As Arya and Yoren crossed into the King's Wood, the winds began to pick up, becoming so gusty that Arya was forced to dismount Yoren and tie him to a tree.
"Go on you can eat," Arya assured Yoren, stroking the horses face gently as she dismounted him. The horse would never desert her, but he had seemed flightly since they had past by King's Landing. In all honesty, Arya didn't blame him, given what they had both seen, the last time that they had been there.
Where Arya and Yoren had been forced to stop due to the winds was on the Northern boundary of the King's Wood. They were deathly close to the outer walls of King's Landing, but thankfully far enough away that no one would notice a young women and her white horse. Arya may have been dressed as a lowly peasant, but she was riding a purebred Bravosi horse and furthermore she was very much known to The Mad Queen and her forces.
"So Yoren," Arya stated, "What do you think is keeping everyone from passing across the border of the Stormlands?"
The horse shook his head, his mane going in all directions, and then he whinned. A laugh slip past Arya's lips, she couldn't remember the last time that she had laughed like that, before a memory of shooting arrows in the Winterfell courtyard, at the dismay of Bran who kept missing the target crossed her mind. She missed those days desperately.
"You know you're not much help Yoren?" Arya asked of the horse. The horse nodded. Well Arya thought, at least he was being honest with her. They'd been travelling for six weeks now and not once in all of that time, had she once been able to escape the words that Lord Selwyn had spoken to her, before she left Winterfell.
"The Lord of the Stormlands and his people are loyal to the Dragon Wolf."
Then why hadn't they heard from Gendry? Why had Bran said she needed to convince Gendry to join their cause, if he already belonged to it?
Nothing made sense to her anymore, because she was being told two stories by two people that she knew to trust. Arya hated the feeling that bubbled within her chest - dispair. By the Gods, did she miss Jon and his wise words, he always knew what to say to her, always knew how to help her get back on the right path. He was however the last person she could speak too, not only was he off trying to claim the throne from The Mad Queen. He also refused to tell anyone where he and his men had made their camp and even Bran seemed resolute in not telling anyone either. That's if Bran, does, actually have the ability to see everything that ever happened in the history of Westeros and the Free Cities. She hoped she'd also find answers about her brother, within the borders of the Stormlands too.
—
Arya didn't get much sleep during the night, the wind and the noises it made within the trees, constantly spooked Yoren and she had spent much of the night calming the horse. She wasn't just going to abandon him to the storm, the two of them had already gone through too much together, for her to allow herself too do that. However, there had been times in recent weeks, when she had thought to give him to one of the many farmers she had met since she'd passed into the South. It's not that she wanted to give him up, it was that he was a white horse and she had to sneak into the Stormlands and that would never be easy on a white Braavosi horse. He was more noticeable than any other horse in the Seven Kingdoms.
Today she finally planned to cross into the Stormlands, at any cost. Before she mounted Yoren she removed Needle from her weapons belt and strapped it to the side of Yoren's saddle. Arya had long expected that today of all days, she would need to draw her sword.
Under normal circumstances she would have entered the Stormlands by crossing over Wendwater Bridge, but she knew it wasn't safe. Instead she and Yoren would head South-West along the Wendwater River, and cross it near the spring, where the River started. It took her from where she needed to go, but she needed to stay as far away from the Kingsroad, as possible. Whatever the forces were, that were preventing others from entering into the Stormlands, they were going to be most likely positioned or prominent along the Kingsroad.
—
As Arya and Yoren travelled along the Northern side of the Wendwater River, the storm of the previous night blew back in, snow falling rapidly around them. A gust was causing the river to move quickly. Yet there was silence, the trees made no sounds, the only sound the crunch of the snow under Yoren's hooves and the fast flows of the water in the Wendwater.
"What's the matter boy?" Arya asked, when Yoren stopped once again. If only he could answer her, Arya thought her temper growing short. She was a private person, who was quite happy keeping to herself and not talking to others, but of late she'd gotten sick of not having another human being to talk to.
Yoren made no indication that he'd heard or even listened to her. Instead his ears had pricked up yet again and this time Arya noticed it happen, the first time all day, and it had happened many times since they'd started journeying along bends and curves of the Wendwater. Arya calmed her mind and ushered up all that the Jaqen H'ghar and the House of Black and White had taught her about silence and she listened intently to all that surrounded her.
