Hi there !
This short story is a birthday gift for my friend Assassin Master Ezio 91! Happy Birthday dear and thank you for always listening to the crazy Lancel fangirl I am! Hope you like this!
English isn't my first language, I am french, so if you see any mistake or weird sentences, please, feel free to tell me about it so that I can learn and improve.
Summary : Unlike what people thought, Arya didn't wish she had been born a boy. She wished she had been born free.
Disclamer : A Song of Ice and Fire belongs to George R.R Martin and Game of Thrones belongs to David Benioff and his pal D.B Weiss, I do not gain any money from this story, all I get are reviews and yet, that's not mandatory for you to leave a review after reading if you don't feel like commenting! :p
Freedom
Arya sighed as Septa Mordane congratulated Sansa on her embroidery. Yet again, she thought. Her eyes sat on her own work, crooked and clumsy. She didn't put much effort into it, it was such a bore! And it didn't matter if she tried, she always failed in that field, so why would she exhaust herself? As far as she could remember, she had always hated all that was connected to what people thought to be feminine. She hated needlework, dances, songs, dresses, balls... All of that was good for someone like Sansa, a true daughter of her time.
Because Arya felt she was born in the wrong era.
She was born with the love of archery, horse riding, running in breeches. How could she do all of that in a dress? All she managed to do in those clothes was tripping because it was so long! Very often, she was hearing people whisper in her back and what often came back was her hypothetical wish to have been born a man. Arya wasn't ashamed of her sex. She didn't hate womanhood and was always upset when she was mistaken for a boy. She hated what came with womanhood, especially being born the lady of a powerful house: To be pretty, to be polite, to be dutiful, to sing, to dance, to be generous, to be prude, to marry, to birth sons. Basically, to live a life that wasn't really hers to enjoy. Some women liked it well enough. Some truly blossomed in it and if she couldn't fully understand why, she guessed it was good enough, at least, they were happy. If there was one thing Arya truly wished for, it was this that always came to her mind:
She wished she had been born free.
Free to be a woman with men's taste.
Free to wear men's clothes without being scolded for it.
Free to do what men did and do it as well as they did, because what a man could do, a woman could too, that was her hardest belief.
But she wasn't born free.
She was actually much more shackled than a prisoner in the Red Keep. She was born a Stark of Winterfell, the daughter of a lord and of a lady. Despite how much she'd fight back, she'd never win. Even if her parents loved her, and she knew she was loved, why would they change the traditions coming with the package of a girl's life? One day, she'd be married off to some random man to forge an alliance, she'd have his children whether she liked it or not. Her only hope was to be left a widow, the only state where a woman could finally be free and independent. Yes, she did claim that the life of a lady wouldn't be hers, a lady wasn't her. But she knew no one would care. She wasn't resignated though, she was outraged and that injustice made her blood boil. And she vowed to the heart tree, she would fight to try and carve her own destiny, where she'd be remembered for who she was, and not for whom lord she had married, for whom son she would have given birth to. Oh, she also knew her brothers had their share of forced decisions. But they were born boys and thus more free than she could ever be. Every mistake a man did was more easily forgiven. If a woman did the same mistake, she'd be judged and insulted. Boys could do what they wanted, they could have the fun they desired and while daughters were loved by their mothers, boys were the apples of their eyes, the true victory of their lives. Very often she wondered if there were girls like her out there, girls who were happy to be born girls, that didn't see their womanhood as an insult or as a shame, but who had in their hearts the passions of men. Deep down, she believed with all her heart that this time would be the true time of freedom, there would be a time where a girl could practice horse riding, archery, sword fighting in breeches without being seen as a renegade in her own clan. There would be a time when a woman would be able to be what she wanted to be: a conventional woman, a rebellious woman or a woman who could be both, her heart swinging both sides.
She prayed the Old Gods and the New, in another life, let her be part of that wonderful era, where she wouldn't be forced to fight for her heart's desires because it'd be seen so natural for a woman to enjoy men's hobbies.
She'd be free at last.
The End