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"Who would pass the Bloody Gate?"
"The Bloody Hound. Sandor Clegane. And his... traveling companion, Arya Stark, niece of your Lady Lysa Arryn."
Arya expected a cool, cordial reception from her Aunt Lysa as the best possible outcome once they finally reached the Eyrie proper, after all these gates and castles, all those guards eyeing the Hound with trepidation mixed with loathing and her with incomprehension. At worst, Littlefinger would take one look at her and the Hound and think of just how much gold he could get for them from the Lannisters.
After all, she'd heard Littlefinger genuflecting to Lord Tywin when she'd served as cupbearer in Harrenhal. More than that, she'd seen Littlefinger standing up there when Ilyn Payne had taken Father's head. She hadn't been able to make out his face from that distance, but she remembered him as strangely unmoving amidst a sea of panicked activity once Joffrey had pronounced the fatal words: smug somehow, the bird that got the worm. She'd be happy to add him to her list and then take him right off it.
She expected Lysa and Littlefinger, and maybe her little lord cousin at the most to make a third, waiting for them there in the great main hall of the Eyrie with its snarled perch of a throne, but there was a fourth. Aunt Lysa's hair wasn't auburn like her mother's, it was long and dull and dark and nothing like she'd imagined, but out of the corner of her eye, hair even redder than Mother's caught her eye-
"Sansa!" Arya shrieked. "Sansa!"
Arya had been the Ghost of Harrenhal, but here was the Ghost of the Eyrie, standing in a fine violet dress with embroidered sunflowers and long sweeping sleeves, long crimson hair done up all pretty and braided in the back, even more beautiful than Arya had remembered. Except she couldn't be a very old ghost, because she was no longer the child Arya remembered either. She towered over Arya and even Littlefinger, as good as a woman grown. She'd heard Sansa had wed the Imp, though she hadn't wanted to believe it, but that would mean she was a woman true now, if it really was Sansa.
Sansa's gaze was fixed on the Hound in shock, not Arya. Her head turned and her big clear eyes met Arya's without a hint of recognition, only a distant uncertainty in them. "The little dove's found a new nest," the Hound said at Arya's side, clearly knowing Sansa too. He'd spoken of saving her in some riot, though Arya had barely half believed him. The Hound was of no matter now, because Sansa was there, right before her, a Stark, not Father or Mother, not Jon or Bran, but a Stark even if they called her Lannister now, a Stark, a Stark.
"Sansa," Arya said, more softly, but there was nothing on Sansa's face, even as Robin Arryn loudly inquired who'd come to meet them, and Littlefinger leaned to whisper something into Lysa Arryn's ear but stayed silent. Sansa had gaped at the Hound like she could fall over at the sight of him, but her own sister seemed to leave her cold. She never did care for me, the thought crept into Arya's head like a sudden fall of frost, but then it came to her clearer, She doesn't even know me.
Instead of seeing Sansa, suddenly Arya was seeing herself in her own mind's eye. She'd spent so little time after losing her family in front of mirrors, fussing over her appearance like a proper little lady was meant to, and she barely knew what she looked like anymore. But she did know the clothes she was wearing, though she took them off rarely enough. It was easy to take a mental inventory: ill-fitting men's boots and breeches, a coarse tan shirt with ripped long sleeves that wrinkled near the throat, with a coarser stitched dark brown doublet over it, and a belt keeping it closed around her waist with Needle held at her hip beneath the worn leather. She was dressed as common and lowborn as could be, though she'd grown too much to pass as a boy anymore, dressed like an orphan foundling in clothes that could as easily as not been scavenged from a corpse. Her hair had still only just grown back past her ears, her face was dirty besides, and all the rest of her, clothes and all of her beneath them. She'd been sleeping in hills and dirt, and Sansa looked at her like a stranger. They didn't even pray to the same gods anymore.
"Sansa," Arya said more hesitantly, "It's me, Sansa. Don't you know me?"
"Well, here she is," the Hound said caustically. "Safe and sound. I'll be having my pay now."
"Well, the part about bringing us a girl is true," Littlefinger quipped. "She certainly doesn't look much like I remember. How do we know she's the genuine article?"
"Yes, Hound," Lysa said haughtily. "You are known throughout the realm as an outlaw and a craven. What do you imagine your word means here, or anywhere?"
"Make the big man fly?" Robin whispered, and Littlefinger chuckled, even as his eyes raked over Arya like a merchant inspecting a rather dubious piece of merchandise on offer.
"Easy enough to tell," the Hound grunted, unperturbed. He knew he had the genuine article. "Just ask her sister."
Arya swallowed hard at the word 'sister,' and looked to Sansa for recognition, but she still just stared blankly at Arya. Arya almost wanted to cry, but she no longer had any tears left in her. Instead, she took a tentative step forward. Sansa took a step back. "Sansa," she pleaded softly. "Sansa, it's-" God help her, she had to grapple in her mind a second to remember it herself. "It's Arya. I'm Arya. Arya Stark." If Sansa didn't know her by sight, maybe she would recognize her voice. They'd fought so much and she'd screamed at Sansa so many times, home in Winterfell. But Winterfell was ashes now, and Sansa was a Lannister, and-
"Arya?" Sansa said, voice trembling, and her pretty green eyes filled at once with hot tears. "Arya!" Then Sansa had ran forward, not even gathering up her skirts and nearly tripping over them, and flung herself upon Arya. Sansa's arms wrapped around Arya, and she began to sob wildly against her sister's shoulder, overcome. "Arya, Arya, oh, Arya."
Arya felt her own arms go up automatically to hold Sansa, though not before she reached down with one quick hand to make sure Needle was out of Sansa's way. Sansa felt like their mother had, filled out and substantial and real. Arya felt as though she should be crying too, but she was staring past Sansa instead, trying to keep her eye on Littlefinger, on what he would do to them. She had her sister back. She had to protect her now.
"Sansa," Lysa said, "This is your sister Arya?"
"Yes," Sansa sobbed, "Yes, it's Arya. Gods, Arya, is it really you?" She pulled back to stare at Arya with her tear-streaked face. Arya could feel her own face was set like stone. She didn't trust herself to say the right thing, so she just nodded and hugged Sansa tighter.
"See, there you go," the Hound announced. "A touching reunion, that. The girl's your blood, my lady. I trust you'll keep her safe up here in the sky. Family, duty, all that."
"Can it really be you?" Sansa said slowly, shaking, as if she could even now not let herself hope. "Lord Baelish said you were alive, but you went missing for so long, and the Lannisters couldn't find you, and-"
"You and Jeyne called me Arya Horseface," Arya said all in a rush, "And Septa Mordane would always hold up your stitching next to mine to show me how mine was all wrong, and no matter how oft I glared at you, you would never call Jon anything but our half-brother. And when Mother would give me the old dresses you'd sewed yourself, that you'd outgrown, they'd be ripped and dirty in a fortnight and you'd get so angry I'd ruined your work, only they were supposed to be mine now and I didn't care about a dress anyway. And you wanted to ride in the queen's wheelhouse and eat lemon cakes with the princess and I wanted to see the Riverlands and you said I always ruined everything. And when Joffrey found me sparring with Mycah, he said that was my lady's sister he was hitting, and cut him on the cheek, so I hit him with my wooden sword, and he would have killed me if Nymeria hadn't saved me, but she did so I threw his Lannister sword in the river and then my wolf and I ran."
Sansa was sobbing again by the time Arya had said Mother, and clutched at Arya's shoulders like she was drowning as she cried through Arya's torrent of words. "Arya," she murmured in agreement. "Arya."
"Sansa," Littlefinger said, walking up to them with an unreadable expression, "This is truly your little sister Arya?"
"Yes," Sansa gasped. "Please, Lord Baelish, will you let her stay, she has to stay, please."
