be certain that a stray Lannister or Bolton or Frey wouldn't overhear a story about a grey-eyed girl traveling northward and want to investigate the claim, just to be certain.

"What's your business with the Eyrie, if you don't mind me asking," the inkeeper inquired, and his tone was friendly enough, but Arya detected an edge to his voice that she did not trust. Perhaps he merely wished to make conversation, but in these uncertain times, the man likely wished to collect information he could later trade if ever he had need of it.

"Marriage," Arya lied. "My father has promised me to one of the Templetons, but I must first present myself to the Eyrie for the blessing of our liege lord."

"I don't know much about these highborn marriage contracts, or House Templeton for that matter, but why did they need to import a bride all the way from Braavos? Are there no girls in the Vale worth choosing?"

The innkeeper was certainly a curious man.

"I can't attest to the quality of the brides in the Vale, but what makes you think I came from Braavos?" the girl asked, laughing. "Imagine! Me, all the way across the sea! When I've never been more than three leagues out of Gulltown until now! Don't you know who I am?"

The innkeeper looked confused. "No, m'lady," he stammered uncertainly.

"I'm Lady Straeya, Lord Shett's daughter."

"One of his daughters," Baynard amended.

"Well, the best one," Arya laughed. "Oh, Baynard, don't give me that look, just because you're in love with my sister! I am the best one! And before you challenge me to a duel for her honor, you'd better remember that father will never allow you to marry Alina, even if you are knighted. Besides, she's bow legged. That fact alone makes me better. Why do you think he's sending me to the Templetons and not her?" She managed a few convincing giggles and teasing glances at the Faceless squire. Lady Straeya was a jolly girl with few cares and a dash of impropriety.

"But you came in on that ship with the purple sails!" the innkeeper interrupted. "That ship docks here twice a year, and I know for a fact it's Braavosi!"

"Aye, it is," Arya agreed. "Which explains why the crew speaks in that indecipherable babble! But I didn't sail with them all the way from Essos." She lied with ease and chuckled as if the idea of her crossing the Narrow Sea was the most ridiculous idea she could imagine.

"Then how did you come to arrive with them? Answer me that." The man sounded very satisfied with himself, as if he had trapped her and couldn't wait for her to admit defeat.

"Captain Terys stopped off in Gulltown before continuing on here. My father bought me passage to Saltpans to get me closer to the High Road for my trip. The mountain passes between Gulltown and the Eyrie are too treacherous now that winter has come."

The man's smug look melted and he muttered that she wasn't likely to find the High Road any more hospitable than the frozen mountain passes. "Bloodthirsty mountain clansmen will make short work of your knight and this little squire," the innkeeper said ominously. "They might do worse than that to you."

Unlikely, the girl thought, her fingertips stretching to find one of her hidden knives. Her slight movement might have been read as nerves, had it been noticed at all. No matter, she thought. Let the whole world think her weak and foolish. Those she had cause to show otherwise would find themselves surprised, and then they would find themselves dead.

"Your concern is touching, truly," Arya said, and anyone listening might actually believe she meant it sincerely, "but the Templetons are sending a contingent to accompany us once we reach the road. That is why we must make haste to leave. They are likely waiting for us even now."

The fantasy rolled so naturally off her tongue that the innkeeper could have no reason to doubt her words. He said something about hurrying his wife along with the food and left the two assassins alone at last.

"My, but you're an accomplished liar," Baynard said in a low voice before taking another swallow of his ale. The comment seemed to reflect both insult and admiration. "I nearly believed you myself. You make a convincing bride, eager to be ensconced in Ninestars. Do you think you'll be able to keep track of all that, Lady Straeya Shett?" His tone was both teasing and skeptical.

"If need be," Arya replied in an equally low voice, "but I can't see why I'd have to. Do you plan on frequenting Saltpans? Because I don't."

"Dunno. I might be leaving for Braavos from this very port someday. Perhaps even before six moons have turned. Or did you think I planned to stay in Westeros forever?"

"Well, it is your home."

"No, my lady, it's your home. I'm no one. I have no home."

The implication was clear. At the reminder of her failure to complete her final trial and join the ranks of the assassins of the House of Black and White, Arya's mood darkened and she leaned back in her seat, away from the Faceless squire. She crossed her arms over her chest and regarded her companion. The Rat's false-mouth drew up in a smirk that was most unlike anything with which a proper squire might favor a highborn lady. He was perhaps less overtly caustic with her than he had been before they departed Braavos, but neither was he her friend. It was as if he wasn't quite sure what to make of her, and until such time as he had puzzled her out, it was simply easier to fall into old patterns. The tenor of the animosity had softened, but it had not resolved itself. It was simply too familiar and comfortable for him to completely abandon.

Arya's expression remained implacable and the Rat couldn't resist goading her further.

"What? Aren't you happy to be going home?"

Arya considered the question. "Happy? No, I wouldn't put it that way. Keen, perhaps."

"Keen?"

"Yes. Keen. I'm keen to be going home. I have a duty."

"A duty?"

"Yes," she replied softly. "There are things that need doing. Things that I must do."

"Oh?"

"Mmm," Arya nodded. "And I think this journey will provide me the opportunity to... attend to those things."

The squire's grin was genuine then. "As long as you tending to your duty doesn't interfere with me tending to mine, I think it will be a pleasure to watch you work, my lady."

The innkeeper's wife and Ser Willem arrived at the same time, she from the kitchen and he from outdoors, and their entry into the common area of the inn interrupted the hushed conversation between Lady Straeya and Baynard. The Bear hung his sister's heavy cloak on a hook near the fireplace to knock the chill off the thick wool and sat down to eat with his party. The innkeeper's wife rushed back into the kitchen to prepare a platter for him as soon as she sat Arya's food before her.

"Let's not dawdle," Ser Willem directed gruffly. "We have much ground to cover."

Arya nodded at the Lyseni, raised a pewter mug filled with warm cider and said, "To duty." Her toast caused Baynard to laugh, much to the Bear's confusion. The squire added his own salute.

"And to home."

Lady Straeya was bubbly, chatty, and visibly excited about the journey (and finally meeting her intended) as the trio set out from Saltpans and followed the Trident, presumably to find the High Road. However, half a league outside of the village, Arya was less bubbly than determined, and more than a little curious.

"These horses are quite fine," she remarked as she trotted to Ser Willem's side. He grunted in agreement. "Far better than any stock I would think you could find in such a small village. How did you come by them?"

"Gold dragons can buy the best of anything," the false knight remarked. "Even in such a small village."

Arya smiled at her brother's obfuscation.

"Yes, but how did such fine mounts come to be in Saltpans?"

"The gods may sometimes smile even upon the most humble of their servants."

The girl rolled her eyes and repeated something she had once been told when she still wore the black and white robe of a Faceless acolyte. "A lie of omission is still a lie."

The Bear was quiet for so long that the girl believed he did not mean to answer her. However, just as she had resolved to press him further, he spoke.

"I don't understand you, sister."

"It's a simple question," the girl said lightly. "I only wish to know..."

"It's not the question I don't understand," the large man clarified. "It's your reason for asking it. I feel as though you somehow hope to catch me in a lie or force some sort of admission out of me."

The Bear was suddenly very astute, Arya thought.

"What?" she scoffed, seemingly affronted. "I only asked..."

"I'm quite certain that you know how the horses came to be in Saltpans and I feel as though you understand exactly how they came to be in our possession. What I can't understand, though, is why you seem to be accusing me of something."

"Truly, Ser Willem, I never..."

He cut her off. "Oh, but you did. So, I must ask, from where does this sudden mistrust come?"

His voice had all the imperious aloofness of a noble Westerosi knight asking a rhetorical question but Arya could detect an undertone unique to her brother in the words; a Bearish quality which seemed to ask, Don't you know me, sister?

They rode silently along side by side awhile as Arya considered her answer. Her brother did not seem to begrudge her time to think and said nothing. Finally, the girl spoke.

"It's not mistrust. I want you to understand that."

"Then what?"

She blew out a long breath, made visible by the cold of the air around them. "I know there's a plan. There must be a plan. The principal elder didn't send me to Westeros simply because he wished to see me safely home to my family seat."

"Of course."

"And so everything that is done for us, every help, every small aid is meant to further that plan."

"Undoubtedly."

The girl vibrated with her frustration at her brother's responses.

"Don't you see what a problem this is?" she gritted out. "The order is marking a precise trail and we are following along like well-trained mules! The Kindly Man has something planned for me, and we don't know what it is, but still, we take his offerings like grateful beggars, never asking what the cost will be!"

"Would you rather be on foot, then?"

Arya frowned. "Of course not."

"It seemed silly not to accept the horses," the false Dornishman said, "after all the trouble that was taken to send them to us. Besides, aren't they lovely?"

"Bah!" the Cat spat.

"Anyway, who says we have to do what is expected of us?" her brother continued, as if he had not registered her sound of discontent. "The order can offer us supplies and purses of gold and the finest horses to be found within 100 leagues, but they cannot control what we do with these gifts. As long as their aim does not interfere with our own, why not take what is freely offered?"

The Bear rode on, looking straight ahead. After a moment, a small smile curled his lips. There was defiance in it. And malice. The sight heartened Arya.

"Yes," she whispered in agreement. "We are not bound by their rules. Not anymore."

The palfreys had been sent to Saltpans from White Harbor and were well-conditioned and suited to their task. Because of this, the trio made good time as they followed the Trident northwest toward the crossroads. Still, their crossing was more than 20 leagues from Saltpans and so their journey was now entering the third day. They had seen almost no one as they traveled. The area had been hit hard by the war, and so they had to make due with what shelter they could find or create for themselves, as there were no folk about who might offer them better.

The first night, they had not needed to pitch tents as they happened upon a partially burnt-out barn which served as ready shelter. It was here Arya discovered that though the exact cause of the Bear's moodiness was still a mystery, he was not truly angry with her. She did not believe he could have comforted her the way he did if he bore her ill will.

Perhaps it was due to the fact that she was retracing steps she had taken as a little girl, or perhaps it was the thought of being in the Riverlands again, the land of her mother's youth, but that first night on the road, she was visited by such nightmares that she cried out in her sleep. She was a mouse again, trapped in Harrenhal, only she was alone, with Jaqen nowhere to be found. She longed for her mother, her brothers, her home, and her yearning was a hard and heavy thing that stuck in her throat and pressed her heart, crushing her under its weight. She gasped for her breath, but her effort was fruitless and her vision went black.

Then she was a wolf, pulling her mother's white, decaying corpse from the river, and nuzzling Catelyn's flaccid flesh, willing her to live. Her mother remained cold and quiet, unmoving. She whined and and dropped her great head, the loss so entire that it changed something inside of her forever.

Next, she dreamed she danced with her father, the both of them laughing as they twirled gaily around and around. They were underneath the trees in the Wolfswood and even in her dream, she thought it strange, because her father had never before danced with her. He held her lightly as they whirled in dizzying circles. She threw her head back, staring at the tree branches lacing together in a canopy overhead and gasping in delight, and when she next looked up, Lord Eddard's face had been replaced by a skull and she saw that she danced only with his bones.

She watched Lommy die at the point of a spear held by Raff the Sweetling, but then Raff's heart dried and shriveled and fell out of his chest onto the ground. She picked it up and it made her happy but it did not bring Lommy back.

She was struck again and again by Weese while a spotted dog barked and growled menacingly behind him. She scrubbed and scrubbed at the stone steps of a forgotten stair in a forgotten tower but no matter how hard she worked, Weese still struck her, calling her a stupid, lazy thing.

She knew she was dreaming but knowing it did nothing to assuage her grief and fear. She tossed and struggled but could not wake up. Then, she felt a large hand against her belly, pressing tightly. The warmth spread and the tension in her drained as the Bear pulled his sister against him. Her nightmares faded and she quieted, finally falling into a peaceful sleep.

When she woke, her brother still did not say much to her and waved off her thanks for what he had done, but she knew that whatever troubled him, he did not hold it against her.

The second night, Arya found herself teaching her brothers the ins and outs of setting up camp (something their training had lacked in Braavos). The girl was surprised by the completeness and quality of their gear. Baynard told her that like the horses, it had been sent from White Harbor and had been waiting for them upon their arrival in Saltpans. At the mention of White Harbor, Arya wondered if the Manderlys had any hand in furnishing their provisions, but there was something niggling in the back of her mind, and it had nothing to do with Wyman Manderly or his sons.

As the third day dawned and they packed their sleeping furs and tent into neat bundles, the girl tried to guess at how far they had already ridden and wondered if they might make it as far as the Inn at the Crossroads before they were forced to stop again.

It would be nice to sleep beneath a real roof again, the girl admitted to herself.

At the thought of the inn, Arya's mind wandered. She recalled that she had seen the inn twice before. The first time, she had been a young girl who had feared someone might punish her impudence toward a prince by taking Nymeria's life. As it turned out, it was a different wolf and a butcher's son who had lost their lives, and Nymeria had escaped into the forest, lost to Arya. The second time, it was she who had taken the life, stabbing the Tickler over and over again until the Hound had pulled her from the man's lifeless corpse. She had killed before, certainly; once to defend herself and once to win her freedom. The first time, with the stable boy in the Red Keep, it had almost happened before she even understood what she was doing. The second time, she was escaping her unjust imprisonment in Harrenhal and she had desperately wanted to find her family. At the inn, though, it was different. She had been angry; unreasoning. There, she had killed a man because she could not suffer him to live. There, it had been simply about revenge.

It was the first time in her life she had understood that there was true power in rage.

Arya wondered if that was the point where her path had been set toward Braavos and the tutelage of the Kindly Man. She had not fully understood the precise nature of what it meant to be a Faceless Man then, but she had seen enough of what Jaqen could do at Harrenhal to know the primary business of the order was death. Perhaps she had not thought herself capable of doing what Jaqen did until after she had killed the Tickler. Was that the moment she knew she would use the iron coin?

I can't even recall anymore, she thought. Perhaps it was as soon as he placed it in my hand. Or perhaps it was after I knew my mother was dead.

She sighed. The Rat was riding near enough to her to hear the sound and turned briefly to search her face, but he did not address her and so she did not speak. Instead, she looked toward the treeline to her right, noting that the trees were bare and stark. Unlike the North, the forests here were more hardwood than evergreen. Her eyes drifted back to their path and there, between the trees and the riverbank, she was filled with a feeling of familiarity. It was no wonder; she had certainly traveled this route before. Most recently, she had been on the brink of her twelfth nameday, riding a stolen horse, her pockets full of the Hound's gold and Jaqen's gift as she headed toward Saltpans.

The memory made her sad. She had no way of knowing it back then, of course, but it would be some time before she met with Jaqen again. Others had greeted her upon her arrival at the House of Black and White. But if she could return to a particular time in her past, that might just be the one she chose, because Jaqen was still in her future at that moment. Now, he was only in her past. She had no way of knowing whether he was dead or alive. She had no way of knowing what had become of him.

She had a sudden picture of warm, bronze eyes in her head. They were nearly instantly supplanted by an image of the principal elder raising a blade high over a bowed neck. That the neck ended up belonging to the Rat disguised with Jaqen's face rather than to her master himself did not dull the sensation that lit upon her with the memory. Her pain felt fresh to her and so she pushed the thought aside and tried not to dwell on the fact that every step she now took moved her further and further away from Braavos and the last place she had felt loved and safe and nearly whole again.

Don't be stupid, her little voice chastised. You are here now and all the wishing in the world won't change the past. You know what needs doing.

Yes, she agreed. I do.

She told herself she would have to learn to look only toward the future; that the way back was forward. If she wished to find if Jaqen still lived, she must first move forward. If she wished to find Jon, she had to move forward. If there was any hope of her finally punishing those who had taken away the people she held most dear (Queen Cersei, Ser Meryn, Ilyn Payne...), then she had no choice but to move forward. And if she wished to repay the Kindly Man for all he had done to her, for all he had visited upon her...

Well, she had affairs in Westeros that must be concluded before she could sail back across the Narrow Sea. But, she was young, and gods willing, her life would be long. There was plenty of time. She would have her revenge.

Arya looked up, noting the position of the sun in the sky. She and her brothers had traveled quite a distance already, but the day was waning. How much further to the Inn at the Crossroads? She spurred her mount on, hoping that the inn still stood and that she might be staring up at its ceiling from a soft bed that same night.

The finest sort of weaponry is inarguably that which is made from Valyrian steel (exemplified by the swords which Arya Stark carried at her hip and on her back as she rode towards her destiny). Despite the state of the finished product, arms such as these had not begun as rare and costly polished blades defined by their deceptive lightness, superior hardness, and incomparable flexibility. Valyrian blades invariably boasted a unique beauty in their smokey, serpentine folding lines and wickedly sharp edges which set them apart from all others. Anyone witness to their inception, though, could attest to the utterly ordinary appearance of all that which went into the making of them. For Valyrian steel did not begin as a coveted thing of artistry and terror and worth. It began, rather, as bits of iron mixed in among the sand and soil over which pale-haired men, now long gone, once walked. And it began as common charcoal formed from fallen trees.

In skilled hands, even such unremarkable materials could be worked and forged and used to create something more extraordinary than the imaginations of most men were able to conjure. Exceptional effort and exceptional stresses visited upon the most mundane of things may shape what at first appears mean and commonplace into something altogether different; something quite glorious. When exposed to the blazing heat of the crucible and the tireless beating of the hammer, a thing as pedestrian as tiny metal flecks found in the dust beneath a man's feet and the carbon released by the simple burning of a dried, charred log could be transformed into something much greater. When handled properly, it would become steel.

The creation of steel was a remarkable enough achievement, but the creation of Valyrian steel was a thing of legend. Aside from the expert craftsmanship employed in the working of the metal (the careful smelting and repeated folding; the rhythmic beating and endless cooling; the precise sharpening and expert polishing), there was also the sorcery (aided by the application of dragonflame) which defined the process. More than just superb skill and expertise mark the Valyrian blade as singular. There are spells woven into the very skin of the thing, sealed forever by the intense heat which can only be found in the bellies of beasts once extinct (but now risen again). Fine swords had been made and were being made and would be made again, without doubt, but only Valyrian steel was imbued with that element which was all but impossible to duplicate. It was the remarkable marriage of metallurgy and alchemy.

It was an accord between science and magic.

There was a sort of metallurgy and an alchemy which went into creating Arya Stark, too, and the process was similar to that used to forge Valyrian steel. It was both science and magic.

Formed from the most prosaic and mortal of bits imaginable, grown in a womb like a thousand thousand others, birthed in the same way as all those who came before and all who had come since, she had once had the same outward appearance as any other girl; commonplace; ordinary. She had simply been a pink babe with a tuft of soft, brown hair, squalling for her milk. Had she been lined up with two score of other babes, she would not have stood apart, except perhaps to her own loving mother (for don't all mothers love their own babes best?) Potential is a hard thing for most people to read in the eyes of an infant. Fate makes her plans and does not consult those who would take note of a child's ways and whims and pass judgment on her. The future is a nebulous wish to most, and prophecy a puzzle.

Who could be blamed for failing to see what only the gods knew? Who could have predicted the path which would forge the person who now rode silently along the bank of the Trident River in the company of assassins? Most girls of Westeros, both the common and the highborn, had lives which could have been recited from rote, almost as soon as the maester or midwife slapped their bottoms and encouraged their first lusty cry. There was nary a stray step taken in all the years a Westerosi woman was afforded, for the risk to them was too great. The life of a woman in Westeros was not a forgiving thing, and there was little room for error. As a lady of noble blood, Arya's course would have been practically predestined, the end result almost certainly a life of dull comfort; a life dedicated to producing more pink, squalling, commonplace babes whose lives were already known and whose deeds were already prescribed.

But for this one girl, that was not to be.

Because of science. Because of magic.

Because her path had led her straight into the crucible, through the fires of tribulation. She had been heated and folded and cooled, over and over again, sharpened and polished; molded into her present form by fate.

By circumstance.

By choice.

By hatred.

By the hands of men and the hands of gods and by her own small hand, too.

The jaws of Westerosi politics and Faceless ambition and pure chance had hammered her and reshaped her into something else entirely. Something altogether different than what she started as; something apart from what she was intended to be.

Something quite glorious.

Something extraordinary.

The creation of a warrior, of an assassin, of a hardened, fearless thing was remarkable enough, but the creation of Arya Stark, much like the creation of the steel she carried, was the stuff of legends. She was made by love and loss and rage and tragedy; by trust that had been broken and by the desire for self-determination; by loyalty; by a refusal to be what she was told she must be; by a thirst almost unquenchable, her need for revenge. She was made by a bastard brother and a tolerant father. She was made by an uncompromising teacher and a calculating elder. She was made by pain and disappointment and the greatest joy. By dreams. By nightmares. By visions. By winter. She was made by a gift she barely understood and all that her eyes had seen, both great and terrible. She was made by the love of a man who had no name, and many, and then just one.

But beyond all that, there was the magic in her blood. There were the old gods, and the new. There was the red god from whom she had once stolen but then repaid ten-fold, and there was the one god who wore the faces of all others and stood half in light, half in shadow. And then, there was Death, in all his dreadful wonder. They all had a hand in forging Eddard Stark's grey daughter.

They were woven into her very skin.

Conversation was sparse as the dusk settled, with only words of necessity spoken. A question posed about stopping to make camp. An answer which was simply an expressed desire to ride just a little further. A shrug, a grunt of acknowledgment, then, a short time later, a quiet comment about the howling; about how it seemed much nearer than before.

Arya thought the Rat (Baynard, she told herself) might be nervous about it. His voice was steady but there was just a hint of pressure behind it. He is Westerosi, she reminded herself. He may remember tales of wolves from when he was a young boy, or perhaps he knew someone who met with tragedy in the woods. The fact was, he had a point. As wolf howls began to fill the quiet of the evening, two ideas dominated the Cat's mind. First, that it was somewhat early to expect wolves to be baying. It was not yet full dark, though the moment was imminently upon them. Second, Baynard was right, the sounds were close; very close.

The trio continued ambling along their path but Arya considered whether they ought stop. Perhaps she was being foolish to insist that they continue on. Perhaps if they built a large fire, and two of them kept watch at a time, then they would be safe and...

Her planning was interrupted by a sound which pierced her clean through her heart. A long, low howl unlike the others split the night and without even realizing it, the girl pulled up sharply on her reins, causing her horse to briefly rear, a screaming neigh escaping around his bit. Ser Willem shouted for her, but even with the shock of it, he did not forget himself or his role.

"My lady!"

Not Cat. Not sister.

Arya ignored him, and as her mount settled and stopped, the girl stood upright in her stirrups, cocking her head to listen. She was rewarded a spare few seconds later. Another howl sounded in the distance, faint but undeniable. It was different from the chorus of others erupting into the night all around them. Something in the sound called to her; pleaded with her. It was a sound, a feeling she could not discount. Without a word, the girl dropped back into her saddle, leaned down and placed her hand lightly against her horses neck. Arya closed her eyes and then she was running. She was running as if the ground was collapsing behind her, threatening to swallow her whole and send her straight into the Seven Hells. She ran as she had never run before, on four galloping legs, racing with eyes wide and nostrils flared. The shouts of the men behind her meant little and less, and soon faded away, lost in the wind which whistled past her ears. Even as white and grey and black predators began to stream from the wood and run alongside her, she did not falter.

The wolves snarled and nipped at her legs but she ignored them and ran on and on. As the darkness descended and became complete, the wolves moved to surround her on three sides. If she veered too near the bank of the Trident, they growled and snapped and forced her back. If she approached a fallen log or boulder half-sunk in the hard ground, the wolves changed her path so that she did not stumble and break one of her delicate limbs. The girl's hair, which had begun the day in a simple braid, had blown free. As she leaned over, clinging tightly to the horse's reins, the long, dark strands of her hair whipped her face and the palfrey's neck, all at once. It was a strange sensation to feel as both horse and girl; a tickle against the flesh of her muscled neck, a more annoying feeling on her cheek and poking into her grey eyes.

She ignored the minor discomfort, concentrating instead on running toward the deep howl which stood apart from the others and split the night at intervals. She knew whose throat must be producing the sound, yet she dared not hope... Not after so many years.

Not after what she had done to convince Nymeria to leave her.

Finally, the wolves began to drop off, slowing up and drifting back into the woods in twos and threes. Arya pulled back a bit too, slackening her pace to a trot and looking around her. She she released the horse to its own will as she shook off the more equine sensibilities which lingered after her long ride (her long run). She used her girl's eyes to search her surroundings but it was a nearly useless endeavor in the darkness. As low branches and thick brush grazed her arms and swept at her legs, the girl realized that she had run away from the river (when had that happened?) and the trees were becoming thicker around her. She slowed further, carefully guiding her mount around the trees. Not a quarter hour later, almost without warning, she emerged into a clearing and saw lights flickering perhaps fifty yards ahead of her. After all the darkness through which she had ridden and run, it took her a few seconds to make sense of them.

Candles in some windows. Perhaps firelight shining through others. Could that be the inn?

She decided it must be, just based on the size of the building, its outlines barely perceptible in the dim light of a half-hidden moon. She stopped and listened. The night was quiet. The howling had ceased and she could no longer hear wolf paws padding around her. Arya suddenly realized she had left her companions behind. She wondered if they had attempted to keep up, or if they had been hindered by the wolf pack. She chewed her bottom lip thoughtfully, considering whether she ought to approach the inn and gauge the friendliness of those inside or turn around and try to find her brothers. Guilt at having abandoned them descended and the girl decided she must go back for them. She was familiar with these parts and they were not. Even now, the Bear or the Rat might be injured, thrown from a horse, or perhaps slowly making their way toward her, leading a lamed animal on foot if the beast had stepped wrong in the dark. She tugged her reins, turning her horse and had walked back perhaps ten yards towards the woods when a noise stopped her.

It was the howl again, low and long; mournful. It seemed to fill the darkness, expanding and contracting around her, and it was so close to her that she felt it in her bones.

Her mount reared, terrified by the noise and beating at the night with raised hooves. The creature's movement caught Arya off-guard. The palfrey had been so calm during the journey with the wolf pack, it had not occurred to his rider that without her influence in his head, the poor beast would be wild with fear in the presence of a predator. Too late, the girl grasped at the pommel of her saddle with one hand and clenched the reins with the other, but it was useless. Arya was thrown from her mount, landing on the cold ground and striking her hip against a stone. She was nearly blinded by the pain but found she had no breath to cry out. She rolled to her back and stared up at the stars, stunned, while her horse whinnied and danced. The palfrey finally dashed back into the cover of the trees, abandoning Arya in the clearing.

"Stupid beast!" the girl cried hoarsely when she finally caught her breath, but she knew perhaps she was the one who had been stupid. It was foolish to lose focus, her little voice berated. Now look where you are. You'll be lucky if no bones are broken. Gritting her teeth, she tested her limbs, starting with small wiggles of her fingers and toes, then bending her wrists and elbows. When she tried to sit up and flex her knees, the pain that shot through her right hip was nearly unbearable and so she gave a cry of frustration and fell back onto the ground, throwing her forearm across her eyes. She was angry at her own carelessness, irritated at the situation, and annoyed that after enduring long, hard days of travel, something so unfortunate would happen when she was only steps away from her destination.

Because her eyes were still covered as she lamented her ill luck, she didn't realize that a great beast had crept upon her until she felt its hot breath against her face. Slowly, Arya shifted her arm and opened her eyes, but before she could interpret what she was seeing, a large, moist snout pressed against her neck. The girl thought for one wild moment that her throat was a second away from being torn out, but then Nymeria whined, settling herself at Arya's side and laying her great head gently upon the girl's breast.

When Arya understood, really understood what was happening, she reached her arms up and encircled the direwolf's neck. Outwardly, they were still, both girl and wolf, but inside each of them, there was a nearly audible click, as if two pieces of a puzzle had finally turned in just the right way to interlock. Arya lifted her head from the ground, pressing her face into Nymeria's thick, grey fur. The feel of the wolf's soft coat against the girl's skin was so familiar and so missed and so welcome that for the first time in her life, Arya sobbed and sobbed and sobbed, not with sadness, but with joy.

Half Acre—Hem

Chapter Text

Hello. I've waited here for you...

Everlong.

The waning moon appeared only as a small, shimmering sliver and the scant light it cast was hidden intermittently by the drifting clouds in the night sky. Even so, Arya could see that it had risen higher. She had lain on the ground for some time, reveling in the feel of Nymeria's fur between her fingers and against her face, but she knew she could not remain there all night. Time to stand, she thought, and move toward the inn. The pain in her hip had lessened to a dull, throbbing ache but the cold ground upon which she lay was doing nothing to improve it.

"Nymeria, help me up."

The direwolf licked the girl's face with her rough tongue and then rose. Arya reached out for the beast's foreleg and used it to pull herself to sitting, wincing as she did. As gingerly as she could, she bent her uninjured leg and pulled herself slowly upright, using the wolf as leverage.

"I can't recommend getting thrown from a horse," Arya said as she hobbled slowly alongside the direwolf, her right hand gripping at the animal's left flank for support, "but when doing so, I feel it's best to avoid falling onto large stones whenever possible."

Nymeria whined.

"Still, it was a fine horse, right up until the end of our ride. I do hope your wolf pack doesn't eat him."

The direwolf snorted, and it almost seemed as if she were laughing.

"I'm serious, girl! Needle is tucked into the bedroll attached to my saddle! I want that sword back. I've had it too long and gone through too much to keep it to risk losing it now. And besides, decent palfreys aren't easy to come by, and it's a long way to go on foot." The pair continued their slow movement toward the inn. "Well, maybe not for you," Arya amended. "I suppose you must go everywhere on foot."

The girl thought of the long journey ahead and was irritated with herself all over again for allowing a setback like being thrown from her horse so early on. But then her thoughts turned further north, and when she considered what it would be like to glimpse the walls of Winterfell once again, her heart began to beat faster.

"We're going home, girl," she whispered, her fingers weaving themselves through the wolf's thick fur. "Do you remember home?"

Arya sighed. Something weighed on her, and though others might think her half-mad for talking to an animal the way one would talk to anyone else, she wasn't terribly concerned with what others might think just then. Or, ever. And besides, she knew that Nymeria understood her; if not all of her words, then the intent behind them, at least. Hadn't it always been so?

"You do know why I had to leave you, don't you girl?" Arya's voice was quiet. "And that I was right to do it? After what happened to Lady, I know I was right to do it. I couldn't let them punish you. Still, I'm sorry. It was my fault that it had to be done. I shouldn't have gotten us into trouble in the first place. That stupid Joffrey..." She grimaced at the name and the wolf growled. Arya patted her, continuing, "I know how you feel. You'll be happy to know he's dead now. Choked at his wedding, or was poisoned, I've heard. Too bad he didn't choke when he was trying to poke Mycah. Then I wouldn't have beaten him and you wouldn't have bitten him and I wouldn't have had to send you away."

Mycah. She remembered how the boy had frozen in fear at Joffrey's mocking and accusations. He was my friend and no threat to an armed prince. He was no threat to anyone. Just a common boy, likely unnoticed by everyone in the world but his father and Arya herself. All he did was agree to play with me when I asked, she recalled bitterly, and it cost him his life. Time had washed the boy's young face mostly from her mind, and it filled her with regret to realize it. Freckles, she thought desperately. He had freckles.

As Arya remembered the butcher's son, a wave of fresh guilt washed over her. She found it strange that after so long, after witnessing so much death and cruelty in her life, after dealing out her own fair share of that death in the years since the Hound rode the innocent boy down, the memory should strike so hard at the core of her. He was going to help me find Rhaegar's rubies in the Trident. She shook her head, trying to force the memory out. It made her feel sad, and she had no more room for sadness in her heart; it was overfull already. She convinced herself that it was just being back in the Riverlands, in this place where it all happened, that made the pain new again. She pinched her face, breathing in sharply and turning the pain to anger, for though she could tolerate no more sadness, it seemed her capacity for rage was infinite.

I'd kill the Hound for it, she told herself, if he weren't already dead. She cursed the Tickler for landing the blows that did what she should have done.

You have quite a long list already, her little voice remarked. Be grateful that the blades of others are working toward the end you desire. Besides, didn't you have your revenge on the Tickler?

She supposed she had at that.

"I'm sorry," Arya repeated, and it was an apology to Nymeria for all that had happened and an apology to Mycah, too, she supposed. The wolf whined again.

Even after such a long absence, it felt natural to talk to Nymeria, just as she had in Winterfell. They walked along slowly together, the wolf supporting her mistress and Arya trying to assuage her longstanding guilt at having left her behind.

"I knew you'd be alright, though," the girl said, "because you're a warrior, just like your namesake. And you wouldn't have liked Kings Landing, anyway. It smelled awful and there was no game to hunt. I don't think you'd have been happy chasing after pigeons and rats for your supper. Though now that I think about it, there were plenty of snakes within the walls of the Red Keep. They could have kept you well fed."

Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, Queen Cersei...

The beast moved silently, guiding her mistress toward the inn. Arya slipped into Nymeria's head, wanting to make her understand; wanting to explain; wanting to be sure the wolf did not blame her as much as she blamed herself.

But it was Arya who lacked understanding, not her wolf.

Nymeria held no grudge. A direwolf lives too much in the immediate to trade in resentments for slights long past. Such things are human constructs and have nothing to do with wild creatures. People will project things onto animals which are unique to the people themselves. Wolves may experience fear and contentment; mourning and excitement; loyalty and mistrust, but they do not nurse grievances. Nymeria was more complex than her cousins, to be sure; more capable of feeling and acting on a wider array of what men call emotions. There was an intelligence in her not displayed by the timber wolves and black wolves and snow wolves of Westeros; a cunning further informed by her unique bond with her mistress. Even still, when Arya searched the direwolf, she found memories of long yearning and a burst of what passed for joy in the large beast. Search as she might, though, she found no anger; no blame for a little girl throwing rocks and driving away one who had only ever shown her an inviolable fealty. That condemnation existed only in Arya's own head. In the animal's head, the girl found only faithfulness, devotion, and affection, spanning years.

It was all she had ever wanted from anyone, for nearly as long as she could remember. And it was all that she could never quite attain; not for any real length of time. Whenever she had found esteem and love, grasping it tightly as a child clutching at her mother's leg, it had slipped through her fingers as easily as grains of sand sliding through an hourglass. She almost felt as if she were bound to such an hourglass, and that it turned over with each new attachment she formed, marking the inevitable end. That those ends were were nearly always painted in horror and tragedy only compounded her growing sense of futility about friendship and love. She began to feel as though she had destroyed the lives of everyone she touched. Nymeria was just the first in a long line of those who could name Arya as the arbiter of their destruction. And yet, the wolf had no malice for her; no wariness or suspicion.

Nymeria's complete acceptance of her mistress felt almost damning to the girl and her guilt intensified to a degree she could no longer bear.

Arya snapped her mind back from the wolf so abruptly, they both experienced it as a nearly physical jerk. The girl clutched at her heart with her one hand while the other remained buried in the direwolf's fur. Nymeria thrust her muzzle skyward and let out a piercing howl at the sudden, almost violent retreat of her mistress. The sound of it echoed off the outer walls of the inn, amplifying the noise and filling the night all around them. Arya was startled by it and gasped, both at the sound and at the feeling of being left alone inside of her own accusing thoughts. Something about the wolf's state of mind gnawed at her. It left her feeling inexplicably like a fraud; as if she were nothing more than a mummer playing a part; the role of the wronged heroine, portraying a dignity and an ethical superiority she could not truly claim as her own. She nearly swooned with the dissonance this created in her at that moment, mentally scrabbling to maintain her fury at those who had wronged her and wondering how she could be forgiven when she had no forgiveness of her own to give.

But old roles are difficult to abandon and so she shoved her troublesome thoughts down, refusing to focus on them just then. As it turned out, she had little time for such introspection anyway, as Nymeria's howl brought company to the main entrance of the inn. The pair were only perhaps ten yards from the front steps when the door opened and a man emerged, appearing only as a large, dark shape silhouetted by the firelight pouring forth from the room he had just exited.

"Nymeria!" he called, his voice stern. "The wee ones are asleep. What do you mean by..." He stopped abruptly, taking two slow steps forward and peering out into the darkness. His eyes had not yet adjusted to the dark but he seemed to be scrutinizing the wolf and her companion. Quickly, the man dropped his hand to his sword hilt and began to pull the weapon from his belt. "Who goes there?" he demanded, his voice deep and commanding. "Name yourself!"

"A weary traveler," Arya called back without hesitation, thinking the man's voice seemed familiar, like something she had heard in a dream once, "looking for a roof and a bed." Noting the threat of his sword slowly moving from its scabbard, she dropped her own hand to Frost's hilt, wondering if she would have the speed to negate the reach of his longsword with her injured hip.

"A woman," the large man remarked in surprise, guessing her sex by her stature and the tenor of her voice, "traveling alone? Without even a horse?" He ceased drawing his steel and carefully moved down the steps and towards Arya and Nymeria.

"I was thrown," the girl replied truthfully and as the man strode toward her, she noted his size and build and thought him familiar to her somehow. Gendry? Not the Gendry she knew in Harrenhal, certainly, but the dark knight who came to her in dreams, perhaps; a Gendry who had grown older, grown larger, with nothing of a boy or a boy's uncertainty about him any longer. It made sense that he would be here—Nymeria was here, and in her dreams, the two always seemed to be together. But she couldn't be sure. It was so dark, and dreams weren't reality, no matter how real they may have felt. "And I'm not alone. My party was simply... delayed."

"Are you hurt?" the man asked, slowing his pace until he stopped a longsword's length away from her. Clever man, she thought, but it won't matter. She had already calculated her angle of attack, taking into account her injury, the fact that she would have trouble reaching Grey Daughter from beneath her cloak (strapped to her back as it was), and that she would likely need to switch Frost from her right to her left hand. The need to defend herself with steel might be remote, but such was the way her mind now worked after four years in the House of Black and White.

A girl must always keep her head about her, lest she lose it. Jaqen's voice had now joined Syrio's in her mind, constantly reminding her; guiding her. There is an intelligence to swordplay.

"Aye, but nothing too dire, I think." She kept her tone light to avoid putting the big man on his guard any more than he already was. "Still, a day's rest here would be most welcome before I continue on, if you've the room. And I'll have to find my horse."

"I'm sorry to say it, but with the number of wolves in these woods right now, you're more likely to find a stripped carcass than a live animal. Frankly, I'm shocked you made it this far yourself." He eyed the direwolf suspiciously. "I don't think you're likely to see your horse again."

"Oh, I rather think I might," Arya replied. She jerked her head toward Nymeria. "This wolf and I have an understanding..."

"An understanding?" the man interrupted with a chuckle. "An understanding with a direwolf! Does the beast not frighten you, girl?"

"Should she?"

"She'd just as easily eat a small thing like you in three bites as walk at your side."

"Oh, yes," Arya said admiringly, stroking the wolf's neck. "I know."

"You know?" he scoffed. "Well-acquainted with direwolves, are you?" His obvious skepticism amused the girl and she could sense his confusion as to why Nymeria hadn't chewed her arm off already.

"Indeed, I am. As well-acquainted as anyone, I'd say."

The large man began to speak, but then stopped. His head swiveled slowly, looking first at the wolf, then at the girl by her side, then back at the wolf once more. Nymeria seemed perfectly settled. The girl... she was certainly not intimidated by the large beast (when he had personally witnessed other women faint at merely a glimpse of the great wolf through a window). He began to move forward again, squinting to see in the darkness. The girl wore a cloak and so he could not appreciate her slender frame, and the lack of light did not allow for him to note if her eyes were grey, or if that grey had a circle of the deepest midnight blue skimming its outer edges. He had not heard her voice in nearly five years save for in his dreams, but as he strained to see the traveler at Nymeria's side, his heart knew what his eyes and ears could not tell him.

This was Arya Stark, come home.

He froze in place and spoke in a ragged whisper. "By all the gods, it's you." He put his hand to his mouth as if to stop himself from gaping. He spoke softly between his fingers then. "M'lady?"

It was the m'lady which finally convinced her. The sound of it was as familiar to her as Needle's hilt, and she had heard it often enough of late, when she closed her eyes and fell asleep. It was how Gendry addressed Nymeria more often than not, and sometimes it seemed as if he were addressing her, too.

What say you, m'lady? Are you her? Shall I kiss you now and find out?

Instantly, the man dropped to one knee, bowing his head and saying, "M'lady! Forgive me for not knowing you!"

Arya had not expected the movement and so she stepped back, grunting in pain as she did, grasping hard at Nymeria's fur and causing the wolf to growl. She wanted to put some distance between herself and the kneeling knight, but nearly stumbled when she tried.

"Why should you know me?" she asked, sounding angry as she gritted her teeth against the discomfort in her hip. She shifted her weight, favoring her injured joint, but the movement did nothing to alleviate the confusion Arya felt at knowing for a certainty she now stood facing her old friend, the apprentice blacksmith who had traveled a long road with her, through trials and adventures and heartbreak and horror. Seeing him, hearing him, and knowing it truly was him caused a bitterness to flare up within her. But it also filled her with a pressing sorrow. She instantly became the young, insecure girl being left behind by yet another person she trusted. She was once again a little gray mouse, watching the last few grains of sand bleed through the hourglass, powerless to stop them.

Inside, she raged at being made to feel small again. She was furious at being reminded of that sense of utter helplessness. It was a feeling she loathed more than anything else. Nymeria seemed to sense the girl's mood, her fur bristling.

The kneeling man looked up. "M'lady Arya?" he asked. "Do you not know me?" His voice faltered at the end and carried with it a hint of disappointment. She made him no answer and he rose, taking another step toward her. Arya narrowed her eyes and frowned while Nymeria growled menacingly. The wolf's response surprised the knight. "Nymeria?" he asked uncertainly, halting his advance.

"Better stay back," the girl advised darkly. "She'd just as easily eat a small thing like you in three bites as walk by your side." Her tone was mocking as she spat his own words back at him, but the knight was more concerned by the wolf's bared teeth than the incivility of her mistress in that moment.

Gendry swallowed. "I know."

Arya glared at him for a moment longer, then she and the wolf began to walk away, passing him on their way to the inn. The girl was stopped by the pleading in his voice.

"M'lady," he called hoarsely and his voice sounded as it if had been molded from a mixture of regret and grief. Slowly, Arya turned around, facing him, her hand never leaving Nymeria's side.

"Don't call me that," she hissed.

"What should I call you, then? I can't very well call you Arya," the large knight insisted. "It's not proper."

The girl sneered, fueled by nearly five years of pent-up spite.

"My friends call me many things," she asserted, and the names washed over her in a wave, memories draping one atop the other. They covered her and made her ache, weighing her down as if she carried a wooden yoke with heavy pails dangling from each end. Arya child. Little wolf. Cat. Sister. Salty. Lovely girl. "But you may call me nothing, because that's what I am to you." Usually so good at disguising her feelings, Arya surprised herself with the anger and the hurt her tone betrayed. She clenched her jaw, trying to suppress all this damnable emotion. She did not understand why it was so difficult to do.

Remember your lessons, her little voice admonished. Rule your face. Rule your thoughts. Rule your intentions.

The knight knew he should be silent, but he could not hold his tongue. Not after his years of worry and guilt; his years of regret; his years of imagining, and then trying not to imagine every horror being visited upon her before her small bones began slowly sinking into the mud somewhere in the wilderness. Not after his hopes had been raised by news from Braavos. Not after he had dreamed of a girl, and then a woman, and then a queen. Not after he had mourned and wished and waited and ached. Could she really believe she was nothing, that she meant nothing, to him? She had saved him. No, he could not hold his tongue.

"How can you say that?" he choked.

"Because," she cried, "when you were offered the choice, you did not choose me!" The words slipped out without her meaning to say them. Her head was swimming and bright spots clouded her vision for a second. There was buzzing in her ears and her hands fairly shook with her desire to hit something; someone.

When she heard herself speak, she couldn't believe such things were leaving her mouth. It made her feel petulant and stupid, especially when she considered all the things which had befallen her in her life; things far worse than being left by a boy of six and ten who was not bound to her by either blood or oath. The vehemence of the feeling proved more than she could stifle, however, and it did not wait for her to decide if her judgment was justified. It did not hesitate as she considered how such a declaration would reflect on her character; how it would paint her as someone she did not wish to be; someone who needed; someone weak; someone so easily hurt. It boiled over unexpectedly and she could not contain it. All their years apart, all the distance that had been between them, melted away to nothing and the wound was suddenly as fresh and raw as the day it had been incurred.

Gendry had willingly joined the long list of those who had left Arya Stark behind and she had not forgiven him for it.

They stared at one another for a moment, both of their chests heaving as if they had just finished sparring. And, perhaps they had. The silence hung like a heavy tapestry between them, both of them too stunned to speak further (the knight overwhelmed by the depth of sorrow he felt at the girl's words and the girl flummoxed by the depth of feeling she had carried inside of her for years, without even realizing it). Arya, vexed to find she was chewing her bottom lip, flinched and shook her head slightly, releasing the tender flesh from between her teeth as she did. Then, without another word, she turned and limped away, Nymeria by her side, leaving her old friend the blacksmith alone in the yard.

The front door of the inn remained slightly ajar, left that way by Gendry, and so Arya pushed through without preamble, her wolf close at her heels. The large common room was different than she remembered, there being less furniture than before. What was there more rough-hewn than she recalled. The place had likely been looted, perhaps even several times over, and some furniture had probably been used for kindling along the way. But, timber was plentiful in these parts and someone obviously had skill enough to build what was required, if not enough skill to make it beautiful. There were two boys in the far corner of the room, sitting at a table, playing cards. They were of an age with her by the looks of them, though they were scrawny, apparently underfed. There was also a woman, adorned in a tatty dress, sweeping with her back to the newcomers. A dark-haired man wearing boiled leather drowsed in his seat facing the fire, his broadsword balanced across his lap.

When Arya kicked the door shut behind her to preserve what warmth remained in the room, the sound of it caused the boys to jerk their heads up and look at her. The sweeping woman began to speak as she turned around.

"Next time you go to play with your wolf, kindly remember to close the door, ser," she snapped. When the woman saw that it was not Gendry but a stranger and Nymeria who had entered, she gave a gasp and then shrieked, "What is that beast doing in here?" She scrambled back, putting another table between herself and the direwolf.

The noise of it woke the sleeping man with a start. He sat up straight in his chair and looked at the girl and her four-legged companion, blinking hard. He rose from his chair, gripping his weapon in one hand. Arya took note and wrapped her fingers around the hilt of her Valyrian steel water dancer's blade. The man squinted for a moment at the girl and then gave a garbled shout, stumbling backwards and catching himself by gripping the mantle over the hearth. Alarmed, the card-playing boys stood, but they made no move to leave their table.

"Gods be good!" the man by the fire cried. "It cannae be!" Even across the room, his eyes looked wild and disbelieving. Arya at first thought he was gaping at the massive direwolf next to her, but after watching him for a few seconds, it seemed to her that the man was instead staring at Arya herself.

It cannae be, he had said. It was a very Northern turn of phrase and it captured Arya's attention. It reminded her of her youth, when she roamed the halls of Winterfell, hiding from her Septa and all the terrors contained in her sister Sansa's sewing basket. She tilted her head, studying the bearded fellow, wondering. Some tongues bend back to their native sounds when faced with fear or excitement, she knew. Here, so far south of the Neck, could she have crossed paths with a Northman?

"Do you know me, ser?" she asked, stepping closer to the firelight.

"Aye, I do! I did!" he exclaimed. "But I saw your bones buried beneath Winterfell when I was not more than a lad! What evil has pulled you from your crypt, my Lady Lyanna?"

Arya stopped her advancement as understanding washed over her. He was a few years older and his face told the tale of a life hard-lived, but he was not so changed that she could not recognize one of her father's men.

"Harwin, it's me. Arya."

The man sucked his breath in softly, righting himself and pushing away from the hearth. His face was frozen in a look of wonderment but when Arya smiled uncertainly at him, the spell was broken and he rushed to her, causing Nymeria to growl and move quickly between the two Northerners.

"Silly girl, he means me no harm," Arya said quietly. The wolf relaxed but did not move and so Arya had to step around her (no easy task considering the animal's great bulk). Harwin swept Eddard Stark's daughter up into his arms and held her tightly.

"We thought you dead, little lady," he said, and his voice was caught between a laugh and a sob. "How we grieved! Dondarrion was enraged, especially when he found that it was that dog who took you. And the boy was simply lost when you disappeared."

What boy? she wondered as he swung her around.

"Then, about a year ago, a strange man came to the hill; a foreigner. He said you were alive, and in Braavos," Harwin continued, "training to be an assassin!" The Northman set the girl down. "It didn't seem likely and we dared not hope, but after a time, our Lady became quite convinced." He grasped her shoulders, peering into her grey eyes. "Gods, but you could be her twin!"

"Who is her? Are you talking about your lady?"

"Nae, little lady, I mean your aunt. Of course I do!" Harwin laughed.

"I'm not so little anymore, Harwin," Arya said. "And I'm no lady."

"With all due respect, Lady Arya, you're still quite little, and you're more a lady than these eyes have seen since I walked the halls of the Red Keep trying to keep pace with your noble father."

"I don't recall any ladies in Kings Landing," Arya muttered. "Only vermin and vipers."

"True enough, m'lady," Harwin agreed, frowning in distaste. "You have the right of it."

They both grew quiet with their shared memories but then the Northman burst out excitedly.

"I never thought I'd see this day. Seven bloody hells, a Stark, alive and well and in Westeros!" Harwin said before catching himself. "Pardon my language, m'lady. I'm overexcited."

Arya waved her hand, dismissing his concerns. She had just spent two months aboard a ship with nothing but rough sailors and assassins for company and before that, she had prowled the docks of Braavos with regularity. There was little Harwin could have said which would have offended her ears.

"Your words do not bother me, Harwin. I told you, I'm no lady. I am not at all my sister. Nor am I my mother."

The man looked at her soberly before replying, "No, indeed m'lady. You are not." He stared over her head for a moment and then looked back into her grey eyes. "Still, forgive my coarse ways. I've been too long away from the splendor of our old home."

"Me too," the girl replied.

"It does my heart good to see you, little lady. Your sister... no one is sure about her. And all your noble brothers..."

"I know," she said quietly.

The woman whose cries had awoken Harwin still cowered across the room, clinging to her broom. She was too fearful of Nymeria to approach, but the two boys had finally left their place at the table and now stood behind Harwin, peering curiously at the newcomer.

"But where is that blasted smith?" the Northman wondered, suddenly remembering Gendry. "He heard your wolf howling and went to investigate. You must have passed him on your way here. Did he take your horse for you, m'lady?"

"Sadly, I had no horse for him to take," Arya remarked. "The damned thing was so startled by Nymeria that he threw me and galloped off into the woods."

A deep voice spoke up from behind Nymeria.

"Your horse is in the stable. It came running back only moments ago, a dozen wolves at its heels." Gendry had entered the room while Harwin was grasping the girl's shoulders and marveling at her resemblance to another Stark, long dead. No one had noticed the large knight until he spoke. "It seems you were right, m'lady. You will see your mount again." He stared hard at Nymeria, trying to figure how the wolf had worked it out for her mistress.

"Thank you, ser," Arya replied stiffly, turning to look at the dark knight. He had his hand on Nymeria's back, stroking her. At the girl's movement, the Gendry looked up, studying her with his piercing, blue eyes. "I am glad to have him back. He carries things which are important to me. They would have been impossible to replace." A jeweled comb with a hidden knife. A castle-forged sword made for a child. A note written in a precise and elegant hand.

"It's Nymeria you should thank. Her pack obeys only her. It must have been her doing. All I did was secure the beast in the stable."

"Still, I thank you for that."

Harwin, upset at the news that Arya had been thrown, ushered the girl forward, offering her his seat by the fire. He insisted she sit and remarked on her limp.

"I am sorry for keeping you trapped in the doorway, m'lady. You must have had a long and tiring journey. Were you much injured in your fall?"

"A deep bruise, I suspect," the girl replied. "I managed to find a stone with my hip."

"I'm surprised that you could be unseated at all, Lady Arya." Harwin recalled her skill on horseback quite well. When she was only one and ten, he had barely been able to catch her when she raced away from him.

"As was I," she grumbled. "But, I suppose even the most stalwart of palfreys would be terrified of Nymeria." She quirked up one side of her mouth. "And she certainly surprised me, else I would have been able to hold on."

Nymeria gave a short series of yips, apparently resentful of the blame being placed upon her for the incident. Arya laughed.

"Does your injury need tending?" the Northman asked.

"I think a day's rest will be all I need."

"A hot soaking tub is what you need," Harwin corrected, "or else that joint will stiffen on you overnight and you'll be left worse off than you are now. And maybe some strongwine would ease the pain."

"No, no wine," Arya said. Her distaste for the stuff had not abated, even though the night spent at the inn by the Moon Pool in Braavos seemed a lifetime ago now. "But I would be happy for a hot soak, if it can be managed."

Arya had barely finished her request before Harwin called to the two boys who had yet to speak.

"Fletcher and Rider," the Northman said by way of introduction. Arya quirked an eyebrow at the names. Harwin laughed. "They aren't the names their mothers gave them..."

"I don't even remember my ma," Fletcher mumbled.

"...but rather names they were given after they arrived. Fletcher is now our master arrow maker."

"He's our only arrow maker," Gendry said flatly.

"Still, Anguy swears Fletcher's arrows fly further and faster than any others he uses," Harwin said, giving Gendry a look.

"A useful skill to have, making a good arrow," Arya commented, bowing her head slightly at the boy. Fletcher gave a crooked smile at the compliment and blushed, shuffling his feet slightly as he cast his eyes to the ground.

"And Rider came to us about five years ago, on the back of a fine, stolen destrier. He found it wandering among the corpses on the field of battle near his village. Lannister men had put the whole place to the torch after they defeated a small Northern force in a skirmish."

"I barely knew how to ride then, but I climbed on that horse's back, and it brought me here," the boy explained. He seemed bolder than his friend and did not look away when Arya turned her eyes to him. "As far as I know, I'm the only person from my village left alive."

"See to your business, boys," Gendry directed, having grown weary of the small talk. "The lady needs her bath." The boys scrambled off, presumably to heat water and fill a tub for Arya. Gendry glanced across the room. "Jeyne, why are you cowering behind that table?"

"I told you, I won't come anywhere near that hell hound!" the woman cried. "Get her out of my inn!"

"I think she'd better go, m'lady," the tall knight said apologetically to Arya. "She probably wants to hunt, anyway."

Arya was reluctant to let the wolf out of her sight after so long apart, but she nodded and Gendry called to Nymeria as he walked to the door.

"Come, m'lady," the knight said, opening the door and stepping aside to allow the great beast passage. "I'll walk with you to the woods."

The girl was perplexed by the blacksmith's relationship with Nymeria even though she had had glimpses of their friendship in her dreams. She wanted to question Gendry about it, to find out if what she had dreamed was true, but after her angry outburst in the yard, she wasn't ready to talk to him yet and besides, she didn't particularly wish to reveal the nature of her dreams to anyone. She had trusted Jaqen with her secret, but she was not sure she should trust anyone else.

Gendry had not yet returned when Fletcher approached to tell her that her bath was ready. "We set it up in the kitchen," the boy said. "The fire was still blazing in there, and it will be much warmer for you than if we took it upstairs." He did not say that it was also easier for himself and Rider, saving them from hauling water up the stairs, but Arya understood that very well. She did not begrudge the boys their economy of effort. The girl hobbled across the room, refusing help from Harwin when he offered. She had nearly entered the kitchen when she remembered.

"Oh! A change of clothes!"

"Ser Gendry brought your things, m'lady," Jeyne Heddle said. "I seen him set a bundle and a pack in the corner there when he came in earlier." The woman indicated the far corner of the room, near the main entrance. "I'll bring what you need directly."

Arya was about to refuse and just go get her things herself, but the thought of crossing the room twice more with her aching hip sent her through the kitchen door, straight for a soak with a grateful nod to Jeyne. The girl dropped her cloak over a bare table in the kitchen and then tugged off her boots. As she pulled at the laces of her blouse, the innkeeper appeared, arms draped with Arya's clothes. She was holding the jeweled comb from the Kindly Man.

"This is a fine little thing, ain't it?" Jeyne remarked, admiring the hair ornament. "I have a brush, m'lady, but I figured you'd rather use your own things to tame that hair o' yours. I know it's meant more for decoration, but I think it'll work to pick at those tangles."

Arya hadn't even considered how she must look after her wild ride and its abrupt, painful end. She had merely wished to take Harwin's advice to soak her injured hip.

"Yes, thank you."

"Well, the water will be cooling, m'lady. Best get in." Jeyne set Arya's clothes on the same table as her cloak, but then picked up the cloak and shook it out. "I'll go hang this in your room."

"Oh, I'm so glad you have room for me!"

"M'lady, you're highborn and a friend of Harwin's. If we don't have the room, we make it." The woman spoke matter-of-factly and it was impossible to gauge her feelings. She might have been perturbed at having to shuffle bodies in order to free up a bed, or she might have been delighted at the prospect of receiving gold for her trouble. Jeyne had exceptional command of her face at that moment. Arya knew that she could easily discern which way the woman felt if she chose, but it didn't seem to be worth the effort, especially if her brothers arrived soon, for their time at the inn would be short and whether Jeyne Heddle loved her or hated her would be of little consequence.

Jeyne left her and Arya shed the remainder of her clothes. She inspected her hip and saw that a deep, purple and red bruise had already formed. She knew it would be worse in the morning. Gingerly, the girl lowered herself in the tub and relaxed. She had nearly drifted off to sleep when Jeyne burst back into the room.

"Alright, m'lady, let's get that hair washed and combed!"

The scene played out like a hundred other bath scenes of her youth, with Arya protesting she didn't need help as another woman tut-tutted her while scrubbing the dirt from her skin and washing her hair. It was annoying, and it was strangely comforting too. Many things were different now, but this one thing was not, it seemed. It made Arya grin madly at the sheer absurdity of it all. She began to snicker as Jeyne worked on her newly clean hair. Dynasties could rise and fall while war and famine decimated the population, but through it all, the enthusiasm for dunking Arya Stark in a tub and scrubbing her pink would not be diminished.

"What's so funny, m'lady?" the innkeeper asked, raking the comb through Arya's wet locks.

"Jeyne, you don't have to call me m'lady. 'Arya' will do fine."

"Hmph," the woman replied. "You may not care who you are, but you'll find others around here do. Ser Gendry says you've been in Braavos, and maybe over the sea things are different, but this is still Westeros, m'lady, where a name matters. Blood matters."

"Have you ever seen your blood, Jeyne?"

The woman continued raking the comb through Arya's hair, pulling at her tangles, none too gently. "What do you mean?"

"Have you ever cut yourself while chopping vegetables or something like that?"

"Of course I have, m'lady." The woman chuckled a bit.

"I have, too. Well, not chopping vegetables, but I've been cut, and I've bled. Did you ever have to bandage your cuts?"

"Sure..." Jeyne began to sound uncertain.

"As have I. Do you suppose if we placed those bandages together, you would be able to tell which had covered my wound and which had covered yours?"

"Well..." Jeyne's combing slowed.

"Blood is blood," Arya continued. "It flows through all of us, and if we lose enough of it, we die. That's the way blood truly matters; it's only important in that we not allow too much of ours to be spilled."

The innkeeper was silent for a few moments, considering the girl's words before she spoke. "I think you'll see I'm right after you've been here longer, m'lady," the woman said with a little laugh. "If we lose enough of it, we die? Is that what they taught you in Braavos?"

What they taught you, her little voice whispered. Ha! If only she knew.

"Yes," Arya replied truthfully, knowing full well that Jeyne Heddle had no insight into who 'they' were. "It is."

Jeyne resumed her combing with a quiet, "Oh," and said nothing more. When she finished, she asked Arya if she would like her hair braided.

"No, leave it undone," the girl instructed. "I'll braid it myself after it dries a bit." Jeyne gave a respectful bob of the head and then left Arya alone in the kitchen. The girl stared up at the ceiling, her mind filling with all that had occurred in such a short period. The wolves, her injury, finding Nymeria, seeing Gendry, reuniting with Harwin... She didn't suppose any of it should change her plans, really. Nymeria would join her on her trek northward, surely, and the brotherhood would have confirmation that she lived, but she did not intend to submit herself to their will, whatever they might think. Not again. Still, she would surely have to cross their path if she intended to see her mother again.

Lady Stoneheart.

She had talked of it with the Bear during their voyage. He had a duty to the order, but his loyalty lay with his friend and he had assured her that if she did not risk herself unduly, he would help her do those things she felt she must before they arrived at Winterfell. Baynard might be less accommodating if he felt her aims interfered with his own (or, rather, if they interfered with the aims of the Faceless Men), but the reality was that he could not fight both her and his brother and he would have no choice but to support her plan. And her plan, as of now, was to leave the inn with her wolf and ride to her mother as she had tried to do nearly five years ago.

And this time, she would not be stopped.

Harwin had been right—her hip felt better after the soak. Her limp was less pronounced as she left the kitchen and crossed the common room en route to the yard. She thought she had better see to her palfrey before retiring. She might need him at first light to take her on a search for her brothers if they had not arrived by then. Her cloak was upstairs, in whichever room Jeyne had designated for her, and so she did not bother with it. She wore her doe skin breeches from Denyo and a man's favorite blouse which billowed around her frame, untucked. The wind caught it as well as her damp hair as she stepped outside and both waved and rippled as she walked down the steps and toward the stable. The cold greeted her like an old friend, enveloping her in its embrace, but like an old friend, she did not mind its touch.

Arya was pleased to find her mount had been well-tended and she patted the beast on his neck, whispering soothing words to him and promising him she would not allow him to be eaten by wolves. Though she had not troubled herself with the task to that point, she supposed she should give him a name. "Tosser, perhaps? Or Cat's Bane? It seems appropriate after you tried to kill me," the girl muttered wryly. Satisfied that the palfrey was properly settled, she left the stable, shutting the door tight behind her to block the wind. A voice from the shadows stopped her return to the inn.

"You shouldn't be out here without your cloak," Gendry said. He was leaning against the near wall of the stable.

"What is it with large men and fretting over cloaks?"

"What?"

"You're just too late to fill the position. I've already appointed a brute to worry over my cloak-wearing habits."

The knight narrowed his eyes, not understanding, but he did not think the matter worth pursuing. Not when there was more reprimanding to be done.

"And your hair is wet. Is it your intention to die here of pneumonia?" His chastising tone caused Arya to bristle.

"Please do not worry for me, ser," she answered coldly. "I know how foreign it must feel for you to care about anyone but yourself."

It was a gut punch after his years of guilt over her abduction by the Hound.

"Gods, but you're selfish!" he spat. "You don't know how I've worried!"

"Oh, dear," the girl said, the sounds of false sympathy far too sweet to be mistaken as sincere. "Did it hurt very much, good ser? Was it painful for you to choose the men who were holding me against my will, keeping me from my family? Did it trouble you greatly to toss aside our friendship for an outlaw's life?"

Her anger was evident despite the sweetness of her tone and the knight felt helpless against it. He blew out a frustrated breath, running a large hand through his dark hair.

"I chased after you, you know," he growled, "and gods, the guilt! The worry... It was like... like a living thing inside of me, clawing at me, trying to rip my insides to shreds. I couldn't sleep for it! When I tried to eat, all I could think was... I wondered if you were hungry. Was he feeding you? Was he raping you? Had he slit your throat? And if he had... well, then, it was my fault, wasn't it? For letting you run from me and straight to him."

Arya knew she bore most of the guilt for her childish flight into the Hound's clutches. She did not question her right to feel what she felt at the time, but she understood much better now the virtue in moderation and forethought. Dashing off blindly because she was upset was not a defensible course of action, and though it may have been Gendry's disloyalty which inspired her behavior, she alone was responsible for acting on her whim.

"You didn't let me do anything," she mumbled. "You couldn't have stopped me. I don't blame you for the Hound, only for trading my friendship away so easily."

"It was not easily done, m'lady," the knight protested. She glowered at him for his use of the honorific, but she let it pass without remark.

"The worst thing that was done was keeping me from my family," she told him. "The delays... If the Brotherhood had only taken me to the Twins straight away, fast as horses could carry, I would have been in time."

"In time for what, Arya?" Gendry asked softly. "In time to die with your mother and brother?"

"I could have warned them," she insisted.

"In the habit of taking advice from little girls, were they?" His voice was heavy with sarcasm. "If we had gotten you there sooner, the Freys would have killed you too. Or, at the very least, they would've stuck you in a dungeon until you were of age and then married you to old Lord Walder or one of his horrible heirs."

She thought of her life since that time; since the Hound had knocked her out with the flat of his axe as she tried to run to the Twins to save her mother and Robb. She weighed the good and the bad, the hardships and the joys. She thought of Jaqen, and then she thought of losing him. Her small, shaky sigh was undeniably the sound of heartbreak.

"It makes no sense that I'm here and they aren't."

"What do you mean?" the knight asked her. "After all we've seen, do you really believe the world should make some sort of sense?"

"Maybe it would have been better if I had died with my family."

Gendry was on her in an instant, clutching her shoulders and shaking her, hard.

"Don't you dare say that," he choked hoarsely. "Don't you dare ever say that to me! Every night was an agony for me after we heard what happened to you. Every day a bleak stretch of torment. I worried for you every single day until that strange assassin showed up and told us you still lived. I wasn't even sure if I believed him, but then I began to see you in my dreams." Gendry stopped for a moment, realizing he had said more than he meant to. He huffed, but then continued. "I blamed myself..."

"You were to blame!" she cried. "You abandoned me! I would have never abandoned you! I took you from Harrenhal when I could have left you. I took Hot Pie and I didn't have to! I killed to save you, and I would do it again! I made a choice, just like you, but I chose you, even when it wasn't easy. I chose you!"

"I know," he whispered, not trusting the strength of his voice then to say it any louder. "Gods, I know. I know. I know."

And he did know. He knew that she gave him his initiative; that she was his very courage in that time. If not for a skinny, defiant girl, he would have slaved away in the forge for whatever master claimed Harrenhal. He would have slaved away until the next lord came along and decided his slaving for the previous master proved him guilty of some treason or another and put his head on a pike. Or, if his skill was deemed too valuable to sacrifice, he would have served each successive master until he died of illness or age with no power to determine the course of his own life. Because it never would have occurred to him to do else. He would have never run on his own. It took a little highborn girl to drag him to his freedom, and him doubting all the way. He knew this. He knew he was indebted to her, for his liberty, for his knighthood, and for his very purpose in life.

"You owed me your loyalty," she said. "You had mine, even when it brought me to harm. I would have never left you behind. Never." Her voice broke and she cursed herself for it. She drew in a deep breath and steadied herself. She finished so quietly, Gendry struggled to hear her words. "I brought you out of Harrenhal with me and for that, you owed me your loyalty."

His grip on her shoulders tightened. His voice was contrite and sincere as he pledged, "You have it now, m'lady."

Arya jerked away from him, pulling free from his hands. "I have no want of it now, ser. I do not need it. I do not need you. When I did, you abandoned me, and I have learned to do very well without you."

The knight looked stricken, but he persisted anyway.

"You can do very well without me, I have no doubt," he replied stiffly, "but you have me anyway."

"How charming. You offer your allegiance readily when you owe it to another. Are you not sworn to my mother?"

"Not your mother, no," Gendry said. "To Lady Stoneheart."

"Aren't they one in the same?"

The big man shook his head and swallowed before answering. "No, I think not."

Arya gave a mirthless laugh. "Well, if you plan to accompany me, you'll have your chance to petition for release from your vow to your Lady, for I intend to seek an audience."

"M'lady..."

"I've told you not to call me that." She shivered, folding her arms over her chest.

Gendry sighed, shrugging off his cloak and draping it over Arya's shoulders. The garment swallowed her, several inches of its hem pooling on the ground. He ignored the way she glared at him as he pulled it closed around her.

"M'lady," the knight said firmly, "you ought to carefully consider this plan."

"Ser, I understand that our... history may lead you to think that you know me and that I am nothing more than a rash little girl, but I assure you, that is no longer the case. All of my plans are carefully considered."

Gendry bowed his head in deference, already playing the role of the loyal knight in the service of his lady. It irked Arya, but she held her tongue, instructing him instead on her plans for the morning.

"If my companions have not found the inn by first light, I will ride out and search for them."

"Allow me, m'lady. You should rest after your mishap. I can take Nymeria to aid in the search."

"As can I. I do not think it wise for you to meet my party alone."

"Why not?" Gendry said. "Who are these companions?"

"A knight and his squire, sworn to see me safely home."

"Home? You're going back to Winterfell?" He sounded incredulous.

"Oh, yes. I am going home, ser, after all these long years, and nothing will alter my course."

"There are rumors of chaos and war in the North," he informed her. "It's said there's a wildling army and forces loyal to Stannis and those who follow the Boltons and the crown. You'll need an army at your back to make it through all that."

Arya smirked. "How fortunate for me, then, that you've already pledged to join it."

"If that's your carefully considered plan, I suppose a visit to the Hill is the least of my worries."

"Just so," she agreed and she could not stop her malicious smile from presenting itself. "Just so."

Arya's morning had an inauspicious beginning as she attempted to rise from her bed and was surprised to find herself wrapped tightly in Gendry's cloak. She did not recall going to sleep with it and thought she must have woken in the night and pulled it around her to fend off the chill in the room. Why had she not given it back to him? She grunted with ill humor and pulled the cloak from around her, setting it on the edge of her bed. She stood and was shocked by the pain and stiffness in her bruised hip. Crying out, she fell to the floorboards, barking her bare knees as she did. The noise brought Rider to her door. The boy knocked and then called to her, concern evident in his tone.

"Are you alright, m'lady?"

"Yes, yes. Fine," the girl called back with irritation, and then groused under her breath, "It seems Ser Gendry isn't the only one with questionable loyalty. Now my own body betrays me." She glanced down and saw the bruise on her hip now extended down her thigh and was ugly and dark. Wincing, she pulled on her breeches and boots, then did her best not to stumble as she descended the stairs to the common room. Gendry was waiting for her at the bottom step with a grim look on his face.

"Do not try to convince me to wait here, ser," Arya warned by way of greeting. "I'm going out to find my men and nothing you say will stop me."

"You're not going anywhere without your cloak, my lady," a familiar voice boomed from near the hearth. Arya looked past Gendry to see the Bear standing there, warming himself. The Rat was seated at a table nearby, eating a bowl of porridge.

"Ser Willem!" the girl cried delightedly. "Oh, I am glad you're here now." Her response was genuine. She had feared one or both of her brothers were lying injured in the woods, or worse.

"They arrived just as I was preparing to ride out," Gendry said gruffly as she rushed past him to the Bear. His words brought her up short and she turned to face the blacksmith.

"You were going to leave me here and ride out alone?" She was not pleased. He may have pledged her his loyalty, but his obedience did not seem to be part of that bargain, Arya noted sourly.

"No matter," Ser Willem said jovially. "Here we all are, under the same roof. But why aren't you resting, my lady? Ser Gendry was just telling us how you fell and hurt yourself last night. And no wonder, with your wild riding through the dark!" There was an undertone of censure in his words. Her brother was rebuking her for leaving him behind and risking her own neck. She would have to explain herself later, she knew.

"I didn't fall," Arya corrected, "I was thrown. I don't go around just falling off of horses, you know."

"No, no, of course not," the Lyseni said, his tone overtly patronizing. Arya saw a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. "You're a very capable horsewoman." He said it the way one might tell a young child that her mudpie looked very delicious indeed. All that was lacking was a pat on the head.

"I am," she insisted.

"Of course, my dear, of course." The Bear smiled. "As capable as any little girl I've ever seen."

"Perhaps we can spar later, so I can remind you of this little girl's capabilities?"

Ser Willem snorted, and there was a fondness in his smile that was unmistakable. Gendry watched their interaction with a dark look. Jeyne entered just then, carrying a bowl of warm porridge which she offered to Arya. The girl thanked the innkeeper and settled herself across from Baynard to eat. The squire looked up from his food long enough for her to see his smirking smile. He then turned to face Gendry, asking him about the inn.

"Is this your place?"

"No, it belongs to Jeyne. It's been in her family for a long time."

"I suppose business is slow now, since the war? And the wolves are a likely deterrent," the Rat remarked.

"It's almost more barracks than inn, these days," the knight acknowledged. He explained how Jeyne had initially taken in children orphaned by the war and how she came to be involved with the Brotherhood Without Banners. Eventually, the brothers began rotating through the inn, training the orphans to fight.

"So this brotherhood is creating an army of fatherless children?" the squire inquired as he scraped his bowl for the last of his porridge. His tone of innocent curiosity did not fool the Cat, who heard the derision around the edges of his words.

"The Brotherhood is giving these fatherless children the means to defend themselves," Gendry corrected. "Most of them watched their families butchered before their eyes. Believe me, not one of them objects to being taught how to handle a sword or a bow."

"Well then, I commend you on your fine work, Ser Gendry," the squire said, placing his splayed hand at his breast and bowing his head in an overly magnanimous gesture. Arya kicked the Rat under the table. He pretended not to feel it. Gendry nodded slightly at Baynard, but Arya could tell he did not care for the squire. The blacksmith dropped into a chair at the end of her table and turned to her.

"Do you still plan to leave today?" he asked.

"Oh, certainly not!" Ser Willem answered for her. "Not with the way my lady is limping."

"I can ride," Arya insisted through gritted teeth.

"Yes, but how well?" the Faceless knight asked. "It's not worth the risk of another accident. No, we should stay today. You need to rest."

"He's right," Gendry said.

"Who asked you?" the girl snapped and Baynard snickered, earning a withering look from the dark knight and Arya both.

"My lady, I do wish you would be sensible. We'll more than make up the time if you are better able to ride," Ser Willem reasoned. "Besides, our horses could use the respite as well."

It was hard to argue with allowing their mounts to recover. Arya nodded stiffly, signaling her acceptance of her brother's wisdom. Harwin entered then and greeted the newcomers warily.

"Harwin, these are my men," Arya explained. "They've agreed to see me home."

"That may be, little lady, but you'll need our Lady's protection if you're to pass through the Riverlands safely."

"I plan to seek it," the girl replied. "When we leave here, we'll make for Hollow Hill." Harwin agreed that was wisest though Arya could tell that Gendry wished to object. To his credit, he said nothing, and merely discussed the logistics of the journey with the Northman and the Faceless knight.

"A small company of orphans should go, I think," the blacksmith said. "All who are ready to fight."

Harwin disagreed. "I don't like to leave Jeyne so unprotected."

"But won't you be here?"

"No. My place is with Lady Arya."

"Oh, Harwin, you don't have to..." the girl began.

"Aye, m'lady, I do. It's what your father would have wanted, and your lady mother. Where you go, I go also."

Arya nodded her acquiescence.

"No one will be left to train the wee ones," the blacksmith pointed out.

Harwin furrowed his brow. "Do you not plan to stay, boy?"

"I did not have my lady's leave to ride for the inn. I must go back and beg her mercy."

"Hmm. Yes. I doubt the lady will bear you a grudge when she sees the gift you bring her." Here, the Northman smiled fondly at Eddard Stark's daughter. "But still, what you say is right, and I think you must go."

The men continued to discuss the problem of taking the bulk of the able bodied orphans with them.

"Well, Fletcher and Rider should come, at any rate," Gendry continued. "Also, Stout Will and Little Nate. They're ready to join the brothers, anyway, and they have proper arms and armor now."

Harwin considered Gendry's plan and agreed it seemed best. "We can leave Jay, Gerrold, and Elsbeth. They can see to training the younger ones until a brother arrives to replace us. That should satisfy Jeyne's needs for the time being, and she'll have fewer mouths to feed."

"Elsbeth?" Arya asked, confused. "Are you training girls, too?"

"Of course!" Gendry said, laughing. "I would think you of all people would support the notion."

"I do! I'm just... surprised, is all."

"Are you? Well, there was some resistance at first, from some of the brothers..."

"Lem," she said.

"Lem," Gendry agreed. "But Lady Brienne had much to say on the subject..."

Harwin snorted. "Now that's a pretty way of putting it. Much to say, indeed. Ha! Lem's lucky the lady didn't string him up with that yellow rag he wears on his back!"

"Lady Brienne?" Arya asked.

"Oh, you'll meet her," the dark knight assured her. "She's at the Hill with our Lady right now."

"So, this Elsbeth..." the girl prompted.

"As fine an archer as you're like to meet," Harwin explained. "Anguy's star pupil. But don't let Fletcher hear you say it."

"Too late," Fletcher said as he hopped down from the last step and made his way toward the group. "And ask Elsbeth who makes those arrows she shoots so straight!"

Harwin laughed. "True enough, boy."

Arya leaned closer to Gendry and spoke in low tones. "If Elsbeth is the better archer, why is Fletcher being sent instead?"

"He's been here longer, and there's not much more he can learn at the inn. It's time he ride with the brothers. That's the final part of his training."

The girl understood very well about training regimens.

"Still, if this Elsbeth is the more skilled of the two with a bow, I think I'd like for her to ride with us."

Gendry considered her wish, then nodded slowly. "I'll speak to Harwin," he murmured.

"Thank you." She nearly smiled at him before she caught herself. Gendry watched as the girl's mouth began to tilt upward but was stopped as she bit her lower lip, chewing on it thoughtfully. After a moment, her brows drew together and she frowned instead. He wondered what she was thinking just then.

Arya paid no mind to the knight's scrutiny. She was distracted by her own consternation that her deep animosity toward her old friend was waning.

Just because he agreed to do one thing I asked doesn't mean all is forgiven, she huffed inwardly. And his pledge of loyalty means little and less.

How interesting, her little voice remarked, that a wolf may forgive you so easily for your abandonment of her, but you cannot do the same for this man.

Arya disagreed. She did not find it interesting.

Not at all.

Everlong—Foo Fighters

Chapter Text

Nothing is as it has been, and I miss your face like hell...

Arya left the men in the common room when it seemed their plans had been settled. She had meant to search out Nymeria, for they had a task to complete together, but the direwolf found her mistress first. Arya had no sooner descended the front steps outside of the inn when the great beast came from around the corner. Clever girl, the assassin thought, but aloud, she said, "You step light for such an imposing creature." Her voice was filled with admiration. "You may be as big as a horse, but you're as stealthy as a cat." Almost instantly, Arya realized what she had said and smiled. As stealthy as a cat. She knew Syrio Forel would have said it differently.

Quiet as a shadow.

"The shadow among shadows," she whispered. "I suppose we have that in common, don't we girl?" Nymeria moved past her, toward the stable, then stopped, turning to look back at Arya as if impatient for the girl to join her. Arya grinned. "I'm coming, I'm coming. Seven hells, you act like it was your idea."

The pair continued on to the stable. The horses seemed to sense Nymeria's presence because Arya could hear them becoming restless in their stalls, snorting and whinnying. One of them kicked against the wall.

"No growling," Arya warned the wolf before she opened the door and entered. As soon as the stable door closed behind her, she planted her feet and stood, unmoving, while she touched each of the creatures' minds in turn. She suggested to them that they were safe and that there was no cause for alarm. She could not find a way to calm them all at once, so she simply went from palfrey to palfrey, soothing each of them, one after another. She left their heads almost as quickly as she entered, staying just long enough to plant an idea. After her initial effort, the girl moved slowly down the row, reaching into the stalls and stroking the horses gently as she did, transforming their instinctive unease into acceptance as Nymeria padded softly behind her. Somehow, touching the beasts seemed to increase her influence over them.

It was something she had not tried before, this contact. When she had used a cat's eyes and ears, it was always from some distance. She had been in Jaqen's head, but there was the barrier of a door between them at the time. The Bear had been both near and far when she had used her talent on him, but never had they touched while she tried it. It was true that she had directed her palfrey on their run with the wolves, but with the blistering pace and the way she had lost herself completely in that moment, she had not been able to feel what she felt now. The sensation of the contact was entirely new to her. It was as if bees were buzzing in her bones while her fingers trailed over horseflesh and she shushed the beasts softly. Her power over them was stronger than she had ever experienced; their obeisance more complete.

When she reached her own mount, she spoke aloud.

"Bane, this is Nymeria. I think you two should be friends because we have a long road to travel together and I can't have you tossing me into ditches and running me into tree branches because you get spooked." The direwolf brushed against Arya's side, watching with her golden predator's eyes as the horse danced sideways. The girl flooded the palfrey's mind with a sense of tranquility. Bane could not resist the assassin's will and his nervous nickering and stamping ceased. Gradually, the girl pulled away as Nymeria stood still as a statue. After a moment, one corner of Arya's mouth curled upwards. "See? I knew we could all be friends."

The girl leaned against the gate separating her from her mount and patted his neck, murmuring, "Good boy." She continued stroking the horse, unhurried and without any outward demonstration of concern or awareness to betray that she had felt the slight shift of air against her cheek and neck as the door to the stable opened and closed silently behind her. Whoever had entered was very quiet and would likely have been undetected by almost anyone other than a Faceless assassin.

A nearly-Faceless assassin, she corrected herself.

Arya used her gift to explore the space around her gently, finding her target. She could see through borrowed horse's eyes that a bow was raised behind her back, bowstring drawn and held steady by a slender girl. The stranger looked to be around the same age as herself with light brown hair trailing over her shoulders in tangles. There was an arrow aimed in the Cat's direction. When Arya looked harder, she could tell the threat was actually to Nymeria. For her part, the wolf seemed unconcerned though her mistress could tell she was not unaware of the newcomer's presence, either. A cursory perusal of the girl's thoughts told the assassin all she needed to know.

"Elsbeth, is it?" Arya asked softly, not bothering to turn. She reached up and scratched Bane behind his ear. The palfrey lowered his head a bit. "And the arrow... I wouldn't. Even if you managed to let it fly, it would only make make her mad, and I assure you, you do not want to be trapped in a stable with an angry direwolf."

"How..." the newcomer started, but she hesitated as Arya looked over her shoulder and appraised the young archer. The assassin's hand dropped from the horse and instead reached out to stroke the direwolf's fur. Nymeria remained perfectly still but there was an energy Arya could feel through her skin. The wolf had the same bees in her bones as her mistress. Elsbeth lowered her bow and furrowed her brow.

"She won't hurt you, unless you try to hurt me," Arya assured her. "At least, not as long as I'm here. I imagine her behavior is a little more... instinctive when we're apart."

"I wasn't sure," the archer admitted. "I've never seen her without Ser Gendry by her side."

"Hmm. Well, this is a sight you'll have to adjust to, now that I'm here."

"Why doesn't she just eat you?"

"Oh, we're old friends, Nymeria and I." the Cat smiled. "Aren't we girl?" The wolf whined. Arya turned and looked pointedly at the newcomer. "But you didn't come here for reminiscences of a girl about her wolf." The archer moved one step closer to the Northerner and the direwolf but seemed reluctant to move any further than that.

"No. I was just outside and I heard you talking to the horses. I... just wanted to meet you."

Arya smirked. "You wanted to try to catch me unawares, you mean." She wondered if this archer had heard tales of her as a girl; of her time on the road with the apprentice blacksmith now styled Ser Gendry. Perhaps she knew Arya was reputed to have some skill with a bow. Perhaps she even knew something of her time in Braavos; her time spent within a mysterious order of assassins. Elsbeth might have wished to prove her own mettle; to show Ser Gendry and the others that she, too, had skill. And, Arya had to admit, she did. Elsbeth simply had the misfortune of choosing her targets poorly, for if she wished to demonstrate the superiority of her skills, she certainly could have found better quarry than the a warg trained by Faceless assassins and a beast whose very survival was dependent upon instinct and predatory prowess.

The archer looked dejected. "Seems I'm miserable at sneaking."

The Cat laughed. "Don't fret. I'm not often off my guard. You're very good, honestly, but I'll give you a piece of advice someone once gave me. The scuff of leather on stone is as loud as war horns to a man with open ears."

"Huh? The floor is packed dirt," Elsbeth said, confused. "And you're not a man."

Arya rolled her eyes. "Clever girls go barefoot."

"It's too cold to go barefoot."

"Nevermind," Arya sighed. She could teach, but she could not make Elsbeth learn. "Is there anything else you need?"

The young archer shrugged, "No. I just wanted to see the great lady for myself."

"Great lady?" the Cat scoffed, shifting her head slightly left, then right, as if searching. "I see no great lady here."

"Everyone's talking about you."

"Well, if they're talking about a great lady, it's not me they mean," Arya assured Elsbeth. "Who's everyone, anyway?"

The archer rattled off her list. "Fletcher. Rider. Jeyne. Ser Gendry. Harwin. Well, no, Harwin said little lady, but I figured he meant the same person."

"I hate to disappoint you Elsbeth, but I'm no lady, great or otherwise. They must have been talking about Lady Stoneheart."

"No, my lady, they're talking about you," Ser Willem said, striding through the door. "You've created quite a stir in the inn. Seven hells!" He had caught sight of the direwolf. His voice ticked up an octave. "Is that Nymeria? I thought they were exaggerating her size! Put a saddle on her and you could ride!"

The wolf growled at the Lyseni.

"I wouldn't suggest trying it," the Cat laughed. The wolf's menacing response sent Elsbeth scrambling from the stable with a stammered excuse about being needed to train the younger children just then. The two assassins then found themselves alone.

"Is it safe?" the Bear asked quietly. He nodded at the wolf.

"What, Nymeria? Yes, you're safe enough with me here. Just don't try to put a saddle on her."

The Lyseni approached his sister cautiously. "Are you alright this morning?" The girl was confused at first but as the Bear's eyes drifted to her hip, she realized her brother was referring to her injury.

"It aches, but nothing more," she answered. "We really could have ridden today."

"A day of planning was in order and I needed the time to convince my squire that this course was best. He did not understand why we should travel south in order to go north. No, tomorrow is soon enough to depart."

"And did you? Convince him?"

The Bear nodded. "He sees the wisdom in taking advantage of the Brotherhood's hospitality. Alone, we have no access to their safe houses and the supplies of their allies. A detour to Hollow Hill will buy us safer passage in the long run."

"His agreement wasn't wholly necessary, but I suppose it makes things a bit smoother."

"Yes. A bit." The Bear smiled but he seemed distracted. His sister sighed.

"I suppose now is as good a time as any."

"What?"

"To tell me what's been troubling you."

"Oh, that."

"Yes," the girl said, cocking up one eyebrow and nodding her head once for emphasis. "That."

"Haven't you guessed, sister?" The large assassin glanced at the direwolf. His sister chuckled.

"Would it make you more comfortable if she weren't here?"

"Honestly? Yes. A great deal more comfortable."

Shaking her head, Arya said, "Come on, Nymeria, you'll have to leave. You're frightening the large assassin." She walked over to the stable door and pushed it open. The wolf stared at the Bear and sniffed once before following her mistress and exiting. As the stable door shut, the girl turned to her brother. "Well?"

"Well, you fell from your horse and injured your hip."

"I didn't fall, I was thrown..." Arya growled, walking menacingly toward the Faceless knight.

"Very well, you were thrown. After taking off wildly without a thought or consideration for me, for Baynard..."

"Baynard..." She nearly spat. She stopped in front of her brother and put her hands on her hips, radiating annoyance.

"...or for yourself. Which part of dashing off madly into the dark with a pack of wolves seemed like a prudent plan? Was it the part where you left us behind? Or the part where you could have lamed your horse or gotten your own neck broken?"

She understood what he meant; that he was denouncing her as thoughtless and foolhardy. It stung. Hadn't she just recently insisted to Gendry that her plans were all carefully considered? Hadn't she insisted she was no longer the rash little girl she had once been? And yet, here was her brother, accusing her of being the very person she emphatically claimed she was not.

"But I didn't get my neck broken..." The defense sounded weak, even to her own ears.

"Perhaps you hoped to meet up with bandits or rapers while all alone?"

"I wasn't alone." She gave him a glimpse of her malicious smile. "I had Frost and Grey Daughter with me."

"Ah, yes, the solution to your every problem," the Bear muttered tiredly. "Blood and steel. Blood and steel. Always blood and steel."

"They're my most faithful companions." She had meant it as a jape, but like most japes, there was a grain of truth in the statement. Her words seemed to energize her friend, but he was not amused. His face became hard, his lip curling.

"Of course, you would consider your steel above all else. And what of me, sister? Am I not your faithful companion?"

She had truly meant no insult to him. She had only wanted him to understand that she was not afraid, and he needn't be either. Her smile faded and she looked at her brother. Before she could find the words to placate him, he was folding his great arms over his chest and staring down at her. There was an allegation in his expression.

"I chose you, sister. Your blades had no say in the matter, but I have a will, and I chose you."

She might have countered that she was his mission; that the order had given him little discretion in the matter. But she knew at the heart of it, that would be wrong. The Bear had chosen her, well before their path was ever dictated by their elders. He had chosen her when he might have chosen Olive, or exile, or his own conscience. Even after great loss and great sorrow, he had remained resolute and steadfast. He was, perhaps, the only person in her life who had not left her in one way or another.

"I didn't mean..." She stopped, huffing a little. Arya did not like to be accused, no matter how justified. "I only meant that your worry is wasted. I would think that you, of all people, would know how well I can manage on my own."

"You are indeed very skilled with your blades, Lady Arya." The title was a prickly thing, meant to needle her. "No doubt you could have fought off an entire company of brigands with just your two swords, assuming you hadn't bashed your head against a tree branch or been mauled by wolves already!"

"They didn't mean to maul me. I don't think you understand. They wouldn't have..."

"I don't care!" the Bear roared and Arya took two steps back from him, her hand dropping reflexively to Frost's hilt. "It was stupid! You are stupid! Gods, I've spent the last week thinking about just such a thing happening and wondering how to protect you from yourself; how to save you from your own recklessness and stupidity!"

The girl was dumbstruck by her brother's vehemence. She opened her mouth as if to speak but nothing came out. His words swirled around her brain as she tried to make sense of his concerns. Cautiously, she approached him and placed a hand on his arm. Her touch seemed to bleed some of his anger out of him.

"There was no danger," she finally said, her voice small. "Brother, you know... you, better than anyone... you know what I can do. I can't explain it fully, but there was no danger. I was certain of it! Not from the wolves, not from the darkness, not from the horse..."

"The same horse that threw you?"

"Well, that was a mistake on my part. I got too caught up in..."

"Yes," he interrupted, and it seemed to her that the Bear was fully manifest then, without artifice, without intrigue, without facelessness. His worry was the worry of someone who cared deeply; personally. He whispered hotly. "It was a mistake on your part. And praise be to Him of Many-Faces that your mistake didn't cost you your life. This time."

"So, all your terseness, all your dark looks, all your distracted mumbling over the past few days have been because you're worried about the mistakes I've made?"

"No, it's not your past that worries me. What's done is done. The mistakes you've already made are nothing. It's the ones you will make that keep me from my rest."

Arya gave her brother a look of confusion. "Your worry for me stops you from sleeping?" She sounded skeptical, but perhaps also a touch guilty. "You've known me for a long time. You know who I am... how I am. Why are you so bothered now?"

The Lyseni clapped his hands together, drawing them over his mouth and nose and gazing heavenward as if praying. He blew out one long breath before answering her in a low voice. Dropping his hands to her shoulders, he said, "I tried once before to save you, and I failed. I allowed myself to be undone by your stubbornness. I told myself that the Cat would have what the Cat would have and I had done all I could to make you see reason. I told myself that I couldn't protect you if you wouldn't allow yourself to be protected. And then the principal elder told you to kill your master." The Bear paused, looking deep into his sister's silvery grey eyes. He did not bother to disguise the pain in his own expression. "And then I watched you crumble to dust. Because I didn't do more to stop it from happening."

"No..."

"Because I didn't drug you with sweet sleep and carry you out of that place over my shoulder. Because I didn't bind you and put you in a sack and load you onto a ship to take you far away."

"It wasn't your decision to make. In no way was it your fault." Her voice was sure. Her eyes were steely. She was thinking of another; of the one at whose feet she placed the blame for what had happened in the main temple chamber on her last night in Braavos.

"You may say that, my lady. You may even believe it." His bearing shifted slightly. His tone changed similarly. He was Ser Willem again, fully and unmistakably. "But you should understand, I will not risk you. I have no intention of losing you. Not to blades or plots or illness. And certainly not to your own damnable pride."

"Pride?"

"Aye, pride. You may think yourself invincible, but you are made of the same frail flesh as are we all. This land is vast and full of peril. Our road is winding and hard. You cannot mean to travel it alone. You must allow me to do my duty."

Duty.

I will do my duty, whatever is asked.

Arya laughed and the sound was without mirth. "And what is your duty, dear Ser Willem?"

The Bear bent low, placing his mouth next to his sister's ear and in the barest whisper, replied, "It wounds me that you do not know." He straightened and turned to leave but the girl called out, stopping him.

"I'm sorry!" she cried, throwing herself against his back and wrapping her arms around his middle. "Of course I know what your duty is. Of course I do!"

The Lyseni pulled free of Arya's arms and turned once more to her. His look was sad, and his gaze fell over her shoulder, onto the wall behind her.

"Do you?" he asked quietly.

He had sacrificed Olive at the altar of his sister's safety. He had given up his chance to love and be loved. He had tried to abdicate his position in the order so that he might secret her away to some place out of harm's way; some place beyond the sinister machinations and corrosive embrace of the Kindly Man. She had been the one to thwart her brother's plans, not the other way around. Of all the things in the world she might question and mistrust, her brother's loyalty to her was not among them.

"Yes, I know. I do." Her voice was full of regret, the sound of it a plea for understanding. "Being back here..." She sighed. "It makes me think on betrayal. It's... too much in my head and my heart of late, but you... you've never given me cause to doubt. Forgive me."

"Always," he said and she embraced him fiercely. He wrapped her in his arms and they stood quietly for a few moments. "I must have your promise, sister."

"Anything I'm free to give," she pledged, looking up at his face.

"I need your assurance that you will have care going forward."

"Have care?"

"You know better than most the dangers of the road; the dangers particular to this land. I will fight any battle to keep you safe. Do not make me fight you, too. I would have you see your Winterfell once again, and I would have you arrive there unharmed."

She had a flicker of a memory, and then a voice which caused her heart to clench and flutter sounded in her mind. It was her master, instructing her to be wary and careful, to be vigilant in guarding her person, and to return to him unharmed. Arya squeezed her eyes shut tightly for a moment, forcing Jaqen's voice back down deep inside of her before it could steal her breath away. She teased her brother then, a paltry attempt at distracting herself.

"So, you mean to instruct me on the perils of the road now, brother? But you can plainly see I no longer wear a black and white robe. I am no acolyte to be taught. Have you believed yourself to be my master all this time?"

"No, never your master, little Cat. Your friend. Only your friend."

A small smile tugged at her mouth and she reached her hands up, gripping his shoulders and forcing him to bow his head to her. When he had bent so low that they were eye to eye, she pressed a hard kiss to his forehead as the door to the stable swung open.

"More than my friend, surely," she whispered quickly in the Bear's ear. "My brother."

Gendry, witnessing the scene before him, cleared his throat as he walked into the stable. Ser Willem straightened, bowing his head to his lady before turning to smile broadly at the blacksmith knight.

"Ser Gendry," the Lyseni said politely before taking his leave. Gendry fairly glowered at the blonde man and stared at the stable door as it closed behind the Bear. The dark knight turned back to face his old friend.

"M'lady, are you alright?"

"Don't I look alright?" She suppressed the urge to snap at him and instead, effected a tone of disinterest. "What do you suppose could have happened to me, in the company of my sworn guard, here in this stable?"

Heat crept up the blacksmith's neck and curled around his ears. His mouth pressed into a thin line as he furrowed his brow slightly. Finally, he said, "I brought some of the younger orphans into the yard for training. I heard shouting."

"Shouting, you say?"

"It drew me here, but then all was quiet."

"Indeed?"

"At first, I thought it must have been nothing..."

"And you were right."

"...but then, I thought, when has anyone ever shouted at Arya Stark and not gotten an angry earful right back?"

"Oh, how well you know me, ser," the girl replied, her voice heavy with sarcasm.

"So I thought I should check and make sure you hadn't been strangled..."

"By my own man? A knight sworn to my protection?"

"I can think of at least half a dozen parties in Westeros who would be interested in holding you hostage or worse. Anyone might betray you for the reward they'd be like to get for their trouble, sworn man or no," the knight insisted.

"Well, if anyone understands what might lead a man down the path of betrayal, I suppose it's you," she replied. Gendry glared, hurt by her words. As was so often the case, his hurt quickly turned to anger. It was a trait he shared with his father, though he had no way of knowing it.

"But, when I entered the stable, I could see very plainly that you were only quiet because your mouth was otherwise occupied." His tone had turned nasty.

"I kissed my sworn man on the forehead," Arya admitted with a shrug. She showed no shame, for indeed, she felt none. "Even the most proper of ladies would not be faulted for that."

The knight asked bluntly, "Is Ser Willem your lover?" Before she could stop herself, the girl burst out laughing. The blacksmith growled, "I missed the jape, m'lady." Arya bristled once more at Gendry's use of the honorific and her laughter died. Her fingers twitched and she briefly considered unsheathing Grey Daughter to threaten him for his impudence. Her brother had just admonished her to have care. Jaqen had told her she must keep her head about her. Syrio often said she must be calm as still water. And the Kindly Man...

No. She would not think on the elder's advice.

She was not one and ten any longer. Westeros might be the same, but she was not. She could not go back; could not allow herself to be drawn back to a time when she was weak. Rage and hatred had their place, but she must reserve them for when they were needed; when they would most count. Gendry had earned her ire, it was true, but he did not deserve her hatred, and she could ill afford to waste her rage on his petulance.

She thought, Perhaps the truth will pacify him.

"No, he's not my lover. He's more brother to me than anything," she replied. Had he bothered to reflect for a moment, he would have realized she was being honest with him and it would have gone no further. He was in such a state, however, that reflection was nearly impossible for him and so he spewed his venom with little thought of consequences.

"Perhaps because he doesn't understand just how precarious such a title is," the knight offered, his tone sour. "He might reconsider if he learns of the fates of those who you have called brother in the past."

He said it to hurt her. When he entered the stable, he had been stunned to see her place a kiss on Ser Willem's forehead. The irrational, unreasoning part of his mind (which, admittedly, seemed to have grown almost immeasurably since he found the girl standing in the yard next to Nymeria the previous night) had screamed out to him that she could not even be bothered to say a civil word to him, after all they had been through together, yet she allowed some hired sword such intimate contact with no regard for propriety. His common sense had murmured that Arya had never been one who held much regard for propriety, and that he knew little and less about the basis of her relationship with Ser Willem, and besides that, there was nothing so terribly improper about the gesture he had seen anyway. But, his common sense stood little chance against his jealousy (jealousy? Seven bloody hells, how had that happened?) and so he continued to glare angrily at his old friend. He watched a blank mask descend over the girl's face and her eyes became inscrutable.

He had meant to wound her as he had been wounded, but he did not know what her life had been since he had last seen her. He did not understand how deep was the chasm that had formed in the center of her chest when she had been dragged away from the the Kindly Man and his raised sword. He did not realize that with the loss of her master and the life she had cobbled together after so much hardship and woe, it would take much more than some callous words born of spite to inflict any real suffering upon her.

"He knows," Arya said softly. "Ser Willem knows my story. He knows about my mother and father. He knows about my brothers."

Her calm demeanor cut through the knight's antipathy and he immediately regretted his tone and his words. Gendry swallowed and took a half step towards her. "Apologies, m'lady. I shouldn't have..."

"No," she interrupted. "You shouldn't have, but I expected no different."

