Chapter Text
Arya Stark awakens in Winterfell, gasping for breath and a hand clutching her chest. Eyes scanning her surroundings, she realises she is in her childhood room. She feels the furs covering her, the morning chill of the North creeping in and the smell of freedom with it. She sees her fireplace, with no fire, burnt wood and scattered ash. She sees candles burning, wax melting and dripping, smearing the floor.
Her head hits the pillow again, her eyes on the ceiling without seeing it.
She failed, Arya reasons, and remembers why she's here, why she came back. She should pack, she knows. She should hurry up and start a plan. She has somewhere to go, after all. But it's hard to leave when she's in the place she's longed for since she left.
And then she senses, rather than sees Septa Mordane enter her room, feels the gust of cold wind rushing against her face and hears her footsteps against the stone.
“Lady Arya,” —she tries not to grimace at the title— “your parents are waiting for you.”
Arya does not reply and turns to look at Septa Mordane. It's almost funny to see her standing there, her only concern seeing her still lying there in wrinkled, soiled pyjamas that she's sure she's disapproving of if the tiny wince that forms on her face is anything to go by.
“Time to be up. The sun has risen for hours now,” she says as she stirs her sheets and furs.
And Arya knows she should be up and complaining by now. But she can't help but think how mundane it all feels. So Arya grunts, as she is sure she did many times to annoy Septa Mordane as a child and recalls the many times she was told how 'unladylike' it was.
“No time to complain.” She hears her say instead. “Your mother will be upset if you're late for breakfast.”
She wants to say, ‘Let her be angry,’ but she knows how poorly Septa Mordane would take it, and she knows that her young self wouldn't dare say it, so she opts to get out of bed.
She remains silent as Septa Mordane bathes her in warm water, scrubs her clean and tries to ignore the fact that she saw her worn pyjamas thrown away. She remembers them being her favourite for how tattered they looked, and recalls thinking of them as rebelling against her title of ladyhood just by wearing them.
Arya lets Septa Mordane comb her hair elaborately, avoiding wincing when she pulled too hard and tied as many knots as she wanted, and when she felt the itchy fabric of the gown scrape her skin and leave her almost immobile but to walk, she didn’t complain.
Arya knows Septa Mordane is looking at her queerly, and she can't help but imagine dead eyes and rotting grey skin on a spike.
Septa Mordane's feeble hand touches her forehead, searching for warmth where there is none, and she looks at her uneasily.
“Off you go, Lady Arya, before you trouble your mother any further,” she says, and Arya can hear the faint line of unspoken concern.
Arya nods as she leaves her room.
She arrives at the grand, old doors and stops.
This is it, she thinks. She takes a big breath to calm her nerves and clenches her fists, ceasing the trembling.
Arya pushes the heavy doors open and automatically regrets it, because now all eyes are on her. And now all their deaths flash before her eyes, one by one. Some she imagines, others she can see as vividly as she sees her family now.
“You're late,” her mother says, holding back a bitterness that Arya is sure she will use to reprimand her the moment they are alone. But she can see her eyes skim over her gown and coiffed hair, a glint of satisfaction in her eyes, pleased at seeing her looking like a proper lady.
Arya falls silent and makes her way to the table, where she sits next to her father and Bran. It takes everything in her not to look at them as if they were ghosts.
She looks down at her plate and sees fresh bacon, steamed beans and a grilled egg with soft, toasted bread smeared with butter. When was the last time she ate this good a meal? Was it her last supper at King's Landing? Or at Harrenhal when Tywin Lannister disliked the food she made him? Mayhaps when she ate Hot Pie's cooking on her way to King's Landing. In any case, Arya doesn't know if she'll have the stomach to eat something so processed.
“Everything all right, Arya?” asks her father. And she realises she's been staring at her plate of food.
Arya almost sobs when she sees her father in the eye, young and as relaxed as he can be, with no streaks of white in his beard and no stress lines on his forehead as they had formed when they left Winterfell.