"Of course she'll stay," Littlefinger said immediately, in a soothing voice, and turned back to Aunt Lysa. "With your leave, my sweet."
"Of course," Lysa echoed, and came forward to clasp Arya's hand, though not without a shocked look at her attire. "You are most welcome here, my sweet niece. You will be safe with us in the Eyrie." Arya pulled away from Sansa and let her aunt take her hand, studying the unfamiliar woman as best as she could, trying to follow Syrio's words. The head lies and the heart plays tricks with us, but the eyes see true. Sansa was here, but had Arya climbed right into a cage?
"Mother says this is the safest place in the realm," Robin chimed in. "No one can touch us up here. Is she my cousin too, Mother?"
"She is, sweetling," said Lysa, and turned to regard the Hound. Littlefinger moved at once to action.
"You have done well, Clegane, rest assured you will be amply rewarded," said Littlefinger, as pleasant as ever. "You've brought the girl to her family, her own flesh and blood. Come with me, and I will fetch you your payment."
Sansa was clutching at Arya's arm, at her dirty and tattered sleeve, as if Arya was liable to disappear again at any moment. They watched the Hound walk out of the hall with Littlefinger, even as Arya tried to see true. She didn't know what payment Littlefinger truly meant for her traveling companion, but even if it was the worst, his name was on her list, and she had more to think of than the bloody Hound now. Whether or not this place was dangerous, and she'd walked willingly into a trap, Sansa was here too, and would have been in danger just as much without her there. She'd run away and left Sansa in the clutches of their enemies once before, but she wouldn't ever again.
"Well," Lysa said, clearing her throat, and taking another good long look at Arya, no longer doubting her identity but probably doubting just about everything else there was to doubt. Her son was less circumspect with his words.
"Is she really my cousin? She looks like a peasant!" Robin announced with relish, peering up at Arya with an impish little face.
"She has been on the road, my love. The servants will find her more appropriate clothes at once," she soothed, and Arya recoiled.
"Not a dress," Arya said at once. "I won't wear a dress." Her aunt's eyes were on Needle at her waist, dismayed, contemptuous. She wrapped a hand around the hilt of Needle defiantly. "And no one else touches my sword."
"Arya!" Sansa exclaimed. It could have been Winterfell again at that moment, Arya doing something unladylike and embarrassing Sansa in front of their elders, eliciting that same horrified yelp. With Littlefinger taking the Hound away, it was only family in that great hall now, Tully blood in every one of them, though these two gaunt strangers had little about them to make her think of her Mother or home.
But Arya was certainly not about to start letting her family tell her what to do again, as if nothing had happened. Even Father had said she could have Needle, and have her dancing lessons, and wear the clothes she needed for them. Those hadn't been that different from the ones she wore now, just smaller and less filthy.
"Is she really a girl?" Robin called, and Lysa smiled wanly and nodded, though she didn't seem completely certain herself.
"Whatever you like, my sweet girl," Lysa said stiffly. "I can't imagine what you must have been through to get here. You will at least want a bath. And... new clothes of some sort, surely."
"A tunic," Arya said. "Breeches."
"Boys' clothes?" her new cousin goggled up at her, and Arya nodded firmly.
"Boys' clothes," she echoed, and he giggled inanely in disbelief. Arya looked up at Sansa for her reaction, but improbably, it almost looked like Sansa was smiling.
"That's Arya," Sansa said softly, to no one in particular, and Lysa looked about for servants to attend them.
"The servants will find you quarters of your own. Perhaps near your sister's-"
"No!" Sansa cried, and startled Arya along with the Arryns. "No, please- Aunt Lysa- I want her with me, let her stay with me, please."
"Very well, my dear," Lysa said obligingly. "No doubt you will have much to discuss with one another. In time, I am sure Arya will want to tell all of us what has happened to lead her here. She can stay in your room tonight, at the least."
"Thank you, Aunt Lysa," went Sansa, who it seemed still hadn't been stripped of her courtesies, and bowed her head in gratitude, both hands still gripping Arya's left arm so tightly Arya could feel Sansa's nails digging in through the fabric. Lysa smiled without feeling at Arya and went off to find her servants, calling out orders. Sansa led Arya after them, down a hall to a plain bedroom down another empty hall that seemed to be hers alone.
The walls were great blocks of old stone, with mosaic decorations on the doors and walls, and windows wrought with iron curling designs, and a soft-looking bed with a small table beside it and the same wrought designs on the headboard, fine furs laid all across it. Arya hadn't slept under a real roof since she'd escaped from Harrenhal, and even then the servants had slept in pens or on the floors. She hadn't slept in a bed since the night before Ser Meryn had come for her and Syrio had fallen defending her.
The idea that she would sleep in that bed tonight was impossible to believe. It was impossible to believe that this was Sansa's room, that Sansa was here, in the same place as her, at the same time, alive and seemingly unhurt, and that no one would make them leave each other. Littlefinger would come at any moment and set the guards to slaughter Sansa before her eyes, while they held her back and made her watch and took her Needle and made her a mouse again.
But they were with their own blood family, in an impregnable castle high in the mountains, and no one seemed at risk but the Hound, who'd seemed like to die soon of that festering wound to his shoulder at any account, and was on Arya's list. And Littlefinger will probably just pay him and send him down the mountain, he's no harm to anyone, he wouldn't go to the Lannisters, he said he'll go join the Second Sons. He was not a Stark, Sansa was, and they were together, Arya had found her family. Sansa was still sniffling a bit, clutching at Arya and seeming unwilling to ever let go. Arya honestly did not know why she was not crying too.
The servants had brought a basin and began to fill it with water as soon as they even arrived in the room, so they didn't have a moment alone until the door shut and they were left with a full bath. Arya tried to remember the last bath she'd had that hadn't been in some river or pool outside, and failed, though she knew that must have been at the Red Keep too. She stared at the water wordlessly, and watched Sansa's reflection come into focus as Sansa leaned over it too. "Do you not want it?" Sansa asked timidly, and Arya snorted.
"Bit hard to manage it with you clinging to my sleeve," Arya said without thinking, and Sansa drew back at once as if she'd been slapped, making Arya regret her words instantly. "No, I- yes, I'll take a bath."
"Shall I call a servant to attend you?" Sansa asked, voice nervous now, and Arya had to squint at her for a long time to understand why she would ever ask such a thing.
"No, it's fine, Sansa," Arya said, trying not to sound annoyed with her, and could not for the life of her think of a single other thing in seven hells to say to her sister.
Arya and Sansa had taken a hundred baths together when they'd been young, them and their brothers, but she'd always been more self-conscious around Sansa as they grew older than any of the boys, as Sansa grew more beautiful and ladylike and her body started to look like a woman's, and Arya's stayed like a little boy's. What made her hesitate now was the dirt and grime she knew coated her skin beneath her filthy, sodden traveling clothes, next to Sansa immaculate as ever. But the longer she waited, the queerer the silence became, so she began to unlace her doublet. Sansa took a seat tentatively on the bed, near the bath, watching her.
"I'm sorry I didn't know you at first," Sansa said finally, trying to wipe her face. Arya hesitated once free of her shoes and shirt, reluctant to let Needle out of her grasp, but she lay her sword at last on the ground right beside the basin, where she could reach over the side and grab it the quickest. She hesitated again at her pants, fingers going into her pocket to feel at Jaqen's coin, unwilling to leave it on the floor out in the open where anyone could take it- but this was Sansa. She could trust Sansa.
"I knew you," Arya said, and placed the coin beside Needle and finished stripping. Sansa was looking decorously away, courteous to the hilt, but she looked back at Arya once she heard her sink into the water. It was warm, she hadn't felt warm water on her skin in so long, and oh, that water was turning darker already from all the muck of the Vale on her.