This hurt him more deeply than seeing her kiss Ser Willem or her thinly veiled accusations of betrayal. He fought his urge to respond with anger. Despite how she had always called him stupid and bullheaded, he actually learned rather quickly and he knew his enmity would avail him nothing. Arya had changed, it seemed. He had not realized it with the way she had unleashed on him after her arrival, but it was nonetheless true. When they had spoken in the yard the previous night, she had shown anger at what she named his abandonment of her, but he now saw that such a display was atypical. She was no longer the girl who would scrap with little or no provocation. She was more measured; cautious; calculating. As a young girl, she had nearly thrummed with rage, always spoiling for a fight, quick to respond to insult with violence. Now, she seemed patient, somehow. Composed. She was... still. It exasperated him. She wasn't fighting fair!

Before he could consider the changes in her further, she was moving past him, leaving the stable. In a blink, she would be gone. Quickly, without thinking, the knight reached out and gently wrapped his fingers around her arm, stopping her exit. The girl looked down at his hand on her, then up into his Baratheon blue eyes, silent. Still.

"Forgive me, m'lady. I sometimes say stupid things I don't mean."

"A personal flaw that needs correcting," she suggested coolly.

"I don't disagree."

"Good. Then we are in accord." She looked pointedly at his hand encircling her arm again. Reluctantly, he released her. She moved past him and was halfway through the door when the knight spoke again.

"I wonder..."

"Yes?" She looked back at him over her shoulder.

"I've... continued to work steel. The brotherhood needs weapons and armor and what is scavenged from the countryside is not always useful in its found condition."

Arya wasn't sure yet what point her old friend meant to make, but remarked, "I thought you were a knight now, good ser. A knight of the Hollow Hill."

"They've knighted me, but there is no one else with the skill to work metal as yet. I am training two of the children, but they aren't nearly ready to work on their own."

"Ah, I see."

"I remember how fond you were of your little sword, the one you named Needle."

She was surprised that he remembered. She also realized that he had no way of knowing she had recovered it (had killed to get it back). That had happened after she had left the brotherhood.

He continued, "I wonder if you might like to see what we've been working on. Maybe you'd like to see the forge a little later?"

Ah, so there was his point. He wanted her on his turf.

The girl smirked. "If you mean to reenact our wrestling match on the forge floor, I must warn you, ser, I am quicker now than I was, and I carry better weapons."

You are also more ruthless, her little voice added.

He has no need to know that now, she told her little voice. He will discover it on his own if he ever gives me cause to show it.

"That was so long ago. Do you really remember that?"

"Ser Gendry, my problem is that I never forget."

And with that, she was gone.

After the midday meal, Harwin led Arya around the yard, introducing her to the orphans and explaining the training regimen instituted by the brotherhood. Elsbeth had the youngest of the boys and girls aiming arrows at straw targets near the tree line. Fletcher instructed a slightly older group on which berries and plants were best avoided if one did not desire to die painfully of poison. Rider, holding a crudely carved wooden sword, oversaw the oldest as they sparred mostly with sticks and branches. Arya had never before considered wooden training swords and blunted blades to be a luxury, even when she had been reduced to using a stick for her own needlework during her days in Harrenhal. Watching the orphans execute strikes and counter strikes with rough branches, she suddenly felt very naive.

Nymeria followed behind her mistress, making the youngest orphans giggle and squeal and the oldest ones nervously shift their weight from foot to foot as she passed. They are a sorry lot, Arya thought. Underfed and dirty. She supposed they were a great deal less sorry than they would have been had they not found the inn, though. Arya Stark understood very well how harsh Westeros could be to a motherless child. And, when she looked closely at the orphans, she could detect something about them which set them apart from the ragged children and smallfolk she had encountered during her own trudging journey through this land, before she departed Saltpans on Titan's Daughter four years past. These were no empty, broken children. They had a determination, she thought, and a purpose. It gave an energy to their movements and an intensity to their attention. It put life in their eyes.

That was the difference, she realized, remembering countless faces she had seen on the King's Road and in Harrenhal. The orphans' eyes were not dead. They still had their hope.

The Cat watched with interest as one undersized girl with a crooked stick was repeatedly knocked over by her larger opponents. The girl rose each time, not bothering to brush the dust from her skirts and raised her stick like a club, grasping it tightly in two fists. She appeared to be one and ten, or perhaps two and ten, and she made an effort to block each blow that rained down on her, but she did not have the strength to turn them. Once again, she found herself sprawling in the dirt. Arya approached.

"You're not strong enough to meet their blows that way," she said to the child, who looked up from the ground to see the great lady the whole inn was buzzing about. The young girl did not speak, and she stared at Arya with saucer eyes.

"We keep telling her that," a gruff boy spoke up. He approached, turning his long stick down, poking the tip into the dirt and using it to support his weight as he leaned over. He towered over Arya. "She won't listen. Girls aren't made to swing swords. She should keep to the bow, like Elsbeth."

Arya cocked her head, scrutinizing the boy. He didn't seem to bear the orphan girl any ill will. He even offered his hand to help her up from the ground. The orphan girl's face was pinched as she stood on her own, ignoring the offered help and glaring at the boy. He simply shrugged.

"What's your name?" Arya asked her. The girl eyed her suspiciously but she finally spoke, albeit grudgingly.

"Dolly."

"Well, Dolly, if you want to stop getting knocked over, you're going to have to quit holding this stick like a maid beating rugs and start trying to use your quickness to counter your opponent's strength."

"Huh?"

Before Arya could explain further, the boy laughed. "I told you, m'lady, girls aren't made to swing swords. You'd be better off spending your time convincing her to practice her archery before she really gets hurt." Harwin started to chastise the boy, telling him to watch his tone when addressing a lady, but Arya stopped him.

"He doesn't mean any harm," she said, "he just doesn't understand that made for it or not, everyone should learn to handle steel."

"A little thing like her should never see a battlefield!" the boy protested.

"The battlefield isn't the only place a man or woman may die," Arya said softly, "and failing to learn how to swing a sword won't protect Dolly against being run through by one."

"Like my ma and da,"the girl muttered, and Arya understood the girl's obstinate persistence then.

Weren't you the same? her little voice asked. Aren't you still?

"Here," she prompted Dolly, "hand me your stick." Reluctantly, the girl did as she was bade. "Who's the best swordsman here?" Arya meant to give Dolly a short demonstration of the advantages of standing sideface and how she might use quickness of movement to avoid blows rather than meeting strength with strength. She had assumed Harwin would speak up or perhaps even Rider, who must have had reasonable skill if he was entrusted with teaching. Instead, she heard a deep voice call from behind her.

"I am."

Gendry.

She turned to see the dark knight standing on the inn's main porch, the Bear at his side. Her brother Rat was there as well, leaning over the railing and grinning. As she watched, Gendry descended the stairs and approached. Rider offered the knight the wooden sword he was holding as he passed.

"M'lady," Gendry said, bowing his head slightly at her. To Dolly, he said, "Pay attention to what this lady tells you, sweetling. Aside from Harwin, she's the only one here who's ever had a lesson from a master. She even used to carry a real sword, castle-forged, just the right size for a tiny girl." His words might have been taken for mocking, but for a definite tenderness in the tone. He sounded as if he was recalling a fond memory. It caught Arya off-guard.

Dolly looked at the knight adoringly and nodded, then focused her rapt attention on Arya. The Cat cleared her throat. "Right. Well, first, you must hold your weapon properly, like so." She showed the child her grip. "One-handed, unless using a heavier sword, like a bastard blade or a greatsword. But those won't be your weapons. Their weight would impair you too much."

"But you carry bastard sword," the gruff boy interrupted. "I heard Harwin say it earlier." Harwin glared at the boy, his look a warning to mind his courtesies, but he said nothing.

"Yes," Arya agreed, "but my blade is Valyrian steel, which makes it lighter, and I've trained to wield it."

"Be quiet, Ed!" Dolly hissed. "She's talking to me, not you!"

Arya laughed at the feisty child. "Just so. Now, once you are holding your weapon properly, you'll stand sideface, like this." She turned, presenting a slender figure to her opponent. "This way, you make for a smaller target."

"She's already a small target!" Ed laughed, and quick as a flash, the young girl bent down and snatched a clod of dirt from the ground. She threw it at him, striking his toe, but he continued snickering anyway.

"Ser Gendry," Arya prompted, bobbing her head at him. The knight faced her, raising his wooden sword in the Westerosi fashion. He cut an imposing figure, and had the girl been any other, she would have questioned the wisdom in this demonstration.

"No worries, m'lady, I won't harm you," he assured her.

"Oh, I know you won't," she replied sweetly, and anyone might have thought she was expressing her trust in the blacksmith. Only the two assassins on the porch knew differently, and a small smile appeared on Ser Willem's face then. Baynard snorted. Arya spoke to Dolly but her eyes never left her opponent. "When you see your foe begin to move, do not wait for his blow, but see your way around it. A larger opponent will have the reach on you, but you can move inside that reach and strike if you are quick enough." Gendry obeyed his cue and attacked.

Even if his mind hadn't clearly trumpeted his intent, his first strike was predictable enough and Arya ducked low as she spun towards him. She popped up straight, so near to the blacksmith that her chest was almost pressed to his belly and she thrust her stick up so that its tip caught him just under his chin. "Dead man," she said, pressing the makeshift weapon with enough force to make her point. A cheer went up and Dolly began clapping wildly, gazing at Arya with something akin to worship. The assassin lowered her stick and Gendry gazed down at her in amazement. After a moment, his face broke out into a wide grin and he began laughing.

"It seems you've not wasted a moment of the last five years," he said through his laughter. "Of course!"

Arya turned and approached the little orphan girl. "Swift as a deer," she whispered in the girl's ear. "Quick as a snake. Anticipate. Move. Have no fear. Fear cuts deeper than swords." Dolly nodded slowly, concentrating hard as if she had just had the answers to life's most puzzling riddles revealed to her. Arya handed her the stick and watched a while longer as the orphans returned to their sparring. The young girl was still knocked down plenty, but Arya noted that she managed to bark a few shins and bruise a few ankles with her stick as she tumbled and danced around her opponents.

Nymeria loped off into the woods, likely having caught the scent of some prey, and the orphans soon switched pursuits, moving through the training stations with an impressive order. As Elsbeth handed Ed an arrow to notch, Gendry moved next to Arya, who had settled on a stump near the wood's edge to watch the proceedings.

"I think Dolly will tell stories of Lady Arya's defeat of the lumbering knight the way other girls talk of Jonquil and Florian," he said, laughing lightly. "Though I admit, I'm somewhat jealous. She used to trail after me like a lost pup. I think you've diminished me in her eyes." He folded his arms over his broad chest. "Dead man," he said, mimicking her earlier declaration. "Did you have to make it look so easy?"

"I apologize, ser. That was not my intention. I do hope your ego recovers," Arya replied. "But perhaps it's better this way. She should not raise you up so high, else she might not be able to bear it when you leave her behind one day." She stood, meaning to depart. The day was waning and soon, the orphans would end their training and go to their supper.

The knight sighed. He had hoped she would soften toward him. He felt predisposed to be her friend and he had to remind himself that he could not expect her to feel the same. Though it was difficult for him to remember it, the Arya he had dreamed about so often and the one who stood next to him now were not one in the same. No matter their history, no matter how familiar his dreams had made her seem, this Arya was really a stranger to him. He frowned at the thought. Their imminent journey to the Hill was beginning to feel as if it might be a long one. Before she could walk away from him, he made a suggestion.

"Why don't I show you the forge now? You can see the blades we've worked for the brotherhood."

"We?"

"Me and my two apprentices."

"Two young bulls in the making?" the girl asked, smirking.

"Well, one bull, and I suppose technically the other would be a cow, though I think we can come up with a better name for her than that."

"You're training a girl to be a smith?"

"After what you've seen here, I'm a little surprised at your shocked tone," Gendry teased. "It's Dolly, as a matter of fact."

"Dolly?" Arya cried. "But how does she hammer and fold?"

"Very slowly and with much effort, I'm afraid," the knight admitted, "but there was never a more diligent worker. Besides, there's more to being an armorer than just pounding at things with a hammer. The strength will come with practice and age, I think."

Without really meaning to, Arya found herself following the blacksmith to the forge as the last of the orphans gathered up their poor training gear to store it away and entered the inn. The forge was a small building, the one furthest from the inn, set back even from the stable. Arya supposed this was meant to stop the spread of fire, should the building catch. All the trees had been trimmed away from the structure as well. Gendry pulled the door open and held it for her. Without looking at him, the girl entered the dim forge.

"It's cold," she remarked. The feeling was somehow wrong. "When I think of a forge..."

"You think of a hot, stuffy place with lots of loud clanging?" Gendry guessed. Arya shook her head.

"I think of..." She closed her eyes and she was in the forge at Winterfell, sooty and underfoot. Happy. Mikken scolded her genially as she scrambled out of his way, kicking up dust and rushes. She stared as he drew what would soon be a fine sword from the fire, mesmerized by the glowing orange tip. Faintly, she could hear her septa calling for her as she searched the courtyard for her wayward pupil. The girl giggled as the woman's voice grew further and further away. Mikken gave her a disapproving look but she said she'd rather learn how to make swords than learn how to sew, anyhow. This made the blacksmith laugh and he said, From what I've seen of your stitches, lass, you'd be better off apprenticing here than wasting anymore of that poor septa's time. They had both laughed then.

She had been silent long enough that Gendry prompted her. "You think of..."

"Warmth."

She didn't mean heat. Or, at least not entirely. Gendry somehow knew that was true, but he was not privy to her memories, so he was unsure what it was that had turned her eyes soft and wistful. He did not pursue it, however, thinking she wasn't like to tell him anyway. Instead, he lit a candle and set it in the center of the room. Arya turned in a slow circle, taking in all the partially completed weapons, shields, and armor stacked in corners, sitting on tables and hanging on walls. When she finally faced Gendry, she said, "You've been busy."

"I work when I can."

She walked over to tall bin from which the hilts of a dozen swords protruded. She grasped one and pulled it free from the others. It was heavy and blunt. A bare wooden handle adorned the grip and the pommel was plain, befitting a weapon which would be carried by someone who had sworn allegiance to no banner.

"I've yet to sharpen those," the knight explained as Arya turned longsword this way and that, inspecting the lines of the blade. "And the grips haven't been wrapped."

"Leather?" she asked.

"When we can get it," he replied. "Lately, I've been using sharkskin. It's a bit cheaper and we can trade with the fishermen for it in Maidenpool and Saltpans."

The girl nodded, replacing the unfinished weapon and looking at row of helms lining the table in front of her. They were well-made but plain. "A far cry from your bull's head helm," she remarked, trailing her fingers lightly over the pieces as she walked slowly along the table. Gendry laughed a little.

"I find I've not the time to dedicate to such ornamentation," he said, "and that helm was the creation of a boy who thought he'd someday be making arms and armor for lords and princes to wear in tourneys."

"Still, it was wonderful work. Truly, it was a beautiful thing."

"Beauty is lost amid the din of battle, m'lady, and such exhibition does not make a man safer from the bite of arrows or swords."

"No," she agreed, "it cannot do that, but do not deny your talent."

He smiled at her, his look a little sad. "I do not deny that it exists, m'lady. I merely deny its usefulness."

The pair fell silent as Arya continued inspecting the various arms and armor scattered about the forge. Upon seeing a pile of rusted and dented vambraces, breastplates, pauldrons and gauntlets stacked against the far wall, she wondered aloud at using the discarded pieces to create training blades for the orphans.

"They should have blunted blades for practice," she concluded.

"Aye, they should," the blacksmith agreed, "but we cannot spare the steel. Soon enough, they will all need sharp blades and good helms and we've barely enough steel to meet those needs. For now, sticks will have to do."

"Perhaps some day soon, this conflict will all be at an end and then you can return to the forge and make your own steel rather than having to melt down what you can scavenge."

Gendry chuckled without humor. "So we are speaking of dreams and pretty children's stories?"

"Do your ambitions now lie outside the forge?" she asked curiously.

"My ambitions lie with keeping myself and those I've sworn to protect alive."

"Do you not see an end to this, ser?"

"M'lady, I do not think I will see this end before I see my own."

"Perhaps not," she said quietly, "but maybe there is a way to keep ourselves apart from it."

"If you dread war, then you've chosen an odd time to return to Westeros."

"War is not the thing I dread, but the timing of my return was not of my choosing," Arya spat bitterly, wandering to the far side of the forge. A wooden chest had been shoved under a work counter mounted to the wall. She bent over curiously, inspecting the large box.

"Then how is it you find yourself here now?"

Arya snorted. "Aren't you my sworn knight? By what right does a knight try to suss out his lady's secrets?" She opened the hinged lid of the trunk and lifted the cloth which covered something within. She reached in, lifting the piece of armor she found there and stared at it with fascination. It was a gleaming steel breastplate.

"By no right, m'lady," Gendry admitted, stepping closer to observe her, "but then, I never was a very good knight."

"No," she agreed, her eyes drinking in the perfection of the breastplate, "but you are an excellent blacksmith." She sounded a little breathless as she inspected the armor piece. Unlike everything she had seen thus far, the plate was not plain. It was intricately detailed and so highly polished that it shone like a newly minted silver stag. It was smaller than the other breastplates stacked on a table nearby. She thought it might actually fit her.

"I've been working on that one for awhile now," the knight said from behind her. She turned and stared up at him.

"It's..." She did not continue, but moved past him and closer to the candlelight where she inspected the piece. A design had been beaten into the chest piece from the underside so that it was shown in relief on the front; a wolf's head in profile, snarling with snout pointing toward the right, teeth bared. When Arya looked closely, she could see that the wolf was crowned with a delicate circlet made of connected snowflakes, each one different than the last. The beast's head was superimposed over crossed swords, thin water dancer's blades, the hilts identical to the one found on Needle. The assassin looked up at the dark knight, her eyes shiny as she whispered, "You are truly gifted, ser."

"I'm glad you like it," he replied softly. "It's yours."

She gasped slightly. "I..." She looked back down at the piece. "Oh."

Gendry grinned, unable to contain his pride at her response to his work.

She placed the plate on an anvil before her, near the candle, and ran her fingers over the relief, trying to make sense of the gift. It seemed obvious that the breastplate had always been intended for her. The size and shape could only have been meant for a small woman, the snarling wolf would only be worn by a Stark, and the rendering of Needle left no doubt as to who that Stark would be. But how could Gendry have known he would ever see her again? And if he wasn't sure, why spend the effort? Why waste the steel? And good steel, by the look of it. All this she wondered, but what she said was, "I thought you were now more concerned with function than beauty."

"Do you find the piece beautiful, m'lady?"

She scowled a little at his address, but she said, "Don't be daft. You know it is."

"Don't be fooled by the pretty appearance. I assure you, this plate is quite functional."

The girl swallowed, still gazing at the breastplate. "You said you had little time for such ornamentation."

"And so I do. Very little time. Perhaps that's why it took me so long to complete."

"What about beauty being lost on the battlefield?" she asked.

"M'lady, I pray to the gods that you never see a battlefield."

That night, as Arya lay in her bed, her mind whirled with anticipation of the journey to come, thoughts of her encounter with Gendry in the forge, and memories from Braavos which alternately warmed her and made her heart heavy with its burden of grief. She found sleep elusive and rose from her bed, moving silently to the small window in her room. She stared out of it and up at the night sky as her fire burned low behind her. The Cat sighed and placed her palms flat against the sill of the window, leaning on it and resting her forehead against the thick pane of glass. In the yard below, she saw a dark figure moving. By the size and gait, she knew it was Gendry. He was moving toward the stable, tending to some chore or another ahead of their journey in the morning. Seeing him drew her thoughts back to the twilight, when they had spoken in the forge.

Arya had donned the breastplate at Gendry's insistence, though in truth, she had been itching to try it. As she tightened the straps and buckles with his help, she was shocked by the excellence of the fit. It was almost as if the steel had been molded to her frame.

"How?" she demanded as he stepped back to admire both the assassin and his own handiwork. "You haven't seen me in years. How could it fit so perfectly?"

He shrugged. "I've seen you in my dreams often enough."

His answer annoyed her but she couldn't think of the words to tell him why. Instead, she shook her head and then asked him to explain a detail of the design."Why is the wolf crowned?" Her tone seemed to indicate that she was displeased with the feature, but her eyes could not stop admiring the delicacy and precision of the intricate work.

"Well, your brother was King in the North. That makes you a princess of sorts, doesn't it?"

She laughed. If there was anyone less a princess in the entire world than she, Arya was quite sure she didn't know who it could be. "Saying a thing doesn't make it so!"

"Having the backing of an army helps."

"So, my brother's former army has crowned me?"

"It's not just that..."

"Then what?"

"When I dreamed of you, you were... you were very much like..." He stumbled over the words, reluctant to continue.

"Like what?" she asked, her raised eyebrows and wide eyes declaring her exasperation.

"Like a queen." It almost pained him to say so, because he knew that she would not like him saying it. "You were so like a queen. The Queen of Winter."

"The Queen of Winter? What is that? What does that even mean?"

"I don't know. It was a dream." He looked sheepish. "You were... so fair; so white. And there was snow in your hair, like a veil, and you were wearing silver and grey and you... shone, so brilliant. You were just brilliant, like sunlight on the ice. Blinding." His brow was furrowed. He looked troubled, but somehow hopeful, too.

"But dreams aren't reality," the girl insisted. "I'm no princess, no matter who my brother was. I'm certainly no queen. It doesn't make any sense."

"I dreamed of your return and here you are. That's real enough, whether or not it makes sense."

She waved a hand in the air, dismissing the idea."Coincidence."

"That may be, but nevertheless, the breastplate fits."

She could not argue with that, nor that it was a thing of exquisite beauty. It made her feel strange, to have such a fine gift from someone she had spent so long resenting. She found her anger was ebbing from her and she began to regard the blacksmith with a more kindly attitude. When she recognized the softening of her temperament, she scowled, angry at herself, swearing that her friendship could not be bought. Still, someone who could make something so lovely could not be all bad, she thought.

"Perhaps it's true what they say," Arya muttered, more to herself than the dark knight. "The way to a woman's heart is through arms and armor."

"Who says that?" Gendry laughed. "No one says that!"

"Well, they should, because it's true." She was grumbling, a frown marring her features. The large man grinned.

"Are you saying I've found my way into your heart then, m'lady?" His teasing certainly triggered a reaction from her.

"I want to refuse it!" she burst out in a fit of honesty. She slapped at the decorated plate with her palm, covering the wolf's eyes as she cried, "I should throw this back at your feet, but it's so wonderful that I can't!"

"Why in the world would you refuse it?" He laughed, the idea ridiculous to him.

"Because I am angry with you! Because you abandoned me when I least could stand to be abandoned! I haven't forgiven you for it."

"M'lady..."

"Do not call me that!"

"Arya..." He sighed, then pled with her. "I was ten and six. I barely knew anything about anything that wasn't a hammer and tongs. Will you hate me forever for doing what I thought was best when I was barely more than an ignorant child?"

"I don't hate you," she growled, "and I think that's why I'm so..." She shook her head, unable to explain herself to him. "I want to hate you," she finally said, "and you keep making it difficult for me to get on with it."

"I can't say I'm sorry for it," he told her, giving her a crooked smile. "I know we're practically strangers now, and that you've lived some life of mysteries I don't understand, but somehow, I still feel like we are old friends who understand one another."

"No, you don't understand me," the assassin assured the knight. "The girl you think you know so well doesn't exist. Who I am now..."

He looked at her expectantly but she remained silent, unwilling to complete her thought. Instead, she thanked him for the exquisite chest plate she found herself unable to refuse and then left the forge alone, still wearing the armor.

The piece now sat atop a washstand in her room, the low firelight reflecting off of it, giving the metal a golden cast. She turned from the window and stared at the armor. Its delicate curves and finely polished surface led her to consider how long it must have taken Gendry to shape it and how difficult it must have been to raise the elaborate wolf-and-swords design and etch the finer details. She had never had her own armor, much less something so splendid. A smile began to tug at the corners of her mouth before she caught it and frowned.

I cannot be bought, she told herself.

But can you be won? her little voice wondered.

It was not a question she was prepared to answer just then. Instead, she turned again to the window, staring out into the yard. It was empty now, the blacksmith-turned-knight having disappeared from her view. Arya looked up at the stars blazing in the blackness overhead and allowed her thoughts to move as they wanted. She did not afford herself such luxury very often, as she was uncertain whether she could withstand the grief such wanton disregard for her own comfort would bring. When her thoughts meandered of their own accord, when she did not carefully dictate the path they would take, they always ended up in the same place.

They always ended up with him.

The girl wanted to live there, in that place where he still smiled at her, if only for awhile. She tried to will herself to relax and simply be in those moments called up by her mind. She wanted to close her eyes and remember Jaqen's warm, bronze gaze. She wanted to remember his teasing smile, his care, his vows whispered in his native tongue (by all the gods, I am yours). She wanted to, but she couldn't. Not for long, at least. Her survival instinct always proved too strong to overcome. Like a woman caught in the undertow, Arya was unable to resist her own need to save herself from drowning. Before she could live too long in her memories, before they could pierce her heart and paralyze her, she began the frantic scramble to stuff the hurtful thoughts deep down where they could trouble her no longer.

Just as she always had.

This time would prove no different, but that did not stop her trying. She let her memory carry her back to a night in the temple garden; a night when she wore a bloodstained gown, whisper-thin and too revealing for her taste; a night when she had stood by the courtyard fountain and Jaqen had found her under the moonlight. As she peered through the pane of glass up at the Westerosi sky, Arya counted the stars and tried to remember if they had looked the same on that night in Braavos. Long before she could decide, her gaze became soft and the stars became blurry and all she could recall then was the feel of a man's warm lips on her forehead, and then her nose, and then her mouth. She squeezed her eyes shut against the pain in her chest then, and as she always did, she sought to distract herself from it. This night, as on many others, she chose to occupy herself by reciting a familiar prayer; her promised offering to Him of Many Faces.

"Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, Queen Cersei," she said hoarsely. "Traitorous black brothers. The Kindly Man." She said it over and over, her voice becoming harder, fiercer, the names falling faster from her lips, as if the sheer volume of her utterances could somehow appease the god of the Faceless Men and for that, he might grant her a reprieve from her sorrow.

As if in offering him the lives of those who had wronged her, she might somehow gain the one she most desired.

Arya stared deep into the night sky, unblinking, and prayed, wondering if she could look long enough and believe hard enough to finally see the Many-Faced god among the stars, and if she could, would he take pity on her?

Would he reunite her with the one she had lost?

Near a thousand leagues away from the Inn at the Crossroads, in a place where the arrival of winter had turned the scorching sands into dull warmth beneath the feet of an advancing army, eyes that had once been bronze stared at those same far stars and lips which had once kissed a lovely girl's flesh whispered their own familiar prayer to Him of Many Faces, just as they had every night for two moons past.

"Arya Stark. Lead me to her."

Rivers and Roads—The Head and the Heart

Chapter Text

It's our time to break the rules.

Let's begin

They had all awakened an hour before the sun peeked over the horizon. Horses had been saddled in near silence and gear packed up quickly, methodically. With camp broken, the company departed, riding hard and fast the moment their path turned from pitch to the faintest grey of early morning. Less than a day's ride from Raventree Hall now, they had made good time, mostly due to the ease of the terrain to that point, the cooperation of the weather, and the determination of a certain little lady.

"We should make camp soon," Harwin had said in the waning afternoon two days past. The party had left the inn that morning, a company made of sworn brothers, nearly-grown orphans, Faceless assassins, and wolves too numerous to count. "The little lady will be growing tired soon."

What Harwin knew of ladies and their tendency toward fatigue may have been considerable, but he should have remembered that ladies of Stark blood were a hardier stock and had a tendency to be more wolf than girl. Lyanna Stark had taught him that, long ago, and Arya Stark was made of the same stern stuff as her aunt.

The Cat had overheard Harwin's passing remark, made to Ser Gendry as he rode at the head of the company, keeping to the Northman's side. Before the dark knight could respond, the girl had burst out laughing, unable to contain her amusement. The sound of it was loud, barking, and certainly most unladylike. The men jerked their heads toward her.

"I've told you, Harwin," the girl cried, digging her heels into Bane's sides, "I'm no lady!" The horse surged forward then, blowing past the men who themselves were beginning to look a bit weary. The rest of the riders had to make haste so as not to lose her as the sun dipped low behind the trees on that first day of their journey. Harwin did eventually catch her, but only because he was himself a superb rider and because she had pulled up a bit to give her mount a rest after cresting a ridge.

"You've made your point, Lady Arya," the Northman growled as he trotted up to her side.

"Then there will be no more nonsense about making camp early to accommodate my delicate constitution?" she asked. Her voice dripped with false sweetness as she looked at Harwin pointedly.

"No, milady."

"Good. I can ride all day and all night, if need be."

"Perhaps you can, but the rest of us need a break, milady, including the horses."

She nodded her understanding. Harwin spoke sense and Arya valued his advice. "Forgive me my enthusiasm," the girl said somewhat sheepishly. "I have debts that must be paid, and I am anxious to get started."

"Debts?" the Northman asked in confusion. "You've only just arrived in Westeros. What sort of debts could you have accumulated already?"

"The kind repaid with blood," was her sinister reply.

Harwin's look was grim. "Your countenance favors your father, milady, but your words echo your mother too closely." He was, of course, thinking of the most recent incarnation of Arya's lady mother, a woman known now by the name Stoneheart.

"Vengeance is a family trait," the girl acknowledged, her malicious little smile reshaping her mouth. Her companion drew up short and frowned at her.

"Loyalty," Harwin said, bristling. "Honor. These are the Stark family traits, little lady." His voice was heavy with censure.

"Yes, but how to show my loyalty? How to demonstrate my honor?" Arya mused in a tone her sister might have once used for debating the merits of embroidery versus lace as an embellishment for a new gown. The Northman made her no answer and the assassin's face grew hard, her expression resolute. "Through vengeance, the world will come to understand the depth of my loyalty," she vowed. "Through revenge, I will honor those I have lost. When I am through, there will be no doubt about what it means to be a Stark."

"A quest for vengeance in your father's name brought your lord brother south," he reminded her, "and started a chain of events that laid the boy too soon in his grave. In seeking vengeance, he assured the destruction of all your family had built."

"I don't doubt Robb's honorable intentions, or his sincere desire to do what was right," Arya replied, "but I cannot deny that he would have been better off, or, indeed, that the whole family would have been better off, if he had kept his place in Winterfell."

"Then why march down this same path, milady? Why tangle with these same enemies? Why endanger yourself? You may well be the last of Eddard Stark's bloodline! Do you understand what a dangerous game you play? Why risk following the same failed path as your brother?"

Arya could hear hoof beats approaching. Their party was finally catching up to them. She lowered her voice and tried to explain herself to her father's man.

"This is no game to me, Harwin," the girl said, locking her eyes with the Northman's, "and the path I walk is my own. You want to know why I risk my father's legacy? Because if I do not, it dies anyway, in shame and obscurity. You want to know why I seek the same vengeance Robb sought though it led to his ruin? Because I am better at it than he ever was, and I will succeed where he failed. You want to know why I will engage these same enemies? Because someone must, and every night, I make my vows to the Many-Faced god."

"The Many-Faced god, milady? Have you abandoned the faith of your father?"

"Hardly," she replied as she spied Ser Gendry galloping over the ridge, closely followed by Ser Willem and Baynard, "but there are those who must be made to pay for what they have done to the ones I love, and the Many-Faced god has granted me the power to do what needs doing. For that, he is owed more lives than you can fathom."

"There is no war so dangerous as a holy one," Harwin warned.

"Perhaps, but I am not the one in danger. You waste your cautions on me, Harwin," Arya assured him. "I will soak the ground with the blood of my enemies until the very grass chokes on it and the leaves of the trees turn as red as the weirwood's."

Ser Willem approached her side, his eyebrows raised slightly as he studied Lady Arya's expression. It did not seem to be the time to ask her why her eyes smoldered with a seething hate or why the Northman's expression seemed to trumpet a feeling of disbelief and dismay. The Lyseni knew enough of his sister's hurts and her life in Westeros to guess at the cause of all this unspoken tension. He only hoped that whatever vengeance she was thinking on did not spur her toward further recklessness. He hoped, but he did not believe.

The Bear resolved to keep a close watch on his sister.

Since their exchange, Harwin had spoken little to Arya beyond the perfunctory exchanges required to address the practical matters of their expedition. Now, on the third day of their journey, the Northman rode in silence just ahead of her, a somber look coloring his weathered features. Arya suspected she had confounded him. She supposed that she also made him uncomfortable, though whether this was due to her unapologetic lust for vengeance or her refusal to obey convention (convention which dictated how a highborn lady should behave and what was acceptable for her to say and do), she could not say. Perhaps it was both. He had known her since she was a suckling babe and the girl understood that his brief glimpse into the dark desires which drove her was surely a cause of some shock to him.

Ned Stark's little girl, Arya thought wryly, no more than an unfeminine, bloodthirsty heretic. What a scandal. She wasn't sure which of her many offenses the Northman would consider the worst.

Does it really matter to you? her little voice wondered.

Not one whit, she decided. She would no longer consent to endure the disappointment of others. Let them look elsewhere for their pretty manners and delicate sensibilities. I will not pretend to be other than I am.

Her little voice needled her then. Do you even know what you are?

I am a dark heart, the ghost in Harrenhal, and a pitiless assassin, she insisted, furrowing her brow as she rode on. I am the shadow among shadows.

Familiar voices filled her head, each talking over the other, each insisting she was something else; something other than what she had named herself. Her father, Syrio Forel, and Jaqen whispered to her then, each branding her as something different.

You are my grey daughter, the hope of the North.

You are a sword, nothing more.

You are a man's reason. For everything.

Wildly, Arya kicked her heels against her mount, urging him forward, faster, trying to outrun the voices. She knew she was leaving her small company behind, but she didn't care. The expectations and assignations of others warred with her own inundating sadness and a gnawing, restless need to see the blood of her enemies spilling onto her boots. She wished for wings, even as Bane rode harder. She wished for satisfaction and the patience to endure the road she must take to obtain it. She wished for relief. And then she told herself she was stupid to waste her time wishing even as she wished her mind would still itself and her heart would stop squeezing so hard it stole her breath.

The girl could perfectly picture Queen Cersei, hair piled atop her head in flawless, golden braids, sipping the finest wine from a jeweled cup, a smirk shaping her perfect, Lannister lips. She could see Ser Meryn Trant, his droopy eyes lit by unearned arrogance, dropping his visor and raising his sword as he prepared to slaughter a man armed only with a stick for having the effrontery to defend his young pupil. She remembered Ser Ilyn Payne, the king's justice, face arranged in a look of cruel indifference as he gripped Ice, raising the greatsword high above his head before letting it fall and... Arya threw her head back and cried out, inarticulate, and then the howling of wolves rose from beyond the surrounding trees, creating crashing waves of sound which filled the air all around her. The yowls seemed to come first from two wolves, then ten, then scores and scores of them, the noise strange and disconcerting to hear under the midday sun.

Arya leaned down, gripping the reins tight, and forced her horse on and on and on, for now it was not just the words of her father and Syrio Forel and Jaqen H'ghar, but the pictures in her own head that she could not abide. But try as she might, she could not outpace them; could not shake free of them. No matter how much of her path she put behind her, before her she saw her father's bowed head and Ser Ilyn's raised blade. The image bled into another; her master's bowed head beneath the principal elder's raised longsword. Even though she knew this version of Jaqen's death was no more than a mummer's farce, the great terror she had felt at that moment was the same as she had felt as she watched her father being struck down by his ancestral sword. Time and distance and her own hateful vows had done nothing to assuage the agony of it. Neither had this frantic flight astride Bane.

Did you think you could escape? her little voice whispered.

Escape, she thought, clutching desperately at the idea.

And then she was a wolf. She was a hundred wolves; more. She was in the immediate, running, ranging, tracking. She had no time for grief, for despair, for memory. She was a horse, nostrils flaring, eyes wild, four legs churning, hooves pounding mercilessly at the road before her, tearing holes into the land, leaving only broken clods and dust in her wake. Trees moved by in a blur of brown and green. The ground was hard beneath her hooves, then soft beneath her paws. A rabbit's blood warmed her mouth as the scent of men and horseflesh and decaying leaves stirred on the ground filled her nose, a sweet perfume. And then she saw herself, far in the distance, riding Bane at a punishing pace, and thought, "Blast that girl, she'll get herself killed."

No, not her thoughts. They belonged to someone else. Her brother, or, rather, Ser Willem.

She stayed with him too long, and he was too familiar with the feel of her, so the next thing she heard was, "Bloody fool! What are you doing?" An admonishment, meant for her to understand; meant to push her back into her own head, because he feared she could not ride safely without focus; that she would hurt herself in her wild disregard. She felt her brother's worry; his fear.

She moved away quickly, but not before she saw the expression of another rider through the Bear's eyes. It was a look she knew well, though she had seen it most often on the face of another (she would not think of that face now; it hurt to remember the bronzed cheek, the bronze eyes, and she was fleeing from just such memories). It was a look that was a combination of both consternation and adoration, worry and wonder, and it was a look that seemed to be directed at her.

Gendry, watching her ride further and further away from him.

It was that look as much as her brother's words that sent her scrambling back into her own head. She did not wish to contemplate what was running through the dark knight's mind at that moment.

Just as Harwin had seemingly avoided her after their exchange on the first day, she had tried her best to avoid Gendry. At the insistence of those whose counsel she gave serious consideration (Harwin and the Bear), she wore her new plate (for your safety, milady. These lands are full of brigands and desperate men), which made it difficult to forgo thinking of the blacksmith-knight altogether, but she found she wasn't quite sure how she should act with him after his apologies and his oath of loyalty (you have it now, m'lady) and then his exquisite gift.

Arya had not fully forgiven him his abandonment of her and to think on it chafed still, even all these years later. She found the anger difficult to release. It had been with her too long to give up so easily and it had informed so much of what she believed about her world (that she could only rely on herself, that no one stays, that she would lose anyone to whom she could ever claim an attachment). Syrio's murder; her father's beheading; Gendry's abandonment; her mother's death; the fate of her brothers; Jaqen... Each loss had shaped her; directed her. Each loss had carved a bit out of her, and so she found her present form was largely a result of all that had been taken from her in her life. How could she be expected to simply forgive and forget when Gendry's choice to leave her had, in part, made her?

But Gendry had said something which struck a chord deep within Arya and as she considered his words, they made her think on his transgression differently than she ever had before.

I was six and ten. Will you hate me forever for doing what I thought was best when I was barely more than an ignorant child?

It called to mind something that had once been said to her by another man in whom she had allowed herself to trust; a man who had made a choice she had, at first, believed unforgivable.

Do you know what the interesting thing about the right choice is, little wolf? It's that the look of it changes depending on where you are standing when you make it.

She was six and ten now, just as Gendry had been when he made his fateful decision. She wondered if choices she had made, choices she was even now making, would look different to her in five years time, and if so, would she be judged harshly by others for what she did now? And would such judgment be fair?

She thought of a boy, a common boy of six and ten, whose only distinction in life to that point was his training as a blacksmith. She thought of that boy being suddenly told he must give up his hope of a future as a tradesman in order to join the Night's Watch, without explanation. She thought of all the horrors and abuses she had witnessed with this boy—on the road, in Harrenhal, and after their escape—and she thought about how Gendry could hardly have been any better suited to endure such things than she was herself. While it was true that he was the older of the two, all he had known of the world was a vague memory of the yellow-haired woman who had been his mother and the inside of Tobho Mott's forge. In contrast, by the time her path crossed Gendry's, Arya had already lived in wealth and poverty. She had feasted and starved. She had been subjected to privilege and cruelty. She had seen blood spilled and spilled it herself. She had experienced great joys and unfathomable sorrows, honor and injustice, expectations and indulgences.

Arya's anger at her old friend had directed much of her opinion of him over the years since they had parted. She felt ill-equipped to discern what it was that she was feeling now as she finally considered how it must have been for him at the time of their parting. The discord within her only grew when he was near and she observed the knight he had become, the man he now was, with all his differences and all his jarring similarities. She told herself that she didn't understand him anymore, and really, perhaps she had never truly understood him at all.

Why, then, did her little voice whisper to her that she understood him far better than she was willing to admit?

It was too uncomfortable to dwell on, and so she simply avoided Gendry, spending as little time as possible in conversation with her old friend and instead directing her remarks to Ser Willem or one of the orphans. Stout Will, an orphan boy of seven and ten, she found to be particularly enjoyable company. Despite his name, Will did not boast any remarkable girth. Neither was he rail-thin, as one might imagine if his nickname were meant as an irony. Instead, the boy was prodigiously average in appearance, but he was quick-witted and self-deprecating, two things Arya valued immensely in a companion.

If Gendry noticed the girl's standoffish manner, he was too polite to say so. Or maybe he was just too flummoxed. Nonetheless, he did not go out of his way to pursue her, but left her to her own thoughts most of the time. Still, every so often, Arya could feel the knight's blue eyes upon her, even as she pretended she did not.

Arya pulled back slightly on the reins, slowing Bane to a trot. She was still riding ahead of the company, but within their sight, following the road as it emerged from the forest through which they had traveled for the better part of the morning. The girl looked around as she left the wood behind, noting that the road began to climb the gentle slope of a hill just ahead. After crossing the clearing, she slowed her mount even further, to a walk, so that she might be sure of his footing as they climbed. When she finally reached the crown of the hill, she stopped and gauged her distance from her party, then surveyed the land before her.

The descent on the far side of the hill was much steeper and longer than she would have imagined, the terrain becoming rougher the further into the central Riverlands they rode. The assassin's gaze traveled across the valley to the crest of the opposite hill. That was when she saw the castle, square towers flanking its main gate and also rising at the corners of its outer wall. There were scarlet flags flying at intervals along the crenelated battlements, blown straight in the same wind which whipped at her hair. She noted some sort of black markings on the banners. Though too far away to make out the details, Arya knew the castle must be the seat of House Blackwood, and that meant the dark designs would be birds. Though she could not spy it from this distance, there would also be a tree in the middle, twisted and white.

The banners declared that they had nearly reached Raventree Hall.

A scarlet field with a twisted weirwood at its center, surrounded by a conspiracy of black ravens.

Maester Luwin had taught her that much.

"Raventree Hall boasts an ancient weirwood in its godswood, nearly as tall as the castle itself."

The memory came to her suddenly, and she could almost hear the wise man's voice in her ears then.

"I thought houses in the South had septs and worshiped the seven," Arya had interrupted. "Like mother." She was no more than six at the time.

"Most do," the maester agreed, "but the Blackwoods did not always live in the South. Once, they were Northerners, just like you. They have the blood of the first men in their veins."

"But then, why do they live in the Riverlands?" She was truly perplexed. The girl could think of nothing that would make her wish to leave the North to live elsewhere.

Sansa had glared at her then, but said nothing. Arya could be insatiable when it came to knowing about things which interested her, and often, her incessant questioning of the maester made their lessons last much longer than they ought. It was safe to say that Sansa felt about heraldry and history the way Arya felt about embroidering vines and flowers onto tiny, useless pillows. Bran never seemed to mind his sister's questions, though. He and Arya shared similar interests.

"They were driven away," Luwin replied. "By your ancestors, more than five thousand years ago."

"The Kings of Winter," Bran murmured reverently.

"Yes, the Kings of Winter," the maester said, patting Bran's head as he paced around the table where the children sat. "The Blackwoods once ruled the wolfswood, during the time of the earliest of the Stark kings. Far too close for comfort, wouldn't you say?"

Arya nodded. The wolfswood was Stark land. She couldn't imagine another family laying any sort of claim to it, even thousands of years ago.

"But even though they were driven from the North, the Blackwoods did not forsake all their Northern traditions," Maester Luwin continued, "and though most in the South adopted the new gods after the Andals invaded, the Blackwoods kept to the old ways."

"So that's why they have a giant weirwood!" Arya said. Sansa groaned, just loud enough for her sister to hear.

"Aye, but the great weirwood is dead and dry, and it no longer produces the red leaves of a healthy tree," Luwin revealed.

"Dead?" Bran had asked. "Why?"

The maester had explained how the tree was said to have been poisoned by a rival family, long before the seven kingdoms were unified.

"Why doesn't it fall over?" Arya often rode in the near part of the wolfswood with her father and brothers. They saw fallen trees all the time, even jumping them with their horses for sport; sentinels and firs blown over in a storm, ironwoods split by lightning. Woodsmen were frequently sent to cut the dead trunks and branches, the fruits of their labors then used to stock the hearths of Winterfell, feeding the fires which warmed the great castle.

"The roots run very deep, child," the maester had explained. "A weirwood has the deepest roots of all, so they do not easily fall."

"Why not cut it down, if it's dead?" the girl persisted.

"It's a grave sin to cut down a weirwood, even a dead one. A very grave sin."

"Even in the South?"

"Yes," Luwin had replied. "Even there."

Thinking of her old maester caused Arya to sigh. It was a small gesture, and subtle, but anyone listening might have thought the sound of it was a little sad. She wondered if Luwin was still alive. He would be nigh on seventy by now, but she supposed it was more like to be violence than age that brought him to his end, considering what had happened at Winterfell under Theon Greyjoy's brief tenure. The girl inside of her longed for this man who had seemed the very pinnacle of wisdom during her idyllic childhood, but her life since that time had taught her not to hope. So, even as she considered the knowledge she had gained at Maester Luwin's feet, she pushed thoughts of the man himself away so that she would not have to consider the pain of another loss.

Arya strained her eyes, squinting in the bright light of the afternoon sun. She thought she could just make out the great, bare branches of the famed weirwood reaching skyward behind the high walls of Raventree Hall in the distance. She very much desired to visit the godswood there and to see for herself the ancient, dead weirwood featured on the Blackwood banners. With any luck, she would be studying the tree's carved face before the sun set that very day.

Harwin joined her at the peak then. "Milady," he muttered, his face grim. Arya knew from his tone that he was displeased with how far ahead she had ranged.

"Oh, don't scold me, Harwin. Bane needs to stretch his legs every now and again." She pointed out the castle on the other side of the valley. "And see? I've located Raventree Hall for you."

"A feat milady should be ashamed to brag about, considering the road leads straight to it."

She laughed good-naturedly, then asked, "Will the Blackwoods welcome us, do you think?"

"Aye, milady. They've been good friends to the Brotherhood, and they were the last of the Riverland houses to bow to the crown after..."

"After the Red Wedding," she finished for him.

"Perhaps it's their ancient Northern blood, or maybe their strong sense of honor, but Tytos Blackwood was a loyal supporter of your brother's during the war and a staunch defender of your mother's house, too. He rescued your Uncle Edmure from the Lannisters and supported the Blackfish when others faded."

"But now he has allied his house with the crown."

"Allied? No. Bent the knee, more like, and not easily. Lord Blackwood did what he had to in order to ensure the survival of his house, but he only swore to lay down his arms. He did not agree to abandon support of the Brotherhood."

"A fine distinction, that," she said wryly. "I don't think the crown would be too keen to know Raventree Hall was offering aid and comfort to men who make a sport of hanging Lannister loyalists from trees like merry party decorations. It could hardly be what the king had in mind when he laid down his terms for taking the Blackwoods back into his fold."

"Condemning men to death is no sport, milady," Harwin admonished, "and for all their likely disapproval, the court now busies itself fortifying the capital and preparing for siege. They'll not be sending anyone to inspect Lord Blackwood's pantries for evidence of his treason."

"Preparing for siege?" She was suddenly very alert. "What have you heard, Harwin?"

"Dorne marches, m'lady, with all their strength and three brigades of foreign fighters."

"And a complement of dragons," she whispered.

"So it's rumored."

Arya knew it to be more than a rumor, but she did not wish to discuss that with Harwin. Doing so would mean talking about him, and she wished to keep him for herself.

The rest of their company joined them then. Ser Gendry led the orphans with Ser Willem and Baynard guarding the rear. Elsbeth asked how long it would take to reach the castle as she eyed the steep descent.

"We'll have to take the horses in hand," Harwin said, dismounting, "or else risk one breaking a leg, and maybe one of you lot breaking a neck. Still, we'll make supper."

They followed the Northman down the narrow path single file. Arya laughed when just halfway down, she saw that the wolves had gathered in the valley below and awaited the band, a living sea of bristling fur and pacing predators.

"Nymeria, you clever thing," the girl whispered, wondering which path the pack had used to outflank the company and how they had done it unseen. Clever, indeed.

As they moved along the road that would bring them directly to the gates of Raventree Hall, Harwin and Arya argued about whether to reveal her true identity to Lord Blackwood. Arya was of a mind to once again be Straeya Shett, or perhaps even one of the orphans, not wanting the bother nor the risk which was part and parcel of being the newly-returned Arya Stark. She wished only to shelter for a night, resupply, then move on toward the Hollow Hill without wasting time with feasts and courtesies and politics. She also did not wish to repay the great family's hospitality by saddling them with the potentially dangerous knowledge of her survival and her whereabouts. She had witnessed firsthand what one man would do to another if he believed there was information of import to be gained by his actions (Is there gold hidden in the village? Silver, gems? Is there food? Where is Lord Beric?) Her memories of such atrocities had plagued her dreams even after she had left Westeros far behind and had learned to perpetrate atrocities of her own.

Harwin, for his part, had argued that House Blackwood would be a formidable ally and would never have forsaken her brother the king as long as he lived. Even after Robb's death and the chaos and disarray that followed, Raventree Hall had remained loyal to the Northern cause much longer than even some of the oldest Northern houses. As Robb's heir apparent, she could expect the same loyalty from Tytos Blackwood.

"And you will have need of such friends for your cause," Harwin finished.

It was the first inkling Arya had that the Northman looked to her in the same way her father had in her strange Winterfell dreams; as some hope for the North. When they set out on their journey, the girl had allowed herself to think Harwin's only aim was to reunite a prodigal daughter with her mother. She could see now that his plan was much grander, his hopes much loftier. She resolved to disabuse him of his erroneous assumptions.

"You know my cause," she replied darkly, "and it requires no allies."

"Your survival against such odds, your arrival here at just this time... It must mean more than slitting a few throats," Harwin protested. "The gods must have a plan for you. You cannot believe you're here by chance, not after all that's happened."

No, not chance, she agreed silently. Harwin was right, there was a plan, of that much she was certain. It was just no plan of the gods.

"I only ever want what is best for the order. It is the only thing for which I strive." The elder's voice was insistent. It was as if he needed for her to believe what he was saying.

"Then you have failed," the Cat had said.

"What am I to do with you now, child?"

Arya was certain that the principal elder had known exactly what he was going to do with her. What she wasn't sure of was if he was somehow still steering her course. She rode a horse he had provided, paid her way with gold he had given her, and traveled with the companions he had chosen for her. Did he know her path would take her to Raventree Hall? Did he wish for it to? And if he knew, was it through some divine communication with Him of Many Faces or through the more wordly machinations of man?

She felt as if the world were one great cyvasse board, and she was not sure if she was a player or merely a piece. It complicated her every decision, this uncertainty about how much of her life was under her own control and how much was being controlled from the shadows.

"I've told you my intentions, Harwin. Beyond that, I haven't made any decisions, and I'd rather not confuse things by having House Blackwood enter the melee."

"Is there to be a melee, little lady?"

"There is if I have anything to say about it."

Harwin grunted in frustration, obviously vexed that she had not reconsidered her plan to avenge her family. He scratched at his beard and smoothed it, a gesture Arya assumed was meant to calm him before he said something he might regret. She considered telling him not to bother, that she appreciated plain talk, but she didn't think that after years of serving highborn lords and ladies, he was like to change his ways just because she said so. She couldn't even get him to stop calling her milady.

"There must be a Stark in Winterfell, milady, and you cannot get there alone."

"You might be surprised at what I can accomplish alone," she countered. Harwin stared hard at her for a moment, setting his mouth in a harsh line.

"The North has been a rudderless ship for too long," he finally said. "There are those who would fight for the Stark name and throw off the oppressive yoke of the Southern crown and the turncloaks they appointed to rule in your stead. In your name."

The Boltons.

"I have no interest in ruling the North, Harwin. That's not why I came back."

"Duty is often at odds with want, milady."

He was chastising her, she knew, thinking her selfish and petulant. How did she explain that this wasn't about shirking uncomfortable duty in the pursuit of personal desire, but rather that she saw her duty as something else entirely? In many ways, it would be easier to allow those who would support her to carry her home and install her on Robb's throne. She could sit behind the high walls of Winterfell and await news of battles, decorating her gates with the tarred heads of those who defied her. But where would be in the honor in that? And how could she feed the darkness within her if she did not wash her blades in the blood of those whose deaths she prayed for nightly? Could she grow old walking the ground above the crypts of the great Kings of Winter, over the bones of her own father, never seeking vengeance for him? For her mother and Robb and Jon? For Jaqen?

Harwin couldn't change his ways, even something as simple and unimportant as addressing her by a title. How did he expect her to forget who she was? How could he expect her to give up being the person she had needed to be since she was a little girl of nine watching the son of a butcher being bullied by a cruel prince?

It was clear to her that the Northman saw her value only as a figurehead; a name for men to cry out when their lines surged into battle; a pretty banner to follow. But banners were flat and useless on their own. Banners could not swing a sword, could not drain the lifesblood from a man. Banners did not plot or plan or pray. And should an arrow pierce the heart of any man who carried it, a banner would fall into the mud to be trod upon and forgotten.

No, she was no banner.

"It wasn't so long ago that you wanted to trade me for silver, Harwin," the girl laughed mirthlessly. "Now, you think I should seat myself upon the Winter Throne! Have I improved so much in my absence?"

"That was a lifetime ago, milady, and there was a king in the North then. Now, there is only a warden named Bolton and our people suffer in his grip."

"So, I'm just the best you can do right now? The only one left with the requisite name?" She was goading him, but the Northman would not be baited.

"You are Eddard Stark's daughter, and the North will rally to you. Some in the South may, too, if you give them the chance."

Harwin's insistence on framing her as the lone Stark heir (the hope of the North) and everything he believed that meant was why Arya did not wish to be Arya once she passed through the gates at Raventree Hall. She could not allow the ambitions of men to dictate her path, whether those men were acting with honorable intentions or whether they plotted in the dim chambers of a foreign temple.

Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, Queen Cersei...

Harwin believed the North had need of her, but Arya still had business in the South.

In the end, her desire to remain anonymous proved as meaningless as Harwin's desire to convince her to use the Stark name in order to treat with the Lord of Raventree Hall, for fate has a genius for finding its desired end, no matter the wishes of men. Tytos Blackwood stood in the great yard to greet his guests as soon as they entered his walls and after clapping the Northman on his back with a grin and a barked greeting, the bearded lord drew up short, his smile faltering as his expression turned to one of disbelief.

"Gods have mercy!" Lord Blackwood exclaimed, pushing past Harwin to stare at Arya. His voice dropped as he rasped, "By my troth, a Stark lives!"

Arya had been told too often that she had "the Stark look" to doubt the truth of it, but having spent so many years away from her family had dulled her to the fact of just how much she resembled the others in her bloodline. Lord Blackwood's instant recognition of her had demonstrated to her more than words ever could how her features both recommended and betrayed her. She cursed herself for not wearing her hood or otherwise taking pains to disguise her face as she entered the castle.

"Who are you, child?" the Riverlander asked, slowly approaching her. His close scrutiny brought inexplicable color to the girl's white flesh and she commanded herself to rule her face as she felt the heat rising in her cheeks. "You're too young to be Brandon's, and we had heard that all of Ned's children were most likely dead."

"Lord Blackwood, this is Lady Arya," Harwin said, turning to follow the nobleman. "She is Lord and Lady Stark's youngest daughter."

"You went missing during the chaos in the capital," Lord Blackwood said, recounting the tale he had heard. "Everyone presumed you'd been murdered by Lannister guards and thrown into the Blackwater."

"A reasonable conclusion," Arya mused, "but untrue, as you see, though I do not doubt it was their plan all along." History told her that murdering children was nothing to Lannisters, not if there was some advantage to be gained by it.

"I knew your father, my lady, and considered him a friend," the lord said, taking Arya's small hand between his own rough palms. "I fought with him during Robert's Rebellion. Indeed, I knew your uncles and your aunt as well, and I fought with your oldest brother at the Battle of Camps and was part of the assemblage that declared him King in the North." He bent to kiss her knuckles, then said, "You are most welcome here, Lady Arya. Most welcome."

The girl smiled distractedly at the Riverlander, trying to calculate how this turn of events would affect her plans. Slipping through Westeros undetected to complete her quest was beginning to feel less and less possible. She turned her head to the right and found Ser Willem, searching his eyes. Whatever he saw in her expression concerned him. He furrowed his brow and moved toward her but said nothing.

Lord Blackwood called out loudly for bread and salt. Servants scrambled to fulfill his request and moments later, a rough wooden platter was passed around, each guest taking his bite in turn. Arya's Lyseni brother moved to her side and she whispered to him, telling him this observance was meant to ensure the guest right while under Lord Blackwood's roof.

"Guest right?" the large assassin asked softly.

She explained that it was a Westerosi tradition with no corresponding equivalent in Essos. "It implies that the host is responsible for your safety and will not allow harm to befall you while you are under his protection." Her brother nodded, dipping a small hunk of bread in a bowl of coarse salt and then chewing it without further comment.

"Please everyone, eat of my bread and salt. It means more to us than it does others," Tytos said bitterly, no doubt thinking of the treachery of another great house to the east. "Here, we cling to the old ways and we value our honor."

"I thank you for your hospitality, my lord," Arya said after she had swallowed her bit of bread.

"Not at all, my lady. And had we had warning that you were coming, we would have prepared a greeting more in keeping with your station." Here, the Riverlander gave Harwin a hard look.

"Forgive me, Lord Blackwood," Harwin began, "but, as I am sure you can imagine, the risk in sending a raven or a rider ahead was too great, and we did not wish to endanger the lady any more than..."

"Please, don't trouble yourself," Arya interrupted, smiling sweetly at the lord of Raventree Hall. "Shelter and a bit of food is all we need, and only for the night. We've no wish to create a stir or disrupt your household."

"Nonsense!" the man boomed, taking Arya's arm and walking with her toward the entrance to the keep. "Ned Stark's daughter, alive? I can think of no better reason for a celebration, and it would be an honor to have you feast in my hall, my lady." And with that, Lord Blackwood led her through the doors, taking his leave of her and barking orders at his servants, sending someone to fetch Lady Blackwood so they could commence to planning the festivities for the following night. It was as if the castle had been awakened after a long sleep and suddenly, every living thing within was bursting with energy and purpose, all at once.

It was just the sort of pomp Arya had hoped to avoid. Even as a small child, she had never desired to be fussed over, and after her time with the Faceless Men, to be recognized so, even extolled, for being who she was... it was anathema to her. Her skin was crawling and she was possessed with the sudden desire to run. Her intention must have shown on her face, because before she could dash away, she felt a hand heavy on the nape of her neck, gripping slightly, holding her in place.

"Don't," Ser Willem growled quietly. She looked up at him, looming over her shoulder. "It's simply another face, like any other you've worn. Easier than most, in fact. Smile and be the gracious lady they need you to be. Take your rest, eat your fill. We'll not be here long."

She nodded, not having the fortitude just then to fight her brother. In short order, she was whisked away to a room by one servant, her things brought to her by another. Her horse was tended to, her men were given quarters befitting their (false) rank, and a maid was sent to her with a platter of bread, cheese, wine, and the offer of a bath, which the Cat refused. Instead, after sending the servant away, she stuffed her mouth with the food, then left her chambers (still chewing) to find the Lyseni. The small assassin slipped through the castle corridors undetected, remembering how it felt to move unseen and unheard and reveling in that sensation. When she burst into the Bear's chamber, she found him lounging in his bed, boots kicked off carelessly in a corner. Baynard was seated on the far side of the chamber, his chair leaned back on two legs, his heels resting on a rough table. She so startled the Faceless squire that he jerked in surprise, upsetting his balance. The Rat found himself laying flat on his back with a thud against the hard stone floor. The girl gave him an apologetic look before turning her gaze to Ser Willem.

The Bear chuckled amid the string of profanities being uttered by his brother and then turned curiously toward the intruder in their doorway.

"Are you lost, little Cat?" the big man asked. "Or is this castle so short on spare rooms that you must share ours?"

"Get your sword," the girl said without preamble. "We're heading for the training yard."

"Are we to have no peace, my lady?" the false Dornishman wheedled playfully. "Have we not earned our rest?"

"We've been resting for three days," the Cat scoffed. "I need to shake off the rust before I forget how to use my steel."

"There's little risk of that," the Bear said, but he rose anyway and pulled on his boots. "And if three days hard riding and sleeping for a few hours in hastily pitched tents is your idea of rest, I shudder to think of your version of hardship."

"The memories of such hardship are with me always," the girl muttered so softly that her brother had to strain to hear her words. He seemed chastened by them, though, and buckled his swordbelt quickly after that, following her as she exited the room. Reluctantly, Baynard hopped up and grabbed his blade, joining them.

The three assassins found that Ser Gendry had a similar idea as their own and had brought the orphans to the training yard. He was leading them through sparring drills with the castle's own blunted blades. Even Elsbeth was participating though steel would never be her first choice of weaponry. When the dark knight caught sight of the newcomers, he nodded to them respectfully but did not interrupt his instruction. Arya averted her eyes quickly from the blacksmith's gaze and indicated the opposite end of the yard to her companions.

"Over there," she said, moving to a suitable spot and unsheathing her blades. As she entered her stance, the Rat began to protest.

"Sharp steel? If you're as out of practice as you say, how can I trust that you won't cut me?"

"If you're so worried, you need not spar," Arya said dismissively. "Otherwise, I'd recommend a good defense and staying alert."

The Bear smirked and his brother merely scowled. Still, the squire drew his blade and Arya did not know if that made him admirable or stupid. The Lyseni was armed with two longswords, meaning to employ the dual blade technique his sister had taught him.

"Let's dance," the girl said, and the duel began.

The assassins moved slowly at first, each assessing the stance of the others, trying to gauge the intent behind every step and feint. Arya easily turned the first thrust Baynard made, the clinking of their blades sounding through the yard. The girl stood at the center of the two circling men, the knight and his squire searching for a weakness to exploit. The Cat moved quickly toward the Bear, driving him back a step or two with Grey Daughter leveled at his heart as she kept Frost pointed in the opposite direction, tracking the Rat behind her with the thin blade. She kept the squire at bay without the need to look at him. She could feel his position. Arya saw the Lyseni's eyes flick over her shoulder and an almost imperceptible squint alerted her to his plan. The Bear and the Rat lunged in unison for their sister but before either could make contact, the girl dropped to the ground and tumbled forward, popping up and spinning around just in time to see them meet at the spot she had just vacated. Quickly, she shifted to her sideface stance and pointed both blades at her brothers, snorting.

Then the battle began in earnest.

From their corner of the yard, there arose such loud ringing of steel that in the opposite corner, the orphans became distracted and lowered their blunted blades. Dumbfounded by what they were witnessing, the orphans moved toward the whirling assassins as the Cat struck at the two Faceless Men with lightning quickness. Baynard jumped backwards to avoid a deadly swipe from Grey Daughter as Arya gave a guttaral cry of effort. Even Gendry was fascinated by this point and had moved closer to watch, standing just behind Stout Will and Elsbeth.

Arya did not allow herself to become distracted when the spectators began to cheer but continued attacking her opponents like a woman possessed. To fly around the yard freely, weaving between her brothers and feeling the clashing steel vibrate her bones filled her with the sort of joy that could not be found elsewhere. Stretching muscles, heaving breath, and beading sweat were as sweet to her as cakes and silks and music were to other maidens. Sweeter, even. At the point when others might began to flag, Arya felt as if she was just hitting her stride and her strikes became more graceful, more on point. Her brothers were too practiced, too well-conditioned to be worn down so soon by their sister, but the strain of effort was beginning to show a bit on their faces as Arya danced with them on and on.

The crowd grew larger as passing servants and household guards gathered to watch the match. When Arya finally used the flat of her bastard sword to slap smartly at Baynard's hand, disarming him, a roar went up loud enough to finally draw Lord Blackwood to the scene. He and Harwin emerged from a tower room onto an overlooking balcony just in time to see the girl kick the squire's sword away and secure his surrender before giving her full attention to the remaining knight. Shouts and cheers urged the false Dornishman and his lady on, the novelty of both opponents using a dual-blade style only increasing the crowd's excitement.

The Bear, of course, was the slower of the two, but his long months of practice with his sister had improved his speed and agility a great deal, so that the gulf between their skill was no longer so wide as it once was. Additionally, he had the reach on her. The Cat, due to her unique talent, understood much of her brother's intent before it was carried out, which negated a fair amount of his advantage (though, at times, he did make attempts to misdirect her with his thoughts. He simply had not mastered using his innate strengths and this new misdirection at the same time, and so it gained him little when he tried it. She could foresee a time when that might no longer be the case, however).

In a dizzying combination of lunges, thrusts, and parries which backed the large man up against the wooden wall bordering the yard, Arya finally managed to trap the longsword in the Bear's dominant hand between her own blades and yank it from his grasp, sending it flying behind her. Loud cries and gasps sounded and the girl whipped around, watching as the Orphans dropped to the ground and Ser Gendry leapt aside, the blade sailing past and imbedding itself into the archery target behind him.

Arya gasped and looked apologetically at the dark knight who stared back at her with a mixture of bewilderment and awe. His Baratheon blue eyes pierced her own and she found herself lost in his overarching thought, as obvious to her as if he had spoken it aloud.

She is breathtaking.

Arya bit her lip unconsciously and stiffened. The minuscule distraction was all the Lyseni assassin needed. He struck at her from behind, hooking Grey Daughter near the hilt with the tip of his blade and using his leverage to twist the sword away from the Cat. As the weapon dropped to the ground, Arya spun and in one fluid movement, knocked the Bear's blade away with Frost. The Faceless knight grinned widely and shrugged, telling her she should not allow her focus to be divided.

"Don't worry, Ser Willem," the girl replied, her malicious smile appearing, "you have my full attention now." She tossed her water dancer's blade from her right hand to her left and began attacking her brother with a fury she had not yet shown. Soon, she had the big man off his balance, stumbling to the left and to the right as she pressed in close, tangling his feet with her own and finally sending him sprawling into the dirt. She dropped down on top of his supine form, knees gouging his chest, her blade pressed across his throat, the Valyrian steel threatening to slice him from ear to ear.

"Yield, Ser," Arya growled as the orphans howled in delight and the servants and guards clapped and yelled.

"You're slipping, my lady," said the Faceless knight so that only she could hear him. "I nearly had you when you were flirting with Ser Gendry." The girl's eyes lit up with fury but before she could say anything, he called out so that the crowd could hear, "I yield, my lady! You are a most worthy opponent!"

The orphans rushed in, Elsbeth clapping her back excitedly and Fletcher offering his hand to help her up. Stout Will made a laughing remark about being sure to stay on her good side and Little Nate asked if she would be willing to show him the move she had used to disarm Baynard the squire. Maids were calling out to her, things like, "Well done, m'lady!" and "Stark! Stark!" She glanced up at the balcony to see Lord Blackwood clapping with delight. Harwin appeared as solemn as ever but when she caught his eye, he bowed his head to her, hand over his heart in a gesture of admiration for her performance. She nodded back, but frowned, wondering if this demonstration of her skill was just one more disappointment to the Northman; more evidence that she would never make a proper lady for Winterfell.

Arya turned away, watching as the crowd broke up and drifted back into the keep while the orphans went back to their drills with renewed vigor. Baynard helped Ser Willem to his feet and brushed at his clothes, knocking off the dust and clinging rushes. She strode purposefully toward the pair, glaring at her Lyseni brother. When she was nearly upon him, she unleashed her ire.

"Flirting?" she hissed. "With Gendry?"

"You'll want to watch that," he advised with mock solemnity. "In the training yard is one thing, but in a real duel, it could cost you."

"I don't flirt!" she insisted. "And certainly not with him."

"No? Why were you staring into his eyes that way, then?"

"I was worried I had nearly injured him or one of the orphans with your sword!"

"You were chewing your lip," he said. His mouth stretched in a wide yawn as if nothing in the world could be of less interest to him.

"How could you know that? You were behind me!"

"I could just tell."

"I chew my lip all the time. It doesn't mean I'm... flirting."

She wasn't sure why she was allowing the Bear to rankle her so. She knew he was doing it on purpose, but she seemed powerless to rein in her rising irritation. Sniffing, she secured Frost in her swordbelt.

"There's no sin in a little flirting, my lady," Ser Willem told her. "A harmless bit of romance might take your mind off other, less pleasant things."

Seven hells, she thought, is he seriously encouraging me to take up with Ser Gendry?

She stared hard at her brother before insisting again, "I wasn't flirting." She sheathed Grey Daughter over her shoulder and turned her back on her snickering brothers, arms crossed over her chest. Across the yard, Ser Gendry barked orders at the orphans and they followed along with his direction, demonstrating blocks and cuts, one after another. The dark knight walked along the orphan's line, correcting a stance here, giving advice there. Arya felt the Bear move close behind her. She repeated her assertion more vehemently. "I wasn't flirting."

"No, sister," he said in a patronizing tone, "of course not."

Arya left the training yard shortly after that and found her way to the godswood, longing to see the great, dead weirwood Maester Luwin had described to her. The massive tree loomed at the center of the wood and was everything she had been taught, yet somehow, seeing it with her own eyes made it seem even greater than her imaginings. The twisted, white trunk was as wide around at its base as the tall towers which flanked the main gate of the castle wall. Perhaps even a little wider. Any one of the great, exposed roots had enough reach across that she could set the bed from her chamber upon it and when she looked up at the high, reaching branches, she could see that there were more ravens roosting upon them than she could count. She heard their quarking and chatter, softened by their considerable distance away from her. She did not think that even her brother Bran at his best could climb so high.

The girl made her way around the tree slowly, counting her paces. Not even a third of the way around, having already counted twice the number of paces it would take to circle Winterfell's great weirwood, the girl was startled to find Lord Blackwood seated upon a root. The spot he used as his perch had been worn smooth and flat over centuries of use for just such a purpose.

"My lady," the Riverlander called when he spied her, "what a pleasant sight you are. Have you come to speak with the gods?"

"In truth, I came because I've wanted to see this tree for ten years," she admitted, "ever since my maester taught me about it. But if the gods have something they wish to tell me, I am willing to hear them."

The quarking of the ravens grew louder then, and a slow smile spread over Lord Blackwood's face. He looked at Arya, but raised his eyebrows and pointed one finger in the air, indicating the ravens. "It seems they may have something to tell you after all."

Arya lifted her face toward the dusky sky, tracing the lines of the bare, white branches with her eyes and noting the bustle of the ravens along their perches as they settled for the night. She dropped her gaze back to her host and approached him, saying, "It really is one of the most extraordinary things I've ever seen. We have ancient weirwoods in the North, of course, but none so big as this."

"It's the climate," he explained. "Weirwoods can survive in nearly any weather, but they thrive best where it's temperate. I imagine if most of them hadn't been cut down by the Andals, there would be many trees of this size here and in the Reach."

The girl reached out a hand and stroked the smooth surface of the root. She felt something as she did; a sort of jolt. The sensation wasn't painful, exactly, but it caused her to suck in her breath sharply.

"My lady? Are you quite well?"

"There's such power here," she whispered. "It's... palpable."

"How fortunate you are that you can feel it," the lord remarked. "I envy you. I have only my faith to tell me I should believe. Tangible proof eludes me."

"It's you who are to be envied, my lord," the girl said, "that you only need your faith in order to believe."

Lord Blackwood laughed softly, then reached out for Arya's hand. "My lady, you don't know how your arrival has filled an old man with hope again."

Arya furrowed her brow. "I'm at a loss, my lord. I feel I should be flattered by your words, but I'm not entirely sure how I can fill you with anything other than annoyance at my unannounced intrusion."

"You must not think that, Lady Arya, it wounds me to hear you say it."

The girl was disarmed by the lord's kindness to her. The Riverlander rose from his seat and offered Arya his arm. After only a second's hesitation, she took it and the two nobles began to walk around the heart tree, circling the massive trunk at a leisurely pace.

"I must say, I was quite surprised by your prowess in the training yard earlier. Where did you gain such skill?"

"I've been training for years," she revealed, "and under some of the greatest masters imaginable. It seems I have some natural aptitude for it."

"My dear, I'd say that's quite an understatement."

Arya shrugged, embarrassed by her host's praise. "Well, it's nearly the only thing I can really do, so I suppose it's fortunate I'm proficient."

"I'm certain you exaggerate. I can see you are a person of many talents."

"Truly, my lord, this is no false modesty. I'm terrible at nearly everything a lady should have mastered by my age, except breathing."

Lord Blackwood chuckled. "Come now, my lady, your grace with your steel must translate to other areas where delicacy is required. You're sure to be a splendid dancer."

Arya frowned, saying, "I don't really know, as I don't recall ever having tried it, but I'm shite with a needle and thread... Oh!" She gasped at her own crudeness. "Forgive me, Lord Blackwood!" The Riverlander roared.

"And you've certainly mastered the art of colorful language!" he choked out, laughing so hard he could barely speak. After a moment, he wiped a few tears from the corners of his eyes and breathed deeply. "Oh, Lady Arya, you are your aunt all over again. I think there's a bit of your Uncle Brandon in you, as well."

She wasn't sure what to say to that since neither of them had lived long enough for her to know them. If there was any Stark she was going to be compared to, she wished it was her father, but living up to the standard set by Eddard Stark was no easy feat. She sighed.

"I've recently been told I'm too much like my mother," she said quietly. That seemed to sober the lord. He was too familiar with both Catelyn Tully and Lady Stoneheart to mistake which version of her mother the girl meant. Arya might have taken her host's silence for judgment or disapproval, but if she had studied his expression more closely, she might have found something more complex; something like the earliest glimmers of optimism or the stirrings of faith. The pair continued their stroll around the massive tree a few moments more before Lord Blackwood seemingly changed the subject.

"Shall I show you the carved face?" he offered. "It's really quite remarkable." She nodded her assent and they gazed up as they neared the tree. The face was fully two stories above their heads, and large. Arya thought she could stand upright in the mouth, if only she could reach it to pull herself inside. The look of it was fierce, the mouth forming what appeared to be a growl. The sap which must have once run to make red-rimmed eyes and bleeding tears had long ago dried and turned black and hard. It gave the face a frightening, almost deranged appearance.

"What do you think of our friend here?" the lord asked as she studied the carving.

The girl cleared her throat. "He looks as if he does not abide insult. I'd hate to give offense to this one."

"Yet many have, my lady. Many have. Do you suppose that we will finally see the vengeance of the old gods visited upon those who have dared endorse those insults?" He gave her a shrewd look and watched her closely as she stared off, considering his words.

Vengeance. He was speaking her language. Arya pulled her arm free of her host and approached the heart tree, head cocked to the side as if deep in thought. When she could move no closer, she dropped to her knees and placed her palms flat against the trunk. Leaning forward, she pressed her forehead against the white wood, the skin tingling everywhere it contacted the bark. After a moment, she thought of her prayer.

Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, Queen Cersei, traitorous black brothers, the Kindly Man.

Lord Blackwood stepped behind her in silence and waited. Without turning to look at him, Arya answered his question.

"Vengeance?" she whispered. "Oh, my dear Lord Blackwood, I sincerely hope so."

Renegades—X Ambassadors

Chapter Text

Be still, be still,

and know.

Arya was awakened the next morning by a maid delivering breakfast to her room and building up her fire. Shifting under her sleeping furs, the girl rubbed her eyes and shook off the last fleeting images of her dream. It had been a wolf dream, and in it, she had hunted and eaten her fill in the rolling, wooded hills surrounding Raventree Hall. She had always loved being a wolf; loved the feeling she had when she ranged with her cousins and stalked her prey. Never was she freer than when she wore Nymeria's skin. She wondered if her father had felt the same freedom when he mounted his horse and rode through the gates of Winterfell and into the wide world, never asking permission or taking anyone's leave.

Arya leafed through the memories she had stored up of her father, here riding off with Jory Cassel to tend to some business in Winter town, there taking a small party to hunt in the wolfswood. Often, his youngest daughter would watch him go, her wide grey eyes staring hard at him until the gates closed and hid him from her view. She always thought he cut an imposing figure on his mount, Ice strapped to his back. There was no doubt in her mind that her father was the strongest, most fearsome man in all Westeros. All of Ned's children had loved and admired him, but Arya wanted to be him.

The girl was still conjuring the image of Eddard Stark, lordly and powerful, seated high on his bay stallion when the maid, noting that Arya's eyes had opened, bobbed a little curtsy and greeted her.

"Good morning, m'lady. Lady Blackwood took the liberty of having your breakfast sent up. There's so much bustle in the great hall just now with the preparations for the feast, she reckoned you'd rather eat in peace in your chambers. Otherwise, you'd have to listen to the steward barking orders while the kitchen boys swept under your feet."

"How thoughtful. Please thank your lady for me," the girl said, trying to remember her courtesies. Such adherence to custom and civility had never been her strength, but doing so after having just torn the throat from a buck was particularly challenging. Still, the assassin was only too grateful to have her breakfast in her chamber. She was quite relieved that she wouldn't have to waste her energy thinking of appropriate conversation to share with Lady Blackwood across a breakfast table (and likely horrifying the woman in the process), but she didn't suppose telling the maid to thank her lady for that would be in keeping with the Bear's direction to be the gracious lady they need you to be. She had once been a passable boy joining the Night's Watch, a convincing cook in a popular Braavosi inn, and a cupbearer to not just one, but two odious men. She supposed could be Lady Arya, at least for another day.

But oh, how it grated.

The girl sat up in her bed, feeling remarkably rested. It was the most refreshed she remembered being in a long time, even if her hip still bore some of the soreness from her fall from Bane several days past and her muscles were a little stiff after her exertions the previous evening. Though she had been disciplined in her sword practice aboard Titan's Daughter, the deck was not of a size to support the sort of expansive wildness she and her brothers had engaged in when availed of Lord Blackwood's training yard. The mild ache in her arms and back reminded her that she should always be striving to do more, and do it better.

It was the best sort of pain.

Words spoken in an accented murmur echoed distantly in her head. A man believes that sometimes there is a great lesson in pain. She had been sitting in his bed when he spoke them, as she recalled. She smiled, but the pang she felt stopped her from delving deeper into the memory. She did not wish to waste the unexpected good humor she possessed in that instant, for happy moments were few and precious of late. The Cat supposed she owed her brothers her gratitude, for sparring with them had left her feeling more content than she could remember since before her journey over the sea.

However, she knew it wasn't just a satisfying duel that had her mood lighter than usual. Her mind felt clear as well; much more so than it had been in a while. The oppressive weight she carried just over her heart had lessened too, just a bit, and she felt as if she could breathe easier, somehow. Her wishes and plans hadn't changed, but for some reason, they seemed more attainable; she felt more capable of attaining them. Though unsure of exactly how it had caused this shift, Arya thought her turn in the godswood might have had something to do with it.

Perhaps it was the promise of gaining a like-minded ally in Tytos Blackwood.

Perhaps it was some blessing from the gods themselves.

Or perhaps she was merely deceiving herself.

The girl drew in a deep breath and then let it hiss slowly from her nose, thinking. Another trip to the godswood was in order, she decided. She wished to be sure of what it was she had felt the night before. But first, her muscles cried for relief.

After she had eaten, she dressed quickly and made her way to the training yard again, her steps uncharacteristically jaunty. The previous evening's exercise had left her in need of stretching and she had always found that more of the same helped her most. A boy, young enough to still have the pleasant roundness of a babe about his face, stood in the same corner most recently occupied by herself and her brothers. He held a wooden sword in his hand and listened to the instruction of a greybeard who Arya took to be the master-at-arms. Two household guards were striking at a training dummy in turn while Rider and Fletcher sparred somewhat lazily with blunted blades on the far side of the yard. Arya spied a few training swords leaning against the near wall. They were extras that the orphans had brought out with them, likely in anticipation of being joined soon by the others in their party. She picked two up, one in each hand, and approached the soon-to-be knights.

"Shall we?" the girl asked them, swinging the heavy steel and feeling the weight pulling pleasantly at her shoulders. She resisted the urge to moan.

The orphans glanced at each other nervously.

"I'm not sure you'll find us much challenge, m'lady," Rider finally said.

"I'm not sure you're finding each other much challenge right now," she countered, raising her swords. "Come on, then. I need the exercise."

The boys looked at each other and shrugged, then entered their stances. "Be gentle with Fletcher, m'lady," Rider pled, but his tone suggested his words were a jape. "One of the kitchen maids has caught his eye and he's not like to impress her if you give him a knot on his head or a busted nose."

"I'll be sure to bust only your nose, then," Arya promised, sliding next to Rider swiftly and elbowing him hard in his ribs. "Never let your guard down," she advised as he let out a grunt of pain and she slipped beyond his reach. "Not even to tease your friend." Fletcher burst out laughing then.

"You make an enviable comrade in arms, m'lady," Fletcher said with a small salute to her, "but Rider's skill at saying foolish things far outweighs his skill with a sword. Go easy on him!"

Arya grinned. "That was going easy."

As they sparred, the pace was such that the Cat was able to lecture the boys without sacrificing too much breath. She told them that dueling could be graceful, depending on the style of the fighters, but that battle was a brutish business, with as much hacking and punching and barreling into an opponent as precise cutting and parrying. She warned them to be on their guard for just such moves as she had demonstrated on Rider.

"A mailed fist to your nose will ruin your day," she said, "and make it unlikely that you can employ these fine cuts you're learning quickly enough to save you. You must always be aware of your opponent's position." The lesson was one that had been drilled into her relentlessly by a certain handsome assassin. To demonstrate her point, Arya used her two swords in concert to strike hard at Rider. He blocked her but her momentum was so great, she was able to drive him backwards for several steps. Fletcher approached quickly from the rear but before he could raise his blade against her, she kicked hard behind her, her foot connecting solidly with the center of his belly. The boy dropped to the ground, groaning and holding his middle. Arya raised one eyebrow, saying, "A boot to the gut will ruin your day, too."

"That's not swordfighting!" Rider protested, dropping back and lowering his sword.

"No," she agreed. "It's just fighting. Perhaps not useful in a tourney, but in a skirmish, it might save your life." She offered Fletcher a hand up. "Well, I didn't bust your nose at any rate."

"True," the boy wheezed, bending over after he rose, palms pressed into his thighs to support his weight. "Now, if you'll excuse me, m'lady, I have to find some place to vomit."

Rider burst out laughing but then said, "Pardon me for saying so, m'lady, but how does a person like yourself manage all this?"

"A person like myself?"

"Small, I mean. Fletcher has nearly a foot on you, and at least five stone on your weight. You just dropped him like a sack of rocks in a river. How?"

"Ah."

As Fletcher recovered, Arya explained how surprise could often times outweigh skill, how speed could counter strength, and how a person engaged in battle should never underestimate their opponent.

"Above all, there's want," she told her rapt pupils.

"Want, m'lady?" Fletcher's face wore an expression of befuddlement.

"Yes. Want. Sometimes, the want is the most important part."

"You've lost me," Rider said.

"In a fight, there's always someone who wants it more. Wants to win. Wants the glory. Wants to live. With all other things being equal, the victory goes to the one who wants it more, because the one who wants it badly enough will do anything, anything, to win."

"I'm pretty sure I want to not be kicked in the gut again more than anyone else here." Though Fletcher groaned as he said it, he looked much less green than he had only minutes before.

"Well, you can show me the depth of your want right now. Back in your stances. Let's dance."

Fletcher and Rider obliged her, though this time, they moved more warily. Fast learners, Arya thought. The trio had been trading blows for another half an hour, the girl calling out instructions to the boys before she attacked, helping them improve their responses, when Gendry showed up. The remaining orphans trailed behind him.

"M'lady," he greeted, bowing his head a little. Arya stopped sparring, nodding back silently, then handed her training blades to Little Nate and Stout Will. The boys began to fight excitedly and when Elsbeth grabbed a sword to join in, it quickly became a chaotic melee. The assassin and the blacksmith watched in silence for a few moments before he spoke again.

"You've been avoiding me, m'lady." He watched her push some damp strands of hair from her forehead as she considered her response.

She drew a breath in, then admitted quietly, "I have."

Gendry seemed stunned by her blunt honesty. "You have," he repeated, as if clarifying her statement.

"I have," the girl repeated, "but it was much easier before you came into the training yard just now."

"Oh?"

"Yes, there are no good hiding places here."

The dark knight burst out laughing. "I'll keep that in mind the next time I wish to speak with you and you seem reluctant. Get her to the training yard, you stupid bull." He smacked his forehead with his great palm as if he had only just realized some glaringly obvious truth. Arya smiled at his lighthearted mocking, looking sheepishly at her boots before moving her focus back to the battling orphans.

"You're working them very hard," she commented, moving off to the side and leaning against the wooden wall which provided the boundary for the yard. Gendry followed and stood next to her. She could feel him turn his gaze toward her profile.

"They welcome it, and we must take advantage of Lord Blackwood's hospitality," the knight remarked. "They've not had such fine equipment or such an ideal location for training before. They'll soon take their oath to Lady Stoneheart and they need to be ready for what that means."

"And what does that mean?"

"It means being ready to kill."

The girl nodded, watching Elsbeth duck a blow from Rider, then stumble and fall. Little Nate jumped to her defense, fending off her attacker. She repaid him by tripping him and rolling over top of him, threatening him with her training blade to secure his surrender. The archer looked up at Gendry then, basking in the approval she read in his face.

"She's certainly ready to kill," Arya remarked drily.

"Yes, Elsbeth will be fine," Gendry agreed.

"Little Nate might be in danger, though."

"He's capable enough with his sword. He just has a soft spot for Elsbeth."

"I know. That's what I mean. He's in danger of having his heart broken."

"Nah," the knight disagreed. "They're just young, and she's too enamored with the idea of adventure to think on love and family just yet. I once knew another girl like that." His mouth quirked into a lopsided smile and he gazed down at her. Elsbeth chose that moment to look to the dark knight again, and as Arya watched, a frown formed on the archer's flushed face.

"I don't know," the assassin said. "I don't think the odds are in Little Nate's favor."

"He's a good lad, and comely enough for a girl's fancy, I'd think. She'll come around to him in time."

"How can she," Arya asked softly, turning to look at the blacksmith, "when she's in love with another?"

The knight's dark brows knitted together and Arya believed his puzzlement was genuine. He truly had not noticed. "You think she..." His voice trailed off and he slowly turned his head towards the battling orphans, watching Elsbeth spar with the boys. A few seconds passed and then he shook his head. "No. You're mistaken." His words sounded sure, but as he leaned back against the wall and stared out toward the archer, his face betrayed his uncertainty.

"Would it be a problem if I weren't mistaken?"

"A problem? Of course it would be a problem! How do you think Little Nate would feel, if he thought... I mean, soon, we'll be riding together. He'll have to depend on me, and I'll have to depend on him! Besides that, she's just a child."

"I believe we are of an age," the assassin said, her voice light. She was having difficulty hiding her amusement at her friend's sudden discomfort. "Do you think me a child too, Ser Gendry?"

"You're different," the knight sputtered. "You've seen things. You've done things, and been places. You're highborn. It's just different."

"Is it? I hadn't realized."

He knew she was teasing him, but that didn't stop the heat from creeping up his neck. "Besides," he continued, "I've helped take care of her since she was near as young as you were when we met. And I've been her teacher. What sort of man would I be if I felt... like that about her?"

Arya's mind traveled to Braavos, along the bright canals and through the dim corridors of the House of Black and White. She thought of Jaqen's instruction and wisdom; his care and comfort. She thought of Jaqen's thumb tugging her bottom lip from beneath her teeth. She thought of Jaqen's whispered words and warm kisses and embraces in the stairwell.

"Is it so hard to imagine how it might happen?" she asked hoarsely. Her eyes had a faraway look as she spoke that caused Gendry to frown.

"I just don't feel that way about Elsbeth," the knight growled. "I never could. I hope to the gods that you're wrong and she doesn't either."

"Take heart, my friend," Arya said, snapping out of her reverie. "It may only be the idea of you that has her enthralled." She moved her gaze to the sparring orphans, watching as Elsbeth struck at her opponents and looked over and around them at intervals, seemingly trying to assess Gendry's level of interest in her actions. Arya made a humming sound as if considering new information, then added, "Then again, sometimes being in love with the idea of someone is more dangerous than being in love with the person themselves." She gave him a sympathetic smile, then patted his arm before walking away. Gendry watched her cross the yard and climb the steps to the tower in which her chamber was located. When she disappeared through the doors, he sighed.

"I know," the knight whispered in reply though she was not there to hear him.

Arya passed through the tower and exited the opposite side, a shortcut to the godswood shown to her by Lord Blackwood the night before (Should you wish to pray again, my lady). The assassin wondered if the Riverlander believed her to be more pious than she truly was. It wasn't that Arya didn't believe in the gods; on the contrary, she had seen too much of their power to doubt them. It was just that she thought the gods were possessed of a practical nature and didn't have time to be bothered with passive, ornamental devotion. Kneeling before a statue of the Mother, leaving trinkets at Bakkalon's feet, lighting candles for the Stranger; useless nonsense, all of it.

Deeds. Accomplishments. These were what the gods craved. Willing instruments, not wailing worshipers. Dieties had plans; intentions. For those to be realized, the gods demanded action, not babble, not candles. As far as Arya was concerned, praying was only for telling the gods what you required in order to do their work or for outlining your schemes so that they could smooth your way if they so chose (Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, Queen Cersei...)

And, though the gods had a tendency to remain infuriatingly mute, in certain cases, praying might allow one to learn what was expected.

That was what had lured Arya back into the godswood. She'd felt something when she knelt by the heart tree the night before; an energy that merely hinted at the power which fueled it. It called to her. Or maybe she craved it. She wasn't sure which, but the draw was undeniable.

When she reached the enormous, dead weirwood, she found the smoothed seat on the tree root quite empty, unlike the previous evening. It seemed she had the garden to herself. Why, then, did she feel as though she were being watched?

It was a sense the assassin could not shake. She shivered, but she was not cold.

She circled the heart tree slowly, warily, like a wolf stalking her prey, staring up at the ravens perched upon the high, bare branches. The wind stirred her hair, lifting the wisps which had escaped her braid as she sparred with the orphans, but it moved quietly, for there were no leaves above her head with which it might whisper as it passed. The ravens themselves were extraordinarily silent, lending to the strange atmosphere in the godswood; an impression she could only describe as unaccountably eerie. The sensation seemed to increase with each step she took, compounding the feeling of portent which crept along the edges of her mind and seeped into her skin as she walked.

Finding, once again, the menacing face sculpted from the wide trunk, Arya stopped. She gazed into the narrowed eyes of the carving. The floors of those hollowed-out apertures had once collected a measure of sap, in a time long past, built up into rounded mounds. After centuries of curing, those mounds had grown as dark and hard as onyx. In the bright light of midmorning, the eyes seemed to glare down at her no matter where she stood. She felt no accusation in the gaze, though, only an allure; an expectation.

In the quiet of the godswood, with no soul in sight, Arya became quite convinced that she was not alone.

As she had in Lord Blackwood's presence the night before, the girl walked slowly toward the heart tree and sank to her knees when she was close enough to reach out to the smooth, white trunk. Hesitantly, she extended her hand, fingertips barely skimming the wood. The buzzing was there still. It moved through her fingers and into her palms, up her arms and into her core, growing stronger, warmer, until it felt as though her own heart quaked with it.

Her breath caught in her throat and she leaned forward, pressing her one cheek against the weirwood. Her eyes closed without her commanding them to do so and she maintained the posture, though for how long, she could not be sure. The feeling, the hum and the pulse and the crackling grip of it, did not abate but neither did it strengthen further.

Gradually, Arya became aware that her knees were aching and she resolved to end her meditation, frustrated that she was no clearer on what she was feeling than she had been the night before. She opened her eyes and heaved a long sigh, sagging bodily against the white wood. She felt defeated, suddenly tired, and she pushed all her thoughts, all her useless questions from her mind, giving up her pursuit of enlightenment and seeking only peace, just for a moment. In the instant before she pulled away from the heart tree, she heard something; a strained voice. It whispered to her. The voice did not seem to emanate from anywhere around her, or even from within the tree itself; rather, it felt as though it had formed inside of her own skull where the strange buzzing and humming had come to nest.

"Arya," it said.

Startled, the girl pushed back with a gasp, jumping up and stumbling away from the tree as if she had been bitten. She nearly fell, but was able to right herself just in time. She whipped her head up, gaping at the immobile face two stories above her, unable to make her feet carry her away as she wished. Her legs behaved as if they had been plunged knee-deep into a sticky bog. After a minute, the sense of paralysis lifted and she turned and ran.

Across the garden, through the high, open window of a well appointed solar, shrewd eyes watched the scene unfold in the godswood below. After Eddard Stark's daughter bolted away from the great weirwood and found her path back through the doors of the north tower, those same eyes turned to the small group gathered around an oaken table, all attention now on the important discussion at hand.

By the time Arya arrived back in her chamber, she had nearly convinced herself that she was being stupid and she hadn't actually heard anything. Still, she couldn't shake the uneasy feeling that persisted and she shivered slightly as she pushed open her door. On the other side, she spied a tub which had been brought in and placed near her hearth. A servant boy was pouring the last of a considerable number of steaming pails into it. As she entered the room, he skittered out of her way and through her door with a quick, "Milady!" A maid awaited her, the same one who had brought her breakfast.

"I'm Lyra, m'lady," the woman said. "My mistress instructed me to help with your bath."

"My bath?"

"For the feast."

"But that's hours yet, surely. I had thought to spar some more once my men were available for it." Where were her brothers?

"Beggin' your pardon, Lady Arya, but Lady Blackwood said you'd want a bath before your fitting, and the seamstress is due here in less than an hour."

"My fitting..."

"Well, Lady Blackwood thought you weren't likely to have a gown of your own, traveling light as you are, so she's sent one of hers, only you're a mite smaller than she is, so she asked the seamstress to alter it for you."

Arya sighed. "This feast is certainly causing lots of undue trouble." For me, she thought.

"Oh, no, m'lady, the house is ever so excited! Why, we haven't had a real celebration here since before the war. We spent the whole year after the Red Wedding in mourning, for Lord Lucas, you see. He died at the Twins."

"A great many people died at the Twins," Arya said, pulling her boots off. She might had been one of them, had it not been for the flat of the Hound's axe ending her anguished sprint toward certain doom.

"Yes, indeed, m'lady, a great many," the maid agreed, a sad look on her face. "Lord and Lady Blackwood were just beside themselves when they learned of it. They set great store by their children, you see, and when Lord Lucas was killed, well, I don't like to remember how Lord Blackwood raged and howled! And Lady Blackwood cried for three moons without stopping if she cried for a day."

Arya shed her tunic and breeches then pulled her thin blouse over her head, batting away the maid's hands when the woman tried to help. The assassin dropped her clothes onto the floor in a pile. This maid (Lyra, she thought, committing the name to her memory) was certainly chatty, but it served as a distraction, and she wondered if she might just learn three new things by listening as she bathed.

The thought caused her to grimace. It had become second nature, this attention to detail, this unobtrusive observation of the conversations of others in hopes of gleaning something of import. But when she remembered the one who had instilled this trait in her, the one who expected her to report to him on all she had learned, she felt her hatred rising up like bile in her throat, thick and burning. Luckily, the maid chose just that moment to continue on with her prattle, relieving the Cat of the burden of thinking too long on the Kindly Man.

"There were plans for a great feast three years past now, to be thrown after Ser Brynden's wife had ended her confinement with their third child, but the babe came too soon and didn't live even a week. The poor child's mother followed him to the grave not two days later and so the feast became a burial."

"This house has known tragedy," Arya acknowledged, stepping into the tub and sinking into the steaming water. She did not add that in times such as these, there was not like to be a household anywhere in the seven kingdoms that hadn't been touched by sorrow or ill fortune in one way or another. Her own house could be held up as an example of just how profound were the depths to which a great family might fall.

"I'll say it has," Lyra said, dropping to her knees and soaking a sponge in the bathwater. "The day Ser Jaime took Lord Hoster away, I thought his mother would sink into madness. She screamed at Lord Blackwood for hours and hours. She screamed herself hoarse." She fished around on the floor by her knees for a chunk of soap and, finding it, worked a lather into the sponge.

"Lord Hoster?"

"Hos, his parents call him. He's the third-born son. He was taken as hostage when m'lord finally bent the knee, and m'lady's grief was fierce. She raged like an autumn storm."

"At Lord Blackwood, you say?"

"Oh, yes, m'lady! It was awful. She kept saying, 'You let them kill Lucas, and now you're going to let them take Hos! You should just slit all our throats and be done with it!' Nothing could calm her. We feared she'd take ill. Maester Alfryd finally gave her sweetsleep at Lord Blackwood's insistence." The maid began lathering Arya's shoulders. "I've never seen a woman so wild with despair. They do set such a great store by their children."

"So you've said," the Cat sighed, closing her eyes as the maid worked the soap down her arms and scrubbed at her rough elbows as if trying to buff them back to smoothness. Arya thought Lyra had her work cut out for her, for she didn't think her elbows had been smooth since she was little more than a babe in arms.

"Of course, when Jaime Lannister joined up with the Brotherhood Without Banners, Lady Blackwood thought he'd bring Lord Hoster back home."

"He was here? Jaime Lannister, I mean."

"Oh, yes, many times. Lord Blackwood is a friend to the Brotherhood and allows them to shelter here whenever needed." The woman slid to the end of the tub and fished one of Arya's feet from the water, scrubbing at it, tickling her toes.

"Doesn't his liege lord take a dim view of his house feeding and supplying outlaws?"

"Well, m'lord says if Lord Frey won't do what it takes to keep the smallfolk safe in times such as these, we have to look elsewhere for what help we can get." She moved to Arya's other foot before adding, "Lord Blackwood is truly a good man, m'lady."

"Yes," Arya said softly, "I can see that."

Lyra stopped her scrubbing and leaned over the edge of the tub, dropping her voice lower. "He would never have bent the knee to the crown, only Lady Blackwood begged him to do it. Those Brackens had the castle under siege, and food was running low. Lady Bethany had taken ill and was doing poorly. M'lord bent the knee to save her, to save us all from starving, and to keep the Brackens from burning out all the villages. Turns out it was mostly too late for that, but he was able to protect those as took refuge in the castle. Only, he had to give up Lord Hoster as a sign of his good will. That's what they call it. A sign of good will." The maid snorted derisively, applying more soap to her sponge before attacking Arya's legs with it.

"Lady Blackwood wished her husband to bend the knee but she didn't realize it would mean giving up one of her children," Arya surmised.

"It was Ser Jaime that parleyed with Lord Blackwood. Lord Hoster left under Lannister protection. So, naturally, when Ser Jaime turned up here a year later with Tom O'Sevens and Harwin, m'lady demanded to know where her son was."

"And where was he?"

"Ser Jaime said he'd been left in the care of his aunt and uncle and was most like still at Riverrun."

"It must be very hard to be parted from one's children."

"Especially if you know they're sleeping under the roof of your enemy."

The maid said it with what sounded like sincere emotion. Arya wondered if the woman had a child of her own or if she was simply that attached to the Blackwood children.

"How did Lady Blackwood take the news? That Hoster was at Riverrun, I mean."

The woman scooted around the tub, scrubbing at the girl as she went, working her way back to Arya's head. "Well, not too good, I can tell you. She's really a gentle lady most times, not prone to tempers, I mean. But when it comes to her children..."

"Yes, she sets a great store by them." Arya was gently prodding the maid to finish her tale. She was interested in what this woman knew of Jaime Lannister and thinking how she might exploit that knowledge and use it against his twin. The maid scrubbed hard at the back of Arya's neck.

