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I loved all your reviews for the last chapter, and I would really like to know what you think about this one!
It's pretty long, I warn you!
THE SHE-WOLF OF THE RIVERLANDS
The moss under her paws was damp and slimy, as she made her way through the meadow that ran along the lake. The path was hard and dangerous: the coat of moss hid another deeper layer of mud that swallowed up the limbs of humans and animals alike, entrapping them. By the end of their struggle, they were so deprived of their energy that they would simply let themselves die, or quietly wait for other stronger or more desperate beasts to sniff out their blood, made sweeter and warmer by fear, and come to feed on them.
Moving with great care, she grabbed by the scruff of the neck one of her cubs, the black one, always jumping ahead of the others, always seeking trouble, and leapt across the swamp, leading the way for the pack.
Her other three cubs were taken care of by the other females, as they loped across the meadow.
They were her last litter, the sons and daughters of the black, one-eyed wolf with the big scar cutting his muzzle from left ear to his jaw – a parting gift from an enormous grey bear, before the pack had assaulted him and torn him to pieces – the wolf who won her after he had killed her previous mate; she had accepted it, as thus was the rule of the pack, but the black wolf did not really conquer her, didn't beat her in combat, as did the other one, the silver-haired one whom she had chosen, whom she had bonded with, so she didn't really have much respect for him, although she had borne him his cubs. After his encounter with the bear, the black wolf had become slower and weaker, and he would probably die in this swamp.
Her litter, luckily, took its strength from her: they all had her dark-golden eyes and grey fur, and she was proud of them. They were cubs of Winter, and Winter has finally come.
Her other pups, well, they weren't pups anymore: the eldest stood noble and confident, almost as big as she was, on the high ground surrounding the marsh, surveying the pack, considering its strength and weaknesses and biding his time. It would not be long before he claimed the leadership of their clan for himself. He had his father's same beauty, his silver coat glowing bright under the moonlight, and, beneath it, a fur purer than snow: he moved silent and graceful, blending into the landscape so completely to the point that even she couldn't find him if he wanted to disappear between the patches of ice and snow.
His sister, her daughter, the only one she had left, after she had lost two, still in the den, from cold and starvation right after whelping them, was dangerous and solitary: she trotted quick and wary over the mushy ground, a little bit apart from the brother, her teeth always bared and ready to tear anyone who dared to come closer without her permission. She loved her daughter, for she could see herself in her, like a mirror image: the same thirst for freedom and independence, the same lethal edginess. Soon she would leave to create her own pack, maybe to have her own litter, if she found a suitable mate wild and strong enough to claim her.
Behind her suddenly rose a sharp yelp: the black wolf, she gathered, at last entrapped in a quaking bog, sinking below the deceitful surface. She could hear him moving, flailing, trying beyond reason to free himself: this would only make him sink faster. She would know. She had seen it happen many times, now.
As the smell of his fear assaulted her nostrils, she didn't even turn: his cries for help and whimpers were growing weaker and weaker, but they couldn't stop to give him assistance, or they would probably die too, in this forsaken land.
It did not matter. Death would come for the unfit, for the unworthy.
Only survival mattered. And her cubs. Her cubs ought to survive this winter.
The survival of the pack fell on her: she had led them farther south, preying on animals and humans, she had kept them warm and sheltered and well fed, and when the weather had turned for worse, she had secretly rejoiced.
She belonged to the North and the cold never bothered her: while the other wolves of the pack were snarling and grinding their teeth, shivering from the tip of their ears to the tip of their tails, their limbs numb and freezing, howling their disappointment to the skies, she thrived in it. Her body had changed then, adapting to more extreme life conditions. Her grey fur had turned into a lush, silky coat, warm and dense, resistant to snow and rain, which made her look even larger, her eyes had become even more accustomed to hunting in the dark, and her legs were stronger and didn't fear the rough, bumpy path, nor the frozen ground.
As she shredded layers after layers, she felt as though nothing of what she once was had remained, except for the ever more distant memories of a previous life, fading like an echo, dissolving under new coats of snow.