"I know," Sansa said, "I'm sorry," and folded her hands on her lap. Arya looked over at her, trying to relax herself about her sword and her coin being on the floor and not at her hip and in her pocket. Sansa's face was red and a bit swollen from all the crying, though she'd dried it well. Sansa Lannister, she thought suddenly, vengefully. You got your golden lion, just as you please, though not the handsome prince you wanted.
"Did you really marry the Imp?" Arya blurted, regretted it at once, and started to scrub vigorously at her matted skin with the brush the servants had brought. Sansa bit her lip, flinching, and Arya regretted it more.
"I- he never- we didn't- the marriage was never consummated," Sansa said softly. "I'm still a maid. Aunt Lysa says that means we were never legally wed, in the eyes of the Seven or the realm."
"So you're still Sansa Stark," Arya said, and splashed the water over her short hair to wash it too, though who knew how much cleaner it would make it with how much she'd already polluted the bath. Sansa was staring at her fixedly with those swollen eyes, an almost desperate look in them, though desperate for what, Arya couldn't have said. She won't take Needle or the coin. No one is going to pick them up and take them. If they do, I'll grab Needle back and gut them like Rorge and Polliver and that Frey and the stable boy. Just thinking of them made her smile. Sansa misunderstood and smiled back.
"Yes, Arya, I am, I'm still a Stark, I'm still your sister." The words seemed to tumble out of Sansa unbidden. "I hated him. I hate them all. I watched Joffrey die. I was glad. I want them all dead. Every one of them."
Now Arya's smile really was for Sansa. She sat up in the bath, leaning towards her sister eagerly. "You saw him die? They say he died of poison. Poison at his own wedding." She'd had little joy when Rorge had told her of it. It had been another name escaped from her, far less joy than she'd had crossing Rorge's newly added name off that list right after. At least now she could see it through Sansa's eyes. "Did he cry and scream? Did he suffer?"
"He did," Sansa said, voice tight, unlike any Arya had heard from her. She sounded very, very satisfied, but venomous still. "He vomited, over the ground, at his own wedding. He clutched at his throat, and stumbled and fell, and called out for his mother, and died in her arms as she cried and cried for him. His mother's arms, and she couldn't save him. Her or his father."
"The Queen," Arya said. "Cersei. She should have died too."
"She should have," Sansa agreed, quietly but with conviction, and Arya frowned.
"Why aren't you there? Why aren't you with the Lannisters? Why are you here?" She trusted Sansa, she told herself she trusted Sansa, but the head lied, and the heart played tricks, and she didn't know what she saw except her sister who had lied for Joffrey.
"It's- Lord Baelish," Sansa said guardedly, "Lord Baelish arranged for me to be smuggled away, and I escaped during the chaos of the wedding and we took a ship to the Vale."
Arya studied her, wishing she could see into her sister's heart, wishing she could cry like Sansa had. She was scrubbing still, but she felt so much cleaner already, and was starting to feel soggy instead, like a drowned rat. Sansa looked around surreptitiously after speaking, then got up from her bed and went over to the two doors to check between them, maybe to see if a servant was listening.
"If there are servants there, I'll need new clothes," Arya called. "Aunt Lysa said they'd bring some, and she didn't seem to like these ones."
"Here, they already did," Sansa said quickly, walking back over and taking a pile of clean cloth off her bed and carrying it over to the side of Arya's bath to show her. "See- not a dress, like you wanted."
They did look like breeches, thankfully, although who knew if they'd fit any better than her last clothes had. Arya thought back and remembered Littlefinger sitting with them at the Hand's Tourney. She'd asked him why he was called Littlefinger, and she'd been scolded for it, but he'd answered amicably enough and settled down to watch with them. "So Littlefinger was on our side?" Arya asked doubtfully. He'd stood up there with the Lannisters when Joffrey had taken Father's head, yet so had Sansa. But she'd also seen him tell Lord Tywin to wed his grandson to the Tyrells, and that had seemed to turn out well for the Lannisters, at least up until the wedding...
"He loved our mother," Sansa said, staying standing beside Arya's bath. Her hands hovered in the air, as if she meant to reach out and pull Arya's short hair over the rim of the basin or fuss with it, but she didn't. "All his life. He bore a great love for her. He wanted to help me because of her. So he took me away from the Lannisters. The Tyrells said they would and they didn't, but Petyr- Lord Baelish did."
The Tyrells? Arya felt lost. What had become of Sansa since Arya had fled the Red Keep? She said she was still virgin, so that meant she hadn't been despoiled by her dwarf husband or the dead king or any of the rest of them, but it sounded as though she'd been their captive at court until Littlefinger got her away from them to Aunt Lysa. Can we trust Littlefinger, she wanted to ask, but if what Sansa said was true, and Sansa couldn't be lying to her- just the fact that they were here was treason enough to the fearsome Lannisters to lose everything, his new high marriage and his head too. Such a risk would never have been worth it if he hadn't really been against the Lannisters.
Maybe he'd even known her in Harrenhal and hadn't named her to Lord Tywin on purpose to help her, though surely then he would have done something to get her away from the Lannisters like her sister, unless he just wanted to help Sansa because she was beautiful like their mother had been. Or he just hadn't known her. She knew she should never, no matter what he did, trust him enough to tell him, even though it turned out he was Uncle Littlefinger now. He'd loved their mother, Sansa said, not their aunt, but he seemed happy enough to take Lysa as a consolation prize, not as beautiful or as kind but with the Vale in the bargain, and alive too, though Arya didn't know when they'd wed, she didn't know anything about any of this. Sansa had always been the one who knew about great houses and marriages.
"He took you away from Joffrey's wedding," Arya said, as much to herself as to Sansa, trying to think. There was so much she didn't understand, and she knew nothing of this place or their new family members and certainly not their new benefactor, but Sansa did, she should, and she trusted Sansa. Sansa would tell her everything, she had to, they were the only Starks left. "Joffrey was poisoned, and Littlefinger got you away." Arya furrowed her brow, then reached for the pile of clothes. There was a towel to dry herself before she put them on, which she did, as Sansa sat back down and averted her gaze, and Arya dressed in silence.
The clothes had gilded stitching in them, and felt so silken and clean it was almost unpleasant. They'd brought a full set of women's smallclothes, but she left the corset and underdress on the ground, and found the tunic and trousers fit much better than they probably would have with those girl's things on underneath them. She fit Jaqen's coin at once into the breech pocket, and kept the belt from her old clothes to hook Needle into it as always. When Sansa looked over at her again, she stared at Needle, but didn't ask. Luckily, it seemed like Arya was the one who got to ask the questions. There was a big one at the back of her mind brewing, something pricking at her she couldn't quite pin down, and then she blurted out-
"Did Littlefinger have something to do with it? The poison?" Sansa stiffened where she sat and failed to quite hold Arya's gaze, and that was a relief, to know that even after all the time that had passed, she could still read her sister. "He did, didn't he? Did he? How did he- Sansa, did you know? Did you do it too? Did you help kill Joffrey?" The Hound had said poison was a woman's weapon.
"Arya, you can't," Sansa groaned, staring up plaintively at Arya as Arya went over and stood above her. "If anyone finds out- I don't know what Aunt Lysa knows- if anyone hears-"
"You did?" Arya cried, truly excited, and grabbed Sansa's shoulders. "Sansa, did you do it? Did you kill Joffrey?"
"I didn't-" Sansa sighed. "Arya, you have to promise me you won't say a word. To anyone. Not even Aunt Lysa, or our cousin Robin, or even Lord Baelish, to let him know I told you, he can't know I breathed a word to anyone, no one can."
"I'm your sister," Arya said impatiently. "I won't break your trust. I can't. We're wolves." Arya could see Sansa's eyes start to get red and wet again at that, so she grabbed Sansa's shoulders harder and shook them. "You have to tell me. You have to tell me everything. I'm the only person you can tell everything. I'm a Stark. You said you're still a Stark too. Tell me."