"She screamed at Ser Jaime to bring her son back to her, and Ser Jaime said it wasn't possible, that he wasn't welcome in his uncle's house once it became known that he was riding with the Brotherhood. On account of how many Freys the Brotherhood had hung. Lannister men too, for that matter."

Yes, Tywin Lannister's sister had married into the atrocious Frey clan, Arya recalled vaguely as the maid rinsed the suds from her. She supposed taking part in Lady Stoneheart's harsh justice would feel like a betrayal when that justice was mostly meted out to those related to Ser Jaime by blood or by marriage. It might even label him a kinslayer. Kingslayer and kinslayer, she mused. Ser Jaime was building quite the reputation.

"He has a point, I suppose. I can't imagine Ser Jaime would get more than the short end of a rope if he dared show his face at Riverrun now, aunt or no."

"Well, I'm sure you're right, m'lady, but Lady Blackwood was having none of it. She banished Ser Jaime from the house and though she tolerates the rest of the Brotherhood for Lord Blackwood's sake, Ser Jaime is not to be received at Raventree Hall any longer."

"I imagine there are a good many houses in Westeros where Ser Jaime would find he's not welcome," the assassin replied. "Does he still ride with the Brotherhood?"

"Oh, yes, m'lady. Unless he's met with some ill fate. But if I had to guess about it, I'd say he's still as hale and hearty as ever. Men that rich and that beautiful don't seem to go easily, do they?"

Arya's face was pensive. She said nothing but made a noncommittal humming noise. Her father had been rich and handsome. Her mother was widely regarded as comely and had married into all the wealth of the North. Lyanna was a renown beauty and the only daughter of a great house, set to marry the son and heir of another great house. Wealth and beauty had not preserved any of them. To her, it seemed the only factor that truly played into a person's survival was his willingness to do whatever it took to guarantee it, no matter how heavy his purse or how winsome his face. She thought of the Kingslayer as she had last seen him, resplendent in his Kingsguard armor and white cloak, and suddenly felt impatient to be on the road again. Her mother awaited her, as did the brother of Queen Cersei.

"Shall we wash your hair now, m'lady?"

Arya was too lost to her own thoughts and plots to answer and merely leaned back so the maid could do her work.

The gown sent by Lady Blackwood was a fluttering, ivory affair with a layer of fine Myrish lace over the bodice. The sleeves were so long in the back that they nearly dragged the ground (in fact, prior to the seamstress's ministrations, they did drag the ground, by several inches. Lady Blackwood was either a good bit taller than Arya was herself or else she didn't mind dusting her floors with her sleeves as she walked). The dress was more suited to a wedding than a small, impromptu feast, the girl thought, but she supposed it would be unacceptably rude to chuck the thing into a corner and just wear her doe skin breeches and Jaqen's favorite blouse (though the idea became intensely appealing when Lyra returned and began cinching the protesting assassin into a corset she obtained from Bethany Blackwood, the lone daughter of the family).

"Is Lady Bethany some sort of wood sprite or starved waif?" Arya gasped as the woman pulled her in tighter. "How can she breathe in this?"

"She can't," the maid replied, chuckling. "She's a year or two younger than you, m'lady, but she got her growth early. Now, she's taller and broader than you by a bit. She outgrew this corset when she was two and ten, I think, but it looked about right for you."

"About right if you're trying to strangle me to death," the girl winced as the maid finally tied the laces. The bones of the thing dug into her ribs, restricting their movement severely. She had a fleeting, irrational fear that this instrument was meant to hobble her; that it was some part of a sinister plot to prevent her return to Westeros from interfering with greater plans. It was a stupid worry, she knew that, of course, which was why she dismissed the thought instantly. The idea was merely a product of her typical intense dislike for the things other ladies accepted as routine. There was no denying, however, that if an attack were to come, her ability to respond to it would undoubtedly be compromised while imprisoned in the damnable contraption. Arya recalled that the only faint of her entire life had been instigated by just such a device.

"Oh, it's not so bad, once you adjust," the woman soothed, patting the corset over the girl's entrapped belly and pinched waist, assessing the shape the thing had created. As if she were nothing more than a lump of potter's clay to be molded into a pleasing form. The girl sneered at the idea. It left an unpleasant taste in her mouth. Lyra slipped the newly-altered dress over the assassin's head, lacing the back of the bodice up deftly.

"Adjust? I don't think you can adjust to having the life crushed out of you," Arya groused.

"You're just not used to wearing one. Soon enough, you won't even notice it."

Arya found the idea that she could grow accustomed to the almost claustrophobic grip of a completely unnecessary garment ridiculous and burst into her unrefined, barking laugh. Almost instantly, laughter turned to wheezing and she wrapped her arms around her middle, gasping, "Why would I ever want to get used to this?"

"Because of that," the maid said, turning Arya to face herself in a long dressing mirror. She nearly didn't recognize the woman in white who stared back at her with wide, grey eyes. Arya was aghast. Truly.

"I look like... like a... lady."

"So you do!" the maid said happily, mistaking the girl's horror for delighted surprise. "I'll bet it's a relief, too, after all that time on the road with those men. You must have been dying to get back into your gowns. Now, we'll have to arrange your hair first, but then I've got a little kohl for your eyes, and there's a beet stain for your lips and cheeks."

"No!" Arya sputtered instantly with alarm. "No stain. No kohl."

"But it's the fashion now, m'lady. I know they said you've been over the sea for several years, and you've only just returned, so you may not know what's fashionable just now in Westeros, but trust me, no lady goes to a feast with a bare face these days!"

"I will not be painted like some whore in a winesink or a street mummer," the girl insisted.

"Please, m'lady, it's just for the feast, and we haven't dressed ladies for a feast in so long. Charla gets to dress Lady Bethany and Morraine is dressing Lady Blackwood. I can't have them showing me up!"

Arya nearly threw the woman out of her chamber, but finally gave in to her pleading. Her brother's words rang in her head. Smile and be the gracious lady they need you to be. This was just another face, another disguise.

It was to be a very literal one, as it turned out.

"No stain on my cheeks, though," the girl warned. She could not fathom a reason why she should wish to look permanently embarrassed. She honestly did not understand how anyone could find such a thing fashionable. The maid huffed but agreed and set about her work, brushing out Arya's damp tangles. The woman then began twisting and braiding and pinning the girl's chestnut locks for what felt like hours (but wasn't, of course), chatting all the while, meandering from topic to topic. This was how Arya heard the news of the arrival that day of several more guests, including members of the Brotherhood—Tom O'Sevens and Lady Brienne, stopping en route to the inn where they were meant to relieve Harwin and find news of Gendry, if they could. It was pure chance that they had discovered the dark knight and the Northman sheltering under the same roof.

"Imagine," Lyra said, "what luck! And they arrived in time for the feast. It's sure to be a jolly party now, with Tom O'Sevens."

"You watch yourself around him," the assassin warned. "He has more bastards than scruples."

The maid pretended to be scandalized, but then laughed heartily. "So you know Tom of Sevenstreams, m'lady?"

"I knew him when I was a girl," she explained vaguely. "But you said there were others. How is it they were able to get here so quickly, when the feast was only decided upon yesterday afternoon?"

"I don't think they were invited for the feast," Lyra replied. "I'm not even certain they were expected. At least, Lady Blackwood hadn't mentioned it to me, and the steward seemed surprised when they rode through the gates."

"Well, who are they?"

"I didn't see them myself, m'lady, but I've heard the names of some Riverland lords being mentioned throughout the castle."

Arya vibrated with her impatience. "Which lords?"

"Oh! Lord Vance, and Lord Smallwood, m'lady. There may be others, but those are the names I've heard."

Smallwood. Acorn Hall, the girl thought. She had spent time at Acorn Hall, a lifetime ago. So had Ser Gendry. But even when she was under that roof, Lady Smallwood had not known who she was. Now, with the arrival of Lord Smallwood at a feast being given in her honor, Acorn Hall would know of the survival of Arya Stark. First, the Blackwoods. Now, the Smallwoods. Soon, news of her would spread through the Riverlands. She needed to consider what that would mean for her.

"Vance," the Cat murmured, trying to place the name.

"Lord of Wayfarers Rest, m'lady," the maid said helpfully.

Wayfarers Rest. Not just a house, but a great house. Her situation was becoming more complex by the minute, it seemed.

Arya wasn't sure where the loyalties of Wayfarers Rest had lain during the war of the five kings. As one of the Tully bannermen, she supposed it was like to be on the side of the Starks, but then again, the Freys had been Tully bannermen as well, and that had not amounted to much in the end. Not much that was good, anyway. She might have taken comfort in the wisdom of Lord Blackwood, for if he had invited Lord Vance, then surely the Lord of Wayfarers Rest could be trusted. But, the maid had said that the arrival of the lords was unexpected and therefore, Lord Blackwood could not have properly vetted his guests. The girl narrowed her eyes a bit, thinking she would have to learn what she could of House Vance during the feast.

And perhaps keep her dagger close.

Lyra, unaware of the assassin's private deliberations, began to talk to the girl about the family which hosted her. Arya then learned more about House Blackwood and the many Blackwood children than she would have ever wished to know. She learned that Hoster Blackwood, the third-born, was a lad of great intelligence and would have made a fine maester had his mother been able to bear parting with him at ten and four, when he asked to be sent to the Citadel.

"Lord Blackwood was of a mind to let him go, but his lady wouldn't allow it."

No, how could she? Arya thought wryly. She sets such great store by her children.

The maid continued on, telling Arya that Bethany Blackwood was the sixth child born to her mother, the second youngest of the clan. She was also the only daughter. Since there were over nine years between her and the youngest of the children, she had spent most of her life being the baby of the family. As such, she was doted upon a great deal by her father and older brothers, lavished with the finest dresses and poppets and sweets. She wasn't spoiled by any of it, Lyra assured the lady as she twisted one thick braid around the back of Arya's head, but was as sweet a child as there ever was, only sometimes prone to periods of melancholy.

"Got worse after Lord Lucas was killed, poor dear," the maid revealed in hushed tones, digging into Arya's scalp with a pin and tucking in a bit of loose hair. "He was her especial favorite. There was at time after we heard of what happened at the Twins that m'lord feared the girl might do herself some harm and set his guards about her, day and night."

Ser Brynden, Lord Blackwood's heir and a knight of some distinction, was often away, tending to his father's business and his lands. The Blackwoods were struggling to set things right after the great pillaging and scorching that had occurred over the years in the name of the crown. Dealing with the aftermath of the war on Blackwood land was Ser Brendyn's primary duty. Even now, he was away, overseeing a timber delivery meant to restore Pennytree, a nearby village, but he was expected to return in time for the feast.

"I hope he does, m'lady, so that you may meet him."

"Is he much like his father?" Arya asked curiously.

"I'd say he's Blackwood through and through on the inside, but he has the look of his mother about him. Fine cheekbones, blonde hair and the like."

Arya had been alluding more to his temperament, his bearing, and his cunning, for she found she liked those aspects of Lord Blackwood a great deal, but the maid was not to be blamed for thinking she meant Ser Brynden's appearance. After all, what else should a young maiden be concerned with when discussing a man in need of a new wife?

The fourth child, Ser Edmund, or Ben as he was called, was a handsome boy, and a knight like his eldest brother, but also a flirt and a rogue who ought to have spent more time on knightly pursuits than searching out new bodies to warm his bed (as far as the maid was concerned). His eighteenth nameday approached and soon, he would be expected to settle.

Yet another Blackwood son lacking a bride, the girl thought She was beginning to wonder how much having five unmarried sons had played into her host's warm welcome of her.

"He hasn't thought of how his behavior will limit his prospects," Lyra carped. "What fine lady would ever agree to a match with such a man?"

"Whichever fine lady has a father with the most to gain from the match, I suspect," Arya replied.

Lyra felt that it didn't help that Ser Edmund was pretty enough to make many of the maidens he pursued forget to ask him what his intentions were. The servant told Lady Arya that she was sure he'd sired more children than Ser Brynden, and Ser Brynden had been married for nearly six years before his wife passed. Lord Blackwood was wroth with Ser Edmund over his indiscretions. For his part, the lad was unrepentant.

"Many great families can claim bastards in their lines," the assassin said, thinking of her own beloved brother. "Some are even raised in the household, alongside the trueborn children. Why does it distress Lord Blackwood so?"

"Honor, m'lady. He considers that his son has dishonored the women, and not behaved as a knight should."

Arya laughed. "I've known a great many knights, and very few of them possessed any real honor." She thought of Ser Meryn, Ser Ilyn, and Ser Jaime. She thought of Ser Gregor and his men, of Ser Amory Lorch. She thought of the pillaging and burning and raping that had scarred the land and made its people bleed, terrors perpetrated by knights or those under their command. "Spending a night staring at a statue of the warrior then having some old septon anoint your head with oil doesn't magically confer honor on you."

"But knights take vows, m'lady."

"Words are wind," the girl said softly.

"Maybe in some places, maybe even in most, but here, in this house, Lord Blackwood takes the word of a man seriously, and to him, to break a vow puts a stain upon a man's name."

"Lord Blackwood is a rare man," Arya conceded, and she meant it. She had only known him a short time, but her impression of him, coupled with the maid's words, made clear to her why her father would have counted Tytos Blackwood among his friends. "He is an example to us all."

"He should be. If only it were an example Ser Edmund would follow."

So, Ben Blackwood was the black sheep in the pen, the girl thought, stashing the knowledge away for later.

"I've no doubt that once the foolishness of youth loses its luster, Ser Edmund will begin to follow his father's excellent example."

"Perhaps he might reform if the right lady were to catch his eye."

The maid was not subtle. Arya laughed, saying, "I thought his problem was that too many ladies caught his eye!"

"But that's not love, m'lady." Lyra smoothed the braids and continued securing them in place. Arya's head was beginning to feel as restricted as her chest. The girl had lost count of the pins. She was certain they numbered in the thousands by this point.

"And love can make a man change his nature?"

"Why, I think so. Don't you, m'lady?" Lyra asked, her speech affected by the hairpin she held between clenched teeth as she prepared to use it. After a moment, she removed the pin and stuck it into the girl's shining mane, adding, "If love can't make a man change, then what can?"

Arya shrugged a slightly, trying to hold still as the servant fashioned some sort of wide knot at the base of her neck with her braids. She was no expert on love, but she understood a thing or two about man's nature. People were who they were, bent and melded and made by all that afflicted them in life. Love, though... She furrowed her brow as she thought on it.

Love wasn't really some force of change, was it? It was an ache, a burden, an unhealing wound to be born all the days of your life. There was no choice to it and there was no magical transformation because of it. Could Ben Blackwood be reformed through love? No, that didn't seem likely to her, despite the maid's insistence. But then she thought of Jaqen. Had there not been some alteration in him when he decided that he loved her? Had he not defied his master for the first time in his life, and all for her sake; all because of the love he bore her? But, she supposed that was part of his nature, and always had been; doing what he felt was right and damn the consequences. Jaqen was an assassin, and a scrupulously moral man. A walking contradiction, just as he always had been. Love had not changed that one whit; it had only shifted the focus of his devotion a bit. And for that, he had paid a heavy price. They both had.

She closed her eyes, and he was there, whole and perfect, his bronze gaze hot on her skin.

"I'll just dab a bit of scented oil behind your ears and at your neck now, m'lady," the maid said, interrupting the girl's remembrance and her silent reflection on the transformative power of love. "It's some sort of spicy scent, foreign-like." It took a moment for Arya to leave Jaqen and realize what Lyra had said. When it sank in, the girl opened her mouth to protest, not wishing to smell of bouquets of decaying flowers or some sort of cloyingly sweet perfume that would announce her presence from twenty paces, but before she could stop Lyra, the deed was done. When the scent hit her nose, the Cat froze, her throat constricting. A traitorous tear sprang to her eye.

Ginger. Cloves.

Finally, when Arya's tongue began working again, she choked out her question. "Where did you get that?"

"Lady Bethany sent it. She has quite a collection, actually. She thought you might..."

"No, no, I mean, where did it come from? Where did Lady Bethany get it?"

"Oh. I see. This one was a gift from Ser Brynden. I told you how her brothers dote on her. He picked it up in Maidenpool, I think, on his last trip there. From one of the traders who comes over from Braavos twice a year."

"Ser Brynden? You're sure?"

Lyra seemed bewildered by the question. "Yes, m'lady. Quite sure." Arya's already pale cheek had gone a shade whiter, and it seemed to alarm the servant. "Do you not like it? Has the scent made you ill?" The woman bustled across the room to a little table where a goblet and a pitcher sat and poured Arya some water. Handing the cup to the girl and exhorting her to drink, the maid fretted, "Oh, dear! Lady Blackwood is sensitive to scents as well. She can only abide the lightest florals, or else she gets such an ache of her head..."

"No, no. That's not it," Arya assured the maid after she had taken a sip of the water and allowed it to settle in her belly. "I like it." The assassin was hoarse, but she struggled to rule her face. It was just that she had allowed herself to think on Jaqen, and as the picture of him still lingered in her mind, to be confronted with his scent was... overwhelming. For just a second, it was as if he were there, as if she was in the bath in the temple, her master leaning against the copper tub, tracing the scar on her shoulder with his finger. She closed her eyes and bit her lip, in desperate need of distraction. She took a deep breath, then said, "You were going to tell me about the other children."

"Oh, oh, yes." The maid's worried expression dissolved as Arya forced her eyes open and settled her features into a look of interest. Satisfied that the noble was not about to succumb to a spell or fit, the woman continued with her chatter, telling the girl about the rest of the Blackwood clan.

Lord Alyn, just six and ten, was most like his brother Hos, more interested in books than in the other pursuits a fifth son might need to engage in to ensure his future. Finally, there was little Lord Robert, or Baby Bobbin as his sweet sister had dubbed him when he was born nearly five years earlier. He was a fierce little creature, with a mop of loose, blonde curls topping his head; a boy who loved the training yard the way Lord Alyn loved the family's library.

"He's still little more than a babe," the maid said, "but he'll be a great knight someday, that one."

Little more than a babe, and yet nearly two years older than Rickon had been when I last saw him, Arya thought. She hoped Baby Bobbin did grow up to be a great knight, but most of all, she hoped he grew up, a privilege denied to her own sweet baby brother.

As the girl tried to call up Rickon's face, the maid smoothed the last bit of dark chestnut hair and patted it, finally finishing it off with a golden laurel wreath hair ornament sent by Lady Bethany. Arya was about to tell her not to bother, that she had her own comb, a very unique cat, but what Lyra said next caught the assassin off her guard and she quite forgot to refuse the borrowed pin.

"It's so big on you, it nearly looks a crown!" the maid declared as she secured the adornment to the back of Arya's head. "There, it's done." The maid stood back and admired her handiwork, but then glanced out of the window and noting the position of the sun, cried, "Gracious! Close your eyes, I've got to get this kohl on you now or you'll be late!"

"Not too much," the girl begged, thinking of all the smeared kohl she'd seen ringing the eyes of the tired whores who patrolled Ragman's Harbor. "I don't want to scare anyone."

"As if you could," Lyra chuckled, lining the assassin's eyes with the stuff, "sweet thing like you."

Sweet thing. Arya smirked. If there was one way she would never think to describe herself, that was it.

After the kohl was applied, the maid rubbed the rich stain into Arya's lips and said, "There, now. All done." The girl rose from her stool and walked to her bed, reaching down for the boots she had left at the foot of it (and the small dagger in a concealed pocket inside her left boot). "My lady! What are you doing?" The woman seemed appalled.

"I quite forgot to pack my dancing shoes," the girl replied sarcastically. When the maid put her two fists on her hips in the stance of a mother scolding her wayward child, Arya sighed with exasperation. "These are the only ones I brought. Shall I go to the feast in my bare feet?"

"Lady Blackwood sent slippers for you! Here." The maid pulled out a pair of white shoes that seemed to be covered in the same sort of lace which adorned her bodice. There were silken ribbons threaded through several eyes along the edges, meant to function as laces and tie in delicate little bows. The assassin rolled her eyes.

"Lace shoes? And white? I'll ruin them for sure!"

Honestly, who decided such frippery should be put on someone's feet?

"No matter. They're too small for Lady Blackwood. They pinch at her toes too much for her to ever wear them again."

The girl sighed. "Fine." She left her boots (and the dagger therein) where they lay, deciding the knife used to carve the meat course would have to do if the need for a weapon arose during the festivities.

The slippers were slightly big on Arya, but she supposed that shoes a size too large were less offensive than dusty boots under her wedding gown (for that's what she had dubbed the ivory dress she'd been forced into). Catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror, the assassin asked sarcastically if she should wear a veil over her face to complete the look. The maid missed the jape.

"And hide those eyes and crimson lips? I think not, m'lady. Veils are out of fashion anyway, except for brides and septas."

Arya sighed.

"Are you ready to go down, m'lady? Should I fetch you an escort?"

"No, thank you. I think I can find my own way into the bear pit."

"Really, m'lady!" the maid chuckled. "What a notion! Anyone would think you weren't excited about a feast in your honor." Arya felt the gentle reproach in Lyra's words and resolved to be more grateful.

"Well, I do like to eat," she said grudgingly. She just didn't see why she needed to wear ill-fitting shoes, color her lips, and be trussed up like a roasting goose to do it.

"Well, you wouldn't know it to look at you, wisp of a thing that you are, but that's the spirit," the woman encouraged, guiding the girl to her door. "There's to be roasted boar and lemon cakes."

Lemon cakes. Arya felt a stab of something in her chest. Sadness? Longing? Normally, thinking on her sister caused some wistfulness, but rarely true sorrow. Sansa might be alive, after all, and if she was, her younger sister believed they would see each other again. And so the little wolf was not sure why the lemon cakes and memories of her sister should affect her so in this moment. Perhaps she was still raw from all the feelings the familiar perfume from Braavos had dredged up. There was no reason to mourn Sansa now. Just because no one was certain she was alive did not mean her death was a surety. Her sister might look every inch a Tully, but she had the North in her somewhere, and that made her strong. Arya would not bury her until she saw her bones with her own eyes.

Enough, she told herself, forbidding any further feelings of anguish. She pushed them away, neatly stacking the unwanted emotion with all the other things she could not allow herself to think about for fear of falling into despondency.

The maid opened the door, bidding the noble to enjoy the feast and to sample all the foods the cook had prepared, promising she was sure to be impressed. Arya thought she'd be lucky to force half a bite of each offering down her gullet with the way the corset was crushing her, but she merely smiled weakly and moved into the corridor, bound for the great hall.

Owing to how her feet slipped in the shoes, Arya had to be careful on the stone stairs. Her slow, cautious movements combined with the soft soles of the slippers rendered her as silent as a ghost without much effort at concealment on her part. This was perhaps why a well-dressed, golden-haired girl had not noted her presence as the assassin came upon her in a corridor on the lower floor.

"Oh!" the girl gasped as she turned and found herself not two feet from the Cat. The blonde girl clutched at her breast and moved back a step before regaining her composure. "Forgive me, my lady. You move like a wraith!"

"I have heard that before," Arya admitted, "but I should be the one begging forgiveness. I didn't mean to startle you."

The golden-haired girl, near a head taller than Arya, smiled down at her sweetly. "You're Lady Arya, I'd wager. Our illustrious guest. I'm Bethany Blackwood, at your service." The Blackwood daughter gave a pretty curtsy and the assassin wasn't quite sure how to react. She needn't have worried. Lady Bethany did not seem to need her guest's direction. She looped her arm through the assassin's and began leading her down the corridor at a pace perfectly suited to limitations imposed by their fine attire. As they made their way to the great hall, Arya could detect in the girl none of the melancholy nature to which the maid had alluded earlier. The Blackwood daughter seemed as happy as anyone had a right to be, considering they lived in a time of war. The Northerner also found her Southern companion amusing and quick of wit. It was a trait the young Riverlander had in common with her father.

"You're shorter than I would have thought," Bethany remarked, looking down on the top of Arya's plaited and smoothed hair. "After hearing of your daring deeds in the training yard, I thought you'd be monstrously tall and fearsome to behold." Nothing about the way she said it seemed calculated or malicious. The younger girl sounded pleased to find her companion so petite.

"And you're taller than I would have thought. After being squeezed into your tiny corset, I thought you'd be as diminutive as one of the children of the forest. I'm not sure how you ever got into this thing."

The maid must not have been exaggerating when she told Arya that Bethany Blackwood had outgrown the borrowed corset two years prior. She was certainly the larger of the two. Not plump or overly buxom, just pleasantly curved, with broader shoulders and the height advantage.

Bethany giggled lightly, a pleasant, tinkling sound, and said, "Yes, sorry about that. I worried it might be a tight fit. I did send the hair pin and the scented oil to make up for it, though. Lyra just thought my other corsets would be too large to do the job."

"What job? The job of suffocating me?"

Bethany Blackwood's eyes twinkled. "Oh, no, my dear Lady Arya," the younger girl said with mock seriousness, "the job of changing your shape into something wholly unnatural so that all the men who look upon you will go mad with love for you and marriage offers will fall at your feet like autumn leaves. Is that not the dream of every lady?"

Arya stared at Bethany for a moment until the Riverlander began chuckling delicately. Her face lit up with her merriment in a way that made her truly beautiful. After a second, Arya joined in, laughing at the absurdity in what Bethany had said. The Blackwood girl continued.

"How can men be expected to know they should want to pledge themselves to you if you are completely unfettered and capable of walking across the room without falling into a faint? Your comfort makes them too uncomfortable, my lady, for they are simple creatures, and will not know that they should idealize you if you are too self-sufficient, or too natural. That's the purpose of this, as well." She waved her hand around her face, indicating her kohl lined eyes and the pinkish stain on her cheeks and lips displayed there. She had been made up a bit more than Arya had, and it made her look older than her years. "It's important to emphasize the eyes, you see, so any possible suitors will get lost in them. The lips, well, I'm sure you can imagine exactly the point of emphasizing those."

"And the purpose of the perpetually flushed cheek?" the assassin queried, smirking at Bethany's satirical lecture.

"Oh, that's so every man who speaks to you can be flattered by your reaction to him, even if you can't manage to produce such a reaction out of genuine feeling. It is perhaps fortunate for those of us who stain our cheeks that men are less concerned with genuine feeling than just about anything else in the seven kingdoms."

"Surely not less concerned than they are for things of a domestic nature. Say, how their supper gets made? No man could care about such a mundane task as that."

"No, my lady, you are mistaken. I have it on good authority that salt is an expense and any man worth his salt will be concerned at the measure of it used in the making of his supper. It affects his coffers, you see, and there is nearly nothing a man cares for more than the size of his fortune."

Arya turned her gaze up to her companion's smiling face, and the assassin's grey eyes were practically luminous with overblown sincerity as she spoke. "My lady, you are truly a sage."

Unable to contain their amusement, the girls burst out laughing, knocking against one another as they continued down the passageway with arms still linked, nearly falling over as they did. The imbalance was as much from their merriment as their lack of breath inside of their respective corsets. The Blackwood girl continued to amuse her companion as they walked, painting vivid pictures of how women's fashion would evolve in order to better suit the ultimate goal of securing a husband.

"The more impractical, the better," she said before insisting the next trend would be stilts.

"Stilts?" Arya cried. "You mean like the stilt walkers you see at tourneys and faires? But why? Are outlandishly long legs somehow preferable in a wife?"

"The length of the leg is less important than the lack of balance, my dear," Bethany revealed. "When the inevitable fall comes, a man may be made to feel useful when he catches you."

"Ah, I see. It's this feeling of usefulness that is the goal, then."

"Well, no, but the congratulations the rescuer receives from his fellows on his heroism is much desired. He may even be toasted and rewarded with ale. A man loves ale even more than he loves recognition of his heroism."

"How is it you have become such an expert on the subject of men and their motivations?" the Cat laughed.

The Blackwood daughter's tone was almost pompous as she replied, "My dear, I've had long years to study the matter. I am ten and four, after all. Also, I have a great many brothers!" The two girls nearly collapsed upon one another then, Arya snorting and then wheezing in her corset while Bethany giggled, telling the assassin she had better learn to expend less breath while laughing or else she'd turn blue and pass out.

"Lady Bethany," the Cat began, still laughing a bit, "may I tell you, you're not at all what I expected?"

"Lady Arya, may I tell you, you're not the first person to say that to me?" The girl winked. "Only, when my mother says it, it always has the ring of disappointment about it. I rather like the way you say it." When the girl smiled at her, Arya felt there was genuine warmth behind the gesture.

How strange, the assassin thought. She couldn't recall ever having felt appreciated by another highborn girl, or even the daughters of the more elevated servants. Not when she was wearing her own face, at least (though with a false face, Lidia Biro had seemed to like her well enough). Then she remembered her crimson lips and dark lined eyes, the breathlessly tight corset and lace shoes and thought, But this isn't really my face.

The Cat studied the younger girl surreptitiously, and noted that though she had been made up to look older, beyond the beet stain and kohl, the tell-tale signs of youth could be found. There was a soft fullness to the face that time and age would change. Bethany had a sprinkling of freckles on her nose and cheeks, obtained, Arya suspected, while playing in the godswood during warmer times. Without the sheltering canopy of weirwood leaves, the garden was bound to be quite sunny in the summer and a young girl chasing her brothers around the great heart tree's trunk would have had no protection from the beams which kissed her skin and left their mark.

Arya's face was not altered in such a way (though she had marks elsewhere, in more hidden places, the likes of which she suspected Lady Bethany would never endure), her cheeks smooth and white despite her years in sunny Braavos. Much of her time over the sea had been spent in dim corridors and dark winesinks and hidden alleyways, slipping through shadows; being a shadow. Much of her duty there required the darkness and so she had spent little time basking in the warm, Braavosi sun. As a result, her face remained pale and unblemished, belying the incalculable burden of scars she carried within.

The two girls saw that Harwin and Lord Blackwood were cloistered together just outside the doors to the great hall. Bethany nodded to her companion, indicating that they should approach, and so they did, quietly, so as not to disturb the conversation of the men. It was Lord Blackwood who noted their presence first, smiling benevolently at his only daughter, who slipped her arm from Arya's and leaned toward her father, raising up on her toes to place a kiss on his cheek. Harwin, whose back had been turned to their approach, spun around and spied Arya.

"Milady!" he exclaimed, startled (though whether by her unannounced presence or her uncharacteristic appearance, she could not say). The Northman gaped at her a moment before remembering himself and bobbing his head to his host's daughter. "Lady Bethany. You are well, I trust?"

"Oh, yes, Harwin, ever so well." The smile that followed seemed less ebullient than what the Cat had witnessed as she walked the corridors with the girl. There was an undercurrent in the exchange that Arya didn't quite understand. For just an instant, she allowed herself to search for the reason, first in one trove of thoughts, and then in another. She was left with the impression that Harwin had been witness to some of the melancholy which Lyra had earlier described. It made her feel sad for her new friend. Lord Blackwood greeted her then, and she put her thoughts of Bethany's troubles aside for the moment.

"My dear, if you had a wreath of winter roses in your hair, you'd be unable to convince anyone who knew her that you were not the Lady Lyanna, transported here from the tourney at Harrenhal nearly five and twenty years past," Lord Blackwood declared, kissing Arya's hand. "It's uncanny."

The assassin didn't quite know what to say, and so she merely murmured a greeting to her host and took his proffered arm, entering the hall with him.

"This may be a poor feast compared to what you are used to, my lady, but what we have, you and yours are welcome to."

Arya thought back to the last feast she had attended: the acolyte's feast in the temple which had exiled her. The fare there had been very fine indeed, but the wine, she could not recommend. She hoped this feast at least would have a happier outcome.

Be Still—The Fray

Chapter Text

What if I say I will never surrender?

As they strode through the doors of the great hall, Lord Blackwood had made it known to his honored guest that he planned to introduce her to the feast attendees, thus confirming her survival. Not only her survival, but indeed, announcing her arrival in the very heart of Westeros. The girl was immediately struck by the notion that the crown (and possibly the marching Dragons) would view her sudden appearance as a challenge. Arya had recognized this was a possibility in one way or another when Harwin had argued with her that she should not attempt to hide her true identity when they came to the castle. Though they had not settled the point between them before they rode through the gates of Raventree Hall, Lord Blackwood's instant recognition of her Stark blood had sealed her fate, for good or for ill. She realized now that the only way she could have thwarted the Riverlander's plan to make her presence known would have been to abscond in the middle of the night, making a feast in her honor wholly unnecessary. Barring that, it was not to be avoided, and her lot was cast. Still, she tried to reason with her host one last time.

"My lord, I'm not sure it's wise to announce so widely that I have returned. Oughtn't we discuss the ramifications first?"

Lord Blackwood patted her hand soothingly and said, "Be at ease, Lady Arya. You are under my protection now, and I will allow no harm to come to you, but you must be seen and known if we are to win others to your cause. Before we can secure your seat in the North, we must have adequate support. Tonight, we begin amassing it."

"Secure my... my seat in the North?"

Tytos Blackwood gave her a gentle smile, but behind it, she could sense all the determination and ambition, and anticipation of a man very much used to getting what he desired (and very much decided on what it was he most desired at that moment). Her eyes left the lord's face, and she glanced about the wide room, taking in the hundreds of flickering candles, the bright, hanging banners, and all the guests in their finery, murmuring amid the strains of music floating down from the group of minstrels seated high in the overhead gallery.

Pomp and pageantry. Foolishly, she had been most concerned at the bother of it. Now she understood that she ought to have been concerned with what it was meant to conceal, and with what it was meant to reveal to the whole of Westeros. The feast was not just about celebrating her miraculous survival or honoring the daughter of an old ally and friend. It was about staking a claim, both her claim to the North, and perhaps even Lord Blackwood's claim to her.

For why else would he help her, if not to find some gain in it for his own house?

Arya cast a side-long glance at her escort and began to wonder if she had been too free with her trust.

Just prior to entering the great hall, the Cat had felt within her a small measure of cheer, the residue of her uncharacteristic frivolity with Lady Bethany in the corridors as they made their way to the feast. As Tytos Blackwood spoke of introductions and protection and support, however, all she could feel was that cheer draining away. The corners of her mouth, which had been left tilted slightly upward as she greeted the lord, now drooped once more and she turned her mind to serious matters. Slowly, the great cyvasse board which seemed to dominate the world came into focus. She strained to see where she fit into this game, and whose hand was moving all the other pieces.

Chewing slowly at her bottom lip, Arya wondered how it was possible that things were happening so fast; how things had so quickly slipped from her control. She had a prayer and a sword and the unyielding dedication of her Faceless brother. She meant to avenge her family, discover Jon's fate, then use her iron coin to sail for Braavos to settle a score with the principal elder of the House of Black and White. It was a simple plan and its success would be easily demonstrable: when everyone on her list was dead, she would know she had achieved victory. Crowns and heirs; seats and claims; allies and enemies; these meant little and less to her. She would not be made to serve as anyone's liege. She would not be used as currency to buy loyalty for a cause she did not claim as her own. She would not be that pretty banner around which men would rally.

Westeros be damned, she thought. She meant only to seek vengeance for her family and her love. They could keep their titles and thrones; she had no need of them.

Why, then, did she feel as though she had been caught in a powerful current, and the best she could hope for now was to avoid drowning?

Lord Blackwood seemed to sense the girl's trepidation, though perhaps he had not fully discerned the source of it. He squeezed her arm reassuringly and because he had been a friend to her father, and because, despite her creeping doubts, she had a strong feeling about him, she allowed herself to be reassured. Together, they advanced further into the feast chamber.

The hall was brighter and livelier than Arya would have guessed for a feast which had been thrown together overnight. Her own party numbered ten (excluding the wolves, of course), plus the two representatives of the Brotherhood who had arrived that day. The Blackwood family numbered six (and with the addition of Ser Brynden, they would number seven. His heir had arrived late from Pennytree, Lord Blackwood revealed to Arya, but would assuredly be in attendance after making himself presentable). Arya was finally introduced to Lady Blackwood, and then each of her children in turn.

"You're the lady who knows how to fight," said Baby Bobbin when he was presented to Arya, then, turning to his mother and sister, asked, "Why don't you know how to fight?"

"Your mother knows very well how to fight, Robert," Lord Blackwood laughed, "only her weapons are not so obvious as Valyrian steel!"

Lady Blackwood only smiled demurely, but Arya could sense the strength behind her tolerant expression.

There were sworn knights present, of both high and common birth, along with the maester of Raventree Hall, the steward, the master of horse, and a septon (though whether he served the Blackwoods or some nearby village, the girl was not sure). There were also several men and and a few women who Arya did not recognize but whose elegant dress hinted at their elevated (possibly even noble) positions. One of the fashionable ladies, Arya realized with a start, she did know, however improbable it seemed that she should.

Lady Smallwood.

Lyra had not mentioned that Lord Smallwood's wife had traveled with him. The Cat found it strange that such a visit would have occurred without any sort of prior notice. A lord and lady arriving by happenstance at a great house on the very day of an unplanned feast? Arya narrowed her eyes, surveying the room, taking in all the guests and wondering at each one's purpose here. She felt as though someone had torn a map into small bits and laid those bits in a pile before her. She knew all the pieces were there, but she wasn't quite sure how they fit together, and until she figured it out, she wouldn't be able to find her way home.

When Lord Blackwood introduced Arya to Lord and Lady Smallwood, it was apparent that the Lady of Acorn Hall did not immediately recognize her former guest. After all, Lady Smallwood had not been allowed to know the girl's name during her stay. There must have been something she found familiar, however, judging by the woman's bewildered expression. Arya could almost see the thoughts as they tumbled through the lady's head. She imagined they went something like, This girl seems familiar to me, almost as if I know her, but I have never met Arya Stark, so how can that be?

The assassin said nothing to alleviate Lady Smallwood's confusion as she was unsure whether the lady would wish for the details of that visit be known by present company. Lady Smallwood had sheltered the Brotherhood at Acorn Hall while her husband was away, and there had been rumors of her old (and perhaps, not so old) ties to Tom O' Sevens. The discretion may not have been required, but Arya felt it best to speak with the lady in private first. Lord Smallwood greeted the girl with the appropriate degree of formality and deference, but his wife remained distracted, obviously trying to recall where she had seen the girl's face before.

Had she really changed so much in five years? Arya knew her hair had darkened some, and it had certainly grown, no longer the choppy, short mop of an urchin who had spent a great deal of time pretending to be a boy. Still, her face was her face, was it not? She resolved to ask Gendry or Harwin. The girl thought it strange to be recognized instantly by a man she had never met before but to be unknown by someone who had clothed her in her daughter's own dresses five years prior. Perhaps the darkened lips and lined eyes were even more of a disguise than she realized.

Arya saw the blacksmith-knight across the great hall, speaking with Tom O'Sevens. Elsbeth and Little Nate stood in that tight group, listening to whatever conversation the men of the Brotherhood were having. Tom was shaking his head at Gendry as he spoke. Arya could not break away from Lord Blackwood to seek her old friend's company just then, as the Riverlander was continuing to present her to the most important among the revelers.

"Karyl!" Lord Blackwood bellowed when he spotted a tall man in conversation with the maester of Raventree Hall.

"Tytos, you old dog," the tall man replied in a cordial tone as the Riverlander approached with Arya on his arm. "I was beginning to wonder if you meant to keep your guest from me." The stranger turned to face the girl, brushing his long brown hair from where it was hanging over his eyes. When he did, he revealed a large, wine-colored birthmark which marred most of one cheek, extending over his eye and down his neck. Arya supposed he kept his hair long to hide it as best he could, though she found his face somehow pleasing to look upon. Of course, she had always been more intrigued by interesting than beautiful.

"Never, my friend," Lord Blackwood assured the man. "My lady, may I present Karyl Vance, the Lord of Wayfarer's Rest? Lord Vance, this is the delightful Lady Arya Stark."

Delightful, indeed, she scoffed inwardly. It was clear the lord did not know her very well. The girl smirked but still managed a small bow of her head to match Lord Vance's own.

"Lady Arya, you cannot know how much it means to all of us that you are here," Lord Vance commented quite seriously.

Curious. Why should Lord Vance care about her?

"I thank you, my lord."

"Don't look so somber, Karyl," Lord Blackwood interrupted playfully. "This is a celebration! Now, if you'll excuse us, I must help this young lady make the acquaintance of the rest of my guests."

Lord Vance bowed his head once again, but said, "My lady, I do hope we will have the chance to speak again later." The girl had time to smile and nod before her host whisked her off once again. However, before she had the opportunity to meet everyone her escort had intended, the steward, in his capacity as surveyor of the feast, was calling for everyone's attention. When the eyes of the room were upon him, the steward directed those with a place at the Lord's table to be seated.

"This is our signal, my dear," Lord Blackwood said to the girl, once again taking her arm. "We must rally to our places, else the feast cannot begin and the ravenous guests may riot!"

"Are rioting guests a common woe in the Riverlands?" the girl snickered.

The lord's look was careworn as he replied, "My lady, you have no idea."

He escorted her up the steps to the dais and personally held her chair for her. When she was seated to the right of his chair, Lord and Lady Blackwood sat. They were followed by Lord Vance to Lady Blackwood's left and then the Blackwood children on either end of the table (save Baby Bobbin, who was seated at the high table just below the Lord's table, with his nurse and the master at arms to keep him occupied and guarantee his good behavior for the feast). The chair immediately to Arya's right remained conspicuously empty.

"Have I driven away someone of import, my lord?" Arya asked her host, nodding to the empty seat.

"Please forgive my son, Lady Arya. I expect him here shortly."

Lord Blackwood had no sooner spoken the words when a tall, lean man with waving, sandy hair burst through the doors and sauntered up the center aisle toward the dais. As he passed the lower tables, he smiled, nodding and exchanging greetings with a few of the knights who slapped him on the back as he passed. The display seemed to indicate the newcomer was popular among his men and the more important villagers who had attended the feast. The man jogged up the steps of the dais, stopping briefly to kiss Lady Bethany's cheek before dropping into the seat next to Arya.

Ser Brynden, then, the Cat thought, back from Pennytree.

At that precise moment, Lord Blackwood stood, welcoming his guests to the feast.

"Today is a day of immeasurable joy here at Raventree Hall and indeed, across the entirety of the Riverlands, for we gather to celebrate the daughter of a great house once thought all but extinct. Raise your glasses, kith and kin, and drink to my good friend, the honorable Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell, taken too soon from this world. And drink to his son, the brave Robb Stark, King in the North and our one true sovereign. Raise your cups for Lady Catelyn Stark, beloved mistress of Winterfell and daughter of our leige lord, Hoster Tully. Raise your cups for all the Tullys of Riverrun. Let us toast the miraculous survival of the one house which rose to lead us against the tyranny and lies of the Lannister pretenders!" Tytos Blackwood lifted his pewter goblet high then, calling out over the crowd, "To Lady Arya, of House Stark!"

A great cheer went up around the room, men rising to their feet and calling back, "To Lady Arya of House Stark!"

Amid the deafening roar of voices and stamping and goblets banging against tables with enough force to cause her skull to vibrate, Arya looked out over the crowd and found the Bear's eyes staring back at her across the sea of raucous revelers. She was discomfited by the fact that the worry she felt just then seemed to be reflected in her brother's expression as he held her gaze. Her own expression betrayed nothing but her head swam as her true identity was so openly declared, melting years of Facelessness and pretense from her small frame in the same way a spring thaw melts the ice from the high branches of a sentinel.

She only hoped that she could manage to stand as strong and unwavering as the sentinel amid the mounting pressures that were sure to soon besiege her.

Arya Stark, currently the only confirmed survivor of her great family and heir apparent to her brother Robb's crown (which brought with it dominion over the whole of the North and the Riverlands), was frozen in her place of honor, on the dais at the head of the feast chamber, between the current and future lords of Raventree Hall. As Lord Blackwood drank to her family and her survival, his own heir, Ser Brynden, sipped happily from his goblet. Lady Blackwood, resplendent in a gold gown which suited her coloring, sat to her husband's left, her cheek rosy in the candlelight flooding the dais. She was more reserved than her husband, as befitted a lady of her stature, but Arya wondered if Ellenya Blackwood's lack of overt enthusiasm during the toast betrayed some doubts about her husband's plans for the last of the Starks.

Would Lady Blackwood even be privy to such plans?

As the feast went on, the girl made a study of those surrounding her. To Lady Blackwood's left, Karyl Vance was seated, earning his place at the head table as a nobleman from the most powerful house present, save for Lord Blackwood and Arya herself. During Lord Blackwood's welcome and toast, the Lord of Wayfarer's rest had gazed intently at Eddard Stark's daughter and she thought she read in his face a version of the same ambition and determination she had earlier sensed in Tytos Blackwood himself. Further along in the festivities, however, Lord Vance's expression had become inexplicably melancholy and was at odds with the gaiety so pervasive in the room. Still, to the Cat, it seemed more appropriate than the cheering and endless toasts she had endured since her public introduction by her host.

Bethany Blackwood, who would occasionally catch Arya's eye and use a nod of her head or a flick of her gaze to indicate which men in the room she thought might be admiring Arya's person at various times, sat between her brothers Brynden and Alyn. The infamous Ben Blackwood was seated on the far side of Lord Vance, between Lord and Lady Smallwood.

At the high table just below her own, Arya recognized the master at arms as the man who had been training the tot in the yard earlier, a child she now knew was little Lord Robert, the youngest of the Blackwood children. A man wearing the robes and chain of the Citadel dined there as well, Maester Alfryd as he was called. At the very edge of the Baby Bobbin's table sat a blonde woman of immense stature who Arya did not recognize. The tall stranger seemed to be giving Arya long looks, the meaning of which the girl was having trouble deciphering.

"Lord Blackwood," the girl began, leaning in slightly to her host, "who is that woman?" She nodded toward the ruddy faced lady who wore her fair hair cropped.

"Ah!" He smiled at her, swallowing a bit of his wine. "You've not met Lady Brienne of House Tarth. Her father is Lord of Evenfall Hall. I shall introduce you once you've eaten."

So that was Lady Brienne. The Cat recalled that Gendry had mentioned her at the inn. The large woman was engaged in talk with the master at arms who was seated across from her. Arya's contemplation of the knightly woman was cut short by the man to her right.

"We've not properly met, my lady," said the heir to Raventree Hall, drawing the assassin's gaze. "I did not wish to interrupt the toasts for fear you'd think me ill-mannered. I'm Brynden Blackwood."

"Far be it from me to judge anyone's manners, ser," the girl said, causing Ser Brynden to arch an eyebrow and lift one corner of his mouth. "I had guessed at your identity, though. I am Arya Stark. It's my honor to meet you."

Ser Brynden was a handsome man, well-featured, and Lyra had not misrepresented him. With his high cheekbones, blue eyes, and light hair, he was his mother's son. It would only take her a moment to discover that the maid had also been correct in her assessment that he was a Blackwood through and through. There was much of his father's manner in him, a confidence and a certain shrewdness and enough of grace to mark him as highborn, even if the two men shared few physical traits.

Arya proffered her hand in a delicate move which would have made Catelyn Stark proud and would probably have shocked Sansa to her proper little core, so cordial and courteous was her rough little sister just then. The girl had to stop herself from smirking at the thought. Ser Brynden took her hand and pressed a kiss to it. She could feel his smile against her flesh as he did so. She glanced out over the crowd as the heir to Raventree Hall released her hand and found Ser Gendry near the back of the hall, watching her. He seemed to be frowning though Elsbeth, who was seated next to him, was chatting away happily in his ear.

"The honor is mine, my lady," the knight said, drawing her attention away from the blacksmith and back to himself. "I can't tell you how pleased we all were to find you alive, and in such good health. This is the happiest I've seen my father in years." Ser Brynden nodded toward Lord Blackwood who was laughing with his lady as servants began delivering trenchers of an aromatic stew with chunks of hot bread perched upon the edges.

"Truthfully, ser, I find it all a bit..."

"Overwhelming?" he supplied helpfully, tearing off a piece of the bread and popping it into his mouth. Brynden's eyebrows were raised slightly as he watched the girl's face.

"More... unexpected," she replied. "To be plain about it, I didn't think I'd be known. I thought I might make most of my journey unrecognized."

"My lady, even had you lacked your family name, a maid of your beauty could not have remained unknown for very long in Westeros."

Arya's eyes narrowed infinitesimally. She instinctively mistrusted such empty praise. Leaning closer to the knight, she murmured, "My lord, you should reserve your flattery for someone more deserving." The advice had the sound of a warning about it which Ser Brynden detected. His eyes widened slightly as he protested.

"Lady Arya, you are certainly the most deserving woman in this room."

"Then you should reserve it for someone more susceptible." She knew her response was not in keeping with Ser Willem's exhortation to be gracious, and she had to admit that her elegant sister's imagined skepticism of her manners would have been justified just then, but she had no appetite for games. Perhaps for Sansa, courtesy was effective armor, but Arya had always found that armor made the best armor. She wished she were wearing her breastplate now, with Grey Daughter strapped to her back and Frost at her hip; then perhaps everyone who looked upon her would understand who she was. And who she was not.

"I meant no offense, my lady..."

"And none was given, ser. I simply wish to spare you the tedium of trying to conjure enough pretty words to say to me to make passable conversation. I'd rather hear of your business in the village than watch you perjure yourself in an attempt to charm me."

The knight laughed, the sound of it rich and deep and delighted. "You are a revelation, my lady. I had thought all young maids liked to be told how comely they are."

"Many do, I suppose, even when faced with a complete lack of evidence to support such claims. I am not one of them, however."

"I will consider myself schooled on the matter now, Lady Arya."

"I am happy to be of assistance."

The sandy-headed man leaned in close enough that only she could hear him and said in a low voice, "Still, you injure my honor when you accuse me of speaking false. Every word was truly meant, regardless of how unwelcome you may find the sentiment."

There was a sincerity to his words that caught Arya off her guard. She fought to keep the color from her cheek, but she wasn't entirely sure the endeavor was successful. Halfway across the feast chamber, Ser Willem's raised eyebrow and his small smirk as he watched her seemed to further indicate her failure. She bit her lower lip, telling herself to rule her face. There was much at stake and much danger lurked, possibly even in this very room, so that it would not be wise to allow herself to be undone by a bit of flattery from a handsome man.

A girl must always keep her head about her, lest she lose it.

As he often did during the most challenging times of her life, Jaqen came to her. Arya heeded his admonition. She would keep her wits, for she was certain she would have need of them this night.

Platter after platter was delivered to the table by jolly servants, the best portions being selected by Lord Blackwood and placed before Arya despite her protests. She found herself too preoccupied to sustain an appetite but she nibbled at bread and roasted boar in an effort to seem polite. When at last the trays of lemon cakes and apple tarts were placed on the table between Ser Brynden and herself, the girl gave up all pretense and leaned back in her seat, looking away from the final course and over the crowd again, trying to discern who was like to be friend and who might be foe.

"Have you no taste for sweets, Lady Arya?" Ser Brynden asked as he reached for a tart.

"Not this night, my lord," she replied distractedly. "I find your sister's corset has left me with little room to breathe, much less for eating treats."

The knight snorted his laughter, almost choking as he said, "My lady! Are you trying to shock me?"

Arya's voice was quiet as she asked, "Do you find the truth so shocking?" She turned to face him.

"I suppose I do," he answered, studying her for a moment. "I am unused to ladies saying whatever is on their minds."

"Well, I apologize then, ser. I did not intend to scandalize you." Her tone bordered on disdainful.

"No need for apologies, my lady. I find myself quite enamored with your bluntness, even if it is foreign to me."

"Perhaps it is merely the novelty which interests you, ser," the girl suggested. "You may not feel so inclined after you've spent more time with me and the novelty wears thin."

"Is that a challenge, Lady Arya?" the knight inquired, his eyes twinkling with mischief. When she did not reply, he stood, saying, "If you'll not indulge in a sweet, perhaps you would prefer a dance?" The minstrels had struck up a likely tune for dancing just then. Ser Brynden stood tall on the dais, drawing the attention of the entire hall, cutting a gallant figure with one arm tucked neatly behind his back while he extended his other hand to her. She did not think she could refuse him without causing public awkwardness, and so she stood and slipped her small palm against his, allowing the knight to lead her down the steps of the dais. Men scrambled to move the foremost tables to the side as the couple approached, making room for dancing. Soon, the two were joined by others whirling about the floor. The eldest Blackwood son wasted no time in initiating conversation with his partner.

"How do you find the feast, Lady Arya?"

"Oh, it's lovely," she said, and it was an answer delivered without hesitation, but also without conviction.

"Come now, where is the bluntness you had no trouble showing earlier?"

"Have I said something wrong, ser?"

"Perhaps I am mistaken, my lady, but I have the notion that you would rather be anywhere but here."

"Anywhere but the dance floor?" Arya asked. "Or, anywhere but a feast announcing my return to Westeros?"

"Anywhere but my father's house."

"Then you are mistaken, Ser Brynden. I find Raventree Hall to be splendid."

"The feast is lovely. The castle is splendid. I must say, you are quite agreeable this evening."

"How do you know I'm not always this agreeable?"

Brynden Blackwood grinned. "Let's call it a hunch."

The heir to Raventree Hall towered over his dancing partner and inclined his head toward Arya's for a moment before he spoke again, moving her gracefully around the floor all the while. He seemed to inhale deeply, which struck the girl as odd.

"I know this scent you wear, my lady. Did my sister lend it to you?"

"Now who's behaving scandalously?" the Cat scolded. "How familiar you are, Ser Brynden, to comment on a lady's scent."

"Oh, do forgive me, Lady Arya," the knight said, his tone teasing, "I had always assumed that when a lady applies scent, she expects for it to be commented upon, else why wear it?"

"I didn't apply it," the girl grumbled. "It was applied to me before I could object."

"Come now, don't frown so. The perfume suits you, but the consternation does not."

"It suits me? Have you made a study of which scents best complement certain ladies?"

"Not as such, no," he admitted, "but this oil is one I bought off a vendor from Braavos. It's exotic, rare, and spicy. If that's not you to the letter, my lady, I don't know what is."

Cloves and ginger. The scent did suit her. Too well. But not for the reasons Ser Brynden had listed. Thinking on it caused an ache in her chest, however.

"I'd rather not talk about it," she said, her voice soft. Her eyes took on a faraway look, as if she could see through the thick castle walls, over the hills, and across the sea.

"You are a strange sort of girl, Lady Arya. You smell of exotic spices but expect a man holding you in his arms not to notice. You don't like to be told that you're pretty, even when you are quite clearly the most beautiful woman in the room. Your step is feather-light and graceful as we dance yet you fight like a daemon with your swords." Arya looked up at him then, her eyes narrowing, and he laughed, saying, "Oh yes, I've heard. In fact, you're nearly all anyone in the castle has talked about since my return."

The girl wasn't sure if the knight was merely teasing her, but she pondered his words in silence for a few moments more as he moved her along the edge of the gathered crowd. Everyone they passed seemed to be whispering about her and she decided Ser Brynden was like to be telling the truth.

"I'm sorry you've been bothered by idle gossip..." she started.

"Not at all," he dismissed. "I only wish I'd been here to see it for myself. I think you've quite bewitched the castle, my lady."

"Oh?"

"Mmm," he nodded. "You've certainly made an impression on my father."

"And what of you, ser? What is your impression?"

The handsome knight's brow crinkled even as his mouth lifted into a smile. "I'm not quite sure yet, my lady. I am at a loss."

Arya turned her head to the side, looking away from Ser Brynden's enigmatic smile. She spied Ser Gendry dancing with Elsbeth not ten feet from her. He looked... uncomfortable. Before she could turn her gaze from the couple, the blacksmith-knight looked up and caught her staring. His blue eyes bored into hers and though she had always been reasonably good at reading faces, she could not puzzle out her friend's thoughts just then. She offered him a small smile before turning her attention back to her dancing partner. Ser Brynden was still looking down at her with that same quizzical expression.

"People often don't know what to make of me," she finally shrugged.

"In my experience, when a woman says something like that, she's begging for someone to take the time to understand her."

"In your experience," the girl repeated, scoffing. "Is your experience with contradictory, misunderstood women so vast?"

"Why, yes, my lady," Ser Brynden replied as the music ended, his confidence a palpable thing, and then he bent as if bowing to her and whispered in her ear, "and it's growing every day."

Arya's small hand snaked up Ser Brynden's neck and slipped into the sandy hair at the back of his skull, trapping his head in its bowed position so that he could not pull away. She raised herself up on her toes and turned her face so that her mouth was level with his ear before she whispered back, "I don't care what your experience with other women has been. I don't give a bloody fuck if anyone ever understands me." She released him then and curtsied deeply, sweeping her arm out wide with overdone grace before turning to leave. The heir to Raventree Hall shook with his laughter as he watched the girl in white walk away, skirts fluttering in her wake.

Ser Willem Ferris, the Faceless knight, reached out for Arya as she strode past him, headed for the doors.

"Are you quite well, my lady?" he asked, and the words were that of a Dornish nobleman but the concern in his eyes belonged only to the Bear. He added quietly, "I think our hosts might take it as insult if you abandon the feast just now."

"This is exactly what I was afraid of," she hissed quietly, gesturing around the room. "All this... this... nonsense. All these political... machinations."

He drew her toward a corner so that they might speak without being heard. "It's not so dire, sister," he whispered. "It will take weeks, months even, for this news to travel far and wide. By then, we will be long gone. Nothing is lost yet. Take heart."

"News travels slowly on foot or horseback, maybe, but with ravens..."

"Do you imagine Lord Blackwood will send a raven to the Lannisters to announce your return?"

"No, but.."

"There is no reason you can't enjoy a feast. No one is declaring you Queen in the North tonight, sister. I wish you would be at your ease." The Bear's voice took on a pleading tone. "We've had so little peace in our past, and the road we travel is not like to give us much more. For one night, can't we eat and dance and laugh?"

Arya sighed. "You know my aim. I don't think I'll find much help for it here. I'm afraid if I stay, I may be actively hindered."

"Do you think to hop on Bane's back right now, in your white gown and dainty slippers, and ride off into the night alone?" He was amused and made no effort to hide it.

"No, of course not," she said. "You must think me a very great fool, Ser Willem."

"Not really, my lady. I'm only trying to make you smile. You look... distressed."

Arya sagged a little. "They haven't said it explicitly, but these Riverlanders aren't so difficult to read. I am certain they mean to marry me off to one or another of them and march me North to claim the Winter Throne."

"Do you really think their plans are so settled? You've only just arrived." The Faceless knight sounded skeptical.

"I think if we don't leave soon, we'll find ourselves embroiled in a political scenario we may not find it easy to escape."

The Bear placed his two great hands on the girl's slender shoulders and made her a vow.

"No political scenario will ever hold us prisoner, sister." The Lyseni laughed as if the very thought of such a thing was ridiculous, and perhaps it was. "I'll die before I let you be forced into a marriage you don't want. I've sworn to protect you, and I mean to keep that oath. Do you believe me?"

The girl gave her brother a weak smile and nodded. She did believe him, but the unsettled feeling in her gut persisted.

"Now, let's dance before Lord Blackwood starts to get suspicious," Ser Willem suggested. He hooked his arm through Arya's and the two assassins took a turn around the floor, smiling at those who greeted them as they passed. As they finished and bowed to one another, Lord Blackwood approached, Brienne of Tarth at his side.

"Ser Willem, I must steal your lady away, for there are many anxious for her company," their host explained. The Bear bowed his head respectfully and moved off to seek his squire who sat drinking wine with the members of the Brotherhood. "Lady Arya, may I present Lady Brienne of Evenfall Hall?"

"My lady," Arya murmured, but before she could say else, the blonde giant had dropped to one knee, startling the girl.

"Lady Arya," Brienne began earnestly, her head bowed, "I have looked for you for long years, through the Riverlands, south to King's Landing, across the Westerlands and the Vale. I pledged to seek you out and discover your fate, returning you to the bosom of your family if you still lived."

"Pledged? To whom?"

"Why, your mother, Lady Arya!" Lady Brienne looked up at the girl then. "I was the sworn sword of Lady Stark."

"Lady Stoneheart, you mean," the girl said quietly.

"No, my lady. It's true that I ride now with the Brotherhood without Banners, but I swore an oath to Catelyn Stark."

"You knew... my mother?" Arya swallowed hard.

"I did, my lady. I do."

"Well, I'm afraid I no longer have a family to whose bosom you may return me, but I thank you for your service to my lady mother."

"Lady Arya, your mother awaits you. I intend to take you to her, and fulfill my oath."

It was at this point that Lord Blackwood interjected. "Now, Lady Brienne, please rise and let there be no more serious talk tonight. We'll have plenty of time to decide what's to be done on the morrow. Tonight is for dancing and eating and drinking!" His tone seemed to portray a joviality that his eyes did not. Arya guessed that Lady Brienne's desire to fulfill her oath did not exactly fit into Lord Blackwood's own plans. The girl began to feel as though she was a piece of meat being torn between two hungry dogs.

"We'll speak further of this in the morning," Arya said graciously as Brienne rose to her full height. But not too late, else you'll miss me as I ride away.

"I shall look forward to it, Lady Arya," Brienne promised, bowing before she turned away and cut through the crowd to find a seat. Karyl Vance approached then, asking the girl for a dance. She recalled that the lord had wished to speak with her again and only hesitated a moment before obliging him. She decided she had best see what the Lord of Wayfarer's Rest was about.

"So you've met the Lady Brienne, I see," Lord Vance said as he guided Arya around the floor in time with the music. He was not a particularly graceful man, but he did not trod on her toes, so for that she was grateful.

"I did," the girl replied. "Is she always so... intense?"

"Yes. She is."

"Do you know her well, my lord?"

"Well enough to appreciate her. I would see her married and happy, but in times such as these, there is much work to be done first, and she has been valuable to that cause."

Arya had overheard several derisive remarks directed at the the Lady of Evenfall as she danced with her various partners, and she knew well how little regard men could have for a lady who did not fit neatly into their rigid ideal of womanhood. She had experienced some of that herself throughout her life, especially as the highborn daughter of a great lord. She expected she would be subjected to even more judgment now that she was back in Westeros and so publicly identified as that same highborn daughter.

"You truly appreciate her, my lord?" Arya asked, unconvinced that Lord Vance could be sincere.

"Aye, I do. Lady Brienne may not be thought a beauty by many, it's true, and there are those who resent her refusal to keep to the occupations usually reserved for the fairer sex, but there are enough rare qualities in her that I cannot help but to see her true worth, even if others do not."

"Ser Gendry has told me she is adept with a sword."

"The lady is a more than capable warrior," he agreed, "but I have learned to treasure her valor and goodness. They are equal to any man's."

"A lord of Westeros who recognizes the true worth of a woman? You are a rare man indeed, Lord Vance."

"In the summers of a man's life, it may be a woman's countenance and form which draw him to her, but it is in the winters of his life that he begins to understand that the things which should command his loyalty are not to be found so superficially."

Arya knew that the Riverlander did not refer to the seasons as he spoke, but rather the times of ease and the times of hardship that all men endured.

"You speak like a Northman, my lord," she said, and though her voice was neutral, it was meant as a great compliment. This Lord Vance knew.

"The Riverlands and the North have much in common," he replied, "and I have known and respected a great many Northmen, among them, his grace, King Robb."

She bowed her head, both in appreciation of Lord Vance's words and in sorrow for the loss of her brother. The Riverlander spun her in three slow circles as was demanded by the particular dance in which they were engaged. When she was once again secure in his arms, they moved along the edge of the floor for a moment before he spoke again.

"I knew your father as well, my lady."

This surprised her. "You did?"

"I met him once, when he served as Hand of the King. I had been sent to the capital on an errand for my father. This was before the war, mind you," he explained, looking a little wistful. "Summer." Though it truly had been summer, the way he said it, she knew instinctively that he meant something else. After a moment, he seemed to remember himself and stopped their movement so that they were no longer dancing. Lord Vance grasped her arms gently, holding her in place and looking her in the eye. "Eddard Stark was an honorable man and no traitor to the crown. What they did to him was wrong, my lady."

"It was," she agreed. "I know that very well, but I appreciate you saying it."

"Often times I wonder if I had been there, would..."

She interrupted him with a soft touch, her small hand wrapping around his forearm. "Do not think on it, my lord, for there is nothing to be gained in the speculation. Allow me to solve the mystery for you. There is nothing you could have done. The crowd was thick, and it all happened so fast."

"My lady, you speak as if you were there."

"I was."

He looked at her first with shock, then with pity. Neither were things she cared to entertain just then. What had happened had happened, and there was no profit in lamenting it in the middle of a feast, surrounded by strangers. Arya Stark mourned alone, and she would have her justice. She did not need the pity of others to get it.

Lord Smallwood, and Lord Blackwood both entreated Arya for a dance. By the time her host was bowing to her and thanking her for obliging him, Lord Alyn, Bethany's slightly older brother, had approached and awkwardly cleared his throat. Arya took pity on him and smiled graciously, accepting his hand and taking a turn with the boy around the floor. They were of an age, but Lord Alyn clearly had more growing left to do. He was still a gangly lad with some of his father's looks, but none of the elder Blackwood's assured confidence.

I suppose that comes with age, she thought.

As she finished her dance with the sweet if unpolished Lord Alyn, Arya's feet were beginning to fairly ache. She had meant to drop onto the nearest bench and seat herself for a rest when she felt an arm slide around her middle and found herself whisked away as the next tune began to play. Startled, she looked up at the face of her partner as he whirled her round and round.

Ben Blackwood.

"Well, sweetling, you finally get me all to yourself," he said by way of greeting once she managed to focus on his face amid the whirling. The dance was intricate and unknown to her. She found herself being held close and tight by Lord Blackwood's rakish son as he guided her through the steps.

"Loosen your grip, ser, I can barely breathe," Arya responded through clenched teeth. She pulled away but Ser Ben responded by dragging her closer in to himself.

He painted his close embrace as a thing of gallantry. "I'm afraid if I do that, you will lose your step, my lady. I wouldn't like for some less graceful guest to trod on your hem!"

"If you'd left me alone, I'd be in no danger of having my hem caught under anyone's feet!"

"Come now, Lady Arya, you've danced with my father and my brothers. Now it's my turn."

Arya had not overindulged in wine, but the bit she had drunk, coupled with the tight circles the young knight spun her in, had her feeling quite dizzy. She leaned her head back and looked up toward the rafters, trying to get her bearings. If only she'd managed to strap her dagger to her wrist before leaving her chamber.

"Ser Edmund!" she cried after a moment. "Stop!"

The rogue laughed, spinning her one final time. "Ben, if you please, my lady," he corrected. "No one calls me Edmund unless they are very cross with me."

When they stopped, Arya glared at him. "I am very cross with you."

"Perhaps then I should make amends?"

"How so?" Her tone was suspicious.

He grinned wickedly. "Shall I think on it, my lady, and then come to your chamber tonight to tell you what I've come up with?"

The Cat pursed her lips, fighting the urge to shower the young knight with a stream of profanities that would make the sailors in Ragman's Harbor blush to hear. She didn't suppose those within earshot would be charmed by such a display and she had no wish to shame her host. Besides, Ben Blackwood caught his father frowning at him over her shoulder, the lord's displeasure at his son's boorish behavior evident on his face. Before the elder Blackwood could drag his mischievous son away by his ear, Gendry came to the girl's rescue, having seen the tail end of their dance and determining that someone should put an end to the display. Just as the blacksmith reached the couple, Ser Ben grabbed Arya's hand hastily, kissing her knuckles rather more sensuously than was called for.

The jackanapes actually moaned a little. Arya's lip curled as she yanked her hand back.

"Until later, then, my lady," he said, winking, and then he was gone.

Without a word, Gendry held out his hand and waited for Arya to take it. Sighing gratefully, she did just that, but instead of pulling her back into the middle of the dance floor, he led her through the crowd and to a bench along the far wall of the chamber, a relatively quiet spot, and indicated that she should sit.

"You don't want to dance?" the girl asked, dropping onto the bench and leaning against the stone wall behind her.

"I do," he insisted, "but you looked as if you could use a rest."

She smiled, looking down at the tips of her slippers peeking from beneath her hem and nodded. The shoes were pretty enough, but overlarge, and the way they rubbed against her heels was sure to raise blisters. The girl was glad of the respite.

"I think Ser Edmund must have been a bit too far in his cups," the dark knight commented after a moment.

"Ben? I'm sure he's had his share, but I'd wager whether he's in his cups or sober as a septon, his behavior remains the same."

"Did he harm you any, m'lady?"

Arya snorted. "Do you imagine someone like Ben Blackwood could really harm me?"

"No, I know you're very fearsome with a blade, m'lady..."

"I've told you not to call me that..."

"...but you've got no blade on you, as far as I can tell, and if he has... imposed on you in any way, I'll have words with the boy."

"Would these words be punctuated with fists, or perhaps weaponry of some sort?" she asked.

"Aye, they might be."

The girl looked up at her old friend, amused. "Would you duel for me, Ser Gendry?" She smiled as she said it.

"If need be."

"Would you run a man through, if he... imposed on me?"

"I would, if you wished it."

"And if you were injured? If you were the one run through? What then?"

"I don't think I would be, m'lady. I'm more than fair with a sword these days, and better with a warhammer, but if it came to that, I'd at least die knowing that I'd done my duty and defended your honor."

"My honor," she spat and looked away. Her face settled into a grimace. Hesitantly, the large knight sat on the bench beside her. After a moment, she turned to him. "Gendry," she began seriously, "you have to know... I'd never ask that of you. I'd never want that." At Arya's use of his name without title or pretext, the blacksmith's eyes softened.

"I know..."

"You may have some mistaken idea of me as... oh, a weak little girl. Or a helpless highborn."

"As bullheaded as you like to think me, I'm not so stupid as to consider you helpless, m'lady. You nearly killed me with a tree branch, remember?"

She smiled slightly at the memory. Dead man. Still, she persisted.

"I don't want you putting yourself in danger on my behalf. I don't want anyone doing that. I don't need to be defended. Do you understand?"

"Aye, m'lady, I do. The thing is..."

Arya eyed the large man expectantly.

"I'm your sworn knight," he reminded her. "If I'm not to defend you, what would you have of me?"

The girl tugged her beet-stained lower lip between her teeth and chewed thoughtfully, staring out at the crowd of revelers but not really seeing them. The truth was, she wasn't quite sure what to do with Ser Gendry. She had not truly meant for him to follow her, but a man's oath was a serious matter and he had pledged his loyalty to her when they were at the inn. Still, they had not yet met with Lady Stoneheart, and the leader of the the Brotherhood was sure to have an opinion on the matter. Once her mother had passed judgment, Arya supposed she could decide how best to employ the blacksmith-knight, assuming Lady Stoneheart released him rather than hanging him for desertion. But whatever was decided, Arya knew she couldn't allow the dark knight to put himself in harm's way for her. Not when she was the more capable of the two with a blade.

She ought to be the one defending him, not the other way around. She could put a knife through Ben Blackwood's eye from across the room, if she had call to do so.

She released her abused lip and looked up at Gendry, meaning to tell him as much, but the expression on his face arrested her. He was staring at her mouth, brows knitted, his own lips slightly parted. It bewildered her for a moment.

"Don't mind me, ser," Arya finally said, mistakenly thinking she had stumbled on what concerned him. "Chewing my lip is an old habit; one I've been unable to shed despite years of effort. I assure you, no real harm is done. I rarely draw blood." She laughed lightly and the sound of it snapped the spell the knight seemed to be under. He cleared his throat.

"Yes. Well..."

"Well?" the girl prodded.

"I've... I just realized, I've never seen you... like this." He nodded his head toward her.

"Like what, ser?" Her confusion was not feigned.

"So... well... Well, there's your hair, for one. And there's stain on your lips. Your gown, it's so... It's..." Gendry struggled unsuccessfully to find the right words. Arya cocked her head slightly, trying to discern if her friend was pleased or perturbed. His expression seemed to be a mixture of both emotions. "Well, you're just... and you smell..."

"I smell?"

"No! I mean, you smell nice. You're wearing scent! And you look..."

"Like a proper little girl?" Arya laughed. "That's exactly what you said at Acorn Hall all those years ago! You told me I smelled nice and I looked like a proper little girl, like a nice oak tree!" She laughed some more. "A troop of maids had scrubbed me pink and cut my hair so it wasn't so shaggy and then stuffed me into some acorn dress. I don't think you really believed I was a girl until then!"

"No, it's not the same. It's different now. You're different now." His voice was soft, barely above a whisper.

Was she different now? She supposed she was. She had been too changed, too affected by the things she had seen and done since she and Gendry wrestled in the forge at Acorn Hall to think otherwise. But she was no more enamored with these trappings of womanhood now than she was then. The corset pinched, the slippers were impractical, and the piles of braids pinned to her scalp weighed heavily.

"This is merely an illusion," Arya told the knight, waving her hand to indicate her hair and her gown. "It's a carefully planned costume. Come tomorrow, my face will be scrubbed clean and I'll be in breeches and blouses once again, ill mannered and unrefined as ever. I'm sorry if that disappoints you, ser."

"I can't imagine a circumstance where you'd ever disappoint me, m'lady. On the contrary..." The unfinished thought hung in the air a moment and then Ser Gendry said, "I believe you owe me a dance."

Arya stood, saying, "For you timely intervention with Ben Blackwood, I suppose it's the least I can do. You may have prevented bloodshed."

"I'll consider it more than adequate payment."

Gendry led the assassin to the dance floor but before they could begin, Baby Bobbin approached and stood expectantly in front of the girl.

"Lady Arya," the young boy began, "will you do me the cur-sity of dancing with me?" It was an obviously rehearsed speech and Lady Bethany stood a discreet few feet behind, biting back her laughter at her youngest brother's sweet sincerity.

"Courtesy, Bobbin," his sister corrected in a comical whisper. "The courtesy of dancing with you."

The boy turned, frowning at his sister and loudly whispered back, "That's what I said! The cur-sity of dancing!"

Arya looked up at the dark knight at her side and Gendry nodded, releasing her for the moment. The girl curtsied deeply to the youngster, saying in a very sincere tone, "You do me great honor, Lord Robert."

Grinning, the little lord said, "You can call me Bobbin." He grasped at Arya's hands, skipping in wild circles without regard to the actual tune being played just then. He dragged the laughing girl along with him, and she complimented him on his skillful dancing. "I didn't even practice any!" Baby Bobbin declared. Arya laughed, looking over his curly head and catching Bethany's eye. The Blackwood daughter smiled gratefully, pressing her hand over her heart. Just as Bethany was beloved and pampered by her older brothers and father, it seemed that Bobbin was his sister's pet.

As they trooped haphazardly around the floor, the other dancers did their best to dodge the exuberant boy and his jolly partner. Bobbin, oblivious to the havoc he was creating, chatted away guilelessly, telling Arya that Ser Ulfryck (the castle's master-at-arms) had said it was unnatural for a woman to be so skilled with a sword. It seemed Ser Brynden had been correct; there was a lot of talk surrounding her in the castle, and not all of it approving.

"I'll tell you a secret, Bobbin," the assassin offered, bending her head toward his conspiratorially. "I'm not really a woman."

"You're not?" the boy asked breathlessly.

"No. I'm half cat and half wolf!"

The boy eyed her, his expression carrying that sort of sincere consideration of which only children are truly capable when pondering such ridiculous assertions. Finally, he told her she didn't look much like a wolf or a cat.

"That's because I'm in disguise," the girl revealed.

"You are?" Bobbin's eyes were wide. "What are you disguised as?"

"Why, can't you tell?" she whispered. "I'm disguised as the Lady of Winterfell!"

The boy nodded slowly. "It's a good disguise. You have everyone fooled!"

"I certainly hope so. I went to a great deal of effort." She eyed the boy as if thinking on something very seriously, then asked, "You won't tell my secret?"

Bobbin shook his head vigorously, blonde curls bouncing, and said solemnly, "On my honor."

"I knew I could trust you."

It might have been a jape, but Arya thought perhaps little Lord Robert was one of the few people in the room she actually could trust. When the music ended, the tot planted a sloppy kiss on his partner's hand.

"What was that for, my lord?" Arya asked, chuckling.

"I saw my brothers do it before."

"Ah, yes. Do you want to be like your brothers when you grow up?"

"I want to be a great knight, like Brynden and Ben."

"And so you shall be, I'm sure."

The Lady of Winterfell was still smiling fondly as the young boy was led away by his doting sister. The blacksmith-knight approached, reaching for Arya's elbow and gently turning her.

"Are there any more Blackwoods to contend with, or am I to have my dance now?" the knight grumbled. The Cat flicked her eyes to his face where Gendry's lopsided smile indicated his grousing was all in jest.

"I'm all yours, Ser Gendry," the girl promised, inspiring a wistful look from her old friend. He said nothing, however, but merely took her hand, leading her through the opening steps of the next dance. Others around them watched, no one more keenly than Tytos Blackwood himself. The girl could feel the weight of all those gazes upon her and she wondered at it.

The dark knight's hand was warm on Arya's back. She could feel it even through her gown and the corset she wore. The litheness of his movements surprised her, especially considering the size of him. They had been moving for a minute or two before the knight spoke.

"Have you been enjoying yourself, m'lady?"

It struck her then that some in the chamber would consider enjoyment to be of paramount importance to her; that frivolity and fun, ever the concern of highborn ladies, would be the measures by which she would judge the feast. She supposed that even the Blackwood sons would assume that for her, the importance of the evening was reduced to nothing more than the excellence of the boar, the abundance of dancing partners, and the salaciousness of the gossip to be had.

They would never make such an assumption about Lady Brienne, the girl thought. Arya knew she did not look the part of the warrior, at least not to anyone who hadn't seen her dancing with her Faceless brothers in the training yard, but then, she wasn't really a warrior, was she?

I'm an assassin. I'm a cat. I'm no one. What they believe does not alter the truth of things. Let them make assumptions.

For weren't the erroneous perceptions of others a better cloak than even the shadows through which she silently moved?

So, while being judged a lady (an insult to top all others, to be sure), she had instead been a spy; a reconnoiterer; a scout gathering information. Since she had walked into the great hall on Lord Blackwood's arm, she had been on her guard, eyes roving, searching out threats seen and unseen. She had been puzzling out the hidden intentions behind the words of men. She had surveilled the guests, watching their gestures, interpreting their expressions, and listening to their words. She had tried to read the faces of those around her so that she might know who could be trusted and who should be avoided, all while keeping her own manner neutral; light. Her vigilance left little time for things like enjoyment.

Have you been enjoying yourself, m'lady?

"Not particularly," the Cat admitted, then smiled up at her companion. "Not until now, that is."

They moved with the music. Arya did not know the dance, but her partner was sure and confident in his steps, his hand planted firmly in the small of her back, and he made it easy for her to follow.

Gendry frowned at her. "You don't have to do that with me."

"Do what?" She was perplexed.

The knight regarded her with a look that was almost mistrustful, head cocked slightly to the side as his eyes narrowed. He seemed as if he was unsure whether to believe her tone of confusion, thinking she must know full well what he meant, though she sounded convincingly as if she did not.

"Simper," he finally answered. "I know there's nothing you hate more than playing the part of the lady. You don't have to pretend with me."

"Seven hells, Gendry," Arya chided, "I wasn't playing you false. This is the first time during this bloody feast that I haven't had to fret over the political ramifications of dancing with someone or worry that the man holding me was doing nothing more than gauging how best to manipulate me so that he might share in my claim to my brother's kingdom."

"Should I be offended that you think me so unambitious? How do you know I'm not trying to manipulate you so I can share in your claim?"

Arya rolled her eyes. "You'd have to marry me, stupid."

The tall knight looked down at the girl. "I can think of worse fates for a man."

"Can you?" She laughed. "That's probably because you haven't been much in my company. No doubt I'll be able to disabuse you of the notion in short order, Ser Gendry."

"I doubt it, m'lady."

"Well, if you can think of a worse fate, can you not also think of a better one for yourself?"

Gendry did not answer her, though he looked as if he longed to do so. Since he would not provide her the answer she sought, Arya offered one of her own.

"How about Elsbeth? I saw you dancing with her earlier..."

The knight groaned. "I've told you, I don't feel that way..."

She interrupted him. "Perhaps not yet, but do you not think that given time, you might..."

"No." There was a conviction to his growl and the set of his jaw. Arya looked out over the crowd and found the little archer. Elsbeth's eyes were trained on Gendry and she did not look happy.

"I don't know that she'll be so easily convinced."

"I've made her no promises. I've given her no reason for false hope." The knight's look was grim.

Arya sighed. "That may not be enough to avoid unpleasantness. People often find hope in the darkest places, even if it's a trick of their own imagination."

"What am I to do then? What do you advise?"

"Tread carefully, else you may find an arrow in your neck one day."

Gendry laughed humorlessly. "I thank you for your concern, m'lady. I wasn't sure it would pain you at all to find I'd been shot through."

The Cat watched as Elsbeth stalked off, Little Nate close behind her. "I'll admit, the jealousies of women are not my particular area of expertise, but anyone with eyes can see this is heading for trouble. Warning you is the least a friend could do."

"I'm honored you consider me a friend, Lady Arya. I had feared you never would again."

The girl nodded, saying, "I'm finding there are matters more urgent than nursing old grievances against a blacksmith's apprentice." She thought about all the plans which must even now be brewing in the minds of the lords attending the feast. She thought about the distance which separated her from her mother. She thought of her list. "In times such as these, it seems pointless to hold onto childish hurts."

"Still, I'm sorry to have ever been the cause of such hurts."

Arya looked up at the knight. "As you've said, you were only six and ten, and nothing more than a stupid bull."

"I... don't think I said it quite like that, m'lady," Gendry laughed.

"Near enough," she shrugged as the music ended. Tom O'Sevens approached, meaning to claim the girl for a dance, but Gendry warned him away with a look. He was not quite ready to let her go.

"Another turn, m'lady?" he asked as the next song began.

"Only if you stop calling me m'lady," she replied and he grinned, sweeping her away once again.

Arya's arms were stretched high above her head as Gendry twirled her round and round. Her skirts swirled around her ankles and she began to laugh, protesting that the knight was making her too dizzy.

"Close your eyes, then," he said, and she did, trusting that he would not let her fall. Even as the twirling ceased and he began to guide her across the floor, Arya's eyes remained closed. The gentle, rhythmic sway of their movements then reminded her of standing on the deck of Titan's Daughter.

"You're so graceful," the girl remarked.

"Should I take it as insult that you sound surprised when you say it?"

"Well, how many giant men do you know that dance well?" Arya asked, opening her eyes then.

"I was knighted," Gendry reminded his partner. "I've spent years in the company of highborn men. Lord Beric, Lem, Ser Jaime Lannister. I learned to swing a sword. I mastered all the proper courtesies. Does it seem so strange that I would learn to dance as well?"

"It does," she admitted.

"There have been other feasts," he told her. "Other castles and other women in need of a partner."

"I'll bet there have," she snorted.

"Knights are expected to be obliging in such circumstances!" he retorted. He sounded defensive.

"Oh, I'm certain that they are," the girl said, "but haven't we established that you are a poor knight?"

"You may think me so." His tone of hurt was unmistakable. Arya suppressed the urge to roll her eyes.

"Poor knight or great, it makes no difference to me," she said, perhaps more unkindly than she meant.

Gendry felt his frustration growing. He had been happy for a fleeting moment, dancing with her, and somehow, it was slipping away from him. He couldn't quite figure out how it had happened. He wanted nothing more than to undo the last minute of their conversation and take a different tack, but it seemed that the mood had been set and he was powerless to change it.

"All that time you were away, did you think of me as some oafish child? Did it never occur to you that I might grow up into something better? Did you not think I could improve myself?"

"In truth, ser, I didn't think of you much at all." And when she did, it was mostly to consider how hurt she had been at his abandonment of her.

His mouth dropped open slightly and his unhappiness was plain to read on his face. She knew he was hurt and the thought of it bothered her more than she liked to admit. Still, she pressed on.

"Would you rather I lie and say you were on my mind every day?" she asked.

"I would rather it not be a lie."

"No harm was meant, ser," the girl said quietly. She heaved a sigh, wondering if she could make him understand. "Honesty is the greatest compliment I can pay you."

"Is that because friends tell each other the truth, even when it's unpleasant?" He struggled to find the compliment in her words.

"No. It's because lying is as easy as breathing for me."

"M'lady, I fail to see..."

"Would you like pretty words to make you feel something warm and sweet? They mean less to me than the dust beneath our feet, ser. If you would have them of me, it would be easy enough, but they would be an empty gift. Lying is easy. It's the truth that's hard."

"Have you no pretty words that aren't lies?"

"I have nothing pretty left inside of me at all, Ser Gendry. What little I did have was beaten and poisoned and washed away by a sea of blood."

"I don't believe that."

She smiled sadly. "Again, such unsupported hope. Your capacity for it is amazing. I don't know if it's a blessing or a curse."

"So, you're a master of lies. Is that what they taught you across the sea? Did you learn your skill from that strange, foreign assassin?" His words were marked by a heavy bitterness.

It was the first time Gendry had mentioned Jaqen, however indirectly. The girl swallowed hard and took a moment to allow the image of a tanned neck with long, silvery scars to fade. When her mind was still, she answered.

"No. I was learning how to lie long before that. I only perfected the skill in Braavos."

"You don't sound ashamed."

"Should I be?"

"The septons all say that lying is a great sin."

Arya burst out laughing.

"The septons, Gendry?" She was laughing so hard then that they had to stop dancing. She bent over at the waist, planting her hands on her thighs. "Oh! Oh!" She grabbed at her sides, breathless and hurting, her laughter exceeding the capacity her lungs were allowed by her tight corset.

"I didn't think it was that funny," the knight grumbled.

"If I faint, it's your fault!" she cried, gasping. She stood straight, then, but stumbled a step and fell against the dark knight. He begrudgingly grabbed her arms and helped her regain her balance, all while scowling at her. "Gendry, if you want me to repent, you'll have to do better than quoting a few nameless septons to me!"

"I have a feeling that nothing I could say would make you repent."

"Just so," the girl agreed, growing suddenly serious. "Why should I be ashamed? My father told the truth, and it got him thrown into the black cells. The truth is a dangerous thing, and lying has saved me time and again. What if I had told the truth about being a girl when were were traveling with Yoren? What if I had told the Bloody Mummers I was Arya Stark?" She could think of a hundred other examples, things she had lied about in Braavos, but those were not tales she wished to share with Gendry just then.

"How am I ever to trust you?" the knight demanded.

"Why should your trust matter to me?" she countered.

Gendry sighed, raking his fingers through his hair in frustration. "I wish that was a lie too."

She smiled at him a little sadly.

They were standing in the middle of the dance floor, not dancing. It was drawing the attention of the room. Gendry did not seem to notice but Arya was intensely aware. She turned to leave him, but he grabbed her wrist, holding her in place. Even as her back was to him, he began to speak softly.

"You may not have thought of me, but I thought of you. Every day. I thought of every version of you, Arry and Weasel and Nan and m'lady. I thought of the little terror you were, stealing horses and murdering guards to get us out of Harrenhal. I thought of the little girl that Lady Smallwood used as a dress up doll. I thought of the obstinate pain in my arse trying to pretend she knew which way to go to get to Riverrun and the wide-eyed child who awoke in the night from bad dreams. I thought of a prisoner, carried off by a burned dog. Later, I thought of a lady in warm Braavos, somehow under the protection of an assassins guild. I thought of the queen in my dreams, wearing a veil of snow beneath a silver crown."

"You think you know me, ser? You think any of those phantoms get at the truth of who I am?"

"I know who you are now. I see you right in front of me."

She turned then to face him once again, pulling her small wrist from his grasp.

"And what do you see?" Her voice as low; dangerous.

"I see Arya Stark, trying to pretend she's made of hard stone and darkness, but I know it's all a lie; those lies you're so good at telling. I know that if you drop the masquerade, you would be... luminous. It would be as if you were lit from within by a thousand candles."

"You think you can somehow reach inside of me and pull the darkness out? That you can uncover some light within me?" He made her no answer and so she continued. "There's no secret light, Gendry. The darkness inside of me isn't something you can take hold of. It's nothing; emptiness. It's a void. You can't grasp the emptiness. You can't hold the void."

The Bear arrived at her side just then, taking his sister gently by the elbow.

"You must be tired, my lady," the Lyseni said gently, then turned to Arya's dance partner. "Ser Gendry, I believe Harwin was just looking for you. I'll escort Lady Arya safely to her chamber so that you may go and find him." Without waiting for Gendry's response, the Bear led his sister away, across the chamber and through the large doors into the gallery outside.

"Was it bad?" the girl asked her brother as the doors closed behind him.

"People were beginning to talk rather more than was desirable," he replied. "No permanent damage, though. I think they all just assume he's jealous of the attention you were receiving from the endless line of Blackwood brothers." They walked arm-in-arm down the corridor.

"I don't think Gendry cares one whit about the Blackwoods," she scoffed. "I don't know why anyone would think that he does."

"Because he's in love with you, my lady," the false Dornishman replied. She snorted.

"I've never heard anything so stupid. Is that what people were whispering?"

"Well, you can hardly blame them, with the display you two just put on in the middle of the dance floor. Still, I expect it will blow over with the next bit of juicy gossip. No one could expect a landless knight to be immune to the charms of the heir to the Winter Throne, after all, even if such a reach is inexcusably high."

"It seems you've learned a great deal about our Westerosi politics in a short time, brother," Arya remarked wryly.

"Yes," he agreed. "This mission is turning out to have complexities I had not anticipated..."

The Cat grinned. "Do you regret leaving the Purple Harbor with me now?"

The Bear smiled and patted his sister's arm. "Never. Now, which way to your chamber? This keep is so damn confusing."

The girl looked at the Lyseni's furrowed brow as he looked this way and that where a narrower passageway intersected the main corridor. "If it's all the same to you, I'd like to climb up to the battlements. I could use the air and I want to see if I can hear the wolves." And she needed time to consider all that had transpired that evening. Between the innumerable Blackwoods with their various aims, Karyl Vance, the Brotherhood, the Smallwoods, and her interaction with Gendry, her head was spinning. She needed time to sort it all out.

"A walk, then," the Lyseni said agreeably. "Now, which way to the battlements?" Arya laughed and grabbed her brother's hand, pulling him behind her.

"Come on, you great lout. This way."

The guards patrolling the battlements nodded respectfully at Lady Stark and Ser Willem Ferris as the two passed. Arya gazed upward. The night was clear and the stars bright. She found their familiar patterns in the sky.

"The names are all different here, you know," she said to the Bear.

"Hmm?"

"The stars," the girl replied. "They're known by different names here than in Essos."

"Even different parts of Essos name them differently," the Lyseni pointed out. "In Lys, for instance, that grouping there is called the Maiden's Neck, but the Dothraki call it the Fetlock."

"The Maiden's Neck? Hmm," she purred. "Very romantic. Why are you Lyseni all so romantic?"

"You're confused, my lady. Must be the fatigue of all that dancing. I'm Dornish."

She smirked. "Of course you are."

"So what do the learned men of Westeros name those stars?"

"You're Dornish. Don't you know?"

He growled at her and she laughed. The stopped walking and drew close to the crennalated wall, staring up at the constellation they were considering.

"The Westerosi are a practical bunch," said the Cat. "Not so romantic as the Lyseni, and not so obsessed with horses as the Dothraki. Can you not make it out?" She pointed one finger toward the sky, tracing a shape. "It's the Lord's Goblet."

The Bear tilted his head and squinted as he stared up at the stars. "Ah, yes. I see it now. So, in Westeros, the men who name stars are not so romantic as those in Lys, and not so horse-obsessed as the Khals, but they do seem a bit preoccupied with birth rank."

"Birth rank?"

"Yes. The Lord's Goblet, you said. Why not the Crofter's Goblet? Or the Woodsman's Goblet?"

"Well... I suppose crofters and woodsmen are less likely to have goblets. More like to have cups, wouldn't you say?"

"Humph. In Lys, everyone drinks from goblets."

"How would you know? You left when you were little more than a babe!" She chuckled.

"It's just how I remember it," the Bear said softly. "A tall man and a woman with pale hair, drinking from a goblet. It's hard to know if it's a memory, or just a dream, though."

Her brother did not often speak of his past, of his family. She had always assumed it was because it was too painful for him to recount, and because the Kindly Man and the other Faceless masters had done too good a job erasing who the Bear had been before he came to them. Now she wondered if her brother's memories were too few and too fleeting to inform even him of his life before the temple. The loss of his family had been of a tragic nature, that much Arya knew, and in his quiet moments, he sometimes felt their absence still, but she knew little else.

"We are both of us terrible Faceless Men," she remarked. "Too much of our past still haunts us."

"Speak for yourself, my lady. I can change my face anytime I like." He was teasing her, she knew, but it was true. The Bear had earned that right for himself, by sacrificing Olive to save his sister. It was a sacrifice Arya had been unable to make, and so she had but one face.

"You say that, but I've never seen you do it. For all I know, you've been lying to me this whole time and you were exiled from the temple right along with me."

"No, sister, it's true. The elder spoke the words and by the time he was done, I knew I could change my face as easily as you could slip on a pair of shoes. It's hard to explain, but I just... felt it."

"So, it's a spell." She had never really been sure about that; whether it was a spell or a learned skill taught only to those who had shown absolute loyalty and obedience.

The big man nodded, then he recounted the words to her, speaking them with the same gravity as the principal elder had the night the Bear earned his face. The language of Asshai, Arya thought. It made sense. All the best spells came from Asshai, didn't they? It was a language she had only the most tenuous grasp of, so she wasn't sure of the exact translation, but she felt sure it had something to do with blood and power and veils.

"Show me," she whispered. She had seen the Faceless masters change their faces hundreds of times. Still, as far as she knew, the Bear had never before used his power. She wondered if it was hard, the first time. Or if it would be just as simple for him as it always was for Jaqen. The Lyseni's face was grim. He was thinking, no doubt, on all he had lost in his quest to obtain the power. Still, he obeyed. Just as Jaqen used to do, the Bear placed his palm flat against his forehead and dragged it downward, slowly, erasing his true features and replacing them with false ones. Gone was the blonde mane gifted him by his Lyseni ancestry. In its place was close-cropped hair, as white as snow. His smooth brow became lined, the bright sky blue of his eyes darker, like sapphires twinkling in the torch light. The Bear's grim countenance had disappeared and his look was now kindly; the most kindly visage the girl had ever seen.

And the most sinister.

Arya recoiled, hissing as she scrabbled along the battlements.

"You are cruel, brother."

"No more cruel than you were to ask it of me."

She glared at him and he gazed calmly back at her, with all the haughty control and maddening superiority of the principal elder. Finally she averted her eyes, looking out into the darkness of the forest beyond the walls of the castle. The Cat swallowed down the hatred that had clawed its way up from her chest into her throat, thick and burning.

"Stop it," she whispered hoarsely, and when she looked back up at him, he was the Bear again.

"If you ever ask me to change my face again, it had better be for a very good reason."

"If you ever show me that face again, you had better draw steel."

They stood ten feet apart, staring at one another, both angry, both hurting. For a moment, the only sound heard was the noise they both made as they breathed, chests heaving. The Bear broke first, covering the distance between them in three great steps. Then Arya was wrapped in her brother's arms, her cheek pressed hard against his chest.

"I'm sorry," he said. "You question using the horses and gold he sent us. Imagine how I question using the power he gave me."

"No, I'm sorry. I didn't think. I just wanted to see how it was done the first time. I didn't think..."

"I know. It's okay."

"I just can't see that face. When I see that face next, I plan to be looking at it over Valyrian steel. I owe him that. For Jaqen."

"Let's not talk about that now." He released her and she turned to the wall, leaning against it and gazing up at the stars once again.

"Do you think he's alive?" There was that unsupported hope again; hope found in the darkest of places.

"I don't know, sister, but if he is, I know he's trying to get back to you."

She nodded, her eyes now trained on the dark forest in the distance. The Bear leaned over, pressing his mouth and nose to the top of his sister's shining hair in a fierce kiss. The girl bowed her head, closing her eyes and biting the inside of her cheek hard to stop herself from crying. After a moment, she could taste her own blood. In the distance, the wolves began to howl.

In a place far south of Raventree Hall, where the weather could still be called warm, a war council was just breaking up. A party made of knights and captains, once-exiled lords, and even a prince and a king drifted from a luxurious tent, the likes of which had never been seen in Westeros before. It was a shelter in the Dothraki style; the royal Dothraki style.

That the meeting had been there, rather in the more traditional king's tent, was a conciliation; a mark of the deference earned through the currency of dragon flesh. Aegon was ruler by right of blood, but his aunt was the mother of dragons, and with the war to come, that was no small thing.

"Daario Naharis," a woman called in a commanding voice as the men left her. The captain hesitated, turning back to his queen. "Stay. I have... something I must discuss with you."

"Something you must discuss, your grace?" His tone was nearly insolent. Nearly. The silver queen did not like to be challenged, except when she did. Daario was a master of knowing the difference, among other things.

"Yes, captain. In regards to your company and their behavior since landing on these shores."

"A matter of discipline, then, my queen?"

"Yes. A matter of discipline. Just so."

Daario wasn't sure why Daenerys bothered with the pretext. No one within earshot was fooled, he was certain. A matter of discipline. He nearly laughed out loud. Still, appearances must be kept, no matter how false or futile. Especially here in Westeros, where a person could be undone by whispers, even if that person was a Targaryen.

"Yes, my queen?"

"There is a certain man among your Stormcrows. I find his behavior... puzzling."

"How so, your grace?" The two were now alone in the tent, even the queen's servants having discreetly removed themselves.

Daenerys began to make a slow circle around the captain who stood at the center of the tent, near the table with the map of Westeros, wooden pieces marking where Targaryen scouts had placed the various armies of the great houses and the crown. The suns of Dorne and stars representing House Dayne were lined up behind the dragons, south of the Red Mountains, where they now found themselves. Daenerys' allegiance with Aegon had bought the support of Doran Martell and all his bannermen, but the armies of House Dayne were large enough and skilled enough to warrant their own markers. They were an elite force. It seemed the legend of Arthur Dayne lived on, now taking the form of his bold and handsome nephew: Edric, Lord of Starfall.

The queen moved toward the Tyroshi captain, sliding her fingers along his arm when she reached him. She started at his rough hand and trailed her fingertips up over his sleeve until she reached his bicep. Here, she curled her fingers and allowed them to rest. Daario stood as still as a post, awaiting her response.

"Well, I'm used to a certain degree of... attention from this Stormcrow. He has always shown a... keen interest in me."

"Has he, your grace? Shall I have him whipped for insolence?"

She laughed lightly. "No, I don't think so. His interest was... well, it was most welcome." Here, she leaned in closer and whispered, "It is most welcome still."

"Oh?"

The dragon queen released her captain's bicep and ran her hand over his shoulder and then up his neck, stroking the flesh there. To her, it appeared tanned and perfect; unmarked. She could not know the truth of what lay beneath.

"Yes," she murmured huskily. "I find... I find myself missing it."

"You miss the attention, your grace?"

Daenerys' mouth opened slightly and and she licked at her upper lip a bit, moistening it before speaking. "Quite."

His behavior was too different. That was plain now. He had allowed himself to believe that she either did not notice or did not care; that she had moved on from the Tyroshi's affections and no longer had need of them. He had been wrong.

He, who had never faltered in his duty; who carried a reputation for his adherence to it, despite challenges and distractions. He, who was renown for the countless faces he had worn with effortless perfection. He, who was envied for his prowess by the others who could claim his faith and his skills.

The queen's hand fell away and she took a step back, eyeing the Tyroshi warily. He stared back at her, seemingly unperturbed. His eyes dropped to her feet and raked up her legs, across her belly and her breasts before settling on her purple eyes. His expression was appropriately hungry; the slow heave of his chest convincingly lustful. Duty was duty, and the road northward led through Daenerys Targaryen and her three menacing children. He could not put her off forever.

