Note: This is a companion piece to my Sansa/Margaery fic A Year of Flowers. You do not have to have read that story to read this one. They take place at the same time. For those of you that have read Flowers I am currently toying with the idea of a sequel but I wanted to write what Arya had been up to that year first.
Enjoy!
Chapter One: Forge
New Year's Eve
It was strange to be ringing in the new year without there being snow on the ground.
Arya supposed it couldn't be any stranger than Christmas had been; she had never spent Christmas anywhere other than Winterfell before and without the knee-deep snow and Bran and Rickon's early morning wake-up call it hadn't really felt like Christmas at all.
She had told her family that her biology class had required them to all stay in King's Landing during the winter break to finish up a project but in reality, it had only been an extra credit project and Arya had needed to complete it if she wanted to get an A. It had also only been a one-day event and she could have left for home only two days after the break had started but Arya knew that if she went to Winterfell there was no way in Seven Hells that she would be coming back to King's Landing.
"Hurry up Arry! Gods you are so slow." Aegon whined over his shoulder at her as he led their small group down dark alleyways and twisting side streets. If Arya hadn't already been to the bar he was taking them to she might have been slightly worried he was actually planning on killing them all. Although she supposed if Aegon really wanted to kill them he could just cook them something. The boy was easily the worst cook she had ever met.
Her dormitory was closed for the winter break and Arya hadn't decided she was going to stay until it was too late to apply for one of the break housing rooms. They had all been full. She could have stayed at Sansa's apartment and crashed on her couch but Arya didn't think she could survive three weeks in the same space as her sister. It was awkward enough on Christmas when it was just the two of them opening presents and trying to pretend that they weren't both keenly aware this was the first time they had been alone in years.
With very little options and knowing going home wasn't one of them, Arya asked one of the only friends she had bothered to make (or more accurately the only person that had incessantly latched onto her until he could call himself her friend) if she could crash at his place for the break. Aegon had agreed happily and his housemates, Hot-Pie and Lommy, were fine with it as well. She had taken to making dinner for the four of them every night as a thank you since they were mostly surviving on stale cereal and Hot-Pie's baked goods. He was a great baker but the other two were hopeless when it came to cooking. Aegon got too distracted and Lommy just didn't care for it. Arya was pretty sure Lommy hadn't eaten a vegetable for months before she was staying there. They all seemed to think it was a fair enough trade.
Arya toyed with the silver necklace hanging around her throat as they walked. It was a small sword, barely as long as her pinkie. Jon (who was her favorite brother even if he was actually her cousin) had given it to her the night before he left for the army. Arya had protested since he was the one leaving so technically, she should be the one giving him something. Jon had mused her hair and told her that knowing she was wearing it would be his gift. She had named the little sword Needle because Robb had read her a story once that all swords had names. Arya hadn't taken the necklace off since that day and she had taken to playing with it when she was feeling nervous or restless.
"Why did we walk again?" Hot-Pie whined as he wrapped his thick coat closer around him. "It's cold."
Arya did her best to hide her snort. She was wearing her trusty leather jacket and she felt a bit too warm, her blood still used to the deep chill of the North.
Aegon simply waved Hot-Pie off as he bounded happily towards the door of the bar that he worked at. Arya didn't understand why Aegon insisted on hanging out at the place where he worked, she assumed that he would have gotten enough of the place while he was working. Perhaps since she had never had a job before she just didn't understand.
Arya had been to the bar before but she had never actually seen it crowded. Their New Year celebration was well underway and people were jammed tight against the bar and crowding the tables scattered throughout the restaurant portion. Arya ducked under a long gold streamer; one end had come loose from the ceiling to hang down to the ground. Aegon let out a shout at someone sitting at the bar and headed to them happily, the others trailing after him.
"Gendry my man, you made it!" Aegon cried happily as he pulled a broad-shouldered dark-haired man into a one-armed hug before turning to the bartender, Davos, waving to catch his attention. Arya was relieved to see it was Davos bartending that night, he didn't care that Arya wasn't legally allowed to be in the bar for another couple of weeks like some of Aegon's other coworkers did.
Arya surveyed the dark-haired man curiously; she was used to Aegon knowing seemingly everyone in King's Landing. The boy was too talkative for his own good. This one looked slightly familiar to her; it was just there at the back of her mind but she couldn't seem to place where she knew him from. Arya watched as he said his hellos to Hot-Pie and Lommy who managed to steal the bar stools next to him as a couple left to head towards the dark shadows of the room. Gendry turned to look at her, and his piercing blue eyes narrowed for a second as if he too was trying to place her.
"You were in my writing class." Gendry declared, snapping his fingers as the realization came to him.
The memory of a small cramped room with desks shoved too close together hit Arya and she remembered seeing him in the front of the room, the largeness of his frame had been blocking her view of the professor. Not that she had been paying much attention to her anyway.
"Yeah. Arya." she didn't hold her hand out to him or anything, she had never really cared for forced politeness. He didn't seem to be offended by her lack of manners which was a jarring change from most of the people she had met in the capital.
"Did you drop the class or something? I only saw you there a few times." Gendry asked curiously, leaning closer so that she could hear him better over the noise of the bar.