"Okay," Sansa said, and squeezed her eyes shut tight for a moment, then looked up at her with a new determination. A tear escaped out of the side of one eye, trickling down the side of her face. "I'll tell you everything, Arya. I trust you. Just-" She reached out and pulled Arya down to sit next to her on the bed. "We just have to be quiet. Try and whisper. Don't yell, no matter what I say. Promise me you'll be very quiet."
"I can be quiet," Arya insisted. Quiet as shadow. "Sansa, did you?"
Sansa leaned forward and pressed her mouth to Arya's ear, whispering so softly Arya had to strain to even make out the words. "I didn't know. The poison was in a necklace. These purple beads. I wore the necklace to the wedding and Olenna Tyrell took one of the beads and put it in his wine and it strangled him. Lady Olenna and Lord Baelish planned it all, they used me, my necklace, but he never told me till after."
"The Tyrells?" Arya blinked, trying to remember every word Littlefinger had said to Lord Tywin at Harrenhal, and Sansa shushed her. Sansa had shushed her a lot when they were little, when she was being loud or rowdy and inappropriate, but now it was for their safety. It was still annoying, but this time, she listened to Sansa. "Why didn't he tell you?" she whispered.
"Yes, Lady Olenna," Sansa hissed, then frowned at her second question. "I-" She didn't look as though she knew, or had thought much about it. "I didn't need to know. I'm sure it was better that way. If I didn't know, I couldn't give anything away and ruin the whole thing and risk him living. It was better, me not knowing. I wouldn't have trusted myself. I'm glad I didn't know." He used you, is what you mean, Arya realized. Him and the Tyrells, whatever their true part in this is, I don't know, I don't know anything.
"I would have wanted to know," Arya blurted, and Sansa laughed. It wasn't a full laugh, Arya hadn't heard her truly laugh since Father had been made to kill Lady, but she did smile with it, too.
"You wouldn't have lasted a minute," Sansa said dryly. "They would have looked at your face and known everything right away. You could never hide anything." Little do you know how many people I've been, and how much I've hidden, and who I've hidden it from, Arya thought, but held her tongue. She hadn't yet thought out what she meant to tell them about where she'd been and what she'd done, not even Sansa. A good deal of it she doubted they'd even believe. "You're still just like that. Calling out my name in the great hall, when I'm not supposed to be Sansa here. If they hadn't known it was me, you would have given me away."
"Who are you supposed to be?" Arya asked, and Sansa tossed her long hair.
"I'm Alayne Baelish, Lord Baelish's niece. Aunt Lysa and Robin know who I am, but no one else. I'm just a Baelish for now." Sansa lowered her voice conspiratorially. "Aunt Lysa means for me to wed cousin Robin."
Arya was almost as shocked as she'd been when Sansa had admitted about Joffrey. "Him? He's a little boy! A sickly little boy. And our cousin! We're not Cersei!"
"Just cousins is fine," Sansa said knowingly. "Anyway, it's not me they care about, it's my claim. I hold the key to Winterfell and the North." Arya gave her a puzzled look. "I'm the eldest girl," Sansa recited. "All our brothers are gone," she said, and managed not to flinch. "That makes me the true heir to Winterfell, not the Boltons."
Sansa still wasn't thinking of Jon. "There's Jon," Arya added. "I bet he's still alive at the Wall. He was a great warrior even when he left for the Wall."
"He's a bastard, he doesn't count," Sansa said impatiently. "No one cares about him. They want my claim, everyone does, that's why they married me to Lord Tyrion."
"How can you marry cousin Robin if you already married the Imp?" Arya asked. "Because he never deflowered you?" Sansa winced and wrapped her arms around herself before speaking again.
"Lord Baelish doesn't think Lord Tyrion will live much longer," she whispered, and Arya nearly jumped off the bed.
"Is he going to go kill him too? Is he going to kill all the Lannisters, one by one?" Would he let me help?
"No, Arya! Arya, you promised you wouldn't yell, please don't be so loud. Of course he isn't," Sansa hissed. "No, Arya, they blame him for Joffrey's death. He was Joffrey's cupbearer at the wedding, and I was Tyrion's wife and I fled the city. It looks like it was him. They'll put him on trial and sentence him to die, and I'll be a widow."
Arya thought quickly. "Littlefinger set him up," she said flatly, quietly, and Sansa hugged herself tighter. "Is that why he killed Joffrey? To get rid of the Imp? Why wouldn't he just kill the Imp then?"
"I-" Sansa lowered her face. "I don't really know why he killed Joffrey. I asked him, on the boat to the Vale, and he said something about making moves with no purpose, but I think everything he does has a purpose, it's just impossible to know it." She looked as though she was speaking these things for the first time, maybe even only daring to think them for the first time with Arya here. "I didn't understand why he'd turn against the Lannisters, they gave him everything, they made him a great lord. It still doesn't make any sense."
Sansa wasn't making any sense to Arya either. "What did the Lannisters do? I thought Aunt Lysa made him a great lord, by marrying him."
"Arya!" Sansa whispered sharply in dismay. "Don't you know anything? He couldn't have married Aunt Lysa if he'd just been a lower lord. The Lannisters made him Lord of Harrenhal, and that's why he could even court her."
"Harrenhal?" Arya echoed, and Sansa misunderstood her confusion for silliness.
"Don't worry, Arya, he's never set foot in Harrenhal," Sansa said, rolling her eyes. "It's just a title, a name. The curse won't get him."
No one knows anything about you and Harrenhal, Arya told herself. It's just a coincidence. Our mother's mother was Lady of Harrenhal, too, Harrenhal is everywhere, it's all chance. "I'm not scared of some stupid curse," Arya muttered sullenly, though she knew the curse of Harrenhal had been real, she had been the curse. "Just- why would the Lannisters give him a great castle? Even just the name?"
"Because he served them, Arya," Sansa said, exasperation creeping into her voice. "That's what kings do, they reward those who serve them."
"I thought you said he served Mother," Arya said slowly. "That he's loved her all his life, and that's why he does things."
"He does," Sansa insisted. "He had to pretend to serve them, but he was always against them, that's why he got me away from them, that's why he freed me of Lord Tyrion."
"So he could marry you himself," Arya said without thinking, and didn't quite know where the words came from herself.
Sansa gasped in what looked to be genuine shock and incomprehension, eyeing her like she was dumber and dumber by the second. "He's already wed, Arya, to our aunt!" she snapped.
Arya shrugged. "Anyone can be killed."
Sansa looked as if she wanted to shove Arya off the bed. "Gods, Arya, that doesn't make any sense! You don't understand anything. Our Aunt rules the Vale, until our cousin comes of age, and that makes Lord Baelish the acting Lord of the Vale until then. All of his power here is through her. He has no reason to ever hurt her. Or us. He's our uncle now. You just don't understand these things at all. I've been at court, and I've had to learn about all this, and- no one knows where you've even been."
Sansa trusts Littlefinger, and she doesn't want to stop trusting him. "Okay. I'm sorry, Sansa," Arya forced herself to say, and tentatively touched Sansa's hand. "It's just so hard to believe we're really safe."
The anger fell away at once from Sansa's face, and she reached out and hugged Arya, wrapping those long fancy sleeves around Arya's back and pressing her face back into the shoulder she'd cried on in the hall. "We are, Arya," Sansa said. "I promise, we're safe. The queen said I was safe at court, but I wasn't, everyone there was unkind, or a liar, they were all liars, and Lord Baelish was my only true friend."
"The Lannisters were cruel to you," Arya said, not needing to question it, and felt Sansa shudder in her arms.
"They were, Arya, they were monsters, the king was a monster," Sansa babbled. "I never saw it until he did what he did but then he was so cruel, Arya, I never knew what he would do except I knew he would always be cruel."