And so he reached out, gripping her throat, his fingers pressing with enough threat to excite her but not enough to cause real harm. Then, as her eyes closed and she pushed out one ragged breath, his lips found her neck, moving slowly at first as he breathed in her foreign scent, then devouring her flesh with a ferocity that almost seemed borne of resentment. She did not notice. She was lost in his touch; in his kiss, so longed for it had been.

For the first time in his life, as he closed his eyes and fulfilled his duty, it was not his god or his mission that he thought of, but of another woman.

A fierce and lovely girl.

The Pretender—Foo Fighters

Chapter Text

But wherever I have gone, I was sure to find myself there. You can run all your life

but not go anywhere.

A girl cloaked in bristling wolf skin prowled the forest near Lord Blackwood's castle, skirting quietly around trees and easing through rough underbrush (no small feat considering the monstrous size of her). Both girl and wolf hunted, though neither was hungry any longer. The beast had already banqueted on the sinew and marrow of a great hart. The girl's belly was full of all the delicacies offered at a feast, and of fluttering uncertainty, and a large portion of the sorrow she could not leave behind, even in sleep. Still, the two persisted in their pursuit of game. The girl in her relished her liberation from all that encumbered her when she walked on two legs. She liked the feel of the wind ruffling the fur she now wore as she ran through the wood, chasing a rabbit she had scented. The wolf in her liked it, too, because it was how she had been made. Her natural state was that of predator.

Freedom, Arya thought, wolf-teeth bared as she moved. Nymeria did not know the word, but she understood the feeling of it. The girl chased the sensation, slavering for it as much as rabbit's blood, because she had spent most of the day and night bound and impeded, both body and mind.

Tightly corseted and tightly cosseted (by people who did not understand who she was, only who they needed her to be), she had bitten her own tongue and stayed her own hand to keep the peace; this though peace had never been her dream. She had practiced diplomacy when she would have rather been practicing her other, more active skills on those who had earned her attention. Underestimated and overestimated in the same breath (she was no fragile lady but neither did she covet a crown), her thoughts had been cumbersome and her skin had fairly itched with her need to be shed of it all.

And so she had said her prayer, then laid down her head to slumber; to escape; to dream this dream that was more than a dream.

After the feast, Arya had walked the battlements with her Faceless brother, star-gazing, remembering, and then finally returned to her chamber, where her maid waited to attend her. While Lyra was plucking the ornaments and pins from Arya's hair, the girl wondered at her unexpected position as fêted lady. It was never meant for her to be so; she was not grand, or, even suitable, really. Stark blood ran through her veins, it was true, but she was only the third trueborn child of a great man, and a girl at that. With three brothers born true and healthy, and a sister both older and more beautiful, the best the girl's family could have hoped for her future was to see Arya marry some minor lord's heir, or perhaps a great lord's third or fourth son; a man who might agree to have her rather than serving his family's honor in the Night's Watch or at the Citadel in Oldtown. Her own ideas were more scandalous; more outlandish and improbable. She would make her own fate. She would not consent to be married off to assure allegiance or buy alliance. She would be no man's brood mare, no man's bed warmer, no man's stalwart wife. Not unless she chose that man for herself.

And there was little chance of that.

As Lyra slipped the gown from Lady Arya's white shoulders, the girl herself laughed inwardly. It felt like a jolly caper; an outrageous jape; a mummer's farce. How had they not all seen? How had they believed it? A hall full of people, none of them blind insofar as she could tell, yet no one had called her out for her pretense. Her, Arya Horseface, the Lady of Winterfell? Preposterous! Lady, fêted or otherwise, was not a title she had ever intended to bear and was one she had done nothing to earn.

At six, she knew for a certainty that she would be a knight. Sansa had told her she was stupid and vulgar, because only boys could be knights, and no proper lady would even entertain such a thought. The little ruffian had replied that proper ladies were shite (language learned scuttling about the forge and the stables), and a knight could easily run such useless creatures through, putting an end to their silly airs. Sansa had said that a true knight would never dream of running a proper lady through. The ensuing argument had resulted in pulled hair (Arya's), a black eye (Sansa's), and a lecture on the behavior expected of young ladies who bore the Stark name (Catelyn's).

At seven, Arya had understood there would be obstacles to overcome in her quest for knighthood, but she felt herself equal to the task. Her brothers all laughed at that (except Rickon, who was only a year old and didn't understand, though Arya liked to imagine that he wouldn't have laughed anyway, because he innately appreciated her wildness).

At eight, when her skill with a bow was proven equal to that of Jon and Robb, she hoped her mother and father would see the wisdom in her choice and allow her to give up needlework and other tedious pursuits in order to train in the yard with her brothers (they did not).

At nine, a king came to visit Winterfell and her life changed forever.

At ten, when her father engaged a Braavosi water dancer to show her how to properly use the sword Jon had gifted her, Arya wondered if Lord Stark had finally understood the life she dreamed for herself. Her father's approval of her swordplay may have amounted to little more than a tiny morsel; a mere crumb. But to his daughter, it felt like a feast and she was filled with it.

At eleven, she employed that sword to kill for the first time.

At eleven, she learned to keep herself from starving in the streets.

At eleven, she watched her future, any future her father could support, roll down the steps of the Great Sept of Baelor.

At eleven, she walked a road a thousand leagues long, and all of her desires were distilled down to one fervent wish: to sleep under Winterfell's roof once again.

At eleven, she lied to men and rescued men and stabbed men and was beaten by men and outwitted men and spied on men and was saved by men.

At eleven, she lost hold of her last hope that she would ever see her family again.

At eleven, she tasted revenge, and it tasted like warm blood on cold steel. She craved more.

At eleven, she understood that she was no knight, nor would she ever be, and so she set sail across the sea to learn to change her face and be something else entirely. Someone else entirely.

And wasn't she?

The girl sighed then. Lyra asked her whatever was the matter. Arya simply shrugged and stared out into the distance, her eyes tired; unfocused. The maid had prattled on about the feast while she put up the girl's clothes and scrubbed her face clean of the kohl and stain which marked it, all while asking a thousand stupid questions: who had asked Arya for a dance? What had the food been like? What music had played? Which men did Arya find to be the handsomest? Had anyone won the lady's especial favor?

The questions meant little and less to the girl. Survival. Revenge. Love. These were what mattered to her. The trappings of wealth and power were of no consequence, the diversions of the highborn, meaningless. She had transcended the world occupied by her forebearers and exalted by the nobility of Westeros. She did not desire to be a part of the hierarchy; did not wish to be sorted by class and birth order and sex and wealth; would not consent to be confined by convention and hamstrung by fear of social repercussions. She did not want to take her place among the great families of Westeros, and she would not consent to be affixed there.

So, how was it that now she was exactly as her mother had always hoped she would be? If Sansa or Catelyn could see her at that moment, standing in her chamber at Raventree hall, a maid loosening the stays of her corset and combing out all her long hair, they would surely thank the Seven that Arya Horseface had finally turned into the lady they had so desperately wanted her to be.

She, a girl who had spent years resisting the life which fate had assigned her.

Arya would have burst out laughing uproariously, but she didn't want to startle Lyra and she had no wish to explain her bitter amusement, anyway.

I've traveled all over Westeros, in the company of convicts and outlaws and bandits. I was an exile, a slave, a servant, and a hostage. I was a renegade. I sailed all the way across the sea and learned to use steel and poison and my bare hands to drain the life from men. I worshiped foreign gods and learned blood magic and loved a man with no name, she thought. I love him still. And yet tonight, in Lord Blackwood's great hall, all that I am and all I have been was reduced to the way I wore a borrowed gown, the desirablity of my marriage prospects, and my supposed claim to power.

Seven hells, how her skin crawled at just the thought of it! Arya had wanted to run nearly as soon as they had entered the gates of this place. Only her Lyseni brother had stopped her (what times were these that the Bear had become the voice of her reason?)

Smile and be the gracious lady they need you to be. Take your rest. Eat your fill. We'll not be here long.

She had even wanted to saddle Bane and leave that very night, fleeing the floor after her dance with Ser Brynden. The Faceless asssassin had stopped her then, as well.

Do you think to hop on Bane's back right now, in your white gown and dainty slippers, and ride off into the night alone?

He spoke sense, she knew, but that sense didn't stop her bones from vibrating with impatience, her gut from roiling with disgust, and her head from echoing with unease. She felt like a chained dog with an intruder just beyond his reach, snapping and snarling while a collar pulled harshly at his throat and he choked with his efforts. She felt like a mounted knight at the top of a high hill, awaiting the order to charge the valley. Her whole body was like a hand, twitching for a sword.

Edgy. Restive. Agitated.

She had found relief only once her head rested on a feather pillow and she was finally overtaken by sleep.

Only then had she been able to awaken as a creature that no man would dare think to tame.

She ran, on and on, unwilling to stop lest she lose the sense of unrestrained elation. She ran long after Nymeria's belly was full of stag and long after she had swallowed the small rabbit in one bite. Catching the scent of another rabbit and disturbing the creature enough that it ran from its nest and into her path, she gave chase, her cousins left long behind. Before she could taste rabbit flesh this time, however, a large owl swooped down and snatched the hare, carrying it away from the direwolf. Nymeria was not bothered; she had no need of another bite just then, but the feathered predator caught her mistress's attention and it took a mere moment to think of the freedom of flying before Arya leapt from her wolf and was off, soaring higher and higher.

The rabbit forgotten, dropped for some other creature to find and feast upon, she topped the trees and flew toward the moon winking in and out of clouds to the west. When her wings tired, she found other wings and then others and still more; nighthawks and bats and other owls, and as she moved between this one and that, she managed to travel a great distance. After a time, Arya felt a pull that hummed and buzzed deep within her, drawing her closer with invisible cords. The feeling was familiar. It reminded her of her recent visits to the great white tree in Lord Blackwood's garden. A light flickered in the distance and it drew her bird's eye. She flew toward it; towards the crest of a high hill.

Now inside of a large, snowy owl, the girl swooped lower to see if she could determine the source of the glow. As she came to rest on a branch of a tree near the light, she saw that it was the result of a great bonfire, lit in the midst of a circle of immense stumps, the remnants of one and thirty ancient weirwoods. The ring was partly hidden in the dancing shadows thrown by the fire as it writhed and twisted before her eyes. A rush of memory flooded Arya's mind. She knew this place, and she knew the bent old woman who warmed herself by the fire at that very moment.

The ghost of High Heart, Arya thought, and in a bedchamber far away, the girl moaned something that sounded like ghost... heart.

The old woman's back was to the owl but that did not stop her from addressing the creature anyway.

"Death has flown in on snow-white wings," the woman said, her voice thin and dry. "Do you see how great I have built my fire? I felt your darkness approaching blood child, and it chilled me to my bones."

The owl hopped down several branches until she was as close to the woods witch as she could be without leaping to one of the weirwood stumps.

"Are you to be my torment for all the rest of your days, girl?"

The owl's head cocked slightly as the girl thought it a strange thing to say. Surely this shriveled old woman was far closer to her end than Arya was herself.

"Haven't I suffered enough?" the ghost continued in a scratchy whisper. Arya's owl-ears were keen, though, and she heard the words as plain as day. The old woman's hunched shoulders hunched further and she sighed. "Very well, then, I suppose you won't leave me until I tell you all I've dreamt."

Back at Raventree Hall, the girl thrashed in her bed, moaning slightly in protest. She wanted none of this witch's prophetic words. They had only ever brought her grief. But somehow, she couldn't make her wings beat and the owl sat as still as stone on its perch.

"I dreamt of a shadow standing in the midst of a dark wood, and all the mighty trees bowed low. Later, I dreamt that shadow drifted silent along a narrow path while a thousand frogs swarmed all around it. I dreamt a child with no father and a father with no child together sang songs of the past which changed the future. I dreamt of a man who wore a mask and to his left and his right, he caressed women dressed in blood and gold. A great, silvery fire embraced him, but all he craved was the darkness. I dreamt I saw another man walk tall and strong into a tomb. There he died, but a prince was born. I dreamt of a bed ruined by blood and pain, and of an unnatural fire that burned death away, and of a lost babe who held all the raging storm in her eyes. I dreamt all this, and of much and more, but I cannot speak of the rest, lest sorrow and darkness bury me deep."

None of it made sense to Arya. The old woman had not once turned to look at her, but spoke her words into the fire. The girl thought to see the witch's face and look into her red eyes as if in doing so, she might make sense of all the cryptic words. Resolved, the snowy owl fluttered down from her low branch to rest upon a weirwood stump within the woman's line of sight. When her claws touched her new perch, however, she was concussed with such a thunderbolt of stabbing ice and memory and power and revelation that she screeched and flew instantly away, back to her safe branch.

A jumble of images burned and merged and slid through Arya's mind in an instant: Jon and Ghost behind high walls that she knew; her mother floating in a river, dead; the throne room in the Red Keep, its walls hung with dragon skulls; the cold crypts where she and her brothers and sister played as children; a white dragon swallowing a great wolf whole; her own hands slick with blood, gripping her swords as she walked down a dim corridor, her path strewn with coarse salt; her father's head upon stony steps, grey eyes half open and staring but not seeing; a house with white walls and a blue door on a distant shore; and a thousand more, the images too brief and too unfamiliar for her to recognize or make sense of, except for Bran's face.

Bran.

She saw his face, pale and still. He looked dead, but he wasn't. She knew he wasn't, somehow. And he spoke, though his lips did not move.

"Arya," he said. She heard him, there amid the great weirwood circle, and in her chamber in a castle far away, she answered.

"Bran," the sleeping girl mumbled, "Where are you? Bran..."

"Yes, yes," the wizened woman growled, perturbed. "I've met all your friends, girl, and some of your family, while all mine molder in graves. The gods are cruel sometimes. Most cruel."

The witch slowly made her way to the edge of the circle and glared up into the tree beyond it, to the place where the owl perched and stared warily back with round, amber eyes.

"Listen well, daughter of corpses, for I have seen one thing more you have need to hear. There is a price to cheating duty and the burden of glory must be borne with grace. Those who came before you knew that well."

The snowy bird flew up to a higher branch, putting some distance between herself and the ghost. The old woman sighed.

"The gods have chosen you and you owe a great debt," the woman insisted. "The old gods. The new. The red god and that gluttonous executioner you served across the sea." The wind rose then, cold and fierce, and the owl dug her claws into the branch so that she would not be blown from her perch. The woods witch glared left and right, her long, grey hair twisting and tangling around her waist. She raised one gnarled fist to the night sky, declaring, "I can only speak truth and you who judge so harshly cannot object when you are judged!" After a moment, the gale subsided and the old woman looked back at the owl and gave her a warning. "You cannot hope to defy their will and you should not seek to."

With a screech, the owl flew up even higher, but the ghost tried to caution the girl one last time, calling out to the tree tops in her raspy voice.

"The Pentoshi's plan will fail and your folly will doom him. There is danger enough without willfully seeking more. Do not let your selfishness be the millstone around his neck!"

What Pentoshi? What duty? In her room, the girl's features creased into a look of sleeping confusion. A casual observer could have even mistaken it for pain. The owl merely stared down at the witch far below her. The woman turned her back to the owl and seated herself on one of the weirwood stumps, defeated.

"Fly away home, girl," said the ghost of High Heart, her tone dismissive. "There is a raven in your window. Go and pluck his feathers." The woman waved her hand above her head once, gesturing toward the tree behind her without looking. The bird was jolted from her perch, and it was as if the air had been knocked out of her. At that moment, back at Raventree Hall, Arya's eyes flew open as she gasped for breath.

The girl sat up, disoriented, the words of the woods witch and the strange visions which had filled her head still rattling around in a confused muddle. She tried to cling to the pictures she found comforting: Jon with Ghost, Bran, and even the house with the blue door, though she did not understand why she found joy in the image since she had never seen such a place before, not even in sunny Braavos. But her efforts were futile and soon, she was overtaken with dread as she recalled what the ghost had said and remembered the images she found less joyful.

A shadow in the midst of a dark wood.

Her mother floating lifeless in the river, her cheeks ruined by deep claw marks black with old blood.

The woods witch admonishing her about duty.

A raven in her window.

As the fog of her dream lifted, Arya felt the hairs on the back of her neck rising and her arms stung with gooseprickles. Slowly, she turned her head and looked toward her window, shutters thrown wide. There, silhouetted in the dim light from the moon, sat a figure, casually perched on the deep sill and staring toward her. He leaned against one side of the wooden casing, a knee bent as his foot propped against the other side.

In an instant, her confusion was shed and the assassin slipped her hands beneath her pillow, retrieving two Valyrian steel throwing knives which she had taken from her assassin's belt earlier and hidden. Instinctively, she flicked them toward the intruder, pinning his right sleeve to the wooden window frame while muttering, "Nar 'amala," into the darkness. As three candles flared to life, the Cat rolled deftly to the floor, reaching under her bed as she did and pulling out Needle. Before she had even looked well at the face of the man she trapped, Arya sprang to her feet and lunged, placing the tip of Needle at the very center of the man's throat, a mere hair away from the skin there. She lifted her eyes then and saw the astonished face of Ben Blackwood staring back at her.

He cleared his throat.

"My lady," he said a bit haltingly, "I did not mean to startle you."

"What are you doing here?" the girl hissed, her narrowed eyes and pinched lips the only part of her which moved then.

"Was I not invited?" the young knight asked, recovering some of his bravado. "I seem to recall that we made plans at the feast..."

A younger Arya would have argued with the absurd assertion, insulted by the knight's presumption. A younger Arya would have allowed herself to be goaded and put on the defensive. A younger Arya would have been controlled by her rage. This Arya leaned just a tiny bit closer to the intruder, calmly pushing Needle's tip ever so slightly against the apple of Ben Blackwood's throat. The knight swallowed hard.

"I see now that I was mistaken," he said, his voice pitched a bit higher. "Perhaps if you'd just lower your sword, I might remove these knives from my shirt sleeve and find my way back to my own chamber..."

Arya did not move a muscle, only stared hard at her host's son. He looked back at her, his face admirably neutral considering his circumstances and after a moment, she addressed him.

"Ser Edmund," she began.

"Ben, please," he corrected her. She raised an eyebrow, twisting her left wrist so that Needle slowly turned counterclockwise. The sharp, steel tip dug into his flesh just a bit. "Or, Ser Edmund, if you prefer, my lady," the knight relented a little breathlessly, causing one corner of the girl's mouth to tilt upward slightly and the movement of her small sword to cease. A drop of blood trickled languidly down the young man's neck. She watched it for a moment, the sound of Ben Blackwood's breathing the only noise in the room.

"Ser Edmund," the girl repeated, "you may have a mistaken impression of me, no doubt reinforced by the costume I was given to wear to your father's feast earlier and your own childish imaginings..."

"I assure you, Lady Arya," the rogue interrupted, "what I imagine about you is anything but childish."

"Is it your desire that I skewer you where you sit, ser?" the Cat asked, her tone hinting at the end of her patience.

Ser Ben leaned back a bit but then stopped, caught between his wish to escape the point of Arya's blade and his hope that in doing so, he would not plummet from the open window and into the courtyard below. The girl did not follow him and he was allowed a little space. Her failure to open his throat seemed to embolden the knight.

"No, my lady, that sort of skewering isn't what I had in mind at all. I fear you would blush to hear what it is I truly desire."

Arya rolled her eyes at his crude jape. "I do not blush so easily."

"Really? With all that white skin? Hmm..." The knight's eyes trailed down the girl's exposed neck and rested on her shoulder, where the strap of her shift had fallen down. "What if I was to show you what I imagine, rather than telling it?"

"Ser Edmund, I think it's time you left my chamber."

"Of course, sweetling, only answer me one question first."

The Cat sighed and took a step back, lowering her sword. "What is it?" she asked testily.

The knight pulled Arya's small throwing blades out of the window frame and examined his ruined sleeve with a frown. Freed, he hopped down and placed the precious knives on a small table near the window and the girl prepared herself to answer a question about her trick of Asshai, or an inquiry as to how she managed to pin his sleeve but not graze his arm, or even a query regarding her acrobatic prowess as she maneuvered from her bed to her window at lightning pace. Instead, what he asked surprised her.

"Who is Bran?"

"Bran?"

"Yes. Bran. I would know who he is. Are you betrothed to him? Or, perhaps he was your lover, across the sea? It would explain why you show no interest in me."

Arya did not bother to hide her astonishment. "How do you know about Bran? And why are you asking about him now?"

"I heard you say a name in your sleep, my lady."

"How long were you skulking about my chamber, ser?" the girl demanded with a tone of disgust. He ignored her question.

"You said Bran. You sighed it, actually. You wanted to know where he was." The knight made a poor attempt to mimic Arya's voice then. "Bran. Where are you? Bran!" His voice regained its natural timbre. "I suppose it's quite funny..."

"I am not amused," Arya growled, advancing slightly on him. He eyed Needle warily and moved to put more distance between himself and the steel before responding.

"It's just that at the feast, I had rather thought we might need to put Ser Gendry in his place, but now it seems that it's this Bran we should concern ourselves with..."

The girl was truly baffled as was evidenced by her stuttering speech. "Put Ser Gendry in... what are you..."

"Oh, come now, Lady Arya, you must know that you are now the most valuable prize in the seven kingdoms. We can't allow some upjumped blacksmith to soil what is surely..."

Ser Edmund didn't have time to finish whatever it was he was going to say. Arya's fist caught him on the underside of his well-formed chin and she shut his mouth for him with a vicious uppercut. The knight's head snapped back and he stumbled, banging his skull against the stone wall behind him with a satisfyingly audible crack. He fell over against the table upon which the throwing knives rested, knocking it over and sending the steel clattering against the floorboards. The piece of pottery which served as Arya's water basin had also been on the table. It hit the floor with a great crash and broke into a hundred pieces. The knight managed to right himself before he tumbled over onto the shards.

"Ben," the girl seethed through clenched teeth, her voice low and dangerous, "Bran is my younger brother. I was dreaming of him while you spied on me. Ser Gendry is my sworn knight and my oldest living friend. You should not think that I would have the slightest trouble killing you if you say a word against either of them. And let me be clear on this: I am no man's prize! Anyone who wishes to treat me as though I am is welcome to discuss the matter over crossed blades."

The handsome knight rubbed at the back of his head and blinked hard a few times. Finally, smiling crookedly at her, he said, "You called me Ben."

The girl cried out in frustration and thought she might punch him again. Or poke him full of holes with Needle. Before she could reach a decision on the matter, a loud rapping at her door halted her deliberations. A voice called out from the corridor.

"Lady Arya, are you alright?"

It was Brynden Blackwood, sounding concerned and a little breathless. Arya hesitated, looking first at her door, then back at her unwelcome intruder.

"My lady!" Ser Brynden cried with rising alarm. "Do you require assistance? May I enter?"

Arya snarled at Ben Blackwood and the mess he had made then turned and strode to her door, throwing it open.

"Ser Brynden," she greeted, reaching up to smooth her mussed hair. The Blackwood heir looked at her, then at the sword in her hand, and then past her into her room where his brother leaned against the far wall, still a bit stunned from the crack on his skull. The newcomer's expression darkened as he noted the disarray on the other side of Arya's bed.

"My lady, are you quite well?"

"I am," she assured him. "Your brother may need tending, though. I'm... afraid I injured him."

"I'm alright," Ben called over to them, all too jovially, "but I think I've got a lump coming up on the back of my head. I should probably go see the maester and..."

"You stupid boy," Brynden interrupted, pushing past Arya and crossing the room angrily. "I had a notion you might try something, but this is beyond the pale, even for you!"

"You heard the lady, brother," Ben protested, throwing up his hands to fend off Ser Brynden. The elder Blackwood had a murderous look in his eye and his younger brother seemed to take it seriously. "I'm the only one hurt here. I didn't even touch her! Tell him, Lady Arya!"

"It's true, Ser Brynden. Unless you count him touching my fist with his chin, or the point of my sword with his throat."

"I rather think it was the other way around," the roguish knight protested lazily.

"Enough!" the heir roared. "Leave here at once and go see Maester Alfryd! I'll let Father deal with you in the morning."

Ser Ben weaved around his brother and approached Arya, taking her hand. "It has been a rare pleasure, my lady. Perhaps next time, you might visit my chamber." He bent to kiss the girl's knuckles.

"Ser Edmund, if ever I visit your chamber, you won't hear me coming, and you won't be alive to see me leave," she whispered.

"You are frightening, Lady Arya," Ben Blackwood conceded, then winked. "I find that most appealing."

The girl snatched her hand away and the young knight did not await further response. He left hurriedly, not bothering to close the door behind him.

"My lady," the elder Blackwood son began, "I can't tell you how truly sorry..."

"Please, ser," Arya interrupted tiredly, "you've nothing to apologize for. But how is it that you found your way here in the first place?"

"Ah! Well, I was crossing the courtyard after making my rounds..."

"Your rounds?"

"It's something I do when I'm in the castle. Checking the gate guard, strolling the battlements, and the like."

"That must get tiresome," the girl observed.

"Duty is duty, even when it's tiresome," Ser Brynden said. Arya nodded in deference but silently wondered how many more lectures on duty she was meant to endure. "As I was saying, I was crossing the courtyard when a light suddenly appeared in your window."

"Yes. I awoke from a dream and when I saw that someone was in my room with me, I lit a candle." She had actually lit them all, and at the same time, but she didn't suppose Ser Brynden needed every last detail.

"I didn't realize that it was your window at first," the knight said, "but I could see a man perched on the ledge and I thought I had better check on things. A fall from this height would be deadly. I feared it was another guest, perhaps too drunk to realize the danger."

"I cannot attest to how drunk he was, but I'm quite certain that your brother did not realize the danger," the girl replied wryly.

"Or the danger yet to come, when father finds out," Brynden muttered, then continued, "It was only when I reached the door that I realized this was your room. Then I heard all the commotion inside and I was afraid you were being attacked by someone sneaking in through your window."

"That would have to be a very daring attacker," Arya said. "No, I think he probably used the door."

"Was it not barred, my lady?" the knight inquired with surprise (and perhaps a touch of suspicion).

"I didn't think I need bother with it. I've become a light sleeper over the years and wouldn't have thought someone could sneak in without waking me."

Arya didn't tell Ser Brynden about her dream, and how lost she was in it. While it was true that she was acutely attuned to changes in her surroundings, even as she slumbered, her wolf dreams had a way of drawing her in so deep that even a thunderbolt striking the very pillow upon which she slept might not wake her.

"I'm ashamed to say that you should need to bar your door beneath my father's roof, my lady, but perhaps in future..."

"Your concern is appreciated, ser, but misplaced. I'm sorry that you had to come all the way up here in the middle of the night. You really needn't have bothered. Ser Ben would never have harmed me."

"There are many ways a lady may be harmed," the knight replied darkly. "I know you are newly arrived here, so you may not be aware, but my brother has... a reputation. I have no doubt that he would never do violence to a lady, but that doesn't mean you would not be harmed."

The implication of Brynden Blackwood's words dawned on Arya, and she realized he had completely misunderstood her. He must think her the naivest girl ever born! She began to giggle. Soon, giggling gave way to laughter and then her laughter became a loud, gasping thing as she struggled to control it. Her behavior at first seemed to amuse the knight, but after a few moments, his expression seemed more flummoxed than anything.

"I think I must have missed the jape," he admitted, scratching behind his ear.

"I know... I'm... sorry," she laughed. "You must think me a stupid little girl."

"No! Never!"

Arya's laughter subsided and she tried to explain herself.

"I mean, you either believe I am so unsophisticated that I don't understand what it means when a man sneaks into a lady's chamber under the cover of darkness, or else you think I am foolish enough to crave your brother's attentions without recognizing the ruin they might bring me."

Ser Brynden's expression seemed to indicate that she had hit upon the truth of his meaning. "My lady," he began, "I would never wish to imply that you were..."

"Ser," she said, walking over to him and placing her hand gently against his arm, "when I said that your brother would never have harmed me, I wasn't speaking out of any girlish hope regarding his character. I only meant that I would never have allowed him to. I'm quite capable of fending for myself, and while I don't wish to appear ungrateful, your intervention was wholly unnecessary."

"You must be mad to think I could hear such a commotion coming from beyond your door and still abandon you to whatever was the cause of it!"

"I will never require your rescue, ser," Arya retorted, walking away from him to retrieve her throwing blades from among the shards of her water basin. She blew on the blades to clear them of the dust of the ruined crockery before placing them back under her pillow. Needle, she slid back under the bed, within easy reach should she again require a sword. "If we're to be friends, you should reconcile yourself to the fact that I'm not like the other ladies you know."

"I daresay you aren't," the knight agreed, his voice caught between amusement and awe. "Even still, I apologize for my brother. You can be sure he'll be dealt with."

"As you wish, ser, but take no trouble on my account. As far as I'm concerned, he has already been dealt with, and I've got the bruised fist to prove it."

Ser Brynden's look became concerned, and he walked over to the girl as she sat on the edge of her bed. Reaching for her hand, he asked if she would like him to send for the maester. She snorted.

"I'm certain your brother has greater need of him than me!"

"But are you sure nothing is broken?" The knight knelt down and ran his fingers along the bones of Arya's hand methodically, finding no fractures. He inspected the small abrasions on her knuckles. "If Ben hadn't ruined your water basin, I could at least clean these wounds."

"Wounds," the girl scoffed. "They're hardly that."

"Even still, I should find some clean linen."

"No, please, they're only scratches. I'd wager that by tomorrow, you'll barely be able to see them, and I'd not like to think of keeping you from your sleep a moment longer."

The knight placed the girl's hand gently in her lap and rose, saying, "How stupid of me. You must be exhausted. I'll bid you goodnight, then, and I'll post a guard at your door."

"Ser Brynden, I have my own men. If I felt I needed guarding, I'd have already arranged for it."

"You're simply determined not to accept my help," the knight commented over his shoulder as he walked to her door, "but this is my father's castle, my lady, and so I must insist."

Arya felt she could not argue the point further without raising suspicion, and so she nodded her acceptance. She supposed this change in her state of affairs need not alter her plans to leave Raventree Hall as soon as it was reasonable to do so. After all, it would appear to her guard that she was simply leaving to break her fast as usual in the morning, and she didn't think Ser Brynden meant to leave a man guarding an empty chamber all day. She could simply sneak back for her things later. Her acquiescence brought a smile to Brynden's face, and he bowed to her before leaving her chamber and closing her door behind him softly.

These Blackwoods are an interesting lot, she thought to herself. Her instinct seemed to be leading her to trust them, for the most part, but it was not in her nature to trust anyone, as a rule, and so she hesitated. Still, Tytos Blackwood had known and respected both her father and her brother, while his heir seemed to be a man of honor (Arya knew she should have little use for honor, having seen how it could hobble even the strongest of men, but she was too much her father's daughter to abandon the notion completely, and there would always be a part of her that softened in the presence of an honorable man, if only for the sake of her memories of Ned Stark).

Don't be such a simpleton, the Cat admonished herself. You can't put your faith in someone just because they once knew your father.

Arya could list on one hand the number of people who had gained and kept her confidence over time (perhaps she could even list them on three fingers: Jon, Jaqen, and the Bear, and she could not be certain that two of those three were even still alive). There were others who might have her best interest at heart, of course, but even still, she wasn't sure she could completely trust them. Gendry had not yet worked his way fully back into her good graces and Harwin was more like to interfere with her plans than help her see them through. Ser Brynden and Lord Blackwood might be well-meaning, but at their core, surely they held their family's interests above her own.

What does your instinct tell you? Her little voice was whispering to her. What does your gut say?

At that moment, it was as if Arya could feel a balled fist pushing against her belly. Her breath caught as the memory seeped in.

A fist pressed firmly into her gut."This is where your strength should flow from, lovely girl."

Once, that purring Lorathi accent had stolen her breath away, for when she heard it, she nearly drowned in a sea of lovely anticipation and the hope of possibility and every new, unnamed feeling that somehow equaled the dawning realization of what it meant to have her heart claimed. Now, though, when she recalled Jaqen's voice, her breath was not stolen but held, pulled in and stilled as she waited for her sorrow and pain to recede.

"Foolish girl," her master chided, "you have all the instinct you could ever require. Your task is to learn to heed it."

The girl was not as confident in her abilities as her master had been. Here, in this place far from the canals and bridges and streets of Braavos, she wasn't sure she should heed her instincts, lest a wrong choice lead her to ruin. For all her prowess with steel, the Cat felt adrift when confronted with the intricacies of the ambitions of men.

The Blackwoods.

Karyl Vance.

The Brotherhood Without Banners.

The Faceless Men.

Who could be relied upon? With whom should she ally?

It would seem that for all of Arya's mistrust of others, the person she least trusted in this moment was herself.

Sighing, the girl laid her head back on her pillow and uttered a phrase taught to her by Jaqen.

"Aqtam 'amala."

The room was plunged into darkness and if she dreamed again, she did not recall it.

Arya slept a bit later than was her habit and so when she arrived in the great hall to break her fast, she found that many of the guests and the household had already eaten their fill and left. One guest, however, had eaten her fill yet remained, pacing the floor with a very serious look upon her face.

"My Lady Arya," Brienne of Tarth said, snapping to attention as the girl entered the hall.

"Lady Brienne," Arya returned, nodding her head toward the tall woman.

"I wonder if now might be a good time to speak with you?"

"Of course. You're welcome to join me at table."

"I've already eaten, my lady, but I will sit with you, if that's alright."

The two women found a place and a maid scurried off to the kitchens to have a tray made up for the new arrival. Brienne wasted no time.

"Lady Arya, many years ago, I was charged with a task by your mother, Lady Catelyn."

Arya's eyes softened at the mention of her mother's name. She thought of Catelyn's face for a moment before she spoke. "So you said at the feast."

"Yes, well, it seems that fortune has finally smiled on the both of us and placed you in my path."

The girl wasn't sure fortune had such a will, and if it did, she wasn't sure that it had ever bothered to exercise its power in her favor. Even so, she had a fair idea of what it was the knightly woman was going to say. Arya thought Brienne's intentions might fit nicely with her own.

"Indeed."

"My lady, I wish to fulfill my vow and escort you to your mother. Delivering you safely into her care will release me from this burden I have borne these five years gone, at least partially."

"Partially?"

"I was to return your sister as well, Lady Arya. That was the vow I made."

"But Sansa remains lost to us," the girl murmured. Brienne nodded once, a somber acknowledgment.

"Though we did discover her, she refused all offers of help."

"You spoke to Sansa?" Arya sat up a bit straighter.

Brienne shook her head. "Not as such, no. Ravens were sent and ravens returned. Lady Hardyng of the Eyrie and of Winterfell seems happily ensconced high above the Vale."

"Lady Hardyng? Of the Eryie and of Winterfell?" the girl parroted. Sansa had married? And a Hardyng controlled the Vale? What had become of the Arryns?

"Of course, saying you are the Lady of Winterfell is quite different than actually holding Winterfell," Brienne continued thoughtfully. "The North is rife with conflict just now, and news has been sporadic and confused. We had heard that Roose Bolton held the castle and then that it was Stannis Baratheon who occupied it..." The way Brienne spat the name of the latter man left little doubt as to the large woman's opinion of him. "More recently, we have even heard that a horde of wildlings has taken it over, led by some sort of fire god or daemon." There was a trace of mockery in her tone as she said it.

"A fiery daemon as the Lord of Winterfell?" For some reason, Arya found the idea amusing. She imagined anyone used to living in the pits of the seven hells would find the North a bit cold for his taste.

"I'm only reporting what we've heard. No doubt, the stories become a bit distorted as they make their way south."

"Some are even completely fabricated, it would seem."

Wildlings in Winterfell. The very idea! She and Rickon were the closest thing to that in a thousand years, Arya was quite sure.

"Be that as it may, strange tidings have been coming out of the North of late. There is talk of battles beyond the wall and of the dead rising from their graves."

"The dead rising?"

"We have heard of ice storms and snows so deep as to bury crofters' huts past their roofs. Giants. Attacks on the Night's Watch. Men burning one another alive. No matter the stories, they all seem to have one thing in common now."

"And that is?"

Brienne waited a moment before answering, considering her words. Dropping her voice a notch lower, she said, "A feeling of dread. There is talk of an ancient evil rising from the ice, moving south."

"An ancient evil? What is that supposed to mean?"

"They bring with them the long night."

"Next you'll tell me that the grumpkins have taken over the Last Hearth!" The girl laughed good-naturedly. "I feel as though Old Nan is telling me a bedtime tale. Does this ancient evil ride astride an ice spider perchance?" Arya thought back to her girlhood, when Old Nan had told them the frightening stories she and Bran craved as they huddled down under sleeping furs. The old woman had always chastised them when they scoffed, insisting every tale she told was true enough.

"I know it sounds fantastical. I don't put much stock in these latest stories myself..."

"The North has always been a wild land that cherishes its myths and legends, Lady Brienne. I was raised on such tales. They are hardly new." Just then, the maid returned with Arya's breakfast and as the servant set the tray before her, the girl leaned back in her chair, staring past her companion's shoulder. All traces of her amusement were erased. There was something stirring in her gut; some feeling she could not quite place but could not quite ignore, either. Arya's brow creased slightly, and she chewed her bottom lip.

"What is it, my lady?" Brienne inquired in a hushed tone after the maid left them.

The girl's features relaxed, and she focused on her companion's face, shrugging. "I've just seen enough of the world to know that there are things which cannot be explained in a way that would seem sensible to most people."

Some of these things she had witnessed through wolf's eyes, and some she had seen dancing in the flames. Some of these things she had learned at the feet of men who could change their faces at the mere touch of their fingers. Beric Dondarrion had walked the land long after he should have departed it. The bones of her own mother ought to lie bare and smooth beneath the waters of the Green Fork now. Dragons flew in Dorne though the last of them had died more than a hundred years past. She had felt for herself the power of the old gods when she touched even the mere stump of a weirwood. It was madness to believe in such things, yet she knew them to be true.

Lady Brienne seemed skeptical. "So, you believe it's actually possible that a daemon rules at Winterfell now?"

"No, not a daemon, but perhaps someone... who is not quite a man, either."

The two women stared at each other in silence, each thinking her own private thoughts.

Brienne had endured her own brush with a creature who transcended mortality, a murderous shadow born of sacrifice and spells. She also served a woman who had been rumored dead three days before she rose again, lit from within by a dark fire, so different from her former self that she no longer used the name given her at birth. The knightly woman nodded to Arya, her acknowledgment of the truth that some things were beyond their understanding. The Maid of Tarth bore a look then which could only be described as grim.

The particulars of Brienne's plan to reunite Arya Stark with her mother had not yet been discussed when the two were joined by another. Lady Smallwood had arrived in the hall. The dark-haired beauty greeted the women graciously, bidding them good morning.

"You two seem to be cloistered in a very secretive council," Lady Smallwood observed, her lighthearted tone indicating her lack of serious accusation. "May anyone join? Are we plotting the overthrow of the castle?"

"Hardly, my lady," Brienne replied a bit stiffly.

"Currently, I'm plotting the overthrow of this bacon," Arya cut in, lifting a piece to her mouth and taking a bite as Lady Smallwood took the seat next to Brienne.

"Do you anticipate victory, my lady?" Ravella Smallwood asked, laughing a little.

"I do, though many lives may be lost. Breakfast is serious business."

Brienne cleared her throat, apparently uncomfortable with the japing tone the conversation had taken. To Arya, it seemed that breakfast wasn't the only thing serious at the table.

"Lady Arya, I will take my leave now, but I do wish to speak to you again at your earliest convenience." Arya nodded and the Maid of Tarth departed.

"Oh, dear, I hope I haven't frightened her away," Lady Smallwood said.

"I don't think much frightens her," the girl replied, "but I'm gathering she doesn't have much of a sense of humor."

"No," Ravella agreed, "but I fear not many do during times such as these."

"Still, it seems yours is intact."

"I suppose that's true," the woman admitted. "Even so, I think perhaps this is not the time for humor."

"How do you mean?" the Cat asked.

"I'm not sure. It's just that when I look at you, I have a feeling, and I cannot explain it."

The girl's eyes narrowed a bit as she regarded the woman's comely face. "What sort of feeling?"

The woman sighed and leaned over the table a bit, closing some of the distance between herself and the girl. Ravella Smallwood gazed into her companion's grey eyes for a moment, and then she spoke. "A sadness weighs on me when I look into your eyes, child."

"I make you sad?"

Lady Smallwood smiled at Arya. "I think perhaps it's because you remind me of my daughter, in a way."

"Oh?"

Arya recalled that when she had sheltered behind the walls of Acorn Hall those many years ago, Lady Smallwood had spoken of her daughter. Carellen, the girl recalled. Ravella Smallwood had even dressed Arya in some of her daughter's things, dresses the girl had outgrown.

"You're just about the age she was when..." Lady Smallwood paused and her smile faltered. "We lost her to the sweating sickness a few years past. Gone in two days. At least she didn't suffer much."

"Oh... I didn't know. I'm so sorry."

"She had a beautiful voice. And she danced with such grace." The woman sighed. "You dance with the same grace, my lady. I watched you at the feast."

Arya imagined the dancing she preferred was something far different than what Carellen Smallwood had enjoyed, but she only nodded graciously and held her tongue. Lady Smallwood continued speaking.

"When the River lords bent the knee, I thought it would finally be safe to bring her home. Before I could send word, though, a raven arrived from Oldtown."

Dark wings, dark words, the girl thought.

"I'd sent Carellen there, you see. To my great-aunt. She's a septa and lives in one of the septuaries in Oldtown. I thought Carellen would be safer away from the conflict."

"You were being a good mother," Arya soothed. "You sent her away from danger."

"But we had no sickness at Acorn Hall, you see. So, as it turns out, I put my child in danger rather than saving her from it. I paid a heavy price for my mistake. All I have of her now are her bones and a lock of her hair."

The girl was unsure what to say. The lady of Acorn Hall had tears on her lashes, but they did not fall. Her grief was palpable, but there was a strength in her that rivaled her grace. Instinctively driven to offer what comfort she could, Arya leaned forward and slid her hand over Ravella's. The woman's sad smile returned as she looked down at Arya's small hand.

"I'm sorry to burden you with my troubles, my dear," the older woman apologized. "You have a way of making me feel comfortable. It's as if we've known each other for ages."

"I think that's because you do know me, Lady Smallwood."

Ravella laughed, a light, pleasant sound, and her look was one of benevolent skepticism. "I think I should remember if I had ever met Ned Stark's daughter."

"You didn't know I was Ned Stark's daughter at the time," the girl revealed, "only that I was highborn and in the company of men you trusted."

The smile faded from Ravella's lips and she stared closely at Arya's features. After a moment, she gasped, her hand fluttering to her throat. "My lady! Why did you not tell me?" Lady Smallwood rose suddenly and rounded the table. She drifted toward the still-seated girl, lifting her hands to place them on Arya's cheeks. The woman's fingers felt soft and warm against the girl's cool flesh. "I've so often wondered what had become of you. I prayed for you, though I did not know your name. I prayed you'd find peace and safety." Ravella leaned down and wrapped Arya in her arms. "I am so pleased the gods saw fit to answer my prayers, even if they denied me my own daughter."

The girl wasn't quite sure Ravella Smallwood's prayers had been answered. Peace and safety, the woman had said. It had been so long since Arya could claim either of those things as her own that she no longer recalled what they felt like. Lady Smallwood released her and looked down at her face.

"Why did you wait until now to tell me it was you, Lady Arya?"

"Well, at the feast, I wasn't sure if you would want me to reveal... the circumstances of our acquaintanceship to your husband."

Or Tom of Sevenstreams' residence under the roof of Acorn Hall during the time Lord Smallwood led his men in battle against the crown.

The woman laughed again, pressing her hand to her chest lightly. "Oh, darling girl, Theomar and I have known each other since we were children. He squired for my father when I still played with poppets. We've shared too much in this life to bother hiding things from one another." Lady Smallwood reached out for Arya's hand, taking it gently between both of her own. "There is no place for secrets in our world."

Arya thought back to the temple in Braavos and the lessons she learned there. She thought of how much trouble she might have been saved had she been able to conceal her true identity from Tytos Blackwood. She recalled how Jaqen had advised her not to reveal her gift, lest it make her a target of unscrupulous men. It was the lack of secrecy surrounding the Bear's attachment to Olive which had marked the tavern girl for her death just as Attius Biro's knowledge of something had marked him for his (or so Arya suspected, though she hadn't quite worked it all out yet). Time and again, she had seen lies and concealment lead to better circumstances while the discovery of the truth too often contributed to impediments and misery, even death.

The Cat wasn't sure she agreed with Lady Smallwood's stance on secrets.

Arya left the hall shortly thereafter, meaning to find Brienne as promised. The girl had finished her breakfast, for she did not know when next she might be offered hot food. It was her plan to leave Raventree Hall this very day, with her Faceless escorts and if Brienne wished to be the one to lead Arya Stark back to her mother, she would need to ready herself.

The girl guessed that the serious woman might be training in the yard and so she headed there first. Upon her arrival, she did not discover Brienne, but Gendry was there, drilling his orphans. Elsbeth and Little Nate were crossing blades while Fletcher, Rider, and Stout Will shot at targets with short bows.

"Ser Gendry," Arya greeted hurriedly, "have you seen Lady Brienne?"

"Not since breakfast," the dark night replied, keeping his eyes on the dueling orphans. "Lift your sword higher, Elsbeth!" he cried out, then turned his face toward Arya, saying, "Good morning, m'lady."

"Honestly, do you call me that just to see if I'll frown?"

"No, I call you that out of respect, even though you'll frown." The big man crossed his arms over his chest and looked back at his charges. He called out a few more instructions to Little Nate and Elsbeth before asking Arya, "Why are you looking for Lady Brienne?"

"Because she asked me to find her. She wished to discuss something."

"What, taking you back to Hollow Hill?"

"How did you know that?"

"Because it's all she's talked about for years. It eats at her, this unfulfilled vow. I didn't think she would be able to contain herself when she finally set eyes on you, Catelyn Stark's long lost daughter."

"Gendry," Arya whispered with an urgency, "I'm of a mind to leave with her. Today."

"What?" The big man's brow creased and he looked at his old friend. "Today?"

"If the Blackwoods had their way, I think we would linger here indefinitely, or, at least until I agreed to marry one of their pile of sons."

The dark knight's fingers flexed and clenched. Arya noted the movement but said nothing. "Is someone pressuring you about a marriage contract?"

"No, no. It's not even been mentioned, but I just have this sense that... Well, there is a logic to keeping me under this roof, and it seems obvious what would drive such hospitality. I think it best to leave soonest."

"What, do you not wish to marry the gallant Brynden Blackwood? Or the handsome Ser Ben?" He was mocking her. "Not even to create an alliance that would secure your brother's seat for you?"

"I wish to marry no one," she replied, "and I want no seat. I have... other goals."

"Yes, other goals. How well I know. You are riding for Winterfell."

With a few stops planned along the way, she thought, but did not say.

"We are riding for Winterfell, Ser Gendry," the Cat corrected, "or have you already forgotten your pledge to me?"

"I haven't, m'lady," the knight replied, "but I fully expect you to try to leave me behind at some point. It seems that escaping Raventree Hall would be an opportune moment for such a deed."

The girl raised her eyebrows and cocked her head slightly to the left. "I have to deliver you to my mother, ser, so that you may beg her pardon. Did you think I would leave you to face her wrath alone?"

"Honestly, I didn't think it would matter to you much one way or another."

That drew Arya up short. She was not insulted by his indirect accusation of callousness. Rather, she was surprised to find that he was wrong. It did matter to her.

Bloody hells, why did it matter to her?

A cheer went up across the yard as Stout Will hit a bulls eye on his target. The girl jerked her gaze toward the disturbance but her mind still churned with a self-interrogation. Her look declared her displeasure and Gendry remarked upon it.

"Is something wrong, m'lady?"

"Yes," she answered, and then left him without further explanation.

Arya wandered the halls of the castle, trying to discover Lady Brienne's chamber. She had received two different sets of directions from two different hurried servants, and now she was hopelessly lost. She turned to retrace her steps and rounded a corner, nearly running into Ser Brynden and Lord Vance.

"My lady!" the heir to Raventree Hall cried in surprise.

"Lady Arya," Lord Vance greeted with solemn respect.

"Good morning, my lords."

"Whatever are you doing in this part of the keep?" Ser Brynden inquired. "It's nothing but closed up chambers and storage."

"I'm afraid I got a bit turned around," Arya admitted. "I was trying to find the Lady Brienne."

"Ah! Well, we passed her as we left the stables," Karyl Vance supplied. "She was headed there to give instructions to the grooms."

"Oh? Is she leaving?" the girl asked, seemingly polite but not too interested. Arya could be quite subtle when she wished it.

"Yes, on the morrow, with the rest of the party," Ser Brynden answered.

"The rest of the party? What do you mean, ser?"

"Oh, my lady, I had quite forgotten that you didn't know. There's to be a hunt."

"A hunt?" The girl's brows knitted together.

"No proper revelry is complete without a hunt, don't you agree?" Ser Brynden smiled. "We've a bevy of guests to keep entertained. It would be a poor host who would bring them all this distance then send them on their way after one meager feast!"

"So, there's to be a hunt," the girl concluded. Ser Brynden nodded.

"Have you hunted before, my lady?"

Oh, yes, she had hunted, though her game typically walked on two legs and was chosen based on prayers and coin rather than season and palatability upon roasting.

"A little. Mostly, I enjoy riding, though it's only recently that I have been able to do so again."

"Yes, I suppose there is little chance for riding in Braavos."

Arya did not recall having discussed Braavos with Ser Brynden, or Lord Vance, but she supposed with the Brotherhood in possession of certain knowledge of her, she had no cause to keep her whereabouts over the last few years a secret any longer. At least, not so far as her location was concerned. What she had been doing in that city, and where she had sheltered, however, she did not think it wise to reveal as yet.

She did not bother feigning confusion.

"Yes. One was more like to walk or perhaps ride in a gondola when in the city. The streets were too crowded for horses to maneuver usually."

"I would love to hear more of your time in Braavos," Ser Brynden said.

"As would I," Lord Vance added.

Arya's mind worked quickly as her plan took form. "And I'd be happy to tell you all you would wish to know," she replied. She paused a beat. "While riding out on the hunt."

Lord Vance looked surprised but it was the younger man who spoke. "Have you no wish to stay here with the ladies?"

"Not all the ladies are staying here, isn't that right?"

The men looked at her, slightly puzzled.

"Did you not say that Lady Brienne was to ride out with you?" Arya pressed.

Karyl Vance spoke. "Yes, my lady, but she..."

"Well, then, I shall ride with her."

"Ah, well... it's settled then!" Ser Brynden declared. "I shall have the grooms see to your horse and tell Lyra to prepare your things. We leave at first light tomorrow, my lady."

It struck Arya as odd that the heir to Raventree Hall should know the name of the maid attending her, but she said nothing and just bowed her head graciously. Ser Brynden reached out for her hand, pressing a quick kiss against it and then inspecting her bruised and scabbed knuckles for a moment.

"Does it hurt?"

She shook her head and slipped her hand out of the knight's grip.

"It is as you said, Lady Arya. You are a quick healer."

"Just so," she answered, bidding the men goodbye and turning to leave. She hesitated for a moment, then turned back. "I forgot to ask, my lords, but what do we hunt?"

"Wolves, my lady," Lord Vance told her grimly. "The forest has been crawling with them of late."

Arya found Brienne leaving the stables shortly thereafter.

"Lady Arya," the woman began, wasting no time, "there is to be a hunt on the morrow. This seems to be the perfect opportunity..."

"I know, Lady Brienne, and I agree. It will be much easier to split from a hunting party then to have the castle gates opened without raising an alarm or doing some violence to innocent men."

"But my lady, how did you know..."

"Please, let's not waste our precious little time with hows and whys," Arya interrupted. "We've a long road to Hollow Hill to discuss anything you would like, but for now, I need to talk with my men. You should speak with Ser Gendry."

The two women began to walk toward the keep together.

"Do you mean to take a large party? My lady, you and I together would make better time and be harder to track."

"Do you think anyone would really bother tracking us?"

"I have no doubt they would. Whether your mother ever sees you again is of no consequence to these men. You are too valuable to them. You cannot expect they will let you go so easily."

Arya nodded grimly. "You may be right. Still, I won't leave my men behind. I can't."

The assassin didn't tell Brienne that the very thing the party was to hunt would make it easier to track the deserters, since the wolves would undoubtedly accompany Arya on her way. She still wasn't sure how to fully explain her lupine army in a way to did not reveal her gift. Nymeria being her childhood pet seemed like a weak excuse for the behavior of the pack toward the girl, but she supposed that if the question arose, that would have to do. In the mean time, the Cat wondered if she might somehow direct Nymeria to range far ahead of them, keeping her pack from danger and perhaps making it more difficult for the Riverlanders to attach her mistress to their number.

"No, I suppose you can't," the knightly woman conceded.

"And as for Gendry..."

"Yes, Ser Gendry should come. Your mother will be less likely to hang him if she sees that he left for your sake."

It seemed that Brienne understood her completely.

"It's a small party, still. My two men, Gendry, you, and me. Everyone rides well enough. No one should be a burden."

"What of Harwin, my lady?"

They walked slowly along the corridor. Arya looked ahead, thinking.

"He'll not like being left behind, but he'll join us soon enough."

"When he sees you are gone, he's sure to come after you, and he rides like a daemon."

"Do daemons ride?" the girl laughed. Lady Brienne did not see the humor.

"My point is, he'll catch up to us easily, even in as small a party as five, and he'll lead the others to us. If you wish to reach your mother, my lady, it's probably best to include him in your plans."

Arya thought on it. "I'm not so sure. He seems rather entrenched in his belief that I need Lord Blackwood's support."

"Lord Blackwood's support? For what?"

"For everything," the girl sighed, "but mostly to claim the Winter Throne."

"My lady!"

"I know," the girl hissed, "but there it is. He sees a different outcome for my return than I do, and it seems that the River lords have all fallen in together on the matter. Or, at least, some of them have."

"So that's why they want you to stay here, under their protection."

"Under their watchful eye, rather," the girl spat.

"Do you suspect Lord Blackwood's motives, my lady?"

"No, I understand his motives completely." Vengeance for his murdered son, and revenge against those who had burned and raped and pillaged on his lands. "We just have different ideas of how to achieve what needs doing, and I'm rather attached to my own plans."

Ser Ilyn. Ser Meryn. Queen Cersei. Traitorous Black Brothers. The Kindly Man.

And, she meant to pay Walder Frey a visit, should she find herself near the Twins.

"As long as those plans include rejoining your mother, then we are of an accord, my lady."

"They do," the Cat assured the knightly woman, "and so, as far as the road to Hollow Hill stretches before us, you and I are allies."

"Aye, Lady Arya, allies we are. And I hope that we are also friends, to Hollow Hill and beyond."

The corners of the girl's mouth pulled up and she gave a short, good-natured laugh, meeting the woman's eyes. There was agreement in her gaze.

"We should be off, then," the girl said. "There will surely be a supper tonight to see the party off, and all our preparations will need to be made by then. You'll have to make arrangements for the orphans, I imagine. Ser Gendry will not like leaving them. Make sure no one speaks of any changes to their plans."

"I understand the need for discretion," the knightly woman assured the girl.

"Just be certain the orphans do."

"Yes, my lady."

Lady Brienne watched as Arya turned and walked away from her, heading, no doubt, to find Ser Willem and his squire and apprise them of the plan. Brienne needed to walk in the other direction, toward the training yard and Ser Gendry. She had turned to do so but had taken no more than five or six long strides when she felt a light touch on her elbow which caused her to whip around.

Standing of the center of the corridor, reaching out toward her, she saw the Lady Ravella Smallwood.

"Oh, my lady, I... You startled me," the Maid of Tarth said, clearing her throat. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously as she looked at the woman. "Where did you come from?"

"My maid's room is just there," the woman said, indicating a door not ten paces down the corridor. "We were discussing my dress and jewelry for supper. We're to have another gay celebration tonight, to see the hunting party off."

"Do you make it your habit to seek out your maids in their chambers rather than summoning them to yours?"

Ravella laughed. "Only when I desire the exercise. Or an escape from a particularly tedious companion. I'll leave it to you to decide which drew me to the servant's corridor."

"Well, then..." Brienne looked uncomfortable. "I'll take my leave, Lady Smallwood. I have matters that need attending."

"Yes. About those matters..."

Brienne stiffened at the lady's words. "They are not your concern, if you'll pardon me saying so, my lady."

"Lady Brienne, you can't mean to leave here with Lady Arya! The road is no place for such a small party with two ladies in their charge. Lord Smallwood and I traveled here with a contingent of twenty household guards and sworn men. You should have no less. Or, better yet, stay here, where it's safe."

"I don't expect you to understand, Lady Smallwood, but I have sworn a vow, and I mean to keep it."

"Oh, I understand well enough about vows," Ravella assured the large woman. "I understand even better about the dangers of the road through the Riverlands."

"Lady Arya means to see her mother..."

"Lady Stoneheart," the gentle woman corrected with distaste in her voice.

"Yes, Lady Stoneheart, who is her mother." Brienne sounded stern.

"Not quite, though," Ravella said, her voice soft. "Isn't that right, Lady Brienne? She's not quite the mother that poor girl remembers."

"I cannot make such a distinction."

"You will not make such a distinction, but that's not the same thing. Have you prepared her for what she'll find when she sees her mother again?"

Brienne huffed impatiently. "My lady, I have no wish to seem discourteous, but I mean to bring Arya Stark back to her mother, and there is nothing you can say to prevent me from fulfilling that duty."

"Oh, for the sake of the gods, woman, you can't take her to some dank cave in the wilds," Ravella hissed impatiently. "She's Ned Stark's daughter, not one of your pitiful, lowborn orphans!"

"She is determined to see her mother, and I am determined to make sure that happens."

"Fine, yes, Lady Arya will see her mother, but please, take her to Acorn Hall, at least. It will shorten your journey considerably. A messenger can be sent to your lady. She can come there and be reunited behind safe walls and a real roof, and you can spare the girl from riding through that ghastly wood full of swinging skeletons!"

"You... you would welcome Lady Stoneheart beneath your roof? Lady Smallwood, I... I don't know what to say. Your kindness is... much appreciated."

"It is no kindness, it's merely me doing my duty. That's something I know you'll understand, Lady Brienne. Duty."

"Your duty, my lady? How is anything to do with Arya Stark your duty?"

Ravella laughed sadly. "You know, I had a daughter once. A beautiful girl, so sweet. Not like Lady Arya at all. Carellen was delicate. Soft-hearted. Timid, even. I think if she and Arya Stark had traded places back when I first laid eyes on that girl, my Carellen still would have died. Possibly even sooner than she did. She was not hard enough for this world in which we find ourselves now."

Brienne was at a loss. She wasn't sure what she should say to Lady Smallwood, and so she simply said, "I'm sorry."

"I might tell you that it's a mother's duty," Ravella continued as if she had not heard her. "I might say that as a mother, I understand what it is to be parted from your child, and that is why I am helping you. But that would be a lie. Or, at least, not the complete truth."

The knightly woman stared at Ravella Smallwood's drawn face, waiting.

"My duty is to my lord, and what my lord wants is what all the Riverlands wants: freedom from invaders. Freedom from Lannister rule. If I can keep her safe, then I am doing my part to see her to the Winter Throne. A Stark on the throne is the only thing which will give us what we want."

It seemed there was a River lord—and lady—conspiracy after all.

"If it is your wish to see Lady Arya take her brother's place as ruler of the North and the Riverlands, then why not rush off to Lord Blackwood and tell him of our scheme right now? Why not betray us, if you think we are safer here than on the road?"

"I'm not completely heartless, my dear," Ravella said, her laughter tinkling like delicate bells. "And I think this girl... I think she will find a way to have what it is she wants. Better to ally myself with her and help her along rather than make an enemy of her by trying to trap her where she does not wish to be."

"You are very wise, my lady."

"Still, having her at Acorn Hall would make me feel better, as would sending her out with a larger contingent. There is greater danger than you imagine. You will be escorting Robb Stark's presumed heir, don't forget. The Riverlands is under the control of Lannister forces. What do you imagine the Lannisters would do to her if they captured her?"

"I don't plan to find out," Brienne replied, "and our contingent is great enough for our needs. Any larger, and not only will we travel too slowly, but we'll draw more attention."

"You should take my husband, at least. There would be no better guide to Acorn Hall, and he can fight."

"And then, his liege lord as well, Lady Smallwood? Won't Lord Vance be cross if he is not informed of any plan that Lord Smallwood is involved with? And if Lord Vance has need to know, then Lord Blackwood should also know, and likely his sons. Perhaps the entire hunting party should accompany us!"

"Very well, Lady Brienne, I bow to your wisdom in this. But I shall have Maester Alfryd send a raven to Acorn Hall at least, so the household may be prepared for your visit. And I'll send instructions for my steward to send a rider to find your lady and present her with an invitation to my hall."

Brienne bowed her head in gratitude. "But not before the hunting party is a day away, please, Lady Smallwood. I won't risk prying eyes intercepting your message ruining our plan."

"Very well, then. When the hunting party has been away one day."

The two women eyed each other shrewdly, then Ravella dipped a deep curtsy to the Maid of Tarth. Brienne bowed low and they left one another, both considering their plans as they walked.

Arrangements had been made, instructions given in hushed tones, and contingencies discussed. A midday meal had been consumed; pleasantries exchanged in passing. Arya moved from this place to that as if it were any other day. She could play this role to perfection—her skills at deceit had been honed behind ebony and weirwood doors, playing the lying game with a woman who looked like a beautiful child. Brienne, however, lacked the proper temperament for duplicity.

"You look guilty," Arya said in a low voice as she passed Lady Brienne in the great hall after their meal was done.

"Of what, my lady?"

"Of something," the girl growled. "Now, stop it!"

"I don't know how to stop it," the woman replied. "I don't even know what you think I'm doing."

Arya sighed. "Fine. Unless you have pressing matters just now..."

"I don't. I've done all I can do for now."

"Good. Come with me to the training yard. You'll be too busy trying to swat me with your sword to give our plans away with that horribly honest face of yours."

"You want to spar with me, my lady?"

"Indeed I do."

"My lady, I have no wish to hurt you."

Arya snorted. "You won't."

Ball and Chain—Social Distortion

Chapter Text

I need some space, so someone please make me some room in this bitch

The yard was busy when Brienne and Arya arrived. Some of the Blackwood men-at-arms were training together and the orphans were back at it, for what else was there for them to do? Gendry and Harwin sparred nearby, using their sharp edges carefully. A warhammer sat propped against the far wall and Arya wondered if Gendry had already employed it or if he intended to use it later. That was something she would like to see.

Ser Ben was harassing Lord Alyn with a broadsword and shield in one corner. The younger man looked as though he wished to be anywhere but where he was as he was knocked off his feet by his jeering brother. Ser Brynden sparred with the master-at-arms, both men serious; silent, but for the occasional grunt. They allowed the clanging of their steel to speak for them. Lord Vance and Lord Smallwood were taking turns sparring with various men among their company. Baynard and Ser Willem looked on, but the way their shirts clung to them, it was apparent they had been hard at it earlier.

Arya supposed this bit of sport was how the guests had chosen to occupy themselves between completing their preparations for the hunt and the supper yet to come. She deduced that the women of the party must be off somewhere in the keep, cloistered together. Arya imagined them seated upon tufted cushions and embroidering a bit of silk or linen, with flowers, most like, or perhaps the sigil of their house, to no purpose but the satisfaction of expectation. Perhaps one even plucked at a mandolin or a lute to entertain the others. She had not seen Lady Blackwood or Bethany since the feast, but it seemed logical they would be occupied with just such a refined pursuit.

The Cat and the Maid of Tarth moved to an area to the far side of the yard which would give them the space they required. They had each retreated to their chambers following their midday meal, so as to retrieve their own weapons. After spending an evening weighed down by forced pleasantries, finery, and dreams heavy with meaning, not to mention an encounter with a raven in her window, Arya longed for the feel of good steel in each of her hands. In this instance, training blades would not do.

The girl surveyed her opponent for a moment. She'd heard Gendry and Harwin speak of Lady Brienne during their ride from the inn to the castle, and so she knew the woman had an inordinate degree of skill with her blade. As Arya appraised the way the knightly woman raised her longsword and held it steady, she saw that she was a person of great strength and discipline as well. Combined with her enormous stature, these traits would make besting the Maid of Tarth a formidable challenge.

Not enough of a challenge to overcome a water dancer, of course. At least, not this particular water dancer, if she kept her wits about her.

The Cat stood straight for a moment, then bent her neck and stretched her spine. She began swinging her arms in wide circles, feeling the heft of her weapons pull at the muscles of her shoulders and back. When she was limbered, she entered her stance and nodded to her opponent. Brienne did not hesitate, but began to stalk around the smaller woman slowly, longsword stretched out before her, blade flat to the sky, the point ever fixed on Arya. Arya, for her part, stood still, allowing herself to be inspected, moving only her eyes to track Lady Brienne's movements insofar as she was able without turning her head. The noise of the yard drained away from her then; the orphans yelling playful insults at one another, the grunting and cries and laughter of men, the crashing of steel, all faded to quiet in the girl's ears. It was as if she had been encased in a prism of crystal, where light could penetrate, but sound could not. All looked bright and clear, sharp, but fell silent. The Cat drew in a slow, steady breath, and inside, she stilled. Calm as still water.

Very strange. What is she waiting for? Why doesn't she move?

It was as if Brienne had spoken aloud, but Arya knew better. Briefly, the girl saw the back of her own head through eyes of sapphire blue. Her heavy, chestnut braid trailed down her neck, bound with a simple leather tie. Arya left Lady Brienne after that glimpse (had not truly meant to visit the woman's head at all. It sometimes just happened when she was still). The Cat did not need to see what her opponent would do. She knew she would be able to feel it. More and more, when she danced in this way, it was as if the whole world was made of water, and the ripples and waves caressed her skin as man and beast moved through it. She could read the sensation like a parchment; could react to it as instinctively as she breathed.

The knightly woman did not charge her sparring partner immediately, but held back a moment. It was as if she sensed some trick in the girl's odd behavior but could not work out what it was. Logic prevailed and Brienne took what was offered, lunging forward to tap at Arya's back with her sword. Before the steel could make contact, however, the girl pivoted in a half-circle. As she came to face Brienne, Arya struck at her opponent's blade with both Grey Daughter and Frost in concert, knocking the longsword away in one swift move. The unexpected change in the trajectory of her steel threw Brienne off-balance and that, coupled with her momentum, caused her to stumble forward. Arya instantly responded with a well-thrown elbow to the large woman's unprotected flank, spearing her kidney. The girl's force wasn't especially great, but her timing and placement were impeccable and she sent Brienne sprawling.

Wouldn't the handsome man be proud?

It had all happened in two blinks of the eye, and it sounded like the crisp clink of steel meeting steel, a sharply drawn breath, and an involuntarily utterance of, "Oomph!" when the the hard-packed ground met a pliant chest.

A woman so large laid out prostrate in the dust was a sight that drew attention. The Faceless assassins were spectators from the time the women squared off, but others started drifting over to join them then. For her part, Brienne began to suspect that she had underestimated Arya Stark's skill.

Arya offered Brienne her hand, helping the Maid of Tarth regain her feet. The larger woman did not bother to shake the dust from her doublet, but nodded to her opponent and immediately raised her sword again. She moved as she had before, circling Arya. The girl did not repeat her previous behavior, though. No longer frozen, Arya turned to follow the knightly woman's movements, her own swords held at the ready. In short order, Brienne delivered two powerful blows in predictable fashion, first to the girl's left and then to her right. The water dancer side-stepped them easily, but she knew her opponent was only testing her, gauging her quickness. As the larger woman had said, she had no wish to hurt the daughter of her lady, and she was holding back until she could be sure Arya was up to her challenge. Arya herself held back, forgoing the opportunity to sidle in quick and close. She could have already had her blades at Brienne's throat, but her goal wasn't to rapid victory. She sought to distract the Maid of Tarth so that the woman's lack of artiface would not inadvertently give away their secrets.

Besides, she did not know when next she would have the chance for such pursuits as these. She was like to spend the next several days almost continuously on horseback, riding to meet her mother (and riding to outpace anyone who might come looking for her, intent on bringing her back to Raventree Hall). The girl planned to enjoy this exercise, her favorite, for as long as she could.

And so they circled one another, Brienne growing quicker and stronger with her strikes as Arya demonstrated her agility.

Brienne's swordplay was a study in the Westerosi technique. It was aggressive; forceful; undiluted savagery, almost elegant in the purity of its violence. There was an emphasis on advancement and pressing; the gaining and holding of ground; frontal assaults and direct attacks. There was little feinting and no subtlety, just raw, merciless power and a reluctance to retreat (which, to Arya's eye, was what made Westerosi technique so intimidating, but was also its main point of weakness). The concentration was on killing blows. The style had been developed to dispatch an armored foe quickly so that the next one could be engaged. Blunt and brutal, it was an approach shaped by the battlefield, that chaotic melee of gore and splintered bone and the dying screams of men, and it relied heavily on strength, speed, and luck.

Brienne was built for the Westerosi technique, and she was a master of it. Her lines were perfect, her pacing, flawless. Her strength and speed were such that she had never had cause to rely on luck. The power behind her heavy cuts and thrusts made her strikes all but impossible to absorb.

And so Arya did her best not to absorb them.

"You move overmuch," Brienne accused after failing to tag her opponent several times. The girl was nearly dizzying to watch as she ducked and spun and leapt.

"I move as I must to keep ahead of your sword's edge," Arya replied, displaying something that looked like a courtly bow but was actually her ducking another of Brienne's cuts.

The girl was not built for Westerosi technique. Her stature and reed-like physique were not suited for it, and though she was exceedingly strong for a woman of her size, her strength could not match that of most knights, no matter how she might wish it so. She needed to manipulate the laws of movement and the physical universe to augment her strength. Her father had recognized this long before she had, and his engagement of a the First Sword of Braavos as her dancing master had been instrumental to this end. Ned Stark's understanding of swordplay was ingenious and he knew very well how to play to the strengths and weaknesses of men (and daughters).

A water dancer's style was best matched against another water dancer's, at least if what one most craved was to witness the splendor of the spectacle. There was a beauty and a grace in the Braavosi technique, and it was displayed to its best advantage when two water dancers sparred against each other, for it was then that the malleability and fluidity of movement from which the technique took its name was most accentuated. Yes, for a marvelous show, there was nothing better than two skilled water dancers dueling one another. That truth was what the entire culture of the Bravos had been built upon. For victory, however... For the precise and sure delivery of mortality... Well, then it mattered little who crossed swords with a water dancer. A water dancer could match with anyone, because above all, a water dancer was adaptable. A water dancer could mold and shape to whatever he encountered, like the water itself.

Arya Stark was a very skilled water dancer.

A well-trained water dancer was adept at moving over, under, and around, no matter the obstacle. The opposing technique meant little and less when such was your skill.

Rather than aggression and power, Arya's swordplay was a study of reactionary movement and the exploitation of counterweight; of leverage and the titration of force. There was no advancement and retreat, but rather, ebb and flow, as with the tides. Attacks were angled and beautifully balanced and more like to come at a foe sideways than head-on. There were tipping points which were manipulated. There was knowing just when and how to strike so that a joint was turned painfully; so that a weapon was knocked loose; so that an opponent was disarmed, thrown off, undone, or made dead. She understood the timing of when to intercept the arc of a blow so that her opponent's momentum could not build or had already been spent. She was aware of how to prod a body so that its intended direction was changed to one of her choosing.

Acceleration. Deflection. Rotational mechanics.

It was science masquerading as art; death masquerading as dance. It was pressure, velocity, and the mastery of mass, including her own, all employed in a captivating ballet of steel and exertion and violence. Quite simply, Arya knew instinctively which space to occupy, and when to occupy it.

Syrio Forel had taught her the feeling of this technique. The Kindly Man had taught her the theory of it. Jaqen H'ghar and the handsome man had drilled her on its application.

Syrio lived in her head as she fought, and the Kindly Man did too, though she did not like to think of that. Jaqen whispered to her when she fell back on instinct; when her gut told her things. And her handsome master was there, when she shoved with a forearm or purposefully tangled her feet with another's, causing the disruption of an opponent's footwork. Even the waif was there, with her serpent-quick strikes (wrapping knuckles hard with the hilt of her heavy dagger to gain an errant student's attention). And always, there was Jon.

Stick them with the pointy end.

The old gods were there, for weren't they the ones who had made it possible for her mind to leave the shell of her body? Weren't they the ones who enabled her to feel what it was her foes intended, knowing the plans they formed against her, even as they took shape? The new gods were there, too, at least the Warrior. And, sometimes, even the Stranger. And, overseeing them all, there was Him of Many Faces, blessing her swords, waiting to drink in the blood which would run along the flats of her blades.

Arya had once spied a show, an entertainment, through the window of one of the higher end brothels in Braavos, just outside of the Purple Harbor; the sort of place frequented by ships' captains, wealthy merchants, and iron bankers; the sort of place one might find Attius Biro, while he lived. There was a kind of low stage in the main chamber, and upon it, a woman danced while a boy played a lute. Her movements were like smoke rising from a fire.

Ethereal; undulating; transfixing.

The woman was completely bare, with not a stitch of clothing on her, yet she was almost completely covered by large, feathered fans she held in each hand. The thing was, the fans were in constant motion, switching from her front to her back; from the top of her body to the bottom; floating over her head and down her shoulders; licking at her ankles. Yet, somehow, they always managed to veil her; to shield her naked flesh from the hungry eyes of those around her.

Or, shield most of her, at least (it was a brothel, after all).

A small glimpse was allowed, but never for long, and never the same smooth bit of flesh. Here, one hip; there, the side of her breast. Her lower back, her neck, one bronzed thigh. Other brothels had shows, certainly, and the men there cheered and called out vulgar things while women danced and play acted for their pleasure (and their coin). But here, it was different. Here, the men sat still, their eyes quite drawn, their lips slightly parted. Here, their gazes could not be coaxed away from the dancer and her fans. Her movements were precise, yet fluid. There was calculation, but more than that, there was artistry. There was an objective, to be sure (the inflaming of passions; the elevation of lusts to degrees which would not be quelled even in the face of the cost of satisfying them), but the result was something more. Something quite transcendent.

Had those fans been replaced with swords and the beautiful, bronzed dancer replaced with Arya Stark, the display of her blade skills could have been described in much the same way. She was a study in the precision and the art of motion. There, in the training yard at Raventree Hall, the men stood still, their eyes quite drawn, their lips slightly parted. Their gazes could not be coaxed away from the water dancer and her steel.

Brienne had moved both of her hands to her hilt, driving her blows more quickly toward her sparring partner. Arya's braid beat against her back as she ducked and dodged the attacks. The girl admired the knightly woman's stamina. The steel she used, not being Valyrian, was heavier than Arya's own and yet Brienne did not flag in her rapid pace.

The Cat used her weapons more as a shield, blocking and turning the thrusts she could not completely avoid. She had not yet made an attempt to tag her opponent; not since she had sent her headlong into the dust only moments into their contest. Instead, she was cataloging; observing; learning. They went on in this way for quite awhile. It had been some time since the girl had seen a true master of the Westerosi technique fight; even as long ago as the tournament to honor her father's appointment as King Robert's hand. And that had been a lifetime ago.

Many lifetimes.

Arya imagined that most of those she would match steel with in Westeros would employ this fashion of swordplay (though few were like to do it so adroitly as Lady Brienne), and so the girl made a study of her opponent. The assassin wished to take in all that she could, so that it might inform her strategy later. It wasn't until Brienne's expression seemed to betray some exasperation with her lack of engagement that Arya shifted her tactics.

The Cat tested the large woman with some of her most basic attacks then, wondering how a crashing longsword would respond to a whirling Bravo's blade. The knightly woman's speed saved her, the flat of the longsword blocking Frost crisply. Arya's change in aggression seemed to invigorate Brienne and the knightly woman crowded in forcefully, pushing the length of her blade against Arya's own, bending the girl's right arm back against her chest, their two swords trapped between them. When the girl lifted Grey Daughter to swing at Brienne's back, she found her wrist instantly grasped in her opponent's free hand. The Cat's lips curled upward maliciously, and she executed a maneuver learned from her brother Rat, pushing off her opponent's chest and springing into a backflip. The girl used the knightly woman's grip on her one slender wrist for stability. Arya caught the taller woman's chin with the heel of her boot as she flipped and Brienne's hold on her dissolved.

Arya landed amid a collection of startled shouts, cheers, and gasps. Brienne stumbled three steps backward, a combination of her response to the force of the blow on her chin and her own need to put some distance between herself and her opponent so that she could make sense of what she'd just seen.

What she'd just experienced.

"Get her, Brienne!" a voice cried out, and Arya was aware enough of the crowd then to hear it, and to know the voice belonged to Elsbeth.

The girl wasn't sure how long she and Lady Brienne had been at it. The afternoons of winter were short and shadows had started to creep out from the castle walls surrounding them. There was still tension in her muscles that cried for release, and so she obliged the urge and began to duel the Maid of Tarth in earnest.

Arya stood sideface briefly, Frost held high, at shoulder level, and Grey Daughter held low, her left arm braced against her belly. She gave Brienne a single nod and then advanced on her like a cyclone. The Varlyrian blades slashed so rapidly that their movements were almost impossible for the bystanders to track. The Maid of Tarth fought valiantly, giving ground only when not to do so would have cost her the contest, or perhaps an ear. The ringing of their steel became so loud and so rapid that it bled into one long, keening song. Brienne was as tall as a sentinel and as strong as an ironwood. She was as mighty and formidable as the great weirwood in Lord Tytos' garden.

But Arya was the river, and when the river overtopped its banks, the trees could not hold it back. They could only wait for it to recede and hope they were not uprooted by the flood.

Arya pelted her opponent like rain from the sky, a thousand thousand droplets falling too fast and too chaotic to intercept, and Brienne hunkered down in the storm. Arya crashed like waves, washing Brienne before her, backing the woman up to the edge of the crowd, and then through the spectators as they parted with shouts and cries and cheers. Arya flowed and eddied, and Brienne fought against drowning, swinging her steel savagely to stave off the girl's attacks. Arya melted away when Brienne thought to press her, only to rise again elsewhere in an instant. Then Arya crested, and Brienne sank, dropping to one knee with her back to the wooden wall of the yard. In a final attempt to ward the girl off and regain her footing, the knightly woman thrust out her longsword toward Arya's middle. The Cat danced around Brienne's steel, spinning down its length in the space of a single breath, her front coming to rest at the larger woman's side. In one swift move, the girl cradled the knightly woman's neck between her two blades. Arya said nothing, but stilled, closing her eyes and inhaling deeply before expending a quiet sigh.

This time, the silence that greeted Arya's ear was not a product of her own focus, but of a collective astonishment. It was Brienne who shattered the quiet, speaking in a voice that signaled her respect.

"I yield, my lady."

Arya opened her eyes and withdrew her steel. The Maid of Tarth rose and looked at the girl for a moment before stretching her hand forth. Arya smiled and the women clasped their forearms together in a sign of chivalry and friendship. A great cheer rose all around them and then they were inundated by claps on the back, compliments, questions, and congratulations. It was as if they had competed in a great tournament for a purse of gold dragons. Arya supposed the reception was understandable; bored guests were happy at having been entertained for a bit. She smiled and nodded, but tried to extricate herself from the crowd, waving off pleas to teach me that tumbling bit and questions of how did you do that? The only person she didn't try to shrug off was Brienne herself.

"My lady," the woman began, "I had heard rumors at the feast, but I didn't really believe them until now. More's the pity. You are most impressive with your blades."

"That means a great deal to me, Lady Brienne, coming from you."

"Not at all. It seems I need to spend more time in the training yard."

"My lady, I'd lay good coin on you against any man here. I was trained by the First Sword of Braavos, and many others almost as skilled. The style is nearly impossible to counter, unless you practice it yourself."

"I think I am too set in my ways to master another style now, Lady Arya. I shall have to hope that the First Sword of Braavos has no other pupils roaming this kingdom, and be sure to keep you among my friends!"

"Just so, Lady Brienne," Arya laughed. Her brother assassins approached her then.

"Ridiculous ostentation," Baynard muttered in the Cat's ear as Brienne left her.

The girl flippantly retorted, "I learned the showiest parts from you."

"Pipe down, squire." The Bear's tone was amiable but then he whispered to Arya, "Do you think it wise to make so plain what you can do?"

"My most unusual talents remain hidden," the girl whispered back, "and if I don't practice my dancing, it will grow stale and slow."

"As you say, sister, but anyone who wishes to subdue you now knows they need a company of men to do it."

"Only a company?" She laughed.

"Don't let arrogance be your downfall," Ser Willem chided. "And I do not jape. When word of this reaches the rest of the River lords..."

"They suspected my skill already, I'm sure, from what I'd already demonstrated here. With you." She eyed both of her brothers in turn.

"That was a small crowd, and seeing is believing," the Rat interjected. He ticked off a list of names, an admonition for her lack of stealth. "Vance, Smallwood, Blackwood, all here, in this yard. You put our mission at risk with your selfishness."

His words stung, but before Arya could reply, the trio was interrupted.

"My lady Arya!" Brynden Blackwood called, approaching the assassins with a wide smile and bowing low to the girl. If the Cat weren't so suspicious of his motivations, she would have been quite charmed by the handsome heir to Raventree Hall. "You continue to amaze me!"

"Your amazement surprises me, ser. Did you not tell me you had heard of my match with Ser Willem and Baynard upon your arrival here yesterday?"

"Indeed, my lady, but to witness such a display for myself..."

Arya felt the smug judgment rolling off of the Rat then.

"Perhaps it is my sex which alarms you so?" she replied, cutting her eyes at Baynard for a second. "Do you think a woman ought not fight so well?"

"Not at all, Lady Arya. Though I think we both know it's not usual, I would not count myself as alarmed in the least." He looked at her with a small smile on his lips. "But Lady Brienne is one of the best swords in this kingdom. I have only rarely seen her bested, though I have watched her spar dozens of times."

"She is a most worthy opponent," the girl agreed.

"And now I simply must hear of your time across the Narrow Sea."

"Do you think my telling you about my adventures in Braavos will aid you in some way?"

"Aid me, my lady?" The knight sounded confused.

"Admit it, ser. You don't know what to make of me, and that makes you... uncomfortable." The idea amused her, and the Cat made no effort to curb the smile that pulled at the corners of her mouth.

Ser Brynden tilted his head slightly, looking as if he was considering her words carefully. "In truth, my lady, you are an enigma to me. I am most eager to hear any truth of your life you are willing to share if it may help me understand how a highborn northern girl became the marvel I see before me now."

Arya willed away the blush fighting to color her cheek.

Don't be a fool. Words are wind, and pretty words more so than others, she told herself. He needs a wife, preferably one who stands to inherit a kingdom. Ben Blackwood's off-hand remark from the night before came back to her then; something about her being the most valuable prize in the seven kingdoms. She did not wonder then at Ser Brynden's calling her a "marvel." He might be willing to say anything he thought would make it more likely that he win his prize. She could not allow herself to be taken in by Brynden Blackwood's charm. She suspected there was too much of politics at its core for her to accept it as sincere.

You find him pleasing to the eye, her little voice accused.

So? Inwardly, Arya shrugged, for hadn't she learned in Braavos that a man's appearance was not the truth of him? Ser Brynden was comely, it was undeniable, but that counted for nothing as far as she could see.

Ser Gendry approached then. The girl's eyes flicked up to his face and then she appraised his form briefly.

Is he not comely as well? She quizzed herself. Do I not find him pleasing to the eye? She was making a point in her internal argument, something like the look of a man means naught, but it was lost on that nagging little voice. Instead of an answer, all she heard was faint snickering in the back of her head. She shook it off as the dark knight came to rest before her.

Gendry greeted the gathered company. Brynden Blackwood returned the greeting cordially enough, but he eyed the dark knight carefully before taking his leave. Arya took note and wondered if Ser Ben's opinion of this upjumped blacksmith was shared by others in his family. She tucked that thought away for later consideration when her old friend spoke to her.

"M'lady, after watching you spar with Lady Brienne, I feel very lucky to have survived your attack at the inn!"

"Attack? Hardly." The girl snorted slightly.

"You could have beat me to death with that stick before I even knew what was hitting me."

"Well, that part is true."

They all laughed together at that, but Arya's laughter died with she saw the way Elsbeth was scowling at them from across the yard. The Cat looked at Baynard and Ser Willem, and it seemed a silent signal passed between them. The assassins drew themselves discreetly away and left their sister and the blacksmith alone to talk. Arya lowered her voice.

"Gendry, have you... spoken to Elsbeth?"

The dark knight laughed, his expression befuddled. "I speak with her every day, m'lady. Several times, usually."

"That's not what I mean, and you know it," she snapped. Gendry dropped his voice a notch lower and wore a serious expression to match her own then.

"And you know that I could have no cause to... speak to her."

"I say this as your true friend..."

"True friend," he muttered, sounding suddenly bitter. Arya ignored the urge to berate him over his tone but instead took a step closer to him, narrowing the distance between them so that they nearly touched. The urgency in her voice increased to a degree that should have been difficult to discount.

"Look, there is trouble brewing here. It doesn't matter how much you may wish it not to be. It is."

The blacksmith-knight shook his head. "You are worried over nothing. Elsbeth is a child, with a childish fancy."

Arya heaved an exasperated sigh. "Do you not see the way she looks at you? Do you not see the way she looks at me when I speak to you? You need to do something about this. I don't care what. Woo her, or disappoint her gently but finally. Just do something, before it comes to grief."

"You are making too much of this," Gendry insisted. "It will work itself out and not come to grief, as you say."

Why was he being so obtuse? "To violence, then."

"Elsbeth is not violent."

The girl scoffed. "She carries a short bow and a quiver full of arrows! Even now, she's holding a blade in her hand."

"A training blade." His tone was patronizing. He knew very well how that would worm its way under her skin.

"Speak to her."

The knight drew himself up to his full height, and his look was quite haughty, Arya thought.

"Is that an order, m'lady?"

The girl's frustration boiled over and she made no effort to keep her voice low anymore, but spat out a stream of angry words, sharp and guttural. Her tirade was completely unintelligible to the dark knight's ears. Having spoken her piece, however cryptically, Arya glared at the blacksmith and then stormed off. A bemused Gendry looked to Ser Willem and Baynard for help. The pair was far enough away to be ignorant of what passed between the old friends as they discussed Elsbeth but certainly close enough to understand what had transpired at the end.

"What was that?" the dark knight asked.

Ser Willem was smirking. "Well, my Dothraki isn't as good as hers..."

"Dothraki?" Gendry interrupted.

"...but first, it sounded like she called you idiotic cattle..."

"Stupid bull," Gendry mumbled, a small smile appearing.

"...and then she suggested that you should... er... go service your own... baser desires..."

Gendry took Ser Willem's meaning. Or, rather, he took Arya's. Go fuck yourself.

"And then she said something like, and you'll have to forgive me, ser. I'm only translating," the Bear said apologetically, "but she said you have the sense of someone who was born as the result of his mother copulating with a sickly goat."

Gendry burst out laughing. Baynard was confused.

"You find that funny?" the squire asked. "You aren't insulted?"

Gendry swiped at his eyes, brushing off the tears that had formed while he guffawed. "Insulted? How can I be? It's not far from the truth. At least, from what I know about King Robert, I think she's not far off."

"What's King Robert to do with this?" Ser Willem asked, arching his eyebrows.

"Never mind. It's a long tale. But it's nice to see that even after years across the sea, m'lady hasn't changed much."

"I'm not sure that's true..." Ser Willem began.

"A big man like you, I'm surprised you'll not confront her over the insult," Baynard sneered, talking over his master.

Gendry was not goaded. He inclined his head toward the squire. "I've never seen a shadowcat with my own eyes, but from the stories I've heard, the way m'lady moves isn't much different. I may be idiotic cattle, but I'm not dumb enough to get tangled up with that."

The Bear thought the dark knight might very much like to get tangled up with that, but he held his tongue. The assassins turned to leave the yard then, and the Bear heard the blacksmith muttering to himself in disbelief.

"Dothraki?"

Arya's feet carried her to the godswood without her making a conscious decision on which direction she should go. She had only meant to put distance between herself and the stubborn blacksmith before she did him serious harm. With the plans she and Brienne had made to separate from the hunting party unannounced, she did not wish for any unforeseen complications to crop up. Elsbeth could present just such a problem, if Gendry didn't set the little archer straight. Or, better yet, he could just accept Elsbeth's feelings for him and make her his wife. Surely that would appease the orphan girl.

You don't really want that, do you? her little voice wheedled. Rather than responding, Arya simply frowned and walked on.

In the dappled shade of the wood, her anger cooled and she moved toward the great weirwood at the center of the garden, though it might be more accurate to say she was drawn toward the ancient tree. The pace of her heart quickened as the white bark came into her view and the low buzzing in her bones began anew as she approached. She felt apprehension; a sort of reluctance to move closer as she recalled the unsettling experience she had had only recently here. But her curiosity overcame her anxiety.

Curiosity, yes, and something deeper. Some pull she was unable to name and was helpless to resist.

The wind picked up as she moved closer to the weirwood. The great tree, long dead, had no red leaves to rustle but it had branches aplenty to groan and ravens upon those branches to quork and call. As Arya stood before the massive, white tree, she reached her hand out to touch the immense trunk, but then hesitated. The chatter of the ravens high above her intensified (the girl heard now now now in that screeching raven-speak, but she knew it was a mere trick of her ear). She drew in a deep breath and overcame her uneasiness, allowing her fingertips to press against the bark.

Arya, she heard instantly. The voice was in her head, and outside of it, too. It was all around her, carried on the wind, softer than the beat of her heart in her own ears, and yet it smothered the noise of the ravens and drowned out the groaning of the weirwood branches. Sister.

"Bran," the girl whispered, for it was his voice she heard. And then she was in the crypts of Winterfell, Nymeria nipping playfully at her heels, for she was a fuzzy pup again, only just weaned off the milk Arya had fed her for more than a moon's turn after Jon and Robb had discovered the direwolves in the summer snow and brought them back to the castle.

Nymeria yipped, biting a hole into the heel of Arya's stocking.

"Shh, girl, they'll hear us!" Arya said sternly, and Nymeria's yipping ceased immediately. The girl reached down and stroked the wolf's head. "Good girl. Now, let's go find a proper hiding spot. They'll be after us any minute!"

Off the companions ran, through light and shadow; pools of light thrown by guttering torches mounted on the cold walls of the crypts; shadows in the shape of the Kings of Winter, stretches of gloom made when torchlight bathed one side of the statues atop sepulchers which sheltered bone and dust, all that was left of the hard men who had once ruled the North. Arya barely spared the stern carvings a glance. She had no need to, the faces of the kings being as familiar to her as her own. She could describe their features from memory, so often did she and her siblings play down here.

"This way!" the girl whispered, veering off to the section where the most recently deceased Starks now rested. She saw Lyanna ahead of her, forever frozen in perfect youth, her head crowned with stone roses. "There!"

Arya and her wolf slipped to the far side of the tomb, the shadowed side, and nearly knocked Bran over.

"Arya!" the boy chided. "This is my spot. Go find your own!"

Her brother cradled his unnamed wolf in his arms. The silvery pup growled and snapped. The attempt at ferocity made Arya giggle.

"He thinks he's frightening us," she said.

"You should be frightened," Bran declared. "When he's grown, he could swallow you up in one bite!"

"No he couldn't. Nymeria would protect me," the girl countered. She looked to her pup for support and the golden-eyed wolf yipped once, affirming her mistress's claim.

"She looks more like one of those pot scrubbers the kitchen maids use than a protector," the boy snorted.

"Well, at least she has a name!"

Bran stuck out his bottom lip and his wolf wiggled out of his arms to play with his littermate. "He can't have just any old name. I'm waiting until the right one comes to me."

"In the mean time, I'll just call him Chew Toy!" Arya laughed, watching as Nymeria playfully gnawed on the silver wolf's ear, growling and tugging.

"Don't you dare!" Bran threatened, launching from his crouched position and knocking Arya onto her back. The two siblings wrestled as their wolves played and tussled and when Robb finally discovered their hiding place, the younger siblings were well and truly mussed, their hair askance, ancient dust from the crypt floors marking their faces and clothes. They were laughing like maniacs at some shared joke, their backs propped against the side of their aunt's tomb.

"Mother'll not like seeing you two this dirty," Robb said, shaking his head and smiling at his little brother and sister. "Come with me and we'll get you cleaned up before supper. With any luck, she won't notice."

Arya started to hop up to follow her older brother, but before she could rise, Bran clamped his hand on her arm and held her in her place. The girl turned to look at him, and when she did, she saw that he had changed. Bran was no longer six, with the roundness of a babe about his face, but was older; leaner. He looked to be Jon's age when she had last seen her half-brother; four and ten, or thereabouts. When he spoke, his voice was different; as changed as his look; deeper, more resonant. His wasted legs stretched out before him, long and painfully thin.

"Remember this," he said.

His grip was cold; the coldest thing she could ever recall feeling. Ice crept out from his fingertips and covered her arm up to the shoulder, crawling around her neck and over the side of Lyanna's tomb behind her. Arya was trapped in the ice, frozen to the stone wall of the vault. She yanked desperately but could not pull free from it. Arya opened her mouth to scream for Robb to help her, but when she looked for him, instead of her auburn-haired, boyish brother, she saw a maimed corpse, bolts sticking out of the torso. A great wolf-head had been crudely sewn in place of Robb's own. She did scream then, and turned back to Bran. His face had grown as pale as the moon and his eyes glowed blue like blazing sapphires.

"Remember this," he repeated through frozen, black lips. "Remember."

"My lady!" Tytos Blackwood shouted again, shaking Arya by her shoulders a bit more vigorously this time.

Arya's eyes opened and focused on the lord's face then. His features were drawn with worry. The girl's breaths were short and shuddering, and her skin felt suddenly hot there in the godswood as the last of the lingering feeling of the icy crypts receded from her flesh. Her arms hung limply by her sides and she stood swaying before the weirwood. The ravens overhead were screeching and quorking furiously, hopping about and flying between branches in a turbulent, black swarm. Arya buried her face in her hands for a moment, gathering herself, trying to make sense of what was happening while the denizens of the weirwood high above her seemed to admonish her with one voice.

North! North! North!

This time, it did not seem like a trick of her ear.

"Lady Arya, are you quite well?" The Lord of Raventree Hall was practically holding her up, so weak were her knees just then.

A part of her wanted to laugh at the question. She was certain she had been asked that more times in the past few days than all the other days of her life combined.

"I... I was praying," she finally managed. A lie, but one she hoped would suffice.

"You were screaming, child," Lord Blackwood corrected. "As if you were being burned!"

"Not burned, no," Arya said, shaking her head. Frozen.

"Come, sit," Lord Tytos said, wrapping his arm around the girl's shoulder for support and leading her around the weirwood to the worn bench on the root he so often occupied. Arya shook her head. She did not wish to touch the tree just then.

"No, I'm fine," she insisted. "I should... I should clean up before the supper." Her voice was stronger and her head no longer swam. She looked around her. Long shadows stretched out from the trees and the sun seemed far too low in the sky. How long had she stood before the weirwood?

The lord nodded. "I'll escort you back to the keep, then." He took her arm, allowing her to lean against him, and Arya smiled at him a little wanly. She felt suddenly tired, and she wasn't sure if it was her hard sparring or her experience in the godswood which was to blame.

"You have been so kind to me, Lord Blackwood."

"I'm glad you think so, dear child."

They walked slowly along the path and gradually, Arya was able to straighten. She cleared her throat. "I want you to know, my lord... That is, I feel I should tell you... Well, I hope you know that come what may, I will never forget the kindness House Blackwood has shown me."

"My, that sounds unnecessarily dire," the man laughed. "Come what may?"

The girl nodded. "The time I've spent here at Raventree Hall has been... a welcome respite. And you have treated me more courtesy than I ever expected. Your hospitality has been most appreciated."

Lord Blackwood turned his eyes down to Arya's face and studied her a moment as they continued on the garden path. "It almost sounds as if you are saying goodbye, my lady."

Arya cursed herself for not choosing her words more cautiously. She had not meant to give Lord Blackwood any hint as to her plans. She was angry that she had allowed herself to be so shaken by her... dream? Memory? Vision?

Whatever in the seven bloody hells it was, she could not allow it to throw her off. There was too much at stake.

"Not at all, my lord, but these are uncertain times, and my life has taught me that if something is important, you should say it, because you can't be guaranteed of another chance."

"Mmm," Lord Blackwood hummed in agreement. "You have lost more than your share of kin, Lady Arya, and you have known more sadness than should be visited on any one person. I am sorry for it, my dear." Arya knew that Tytos Blackwood had experienced his own loss, and this made his attempt at comfort seem as though it manifested sincerely. But trust was not the Cat's strength.

"Thank you." The girl sighed, and for just the briefest of moments, she stretched forth and touched the mind of the lord, her heart pounding with the fear of what she would find. She felt a genuine affection there, and was suffused with a warmth she had not known for some time. Arya felt ashamed of her own doubt then.

"You have little family left in this world," Tytos continued, "but I hope you will consider House Blackwood as close as family, for that is how we think of you, my lady, if you'll pardon my saying so."

"You honor me, my lord."

"It's no more than your due, as the daughter of Eddard Stark and the sister of the King in the North," Lord Blackwood said, "but it's truly meant."

When they entered the keep, they were greeted almost instantly by the maester.

"Lady Arya," Maester Alfryd said respectfully. His chain clinked softly as he bowed. "Please pardon my intrusion, but I have had a raven, Lord Blackwood. The one you were awaiting..."

"Ah, yes." Tytos looked at Arya. "The maester and I have been anxious to receive word from Hoster. His captors allow him a few words to us every moon's turn."

"Yes, my lord, that is just the raven that has arrived," the maester confirmed.

Arya read the lie easily. Like all good lies, there was a grain of truth to it: the Freys allowed Hoster Blackwood to communicate (in some heavily censored way, no doubt) with his family on occasion, she was sure of it. Tytos Blackwood's voice and expression when he spoke of it made that clear enough. But the Cat knew that was not why the maester required his lord's attention just then. And what's more, Lord Blackwood knew it too.

There had been a raven, though. Perhaps more than one. And the news was of some import. The maester radiated an excited impatience.

"Then you must go, Lord Blackwood. I will not keep you from news of your son." Arya smiled sweetly. Let these men plot and plan. Whatever scheme they are shaping, I'll be far and away before it's realized.

"Are you sure, my lady?" the Lord of Raventree Hall asked. "I'm not certain I should leave you quite yet. Only moments ago, you had difficulty keeping your feet under you."

"Oh?" the maester interrupted with concern in his tone. "Lady Arya, are you ill?"

Oh, for the love of all that's holy... She suppressed her eye-roll admirably well.

"No, no, please don't worry on my account. I simply spent too long standing in prayer after some vigorous exercise. I should learn to kneel!" The girl laughed to show how hearty she was. "I'm quite recovered now. I can find my chamber on my own, Lord Blackwood. Please, tend to your business with the maester."

The two men watched keenly as the Lady of Winterfell strode away. She felt their eyes appraising her gait and endeavored to make it steady and hale.

Inside, she was less steady as she recalled Bran's frozen, black lips.

Remember.

The girl arrived back at her chamber to find an impatient Lyra awaiting her with a bath and another borrowed gown.

"The water will have cooled some, m'lady," the maid warned. The woman's arms were folded across her chest and her lips were pressed in a thin line. Arya was sure she detected a trace of irritation in Lyra's voice.

Am I being taken to task? the girl wondered with amusement. The maid bustled about, making the bath ready for her charge, pouring a few drops of oil into the water.

