A/N: Hey guys, Sorting through my documents I came across this one-shot I wrote ages ago and thought I may as well post it. just a little something that came into my head that could have happened in King's Landing. For anyone reading Winter's Wrath, I have one more chapter to post on another fic I'm working on, then I will get back to it. I aim to have an update by the end of January, early Feb at the latest :)
Hope you enjoy
xBx
Lost
Arya was lost - well and truly lost. She had been following that blasted cat along this street and that, paying more attention to her four-legged nemesis than the directions she was taking. She had wandered up some sort of back alley, but what it was at the back of Arya was at a loss to imagine. The cat sprang up onto a stack of crates and onto the wall to Arya's left; it gave one last look at Arya - a rather gloating look, if truth be told - before jumping down and out of sight.
"Seven hells!" Arya muttered, before following the cat's path, and springing lightly up onto the wall. Bran had always been the climber of the family, but Arya was a close second; being light and agile - much like Bran - springing up into trees, and onto walls and outcrops had been almost natural to her. On the other side of the wall was a courtyard, only small, but completely empty. The back doors to one of the buildings, to which the courtyard was attached, were thrown wide open, and Arya could hear the sound of hammers ringing on steel - it sounded like the forge back in Winterfell. It could only mean that Arya had found her way up to the Street of Steel.
The cat she had been following caught her attention once more as it slunk into the building. Arya lightly dropped from the wall, landing carefully and precisely. Quiet as a mouse, light as a feather. She crept along after the cat, and through the open doors, paying no attention to anything, or anyone, else. She ignored the heat that suddenly hit her as she entered - she had thought the streets of King's Landing were hot, but that was nothing compared to the heat in this room. Arya imagined that this would be how hot the seven hells were, but she didn't let it distract her from her task.
The cat wound its way towards a pair of feet - Arya was concentrating on the cat, and so she did not see to whom those feet belonged, but the sound of ringing steel was nearby and so she assumed it was a blacksmith.
The cat mewed, and hopped up onto the workbench, causing the owner of the feet to step back in surprise. "Stupid blasted thing," he mumbled, picking up the cat by the scruff of the neck.
"I was supposed to catch the stupid blasted thing, not you!" Arya snapped, causing the person to jump. As the person turned, Arya saw that the feet belonged to a boy near her brother Robb's own age. He was rather tall and well built, with strong muscles fitting for his job. His eyes were a startling blue, and his hair was black and rather long for a boy.
"What in seven hells are you doing in here?" he asked Arya roughly. "You looking for work? 'Cause I don't reckon you'll find anything here, not a scrawny boy like you."
Arya frowned at him, "I'm a girl!"
The lad chuckled, "then you definitely won't find no work here. This your cat?" he asked, holding it out to here.
Arya shook her head, "no. I was just trying to catch it. Is this your forge?"
The boy snorted, and let the cat go. "No," he said just as Arya let out a cry of dismay.
"What did you let him go for? Now I'll never catch him!"
"It's a cat," the boy shrugged, and turned back to his work. "There are plenty of cats - catch another. A forge is no place for a girl."
Arya ignored him, and looked around here - she guessed this was in the more expensive part of the street; the armour and weapons that cluttered the walls looked to be of high quality and good workmanship - as good as Mikken would ever do, at any rate. "Is this your father's shop then, if it's not yours?"
The lad sighed, "Nope. Don't know my father."
"Have you never asked your mother who he is?" Arya asked, oblivious to the annoyance she was stirring in her companion.
"My mother's dead."
"Oh, I'm sorry," Arya said softly. She was quiet for a moment, wandering around the room. Eventually she came back to where the boy was working, and perched herself on a bench beside him, so she could watch his progress. "How did you come to work here?"
"Dunno, not long after my mum died someone I don't know paid my master to take me on as an apprentice. And here I am. Do you ever stop asking questions?"
"When I've run out of questions to ask."
The lad snorted and shook his head, going back to hammering his steel. Arya was quiet for another moment, and this time it was him who asked a question.
"Where are you from? You don't sound like you're from Flea Bottom."
"I'm not, I'm from the North. I travelled down with my father a few months back."
"You and a dozen others - I take it you followed the procession when the King came back with his new Hand?"
Arya grinned, but didn't say anything - she wasn't going to tell this new friend that her father was the new Hand. "What's your name?" she asked instead.
"Gendry. Yours?"
"Arya."
Their conversation was interrupted by the sounds of footsteps coming towards them across the courtyard. When the men entered, Arya recognised her father instantly. With wide eyes she quickly dropped down behind Gendry's bench.
"What are you doing?" Gendry asked.
"Shhhh! They can't see me!"
"Who?" Gendry asked, looking over his shoulder, and back again. "What's the matter?" he grinned. "You steal something from that Lord?"
"Shut up, stupid." Arya hissed, just as Gendry was called over to his master.
Arya peered around the corner and watched the exchange; she could hear very little of what was being said. As they stood talking, Arya tentatively moved around Gendry's bench, and behind the one she had previously been sat upon. If she was careful, she might be able to creep around the side of the room, and pass her father without his notice. Just as she was about to move again, Gendry began leading her father back towards his workbench; crouching down even lower, Arya waited with baited breath as the group approached. Gendry took up a helm from his bench and handed it to Lord Stark; as he was examining it closely, Arya saw her chance to sneak out undetected. She managed to take three silent steps, before she was halted in her tracks.