"You said no one made you- know them," Arya said, seized with a sudden horror, and a sudden revived burning rage that she hadn't been the one to cross Joffrey off her list herself. "He didn't make you do anything like that, did he?" She remembered Rorge and Biter promising to fuck her bloody, but they were in the ground now.
"No, but he- he said he would, at my wedding, he made himself the one to give me away, to his uncle," Sansa admitted, "And at the reception Lord Tyrion was drunk, and Joffrey said he'd come in after Lord Tyrion passed out and have his guards hold me down so he could force me. He said it didn't matter which Lannister put a child in me. And he had his Kingsguard beat me, when I displeased him, or just when he felt like it, and when Robb won a great victory at Oxcross he had them strip me before the court, or he would have if-" She stopped and took a deep breath, as if she was trying not to cry yet another time. "I was their hostage, Arya, he tormented me, he tormented everyone, I'm so glad he's dead."
She pulled back to look Arya in the face, hesitating for a moment as if preparing to tell Arya something very important, something she could barely bring herself to say. "After he killed Father," Sansa whispered, "He had his Kingsguard bring me to the castle walls where he'd put Father's head on a spike. And he made me look at it. He said he would bring me Robb's head, too, and I said maybe Robb would bring me his."
But he didn't, Arya thought, They did take Robb's head, and put Grey Wind's in its place, and Mother and Robb never had the chance to free you, or even see you again before the Boltons and the Freys betrayed them. "Good," Arya said firmly. "It's- it's good you said that. It's- not something I'd think you'd say."
"Not courteous?" Sansa laughed ruefully. "Not ladylike? No, Arya, I was courteous, all the rest of the time, I was a proper lady in King's Landing, I had to be, or he'd have me beaten more. I said Robb would bring me his head, so he had Ser Meryn strike me, and then I looked down, I remember it like I was still standing there, we were on a walkway over the air, and it was only a couple steps away from him. I could have grabbed him and pulled both of us over it, and I was going to, but the Hound stopped me."
Arya didn't want to think about the Hound protecting Joffrey. Maybe she did hope Littlefinger had paid him funny. "You almost killed Joffrey yourself?" she asked, and Sansa shook her head.
"I didn't- it was only a thought, I couldn't have managed it, not really," Sansa admitted. "Only I think of it all the time, what would have happened if I'd pulled it off back then, if Joffrey had died then, if Mother and Robb would still have-" She fell silent, unbidden guilt showing all across her face.
"They would still have died," Arya said, to be kind, although it was probably true too. "The Lannisters would just have crowned stupid little Tommen instead, and fought the same stupid war."
"Just- Arya, I want you to know, I've always wanted you to know, I wasn't on their side, I never was," Sansa pleaded. "I hate them all, I do. I was wrong about them, Arya. On the Kingsroad- by the river- Arya-"
"You were standing there," Arya said, though she still meant to be kind, and Sansa didn't understand.
"I made a mistake, Arya, lying for him, saying I didn't remember," Sansa confessed. "It was just as you said, then and now, Joffrey was wrong. Not just because I lost Lady, but because even though I thought I loved him, and I didn't want to anger my future husband, the future king, it shouldn't have mattered, you're my blood, you're my sister, I should have been on your side."
These were words Arya had fantasized about hearing so many times, practically since the moment Sansa had told that lie, but they left her cold. "You were standing right up there."
"I know, Arya, I shouldn't have lied," Sansa said, sounding like she was practically begging now.
"You were up there next to him," Arya tried again, feeling all her insides turning to ice.
"Arya?" Sansa stopped her groveling, voice confused.
"You were standing right up there next to Joffrey," Arya recited emotionlessly, "On the steps of Baelor's sept, with the queen and Littlefinger and the Spider and the high septon, and Ilyn Payne with Father's sword."
At last comprehension dawned on Sansa's face. "No- Arya, he lied. I pled for Father's life in court, and Joffrey promised that if Father confessed before everyone to treason that he would spare Father's life and send him to the Wall. I believed him, I thought he would pardon Father, I did."
Arya stared at her sister for a long while, not saying a thing, thinking and thinking. Then she made up her mind. "It doesn't matter," she said. "Father's dead now."
"Yes," Sansa whispered.
"And Mother."
"Yes."
"And Robb."
"Yes."
"And Bran and Rickon."
"Yes."
"And Jon's gone to the Wall, and sworn to be a brother of the Watch, and he could be dead too."
"I- yes, Arya, I'm sorry."
"So it's you," Arya said. "You're all I have left."
Sansa nodded, and of course she was crying again. Arya hugged her as tightly as she could, pulled Sansa to her on the bed and lay down on it hugging Sansa, and Sansa cuddled up against her crying and clinging to Arya for all she was worth. Arya moved Needle to her left side so it wouldn't push into Sansa, though that was wrong for her sword hand, and would make for a slower draw.
"Don't worry, Sansa," Arya whispered. "It will be alright now. I won't leave you again. I'll protect you." I'll protect you from Littlefinger, if it comes to that. "I'll keep you safe."
"I love you, Arya," Sansa whispered back, and Arya couldn't believe her ears at first. She wouldn't have questioned it from her parents or any of her brothers, but she couldn't ever remember Sansa saying those words without Mother prompting her, a courtly courtesy for her embarrassing, unwanted little sister. But Sansa sounded as though she meant it.
"I love you, Sansa," Arya said back, and meant it too.
When they were woken and told to dress, Sansa didn't want to get up, didn't want to let Arya out of her sight for a moment. The servants said they'd been sent for, to breakfast with Lady Arryn and Lord Baelish in Lady Arryn's solar. She didn't like the idea of Arya speaking to Lord Baelish again. Not so soon, not after all of the skepticism she'd expressed over him, not before Sansa had had more time to convince her they were truly safe, or at least to school her to hide her doubt. More time wouldn't have made it any more likely, she was almost certain, that she could have convinced Arya to dress properly, but that hardly seemed to matter now, compared to the kind of things she was sure Aunt Lysa and Lord Baelish would ask Arya.
They'd alluded to speaking of her time outside King's Landing once Arya had gotten a chance to settle in, and now they surely meant to ask Arya for an account of 'what had happened to lead her here,' as Aunt Lysa had delicately put it. Sansa was terrified of what Arya might say, even before she realized that despite spending the day before telling Arya everything about herself, and the night curled up with Arya in her bed, she had no better idea what Arya had been doing all this time than Aunt Lysa did.
She watched Arya carefully as Arya dressed, not having to wait for a servant to fit and tie things like Sansa did, and watched the closest as Arya put back in that little sword, which she'd placed right beside herself on the bed and hadn't moved, even when Sansa looked at it funny. Sansa rather hoped that Lord Baelish would ask about that sword. The words to question Arya about it herself were on the tip of her tongue, but for some reason, they didn't come. Yet it wasn't because she didn't recognize Arya still, or doubted her in any way. This was unmistakably Arya, just... different.
Lord Baelish looked as smart as ever, and Aunt Lysa as plain and faded as ever, as they entered the solar and Lord Baelish stood at their arrival. At least cousin Robin was nowhere in sight to muck things up, though that did mean they probably meant business. "Good morning, my lady," Lord Baelish said, and nodded to Arya after Sansa, calling her "My lady" too, though Sansa could tell Arya hated that. Both Lord Baelish and Aunt Lysa looked down at the sword, though they waited to ask anything until the servants had placed all the trays of food on the table and cleared well out of the room. Arya immediately began to pile bread and eggs and meats onto her plate, filling it to each edge, and began to messily shovel it into her face before even the final serving maid's steps had receded. Sansa tried not to recoil in horror at her manners, which seemed to have somehow worsened since the last time they'd seen each other. She wouldn't have thought it possible.
"Arya," Aunt Lysa said finally, voice hesitant, "It is truly a blessing to have you with us, child."