Arya shook her head as she accepted the drink Aegon suddenly shoved into her hands before he stepped between her and Gendry to reach the others. She didn't feel like getting into the fact that she only went to the class a handful of times because the professor's voice had been too grating on her ears. Thankfully it wasn't a class that attendance was taken into the grade so she still passed with an A.
Gendry's brow furrowed as he looked her up and down. "What, are you too good to go to class?" Arya could tell from the tightness of his voice that while he had been going for a carefree tone, he had very much failed at it. While her not shaking his hand was fine, somehow her not going to class offended him. She didn't think she would ever understand Southerners. Thankfully that wouldn't be a problem for her for much longer.
"I learned just fine from the book." Arya said coolly as she drank the bitter drink Aegon had given her. It was Wildfire, the bright green drink that bars in King's Landing seemed to favor but that Arya thought was a waste of good alcohol. It made the back of her throat burn like flames were licking down it but she refused to cough when Gendry was looking at her in disdain. Annoyance began to make her muscles tense; she didn't know this man why was he staring at her like she had personally wronged him?
"But you pay that tuition for the class as well." Gendry protested as he toyed with his own drink, his beer was far more sensible than the drink that had been hoisted on her and Arya made a note to not let Aegon pick her drinks any more.
At Arya's careless shrug Gendry's eyes narrowed more and he picked up his glass. "Figures you're just another rich girl." he muttered into the rim of his mug.
Arya's eyes narrowed as she glared at him. She did not come out here just to be insulted. "You don't know any other rich girls." Arya snapped as she spun away from him. She was going to find a table for her and her friends so that she could get as far away from this condescending man as possible.
A hand on her wrist stopped her and Arya looked down to see Gendry's large hand holding her wrist lightly. Arya looked up at him with a coolly raised eyebrow and debated if she should hit him for grabbing her. Her thoughts must have appeared on her face because Gendry dropped her hand like it had burned him.
"Sorry." he muttered sheepishly as he ran a hand over the back of his neck. His cheeks reddened the more she glared at him. She hoped he could see how satisfied that made her. "It took me a long time to save up for school. I guess I'm still a bit sensitive about it."
"A bit?" Arya couldn't stop the coldness from seeping into her voice. It seemed the wildfire couldn't burn that away.
Instead of flinching away at her tone like most people did Gendry had the gall to grin at her and roll his eyes. "Fine a lot." He looked at the barely touched green drink in her hands and wrinkled his nose in disgust. "You're not really going to drink that shit, right? Let me buy you a real drink."
Arya felt both of her eyebrows raise and she was tempted to down the drink in her hands just to prove a point but the thought of putting any more of it into her body stopped her. Instead she stepped forward next to the bar beside him and shoved the green drink at Aegon who took it happily.
"Whiskey." Arya said as she settled against the bar. Gendry grinned at her in appreciation as he rose his hand to beckon Davos over.
Arya watched him curiously as the noise of the bar crested louder and louder as more people came in. She had a feeling the night would be going in a different direction than what she had first expected.
January
Her first thought upon waking was that she was dead. That quickly proved false because if she were dead, she would not have this pounding pain between her eyes. Arya let out a moan and buried her face deeper into her pillow. It took her a moment to realize the pillow was much softer than the scratchy one she used at the boys' house. Arya cracked open her eyes and in the darkness she could just make out the paisley print on the pillow under her face. It took her a lot longer than it should have to recognize it as Sansa's.
After Gendry had bought her a shot last night what was meant to be one apology drink soon turned into a drinking battle. They kept buying each other shots and trying to match each other for each one. Even after midnight passed and everyone cheered for the New Year they stayed, laughing so hard Arya nearly fell of the bar stool. Davos had warned her to pace herself, she was easily half of Gendry's size but Arya had simply waved him off. She had been drinking with her brothers for nearly two years. She could handle herself just fine.
The bar closed down at two and Lommy and Hot-Pie wanted to head back to their beds. Aegon had slipped away an hour before with a boy with hair so red it looked like fire. Arya didn't expect they would see him again until late tomorrow. Arya was all set to head home with the boys and fall asleep on their couch but as they were leaving the bar Gendry had asked her if she wanted to go get pizza with him. Apparently, there was a great all-night place only a few blocks away. Arya hadn't thought she was hungry but at the mention of pizza she was suddenly ravenous.
It wasn't until the boys had bid her good-night and left that Arya realized she was now alone and drunk with a man she had only just met. She was worried that he might be expecting something more than company and food from her and she reached out to grab his arm and pulled him to a stop on the empty sidewalk.
Gendry looked down at her curiously as Arya wobbled unsteadily on her feet. "I'm not having sex with you." she proclaimed loudly, far louder than she meant to. Gendry sputtered in surprise as he looked down at her. Arya shrugged casually as she dropped his arm. "Just so you know."
"Pizza wasn't a code word for sex. It's just pizza." Gendry shook his head at her and even in the pale glow of the streetlight Arya could make out the blush on his cheeks.
"Then lead the way good sir!" Arya cried as she waved her arm out. She couldn't remember the last time she had been this drunk, probably Robb's wedding last winter. She felt pleasantly warm and fuzzy all over and pizza sounded delicious at the moment.
