Wild, is Tywin's first thought upon seeing the starved body of Arya Stark forcibly dragged into the throne room. Savage, he thinks as the rock she covertly clutches in her palm ravages the face of the guard twisting her arm. Clever is she: her boy's breeches and tunic disguising the women's features slowly peeking through the hollows of her cheeks and soft curve of her chest, clever clever. Sharp are her teeth as they sink into the fingers of her captors. Fierce are the color of her eyes, defiantly gazing up at Cersei and her court with their cold, grey intensity. Red is the color of her smile, blood seeping from her blistered lips. Mocking is the bow she gives reluctantly, and she does so only after spitting at the floor and being yanked by her hair. Familiarity clings to the air surrounding her and fascination stains the composure he relies so heavily on. Predatory are her movements when she eyes the cruel boy king atop his throne, as if she is preparing for her kill, imagining the execution with deft precision.

Later, he beckons her to the Tower of the Hand. If she is surprised by his summons the expression is internalized, locked behind closed doors. She stands in a grey cotton gown three sizes too small on her meandering frame. He is told she had refused to wear anything but the clothes that remained in the dusty chest brought with her father's party South all those years ago. She makes no move to sit and the Hand does not expect anything but this unwilling aherence from the girl.

"You're quite clever," he states blatantly.

"If I wasn't, I'd have been dead a long time ago." She doesn't bother with formality and they both know why he has called on her.

Standing, Tywin pins his knuckles to table and begins to scruntinize the child. The nose is the same, yes, although the shoulders are carved longer this time and the neck is longer, less of a girl's face. His hand reaches out and his fingers edge below the jut of her jaw and guide her face upward to meet his eyes. He wants to be precise in his deductions.

"My lord of Lannister," she derides, the sneer marring her already striking face. "I hoped you had not forgotten, I have grown, you see. Sansa had barely recognized me, I thought you might have disremembered as well." He knows what she speaks of. Whispers of Harrenhal sound inside his head and the image of his scraggly cupbearer manifest.

Unsettling is the sensation in his abdomen. "Nan, was it?"

"Nan is gone. I am Arya now."

"It was rumored death had taken all the Starks."

"Aye, some. Robb and my father can attest to that." Her lips twist in disgust and with a jerk of her head she frees herself from his grasp. Such an act of open defiance might have been punished if the girl had been someone lesser, but Tywin thinks her a particular study so he simply watches her with a frigid gaze. "But not all of us, my lord."

Lord Tywin has always been good at taming wild creatures-his impertinent children, the lions held in the bowels of Casterly Rock, unruly horses-but he will not try to master her. Learn her perhaps, but some beasts will always remain as such, wild and feral and unrestrained. Just as well, Tywin thinks. Everyone Arya Stark has encountered tried to break her, rip out her claws, make her civil, but it is not within her nature to yield nor be broken, and Tywin would not dare go against her nature.

A/N: yeah yeah yeah, it's a weird ship but I'm a weird gal