"Yes," Lord Baelish put in, serving himself a single slice of bread while he eyed Arya wryly. Sansa felt her cheeks color with shame despite herself. "There is nothing more blessed in the eyes of the Gods than a family that was torn apart, reunited."
"Thank you, my lord, my lady, you speak most true," Sansa said hurriedly, meaning to speak for Arya too. "We are both so thankful for your hospitality, truly. I am so grateful to be reunited with my sister again."
"But how did this happen, child?" Aunt Lysa said, at last taking the plunge. "How is it you came to be with us, delivered by- that man, for a bounty?"
Arya looked up sharply at that, even as she kept eating, eating as if she didn't know where her next meal would come from, like a starving animal. She spoke to Aunt Lysa, but her eyes were on Lord Baelish. "What did you do with the Hound?"
"I gave him his pay and sent him on his way," Lord Baelish said smoothly. "He was most pleased with our generosity. Arya, the last that was known of you, you were in King's Landing with your father and sister, but when the queen's men came to apprehend you, you went missing. Nothing has been known of you since then."
The question was implied there as much too. Sansa worried that Arya would take it ill, as if they meant their hospitality and the food Arya was devouring were contingent upon Arya's full disclosure. It wasn't that, it was just that they had to know. Sansa wanted so badly to know too, especially after she had broken down and told Arya everything, even things she would never have said to Lord Baelish's face. Maybe some of it would explain why Arya was so much quieter now, and seemed so much more cautious, in everything.
"The Lannisters did come for me," Arya said between bites, tone casual, as if telling them this was nothing to her, though her eyes were alert, darting between the three of them with each word. "On the day they arrested Father, and Sansa, and killed most all of Father's men. I was having my dancing lessons." That was right, Sansa remembered, Arya had been such a terrible dancer, she'd always come back covered in bruises from those lessons. "Ser Meryn Trant and his men told me Father had sent for me, and wanted to take me, but my teacher didn't believe them, and he told me to run."
Septa Mordane had told Sansa to run too, though she hadn't run far before she ran into the Hound. "And you escaped? A dancing master against the Kingsguard?" Aunt Lysa said in disbelief, chuckling slightly. Lord Baelish was watching Arya too closely to laugh, all intent observation despite the kindly demeanor he was putting on for them. Sansa hoped Arya wouldn't be stupid enough to try and lie, Sansa knew she wouldn't be any good, and there was no reason to lie anyway.
"He wasn't a dancing master," Arya said, looking down at her plate. She'd stopped eating and looked as though remembering might be making her sad, though she was strangely hard for Sansa to read now. "Well- not exactly. That's what Father called it, to hide what I was really learning. It was- water dancing. He was a swordmaster, teaching me water dancing like in Braavos. He was First Sword of Braavos once. He was a great fighter, even just with a wooden sword."
"Your father hired some foreigner to teach you to fight like a boy?" Aunt Lysa said in disbelief. Sansa had looked at Lord Baelish at the word Braavos, where she knew his grandfather had come from, thinking he would know if Arya was lying, but he simply looked mildly curious now. Father was letting Arya learn to fight with a sword?
"He said if I was to wield a sword, I had best learn how to use it," Arya said defiantly, and that did sound like Father, though Sansa would have known. Arya was always closer with Father than I ever was.
Arya reached down and touched the hilt of her sword, and smiled a bit. "He gave you that sword?" Aunt Lysa asked, and Arya shook her head.
"Jon did," Arya said.
"Her bastard brother, Jon Snow," Lord Baelish put in quickly by way of explanation, and Arya frowned.
"Jon gave it to me before we left for Winterfell," Arya said, and Sansa swallowed, wondering how she had known nothing of any of this, which was sounding to be true enough so far. "He had our blacksmith Mikken make it for me. He and Father both said I should train to learn it properly."
"But you're a girl," Aunt Lysa marveled, uncomprehending, and Arya took her hand off her sword, scowling.
"That's what they said," she insisted quietly. "They thought I ought to know."
It made sense, in a way. No matter how Father and Mother and all their servants and Sansa too had tried to make Arya do what she was supposed to, she had never listened, always running around and playing with bows and swords despite them, just as Bran had never listened no matter how many times he was told not to climb. Sansa's throat felt tight. She wondered, if she'd been a ridiculous freak too, practicing swordfighting instead of sewing in her chambers, if she'd have made it out of King's Landing with Arya.
"Very well, Arya," Lord Baelish said. "So your Bravoosi teacher held off the Lannisters, and you ran. But how did you escape the Red Keep?"
"I had been exploring the Red Keep, since we arrived in King's Landing," Arya explained. "And my teacher had me catching cats, to help my reflexes, so I'd chased them all through the Keep, and below." Aunt Lysa snorted in amazement at that, and Arya fixed her with a glare. "Once I got lost and found my way out of the Red Keep without meaning to, chasing a cat, so I knew my way out into the city by the tunnels below. It was past the monsters-" She stopped, started again. "Past the old skeletons of the dragons."
"Maegor the Cruel's tunnels," Lord Baelish said. "After they were finished, he killed all the builders, so no one but a Targaryen would ever know the secrets of the Red Keep. Yet it seems you learned enough. How did you survive in King's Landing alone?"
"No one recognized me," Arya said, gaze sweeping between them again furtively. Sansa tried to stop wondering so much if Arya was telling the truth, and if she'd have to wait to get the real story from Arya once they were alone again. "Except I met a man of the Night's Watch, who recognized me from when he'd come to see Father for men. He said he'd protect me, and take me north to safety in disguise."
The Night's Watch, Sansa thought, Just like Jon. He gave her that sword, he set her practicing at sword fighting so she had a foreign swordmaster to help her escape, his brothers helped her once she did, and no doubt she'd rather be up at the Wall with him than up here in the Eyrie with me.
"You traveled with the watchmen?" Aunt Lysa said, horrified. "The prisoners? Rapers? Smallfolk and criminals?"
"None of them hurt me," Arya said, voice a bit savage. "No one raped me, if that's what you're worried about. My virtue is still intact."
Although Sansa hadn't thought of it, both Lord Baelish and Aunt Lysa seemed visibly to relax at that, as if that had been the real points of all these questions all along. Sansa felt herself relax inwardly too, and she realized she had been worried about that too somehow, that something like what had almost happened to her in the riot, had happened to Arya all the way. Wasn't that what happened to women without their families, travelling unprotected?
But there was more to it with the others. Maybe, even though Arya hardly seemed a woman now, they meant to leverage her name too, and needed to know if she could be married off to someone eventually just like Sansa could. They didn't know Arya well enough to know it would still be impossible to force her to do something she didn't want to either way. She'd have thrown herself from Maegor's Holdfast before she let them wed her to the Imp.
"O-of course, sweet girl, that was never in doubt," Aunt Lysa said hurriedly. "But- the Night's Watch takes only men, surely."
"That's why her hair is so short," Lord Baelish said knowingly. "The man must have cut it, to disguise her amongst them as a boy."
"He did," Arya confirmed, watching Lord Baelish with all the more suspicion. "So I left the city with them, but we were set upon in the Riverlands, and they killed the Night's Watch leader and took our supplies and took us captive."
"Who did, my child?" Aunt Lysa inquired, leaning forward to take in every word.
Arya looked once between Lord Baelish and Aunt Lysa, then answered. "Outlaws. The Brotherhood without Banners. They kept us to work for them, but then they took the Hound captive too, and he recognized me. When he escaped them, he took me captive and stole me away with him, because he thought he could get a lot of money for me."
"So he took you here?" Aunt Lysa asked, listening intently, as was Lord Baelish, though less obviously, eating the last of a sausage off the tip of his knife.
"He didn't mean to at first," Arya said without expression. "First he meant to take me to my brother and mother, but then they were killed, so he decided he'd have better luck here. So then he took me here. And here I am."