"As m'lady commands." Gendry said with a mock bow. Arya punched his arm lightly causing him to let out a surprised laugh.
"Don't call me that!" she snapped but there wasn't any real malice in it.
After two slices of what was quite possibly the best pizza Arya had ever had she decided that she was simply too tired to walk all the way back to the boys' house. As she stood on the dark street Arya realized that they were only a few streets away from her sister's apartment and Arya announced that she was going to head there. She had started off only to look back over her shoulder and realize with a start that Gendry was following after her.
"That wasn't an invitation to join me." Arya reminded him sternly causing Gendry to roll his eyes at her again.
"I'm making sure you get there safe weirdo." Gendry explained putting a hand on the middle of her back to steer her forward. Arya tripped over her feet at the movement and laughed at her own clumsiness. She didn't know how she had managed to find Sansa's apartment or if she had woken her sister to get inside (she must have as she didn't have a key). All Arya really cared about now that she had figured out where she was and mostly remembered how she had gotten there was going back to sleep.
She woke up again a few hours later and felt slightly more coherent although the room was still a little fuzzy. Arya lifted her head from the pillow to take in the early light filled room and noticed Sansa sitting at the windowsill with a notebook balanced on her lap and a dreamy look on her face. As if she could feel her eyes on her Sansa turned to look over at her and smiled at her in sympathy.
"Rough night?" she asked, even though she tried to speak quietly her voice still felt like gunshots in Arya's ears. She merely groaned in response before falling back onto the pillows.
It was only about twenty minutes before Arya roused again and this time she felt well enough to actually keep her eyes open as she watched her sister curiously. She was sitting in the same place she had been when Arya had woken before but now she had a dejected look on her pretty features.
"What are you doing?" Arya mumbled curiously; it was break so she knew Sansa couldn't be working on homework. Unless she working on next semester's stuff. She seemed like a big enough nerd to do something like that.
"Trying to think of my New Year's resolution." Sansa admitted.
Arya let out a laugh that quickly morphed into a groan at the throbbing pain in her head. She closed her eyes at the pain and let her head fall back against the couch. "Those stupid things? People still do that?" Arya sighed and opened her eyes to peer over at Sansa. "Why put yourself through the pressure of disappointing yourself in a few weeks?"
Sansa shrugged and Arya felt a brief stab of guilt at the blush gracing her sister's cheeks at her words. "I want to find something I'll stick to this time. Something I can do."
Arya groaned as she flopped over onto her other side gracelessly so that she could look at Sansa without twisting her neck around. It was far too early in the day for this serious of a conversation. "Resolve to get straight A's or something, or to go to class every day." She said before letting out a huge yawn. She felt like she could sleep for three straight days.
"I already go to class every day and I have a 4.0." Sansa frowned as she looked at Arya in concern. "Are you not going to class every day?"
Arya waved her hand in the air dismissively, "Hey this isn't about me, it's about you!" She had had enough of people getting on her case about going to class. What was with everyone all of a sudden? "What about no going out on school nights?" Arya said as she threw an arm over her eyes to block out the light of the sun. Had the sun always been this bright?
"I only go out on school nights when it's an important function I can't reschedule." Sansa admitted. Arya hadn't realized her older sister was so boring. Maybe because they didn't spend much time together. "I make sure to only go out on dates on the weekend."
"Well then, I don't know, maybe you should just give up dating." Arya sighed from behind her arms as she shifted to get more comfortable. As much as she disliked her roommate, she was looking forward to sleeping in a bed again. She was over couches.
"No dating." Sansa whispered softly, causing Arya to move her arms apart a bit to peer out at her curiously from behind them, her attention caught by Sansa's tone.
Arya watched curiously at the mix of emotions that crossed Sansa's face as she nodded and whispered, "No dating. For a whole year."
"Are you serious?" Arya asked, feeling slightly more coherent. Sansa had been in and out of more relationships than Arya bothered to keep track of.
"Yes." Sansa admitted as she looked over at her, "I think it's a great idea."
"Why?" Arya asked slowly. She wasn't sure if Sansa was trying to mock her or not and she was simply too tired and hangover to figure it out.
Sansa's face went red and she stared at her hands as she whispered. "Because...I can't keep expecting other people to love me if I'm not even sure if I love myself."
Arya propped herself up on her elbow to watch her sister curiously. This was getting dangerously touchy feely and Arya very much wanted to leave, or preferably, go back to sleep. However, she couldn't help but admit this would be a good thing for her sister, especially after what she had just said. But Sansa also had a track record of not finishing what she started.
"I've never known you to keep a New Year's resolution." Arya said slowly, as an idea began to form.
"Well I'll keep this one." Sansa snapped as she sat up straighter like she could force her back to hold the weight of she had just decided to do.
"Yeah you will." Arya mulled her idea over as she collapsed back onto the couch and tugged at her short hair. She was silent for a moment before she looked back over at Sansa and said definitively. "Because my New Year's resolution is making sure that you keep yours."
Sansa looked at her in surprise. "You've never made a resolution in your life."