"I'm sorry you went to all this trouble, Lyra, but I don't need a bath." She'd just had one the previous evening, after all, and she hadn't been mucking out horse stalls or wrestling on the floor of the forge since then.

Seven hells, what made her think of that?

"Don't need a bath?" the woman repeated incredulously. "Of course you need a bath, after sparring with Lady Brienne in the yard! Pah! Don't need a bath... I suppose you'll want to sit next to Lord Blackwood at the high table in those dusty boots and breeches, too?"

The girl caught sight of herself in a standing mirror and sighed. Lyra was right. She needed a bath.

"How did you know I was sparring with Lady Brienne?" Arya unbuckled her sword belts and set them on her bed (Frost, she carried in the traditional way, but Grey Daughter was too long to be worn at her hip and required a special belt across her chest, allowing her to wear the bastard blade at her back). She studiously ignored the crimson gown spread out across the middle of the mattress.

"May as well ask how I could avoid knowing," the maid laughed as she helped Arya shed her sweat stained tunic. The woman looked at the garment with an air of distaste and dropped it on the ground in a heap, meaning to send it to the laundry later. "The whole castle is talking about it, m'lady."

Of course.

Arya sank into the tub, warm enough for her needs despite the maid's warning, and detected a faint whiff of spices. The oil Lyra added to the bath... It must have been the one Ser Brynden had bought his sister from the Braavosi trader. The scent wasn't strong, though, as diluted as it was. The girl remarked on it anyway.

"Was that the perfume from last night I saw you adding to my bath?"

Lyra's good humor returned and she nodded. "Lady Bethany said Ser Brynden remarked on it especially. He thought it suited you ever so much."

Cloves and ginger. The heir to Raventree Hall had already told her he thought the scent suited her. It suited her too well, truth be told, and wouldn't Brynden Blackwood be scandalized to know why? This time, she was prepared for it, for the crushing pain in her chest when she thought of Umma's spice cake, and the man whose mouth had tasted of it. She was able to breathe it in without the sting of tears assaulting her eyes. She congratulated herself on her strength.

The maid scrubbed the dust and sweat from Arya's skin and washed the girl's hair again. After drying her, she held a shift up for the girl to slip on. Wrapped in a long swath of wet linen, Arya refused.

"You must put on the proper undergarments!" Lyra insisted.

"And I will," the girl said. "The proper ones to wear beneath breeches and a blouse."

"No, m'lady, you're to wear the dress I've laid out on your bed."

"If you think I'm going to squeeze into that corset again, Lyra..."

"But you must, m'lady! The gown will not fit properly otherwise!"

"Which is why I'm not wearing that gown!" the girl cried, winding the damp linen even tighter around her naked body and taking a step back from the maid as the woman advanced on her, holding the shift up like a shield. The Cat considered using Jaqen's trick of Asshai to render the woman senseless for hours, but curbed her impulse, thinking it a poor use of blood magic.

Maybe. Or, maybe not...

Lyra was saved by a knock at the door.

"Lady Arya, are you ready to go down?" It was Bethany Blackwood.

"Oh, thank the heavens!" the maid cried. "Please come and talk sense into our Northern guest, m'lady!"

The door opened and a resplendently dressed Lady Bethany stepped through. A gown of palest peach complimented the girl's complexion and a choker of opals made her neck look long and elegant.

"What seems to be the trouble?" the Blackwood girl asked, closing the door behind her. She was biting back her smile as she surveyed the scene before her.

"I cannot get m'lady into her clothes!" huffed the maid.

Bethany nodded, slowly circling Arya who gripped the linen wrap with a fierceness that turned her white knuckles even whiter.

"A bold choice, my lady," the younger girl remarked seriously as if appraising her friend's attire, "but perhaps one you should rethink. The great hall is prone to drafts and I'm afraid you'd take a chill in your wet wrap." She burst out giggling at the look on Arya's face then.

"I simply want to wear breeches and a blouse," the Cat remarked. "I'm not going to suffocate in that corset one more time."

"But m'lady, you've no clean breeches left! All your clothes are with the laundresses now! They'll not be ready until the morning, for the hunt!"

"And who told anyone to wash my clothes?"

"Oh, m'lady!" Lyra was exasperated. Bethany intervened before the maid could become apoplectic.

"What if we just leave the stays loose? We could tighten them just enough to fasten them. Would that be agreeable?" the Blackwood girl asked. Arya sighed and rolled her eyes. Her new friend, sensing victory, continued. "That gown will look perfect on you. With your hair and your white skin, scarlet really is your color."

"No kohl," the Cat groused. It was her way of admitting defeat. "And the stays will be as loose as possible."

"Of course, Lady Arya," Bethany said soothingly, taking the shift from Lyra and dropping it gently over Arya's head. Only then did the assassin loosen her grip on her wrap and allow it to fall wetly to the floor.

"Grey is my color," the girl mumbled, and then jerked away as the maid dabbed at her neck with something cool. A second later, Arya smelled cloves and ginger, much more strongly than she had in the bath. She frowned at Lyra. "Are all maids so sneaky?"

In short order, and despite nearly constant grumbling from their guest, Lyra and Bethany had Arya suitably attired for the supper. The gown they had brought her was a beautiful red silk brocade, with small ravens fashioned from tiny tumbled obsidian pieces stitched to the bodice. The beaded birds caught the light and glinted darkly, the effect nearly spellbinding. The work was exquisite, and costly. Even someone with as little care for clothes as Arya could see that. She recalled the embroidered acorn dress she had once worn while in Lady Smallwood's care, and she thought the ladies of the Riverlands certainly loved to declare their loyalties in the detailing of their gowns.

And if that was true, what did it mean for a Stark to be so visibly adorned with ravens at her breast?

"Father had it made for my nameday last year," Bethany revealed. "He was crushed that I outgrew it so quickly. He accused mother of having giants in her family tree!"

Arya's mind wandered north, back to Winterfell. She remembered a simple stable boy who had served her family since long before she was born. "I once knew someone who had giants in his family tree," she said almost dreamily. "He was much, much taller than you."

"You've not met Hos, though," the Blackwood daughter said. "He's near to seven feet!"

At the mention of Hoster Blackwood, Arya's mind moved to her earlier encounter with Maester Alfryd and the lie he and Lord Blackwood had told about receiving word from the boy. She considered mentioning it to her friend, to gauge her response, but decided there was little currency in it, so held her tongue as the maid worked on her hair. In the end, Lyra and Bethany decided on a simple braid, which Lyra then wound into a low, heavy knot at the base of Arya's skull. It was held in place with a gem encrusted comb in the shape of a cat which the maid had discovered amongst the Stark girl's things.

She would not be without a blade tonight should she have need of one. The thought improved the Cat's disposition immensely.

Bethany had been true to her word and had prevented Lyra from pulling at Arya's stays too tightly. As a result, the Cat felt that she could breathe and move much more freely than the previous night. Bethany offered her the use of various jewels and ornaments, all of which Arya refused.

"A bare neck," Lyra clucked with disapproval. She was still smarting over Arya's prohibition against the use of kohl (though she had managed to get a bit of beet stain on the girl's lips before she could object).

"Well, it's fortunate that Lady Arya has a lovely neck," the Blackwood daughter said sweetly. "She hardly needs any decoration."

The pronouncement had the effect of making the Northerner feel self-conscious and then she almost wished she had covered herself with ropes and ropes of pearls. Still, there was an ease to her unadorned appearance that she was loathe to surrender. And so, with lungs relatively unrestricted and neck lacking all ornamentation, Arya made her way with her friend to the great hall where they took their places on the raised dais at the front of the chamber.

Spirits were high in the great hall, the men anticipating the hunt, boasting of the wolf pelts they would bring their women; soft grey and brown and black and white furs to be fashioned into warm wraps or made into collars for their winter cloaks. Arya did not share in their elation. Aside from her preoccupation with the preparations she and Brienne had made for their own journey (and wondering if she had forgotten anything important), she knew she would need to find a way to send Nymeria and her pack far from the castle and its surrounding wood, out of danger from the hunters. Her wolf dreams usually came to her, not the other way around. Until the previous night, she had never sought to purposefully walk in Nymeria's skin while she slept. Usually, it just happened. Arya wasn't entirely sure it was something she could command so readily. Still, she had to try.

"My lady, you seem distracted," Ser Brynden remarked, drawing the girl's eye. He was seated to her right, his customary place. "My father mentioned you took a turn earlier. I hope you are well."

A turn. It grated on Arya that because of the incident in the godswood, so many of those around her must think her a weakly, fragile thing. The girl bit back her irritation, trying to convince herself it was just one more false face to wear. Besides, she reasoned, there might be some benefit to being regarded in such a manner.

Or, would have been, had half the castle not witnessed you sparring with Lady Brienne like a flamboyant Bravo, her little voice sneered. Well done, that. Shadow among shadows? Pah!

Chagrined, she realized that her brothers may have had the right of it. She should have hidden her skill better. While it was true she needed to practice it in order to maintain it, she could have sought out a more private location to spar. She had allowed her pride to make her reckless.

Ser Brynden looked at her with a hint of worry.

"It was nothing, ser. I simply stood for too long at prayer, after having sparred too vigorously without refreshment, I'm afraid."

She almost choked on the words as she said them. She could have sparred the rest of the afternoon and into the night without flagging. Was there anything worse than declaring oneself weak? But she couldn't very well explain to him what had truly happened to her beneath the branches of the great weirwood. For one, she wasn't quite sure herself. And for another, he would think her insane.

Is it worse to be thought mad or dainty? her little voice pondered.

Brynden Blackwood chuckled his understanding. "I, too, have found myself weak in the knees after challenging Lady Brienne," he revealed, "and I was not nearly so successful in my attempt as you!"

The girl smiled at the knight. He was being extraordinarily gracious. She had expected him to mock her for her moment of perceived frailty. Certainly his brother Ben would have, as would the assassins she called brothers, she was sure. In the House of Black and White, such delicacy was bled and beaten and berated out of acolytes. She was not accustomed to spending time in the company of those who would forgive weakness so easily, or admit to it themselves.

"I'm certain you exaggerate, Ser Brynden." She took a small sip of the honeyed water she had asked for in lieu of the sweet red wine the rest of the party was drinking. She wished to keep a clear head tonight and she did not wish to be sluggish come morning.

Also, she still recalled vividly a night spent at the inn by the Moon Pool; a night in which the room spun and spun until she gave up the contents of her stomach to the street two floors below her window...

"Not at all," he insisted. "I told you earlier that our lady of Tarth was one of the finest swords in the kingdom. Did you think I was speaking out of gallantry? No, it was pride. I need for her to be exceptional, for it makes me feel less a failure when she bests me!"

As she was meant to, Arya laughed at his jape. The heir to Raventree Hall inclined his head toward her then and spoke in low tones meant only for her ears. "I hope you'll not find me too familiar when I say that I am happy you chose to wear that scent again tonight."

"Chose is not quite the word," the girl said. The knight raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Vicious sneak attack by Lyra," she confided. It was Brynden's turn to laugh.

"How is it that you move like a ghost when you fight in the training yard, but you can't evade one plump maid when she comes at you with a perfume bottle?"

"That woman is merciless!"

"She's as harmless as a newborn lamb," declared the heir to Raventree Hall.

"A heavily armored and well trained lamb," Arya muttered. This caused Brynden to chuckle. The girl scowled a little. "Don't think you're blameless in this, good ser."

"How am I at fault?" the knight asked, amused.

"She told me that you commented on how you especially liked the scent. I'm certain that planted the seed for her plan to ambush me so outrageously."

"Well, I can't say I'm sorry for it. I confess to liking the way you smell too well."

"Scandal!" Arya scolded. "And a fat lot of good your guard at the door does me when brigands dressed as maids are allowed free passage into my chamber!"

"Why didn't you just pin her to your wall with your throwing knives, my lady, if she frightened you so?" The knight's teasing smirk was beautiful to behold. It reminded her very much of another. Arya looked abashed and Ser Brynden, mistaking the cause of her look, continued. "Oh, yes. Ben told us all."

"Us?"

"My father and I, when I dragged my errant brother into our father's solar this morning to explain his actions last night. Father was greatly disturbed, I can tell you, but I'm not sure which piqued him more: Ben's transgression, or your prowess with assassins' implements."

"Which piques you more?" the Cat asked lazily, causing the knight to grin widely.

"My brother, of course. Your talents, on the other hand, fascinate me. I await your tales of Braavos most eagerly, my lady."

"And you shall have them, ser, if such is your desire. You may find them less enthralling than you imagine, though." At least, the abridged versions Arya was willing to tell.

"Oh, I doubt that very much."

They were finishing up the main courses when the musicians began to play once again. The supper was less formal than the feast had been and the music was raucous and fun right from the start, reflecting that. The hall became rowdier as men, falling deeper into their cups, shouted over the music to be heard in their boasting. War stories were traded, japes were made, and the din filled the chamber as platters of warm honey cakes were brought out and passed around. The mood of the place was infectious and Arya even deigned to eat a sweet. Ser Brynden had two.

The girl finished her cake and licked at the sticky honey left on her fingertips. The music changed then, the musicians striking up a likely tune for dancing. The heir to Raventree Hall turned his head to his guest and spoke.

"You favored me with the first dance of the night at the feast in your honor. Is it too much to hope history will repeat itself now?"

After her small slip with Tytos Blackwood earlier, the Cat was determined to keep her hosts in good humor and give them no reason to suspect she had anything in mind other than revelry and hunting. She nodded slightly at Ser Brynden, indicating her assent.

"You have only to ask, ser," she said. "I am at your service."

Ser Brynden raised his eyebrows in delighted surprise and hopped up, holding his hand out to Arya. She took it and rose, noting the satisfied smile on Lord Blackwood's face as she did. Good. As she curtsied gracefully to her host to seek his leave to dance, she felt a sudden wistfulness and realized it belonged to the Lord of Raventree Hall, not herself. She caught just a fragment of his musings then.

...make a fine good-daughter...

Arya was too busy marveling that she had not even tried to intercept the man's thoughts to bother dwelling on the meaning behind them. She had suspected all along that Lord Blackwood meant to make her part of his family. It was hardly a world-altering revelation. But the fact that she had picked it out with no effort... Now, that was something.

Brynden led his partner down the steps and just as they had the night before, the revelers scrambled to move tables and benches out of the way so that the heir to Raventree Hall could dance with the Lady of Winterfell.

As the assassin moved about the floor in the arms of Ser Brynden, she felt an assortment of eyes upon her. Ravella Smallwood's sad eyes, remembering Carellan's graceful dancing, no doubt. The Bear's amused eyes, wondering which jape would be best to make once he had his sister alone and could tease her about her de facto suitors. Harwin's calculating eyes, thinking this dance was somehow symbolic of the support the Stark cause could count on from House Blackwood. Tytos Blackwood's satisfied eyes, seeing his plans and hopes materialize right there, under his roof, in the form of his own heir courting the heir to the Winter Throne. Karyl Vance's eyes were inscrutable but keen. The Rat's eyes showed annoyance. Bethany Blackwood's eyes were delighted. Baby Bobbin's eyes were drooping with the sleep he tried to fight. And then there was a pair of Baratheon blue eyes, and the look in them was enough to cause even the stoutest of hearts to break.

And the eyes watching those Baratheon blue eyes narrowed and burned with something altogether different.

"Everyone is watching us," Arya whispered to her partner.

"Do you wonder at it, my lady?" He whirled her then so that her skirts fanned out.

"No. We're the only ones out here."

"If one hundred couples danced, one thousand, their eyes would all still follow you."

"What have I told you about flattery, Ser Brynden?"

"And what have I told you about accusing me of speaking false, Lady Arya?"

"Then do not speak false now and tell me what it is you're thinking."

Brynden grinned. "I suppose I should have expected this from you."

"Expected what?"

"That you'd not allow yourself to be wooed. Fine, then. What am I thinking? I'm thinking I have want of a wife, and my father wishes that it should be you."

Though Arya had demanded his honesty, she had not expected Ser Brynden to offer it up so freely, and so unvarnished. She was at a loss for words, but only for a moment. She reviewed his statement in her mind and latched onto the one glaring irregularity.

"Your father wishes..."

"Yes. From the moment you walked through the gate and he knew you for who you were."

"What if I'd already been married?"

"At your age? Unlikely, but if so, marriages are contracts and contracts can be voided."

"But what if the marriage had already been consummated? Or if I were merely... wanton?"

The knight's mouth quirked up a bit at that last, but he sniffed, "Irrelevant. I already have heirs."

"What if I were insane? What if a raving lunatic had shown up at your gate?"

"If you were sane enough to say that you are Arya Stark, that would suffice."

"Deformed?"

"Again, with your name, it would mean little."

"Hateful? Frigid? Skittish?"

"I have my own charms. In time, those things could be overcome."

"Well, we know what your father wants, despite all possible obstacles, it seems," the girl mused.

"Do not mistake me, my lady. My father is simply enamored of you. He is a practical man and will act in the interests of our house, but you should not think all his actions are calculated where you are concerned."

"No?"

"No. He bears you true affection," Brynden confided. "I think at first, it was merely for the sake of your father, but you've charmed him, and in a very short time. We're all quite surprised, honestly. My father is not an easy man to win."

"Well, the promise of a throne has a way of improving even the least desirable among us."

The knight laughed. "That may be my lady, but you have quite bewitched him. He is not insensible to the potential your name implies, but were you a daughter of a minor house, I don't think he would love you any less."

"Perhaps not," the girl agreed, for she had felt for herself the regard the elder Blackwood had for her, "but would he want to marry you to me?"

"That, I cannot say for a certainty, my lady. I suppose it would depend if there were an Arya Stark available to be married instead."

"So, we know that your father loves me at least as much as he loves the idea of my name, but how is it that he convinced you to go along with this marriage scheme?"

"What makes you think he did?"

Arya snickered at that and then looked the knight in the eye. "Well, did he?"

Brynden hesitated and the timbre of his voice changed. Gone were the playful tones and the teasing laughs. The sound of his voice then lulled Arya a bit.

"As it turns out, I didn't need convincing. Not after you danced with me last night."

"Was my dancing so enticing?" It was difficult to tell if she was mocking him or if she expected a serious answer.

"I believe you won me when you said you didn't give a bloody fuck if anyone ever understands you." The knight's teasing was back. Arya bit her lip before responding.

"That was most ungracious of me, ser. I shouldn't have behaved that way."

"Why ever not, my lady?"

"It doesn't become my station." She was playing a part then. He wasn't fooled.

"And when did you decide you should do only those things that become your station, Lady Arya?"

She looked up at him with innocent eyes, but then smirked, giving up the pretense. "Never."

"Just as I suspected. I think that's what attracts me to you so."

It was Arya's turn to hesitate. She had never negotiated a marriage contract before. She wasn't precisely sure how such a thing was done.

"So, are you saying... that you love me?

Ser Brynden laughed. "Good gods, no! I've only just met you!" He looked at her fondly and she could read his thoughts well enough, without using her talents. What a surprisingly girlish notion, his eyes seemed to say.

Arya wasn't sure how she should feel about his nonchalant denial of feeling for her. If it was his lord and father's wish that he should marry her, shouldn't Ser Brynden be saying anything and everything which might be like to win her? She told him as much, using the tone she might have once used to lecture Loric on the conduct expected of a Faceless Man.

"I could tell you that I loved you, but you're no silly maiden to be swayed by false declarations, are you?" It was less of a question and more of a statement. "You'd see the lie straight away, and I'd lose all hope then, wouldn't I?"

"You speak true," she acknowledged.

"So, let's just say, you are the sort of woman I could love. In fact, I see you as a woman who would be very hard not to love, in time."

"In time?"

"In a very little time." He smiled warmly down at her.

"Hmm."

"You would make any man an enviable partner."

Partner. Well, it was certainly better than any of the other euphemisms she could conjure. It sounded less... like a punishment; less like a sentence.

"Partner," she whispered to herself. She liked the sound of it. She tried to imagine that word on Jaqen's lips, in the common tongue; in Braavosi; in Lorathi... It was right, in many ways, but somehow fell short. It didn't encompass the all that Jaqen was to her; that she hoped she was to him.

Her Lorathi master had once told her that she was his reason.

"A man's reason? His reason for what?" She had thought the statement incomplete; that she was missing some vital piece of information which she could use to understand his meaning.

"For everything."

Being a man's partner was a fine thing. It sounded like they might get up to mischief together; like they might guard each other's backs. It sounded like they might open a silks trading concern together. Being a man's partner might be fun, and safe, and profitable, depending on the demand for silks, she supposed. But being a man's reason... Well, that was something else entirely.

She looked up at her companion and spoke so that he could hear her. "Partner, is it? Not wife? Not trophy? Not prize?"

"No, never that, my lady. Not you."

Cunning, she thought. Yes, Ser Brynden was far too cunning for her comfort.

"You asked, and now you know," the knight continued. "I have want of a wife, and it would please my father, it would please us both, if it were you."

Arya drew in a breath, considering her words. It was a delicate thing, refusing a man without breaking his trust (or raising his suspicions). And this particular man, too clever by half, was not one who would be satisfied with platitudes.

"I should say that I'm flattered..." she began.

He laughed. "But we both know how you feel about flattery." He winked at her then and she couldn't help but to smile.

"I should say that you do me great honor, then," she tried again.

"Even I can see that lie," he replied wryly. "I have the notion that a marriage proposal is the last thing in the world you care about, my lady."

The girl thought for a moment before answering. Others had finally joined them in dancing, so she dropped her voice a bit lower when she spoke, hoping to keep her affairs private. She did not want kitchen maids and guards and lords and orphans discussing her any more than they already were.

"Then I should say that were my heart so inclined, and if a choice had to be made from the eligible Westerosi nobles, I could think of no more appealing a partner than you."

Surely, Ser Brynden could have no quarrel with that.

"But I think your heart may be inclined elsewhere, though it would please me if I were wrong."

Arya looked down at her feet. "You're not."

The knight smiled at her, his look a little sad. "I thought not. You'll break my father's heart, you know."

"At least your own heart is safe."

"I do not speak of my own pain," he said, and she was fairly certain he was teasing. "I am a knight. It isn't done."

"Cheer up, Ser Brynden. I would have made you a poor wife at any rate. I'm not nearly compliant enough or submissive enough or concerned enough with the state of my hems. Besides all that, my embroidery is appalling. I love a sword too well to make any man a proper spouse."

"Ah, but I've already had a proper spouse, my lady. Daraliss was as good a wife as the gods have ever made. She was lovely and gracious and pretty to look at. Her embroidery rivaled my mother's and the state of her hems..."

"Let me guess. Impeccable?"

"Quite," the knight agreed. "But she never intrigued me one-tenth as much during the whole of our marriage as you have in one day."

"You would come to find intrigue tiresome in a wife, I'd wager."

"I wish that was a wager you'd let me make."

"I wish it was a wager I could allow you to make." Wouldn't her life be simple then? She sighed and reached up for his face, placing her small, cool hand against Brynden's cheek. He leaned his head slightly into the touch, closing his eyes for a mere moment before snapping them open and grinning at her in his usual, carefree way.

The carefree part was mummery, meant to absolve her, another lie she could easily read. In truth, he was no more carefree than she was herself. The fact that he did it anyway endeared him to her further. The song had ended and to Arya it seemed that the musicians had prolonged it, so that her dance with Ser Brynden would not end too soon. She suspected Lord Blackwood was behind that.

Sly dog, she thought.

As her partner bowed to her, he glanced over Arya's shoulder at the head table. His eyebrows raised a bit and then he said, "Now, I think my brother wishes to speak with you."

"Your brother?"

"Ben. The way he's staring over here anxiously leads me to think that he's ready to beg your pardon for his dishonorable behavior last night."

"Is this something that must be done?" She wasn't so sure she had the patience. Or the interest.

"It is if he doesn't want father to box his ears. Again." The knight glanced again at his roguish sibling then asked, "Do I have your leave to call him over?"

The girl frowned, but then remembered her cat-comb with its hidden knife and relented. "Fine."

Ser Brynden gestured to Ben Blackwood and the younger knight bounded up to them, bowing to Arya and winking at his brother. The heir to Raventree Hall gave him a warning look and then walked away. The music swelled and Ser Ben offered his hand to the girl.

"My lady?"

Rolling her eyes, Arya took the knight's hand and he began gliding gracefully around the dance floor with her, keeping a much more respectable distance between their two bodies than he had when they danced the night before. He cleared his throat.

"Lady Arya, please allow me..."

"Yes," she interrupted impatiently. "You're sorry, you didn't mean any insult, you won't do it again. Fine. Save your breath. I forgive you."

"I had also intended to say..."

"That you're an idiot?"

"Well, no, not precisely that..."

"That you're a disgrace to your family?"

He sniffed. "Some may think so," Ser Ben replied, throwing a glance toward the high table, "but what I was going to say was..."

"You have no sense? You're a horrible excuse for a knight? You're not nearly so charming as you think you are?"

The knight huffed and then spat out his intended words before Arya could prevent him again.

"I hope you are well after your spell in the godswood earlier."

Seven bloody hells, was there anyone in the castle who hadn't heard?

"It wasn't a spell, ser," the girl insisted bitterly. "I was exhausted from my efforts in the training yard, I hadn't had enough to drink, then I stood for an hour in prayer when I ought to have sat."

"I've never known a woman less likely to swoon at prayer than you, my lady."

"Are you acquainted with many devout women, ser?" She snickered at that. The assassin highly doubted that the women whose company Ser Ben typically sought could be described in such ecclesiastical terms. The knight ignored the girl's implication and pushed on.

"Lady Arya, if you're in some sort of trouble..."

Arya frowned. She was in all sorts of trouble. She was orphaned, sought by the crown, exiled from her order, separated from her love, and now caught up in some sort of plot of the River lords to claim Robb's throne. What sort of trouble wasn't she in?

Ser Ben soon answered that question for her.

"You needn't worry, Lady Arya. I will marry you. Tomorrow, if need be. It's high time I marry, so my father tells me, and you have need of a husband."

"I have need of a husband?" The girl laughed at that. She could think of nothing she needed less. And hadn't she just had this same discussion with Ser Brynden? These Blackwoods are certainly single minded! She wondered if it was Lord Blackwood's plan to parade each of his sons before her, right down to Baby Bobbin, until she agreed to marry one of them.

The knight dropped his voice low. "Look, some men might spurn you for such a thing, but I am not one of them. I would protect you. I could save you from ruin, and after the baby was born, we could find it a good home. Or, keep it if you like. I would claim the baby as my own, if you wanted me to."

Arya's frown deepened. Ser Ben was talking nonsense.

"What baby?" she hissed. "What are you babbling about?"

"My lady, I do not judge. You are young and inexperienced. I see very easily how you could have fallen prey to..."

"Fallen prey?" she repeated incredulously. She nearly shook with her indignation. Arya Stark was not prey. It was Arya Stark who did the preying! Arya Stark was the fucking ghost in Harrenhal! The knight ignored the interruption.

"My brother's wife was prone to such turns with all of their children," he explained. "She was forever fainting. At prayer. At breakfast. In the corridors while she walked."

Lyra probably kept her corset cinched too tight, the girl thought. Her mother had birthed five children, and Arya could not recall a single story about Catelyn Stark ever fainting.

"I am not with child, Ser Edmund," the girl hissed. "And I didn't even faint! Seven hells, I was just tired!" If "tired" meant caught in a memory or a vision so real that she would even now swear her brother had actually spoken to her.

"You refused the wine at supper," the knight said, as if this was some great evidence that she was nearly ready to birth someone's illegitimate infant.

"So?"

"Maester Alfryd has talked of how women should avoid much wine and spirits until after they have quickened."

"What? Why?" The boy was making less and less sense to her.

"He says the maesters in Oldtown have reported deformities in babes whose mothers drink to excess. He advised Mother to refuse everything but honeyed water and goats milk when she carried Baby Bobbin."

"What? How would I even know that?"

"Well... you seem well-educated."

"In mid-wifery?"

"I don't know what strange skills you may be hiding. I wouldn't have guessed you were a master with throwing knives until you pinned me to your window sill last night!"

"Shh!" Arya glanced around, looking for anyone who might be eavesdropping. She didn't need anyone spreading rumors, either about her prowess with assassins' knives or the fact that Ser Ben and his reputation had made a late night visit to her chamber.

"Look, my father doesn't really care which of us you marry, though I'm sure he'd prefer Brynden. But Brynden already has his heirs..."

"Ser Ben, there's no profit in this discussion."

"...and while Hos is older, he's not here. Who knows if we'll ever recover him? And Alyn... He can barely look at a girl without forgetting how to speak," the knight scoffed, looking disdainfully toward his younger sibling. Remembering his goal, Ben returned his gaze to Arya, his eyes tracing the contours of her face before he spoke again softly. "We are near an age, you and I, and you're quite beautiful to look at..."

She rolled her eyes, a small, irritated sound escaping her lips.

"...and if I married you, I could finally show my father that I care for the honor of this family."

Arya's voice became gentle; sweet, even. She sounded deceptively understanding. "So, to redeem yourself in your father's eyes, you'd be willing to accept my disgrace and even adopt my bastard child?"

"I would, my lady. I believe I could even love you, if such a thing matters to you."

"It does, Ser Ben. But there are flaws in your plan."

"Name them, my lady, and I will address them."

"Well, to begin with, I'm not with child." The knight looked skeptically at her. She ignored his expression and continued. "Also, love does matter to me. It matters a great deal."

A great deal more than it ought, she thought. Love is weakness. But, it's not to be helped.

"I fail to see the problem," the roguish knight said, brows knitted. "I've said that I could love you. Surely, you could learn to love me in return." He got a mischievous glint in his eye and then murmured, "I'm not without my own... talents. I'm sure you'll feel differently about me after our wedding night."

As if it were that easy. And wasn't it just like him to think that whatever it was he liked to do between the sheets with a woman would be enough for him to claim her heart. The arrogance! She was certain that Ser Ben couldn't distinguish love from lust, anyway. He was like a small child, using words he couldn't possibly understand.

"As I've said, love matters a great deal..."

"And I've said that you would come to love me." Ben's patience was waning.

"But I am already in love. With another man." She said it to catch him off his guard; to shock him to silence. She had no intention of discussing Jaqen with Ser Ben or anyone, save her Lyseni brother.

"What? Who? That bastard knight?" he asked, sneering. Then, a look of horror dawned on his face. "Wait... Is it Brynden?"

She made him no answer but continued listing the problems with his scheme.

"Thirdly, no amount of bribery, coercion, threats, or flattery could tempt me to marry you."

It was more than his pride could take. He stiffened, but to his credit, he never faltered in his dance steps.

"My heart is breaking," the knight finally said. The statement was so disingenuous that it was laughable. Arya wondered if he hoped she was the sort of person who might allow pity to sway her.

I am the ghost in Harrenhal. I have no pity.

"Are you sure you have a heart?" she questioned in an off-hand manner. He glared at her. The Cat's mouth curled into a more subtle approximation of her malicious smile. "Don't worry, Ser Edmund. I'm sure your disappointment will pass just as soon as you find a warm bed and someone willing to share it with you. Unless I miss my guess, you'll be right as rain before the sun rises tomorrow."

They did not speak for the remainder of their dance, which was mercifully short. She had assured Ser Ben that his disappointment would pass, but she had no way of knowing if that were true. Her experience with suitors, even the opportunistic, self-absorbed sort, was limited. Arya found that having so many tossed at her all at once was... disconcerting.

The music stopped and the Cat was instantly rescued by the Bear. He bowed and took her hand, reeling her wildly about the floor as soon as the next tune began.

"So, are Baynard and I to deliver the next Lady Blackwood to Winterfell, or will it be Lady Stark who remains in our charge?"

Arya frowned at him. "You're not as funny as you think, Ser Willem."

The false Dornishman ignored her sour tone. "Well, which brother is it to be? Ser Brynden or Ser Edmund?"

"I will slit your throat," she warned.

"Ser Edmund is arguably the more comely of the two." The Lyseni's expression was convincingly thoughtful. "But, Ser Brynden is handsome enough, and his other qualities far outweigh any minor differences there. Besides, I think you'd not like to be married to someone so pretty."

"I know blood magic," she growled.

"Ser Brynden has children, so the pressure to produce an heir is lessened..."

"I will make the Tears of Lys and pour them down your gullet myself!"

The large assassin grinned at his irritated sister. "Or perhaps it's another knight who has caught your fancy..."

"Don't..."

"Where is Ser Gendry?" he wondered aloud, craning his neck theatrically and scanning the crowd. "Ah! Just there!" Ser Willem waved to catch the blacksmith-knight's attention and beckoned him over.

"I am going to geld you!" the girl whispered hotly.

"And disable a loyal servant of the Many-Faced god?" he whispered back.

"There's no prohibition against eunuchs serving the order," she said darkly, but the arrival of Ser Gendry just then prevented her from further threatening her brother.

"M'lady," the dark knight said. "Ser Willem."

"Ah, Ser Gendry!" the Lyseni boomed, his faint northern Dornish accent a masterful touch. "My lady requires a dance partner and I've aggravated an old injury and must sit now. Will you do the honors?"

"With pleasure," Gendry replied, but he did not sound particularly pleased. The Bear handed his fuming sister off to the blacksmith and limped away. The Cat vowed to give him a true limp the next time they were alone. Her violent imaginings were cut short by Gendry's churlish conversation. "Were the Blackwoods too busy to take Ser Willem's place?" His expression matched his tone as he looked over her head rather than at her face.

"Ser Willem had his own reasons for inviting you to be his proxy." Reasons like enjoying the look on Ben and Brynden's faces as the woman who had just rejected them danced with a lowborn bastard. Reasons like having nothing better to do than tempt his sister's rage. Reasons that might result in her jabbing her elbow into his throat while he slept that night...

"Well, if you'd rather be partnered with someone more suitable, I'll relinquish my turn, m'lady."

"When has suitability meant anything to me?" she asked him quietly. He finally looked down at her.

"Wouldn't you rather dance with someone who has something to offer you?" His manner was cold.

"And who here has anything to offer me?"

"Are you serious? Any of the Blackwood sons, surely. Land, swords, gold, their name..."

"I have a name," she said sharply. I have many. "And as for the rest... It has been offered, and it has been refused." Comprehension seemed to dawn on the dark knight. His conduct toward her changed immediately, his coldness replaced with a sort of optimism.

"Marriage was offered?"

"Not in any official capacity, but essentially, yes."

"And you refused?"

The question exasperated her. "I just said so, didn't I?"

"But... why?"

Arya sighed. "The price was too high."

Her hope. They had asked her to give up her hope, and she could not do it.

Her reply had the effect of hardening Gendry's expression again. "I'm certain a man as practical as Lord Blackwood will negotiate your dowry, m'lady. Don't be put off by the first offer. You may yet get what you want." The girl looked away sadly, her gaze soft; unfocused.

"What I want," she murmured. Warm, bronze eyes filled her thoughts and whispered words in Lorathi came to her then. By all the gods, I am yours, and ever will be, come what may. "No, Ser Gendry, no amount of negotiating with Tytos Blackwood will get me that."

Their song had ended and the girl curtsied to the bewildered knight before leaving him standing alone in the middle of the dance floor. Without a care given to how it would appear to the assemblage, Arya fled the great hall and the keep itself, bursting through heavy wooden doors which led to the godswood. She ran down the stone steps and into the night.

All the talk of marriage, the foreign yearning for good-daughters and royal grandchildren that snaked its way into her brain, her admission that another claimed her affections, and her memories of his vow, had rekindled that desolate state she had thought she might finally be escaping. Arya had not put her love or her loss away, certainly not, but since her return to Westeros, it had seemed she'd found a way to live with it so that it did not stab at her quite so constantly; so that her heart did not feel like a frozen stone residing uncomfortably beneath her breast. She had found a small measure of comfort in action.

All that, undone in a single night.

Since the Rat had revealed his part in her final trial, the Cat had held onto the hope that Jaqen was alive, however unlikely it seemed. It was a slender rope tossed to her while she wallowed in the deepest pit; one slippery rock on the river's bottom upon which her feet found purchase, lifting her just high enough so that the rushing waters did not overtop her head. When she felt the suffocating nausea of her grief descending, she focused all her concentration on that hope, and finally, finally, it had worked. That small hope, that unreasonable belief that Jaqen was still out there, had unlocked the shackles which impeded her.

Instead of grief, she had been able to think on her purpose; she had been able to undertake the pragmatic actions required to implement her plan; she had been able to envision just how she would avenge her family. She had been able to move forward. When she fixed on her hope, her determination tamped down her sorrow and she could breathe again.

Perhaps she was merely fooling herself, though. Perhaps once these latest distractions had abated and she had settled into her life in Westeros, without the new friends and new challenges and new intrigues to occupy her, perhaps then she would have found her pain at her separation from Jaqen as great and as constant as it ever was. All this talk of marriage and of love had opened her wounds anew, but perhaps that was inevitable.

Perhaps there was no escape from grief.

She had grieved Jaqen so deeply, she did not see how her grief could go on in that way. It had already encompassed her everything. How could there be more than everything? Logic dictated that grief must have its end, and logic told her the end would be found in her hope. She had taken that hope, slim, anemic thing that it was, and she had grasped it tightly, madly, telling herself that with it, she could persevere; with it, she would do what needed doing and then find him again, her soul salved by a balm made from the blood of their enemies, both his enemies and hers.

But the way she ached now, the agony she carried where she should instead have a beating heart, it exposed her hubris. Her wretchedness revealed her stupidity. There was no boundary to restrict her lament. How could she have believed there would be? There was no measure to her suffering. Of course there wasn't! It was limitless. Grief could go on. It could go on and on and on, further than the fall from the edge of the world, deeper than the fathomless abyss of the sea, longer than all the time that had been and all the time that would be.

The enormity of it... It was incalculable.

Only a child would believe there was an escape from it. For a time, she had allowed herself to be such a child.

But now... now she saw her error. Now, she must learn how to move under the crushing weight of her despair. For move she must, lest both she and her hope wither and die in this place, bereft of love and vengeance.

Arya had fled blindly into the godswood, with only the moon to light her path. She had no destination, no intention in mind, save escaping all talk of love and want with those who did not speak her language or share her understanding. As she moved deeper into the garden, sheltered by the canopy of the trees, she realized she was moving toward that great weirwood which dominated the godswood. She did not believe herself ready to confront whatever power it was that the white bark contained again. And so, she stopped, and paced, and tried to marshal her chaotic thoughts.

I am leaving, the girl reminded herself. She latched onto the idea. It floated, unattached to anything else, a lonely island in the barren gulf of her reason.

Good, let's start there, her little voice encouraged. How will you leave?

Arya followed this thread of thought, grasping at it, grateful to have something to focus on besides her pain. I'll stay with the hunt, as long as their direction and mine are the same.

That's wise, her little voice said, uncharacteristically agreeable this evening.

I'll leave in the night when they think to head north or east.

And the wolves? It was a gentle reminder. She could not crumble. She must do what she could for the pack.

Nymeria, she thought. I wonder...

Arya stepped off the path and moved into a stand of ironwoods, their trunks smooth and sturdy. She pressed her back into one and slid down until she was sitting on the ground, all her crimson skirts puddled around her in a soft pile. She drew in a great breath.

The girl had pushed herself into cats and into men, and once, into a grossly oversized eel, but only briefly, and each time, she was within paces of the mind she desired to penetrate. She stayed only long enough to whisper; to plant a seed; to pilfer a small morsel of information. She had never pushed herself into her direwolf, only drifted away from her own mind and found herself with Nymeria as she slept. She wasn't sure she could find Nymeria here, awake in the godswood with castle walls and leagues of forest between them, but she would try.

Arya wondered if she should close her eyes, but that seemed silly to her, and so she left them open, staring into the darkness, tracing the faint shapes of the trees and shrubs around her. She thought of Nymeria, of her pack. She thought of the way it felt when she walked in the direwolf's skin; when she ran and hunted on four legs. She licked her lips and remembered the way that rabbit's blood tasted when it was warm; remembered the crunch of small bones between her teeth. Her eyes drifted closed of their own accord. In the distance, she heard howling. She turned her head, positioned her ear so that she could hear it more clearly, and then she was gone.

And then she was arrived.

The wolf always bowed to her mistress's will. Well, almost always. She allowed herself to be diminished, so that the girl could borrow her power, from time to time. But this felt different. She felt the warmth and the closeness that normally lulled her but there was a pull there, too; a will which kept her present fully. Her fur stood on end and her mistress spoke, directing her; instructing her.

"West," she said, or thought, rather, and the word meant nothing to the wolf, but there was a feel and an instinct that came along with it which Nymeria understood very well. She saw the hill, saw the near-dead thing they both loved there. She had found Mother. Or, they had found Mother together, rather. She had saved Mother from the black waters. She loved Mother for all the time when Mother was the only thing in this land that felt like the girl, even if it was just a little bit, and even if it was corrupted. And she loved Mother because the girl loved Mother, and the girl's ache was her own.

She would go to Mother. She would swallow her instinctive dread and return where her mistress commanded, though she was loathe to roam so far now that they had found each other again.

"Not long," the girl told her. "I'll see you."

She whined.

"It's not little girls throwing rocks this time," her mistress said harshly, "and these aren't men you should prey upon. These are not bad men, but they don't understand and there's no way to make them understand yet."

She knew "bad." She understood that the girl stood between the wolf pack and the mounted men. She would lead her cousins west. She would go to Mother and wait. She knew how to do that; had done it for so long already.

"Soon," the girl soothed. "Soon."

"What will be soon?"

Arya felt as though she were violently jerked from her skin, all of her insides pulled outside and exposed. She moaned and grimaced. Suddenly, she felt strangely weightless, everywhere except her eyelids. They were as heavy as boulders.

"Go to... Mother," the girl slurred.

"My mother is still in the great hall, awaiting news of you, like the rest of the ladies."

Who was talking? The voice was familiar... What was he saying? Mother was in the great hall?

Her sluggish brain took a moment to understand the words, and then Arya forced her eyes open, the strangest feeling of elation engulfing her as her mind grasped at the notion that she had experienced the most vivid and awful nightmare; that her mother had not died but was in the great hall even now, waiting for her. Robb had come to find her. It was a game of hide and seek in the crypts, and she had fallen asleep and dreamt the strangest dream... She gasped and looked up into the worried face of Brynden Blackwood. He was staring down at her, his attention drawn by her sudden movement and the sound of her startled breathing.

"What is it, my lady? Tell me," he pleaded, stopping in mid-stride. He cradled her in his arms and was carrying her up the stone steps she had run down earlier in her escape from the supper and her suitors and Gendry and...

Memory.

It crowded back in, her memory, and the sweet picture of her mother waiting for her in the great hall faded.

"What... where am... I?" She groaned and looked around, bewildered. Blinking hard a few times, she realized there had been no great nightmare, or rather, that the nightmare had not been a dream, but was her life. Her mother was not awaiting her behind Winterfell's walls, Robb was not coming for her, and somehow, she had become insensible as she sought out Nymeria and had been discovered that way, in the godswood, by Brynden Blackwood. The knight now carried her as if she were some sort of invalid.

She wanted to scream.

Instead, the girl gathered her wits and fought off the dizzy feeling she had been left with after ranging so far from her own mind without the aid of slumber.

"I... must have fallen asleep," she lied.

"You've been gone nearly three hours!" Ser Brynden scolded.

Three hours? It had felt like a few moments!

"Oh... I hope no one was worried." It sounded weak, even to her own ears.

"We assumed you had gone to bed. Bethany was worried you had taken ill and went to tend you after awhile."

"I'm sorry to have caused any trouble..." She felt a little sick to her stomach. She recalled she used to feel that way when she used the eyes of animals and men when she was awake, but she had never felt that way after being with Nymeria.

"When Bethany didn't find you in your chamber, Father had the castle searched. I scoured the main bailey and the battlements before I came to the godswood. Your own men are in the dungeons, looking for you and even now, Lord Vance readies his horse to search the roads, afraid you've been abducted!" The knight's words were spoken with a mixture of concern, irritation, and relief.

"I came to the godswood for air. I was so hot in the hall, with all the dancing..."

Ser Brynden was not convinced. "My lady, after your spell here earlier and now this, I think we should consult Maester Alfryd."

Arya considered the knight's suggestion quickly and decided she would not object. Unless he was a very great fool, the maester would surely declare her the picture of health and then the household could stop fretting about her so much. It was simpler than explaining the true cause of these "spells" and less taxing than constructing a plausible lie. She nodded meekly, signaling her agreement. The knight continued up the steps and pushed through the oaken doors leading into the keep, sending a household guard he encountered to spread the news that the lost guest had been found.

"And," Ser Brynden continued once they were alone, "I think it best if you forgo the hunt."

The girl's head snapped up. "No!"

All her plans... All her preparations...

"My lady..."

"No!"

"Lady Arya, if you were to have another spell and fall from your horse, you could break your neck. I'll not have that on my conscience. You must stay here with the other ladies."

"It wasn't a spell! I didn't faint. Either time. I told you, I fell asleep."

"And earlier, you had simply prayed too long," Brynden said, his tone bordering on sarcasm.

"Just so."

He huffed, giving her a stern look. "I couldn't wake you, not with shouting, not with shaking. I've never seen anyone sleep so deeply without the aid of a maester's potion, unless they were gravely ill or injured."

She could imagine that Ser Brynden had seen enough grave illness and injury on the battlefield to know.

"I'm fine," she insisted, then, realizing she was being carried still, she struggled in Ser Brynden's arms. "Put me down."

"I think not," the knight said with a humorless laugh.

"Oh, this is ridiculous," the assassin growled. "I've never fainted, not once in my life."

A lie. She had fainted. Once. But there were... circumstances. Heat. Hunger. Exertion. A tight corset which became impossibly knotted. But, most notably, a purring voice and a certain assassin's touch.

"So this is a sudden change?"

"Ugh," she groaned. "No."

"Ah, so it has been going on for awhile. How long?"

You have your cat comb, her little voice reminded her. Her fingers twitched.

"Quit twisting my words. And put me down."

"I'm taking you to your chamber, and I'm calling for the maester." His voice carried a certain authority. She imagined it was the voice he used when he addressed the soldiers he commanded. His knightly voice.

Arya considered whether the fight was worth her energy. She made a decision.

"Fine. You may carry me all the way up the steps to my chamber and break your back doing it, if it pleases you. You may even call the maester."

The knight's face positively shone with his triumph.

"But," she added, poking one finger into his chest, right over his heart, "if the maester doesn't find anything seriously wrong with me, I don't want to hear a word about staying here with the ladies tomorrow."

The triumph bled out of his expression and then Ser Brynden scowled.

"Say you agree," the Cat demanded. "Say it, or I'll tear up all the fine clothes your mother and sister have lent me and fashion the strips into a rope so that I may escape through my window in the night."

"You'd fall to your death," he scoffed.

"And then you'd have that on your conscience."

The knight balked. It was Arya's turn to look triumphant.

Brynden stopped walking and hitched Arya up a little higher. He stared hard at her. "My, how adept you are at blackmail, my lady." There was a glint in his eye, and it signaled vexation but also, she thought, a grudging admiration. "My father believes you were sent to us by the gods. I shall have to tell him that perhaps it was not the gods after all..."

"Are you suggesting I was sent as some agent of the seven hells?"

"The thought had crossed my mind."

"But I don't believe in the seven hells, good ser knight. Like your family, I follow the old gods." And some others besides. "Perhaps your father is right, and I'm their emissary here in Westeros. I think they'd want you to promise you'll not interfere with my going on the hunt as long as the maester agrees. Perhaps they'd even be wrathful if you defy their wishes."

"Did you really just invoke the wrath of the old gods, Lady Arya?"

"It would seem so."

He regarded her closely, disgruntled at having been beaten at his own game. Still, he seemed reluctant to agree. She pressed her advantage, winding her arms around his neck and laying her cheek against his shoulder. Her finger tips slipped into the sandy curls at his neck. She relaxed into his arms, humming lightly, a sound that suggested contentment.

"Please, Ser Brynden, say you agree," she said softly, and the heir to Raventree Hall was reduced to supple clay in her hands. He sighed. Her victory was complete.

"Of course, my lady. If the maester says you are fit..."

"And don't mention any fainting spells to anyone!"

Beast Mode—B.o.B.

Chapter Text

And I'll use you as a warning sign

that if you talk enough sense then you'll lose your mind

"My lady, your seat is nearly as impressive as your swordplay," Karyl Vance remarked to Arya. He had been riding at her side for awhile, taking Ser Willem's place, ever since remounting following a brief break for their midday meal. For his part, the Bear had dropped back to ride at the rear of the column, but the Cat could feel the Lyseni's eyes on her throughout the journey.

Overprotective, she thought to herself, a sardonic half-smile appearing at the thought. Still, she found her brother's concern touching. It pulled at something inside of her, though she would never tell him of the feeling, lest he think her soft.

To Arya's dismay, they had been ranging to the north and east since they left the walls of Raventree Hall early that morning. Though it led them away from the wolf pack, which would guarantee Nymeria's safety, it also led them away from Acorn Hall and the Hollow Hill. She would have no opportunity to break with the party until they made camp for the night, taking her nearly a day further from her destination and complicating her journey. She was eaten up with her impatience, but she masked it well, turning her attention to her companion.

"A grave insult, Lord Vance," Arya japed. Her laugh was light and gave no hint of her restlessness. "A true Northerner considers horsemanship more important than anything else, even blade skills."

The lord of Wayfarer's Rest gave the girl a weak smile, and it seemed to her even that was a forced courtesy. There was not much humor in Karyl Vance. He had little room left for it between the measure of care he used to guard his thoughts and the concerns for his lands, his people, and his family's honor. His shoulders seemed to almost sag beneath the weight of it all. She gleaned this from the sparse conversation they shared as they rode, and the keen way he regarded all those around him while giving away little himself.

A cautious man, Arya had decided, and thoughtful.

The girl sensed there was a melancholy about the lord, and it made him seem older than his one and thirty years. Even so, she could see he was a man of quality, one her father had trusted enough to send out among the party charged with bringing Gregor Clegane to justice when that monster had ridden through the Riverlands, pillaging and burning out the smallfolk. To her, Karyl Vance seemed a worthy friend to claim.

"And do you consider yourself a true Northerner after all these years away, Lady Arya?" There was a sincere curiosity to the question.

"Well, you know what they say, my lord," the girl replied. "You can take the girl out of the North, but you can't take the North out of the girl."

"Is that what they say?" Ser Brynden laughed, trotting up on Arya's other side and insinuating himself into their conversation. "I confess, I've never heard that particular axiom before now. Perhaps it's a saying only common to Braavos."

The Cat thought it was the knight's way of prompting her. He wished for her to deliver on her promise to tell the tales of her adventures across the sea. It seemed the Blackwoods had a thirst for Arya's story-telling. Only that morning, when Lord Blackwood had seen the party off, he had made a similar request of her.

"Are you not coming, my lord?" the girl had asked Tytos as he stood in the yard, bidding farewell to the company as they mounted. "But you're the host!"

"No, my dear, there is too much here I must tend to in your absence. Brynden will serve as host in my stead."

"Your company will be missed," Arya told him as she put her foot in Bane's stirrup and hoisted herself onto the stallion's back. She was surprised to find that she meant it.

"I shall see you after the hunt, and you can regale me with tales of all the adventures I missed." He had looked fondly at her then, and held his hand up in a salute.

She gazed down at Lord Blackwood and nodded, knowing he would not have the chance to collect on that promise.

Their parting had felt unfinished to her, but then, she wasn't sure she had ever experienced anything close to closure in her life anyway. Besides, in this particular case, it was not to be helped. A maiden with an eye on escape couldn't very well bid her well-meaning captor a fond farewell with wishes for a long and happy life, could she? It would be just as well to say, I'm up to no good, so throw me in a room at the top of the tallest tower, lock the door, and be done with it.

"There are many sayings common to Braavos, Ser Brynden. It's a busy port and people from all over the world bring their language and their news and their sayings there," the girl remarked. She stared over Bane's head, at the riders in front of her. Gendry and Brienne rode not far beyond her, and before them rode Harwin, with the master of the hunt and Lord Smallwood. The squires and a few of Raventree Hall's sworn men made up the rear of the company, behind Ser Willem and Baynard.

"Indeed? Sayings from all over the world? Is that how you trained your tongue to be so... provocative?" the knight asked, smirking a little. Arya knew he was referring to the coarseness of her language during their first dance together, a transgression which inexplicably seemed to charm him, but Lord Vance had not been privy to that conversation. The Lord of Wayfarer's Rest stiffened a bit at this playful accusation of Ser Brynden's, no doubt shocked by the younger man's lack of decorum.

"No, ser, I believe my provocative tongue is a result of the time I spent in the company of Sandor Clegane."

Lord Vance's expression became sympathetic. "Yes, we had heard you were abducted by that filthy animal, though the details of your captivity have not been widely known. In fact, the history of Arya Stark seems to end with that abduction, then pick up again years later, when the Brotherhood somehow came by the knowledge that you were alive and being sheltered across the Narrow Sea."

Arya did not allow herself to show surprise that Karyl Vance was acquainted with some of the details of her life. She supposed as a member of Tytos Blackwood's inner circle and therefore, a friend to the Brotherhood Without Banners, he would have heard any news of import which the outlaws had obtained. At least, any news the outlaws deemed worthy to share. The miraculous survival of their lady's youngest daughter despite the odds against such a thing was certain to have set their tongues wagging.

"The history of Arya Stark?" the girl laughed softly. "Am I my own field of study now? Heavens, how things have changed since last I was in Westeros! Maester Luwin instructed me in High Valyrian, mathematics, heraldry, and the great histories. Do maesters now drill young lordlings on the facts of my life?"

Brynden Blackwood answered for his friend. "No, my lady, but perhaps they should. I'd wager a purse of dragons they would find the subject most fascinating. The maesters would surely have their pupils' rapt attention."

"You have my rapt attention now, Lady Arya. Perhaps you'd tell us about the time you spent as the Hound's hostage," Lord Vance suggested. "How is it possible for a young girl to survive such a plight?"

Such a plight. She nearly laughed. The least harrowing part of her particular plight was her time with the Hound.

Before she spoke, she considered the entirety of her experience since leaving Winterfell: her fight with Joffrey and the further disintegration of her relationship with her sister; sending Nymeria away; the murder of her friend for the sake of a prince's pride; scrounging and scratching out her existence on the streets of that filthy city she'd been brought to on the whim of a dead king; witnessing her father's execution; the road north with the Night's Watch; her enslavement at Harrenhal; her capture and attempted ransoming by the Brotherhood; the Hound; the Red Wedding; the House of Black and White...

A girl survives such a plight because she must. Because she is willing to do whatever it takes to defend herself and her own. Because if she does not survive it, there will be no one left to make them pay.

You cannot tell him this, her little voice warned. This is not what he wants to hear.

I know. I'm not stupid.

"I'm not sure there's an answer to that question, my lord," the girl finally said. "How does one survive anything? How did I survive what came before the Hound, and what came after? Luck? Force of will? Fate? The benevolence of the gods?" She stared over Bane's head a moment, considering; remembering. Softly, she continued, "You breathe in, you breathe out, you put one foot in front of the other, and then one day turns into the next, and then the next, and then the next after that, and you're still breathing. You're still putting one foot in front of the other." She shrugged.

Her words seemed to sober Ser Brynden. "Was he delicate with you, my lady?"

She laughed at that, a sharp, incredulous bark. "I don't think delicate was a word in Sandor Clegane's vocabulary. But if you're asking me if he treated me kindly, then I suppose I should say he treated me as well as a man like that is capable of treating anyone. I've known more tenderness in my life, yes, but I've certainly known less."

"He meant to sell you, I presume? Back to your family? For gold?" Lord Vance's distaste was obvious.

"Yes, that was his plan."

"Vile," Ser Brynden pronounced.

"Are not hostages ransomed with regularity back to their families here in Westeros?" Arya asked. "Or has much changed since I last was here?"

"Yes, hostages are ransomed," Karyl replied, "but knights. Soldiers. Men caught in battle and shown mercy by their enemies. Not innocent children. Not little girls. Innocents must be protected and little girls should be safely delivered to the arms of their families. Trading a highborn girl for gold is simply not done. It's reprehensible." The lord's normally measured tone had become passionate. Lord Vance was a true knight, it seemed. Perhaps it was simply his innate decency at the root of his beliefs, but she thought not. Arya was good at reading people, and she thought there was likely some experience which weighted Karyl Vance's compassion for innocents and little girls.

"It may have been reprehensible, but it was no worse than what the Brotherhood Without Banners had planned for me," the girl observed. "And anyway, Clegane proved to be terrible at ransoming me. Everyone who might have an interest in trading coin for my freedom died before he could make the demand." The girl laughed bitterly. "And then the Hound died, and there was no one left to bother with trading me."

"It must have been a terrible time for you, my lady," murmured the Lord of Wayfarer's Rest. The girl shrugged again.

"Not as terrible a time as it was for my mother and brothers," she said. She hadn't had her throat slit, or her head chopped off and replaced with that of an animal. She hadn't been murdered and had her burnt body hoisted as a grotesque banner over her ancestral home. And riding with the Hound had allowed her to cross a name off her list, and retrieve Needle, so there was that.

"Still, I think you must hate him," Lord Vance said, and his gaze was rueful. "Who could blame you?" Arya kept her face impassive as she sorted through what it was she felt about that time in her life.

She didn't hate the Hound, precisely, and neither did she love him. She blamed him and she reviled him and at times, she admired him. He was not a bad man, exactly, but neither was he good. Not in many ways, at least. He had killed her friend, a simple butcher's boy, one of Karyl Vance's innocents; a boy who was no threat to anyone. For that, she could never fully forgive Sandor Clegane. But hate? No. That emotion was one she reserved for people far worse than King Joffrey's burnt stray.

Arya Stark had only passed nine namedays by the time Mycah was run down, and had only had two more by the time she found herself unwillingly back in the Hound's company. A child that young has no way to understand the complexities of what motivates men. At that time, Arya did not appreciate how men could be driven by their own unique daemons and ruined by the tortures of their memory. At that time, she had not been tutored in the subtleties and nuances of politics and strategy (if she had been, she would have whispered Tywin Lannister's name in Jaqen's ear rather than Weese's when she had the chance; when she had been offered that great gift). At that time, her world was black and white; the world of a child; so simple.

So clear.

It wasn't until later that she had understood there was a vast gulf between the black and the white. It wasn't until later that she had recognized the unending shades of grey which existed in between. It wasn't until later she had learned that whether one considered any particular shade to be light or dark was a matter of perspective.

A matter of how much light shone upon you in that instant; a matter of the weight of the blackness you carried within yourself at that moment.

Do you know what the interesting thing about the right choice is, little wolf? It's that the look of it changes depending on where you are standing when you make it.

Emerging from the darkness into the light, or leaving the light behind to plunge into the darkness, such considerations mattered. Such considerations colored one's vision and changed the feeling of a thing. But how could she have known that as a child who had passed so few years? A child who had grown up behind high walls, surrounded by those who valued her simply because she was, sheltered from all the harshness which scarred and marked the wide world?

Some lessons had eluded her until they were impossible to ignore; had been taught to her in the most brutal way imaginable. Through bitter experience, she now knew circumstance could mold and bend and reshape right and wrong. But she hadn't understood that when she rode with the Hound. Her lessons to that point had all been in fear and rage and loss. Her only desire was vengeance.

Vengeance, and a place to belong.

These two things she had yearned for in equal measure. These two things, a burnt and bitter outlaw had somehow provided for her, in his own way.

And so she had denied Sandor Clegane mercy when it was in her power to give it; when he begged her for it; when he had hoped for it at the end of her narrow blade.

She had refused to provide him his relief.

As the cruelest retribution (for Mycah's sake, because the Hound was a pitiless killer who deserved no clemency; not when he had slaughtered an innocent, her friend, without remorse).

But also as the most benevolent recompense (for her own sake as much as his, because the Hound's life was one she could not consent to take; not when he had given her a place to belong before she had the strength to seek it for herself).

But how to explain that to these men, who looked at her with such great pity in their eyes? At one and ten, she was naive to the complexities of what drove the decisions of men, but she'd wager that these men would be equally lost when it came to the complexities of what drove her.

And so she replied with something that, while not the full truth, was true enough, and was like to be easily accepted.

"Hating the Hound does little good now, my lord. He's dead and gone, food for crows."

"You are wise beyond your years, Lady Arya," Ser Brynden remarked. "I think many young ladies in your position would spend at least some of their day looking back, wishing they had never crossed paths with such a man."

The girl nodded, saying, "You may be right, ser. Perhaps it is simply a personal failing of mine that I spend very little time wishing to undo what has been done."

"Personal failing is too harsh a term, I think," Lord Vance commented, "but it's certainly not usual, to live with so little regret."

"I'm not without regret, my lord, but the things I do regret were not things done to me so much as things I've done."

Or things I've failed to do, she mentally added, thinking of how the Kindly Man still drew breath.

"Well said, my lady." Karyl Vance gave her a sad smile then.

The heir to Raventree Hall spoke. "Are you saying that if it were somehow within your power to undo the past, you wouldn't choose to avoid that villain altogether?"

Arya looked at Ser Brynden for a long moment before answering. "I think we learn from all those whose paths we cross," she replied finally. "Hero or villain, makes no difference."

"And what did you learn from the Hound?" the knight asked, his eyebrows raised.

"Irreverence."

Ser Brynden threw his head back and laughed. "No, my lady, I am quite certain you were born with that!"

Arya smiled, her half-quirked mouth a concession to the truth of the knight's words. "Just so, Ser Brynden. So, let us then say, the Hound taught me that I should not be ashamed of my own irreverence."

"And did you find the lesson valuable?" the knight inquired. Delight danced in his eyes as he spoke.

"Incalculably."

"And here, I thought your maester tutored you in mathematics."

The girl snorted but made no reply. Before either Lord Vance or Ser Brynden could ask her more questions, the hounds began to bay and those hunters at the head of the party galloped off, following the sound, seeking quarry.

Any wolves the dogs had scented were long gone by the time the riders caught up to the hounds. There were carcasses stripped bare along their path; deer, mostly, and one ox, as best they could tell.

"Poor beast must have escaped one of the farms," Lord Smallwood remarked. There was no meat left, just torn hides and cracked bones. The kills had happened at least two days past judging by the state of the remains.

"No wolves have been here for days," the master of the hunt remarked with disgust. "What were those hounds going on about?"

Arya smiled slyly to herself. Dogs were easy. They wanted to run; to chase; to hunt. It had only taken the smallest nudge...

"It's late now, at any rate," Ser Brynden remarked, turning his gaze skyward and noting how low the sun had sunk. "We should look to setting up camp."

Those among the party with any influence on such plans agreed and so camp was made, suppers were cooked, and mead was passed as the wearied hunters gathered around a great, central fire.

"No howling," the heir to Raventree Hall remarked after taking a long swallow of the sweet drink. He was seated on the ground, next to Arya, and offered his skin to her. She held up her hand, refusing it. Mead would be no aid to her this night. "It's dastardly quiet."

"Does quiet unsettle you?" the Cat asked.

"Only when it ought not be quiet. These woods have been filled with howling for near half a week. Now, nothing. Don't you find that strange, my lady?"

"It's not nothing. You have only to listen to know it." Arya cocked her ear toward the dark sky, a look of concentration descending over her face. "I hear... the wind whispering. And the owls... there," she said, pointing in the direction of an owl's hoot. "I hear the embers popping in the fire. I hear..." She closed her eyes. "Horses, nickering just down the hill. The crunch of leaves and twigs beneath boots as the men wander off to... well, I'll curb my provocative tongue for your sake, Ser Brynden, but I imagine you know why they wander off. Mead only stays in us for so long, after all."

The knight laughed lightly. "Never curb your tongue for my sake, Lady Arya. I don't think I'd know what to do if you weren't scandalizing me in some way or another."

"Well, what did you do before I showed up and enthralled you with my utter lack of manners and my disregard for propriety?"

"You know, it's strange, but I can't rightly recall." There was something about the way he looked at her when he said it, his expression illuminated by the firelight.

You are far too charming, ser, the girl thought.

Arya cleared her throat. "I've been meaning to ask, but where are your brothers, Ser Brynden?"

"Are they terribly missed?" he grinned.

"Terribly." Her complete lack of inflection and the flatness of her affect gave the intended lie to her words. Brynden chuckled.

"Alyn was never much for the hunt and Ben was held back by our father. He's simply mad about hunting, of course, so father thought it fitting penance for his inexcusable intrusion the other night."

"Poor Ben," the Cat said with false sympathy. "How could he be expected to know that I'd be so resistant to his charms? I imagine he's never been refused anything in his life."

"Yes, poor Ben," Ser Brynden echoed, his regret as counterfeit as Arya's own. "But you should not spare him too much concern. Believe me when I tell you that Ben is concerned enough for himself. Your sympathies would be redundant." They both laughed at that, but then Brynden added quite seriously, "You should know, though... my brother may seem a reprobate, my lady, but he's not entirely bad."

"Few are," she remarked. A very few. Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, Queen Cersei, traitorous black brothers, Walder Frey, the Kindly Man...

"I mean to say, Ben has his flaws, undoubtedly... a certain weakness of... moderation..." The girl snorted and Ser Brynden looked uncomfortable for a moment but then continued. "Despite that, I hope you do not doubt his loyalty."

"His loyalty to whom?"

"To you, of course."

Arya snorted again, befuddled. "He owes me no loyalty."

"But he does, Lady Arya, as a sworn subject of the King in the North."

"He's a sworn subject of the crown, surely," she insisted. "Of Tommen Baratheon." She looked at the knight strangely before adding, "And besides that, there is no more King in the North."

Brynden sighed and furrowed his brow a bit. "Lannisters may have forced my father to bend the knee and lay down his arms, but what loyalty this family has does not belong with Casterly Rock or that tainted crown."

Arya's voice dropped lower. "Dangerous talk, ser."

He was amused. "What, here? Have the trees ears now, my lady? Will the hounds and horses betray me to Tommen?"

"Trees and hounds do not trade in treachery," the girl replied, "but you surround yourself with men, and to men, information is currency."

What three new things have you learned, child?

Brynden was untroubled by her words. "I would trust every man here with my life."

"And the women? Do you trust us with your life as well?" Her question was rhetorical, a small jab at her companion. Men the world over had been undone by women invisible to them. She thought Ser Brynden could do with a reminder that the most dangerous enemy was oftentimes the one you did not count as enemy at all. She hadn't meant for him to answer her.

Brynden's eyes flicked briefly to Brienne, seated across the fire from them, listening to some story of Harwin's; something about wolves. The knight looked back at his companion again, searching Arya's grey eyes for a moment before replying.

"I do." He leaned back on his elbows and stretched his legs out before him.

"You do?" she asked in disbelief. "You hardly know me. What makes you so certain I won't betray you?"

"Well, my father trusts you, and I trust my father. So, that means I must put my trust in you as well." His gaze softened and he looked past her, thinking some private thought. After a moment, he met her eyes again and added, "Though I do not think you would say the same, my lady."

Arya sniffed. "Trust does not come easily to me. If you'd lived my life, you'd understand why."

"I would like to understand," Brynden murmured. "Very much."

He was asking for her story. Again. She sighed, leaning back herself so that her posture mirrored the knight's own. She looked over at him then, studying the angle of his jaw and the contour of his cheek. She knew there was no such thing as an honest face; not really; not when faces could be stolen and created and changed on a whim. But if there were such a thing, she would say it looked very much like the one Ser Brynden wore just then.

"I can tell you, but that doesn't mean you'll understand," the Cat warned, turning her eyes back toward the fire. Orange shapes danced there in the flames and she looked away quickly, not wanting to see them. The knight leaned toward her and bent his head down, placing his mouth close to her ear.

"I am your rapt pupil, Maester Arya. Instruct me."

Gendry stared across the fire at Arya and Brynden, seated much too close together, sharing some quiet conversation. They were too far away and too guarded in their tones for him to hear anything they said to one another. His eyes narrowed as the heir to Raventree Hall bent his head toward the Lady of Winterfell and spoke softly in the girl's ear.

"Handsome couple, that," Theomar Smallwood remarked to Gendry, interrupting the blacksmith-knight's mounting irritation. "Do you suppose he whispers of love to her now? Perhaps we'll be attending a wedding in the near future."

"What, Ser Brynden and m'lady? Not likely," Gendry scoffed.

Lord Smallwood raised his eyebrows. "Do you know something, ser?"

Gendry sniffed. "I know she's too young to marry."

"She's six and ten, is she not? Ravella was a year younger when we wed."

"That was before. Things were different before," the dark knight explained weakly. "The war has changed things."

"If anything, the war makes it more likely for young people to marry, I would think," Lord Smallwood replied, "not less."

"Well, Ser Brynden isn't a young person, is he?"

Theomar laughed. "He's young enough. Ten years older than Lady Arya? Or perhaps a bit more."

"A bit more," Gendry muttered.

"What strange ideas you have, Ser Gendry. Many advantageous marriages were arranged between people with greater age differences than Ser Brynden and Lady Arya."

"Their age difference seems a great deal more vast when the lady is barely more than a child."

Theomar snorted. "You've seen this child spar, I presume? And at the feast, did she look like a child to you as you danced with her?"

"Ser Brynden has been married already. He has children. He's ridden to war. He's one and ten years her senior."

"And there are two and ten years between Ravella and myself. What of it?"

"That's different."

"Pray tell, how is it different, ser?"

Gendry's mouth pinched just a bit. "M'lady hasn't lived the life of a highborn lady. She hasn't had the benefit of her mother's guidance for years. She hasn't had a septa teaching her. She hasn't enjoyed the company of other ladies. She's... naive about what it means to be married and manage a great household."

"Rest easy, ser. I doubt very much that Lady Arya will be managing a great household."

"Isn't that what highborn ladies do, when they marry?"

"Yes," the lord agreed. "But not this one."

"And why not?"

"Because, Ser Gendry," Lord Smallwood said, gazing at the large knight shrewdly, "she'll be far too busy ruling a kingdom."

The History of Arya Stark, as Lord Vance had called it, was much too vast to share in an evening, and so the girl chose to tell Ser Brynden a little about her upbringing in Winterfell and her travels south with King Robert and her father. Ser Brynden had proven true to his word, his attention captured completely by her tale. He commented every now and again, voicing some observance or another.

"Needle, you say," Brynden laughed when Arya told him about Jon's gift. "And you still have it?"

"Had it. Used it. Lost it. Found it again. Was told to give it up, so I hid it. Then I took it with me when I left Braavos and keep it close always. Your brother was recently acquainted with it, I believe. You'll find evidence of Needle's sharp kiss at the very center of Ser Edmund's throat."

"It sounds as if your little sword has a history as illustrious as Dark Sister," the knight declared, and he was only partially japing. "But how did you lose it? And who would ask you to give up your sword?"

"You're getting ahead of the story, Ser Brynden," the girl chastised.

"Apologies, my lady. Please continue."

And so she did. She talked of what she felt as she rode through the gates of Winterfell and left the castle and her beloved brother Jon behind her. She described the landscape, most of which she had never seen before that journey. Brynden was particularly taken with Arya's descriptions of her passage through the Neck, saying he'd never been north of Moat Cailin himself. When she told of her altercation with Joffrey, the heir to Raventree Hall interrupted her again.

"By my troth, you have led a life, Lady Arya. Knocked a king over his head with a stick, did you?"

"He wasn't a king then," the girl spat. "Only a stupid little prince."

The knight laughed. "No point in hating him, though. Food for crows now, isn't he?" He was teasing her with her own words. "And what great lesson did you learn from crossing paths with Joffrey Baratheon?"

The image of her father kneeling on the steps of the Great Sept of Baelor came back to her. Joffrey was there, too, smiling with his wormy lips. Ser Ilyn, bring me his head! Arya blinked, but she didn't hesitate in her answer. "I learned that you ought to put a mad dog down when you have the chance." At her tone, all japing ceased.

"You don't mean that," Brynden said, but he didn't sound so certain.

"I do." She nodded. "I do mean it. I could have done it, too. Would have done it, if I'd known... I had to send Nymeria away. Lady is dead. My father is dead. My mother, my brothers... It all might have been prevented, if I'd shoved that monster's sword through his heart instead of throwing it into the Trident."

"It seems you do live with some regrets, my lady," the knight said softly. His voice had a soothing quality to it.

"And as I told you, those regrets are more related to things I've done than things done to me. I regret sparing Joffrey's life when taking it might have saved so many more." Lives that meant something to me.

"How were you to know?" Ser Brynden asked softly. "I think you can be forgiven for not being a merciless killer as a girl of nine, my lady."

Arya smiled a little sadly. "And as a girl of six and ten? What might I be forgiven for now?"

Brynden sat up from his reclined position and turned his body so that he could look at her. His gaze was intense and he tilted his head, studying her face, her eyes, as he pressed his knuckles against his lips thoughtfully. He drew in a breath and pushed it out slowly, dropping his hand before answering.

"Everything, my lady. Every damn thing."

Arya could tell Brynden wanted to ask her more, but he did not object when she claimed weariness as she rose to find her tent. The night was mild for a Riverlands winter and most of the men had spread furs near the fire, sleeping under the stars, but Harwin and Brynden had insisted on shelter for the women. The Cat didn't mind. She thought it might take longer for the hunters to discover her absence in the morning this way.

The heir to Raventree Hall rose as well and offered Arya his arm, walking her to her tent, some distance from the fire, and from the men with their snoring.

"Sleep well, my lady," he bid her, bending to kiss her hand.

"And you, Ser Brynden."

The Cat had barely settled under her furs when she heard the Bear whispering to her through the flap of her tent.

"So, it's to be Ser Brynden, is it? Do you think he'll insist on matching crowns?"

"Shut up."

"I overheard Lord Smallwood telling Ser Gendry what a handsome couple you make."

"Shut up!" Arya hissed again.

"If you'd rather stay with the hunt so you can get to know your betrothed better, we can always change our plans and... Ooomph!"

Arya had caught her brother in the chest with the heel of her boot as she kicked him through the tent flap. After a moment, Ser Willem poked his head through the flap, frowning at her. He seemed to be rubbing his chest.

"Honestly, you're more like a wild animal than a royal bride-to-be," he groused. His sister smiled sweetly at him.

"Thank you."

The Bear shook his head, his lips pressed into a thin line, and watched his sister settle herself once again beneath her sleeping furs before he addressed her again.

"We've arranged it so that Baynard has last watch over the horses," he whispered, still rubbing his chest. "He's going to be gracious and relieve Lord Vance's squire early to give us a little more time. I'll come get you then. You should sleep while you can, and have your pack ready to go."

"Left it on Bane. All I need to do is take my bedroll and swords."

"Good girl."

Arya glowered at her brother's patronizing tone and kicked her covers off, shoving at his chest once again with her foot, sending him tumbling backwards out of her tent with another ooomph!

"Honestly, that's getting old," the Bear muttered, and she could hear him stalking off. She smiled and closed her eyes. When next she opened them, hours had passed, and it was not the Lyseni assassin who had awakened her, but a distant sound.

Horses, she thought, instantly alert. Riders.

The Cat sat up, grabbing the steel which was never far from her and leaving her shelter. She stood just beyond her tent and listened. Snoring emanated from near the fire, and the wind moved the leaves of the trees overhead, but beyond that, there was the unmistakable sound of hooves pounding the ground. The night was uncommonly bright and the hunting party had traveled along a well-worn road through the forest for most of their journey. It was not impossible for riders to make haste along that path, though it was not without danger, no matter how much the shining moon lit their way. And then there was the potential of wolves.

Why would someone risk a night ride?

A horse whinnied down the hill, one of theirs. Arya shifted slightly toward the sound but then the hairs on the back of her neck prickled and she whirled around, swords at the ready. Ser Brynden halted his advance, his own steel sheathed at his hip. His hand rested upon his pommel.

"It's just me, my lady," the knight greeted quietly, "come to check on you. I heard it too."

"Any ideas?"

"Thieves and outlaws are not like to be so bold with their riding at night," Brynden replied. "It's almost certainly someone looking for us, but whether friend or foe, I cannot say. I think you should don your plate."

"It's on Bane."

"You left your horse packed?" Brynden's brow furrowed slightly.

"Less work in the morning," she replied casually. "I don't have my own squire, you know."

He might have said that she had several knights and their squires who would have done the deed for her, but he did not. His demeanor was inscrutable and so she considered searching his thoughts for a moment, to assess his degree of suspicion. Before she could, the Bear approached, far too quietly for a man of his size. Baynard was at his back and both men looked grim, holding their steel.

"Riders," the larger assassin said, then listened for a second. "Five minutes, at most."

"The others?" Arya asked.

"Ser Gendry is rousing them," Baynard replied. "We'll have the numbers. Can't be more than three or four of them, from the sound."

"Could just be a scouting party," she pointed out, "with others near enough to be drawn by the sound of battle."

"Then we'll have to dispatch them quickly and move on," Ser Willem replied.

"Quickly and quietly," the girl said thoughtfully. "Dying men don't wail once their throats are slit."

"Aye," Baynard agreed. "There's no time for dancing tonight. Quick and clean."

"The fire?" Arya continued, betraying no emotion.

"Doused," Ser Willem assured her.

Brynden watched the exchange keenly, but he made no comment about it. Instead, he suggested that Arya join them at the fire ring, so all their swords would be gathered in one place. From the tent next to the girl's own, Brienne emerged, demanding to know what was happening.

"We're not sure yet, my lady," Ser Brynden said. "Riders will be upon us in a moment, and we cannot know their threat until they are here. Could be messengers sent from Raventree Hall, but it's safer not to assume."

The group made haste to the top of the hill where the party was now awake and standing, swords drawn. Ser Willem shoved Arya to their center despite the daggers she glared at him for doing so and Ser Gendry and Ser Brynden closed in next to her.

"I'm holding Valyrian steel," she reminded them with a hiss.

"They won't get close enough for you to use it, m'lady," Gendry promised, studiously ignoring the fact that he had described precisely her frustration. She might have called him idiotic cattle again in Dothraki (and other languages), but before she had her chance, she was interrupted by the approaching riders, calling out a name.

"Brynden! Brynden Blackwood!"

Arya's head swiveled and she looked up at the sandy-headed knight, his face illuminated by the bright moonlight which shone upon the hill where they stood.

"I think that's Ben," he said after only a moment's hesitation. "That sounds like Ben."

"What would he be doing here, riding in the small hours?" Arya asked, hiding her consternation. By now, she should have been leading Bane through the trees on silent feet, to the southwest, leaving the Blackwoods and their allies far behind. Instead, she found herself pushed to the center of a mass of men who meant to protect her over her own objections (protection which now actively thwarted her from riding to her mother).

Such careful plans, all undone by the likes of Ben Fucking Blackwood.

She frowned but refrained from growling.

"There must be news," Brynden replied, oblivious to the girl's displeasure. "Ben would only come if he were sent by father, and if father sent him out to ride through the dark, it's something important."

There was an edge of worry to the knight's voice, she thought. Her mind churned and she wondered if this meant they would be riding back to the castle come morning. It would make her escape that much more difficult, if true.

"Here, Ben!" Ser Brynden cried down the hill, toward the road. One of the men built up the fire once again to make spotting their location easier. Shortly after that, Ben Blackwood, the master-at-arms of Raventree Hall, and a sworn man of the household rode up, dismounting with an urgency.

"Brynden, Lord Smallwood, Lord Vance," Ben greeted tersely, nodding to each. He saw Arya there, crowded at their center, and spoke to her as well, all his characteristic japing gone from his tone. "My lady, please forgive me for disturbing your sleep." He bowed slightly but then turned again to his brother. "Brother, we must speak."

"Of course," Brynden agreed.

"Lord Smallwood and Lord Vance should join us," the younger knight insisted. "Father has given me a message to deliver with all haste."

Arya looked at the men, daring them to dismiss her from their council. Brynden hesitated, then suggested that Ser Willem and Ser Gendry see her back to her tent.

"We've deprived you of your rest long enough, Lady Arya," Brynden said, sounding regretful.

"If you think you can send me away like a naughty child..." she started, but Ben interrupted her.

"My lady, my father would not wish you to be alarmed. Please. This is a matter for the River lords which should not concern you."

He was commanding, leaving little room for argument. This was a side to Ben Blackwood that Arya would not have believed existed. There was no flirtation, no misplaced arrogance. She imagined that in battle, when trouble started, Ser Edmund could be as focused as his more serious brother.

How surprising.

Still, the girl would not easily consent to being dismissed, if only so that she might alter her own plans according to whatever this news was.

"My lords, whatever it is, it's my right to know. My brother was King in the North, and of the Riverlands, as you've all been quick to remind me since my arrival. The Winter Throne has no other representative here at present, so I think matters for River lords do concern me." She felt strange saying it, after all her protestations, but it seemed the most expedient way to obtain the information she sought.

It's just another part to play, her little voice soothed. A mask you wear to reconnoiter more freely. It means nothing.

Yes, another mask, she thought. Or is it a crown?

Does it matter? It's a convenient disguise as false as Baynard's face.

I will not be a pretty banner, no matter what these men may think, she reassured herself. I will not grow old seated atop a throne while the Kindly Man comfortably lives out his days in Braavos.

No, of course not.

"She's right." The statement came from Harwin, who had been silent up to that point. Arya could only imagine how her words must have thrilled him. The idea of Ned Stark's daughter reaching for power must have been irresistible to the Northman. Murmuring surrounded her then, men quietly agreeing or disagreeing with her assertion.

"A word, if I may," Ser Brynden said to her, taking Arya gently by her elbow. He led her out of the crowd, a small distance away where they could speak without interference or distraction. He looked down at her, his jaw working as he considered his words.

"What is it, ser?" the Cat finally demanded, impatient.

"My lady, I know not what this news is, or what it may mean, but if it is my father's wish that you be spared..."

"Ser Brynden," the girl said, pulling her elbow free of his grasp, "I've no wish to be spared anything. I know you haven't known me long, but surely you do not think me delicate in any way. You mean well, I know, as does your father, but I would be more distressed at being ill-informed than anything else."

"Perhaps... What if I gave you my promise that I would tell you all that was discussed?"

"Why bother shielding me from hearing it for myself if you are only going to tell me later?"

"I wouldn't be shielding you, my lady, but rather Ser Gyles and Luthor Long." Here, the knight spoke of the master-at-arms and the household guard who rode with Ser Ben. "If father charged them with delivering a message in confidence, I would not have them subjected to his wrath when he finds they disregarded his command. Or, Ben, for that matter. He's had enough of father's ire of late."

"Not half so much as he deserves, I'm sure," the girl grumbled, then sighed her acquiescence. "Fine. I'll give you your privacy, to spare those men your father's displeasure, but I will hold you to your word, ser."

"All that I know, you shall know, my lady," the knight vowed.

Indeed I will, the girl thought, whether you tell it to me or not.

The Cat allowed the heir to Raventree Hall to escort her back to her tent. He retreated quickly once she had settled herself, but she was joined shortly by Ser Willem. The assassin stood just outside the closed tent flap, taking up the post without her leave. Arya could see the silhouette of his great bulk there, an imposing knight placing himself between his lady and the rest of the world.

"I'm surprised at you, sister," he murmured, just loud enough for her to hear. "I expected you to put up more of a fight. What pretty words did Ser Brynden say to make you scamper away so meekly?"

"I didn't scamper away," she growled. "He's going to tell me everything they discuss. He asked that I not compromise his men by forcing them to disobey their lord."

"And you agreed?" the Bear chuckled. "You may make a good wife yet. So obedient to your husband's will."

Dothraki is a language devoid of descriptors, for the most part. A thing is what it is, and those who pledge fealty to the might of the Khals do not believe that embellished language is required to convey the truth of things. When it comes to violence, however; when it comes to threat... Well, that is where the language swells and expands. That is where this Essosi tongue glories in excess. A Dothraki child might only learn one way to say that he has a thirst or that he sees a carrion crow in the sky, but the ways in which he can describe his intent to run a man through with a spear or carve out his heart with an arakh are beyond counting. There are nearly a score of distinct words for blood alone.

And that was why Arya chose Dothraki to express her displeasure at her brother's jape. Or, rather, to express the potential consequences of that displeasure.

The Bear chuckled. "Even if you did remove my head in that horrifying way, I'm not sure you could actually fit it there when it's all said and done."

And so Arya went on to describe precisely how such a feat might be accomplished. Luckily, most of the nuance was lost on the Faceless knight, whose command of Dothraki was decidedly weaker than his sister's. Still, he understood her general intention.

"Anha usovegon," he said in lilting tones. High Valyrian, the language of the educated and the refined, was his shield against all her brutal Dothraki intent. I apologize. "Rest now, sister. I'll keep watch."

"I won't be able to sleep until I know what this is about."

"Valar edrussis." All men must sleep.

The Cat rolled her eyes, but despite her insistence that it would be impossible for her to do so, she finally managed to drift off, though her slumber was fitful and the Lyseni assassin heard her murmuring beneath her furs all through the night.

"Not a banner," she slurred. "No... pretty... banner."

The company was somewhat diminished when the girl arose shortly after the dawn. She made her way to the crest of the hill where the master of the hunt and Ser Brynden's squire were cooking breakfast over the fire. Lord Vance was nowhere to be seen. Neither was Lord Smallwood. Their squires were missing as well, along with those who had arrived from Raventree Hall in the night. Arya surveyed all who sat quietly eating near the fire. Ser Gendry, Baynard, Ser Willem, Brienne, Harwin, and two sworn men of Lord Blackwood's household who had come along to guard the party.

"Ser Brynden?" Arya asked when she caught the Bear's eye. Her tone was neutral. The girl had not yet decided whether to be angry with Lord Blackwood's eldest son for not waking her as soon as his council was concluded. She stifled a yawn with the back of her hand and waited.

"Checking the horses," her brother replied after he swallowed his bite. "He traded his mount for Ser Ben's so that his brother would not be left with a worn out horse for his trip back home."

So Ben had left then. And by the looks of things, he'd taken a number of the hunting party back with him.

Arya's eyes searched out those remaining as she mentally tabulated who would stay and who would not. Gendry's expression was dour and Arya attributed it to the early hour and the generally poor quality of sleep they had all had. She turned to leave the party, intending to find the heir to Raventree Hall and demand the explanation she was due, but before she had taken more than three steps, the blacksmith-knight spoke, halting her.

"M'lady! Stay. You've not eaten yet. I'll go fetch Ser Brynden for you if you like."

"No need, Ser Gendry," she called back over her shoulder. "Don't trouble yourself. I'll find him myself."

She had one intrusive thought then that was not her own.

Fuck. That's all I need. Might as well have the ceremony right here, then.

The girl narrowed her eyes but continued her retreat, giving no indication that she had gleaned the content of Ser Gendry's internal rant. She found Ser Brynden down the hill with the horses, just as the Bear had said. The girl's step was so light that the knight did not note her presence until she was nearly upon him. He looked up at her for a moment and then smiled.

"One might almost think you a woods-spirit, Lady Arya, you move so silently among the trees."

"What makes you think I'm not?"

"I've held you in my arms. I know there's more to your form than mist."

Arya chewed her lip. "Caution, ser. Anyone overhearing you say such a thing might think you meant more than an innocent dance at your father's feast."

"Well, I did carry you to your bedchamber as well," he reminded her, biting back his grin.

"When you thought I had fainted," she said, but then added quickly, "even though I had not!"

"Don't fret, my lady. Anyone who questions your honor will have his correction at the edge of my blade."

"Oh, I'm not fretting, Ser Brynden. I know who I am, and who I am not. The opinions of others matter little to me. But I imagine that my reputation means a great deal to your father. You should have care of your tongue for his sake more than mine."

The knight laughed. "Indeed. He'd not like his good-daughter's name soiled."

Arya looked hard at Brynden before changing the subject. "I am cross with you, ser. You didn't come to me last night to tell me what was said as you promised."

"It was the telling I promised," he reminded her, "not the timing of when I would tell it."

"I expected that you would wake me."

"What, come into your tent in the night? Did you not just admonish me to have care of your reputation?"

"Ser Brynden," the girl hissed, growing impatient.

"My lady, when our discussions were complete, I found your man standing guard over you and he implored me not to wake you. I quite agreed. The hunt may be arduous today. Being well rested is imperative."

"The hunt," Arya repeated, incredulous. "You intend to continue hunting?"

"You're ready to abandon the hunt after only one day?" the knight asked, sounding equally incredulous, but his reply had a ring of mockery to it. "Perhaps you should have stayed back at the castle with the other ladies after all. You might have found embroidering handkerchiefs more to your liking."

"Do not jape with me, ser..."

"Who's japing? My sister has a fine collection of poppets you could have played with, and if you had managed to finish that handkerchief, I could have worn it as your favor if ever there's a tournament. I'm shite with a lance, my lady, but I can hold my own in a melee." Ser Brynden's expression was innocence itself until Arya took two steps closer and shoved hard at his chest. He swayed but kept his balance, then burst out laughing.

"I never played with poppets," she growled. "Not even when I was younger than Baby Bobbin. Now, you will explain to me why we are hunting when half the party is making haste to your father's house!"

"Because my father wished it," he said, smiling fondly at the girl. The knight reached out and tucked a stray lock of Arya's chestnut hair behind her ear. His fingertips trailed softly over the angle of her jaw before he spoke again. "But how do you know the men are going to Raventree Hall?"

"Where else?"

"Any one of a dozen places, really. Why not Wayfarer's Rest? Or Acorn Hall? Or Pinkmaiden?" Ser Brynden quizzed. "They could be heading to a village, say, Pennytree. Or Kirkwood."

The girl's glare and low growl showed how little she cared for the knight's stalling. Her companion smirked but capitulated and gave her the information she sought.

"You have the right of it, my lady. They are going back to the castle, but from there, they ride to Riverrun."

"Riverrun?" the girl asked, confused. "But, why?"

"They've been summoned. Lord Frey has called his banners."

"Lord Frey?" The Cat curled her lip slightly as the hated name formed on her tongue. "If Walder Frey has called the banners, why do they ride for Riverrun and not the Twins?"

"Not Walder Frey, my lady. Emmon Frey. He holds Riverrun, and ever since the crown disavowed Petyr Baelish as Lord of Harrenhal, Emmon Frey also holds the title of Lord Paramount."

Emmon Frey? Arya knew the name. She recalled vaguely that he was linked to Casterly Rock by marriage, a bit of information she chanced to overhear during Lord Tywin's tenure at Harrenhal. Emmon Frey was Tywin's good-brother. That made him nothing more than a Lannister catspaw. Of course.

The girl's mind began working quickly. Her experience with Westerosi politics might have been limited, but she knew there were only a very few reasons for a lord to call his banners. Since Emmon Frey had long been installed at Riverrun, it could not be some ostentatious ceremony which required their presence. And since the River lords had already declared for the crown (however disingenuously), it wasn't some required show of loyalty which drew them to Riverrun. That left only one other possibility.

There was to be war.

But... with whom? Was this a warning to the River lords that the Lannisters had caught wind of their plots? Or was this being orchestrated by the crown, to support their position in King's Landing as the Dornish and Dragon armies advanced? Or, was it something else? Some force meant to counter the rumored wildling battalions in the North?

"Why are you not called home?" the girl asked quietly, trying to work out Tytos Blackwood's plan. "Shouldn't you be at your father's side?"

"My place is here, as host of the hunt."

"Your guests have absconded, ser. You've no one left to host."

"There's you, my lady. My most important guest."

Arya stepped back, putting some distance between herself and the knight. She looked up at him, scrutinizing his expression, his eyes, trying to understand what he wasn't saying.

"You're to keep me away from the castle," the girl realized, her eyes narrowing as she spoke. "You're to keep me hidden."

"Yes," he admitted, shrugging slightly. His forthrightness surprised her. "My father intends to keep you safe, my lady, and far away from the Lannisters. He has entrusted me with that task."

"So, we're to hunt indefinitely?"

"We can hunt for as long as you find it diverting, but we'll make for Harroway when you tire of these woods."

Harroway. It was practically all the way back to the Inn at the Crossroads, and days further from the Hollow Hill and her mother.

What in the seven bloody hells would they do in Harroway?

No, she would not be making for Harroway, no matter what Ser Brynden and Lord Blackwood said. Her plans to slip away in the night had been hampered by unforeseen circumstances, but she would leave the party tonight (though in truth, there was not much party left, and when discounting those who were privy to her plans and would go with her, only a stray few would remain). She must be on her way before she could be drawn too much further from her intended destination.

"Hunting it is, then," the Cat replied, thinking it best to delay any movement toward Harroway, "for I have yet to grow tired of the sport. I was promised wolf pelts for my winter cloak, and I've not even heard a single howl since we set out."

"Exceedingly strange," the knight agreed. "I wonder where the beasts have gone off to?"

"Where indeed."

As Arya departed and climbed the hill once again to find her breakfast, Ser Brynden was left wondering if he had only imagined the slyness in her tone.

Their camp broken, the band made its way along the forest road, but without much urgency or purpose. The dogs had not scented any prey and simply ambled along beside the horses. Baynard used their slow ride as an opportunity to irritate Ser Gendry with thinly veiled insults and Ser Willem conversed with Ser Brynden about the differences between Dornish hunting parties and those which hunted in the Riverlands. Arya wasn't sure where the Bear had learned so much about Dornish hunting tradition, but she found herself fascinated by the discussion.

"Bows are never used," her brother was saying. "We Dornish have an affinity for spears, of course, and it's said that any self-respecting Dornish cook will refuse to prepare meat that's been felled by an arrow."

He's terribly good at being Faceless, the Cat thought, spurring Bane forward with her heels and catching up to Brienne and Harwin.

"Milady," Harwin greeted, bobbing his head.

"Lady Arya," the Maid of Tarth said, nearly simultaneously. The girl nodded her own greeting back.

"Harwin, what reason would Lord Blackwood have send us to Harroway?"

The Northman looked thoughtful. "The village was swept away by floods four or five years past," he replied. "It's been resettled since then with displaced villagers from elsewhere, rebuilt with Blackwood gold."

"So, it's safe to say the populace is loyal to Raventree Hall, then?"

"Aye, milady. I'd say the villagers in Harroway owe their survival to the Blackwoods, and are most grateful to Tytos Blackwood for it."

Arya thought back to her time in the Riverlands, when she was confined in Harrenhal, then later riding in the company of the Brotherhood and the Hound. "Harroway has traditionally been a village beholden to Harrenhal, has it not?"

"Those who owed their loyalties to Harrenhal were drowned in the floods," Harwin said, "and smallfolk there now have no love for those melted towers."

"But have they fear of them?" In her experience, fear was just as likely to motivate men as love. More likely, even.

"I'd guess the garrison Lord Blackwood left behind there to guard the people salves that fear some."

A garrison left to guard a village. It seemed a land war had been waged quietly in the Riverlands since she had last been here. Harroway was a Blackwood stronghold now. No wonder Ser Brynden felt comfortable leading the party there.

"My lady," Brienne said in hushed tones, "if we ride all the way to Harroway, we may find it far too difficult to leave, with Blackwood troops guarding the village. Not to mention how it will lengthen our journey."

"I've no intention of going to Harroway," Arya assured her quietly.

Harwin's mouth took on a grim set. "Milady, Ser Brynden is a reasonable man. If we were to tell him of your wish to be reunited with your mother, I'm certain he would agree to send for her, or to accompany you on the journey. Another experienced sword at your side would be to your advantage."

"I disagree, Harwin. Ser Brynden may be reasonable, but he's also obedient to his father's wishes, and his father wishes him to bring us to Harroway. We can't risk involving him in this plan when I know he cannot agree to it."

"He'd not harm you, milady..."

She shook her head. "No, he wouldn't. But I don't want to have to harm him."

Arya could feel the Northman's frustration, but it was not to be helped. She could clearly see how revealing her plan to her host would play out, even if Harwin could not. Ser Brynden would have no choice but to try to detain the Lady of Winterfell by force. She had no doubt she could best the heir to Raventree Hall if they were forced to cross swords, but the truth of the matter was that she did not want to fight him. The Blackwoods had shown her kindness, and though she understood that doing so aligned with their political interests, she also knew Lord Blackwood's regard for her was real. So, too, was Lady Bethany's and Ser Brynden's. She could not repay all their kindness with violence or grief.

The girl was resolved.

"We'll leave tonight and make haste for Acorn Hall. With any luck, my mother will already be there by the time we arrive."

"As you say, Lady Arya," Brienne agreed, seemingly content to have a plan in place which would move her closer to the fulfillment of a long-held vow.

Harwin grunted gruffly, but he voiced no further protest.

Hours later, as the land was covered by the dusk, Ser Willem carried his lady's sleeping furs to the tent that had been raised for her.

"I've drawn the watch in the hour of the wolf," he told her. One corner of the Cat's mouth quirked up.

"You speak like a Northman, ser."

"All to please my lady."

"I would have thought in Dorne it would be the hour of the viper."

"In Dorne, every hour is the hour of the viper."

This made her laugh. "I can't tell what you actually know and what you're making up."

"I only speak the truth, my lady!" the Faceless-knight declared, feigning insult.

"No Dornish cook will prepare meat felled by an arrow?" she said skeptically.

"I swear to the seven, and on my honor as a knight."

The Cat rolled her eyes and snorted. The Lyseni assassin grinned at her.

"Well, I hope you can stomach the venison we're having for supper. I felled it with an arrow, after all." It had been their only quarry for the day, and the serving men from Raventree Hall had been busily dressing it and cooking it since they set up camp.

"Well done, Lady Arya!" Ser Brynden had cried.

"It's not a wolf pelt for my cloak, but I suppose we'll eat well tonight," the girl had demurred.

"I should have no trouble with it at all," Ser Willem assured her. "It's not being prepared by a Dornish cook!" He tossed the furs into her tent and offered her his arm for the trek to the campfire. Her tent had been set up as far away from the fire as seemed reasonable. Arya had claimed a sensitivity to the brightness, saying she had trouble sleeping in the absence of complete dark. In truth, she had wanted to make her escape without risking discovery in the firelight.

"My lady," Ser Brynden murmured upon her arrival. The company was scattered around the fire, some sprawling, some sitting on haunches. Brynden offered Arya a skin. "Water," he said, "but I've wine too, if you'd rather. And mead."

She took the skin from him and settled herself near the fire to drink. A serving man brought her a skewer with some of the roasted venison, still sizzling from the fire. Her stomach growled at the sight of it and she nearly burned her mouth on that first bite. She didn't care. After their long day of riding, she was famished.

Brynden leaned over and swiped at the grease dripping down her chin with his thumb, laughing.

"I think you look a proper wildling," he commented, eyes dancing.

"It's been a long time since anyone has thought I was a proper anything," the girl replied. "I think I should be flattered. My younger brothers and I used to play at it. When I was a little girl, there was nothing I would have rather been than a wildling spearmaiden."

"And now that you're grown?" Ser Brynden asked. "What would you be now?"

The ghost in Harrenhal. A nearly-Faceless assassin. Ned Stark's grey daughter. A wolf. A Cat. The shadow among shadows. The sword hand of the Many-Faced god.

A man's reason.

"Nothing more than I am," she said quietly, looking out into the darkness. Something in her tone kept the knight from inquiring further. He smiled wistfully.

"I still think you'd make a splendid wildling."

"Have you seen many wildlings, ser?" Arya asked before attacking the meat again.

"Only in my imaginings, but from now on, when someone tells me stories of them, I shall picture you, just as you are now."

"Am I so frightful?" The girl was not bothered by the idea and seemed to be asking out of mere curiosity.

Brynden scoffed, "Far from it, my lady. It's just that with your braid so mussed and the wind burn on your cheeks, you look..."

"Unkempt?" Arya supplied, her mouth half-full of venison.

"Unfettered," he countered. "Savagely beautiful. And free."

Free? Not yet, she thought, but soon.