A long silence fell after Arya finished speaking, and Sansa herself didn't know what to say. "Was it hard there? Were they unkind to you?" she finally asked, voice hushed, a sick feeling spreading low in her stomach, though she didn't know why. She forced herself to eat a boiled egg, though it didn't help. "The Brotherhood? Or the Hound? Did they hit you? Beat you?"
"No," Arya said flatly. "It was fine."
"Oh, my dear child!" Aunt Lysa exclaimed, and jumped to her feet and hugged Arya where she sat. Arya's face over her shoulder looked sour. "Still. The things you've been through! For a girl! Why, it's a miracle that you got here to us safe and sound. The Seven are truly merciful."
"Yes," Arya agreed, and reached around Aunt Lysa to keep eating.
They didn't even beat her, Sansa thought wildly. She escaped the Lannisters, and no one made her marry anyone, it's not fair, I played by all the rules, I was a good lady, I did as I was told and she never did, and she got to run around the woods playing with outlaws just like she always wanted, and I-
It snowed that day, for the first time since Sansa had arrived in the Vale. She went out to the small courtyard near the great hall to see it and found that it was there that Arya had disappeared off to after the long breakfast, vanished to the outside.
The snow was coming down fast and brilliant, blowing about with the wind from being up in the mountains, and had already made a wispy layer over the trees, with the ground all covered in white, and the sides of the walls beginning to stick too. It was the most beautiful thing Sansa had seen in months, and immediately, she thought of home, even before she spied Arya's diminutive figure in her boys' clothes standing out in the snow. Just as the snowflakes whirled and turned as they descended, so Arya whirled through the air, as smooth and fluid a force of nature as the snowfall. Just like the snowfall, Arya never seemed to stop, and barely even slowed. The sword was in her hand, and it whirled as she did, turning around in circles and slicing through nothing as she turned and turned about, sometimes blurring as Sansa stared.
It certainly wasn't much like any swordplay Sansa had seen before, passing her brothers training in the courtyard, with their short, punctuated thrusts and grunts. Water dancing, Arya had called it, but it looked like snow dancing now, her feet drawing lightly through the snow, exposing the cobblestones beneath the light dusting of white before the snowflakes began to pattern it again. The sight would have dumbfounded Sansa no matter what, if only because of how clumsy Arya had been, especially at anything ladylike like dancing. This dancing looked more graceful than any lady Sansa had ever seen.
Arya's chopped hair was dark from the snow, clinging to her face from the moisture, but her eyes gleamed out through the matted strands, utterly concentrated on each movement she made. She looked so focused that a dragon wouldn't have shaken her focus on her sword. Every motion looked calculated, economical, planned, as if she'd practiced these movements over and over again before. It had been so much time since Sansa had seen Arya. She'd turned from a scraggly little tomboy to a ragged, lanky stranger. In that time, it seemed Arya had spent much of her time learning how to hold a blade with such ease. While since Father died, me, I spent the time...
Sansa realized suddenly that she wasn't the only one watching Arya. She caught a dark figure, out of the corner of her eye, and looked up to spot Lord Baelish standing above them on the staircase into the courtyard, peering out from behind the second flight. He was watching from above like always, like a bird did, like the mockingbird he'd chosen as his sigil, but she didn't know if she liked him watching now. She couldn't see his face properly from this distance, especially through the falling snow, but his gaze was directed down at Arya, and he looked contemplative. Sansa felt her muscles tense before she even quite knew why, and it was nothing like the embarrassment she'd always used to feel for the odd things Arya did.
She couldn't be afraid of Lord Baelish, she trusted him as her friend and benefactor, but somehow she didn't like him looking at Arya like this with a sword in Arya's hand, as if Arya was some kind of problem or threat. But Sansa had to just be imagining that. He'd probably just been walking through and gotten curious at the strange sight of a young girl spinning a sword around in the snow.
Sansa told herself that, but something still made her step forward. "Arya!" she called, and Arya whirled to face her, sword pointed in Sansa's direction. "Hello," Sansa said cautiously, and when she glanced up, Lord Baelish was gone.
"Sansa," Arya said, lowering her blade, but not by much. "Hello."
"Is that the..." Sansa walked towards Arya, trying to overcome the wariness that seemed to be overwhelming her towards everyone. She could feel the snowflakes land in her hair, wetting her face. "The water dancing?"
"Yes," Arya said, and pushed her sword into her belt, letting it rest at her side. She looked guarded but not hostile, falling still and letting the snow pile down on her and the courtyard, coating the patches of stone that her boots had cleared. "You must hate it."
"What?" Sansa blinked, pushing her hair out of her own eyes. "What do you mean?"
Arya touched the sword at her hip, face defiant. "Me. It's not proper."
"No," Sansa said at once, stepping closer to Arya, beseeching. She was used to keeping herself under such tight control, with the armor of courtesy she'd forged piece by piece in King's Landing, and now Arya was here seeming completely outside the game and all its rules. "No, Arya, it's beautiful."
Arya stared at Sansa with pure skepticism. "Right." She looked down at her feet, then up at the sky, where flakes of white kept flickering down upon them.
"Really," Sansa insisted. She was glad of the thick cloak she'd put on over her dress, given the sudden frost shot through the air. "So is the snow."
"The snow is beautiful," Arya said begrudgingly. She said it like it was the only common ground they could find, but it was something. Her gaze swept out wider to survey the whole courtyard, making Sansa glad that Lord Baelish had gone, then shook her head. "Winter is coming."
Somehow the words seemed too obvious now, with all that had befallen their family, and all this load of snow falling on them. "Winter is coming," Sansa agreed, putting on the most somber face she could. Arya blinked and then glared at her.
"Sansa!" she shrieked.
"What?" Sansa said innocently, putting on an air. "You said it." She outstretched one of her gloved hands to demonstrate with the snowflake that fell into it, fighting to keep a straight face. "Winter... is here."
"Sansa," Arya growled in warning. Then she bent to the ground and scooped up a handful of snow off the stones. Sansa's eyes traveled down, then she took a step back, eyes widening. Arya's hand, nimble despite being surrounded by the cold, were patting the snow together.
"Don't you dare," Sansa squeaked, and then Arya had flung a ball of snow right at Sansa's face. It mostly broke apart before it struck, setting a haze of icy crystals glimmering around them, but enough of it struck the side of Sansa's head and fell in her hair to make her stagger.
"Arya!" Sansa shrieked, louder, but Arya was grinning, mischievous, unrepentant as ever. She was already bending to gather up more ammunition, so Sansa quickly grabbed her own handful and flung it back at Arya. It hit Arya in the back, making her let out a startled gasp. Arya whirled around with a fully packed snowball in hand, and the war was on.
Sansa darted away, trying to get out of range, but Arya pursued her and nailed her again, drawing an outraged howl of laughter out of Sansa, her composure fully broken. She felt silly at first, desperately gathering snow to hurl at her sister, but she quickly forgot her self-consciousness in the flush of the game. Arya was quicker than her, unmistakably, and had certainly had far more experience with this sort of stupidity with their brothers from when they were young. But Sansa's hands were gloved, which made it quicker for her to form good, solid snowballs, and she was much taller than Arya, giving her wider range and making it easier for her rain snowballs down from above.
Panting aloud now, Sansa tried to make a run for the steps, to climb a few of the stairs and accentuate her height advantage all the more, but Arya pelted her back over and over until Sansa had to turn back around and stand and fight, matching Arya's torrent of snowballs with a stream of her own. Sometimes their snowballs hit each other's and came apart, and their feet as they dashed about sent clouds of sparkling snow through the air, raising a mist of white thicker than the falling snow blowing around haphazardly before the air would clear again. Sansa could feel her face burn, growing damp along with her hair from melting snow dripping down. The back of her hair was coming out of its perfect knotted braid, and she had to gasp deep for breath as she kept darting out of the way, her and Arya running around each other in circle as they pawed for more snow.