"Yup." Arya yawned as she turned her back on Sansa and the sun behind her, pulling the pillow over her head to block out the light. She felt suddenly drained and wanted very much to be done with this emotional conversation. "That's how you know I'll keep this one. I've been saving up all my resolve."
XxX
It was another three hours before Arya woke up and felt coherent enough to check her phone. She rose her eyebrows at the seven missed calls, one from Lommy, two from Hot-pie and four from Aegon. Arya felt a wave of guilt wash over her as she realized that she hadn't texted them to let them know she had gone to her sister's house the night before.
Groaning she opened her text messages to find a group chat consisting of the four of them that had been started that morning, nearly two hours before.
Hot-Pie: I need pancakes. So many pancakes.
Lommy: Arry is closest to the kitchen. Arry bring us pancakes!
Hot-Pie: Pancakes!
Hot-Pie: I just went downstairs. There's no pancakes and no Arry. :(
Hot-Pie: Arry where are you? Are you dead?
Aegon: I could go for pancakes.
Worked up quite the appetite if you know what I mean. ;)
Lommy: We all know what you mean.
Please don't give us details.
Please.
Aegon: I would never give details of my amazing sex life over text!
I'll tell you in person!
Hot-Pie: ARRY WHERE ARE YOU?
Lommy: Did you go home with Gendry? :o
Aegon: WHAT?
Aegon: Girl do you know how long I have been trying to ride that bull?
Aegon: Not sure if I'm mad or proud!
Aegon: Why aren't you responding?
Was it that good?
The rest of the thread consisted of them text yelling her name and talking about breakfast food. Arya read the whole thing before letting out a laugh that morphed into a moan at the pain it brought her head. She really needed to remember to stop laughing.
Picking up her phone Arya took a quick selfie and sent it to the group chat with the caption 'Not dead' as she stood up to take a shower. She grabbed onto the back of the couch as she wobbled unsteadily.
She was halfway to the bathroom when her phone went off repeatedly.
Aegon: Didn't picture Gendry as the throw pillow type.
Especially paisley ones. To each their own I guess.
Arya rolled her eyes and quickly typed another message.
Arya: Not at Gendry's. At Sansa's.
Aegon: Boo! One of us needs to ride that bull. I'd prefer me but I can live vicariously through you.
Hot-Pie: Glad you're alive. Meet us at the Crossroads in thirty.
XxX
After her shower (where she threw up down the drain only once) Arya felt a lot better. She wrinkled her nose as she redressed in the same clothes she had been out in the night before. At least her jeans and t-shirt were casual enough it didn't look like she was doing the walk of shame. Which Arya personally thought was bullshit. Why the hell did it matter if you went home in the morning in the same clothes as the night before? As long as it was consensual who cared who was sleeping with who?
Arya had a lot of thoughts about things like that but the truth was that she had never been with anyone before. Sure, she'd had a few rushed kisses but nothing serious. She just didn't see the point in tying her life so closely with another person's. It was part of the reason she had never really understood her sister. She had been dating people for so long Arya didn't know how she was going to make it through the year on her own. She couldn't even remember the last time Sansa was single for longer than a few weeks.
After calling a goodbye to her sister Arya headed outside to the gray streets of King's Landing. She didn't understand why people always said the capital was beautiful. As far as she was concerned it was just an over populated dirty city. She had never been a fan of it, not in the few trips they'd made there when she was a child and especially not now that she lived there.
Arya had wanted to stay in Winterfell for university. She wanted to be a Direwolf like her father and older brother. She had planned on only applying to the University of Winterfell but at her guidance counselor's insistence she had also applied to Storm's End University and King's Landing University. She didn't want to go to either one of them but she had always found the Storm Lands fascinating and KLU at least had interesting programs of study. She had considered applying to go abroad in Braavos but she had already spent two years studying there in primary school. Arya wanted to stay closer to home this time. It was Winterfell or bust for her.
Much to her chagrin the only school that accepted her was the one she hadn't really wanted to go to. She had received the acceptance letter to KLU first and had abandoned it on her desk to remind herself to decline their offer of admission once she got her acceptance from Winterfell. When she got her rejection from Storm's End it didn't even sting, she was so set on Winterfell. The day she got her rejection letter from them was the first time she had cried since Rickon made her watch Marley and Me.
Thankfully she had told no one where she had applied so rather than face her family looking at her with sympathy when she told them she was going to King's Landing for school they were only excited for her and disappointed to see her go. Secretly, Arya thought her parents were mostly just happy that Arya was going to be in the same town as Sansa. She overheard her mother whispering to her before they left to keep an eye on Arya.
In truth she only planned on being at KLU for a year. She was going to build up her grades and apply to Winterfell again in the spring as a transfer student. This time next year she would be right back where she belonged, playing in the snow with Nymeria at her side.
Her dreams of home kept her going all the way to the diner Hot-Pie had told her to meet them at. She spied them making faces at her through the glass and she laughed with a wave. She had tried very hard to not become close to anyone or anything while she was here, constantly reminding herself that her days in the capital where numbered. But her and Aegon had shared a freshman orientation class together and he had attached himself to her side like a barnacle. Over time he was no longer a nuisance but actually her friend and since Hot-Pie, Lommy and him where a matching set Arya ended up with three friends when she had been hoping for none.
