A/N: Early again. :)

Chapter Three: Big Brothers and Little Sisters Part II

Gendry

Anguy led him away from Arya and Lord Beric, taking him out of the cave and into the sunlight of the bright morning. The day was already beautiful, if a bit chilled, but that would be gone come midday. Apparently the Brothers had been without a smithy for sometime now and there was quite a bit that had needed to done. A pile of dented armor and broken swords was waiting for him, almost calling to him.

"This is all of it I imagine. Now, I know you won't be getting it all done today so no need to fret, from what I understand we will be here for a few days before we set out again. Let me know of anything else you may need besides the tool provided." With that being said Anguy tipped his head to the boy and turned about, heading in the direction of the woods, whistling a tune Gendry couldn't name.

He turned from the retreating man and looked at the makeshift smith the Brotherhood had. It wasn't much but it would do, with one stove for heating the metal and an anvil, a few different sized shaping hammers and a bucket of water. It was all in the open air, not being able to make a true forge in a cave due to there being no outlet for a chimney. He liked the idea of the outdoor smithy but no it wouldn't do as well as an actual forge. He could fix a few swords here, beat the dents out of chestplates, but he wouldn't be able to create something completely new, not at the quality he was used to making.

Without much thought he picked up some of the broken armour and began to work, happy for the manual labor to take some of the weight from his mind for a while. Gendry was in no way a stupid man, as much as Arya would protest, but he didn't like to think on things he did not have control over, as it always seemed to just cause more problems. Whatever would be, would be and that was all there was. Either Lord Beric would allow Arya to stay or he wouldn't, it did not change the end result, he would be with her, whatever may happen. He didn't want to think about the changing seasons and what that could mean if the Brotherhood cast them out. He didn't want to think about the Lannisters, or the Freys or Boltons, he didn't want to think on anything. So instead, he pulled his shirt over his shoulders, picked up a hammer and let his mind empty to the sing of steel take him away.

He didn't know how long they left him like that but by the time Arya had found him he had gotten through all the armour and was on one of the last swords that needed mending. He looked up into the sky and saw it was well past midday. Wiping the sweat from his brow and turned to the wolf girl as she looked at him expectantly. "So, what they say then?" he asked as he grabbed the skin she was offering him, knowing it was full of water (Arya didn't like wine or ale).

She bit her lip and looked away from him, looking uncomfortable. Something had happened that she didn't like. Assuming the worst, believing that Beric wouldn't allow the girl to stay, Gendry just nodded. "Well than this lot can pay us for my services in fixing their armour and swords." He said with a little bite in his usually calm voice. She shook her head, letting him know his assumptions were wrong. So if they were going to let her stay, what was the problem? Why did she look so upset, torn even? "What is it Arry?" he asked concern taking over his features. He stepped forward and gently placed a hand on her small shoulder. Why do I keep touching her?

Gendry didn't know if it was her recent loss that made him reach out as much as he did or if it was the new and somewhat frightening need he had to protect the girl. Yes, he had always felt some protective pull over her, starting when he had first met Arya, being bullied by Hot Pie and Lommy. He hadn't known she was a girl yet and all he saw was someone so small being bullied by a fat pig and a scrawny twit. Gendry had never liked a bully. The feeling of protectiveness changed he figured out that Arry was a she. He wanted to protect the little maiden like all the knights of the stories did, though Arya was not much of a damsel. The protective feeling in him had changed again and he didn't understand what he felt anymore but he knew he had to keep her safe though.

She looked up at him and then around at the people scattered about them, all lost in their own little world. "I don't want to talk about it here. Come on, you're filthy. Let's go for a swim." she said and turned down the way he had taken her to the creek earlier that morning. He followed without a word, just wanting to find out what had her so worked up. Were they planning on selling her? What was to happen?

When they arrived at the creek he walked right into the water, only taking off his boots as he went. As he had expected, the morning chill was gone and now they were in a warm summer day. The cool water felt good against his skin, and was a sharp contrast from the fire he had been working with not a half hour before. He dunked his head under the water for a short time and when he came back up he came face to face with Arya as she waded into the water wearing only breeches and wrappings around her chest. He had seen her this way before so it did not shock him this time. He thought back to the first time she had shed her tunic to swim with him and Hot Pie and smiled. Things were much more simple then.

