AN: Hi everyone! Okay so I was just sitting here one day and I got the inspiration the write a Gendrya fanfic, and so I started playing around with this idea that she had amnesia. I started writing, and I came up with this as a first chapter. I know it's not the greatest, and I ask that you bear with me if there are any grammatical errors. (I've been looking for a beta but no luck.) So please, if there's any mistakes, anything you would like to add, or if there's just something that I could do better, leave a review! They really do mean a lot and I appreciate your guys' input. For future reference, there will be vague GOT and ACOK spoilers, but I only loosely follow the plot o keep it realistic. M for language and future chapters.

Disclaimer: Unfortunately I don't own any of the characters, places, or background information provided in this fanfic based of G.O.T. That honor goes to George R. R. Martin and HBO for making a wonderful series. All I own are my ideas. :-*

Arya

She walked through the busy streets in Flea Bottom, scratching at her head. She was thinking the same phrase that she had been thinking since she woke up. Winter is coming. She herself had no idea what it meant, but it ate at her skull like the various vermin she had acquired nonetheless. She had the sneaking suspicion it had something to do with the old man who followed her around. Chewing her lip, she tried to recall.

She had first seen him after she had awoken a few days ago, with no recollection of anything except Needle and water dancing. Arya sat up, having been laying in a puddle of filth in a rickety alley that twisted and confused her to no end. She had gotten up and brushed herself off, making direct eye contact with him. He was old, and walked with a limp. Fear cuts deeper than swords, she tried to calm herself. It did not help. Neither did the fact that he was cloaked from head to toe in black and smelled of piss. Maybe he wanted her Needle. If he does, he can kill me for it.

Arya had suspected him a thief and kept a hard glare until he turned and disappeared around a corner. Though that was not the last she had seen of the strange man. He turned up when she would dare practice her dancing with a wooden sword that she did not remember getting. He turned up when she would buy bowls of brown that she did not remember buying. He even turned up when she would glance up at the gates of the Red Keep and see the head of one man whom she could never place. It made no matter; he was dead. Probably deserved what he got.

The man, to whom Arya started calling Crow, could usually be found inquiring about steel in the shops or men in the dungeons, and Ary never stayed close enough to figure out why. He scared her. And it didn't help that Crow always found her at her most vulnerable, like when she got pushed around by orphans or swatted at by inn keeps. And he never spoke to her. He seemed not like half the man she wanted to know, not that she wanted to know anyone. After all, she had been alone since she woke up. Half the time she couldn't even remember her name. Arya, Ary, Salty, Boy, Weasel, the list seemed endless.

She had no sense of what to do. Nothing to buy, no money to buy it with, nowhere to go, and nothing to do. She had no ambition except to figure out who she was, and her only motivation was desperation. And as far as Ary knew, there was only one place to start looking for her identity.

She had to find Crow.

Running down the Street of Sisters, Arya weaved her way through drunken men and squealing whores, looking for the familiar sweep of a black cloak and the scarred, weathered face. She had no idea of where she was going, and it didn't matter. She didn't know her way around anyway. Twisting around bends and corners, trying to get herself oriented, Arya had turned herself around even more and in no time had gotten completely lost. She let out a frustrated grunt and looked up. All she could see were big tall dirty buildings, spindling up three or four stories and clawing at the sky. They were imposing and large, so Arya looked in front of her. There, a big man with rippling shoulders stood slaving over a forge.

She walked up to him. "Hey you," she shouted, and he turned.

The first thing Arya noticed were his eyes. They were icy blue and seemed to pierce her very being. The next thing she noticed was his mass, even more apparent from the front. He wasn't extremely tall, around 5'11'', but his was the body of hard, large muscle. The kind that came from hours of strenuous labor and work force. His arms rippled and glistened with sweat, of which also decorated his brow. His chest strained against his thin tunic, and thick legs graced an extension of narrow hips. His hair was darker than Crow's old cloak, and his jaw was square and defined. He reminded her of a bull, a force to be reckoned with.

Refusing to let his intimidation get the best of her, Arya planted her feet and looked the bull in the eye. Well, as best she could, since he was at least a head taller than she. "Tell me where we are, what this place is." She made a vague gesture with her hand, and the bull raised his eyebrows. He did not speak. "Well?" Arya was not in the mood for being patient. She was in a hurry, and she needed to find the Crow.

Instead the boy looked to her hip, where Needle was only partially concealed by her cloak. "What you got there?" he said, as if she was a gutter rat.

"It's mine, now tell me where we are, or I'll take this-" she revealed her skinny sword. "and put it to good use."

The big bull of a boy stared at her for a long for a long moment, before finally letting a half smile play across his lips. It looked more like a smirk, as if he were about to make fun of her. "Street of Steel, down that way is the Street of Sisters, up across the bendy way, there you'll find the Street of Flour. Turn around that path and you'll wish you hadn't." He gestured to many cobble marked walkways and waited for a response.

When she gave none, he asked; "How old are you anyway? It's not safe for little lost boys to go about walking these streets."

"I am not a little boy," she said, and tried to remember her age. "I'm 14 and I can take care of myself, I don't need some stupid armorer telling me I can't."

Again he looked at her, the big hulking boy. She hated being watched like this, it made her angry. The boy tilted his head a bit and crossed his arms, rippling in a sweat soaked sheen. He looked as if he were scrutinizing her, debating whether or not this scrawny child could possibly be 14. "Apprentice."

"What?"

"I'm an armorer's apprentice, and you shouldn't be rude to people who are bigger than you." He cocked an eyebrow at her, a sort of challenge.

"Well you shouldn't say ask stupid questions." Who did this boy think he was? He wasn't anyone she cared to know any longer, Arya decided. She spun on her heel and walked down to where the boy said the Street of Flour was, still hoping to find the Crow and get the annoying boy from her head. It was not long until she was wrapped up entirely in the questions she was going to ask the Crow, not paying attention to where she was.

She walked by the bakery, looking to see if she could filch a couple of old bread loaves without the baker catching wise. Maybe give one to Crow, loosen his tongue. As she walked, she thought, and as she thought she walked faster until she had passed the bakery and ran up the Street of Flour, passed the Street of Orphans, and ended up in front of the Sept. The seven sides of the building glistened cream in the midday light, and the high crystalline rose window shot rainbows onto the ground in front of Arya. She noticed the steps, scrubbed white except for a deep brown stain in the middle of the courtyard.

A wave of raw emotion hit Arya with such force that she lost her breath. It ripped through the fog that clouded her head and unleashed a phantasmagoria of memories, just for a second. It tore into the very smallest corners of her brain, making her topple to the ground. She shook as recollection of that very courtyard flooded into her brain, and then she knew. Just for the tiniest fraction of time, everything was clear. The feeling of loss was enormous and crushed Arya's small frame. And suddenly, it was gone, it was all gone, leaving her weak and shaking. The fit left one small phrase to whisper in her mind.

Ned Stark was murdered here.