The bell on the door announced her arrival and before she was even fully through the door Aegon was yelling out at her, "I can't believe you almost slept with Gendry without me!"
Arya wasn't usually one for blushing but as every face in the diner turned towards her Arya felt her face go as red as Sansa's hair.
XxX
The rest of the break passed uneventfully. Arya spent the days while the boys were at work exploring the streets of the city. She supposed there was some beauty in its twisting streets and the cool expanse of the bay but the litter and smog took most of that away. Her wanderings did lead her to all kinds of unexpected places and she spent one afternoon lost in a museum on the knights of the Seven Kingdoms that she had never known existed. She made a mental note to take Bran there the next time he came to visit before she realized that by the time he came to visit she wouldn't live there anymore. They would just have to visit Sansa and go to the museum then.
Her eighteenth birthday fell two days before the break ended and after phone calls with all of her family members Arya, Lommy, Hot-Pie and Aegon proceeded to get ridiculously drunk. Her hangover lasted until classes started. Her family had sent her several gifts but Arya's favorite by far was the handwoven friendship bracelet Rickon had sent her. He had learned to make them at summer camp three years ago and had been giving them to Arya for gifts since then since she was the only one in the family who ever wore them. Now she had seven of them stacked on her wrist, the colors of the first few badly faded and torn.
Lommy had tried to tease her about the bracelets once but one of Arya's death glares was all it took to stop that train in its tracks.
By the time the dorms reopened Arya was grateful to be back in her own space. The boys were wonderful and she appreciated them letting her crash on their couch for three weeks but Aegon was like a dog with a bone over this Gendry thing that was not a thing. He kept bothering her about when she was going to see him again and Arya had to keep reminding him that she didn't even have his phone number and she wasn't looking to date anyone at the moment. Aegon had simply snorted, "Who said anything about dating?"
He had offered to give her Gendry's number but she denied and snapped at him to stop trying to plan matchmaker.
Being back in the dorms was a welcome relief even if her and her roommate, Arianne, did not get along. At all. Arianne was fond of leaving hair-ties on the doorknob and forcing Arya to find other places to study or sleep for the night. She also had a constant string of friends in and out of the room. Their giggles would always cause Arya to open up her transfer application on her laptop and stare at it wistfully.
Her roommate was part of the reason she had skipped so many classes last semester; it was the only time she could have the room to herself and she would just sit in blessed silence. She had grown up in a crowded house but she'd had her own room. This sharing a room with a stranger thing was not something she was fond of.
The class schedule she had this semester seemed like it would be as easy as the one she had last term. Arya was focusing only on taking general education requirements, she had even checked the UoW website to make sure all the credits would transfer over before she had registered for any. She was not about to waste this year away with classes that didn't count once she got into her real school.
Her first day of class was boring and uneventful although she did have a lab class with Hot-Pie so at least she had a guaranteed partner. Her second day seemed to be going much the same until she got the buildings for her history lecture class confused and had to sprint across campus to make it to the hall in time. She might be a slacker but she wasn't about to skive off the first day of class.
The lecture hall was packed by the time she got there and the professor was already readying her supplies up front to begin the lecture. There was only a minute to spare so Arya did not bother looking around for a good seat and instead slipped into the first empty one she saw; it was on the aisle about halfway down the rows.
Arya tried to catch her breath as she sat down, grateful that all of her years of physical activity kept her in good enough shape that she wasn't sweating and panting too loudly, although the person beside her did cast a curious look over at her. A light tap on her shoulder caught her attention as she got settled and Arya looked behind her curiously, starting a little at the sight of familiar bright blue eyes.
"Fancy seeing you here m'lady." Gendry grinned as she glared at him at the moniker.
"I told you not to call me that." she snapped which only made him grin wider.
"Are you actually going to come to this class?" Gendry whispered as the professor began to call the class's attention.
Arya simply shrugged as she ran the pads of her fingers over Needle's worn and familiar surface. "If it interests me." She turned back to face the front and told herself that the warm feeling in her chest was simply from her dash across campus and nothing else.
February
The word document she was using to write her transfer application essay sat open on her computer endlessly. She kept the tab up in the hopes that she would be able to jot down any sudden inspiration but to her discomfort no words were coming to her no matter how hard she tried. Arya told herself that she still had six weeks until the application was due so it wasn't the end of the world that her essay was only a third of the way finished.
Some days she believed herself more than others.
The days passed slowly, filled with little more than classes and an endless stream of text messages to her sister reminding her to not go and date anyone. Sansa rarely replied and Arya found herself having fun thinking up different ways to text the same basic message to Sansa. When her sister did bother to grace her with a reply it was often in the form of memes. Arya wasn't planning on telling Sansa that she had saved a few of her favorite ones to a new folder on her phone dedicated solely to memes.
The only other thing that broke up the monotony of her days were the long walks she took to kill the time when she would return to her room only to find a hair-tie hanging off the door handle, Arianne's not too clever way of telling her that she needed the room to herself and whoever was inside with her. Arya didn't care who Arianna was sleeping with she just didn't understand why they would never go hook up over at their place. Arya was getting pretty sick of hanging out in the common room and wandering the streets of King's Landing.