"So what has you so bothered mi'Lady?" he asked again as he scrubbed his arms from the grime and dust that had built up on them from working with the fire and steel all morning.

"I am going to tell you something about yourself and you have to promise me you will not run away. You must swear it." She was serious. He couldn't imagine what she had known now about himself that he wouldn't know already.

He smiled and bit back a chuckle, knowing she would see it as him making fun of her or not taking her seriously. She was always so serious. "I swear it Arry. Now what is going on?" he needed to know what was bothering her so and what it had to do with him.

Arya took a deep breath and then looked at him directly in the eyes, before grabbing his hands firmly in her own. She had never taken his hands in that way, it was usually he that instigated the touching between them. "Gendry, you are the late king, Robert Baratheon's son."

He felt his breath leave him as if she had punched him in the stomach. His knees felt weak and his head seemed to spin, as if he had been the one hit in the head yesterday and not Arya. He knew she was watching him. He could see her reading him, like an open book. Gednry was glad she didn't gloat about it after his knees had wobbled slightly. "What in the seven hells are you talking about?! I am no one! I am just a bastard boy." he denied, not wanting to understand what this meant for him. Why was she telling him this? Who had told her? What was going on?

She looked apologetic, as if she understood that she was shattering his world with a few simple words. "I'm sorry, I've never been good at…" she trailed off, seemingly to not know the word.

"At talking? Breaking news gently?" Gendry questioned with a scoff.

Arya nodded. "Basically." she agreed, happy he seemed to understand.

"We've been together a long time Arry, I know you aren't pulling punches." Gendry muttered, squeezing her hands a little tighter. He didn't know what to do and the only thing that hadn't changed in his world in the last few moments was her, and he was holding on for dear life.

Arya nodded again and shifted, causing the water to splash lightly. "I'm sorry." she said, sounding as sincere in an apology as he had ever heard. "I know it's shocking to you. Honestly though, I feel embarrassed I didn't see it sooner."

He raised a brow. "What do you mean?" How would she have known who his father was?

"I lived in the Red Keep with the King for nearly five months before I was forced to flee. He came to my home in Winterfell personally to ask my father to journey south. You have his eyes. His hair. And from what I hear, he used to be all muscle rather than the fat lard I met." she explained simply. She had thought his eyes had looked familiar but had never been able to place them, the thought always evading her, barely hiding in the shadows.

He nodded, not really knowing what to say. He had personally never seen his father and didn't know what he had looked like. He had seen the royal procession a time or two but had never been one to stand on the side of the road and greet the royals, he was usually too busy working. "Well, who told you then?" He still held her hands he noticed. He saw her eyes drop to their hands and knew she noticed as well. She left her hands in his.

"Lord Beric and Thoros. That was part of the conversation we just had. Probably the biggest part honestly…." She wasn't looking at him now, she was looking down into the cold creek water that came from melted snow in the North. Her voice was quiet and as anytime she lowered her tone it became somewhat raspy. It sounded nice when she spoke softly he decided.

Gendry felt his stomach in knots. How could the knowledge that he was the bastard of a king not be the biggest part of the news. "Well, best be out with it then so I can faint properly and drown." He joked, spurning her for a reaction, too look at him.

She did just that and playfully hit him in the chest with a wet smack. "Don't be stupid! This is your life we are talking about. People planning and plotting about you without you!"

He smiled at her anger. "It doesn't change much though."

Molten silver narrowed further. "It does entirely Gendry. They want to put you on the Iron Throne and remove Joffery because he is born of incest to the Queen." She pushed him harshly, causing splashing in the shallow clear water all around them. "They want to make you a King and they want to use me for support of the North. The Last Stark backing the true son of Robert Baratheon claim to the throne in another rebellion against the crown."

Ah… He thought. That explains a lot. So here they were, two pawns, to be used in a war. They were only children, even him really, only being five and ten. He didn't know how to be a king or if they could even really get that kind of support from the people of Westeros to put him on the crown. He felt panicked, trapped. "We can run away. Let's leave now." His voice came out as a soft whisper, barely louder than the breeze blowing through the trees.