At first she could only hear the silent natural sounds she had heard before; the crushing of the river against it's banks. The more she listened, the more she heard. Soon she could hear the sound of branches bashing against each other and even the sound of squirrels scampering home to their hollows to escape the storm. She had to sit and listen for a long time, before she heard what she expected is what Yoren had heard too. It was the sound of men moving through the thick leafless trees of Kingswood, on the Stormlands side of the River. Any other person would not have heard them because they were so silent, so absent.
Arya turned Yoren towards the trees, and the horse willingly went, he vehemently wanted to be nowhere near the Wendwater. This was it Arya supposed, whoever or whatever those men were on the rivers otherside were what we're stopping people from entering the Stormlands and Yoren wasn't going to have anything of them. Once Arya and Yoren were deep enough inside the woods, that she could no longer see the river she dismounted. She took Needle from Yoren's saddle and strapped it back onto her waist and then proceeded to take Yoren's saddle and bridle off of him. She discarded them in the fresh snows on the ground. Yoren wouldn't needed them anymore.
She held the horses muzzle between her cold hands, his warmth making them flush, and she rested her head against his. The horse whinned.
"This is it" Arya said, tears slipping from her eyes. If Yoren wouldn't go anywhere near the Wendwater, she wasn't going to force him to cross it. He would wander a while, but eventually, she was sure, he would find a kind farmer to take him in. Gods knows, the farmers needed any help they could get to sow their fields and provide for their families during this harsh winter. Yoren could help. She didn't like to say goodbye to him, but the next part of her journey she needed to take alone.
—
Yoren followed Arya dutifully back to the edge of the trees near the Wendwater, clearly realising then why she had unsaddled him, that she was setting him free and not forcing him to cross the water. He whinned softly and Arya brushed her fingers through his mane one last time, before heading towards the waters edge. There was only one thing for it, she needed to swim across.
The ice water would have killed any Southern man, but that was not Arya, she was a Northern, a stark at that. Ice ran through her veins, it gave her life, it would not strip it from her.
Moving across the Wendwater was difficult, Arya had to swim against the rivers natural current. The two forces, Arya and the waters of the Wendwater, battle for dominance. The waters threw Arya in every direction possible and she struggled to remain above the water, her waterlogged clothing dragging her down. It was then that a memory of Jon flashed before her, it wasn't even her memory, it was his. After his return to Winterfell there had been scare opportunities for the two of them to speak, to learn about each other's journies throughout the Seven Kingdoms, and in her case abroad. When they did, he told of what had happened when he, Gendry and others had gone beyond the wall to capture a Wight. Jon told her of falling under the icy waters after battling the Wights and how their Uncle Benjen, somehow still living, had pulled him from it. He told her though, that the water was not cold to him as he battled against it, that that was their gift as Starks, to always battle and never give in when the cold tries to claim them. For they are ice themselves, they control it, they battle it, they conquer it. It was with Jon's words, that Arya was able to find the strength she needed to push herself through the final yards of water to the Southern banks of the Wendwater.
After pulling herself from the depths of the Wendwater, Arya lay in the freezing snow of the riverbank, trying to muster any strength that she could. Arya pulled herself to her feet, though she felt that at any moment her defeated body would claim her and force her down, but she would not have it.
Arya managed to turn her head enough to see the Northern bank of the Wendwater, Yoren was gone from it's bank, the journey forward now was hers alone.
—
The trees of the King's wood were as dense on the Southern side of the Wendwater, as they had been on its Northern side. The snow was still falling heavily, and even if her body didn't feel so defeated and the need to sleep constantly lurking, Arya would still have had difficulty seeing in front of her. But in the end it didn't matter, her body gave in on her and she fell into the blanket of snow at her feet.
Her body and mind were so defeated that she gave into it. So gone to the world, she did not hear the footsteps of the men she'd heard earlier approach her, or the words that they spoke.
"How'd she make it past the Witches of the Water?"
"For fucks sake Connington that doesn't matter now. Seven hells, she's freezing, quick get her on a horse."
"Head for Felwood, she needs to be seen by a Maester immediately."