When the hour of the wolf gave way to the dawn, Arya and her companions were three hours from the hunting camp, the rising sun at their backs and Acorn Hall five days ride to the southwest (four, if they pushed their mounts, and themselves, to their limits). As the red-gold glow grew behind them, the small company was able to hasten their pace, the dawning light making their path more plain than it had been since they left Ser Brynden and his sleeping men behind.

"I suppose right about now, Ser Brynden is realizing you've left him," Gendry remarked quietly to Arya when they took a short break to water the horses in a shallow stream they happened across.

"I didn't leave him," she retorted, patting Bane's neck absently. "I just left."

The blacksmith-knight shrugged, refusing to admit the distinction. "Regardless, he'll be heartbroken."

Arya rolled her eyes. "I'm sure his heart will be just fine." She looked suspiciously at her old friend. "Why do you sound so chipper about it, anyway? What has Brynden Blackwood ever done to you?"

Gendry grunted. "I just didn't like the way he treated you, is all."

"How did he treat me?"

"As if he owned you," the knight replied. His tone suggested surprise at the question; as if the answer were so obvious, it required no explanation. "He acted like he owned you."

"Did he?" the girl asked, lifting an eyebrow and looking into narrowed blue eyes.

"He was trying to take what wasn't his," the dark knight insisted. Arya laughed at that, which seemed to aggravate her companion. "You just don't see it because you're so young, m'lady. You don't know how deceitful men can be when they want something. He would have wooed you and trapped you into a marriage before you could see him for what he really is: a power-hungry opportunist."

It was Arya's turn to be aggravated. She had always hated having her youth used to discount her competence.

"It's true that some men are governed by their ambitions," she admitted, and her voice was heated, "in the same way that others are governed by their jealousies." Gendry's face flushed but he held his tongue and she continued. "You should not assume that I fail to see men for exactly who they are." She glared at her companion. "I see Brynden Blackwood, despite my youth. And I see you, ser. Quite clearly." She turned sharply on her heel then, leading Bane away and leaving the brooding knight to ponder her words.

A day of hard riding with few stops had brought the renegade company into the wooded hills somewhere between the God's Eye and Ravetree Hall by nightfall. They kept well south of Lord Blackwood's home, to avoid being spotted by the sentries posted on its high walls. Arya had wanted to keep going, but more practical heads prevailed, Harwin citing the treacherous path they would have to pick for the next five leagues or so. He observed that laming a horse at this point in their journey would prove disastrous.

"And not everyone is the rider you are, milady," he reminded her. "There are those among us who would be as like to break a neck as make it through the night safely on horseback."

Reluctantly, the Cat agreed to make camp, but insisted on taking the first watch herself, knowing she would be unable to sleep anyway. Her insides thrummed and buzzed with her impatience and she found herself too edgy to relax. The Bear had offered to keep her company, but she insisted her brother get his rest.

"You had watch last night," she said, dismissing the assassin. In short order, the camp grew quiet around her. They had lit no fire, not wishing to draw undue attention, and Arya paced quietly around the perimeter, guided only by the little light the moon allowed her through occasional cloud breaks and her own fingertips brushing against trees and shrubs as she passed.

"M'lady," a voice called softly from her left. Arya made no reply but listened as heavy footsteps stirred the dry leaves in their path. "M'lady, are you there?"

"I'm here, Ser Gendry," she finally called back, her voice hushed to avoid disturbing the company. The girl made no move toward her old friend, but waited for him to find her in the dark. He nearly walked right into her and she placed the flat of one palm against his belly to halt his movement. "I'm here," she said again, this time in the softest whisper. The large knight drew in a great breath and stilled, feeling the girl's palm through his blouse.

"Your hand is cold," he finally remarked. "You should wear gloves."

"My hands are always cold, and gloves make little difference, it seems." She did not protest when the knight gently took her hand, removing it from his middle and lifting it to his mouth where he blew his warm breath across the cool flesh of her fingers. After a moment of this, he placed her palm against his cheek, holding it there for long seconds before speaking.

"There. It seems a bit warmer now."

"Did you seek me out to determine the temperature of my fingers, Gendry?" the girl teased, sliding her hand from beneath his and crossing her arms over her chest.

The knight cleared his throat. "No. I... wanted to apologize."

"Apologize? For what?" The Cat was genuinely befuddled.

"For offending you earlier, with all my talk about Ser Brynden and saying you were too young to understand his motives..."

"Oh, that," she interrupted, sounding dismissive. "I'd already forgotten."

She hadn't. But it didn't seem terribly important just then, while trying to execute a plan to evade Lannister loyalists who would offer her up to Queen Cersei like a nameday gift and River lords who wished to install her upon the Winter Throne for their own purposes.

Arya couldn't quite make out the skeptical look on Gendry's face, but she knew it was there anyway.

"Listen, I didn't mean to imply that you're naive..." he started.

It seemed the dark knight would not be content to leave the matter where it lay, and so the girl dropped all pretense of forgetfulness and met him head on.

"You didn't imply it," she retorted. "You stated it as if it were fact."

"No, I didn't," he protested. "What I meant was..."

The girl plowed on, not allowing him to explain. "You said I was too young to understand that Ser Brynden was trying to use me to gain power."

"Yes, but it wasn't meant as a slight against you..."

"And yet I felt very slighted."

"M'lady..." His tone was pleading.

"I've told you not to call me that."

"I really meant no insult to you! Sometimes things come out wrong," he tried again. She snorted. "Just a moment ago, you said you'd already forgotten it," Gendry huffed. "I think we both know that came out wrong!"

"No, Ser Gendry, it didn't come out wrong. That wasn't a mistake, it was a lie. One I told purposefully, to keep from having to have this very conversation!"

The blacksmith-knight threw his head back and groaned up at the night sky. "I just wanted to say I was sorry," he muttered angrily.

"Why?" Arya hissed.

"Because... I offended you when I didn't mean to."

"Now you're lying, too. That's not why."

"Then... because you're the Lady of Winterfell, and I should have more care with how I speak to you."

"Another lie, and this one worse than the last!"

Gendry blew out a frustrated breath. She could feel the heat in his glare. The girl knew he would be grateful if she dismissed him; if she let him off the hook. He would be content to leave her with his poor apology and no sensible explanation for his need to make it even when he couldn't adequately explain what it was he felt sorry about. Arya sensed that they were on dangerous ground and that it would be safer for both of them to walk away, leaving certain things unsaid.

But she found herself unable to do so.

It might have been her innate cruelty, a need to make others feel the hardness and inequity in life that she herself felt all the time. It might have been because her life of shadows and deception in the House of Black and White had left her with a curiously strong appetite for truth. It might have been that she feared the harm Gendry's secrets might do him if he bundled them too tight and held them too close inside of him.

Whatever the reason, Arya did not release him from his obligation and instead, stood silently and expectantly before the blacksmith-knight. He stared hard at her, wavering between telling her another lie or burdening her with the truth.

Finally, he seethed, "Fine! It's because I was jealous of Ser Brynden. I was jealous of him taking your arm and whispering into your ear by the firelight. I was jealous of him laughing with you at the high table over honey cakes and wine. I was jealous that he..." There was a catch in Gendry's voice, but he swallowed it down and continued, "...he could offer you marriage and not be laughed at for it, or told he was insolent or improper to think you might say yes to him. I was jealous and it made me angry when I have no right to be angry or jealous."

Arya turned away from the dark knight, her brow furrowed as she thought about what he'd just said. Jealousy. She'd felt it before; understood its sting; had said spiteful things because of it, long ago, in another lifetime, when a Pentoshi ship's captain had seemed to flirt with a round and lively tavern girl.

Thinking of Olive caused her to chew her lip. Thinking of Jaqen caused her to bite it hard enough to draw blood. She breathed out slowly, turning once again to face her friend, carefully considering her words. She'd forced him into an admission he was likely not ready to make, and she felt she owed him something in return.

"Feelings aren't about rights and entitlements," she said softly, tasting the salty tang of her blood as she spoke. "Feelings just... are."

"I don't take your meaning."

"How you feel isn't governed by what anyone else thinks is proper or justified."

"M'lady," the knight replied hoarsely, "Ser Brynden has only ever been a true knight in my presence. I have no right to harbor these resentments."

"Is it the advantages afforded by his station which goad you, or are you bothered because it's me he set his sights on, however calculated his reasons?"

"Both," he whispered, sounding defeated. The girl felt troubled by Gendry's distress, and for a moment, even she was angry at Ser Bryden, because an accident of birth had given him a title and wealth and a claim to a measure of power a Flea Bottom bastard could never even dream of sharing, no matter how much royal Baratheon blood flowed through his veins.

"You're such a stupid bull," Arya said, but there wasn't much force behind the declaration. "You don't even know me anymore." You only know a rough little girl who thought she could be your friend forever while you made swords for her brother the king. "How can you be jealous when you don't even know me?"

The dark knight laughed sadly. "How I feel isn't governed by what's proper or justified," he parroted. "I have no right to feel it, but there it is."

"Gendry," she began, her voice carrying a caution in it.

"I'm sorry to have spoken of it, only you didn't give me much choice."

The girl sighed. "You know... You know I don't feel the same."

He nodded. "I know. That doesn't change anything for me."

"I can't," she tried to explain. "I can't feel that way. Not for anyone. My heart is hard." Turned to stone behind doors of ebony and weirwood.

"I understand."

"I'm not sure you do..." I can never belong to you. Or Ser Brynden. Or anyone else but the nameless Lorathi who freed me from the prison of my birth with iron; who burdened me with the sweet weakness of love and left me to bear it alone.

"No, Arya, I do," he assured her quietly. "I'm not asking you to feel anything for me. I'm not asking you to promise me anything. I wouldn't presume to..."

There was a deep misery in his words, and an acceptance of that misery that the girl found heartbreaking. Her anger at his earlier insult melted away and she acted impulsively. She closed the distance between them in an instant.

Gendry was startled when Arya grabbed at the neck of his blouse, yanking down with her surprising strength, pulling his face toward hers. She lifted up on her toes and pressed her mouth hard against his, kissing him fiercely. After the briefest of hesitations, the dark knight wound his arms tightly around the girl's lithe frame, pulling her against him and lifting her off the ground. He groaned against her mouth and tried to part her lips with his own but she turned her face away and then slipped from his arms and back onto her own feet. For a moment, the only sound they made came from their heavy breathing, and then Arya spoke.

"There. Now Brynden can be jealous of you, for I've never kissed him."

With that, she stalked off into the night, continuing her survey of their perimeter. Gendry stared after her long after she had melted into the black and the sound her her footsteps had faded in his ears, the ache of her lips pressing down onto his existing only in his memory.

I Found—Amber Run

Chapter Text

Oh, father tell me, do we get what we deserve?

Arya's steps were slow and heavy, thudding one after another with a weight foreign to her. Walking was a strange labor, burdensome, and she struggled to move. It was as if she had sunk halfway to her knees in a bog, the thick muck pulling and sucking at her boots. But there was no bog to be found, and neither was there muck. Rather, she was in an open chamber, moving over smooth stone floors with no obstacle in her path. The room was dark and empty and unnaturally silent. No threat was visible, no lurking danger crouched, waiting in the shadows, yet the very air crackled with menace and the downy hairs on the back of her neck rose, prickling her, an alarm without a tangible trigger.

Run.

The thought skittered through her brain then fled, as if even it could not bear to stay in that place one moment longer.

The girl came to the foot of a staircase, one she had climbed at least a dozen times before. Two dozen. She thought to turn back; to heed the warning of her senses; to whirl around and scramble through the front doors, fleeing into the street, running away and away, as fast and as far as her feet could carry her.

But then something pulled at her and she could do naught but proceed.

She raised her foot, taking the first step, then the next, and then the next. Her heart thudded dully in her chest as she advanced, giving cadence to her dread. When she reached the top of the stairs, she turned and saw the door she must open, and hesitated again.

Beyond that door, there is no peace, her little voice cautioned.

What, then? she wondered.

A reckoning, was the solemn reply.

Reluctance threatened to paralyze her, but somehow, Arya continued. It was that pull again. That pull made it impossible for her to stop herself. She approached the door, placed a hand on the latch, and pushed.

The girl entered the small chamber. It was dim and familiar. The moon shone through the open window, the only light in the room, and its beam fell upon a figure, still and quiet, cheek drained of its color. The breast was unmoving, drawing no breath. A shuffling step closer showed the figure to be that of a woman, reclined in her bed, with all the mute repose of a statue; lifeless. Her face was framed by dark curls, her eyes open and glittering like polished quartz. Two full strides should have brought Arya to her side, but she struggled to move forward, her feet still caught in that invisible bog. The woman's mouth was shaped into a frozen O and Arya could not bear to look at it for long, for there was something tragic and pitiful in the expression. The girl squeezed her eyes shut and tears escaped their corners.

Vaguely, Arya thought to be ashamed of her tears, of their futility, but that did not dry them.

"Murderer," she heard then, and the voice which spoke the word was so soft, she thought at first that it came from within her own head. "Murderer. You can't even bear to look at me."

Arya made herself open her eyes, gazing warily toward the bed, at the one who lay there, and saw her tears mirrored on the dead woman's face, two murky, wet trails streaking from glassy eyes. The girl was aware of her heart squeezing in her chest, the pain of it like a dagger slipped between her ribs. Haltingly, she bent over the corpse. She stared in growing horror at the stretched lips in their perfect, fixed oval, not believing the accusation could have emanated from there.

"Olive?" the girl said, her voice small and tremulous in a way it never was in her waking time.

Vaguely, Arya thought to be ashamed of her own fear, of its baselessness, but that did not assuage it.

As the girl watched, the pupils of Olive's shining eyes began to dilate. The growing obsidian discs crowded out the soft brown of the serving girl's irises until nothing remained that was not black and deep; a ghastly, vacant stare aimed at the rafters above. Though it should not have been possible, a soft sigh escaped the dead woman's throat. Arya wanted to snap back, to turn away and run, but she was as frozen and stiff as the corpse before her. Then, against all reason, Olive's lips began to move.

"It burns, Mattine," the corpse whispered, her unfocused eyes staring ever upward. "It burns and burns."

The assassin's head bent slowly, weighted by remorse, and grief, and a crushing helplessness. It was this helplessness which distressed her most of all. Arya's agony was etched starkly in her features and she shook as great, silent sobs gripped her. Through her tears, the girl stared into the eyes of her dead friend, with their impossible glint and their endless darkness. She wanted to say she was sorry. She wanted to beg for Olive's forgiveness, because she had not been able to save her; because she had brought the order with all its malice and menace into her life (and into the lives of their friends, Will and Staaviros, who had paid the same awful price as Olive); and because she had not unraveled the plot which would doom them all. She wanted to tell Olive that it wasn't the Bear's fault; that he was victim as much as she; that they had made him do it, but her voice was caught behind the sobs and she couldn't make the words form; couldn't force them up from her clenching throat. Finally, Arya managed one small, broken plea.

"Please," the girl choked. "Don't... blame... him."

"No," Olive said, her voice almost musical. As she spoke, sweet breath carried her words to Arya's ear, and the scent was like the gardenias the trading ships sometimes brought from Yi Ti; rare prizes for men like Atius Biro and the Sealord to plant in their walled gardens. "No, I don't blame my sweet Willem."

Arya reached for Olive's hand, slipping it between her own, lifting it to press a kiss to the unyielding flesh there. The Bear's lover felt stiff and cold, wrong, like the corpses left too long at the feet of sightless gods in the alcoves of the House of Black and White; corpses made by the poisoned waters of the temple's dark pool. But those were the dead rendered from all the loneliness and grief and suffering of Braavos, from pain or disease or injury too great to bear, willingly offering themselves to Him of Many Faces. That was not Olive; beautiful, buoyant, robust Olive, who existed in joy and hope and love and loyalty. She had never agreed to the sacrifice; had not crawled to the pool on her knees, begging for her final relief. She was not some disconsolate wretch, more terrified of what remained of her life than she was of the Many-Faced god's greatest and most dreadful gift.

Olive had not chased her fate, not knowingly, and so it felt cruel that she should now seem no different to Arya than those who had; those Arya herself had carried away and down as a Faceless acolyte; down to the deepest chambers of the temple.

Down to where they were stripped of valuables, and clothes, and faces, then bathed and tended with care before being fed to the eels.

"Sweet Willem had no choice. You gave him no choice. It's you I blame," Olive said, her black, unblinking eyes staring and staring as she made her accusation. "You murdered Mattine and you murdered me."

Arya drew her lips away from Olive's hand and laid it gently back on the narrow bed, but she could not pull away, for the stiff fingers of the corpse had intertwined with her own and held firm.

"No!" Arya said, her voice cracking painfully as Olive's dead grip tightened. "Mattine chose to drink from the pool. She traded her life for revenge! And the Bear... they made him kill you! I didn't know until it was too late. I didn't know!"

The smell of gardenias grew stronger, the air around the two friends becoming thick with the scent. Arya's stomach churned as the dead thing on the bed continued speaking in dulcet tones at odds with her words.

"They killed Mattine for you," Olive said, her voice like a hymn; like a dirge, "so you could steal her face, and come here to deceive us all with your false friendship."

"I didn't! They gave it to me! They made me wear it!"

"And my sweet Willem poisoned me, then held my pillow over my nose and mouth, all for you."

"I didn't know!" Arya cried. "I wouldn't have let him, if I'd known! I didn't know!"

"Murderer," Olive breathed sweetly. "You killed him, too."

With the instant certainty only attainable in dreams and nightmares, Arya knew the him Olive meant was Jaqen.

"That's a lie," she insisted, trying futilely to yank her hand from Olive's grasp. "He's not dead."

"Everything you love dies," the corpse continued in her lilting voice. "You killed him, by loving him, just as you killed me with your friendship."

"No." The girl's protest was ragged, but there was little conviction in it. The guilt she felt was too great for that.

"Your love is pestilence," the dead woman sang, and there was an edge creeping into her voice; an undertone of derision; of simmering hate. "A calamity visited on everyone around you."

Arya bit her lip hard, her attempt to wake herself up from the nightmare. She pulled and pulled her arm, hard enough to wrench her shoulder, trying to break free from Olive. The girl felt the warmth of her own blood as it flowed freely from the self-inflicted wound, over her lip and down her chin. The dead thing on the bed held her hand with a grip like iron, crushing the bones in her hand, and the girl cried out. But it wasn't the cracking of her bones which wrought the sound from her. It was the realization that Olive was right. If not for her friendship with Arya, the serving girl would be living still.

And if Jaqen truly were dead, it was his love of Arya which had doomed him to that fate.

He's not dead. He's not dead. He's not! Arya chanted internally, but Olive's words had planted a fear in her that nearly overwhelmed her.

But what if he is? Arya's little voice murmured to her.

"He's not!" she whispered aloud. "He's not! He's not!"

The corpse laughed, the sound of it high-pitched and ringing, not at all as Olive's laugh had been in life.

"He is. And before you're through, you'll kill my sweet Willem, too, your only true friend. Then you'll be all alone."

The blood from Arya's mouth which had spilled over onto her chin now splashed down her breast. The girl felt the sticky warmth seep through her clothes. So much blood. It was too much for a wound caused by her own teeth, and the girl looked down at herself. She was wearing a dingy shift, thick stripes of crimson decorating the front, marks left deliberately by the gore-coated flat of a longsword.

A girl should be bloody, too. This is her work.

A fierce longing gripped the girl then, conjured from the memory of Jaqen's words; of Jaqen's voice. She closed her eyes tightly, willing him there, even if it meant being once again a girl of one and ten, and nothing more than a captive slave in Harrenhal. If she could just see him once more, her Lorathi love… If he were only within her reach again… She would grab for him, hold onto him, grip him with the strength of Valyrian steel and never, never let him go.

Arya wept openly then. She could not contain it, and she could not spare the concern to be ashamed of it any longer.

Olive's grasp softened and her hand felt... strange. Arya looked down to where the corpse had gripped her and saw that Olive's flesh was loose and hanging now, open in spots. Worms and maggots worked in the rot that was spreading, carrion beetles skittering across their joined fingers. The heavy scent of the gardenias could not hide the stench of the decay then, and Arya began to retch violently, the bile burning her throat. The pale flesh of the corpse's face darkened and shrank, pulling away from the prominent places of her skull, exposing the bone. And still, the eyes remained wide, open and glittering, staring and staring and staring, seeing nothing at all.

"Shh," the Bear soothed, rocking his sister in his arms. She was wrapped in a thick fur, her cheeks damp with tears. "Shh."

Arya's lids fluttered open and she tried to make sense of what her eyes were telling her. It was dark, too dark considering she had laid her bedroll so near the fire. Not even an ember was visible. And she was being held close, cradled and warm, like a babe.

"You're safe," the Lyseni assassin was whispering to her, over and over, between shushing sounds.

"What..." She groaned, having difficulty finding her words in the confusion of her waking. Her dream, her nightmare, was reluctant to fall away and she could still feel Olive's grip on her hand. Before you're through, you'll kill my sweet Willem, too.

"I had the watch," the Bear explained. Arya blinked, trying to focus her eyes. As the blur of sleep cleared, she could see their fire in the distance. It had burned low, but was still visible, some thirty yards away, through the trees. They had covered enough distance on their second and third days of riding, and were far enough from any village or holdfast, that Harwin had felt it safe for them to enjoy a bit of warmth when they made camp that night.

"Why am I here?" she asked hoarsely.

"You were crying in your sleep," her brother told her. "I tried to wake you, but I couldn't, so I carried you away, so that the others..."

The Cat pushed her cheek into her brother's chest, closing her eyes and trying to shake off the image of Olive, dead and staring; rotting. The Bear was seated on a fallen log, holding his sister against him. She liked the feeling of it, the rocking, with his arms tight around her. It calmed her to be in the shelter of the Lyseni's embrace, and her mind quieted.

"I'm sorry," she said in a small voice. "It was... a nightmare."

She expected him to tease her about it, the uncharacteristic tears and the crying out enough that she could have awakened the camp. She thought he would laugh and say she owed him, for hauling her scrawny arse away so that she wasn't shamed in front of the company, but he didn't. He simply said, "Shh, I know. You're safe. I've got you."

Gradually, Arya relaxed. She quit grasping at her brother the way a frightened child grasps at his mother's skirts.

"Do you want to talk about it?" the Faceless knight asked.

The Cat sat up in her brother's lap and wound her arms around his neck, pressing her forehead against his jaw. Drawing in a deep breath, she said, "It was... Olive."

The Lyseni stiffened almost imperceptibly, but after a second, replied, "I dream of her, too."

"Probably not the way I just did, though," she muttered, fighting off the shudder waiting just beneath her skin as she thought of the carrion beetles crawling over Olive's ruined flesh.

She felt his cheeks lift as he smiled. "I hope not," he said, and the Bear's tone made it obvious that his dreams, at least, were happy ones, though perhaps not ones that would be considered decent. "Although... if you did, I'd like to hear about it."

The girl drew back from the large assassin and struck his bicep with her balled up fist.

"That's not funny!" she insisted. "It was a nightmare, and it was awful!"

"Ow," he whined, not really hurt. "It was just a jape, Cat. Although, if you ever do have that sort of dream, you can tell me..."

She growled at him, a warning that he heeded and his voice trailed off. They stilled, Arya's head once again resting against her brother, this time tucked neatly under his chin. The Bear rubbed his large hand gently up and down her arm, smoothing out the goose prickles that had arisen beneath her sleeve in the night's chill.

"Well?" he prompted after a while. Arya sighed, not sure she wanted to recount the details; not sure the Bear would really want to hear them. Instead, she asked him a question.

"Do you blame me?"

"Frequently," he replied, his voice tinged with light laughter. "If it weren't for you, I might be sleeping in my comfortable bed below the temple right now. Instead, I'm stuck with third watch in this frozen shit hole you call a homeland."

Arya snorted. "Frozen? Oh, Ser Willem, you're in for a terrible surprise when we cross the Neck. Our summer nights at Winterfell were usually colder than this!"

The large assassin groaned theatrically, bemoaning the fact that he might never again be able to sleep naked.

"Well, praise the old gods for winter, then!" the Cat declared, "if only because it keeps you in your smallclothes."

"Blasphemy," he pronounced. They chuckled together at that, but then the girl pressed her brother again.

"I'm serious, though. Do you?"

"Do I what? Blame you?"

"Mmm," she hummed, picking at the buttons of his leather jerkin absently.

"What is it that troubles you, sister?"

Too many things to name.

"What... happened to Olive..." she began.

"Was not your fault," he finished for her.

"But..."

"It wasn't your fault," the Bear repeated, more firmly this time.

"I wish I could be as sure as you," Arya whispered, now plucking at the jerkin's stitching near her brother's shoulder. He reached his large hand up and covered hers, stopping its nervous motion.

"Death is a gift," he said, pulling her hand from his shirt and pressing her knuckles against his lips. He breathed in and out slowly a few times, turning his face to rest his cheek against her fingers. Arya opened her palm and caressed the scruff of his unshaven face. "For Olive, it was a gift."

His sister knew what he meant. She knew he wasn't just spouting Faceless platitudes; that he meant he had spared Olive the pain that had been promised her at the hands of others if he failed in his trial. Arya even believed it; she believed that death at the Bear's hands was a great and terrible gift, for it was swift and painless when it might have been a slow torture meant to punish them all for their disobedience. But still, she ruminated.

"I will bear the burden of her soul for all time," the girl said.

"Do we believe in souls, sister?"

"Always."

"Then mine is surely blacker than this night."

"No," she said, drawing her hand away from his face and placing it over his heart. "Not you. You're the brightest thing left in my life."

"Well, to be fair, you lead a very dark life."

"I know."

"And it's going to get darker."

"Yes."

"Then you might just have need of my black soul," he concluded.

"It's your friendship I need, brother, nothing else."

"Well that, you will always have."

"Good," she said, pressing a quick kiss on his cheek. "And your soul isn't nearly so dark as you like to think."

The Bear sighed. "A thief can't wear a stolen jewel and claim not to be a thief. When he carries the evidence of his crime on his person, his guilt is plain for all to see."

"What are you talking about?"

"My face," he replied. "Or rather, my faces. I can't change my face and pretend I haven't tainted myself to earn the right to do it."

"Oh, Bear," the girl moaned, and it was her turn to try to soothe him. She shifted off his lap and sat on the log next to him, holding his hand as they stared out into the darkness together. They sat in silence for a good while, until the Lyseni assassin stretched out on the log, reclining until his head rested in Arya's lap. The girl pushed her brother's white blond hair away from his eyes and stroked his temple lightly with her fingertips.

"It was so strange, that night," he whispered. "The night Olive..." His voice trailed off and he sighed before continuing. "I left the inn... I left her... and I felt... completely numb, or... outside of myself, somehow. Like I was the one who had died."

"Like your insides had frozen," Arya said softly. "Or turned to stone."

"Like a dead man who somehow regains the power of movement, giving the appearance of life, though none exists."

"The heart has ceased to beat, because it has lost its reason to do so."

He reached up and squeezed her arm. "Just so."

They existed together in that moment of understanding, each thinking of a haunting loss which had left its mark. The Bear continued, unburdening himself to the person who understood him best.

"Jaqen walked with me, back to the temple, and he tried to comfort me, I think, in his way."

At the mention of Jaqen's name, Arya's heart thumped erratically beneath her breast. It robbed her of her breath. She grimaced but remained silent, waiting for the feeling to pass. After a pause, she asked, "What did he say?"

"Oh, something very Faceless," the Lyseni replied. "Like death comes for us all. Something like that." In his best approximation of her master's Lorathi accent, the Bear added, "Valar morghulis."

Jaqen had said it a thousand times. Ten thousand. More. They all had. But that night, Arya imagined the words took on a different meaning for her brother.

"He told me I did the right thing," the Bear said, and the ache in his voice as he pronounced the words was nearly palpable.

"You did," she assured him, stroking his cheek. "You had no choice."

Do you know what the interesting thing about the right choice is, little wolf?

"I said that to him, at the time. I told him that it wasn't as if I really had a choice." The Bear's voice cracked. "I couldn't bear to be praised for doing the right thing, the Order's idea of the right thing, as if I'd chosen it freely. As if I could have chosen to... kill Olive, if there was any other way."

"What did he say?"

"He said that there's always a choice."

"When the choice is between mercy or cruelty for the one you love, it's no choice at all."

"That's just it. He didn't know about the threats, against Olive or you. He was surprised when I told him."

Arya nodded. "He wouldn't have known. There's no way he would have allowed it if he had."

"No, I can't imagine that he would've, if only for your sake."

Arya blew out a long breath, steadying herself. She avoided thinking back on that time as much as she could, but their conversation, and her brother's need to speak of those injurious and cruel things that lived inside of them both, their shared hurts, drew her thoughts back to her last days in Braavos. She and Jaqen had been under the same roof then; had drifted past and circled around one another, carefully aloof but always, always aware. And in their private moments, times which were scattered and few and far too fleeting, they had defied the principal elder and they had loved each other, gently, completely, the recklessness of their impolitic hope for their future inviting their own ruin.

Memories of Jaqen, small bits of him that she carried with her to call up when she was brave enough, flickered through Arya's mind. She saw him, her Lorathi master, in the temple stairwell, in her chamber, in the garden amid the lemon and fig trees. Her fingertips remembered the texture of his scented hair; her mouth, the pressure of his thumb on her bottom lip, tugging it free from her teeth; her skin, the heat of his hand as he traced the scar on her shoulder. She recalled his purring tones as he teased her, and even the memory of it was enough to cause a shiver to travel along her spine.

Arya swallowed hard, trying to force the lump in her throat to sink back down into the pit of her stomach. There it might burn and ache, but it did not threaten to bring tears which once started, might never stop. She blinked, rubbing at her nose with the back of her hand and sniffing. She cleared her throat.

"You've never told me about that night," she said when she had the required control of her voice.

"My master instructed me not to speak of it," he replied. "But, even if he hadn't, I'm sure you can understand why it's not something I enjoy discussing."

"Yes," she murmured. "I can understand that very well. You don't have to say anything more." She continued smoothing his hair back from his face with one hand while the other rested on his belly. Her brother reached up then, taking her free hand between his own.

"No, but I think I'd like to talk about it now. If you don't mind." He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed her calloused palm softly.

"Of course," Arya said. "You can tell me anything."

"When we got back to the temple, most of the masters were there, and the priests, just waiting for me. They were somber, so I guess it didn't seem strange to them that I was too, but I just kept thinking about how many of them I could stab before they killed me."

It was a feeling Arya understood very well. Memories of her failed final trial seeped in, but the rage and despair that accompanied those memories forced her to push them away. The Bear was her focus now. It had been nearly three moons since that night, and her brother had tended to her as carefully as any blood brother would. It was her turn to play caretaker now, and she could not let her own torments distract her from helping to mend his.

"You couldn't have killed enough of them to pay for your own life," she told him. "You're worth more than a thousand Faceless Men to me. I'm glad you didn't try."

"You tried," he reminded her, the bitter edge to his voice subtle, but present. "You even had some limited success."

"But I'm foolhardy and rash, remember?"

"Hmm," was his noncommittal reply. For a time, he lay quietly in her lap, thinking, and she let him, her fingers threading through his hair all the while. She knew he would speak when he was ready.

"Jaqen vouched for me," the Bear finally said. "He told them that I'd... done what was asked; what they… required. Then the principal elder made a speech then, solemn, like on the night of the acolytes' feast. You remember. Only death may pay for life, and such. Then he said the words over me, and I could feel myself changing when he did. It was nothing visible, but still, something shifted inside of me."

"The words? What words?"

"Some sort of prayer, or spell, maybe. They were old words; a language I hadn't studied. From Yi Ti, or Asshai, maybe."

The Bear repeated the Kindly Man's words for her.

"Asshai," she told him. "Definitely."

"Do you know what it means?"

"I can't translate it exactly. Jaqen didn't like for me to study the tongue of the Asshai'i, so I stopped once he came back from Westeros and began training me. He seemed almost... afraid for me to learn the language of the shadowbinders."

"Why?"

She shrugged. "I think he thought if I didn't master it, I would never be sent to the Shadow Lands on a mission. He'd been sent there once, and he didn't like to talk about it much."

"But you did study the language..."

"A little. It's a difficult one, and I only had time to learn the rudiments. And there are bits I picked up from some of the waif's potion books, and a few phrases I learned from the red priests who passed through Ragman's Harbor." And the words that enabled the rare tricks her master had taught her, the mostly innocuous spells Jaqen had learned during his time in Asshai. Only mostly innocuous because she didn't believe that blood magic could ever be called completely harmless. Someone had to bleed for it, after all.

"With your talent for languages, I'm surprised you didn't master it, even in that short time."

"It's important to practice what you've learned, or else you lose it," the girl reminded him, "and Jaqen never let me practice. He was superstitious about Asshai."

"Well?"

"Well, what?"

"What do you think the words mean?"

"Say it again. Slowly."

The Bear repeated the words and Arya concentrated.

"Blood of my blood," she said, "I think. Well, something blood of my blood. To take, maybe? To take the blood of my blood? Or, maybe to yield the blood of my blood?"

"Don't ask me. I have no idea."

"And then, something about all and none."

"Well, that clears it up," he snorted.

"I told you I didn't study the language long," the Cat growled, flicking his ear for good measure. "And so much for your theory that the words made something shift inside you. You said them to me twice and I didn't feel a thing!"

"Well, you didn't just murder your lover, either." The bitterness was back in his tone and the girl immediately regretted her japing.

"When will you realize that you're not the one responsible?" she asked softly. "Mercy is not murder."

The large assassin made a disgusted sound, signaling his inability to forgive himself for Olive's fate. It was a guilt the girl thoroughly comprehended, since she shared it. Hadn't she just awoken from a nightmare about that very thing? Arya tried again to persuade him.

"Even if you hadn't done it, and even if they somehow hadn't followed through with their threats against Olive, and me, and you, they would have placed someone else in front of you and handed you a knife. Maybe it would have been Jaqen. Could you have done it, knowing how it would hurt me if you did?"

"You're wrong. They wouldn't have put someone else in front of me."

"I'm not wrong. They would have made you kill someone. It had to be a blood sacrifice."

"Yes, a blood sacrifice," the Bear acknowledged, "but it couldn't be just anyone's blood."

"What?"

"You just said it. Blood of my blood, Cat."

"What are you talking about?"

"Haven't you figured it out, sister? It must be someone who means something to you. This magic is so powerful, it can only be bought with a true sacrifice. The price is very, very high."

Her brother spoke truly, and in the end, the price had been far too high for Arya.

"The order expects a demonstration that you have no attachments," the Lyseni continued. "How else can you be no one? The principal elder said as much that night. So, Jaqen wouldn't have worked for me. We had no attachment beyond the Order. For me, it had to be Olive. Or you."

"But... Robert Stone?" The girl furrowed her brow, remembering how the Rat had masqueraded as an acrobat and killed the traveling mummer soon after his arrival in Braavos. There was hardly time for them to develop any attachment.

"He was the Rat's stepfather, the only father our brother really remembers. He was also the father that abandoned the Rat in Braavos when he was only about seven."

"What?"

"There may have been as much hate as love there, but he was still family."

Arya was confused. "But... if the Rat was made to wear Jaqen's face during my trial, then..."

"Killing him wouldn't have been enough of a sacrifice for you."

Arya stared off toward the camp, thinking. The low fire in the distance became blurry as her gaze softened and she turned this new information over in her head.

"The Kindly Man meant for me to fail," she whispered slowly, the dawning realization making her head feel as if it were stuffed with cotton. "I would have failed, even if I had done what was asked of me." It seemed so obvious to her now. Before, when the Rat revealed his duplicity, Arya had thought her Westerosi brother had worn Jaqen's face at the principal elder's behest either to spare her Lorathi master (in the event that she proved more obedient than expected), or because Jaqen was already dead by then (how she hoped it was the former and not the latter!) Now, though, knowing that it wasn't the spilling of blood that was important so much as whose blood was spilled, the plot seemed even more sinister. "The Kindly Man never meant for me to earn my face."

"That's got to be it," the Bear agreed.

"But... why the pretense, then? Why even bother with the trial at all?"

"Think about it," the Lyseni said. "He must have needed for you to fail, and fail before the conclave, so he could legitimately exile you. After all, what are we without our traditions and our laws?"

"And our nefarious schemes," she murmured, still marveling at the newly realized deception.

"The principal elder exiled you when it was within his rights to execute you for your disobedience," her brother reminded her.

The Cat sneered, "Our leader is undoubtedly as benevolent as he is wise."

"I suppose being seen that way might be to his benefit somehow, but does that seem like a reason your Kindly Man would spare you? Just so that the order he leads would see him as merciful?"

Arya knitted her brows, thinking through the puzzle logically. "He needed me alive," she murmured. "Alive, but not Faceless."

The Bear nodded. "It's the only answer that makes sense."

"Our brother was just an expendable prop." Arya let out a soft whistle. "And how do you suppose Baynard feels about that?"

"He doesn't like to talk about it," the false knight told her, "but he's dedicated to the order."

"Just like his master," the girl muttered, thinking of the handsome man, remembering his words to her after her trial.

When I was asked to make the choice between my personal feelings and my duty to the Order, I chose wisely.

"And the opportunity to see you struggle must have been irresistible to our brother at the time. You'll recall that you two didn't always get along."

"I don't know that I'd say we get along now," the girl mumbled. "We just don't actively try to sabotage each other anymore."

"In time, I think you two will be great friends. He's clever, our Rat. You'll come to appreciate that."

"Don't place any wagers," the Cat warned. It was true that she had come to an uneasy peace with the rat-faced assassin, but their relationship was still tense, and he was, as the Bear had said, dedicated to the order. For that reason alone, the girl did not feel she should fully trust the Westerosi. She must always remember that the Rat had accompanied her across the Narrow Sea to do the Kindly Man's bidding, nothing more.

And, she had to assume, nothing less.

"Well, he's handy with a dagger," the false-Dornishman quipped. "I know how much that means to you, at least."

"He's less than judicious with his tongue, though. If he keeps pushing Gendry, he may find he's invited more trouble than he really wants."

She was referring to the ongoing battle that seemed to be taking place between Baynard and the blacksmith-knight. Mostly, it consisted of the Westerosi assassin making rude and pointed comments to Gendry as they rode and Gendry glaring at the Faceless squire and grinding his teeth in response. Arya could sense her old friend's temper rising, though, and she was not sure how much longer he would keep it in check. He was his father's son, after all.

The Bear did not seem concerned. "It's to be expected. Even a lowly squire, if he's from a respectable family, would disparage a knight of such dubious parentage. Hasn't that always been the way in Westeros? Those of noble stock look down upon the lowborn."

"Not all those of noble stock," Arya sniffed. "And Justan Carver's stock is no more noble than Gendry's." Less, even, since king's blood flowed through Gendry's veins, however unacknowledged the birth might be.

"But Baynard's is," her brother reminded her. "He's a minor nobleman from the Reach." The girl frowned at her brother. "He's wearing a face, Cat. You know how this works."

"He wears it a bit too gleefully."

The Bear narrowed his eyes, rocking his head back and gazing up at his sister's face. "Ser Gendry can defend himself against a mere squire, surely."

"He's not a squire. He's an assassin."

"Why all this sudden concern?"

"I'm not concerned."

"Hmm."

"Well, if I'm concerned, it's only because this conflict is an unnecessary distraction. We don't have time for brawls and duels."

"Who's dueling?" he laughed. "And anyway, I would have thought you'd be fine with someone putting Ser Gendry in his place."

"What?"

"It's obvious something happened between the two of you. I assumed you'd argued, and from the way you've both been acting, it looks like it got heated."

"I have no idea what you mean."

"Come on, Cat. What happened?"

"Nothing happened."

"Then why have you been ignoring him for two days, and why has he been staring holes into the back of your head as he rides behind you?"

"You'll have to ask Ser Gendry about his own behavior, but I haven't been ignoring anyone."

"Alright." The Bear's doubt was plain in his tone.

"I haven't," she hissed, her fingers tugging a little too sharply at her brother's hair.

"Ouch! I said alright!"

"Sorry," she mumbled. "I didn't mean to hurt you."

"You're lucky I'm such a forgiving man," he teased, "and that your lap is so comfortable. It makes me less willing to storm off."

She snorted. "You may be a forgiving man, but you're a terrible watchman. All of this lounging about, and in the meantime, the perimeter could have been breached a dozen times."

"It's true," he sighed, "I'm a better brother than a watchman."

"Yes," she agreed, bending down to place a kiss on his forehead. "That, you are."

The Bear smiled and sat up. "You should go back to sleep, Cat. You've a few hours before the dawn."

"Oh, I'm awake now. Trying to sleep would be useless for me. Why don't you go instead? I'll finish out your watch."

The Lyseni stood and stretched, saying, "And that, my lady, is why I love you."

"Is it?" she laughed, swatting at him with the back of her hand, sending him on his way.

"No," the large assassin replied quietly as he left her, and she could not say if his words were even meant for her to hear. "No, that's not it at all." His tone had become so melancholy just then that the girl found herself wondering at it, but by then, her brother was too far away to ask.

Arya shrugged, then stood herself and began to walk the perimeter, a small part of her feeling as if in taking her brother's watch, she was paying some sort of penance, however inadequate. The Bear had told her that Olive's fate had not been her fault, but the girl could not completely release the idea, and the torment of her nightmares did not seem sufficient recompense for her sins.

The Cat stalked through the trees, her ears and eyes alert for intruders but her mind preoccupied with considerations of guilt and innocence, of justice and restitution, of what was deserved and what was unfairly bestowed by the capricious hand of fortune.

And what was snatched away and crushed by the iron grip of the Order.

Acutely aware that she drew breath where others could no longer, Arya whispered her promise to Him of Many Faces, her steps moving in time with her prayer.

"Ser Ilyn," she began. "Ser Meryn. Queen Cersei…"

The night wore on, the Cat carefully treading around the camp, making no sound, listening to the soft snores of her companions as they dozed by the dying fire at their center. At least two hours had passed since she had sent her brother on to his slumber and all the company save her were fast asleep. It was for this reason that she was surprised and mildly alarmed to hear movement through the underbrush to the east. Instantly, the girl froze and made a quick head count of her company once again, assuring herself that no one had risen and wandered off to make water since her last pass near to them. Assured that all their number were accounted for, she slipped a slender knife from her sleeve and another from her boot, knowing the density of the trees would make a fight with longblades untenable.

Quick and quiet, the assassin darted to the far side of a wide soldier pine, flattening her back against the rough bark and training her eyes toward the sound of the footsteps as they grew closer. Neither the moon nor the fire threw enough light to reveal the intruder, so the girl waited, and she listened, hidden by the deep darkness of the wood in the night.

Even her breathing quieted, and she focused all her concentration on the sound of boots on the forest floor. Only one interloper. She was certain. Well, he would soon be sorry he hadn't brought friends with him—she could dispatch one foe before he had time to realize he'd be set upon, if it came to that. After a moment, the girl determined the best point of interception and moved further from the camp and nearer to the one who approached, past sentinels and pines, ashes and elms, her step swift and light, matching the pace of the intruder's own. Syrio was with her then. Quick as a snake, she thought, moving to her point of ambush. There she stood, still as a shadow, calm as still water, biding her time.

Fear cuts deeper than swords.

Her mouth curled up into her malicious smile.

Just as the prowler stepped past her position, Arya sprang, leaping onto the man's back and placing the cold blade of one knife across his windpipe while the other bit at his flank, at the level of his kidney.

"Identify yourself, friend, and state your business," Arya whispered in his ear. "Make haste and speak softly, or I'll open your throat." She pushed the blade more firmly against his neck then, ready to act quickly if required. She could not risk him crying out for any of his friends who might by lying in wait nearby.

"For my father's sake, stay your blade, my lady. I mean you no harm."

She knew the voice, hoarse as it was.

"Brynden Blackwood?" Her tone was one of bewilderment. "What in the seven bloody hells are you doing here?" This last part, she hissed, partly angry that she had nearly killed him, and partly angry that he had managed to track them somehow.

"If you'll remove your blades and kindly hop off my back, I'll explain." His voice was strained but she did not ease the pressure on his windpipe.

"How many in your number?" the Cat demanded.

"There's only me."

She hesitated a beat, judging the truth of his reply, but withdrew her blades and hopped down. Once her feet were planted firmly on the ground, she circled around the heir to Raventree Hall, putting a few paces between them (enough distance that she calculated a thrown dagger could find its home before the knight's long stride closed in on her. She did not expect violence, but there was a practical part of her Faceless training, a part which had become so deeply ingrained, it could not be easily shed).

"Alright then," the girl said, coming to rest in front of him, "talk." The blades in each hand pointed harmlessly at the ground, but it was a ruse. They weren't ideal as throwing knives (the suitability for throwing was all in the balance of the things), but they were sharp, and another part of her training had taught her to utilize what was available to her. The tension coiled in her wrists could easily hurl the daggers with enough force to pierce bone.

A skull, say.

Brynden cleared his throat. "As soon as I realized you'd run away, I followed."

"I didn't run away," Arya interrupted. "I'm not an errant child in the throes of a tantrum, or some giddy lady eloping with an unsuitable match."

"No, of course not."

"I simply left the company."

"In the middle of the night, stealing off without so much as a word…"

"Because I knew you would oppose me if I told you!"

"And I would have been right to do so," the knight replied somewhat testily. "I did not take you for a fool, Lady Arya, but this nonsense has made me wonder…"

"Careful, ser," the girl warned, her voice low and steady. "You'll want to consider your next words."

Brynden sighed. "I made a promise to my father to keep you safe. I do not consider allowing you to ride into the mouth of the gathering Lannister and Frey forces in keeping with that vow."

"We're not riding into anyone's mouth," she insisted.

"As good as."

"I'm simply…"

"Trying to reach your mother," he finished for her. "Yes, I know. And since she right now sits in the center of the western Riverlands, where tens of thousands of soldiers are even now amassing, then yes, you are, in fact, riding directly into the enemy's hands."

They stared across the dark space between them, each regarding the shadowy form of the other. Arya did not rely on her eyes to tell her the knight's mood, but considered his tone and listened to the pace of his breathing. He was irritated, no doubt, but trying hard to contain himself, though whether out of true respect for her station or in some hope of winning her over with (forced) kindness, she could not say. She smiled her lopsided smile, though he could not see her well enough to appreciate it.

"Are you here to stop me, then, Ser Brynden? By yourself?" The sweetness of her tone did not disguise the threat behind her words.

"I'm here to reason with you."

"And if that fails?"

The knight blew out a great breath. "Failing that, then I'm here to pledge my sword to you."

"What?" she laughed. His answer was most unexpected.

"My lady, I will do all that is within my power to keep you safe. If I cannot make you see that our best course is to journey east as we planned…"

"As you planned," she muttered.

"…then I will ride by your side and cut down any man who dares raise his hand against you."

For a moment, Arya was speechless. She stared hard at the knight, but the dark kept her from studying his face to read his sincerity. The girl swallowed and closed her eyes, just for a moment. She reached and she felt.

It was a quick impression, a sense of hope that dwindled as acceptance rose. There was undeniably determination. And something else…

Anticipation. Of blood and steel (how well she knew those thoughts!) and of safeguarding her, though she had told him she would never have need of his protection. That shared memory came to her, but through his eyes, for she saw herself walking away from Brynden in her chamber at Raventree Hall. I will never require your rescue, ser, she was saying as she bent to retrieve some blades from among the broken remnants of her wash basin.

Gods, did I really sound so smug? she wondered with a frown, breaking her concentration. Still, she had seen enough.

He had said he would protect her, and Arya could tell he meant it. Even so, she felt obligated to question him.

"You… wish to…"

"Ride with you and shield you from violence," he finished. "And if I cannot convince you to take shelter under my father's protection at Harroway, then gods willing, I will keep you undiscovered and bring you safely to Acorn Hall so that you may see your mother again."

He spoke truly, she could hear it in his tone, but something niggled at her. After a moment, she picked it out.

"Acorn Hall?"

"Yes, my lady."

"And how, pray tell, did you know my mother was making for Lord Smallwood's house?"

"Ah."

Arya adjusted her grip on her daggers and she tensed ever so slightly. "Well?" She glowered impatiently.

The knight was reluctant to answer, but he did anyway. "When my brother came with word of the banners being called, he…"

"Yes?"

"He told me of your plan to break away from the hunt and ride for Acorn Hall."

"Your brother…" Arya repeated in confusion. Her voice trailed off as she thought for a moment, then it came to her and she seethed, "Lady Smallwood!"

"You mustn't blame her, my lady. She feared for your safety and after we rode out on the hunt, she brought her concerns to my father."

Brienne was foolish to trust her, the girl thought. But then, considering the circumstances, the knightly woman really hadn't had much choice in the matter. It did, however, solidify her belief that her circle of trusted companions must be kept small, and that did not bode well for Ser Brynden's petition to ride along at her side.

The Cat stalked closer to the knight.

"Answer me this, Ser Brynden," the girl purred dangerously. "Why shouldn't I kill you where you stand, bury you in these woods, and ride away from this place at daybreak? Who would even know that we'd met this night?"

"You're no merciless killer, my lady."

She laughed bitterly. If he only knew… "I'm afraid you'll have to do better than that, ser."

"Then you'll spare me for the love you bear my father and my sister."

"Do you think it compares to the love I bear my own mother? Your father would keep me from her, if it were within his power."

"You mistake his intent, Lady Arya. He doesn't seek to keep you from your mother, he only desires to protect you from your enemies."

My enemies need protecting from me, she thought, lips twisting into her malicious smile once again. Brynden continued to state his case.

"And you won't kill me because you trust me. You may not want to trust me. You may not understand why it is that you do. But, you do. You cannot deny it, and you cannot afford to throw away someone you trust. Not when you are surrounded by enemies on all sides." He sounded confident.

And seven bloody hells, he was right! She did trust Ser Brynden, and no amount of knowing she shouldn't or insisting that she wouldn't could change the fact that she did.

Annoyed with herself, she persisted in her resistance, giving way to petulance. "Lord Blackwood would cease to wish for my protection if I sent him your head in a burlap sack."

"Have you a burlap sack to spare?" Brynden teased. "You lit out of our hunting camp so quickly, I rather worried you would run short of supplies in a day."

"You're not helping your case, ser," the Cat growled. Brynden sighed, then took a different tack.

"Why create an enemy where you might make a friend?" the knight replied reasonably. "My father accepts the sovereignty of the Winter Throne. He bears your family true affection. He bears you true affection. He is willing to pledge both blood and treasure to your cause…"

"I have no cause!" she barked impatiently.

The knight breathed out audibly, and he worked to make his voice sound sensible rather than patronizing or judgmental.

Or exasperated.

"My lady, I know you are fond of saying it, and perhaps you truly wish it to be so, but I'm certain that when the time comes, you'll feel compelled to do your duty."

A girl must promise. A girl must swear to a man.

Arya swallowed hard and she could almost feel Jaqen gripping her forearms across an inn table, boring into her with his bronze eyes, awaiting her agreement.

I swear, Jaqen. I will do my duty. She could not have resisted him in that moment had she tried.

Whatever is asked, he had emphasized.

I will do my duty, whatever is asked.

It was a promise she had been unable to keep. The Order had perverted the very meaning of duty, and they had forced her to break her vow to her master, because fulfilling it would have been an even worse betrayal.

Duty.

She snorted quietly at the thought of it.

For all they blathered on about her duty, the men around her did not seem to understand what it meant for her at all. Harwin, Lord Blackwood, and Ser Brynden spoke of her duty when what they really meant was her acquiescence.

To their ideals

To their interests.

To their desires.

Arya had learned very well how men might twist such a notion, duty, and use it to their own advantage. The Kindly Man was a master of that particular craft, and she had learned it at his feet.

At his feet, and under his thumb.

She had been marked by the elder's tuition, scarred by his final instruction, deep on the inside. But in that scar, there was another lesson.

A lesson about duty itself.

She had learned that no man could assign it; that the truth of it was writ in one's very bones. It had a feel, a weight which was not heavy enough to disable her but was too substantial to dismiss. It was an instinct, one she could choose to ignore but knew she should not. It became a force, like the current of a river, sweeping her along, less troublesome to accept than to fight. It was grey and white, the colors of a broken house she would avenge. It was bread and salt, and what they should mean, and what they hadn't. It was fangs and pelts and pups grown into fearsome beasts, some fallen and some still fighting. It was what she understood of love and what she had left of it: a mother's love, and a father's, a most beloved brother's, and her own love for them all and for a man she could hardly bear to remember but could never possibly forget. Her duty was the guidon she would follow into battle, a blazing standard her eyes alone could see.

Against those lessons, Ser Brynden stood no chance, despite his optimism.

I'm certain that when the time comes, you'll feel compelled to do your duty.

My duty is vengeance, she thought, but how could she tell Ser Brynden that? He would never accept it, and neither would his father, or any of the River lords for that matter. Her plans flew in the face of reason, as they understood it. If she made known that she intended to take the lives of her enemies by her own hand (and not by proxy, or in battle with an army stretched beyond seeing before her), they would think her foolish, or mad, or both. They would conspire to lock her away, under the guise of protection (protection from her own ambition, and in protection of theirs). The truth, in this case, would complicate her path immeasurably. Better to allow the knight to think her weak, or confused, or uncertain of her place in the world.

(In reality, she had never been more certain of anything in her life than she was of her purpose in Westeros: to deliver the names on her list to the Many-Faced god so that she might make her way back to his temple to deliver him one final name, or die in the effort.)

"You know naught of my duty, Ser Brynden," Arya grumbled. "Your father may recognize the sovereignty of the Winter Throne, but I had no part in my brother's rebellion. I would not have chosen a crown for him had I been there to have a say, so how can I now claim it for myself?"

"I would not have thought you fickle…" the knight began, his voice heavy with censure.

"Fickle?" She nearly spat the word, so bitter was it on her tongue. It was an insult on par with ladylike and silly and simple minded, as far as Arya was concerned. The giggling, empty-headed ladies at court were fickle, granting one knight their favor before finding a rich lord's son more handsome; demanding a dress of Myrish lace for their nameday, then spurning it for one of Dornish silk. She wasn't fickle. The ghost in Harrenhal was decisive. The Cat was reliable. Arya Stark was loyal.

A man's reason was faithful.

To Arya, fickle was the crown worn by the exact woman she had worked so very hard never to be.

"Yes. Fickle. In the camp, when my brother came, you lobbied to be kept informed."

"What are you talking about?" the girl asked, laughing uncomfortably.

"You invoked your right to be involved in the business of the River lords as the only viable representative of the Winter Throne."

"I…"

"But now you say you don't even consider the throne to be legitimate," Brynden continued, ignoring the girl's sputtering.

"I didn't mean…"

"So, a few days ago, you claimed the right of blood that today you say you don't even believe in?"

"Well, I…" Realizing she sounded flustered (because she was), she halted and huffed.

Damn him! Damn him! Damn him! She was peeved. It had only been meant as a mask, this claim to her brother's throne, and since she'd believed she would never see Ser Brynden again, he should never have been able to use it against her. Damn the man and his ridiculously good tracking skills!

The Cat's mind moved quickly as she sought a deflection. After mere seconds, she seized upon it.

"If we're speaking about words exchanged in the camp as if they are some sort of binding accord, I'd remind you that you promised to tell me all." The girl pitched her voice lower, attempting to mimic the knight's timbre. "All that I know, you shall know, my lady."

"And, so you do."

"You forgot to mention that Lady Smallwood had revealed my plan to make for Acorn Hall!"

"Well, I wasn't sure I believed it. It wasn't until you ran that the intelligence was confirmed." The knight tried not to chuckle at Arya's growl as he spoke, but he was not entirely successful. "Besides, it was the telling that was promised, not the timing of it. And now you know all, so my vow is fulfilled." She could hear the smile in his voice and it made her feel like poking a hole in his gut. She rolled her neck to relieve the tension and curled her fingers on the dagger in her left hand slightly tighter. "Besides, I would have mentioned it to you on the hunt, if only you'd stayed for it."

"Enough." Her utterance was quiet but sharp.

"I am at your service, my lady." Brynden bowed slightly as he spoke. Arya could make out his features better now, for though the sun had not yet broken the horizon, the night had given way to the grey of pre-dawn. The sunrise was not far off.

The girl thought a moment before she spoke. "How do I know your men aren't trailing us at a distance, ready to descend at your signal?"

The knight sounded surprised at her question. "To what end, my lady?"

"To bring me back to your father's house. To imprison me."

"Imprison!" Brynden scoffed. He shook his head.

"You might not call it that, but the result would be the same."

"Protection is not captivity, Lady Arya."

"It is if it's behind the walls of Raventree Hall. Or at Harroway. Or anywhere else that isn't leading me closer to my mother!" Or those who have wronged my family. Or him that separated me from…

She closed her eyes for a moment, pushing away the hurt that necessarily welled up when she thought about the Kindly Man and what he had done to her. The knight used her pause to reassert his loyalty.

"I've said my sword is yours," he reminded her. "I've said I'd ride at your side."

"Rather reluctantly, though, I thought…"

Exasperated by her doubts, the heir to Raventree Hall inhaled sharply through his nose. Arya imagined that as a man used to command, it must rankle him greatly to have his words questioned by a girl of six and ten. The thought made her smile a little. Admirably, his voice was steady and resolute when he next spoke.

"Wherever you may go, my lady, I will follow. To my father's house, to Harroway, straight down the enemy's throat or across all seven hells. I may not think it wise, and I won't promise to stop trying to persuade you of the safer course, but your path is mine."

Arya was surprised at how the knight's declaration affected her. It made her feel somehow… larger. She wondered if this was how Robb felt when the Stark bannermen had pledged fealty and followed him south.

What a strange thought, her little voice murmured.

The problem of Ser Brynden's arrival turned over in her head for a moment. Harwin would no doubt be gratified to find the Riverlander had joined the party. Gendry was another matter entirely, and the Rat would no doubt wonder how this would affect his mission (in the same way she had wondered how it would affect her own) and would likely craft a plan to murder the knight in his sleep should the need arise. Still, they would all have to see that Ser Brynden was a capable knight and commander, and he undoubtedly knew this land better than any among them, an asset on a journey such as theirs. He was also like to understand the political climate more thoroughly, knowing who they could trust and who they could not. Arya had no illusions about where his ultimate loyalty lay, though. Brynden may have desired a marriage contract with her, but that wish as well as his pledge to protect her was more rooted in his father's ambitions rather than in any affection the heir to Raventree Hall may have felt for her.

Thinking of her own family, though, and of what spurred her along her journey, she found she could not fault him for his own motivations.

Still, she knew that keeping the knight among their company would be a calculated risk. Arya thought back to something the Bear had said on their journey from Saltpans when she had questioned the wisdom of accepting the help of the House of Black and White by way of gold and horses.

As long as their aim does not interfere with our own, why not take what is freely offered?

There was wisdom in the large assassin's words and she saw its application in this instance as well. Her mind was made up. She would not to oppose the Blackwood heir, leastways not until he crossed her.

"Very well, Ser Brynden. You may ride with us, providing you don't hinder me."

His smile was genuine and easy to read in the rising dawn. He reached out and took her hand. "I hope to make you glad you didn't send my head to my father in that burlap sack you may or may not have brought along," the knight replied, then bowed slightly and pressed a kiss to the back of her hand.

The snapping of twigs by heavy boots interrupted their meeting. Both lord and lady cast their eyes toward the noise to find a decidedly grumpy-looking Gendry approaching them, squinting against the light of the rising sun. When he was within easy ear shot, he addressed the pair in a tone which barely disguised his annoyance.

"Well, what's this then?"

Just as Arya had suspected, Gendry had been less than pleased at Brynden's return while Harwin had difficulty containing his glee (though glee for a displaced Northerner consisted of little more than a brisk nod of his head and a muttered greeting along the lines of, "Aye, it's good to see you, milord.") For her part, Lady Brienne was gracious but wary, though her misgivings seemed overshadowed by the guilt she felt at having discussed their plan with Lady Smallwood, leading to Ser Brynden's discovery of the scheme in the first place. Ser Willem had said little to his lady about it, but welcomed Brynden cordially enough. Predictably, Baynard exploited Gendry's discomfort over the next several days of riding and on the third eve after Ser Brynden's return, Arya had to step in before the two men came to blows while setting up camp.

"You always go too far," the Cat muttered quietly in the assassin's ear.

"He deserves this and more for his absurdity," the Rat grumbled. "You'd think you were his wife, cuckholding him, the way he sulks and scowls." The false-squire walked away and Arya's cheeks burned. She looked over at Gendry briefly then, at his dark glare, but said nothing and quickly walked away. In her haste to escape, the girl nearly careened into the Lyseni assassin.

"Are we set upon by bandits?" the Bear japed, catching Arya's arms and steadying her. "What are you running from?"

"I'm not running," she lied, "I'm just…"

Ser Willem glanced over top of the girl's head and saw the blacksmith-knight frowning after her and his squire stalking away from the scene. He turned and led his sister away, toward the horses, saying something about helping her retrieve her bedroll. When they had put distance between themselves and their companions, the Lyseni commenced his interrogation.

"What happened?"

"Just the Rat being himself," she frowned. "I told you this would…"

"Not that," the Bear interrupted. "It's time you told me what happened between you and your blacksmith."

"He's not my blacksmith," the girl retorted.

"Oh," her brother laughed, "oh, he most certainly is. If not yours, then whose? He's only on this journey because of you. You may not want him, but he's yours, m'lady."

Arya glared up at the large man at that last. He had mimicked Gendry's Flea-Bottom accent to perfection.

"Are you going to tell me what happened?"

The girl folded her arms over her chest and looked away as the false-knight unstrapped her bedroll from Bane's saddle and hefted it under his thick arm.

"Fine, then," he said, "I'll just guess. I think I can figure it out. On your watch one night, or his perhaps, feelings ran high, and when he declared his ardent love for you, you found yourself unable to resist him. Tell me, sister, is he more graceful in bed than he is with that greatsword?" His words had a teasing quality, but there was a hint of something else behind the jape. Disappointment, maybe. Or anger.

"What?"

"And then, you probably started feeling guilty, like you'd betrayed Jaqen…"

"Betrayed Ja…"

He continued as if she had not spoken. "Did you refuse to let our bastard knight bed you again? Is that it? And now that you've spurned him, he's angry and you're embarrassed? It would explain a lot."

"I didn't… He didn't…" The girl was so addled by her brother's suggestion that she had trouble forming her sentences. Her instinct was to reach for a dagger, any dagger, but she stayed her hand. "I wouldn't!" she finally managed.

"Why not?" the assassin asked, careless, shrugging. "He's handsome enough, and you're not put off by things like station or lack of fortune or breeding."

"Breeding!"

"I'd expect any other lady of good name to feel beholden to such things, but not you, so…"

"It was just a kiss!" Arya interrupted. She spoke through gritted teeth.

The Bear narrowed his eyes, nodding, and began to walk toward Arya's tent to deposit her things. "Ah, so that's it. A kiss."

The girl could see that her brother had maneuvered her into answering the question she had avoided for days.

"It's not what you think," she insisted weakly at his retreating back. She stared after him briefly then scrambled to his side. "It didn't even mean anything!"

"It obviously meant something to him," her brother admonished, looking down at her with a furrowed brow. "Have you lost your senses completely?"

"You don't understand…"

"No, I don't. I really don't. Not half a week past, you were lamenting the distraction of some bawdy jests and japing between a squire and a knight, when all along, it was you creating the tension. You are the distraction."

The Cat became angry. "Well, who was it that told me in the training yard there's no sin in flirting? Who said a harmless bit of romance might take my mind off things?"

"So, it's a romance, is it?"

"No!"

"You're using Ser Gendry as a distraction from your troubles?"

"No!"

The Bear pulled up short and snapped his head down, scrutinizing his sister's face. "Is it more than that to you? More than flirting?"

"I wasn't flirting!" The girl groaned her frustration.

"Speak sense, my lady. You just said there's no sin in flirting."

"No, you said that. I was merely pointing out your hypocrisy."

"So… you didn't kiss him?"

"No, I did, but not like you mean."

"Then how?"

"It was because he was sad." She realized how stupid she sounded even as she said it.

The large assassin laughed, a short, humorless sound. "Because he was sad!"

"Look, I've kissed you, dozens of times, when you were sad."

"Not dozens."

"Dozens. And not once did it make you frown and scowl at me for a week afterwards."

"So… you kissed his forehead? Or his cheek? The top of his head?" the Bear asked rhetorically.

"Well… no."

"I think I've spotted the difference, my lady."

"Why are you harassing me so doggedly?" the Cat demanded. "I know you. I know you don't think I was being the least bit… romantic with Ser Gendry."

"It's not what I think that should worry you," the assassin replied pointedly. He glanced past Arya, toward her tent, where Gendry stood waiting with a troubled look on his face.

"Oh, gods," she groaned pitifully, "will I ever be free of this vexation?"

The Bear snorted. "What vexation is that, sister? The vexation you created with your recklessness?" As per usual, he did not have to add.

"The vexation caused by men and their unreasonable expectations!" She looked away from the blacksmith knight, turning her face pleadingly up to the Lyseni. "I don't want to do this right now. Save me!"

He laughed. "There is a Braavosi saying, sister, one you'll recall. Something about what you have to do when you make your own bed…"

In High Valyrian, the Cat muttered a quick suggestion of what her brother could do with his Braavosi saying. He handed her the bedroll he had been carrying for her and laughed as he walked away, leaving her to deal with her vexation alone.

Way Down We Go—Kaleo

Chapter Text

And you can bring me to my knees

again

He didn't like the way they whispered. It happened whenever the councils broke up or after they'd supped and the captains drifted away from the fireside with full bellies and heavy lids, leaving them alone to talk; to conspire. They'd put their heads together, one beautiful, the other ugly, and a shrewd mouth set beneath mismatched eyes would murmur wisdom and counsel and bits of prophecy, contriving plots both ingenious and cunning; plots designed to transform an invading foreigner with a great name into the undisputed ruler of the Seven Kingdoms.

It wasn't that he misliked the dwarf, or the young dragon, for that matter, but it was the content of their whisperings which soured his mood. More than once, as he'd drifted past the pair in the dark, a name had crossed the dwarf's lips, one he knew well. He did not like the intent behind the utterance, the calculation and the covetousness of it. And he did not like the way the dragon's amethyst gaze changed when he heard it, transformed by some mixture of intrigue and desire, a look that reminded him of the sort of hunger which tenses a lion's skin in the moment before he mauls his prey. But there was something else there, flickering in those violet eyes. It was something he reviled, a thing entirely human, and it was that thing which disturbed him most of all.

Ownership.

"Before nightfall, milady," Harwin assured Arya. "The walls of Acorn Hall will be in view by then."

The Cat nodded, her face impassive. Her expression belied her excitement at the Northman's words, for as ashamed as she was to realize it, the prospect of a hot bath and a bed upon which to rest was more welcome to her than any nearly-Faceless assassin should admit.

It had been a long journey and they'd spent more than a fortnight in total weaving a careful path to the Smallwood stronghold. It had been an arduous journey, too, forced as they were to avoid the more hospitable roads so that they might keep their movements undiscovered. Nights were spent in various locations, as opportunity dictated: the odd friendly village, or an abandoned barn, or beneath a canopy of leafless branches in the wilderness. Ser Brynden's guidance had proved invaluable when determining which holdfasts and settlements to avoid, and which to approach with the expectation of safe shelter and discretion. The recent movement of forces from all sides through the land had created a state of shifting loyalties and fears among the smallfolk, so that places once thought secure might no longer be so. Through all this, the heir to Raventree Hall had navigated skillfully. Indeed, he had brought them safely within a day's ride of their destination.

Brynden has proved himself a worthy addition to the company, the girl thought somewhat defiantly. It had been a particular point of contention between herself and Ser Gendry, and they had bickered about it off and on during the whole of the journey. Arya felt a prickle of annoyance as she thought of her most recent exchange with her old friend over the matter, but in truth, she was grateful for it. Their meaningless squabbles were as benign as the arguments she and her brothers used to engage in, just as silly and just as quickly forgotten. Indeed, the minor quarrels between Arya and Gendry provided a welcome distraction to the larger problem looming between them; a problem made plain the night after Ser Brynden had rejoined the party and Gendry had sought out Arya to make his feelings known.

His feelings.

The girl frowned and urged Bane on ahead, putting some distance between herself and the dark knight, who rode just behind Harwin. She found when they were out of proximity, she could more easily avoid inadvertently reading those troublesome feelings. When they were side by side, Gendry's dissatisfaction and yearning tended to worm their way into her head unless the two old friends were otherwise conversing, or japing, or fighting. Sometimes, Arya wanted to scream at the bastard knight, to tell him to please just shut up, but she did not, for how could she explain such an exclamation when it was thrown at a man who had ridden in complete and sullen silence for leagues and leagues and leagues?

Still, Gendry's incessant internal mourning and recrimination exasperated her, as there was no profit in continuing to dwell. But dwell he did, though his thoughts were nothing more than echoes of an argument they had already had.

"You know he wants nothing more than to trap you into a political marriage and leverage your name," the dark knight had seethed by way of greeting as soon as the girl approached her tent, where the blacksmith paced, awaiting her. "He wants to increase his own power!"

The Cat had begged her brother to rescue her from this inevitable confrontation, but the Bear had merely chuckled after reminding her of a Braavosi saying about making beds and lying in them, and then the traitor had walked away, leaving her to her fate.

Arya grimaced. Ser Brynden had been back in their company scarcely more than half a day and that was apparently the limit of Gendry's tolerance. He could not contain his spite one minute longer.

"Good eve to you as well, ser," the Cat said tonelessly, tossing her bedroll into her tent.

"Why?" Gendry continued, ignoring her. "Why would you allow this?"

Arya pressed her balled up fists into her hips and glared up at her old friend. "Are you not my sworn knight?"

"I am." He frowned.

"By what right do you question me?"

Gendry scoffed. "You're either m'lady, or you aren't. You can't just play the part when it suits you!"

His boldness had surprised her. She might have admired it, if it weren't vexing her so right at that moment.

She did not think Ser Gendry would appreciate the irony that he and the man he resented so fiercely had laid the same complaint at her feet within the space of one day: that she wanted to play both monarch and rebel; to spurn leadership and responsibility while demanding loyalty and deference; to be both no one and someone.

They were both wrong, of course.

So wrong, her little voice had agreed.

"Would you rather that I'd slit his throat before the sun rose?" she asked. "I could've, and watched him bleed out in a few blinks of my eye. I'll admit, I considered it, but the ramifications gave me pause."

"I'd rather you would've turned him away. Sent him back to his castle so he could play the lordling with his father and brothers, and leave us be."

"Us?"

"You know what I mean. All of us. We all want to rejoin Lady Sto… your mother, and he has no interest in that. He can only be an impediment."

"What offense has he given you, ser, that you are so disturbed by his mere presence?"

"It's the offense against m'lady that concerns me."

They both kept their voices low, and steady, but Gendry's anger was practically radiating from his skin. His blue eyes pierced her own as he willed Arya to understand; to take his side.

"He's committed no offense," she assured the knight, moving carefully toward him and placing her palm on his forearm in a calming gesture. Gendry would not be soothed. He pulled away from her and turned, gazing out toward where the others were building a fire, his back to Arya.

He heaved a great breath, then said, "Brynden Blackwood would have held you prisoner…"

"Bah!" the Cat snorted. "Prisoner…" The girl sounded derisive, but there was a degree of discomfort in her response. It rankled her to be cast in the role of a Blackwood apologist when she, in fact, had experienced these very same doubts, and even still was wary of the heir to Raventree Hall and his intentions.

"Yes, prisoner, at Lord Harroway's Town. He would have kept you there under guard until his father deigned to send for you. Did you not tell me that you understood these things? That you are no longer a young and naïve girl? That you see men for exactly who they are?"

"I do."

"Then how do you still fail to understand what a threat the Blackwoods are?"

Arya laughed lightly. "How do you still fail to understand that I cannot be threatened?"

The dark knight spun around quickly, growling at the girl. "You're, what, barely seven stone, in your cloak and boots?"

"I'm more than seven stone," she grumbled under her breath.

She wasn't.

"And just how would you resist a company of Blackwood men if Ser Brynden ordered them to take you captive? Would you slaughter them all? Do you sleep with your sword, m'lady?"

"Actually…"

"We left him behind for a reason, then I find you two watching the sun rise together, pretty as you please, as if you had never parted company."

"We weren't watching the…"

"So, what was it all for, then? You couldn't wait to get away from that place, and now… you make haste to return!"

"Return where? Raventree Hall?" the girl asked, taken aback by Gendry's steady barrage of disparate complaints.

"I wish you would stop to consider what you do, m'lady, before you make an error you can't recover from and…"

"Enough!" Arya barked. "Ser Gendry, enough!"

The blacksmith-knight drew up short and bit back the last of his words. The Cat stalked toward the ironwood near her tent and leaned against it, arms crossed over her chest, jaw set.

"This unreasonable criticism must stop, ser," the girl finally said. "Ser Brynden is part of this company now, and you must make your peace with it."

Gendry moved toward Arya slowly, his eyes locked with hers. When he was half an arm's length away, he reached out for her, his hands resting on her shoulders, the tips of his fingers digging slightly into the fur of her wide collar.

"M'lady," he murmured, his voice a plea. "Think carefully on this…"

"I have," she assured him, her indignation dampened somewhat by his tone. "I have considered this most carefully, and…"

"And you decided you could not be without him."

She shook her head. "You misunderstand…"

"I don't think I do," Gendry replied grimly.

"Gendry," the girl whispered, reaching out and grasping his jerkin, fisting it with a force that demonstrated her frustration. "Can you not trust that I'm doing what's best?"

"I know you think so, m'lady…"

"Don't call me that," Arya interrupted, but there wasn't much conviction behind the order. She released her grip on Gendry's jerkin and sighed, looking off into the distance.

Gendry's sigh matched her own. His hands dropped away from her. "Have you even asked yourself why he's here?"

"I know why he's here." She sounded tired. "Lord Blackwood charged him with safeguarding me."

"How convenient."

"What's convenient about it?"

"It's convenient that he can play the dutiful son and the doting lover all at the same time." His arms crossed themselves over his chest as he spoke. He moved away from her.

The girl turned her gaze to the knight's face and her look was keen. "Wasn't it you who said Ser Bryden had only ever behaved as a true knight? That you had no cause to resent him?"

"That was before."

"Before what?" she demanded.

"Before he showed back up here, chasing after you with some story about his duty! We all know very well why he's here."

A part of Arya burned the lash out, the part of her that remained of the girl who had travelled this road years ago with the very man standing before her, when he himself was a mere boy. That girl wanted to scourge her old friend with her words and her wrath, angry with his stubborn insistence on crossing her. Another part of her, the part that was Faceless and calculating, innately understood what motivated the blacksmith's protests and instantly knew how to use his own inclinations against him. That girl wanted to manipulate her old friend and bend him to her will so artfully that he would believe it had been his intention all along to obey her wishes.

But it was the part of her as she existed at that moment, an amalgamation of all her selves (the wilding of Winterfell, the ghost in Harrenhal, the Cat, and Ned Stark's grey daughter) which spoke next.

"Gendry, this jealousy… it's unbecoming and unnecessary," she assured him, then added, "and frankly, it's annoying."

"What if I am jealous?" he hissed, his control slipping. "I've cause to be, don't you think?"

"No. No, I do not."

If the bastard knight read the warning in his friend's tone, he did not heed it. "You," he breathed, his brow creasing and his eyes hard. He pointed one finger at her. "You did this to me." I tried to ignore it, she heard, but her friend's mouth was fixed and no words passed his lips. She almost looked behind her then, to see who spoke, but then heard, I tried to control it. She knew then it was Gendry's thoughts which whispered to her.

I tried to ignore it. I tried to control it. I tried to ignore it. I tried.

Arya pressed the heels of her hands hard against her temples and squeezed her eyes shut, concentrating on pushing out the dark knight's thoughts. She had her own troubles to consider and his insistence on his own innocence was distracting.

"I did nothing…" was all she managed before he was upon her again, so close their bodies nearly touched. He bent his head down, his heavy breathing stirring the loose hairs which had escaped her braid to tickle her brow. Though he spoke quietly, his hoarse voice carried in it all the ache and want he'd kept pent up inside since Arya Stark had reappeared in his life. Perhaps even from before that time.

"You kissed me."

Arya dug her heels into Bane's sides and the beast picked up his pace to a trot. The girl drew up alongside Brienne. Conversation with the knightly woman would surely distract her from continuing to turn over the memory of her uncomfortable conversation with Gendry yet again.

"My lady," the daughter of Tarth greeted with a stiff nod of her head. Brienne was always so awkwardly proper. It made Arya smile.

"Harwin says we'll see Acorn Hall before the night falls."

"That's welcome news," the woman replied. "The horses could do with some proper care and rest."

Arya again felt ashamed of her earlier thoughts of a comfortable bed. Harwin wished to bring the company safely into the home of an ally. Ser Brynden sought to keep her undiscovered, hidden from her enemies. Gendry had his own private worries, thinking on his impending audience with Lady Stoneheart, where he was like to have to beg for his life. Even Brienne was preoccupied with thoughts concerning the health of their mounts. And here she was, dreaming of a hot bath. Arya frowned.

The Lady of Winterfell, heir to the Winter Throne, she thought, her lip curling in distaste. The titles felt like the gravest of insults. Memories of the ladies at King Robert's court, of the beautiful and cruel Cersei Lannister, pampered and pristine, assaulted her then. When did I get so damnably soft? And selfish?

"I think we shall have to wait on your mother, my lady," Brienne continued. "A raven is like to have made the journey from Raventree Hall to Acorn Hall in two to three days at most, but we have no way to receive ravens at the Hollow Hill. A rider would have to be sent after your mother and the ride back would take, oh, perhaps five days? Six? Still, it shouldn't be too long. A few days."

"My mother," Arya intoned, her eyes going soft. Her hands practically tingled with memory and though she tightened her grip on Bane's reins, she could almost feel Catelyn's soft, auburn curls in the palm of her hand. Instantly, she was four years old, pulled into her mother's lap while in the midst of a fight with Sansa. Her mother was scolding her (always her, never Sansa) but the words floated past her, as meaningless as a half-forgotten lullaby, and she reached for the waves of her mother's unbound tresses. Arya could be rough, even then, but she petted her mother's hair like it was a precious treasure or a mewling kitten: gently, almost reverently, a look of fascination shaping her mouth and smoothing her pinched expression into one of contentment.

The girl had not allowed herself to think too much on Catelyn Stark, or Lady Stoneheart, as she was now known. It was hard for her to reconcile the graceful, shining beauty of her childhood with what little Arya knew of her mother now; her new role as leader of a violent, renegade band of knights and priests and poor, motherless peasants. What would they say to one another, these two Stark women, after all this time? What would her mother think of her, of what she'd become? When Arya tried to imagine it, the image wouldn't come, and instead, she saw herself, fierce but small, sitting quiet and still in her mother's lap, petting at all her shining, auburn hair; the wildling tamed.

The whitebeard says nothing as he scrutinizes the passing troops, but his eyes rove endlessly over their number and it is plain to see that in his mind, he makes every possible calculation regarding this army; the commander in his element. The maimed griffin sits astride his horse, just to Barristan's left and watches as well, though his eyes are steady, fixed on a point, drinking in all the splendor and might as it passes before him. The khaleesi, upright and still on the back of her silver mare, is resplendent in her light armor, sun glinting off the thin chest plate, making a bright star upon her breast. The garb is ceremonial of course, but it signals something all too real: the coming war.

Dragons circle overhead, three of them, their moving shadows painting the various brigades in fleeting shade, each in its turn. First the Unsullied, then battalion after battalion of Dornish spearmen and knights and archers, then the Stormcrows, then the Golden Company. The forces commanded by the Lord of Starfall are still two days' march to the west, and so the new Sword of the Morning does not bear witness to this spectacle.

The king stands apart from the council and its review. He seems deep in thought and has dismounted his sand steed, holding the beast by its reins, staring toward the horizon, in the direction of the Reach. While the others look to the army, assessing and appraising, the king looks to the future.

Daario Naharis is also gazing out, looking northward, his borrowed skin bristling with impatience. He has spent enough time with the Council of Dragons to know that they have the numbers and the will. They have not one, but two fit rulers, ready to be installed on that jagged hunk of iron that sits rusting in the Red Keep. They have the more skilled army, fit and fed; largely battle tested; eager. They have martyrs whose memories they can rally behind and avenge (martyrs with names like Elia, Rhaenys, Oberyn, and Rhaegar. Should the need arise, they can add Ned Stark, his son Robb and even his wife to the list, for their names are the currency needed to buy the allegiances of certain great houses).

And, they have dragons, terrifying creatures who breathe fiery death and once were thought gone from the world forever.

Their victory is assured, yet they must still attain it. They must win their war before they can move on from it. Highgarden must bend the knee and join to their cause, or be reduced to ash. King's Landing must fall. They must secure the Riverlands, subdue the Westerlands, and prevail upon the Eyrie to unite under their banner. All of this they must achieve before they can move north.

And north is where the Tyroshi most desires to go.

"Captain Naharis," the king calls and the leader of the Stormcrows turns his mount and approaches the Targaryen, sliding off to join his majesty on the ground.

"My King," the sellsword says, and there is enough practiced deference in the bowing of his head to satisfy the young monarch but enough impertinence in his tone to serve as a reminder that he is, in fact, the khaleesi's man, first and foremost.

(The crown is Aegon's by right of birth, but there are some among the unified factions who believe Daenerys should rule. She is, after all, the mother of dragons. For now, though, an uneasy peace exists between the two Targaryens, one that could easily be solidified by a marriage, as Jon Connington is always quick to remind the young king.)

"After years of moving so swiftly across Essos in the company of my few loyal friends, I have grown used to rapid travel," Aegon laments. "I find the army's pace difficult to endure."

The king smiles and the sight is radiant; alabaster in the sun. It is nearly blinding. The Tyroshi thinks this must be the mark of his father, the famed Prince of Dragonstone, for there is little of his mother in his look. The captain has spent time among the people of Sunspear and has dined with Oberyn Martell's daughters as well as the only daughter of Prince Doran. These women are so alike in many ways, dark of hair, dark of skin, with eyes like warm almonds and a sort of clever adaptability that serves them well, both amongst enemies and friends, that he has to imagine they are each something of a reflection of their departed aunt. Yet Daario can see none of that in Aegon, with his silver hair and violet eyes and forthright manner.

"For an army of this size, and considering the terrain, the pace is excellent, your grace," the captain replies.

"Still, I think you are nearly as impatient as I," the king counters, looking expectantly at the sellsword. "You long to be at it already. I can sense that much."

"You speak truly, my king."

"And what is it about war which draws you? The feel of a sword in your hand? The heat of battle? Valor and glory? Or is it the spoils of war you crave?"

Daario follows the king's gaze to where it has come to rest: on Daenerys Targaryen's profile.

"It's none of that, your grace. It's what comes after that calls to me."

"Oh?" The king's tone is one of surprise. "You are a stranger in this land, are you not, captain?"

"Indeed."

"So tell me, then, what awaits you at the end of this war?"

The Tyroshi's gaze turns northward once again and he thinks a moment before he answers.

"My reason," he finally says. The king's brow creases and he tilts his head slightly, trying to unravel the mystery of the sellsword's response. He laughs a little, his bewilderment evident in the sound of it.

"Your reason? Your reason for what?"

The captain turns his false eyes on the silver king and regards him coolly before he speaks again.

"For everything."

"Did you leave your blades back in the village?" the Rat asked his sister as they rode together at the rear of the company. Arya had dropped back so that she might have time to think without being disturbed. Memories of her mother dueled with her worries and anticipation about their impending reunion and she needed quiet to sort them out. The Rat did not seem inclined to give it to her.

"What? What are you talking about?" she asked the assassin testily.

"I'm just trying to figure out why you haven't put that bastard out of his misery," the Rat replied. "You could easily slip upon him while he sleeps and open his neck, quick and clean."

"Talk sense, you idiot!" the Cat growled.

"If you left your blades, I could loan you one. Just clean it before you return it."

"I'm not murdering Gendry in his sleep, you stupid sot."

"Well, you'd better do something, or I will. I can't stand another day of this. It's not even fun to ridicule him anymore."

"Why must you be so…" The girl's voice trailed off and she glared at her brother in frustration.

"Probably for the same reason you have to be the source of tension and discord everywhere you go. It's just the way I'm made."

"If you're not careful, it'll be you whose neck I open while you sleep."

The false squire laughed. "What, and take another person away from our brother? Haven't you caused him enough grief?"

The words stung her but she bit back her surprise and instead showed her ire. Arya glared at the Rat and the Westerosi assassin's look was one of triumph. He gave his sister a half-smirk and then rode on ahead, leaving her to her disturbed thoughts.

"Stupid," she grumbled, but images of Olive's dead eyes glittering in the dim light of her chamber rushed in and Arya gritted her teeth. Her mind snatched at anything to distract her from the wave of dread and guilt that washed over her then, and she thought of what her brother had said about putting Gendry out of his misery.

Didn't I try? she thought to herself, and she had. She had done her best to talk him out of his insupportable longing. He wouldn't allow it. He chooses to feel the way he does. It's not my fault.

"You kissed me," the blacksmith-knight had said to her when they argued by her tent that first night after Brynden's return. Arya could see that they were attracting attention. In her peripheral vision, she saw Harwin and Ser Brynden, some ten yards away, look up from the campfire and gaze over at the two old friends.

"And you understand very well why I did it, don't pretend you don't!" the girl huffed. Honestly, was she to be punished every time she tried to do something nice?

"I guess I don't understand so very well as you seem to think I do," he had said bitterly. "Remember, I started out as a nameless, Flea Bottom bastard and my early days were taken up with learning how not to starve."

"So?" Hadn't they all starved? Hadn't she gone days with only the meager meat she could pick from a scrawny pigeon's bones? Eaten acorn paste? Starved long enough that her ribs and hip bones poked through her skin at ugly angles? Hadn't he just accused her of being barely seven stone? "What's your point?"

"I've had less time for practicing the games you highborn folk like to play. You are necessarily better at them."

"I wasn't playing a game, Gendry. I was doing a kindness."

"It was no kindness, m'lady," he laughed acidly. "Believe me."

She pushed against his chest, moving him back a step so she could look up at his face. Her eyes were pleading.

"You were sad," she tried. At her small push, Ser Brynden had risen and taken three steady steps toward them, ready to intervene if required.

"I was sad?" Gendry whispered.

"Yes."

"I'm still sad." His words cut her to the quick.

"Why is my friendship not enough?"

"Because you kissed me."

Arya slipped away from him, walking away from the camp. Gendry followed. The night was creeping in on them and Arya moved in and through the grey that existed between firs and oaks, over uneven ground and further away from the fire that was licking up higher in the center of the camp. She almost seemed to drift over the fallen leaves and dried twigs, so silent was her step. Gendry's heavy boots thudded behind her, scattering leaves and snapping branches, creating signs even the most amateur of trackers could follow.

"M'lady," he called softly, then, when she did not even slow her step, "Arya!"

The girl stopped and seemed to straighten a bit before turning to face him.

"Do you know why I've brought you here, ser?"

The knight made her no answer, only staring grimly at her placid expression.

"We are far from camp now, Ser Gendry. There is no one to castigate or censure you. You will not be judged or expected to adhere to your knightly code. This is your chance."

"My chance?"

"Say what you need to, and let's be done with this."

The blacksmith laughed. "You brought me here so I could yell at you away from the prying eyes of knights and lords?"

And assassins pledged to the care of my person, she thought, but did not say.

"You awaited me at my tent…"

"After I raised it for you," he groused.

"…so you seem to have a great need to talk. Well, here we are." She threw her arms out wide, palms turned up, indicating how very secluded they were. "Talk."

The large man regarded the girl and hesitated.

The company was so weary of their travel that no one objected when Harwin suggested they ride on rather than stop for a midday meal. An hour before the sun was to set, they spotted the walls of Acorn Hall high upon a hill to the west. The path to the gate was not so difficult, but in places, the drop from the outer edge was steep and dangerous, so they proceeded with an abundance of caution in the waning light. The night air had chilled Arya's ears and she pulled up her hood to warm them a bit.

The guard from the gate tower called down a challenge when they reached the walls, and Ser Brynden answered. He added, "You'll have had a raven from your lady advising you of our impending arrival."

Only moments later, the gates swung open, and as the band rode through, they saw Theomar Smallwood standing in the center of the Bailey yard, flanked by two others. One was a bent, gaunt ghost of a man, with an expression that carried all the worries of the world upon it. Though he was much changed, Arya instantly recognized him as Thoros of Myr, the renegade and reformed priest of R'hllor. The other man was tall, well-featured, and golden, from his head to his toe. Gold of hair, with a well-trimmed golden beard, wearing golden armor. Even his hand was golden, gleaming in the torchlight illuminating the yard. Arya knew him as well, though his look was changed enough that she wondered if she could be mistaken. It wasn't that he was terribly aged or disfigured or made humble. On the contrary, the man who lived in her memory had not this man's air of nobility.

"Ser Jaime!" Brienne cried in surprise, dismounting and walking quickly toward the golden man. "How is it you are here?"

"My lady," Jaime Lannister greeted with a bow and a mischievous twist of his lips. Now that was more like the man Arya remembered. "The entire brotherhood heeded Lady Smallwood's summons."

"The entire brotherhood?" Brienne repeated, confused, looking around. "Did you arrive ahead of them?"

"No, we rode out at strength, and made haste for the castle."

The knightly woman was clearly befuddled. "But… how? How did you know? Surely you could not have gotten word from Raventree Hall so quickly…"

"No, indeed, Lady Brienne," the Kingslayer agreed. "It seems our lady had her invitation delivered early."

Our lady, Arya repeated in her head. He means my mother!

"How's that?" Brienne asked.

"She had it from a certain direwolf, my lady, and had us set out almost instantly. When we met the rider from Acorn Hall on the road, we were already halfway here."

Nymeria! Arya thought, realizing the wolf had somehow gotten to her mother and worried her into following, convincing her to leave the Hollow Hill and set out for Acorn Hall. Clever girl.

"She followed the wolf?" Brienne asked, incredulous.

"It was either that or live with the constant howling and whining," Thoros interjected, spitting in disgust. "The noise! It echoes terribly under the hill. We would have had no peace had we not followed."

"A direwolf is not to be trifled with," Ser Gendry replied, hopping off his horse and approaching Thoros. The men clasped hands in greeting.

"It's good to see you boy. I hope you've got a ready excuse for our lady, though. She was not pleased to find you gone, nor the wolf pack with you."

"Yes, it's good to see you," Ser Jaime echoed, a smirk appearing on his face. "Our company has suffered a woeful lack of bastards since you deserted."

The blacksmith-knight ought to have known not to get pulled into an argument with the Kingslayer, but he had too much of his father's rashness in him to resist the bait.

"Well, it seems the company profited from an excess of pompous asses in my absence," the large man retorted. "And I didn't desert!" Arya was alarmed by Gendry's tone and worried he might try to strike Ser Jaime. Such an offense in the presence of their host was not like to be forgiven so easily. She jumped from Bane's back and approached the men cautiously, thinking to pull her old friend back and prevent a breach of etiquette which might complicate their stay.

"No? Well, what else do you call it when you abscond in the dead of night, forgoing your duty without the leave of your betters?"

"I always intended to come back!"

"And aren't we all the lucky beneficiaries of your good intentions?" Ser Jaime's words dripped with scorn.

"Ser Jaime," Brienne warned under her breath. Gendry glared and opened his mouth to argue further, but Arya stepped in then, sliding in front of the dark knight and addressing herself to the master of Acorn Hall.

"Lord Smallwood," the girl began, pushing her hood away from her face and allowing it to fall down her back. "We are most grateful for your friendship and hospitality."

Ser Jaime's exclamation interrupted them before Theomar could make a reply.

"Great gods!" he cried. "You really are her absolute reflection! I can scarcely believe it." Jaime took a step, staring, scrutinizing Arya's features in fascination.

Lord Smallwood gave the golden knight a sharp look, then turned his attention to the girl before him, reaching for her hand and bowing to place a kiss upon it.

"You honor me with your presence behind my walls, Lady Arya," the man said. "Please, eat of my bread and salt, and be safe under my roof."

The master of Acorn Hall waved a servant over with a platter of black bread and coarse salt. The food was passed around until the ritual was complete.

"I know I'm a poor substitute for my wife, my lady, but circumstances dictated that I leave Ravella at Raventree Hall while I made haste back here to gather my levies for the march to Riverrun," Lord Smallwood explained as he took Arya aside. "I hope you are not too discomfited by her absence."

"Not at all, my lord," the girl assured her host. "I knew Lady Smallwood would not be here to greet us when we arrived. Indeed, I am greatly surprised to find you here. I was led to believe we would be in the charge of your maester and steward. But then, I had not considered the necessity for you to be here to gather your men. How long until you make for Riverrun?"

"Oh, not long now," Theomar replied distractedly. He changed the subject almost immediately. "Please, allow my servants to tend to you and your men and horses. I know it was a difficult journey."

"If it please you, Lord Smallwood, I would very much like to see my mother."

"Yes. Yes, my lady, I understand, but she prays in the sept just now and has asked not to be disturbed. Please, take your refreshment and rest now. You will see her soon enough."

Ser Gendry insisted on carrying Arya's saddle bags to her room for her, and she allowed it, waving away both a servant and Ser Willem when they stepped in to help.

"Thank you, m'lady," the dark knight mumbled as they followed a servant to the room set aside for the Lady of Winterfell.

"You wish to discuss my mother," the girl said, matter-of-factly.

"Yes, m'lady."

"Be easy, ser, I will vouch for you."

"Thank you, m'lady, but I meant to say that I would prefer you didn't."

The girl frowned and looked at her old friend. "Why ever not?"

"It's just… It's been so long since you've seen her, and she is… much changed. I do not like to think of you going to any trouble on my behalf, when you must be feeling…"

"It's no trouble, Ser Gendry, and you cannot expect me to allow you to suffer any ill consequences over this minor infraction when your intentions were good. And when you brought my Nymeria to me."

"It's more like Nymeria brought me to you than the other way around," he chuckled. "Still, I believe our lady will judge me fair. I'm not worried."

Liar, she thought, but did not say.

"Be that as it may," the girl replied, "I have a mind to say something about this, and so I shall." She tried to sound as imperious and commanding as she could, to lay the matter to rest. Gendry was not so easily led, however.

"M'lady, I mean no offense…"

"Then stop calling me m'lady," Arya suggested.

"…but I'm able to see to myself. I don't need your… interference, however well-intended."

I shall never need your rescue, ser. The memory of her words to Ser Brynden echoed in her head. Well, Gendry sounds even more pompous than I did, she decided.

"Do you worry I'll think less of you? That I'll find you weak?" she asked gently and the knight gave her a sharp look. She wondered perhaps if she had been a bit too exact in her voicing of Gendry's thoughts just then. I must remember to change the phrasing more, she admonished herself. Else he'll start to suspect. "You must allow me to do what I can without this needless protest," she continued quickly. "We are friends, are we not?"

"Friends," he repeated dubiously.

She ignored his tone. "Good. It's settled."

They had arrived at the door to her chamber. Gendry handed her things to the servant and bowed to Arya. Wordlessly, he turned and left, and the girl knew that things between them were anything but settled.

"Well," Arya had said once they had walked some distance from the camp and the curious eyes therein, "here we are. Talk."

The bastard knight hesitated, but only for a moment.

"You must understand, m'lady…"

He had paused a beat then and the Cat grew impatient.

"Must I?" she asked shortly. Her words spurred the large man on.

"I dreamed of you, when you were away."

"So you've said, ser."

"That is to say… You've been much on my mind and… I've thought of you, long before I was even certain you still lived. I dreamed of you."

"Yes. I know."

"Well…"

"Well, what, ser?"

"Well, it must… It must mean something." He seemed uncertain. "Mustn't it?"

"It means you had too much wine that night. Or too little. I'm not sure which."

"No!" Gendry insisted. "You were in my dreams, and it was as if I could feel you there, like you were truly there. And sometimes, even when I wasn't dreaming…"

"I assure you, ser, until very recently, I was in Braavos."

"No, I know, but…"

"But?"

"But you were here. I don't know how; I can't pretend to understand all these things. I know you were in Braavos, but you were here, too. The ghost of High Heart tried to tell me, but I was too stupid to see it then. I see it now, though. I feel it now. I know what I say is right. And what's more, you know it too." His gaze bored into her. She knew he wanted her to acknowledge the truth of what he was saying.

Instead, she laughed, a rich, throaty sound. It was the sort of laugh that would have infuriated her handsome master, or Jaqen, if she were laughing at them, and might have even bought her a bruise or three, but Gendry seemed only to grow more stubborn at the sound of it.

"Is this what you wished to tell me, ser? That you dreamt of me, and that dream felt real to you?"

"I dreamt of the Winter's Queen, m'lady, veiled in the northern snows, and at her side, a great wolf stood," he explained. "It was you. And here you are now, as much a queen as anything I ever dreamed. And you kissed me, and that was no dream. It happened, and you can deny it no more than you can deny you stand before me now. So how can you expect me to feel as if nothing has changed? As if I hadn't had my free will torn from me, and my… my heart claimed…"

"Bah!" the girl scoffed. "Claimed…"

"Yes! Taken from me by force! I never consented to it!"

"Am I a such a scoundrel, ser? Am I a thief?"

"No," Gendry replied, his brow creased and his eyes as beseeching as his voice then. "No, I do not make such a charge, but you asked me why your friendship isn't enough."

"And your answer is that I stole your free will."

"Yes," he agreed sadly, "for I ask you, how could I ever settle for friendship when I have felt the lips of the Winter's Queen on mine?"

Winter's Queen. The very idea was preposterous. She had wanted to laugh. As if there were such a person; as if she could ever be such a person. He must be mad, to say such a thing; to even think it! Only the look on his face as he spoke kept her in check; kept her from dissolving into fits of laughter. Arya stared at the blacksmith-knight, at his painfully sincere eyes, bright and blue and begging. It was as if he were speaking a foreign language she had not studied. His words made no sense to her.

"I am as you see before you," the girl finally said, palms turned up. "Look well, ser. I have no crown, and no aspirations to one. No veil of snow. No enviable graces or manners. I didn't step out of a song about ladies and knights and love. I didn't enter this world through your dream of me. This white flesh is cloaked in blood and pain, not cloth of silver or stars or whatever ridiculous image you have stuck in your head. My palms are calloused and my heart is hardened with more scars than I can count any longer. This is me, as I am, and you would be better served to forget your dream, for all our sakes."

She had walked away then, leaving Gendry to his contemplations, hoping he would find his peace with the truth. They had not spoken directly of the matter since, but the tension which existed between them over the rest of their journey made it obvious that for Gendry, there was little peace to be had.

And because he was unsettled, so she remained as well.

The sept at Acorn Hall was not a separate structure as it was at Winterfell, but rather a chamber set apart on the lowest level of the castle, quiet and out of the way where a devotee would trouble no one, and in turn, be troubled by no one. Ravella Smallwood often fled to the small temple to seek solace and pray for her lost daughter, lighting candles and weeping at the foot of the Maiden and of the Mother. The Cat had gleaned this information from the maid who brought her tray that evening then helped her with her bath and dressing. After she sent the woman away, the girl decided she would seek out the sept, and her mother, if Catelyn remained there, disregarding her host's warning that Lady Stoneheart wished to be left alone with only the gods for company.

Silent as a shadow, Arya crept down stone stairways and along empty corridors, searching for the chamber. When she happened upon a heavy wooden door carved with a seven pointed star, she knew she had the place. She drew in one great breath, then pushed into the cell.

