Work Text:
The girl thought she knew what blood was, how it smelled and tasted, how it looked, what it felt like slick and sticky against her skin.
Then she tears out the throat of a man with her teeth, his warm blood gushing over her muzzle- hot and salty. Her claws hold him down while she digs in and tears out long chunks of meat, heart, liver, stomach. She laps at the blood pooling in his ribcage with a long tongue, watching tiny specks rise in the air with each stroke. It stains her fur, sinking deep within the coat and settling there. Her pack stands around her, letting her eat the kill first; the air is filled with their panting and distinct scents. Beside her stands her large black-furred mate. He isn't the same as herself, this much she knows, but she has not met another like herself since her sister had been slain and her brothers scattered.
When her belly is full of soft flesh and her hunger sated, she licks her maw clean and uses the snow to wipe clean her fur. She leaves the pure white snow muddied and crimson.
Even with the cleansing, when she walks away from the frenzied feeding of her pack, her prints leave red marks on the freezing hard-packed soil of the road.
The girl thought she knew what blood was, then the wolf taught her she was wrong.
She also does not know what a "warg" is. She has heard the word before, thrown carelessly, whispered in fear, spat with disgust, regarded with respect and admiration. But she does not know what it means. It seems to her, these days, all she learns is how little she truly knows.
She seeks out the Waif and joins her at the table where she is crushing herbs, asks her in a whisper, "What is a warg?"
The Waif raises an eyebrow, her childish face curious. "Why do you ask?"
"Just something a man said once."
"A man you killed." The Waif does not ask, she says. Arya nods in agreement. "You truly do not know?" Arya shakes her head. The Waif grins devilishly.
"Just tell me," she snaps with impatience. Ever impatient, ever exasperated.
"A warg wears the skin of others," the child says.
"Like the Handsome Man taught me? To change faces?"
"No, he taught you to create skin. A warg slips into the skin of another," the Waif corrects. "Another living being."
"Like a direwolf," Arya whispers, eyes wide, a sudden clarity rushing into her mind.
"Like a direwolf," the Waif reclaims, her voice equally hushed and secretive.
The next time she dreams as a wolf, she doesn't remain a spectator. She waits until the wolf is running alone through the woods of her territory, pack far behind her and mate asleep at the den. The girl's conscious nudges the wolf, lightly, gently. A soothing murmur.
It’s me. I’m here.
Nymeria stops midrun and cocks her head to one side. Her sharp eyes scan the woods and she yelps; not a complaint or a warning: a call. A pup separated from her pack.
Arya murmurs again, her mind touching the wall between wolf and beast, stroking at her fur. Nymeria sits back on her haunches and keeps her eyes on the trees, ears waiting to hear the approach of her human. She paws at the ice-cold ground in frustration.
Nobody comes to her physically. Again Nymeria hears the sound of someone she knew once and she throws back her head and this time, she howls long and hard at the moon. It is a heartbreaking wail of anguish and loss.
Arya flinches mentally and draws back her nudges, worried she wouldn't be able to bear the strength and power in that howl.
From a distance, she hears her pack join in the howl, a chorus of untamed beings. That is when Arya knows what she too must do. She tip-toes again to the surface of Nymeria's conscious and howls. It is not a piercing howl, it is questioning and puzzled.
Nymeria's howl cuts off and she cocks her ears to place the direction of the sound. Arya howls again, visceral, familiar, reaching deep inside her Stark roots to find the sleeping wolf and rousing it- feeding it and provoking it. Arya's howl changes pitch, louder this time, finding the sliver of moon in the sky of Westeros.
Sister. I have come back.
Nymeria faces upward and continues the song, her loss changing to elation, to comfort. She recognizes the girl. Her pack. Her sister. Their separate minds call out in one long howl of reunited souls, impossible to tell apart. Nymeria rejoices, picks out the conscious inside her and allows it access.
Almost immediately, Arya is bombarded by sensation: the dust motes in the air, several different distinct wolves howling to her from the south, each scent in the woods of man and creature alike, the lingering taste of Nymeria's last meal on her tongue, the smells of each of her siblings in her memory.
There is something else as well, a sense Arya cannot understand, of direction. She knows where her mate is lying, she knows where to run for food, where to mark the borders of her territory. She knows how to contact her siblings, but no longer has anyone to reach out for. She knows which siblings are dead. It is there, a large void in her mind: two of her pack is gone. One is too feral to connect with. The silent one is in peril, something unnatural surrounds it. The third, she senses, is becoming less wolf each day and more- more stagnant. More weirwood.
Arya digs through each of these thoughts, every memory Nymerua has collected. She feels Nymeria doing the same to her. Much of it confounds the wolf, but here and there, the wolf yips in understanding: the sensation of blood and danger, warmth of a fire and food plenty, the need to seek out a mate in heat. The wolf, Arya is surprised to note, also connects her physical needs with the broad shouldered and black-haired bastard.
Arya ruffles Nymeria's fur, loving touches, trying to communicate that she would try never to leave again, to never lose her mind. Nymeria is not fully aware of how she can feel the girl's presence, but she also does not know how she can feel her brothers. She is still content with what she has managed.
It is not the first night Arya runs with Nymeria, but it is the first she knows she is running. She never wants to stop.
It is the Waif who wakes her. "You haven't woken yourself and come to serve the duties of the Kindly Man yet," she says as Arya's eyes open.
It takes her a moment to focus, with blunt human eyes and stunted human nose and stationary human ears. She feels the loss of her wolf like a physical ache. "I was... I was in the woods."
The Waif glances at her quizzically.