If she was being honest with herself the walks weren't the worst thing in the world. Arya had always enjoyed going for walks, she had a special playlist for long walks and she would put on her headphones and just zone out the rest of the world. Her walks were how she discovered the city anyway, she wasn't one for touristy places she liked things that she found off the beaten track. It was how she had stumbled upon the little café, the Acorn, she was so fond off.
She would lose herself on the walks, never walking with any sense of purpose and letting her feet and the flow of traffic take her wherever they wanted to go. She always found herself hopelessly lost by the time she was ready to go home and it had become a bit of a game to her to see how long it would take her to get back to the dorms without using the maps on her phone. This was a good game for her to play as more often than not her phone would die on the walks while she was still far from campus.
Arya had been out for nearly two hours when the wind began to pick up and she decided that she should go back to the dorms and work on her homework. If Arianna still had a hair-tie over the dorm her and her partner would just have to pause long enough for Arya to grab her books and then they could get back to their business. She had to maintain good grades to transfer out and she wouldn't let anyone or anything jeopardize that.
She cut down a small side alley and looked around curiously. She was in a part of town she had never been in before and there were lots of alleys and one-way streets crisscrossing and turning tight corners in a dizzying sort of mess like no one had really planned on the city getting as large as it did. Arya followed the curve of the road and was debating if going left or right would be the shorter way home when a bright white flyer on a telephone pole caught her eye and she approached it curiously.
It was a stark white flyer with bold black letters proclaiming spaces for a boxing class were still available. Arya liked the starkness of the flyer, there were no frills to it, it got straight to the point. The classes were held at a martial arts gym called the House of Black and White that Arya had never heard of although she hadn't heard much of any marital arts or boxing in the city.
She had taken water dancing classes when she had been studying in Braavos and Syrio Forel was easily the best teacher she had ever had. She was sure that whoever taught the boxing classes wouldn't measure up to him. She had considered continuing her fighting training when she got to King's Landing but she had contented herself to training by herself at the student gym in the early hours of the morning to avoid too many weird unwanted looks. Besides, she didn't want to put any roots down that she didn't have to in King's Landing. There was no point planting something she was just going to rip up in a few months anyway.
Even with all of that going through her head Arya still found herself snapping a picture of the flyer anyway.
XxX
King's Landing was nowhere near as cold as Winterfell was in the winter but it certainly was wetter. It seemed to rain every day for a week much to Arya's disgust. She didn't mind the rain but it was winter, it was supposed to be snow. She refused to carry around an umbrella and spent most of her classes dripping onto the floor and sulking.
Finally, the rain let up only to be replaced with a harsh and bitter wind that cut straight through Arya's worn leather jacket and mused her short hair into something resembling a bird's nest. She gave up trying to keep it under any sort of order and hoped that no word of it got back to her mother.
Her classes were proving to be just as mind-numbingly dull as last semester but Arya dutifully went to every class and would pinch her leg to keep herself from falling asleep. The only class that proved to be even remotely capable of holding her interest was her history lecture. It was the class that she shared with Aegon's friend Gendry and every time he caught her eye from across the room, he smirked like somehow his goading at her on New Year's was the reason she was there.
Stupid wanker.
Arya was surprised by how much she found herself missing the boys' company, she had gotten so used to seeing them every day over break. She was a bit disappointed when they all had dates on Valentine's Day because she found it to be a stupid over commercialized holiday but Arianne had told her a few days before she would need the room for most of the evening. Arya had been hoping to spend the night at the bar with the boys or at least on their couch watching bad B-list horror movies.
Instead, to her horror, she found herself sandwiched between Sansa and her annoying childhood best friend Jeyne Poole on Sansa's couch watching bad rom-coms and dodging Jeyne's tears over her recent breakup. Thankfully Sansa had provided chocolate and wine but once the wine had run out Arya didn't even wait for the movie credits to roll before calling her goodbyes, already halfway out the door. Jeyne seemed more than capable of keeping Sansa's resolution on track for the night; maybe her tears would inspire her not to bother with dating more than Arya's words ever could. They certainly gave Arya the sudden urge to never date anyone, ever.
The wind was still harsher than usual and Arya stuffed her hands deep into the pockets of her jacket and hunched her shoulders as she walked back to the dorms. Sometimes the leather jacket seemed impractical for King's Landing, it was either too warm or not warm enough, but Arya couldn't bear to wear anything else. Her father had given her the jacket for her sixteenth birthday, the jacket had once belonged to his sister Lyanna who he claimed wore it every day except in the summer. Arya had been touched but she had felt uneasy wearing the jacket until Jon had assured her that he didn't want it, even though it had been his mother's.
"It should go to someone who will wear it. That's what she would have wanted, I think." Jon had told her, his long face solemn as she showed him the jacket over FaceTime. Even though neither of them had met the woman Arya agreed with his words and she had worn the jacket nearly every day since then. The leather was faded and cracked in places but Arya still thought it was the best thing she had ever owned.