“Aye,” she replies, weakly smiling. And she finds she can't recognise her voice. Because it's so much keener than she remembers, childhood dancing on her vocal cords and leaving her naive to the truths of the real world.
She stuffs a loaf of bread into her mouth, willing her family not to speak to her again.
But then Sansa starts rambling on about how Septa Mordane claimed her needlework to be unarguably wonderful, and Arya can't help but think of the fierce, assertive sister she'll no longer have if she carries out her plan.
And, of course, her mother asks, “How's your needlework, Arya?”
Arya can't help but roll her eyes, for her mother is well aware of how she's doing with it.
“Amazingly well,” she replies, smiling at her mother as casually as she can whilst ignoring the bloody gash she can see on her neck. “I still remember how to use the needle.”
She hears Sansa give an indignant gasp. “That is not true. You can’t even thread the needle through the mill properly.”
Arya takes a big breath, swallowing the lump in her throat and doing her best to speak without crying. She didn't come here to argue or wail. “I can, Sansa. Hideously, but I can.”
Sansa huffs as Arya is sure a lady would. And before Sansa could insult Arya's needlework again, her mother promptly chastises her for snapping back and her lack of skill in needlework.
There's not much talk after that and when everyone stares at her oddly, she thinks that mayhaps she should have complained about how unfair it was.
She can feel the cold air against her skin, hair flying and tickling her face, bitter snow numbing her buttocks. With every filling of her lungs, she feels the clean, cold air burn her nose a little at a time. She can hear the leaves rustling and the ravens singing. Arya forgot how, before, all the crows seemed to sing of winter's approach, like a pledge of tragedies to come.
That had been true.
Arya utters, words slipping out familiarly as if she had said it more than once. “But not now.”
It is a long wait.
So long that she's sure her lessons are over, but when she hears the snow crunching and feels each stomp like a physical blow, a voice calling, “They're still waiting for you,” — Arya knows she has achieved her intention.
Arya doesn't look at him immediately, opting to look at the pond. But when she knows it is inevitable, his eyes watching her piercingly, expecting her to come out with one of her once childish remarks, she risks a glance.
The embodiment of what her brother used to be in her other life is standing in front of her — elongated, youthful face with hints of beard on his chin. His dark brown hair sprouted in a wavy fashion, locks on his forehead coating his steel-grey eyes, snow trimming his eyelashes and a trace of a smile on his pale features.
Arya swallows the lump in her throat and turns her glassy eyes to the pond. “I didn't believe them to be patient.”
“They believed you not bold enough to risk your Lady Mother's wrath by running away.”
She laughs then. It's a wet laugh, a dry laugh. Arya isn't sure. She only knows she's choked. And suddenly, her throat is dry, and her face is not.
“They ought not to underestimate my boldness, then.”
He crouches down then, drawing her skinny body to him. “What happened, little sister?”
“I…” she begins, the words failing her. And when she pokes her head out to see him, wanting to etch into her memory how he looks, she regrets it.
Because Jon's eyes are blue, as clear as ice. And his skin is pale as snow. His lips are dry and cracked, and she notices amidst all the white, blue, and black, the bright red blood stands out the most, as stark as the howl of a wolf calling. It is painted on his lips, gushing like water down a spillway, drop by drop, dripping into the snow, leaving its mark. And in his garment, a darker shade of black, as if water had been spilt on him. But Arya knows, knows it's blood, six holes bearing witness.
“Arya, what happened? Are you all right?” Jon repeats, his voice insistent, hands gently cupping her cheeks.
And then it's Jon again. Jon with his scowls and Jon with his piercing grey eyes. Not a corpse without a trace of what he once was, not a corpse without thought or soul, but Jon, her brother.
“It's nothing,” she chokes, “it's just…” I missed you so fucking much. “Sansa insulted me. And I don't know, it made me angry.” Arya knows it's a poor excuse. She knows it from the moment she feels the words leave her mouth. But if Jon notices, he doesn't question it, and Arya wonders how, after all her training, she can't lie to him.
