ARYA

The meals at Winterfell were always little Arya's favorite parts of the day.

The food was always amazing, but it was the family reunion that delighted her more. During meals, girls and boys could sit together, without having to be labeled, without one gender being more important than the other. Arya did not have to be jealous that while the boys trained with weapons she had to have lady lessons.

Robb and Jon, her big brothers, were always making her laugh. Arya admired them so much. She wanted to be just like them when she grew up, not a stupid lady like people wanted her to be. Robb and Jon were the eldest kids, both with ten years old. They were inseparable.

Everyone told Arya that Jon was only her half-brother. A bastard, they called them. She didn't understand the meaning of that, but Arya supposed that was a bad word. They can call him whatever they want, Arya thought. Jon was her brother, just as much as Robb and Bran were. Nothing would change that.

Arya loved baby Bran. She felt so important, having a little brother to look after. She liked the feeling that she wasn't the youngest in the family anymore. He was only three, two years younger than Arya. And Bran was never annoying, like most of babies were. That was what Arya loved the most about him.

And there was Sansa. Arya always spoke of her last, because she was her least favorite sibling. They were too different from each other. Sansa was raised to be the perfect lady. She despised everything Arya enjoyed, like riding, playing with toy weapons and getting dirty. Sansa was annoying and a wonk and ridiculous and irritatingly good at every lady thing she did. Everyone just kept comparing the two of them. How Arya should be more like Sansa, how Arya should act like the highborn lady she was supposed to be, how Sansa was so perfect and beautiful and how Arya was not.

Arya just tried to ignore Sansa most of the time. When Robb, Jon, Sansa, Arya and Bran were together, Sansa did not matter to Arya. Her older sister just stayed with her legs and arms crossed all the time while Arya, Bran, Jon and Robb laughed.

Sometimes, Theon Greyjoy sat with them during meals as well. He was her lord father's ward, coming from the Iron Islands. He was five years older than Robb and Jon.

That day he wasn't with them, though. There were only her siblings sitting at the breakfast table. Arya was particularly happy that morning, because Robb had promised to take them to the crypts of Winterfell afterwards.

Only Robb and Jon had been in the crypts before. Arya was particularly curious and excited to go there, and so was baby Bran. Sansa did not want to go (Coward, Arya thought), but all Starks must visit the crypts someday. It was part of the history of House Stark.

Arya kept tapping her foot on the ground anxiously, waiting for Robb to finish his meal. Everyone had already eaten.

"Come on, Robb!" Arya said impatiently.

Robb laughed. "Hey, one must not enter the crypts with their stomach empty."

"But then eat faster!" Arya told him. "I want to go now!"

"Aren't you afraid to go there, little sister?" Jon asked her.

"Of course not," Arya said. "The crypts are a part of Winterfell, and Winterfell doesn't scare me. Nothing scares me."

Robb's eyes shone with pride. Jon smiled and messed with Arya's hair. "What a courageous little sister."

Sansa rolled her eyes and sighed with frustration. "A lady must not have her hair messy," she said.

Arya was going to answer back, but then she had another idea. She started to mess with Sansa's impeccable hairdo. She screamed and Arya laughed.

"You idiot!" Sansa cried, covering her bright ginger hair, now ruined. "My hair! Arya, I hate you!"

Arya was laughing so hard that she wasn't even listening her sister complain. Even Robb, Jon and Bran were laughing.

"Come on," Robb said, standing up. "I'm done here. Let's go to the crypts."

Arya and Bran screamed with delight, "YAY!"

"I will warn Father about where we are going," Jon said.

Robb, Sansa, Arya and Bran went towards the crypts. Arya could barely contain her excitement. She and Bran talked non-stop all the way about what they expected to see down there. Robb was finding their conversation very amusing, but Sansa just kept a straight face. She must be trying to contain her fear, Arya thought. She found her sister very stupid for fearing the crypts.

Going down the stairs, Robb went first, then Arya, Bran and Sansa at last. They only had one candle to illuminate the way.

Bran's eyes got as big as saucers as he stared at the stone faces of the Kings of Winter, with their wolves at their feet and their iron swords across their laps. His curiosity made Arya smile.

Robb took them all the way down to the end, past Grandfather and Brandon and Lyanna.

"Our own tombs will go here when we die," Robb said, pointing to empty tombs. "We will have our own statues, like all the Starks that lived and died."

"Will we be as great as Grandfather, Brandon and Lyanna?" Arya asked Robb.

He smiled. "Starks are born to do great things."

Sansa kept looking at the stubby little candle, anxious that it might go out. "Old Nan told me that there are spiders down here, and rats as big as dogs," she said, trembling.

Robb smiled. "There are worse things than spiders and rats," he whispered. "This is where the dead walk."

That was when they heard the sound, low and deep and shivery. Baby Bran clutched at Arya's hand. She squeezed it tight, trying to calm him down. She pricked her ears up, seeking for another sound.

Then a spirit stepped out of the open tomb, pale white and moaning for blood. Sansa ran shrieking for the stairs, and Bran wrapped himself around Robb's leg, sobbing. Arya stood her ground and gave the spirit a punch. It was only Jon, covered with flour.

"You stupid," she told him, very mad, "you scared the baby." But Jon and Robb just laughed and laughed, and pretty soon Bran and Arya were laughing too.

"Come on," Jon said, trying to control himself, "let's find Sansa."

"Poor thing," Robb said. He couldn't stop laughing.

"She must be almost reaching Moat Cailin by now," Arya said, and everyone started to laugh even harder. Robb and Jon went towards the stairs, still laughing a bit, and Arya got Bran's hand and followed them.

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A/N: Hello! I've always wanted to write something about the Stark family, so here it is :) I love them so much! I based this on what Arya said about this day in the book A Game of Thrones. Thoughts? Xoxox.