The room was gloomy, lit only by a few dwindling tapers. Tapestries faded with age hung the walls, one for each of the seven, embroidered with their likenesses. The work was fine, and very old. Directly opposite the door, across the chamber, was a stone dais, raised perhaps two feet above the floor, with a step placed to make ascending in heavy skirts more practical. In the center of the dais was a kneeler, facing an alcove built into the far wall which served as an altar.

A hooded figure prayed at the kneeler, grey robes fanning out and draping the floor of the dais. At the sound of the door creaking open, the figure straightened, then rose, slowly turning to face the intruder.

The Cat stilled, staring at the woman whose face was too shrouded for her to be sure of the features. The girl took one hesitant step forward, then another, straining to see some sign that this was the one she sought. The build was right, but of more than that, the girl could not be certain. The woman raised her hand to her neck and clutched. The girl mistook the gesture for one of distress and strode forward to help however she could. She was stopped by a single word.

"Arya," the woman croaked, her thin, white fingers curling around her own throat like a necklace made of bleached bones.

The girl gasped, unable to speak. The word mother caught in her throat and she could not force it out, no matter how she longed to. She stood motionless for a time, she knew not how long, ten seconds or ten years. Everything felt still and quiet all around her, as if the very air had frozen solid and she could not move through it. Fixed in her place, Arya's ears rang and her insides trembled. She forgot to breathe entirely, until she was near a faint. Wildly, she wondered if she were caught in a dream, or a trance, or some similarly ephemeral imagining.

The girl stared and stared into the darkness beneath the woman's hood and watched as the frail hand dropped away from the unnaturally pale neck and stretched forth, beckoning. It was then the spell was broken, all in a rush, and Arya ran, stumbling over the loose stones in the floor, falling onto her knees and bruising them through her breeches. She was up again in half a second, crying and running, leaping over the step onto the dais, reaching and reaching until she felt her, her arms clasped desperately around her mother as if she were afraid the woman was made of mist and would float away from her at any moment.

Arya laid her cheek against her mother's breast, not feeling how doughy and wrong it was, looking through her tears at the hair which trailed down from Catelyn's head and over her shoulders, laying limp against her robes. The girl reached out and took the brittle, white strands in her one hand, petting at them haltingly; softly. Stroking them like they were still the shining, red waves she remembered from so long ago; from another lifetime entirely.

"Mother," she finally whispered, barely able to form words. "Oh, Mother! I've come. I've come. How I've wanted you. I've wanted you for so long. I've come!" Her words became incoherent among her choking sobs.

"My… child…" Lady Stoneheart rasped, digging her long, sharp fingers into Arya's flesh. She pressed one ruined cheek to the top of her daughter's head. "My… dark… child."

Outside—Stained

Chapter Text

Some things you can't go back to

because you let them slip away.

The Bear stalked down a dim passageway in Acorn Hall, purposely ignoring how the rough, grey stones of the floors beneath his boots looked very much like the rough, grey stones he had walked over hundreds of times, thousands, in the corridors of the House of Black and White. Had he been a man of less discipline, he could've easily lost himself to his memories for a few moments, or a few hours, his recollections bleeding one into the next (his master, his brothers, his love, his sister, his choice, his pain, his hope), but he brushed those thoughts away as easily as a gnat is brushed from a sleeve, Faceless after all.

His training was good for something, it seemed.

He had no time for such self-indulgence; he sought the Cat (his sister, his choice, his hope), and he knew where she would go. Or, more precisely, he understood who it was that she would go to, but the where of it was something he had been forced to discover (lest he wander this unfamiliar keep for half a day, knocking on doors and peering into rooms). He noticed her absence when the party broke its fast in the dining hall soon after the sunrise. The Bear knew if she were not sleeping late in her chamber (and when had she ever done that?) or terrifying knights and squires in the training yard, there was only one other place she would be found: with her mother.

The Lady Stoneheart.

In the Bear's short stay beneath the Smallwood's roof, he'd overheard the whispers, mutterings of those who had newly seen the resurrected Catelyn Stark. The scandalized utterances came mostly from servants, expressions of fear, and of barely contained revulsion. Though Arya had not spoken overmuch of her mother to him since learning of Catelyn's survival (survival wasn't quite right, though, was it?), he understood that Lady Stark had died, her murder a brutal, contemptible thing, decried in the Riverlands and beyond as the foulest of sins. And he also understood that somehow, the lady walked once more, a band of men sworn to serve her following close at her back.

Some of the servants claimed the woman was no woman at all, but a daemon, spat up from one of the seven hells to scourge the land, punishment for the violation of guest right perpetrated at the Twins. Others said that she was a wraith, driven to murderous rage by the loss of her children. Still others believed her to be a woods witch, an instrument of the old gods, sent to rid the world of unbelievers, making offerings of them to the trees and crows. The proof of that could be seen readily in the wilderness surrounding the great castles of the land, or so the braver of the servants swore. In those places, those dark forests and lonely woods, the tree branches hung heavy with the corpses of countless of Freys and Lannisters and anyone connected to them who chanced to cross paths with the Brotherhood. Lady Stoneheart mercilessly cleansed the lands she roamed, devouring life unworthy, fueled by righteous hatred and a desire for revenge

And if that was true, there was much of her mother to be found inside of Arya Stark, the Bear realized.

The assassin considered the Lady Stoneheart for a moment. He had yet to see her, but thinking of her caused his brow to furrow, deep creases forming above his nose. Something akin to dread crept up from his toes and clenched at his gut as he thought of his sister in her mother's company. A corpse, three days in the river if the stories were to be believed, walked these very same passageways. Fire magic, or blood magic, or something even more sinister, perhaps, was surely at the core of her resurrection. The knowledge chilled the Bear to his very center.

For who knew better than he the price which must be paid for such magic?

And that thought he brushed away as well (his love, his choice, his pain), though not as easily as a gnat is brushed from a sleeve. It rankled him to realize it was the principal elder's lessons he heeded, but still, the false Dornishman ruled his thoughts. Where a plump-cheeked, smiling face had tried to form in his mind, the Faceless knight instead replaced it with the face of his sister. The Cat's wide, grey gaze descended over those large brown eyes framed by dark curls, bouncing and taunting. Olive's flirtatious smile was erased in favor of one of his sister's scowls.

The Faceless knight rounded a corner and found the narrow stairwell which descended to the lowest level of the keep. He took the steps two at a time, the sound of his footfalls surprisingly light for a man of his size. Stealth, he had learned from his Faceless master, but grace was the gift of his sister and her water dancing.

Grace, she had to spare. Obedience was a different tale.

It did not surprise him in the least that the Cat had ignored her host's instruction to give her mother the solitude and peace Lord Smallwood claimed the lady had requested. The large assassin snorted slightly to himself at the thought. The master of Acorn Hall did not understand Arya Stark at all if he believed any words from his lips could ever stop her from doing exactly as she pleased. The Bear doubted even Him of Many Faces would have the power to dissuade his sister once she had decided to do a thing.

The Bear could not be sure why their host had even bothered with such a dictate in the first place; whether Lord Smallwood had hoped to choreograph the reunion himself, creating a formal spectacle for his household and his guests, the sort of ceremony these Western lords seemed to demand and relish, or whether he hoped to somehow keep the two Stark women from meeting at all. The large assassin did not concern himself for long with Theomar's murky aims. Let his clever sister puzzle that out, if she so desired. He merely wished to find her, and assure himself of her well-being.

And assure himself that she was not engaged in some foolhardy plan more like to break her neck than further her cause.

Her cause.

The Bear thought of his sister's cause, of the names she whispered to herself in the night, and the creases above his nose deepened even more. He quickened his pace.

He'd already been to his sister's room and there, he'd found the chambermaid tasked with attending the Smallwood's most distinguished guest. The maid admitted to telling "the great lady" (oh, how the Cat would frown at that!) where she might find the sept the previous evening as she'd helped unpack the Stark heir's things.

" Oh?" the Faceless-knight had said, moving closer to the maid as she gathered up the supper dishes that had been left untouched on a table near the bed. "And where do you suppose my lady is now?"

The girl had swallowed nervously. "I... I think she must still be in the sept, milord. Her bed's not been slept in, and she didn't eat one morsel of this food." The maid had whispered that last, as if it were some scandal or great secret.

"And where, my dear, is the sept?" The 'my dear' had been pronounced with a touch of warmth as the false Dornishman tilted his head slightly, a small smile curving his lips just so.

The servant had been reluctant to answer his question at first, fearing retribution if the fearsome Lady Stoneheart and her daughter were disturbed, but he'd finally gotten it out of her, persuading her with soft reassurances and even softer touches. He had been mostly Faceless then as well, purposely ignoring how the curve of one girl's neck and the taste of one girl's skin could be so very unlike another's.

Had he been a man of less discipline, he could have easily lost himself to his memories for a few moments, or a few years, recollections crashing one into the next (his love, his sister, his choice, his pain. His love. His sister. His choice. His pain), but he brushed them away, Faceless after all.

When he'd pushed open the heavy door leading into the dimly lit sept, the Bear found the two Stark women there. The elder, seated on a bench, was bent at her slender neck, bringing her whispering lips close to her daughter's ear. The girl knelt before her mother, her arms wrapped tightly around Catelyn's legs, her head in Catelyn's lap. All Arya's dark hair had come unbound, trailing over her one shoulder as her mother's thin, pale fingers raked through it, over and over again. The sight of it made the Bear pause, a slight frown tugging at his mouth as he studied the strange tableau.

It looked wrong, somehow. More than that, it felt wrong.

It might have been a tender scene, but for the savage expression on Catelyn's ruined face and the sound of her ceaseless, rasping utterances. Her murmurs, despite their muted delivery, somehow seemed to fill the chamber with hoarse echoes, reminding the Bear of the choked whispers of the dying in the main temple chamber; desperate prayers pushing out past stiffening lips at the feet of this god or that, the final pleas of those who had sought the gift from his order. As he stood in the doorway and listened, the assassin began to wonder if Lady Stoneheart had no need of breath, so constant were the quiet words which poured from her mouth and into her daughter's ear.

The robes covering the woman's knees were wet through, stained by the silent tears tracking down Arya's cheeks and onto the rough spun grey cloth. The girl did not seem to blink, did not sniffle or rub at her eyes, but merely stared into the distance and wept without sound. This sight disturbed the large assassin most of all.

The Cat never cried.

His memory cast itself back to their last night in the Braavos, and he recalled his sister thrashing in her bed, talking in her sleep, caught between a nightmare and her grief, held captive in that strange twilight between waking and dreaming by one of the waif's potions.

Almost never, he amended grimly, walking once again, moving through the sept's doorway and finally entering the chamber.

At the faint sound of leather soles scuffing stone, Lady Stoneheart's scratchy whisperings halted abruptly. The women both looked up then, their heads turning in unison toward the sept's door and the man looming just inside of it. Ser Willem cleared his throat.

His tone was almost apologetic as he bowed slightly and said, "My ladies."

The old tongue, harsh and clipped, felt thick in his throat. His mastery of it was... incomplete. And so, he mostly nodded, grunted, and gestured, speaking as little as possible. Not that he was expected to say much, anyway. These fine, fat lords did not seek his counsel, and should it be required, he would have to rely on the boy-chief to translate his words anyway, for no fine, fat lord understood the Old Tongue, save for a few common words.

Magnar: Lord.

Skagosi: Stoneborn.

Sygerrik: Deceiver.

He smiled slightly at that.

Even as a looming, brutish savage, half a giant, he was still handsome, beneath the caked tribal paint and smelly furs and tangled beard. He might have chosen differently, and probably should have, but he could not help himself. Thick, Myrish lashes curled above eyes bluer than the Shivering Sea on a summer day. All men had their flaws. He supposed there were worse sins than vanity.

And he had always preferred to look at things through his own eyes.

Whether looking through false eyes or his own, however, he could see nothing of his little wolf in this boy-chief's face, but there was no doubt this boy was a wolf in his own right. Barbarous, fierce, always bristling, only a moment from baring his teeth, the boy radiated a barely-contained threat everywhere he moved.

Much like the hulking, black beast that skulked around his master's back, always pacing, always watching.

Lillikaskoer: Shaggydog.

The boy, ten, or maybe one and ten, was large for his age, with long, fiery locks twisted into well-oiled braids. His Wildling nursemaid would not allow that tell-tale Tully hair to mat. How the boy howled and fought her attentions, yet she always won out. Perhaps in protest of her grooming, or perhaps in a show of fealty to his adopted home, the boy's pale cheeks and freckles were masked by the same deep blue paint the Faceless Skagosi himself wore, and bits of bone and feathers were stuck here and there in his braids. He looked a proper cannibal, and the assassin could not be certain the appearance wasn't simply a reflection of the truth.

After all, eating the meat of a unicorn was considered the gravest of sins on Skagos, and not much else with flesh for eating walked that forsaken rock. And it would explain the name the Skagosi clansmen had bestowed upon the boy, the name he now preferred.

Bludvargg.

Bloodwolf.

Of course, it could be reasoned that he had earned the name when Lillikaskoer ate the Magnar of Heligatrad. The attack was not unprovoked, and for all its brutality, the clansmen of Heligatrad agreed it was just (the Faceless warrior apprehended that justice had a somewhat different meaning on Skagos than in other places). The Magnar had made some insult toward the boy-chief, and an off-hand threat. The menace was sufficient for boy and wolf together to leap, one armed with a crude bone dagger, one with sharp claws, and both with teeth. When the tribesmen talked of the carnage, the one thing their stories always had in common was how both boy and wolf had been covered in the Magnar's blood by the end, their hair slick with it, and how the pair had sat afterwards, growling and snapping, while the blood dried stiff and red-brown around their mouths and in their hair, shaping it into sharp peaks like the points of daggers. It had taken the Wildling woman two days to cleanse the boy and make him recognizable once more.

It had only taken a moment for the clansmen to proclaim him Bludvargg, Magnar of Heligatrad.

There was another part of the tale that the false-warrior had not heard. A part that was known to the boy-chief alone.

As the barbaric boy growled and glowered, his skin painted and prickling with the drying blood of his enemy, the scarlet leaves of the holy tree for which the village was named had whispered high above the heads of the clansmen. Even as the Stoneborn shouted and cried out, "Bludvargg! Bludvargg! Bludvargg!", the wind had sighed through the branches and leaves of the weirwood, murmuring different, older names, ones the boy-chief sometimes forgot.

Rickon.

Winterfell.

Stark.

And even amid the clanging of spears against shields and the guttural cries of the Skagosi, the boy-chief heard.

Ignoring Ser Willem's protestations ("You should eat, and rest first, my lady." She had merely snorted in response), Arya found her way to the bailey yard of Acorn Hall. The castle was small, almost more of a holdfast, and the main Bailey yard was used as a training ground as well. It wasn't that the yard was particularly well suited or well outfitted for the task, it was simply that it was the only space large enough to allow for several fighters to swing their swords and spears at once, without knocking into walls or tripping over troughs. Of course, much of the business of the hall traversed the yard, so there was the added obstacle of dodging groomsmen leading horses and maids carrying baskets of vegetables from the root cellar to the kitchens. Arya welcomed the extra challenge, though she was not entirely sure the servants felt the same, at least if one were to believe their harried steps and alarmed expressions when an errant jab or careening knight came too near them.

The Cat found herself in need of the distraction after her many hours in her mother's company. Catelyn's exhortations and explanations and designs, endlessly rasped into the girl's ear, bounced and rattled in her head and in her heart. There was so much, too much, for her to consider in her current state, and she thought that steel and sweat would better serve her than disjointed contemplations at that moment. Her teeth buzzed, her insides scratched, her fingers flexed and relaxed, flexed and relaxed. Arya hoped movement, and violence, would claim her focus and cure her unrest. She could sort out her plans, and her mother's, after she'd had some sleep and sustenance.

But first, she had a great need to dance.

She practiced with Harwin, who was a better horseman than he was a swordsman, but the yard was nearly empty when she first arrived, and so she could not afford to be choosy with her partner. The Northman quizzed her on her meeting with her mother as she danced and ducked his blows, lazily tapping her blunted training swords against his as she moved.

"How do you find the Lady Stoneheart, milady?"

"Find her?" Arya seemed preoccupied.

"Her mood," he clarified. "How did she seem to you?"

"Aggrieved," the girl replied, the flat of her heavy blade slapping harshly against her partner's shoulder. All laziness about her efforts seemingly evaporated in an instant.

"Oomph!" Harwin grunted, stumbling back slightly. He squinted at the Cat before replying, "Yes, though she runs thin on targets for her grievances."

"Really?"

Their blades clashed, the sound of the ringing steel mixing with the whinnying of a horse and the annoyed clucking of chickens that scattered as an off-duty guardsman edged carefully along the wall of the yard, disturbing their pecking and scratching.

"You mother has had us at our task for quite some time, milady." The Northman moved cautiously around the girl, trying to keep out of her reach. It proved more difficult than he credited. She tagged his hip crisply with her smaller sword, even as he continued his explanation through gritted teeth, wincing at the pain of the blow. "The countryside is nearly devoid of enemies now. Ones that are breathing, at least. There are still plenty of Freys to be seen swinging high overhead, if you're inclined to stroll through certain woods. I wouldn't recommend it, though. The smell..."

"There's Walder Frey," the girl interrupted, her tone light. She moved like a snake then, coiling, sliding, dangerously close. Harwin retreated, avoiding her quick strike, but just barely. The Northman's tone took on a lecturing quality. He sounded almost exasperated, and Arya suspected this was not the first time he'd discussed the subject.

"Lord Frey is protected by high stone walls and a wide river too deep to ford. Lannister forces patrol the region, and only the gods know how many household guards are sharpening their blades beneath the roof of the Twins as we speak."

"Not everything worth doing is simple, Harwin." The girl moved deftly aside, avoiding the Northman's powerful cut.

"It's not a matter of simple, milady," he grunted in answer. "It's a matter of impossible."

"Impossible? Hmmm," Arya mused. "All the greater the glory will be for the man who achieves it, then."

"It won't be glory people talk of when they discuss any man attempting that mission, I assure you, milady. It'll be his foolishness, and where to bury his bones."

She considered Harwin's words, then replied, "As you say. Utter foolishness." She slipped past his thrusting longsword then, so fast and so quiet that he could not make sense of her proximity, even as she pressed a thin knife against his throat. He had not even realized she carried it. She had dropped the smaller of her training blades to grasp the dagger and he felt its sting before the blunted rapier had even hit the ground. The hilt of her heavier training blade pressed firmly against the small of his back, forcing him to straighten, pushing his neck uncomfortably against the sharp edge of her tiny dagger. "Who could be so bold?" she whispered. "Who could be so cunning?"

Harwin swallowed, his eyes turning toward the girl's face below his own, then said hoarsely, "She would never ask it. Not of her own daughter."

Arya dropped the knife from Harwin's neck and stepped back, cocking her head as she studied the man's worried expression. Slowly, her lips curled, a small, malicious smirk shaping her mouth before she spoke again.

"She wouldn't have to."

After Harwin bowed and wordlessly retreated from the yard, the Cat found herself alone, but not yet spent. And so, she practiced familiar drills, the ones taught to her by Syrio Forel. She had long since mastered them, surpassing the need for them, but she performed them still, from time to time. They brought her back to an age when her most pressing worries had been avoiding her septa's glares, imagining the best retorts to Sansa's biting criticisms, and capturing the feral cats which roamed the Red Keep. As is the way with the young, still untouched by the world and its horrors, she had not understood how carefree her life was then, but she understood it now. Syrio's drills carried her back to that time, and she could almost grasp the sense of unnamed joy she had felt then, amid the clacking of wooden swords and the Braavosi man's quick, pointed instructions, happy noises filling the room where they practiced.

" Lift your sword. Higher, boy!"

" Your arm must be straight, boy, unless you mean to duel the flagstones!"

" Boy! You will be paying attention or you will be a dead boy!"

Arya moved her body so that she stood sideface, closing her eyes and repeating the drills once again, training blade cutting the air before her in swooping arcs. Nimble turns and snaps of her wrist brought her sword into contact with the blade of an imagined opponent and she dueled with a precision that would have made her old master proud.

"I'm not a boy," she recalled saying to the Braavosi man. "I'm a girl!"

Syrio had shrugged in a way that would become very familiar to her over time. "Boy? Girl? You are a sword, that is all."

"I am a sword," Arya breathed quietly, eyes still closed. She moved meticulously through the steps of the drill, just as she'd learned them from the First Sword of Braavos. "I am a sword. That is all."

And for a moment, the sweetest, briefest moment, she felt it again, that joy of unspoiled childhood. The insouciant jubilation of a naive young girl whose father had indulged her in her fantasy. She had been allowed to believe that one day, she would be more than just the wife of some mealy-mouthed lord. That one day, if she chose it, she could be...

A sword.

" Who are you, child?"

The Kindly Man's words bubbled up inside of her, unbidden; unwelcome. The memory was like a splash of icy water on her bare back and she froze, opening her eyes and staring straight ahead. Her sword remained at the ready, as if she expected the principal elder to step from behind the hay wagon in the corner of the yard and threaten her with his own narrow blade.

Arya dropped her arms, looking down at the scuffs on the toes of her boots and sighing deeply. He would not make it so easy for her as to show his face here, at Acorn Hall, and allow her to seek her vengeance with so little effort on her part, and she was no longer a child to be appeased by such fantasy.

" Who are you, child?"

" No one," she had replied without hesitation.

The Kindly Man just shook his head, looking at her sadly before he walked away without further comment.

She wondered if the elder would have been less disappointed if she'd answered that she was a sword. Or the ghost in Harrenhal. Or Arya Stark. Or any one of a thousand other things or people or ideas she had been or would be or wished to be.

The Cat scowled, her cheeks burning with a sudden fury. Unreasoning, unthinking, she bounded toward the hay wagon and began hacking at the piles of straw within, gracelessly chopping and slashing as she grunted and cried out. Her utterances were nonsense, mere sounds, unformed expressions of hatred and frustration and anger: for the Kindly Man; for the names on her list; for her own impotence; for herself, wasting time on pointless memories. She held the training blade with two hands, like an axe, and swung wildly, her blows unrelenting. If a man had hidden himself beneath that straw, his skull would have been crushed and his chest caved in by the time she was through.

Exhausted, finally, she stumbled back, the muscles of her shoulders and arms burning like wildfire. She breathed heavily through her nose, sweat beading on her forehead as the blinding white rage in her mind subsided. She bent over, wheezing a little from the exertion (and the hay, too, most like), leaning on the heavy training blade like a crone leaning on a walking stick. She gasped and began to laugh at herself.

"Ridiculous child!" her little voice pronounced and the girl could not dispute the charge.

And then all she could think of was how disappointed Syrio would've been at such a display. The lack of finesse. The absence of control.

"My gods," she snorted, "the grip." For her dancing master had been an absolute daemon when it came to proper grip. She shook with laughter then, thinking of it. He was like to have thwacked her arse with his wooden sword a time or two, had he witnessed her two-handed grip on the training blade and the brutish way she swung it into the hay. Early on, Syrio had taught her that the grip must be delicate, a mother's touch; a lover's caress. She closed her eyes once again, breathing deeply, and remembered.

Her dancing master appraised her grip, adjusted it, then stood back to inspect. "That is the grip," he said. "Do you feel it? The difference?"

The girl nodded.

" You are not holding a battle-axe," he groused, in his way. "You are holding..."

" A needle," the girl interrupted, finishing his sentence.

" A needle," her instructor repeated, his approving smile sending a thrill straight through Arya's chest. "Just so."

She grinned and then turned sideface, ready to begin again.

"My lady," a voice called from the edge of the yard. Arya's eyes flew open and she saw Jaime Lannister striding toward her. She dropped her sword to her side and scrutinized the golden knight.

"Ser," she greeted, her voice and face guarded. She was not certain what she should make of this renegade Lannister. The Maid of Tarth certainly trusted him, but Arya had always instinctively mistrusted the Kingslayer, even as a girl of nine watching him ride through the gates of Winterfell, haughty expression on his handsome face. And she blamed him for her father's wounded leg, though in the greater scheme, a festering leg in plaster was the least of Ned Stark's troubles at that time.

"What crime has that pile of straw committed against you? Tell me, my lady, and I shall have it flogged."

The knight's green eyes twinkled with mirth.

"Merely an exercise, my lord," the girl answered stiffly. "Sometimes, I have an overabundance of energy, and I find it difficult to perform the more mundane of my daily tasks if I do not find a way to spend it first."

"It seems you're in need of a sparring partner." He grinned. "To help you spend that... energy."

The girl bit her lip, looking at the knight's golden hand. He followed her gaze and laughed a little, the amused sound not completely masking the bitterness there.

"Don't worry, my lady. I've learned to use my left hand very well since Vargo Hoat relieved me of the burden of my right."

"So have I," Arya said with a sly smile. "Though the Bloody Mummers left me with both hands intact."

The golden knight was befuddled. "When did you chance across that pack of rabid dogs?"

Arya turned her gaze toward the morning sky, feigning difficulty with recollection.

"Oh, I suppose it was years ago," the Cat answered.

Ser Jaime's eyebrows were raised in surprise but then he squinted, grasping at some remembered bit of knowledge. "I do seem to recall some talk of you in Harrenhal, now that I think of it. Must have been there, right? They were there at the same time as you?"

"They were," she admitted, and did not add, and Jaqen was there, too.

"Wasn't that where you fell in love with Robert's bastard?"

Robert's bastard? Thinking of Jaqen as she was, she was confused for a moment.

"What?"

"Yes, you and our orphaned blacksmith. I remember now. He heroically rescued you from Harrenhal and brought you safely to the Brotherhood, so that they could reunite you with your mother."

"That's not what hap..."

"But then the Hound stole you away, isn't that so? What an adventure that must have been!" Jaime seemed quite delighted with the tale. He elbowed Arya conspiratorially. "I can't say you chose the more handsome of the two, but at least Clegane was true-born, whatever else you may think of him. Does that make you the Lady of Clegane's Keep now?"

Nothing he said made sense to her. She knew he was teasing her, but fatigued as she was, distracted by thoughts of Jaqen, and by her memories of Syrio and the Kindly Man, she did not find Jaime's japing funny in the least.

"What in the seven bloody hells are you blathering about?" She wasn't sure why she was allowing him to irritate her, but she felt a great desire to smash her fist against his perfect nose just then. If Ser Jaime read the menace in her, he chose to ignore it and continue his needling.

"Oh, was the marriage not consummated, then? I had assumed you were widowed and..."

Arya's sword came crashing down on Jaime before he could finish whatever jibe he had been planning, but he caught her blunted blade with his golden hand and pushed her back with surprising strength, considering he barely had time to intercept her strike. Only her excellent balance kept her on her feet. The girl looked at him with disbelief.

"It's an unconventional technique, I'll admit," the knight grinned, holding up his golden hand and turning it this way, then that, "but what use is a hand made of solid gold if you can't use it to stop a sword every now and again?"

The Cat stopped her attack, her mouth slightly open in disbelief. She took a tentative step toward the man, ready to defend herself if necessary. He made no move to threaten her and so she took another step and then reached out for his golden hand. Jaime did not stop her as she took it and gently held it between her palms, inspecting it. There were nicks and gouges all over its surface, the entire shining appendage marked and scarred.

"It's hardly what my father had in mind when he had it made for me," Ser Jaime confided, "but then, there's not much about me these days that he did have in mind." The knight smiled at her and Arya saw a sadness in his eyes that she could have never predicted.

"The same could be said for me, ser."

The knight regarded her quietly for a moment, then said, "I suppose that's true." Jaime smiled again, a thin smile, one that did not indicate much happiness at his thoughts. "Shall we continue, my lady?"

Arya thought of his remarks about her in Harrenhal and Robert's bastard and the Hound, and said, "Oh, yes. Let's do."

They both stalked away, finding their desired positions, and turned, raising their swords. Before either could make a move, however, they were interrupted by Lady Brienne, jogging into the yard and calling after them.

"Ser Jaime," Brienne started.

"Wench," Jaime greeted amiably, his smile broadened by the exasperated look the large woman gave him them.

"...and Lady Arya," Brienne continued without pause, "I think you'd better come."

"What is it?" the girl asked.

"The Lady Sto... Your mother, I mean, is ready to hear Ser Gendry's petition."

"Oh, is that all?" said the golden knight lazily. "Hardly worth interrupting training, don't you agree, Stark?"

Arya considered. Gendry had told her he did not need her intercession. Despite that, the girl had still mentioned to her mother Gendry's part in bringing her to Acorn Hall and into the protection of the Brotherhood and the River lords. She might have even embellished her old friend's part a bit, to cast him in a more favorable light (that she had lied to her mother in a sept had not bothered her one bit). But Catelyn had so much else to tell her, all through the night, and into the morning... The girl couldn't be sure how her mother would deal with the blacksmith-knight.

Brienne gave Ser Jaime an annoyed look, but addressed herself to Arya. "Your mother... is not known for... leniency, my lady. I think it best if you were there, to speak for him if need be."

The girl nodded, then moved to replace her training sword.

"Really?" Jaime said, disappointed, though Arya could not be sure if it was because their duel would be postponed or because Brienne was showing concern for Gendry. The girl ignored him, continuing to walk away even as he called after her, "Stark, does this mean you're still in love with him?"

You could throw a dagger just past his ear, maybe nick him a little, her little voice suggested.

No, she decided, it's my favorite throwing blade. I'd have to go back to retrieve it, and there's no time.

Most of the Brotherhood had gathered in the dining hall by the time Arya and Brienne arrived (Ser Jaime trailed in not long after them, likely not wishing to miss the entertaining scene of watching Gendry beg for mercy from a woman renowned for denying it). The high windows filtered down the sunlight and the room, though not exceptionally bright, was much less dim than the sept had been. It was for this reason that Arya was startled by her mother's appearance.

Catelyn (Lady Stoneheart, Arya recalled with a grimace), stood at the far end of the chamber, where the high table for the family and noble guests was arranged. She looked thinner and frailer than she had seemed only a night before, her face and neck so unnaturally pale that Arya rubbed her eyes and blinked, thinking perhaps the appearance was merely a trick of her fatigued mind. Even from across the room, she could see the wound in her mother's neck, black and ragged, and looking at it caused the girl's heart to pound.

Lady Stoneheart was dressed in the same grey rough spun robes she had worn the night before. The plain garment was belted at the waist with what appeared to be a measure of thick cord, the sort of thing used in work around farms or by other sorts of laborers rather than something a lady would choose as an adornment. That as much as anything startled the girl, for her mother's appearance had never been anything less than impeccable, fine and polished, for all the years of her memory. Yet here, beneath Lord Smallwood's roof, the woman looked more like a beggar in the streets of King's Landing than a highborn lady married into one of the greatest houses in the land.

No, not even a like beggar, Arya corrected herself. Like a beggar's corpse.

The girl's face fell, and she was enveloped with an unexpected sadness.

"Lady Arya, are you well?" Brienne asked discreetly. "You looked... suddenly pale."

Rule your face.

"No, I'm fine," the girl lied. "The exertions, earlier... with no rest, and no food... I should probably find some bread and ale when we're done here."

"I can have someone fetch you some now, if you like, my lady."

"Don't trouble yourself. I'll be fine."

"Forgive me for saying, but I hope you aren't worrying yourself unduly. With you here to vouch for him, your mother will not deal so harshly with Ser Gendry as she otherwise might have."

"Hmm?" The girl turned to look at the knightly woman, her expression quizzical. "Oh, no. No, I'm not worried about that."

It was then that the bastard-knight walked into the hall, his jaw set grimly. He approached Lady Stoneheart and bowed respectfully, then found a seat between Thoros and Harwin. Then men all nodded to one another and Harwin clapped the knight reassuringly on the back.

"I think the last time she tried to hang anyone in the Brotherhood was when she had a noose around my own neck," Brienne recalled, pulling Arya's attention away from Gendry and his companions. "But, I hadn't yet joined her cause then, so I'm not sure that really counts." The knightly woman seemed to be trying to reassure the girl.

"My mother tried to hang you?" The girl was incredulous.

"I suppose, if we are being completely factual, she did hang me. Both me and Pod, but only briefly."

"Pod?"

"My squire. Well, he was my squire at the time. Now he's Ser Podrick, of the Hollow Hill."

"Ah. We've not met."

"I imagine he's about somewhere." Brienne craned her neck, searching the chamber. "Yes, there, in the corner, next to Ser Jaime."

Arya's gaze flicked briefly to an affable looking man, dark of hair, exchanging pleasantries with the Kingslayer. She turned back to the Maid of Tarth, her eyes narrowing a bit.

"So, my mother had you hanged, then changed her mind, one presumes fairly quickly?"

Brienne swallowed at the memory but nodded. Both women turned their eyes back toward the Lady Stoneheart and watched as Theomar Smallwood approached her. The two spoke in low tones, Catelyn clutching at her throat and wheezing out her gravelly whispers into his ear. The Lord of Acorn Hall nodded and then motioned to his man, a servant of some sort, who fetched a chair. Catelyn sat then, and with that action, the chamber became hushed.

Brienne leaned down to speak her own whispers to Arya. "Still, my lady, for all that she favors the noose, I expect that for Ser Gendry, it will amount to little more than a flogging."

"A flogging?"

Several of the men of Acorn Hall who had filtered in around them and some of the Brotherhood turned to stare at the girl then. She bit her lip and choked down further exclamation. She could see Ser Jaime in his corner, smirking.

"Mmm."

"But, he didn't do anything wrong!" Arya protested in a hushed voice. "She can't have him flogged!"

"He deserted, without a word to anyone, took weapons and a horse, not to mention the wolves, and then never thought to send word back to the Hill."

"But that was for me! He did it because... he knew I was coming. He just wanted to help me. And he doesn't control the wolves. If anything, Nymeria left and dragged him along!"

"And when you explain that to your mother, I'm sure she'll take it into consideration. Hopefully, the witnesses against him have a less compelling argument."

"Witnesses against him?"

Arya had not expected this to be such a formal undertaking. She'd thought Gendry would simply explain to her mother why he'd left, beg for her mercy, and it would be done. Brienne was talking as if this were an actual trial. Witnesses? Would they call Nymeria for testimony? She half-expected to see a septon approach and ask if they would all swear to tell the truth before the Seven.

"Well, there were those who had to cover his watches," the knightly woman explained, "but I imagine your testimony will carry as much weight as all that."

"Good." She hadn't realized she'd have to speak for Gendry in a trial. She had thought speaking to her mother in the sept would be enough to spare her friend any unpleasantness. Now, it seemed, other eyes would be watching and other ears would be listening.

And other men would be judging.

Ser Jaime's teasing words came back to her. Stark, does this mean that you're still in love with him?

Gods only knew what nonsense and gossip her testimony would fuel. She closed her eyes and sighed. It wasn't to be helped. If her words could save Gendry, then she would speak them, consequences be damned.

"But I don't understand why Lord Smallwood stays," Brienne was saying.

Arya looked up to note that Theomar Smallwood now sat on a bench near her mother's position, facing the mistress of the Brotherhood, as if he meant to spectate.

Why would Lord Smallwood care about such an unimportant Brotherhood matter? Why would he be interested in what happened to a low-born knight?

"Unless... Unless he means to give an account," Brienne continued, her words slow and thoughtful.

"An account of what?"

Lady Brienne's expression was both perplexed and troubled at that. "I know not, my lady."

Can't Go Back--Rosie Golan

Chapter Text

I want you, and I always will.

Pacing, pacing, pacing.

The dried needles of sentinel pines rustled under her paws, some sticky with sap, clinging to the fur of her forefeet. Her cousins hunted, but she paced, restless, agitated, unsure.

That was the girl in her.

The wolf did not question. The wolf did not doubt. The girl brought those things with her, even though she had sought to escape them. Wasn't that why she ran with the wolves this night? To leave uncertainty behind? To abandon her confusion? To escape her grief?

The wolf growled.

Frustration.

That belonged to both the girl and the wolf. To grieve for more than a moment was a waste. To ponder, to agonize, to ruminate, all a waste. The only memory which deserved to live on was one which served as a lesson. All else was mist; wind; an illusory reminiscence without purpose. Wolves were not so self-indulgent. A wolf did not need to reflect to know her mind. When the moon was high, there was but one imperative, and it had naught to do with turmoil.

Hunt.

Feed.

The wolf did not have the words, but the desire was there, easy enough to read; to feel. Mouth slavering. Teeth bared and bluish white in the moonlight. Pacing. Pacing. Her cousins howled, not a quarter of a league away. They had found quarry and called to her.

Something else called to the girl; something entirely different.

Memory.

One which may or may not have served as a useful lesson.

"Family," Catelyn had said, fingers of one hand clutched over the wound in her neck as her voice wheezed up from her chest, strained and painful, "must be avenged." Her other hand raked through Arya's hair, fingers pulling and digging, the gesture almost a mockery of affection. All of Lady Stoneheart's tenderness was long dead, buried and decayed.

Hunt, the wolf insisted, snout pointed in the air, searching for the scent of blood and meat.

" I cannot," was the girl's answer, and so she left the wolf out of kindness, out of mercy, and flew away, across the wood, over the high walls of the small castle, and back into herself, thrashing in her sleep.

And instantly, what she had sought to escape came back to her. Stung, she cried out.

The cold.

It had been so very cold, a chill unlike any she had felt before. She had never been so cold, not in her whole life.

Not when she had run barefoot in the summer snows of the wolfswood in her youth.

Not when she had ruined her slippers and hem with mud in Winterfell's godswood and Septa Mordane had forced her into an icy bath, both to clean her and to punish her; to chastise her for her unruly and disobedient behavior.

Not during the winter storms that tossed Titan's Daughter as she crossed the sea to Westeros, standing on the deck to watch the skies rage, soaked through with the rains and the salt foam tossed over her feet and splashed up onto her face. The water was so frigid, her brother swore her lips were purpled and stayed that way for an hour after he'd wrapped her tight in a fur and held her against his chest, to warm her with his body.

So cold, and dark, too, the darkness pressing against her, hard. The thoughts were heavy, and sharp, and abrupt, falling upon her like stones, like boulders; an avalanche. The thoughts were thick, and raw, ghastly, and they wormed their way inside, like a malicious spirit, a choking fume; like an insidious disease, wrapping around her very bones, chewing away at them. She could feel herself dissolving. She was frightened, this girl who was never frightened; scared she would be crushed under the weight of it all; scared she would be frozen solid by the cold of it all. Scared she was dying of it all as the darkness seeped into her veins, an invisible poison corroding her from the inside out.

She thought she knew hate, the shape of it; the feel of it; its weight. She thought she knew what it was to live enveloped in it, for the hate to embrace her, and she it, clinging one to the other, like desperate lovers. She thought she knew malevolence and venom and abhorrence. She thought she understood what it meant to be consumed by it all. Then, in an instant, her eyes were opened, and she knew the truth.

She had understood nothing.

For love still lived in Arya's heart, and it had molded her, chiseled her. It had made her, perhaps much more than she had ever realized. She had been shaped by her hurts, yes, but more than that, she had been built by her love.

Love for family.

For friends.

For Jaqen.

The memory of love, the shape and feel and weight of it, existed alongside her hatred, and despite her desire for vengeance, despite her loathing for those who had harmed her, she was not frozen by her hate. She was not weighed down and crushed by it. Her mind was not constrained by it, her heart was not gripped by it, not completely. She could still breathe. She could still laugh. She could still love.

And did.

So much. So very, very much.

If hatred was a cold, hard, strangling weight, then love was a warm fur and the embrace of her brother when the winter storm had drained the blood from her lips; love was Nymeria's nuzzle against her side after Septa Mordane's icy bath; love was Jon, carrying her on his back so that she would not freeze her toes when she had carelessly lost her shoes in the snows of the wolfswood.

Love was Jaqen's nose softly tracing the shape of her ear, and his bronze gaze locking with her own grey eyes, and a whispered vow.

" By all the gods, I am yours, and ever will be, come what may."

She had only been in her mother's head for a moment, for the smallest flicker of time, for the space of a breath, and in that briefest of instants, she had thought she was dying.

She had been certain of it.

And that was how she came to understand what it was to live completely in hate; to go on living, somehow, after all the love had been bled out of you.

She felt as though an icy hand had been plunged into her chest, its stabbing fingers wrapped around her heart and squeezing tight. Her mind had retreated immediately, instinctively, her feet following, and she stumbled, and gasped, clawing at her throat as though she were suffocating. She wondered wildly if she had been poisoned as her vision blurred. She reached out, grabbing desperately for something to steady herself, finding the back of her mother's chair. She braced her hand against it, sucking in the air in great gulps. Her mother had watched her, unmoving, and unmoved, and it had been Ser Jaime, of all people, who had rushed to her, steadied her, and helped her out of the hall.

She had turned as she stepped through the doors and into the antechamber, and she looked. Her mother stood before the muttering assemblage, ready to pass judgement. The hood of her mother's rough spun robes hid her ruined face in shadow, and before the doors closed and blocked the scene from her sight, she saw her mother lift her head and look toward her. As with the night before when she had found Catelyn in the sept, Arya could not make out any of her mother's features beneath that hood, but she knew that Tully blue eyes were staring into her own.

And an echo of that icy grip around the girl's heart nearly felled her, then and there.

"Sister."

The Bear's warm palm stoked Arya's cheek gently and she cracked one eye and looked at him. A single taper glowed on the table near her bed. A glance at the window told her it was full dark outside.

"What time is it?" she croaked.

"Nearly time for supper," her brother said. "You slept the day away."

The girl groaned and sat up. Her head ached and her mouth was dry. "Water?" she rasped. The Lyseni assassin rose from the edge of the girl's bed and found the small pitcher Arya's chambermaid had thoughtfully left, along with a goblet, and poured. He wordlessly held the cup out for her and she took it, drinking deep and then wiping her mouth with her shirt cuff.

"Better?" he asked, sitting once again. He rubbed her arm, warming her with the heat of his hand and she nodded, grounded by the feeling of her brother's touch.

"Thank you."

"What was the dream about?"

Arya's eyes narrowed. "How did you know..."

The Bear laughed. "Please. Anyone within thirty yards of this room would know. You were screaming like you were in pain."

Pain. Yes, it had been painful.

"I was very..." She paused, trying to think of the right way to explain it. Finally, she shrugged, saying, "Cold."

"Since when is the Queen of Winter afraid of the cold?"

Arya's eyes went wide and her mouth opened. Her brother guffawed at that.

"You aren't the only one with a light step, my lady," he murmured then, smiling good-naturedly.

"At the inn, in the forge... You were eavesdropping on my conversation with Gendry?"

"No, I was watching your back. You're welcome, by the way. And if I happened to overhear some things, well..."

The girl balled up her fist and punched her brother in the arm.

"Ow!" her friend protested. "What was that for?"

"For being sneaky!" she cried. "And for thinking I needed your protection. From Gendry!"

"Well, to be fair, I didn't know him at all then."

"No, but you know me." Her meaning was clear. It bothered her that her brother would question her ability to look after herself.

"And you know me," the Bear said. He reached out and grasped her chin between his thumb and forefinger, pulling her face forward and pressing a firm kiss on her forehead. "So, you should know that despite your protests, I will always look out for you."

The girl grunted at that, but her mouth curved into a smile despite herself and she said, "Well... even if I don't need your protection, I'm glad the order sent you along with me."

"It's the one thing we should thank them for, I suppose."

"Well, that, and they taught you to change your face," the Cat added, thoughtful.

The Bear shook his head. "The price, though..."

"Of course," Arya whispered, reaching out for her brother's hand. "Of course." Her brother squeezed her offered hand and studied her face for a moment.

"If they hadn't sent me, I would have come anyway."

Arya nodded, saying, "I know." They both drifted in their shared memories, thinking of the things which had brought them to this place, and the girl had to admit to herself that though she often objected to the idea that she ever needed anyone's rescue or assistance, it was certainly comforting to have her brother with her in Westeros.

It was nice not to be all alone.

"The lone wolf dies," she murmured.

"What?"

"When the cold winds blow..." Her voice trailed off as she thought of the winds of winter. Even they could not be as cold as what she found in her mother's head (in her mother's heart) that morning.

"When the cold winds blow?" the Bear prompted.

Arya took a deep breath in and shook her head slightly, pushing away errant thoughts.

"When the cold winds blow, the lone wolf dies," she continued, "but the pack survives. My father said that to me, when I was a child."

The Bear laughed, saying, "You're still a child, sweetling."

He had meant to rile her, his tone teasing, but Arya's reply was more sad than irritated.

"No. No, I'm not."

The Lyseni assassin smiled and patted his sister's leg before rising from her bedside. He bade her make herself ready for the supper, but she grabbed at his hand, ignoring his instruction.

"You are my pack, brother," she told him. "Never forget it."

The Bear left his sister to dress and instantly, the chambermaid appeared, ready to assist. Arya wondered at the look she saw on the servant's face as the large assassin passed her in the doorway. For that matter, why had her brother smiled his most charming smile at the maid?

And was she... could she actually be... blushing?

The Cat's eyes narrowed.

"Ser Willem is a handsome man," Arya said later, her voice almost contemplative as the maid braided and pinned her hair.

"Oh, yes, milady! So very handsome." The maid started to giggle, then stopped herself abruptly. "Beg your pardon, milady."

The girl resolved to question her brother when next they were alone. When had he even had time to...

A knock at her door disturbed her thoughts. She invited the visitor to enter.

"Lady Arya," Ser Brynden greeted warmly, sticking his head through the door. "I've come to escort you to supper, if I may."

"Certainly, my lord, if you wish it. We're all finished here."

"But milady," the maid protested in a squeak, "I've not put any ornaments in your hair and..."

"Lady Arya needs no adornment," replied the heir to Raventree Hall softly, smiling at the women. "Though perhaps a dab of scent?"

The maid scrambled to find the small bottle of perfumed oil Bethany Blackwood had gifted Arya, but the girl waved her off, not wishing for cloves and ginger and memories of the spicy scents of Braavos (the spicy scent of her master's skin, and his hair, and his breath) to cloud her mind. There was enough there to cloud it already.

"Well, you can't blame a man for trying," the knight said, offering Arya his arm. "Though I am sorry to hear you're off it now."

The girl took the proffered arm as Brynden made a slight bow to her.

"Off the scent? No, Ser Brynden, that's not it," she assured him. "It's dearer to me than ever. I just... like to save it." The two strolled down the corridor together, arm in arm.

"My lady, if you desire it, I shall have a hundred bottles sent to you."

She laughed. "Shall we pull it in a wagon train behind us, all the way to Riverrun, and beyond?"

"Riverrun?"

"Yes."

"I don't understand..."

"Well, the banners have been called. Aren't all the Riverlords to make for Riverrun? And soon?"

"Certainly, my lady, but you are not a Riverlord."

"No, but I'm in the company of a great many of them these days. And Riverrun is on the way to Winterfell."

Brynden looked into Arya's eyes. "You're to stay here, at Acorn Hall." He spoke as though he were disabusing a young child of some fanciful notion or another. "Lord Smallwood will lead his levies to Riverrun, and my father will lead those banners pledged to my house. Lady Smallwood will be returning soon, and she'll be only too happy to host you here, for as long as need be."

Arya betrayed no feeling about this plan and simply asked, "And you?"

"I will stay with you."

"You're not going?"

"It is my father's wish that I not."

"But..."

"My purpose has not changed, my lady. My father commanded me to protect you. We feel that while the armies gather, it is safest to keep you here."

"We?"

"Well, Lord Smallwood, my father, and I. And Lord Vance."

"Lord Vance? When did you discuss this with... Oh, never mind." She was becoming exasperated. "So, I'm to be hidden away?"

"You're to be protected, Lady Arya, not hidden away."

"Is there a difference?"

He ignored her and continued his explanation. "Until any troops whose loyalties cannot be relied upon have passed through, and it's safe to travel once again, the best way to guarantee your security is for you to stay put!"

Arya nodded, the picture of good judgment and acquiescence. "Yes, very sensible, Ser Brynden. I understand. Care and caution."

"I'm glad you see it," the knight replied, his surprise evident in his voice.

"There is a problem with this plan, however."

"Oh? And what is that?"

"Well, my mother has other plans that don't involve me staying put."

"Your moth..." Brynden stopped himself, and sighed. Clearing his throat, he seemed to consider his words carefully before speaking, then said, "With all due respect, my lady, your mother is no more a Riverlord than you."

"She's a Tully of Riverrun," the girl reminded her companion.

Brynden stopped walking then and looked down at Arya, his expression pained. She could tell he wished to disagree, but instead said, "Be that as it may, it is a Frey banner which flies over Riverrun now, even if it is ultimately under Lannister control. And should a Tully be restored to that seat once again, it is your Uncle Edmure who has the rights to Riverrun, not your mother."

"My Uncle Edmure is a prisoner, or so I've been told."

"True enough, but your mother is..." His voice trailed off. Arya looked at Brynden expectantly. "A renegade," he finally finished. "An outlaw."

She was certain he had been about to say something else and then changed his mind.

"Surely the Riverlords have no problem with that. Not when she eliminates their enemies for them."

"Perhaps not, but her aims are... different than ours."

"Well, they're not different than mine."

"Even after the sentence today? Aren't you the least alarmed for your friend?"

The girl pulled away from her companion, taking a step backward and looking at Ser Brynden in confusion. Her mind raced.

The sentence. Arya had convinced herself that in the end, her words would be enough to save Gendry from any real harm, but then, she'd been so... overwhelmed by what she'd found in her mother's mind... by what she'd been made to feel... And then she'd slept, like someone who'd been given sweetsleep or dreamwine. And perhaps she had been. Had she had anything to drink before she'd been delivered to her chamber by Ser Jaime and Lady Brienne? She was finding it hard to recall. Ale, perhaps? The girl thought back to the trial.

Though initially surprised at the formality of the proceeding, it had progressed as would be expected for such a thing. Members of the Brotherhood were called upon to testify, though they mostly seemed to speak reluctantly, and attempted to temper their words for the sake of their brother.

Arya was left with the impression that Gendry was generally well-liked among the company.

" Aye, I took three extra watches, but I didn't mind much," was Jack-be-lucky's contribution.

" We were glad of his help at the inn, working the forge and training the orphans," Harwin added. "And the little lady was glad to see her wolf again, I can tell you that!"

(Arya had nodded in agreement at that when several heads turned to look at her).

" Our journey was made safer for having him along," Brienne had said. "My lady knows very well how treacherous these roads are now."

When it came to Gendry's turn to vouch for himself, he spoke simply.

"I abandoned my post without your leave, I'll not deny it," he had said to Lady Stoneheart as he stood from his seat between Harwin and Thoros. "I followed Nymeria, same as you did to get here, m'lady. I did it because I knew... I knew she would lead me to Lady Arya, and I wanted..."

The blacksmith-knight paused for long enough that Thoros prodded him to continue. "You wanted what, lad?"

Gendry turned his Baratheon blue eyes to the crowd, finding Arya with them and gazing sadly at her for a moment. "I wanted to bring her, unharmed, to her mother. I wanted... to make amends, for failing her all those years ago. I didn't keep her safe, and the Hound got her, and took her away."

As Arya recalled, Ser Brynden hadn't even been there to hear the testimony. She supposed it was his sense of decorum that kept him away. He didn't seem the type to ogle or draw enjoyment from another man's misfortunes. Still, he had obviously heard about her mother's judgment, even though she had not.

"Word travels fast in a small castle, I suppose," the girl sighed. "Just not to my chamber."

"Then you've not heard?"

"No." She crossed her arms over her chest. "So, you'd better tell me."

He seemed reluctant to speak, but after a moment, said, "A flogging, my lady," and Arya sucked in her breath. The heir to Raventree Hall continued, "And then banishment."

"Banishment?" The girl's head whirled.

"It's hard to hear, I know," Brynden soothed, approaching Arya slowly and placing a comforting hand on her shoulder, "but it's a mercy."

"After what I told my mother, after explaining... how is this mercy?"

"It's mercy because it's not a noose."

The girl cast her eyes down, thinking, chewing her lip.

"When?" she finally asked.

"On the morrow," the knight replied, his voice grave. "He's been locked in his chamber until then."

"He wouldn't run," she muttered. "Does the Brotherhood think so little of his honor?"

Her companion nodded in agreement. "I cannot say I know him as well as you, my lady, but my impression is that Ser Gendry is no coward, and an honorable man, if a bit rash. In fact, I had heard that he requested his punishment be carried out immediately."

"What? But, why?"

The knight shrugged. "One assumes he would rather not brood on it all night, or perhaps that he wishes to atone for his mistakes."

The girl sighed. That did sound like Gendry, damn fool that he was. Didn't he realize she would use whatever time was at her disposal to save him? It did not help her to have him trying to cut that time short. Her jaw clenched. Why must you make my task harder, you stupid bull?

But then, he had not wanted her help. He had told her as much.

He's getting it anyway, she thought to herself.

"Banishment from the Brotherhood means little," Arya decided, muttering more to herself than to Ser Brynden.

"I don't think Ser Gendry would agree with that, my lady."

Arya looked up at the knight. "He's sworn himself to me. My only condition was that my mother release him from her service. I suppose she's done that, hasn't she?"

"Ser Gendry has pledged his service to you?"

"He has."

"To the cause you claim not to have," Ser Brynden remarked, trying to hide a smirk. "As have I. It seems you are gathering your own levies, Lady Arya."

The girl's eyes narrowed. "I didn't ask it. Of either of you."

The knight shrugged. "You inspire a great deal of loyalty. It cannot be helped."

Is loyalty untested actually loyalty at all? her little voice wondered.

"We shall see," the girl murmured cryptically, then took Ser Brynden's arm once again. They continued on to the supper in silence, Arya's mind working over the problem of how to spare Gendry an unfair punishment all the while.

As he passed through the Sealord's doors, he wore his favorite face, his Braavosi face, the one a dangerous girl still thought of with fondness. The true face of Tyto Arturis; of the man known to some as Syrio Forel. His robes fluttered and waved behind him and despite his fatigue, he walked with strength, the hard soles of his boots making no sound on the polished marble floors.

The Sealord's household guards seemed to shrink back as he passed.

Some men handled their affairs through letters delivered by couriers, through emissaries, through mutual friends. Some men relied on the Iron Bank for mediation, especially here in Braavos. The principal elder preferred to handle the most important matters himself, face to face.

How better to gauge a man's true intentions?

Still, the elder expected no resistance. Worry is not for us, brother. He had given the Sealord what he wanted most, and he had used the wolf child to do it. It was now time for the Sealord to pay his debt, and what man of Braavos would try to cheat Him of Many Faces? Ships, men, and weapons had been promised, and the Kindly Man had come to collect.

"Tyto!" the Sealord's voice boomed when the principal elder entered the throne room. "Welcome!"

Arya searched the great hall when she and Ser Brynden arrived, craning her neck this way and that.

"Who is it you are looking for?" the knight asked her.

"I had hoped to sit with my mother," she answered absently.

"I had hoped you'd sit with me, my lady."

"Well, as my mother does not seem to be here, I would be glad of your company."

She had said it to be polite, but Arya itched to be gone, to seek her mother out so that she might convince her to reverse her decision about Gendry's sentence. Still, she didn't suppose an indecorous departure would endear her to her host, or anyone else in the hall, for that matter. After her unexplained behavior at the trial earlier (which must have seemed very strange indeed to most of those watching), she thought the better of making any more imprudent displays.

Lem Lemonclaok had spoken for the Lady Stoneheart, projecting his voice where she could not. He bent low as his lady scratched out her question in his ear, then straightened and addressed the crowd.

" Does anyone have anything else to add to Ser Gendry's defense?"

Arya stood and moved past Brienne and the others who shared her bench. She found the makeshift aisle and approached her mother, vaguely aware that Ser Jaime had almost immediately slipped into her place, seating himself next to the Maid of Tarth.

" I do," the girl said when she came to stand before her mother.

" Well, then, Lady Stoneheart will hear your testimony," Lem replied gruffly, his crooked nose a reminder that he had little cause to love Arya Stark.

The girl turned sideways, much as Gendry had earlier when he spoke on his own behalf, so that she could look at both her mother and the crowd as she pled her friend's case. The hall quieted and all eyes rested upon her then.

She explained how it had been Nymeria's idea (there were snickers among the assembled witnesses then, but only from those who had never seen the beast. The members of the Brotherhood all seemed to understand how convincing a direwolf could be). She explained how Gendry had offered her shelter at the inn when she had been injured in a fall from her horse. She explained that he had risked life, limb, and the wrath of the Brotherhood so that he might shield her from danger as she traveled across the Riverlands. She explained that he was willing to sacrifice himself in order to see her safely to her mother, a task that no one had been able to complete five years past. She insisted that such actions were not the deeds of a man who deserved punishment, but the deeds of a man of deep conviction, and for that he deserved their thanks.

And then she had looked at her mother, and was dismayed to see that her words had not seemed to convince Catelyn beyond a doubt. And so she had tried one last, desperate measure; she had tried to reach out, to slip into her mother's mind, and suggest a reasonable course; to suggest mercy.

But instead of temperance, or a malleable will, all the girl found was cold. Cold and dark and hatred. It had sucked the air from her lungs and nearly turned her legs to ribbons.

Ser Brynden had pulled the girl's chair out for her, a seat next to Lord Smallwood's at the high table. She hadn't recalled even being led there, so lost was she in her thoughts about the trial. The knight waited patiently for Arya to be seated and did not prod or hasten her.

"Oh, I'm sorry, my lord," the girl said sheepishly once she realized how long they had been standing there.

"You seemed very far away just then, Lady Arya," Ser Brynden observed.

Arya looked out over the hall, arranged differently than it had been for the trial, but it was the same chamber nonetheless.

"No, not so far away at all," she said simply, then took her seat.

Lord Blackwood entered the hall then, striding toward his seat. He greeted his guests at the high table, pressing a quick kiss against the back of Arya's hand as the servants entered and began serving the supper.

The girl was mostly quiet while the men around her chatted, talk of levies and banners, the march to Riverrun, and other such concerns. Finally, Theomar leaned over to Arya and apologized.

"This must be very tedious for you," he said contritely.

"No, indeed," the girl assured him.

"But you are so quiet, my lady."

"Forgive me, Lord Smallwood. I'm not very good company tonight. I had thought... I had thought I'd be supping with my mother, you see."

The bearded lord leaned back, his eyebrows raised slightly.

"You mother... prefers to dine in her own chamber. I'm sure you can understand why."

"Just so," the girl replied, and the conversation about numbers of mounted knights, supplies, and weapons resumed. Ser Brynden was to her right and Lord Smallwood to her left, and they conversed over and around the girl for most of the supper. When Theomar turned to his left to talk with Ser Jaime and Lady Brienne over some tactical matter, Brynden leaned in close and spoke softly to Arya.

"How may I be of service, my lady?"

The girl looked out over the hall, feeling the absence of both her mother and Gendry. The Rat caught her eye, and his look was inscrutable. The Bear sat next to him, engaged in conversation with Thoros.

"There is nothing I require now," she said, her tone matching his.

"But I can see that you are about some task, in your head. I am certain I could be of use to you."

Rule your face.

She turned to look at the knight for a moment, finding his face so close that if she were to lean even a fraction closer, his lips would be at her forehead. She did not jerk away as she once might have; Syrio had taught her about stillness, and the Kindly Man had reinforced the lesson. And so she tilted her head slightly, her eyes upon those lips that were so close, those lips speaking words the Cat suspected were meant to garner favor; to instill trust; to prove the loyalty he claimed she inspired.

"I do wish to see my mother," the girl said, so softly that Ser Brynden had to strain to hear, "but I've no wish to insult Lord Smallwood by fleeing from his supper."

The heir to Raventree Hall nodded, a slight thing, and then said in a much louder voice than he had previously been using, "Oh, my lady, I am sorry to hear it! A headache, you say? I insist you retire and take your rest. Shall I escort you back to your chamber?" Before Arya could say anything, Ser Brynden leaned over to speak to Theomar, who had overheard and was looking at Arya with concern. "Lord Smallwood, with your leave, I shall take the lady out of the noise and heat of the hall."

"Of course, of course," Lord Smallwood said, waving his hand. "Shall I send the maester to you, my lady?"

"Oh... oh, no. No, that won't be necessary. A bit of rest and quiet is all I need, I'm sure." Her tone was gratitude and frailty, all twined together. Her hand fluttered delicately to her forehead then, and she closed her eyes for a second and blew out a small breath.

Don't overdo it, her little voice warned, or he'll have the maester bleeding you within the hour.

Lord Smallwood jumped up and reached over for his guest. "My dear Lady Arya, please, I'll escort you myself!"

"Lord Smallwood, your guests..." Brynden reminded gently, looking over the crowd. "Do not trouble yourself, I'll see to the lady."

"My thanks, Ser Brynden," Theomar said, nodding his head crisply at the knight.

The high table rose respectfully as Brynden helped the girl to her feet and Ser Jaime called to her, "Nothing a good sparring won't cure, eh Lady Arya?" Brienne elbowed the Kingslayer hard in the flank. Jaime winced and then said through gritted teeth, "What? She owes me a match." Then to Arya, he bowed his head slightly and said, "Perhaps tomorrow, if you are up to it."

Nine-year-old Arya would have drawn the dagger hidden at her wrist and challenged him to a fight right then, in the middle of the hall. Twelve-year-old Arya would have bidden him to choose his weapon and meet her in the bailey yard in a quarter hour. Faceless Arya turned weak eyes upon the knight and agreed in a slightly ragged voice to cross blades with him on the morrow if she were up to it.

As she passed their table, her brothers both bowed respectfully to her, but she could see their shrewd eyes appraising her, and she knew her Lyseni brother wished to discover what scheme she was engaged in, and for what purpose.

He'll just have to wait to find out.

When Brynden had gotten her through the doors and down the corridor a bit, he stopped and laughed, clapping his hands together in delight as he complimented the girl.

"Well played. Well played, indeed! I think your stay in Braavos must have included some time spent with a mummer's troop."

A small smile appeared on the girl's face then, and she said, "Something like that."

"You nearly had me calling for the maester."

"Well, I thought you made a splendid show yourself, Ser Brynden. Who knew you were such an accomplished liar?"

"All in the service of my lady," the knight said with mock solemnity, dropping dramatically to one knee, taking her two hands in his own and pressing his forehead against her knuckles in a show of deference and dedication.

"Arise, good ser knight, and know that you have your lady's blessing, and gratitude."

Ser Brynden rose, but looked at Arya a little strangely then.

"What is it?" she demanded, laughing but a little uncomfortable at his expression.

He shook his head a little, saying, "You are too convincing a mummer, Lady Arya. Just then, I felt as if I were in the presence of my sovereign queen. You make me feel as though I should be calling you your grace."

The girl snorted. Your grace, the Queen of Winter, Queen in the North. Would these men ever stop trying to place some fabled crown on her head?

Arya then remembered a dream, a nightmare from long ago, when a frosted crown of Valyrian steel had formed atop her head, stabbing at her, digging into her hair and scalp. She remembered that try as she might, she could not shake it off.

Just a dream, she told herself, but she had stopped her snorting laughter. Just a dream, that's all.

"Your mother's chamber is this way, your grace," Brynden teased, snapping Arya from her unpleasant thoughts.

"If I'm to be your queen, then you'll have to be my fool," the girl chided the knight.

"If that's how you think I may best serve you, then I'll not complain," her companion answered warmly, and she thought his smile quite beautiful then.

Too charming by half, she thought as he led her away.

Ser Brynden delivered the Cat to her mother's doorway and then took his leave of her. The girl watched him walk away and disappear around a corner before she knocked lightly at Catelyn's door. She waited a moment and hearing nothing, opened the door and slipped inside. She found her mother sitting in a chair near her fire which burned low in the grate. The woman seemed to be staring into the flames, unblinking as the embers popped and hissed.

"Mother," Arya said simply, pushing the door closed behind her. "I've come to speak with you, about Gendry."

Lady Stoneheart sat as motionless as a stone, her eyes the only part of her which moved as she watched her daughter cross the room to her. The girl dropped to her knees before the woman and placed her hands lightly in Catelyn's lap, palms pressed together as if in prayer.

"Please, mother, you mustn't punish him for what he did. Not like this."

Catelyn leaned down, the loose, graying flesh of her cheek only inches from Arya's own face, and breathed out a single word. Justice. It was hard for the girl to hear, as her mother had not moved her hands to help force the words up from her throat. The lady's skeletal fingers grasped the arms of her chair, still as bones in a crypt, just as they had been when Arya had first entered the chamber.

"If you allow this sentence to be carried out, it's not justice, mother, it's cruelty. It's abuse."

"Desertion," Lady Stoneheart said with effort, "is punishable... by... death."

Much like Brynden, her mother seemed to be claiming the sentence was merciful.

"But he didn't desert, mother. He followed Nymeria to me, and then delivered me to you. How can you not understand? He did all this to reunite us!"

A strange, crackling sound, almost a sickly choking, clawed its way up from Catelyn's mutilated throat. It took Arya a moment to realize this was the sound of her mother's laughter. There was no amusement in the older woman's expression, however. Then, slowly, those crooked, white fingers rose and the woman grasped her throat with both hands as if to strangle herself. It was then her words became clearer, a sort of distressed hissing.

"What he did... was for himself," Lady Stoneheart insisted.

"What? But that's not true! What had he to gain? Nothing! All he's had is trouble for his efforts. Misguided as he was, he did what he did for us, mother, so that you and I might be together once again. Surely you have to see that."

Catelyn glared down at her daughter as Arya clutched at her mother's knees, her desperation rising.

"He did it... so that he might... have you. And your... inheritance."

The girl was aghast at the suggestion. "No!"

"A bastard reaching... beyond... his station."

"It's not true." Gendry would never be so bold; would never want such a thing for himself. He did not have the arrogance, the hubris, required for such a plot. Arya had seen, had heard the thoughts which occupied the dark knight's mind. Of all his detractors, Gendry's harshest critic had always been himself. A brooding lack of self-worth was as much a part of his makeup as the deep blue eyes and raven-black hair which marked him as Robert Baratheon's natural son.

"Lord... Smallwood gave... evidence."

Theomar Smallwood! Was that why he was at the trial? To give some sort of evidence against Gendry? Lady Brienne had guessed as much, but Arya had not seen him speak, except briefly to her mother before the trial began. Had he addressed the assembly after her ill-fated attempt to influence her mother in less conventional ways, when her testimony had failed to sway Lady Stoneheart? Had their host waited for Arya to leave before making these baseless accusations? And why would Lord Smallwood think the blacksmith-knight had any sort of design against her interests?

"I don't know what Lord Smallwood said, mother, but I swear to you, Ser Gendry only had the noblest of intentions when he left the Hollow Hill. And he always meant to come back to you, he just wanted to bring me with him."

Catelyn's shriveled hands fell back onto her armrests as she shook her head slowly. The edges of her jagged wound rubbed grotesquely together. Arya averted her eyes.

"My judgment," Lady Stoneheart breathed, "has been... made."

The girl pushed away from her mother and stood. She pulled her lower lip between her teeth, chewing for a moment as she searched her mother's eyes. Not finding what she had hoped she would, she straightened, pushing her shoulders back.

"This is wrong," Arya insisted, her heart pounding. "You are wrong."

The lady's hand was back at her throat then and she stood, too, a head taller than her defiant daughter.

"You... forget... yourself," Arya's mother warned, her lips drawing back into an ugly snarl.

"No, mother," the girl replied sadly, backing away. "You've forgotten yourself."

The memory of that weighted darkness and the unspeakable cold she'd found in her mother's mind prickled around the edges of Arya's own thoughts just then, and she took another step back. The girl was struck with the feeling that her mother had disappeared completely and she was instead staring into the eyes of someone... something different; something not altogether human. Sharply inhaling, the girl shook her head and closed her eyes for a second, pushing the idea away.

Don't be stupid, she chastised herself. Lord Beric died and was brought back over and over again. He was still himself. Why should my mother be any different?

When she opened her eyes, it was her mother she saw before her, not some monster. Her mother, who had borne her and four of her siblings, in her bed at Winterfell. Her mother, who fussed at her about dirt beneath her fingernails, and tangles in her hair, and the state of her clothes. Her mother, for whom she had yearned for so very, very long. She blew out a soft breath.

"I... remember... everything." Catelyn slowly sank back into her chair, turning her face away from her daughter to stare into the fire once again. The flames behind the grate threw writhing shadows onto the woman's sunken cheeks and the deep, unhealed scratches there.

"Everything but fairness. Everything but mercy."

And with that, the girl was gone.

The Cat stalked the passageways of Acorn Hall, her thoughts roiling in her head. She was angry with herself, for not being more convincing; for not being able to bend her mother to her will. And, she was angry with her mother, for not being able to see reason; for not treating her with any favor, though perhaps she was more hurt than angry about that.

She had felt very much the same as a young child, back in Winterfell, when Catelyn had mostly praise for Sansa but mostly criticism for Arya. This was not that, though. This was different.

For years and years, Arya had so longed for her family, for her mother, that the want had become a persistent, dull ache in her chest, a constant reminder of her losses; of her grief. Cruel fate had turned the girl into the lone wolf her father had warned her against becoming, and all the while, she had tried desperately to cobble together a pack for herself, only to see her pack dwindle until she was a lone wolf once again. There was nothing the girl would not do, no possession she would not sacrifice, no measure she would not take for a chance to reunite with her loved ones. Finding Catelyn had meant the fulfillment of one of the girl's greatest desires.

But fate had one more cruel jape in store, it seemed.

She had never considered that her mother might not have had the same sort of longing. Catelyn hadn't seen any of her children for years, and she had always held the importance of family above all other things. The girl could not reconcile that with how her mother was now treating her.

She behaves no differently with me than with a stranger, Arya fretted.

That's not so, her little voice said. She told you things she has told no one else.

So many things.

Arya had to admit that it was true. Though it was not exactly the acceptance, the affection the girl had craved, her mother had spent hours whispering to her, confiding her plans; imparting her memories. She supposed that was something. The girl knew very well how difficult, and painful, it had been for Catelyn to do so. She had told Arya every detail of the Red Wedding, every detail of her own murder, every detail of the three days she spent in the river before she was found by the Brotherhood Without Banners.

" My faith had... taught me," Catelyn rasped as Arya's head had lain in her lap, "about the... heavens. The seven heavens. And the... seven hells."

But where Catelyn found herself after her life's blood had spilled and spread amongst the rushes and floorboards of Walder Frey's feast hall was not any of those places, she told her daughter. Instead, she'd found herself back at Winterfell.

" With Robb. And with... Ned," her mother said, and she shook a little. It was only when Arya felt her mother's warm tears dropping onto her temple that she realized Catelyn was crying.

Her father had been in the godswood, his back leaning against the heart tree, and he was polishing Ice. It was a scene Arya could picture perfectly. It was a scene from her childhood so ingrained in her own mind that it felt as if it were as much a part of her as her beating heart.

" My darling wife," Ned had said to Catelyn when he saw her walking through the trees of the godswood. "You've come too soon."

" You left me too soon, Ned," her mother had replied.

" Aye," her father agreed, gazing up at the scarlet canopy over his head. "I should not have left at all. But now I am back where I belong. And you are here. And I will never leave you again."

Ned rose and embraced his wife.

The way Catelyn told it, there were days of laughter, of remembrances, of watching Robb run alongside Grey Wind. There were days of love and peace and joy. She would wake up next to Ned each morning, and fall asleep next to him each night.

And then one night, she was sleeping next to her husband, and then she wasn't.

" The Brotherhood," the lady lamented. "They pulled me... from my... grave."

" From the river, mother," Arya corrected softly.

" The river is... a fitting grave... for a... Tully."

The girl had nothing to say to that.

Arya knew the rest of the story. Beric had breathed his life into Catelyn's corpse, finding his own, true death at last. And then Lady Stoneheart had arisen.

The Cat slipped through the corridors on silent feet, moving in shadow and skillfully avoiding the few people about the castle. It was made easier than it otherwise might have been by the fact that most were at the supper still, either consuming it or serving it. After a time, the girl located the door she sought. Moving quickly, she used a slender dagger along with one of the hairpins her chambermaid had stabbed into her piled hair (to create a braided style too elaborate for Arya's taste) to pick the lock. Her work done, the girl slid past the newly opened door and into the chamber, then shut the door noiselessly behind her.

"Well, you look relaxed for a man facing a flogging," the Cat observed.

The large man stretched out on a bed across the chamber startled, sitting up suddenly and exclaiming, "Seven hells!"

"Shh," Arya warned. "Be quiet! Do you want everyone in the castle to come running?"

"Arya," Gendry hissed, "what are you doing here?"

Oceans--Seafret

Chapter Text

And there is beauty in a failure

And there are depths beyond compare

"Arya, what are you doing here?" the dark knight hissed.

Gendry was up and off his bed in an instant, covering the distance between them in two or three long strides. The girl tensed, her fingers ready to pluck the dagger hidden in her sleeve, all instinct. She was indelibly branded by lessons learned during her time among the assassins, moving and reacting intuitively, all consideration and reasoning secondary. Hesitation was pain; hazard; death. The memories lived in her, informing her; directing her: A blind girl, hit with a staff repeatedly, unexpectedly, until she borrowed the eyes of the temple cat and learned who assaulted her. An acolyte, sorting goods in a storage room, alerted by the prickling of tiny hairs on her neck moments before she felt a knife's blade cold against her throat. A servant in the home of a wealthy man, pinned and threatened by a Faceless sellsword who endeavored to teach her caution.

An apprentice, ready to step into the order which had sheltered and trained her, stunned by a command to take the life of her master, the only man she had ever loved.

She had learned her lessons well.

Be aware, always, and trust rarely.

Even as her old friend gripped her shoulders, she stayed her hand, but it was not without effort, so sharp and deep were those lessons she had learned. Still, it was mostly concern (albeit some consternation as well) which Arya read in Gendry's expression then, not anger; not menace. She relaxed marginally. He meant her no harm.

"You should be resting!" the dark knight chastised his friend.

"Resting?" Arya snorted. "Why would you say…"

He cut her off. "Why are you here, m'lady?"

She narrowed her eyes slightly at that last. "I'm here to save you, stupid."

The knight shook his head and scoffed. "It's too late for that, m'lady. All you'll do is get yourself discovered here, and force your mother's hand."

"As if I could," the girl grumbled, bitter.

"This is no jape!" Gendry admonished. "We can ill afford the scandal it would bring if someone sees you here! You can ill afford it."

"Scandal?" Arya laughed. "Have you always been so dramatic?"

The large man grunted and released Arya's shoulders, turning his back and walking to his bed. He sat down heavily. The girl kept her place, staring at the blacksmith-knight, befuddled. He shook his head slowly, his jaw set.

"You weren't there, m'lady…"

"Don't call me that."

Gendry blew out a frustrated breath. "You'd fainted, or nearly so. Ser Jaime had already carried you off to your chamber before…"

"I never!" she interrupted. "It wasn't a… faint." No, it wasn't a faint. It was something entirely indescribable, closer to drowning; to sinking through a quicksand wholly composed of ice crystals; to trying to breathe in the center of a cyclone. It was closer to all those things at once than to a faint. She frowned and her tone of voice marked her as fairly insulted. "And Ser Jaime did not carry me…"

"…before Lord Smallwood gave his evidence."

This drew Arya up short.

So, it was not merely some misunderstanding or misinterpretation on her mother's part, it seemed. Lord Smallwood had spoken against Gendry at his trial, convincingly enough to inspire a judgement against her friend.

Convincingly enough to make Gendry fear some sort of scandal, for her sake.

"Yes," the girl breathed softly, remembering what had passed between Lady Stoneheart and herself when she had visited her earlier. "Yes. My mother said something about… a plot."

Gendry looked up at her sharply before speaking. "Lord Smallwood said that I had…"

When he didn't continue, Arya made impatient noises, then prompted, "You had what?"

The knight cleared his throat. "That I'd tried to… misuse you. He said my behavior towards you was an affront."

"Misuse me? What does that… What could he mean?"

"He said I had tried to take liberties…"

"Liberties?"

"…that I was reaching above my station."

"Why would he…" Arya's voice trailed off as she thought of the feast at Raventree Hall. She had danced with Gendry, and though he had taken no liberties, their heated exchange in the midst of the party could have been mistaken as something more sinister than it was, she supposed. Particularly by men with an agenda not furthered by her friendship with an unacknowledged bastard, and one only newly made a knight.

"Lady Stoneheart… or, your mother, rather, was unhappy at the testimony."

"Yes." Arya nodded slowly. "She said as much when I spoke with her…"

"You spoke with her? When?"

"Tonight. After supper. I tried to talk her out of her decision to punish you."

"Arya…" He sounded peeved.

"But she wouldn't listen. She was convinced you only left the Hollow Hill so that you could win me somehow, and claim whatever inheritance I might have for yourself."

The knight's expression became anguished at her words.

"M'lady, you know that's not so. I would never…"

The girl crossed the chamber and dropped to her knees before her old friend.

"I know," she assured him. "I wouldn't be here if I thought you were so devious."

"You shouldn't be here at all," the knight warned. "You, coming here… it only lends credence to this slander. Lord Smallwood has many convinced I've manipulated you for my own purposes. Your mother chief among them."

"You? Manipulate… me?" Her laugh made clear how ridiculous she found such a notion. But then, these men needed to believe she could be so easily controlled, didn't they? The idea was, after all, convenient to their plans. "But surely not the Brotherhood? Who would believe it of you, knowing you as they do?"

"It doesn't matter. The power rests with your mother, not with those who follow her."

Perhaps, she thought as she turned the idea over in her head. But there was always such a thing as mutiny; as insurrection. Even the powerful Dragons had been overthrown in the not-so-distant past, and all that remained of the legacy of Aegon the Conqueror had been laid to waste with a warhammer's blow.

"Mmm." Arya's gaze drifted off to the right and she looked thoughtful. "But Lady Brienne supports you, I'm sure of it. And Thoros. And Harwin, no doubt. Probably most of the others as well." She wondered how she could turn this support to their favor; turn it into action.

Into insurrection.

"You may be right, but in this place, their faith in me counts for little and less. What matters is what Lord Smallwood thinks, and Ser Brynden, and the men loyal to them. And, of course, Lady Stoneheart."

He spoke truly, she realized, and it was almost as if she could feel an undercurrent dragging her along a course of someone else's choosing; an undercurrent made entirely of the ambitions and machinations of men whose true motives remained shrouded by the gossamer veils of protection and loyalty and concern.

The protection demanded by the innate frailty of women.

The loyalty owed the only certain heir to the empty throne of the King in the North.

The concern lavished by wiser men on a naïve girl whose young heart was sure to be fickle and faint.

The girl sneered at the idea of it; the idea of her own assumed fragility; of her supposed inheritance; of the confidence any man here could have that he understood or could ever have charge of what lived in her heart, no matter the sincerity of his concern.

What lived in her heart was hers, and hers alone.

And it was not fickle. And it was not faint.

By all the gods, I am yours.

She closed her eyes for a moment and the sadness crashed over her like a powerful wave during a storm at sea; the type to capsize a warship and drag the sailors down to their deaths. Breath held, she did not indulge it for long, three beats of her heart, maybe four, and then she pushed it back, tamping it down and replacing it with contempt.

For that was what she felt for all these considerations of reputation and scandal, the illusion of which had led to Gendry's wrongful conviction.

Such stupid Westerosi concerns; such hypocrisy. It was astounding that anything was ever accomplished in this sanctimonious kingdom, so much time was wasted fretting over these superficial and pointless matters.

Liberties. Reaching above one's station. Insupportable ambitions. The imagined effrontery of a bastard pursuing a match with the daughter of a great house; the disdain for the very idea of his blood, mixing with hers, producing heirs who would hold such great power, yet somehow be less noble, less legitimate…

And certainly less the issue of a Riverlord. Any Riverlord.

A great game of Cyvasse was being played, and she, its most valuable piece.

Well, she would turn the table over. She would knock the board to the ground and send the pieces flying. She would trample them to dust as she marched toward her goal of Winterfell, and blood, and vengeance.

Let them try to stop her.

"Arya, are you even listening to me?"

The girl blinked, and looked up at her friend, her fantasy of Grey Daughter plunged through Walder Frey's heart fading as she responded to him.

"I have done nothing to invite censure," Arya argued. "You have done nothing to invite censure."

And yet, here he sat, in a locked chamber, awaiting his punishment.

"Still, if you were discovered here, it would only affirm their suspicions."

"Well, they're planning to flog you and banish you anyway. Who cares what they think now?"

Gendry frowned at her and shook his head, his disapproval evident.

"What?" she demanded impatiently.

"I'll not justify their mistrust of me."

"Why do you give one bloody fuck what they…"

"Arya!"

Reputation. Even in the face of such futility. She nearly laughed. Westeros!

"You needn't concern yourself. No one saw me come, and no one will see me leave. Besides, what more could they do to you?"

The dark knight tilted his head and gazed down at the girl just beyond his knees. "Surely, you know," he replied slowly.

The girl shook her head

He explained. "It's not me I'm worried about."

There was an agonizing sincerity in his voice, and for a moment, her heart clenched. Remorse washed over her; for his plight; for her part in it. She pushed it aside, lest she lose her focus and drown in pity rather than moving to action.

No fretting Westerosi, she. Let others worry and ruminate while she solved the problem. The Braavosi way. The Faceless way. The blacksmith-knight could learn a thing or two from her.

"Gendry," the girl said quietly, "spare your strength. You need never waste it with worry for me."

"How can I help it?"

Arya sighed and pushed back from her knees to stand before the brooding knight.

"Pack what you need," she directed, suddenly commanding. "We're leaving." Her eyes darted around the room, trying to find a bag or a satchel they might use.

"We're leaving?" Gendry stood as well, his brow furrowed as he towered over her. "What do you mean?"

"I'll not let you be punished so unjustly," Arya said. "You'll leave tonight. I'll write a letter for you to carry with you." She looked around for the implements she would need. "You can ride for Wayfarer's Rest. I believe Lord Vance will allow you to shelter there until I can come."

"M'lady…"

"There's no time for arguing," she insisted. "We need to go to the stables, now, while the castle is quiet. I can get you past the gates. Nymeria will go with you and…"

"M'lady," he tried again, his voice more imploring. Arya would not yield and the pace of her instructions became more feverish.

"I've packed provisions, just a small satchel. I left it in the stables earlier. It should be enough to get you to Wayfarer's Rest, but you must ride hard. Once there, be patient. I don't know when I'll be able to leave this place, but I should be less than a fortnight behind you, and…"

"Arya," Gendry moaned. "Stop." The girl stiffened and glared at him.

"Are you not my sworn man?" she seethed, provoked by his obvious opposition to her plan. "Do you not owe me your obedience?"

"I am," he agreed, "and I do."

"Then why are you not packing? Why are you not making haste for the stables instead of resisting me?"

"I can't sneak out of here in the hour of the wolf and flee my sentence."

"You can," Arya asserted. "You can, and you will." Her determination was plain to read on her face.

"I will not."

The girl growled, frustrated. "She's banishing you anyway! Why do you need to stay to be flogged when you'll only be turned out, left on your own afterwards?"

"Why does any man need to uphold his honor?"

"Honor?" the girl spat. "What has this to do with honor?"

Gendry placed his hands on Arya's shoulders once again, but this time more gently. He gazed into her eyes long enough that she began to wonder if he had no answer for her. After a time, he spoke.

"If I run, how will it look? What will the Riverlords think? And the Brotherhood?" He sighed, adding, "What will Lady Stoneheart think?"

Reputation. Scandal.

"It doesn't matter!" she replied, defiant.

"But it does," Gendry said softly. "Because they will also think it of you."

Her look was incredulous. "Do you think I care about that?"

"You may not, but I do."

Arya breathed in and out of her nose sharply, then reached up for Gendry's face, trapping his cheeks between her palms.

"Maddening, obstinate, infuriating man!" she said in high Valyrian, shaking her head. Then, in the common tongue, she asked, "Why won't you let me protect you?" Her brows were drawn together in a worried line and her mouth turned down, waiting for him to offer any explanation which might make sense.

The knight smiled sadly at her. "M'lady, I'm your sworn knight. I'm supposed to be the one doing the protecting."

The Cat slipped past the heavy door and closed it silently. In two blinks, a quick jab and twist-turn of her hair pin and dagger engaged the lock once more. It was as if she had never been there. She listened for the sound of footsteps or chatter in the passageway and hearing none, she turned and took a step, but then froze. Her neck prickled uncomfortably.

Disapproval. Annoyance.

The judgment radiated at her back like the heat from a brazier which stands too close. She pressed her lips together and spun around.

"What?" she barked down the dim passageway. From the deep shadow of a recessed doorway diagonally across from her, Baynard emerged, a small smirk playing on his mouth as he idly twirled a dagger, butt and blade tip trapped between his two index fingers.

"I'm just wondering whether you've slit his throat or fucked him. Or… could it be both?"

The girl stared hard at the assassin, then fixed her eyes on the turning knife.

"Neither."

"Pity. Either would have been a mercy," he replied lightly. "You could've put him out of his misery, one way or another."

The girl still held her own small blade in her right hand, hair pin cradled against her left palm. She placed her hands behind her back and advanced on the Faceless squire, her weapon now clutched in her left hand as the hair pin dropped soundlessly to the floor.

"You don't know what you're talking about," she murmured when she reached him.

"But I do, sister."

"Sister, is it now?"

The squire shrugged. "Economy of words, my lady. It's so much simpler to say than disgraced and exiled acolyte of the order or daughter of my father's vile murderer."

Quick as a snake, the point of her small blade nudged at the soft place between two of the boy's ribs, angled upwards, threatening his heart.

"Economy of words," she repeated, softly, her voice edged in danger. "Yet, it is no more difficult to say dead man than brother."

The Cat felt the pinch of her brother's knife at the base of her skull then, and he answered, "Perhaps not, but can you say either before I bury this dagger in your spine?"

The two assassins stared at one another, unmoving, for a long moment, contemplating their stalemate in their minds. Wordlessly, as if by mutual assent, they withdrew their blades from one another and took a step back. The Rat leaned casually against the wall to his right, his face once again shadowed in the recessed doorway from which he had emerged only moments earlier. Arya stood in the passageway, her back to Gendry's chamber.

"Why are you here, brother?"

The Rat shrugged. "Perhaps I came to spare your poor bastard from his fate tomorrow." He twirled his dagger once again. "Or, perhaps I wished to see for myself whether you were so stupid as to be here."

"Why should you care?"

The false-squire smiled slyly but did not answer her question. Irritated, the girl glowered at him.

"I know you have no real concept of loyalty, brother, but…"

The Rat's false face suddenly wore a serious expression as he interrupted her, "No, my lady, you are wrong. It's just that my loyalties lie with the order, not with the endless succession of comely men who slaver over you." His tone made his opinion of those comely men quite evident.

Arya bristled and her grip on her dagger tightened. "You understand nothing."

"I understand that we are wasting our time. We could have left the Riverlands long behind, but for all these feasts and hunts and jaunts in the training yard…"

"Jaunts?" she scoffed. "Perhaps if you jaunted more, you'd have a prayer of beating me."

"I don't need to beat you, sister. I only need to see you safely to Winterfell."

"The road to Winterfell leads through the Riverlands, or did you not study a map of the Seven Kingdoms before we boarded Titan's Daughter?"

"Does it also lead through Ser Gendry's bedchamber?" he needled, raising his eyebrows. "I wonder what your Lorathi master would make of that."

The dagger flew from her hand almost before she even realized she had thrown it. It grazed the squire's ear and clattered off the stones of the wall behind him, coming to rest just beyond the heel of his left foot. A drop of blood swelled at the superficial wound and trickled down to his lobe, hanging there like a grotesque ear jewel before pulling free and falling to the ground. The boy laughed, a mean sound matching the condemnation in his eyes. Still, when he finally spoke, it was as if she hadn't threatened him at all. This annoyed her more than she could say.

"All this dawdling does not please the Many-Faced god," he said.

"Oh? And have you been much in communion with him of late?"

She'd be damned if she let him tell her what did or did not please their god.

"Not that I expect you to care, but I've been charged by the principal elder with delivering you north. I do not plan to fail in my duty."

"Ser Gendry is no threat to your mission," the Cat replied. "I don't see why he bothers you so."

The Rat straightened and walked toward his sister, coming to rest before her, just beyond her reach, his false eyes fixed on hers.

"It's not me he bothers," the assassin answered, his lips curling into a sneer, "it's you. And all the time you waste here and there, on him, on Brynden Blackwood, on any one of a number of these Westerosi knights and lords who would take you to wed and have you bear them Northern heirs, is time we might've spent riding for Winterfell."

"Northern heirs?" Arya repeated. "What are you going on about?"

The Rat continued, ignoring her question. "Honestly, I couldn't care less if you rutted with that bastard in the middle of the bailey yard for the whole castle to see. Or Ser Brynden, for that matter, or any one of his numerous brothers, so long as it didn't interfere with my duty. But it does." That last bit, he spat out, a simmering anger plain in his voice.

It was strange to hear him say it. It reminded Arya of something, some feeling she had felt in Braavos, when the handsome man had seemed to be protecting her from Attius Biro; protecting her virtue, if not her person. She couldn't quite place her finger on the reason for her unease, but it struck an odd chord with her now as it did then.

"You needn't worry," the girl said even as she scrutinized his false face, trying to discover the reason behind his concern. "That is surely the furthest thing from Ser Gendry's mind at the moment."

The false-squire snickered, saying, "It might be the furthest thing from yours, but I'm certain it's foremost in his."

"A man facing a flogging, and banishment?" she scoffed. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"But I do. You forget, I've ridden with the both of you, from the beginning."

"So?" Her look was sour.

"So, I've seen every look, every exchange, every nauseating sigh and longing glance. Lord Smallwood was right. That bastard regards himself far too highly and…"

"Lord Smallwood was right? What do you mean?"

"His testimony. What he told your dear mother," the Rat smirked.

"You stayed for that farce?"

"Oh, yes," the assassin laughed. "It was highly entertaining. The most fun I've had since we set sail, if I'm being honest."

"Honest," the girl muttered. "Not likely."

Her brother shrugged. "I always enjoy seeing those who suffer from unfounded arrogance disabused of their pretentions."

Arya's anger built. "You were there… You listened to those lies, and didn't speak up…"

"I heard no lies, my lady," her brother interrupted. "All that I heard was the truth; the same truth I'd seen with my own eyes."

The Cat shook her head in disbelief, staring at the Rat. He stopped his insufferable smirking, tilting his head to study her expression.

"You know, I'm never quite sure what to make of you, sister." He sounded fascinated as he made the admission, speaking slowly, softly, his eyes taking in the furrow of her brow, the slant of her mouth, the set of her jaw. He moved a half-step closer, bending slightly to peer more closely at her. "I don't know if you're really so absurdly innocent, or if you're just an excellent mummer."

The girl stared back at him, her mouth curling in disgust.

"You've hated Gendry since you laid eyes on him."

The Faceless-squire shrugged. "I can't deny it."

"You're actually pleased at this turn. You're happy for his suffering."

"Well, the landscape is rather dull here, and the days are grey. There's not much else for entertainment. A trial and a flogging help pass the time."

He was baiting her quite obviously but still, she continued.

"You don't care that an innocent man will be so unjustly treated…"

"Wait now, sister, I never said I believed he was innocent. Even you can't deny the desertion charge, and as for the rest…"

"Yes, the rest," she hissed. "The rest, which is nothing more than fanciful nonsense!"

"Poor sister." The false sympathy rolled off the Faceless assassin's tongue, thick and grating. "You've allowed him, him, a nobody, just an insignificant bastard, to distract you. You've allowed him under your skin."

"Don't be stupid. He's not under my skin."

"He is. He really is, and even though it's already too much, far beyond anything he should ever hope for, he wants more still." Her brother's tone spoke to his feelings about that. "He wants more of you. You know that, don't you?"

Arya couldn't quite understand the Rat's concern. It made no sense to her for him to make such an allegation. Her mind touched his briefly then, but all she got from that was his obvious annoyance with her and his disdain for Gendry. She wondered if it was purely envy. It had been obvious to her since their arrival at the Inn at the Crossroads that Baynard had a sort of animus for Gendry. At first, she had assumed it was merely to frustrate her, and perhaps it was also part of the assassin's face. But as time went on, it seemed to the girl that the Rat simply did not like the blacksmith-knight.

"Are you… is this because… you're jealous of Gendry?"

The slender man rolled his eyes. "Jealous? Of a lowborn bastard who styles himself a knight because some dead outlaw said it was so? Hardly."

"Well, then…"

"It's because he reaches too high." He said it as if it were the most justified and obvious thing in all the world. "He desires too much."

The Rat seemed to be parroting Lord Smallwood's beliefs.

To what end? What had the assassin to do with the master of Acorn Hall?

"Gendry is innocent of all this," she insisted, "but I don't expect you to admit it, even though you know it's true. Where's the fun in that? Poor, bored Baynard, with nothing better to do than foster his envy against better men."

"There's nothing innocent about him," her brother retorted, "and what's more, if he had his way, there would be no innocence left in you."

Arya shook her head, rolling her eyes. "Men. You always revert to the same ideas, no matter the evidence to the contrary."

"You would presume to lecture all of mankind for believing in the simplest of truths?" The Rat laughed, his contempt plain to read in his eyes.

"Truth?" she snorted mirthlessly. "You wouldn't recognize truth to save your own life. The only truth you know is the one that toddles down the path of your preconceived notions. You suffer from a lack of vision, brother. That's a grave deficiency for a Faceless Man."

"And you suffer from an inability to accept hard facts, if they do not support your own desires. Like it or not, accept it or no, you are nothing more than a mere woman to these people. And what is any woman good for in this world?"

"One of the greatest failings of men is that they can imagine no use for women other than to warm their beds or whelp their babes. You ought to know better." Without further comment, the girl stepped past the Westerosi assassin, retrieved her throwing blade, and continued down the passageway. The assassin called after her.

"Well then, what are you going to do, my lady?"

The Cat ignored him, leaving the Rat alone to skulk in the corridor and ponder the question.

Later that night, the Rat gave the Bear an abridged account of his earlier interaction with their sister. He wanted backup in the event that the Cat did something unwise (though his exact words were half-baked and moronic) that threatened their mission.

The likelihood of such an occurrence was high, the Rat suspected.

"What do you think she's up to?" the Westerosi assassin asked his Lyseni brother as they lay in the dark, stretched out in their bunks. The chamber was small, made smaller by the two narrow beds in it, but the linens were freshly laundered and the fire had been stoked. A false-knight purportedly of a minor, distant house visiting a modest castle with his squire (with little notice given of their arrival) could not expect courtesy beyond a pallet on the floor of a guard house or a place in the stables, especially when the castle was filled to the brim with guests of varying rank, nearly all beyond their own. They were quite fortunate that their accommodations were passably warm and comfortable, however humble or cramped.

"I don't know," the Bear admitted, "but I imagine we'll find out before long."

"We should be away…"

"There's no profit in rushing out of ready shelter and easy provisions. Rested horses, and perhaps a path that leads us through the hearths and homes of these Riverlords will make for an easier journey."

"Easier? Maybe. Longer and more tedious? Most definitely. I'll take quick over easy," the Rat groused.

The larger assassin turned his head to look at his brother, the Westerosi's false profile visible in the flickering light of the fire as it burned low. "Why are you in such a hurry, brother? What difference should it make when we arrive in Winterfell?"

The Rat grunted his frustration. "Just because you have no desire to quit this place, don't think I don't have better things to do."

"What better things?" Ser Willem scoffed.

The smaller assassin made no answer but after a moment, said, "Mark me, brother, I will leave this place as soon as ever I can. If you are wise, you will do the same."

"Hmm." The Bear shrugged, adjusting the pillow beneath his head. "Well, I've never been mistaken as wise."

"Nor are you like to be, if you throw your lot in with her."

With her. The contempt was heavy in the assassin's voice as he spoke, but there was something else, something beyond his contempt, that colored his words. The Bear furrowed his brow.

"What has you so unnerved?"

The Rat was quiet for a few moments, and then he turned to face his brother, bending his arm and propping his head up with his hand.

"Do you know the words of House Stark?" the Westerosi asked.

The Bear laughed, saying, "Do you think I haven't had them drilled into my head by our sister? In four languages? No, in five… Winter is Coming. Sōnar Māzis. Aheshke…"

Baynard interrupted him impatiently, asking, "And what do you think those words mean?"

"That… winter is… coming?"

The false-squire blew out a weighted breath.

"Winter isn't winter, brother. Those words are old, older than the North as an organized kingdom. Older than the Wall. Older than even the Starks."

"Older than the Starks?" The large assassin laughed. "So, people have been grimly saying Winter is Coming for more than ten thousand years?"

"Yes!" the Rat hissed. "And do you know why?"

The Bear grunted, shrugging in the firelight. "Because winter is coming, I suppose. They're not wrong. As house mottos go, theirs is pretty straight forward. One way or another, winter comes…"

"Did your master never speak to you about what lives in the North?" the smaller man prodded. "I mean the real North, the Frostfangs and beyond."

"Is there anything beyond the Frostfangs?" the Lyseni man laughed.

"This is no jape. My master taught me the histories of the first men and the tales of what lives beyond the Wall. Didn't yours?"

The Bear did not much like to think of his master. Not after the last command he had given his apprentice. Not after that night at the inn by the Moon Pool. His last night there. Her last night. But those were memories he did not wish to share with his brother then, and so he answered as nonchalantly as he could, after he swallowed the lump which attempted to form in his throat.

"No, not in any great detail. And why should he? Is someone like to visit the temple in Braavos and pray for the death of a giant? Or a mammoth?" The large assassin snorted, his best attempt at feigning amusement. "Maybe the sealord has reason to want the Thenns gone, offered as sacrifices to Him of Many Faces? Is he willing to pay for it, to open trading routes with the wildlings? Do you suppose we'll have many missions beyond the Wall?"

"Laugh all you want, brother," the Rat said bitterly, letting his head fall back against his pillow and staring at the shadows dancing on the rafters above. "But if you stay by her side, you're like to learn exactly what Winter is Coming means."

There was a warning in the false-squire's words, but he did not elaborate. The Lyseni considered what his brother had said, and he considered his sister, and all their long history together.

"There's no help for it, brother," he finally said.

"So, you'll stand with her," the Rat asked grimly, "come what may?"

The Bear gave an affirmative hum.

"And what will you do if the principal elder's next instruction for you is at cross purposes with our sister's desires?"

The large assassin laughed, the sound of it more genuine than before. "It's not already?"

"No," the Rat replied, his tone matter-of-fact. "No, it's not. Not yet."

"Then let us pray to Him of Many Faces that such a time never comes."

"Brother, when such a time comes, I fear not even Him of Many Faces will be able to save you. Or her."

Arya did not know if Gendry slept that night, but she certainly did not. Pacing her chamber, she ruminated, cursing her friend's unwillingness to leave when she had commanded him to; cursing her mother's unwillingness to bend when she had wanted her to; cursing her own inability to sway either of them to her will when she had most needed to.

Was there anything worse than feeling powerless?

She considered waking her mother and trying one last time to convince her to be merciful. She considered waking her brothers and pressing them into service, using their strength to subdue Gendry and ride away with him trussed up like a pheasant for roasting if need be, so long as he was removed to safety. She even briefly considered slitting Lord Smallwood's throat, but did not see any profit in it beyond a fleeting satisfaction, and perhaps a momentary distraction. She considered begging Ser Brynden to help her, but could see no way in which the heir to Raventree Hall could be useful in this instance, despite his insistence that he was at her service.

As the night skies gradually lightened to grey and the pale light of morning filtered through her window, the girl understood what it was that she must do. She only wished she'd had more rest before undertaking her task.

But perhaps if she'd had time to sleep on her plan, she would have awoken and thought the better of it. Or, perhaps not, as even she had to admit to a certain stubbornness in her makeup.

