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What cruel god had made her a girl? Arya kicked a stone away from her path, channeling all of her anger into the kick. For a moment she imagined it was Sansa. The thought made her smile.
Her lord father's words echoed in her mind. You are siblings, he'd say, you should look after one another. Well, Arya did not choose such a disgustingly girly creature for a sister, thank you very much. If anything, they’d both be much happier if they weren’t related. That was the only thing they could agree on. What made it worse was that she was a girl herself, as if life wanted to make fun of her. She wouldn’t have minded having a sister like Sansa, she supposed, if only she'd been born a boy.
How much better things would have been! She'd ride and hunt with Robb and Jon, she'd train with them in the yard, she'd beat Bran at marksmanship. And all that without having to listen to Septa Mordane's lectures about how she had to be clean and smell like flowers all the time. All ladies were like Sansa, and Arya was anything but. She must have been a bastard, no doubt. That was more appealing than sharing blood with the likes of Sansa.
The broken tower's jagged top loomed above her. It reminded Arya of herself — crumbling and useless, but still standing. She looked around, thinking she heard something moving. Bran liked coming here too, but their paths rarely crossed. Bran preferred to climb. Arya fancied steps and never got too high.
The moss-covered cracked stones of the decaying stairs up were unreliable. Arya supported herself by holding onto the rough surface of the wall as she slowly climbed. Halfway up, she heard movement above her. She froze and listened intently, as she would if her lord father ever took her hunting for game.
There was no doubt now – someone was up there. And from the sound of it, it wasn’t Bran, who preferred to climb the walls on his own, lest their lady mother find out. Brimming with curiosity, Arya decided to keep going, taking care to remain unheard. With her rich experience of stealing sweets from the kitchens, it was no great challenge. The stones lining each staircase were unstable, but she knew each one by heart.
A faint conversation reached her ears, becoming clearer with each step forward. Two voices, a man and a woman. When she was close enough to peer into the room, she noticed two familiar blonde figures embracing, with all their clothing off, tossed into the corner. Arya gasped softly and immediately covered her mouth with the palm of her hand. Both adults stopped talking and looked in her direction.
“Filthy little creature,” the queen hissed.
Thinking herself found, Arya stepped out to reveal her offended face expression to the twins.
"It's not Tyrion," the queen's brother observed.