Arya came wandering outside, scuffing her feet along the ground, and meandered over to where Jon was sitting and (though he wouldn't confess it to anyone) brooding. She plopped down next to him, sighed heavily and dramatically, and when he failed to ask, burst out with it. As he'd known she would.
"I don't think mother loves me."
Jon felt his mouth quirk. "What did you do this time?" She shot him a deadly look and bared her teeth at him.
"I didn't do anything."
Jon shrugged. "All right. If you say so. Except that last time you thought Lady Stark didn't love you was the time you put a mouse in Sansa's bed and wedged the door closed." Arya had the grace to blush, at least a little. Not much, but it was something.
"I didn't put anything in Sansa's room," she said defensively, and added quickly, "Or in her sewing or down her dress." Jon's eyes widened.
"You put something down her dress?"
"I didn't!"
"I mean, at some point." Arya stuck out her tongue at him and he laughed, ruffling her hair. "All right, all right. I'll let that go. For now. So what did happen?" His little sister fidgeted uncomfortably.
"I didn't start it."
"Someone had to," Jon accepted, reasonably. "Who did, then, if not you?"
"Some stupid boy." She made a derisive and vaguely rude noise. "I don't even know his name. But he's stupid."
Jon made a face at her. "You're so articulate, little sister. What'd you do to him, break his nose?"
She shuffled her feet. Jon stared.
"You did? Arya – I was joking. What did he do?" And just as suddenly as that, his expression turned slightly belligerent. "Because if he deserved it you could've asked me to beat him up."
"I can fight my own battles," Arya said, quickly. "You know that. I can beat you and Robb wrestling."
"Only 'cause we let you."
Arya made another of those rude noises. Jon ruffled her hair again and she shook her head. "He said I couldn't."
"Couldn't what?"
"Couldn't beat him up. He was annoying him so I told him to leave or I'd beat him into the ground and he said I couldn't, I was a lady." Arya grimaced with disgust. She hated nothing so much as being mistaken for a lady, though it happened rarely enough. "So I had to prove him wrong." And to Arya, it was as simple as that. Of course, Lady Stark would hardly have seen it that way.
"And let me guess. Someone caught you."
She sulked. "Jory pulled me off him and said I couldn't go beating up stableboys or we wouldn't have anyone to take care of the horses. And I said I'd take care of the horses, and he laughed, only then he went to find mother. And she was really mad at me."
"So you think she doesn't love you because she's mad at you?"
"No," said Arya, looking up solemnly at him, "I think she doesn't love me because she said so. She said, 'Sansa never gets in this kind of trouble. Why can't you be more like your sister?'" A bit of hurt showed in her eyes. "I don't want to be more like Sansa. I don't want to be a stupid little princess. I think I'd be bad at it."
"I don't think anyone's going to argue with you there," Jon told her, wryly, and she threw a punch at him that he easily dodged. "Going to have to work harder than that." But he tugged her into a hug anyway, feeling more sympathy than usual, even. Something he and Arya had in common – something else, other than the Stark face and the Stark dark hair. They were both supplanted in Catelyn's favors by Sansa, ever the perfect little lady. He frowned, slightly, thoughtful. "I don't think Lady Stark really wants you to be like Sansa, Arya."
"Then why did she say so?" Arya demanded. He hugged her more tightly, knowing that she was fighting tears under the fierce, self-righteous anger in her voice. "I didn't do anything wrong. I mean – maybe I shouldn'tve been beating up on that boy but he asked for it, and if Jory hadn't said anything no one would have known either-"
"I think you confuse Lady Stark," Jon said, and couldn't help a little grin. He was amused by Catelyn's puzzlement at her youngest daughter. Arya had always seemed perfectly rational to him, and their father seemed to have no trouble handling her. But Catelyn sometimes seemed a little at a loss to deal with this half-wild not-girl. "I think she doesn't know what to do with you when you do things like that."
"Why?"
"Because you're not a boy and you act like one," Jon told her, frankly. "If you were a boy, and went beating up other boys, that she would understand, and tell you to stop and explain why – because it's not fair to them, they haven't had the same training, all that."
"I haven't had any training-"
"That's what I'm saying," Jon cut her off. "She can't say the same thing to you. Because you're not a boy. Little girls don't usually go around catching mice and breaking people's noses and – I don't know, breaking their arm jumping out of a tree on a dare." Arya flushed bright red.
"He said I wouldn't do it."
"Someday, little sister," Jon said, with a wry smile, "You're going to learn not to do everything someone tells you not to do, and I'm going to be very disappointed." She swung at him again, and he dodged.
"Just because she's confused doesn't mean she should yell at me. It's not my fault she doesn't understand."
"Alas. Many things that aren't our faults, we still get yelled at for," said Jon wisely. Arya eyed him suspiciously, but could catch no trace of teasing in his expression.
"I still thinks she loves Sansa more."
"I don't think so," Jon said, firmly. "I think she loves both of you. Lady Stark just understands Sansa a little more. Eventually she'll figure you out. And then things'll get better." He paused. "That might go faster if you didn't try to see how many times you can make Sansa shriek per day."
"I don't try."
"Then you do a great job of managing without trying," Jon told her, wryly. And paused, thinking. He looked at the castle, looked at Arya, and thought of Catelyn.
"Are you supposed to be out here?"
"No one said I couldn't be," Arya said evasively. Jon groaned.
"You know that just means if you get caught you'll be in bigger trouble." Arya grinned.
"Well, yeah. If I get caught. I'm not going to get caught." She paused. "Will you come out to the woods with me? It's boring to go alone. And I want to see if I can catch some fish with my bare hands. Jory said you can do that."
Jon laughed. "And if Jory said it it must be true. Yeah, we can go to the woods. I'm going to mention it to Lord Stark first, though." He held up a hand to forestall her protests that he knew would come. "That way he can deflect any later scoldings. And we don't want anyone worrying. Come on."
He turned to go back to the castle, then hesitated. "One thing, Arya."
She hesitated, a bit nervous. "What?"
"You have to promise me not to jump out of any trees."
She howled and jumped him, and this time he wasn't quick enough to dodge her punch to his shortribs. He was laughing too hard to care, though.