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When The Girl walks straight into House Frey, her footsteps loud against the stones, she does not tremble. She is a woman grown now, almost as tall as her brother had been the day his blood coated this floor.
She does not imagine it, not anymore.
A girl does not imagine things.
Walder Frey sits on the dais at the front of the hall, being entertained by a pair of dancing women. She stops at the entranceway, takes it all in: the smell of moldy stone. The reek of sweat and old food. She eyes her enemy, her target, the old man on his false throne. Lord of the Crossing, Lord Paramount of the Trident, and Lord of Riverrun. That one, at least, tastes bitter on her tongue. That title is wrong. He stole that one.
From this distance, he looks weak. Another aging relic of the land, holding onto life with skeleton hands. Grasping at what no longer belongs to him.
She smiles, her hand brushing lovingly against her sword hilt. The Many-Faced God has chosen wisely this time.
She strides forward. The dancing women have finished their performance and make to leave, but Frey beckons them to him and forces them to sit on his lap, where he fondles them openly. It would not bother her so much if the look on their faces reminded her of…
A girl does not remember.
She stops at the foot of the dais. She waits.
When Walder sees her standing there, her hand on her sword, he pushes the dancing girls away from him and peers down at her. They run off, safe for now.
“And just who is this? Walking all merry-dandy into my house? Speak your name, girl, I haven’t got time to waste on fools.”
“I am no one.” She smiles. “Aren’t you going to offer me bread and salt?”
He huffs. “Are you hungry? I’m no charity case, girl. Speak your purpose or leave.”
She draws her sword instead.
Instantly, every lazy-seeming guard in the room stands to attention, moving towards their lord. Frey sits up straighter.
“I’m here...to collect a debt.” She smiles. She raises her sword, the light from the torches glimmering along its thin needle-like blade. She takes a step towards Frey.
Behind her, to her left, the first set of footsteps. She pivots easily, thrusting her sword through the guard who had rushed her, pulling it out just as quickly and ducking the attack from the guard to her right.
An enterprising guard throws something in her eyes, and, oh, it stings! But she only laughs, her eyes shut tight.
“You think you’ll blind me, and I’ll toddle around like a baby while you run me through. But there was a time, so long ago, when I was a blind beggar girl in the streets.” She moves immediately, feels the slight resistance and hot gushing splatter of her sword slicing that lunging guard’s neck. She hears his body fall. She smells the blood in the air.
A step behind her, a boot on stone. She twirls, sword arm slashing, hears the cry as the guard tumbles, a wound to his gut. Another, in front of her. He loses use of his leg. Another, another.
And then it’s simple. It’s like water, or grass in the wind. It’s a song.
It’s a dance.
The Girl becomes her sword.
It isn’t long before all the guards in the hall litter the ground, their blood soaking into the stones. Blood for blood, she thinks, elegant.
She turns back to Walder Frey, to the little man on his little throne in a little hall where nobody breathes. She cannot see him, her eyes still shut. But she can hear him wheeze. She can smell his sweat. He is afraid. Good.
A girl is not afraid.
She walks up the steps, a woman with a sword. A blind beggar girl with a stick. A rebel with a Needle.
She stands before him, and smells the acrid smell of his own urine, as it soaks his trousers and dribbles to the floor.
“Who...are you?” He is nothing now but a powerless man.
“I am no one,” she says again, “But once upon a time, I was a girl with a list, and that list held your name. And that girl’s name?”
She raises her sword and presses it forward, slowly, into the old man’s heart. He screams, flailing at her, but unable to push her from him. When she is kissing distance away from him, her hand coated in his blood, she whispers, “Was Arya Stark.”