It is only then that Arya's face splits into a wide grin. "I was a wolf, I was Nymeria!" she exclaims in elation.
The Waif hisses for her to quiet and says, "It’s dangerous! You must be careful."
"Of Nymeria?" Arya scoffs.
"Of the Kindly Man," the Waif returns.
Arya nods earnestly. "I will, from now on. But I couldn't leave her after finding her so many moons later. She isn't a pup anymore."
"And you are not a girl anymore."
"Aye, I am a woman," Arya agrees proudly.
"You are No One," the Waif snaps.
Arya returns to work soon after. She spends more and more time lost in her thoughts then concentrating at the task she was given.
With each new kill, she returns to Nymeria at night and compares tactics. This one, cleaved through the middle, that one's tendons ripped out, which muscles were taut as she sliced through them, which one’s put up a fight. She learns with the wolf, each new smell and taste, which leaves smell of toxins and which lakes have been polluted by the bodies of dead humans. Arya feels a detached sympathy for each body Nymeria drags out of the water. They are not her kin anymore; she is no longer human. Not with Nymeria anyway.
One night, Nymeria happens across a forge while seeking out new territory; the winter had made it difficult to find fresh meat without leading to extinction of those poor animals. As soon as the girl becomes aware, Arya tugs at Nymeria to stop and the wolf does. She whimpers in protest and confusion, but then she catches a scent: charred metal and hope. Arya seems to find it worth examining, so Nymeria doesn't argue.
The wolf ventures closer to the forge. The sound of steel striking metal inside echoes, despite the late hour. A warm glow of lit fires comes through the window, followed by the smell of fresh baked bread. Nymeria's mouth salivates and Arya scolds the wolf.
Not food.
She stands outside the smith's window for hours, until the sounds die out, until the fire turns to ashy coal, until Nymeria whines and complains. Only then do Arya and the wolf return to their path.
Nymeria visits the smith often from that night on, always careful not to be seen or allow any of the children stumble upon her unawares, always listening and inhaling. Arya is grateful to the wolf for obliging in this request, but Nymeria is simply happy to have her presence.
In the morning, she always wakes disappointed to find herself restrained by a dull woman's body with duties and tasks. She keeps an eye on Nymeria constantly, the distance between them serving as an encouragement rather than a deterrent.
For a time, Arya feels truly happy. She is a wolf and a woman and she is still faceless. She is the many arms of winter: howling winds and silent snow and beautiful foliage. She is a Stark.
Then, of course, the Kindly Man calls her into his chamber.
Arya silences her wolf and draws her face into a blank wall as she enters his study. She has been doing her work with regular sincerity, if not with attention. Each kill is flawless, every face retrieved to the room; the girl does not even leave shadows any longer when she prowls the streets of Braavos. She has become moonlight.
The Kindly Man waits with folded hands as she stands tall. He examines her slowly. "Who am I speaking to?"
"No One," she says with confidence.
“I will not chastise you for lying to me, but I will ask you to be honest. Who am I speaking to?”
Arya hesitates. “I am faceless. I am No One.”
“You are lying,” he says, not with dismay in his tone, but fact. “When I first saw you here, I felt the Many-Faced God telling me that you would be of use. I took the symbols to mean that you were destined to be one us of, faceless. It would seem that you were not sent here to be faceless, but you were sent to be used. The Many-Faced God is not wrong, is never wrong. It is me, only human, who read his word wrong. Now, tell me. Who are you?”
She does not speak. She does not move, barely breathes. Only stares into his soft eyes with her hard gray ones. The man is not lying.
He must notice her reluctance. His voice lowers and he gently inquires, "I need to know who you are, my child."
“A-Arya,” she says softly, stuttering. She hasn’t spoken her name with her tongue in many many moons. “Arya Stark of Winterfell,” she announces with conviction.
“And what does Arya Stark of Winterfell want?”
She breathes in through her nose, long and calculated. Unsure where to begin. “I don’t know.”
“Don’t you?” the Man asks. She can’t tell if he’s mocking her or simply curious.
“I want many things. I want revenge. I want the blood of those who wronged me. I want to return to Winterfell. I want my father and mother, my brothers and my sister. I want peace.”
“And how will you do that?”
Ary’a mouth twitches into the ghost of a smile. “I came to the House of Black and White.”
The Man chuckles. “But there’s something else, isn’t there? How else will you accomplish what you want?”
“I…” Arya does not want to tell him, wants to tell him, wants to have nothing to tell. “I have help.”
“Man or beast?”
She’s taken aback by the question; it is not a natural question one would ask upon hearing what she had said. He knows something that she has not told him. She isn’t pleased by this interrogation, intrusive and personal. Perhaps she has misnamed him, perhaps he is not what he looks. But how else would he know?
The Kindly Man grins. “The Handsome Man is not the only one who can read faces, Stark. Man or beast?"
“Both,” she says, realizing she has no choice.
“Both?” he echoes.
“Both,” she confirms.
Now it is his turn to look caught off guard. “Human companions?” he asks. “You’re sure.”
She thinks of blue eyes and strong arms, of the warm forge echoing with the sounds of hammering and steel. Even without her pack, she has help. “I’m sure.”
He sighs, shrugs. “Regardless. It is not your human companions I am interested in. I want to know about the wolf. And don't lie to me again."
So Arya tells him. She tells him about Nymeria, about being in her body and her mind. She doesn’t mention the forge or her missing siblings. With each spoken word, Arya feels a bit of herself returning. With each spoken word, she feels her unease grow stronger. She cannot shake off the feeling that she is being taken advantage of, revealing something about herself she would have preferred to keep.
The instincts of a wolf never lie.