A.N. So, a new Arya story! Before we begin, there are some things you should know! (Argh, I sound like a tour guide, don't I? Never mind. We shall continue…) I am going to wing this story. There will be no major plotline, as far as I can see right now. So I guess basically it'll be a series of one-shots. I am not even sure I am going to follow the chronological order of the books. So if that bothers you, that's fine, really! No-one has to read this story if they don't like that. Ok? I'm just saying this because I know some people don't like that kind of story, and I don't want to have to explain all this part-way through to someone who is saying 'this story doesn't make sense…'
So. Alright? You all got that? I also want to say, I sort of want to focus on Princess of Fire and Ice, to get it finished before November 8th. So I don't know how long there will be between chapters. It will probably depend on how long the chapters are – they will be of various lengths. This is quite short, I think.
And, finally: I don't own any of it. Any. Of. It. Yeah, I hope you all got that, cause it's not coming again! I don't see the point of doing it at every chapter. So, it's done now! All over with, and without further ado…
Chapter one!
Arya had very few memories of her father.
Of these, the most prominent were of his hands. The feel of his warm palm under her tiny ones, his long, slender fingers, delicate yet strong. Powerful yet gentle, worn yet smooth.
She remembered the deep lines in his palm and that she used to trace the patterns the made with her own fingers. She remembered the strength in them when they went around her and caught her up to hug her after she had run after him, calling.
"Wait for me, daddy! Carry me, please?"
And she remembered his laugh. Deep, rich, strong, yet musical too, in that strange indefinable way that all elves have.
But nothing else.
No voice. No face. She knew what he looked like, of course. They'd shown her fairths. She had one herself, hung over her desk in her rooms on Ellesmera. But it wasn't her memory. Someone else had recalled and set down on the polished stone the deep brown eyes, the fine, high cheek-bones, the straight, narrow nose so like her own, the wise, kind smile. Someone else.
When she was younger, after yet another argument with her mother, she used to go and stand in front of her mirror and stare at her reflection and try to pick out which of her features she had got from him. Her nose, she thought, hadn't come from her mother. Or her chin, or the way her lower eyelids lifted when she smiled. She would trace these parts of her face with her fingertips, and stare into the mirror and try to see the face of her long-gone father gazing back at her.
Sometimes she would close her eyes tight shut and push back as far as she could into memory, but she never found anything else.
Just a pair of hands and the echo of a laugh.
But she held on to them, because they were all she had left of him that was hers, and no-one else's.
Oh, and thanks to everyone who gave ideas for the title, especially SimplySupreme :) they did help along the way, I promise!