"Stop right there, young lady," Lord Stark said calmly, not lifting his eyes from the helm in his hands.
Arya screwed up her face in preparation for the shouting she was sure to receive, and carefully turned around to look at the others. Gendry was quite clearly trying not to laugh at her and the master of the shop was looking at her in shock, previously unaware to her presence.
Ned Stark looked at his daughter, and Arya was surprised to see a small smile trying to overtake the look of disapproval, "What are you doing here? Is one sword not enough for you, you've come to look at buying another?"
Arya shifted uncomfortably, well aware of the confused look Gendry was passing between her and her father.
"You know, your brother had less steel than you at your age."
"I got lost," Arya said, and her father laughed.
"Lost, and found your way up the Street of Steel?"
Arya nodded, "I was chasing a cat, and I forgot to look where I was going."
"Cats, again," Ned sighed. "Go wait for me outside, with Jacks and the horses. Do you think you can get from here to there without getting into trouble?"
Arya grinned, "I can try."
"Go on." Ned tousled her hair with an affectionate smile, and turned back to the other two. "I am sorry if my daughter was causing trouble."
"She's your daughter?" Gendry asked, clearly surprised, and momentarily forgetting his courtesies. Arya groaned as she made her exit, catching the start of her father's next sentence.
"Yes, my youngest daughter, Arya, she has a habit of getting places she shouldn't. This is fine work. I would be pleased if you would let me buy it."
Arya was out in the courtyard before she could here Gendry's response. She made her way through the shop and outside to where Jacks was stood waiting. She stood there ten minutes before her father returned, empty handed - she assumed Gendry wasn't willing to sell his helm after all.
"Did you find anything my Lord?" Jacks asked, as Ned mounted his horse pulling Arya up and seating her on the front of his saddle.
"I did," Ned confirmed, but said nothing else. Arya asked him a few times on the journey back, what he had found, but he wasn't telling. Arya was left to ponder the possibilities with no help, and was forced to promise to stop chasing cats outside the walls of the Red Keep.
Not long after Arya had met Gendry, things took a turn for the worse; one minute she was having her daily dancing lesson, and the next she was running Needle through the stomach of some fat stable boy. Yesterday she was eating five course dinners with her father and sister, now she was lucky if she could find a rat to eat. She had thought of trying to find her way back to the street of steel - Gendry had seemed nice enough, if a little bit moody, perhaps he would be willing to help her? But then she had heard the gossip in Flea Bottom: the King's Hand arrested for treason - no one would want to help the daughter of a traitor, even if the accusations were false. And so Arya remained where she was, every day trying to find her way out of the capitol, but there was no escape.
Arya lost track of the days; she thought it had been about a week since her father had been arrested, when there was a great surge of excitement among the inhabitants of Flea Bottom. The Hand was being taken to Baelor's Sept, to confess his treason. Arya thought they had to be mistaken: her father had done nothing wrong. But when she reached the plaza, outside the sept, and climbed up onto a statue to see above the crowds, her eyes and ears showed her what her heart did not want to know: her father, hands tied and looking even more terrible than she did, stood in front of the city and confessed to treason.
At first there was talk of mercy, and sending him to the wall. But as soon as a spark of hope was ignited, it was doused with ice as Joffrey called for his head.
The next few moments lasted a lifetime; she was hardly aware of her surroundings, it was as if she was deaf and blind to everything and everyone except her father, and Ser Ilyn's sword. It took her a second to realise it was Ice that hovered above her father's head. Without thinking, or really realising, what she was doing, Arya found herself pushing through the crowd with Needle in her hand. She was close to the front when she felt a restraining hand on her shoulder pulling her back. She struggled, but whoever held her was too strong; the last thing she saw was her father searching the crowd and then her world went dark - whoever held her had placed themselves between her and the steps.
Although she couldn't see, she could hear; everyone around her seemed muffled, but the swoosh of the blade, the wet sound as it sliced the skin and the crunch as it went through bone, followed by the thump of something heavy hitting the ground were all deafeningly loud to her. She didn't really feel what happened next, she didn't really care - she felt like her life was over in that moment, what was she to do now that her father was gone? She had no one - Sansa was in Cersei's clutches, her brothers and mother were north: Arya was alone.
She came back to life in an alleyway - how she got there, she couldn't remember, but the sight of a blade in the hand of the man who held her brought her back to life. It took a few minutes of panicked struggling to realise the man was friend not foe, but when she recognised the man before her she submitted to the brutal attack on her hair - surely no one would recognise her now.
They left King's Landing immediately - the quicker they got away, the safer they would be. Yoren dragged Arya briskly away from the crowds, and out to where the rest of the vagrants, criminals and nobodies were waiting to go North and start their life over - she was to be one of them now. Arya was surprised to recognise the boy, Gendry, she had pestered in the street of steel - even more surprised was she, to see that he appeared to recognise her. As she came up alongside him, his features went from a frown to widened eyes and he looked ready to say her name, before Arya interrupted.
"Ar-"
"My names Arry," Arya said quickly, repeating what Yoren had just told her. "I'm an orphan boy."
Gendry closed his mouth quickly and nodded once; he gave her a quick sad smile that no one else would see, before looking back in the direction they had started to walk. They passed through the gates of the capitol in silence, and as Arya began her long journey home, she felt she may have one friend at least. She wasn't so alone after all.
~ fin ~