She had her head down in an attempt to block some of the wind so she almost didn't notice it when she reached her dorm. She let out a sigh of relief when she entered the building and her ears rang for a moment at the sudden silence without the roar of the wind in them. Arya was just about to swipe her student ID to get though the second door into the building proper when it was suddenly pushed open from the inside and Arya's brow wrinkled in confusion at the sight of four familiar faces.
"Arry!" Hot-Pie cried happily as he caught sight of her. "We were just coming to get you!"
"I told you that hair-tie on the door wasn't for her." Lommy said to Aegon as he bumped fists with Arya by leu of greeting.
"I knew that. Losing her V-card on V-day is too much of a cliché for Arya Stark." Aegon scoffed as he pulled Arya in for a tight hug. She could smell the beer on his breath as he hugged her.
"I thought you were all out on dates." Arya said in an effort to change the subject. She hoped that the boys would blame the redness on her cheeks to the wind and not Aegon's raunchy comments. She never should have told him she had never had sex; it had opened a door to far too many jokes and quips. Never again was she playing truth or dare with him.
"Terrible dates." Aegon groaned with a wry shake of his head as he looked down at her. "Terrible." he drawled the word long and sighed morosely as he threw an arm over the last member of their party. Gendry nodded in Arya's direction and didn't even flinch even when Aegon rested what had to be his whole weight on Gendry's massive frame. "Luckily Gendry here has offered us another form of entertainment for the evening. We were just coming to fetch you." his purple eyes twinkled at her as he spoke. "The hair-tie on the door threw us for a bit of a loop."
"Why didn't you just text me?" Arya asked, already pulling her phone out of the pocket of her joggers. She was suddenly very conscious of her outfit; an oversized University of Winterfell t-shirt that she had pilfered from Robb's closet years ago under one of Theon's old flannels and faded black joggers paired with her leather jacket and beat up trainers. Jeyne had taken one look at her when she had gotten to Sansa's and sniffed before saying she wished that she had the confidence to pull off 'grunge chic'. Sansa told Arya that Jeyne had meant it to be a compliment but Arya knew none of them believed that.
Arya often didn't give much thought to what she was wearing but the boys had all been on dates that evening and were dressed far nicer than they usually were. Aegon and Hot-Pie were wearing button downs while Lommy had on a nice blue sweater. Only Gendry looked like he hadn't been doing anything that evening with his dark wash jeans and faded KLU hoodie. Arya fidgeted with her necklace as she diverted her attention to her phone, only to find it had died while she was at Sansa's.
"We did! You never charge your phone!" Aegon said, clearly disgruntled.
"I'm going to buy you so many chargers for your next birthday." Hot-Pie said with a shake of his head.
Arya rolled her eyes at them as she sheepishly stuffed her phone back into her pocket. "What adventure were you planning on dragging me on?" she asked curiously. It was never boring when they dropped by her room unannounced.
"Gendry has been kind enough to invite us to his studio!" Aegon said as he finally let go of Gendry's neck and swayed unsteadily on his feet. Arya couldn't help but wonder if he was in this state because his date had been so terrible or if being in this state had made the date terrible. With Aegon, one never knew.
"I have a sculpture studio." Gendry explained seeing Arya's confused look. "Aegon's been bugging me to see it for ages and they cornered me at the bar tonight. I finally caved. Want to come with?"
"Well I seem to still be banished from my own room so I don't have anything better to do." Arya shrugged, causing Aegon to whoop in delight and he shoved past them to shoulder open the door and lead the way out into the night.
Gendry's beat up old jeep only had four seatbelts but Aegon and Arya were small enough that they managed to get the belt around both of them in the backseat. Arya had offered to make the drive without a seatbelt on but Gendry adamantly refused to move the car until they were all secured in. Lommy had laughed and called him a mom and Arya was a bit impressed that Gendry could cast a glare that was almost as fierce as hers. Poor Lommy had wilted under the weight of it.
She nodded her head along appreciatively to the old Goldcloaks song that blared from Gendry's speakers as they drove and she rolled her eyes at him when she caught him smirking at her in the rearview mirror. Aegon really needed to find less annoying friends. Although she supposed she was one of those annoying friends too.
Gendry lived a few miles away from campus in a tiny worn-down part of town the locals called Flea Bottom. Arya didn't often make it over there for her walks as she often walked away from Rhaeny's Hill instead of towards it. As they passed more interesting areas of town Arya made a mental note to her feet to start heading in this direction.
They came to a stop in front of a squat gray building that was so close to the buildings on either side of it that Arya was willing to bet she could stand between the buildings and place a palm flat on both of them. The building was set close to the sidewalk so there were only a few steps before they were at the door. To the left was an abandoned looking bar and to the right was an auto mechanic shop, its neon sign flickering in the dark.
The outside might not have been much to look at but as Arya curiously followed the boys inside the studio her eyes widened in surprise as Gendry flicked on the light. She blinked as her eyes adjusted to the sudden glare and she looked around to study the space they were in.
The studio was roughly the size of the two-car garage they had at Winterfell and there was a small set of metal stairs leading up to a loft on the left side of the building. Arya could just spy a bed at the top and she started a little as she realized Gendry must live there too. She supposed it made sense, he had already told her he had to work hard to save up money for college, he wouldn't be trying to pay two rents when he could get away with one.
