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They reached Winterfell eight weeks after they set out from King's landing.
She went first to the Godswood. Jaqen held back, remaining in the cover of the trees as Arya Stark knelt before the heart tree and touched her hands and forehead to the smooth white bark.
She did not know what she prayed for, only that her lips curled around the word please more than once, and that when she took her hands and face away they were sticky with Weirwood sap. She could taste the red on her lips and feel the red glistening on her cheeks and did not bother to wipe it away.
Arya Stark was staring at the red coating her palms, wondering how she could feel so clean when her clothes were stained with the blood of rapers and bandits and she could feel the mud in her hair settling on her scalp, when Jaqen stepped out from behind the Weirwood with a new face.
The change was not so bewildering as the first time Arya had seen it. She had known, before she knelt to pray, that when she next saw Jaqen his face would not be the same, that the rough calluses of Rhaego's palm would have rubbed away the smooth skin of Rhaego's face, that a new face would smile at her with new lips and new teeth.
"Now you look like a Northerner," she told him, glancing at the face of the Weirwood and then back at him. His new skin was much paler than Rhaego's, but still tan from years of sunlight reflecting off the snow. His hair was dark and his eyes were dark and the smooth, hairless cheeks of Rhaego had been replaced by a fine dark beard. The stark contrast between this scruffy Northern face and the white haired, violet eyed Targaryen was startling, to say the least. There was nothing constant about Jaqen other than his inconstancy, but Arya found that strangely comforting. She had lived an unpredictable life for the past six years, had gone to bed every other night wondering who she might be in the morning, and now -
She felt her breath catch in her throat.
- now she was about to return to a life where the most she would travel would be between King's Landing and Winterfell, and no stops along the way. A life where the only face she would wear would be that of Arya Stark, Lady of Winterfell and Princess in the North. A life where the only needle in her hand would be one of embroidery, where the only battles she would fight would be of words, and the only armor she would don would be courtesy.
"Jaqen," she said, swallowing past the lump in her throat, "Jaqen, have you ever been to Dorne?"
His smile thinned. "No."
"Oh. Good. Well, it's only three months ride from here, provided we change horses often. Shall we go?" She rose to her feet, careful not to use her hands, and turned away from the heart tree.
"A girl does not wish to see her family?"
She sounded calmer than she felt when she said, "Families can wait."
"As can Dorne."
"Well, yes, but - "
"And a girl has not seen her family in six years."
"I know that, but - "
"And a girl has travelled for two months to see her family - "
"I know - "
"And a man has travelled with a girl to help her see her family -
"Jaqen - "
"And now a girl wishes to turn tail and head for Dorne?"
She narrowed her eyes and whirled around to face him, about to clench her fists before she remembered the Weirwood sap on her palms. "What are you trying to say?"
"A man is not trying to say anything. A man will say." He licked his chapped Northerner lips. "A man thinks a girl is afraid."
She rolled her eyes. "A man is wrong. Not for the first time, I might add," she muttered.
He stepped closer to her. "A girl fears her family will not remember her, or worse, remember who she was and loathe who she has become."
"That's not true," she spat. "Besides, what do you care?"
He lifted his shoulders in an elegant shrug. "It makes no difference to this one."
She scoffed. "Then just mind your own business, why don't you?"
"As a girl has asked, a man will do."
She turned away and glanced at her palms. Arya Stark was slipping away from her, but the red on her hands and the red on her cheeks weighed heavily against her skin, and the red on her lips still tasted as rich and dark and fine as the memory of a red haired woman sitting before a red, red fire, braiding her daughter's red, red hair.
"A girl need only ask for help," came his voice from behind her, soft but clear, "and a man will comply."
She glanced at the face of the Weirwood and clenched her fists, her nails biting into her palms. When she uncurled her fingers, the red of her blood and the red of the tree sap mingled in her palm, and after a moment she couldn't tell where her blood ended and the Weirwood sap began.
Arya turned back around. "Help me."
Jaqen H'ghar smiled.
* * *
She didn't remember much about how they got into the castle beyond a hand at her elbow, leading her past the guards and through the north gate, through the courtyard, and into the Great Hall.
The King in the North was holding court.
Arya held back as men, women, and children alike stepped forward to make their pleas. Bran Stark was crippled and young, and despite being only five-and-ten, he had the eyes of an old man who has seen and known far too much.
A man and a woman stood on either side of him, the woman tall and thin with a smile on her lips and long brown hair falling down her back, the man immensely fat and with little to no hair upon his gleaming red scalp. His walrus's mustache twitched every time he leaned down to murmur in the king's ear, which was often, and directly afterwards the king would turn to the woman and pose a question to her, to which she would smile and nod or frown and shake her head. Most of their communication seemed to take place this way, and after each conversation the King in the North would turn to whichever of the smallfolk stood before him at the time and provide a solution to his or her problem.
Arya could not help but watch this exchange without a smile tugging at her lips. Bran was a better ruler than she would have thought. Seven years past, she had left a boy with dreams of knighthood in his head. She had come back to a young man with old eyes, who looked but did not see what the comman man saw. He had been a king for two years, and it was apparent that in that time the smallfolk had come to love him and respect him.
She could not help but wonder if they feared him, and quickly came to the realization that Bran did not need his people to fear him.
Arya waited in the shadows with Jaqen at her elbow until the last of the smallfolk had cleared out. Bran stretched his arms above his head and said something to the tall girl that Arya couldn't hear. She felt a pressure on her arm and glanced back to see Jaqen's dark eyes gleaming at her.
She stepped forward.
Brandon Stark immediately turned his blue eyes on her. "Arya."
"Brother."