But she is not the person she once became. She is now a nine-year-old girl with duties and issues she must fulfil to become a proper Lady. And she has to fix that because her body is weak and skinny and small, her voice is not firm but shrill and compliant, and she is no longer adept at masking her face and form to conceal and appear stolid.
She no longer has that dangerous, imposing edge that she once had.
And she needs to fix that.
“I'm fine, Jon, really.” Arya smiles and thinks that he has no reason to know her tears are of bliss, no reason to know the why of them. “I'm just glad it was you who found me.”
“You certainly made it hard,” he says, smiling, but she notices the falter in his voice and the sharp edge in his eyes. “This is the one last place I thought I'd find you. You were never much for religion, after all.”
Arya laughs, wiping her tears from her cheeks. “You're right, I’m not.” She was not one for religion, she well remembers, except now she is, and the words taste sour in her mouth.
“We should go back,” Jon says after a breath. “The more time you spend here, the crankier your Lady Mother gets.”
“It's not like she's ever not mad at me,” Arya mutters, but still she stands.
“You shouldn't say that little sister,” he says, but Arya can see the glint of amusement in his eyes. Yet his eyes cease to glow almost instantly, and he asks — “Are you sure you're all right?”
Arya nods. “Aye.”
It all happened too quickly.
Her mother's chiding passed as briskly as summer in the face of winter, and the solemn looks of her father were over as swiftly as the swing of a sword. And before she knew it, she was confined to her room.
Arya did not lose the quick glance between her parents shortly before she left. A thing she was sure she should have missed. But after years of training to see, she caught it with the ease with which a horse senses lurking danger. It must have puzzled them, Arya decides. Not to hear how unfair she deemed their punishment, yet upon hearing the chance to maintain distance and be left to her own devices, Arya couldn't help but avoid the conflict.
And after the realisation that she had no recollection of her behaviour before the King arrived at Winterfell, nor how she should deal with her kin, Arya decided it was a lost cause to act, given that she spoke amiss anyway, and that her phrases no longer matched the innocence of a child.
But now that she was alone in her room, untroubled by the thoughts of others, she felt that at last she could think freely. Yet, at the sight of her room, with clothes strewn in every corner, bedspreads and belongings scattered in the wrong place, she knew it was not until she had tidied even the littlest dirty spot in the chamber that she would be able to do so.
The House of Black and White had indeed changed her.
As such, Arya did nothing but tidy up that afternoon. She threw out the spent candles and made her bed, swept her room and tucked her filthy clothes into a hamper, and before she knew it, she had finished.
As night falls and silence descends, Arya swears she can hear the slightest tremor of trees swaying, branches whistling in the harsh breeze, and fires flickering with tales of deep slumber.
And Arya is not surprised to be awake.
Not when she can hear the words traitor cried out both in curse and praise. Not when she hears hard thumps against the ground and gurgles like choked sobs, nor when she feels her heart being pierced and frozen, to be left to perish and rekindled.
Arya can feel her body on fire. She can feel her body freezing. She feels it spread with the ease with which wildfire does and with the quickness of a bolt. It has the numbing fierceness that sears the soul and leaves one in scattered ashes to the raging winds.
It's only the tap on her window — three short but distinct knocks that distract her from the engulfing pang in her chest.
She already knows who will be there, gripping jutting stones, with fierce blue eyes like midnight sky, dirty crimson hair and a grin betraying adventure and peril.
Arya turns to the window and sees him as clear as her shadow in the torchlight, beaming wolfishly with a small sack in his hand.
Arya rises from her bed, her torments beneath the sheets she leaves behind, grief to be spared while Bran is here to distract her from her inner turmoil. She approaches the window and gazes out at Bran. His hair flutters in the air, like trees against the brisk winds; his eyes crystal black beneath the night's dullness, and a gentle smile graces his face. Arya wants to smile back, and when her lips part and the corners of her mouth twitch, her resolve to smile drains away, and she's left with a bittersweet grimace.
She pulls open the window, Bran stepping in as smoothly as the bitterly cold breeze, and leaving her with a bizarre sense of comfort.