Arya looked up at Gendry with wide eyes. She wanted to do that, more than anything. How simple it seemed, to just run away from it all. What would their life be like? Mayhaps they could travel across the sea to Braavos… Pentos, Qarth…. Anywhere but this war torn country she once thought so fondly of. Or maybe they could make it to the Wall, to Jon…

That would have been nice, but the wolf pup knew that they would never make it, not on their own, with lions and other monsters that bump in the night running about throughout these woods. Not only that, but Lord Beric had said something that reminded her of her dear father. Honor and duty. "We can't Gendry. We wouldn't ever make it on our own." she said simply, not wanting to explain why she needed to take back the North for her family, for her father. She could not let his legacy, her legacy pass into history and ruin like the Targaryens had before, during the last war. No, she was a Stark, and the Starks endure.

He could see there was more to her reasoning than what she had said but still didn't want to push her. She would open up to him again in time. She had lost so much, he didn't feel right taking her privacy. "What can we do then? I'm no king Arya. And you say all the time that you're no Lady." His voice was still low, but cracked mid way through his question.

"They want to speak with us, and explain their plan, but we need to think of what our terms will be to be what they want of us." she explained. They had to maintain some measure of power in this. Without them, the others had nothing.

"Why do they even want to do this? It don't make any sense to put an uneducated bastard on the throne." Gendry splashed into the water, falling onto his back, upper body floating on the top of the water.

Arya rolled her eyes. "Doesn't not don't. And it's not about who they're putting on the throne it's that they have the control over you and you are the who."

She was an awful know it all. He smiled, at least she was getting back to her normal self with him. He splashed water at her, blinding her momentarily but achieving his goal, to aggravate the wolf. Never being on to take an attack sitting down, she retaliated with zealous, using both hands instead of one. That was all it took to start the fight between the two. Before long she had her legs wrapped around his waist and his neck wrapped in her arms from behind. "You had better yield of I will be forced to take further action." He could hear her grin.

Looking at her over his shoulder with a cocky smile he grabbed her tiny arms, each by the wrist and pulled them away from his neck. He could feel her fighting it with all her might but she was a small little thing, (Too tiny, he thought again, trying to remember to give her some of his portions tonight) and had very little chance against his strength.

Though she was not strong the girl was quick, and resourceful. It only took a few tugs to escape Gendry's grasp in the water, and as soon as she did she fell from his back and into the water. Once under she pushed off his legs with force and swam underneath, away from the bull. When she came up some distance away she saw him grinning and walking after her, wading heavily through the waist high (to Gendry at least) water. "You can't swim?" she asked with a knowing smirk. Wading was the slowest way to reach her. If he could swim he would be able to reach her fast with his arm strength alone propelling him.

"Cheeky little Lady today" He grumbled as he continued to try and catch the wolf. They stayed that way for a while, Gendry splashing about clumsily trying to catch the wolf who seemed to remind him more of a river otter at this point. He eventually quit trying to catch her and waded his way over to shore. With a heavy sigh he fell back onto the grass and let the sun warm his wet skin. He didn't even hear her as she made her way out of the water. "How are you so quiet?" He said after he opened his eyes and found her lying next to him, arms behind her head.

She shrugged. "My dancing master taught me to be quiet as a shadow and quick as a snake. He used to make me practice for hours. Chasing cats, standing on one toe at the top of the stairs, walking on dried leaves and making no sound."

For while it was silent between them. Him thinking on the future, on what Lord Beric wanted with making him of all people a king, and her thinking on the past and lives lost. "What will we do Arya?" he asked after a while, not knowing how to handle any of this. He was a simple man, wanting nothing more than a wife one day at most, not asking for titles or lands or any of the responsibilities that came with them. He only wanted to be content.

She turned on her side and looked at him with big grey eyes. They were stormy, he noticed, not hard like steel as they had been with Lord Beric and Thoros earlier. She was different with him. "We come to terms to protect ourselves. They won't let us leave, even if we say no to the deal. So, instead, we use them while they use us. But we must remember, it isn't about them or what they want." He rolled to his side as well so he could watch her, give her his full attention. When he did that she reached out again and took one of his hands. "We will survive and we will fight for us. We are family."

He smiled. He had never had a family but as he stared into her stormy eyes, swirling with emotions he couldn't quite read, and felt the warmth of her small hand in his, he decided that he would like it.

xoxoxo

Lord Beric

He watched the children splash and play from the tree line, careful to conceals his presence. He felt like he was looking back in time, before he had been killed, even the first time, before the world he knew was torn into battle and blood and death. They were too young to understand what he saw, what was happening to them, but he could see it plain as day. That boy loved that girl, with all his heart. That girl loved that boy, with the last bit of humanity she had left, she clung to him.