Once set on a task, she was determined to see it through. She was much like her father in that way.

Honor.

Reputation.

She chewed her bottom lip, thoughtful. She remembered her father, his sad smile and his eyes that were her eyes. She remembered his voice, low, calm, with a rasp that always made him sound a bit weary.

"Ah, Arya," he had said to her in Kings Landing. "You have a wildness in you, child. The 'wolf blood' my father used to call it."

He had not been wrong, and she could not be sure if that wolf blood had made for more trouble than it saved her from, or if it was the other way around. The girl slowed her breathing and stilled, her mind grasping for that memory, trying to call up her father's smell, trying to recollect the feel of his calloused palm as he took her hand in his own. She closed her eyes and tried to picture Ned's face as it had been in that moment.

Instead, it was a ghostly pale face that came to her, stern, expectant. A different memory altogether.

"You are my grey daughter," her father had said, his words echoing through the icy crypts. She had watched frost creep up his neck as he spoke. "My brave, winter girl."

Only a dream!

A nightmare.

A vision.

Her eyes flew open, as if she could stop herself from remembering her father's admonishment; from hearing it. But even as she looked wildly about her chamber in the rising light of the dawn, Eddard Stark's words sounded as loud in her head as if he had spoken them directly into her ear at that moment.

" You are my grey daughter. Come home."

The road to Winterfell leads through the Riverlands, she thought, but I cannot leave this land yet. My work here is not done.

She was still wearing the gown she'd been dressed in for supper the night before. Something far too fine for her task, a gown of Ravella Smallwood's, most like, or perhaps something belonging to her daughter, Carellan, sent back from Old Town after the girl's untimely death. Arya couldn't be sure. A brocade the color of butter with skirts that whispered as she walked, caressing the stone floors like a lover's touch, heavy, with shiny satin laces at the back and along the sleeves, it fit Arya as if it had been made for her especially.

It would not do to ruin so fine a thing as she had ruined the acorn dress she had once been loaned in this same house (a dress which had once belonged to a precious daughter, long gone). Was she not older now, and wiser, and more understanding of what such things sometimes could mean to a person? What was simply a ridiculous outfit to her might be Carellan to another, and that was something with which she could sympathize.

She knew what memories such things could hold. She recognized how precious things could become, when the ones whose memories were most closely aligned with them were lost. How well she understood now that belongings, objects, could become so much more to a person, in the right circumstance.

Needle.

Frost.

Grey Daughter.

And so, she disrobed, clumsily, awkwardly, with no maid to help, clawing at the laces at her back to loosen them and slip the gown and its underskirts off, letting them fall to the floor. The chill of the room hit her naked flesh as the last of her undergarments were shed, but she did not rush to dress. Rather, she let the cold prick at her skin, and her fatigue receded. She felt alert, then; alive.

She felt resolute.

After a moment, she found her breeches, and pulled them on, and pulled on something of Salty with them: a girl filled with excitement, anticipation, thinking only of the adventures to come, and nothing of the pain she had left behind. And she slipped on a too-large blouse, its scent of cloves and ginger long since faded, but the feel of it, and the memory of the perfume it once carried, filled her with her master's courage; with his belief in her; with his expectation.

You have all the instinct you could ever require. Your task is to learn to heed it.

She closed her eyes and clenched her left hand into a tight fist, pressing it hard against her belly, pushing into her gut as her master once had.

This is where your strength should flow from, lovely girl.

He had tried to teach her the importance of intuition; of trusting her gut. She was trusting her gut now, and she hoped it would not lead her astray.

A girl must obey. Whatever the thing is, she must do it. A girl must swear to a man.

"I will do my duty," Arya breathed then, her voice catching a little. "I will do my duty, whatever is asked."

The main yard would be where it would happen, she knew. It was the only place that would accommodate a crowd, really; the only place Gendry's humiliation could be maximized.

And why endorse such a sentence, why carry it out, except to humiliate and make an example of him?

Arya beat him there. In fact, she beat most of them there, save a few people unknown to her, and the Kingslayer. The golden knight looked grim, leaning against a newly-placed post which could only have one purpose. The girl stared at it a moment, frowning, but then approached Ser Jaime and began speaking to him. When Gendry was led to the yard, hands unnecessarily bound, he pulled up sharply when he saw the pair of them talking in the center of the yard.

Though perhaps arguing would have been a better word.

"My lady, your mother will certainly never allow it," the golden knight stressed, his voice rising with his exasperation. Apparently, they had been disagreeing for some time.

"Fine, where is she then? I don't see her here to object." Arya spun in a small circle, arms raised with palms turned upward in a questioning gesture. She was making a show of it, her eyes roaming the yard, and the raised galleries and balconies surrounding it. There were many faces there, and more streaming in, but her mother was not among them.

"I'll not allow it, then!" the Kingslayer declared.

"You don't have the authority to stop me."

"The devil I don't!" Jaime growled, one clenched fist and one golden hand coming to rest on his hips as he stepped closer to her, trying to intimidate her into rethinking her foolishness.

Four household guards of Acorn Hall along with Thoros and Lady Brienne brought the blacksmith-knight to the center of the yard, drawing up even with Jaime and Arya. They all surrounded the crude post that had been placed there, ignoring its awful implication.

"M'lady," Gendry entreated, "Please. I don't want you to see this. What are you doing here?"

Ser Jaime answered for her. "What she's doing here, bastard, is trying to take your punishment. The little fool wants to be flogged in your place!"

There was an uproar then, the growing crowd gasping and muttering and shouting. Gendry and Brienne cried out angrily against the idea. Ser Willem, who had just appeared at Arya's side, reprimanded Ser Jaime for his disrespectful address of his lady. The household guards declared that their master would allow no woman to be treated so inhumanely behind his walls. Harwin emerged from the crowd and pled with Arya to be reasonable and leave, calling her little lady as he had when she was young. For his part, the Kingslayer asserted that if Arya wanted to behave like a little fool, then no one, anointed knight or not, would stop him from proclaiming her stupidity for the whole kingdom to hear. Amidst the chaos, only Arya was silent, waiting for the furor to die down.

"Lady Arya, let's be away from here," Ser Willem implored her quietly as the crowd raged and bickered and gossiped in turn, but she just shook her head. Baynard slid next to her then, flanking her, leaning in to whisper in her ear.

"It would've been better if you'd just fucked him."

She drew in a sharp breath, but ignored her Westerosi brother and spoke to the assemblage once they had quieted some.

"Ser Gendry is my sworn knight," Arya reminded them all. "As such, it is my sacred duty to guarantee his safety and protection, as much as I am able."

"A place by your hearth, meat and mead, my lady," Brienne reminded her. "These are what you must pledge to your knights in return for their service. Not… not this."

"A place by my hearth, meat and mead at my table, and to ask no service that may bring dishonor to them," the girl corrected. "Allowing Ser Gendry to suffer such an unjust punishment would greatly dishonor him."

All their voices rose again, arguing for or against her, acknowledging or dismissing her right to interfere with Lady Stoneheart's justice. Thoros said that though he might not agree with Lady Arya's planned course of action, he could not deny her right to take it. The Lady Brienne reminded everyone in a serious voice that this sort of punishment had been known to kill men, and she could not stand by and allow Arya to be subjected to such cruelty herself. The Kingslayer spewed a steady stream of expletives, underlining his disbelief that they were even discussing such a thing. Baynard sneered, somehow managing to impugn both Gendry and Arya for putting themselves in such a position. The Bear beseeched his sister discreetly to give up her tampering in the matter. Gendry simply said, "M'lady" in urgent voice, shaking his head at her. For her part, Arya loudly insisted she intended to protect those who were in her service.

"He has not been released into your service." Lord Smallwood's voice rang out, clear and deep. The crowd quieted and turned to see him, standing on the western gallery, Lady Stoneheart at his side. He bent to move his ear closer to her pale lips which breathed out something quietly and it became obvious to them all that he was speaking for the leader of the Brotherhood Without Banners. "Lady Arya, your lady mother reminds you that Ser Gendry is a knight of the Hollow Hill and is under her authority."

"He swore himself to me," the Cat replied, unperturbed. "Weeks ago, at the Inn at the Crossroads."

"But he was not free to do so, my lady," Lord Smallwood said. "Another example of his faithlessness, I'm afraid."

The bastard knight stiffened then, raising his chin defiantly. "I will not allow anyone to stand in my stead," he said in a growl.

"Gendry, this is not your decision to make," the girl spat, pushing past him, putting herself between her friend and the disdainful gaze of her mother and Lord Smallwood. Arya was startled when Gendry pushed past her the next instant, as if he meant to stand between her and her mother's disapproval.

"Yes, m'lady, it is." He looked over his shoulder at her as he spoke, and his dark brows drew together, his blue eyes pleading with her to be silent. She ignored him and moved to stand at his side.

"Lady Stark, was it not your fondest wish to teach me grace, and kindness?" Arya gazed up at her mother, trying to find Catelyn's eyes in the shadow of her raised hood. "Did you not often tell your daughters that a lady's duty was the betterment of her household? That the welfare of those who served her family was her responsibility?"

Lady Stoneheart took a step closer to the crude balustrade, and Arya saw her mother place her thin, white fingers there, curling them over the rough-hewn railing. The girl thought she finally had her attention, really had her attention. She thought that somehow, she was reaching that part of her mother that was still her mother.

"Wasn't that why you punished me so harshly when I would harass Septa Mordane? I just thought I was playing simple pranks, with no real harm, but you would get so angry, mother, do you recall? Once I placed a dead mouse in the septa's shoe, and you beat me with a strap and left me for a day without food, locked in my room. I suspect it would have been longer, had father not interceded. And do you remember why, mother? Do you remember what you told me?"

The grey lady did not answer, but stared and stared at her daughter. Arya couldn't see her mother's eyes, but she could feel them.

"You said that those with great favor and great power must exercise restraint and dignity, always. You said it was a terrible sin to baselessly persecute those who did not have recourse to resist, and that a lady would be known by her courtesy and forbearance. By her mercies."

Reputation, above all. Reputation, and honor.

The girl thought she could sense her mother bending; that the part of Lady Stoneheart that was her mother remembered those lessons, and understood that her daughter had finally learned them; had accepted them. Arya could almost feel that her mother knew she wished to show that she finally understood her responsibility, as a lady of the Stark household.

The girl took a step forward, then another, putting Gendry and the Brotherhood and the Faceless assassins at her back. For her, they had faded away. Lord Smallwood at her mother's side had faded away. The crowd, made of guests and guards and servants, whispering and murmuring, had faded away. There was nothing else, no one else, except for mother and daughter; Catelyn and Arya. The girl walked slowly toward her mother, until she stood just beneath her, her neck craned far back so she could stare up into Catelyn's shrouded face. She waited for Lady Stoneheart's voice to declare a reprieve for her friend. She waited for her mother to show mercy.

For reputation.

For honor.

For the love she bore her daughter.

Arya watched as her mother's hand left the railing, bent fingers rising to clutch her own throat, pressing into the soft, ragged flesh there, staunching her black wound to make herself heard. The whispering and murmuring stopped, and it seemed as if the assemblage drew a collective breath, waiting to hear the words she herself awaited.

The girl's heart fluttered, hope building almost painfully in her chest; hope not just for Gendry, but for herself, and for the regard her mother must still have for her; for the child Catelyn birthed, her own blood; her own daughter. Hope for the love her mother must still feel for her, no matter how deeply buried; hope that she had somehow awakened it, no matter how small a part, because it was love, and it would be enough. Hope for family; the family she had longed for and grieved and dreamed of finding ever since the day she rode out of Winterfell with her father, bound for King's Landing and the end of life as she knew it.

Pulling her lip between her teeth, Arya chewed, breathing out slowly; soundlessly.

"My judgement… against Ser Gendry… and his… punishment," Lady Stoneheart rasped, "is… final."

Not a sound was heard. Not a single noise. The words hung in the air for a beat, sounding foreign to the girl's ear. Her own disbelief did not allow her to accept them, or what they meant, for another beat. And then, all at once, they fell upon her like rain; like a shroud; like the fiery breath of a dragon in the sky, and they burned her just the same.

Arya sucked in her breath, fast and sharp, anger flashing across her face as she failed to rule it. Her teeth bared themselves instantly, unconsciously, like a snarling wolf, as she glared up at her mother. Breathing fast and hard, great pulls of air rushing in and out of her nose, her head swam a little. The girl's fists clenched of their own accord. Her fury was such that it nearly blinded her, a bright whiteness creeping into her periphery, crowding her vision; fury at her mother, yes, but mostly her fury at herself, for allowing herself to believe she could appeal to a mother's love when she ought to have known better.

When she ought to have remembered that even when they all still lived under Winterfell's roof, her mother's love for her was dubious, at best, and conditional.

When she ought to have remembered that the absence of love, of compassion, inside of her mother had nearly felled her once already.

When she ought to have remembered that heavy cold; that weighted hatred. The wholeness of it; the impossible totality.

Why had she allowed herself to hope?

"And if… my… daughter… wishes to share… Ser Gendry's fate," the grey lady continued, lifting her free hand to point accusingly down at Arya, "then… I will… not stop her!"

Despite Lady Stoneheart's difficulty with speaking, the crypt-like silence in the yard allowed her words to be carried to every ear. There were gasps, and stunned looks, and heads shaking in disbelief. Guards and outlaws, servants and lords, all stared at each other, and then at Lady Stoneheart, and then at Arya, dumfounded. After a moment, it was Gendry's voice which broke the silence.

"Get her out of here," he commanded, and when no one moved to obey, he roared. "GET HER OUT OF HERE!"

Ser Willem moved swiftly then, Baynard at his side, and the two assassins grabbed their sister's arms firmly, roughly moving her through the yard, the crowd parting to make a path for them, staring at the girl in shock as she passed.

"Let me go!" she insisted, half-mad with her rage; her disappointment; her hurt. "Let me go!"

"No, my lady!" Ser Willem barked, the very example of knightly authority. Her attempts to dig the heels of her boots into the ground and slow their progress were useless against the strength of her two brothers and they had her arms secured tightly enough that she could not reach any of her hidden daggers. Arya thrashed and tried to bite the Bear's arm as her brothers dragged her through a door and into the keep.

"Let me go!" she screamed, lifting her feet from the ground, forcing the men to support her weight as she kicked at them, hoping to cause them to stumble or drop her.

"Stop it, sister!" the Bear hissed, yanking her free from the Rat's grasp and slamming her back against the stone wall of the corridor they had entered. Her head cracked hard but she did not feel it. "Stop it!"

She ignored him, continuing her struggle even as he pressed his forearm into her throat. She screamed wildly, unable to control herself, despite her brother's force across her windpipe increasingly robbing her of her breath.

It was that feeling, that sense of powerlessness, she was unable to abide. It ate at her, pushing her further and further into despair; into a kind of madness. She was frenzied with it, inundated by all the memories of the times she had been made helpless.

A girl, small and defiant, standing helplessly by as a king questioned her sister, watching her sister lie in the great hall of Castle Darry; watching her father leave, dagger in hand, to raise his blade against a direwolf at the Queen's insistence.

An urchin, starving and filthy, crouched helplessly at Baelor's feet, watching Lord Stark forced to his knees on the steps of the great sept; watching Ser Ilyn raise her father's own sword against him.

An acolyte, bruised and broken, pulled helplessly away, watching her master on his knees in the main temple chamber; watching the foremost assassin among an order of assassins raise his longsword against the man she loved.

The pain of her memory was almost too much for her then, and she clawed at her brother's face, fighting for breath as she did. And then she heard it, the sound of it carried clear and awful through the small, grated window cut into the door they had entered. It was the sound of leather meeting flesh, followed by a deep, pained grunt that could only be Gendry's, and it echoed through the yard and into the corridor, the sickly horror of it paralyzing Arya.

The Cat was only vaguely aware of Baynard the squire as he moved to her side and dug his two fingers hard into that soft place behind her collarbone, uttering something under his breath, something guttural and sharp; something familiar. The language of Asshai'.

Arya's hands fell away from the Bear's face, the weakness of her limbs having only allowed her to do the most superficial damage. As one assassin continued to exert pressure on her neck while the other finished his blood spell, a tear formed in the corner of the girl's eye, trailing down her cheek before her lids fluttered closed and her world went black.

When the girl came back to herself, she was confused, unsure of how much time had passed, and her head ached fiercely. She sat up in her bed, moaning slightly, and found that she was not alone.

"Oh, milady," the maid who had been attending her since her arrival said, "you're awake! I'm to tell Ser Willem…" The servant blushed as she pronounced the assassin's false name and rose from the chair where she'd been sitting as she watched the girl sleep.

"No," Arya wheezed, her throat uncommonly dry, "not yet."

The maid hesitated. "But, my lady, he was very insistent…"

"Water?"

"Oh, oh, yes, milady," the maid said, scrambling to pour some from a pitcher which sat on a table in the corner. She handed Arya a pewter goblet and the girl gulped its contents down, hoping it would make her head pound less savagely. Arya sighed, letting her head drop back onto her pillow.

"Ser Gendry," the girl said hoarsely, her throat sore. "Where is he?"

"Why, locked in his chamber, milady." The maid spoke cautiously, as if Arya might be trying to trick her with the question.

"So, not banished yet?"

"No, not until he's healed."

Healed. Arya shut her eyes then, squeezing them hard against the idea that the blacksmith-knight had been much harmed. The gesture was futile. If her mother and Theomar Smallwood were allowing him to stay and heal, it could only be a point of honor, and that must mean he had been left unable to ride. She felt nauseated at the thought of it.

"How long have I been here?"

"Since early this morning, milady. Your men brought you here after… well, after you left the bailey yard."

Arya grimaced, her annoyance plain on her face. "Yes, but how long ago was that?"

"Oh, hours and hours, milady. It's nearer to time for supper now. Shall I fetch a tray? Surely, you're hungry. You were already gone when I brought your breakfast, and you slept through the midday meal."

"Slept," the girl repeated, rubbing at her temples. Hours and hours? She suspected there had been more than just her brother's forearm against her windpipe to blame for her long bout of unconsciousness. Had he given her something to keep her slumberous and passive? She squinted, trying to remember, then vaguely recalled the Rat's grating voice, muttering near her ear.

Blood magic. Her head throbbed harder.

"I'll go now, and get you a tray, milady," the maid said, moving toward the door. "And I'll let Ser Willem know you awake now."

"No," Arya said, sitting up then. "No. Dress me for supper. I'll attend."

"But milady!"

"I'll attend," she said through clenched teeth, rising from the bed.

"Yes, milady. I'll need to fetch you a fresh gown, though…"

"No, never mind. I'll just wear what I have on."

"But, you can't," the maid insisted, aghast, looking at Arya's rumpled blouse and breeches. "What would Lord Smallwood say? What would people think?"

Reputation. Scandal.

"Why do you suppose I care?" the girl growled, sending the maid scurrying through the door.

"I'll go let Ser Willem know you're awake!" the servant called, desperation in her voice, retreating as fast as she could.

The Cat rolled her eyes in disgust and found her boots. No, she would not wait for the Bear to show up here and try to calm her; try to talk sense into her. She did not mean to let the Brotherhood, the Riverlords, or her mother go on pretending all was well. They would not shut her away so that they did not have to face her. She aimed to remind them at every possible turn that they had lied and schemed and stood by while an innocent man suffered, and that they had made a mockery of justice. They would not sit back in comfort, eating their supper and drinking their ale, japing and congratulating themselves on their plans and ploys. Not if she had anything to say about it.

But then another idea suddenly occurred to her.

"Wait!" she cried, stopping the servant's flight mid-stride. "Wait…." The Cat made a great show of defeat, hanging her head and sighing. "Fine. Fetch me a dress. Oh, and some scent."

"But you have scent, milady."

"Yes, I know, but there's something different, something Ser Brynden carries with him that he mentioned he particularly liked. Something for his sister, I believe, but he won't mind if I use a dab or two. Find him and ask him for it."

"Ser Brynden," the chambermaid repeated. "Yes, milady."

The Cat could well imagine the heir to Raventree Hall trying to puzzle out the request.

"And once you have it, see about a hair ornament from Lady Brienne."

"Lady… Brienne?" the maid repeated doubtfully. "She has… a hair ornament?"

"So I said."

"But… wouldn't you rather one of your own, milady?" the servant asked, sounding befuddled (no doubt attempting to work out how the knightly woman would even affix such an ornament to herself, so short was her hair). "That jeweled cat comb, or perhaps something of Lady Smallwood's? I know she has many fine…"

"No, there's a particular one of Lady Brienne's I'd like to wear. She offered to lend it to me. Just ask her, she'll know what you mean."

She wouldn't.

"And when you've collected those things, run and tell my mother I'd like to speak with her after the supper, if she would receive me in her chamber."

The servant swallowed. "Your… mother…"

It would take the feeble maid quite some time to work up the courage for that task, Arya was quite sure.

"Yes, now, be off or I shall be late for the supper!"

The servant scampered away on her fool's errands. The girl had likely just bought herself an hour. Time enough to see to her friend. And if anyone tried to stop her…

She pulled the boots on and then wrapped her sword belt around her waist, buckling it with a frown. Her head aching, her mood sour, she was spoiling for a fight.

Calm as still water, her little voice advised. You'll be no help to him if you're engaged in a duel in the corridor.

The Cat sighed, rubbing at her temples. Reluctantly, she unstrapped her sword belt and set it aside. After thinking for a moment, she fished in her pack for something she was like to find more useful. Securing it, she slipped the stoppered vial into her pocket.

Swift as a deer. Quiet as a shadow, she thought. Speed and stealth, not steel. And then she was off.

Jogging down passageways and stairwells, bursting outside and crossing the quiet yard, not looking at the post where Gendry had endured Lady Stoneheart's justice, she passed the darkened forge. A flash of memory caught her unawares, and she saw two children then, in her mind: a scrawny girl scrubbed pink and stuffed into a green dress embroidered with brown acorns, and a boy, who had seemed nearly half a giant to a small girl, strong and still growing.

" You even smell nice for a change," Gendry had said, sniffing at her.

" You don't. You stink!" Arya had shot back, shoving him as hard as she could. He stumbled back, bumping into the cold anvil, and she tried to run away, but the boy grabbed her arm. She had managed to trip him then, but he pulled her down with him as he fell and they rolled across the dirt floor.

That was some other lifetime, the Cat thought. Some other boy. Some other girl.

Gendry was a knight now, not a blacksmith's apprentice turned fugitive, and Arya was…

Well, she was something altogether different.

She pushed the memory aside, a slight frown marring her face, and found the kitchens. The room was too warm, and bustling with activity as the cooks and their help prepared the supper, scrambling here and there for this thing or that. The girl managed to slip in and grab what few things she could, and only a little kitchen boy seemed to notice her. She just smiled at him and made a silly face until he giggled and went back to drawing in the soot by the hearth with his dirty fingers.

Pockets now filled with a few spices, herbs, and a small jar of honey, the girl skirted household guards and servants, keeping to the shadowy doorways and alcoves as she made her way to Gendry's chamber. Every now and again, she would freeze, certain the light sound of her boot soles against the floor would alert someone to her presence, but she remained undetected.

The scuff of leather on stone is as loud as warhorns to a man with open ears, she recalled Jaqen saying to her once. Clever girls go barefoot.

But no one in Acorn Hall could compare to her Faceless master when it came to powers of observation.

No one here has open ears, the girl thought. Not really.

She then thought of Syrio, and his powers of misdirection. The girl felt a rush of warmth, remembering her first dancing master. He had taught her how to exploit the trust people had in words, even when actions shouted a different truth, and he had taught her how to see that truth for herself, the real truth, no matter what she was told.

People will see what they want to, she thought to herself, slipping past another distracted servant hurrying down the corridor with a pitcher of wine. People will believe what is easy, and safe.

An angry assassin creeping through the castle was anything but safe.

No one here has the true seeing.

With Jaqen H'ghar and Syrio Forel as mentors, it was almost too easy.

She found the hairpin she had dropped the previous night, still resting in the middle of the corridor, and used it once again to gain entrance to her friend's room. He did not stir as she entered.

"Gendry," she called softly. "I've come to see about you."

The large knight lay on his belly, stretched out on the narrow bed, his still-booted feet dangling uncomfortably off the end. His face was turned away from the door, looking toward the fire, but she wasn't sure he was even awake until she heard him grunt.

"Is it very bad?" she asked, approaching him. A shirt had been thrown over him, like a light blanket, and she could see dark stains upon it. The girl winced noiselessly. "I'm going to remove this shirt," she warned, emptying the contents of her pockets onto the rough table near his bed. He did not answer her.

Gingerly, the girl grasped the edge of the tunic and lifted, pulling the material away from the knight's wounds. Where the shirt had become stuck in drying blood, she had to pull a bit more forcefully, causing her friend to hiss in pain.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I just need to see." As she finished carefully peeling the tunic away, tossing it aside, Gendry finally spoke.

"Why are you here, m'lady?" His words were slightly slurred.

"I'm here to tend to your wounds, stupid."

"The maester has already been here," the knight groaned, still facing the fire.

"And a fine job he did, too," the girl countered sarcastically. "He either wants you to die of festering, or simply doesn't care."

"He gave me something for the pain…"

"Milk of the poppy, no doubt, but that won't help you heal any faster, or keep your blood from becoming poisoned."

"Blood… poison…" he repeated lazily. His eyes were closed.

Arya sighed, inspecting her friend's back. Mostly, the skin was abraded and bruised, with angry welts rising in angled lines which crisscrossed each other down the center of his back. The flesh was laid open in several places, oozing a bit, but only two of the wounds were severe, deep enough to concern her. There, she could see the muscle beneath the skin. He would scar there, and badly, but with any luck, she would keep the wounds from festering, which was her primary concern just then.

Arya found a small plate that had been left for the knight, removing the uneaten bread from it so that she might use the platter to prepare the herbs she'd stolen. She chopped up the dried leaves and stalks with her dagger, then used the heavy hilt to crush them further. Tapping out a portion of the orange spice she'd been pleased to find already ground in the kitchens, she titrated as carefully as she could without tools for measuring and weighing. She pulverized the dried ingredients as much as she was able, mixing them together well before pouring the honey over the compound. The scent that rose to greet her brought her back to Braavos; to a dim workroom in the House of Black and White which was lined from floor to ceiling with shelves, occupying every inch of all four walls, save the doorway.

Shelves lined with bottles labelled meticulously in precise handwriting; shelves stacked with books filled with instructions and lessons and discoveries in different languages; shelves stuffed with scrolls she had only rarely been allowed to handle, so fragile and aged were they, with fading ink that told of secret spells and incantations from lands near and far.

Not all that she had learned during her time with the waif was for disabling or killing. Some of her concoctions might cause madness, or great pain, or a man's flesh to melt away from his bones, to be sure, but some of them would heal that same flesh. It was with these lessons in mind that she had set about grinding and mixing and titrating what she was able to pilfer from the kitchens. It wouldn't be much, staving off festering and rubor for a only short time, but it would have to do for tonight. She could do more for Gendry, certainly, but not until she could ride into the woods and find other things, plants and certain barks, things common in Westeros but whose combinations and value in healing was only well understood across the sea.

"I'm going to clean your wounds," the girl said, rifling through the blacksmith-knight's things for the cleanest of his shirts. There was a pitcher of water on the table, next to the plate she had used to make the healing salve. She wadded up one sleeve of the tunic and dipped it, wringing out the excess water. "It will hurt some."

She began dabbing at the wounds, ignoring how her friend flinched so she would not hesitate. Uncertainty and squeamishness would only serve to lengthen the process. Her touch was light and gentle as she cleaned the most severe of the wounds, but that did not stop Gendry from sucking his breath in, hissing and groaning in pain. Arya glanced at the knight's face. He grimaced slightly, but seemed to be trying hard to keep his face immobile.

"You don't have to be brave for me, Gendry," she scolded.

"If not for you, then for whom?" His voice sounded clearer; stronger. The milk of the poppy the maester had administered hours before was wearing off.

"For no one. You don't have to be brave at all."

He didn't answer her, but merely grunted.

Arya finished cleaning him and then fanned his damp skin, waiting for it to dry a bit.

"I've made a salve for you," she told him. "It will burn, though, there's no way around that, but it should keep you from falling ill, at least until I can make something better."

"Scratches and cuts, m'lady," the dark knight replied, attempting to push up from his prone position. "If there's ever a day I'm felled by scratches and cuts, then most like I'm not fit for this world, anyway."

Arya grabbed his neck, forcing him back down onto his belly, angry. "Stay still, you stubborn bull! Even small wounds can poison a man's blood, and these are no small wounds!" When Gendry stopped struggling, the girl released his neck, retrieving her stoppered vial, muttering, "Scratches and cuts. Your thrice-damned muscle is showing. Idiot."

The man huffed, demonstrating how silly he thought her concern, but even with that, his voice sounded ragged to her ear.

Men do not relish being made to seem weak before the eyes of women, her little voice reminded her.

Men are stupid, she countered.

"I've got something for the pain," Arya told him. "It's not milk of the poppy, but it will help."

He started to push up again, but was stopped by the girl's swift hand, pushing at his back between his shoulder blades, away from the worst of his wounds, but it still hurt, the pain catching him unawares. He gasped and fell back onto the mattress.

"I don't want you to make me sleep," the knight protested weakly once he had regained his voice.

"I won't. It dulls the pain, but it doesn't sedate you."

Gendry sighed, skeptical, but she laughed at him, telling him how silly he was not to trust her. Finally, he nodded his head in agreement. The Cat rounded the bed, standing between the knight and the fireplace, then squatted next to his head so she could place the vial to his lips. She used her other hand to pinch the corner of his mouth closed so he would not dribble the greenish syrup and lose his dose. She only gave him a small portion of the vial's contents, for though he was a large man, he was naïve to the effects of the potion and would only need a little for it to do its work. Stoppering the vial once again, the girl dropped down to the floor, sitting cross-legged before the fire, watching her friend. Gendry gazed at her, and his face was not so very hard to read.

Shame.

Anger.

Longing.

He said nothing, but seemed to be studying her even more intently than she studied him. On her face, he could read nothing, she was quite sure, her own shame and anger stuffed down deep, smoldering, waiting for those more deserving; her own longing reserved for moments when she was alone. After a few short minutes, the dark knight's eyelids began to droop. He fought his fatigue, trying to force his eyes to stay open.

"You… lied," he slurred, his eyes slowly closing. "You lied… to me."

"Yes," she agreed, standing up. "I'm a liar. Haven't I told you that already?"

Gendry groaned quietly in response.

"I'm an excellent mummer, when I need to be."

He didn't hear that last, as he had fallen into a deep sleep. She retrieved the small plate and began her work.

Black Sun—Death Cab for Cutie

Chapter Text

Searching for some grace, I'll tell you now, if I could hear your voice…

How sweet the sound.

There was a hum detectable even through the heavy doors of the great hall. Stories, japes, schemes, and boasts hung in the air, all bleeding together into one cheerful, thrumming drone. Arya could hear it; could feel it in her skin, reverberating. Her face flushed pink as she ground her teeth slowly, deliberately, her silent protest against the indifference of it all.

The maddening disregard.

The girl had gone straight to the supper upon leaving Gendry's chamber, too angry, too aggrieved after tending his wounds for any pretense. Her poor maid was like to be waiting to dress her in her chamber, holding some borrowed gown, worried about the tongue lashing she would receive for failing to obtain either the mysterious scent of Ser Brynden's or any jeweled hair comb from Lady Brienne.

A braying laugh floated through the crack between the doors then. Arya inhaled deeply, then blew the breath out, stilling herself and ruling her face. Or rather, choosing not to rule it, but to making plain how she felt with the set of her mouth; with the look in her eyes. She tucked Jaqen's soiled, oversized blouse into her breeches so it would not billow as she entered. It would not do to appear comical or child-like. Not tonight. She cuffed the ends of her sleeves so they did not hang down past her hands and tugged at the laces of her neckline, drawing them tight and knotting them. Pushing the doors open, she walked through them, entering the hall and surveying those who supped there.

As the girl walked down the center aisle with purpose, the laughter died first, closely followed by the conversation. Every eye was on her, and Ser Willem started, beginning to rise from his seat, a frown forming on his face. He shook his head slightly at his sister, but she ignored him and continued to the high table. The men there, lords all, seemed frozen for a moment, stunned at Lady Arya's sudden and unexpected arrival as much as at her appearance.

Her hair was unbound and unrestrained, save for a small twist on one side which pulled her mahogany locks away from her eyes, allowing what burned behind them to be seen, and seen well. The twist was held in place by a single pin, slightly bent but still serviceable. That, along with her venomous and disdainful expression, gave her the look of some foreign savage, or a fierce wildling spearwife, lying in wait for an enemy. It was an altogether unexpected mien for a young, marriageable heir to an ancient throne (though not at all surprising for the Cat, at least for those who really knew her). After all, the highborn ladies of Westeros did not leave their hair unarranged or unadorned when supping in noble houses (or when doing most other things in most other places, for that matter). And they typically did not arrive at a feast with undisguised murder in their eyes.

Such a simple thing, on its face: an expression; a choice of hair style. Details, as changeable as the wind. But undeniably, they set Arya instantly apart from those around her.

And then there was the matter of her overlarge blouse, arm seams hanging down well past her shoulders, ivory linen stained with Gendry's blood and a sticky, brownish substance where her sleeves had dragged as she applied her honey-salve to the dark knight's wounds.

She looked for all the world as if she'd just stumbled in from the battlefield, the blood lust still upon her.

But in truth, the battle had not yet begun.

Brynden Blackwood was the first at the high table to stand, prompting the other men in the room to do the same. The sound of the wooden legs of benches and chairs scraping over the stone floors filled the girl's ears, and Lord Smallwood cleared his throat, attempting to force the shock from his face. He was only partially successful.

He would not make a very good Faceless Man.

"Lady Arya, welcome," he greeted. His eyes did not appear so very welcoming, however. "We did not expect you to join us this evening."

"No, I'm sure you didn't." She came to rest directly before Theomar and looked up at him with unmasked displeasure.

Lord Smallwood called for a servant to bring Lady Arya a plate and chair, setting into motion a flurry of activity about the hall. Servants rushed to rearrange the table and the men standing before her moved and shifted, creating a space for her to Lord Smallwood's right. Without a word, the girl set her jaw and ascended the stairs on the side of the dais, seating herself in the newly placed chair between Lord Smallwood and Ser Brynden. Ser Jaime was seated at the high table as well, at the other end, separated from the master of Acorn Hall by a squat, older lord Arya did not recognize. The sigil sewn over the breast of his doublet, however, was known to her.

A woman, naked and pink, danced on a field of blue. A blank white banner gracefully looped around her body, providing her some modesty. The sigil of House Piper.

And if this man of Pinkmaiden, the seat of House Piper, was seated so near to their host, he could only be the lord of that castle. Their words came to her then, learned long ago in Maester Luwin's cramped solar.

Bright and beautiful, she thought, though Lord Piper himself was anything but. Grizzled red hair shot through with gray, wild and bushy like his beard, stood out haphazardly from his head. The lord's ruddy and coarse face spoke to both his time spent away from Pinkmaiden in fields of fire and blood, fighting for this king or that, as well as the drink he had used to quiet the memories of those same wars.

"My Lady Arya," Theomar said as the girl settled, "may I present Lord Clement Piper of Pinkmaiden?"

The stout Riverlord bowed his head and gruffly muttered, "My lady."

"Lord Piper," Arya returned curtly. She was in no mood to play the gracious lady tonight. The men all seated themselves again and resumed their meals a bit uneasily. Servants hastily placed portions of the dishes before the girl. The food appeared very fine, likely in honor of Lord Piper's visit, but it struck a discordant note with Arya that such a pleasant meal was being served on the same day her friend had been so unfairly abused.

On the same day her own mother had made it abundantly clear just how little she cared for her youngest daughter.

Clement Piper's visit notwithstanding, the girl saw little reason for celebration.

Conversation resumed in the hall, though certainly not with the same exuberance as before, and Ser Brynden leaned over to speak with Arya.

"Your chambermaid," he began, a twinkle in his eye, "asked me the most interesting question earlier. I was quite flummoxed."

"Oh?" was her clipped response.

"Something about some scent."

The girl's only answer was a disinterested shrug. She was in no mood for playful banter or flirtation with the son of a Riverlord.

"At first, I wondered if it were some sort of coded message," he confessed, though she could tell he was merely japing.

"It wasn't."

"I figured as much, and so I told her that I had misplaced the bottle." The knight laughed delightedly, as if this were a game that he and Arya had devised for their own amusement.

"Oh." She stared out, watching the Bear shift uneasily in his seat. The large assassin was monitoring his sister closely, but giving the impression of nonchalance, at least to those who did not know him. Arya could read his tension as plainly as if it had been painted across the wall with black tar and set alight.

"Are you quite well?" Ser Brynden inquired. His tone had changed, all playfulness drained from him. Arya was not being at all Arya, and the alteration in her mood had alerted him to some underlying problem.

It was not very Faceless of her. The Kindly Man would be disappointed in her performance tonight, undoubtedly.

The thought caused her lip to curl slightly before she answered the knight.

"No. I'm not quite well."

"Is there anything I can…"

"No."

The heir to Raventree Hall pulled back some, his eyebrows drawing together slightly as he looked at the girl's expression. He watched her as she looked down at her plate, frowning at the food, and then looked out over the crowd again, her frown deepening.

"My lady," the knight finally said, his voice so quiet that only she could hear, "I… I understand that you are… upset."

The girl turned then, her lips pursed and her brows raised expectantly. Her unflinching gaze caught Ser Brynden by surprise and he faltered. His own countenance displayed at first confusion, and then, perhaps a touch of hurt.

"But surely not with me," he continued. She made him no answer and could sense the man's growing discomfort with her behavior. He glanced at her sleeve, noting the blood there, and near her waist as well, a large reddish-brown stain that stretched from her navel to her flank on one side. He sighed. "You've been to see him, I gather." There was no doubt to which him Ser Brynden referred.

"Yes."

"Then I understand your disquiet. No lady should have to witness such…"

"Injustice?" she suggested. "Corruption?"

"I was referring to Ser Gendry's condition, my lady. I am sorry. I am sure it was a… grisly sight."

"Indeed, it was." There was no emotion in her voice beyond simple vexation.

Brynden nodded a little sadly. The Cat could tell that it bothered him that she had been exposed to what he considered barbarity. He had not been present when Ser Gendry was flogged and he had not been witness to Lady Stoneheart's decree that Arya could endure the punishment alongside her friend, if she so chose, but he had most certainly heard all about it. Everyone in Acorn Hall had, judging by the way almost no one in the Great Hall could meet her eye, not even the servants.

"You do not seem… Forgive me, Lady Arya, but you do not seem… quite recovered."

"I'm not."

The knight's eyes became mildly alarmed, the sincerity of his concern radiating at her incessantly. It made her fingers twitch.

"Do you not think it wiser to, perhaps, rest, and refresh yourself in your own chamber, then? You need not be here," he assured her. "Your absence would be forgiven." His voice was gentle, his suggestion almost timid. That was most unlike Ser Brynden's normally assured manner. He was striving mightily not to provoke the girl. It would've amused her, had her mood been lighter.

"Wiser?" she mused. Yes, it would have been wiser. What was done was done, and no amount of rage, or bile, or castigation on her part would change it. Gendry would heal no faster for her purposeful disruption of this supper. The heavy knot she felt in the pit of her belly at the memory of her own failure would dissolve no sooner for all her palpable disdain. Her mother would love her no better, would favor her no more, for all her pointed remarks and caustic expressions tonight. Certainly, it would've been wiser to stay hidden away, brooding and biding her time. In that way, all avenues would remain open to her, and she could choose the ones which most favored her desired outcomes at her leisure. These men, these lords, would have been at their ease, falsely believing her a docile creature who was no threat to them; no threat to their plans, whatever they may have been.

That would've been what Maester Luwin would have advised, had he been there to counsel her, she was sure. Patience. Thoughtful consideration. Dispassionately choosing a suitable course in time. So reasonable, Maester Luwin, and a student of diplomacy, too, whose counsel her parents had both valued greatly.

That would have been the Faceless way, to allow adversaries to feel comfortable in their own power, right up until the moment their throats were opened. Their god did not feed on fear, or anger, or revenge. Apprehension was not his nectar. Only death satisfied him, and anything short of that was mere indulgence, useless and possibly detrimental to the desired end.

That would've been the Bear's strong suggestion, as a friend, she was quite certain; to keep her safe, to keep her plans and motivations undiscovered until such time as she could carry them out with no danger to herself.

That would've been what anyone with an eye toward winning this game would've done.

But she had no interest in playing games.

Her eyes swept over the crowd once again. Only Baynard the squire met her gaze, his look inscrutable. But she did not need to read his face. She knew very well what he was thinking.

"Yes," Arya agreed softly. "It would've been wiser."

"I will escort you back, then," the heir to Raventree Hall said, misunderstanding her comment, confusing it for acquiescence. "Shall I have your maid make a bath ready for you?"

The girl looked at the knight. "A bath?" She laughed, but it sounded bitter. "Why?"

"You've… some blood, my lady, just there." Brynden pointed to her neck. "And there." He indicated the back of one hand. "I'm sure you'll feel better once… once you're clean."

Arya paused, looking strangely at him, and then burst out laughing. She laughed and laughed, throwing her head back as her laughter grew, gasping for breath. She laughed so long and so loud, that she drew the attention of everyone at her table, and then everyone near to her table, and then the whole of the hall.

"Oh!" she cried, trying to catch her breath, tears running down her cheeks. She swiped at them with the back of her hand, smearing more of Gendry's blood across her face. "Oh!" She burst out in a fresh round of laughter.

Brynden rose, placing his hands on her shoulders, trying to soothe her, thinking her in the midst of nervous hysterics. Ser Jaime rose as well, moving slowly toward her, his expression befuddled, but wary. Brienne of Tarth approached the high table from her place just below them, ready to offer whatever assistance was required. For her part, Arya continued laughing, standing and pulling free of Ser Brynden's grip, then wrapping her own arms around her belly, trying to stint herself from the pain of laughing so hard.

There were murmurs of my lady from all around and she turned her head, looking at each face, some aghast, some anxious, some confused, and she laughed even more. Before she knew it, Ser Willem was at her side, grasping her firmly, urging her from the dais and telling her in low tones that he would get her away from this place. Her laughter dried up on her tongue and when they were near the middle of the hall, Arya jerked free of the Bear's grasp.

"No! I'm not leaving. Not yet."

"My lady," the Faceless knight said, his tone a warning. Then, in passable high Valyrian, he told her she was making a scene. Her reply was in the same language.

"Of course I'm making a scene. I came here to make a scene."

"Otāpa," he cautioned in a grim whisper. Think.

She ignored him.

"Do you all think I am disturbed by the sight of a man's flesh practically flayed from his body?" Arya spat, turning and addressing the lords and knights and sworn men at the supper. "Do you think that I cannot look upon blood without losing my strength? That my knees become weak at the sight of it?" She glanced down at her stained sleeves and the dried blood on her hand then and laughed again, but this time, it was more controlled. The girl's head snapped up, and her eyes found the heir to Raventree Hall then. "Ser Brynden!" she called.

The handsome knight straightened. "My lady?"

"You think the grisly sight of Ser Gendry's wounds has robbed me of my wits, I think."

"No, my lady, but I do think it has disturbed your nerves and…"

Westeros! She nearly rolled her eyes. "No, Ser Brynden. Not at all."

"Then, why this outburst, Lady Arya?" Brynden's voice contained a plea in it, as if he were begging her to rediscover her reason; to remember herself.

She shook her head and closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, she spoke.

"My mind is not quiet, it's true, but what disturbs me isn't blood, or gore, or violence, or any display of carnage you could produce for me to attend."

In truth, that's what had triggered her nearly mad laughter: the idea that her mood was due to some frailty; some inability to tolerate the sight of blood; a weakness of the stomach, and of the mind. The idea that she was so delicate, so young, and such a refined lady that her temperament, her emotions, her very reason had been impacted because she had seen an injured man bleed.

She, the ghost in Harrenhal. She, a nearly-Faceless assassin. She, who had watched her own father lose his head, and had killed a boy in a stable, and a man guarding a gate, and then too many others to recall.

She, who had bathed in a sea of blood.

And would again, gods willing.

"Then what?" Ser Jaime interrupted, impatient. "I'm sure we'd all like to know what it is that's disturbing you. My lady." That last, he tacked on almost reluctantly.

Arya found that she appreciated the Kingslayer's irreverence, though she gave him no indication of her approval.

"Malfeasance," she answered, "and the hypocrisy of it all."

"Malfeasance?" Jaime repeated as if he wasn't quite sure he'd heard her correctly.

"The purposeful misapplication of…"

"Yes, my lady, I know what malfeasance is," the golden knight interjected, stepping down from the dais and approaching her. "Did you study much about Westerosi law and traditions while you were in Braavos? I had thought you'd spent all your time learning the ways of assassins and foreign gods."

"There is only one god," she whispered.

"What?" Ser Jaime was nearly upon her then.

Arya shook her head. "Perhaps you'll recall who my father was, Ser Jaime. He taught me all I know of the Westerosi tradition of justice."

The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword.

"Did he also teach you that to make accusations of corruption, you must first have evidence?" Be quiet, girl. His face said it as much as his mind projected it, and yet the Cat could feel that there was no malice in him. Rather, there was a sort of fear there, for her; for what could happen to her if she took one wrong step in this moment.

Just like her father, the Kingslayer observed with dismay.

That caught her off her guard, and she looked at the golden knight then, thoughtful. His internal musing seemed to be a mixture of annoyance and admiration. But there was something else there, something else in him she believed even Ser Jaime didn't quite recognize.

Was it… guilt?

There were too many things happening, too many thoughts fighting for her attention; her own thoughts; the thoughts of those around her; and especially the confusing tangle of what was inside of Jaime's head. It built, like the dull roar of a crowd, and it was far too much at once. She was unable to make sense of all that writhed inside the Kingslayer's mind just then. Her attempts to sort it out made her feel a little sick, and so she pulled back, aware that she could ill afford to vomit there, in the middle of the great hall, and make herself appear weak despite her protestations that she was not. For they would certainly blame it all on her nerves.

How strange, though. That Ser Jaime should care at all.

"I'm not so foolish that I don't understand men have all sorts of reasons to do all sorts of things," Arya replied to Jaime, giving no hint at all that had passed through her mind just then (giving no hint that she understood much that had passed through his, as well). "But I'm also not so indifferent that I can look away when men sacrifice the helpless at the altar of their own ambitions, and call it justice." She knew Gendry would not thank her for referring to him as helpless, but that did not make it any less true; at least not in this circumstance.

Theomar Smallwood stood tall, steady, staring down at her from his place at the high table, his face hard, eyes unblinking. He did not play coy with Arya then.

"No man here did what you say, my lady. That was your mother."

"Yes, my lord, but at whose urging?" the girl replied acidly, walking back toward the table. She thought she heard the Bear behind her, saying no, but she ignored him.

"I've only known her a short while, but it is my experience that your mother is difficult to influence, and impossible to coerce."

"Yet she was swayed by your testimony, Lord Smallwood."

"Yes, my lady," the master of Acorn Hall agreed, "because she recognized it as truth."

"Whether or not she accepted it as truth, or simply used it for justification, I do not know," the girl replied, "but I know it to be false."

"Do you accuse me, then?" Theomar asked, his anger plain to read on his face. "Then you will also need to accuse your own man."

What he said made no sense to Arya. The lord discerned her confusion and explained himself.

"I had seen with my own eyes Ser Gendry's familiar ways with you, but it wasn't until my squire came to me after speaking with Ser Willem's boy that I had confirmation of my suspicions." He pointed toward Baynard. "He had overheard the whole plot and went to my squire with it."

The girl scoffed. "Plot! Bah!"

"Yes, my lady, and I knew that lowborn bastard had to be stopped, before you were too caught up in his mercenary ploy." It was clear Lord Smallwood felt his actions were entirely justified; praiseworthy, even. The girl realized her host actually considered himself her savior. And she realized something else.

The Rat had set Gendry up.

It was only through sheer force of will that Arya stopped herself from rushing back toward the Westerosi assassin then, to throw herself on him and cut out his lying tongue.

She thought to tell Lord Smallwood that he'd been manipulated, but did not wish to explain the why of it; was not even sure she fully understood the why of it herself. She thought to tell him that his eyes had deceived him, and that there was no plot to exploit her, but that was not entirely true, even though Gendry was not the author of such a plan. She thought to simply curse him, in every language she knew, but did not suppose that would make any difference at all.

Looking around, the girl could see that aside from the Bear, she had no real support in the hall, not even from those who believed in Gendry's innocence.

This is not how things are done in Westeros, her little voice reminded her. Women are not admired for directness, or any demonstration of strength, save in their childbed.

Well, Westeros can go straight to all seven bloody hells, then, she thought.

Still, she recognized further argument would be fruitless, though she was not sorry she had expressed her discontent. Let them see that she would not meekly submit to their desires for her; let them learn how difficult she could be to govern. Let them understand that they could not disregard her wishes and hope to have any peace after that.

The girl turned her back to the high table and stalked toward the unmoving cluster of men who had gathered in the center aisle, watching her exchange with Lord Smallwood. They parted for her as she approached, but she stopped when she reached Baynard and spoke to him in low tones, using Dothraki, the language of violence and hostility. His face did not change at her words, his look set as though in stone, but his brother's expression was not so aloof. The false knight started slightly at her threat.

"This is a blood debt," she promised.

And with that, she swept from the room.

Arya slipped through the keep, moving along its shadowy passageways as she headed toward Lady Stoneheart's room. She had not been lying to her chambermaid when she said she had a desire to speak with her mother after the supper.

They had much to discuss.

Her mother, the part of her that was Catelyn, at least, would not have approved of her daughter's display in the great hall. It lacked all the courtesy, all the gentle grace that Lady Stark had tried to instill in her daughters. Arya had never been interested in learning those lessons as a child, and her unwillingness to devote herself to her own improvement (those improvements so admired in a highborn daughter; so sought after in a highborn wife) had been an endless source of pique for both her mother and the septa Catelyn retained to educate her girls on both her faith and the womanly arts.

Mending. Needle work. Singing. Courtesies. Everything frivolous, tedious, and bothersome to a northern girl who only wanted to ride, and practice with her bow, and swing a sword with her brothers.

Sansa didn't think so, of course. Her sister eagerly met the challenges laid forth by the septa, memorizing her prayer book as soon as she could read it, and working endlessly on her stitches. Arya never saw the point, even as the septa and their mother praised the elder Stark girl endlessly on her skill. For all that the younger girl craved her mother's approval, she could not force herself to seek it through the means at her disposal. Not for long, at least. One fresh resolution to do better would melt away with the first stab of an errant needle into her little finger, or one unkind giggle from her sister when Arya misquoted The Seven-Pointed Star.

Any approval Lady Stark did show her youngest daughter was soon undone by Arya's disobedience with her septa's direction, or a childish prank played on Mikken, or one of the kitchen maids. Once, she had been scolded because she and Bran were playing at being knights in a melee and she had knocked him down and then scuffled with him in the yard, the two of them laughing and kicking up dust. Harmless enough if it had been Bran and Rickon, but not fitting behavior for a young lady of Winterfell.

" Why can't you be more like Sansa?"

If she had a copper for every time her mother had said that to her, Arya thought she could afford to build her own castle, away from pointless rules and unreasonable expectations and stifling requirements. Away from her splendid sister, with her impeccable manners and Tully blue eyes.

Sansa never played pranks, never rolled in the dirt, and never disappointed their mother. She was never thoughtless, never cruel. Except toward her sister. And, when she could be bothered to remember him, toward her bastard half-brother, Jon.

Arya never thought that mattered much to her mother, though.

Sansa was Catelyn's perfect daughter, with the same shining auburn hair, always tidy, always beautiful; her mother's mirror image. It had been that way for Arya's whole life. Her sister's hems almost seemed to repel mud, and her recitation of passages from The Seven-Pointed Star had brought a tear to Lady Stark's eye more than once.

If Catelyn ever cried over something Arya had done, it was likely in private, and out of frustration rather than pride.

The girl sighed, slowing her step.

Kindness seemed to be less important to her mother these days, and if Lady Stoneheart's appearance was any indication, the state of any hem was like to be of less concern as well. Arya had entreated her mother to show mercy, had entreated her to remember those lessons she'd tried so hard to impart to her daughter, long ago; lessons about a lady's reputation and a lady's obligations. It had diminished the girl to do it, but she'd done it anyway, for Gendry's sake, and for her own.

It felt like begging for the smallest morsel of love; some tiny crumb of her mother's regard. It felt like prostrating herself, to spare her friend his humiliation by making so plain her own. It felt like a degradation, but she stuffed her pride down deep and pled, so that her mother might tell her she had some worth to her; that she had some value to one of the very few people in this world whose good opinion Arya had always desired.

And her mother had not cared.

The gray lady's heart was hard. As hard as Arya's own. Harder, even.

It occurred to her then that Sansa may have been Catelyn Stark's reflection, her perfect child, but Arya was undoubtedly Lady Stoneheart's.

The thought stopped her in her tracks.

All her mother's words in the sept came rushing back to Arya, rasping whispers and exhortations and plans poured forth from pale lips into a daughter's ear. The girl had taken it all in, the feel of her mother's rough robe against her cheek as welcome as any embrace she had ever received. Her mother had called her my dark child, over and over, and the sound of it was so accepting, so sincere, the girl could not recall hearing anything lovelier from Catelyn's mouth. It was the approval Arya had sought from her mother her whole life, and to her, it seemed more earnest than even the tears Catelyn had shed when Sansa had repeated her perfect verses or shown her excellent embroidery to admiring eyes.

It had thrilled Arya, that epithet, uttered with something akin to pride. She had swelled with a sort of ominous elation; a sense of comfort where there ought to have been only foreboding. Her mother had seemed to endorse the person her child had become, and that was more than the girl had ever dreamed possible; more than she had ever dared hope for herself.

Thinking of her mother now, pronouncing her judgement against Gendry, against her own daughter, pained her. She thought perhaps she had misinterpreted her mother's feelings for her, there alone with her in the sept. She thought perhaps she had only heard in her mother's words what it was she longed to hear, and not what her mother had actually meant.

Or perhaps she was learning that Lady Stoneheart's approval was as conditional as Catelyn's had been.

Arya's shoulders sagged, and she felt unsure of herself, suddenly small and tired. Her eagerness to confront her mother vanished, and her impetuous plan no longer held any appeal for her.

In truth, she was not sure how much more disappointment she could stomach at that moment. She turned around and made her way back to her own chamber, feeling unsure about what she should do. When she reached her room, she did not find her maid awaiting her. Instead, it was her Lyseni brother who paced before the blazing fire that had been laid in the grate. He stopped when she walked through the door, turning and looking at her.

Without a word, Arya moved across the floor and fell into him, burying her face against his chest. The large assassin sighed. When she felt the Bear's arms move around her, enfolding her and pulling her tightly to him, she began to silently sob.

Days passed, but still the girl did not seek her mother out. She alternated between anger, disappointment, and sadness, unsure which emotion she should allow to govern her, and so she pushed them all aside and concentrated instead on healing Gendry, and training with her steel, and noting the movement of fighting men in and out of Acorn Hall.

Lord Piper stayed on, with the few men who had accompanied him. The bulk of his force was under the direction of his son, Ser Marq, and headed straight for Riverrun from Pinkmaiden. This, the girl overheard in the yard as she sparred with Ser Jaime. She gave no sign that she paid any mind to what Lord Piper's man said as he and one of the household guards employed by Lord Smallwood traded blows, but still, she wondered at the reason for Clement Piper's sojourn at Acorn Hall.

Likely, he had come to be briefed on the necessary changes to the Riverlords' plans.

She imagined her mere presence behind Lord Smallwood's walls was proof enough of the need for those changes to anyone inclined to be skeptical.

Robb Stark's sister. Ned Stark's daughter. A Tully by blood, as well as a Stark. It was the will of the gods, the old and the new, that she had fallen into their hands, and they must seize the moment!

She hadn't heard it so much as gleaned it, bits and pieces of belief, of hope, of intentions, floating in the air for her to snatch and assemble, like the pieces of a puzzle scattered between the great hall, and the bailey yard, and all the corridors and chambers of Acorn Hall. Sometimes, she learned things even on horseback, when she rode out into the surrounding wood, looking for the plants and barks she might use to make healing potions, and poultices, and salves, to aid the blacksmith-knight.

Always with an escort, of course. Ser Brynden, usually, and at least one of her mother's men, and no less than two household guards.

"You seem distracted," the golden knight observed as he easily blocked one of Arya's thrusts. "You're letting an old, one-handed knight beat you."

"You're not old."

"Compared to you, everyone is old," he teased. "Look at you. You're practically an infant."

The girl scowled. "And you're not beating me, Ser Jaime."

"Debatable."

Her lips curled into a familiar smile, malicious rather than amused, and she attacked with renewed vigor and focus. They both used blunted blades, rusting longswords they'd found in the yard, at Ser Jaime's insistence. He claimed with a smirk that he couldn't trust her not to skewer him with her sharp steel, but Arya suspected he did not trust himself enough to duel her with his left hand without accidentally harming her. Even swinging left handed, though, the girl had to admit that Ser Jaime was a very able swordsman.

It couldn't have been easy to become so.

She would've liked to have tested herself against his skill before he had been maimed by the bloody mummers.

The knight blocked Arya's blade with his golden hand as she leveled a vicious cut. It was not completely unexpected since he'd displayed the technique before, but the harsh vibrations of the rusted steel meeting Jaime's unyielding palm shot up Arya's arm to the elbow and she winced. He exploited the opportunity and jabbed at the girl's flank with his longsword but she saw it coming and released her grip on her own trapped weapon, dropping into a squat so that the Kingslayer's blade slashed at the air over her head. Before he could redirect his attack, Arya lunged forward, hitting his knees as her own sword fell from Jaime's golden hand and bounced off the ground. The knight fell backwards, landing on his arse with a great grunt. His sword had flown from his hand, landing near the feet of Lord Piper's man, startling him.

The Cat deftly plucked one of her small blades from its hidden sheath and pressed the flat of it firmly against the artery in Ser Jaime's neck. This edge was not blunted. She was straddling his lap as he used his elbows to prop himself up from the ground.

"Dead man," she said as the knight of Pinkmaiden gave them a sour look before returning to his own training. Jaime laughed, as much at the man's ill humor as at his own predicament.

"Which of the seven hells spat you up to torment me, Stark?"

"Whichever one punishes incestuous knights who kill the king they swore to protect."

"Not nice, my lady." Jaime shook his head, but he did not look offended to her eye.

"Haven't you heard? I'm not nice. And I'm not a lady."

"Haven't you heard? I'm reformed. No more incest for me. And that king needed to be killed."

Arya allowed her mouth to fall open, staring at the golden knight, shocked by his candor, and then she began to chuckle. Still laughing, she hopped up and extended a hand, helping the knight rise from the ground.

"I think I like you, Lannister," she confided with a small smile.

"Should I be insulted that you sound surprised?" Jaime raised one eyebrow as he regarded her.

"I wasn't sure I would."

"Well, I haven't made my mind up about you yet, Stark," he returned.

She laughed, shaking her head. "Shall we go again?"

"Hasn't my pride taken enough of a beating?"

"Oh, I doubt it. You've an awful lot of pride, I'd wager."

Jaime gave her a look of mock pain and Arya's face broke out in a wide grin. It brought him up short.

"You really are so very like her, you know," the knight said, walking toward the barrel where the blunted swords were kept. The girl trailed after him. "Your Aunt Lyanna."

"Did you know her much?"

"No, not much," he admitted, depositing his blade. He turned and took Arya's as well, returning it to its place for her. "But I did see her, at the tourney at Harrenhal, in the year of the false spring."

The girl was fascinated, having never really thought about Ser Jaime knowing her family when they were all young. So much of her family history seemed tied to that tournament, and Jaime had been there to witness it.

"It must have been a splendid time. Did you joust?" Arya asked, feeling like a she was six again, begging Old Nan for tales before bedtime.

"No. I wasn't able to compete."

"You weren't? Why not? Would your father not allow it?"

"No, I'm sure he would have happily allowed it, but I had just been raised to the Kingsguard, and my duties took me back to Kings Landing soon after the opening ceremonies."

Arya gave Ser Jaime a sympathetic look. "You must've been so disappointed." The renown of that tourney had kept the tales of it alive even into the next generation, and the purses offered the winners had yet to be matched five and twenty years later. She could well imagine how upset a young knight would be to miss such an opportunity.

"Well, I was five and ten, and a little hot-headed, and full of notions of glory and fame, so to say I was disappointed understates the matter."

"Five and ten!" Arya marveled. She supposed it was common knowledge, that Ser Jaime had won much acclaim at so young an age. She supposed perhaps she had even known it once, in some vague way, but now, being near to that same age herself, the achievement impressed her more.

"Yes, my lady, a year younger than you are. That's how I know you're little more than an infant. I was once an infant, too."

The girl gave her companion a look of disapproval as they walked slowly back across the yard, toward the keep. She had never liked to be told she was too young, even as a jape.

"You weren't an infant. You were a knight!" A touch of awe crept into her voice. "No, not just a knight, a Kingsguard."

"The youngest man ever raised to the Kingsguard," he told her, and the memory made him smile sadly.

"Your father must have been so proud," the girl murmured, thinking of her own father then.

"If by proud, you mean enraged beyond all reason, then yes. My father was very, very proud."

Arya thought about it, wondering how her own father might have reacted if Robb had declared his intention to pursue knighthood; to seek an appointment to the Kingsguard. She imagined that Ned Stark would've advised his son to think on his choice carefully, especially at the age of five and ten. But she did not think her father would've stood in Robb's way, had he chosen that path. And she was certain that having a child raised to the Kingsguard would have been a point of pride among the Starks, even if it came with the heartbreak of parting with a beloved son and brother.

"I never met your father," she said. She tried to imagine Tywin Lannister, the man who had fathered a queen, a kingslayer, and an imp.

"No? Well, he was a great man," the golden knight told her. "Not a great father, but a very great man."

They had reached the door of the keep and Ser Jaime pulled it open, allowing Arya to pass through first.

"Mine was a great father and a great man," the girl said a bit hoarsely. She didn't know why their talk of fathers had stirred her so. She could usually speak of her father without being overcome with emotion, but she found the back of her throat constricting just then and felt as though she might cry.

Don't be stupid, she commanded herself.

"Yes, honorable to a fault was our Ned Stark," Jaime agreed, but there was a touch of bitterness in his tone. They were walking down a corridor together, headed for the great hall and the midday meal. Arya's head snapped toward her companion and she eyed him suspiciously.

"And what does that mean?" she demanded, recalling that there had been animosity between her father and Jaime Lannister shortly before… her life had been forever altered.

"Nothing, Lady Arya. It means your father was an honorable man, as I said."

She wasn't convinced, but she did not pursue the argument.

In the great hall, Arya and Jaime seated themselves on a table near the back, not bothering with the high table, which was empty. A servant brought them trenchers of mutton stew with fresh bread and ale. The girl sat across from her companion and watched him eat for a bit. Finally, Jaime looked up, a questioning look on his face.

"What is it?"

"I want to hear more about the tourney," Arya said sheepishly. "I don't mean to disturb your meal, though."

"You staring at me without saying anything is disturbing my meal," the knight groused, dipping his bread into his stew and shoving it in his mouth with a touch of irritation. "I told you, I wasn't even there. I was sent away after the first day."

"But you said you saw my Aunt Lyanna."

"Well, I was there long enough for that."

Arya gave Jaime and expectant look, crossing her arms over her chest impatiently. The golden knight sighed.

"Fine, I'll tell you, but only if you eat. Gods, Stark, you look like a twig. Of course, it might help if you actually got some clothes that fit. That tunic is a disgrace…"

"You sound like my sister," the girl complained, but she began eating, dipping bits of her bread into the trencher as her companion had, chewing slowly as he spoke.

"Let's see. Ah, yes. I arrived at Harrenhal ahead of the king. I was not yet a Kingsguard, so I was not traveling with the royal party then."

"But you knew that you'd been chosen, right? You knew you were going to be raised to the Kingsguard?"

"Don't interrupt. It's rude. And yes, I knew. I'd received the news while I was at Casterly Rock, shortly followed by a raven from my father telling me exactly how he felt about the news, and to stay put until he arrived home to sort out my mess."

"What did you do?"

"I saddled my horse and rode like hell for Harrenhal."

She was not the only rebellious child at the dining table, it seemed.

"I took the River Road, because I didn't want to risk meeting my father on the Gold Road after he left King's Landing."

"That's a long journey to make alone. Weren't you worried about outlaws?"

"After fighting the Kingswood Brotherhood and earning a knighthood out of it, I was feeling confident about my chances against any outlaws," he replied.

She nodded, seeing how a young man with such skill would feel invincible. She often felt that way herself. It seemed she had much in common with Ser Jaime.

Then he added, "Like I said. Infant." He gave her a knowing glance. "But at any rate, I wasn't alone. Sumner Crakehall and Karyl Vance rode with me."

"I've met Lord Vance," Arya said. "At Raventree Hall."

"Mmm," Jaime acknowledged, "I know him well, but he wasn't Lord Vance then, just Karyl. Just as your father wasn't Lord Stark yet."

Arya leaned forward, listening raptly to the golden knight. Of course she knew her father wasn't always Lord Stark, but knowing of a thing and being able to imagine it were two different propositions. She could not picture her father as anything other than he was during her lifetime (and as he was in her dreams: stern, imposing, as regal as the likenesses of the ancient Kings of Winter atop their tombs, his eyes urging her to do her duty). Logic told her that Lord Eddard Stark had once been just Ned, a boy her age, with all the boiling excitement and anticipation any adventurous young man would have for what was to come. But still, she could not quite believe it.

"I wish I could have been there to see him," she whispered, staring down the table at nothing. Though she allowed herself the uncharacteristic indulgence of imagination, the image did not come. Jaime cocked his head to the side, studying the girl's profile as she looked off. His eyes softened.

"We met them on the road," he finally revealed, "just after they'd crossed the Trident."

Arya's eyebrows shot up in surprise and she turned to look at the knight. "My father?"

"Your father, yes. And his brothers. And Lyanna. It was as if we'd been set upon by a whole pack of wolves." He smirked. "And one lone stag."

"Stag?"

"Robert was with them." His voice changed slightly as he spoke of the king.

"I… I never knew…" She began chewing her lip gently, thinking of what she did know of the great tourney at Harrenhal; stories she'd been told as a child; passing remarks she'd heard in the Red Keep. It wasn't much, overshadowed mostly by the tale of the silver prince insulting Robert Baratheon, the Starks, and even his own wife by presenting Lyanna with a crown of winter roses. "It's strange, now that I think on it. My father rarely ever spoke of the tournament."

"No, I imagine he wouldn't. Not after what happened."

"Do you mean with Prince Rhaegar and my aunt?"

Jaime nodded.

"But… there was so much else," the girl protested. "The tilts. The melee. Feasts, prizes, the minstrels…" Arya thought the whole thing must've seemed a very grand affair to the four Northern siblings, far away from home, surrounded by their young peers, all of them straddling that line between the enchanted innocence of their youth and the certainty of their maturity; all of them moving toward life and death, love and loss; all of them on the cusp of very great things; on the edge of history, moving to write their own stories in blood and tears.

All of them carving out their destinies with steel, cunning, and luck; with friendships new and old; with defiance; with loyalty; with a crown made of flowers as delicate as life itself, worn, and then hidden, and then clutched between the bloody fingers of a dying woman.

But then, they had no way of knowing it.

"Yes, Lady Arya, but if you could trace the moment that set in motion the abduction and death of your most beloved sister, would not the whole of the memory be soured?"

Arya considered his words. The knight spoke sense.

"I can't even imagine it. He spoke so little of those he'd lost. I never met my Uncle Brandon, or my Aunt Lyanna. I have no way to imagine them beyond the carvings on their tombs."

Jaime's gaze drifted up and to his right as his eyes narrowed. He seemed to be trying to recall something.

"I think you've more than your share of your uncle's boldness," he told her, smiling a bit, "though he didn't have the advantage of honing it in the company of Braavosi assassins."

This pleased her, and she smiled.

"But if you want to see Lyanna, you have only to study your own reflection," the knight continued, looking into Arya's eyes. "Though she was a bit taller. And her manners were better."

Arya rolled her eyes. Jaime leaned forward conspiratorially.

"But only just a little," he said with a grin. "I recall her telling a bawdy jape or two on that short journey from the crossroads to Harrenhal. I suppose that was Brandon's influence on her."

"Did she scandalize you, Ser Jaime?"

"Me? Hardly. I thought her charming. Wild, but charming." He looked thoughtful for a moment. "Though I do recall that Robert disapproved. Which is really rich, when you think on it."

"Did he scold her?"

Jaime burst out laughing. "Would that he had! I would have loved to see that fight! She may not have had your skill with a sword, my lady, but I'd wager your aunt could cut a man to ribbons with her tongue in a matter of moments."

An idea of Lyanna began to take shape in Arya's head, a girl more real, fuller, than the tragic figure she had always imagined, taken away to die in a distant land. Only her bones would ever return North and to Arya, it almost seemed as if her aunt had never existed at all, until this moment.

"Brandon tried to corral her," the Kingslayer continued, "but she would easily put him in his place. Only your father seemed to have any sway with her, and he never berated her, or challenged her. He would simply say Lya with this particular tone, and then smile at her with a shake of his head."

The girl knew very well the sound of it, and the look. For all her mother's excruciatingly detailed recitations of Arya's shortcomings and transgressions, her daughter was never so contrite as she was when her father gave her that look; that small, sad smile of his, shaking his head as he said her name softly. Arya.

The gentlest reprimand, laced with disappointment. And not just that, but a hint of belief that he knew she was capable of better. It never failed to fill her with remorse. And it never failed to make her want to do better, to be better, for him.

"That was his way," she murmured, more to herself than to Jaime.

"That may have been his way with his sister, and with you, but that was not his way with everyone," the knight retorted. "Lord Stark was not known for being… a yielding man." Again, the bitterness crept into his voice. Arya squinted at him, but even she had to admit there was something to what he said. Her father was not quick to anger, and she had never seen him act unfairly, but when she thought on it, she did recall that his way of correcting her brothers had not been quite the same as with her, or as Ser Jaime had recounted Ned's handling of Lyanna.

"My father… lived by a code. He was uncompromising in his adherence," Arya explained. "He had… certain expectations. Of everyone he ever met, I think."

"Yes," the Kingslayer agreed, "and when those expectations weren't met…"

The girl laughed. "When did you have the opportunity to disappoint him?"

"Almost every time we crossed paths, I'd say."

She waited, but the knight did not expound on his words.

"He just wanted everyone to behave with honor," she offered after a moment. "He wanted everyone to be as honorable as he was." The thought made her sad, somehow; that her father had died for his honor, even as that vile boy-king had called it into question; that her father had been pulled out of Winterfell, where his honor was revered and emulated, and tossed into that den of snakes in King's Landing, where it had been his undoing.

"Yes, sweetling, he did, but life is not a poem or a song, and there are far more men who would trade their honor for gain than the other way around."

The Kingslayer's words gave her pause. They might have been a criticism of her father, of his way of looking at the world, but the girl could not deny the truth of them. And the way Jaime spoke was surprisingly sincere, and gentle, as if he were trying to teach her some important lesson, or impart his hard-won wisdom to her. It reminded her a little of the way her father had spoken to her when she was a young girl.

The lone wolf dies…

She nodded slightly.

"I miss him."

The girl spoke without realizing it. When she heard her own words in her ears, she bit her lip and looked down at her stew, not meeting her companion's eyes. Arya heard him sigh.

"Of course you do."

"I'm… I think… if he were here today, he would be… so disappointed." Arya looked up at Jaime then, her wide, grey eyes fixed on the green in his. "In me."

He shook his head at her, his gaze soft.

"I think if Lord Stark saw you today, he would be… proud." Ser Jaime watched the girl's countenance change, a sort of poignant gratitude apparent in her face. "I also think he would be frightened." As the knight added that last bit, a furrow formed between her eyes.

"Frightened? Why?"

"Because you're too like her. I imagine that would nearly scare him to death. He couldn't save Lyanna. He'd have spent his life trying to save you."

She was confused. "From what?"

"From yourself, my lady." He took another bite of his bread.

Arya wasn't sure what to make of Jaime's words. She did not have long to consider them, however, because Lady Brienne joined them just then, sitting on the bench next to the golden knight.

"Mutton?" she asked, glancing at Ser Jaime's trencher.

"Yes, and it's delightful," the knight replied sarcastically. "A real treat."

Brienne admonished him to be grateful for the hospitality.

"I'm a Lannister, wench, we don't feel gratitude. Not for anything. What we're given is simply our due."

The large woman rolled her eyes and Arya snorted.

"What were you two talking about just now?" Brienne inquired. "Was he being insulting?" She had directed the question to Arya. "You had a look on your face…"

"Honestly!" Jaime cried in mock-dismay. "Will you ever give me any credit at all?"

The girl shook her head, ignoring the man's outburst. "He wasn't being insulting. At least, I don't think he was."

"See, wench?" he said triumphantly. "I'm behaving. You don't have to play at being my nursemaid."

The knightly woman gave the Kingslayer a sideways glare, then looked back at Arya.

"If he troubles you…" she started.

"I wasn't troubling her," Jaime pouted. "If anything, she was troubling me."

"Do be quiet, Ser Jaime," Brienne said.

"I'm quite charming, you know," he continued, ignoring her. "When I choose to be."

"Gods…" The Maid of Tarth rolled her eyes with frustration, but there was a fondness in their banter.

"And if you must know, we were speaking of our parents," the knight sniffed.

Brienne looked at the girl then, her eyes full of sympathy. Arya understood that the knightly woman believed they had been discussing Lady Stoneheart.

"My lady, do not grieve yourself too much about your mother. Parents… often make mistakes, but it does not mean…"

"What do you know about it, wench?" Jaime interrupted. "You didn't have the same tragic childhood as Lady Arya and myself."

Brienne scoffed. "I would hardly say your upbringing at Casterly Rock was tragic, Jaime Lannister."

"I wouldn't expect you to understand," he told her haughtily. "You were raised on an isle of sapphires, your every desire catered to, adored by your parents."

"There are no sapphires on Tarth." There was a touch of vexation in Brienne's voice. "And I was not indulged like you say."

"Your childhood was so idyllic, the bards wrote songs about it."

"What? Bards never even came to Evenfall Hall. My father wouldn't allow it."

"Selwyn Tarth didn't care for bards?" Jaime asked the question as if it were the most interesting bit of trivia he'd heard in a moon's turn. Brienne shook her head.

"He considered them too crafty."

They went back and forth like that for some time, Ser Jaime making outrageous claims about Lady Brienne's life on Tarth, and the woman denying each of them in turn with waning patience. The girl laughed lightly, but her mind turned toward her parents then. She had not been thinking on Catelyn until the knightly woman brought her up, but now Arya considered the contrast between her mother and father.

Jaime had said Ned would've spent his life trying to save her from herself; that she would have frightened him. Yet Lady Stoneheart was not frightened in the least, not of Arya, and not for Arya. Her mother had not spent a moment trying to save her daughter from herself. Instead, she had whispered her plans; had told the girl how they could accomplish them together. Lady Stoneheart had extracted promises from the girl quite unlike anything her father would ever have asked of her.

Promises of revenge. Vows of retribution.

Arya wondered what would happen if the ghost of her father materialized before her just then. If her dreams were any indication, he would urge her on to the North; to Winterfell. Yet her mother had need of her in the Riverlands; had made her swear to finish what Lady Stoneheart had started.

Mother and daughter, twin daemons scourging the land, extracting penance for the many sins committed after the fall of the Tulleys; after the overthrow of the Starks.

My dark child.

No sooner had she remembered her mother's words than her father's came to her.

You are my grey daughter.

In life, Arya's parents had seemed to be of one accord. Death, it seemed, had put them at odds. They pulled her in two different directions.

But which path was the right one?

The night is too warm for sleeping furs, but the bulk of this army, and the twin silver monarchs who ride at its head, have come from hot, dry places where sands burn and mud bricks bake all day in the sun, radiating warmth even after the moon has risen high in the night sky. And so, they light braziers in their tents and cloak themselves in thick wool trimmed with the pelts of animals bred to resist the climate of this kingdom. And, they sleep wrapped in blankets made of the same, saying, 'It is winter here.' But they do not understand cold, or winter. Not really.

Not yet.

The Faceless leader of the Stormcrows rises, slipping from beneath the stifling weight of a fur coverlet drawn over his nakedness. He is careful not to disturb the slumbering queen next to him, her pale hair splayed out on a pillow filled with goose feathers. Silently, he pulls on his breeches, then drops a thin blouse over his head, snaking his tanned arms through the sleeves before walking from the royal tent into the quiet of the camp at night.

Few men are about, just those on watch, and those awakened by their need to relieve themselves, stumbling drowsily to a latrine dug on the outer perimeter of the encampment. The false sellsword nods brusquely to the guard patrolling the camp's northern quadrant as he passes and comes to rest against the thick trunk of a soldier pine. The smell of its green needles is sharp, but pleasant, a woodsy perfume scenting the breeze that blows just then. Something stirs in him as he breathes it in, and he thinks this is just a hint; the smallest taste of the place he wishes to go.

The pine.

The chill.

They are in the Reach now, approaching Highgarden. The air is cooler here than in Dorne. He had noticed it as soon as they left the Prince's Pass behind them; cool, but not cold. At least, not nearly so cold as it will be. Still, he cannot deny that winter has come to Westeros, and as the dragon army advances northward, he supposes there will come a time when he will be glad of Daenerys' many sleeping furs; when their warmth will be welcome. But, tonight is not that night.

And, he thinks, it is also possible that if that time comes, he will resent her even more.

That feeling, that growing animus, is not something Daario Naharis would feel, and so neither should he, but he finds himself unable to deny its truth. The assassin is far too adept at his craft to show it, but still, the impatience, and his ever-present contempt remain, unsettling him. This face is not an easy one for him to wear, for tacked onto that small piece inside of him which is always him, he carries another.

The memory of her skin beneath his fingertips.

The memory of her weight in his arms.

He is no longer able to completely immerse himself in his false face and simply be who he must be for his god's work, because part of him is now always himself; a self with memory, and history, and longing. He can deny it no more than he can deny the setting sun or the moon high overhead.

That is the consequence of his sin.

The sin of becoming.

His master had warned him, had commanded him, but he'd willfully disobeyed; had reveled in his disobedience. The sin was too sweet, the temptation too great, and he did not resist it. He was not powerless, no, and could have chosen a different path.

He simply did not wish to.

It is in this way that a self has emerged, his own self, plucked from inside of a man's chest and molded by small hands, then named. A gift, he supposes, which is also a curse.

A curse he will take no pains to break.

A curse he would never wish to undo.

The false Tyroshi had stared at Daenerys for a long time after she had fallen asleep that night, thinking how easy it would be for him to wrap his hands around her throat and choke the life from her. He does not believe such an act would be completely unwelcome, or condemned, at least among those who support the Dragon King's claim. The Khaleesi is a complication for Aegon, for the son of Rhaegar seems determined not to wed his aunt, yet he cannot openly reject her.

Because of her dragons.

It is for this same reason that the Faceless assassin cannot offer her as a sacrifice to Him of Many Faces. Without their mother, no one can be sure what the dragons might do; how much farmland and forest they might burn; how much of the kingdom might be reduced to blackened stone and ash before they can be stopped.

No one can be sure they even could be stopped.

And this is a risk the Khaleesi's reluctant consort cannot take, for there is something very precious to him in this land, and he will storm the seven heavens and the seven hells to protect it, if need be.

To protect her.

The man breathes in deeply, quietly, and stares up at the Westerosi stars. He studies their patterns, pleading with his god that their light might shine down upon his beloved's face, wherever she may be, and remind her that she is well loved.

By all the gods, I am yours…

It is a vow that lives in him, somehow, no matter the face he wears, no matter the role he plays. It, too, is pinned to that part of him which remains constantly him, and he carries it with him always. They steady him, these words he has spoken in the tongue of his homeland. He had uttered them a mere three moons past, or perhaps it was four, but they feel as ancient and as true as the very land upon which he now stands. As if he had spoken them a thousand years ago.

As if he has been speaking them for a thousand years.

" Arya Stark," he murmurs hoarsely, a soft prayer whispered under those stars, carried away on the wind to the ear of his god. "Do not keep her from me."

Arya decided to take her supper in her room again, too tired after her day's activities to either feign civility or demonstrate her continued fury in the great hall among the Riverlords and the Brotherhood. She'd only just arrived at her chamber door, occupied for hours by her exercise in the training yard with Ser Jaime (as well as listening to his tales of the great tourney), her daily ride to the wood with Ser Brynden (and a bevy of other armed men), and her preparation and application of a poultice for Gendry's wounds.

The girl had left her old friend to his rest, his back sticky with her healing concoction and swathed in clean linen she had procured. His mood had become decidedly grouchy. She supposed she shouldn't blame him, cooped up as he was in his room, which served as his gaol, with nothing to entertain him between her visits beyond his own dark thoughts. She was certain he brooded over what would soon become of him, though he resisted discussing it with her. Still, when his temper was inflamed, Gendry was less than pleasant to be around. Arya supposed he shared that in common with his father. Of course, she was never much one to suffer the fits and dander of others. Arya supposed she shared that in common with her aunt, at least according to Ser Jaime.

She smiled at the thought.

When she pushed through her door into her room, the girl found a tray had been laid out for her. Her chambermaid had also prepared a bath.

"Shall I help you, milady?"

"No," the girl said. She desired to be alone with her thoughts. "You may leave me."

The maid bobbed a curtsey and left Arya to her own devices.

The girl dropped heavily into the chair near the fire and began to pick at the food that had been left for her, chewing absently as she thought about her visit to the blacksmith-knight. He was healing well, with no sign of any festering, which gratified her, but soon, she would not be able to claim her old friend could not ride, and then he would be sent away. She mulled the problem as she ate her fill and then loosened the tie which secured her braid, shaking her hair loose.

Shucking her boots and shedding her clothes, she lowered herself into the bath with a groan. After several minutes, she began to scrub away all evidence of her exertions: sweat, and dirt, and Gendry's scent on her hands. When her skin was pink with the warmth of the water and clean, she leaned back, settling into a comfortable position and closing her eyes for a moment. Her problems laid themselves out before her then, and she considered them in turn.

Gendry. Her mother. The Riverlords. The Rat. Her vows (Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, Queen Cersei, traitorous black brothers, Walder Frey). The Kindly Man.

Jaqen.

She crossed her arms then, hands resting on opposite shoulders, embracing herself because there was no one else there to do it. It was not as comforting as she would've liked, and the gnawing pain in her stomach did not abate. Her index finger caught the well-healed scar on her shoulder then, small though it was, and she stroked at it softly, tracing its path. She remembered another bath, long ago, where her Lorathi master had done the same.

How did a girl come by this?

Even now, Arya blushed at the memory, and bit her lip. And then she sighed, a somber thought occurring to her; some bit of wisdom remembered from an old book, written by a long-dead maester.

It is the curse of man that he not recognize his halcyon days until they are long past, and then to look back in grief at such sublime times, because they are gone, existing only in memory, no more than wind.

Arya remembered the text in the library at Winterfell. It was initially the colorful illuminations that drew her attention. She was only just learning to read then, and had asked her father what 'halcyon days' were. He had looked at her strangely, then ruffled her hair and smiled.

"These are your halcyon days, my little wolf," he'd said.

Later, she had asked Maester Luwin about it, and he'd told her the passage was a warning to savor the happy moments, for they were never guaranteed to last.

Would that she had savored that moment with Jaqen while she could; would that she had savored all their moments, relishing the feel of his breath on her neck, appreciating the decadence of his mere presence.

Luxuriating in the feel of his fingertip tracing her small scar.

And perhaps she would have, had she remembered that dusty book in the library, its bits of sage advice surrounded by bright illustrations which drew her four-year-old eye much more than the words penned on its pages. Perhaps she would have, had she realized such things were finite; that such moments were counted, and numbered, and so jealously allotted by the ungenerous gods. Perhaps she would have, had she recalled the curse of man.

Alas, she had allowed herself to believe otherwise; to forget the maester's warning and believe in love without end; to believe in forever.

…and ever will be, come what may.

Jaqen's voice had come to her then, unbidden, startling in its clarity, and she drew in a ragged breath.

Slowly, the girl sank lower in her bath, submerging her whole self so that the water would stop her ears, and wash away the ringing sound of her master's unfulfilled promise. She held her breath until her lungs burned and her ears throbbed. When she could stand it no longer, she sprang up, her head crashing through the bath's calm surface, sending water sloshing and flying all around. A few drops hit the burning logs of her fire and she heard their faint hiss as they became steam, and then nothing.

Calm as still water. Syrio's wisdom guided her, and she washed her hair; something to occupy her, to keep her fingers from grasping at the edges of the tub until they turned white; to keep herself from biting her lip until it bled. Nails scratched at her scalp, moving methodically, driving the suds through her wet strands from root to tip. When she was done, she submerged her head once again, this time only briefly, and rinsed her hair. Arya stood then, water cascading from her body and into the tub as she stared into the flames burning in the fireplace.

Orange and yellow tongues undulated, forming shapes before her eyes, making and unmaking themselves. Silhouettes and structures were created, just as she had seen before, but quickly this time, almost frantically, as if she were a red priest like Thoros; as if R'hllor himself had a great need to impart his knowledge to her; to commune with her.

Dragons circling over the land.

An enormous white castle.

A crowned man on horseback.

Unconsciously, Arya stepped out of the tub, dripping bathwater as she moved closer to the flames. Naked, wet, and covered in goose prickles, she dropped down low, settling on her knees before the grate, her hands drawing themselves under her chin, palms placed flatly together. She looked like a septa at prayer. Her head bowed slightly, lips coming to rest against her fingertips.

Banners and banners and banners, such a great number, and many unknown to her.

A man, familiar somehow, as if she had seen him once in a dream.

The night sky, full of stars.

She gasped then, jumping back and yelping as if she'd been burned. Had she? She inspected herself quickly and could find no evidence on her skin, neither red marks nor blistering; had not heard an ember pop. Her mind grasped at sense. For a moment, for one confusing instant, she had felt… something; something so longed for, something so impossible, she was certain she had wished it into being. A trick of the mind. But just as quickly, it was gone, and she burned in its absence.

Arya found the folded linen wrap the maid had left for her sitting on a chair. She shook it out, her fingers trembling slightly, and wound it around her body, the ecstasy and the agony of that fraction of a second fading as she did. The girl swallowed, stilling herself for a moment, and then walked to the shuttered window, pushing the wooden doors aside. Leaning out into the night, she breathed deep, the chill of the air filling her lungs. It grounded her, the cold, and she relaxed, staring out into the dark, gazing over the low walls of Acorn Hall.

She could see the dark mass of trees which made up the surrounding wood beyond the walls of the castle and traced their shape with her eyes. The faint howling of wolves in the distance met her ears and she smiled. After a time, she looked up at the sky, and fixed her gaze upon the stars, naming the constellations as she had been taught by Maester Luwin.

The maester had a particular interest in the stars, as she recalled. At Winterfell, he had one of the few dedicated observatories in the kingdom, and he delighted in teaching Arya when she showed interest.

The Lord's Goblet, she thought, picking it out easily. King's Crown. Crone's Lantern. She traced the shapes with her finger, as if she could join the stars with her touch. Moonmaid. She squinted, searching low on the horizon for Sword of the Morning. It was more difficult to find here than it had been in Maester Luwin's tower. The stars had seemed to shine brighter at Winterfell, she thought.

The exercise settled her. The girl kept her face tipped up toward the sky but closed her eyes, imagining that the starlight bathed her then, warming her cheeks, her nose, her chin. With a sigh, she closed the shutters once more and padded to her bed, seeing the white shift that had been laid out for her by her maid. It did not belong to her.

Something of Lady Smallwood's? she wondered, but shrugged and slipped it over her head, allowing her damp wrap to fall to the floor. The shift was made of a material which was soft, and fine, and the garment was just a bit too long for her. It made her feel half a girl to wear it, because the skirt puddled slightly on the floor around her feet, as if she were a child playing dress-the-lady with her mother's things.

Her mother's things.

Unlike other girls, Arya had never played such games with her mother's gowns or jewels. Sansa had, of course, and little Jeyne Poole with her sometimes, but Arya had never cared about her mother's fine fur collars or embroidered kirtles. She'd only wished to pretend she was a knight, or a wildling, or an archer slaying boar with a well-placed arrow. She'd had no desire back then to use Catelyn's ebony combs to arrange her hair, or dab on Catelyn's scent, or wrap herself in Catelyn's cloak. Now, though…

Now…

What would she give to be back in Winterfell, wrapping herself in her mother's fine dark cloak, the grey fox fur collar tickling her neck and chin? What would she give to breathe in her mother's scent off her gowns? Off her mother's own neck? What would she give to have her mother place those combs in her hair; to have her mother brush out her unruly locks patiently; to hear her mother's customary chatter about grace, and courtesies, and duty as she arranged her daughter's chestnut braids?

And this time, this time, she wouldn't snarl like a rabid wolf, or frown like an ungrateful child, or beg to be excused so she could do something better; something more exciting.

No.

This time, she would sit perfectly still, and be perfectly quiet, and let her mother's touch seep into her skin and settle in her heart, where she would keep it forever.

Arya smoothed the skirt of the shift with her palms, pressing the soft white material against her thighs and sighing. Her eyes roamed the room, searching for a comb so she could untangle her wet mane by herself.

It is the curse of man that he not recognize his halcyon days until they are long past.

Shine a Light—Banners

Chapter Text

No more paving the present with pain from my past,

And I will let you go.

Bare feet, white and silent against the cold stone floors of Acorn Hall's passageways, carried Arya from her own chamber to her mother's, and, failing to find the lady within, from there to the sept. She moved quickly, and with purpose. The too-long skirt of her borrowed nightdress fluttered behind her, sweeping wildly over the floors of the corridors like the train of a pretentious courtier's gown.

Like the violent rush of ice and snow during a Northern blizzard, a winter's storm raging in her wake.

An hour had passed since her bath, or maybe two, and she had detangled her wet hair, and tried to clear her mind so that she might sleep. She found it impossible to do so. The Cat considered visiting the Bear, or Gendry, or even Ser Brynden, so that one of them might distract her with his conversation, crowding out her chaotic thoughts and soothing her mind, but she was seized with the notion that she must see her mother.

Banners and banners and banners, such a great number…

The sight of it in the fire had filled her with unease, this great army marching, a mixed force of Westerosi houses and foreign soldiers. Her mother would want to know, her own plans potentially being affected. Moving through the Riverlands was difficult enough with Freys and Lannisters and those loyal to them advancing towards Riverrun. If another large force were to overrun the land, there might be no safe place for the Brotherhood to maneuver.

Is your mother like to take some imagined vision in your fire grate as actionable intelligence? her little voice sang sweetly.

Arya ignored the thought, but the little voice was not so easily dismissed.

Perhaps it's that you just need an excuse that doesn't sound as weak as your real reason for seeking her out after avoiding her for so long.

Shut up! she commanded herself. Shut up!

Ser Jaime was right, the voice persisted. You are an infant.

The girl set her jaw, a resentful frown marring her face, but still, she could not shake the desire to speak with her mother, try as she might. And so, she had finally given into it.

As she drifted through the passageways, Arya wondered what so often drew Lady Stoneheart to the sept. It could not be belief, she mused. Not anymore, at least. Not with the person her mother was now. Was it habit, some tendency so deeply ingrained it could not be denied? Was it reflexive, like breathing, an unconscious action that did not invite contemplation or require intention? Was it remorse?

For what did she pray? And to whom?

In life, Catelyn Stark had adhered to the teachings of the faith of the Seven, honoring the new gods with her devotions, but in death, she had found her peace in the godswood of Winterfell with her husband and first-born son, if only briefly; she had found her respite in a place which had long revered the old gods.

She had been interred in a river, a fitting grave for a Tully, she had said, and was surely touched by the Drowned God there, for all rivers ran to the sea.

The will of the Lord of Light had drawn her from that serene place and restored her spirit to her own decaying flesh.

Her death had been first gifted to, and then stolen from Him of Many Faces.

Which of the gods now heard Lady Stoneheart's wheezing and choked prayers?

What god guided her withered hands?

Whose creature was she?

Arya wasn't sure why it mattered to her. Perhaps so she would know which god to denounce for her mother's altered state, merciless and cruel and so changed from the woman who had been the staid and stately Lady of Winterfell. Perhaps so she would know which god had busied himself with the perversion of her mother's soul. Perhaps so she would know which god to blame for turning her mother's heart to flint.

Not that the gods cared one whit for any person's ravings or anger. Their ways were mysterious, and capricious, and so indifferent to the suffering of man. How else to explain all that had befallen her family? Even their favor seemed erratically and insensibly bestowed; how much more so was their contempt?

Hadn't she learned that lesson while still a very young girl? Maester Luwin had her translating old Valyrian texts as part of her language lessons as soon as she was old enough to grip a quill properly. Sansa may have recalled with perfect clarity her verses from The Seven-Pointed Star, but Arya had committed full passages of Va Se Maegium Hen Jaesis (On the Wisdom of the Gods) to memory, a philosophical work that predated the Doom of Valyria.

Man may rage at the gods, curse them and revile them. Man may shirk the gods, ignore them and deny them. Man may feel he is powerful, untouchable, and that he has charge of his own life. He may believe all of this until that moment the gods open a chasm beneath his feet and he is swallowed whole.

Capricious, indeed. And vengeful.

Her energies were better spent elsewhere, Arya knew, and she pushed her thoughts of gods and prayers and the mysteries of faith aside as she arrived at the sept of Acorn Hall. She placed one palm flat against the seven-pointed star carved into the wood planks of the door and drew in a breath. Her other hand clutched her black and white jeweled cat comb, her gift from the Kindly Man. Noiselessly, she entered the holy place.

The cloaked and hooded figure of her mother was on the sept's stone dais, bent over a kneeler, her back to her daughter. Arya approached slowly, her steps uncertain as she took in the scene before her. The tapestry depicting the Father should have hung directly in front of her mother, but it was no longer there, moved to another spot in the sept. It had been replaced with the darkest of the seven tapestries depicting the new gods.

The Stranger.

Three large candles were lit on the dais, set beneath the Stranger's feet. They cast the only light in the chamber.

The girl moved forward, coming to rest just before the dais, her knees skimming its stone edge through the fine layers of her white skirt. Her mother had not moved an inch, had not looked at Arya, had not indicated she knew she was no longer alone, but when she spoke, it became obvious that she had been expecting her daughter's visit.

"My… dark child."

It was the barest whisper, only discernible to Arya because of the heavy silence in the room and her familiarity with her mother's preferred address of her.

Lady Stoneheart rose then, her motion stiff, unnatural, and she tilted her head up slightly, appearing to stare into the veiled face of the Stranger for a long moment. The girl's lips parted, and she drew in a halting breath before casting her eyes down, looking away from the scene. Finally, the grey lady turned, the candles at her back rendering her face as dark as pitch beneath her hood. Her thin hand rose to her throat and she pressed against the ragged wound there. Her voice grew marginally louder with the action.

"Why… have you… come?"

"I…" Arya's words caught in her throat.

Go ahead, her little voice goaded, tell her about the banners you saw in the fire. That is why you're here, isn't it?

She stared up at her mother, the cloaked woman towering over her on the dais, and willed her tongue to work. She could detect no trace of Catelyn there, not in dress or demeanor or features shrouded in shadow. But, it did not matter. Arya's heart felt with it felt and it would not be deterred by the evidence of her eyes; by the evidence of her mother's actions.

I came because I love you and I need to know that you feel the same. I came because I'm angry with you, and I want to know if you regret what you did, and what you did not do for my sake. I came because I'm weak and cannot go on pretending that your rejection does not hurt me. I came to seek your approval, in any form you're willing to give it.

I came because I want my mother.

"I… washed my hair," the girl answered. "Will you…" She held up her comb and some leather ties she had brought with her. "Can you please braid it for me?"

"Your maid," the woman croaked. Arya interrupted her.

"I wanted you to do it."

She would let her mother's touch seep deep into her skin.

The two looked at each other, unmoving, for the space of three breaths. It felt an awfully long time to the girl; so long, Arya began to fear another rejection. Finally, Lady Stoneheart slowly nodded her assent. The woman descended the stairs and rounded the dais, approaching her daughter. When they stood facing each other, mere inches apart, her mother bade her sit with a simple gesture. She obeyed, climbing on the raised platform, not bothering with the stairs, and sat on its floor cross legged, her back to her mother. The girl stared past the kneeler at the flickering candles against the wall straight ahead. The writhing shadows created by the light made the Stranger seem restless; agitated. Arya felt a bit like that herself.

Her mother's bony hand reached over the girl's shoulder and drew the pearl and obsidian comb from her daughter's fingers. The lady began to use it to rake through Arya's still-damp locks. The girl closed her eyes, feeling the tug and pull of the comb's silver teeth, her head swaying slightly back and forth with each pass. The rhythm of the movements lulled her and she could almost believe she was in her own bedchamber in Winterfell, perched on a stool as her mother attempted to make the tangled mess of her daughter's hair presentable.

"Simple braids," Arya murmured when her mother's fingers began to move slowly, methodically, parting the dark chestnut tresses. It was more of a memory than a request.

"The… Northern… style," her mother agreed, so quietly, the girl almost wondered if she'd imagined it.

Sansa would beg for the intricate and fanciful styles favored by Southron ladies while Arya would protest any grooming at all, insisting her hair's natural nest-like state was just fine. Their mother had tried to convince them both that the simple, elegant braids traditionally worn by the daughters of the North were best.

" The state of a lady's hair should not be the most interesting thing about her," Catelyn had admonished them. "It should be neither too ostentatious nor too slovenly."

Neither girl had been convinced.

The lady's fingers worked, pulling at sections of her daughter's hair, plaiting it close to her head, tight, first over one temple, then the other, while Arya sat perfectly still; remained perfectly silent. When the two braids met each other on the back of her head, her mother joined them, drawing more and more of her hair into the larger plait, creating a heavy, unified braid which would trail down the center of her back.

"I looked for you in your chamber, mother," the girl said quietly as Lady Stoneheart twisted and wove her hair. "I thought I might find you sleeping."

Catelyn said nothing, but continued working in silence.

"I wondered what you might be dreaming of."

"I… don't."

"You don't dream?"

The girl felt her mother securing the end of her braid with one of the leather ties. The woman made a hoarse humming sound, indicating approval of her handiwork, before she answered her daughter.

"I don't… sleep." Lady Stoneheart smoothed her daughter's hair with her hands, fingers lightly running over the braids at the girl's temples, tracing the path of the plaits.

No escape from the world at all, Arya thought sadly. No escape from herself, or her grief.

Or her rage.

"Is that why you spend so much time in the sept?" The question was hushed, almost a whisper, and Arya stared up at the Stranger as she asked it.

The girl felt her mother's hands fall away from her hair and the two were quiet for a while. Arya wondered if perhaps her question had offended the lady.

"I come… to… pray," the woman finally said.

The girl's eyes flicked to the candles again, evidence of her mother's faith; offerings to the Seven.

Offerings devoted to one of them in particular.

Arya turned then, facing her mother, hanging her legs over the edge of the dais. If she pointed her toes, they would touch the floor, but the overlong skirt of the shift hid her feet from sight. She looked up into Catelyn's shadowed face.

"And for what do you pray, mother?"

"For… death."

Me too, Arya thought, her malicious little smile beginning to form at the idea that they had something in common (that they had this in common). That petition was one she understood very well. Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, Queen Cersei…