“Hey,” Bran greets, finding his footing and brushing away errant locks from his eyes.
“Hey,” she replies, her gaze meeting his. “What you got there?” It's an idle question, she remembers, said only out of tradition. After all, Bran was the only one who snuck her food whenever she was barred from meals.
“Food,” Bran replies. Taking long strides for a seven-year-old, he steps forward to Arya's bed and lies down, nestling himself among the covers and beckoning her to do the same. “I heard you skipped your sewing class today.” It comes as an afterthought, of minor significance, but she notices his eyebrows raise ever so slightly and how his eyes glance at her searchingly.
“You heard right,” she says once she settles in. She snatches the bag from Bran's hand and takes one of the loaves of bread inside it, watching as Bran nods only slightly. “Why did you come?”
Arya sees Bran's look. It could have passed for startled, but she catches the quick blink of his eyes and how, before looking at her, he flicks his eyes to his feet.
“What do you mean? To bring you food, of course.”
“Come on, Bran, you know you can't lie to me.”
Bran bites his lip, and Arya remembers all the times she did the same thing before she had to get rid of the habit. “It's just... well. You've been acting weird, Arya.”
“How so?” she asks; it was a matter of time, Arya knows, but she thought she'd have more time before they sensed she was different. Arya grabs a piece of meat and Bran a tiny scrap of bread from her as if to distract himself.
“Well, for starters, you were up late, and if that wasn't enough, you showed up in the dining hall with a dress and your hair tied up and not tousled.”
“I had a bad night, Bran, and Septa Mordane gave me no choice.”
He looks at her as if he knows it's not true but doesn't comment on it and keeps on. “You skipped your lessons, Arya. You never do that, no matter how much you want to. You're always present for little or most of the class before you duck out. You don't like to risk Mother scolding you.”
Arya is surprised at how well he knew her. However, she refrains from offering him even a hint of acknowledgement. Whenever he points out her quirks and behaviours that seem out of touch, Arya counters with storms of excuses. With each word Arya hurls in her defence, she slowly grasps that her words serve as more than excuses for her oddities. But as apologies for the person she's become, as though she is not merely justifying her strange doings but also seeking absolution for the reasons behind her masks and acts of murder.
She realises that every breath is a silent plea for forgiveness, an unspoken ‘sorry, sorry, sorry’ for everything that hasn't come to pass in this life, for her ineptitude to do or change things in her other life. And that now that she's here, they need not bear the burden of war. Yet, as she utters each excuse, a tear wells up in her eye, and with every puff she draws, stifled sobs escape.
Bran's arms are on her, embracing and consoling her. And Arya almost tells him to stop because he's not supposed to be worrying. He's not supposed to know she's full of rage, sorrow and despair. Not Bran. Sweet, bold Bran, whose dreams seem too grand for his young frame and whose desires seem too vast for knighthood alone to satisfy.
And it was when her tears dried and her sobs died that Bran said, a murmur almost hushed by the rushing winds, “You know you can tell me anything, don't you, Arya?”
She yearns to say yes, yes, I know. But if Arya does, she's sure she'll spill everything, and she can't let him carry that burden. Not him or anyone else. So, instead, she nods. She gazes into his eyes, offering a silent affirmation, and the act alone feels as if it could rend her in two. His trusting gaze meets hers, filled with a mixture of pain and sympathy, so utterly convinced that his big sister is being honest that it nearly compels her to shed tears once more.
“Good,” he says and smiles.
She smiles too, though hers is small and guarded, not like Bran's, never like his — open and happy.
And, as if she wishes to erase the weight of their previous conversation from his mind, she inquires, a question born of curiosity and a desire to bring some semblance of normalcy back, “Will you teach me how to climb?”
Her question catches him off guard, an unexpected deviation from their previous talk. But then he smiles — so bright that it makes his face light up, his eyes gleaming with anticipation. “Of course!”
That night, they share a bed beneath layers of quilts. The gentle breeze streaming in through the open window, and their bodies entwined in a tender embrace.
And for a moment, Arya feels at home again.