They were too young to understand what was pulling them together. She was still a girl, too young to feel the pull of a man over a woman. The boy was too innocent to understand why he wanted to touch her, why he would poke and prod her to make her mad. All in time though. He thought gravely, a feeling of foreboding overwhelming him as he thought of the day when the two realized their love for eachother. Nothing good had ever come from a Stag loving a Wolf.

"Making sure the little Lady's honor isn't besmirched?" came an entertained voice from behind him. He turned and found Anguy leaning against a tree, quiver and bow on his back.

Lord Beric smiled warmly at Anguy and shook his head lightly. "I doubt it is him we will have to worry about when it comes to the Lady's honor." Lord Beric said warmly. That boy was born good.

Anguy barked a laugh at that. "I wouldn't be so sure mi'Lord. Even the best man can turn to beast in the Autumn moon." He watched as the two began wrestling again. He would tickle her until she got away, but all knew that had he wanted to, all he would need to do was not let go and she would not be able to escape. He was twice her size and still growing strong. The girl wouldn't get much bigger if Anguy had to guess, her growth being stunted at an important time for height from lack of food. "When she becomes woman we'll have to watch him."

Lord Beric was surprised by this comment. He never once thought that it would be Gendry that they would have to watch, but rather the wild she wolf that was now on top of the boy, beating down on him with tiny fists. "I think she is going to be the issue…" he grumbled, already worrying as to how to handle the change that would soon be upon to feral child.

Anguy watched still, eyes never leaving Gendry. "I have sisters mi'Lord. One of them was like the little Lady, more boy than girl. She always ran around with a boy from the farm down the road. They did everything together, from the time they were quite small. And the lad was good, as good as they come. But one day, when they were alone, swimming, he got too tempted by her changing form." As if on cue, Gendry grabbed both of Arya's wrist as they came toward him, for another blow that would not hurt, and flipped the girls position to her back, her wrists above her head, pinned in one of his much larger hands. He tickled her then, not letting her squirm away this time, using his body to hold her still.

"It's not his fault. Women have this power and the one's like her are the worst. They don't even know what they're doing until it's too late."

Lord Beric felt that feeling of foreboding return. "She will take after her Aunt in all ways it seems."

xoxoxoxo

Thoros

The old priest was ready to settle in for the night, his bones tired and his mind hazy from the wine. Tomorrow would be another day, but tonight he would rest. As he dropped down into the furs he slept on near the centre fire of the main chamber, he uncorked the wine skin he had on his person at all times. After a long pull of the wine he let his eyes unfocus into the fire, in an almost meditative state. He wasn't really thinking of anything, just being. He rarely got moments like these living life like a bandit, constantly on the run. Surrounded by all his brother's though in the safety of their cave hideaway, he allowed himself a moment to let go and drop his guard and simply be.

The moment was far too short though as a small unlady like little urchin had decided that moment to bring herself into his company. With no warning whatsoever, the little she wolf landed on top of his back, pushing him face first into the floor. With more pain than should have been, he cursed his aging body, he let out a groan and pushed himself up, effectively throwing the child off of him. "What in all thing good in this world are you doing?" he seethed after fulling raising himself into a seated position again and turned to glare at the little wolf and her ever present bull pet.

"It was an accident." Arya said with narrowed eyes, picking herself up off the ground and brushing her already dirty clothes off.

"And might you explain how one simply, accidentally falls on top of someone?" The raised a brow, waiting for the girls response.

"Accidentally." she said simply with a sly smile. He eyes showed him darkness in her but she was still young, just a mischievous, spoilt girl.

"Your father should have reigned you in long ago. Now I fear there is no doing it." Thoros said with a shake of his head and sip of his wine. "So, I assume you're both here to hear us out then?"

Gendry nodded, still yet to speak. He looked pale, and woozy. She had already given him the worst blow. The rest would be easy enough.

"I'll get Beric than. Grab your dinner and come and sit with us." With that Thoros left them, walking to get Lord Beric and begin a new era.

A/N: Not quite at 5,000, but this is part two. I will have another chapter out soon. Before Christmas definitely.

About Gendry and Arya, this will be a slow burn as she is only a little girl right now and he himself is only fifteen. She is eleven here. At this point they are family.

Next we see Sansa and the Hound! Let me know what you think in a comment and thank you for reading.