Sansa was laughing long before she even realized it, laughing so hard it made it even more difficult to breathe, laughing so hard she could feel her chest rise and shake with it and her sides start to ache. Arya was crying out and squealing as she sprinted and lunged about, all of her earlier calculated grace turned to the same, eager playful frenzy she had shown at ten or seven or five chasing Jon around the Winterfell courtyard. Sansa could recognize her clearly now, every bit of her from head to toe was Sansa's sister.
Arya was giggling too, a stream of laughter that soon grew even louder than Sansa's, not seeming to feel the cold in her hands at all, nor the sword on her side as any hindrance. She was bright red and howling with laughter soon enough, bending down to hurl up bigger drafts of snow at Sansa with both arms, pushing together and then trying to fling half the snow in the courtyard at Sansa. Sansa tried to stop her by pushing it all forward from the other side, but ended up losing her balance on Arya's hands in the way and tripping instead.
The snow mostly cushioned her fall, and Arya did the rest, letting out an undignified squawk before apprising herself fully of the situation and deciding it was the opportune moment to try and shove an armload of snow down the back of Sansa's cloak. Sansa jostled back, trying to control her laughter, but found she couldn't, so she fell on her back in the snow beside Arya, shaking hysterically. A part of her worried if she was going to start crying yet again, she was practically sobbing with laughter, but thankfully, tears didn't come, only the snow gradually slowing and then coming to an end above them.
Sansa turned her face to the side, becoming a bit abashed at having behaved so childishly, but Arya was in exactly the same state, chest heaving with her hysteria beneath her snow-covered tunic, and that made Sansa feel less foolish."That... was undignified," Sansa said wryly, and Arya chuckled so hard at that, her head arched back. She reached out one of her pale, frigid hands to swat at Sansa's wet cheek.
"I don't care," Arya said, "I'm never dignified," and made a funny face, which broke Sansa's composure all over again. Arya smiled at that, and Sansa swatted back at her.
"We're going to have to get you gloves," Sansa said tiredly, and Arya propped herself up and shrugged.
"It's not too bad," she said. "I don't really feel it."
"But- Arya," Sansa sighed, and grabbed at Arya's hands. "Stop touching the snow!"
"Jon never needed to wear gloves," Arya said quietly. "Even when he would build a snow fort. He wanted to build them as tall as the Wall, he'd saw. He liked that even more than snow fights, but half the time, there wasn't enough of it, it was just summer snows. I don't think this would have been quite enough either. Not to build the Wall."
Most all the mirth seemed to have departed her face at once, as if she suddenly did feel all the cold. Sansa's heart twisted in her chest. I thought- but she'd rather be with him still, of course she would, even if the North isn't safe, even if I thought we- but I'm not home to her, he is. We're still as far from home as we ever were.
"What are you doing?" Arya said, sitting up again as Sansa started to sweep a big pile of snow together in front of them.
"Look and see," Sansa said, and began to shape a broad base. Arya sat all the way up and watched curiously.
"Are you building a snow fort?" Arya guessed, and Sansa shook her head, pressing the snow in harder to make a clear corner, a rounded rectangle for the outer walls, but no, they should be higher. She hadn't quite decided what scale they had enough snow for yet.
Arya watched in silence as Sansa worked determinedly at her creation, shaping wide outer and then inner walls atop a heaped base, but it wasn't until Sansa began to pile the snow up high and narrow on points the walls and shape the ends into square turrets that Arya realized. "You're building a castle!" Arya blurted, then stared fixedly as Sansa swept her fingers carefully around the top of the stack she'd made to start tracing the uneven surfaces and cracks in the Broken Tower. "You- you're building Winterfell."
"Yes, I am," Sansa said, without looking up, trying not to feel foolish again, but Arya didn't mock her, as she'd feared. Instead, she crawled over to Sansa's side, voice eager.
"Can I help?" Arya asked, and Sansa shook her head.
"Put your hands in your sleeves or they'll freeze off," she nagged, but Arya's face was too excited to turn down completely. "Arya- oh, fine, if you keep your hands tucked away, you can use your sleeves to gather me more snow to build with."
Arya nodded with a grin and started to amass a huge pile for Sansa behind their little Winterfell, where the great central keep had just started to take shape. It all came together after that faster than Sansa had anticipated. She'd feared so many times in King's Landing that she'd forgotten her family, her homeland, what the very stones she'd grown up in looked like, but it was right before her in her mind's eye now like a painting.
Arya only had to point out here and there where something should be bigger or smaller, and Sansa proved surprisingly adept in working the snow to make a smaller model of their shared memory. It was much easier than the precise close work of sewing. Once, though, when Arya kept disagreeing with her over which tower was taller, Sansa snapped back, and regretted it right after. "Winterfell doesn't look like that," Arya was insisting, and Sansa turned and fixed a deadly stare on her.
"It doesn't look like you say, either. Theon Greyjoy betrayed Robb and went turncloak, and burned Winterfell with his Ironborn savages, and now Winterfell is a pile of rubble. Winterfell doesn't look like anything anymore," Sansa said, hard and fast, and felt that horrible foreboding lump in her throat, but Arya just shook her head stubbornly.
"No, this tower is taller," Arya said steadily, so Sansa took a handful of snow and made it taller.
When the structure had all come together, Arya found a twig and stuck it in as decoration. Sansa supposed she meant it to stand for the Weirwood in the Godswood, which could have been a painting hanging there before her suddenly too, looming with its white branches and dark crimson red leaves whispering, but the twig wasn't the right height or color even in the right place. She let it stay there anyway, and sat back to survey their work. It was Winterfell, truly, strong and ancient and undefeated.
"Now that," Arya said with satisfaction, "Is beautiful." Sansa nodded in agreement, and looked to make sure Arya's hands were tucked in her sleeves.
They stared at Winterfell together for a long while in silence, long enough that it had to started to get a little dark in the courtyard. Finally, Arya straightened up, stretching, a shadow crossing her face. "Do you think it will be there tomorrow? Or do you think a servant will knock it over?"
"Or it will get warmer, and melt," Sansa said. "It's not stone. It's just snow."
Arya's face crumpled, and she looked the closest to tears that Sansa had seen her yet, but still, she didn't cry. She just drew her shoulders up and stood, turning her back on the snow castle. Sansa followed her back inside, the magic all fleeing now. Sansa hurried them back to her chamber so hopefully none of the servants would see them wet. Arya didn't mind her wet clothes, but she let Sansa wrap one of her heavy warm cloaks around her shoulders, and Sansa changed to her nightdress. Afterwards, she sat down on the bed with Arya and tried to get the courage to speak the words she should have been able to speak the night before.
"What happened to you, Arya?" Sansa whispered. "What really happened? Did you really tell Lord Baelish everything?"
Arya stayed silent, just studied Sansa impassively, and Sansa was sure she was wrong or had just offended Arya beyond repair either way. But then Arya turned to her resolutely, a fixed light in her dark eyes, and shook her head. "No," Arya whispered. "No, I didn't."
"Will you tell me?" Sansa whispered back, heart pounding.
"You can't ever tell anyone," Arya hissed fiercely. "No one. No one in this world. Do you understand?"
"I promise," Sansa whispered. "You're my sister. I promise I'll never betray you again."
Arya still looked doubtful. "You won't even believe me," she sighed.
"Please," Sansa said. "Please, Arya."
Arya seemed to consider a bit longer, then nodded, and reached under the cloak into her pocket. She pulled out a small bronze coin, of a make and design Sansa had never seen before, and handed it to Sansa. "Valar morghulis," Arya whispered.
"What?"
Arya took a deep breath, and then she told Sansa the truth.