There were long metal shelves lining two of the walls with tools and sculptures spread out among them in seemingly organized chaos and heavy looking equipment lining another wall. Tall steel shelves filled up half the room, sculptures placed carefully over every inch of them. The rest of the floor space was taken up by a large metal sculpture.
When he had said he had a sculpture studio Arya had been picturing clay pots or weird marble statues. In truth, she had been so taken aback that Gendry sculpted at all, let alone had a full studio for it, she had spent most of the drive staring at his hands from the backseat and wondering how something so large could create art. Nothing she had pictured would have prepared her for this.
Arya found herself drawn to the large statue taking up half the space, surprised to find out when she reached it that it was not all one sculpture like she had thought but several small metalwork sculptures placed together to form a small world. There was a large castle at the center and several trees and houses on the outskirts. Arya spotted a few dragons in different modes of flight or fighting stance scattered around as well as knights standing guard on the edges.
Arya knelt down to get a closer look at one, impressed when she realized all of the metal looked to be scrap that had been melted down and reshaped to the fanciful shapes they now resided in.
She could hear the boys freaking out about some sculpture near the entrance so she started a little when she realized Gendry was standing next to her.
"It's beautiful." Arya breathed, her eyes roving over the piece hungrily. Every time her eyes passed over the creation, she noticed something new.
"Thanks." Gendry said and she could see him shuffling his feet awkwardly next to her. The air suddenly felt too heavy between them and Arya felt a desperate need to fill it.
"My sister would swoon over this." Arya admitted as she picked up a life-size metal rose off the floor and turned it over in her hands. She opened her mouth to say something else but let out a sudden hiss when her finger caught on a sharp edge. She looked down in surprise to see that there were small metal thorns on the stem of the rose in her hands. She found it surprisingly endearing that Gendry made such a beautiful object and still kept the sharp points.
"Are you okay?" Gendry asked bending down beside her and taking her hand in his. It was not lost on her how small her hand looked cradled in his. How he managed to make such delicate creations was a wonder to her. There was a bit of blood coming from the cut on her finger and he cursed when he saw it. "We should wash that. There's a sink back here."
Arya followed after him to a door wedged in the corner that she hadn't noticed before. He opened it to a small bathroom and Arya squished in next to him and placed the rose still in her hands on the counter as she washed the blood off her hand and Gendry shuffled through a first aid kit on the counter next to her.
"It's just a scratch." Arya said with an eye roll but Gendry merely glared at her as he turned to her with a Band-Aid.
"Placate me." he said with a sigh as he took her hand back into his.
Arya ignored the swoop in her chest as he did so. She looked up at him and couldn't help the smile that broke across her face at the sight of his brows knitted in concentration. Arya quickly reminded herself that she was not planting any more roots in King's Landing. She tore her eyes off of his face to look back at their intertwined hands before swallowing and instead turning her attention to the rose on the counter.
"You gave it thorns." Arya remarked as Gendry rubbed alcohol onto her finger.
"Course." Gendry agreed, not taking his eyes off the task at hand.
"Why?" Arya found herself asking, curious in spite of herself. Besides if he was talking, she could focus on that and she wouldn't be tempted to stare at the planes of his face.
"Just because something is beautiful doesn't mean it can't also be deadly." Gendry said, sparing her a glance that made Arya's breath catch in her throat.
"You know many deadly flowers, do you?" Arya asked, thankful that her voice didn't sound as breathless as she felt.
Gendry ignored her as he tore the wrapper off the bandage. "You said your sister would swoon at the sculptures." Arya nodded as he looked at her curiously for a moment before regarding the cut on her finger again. "What about you?" Gendry asked lightly as he wrapped the bandage carefully over the small cut.
Arya felt suddenly lightheaded at his closeness. She would almost rather she felt that way over the sight of blood than because of a boy. But Arya was no stranger to scrapes and bruises and she had never felt dizzy from the sight of blood before. She decided that the best course of action was to ignore the sudden pounding in her chest as she looked up at Gendry through her eyelashes. "I'm not the swooning type."
Gendry met her gaze with eyes bluer than the waters of the bay and Arya swallowed hard as his eyes roamed over her face. "No, I don't suppose you are."
XxX
They spent another few hours at the studio examining the creations of Gendry's imagination. Arya chiding him when she realized that despite his many animal sculptures, he didn't have any of wolves. She couldn't help but feel personally offended by this oversight. Wolves were her favorite animal so she didn't understand why Gendry would overlook the chance to make the coolest animal of all.
After a while he gave them a ride back to campus and she had him drop her off first even though the boys' house was closer. She wasn't entirely sure why but Arya had a feeling that her being alone with Gendry wasn't the best of ideas.
After biding her goodnights Arya went into the dorm hall happy to see that the doorknob to her room was hair-tie less. Arya went inside with a grateful sigh as she shed her jacket and rested it on the back of her desk chair.
She looked at her laptop and considered working on her transfer application essay before she caught sight of the clock on her desk and realized how late it was. Arianna's soft snores filled the room as Arya placed her phone on the charger and kicked off her shoes before crawling into bed.
The application wasn't due for a few more weeks, her essay could wait another night.