Her sensory memory was the last thing, the only thing left tying her to her past: she remembered another litter, belonging to another life; she remembered the lukewarm taste of the milk suckled from her dying mother's udders, the taste mixing with blood and decay, and her mother's body supine in the snow, the stag's antler stuck deep into her throat.
And she remembered the warmth of the hands of the young human, almost a man, who picked her and her sister up and put them into the arms of the other one, the fake wolf smelling of salt and water and seaweed, and the smell of the pup-child, the one smelling like summer and weirwoods, and the brooding one whose blood ran faster and warmer in his veins. Like fire.
They were almost all gone now: her sister, of course, was the first to go, slain in her stead; then the grey brother faster than the wind, and the angry one – she thinks she misses him the most, for they shared the same savage rage, the same desperate need for freedom; and, lately, she could not feel anymore her other brother, the brave one, lost in the lands of the North. That had been harsh and painful: their connection had always been strong, and she had hoped, one day, to meet him again. Instead, now she knew that the next time they would be reunited, they would be enemies. She was with him, when he died. She remembered snow and yells and agony and blue eyes.
His golden eyes had become blue now, too.
The child, the wild boy who liked to fly and climb… his connection had become lost too, for a while, then came back, but it was as tenuous as a tendril of smoke, as though he was too far away for her to reach, up north in the immense expanse of the Land of Always Winter.
But what she still remembered the most were the loud shrieks of joy and excitement and the boisterous thumping of the girl's heart, when she run to her the first time. A little, noisy, skinny thing, with long face, big, grey eyes that were quick, curious and fiery. She remembered thinking that the child, a true wolfling, would be fun to train. Difficult, but fun.
Thinking about her brought a dull ache to her heart.
The girl sent her away to protect her, that she knew very well. But the memory of the sharp rocks thrown at her, the stones hitting her head and legs, still hurt more than she cared.
The pain she felt when she left couldn't have been sharper if she were to leave her own pups.
Those rocks weighed heavy on her mind.
That girl gave her a name, a name she couldn't even remember now, a name similar to a battle cry that reminded her of iron and water, and, in exchange, she had loved her. They were kindred souls.
For a little while she had managed to track her, so that she could still protect her at the best of her abilities, following her scent, still strong and close, for weeks, mixing itself with other human smells: the pup-boy who smelled of freshly baked bread and the other one, who smelled of leather, iron, fire and, as absurd as it seemed, stag, and the man without a scent and without a face; and after them, the girl's scent mingled with the feral smell of another creature, fearful and hurt behind the mask of the rabid, angry dog; then, all of a sudden, her scent became faint to the point that even she had troubles in detecting it among the other smells, the smell of smoke and fire coming from the two buildings of men, standing tall like gigantic twins across the river, and then above the smell of death and putrefaction. Until one day, the scent had simply stopped, and the girl had ceased to exist; she lost her trail in the place where human constructions ended and the great expanse of salty water, the water the animals couldn't drink, began.
She had almost lost all hope, when, three turns of the moon ago, the wolfling's scent had returned.
It was different, darker, full of relentless hatred and vengeance, like if it belonged to another person, or to hundreds of different people. She was baffled by it, for a while. How could anyone smell like themselves and at the same time like any other people? But it was her, that was unmistakable.
So close that her dreams had become her own.
She kept her distance, though: let her come to me, see if she can find her way back.
The unworthy will die; only the pack will survive.
These woods would soon bring them together again, of that she was sure; but she still didn't know if she would forgive or attack her.
I'll know when we'll meet again face to face.
For now, her only worry was to go through this meadow, without losing any other member of her pack: once they'd manage to walk past the peat bogs, trembling under their paws, once the swamp would be past them, they would be safe on higher ground and then, beyond the hill, they would see the lowland stretching out until it reached the cities built by men.
Time was on their side: it was their moment, the hour of the wolf, the hour of the dead rising; the winds of winter blew harsh and cruel, and the lone wolf never survives.
So she looked up to the moonless sky, and howled.
Her grey eyes popped open, staring ahead alert and ready at the bleak sky, her hand automatically grabbing the hilt of Needle, always strapped on her hip. She wouldn't unbuckle it not even while sleeping or if she had to go take a piss. She pulled herself up, sitting in the cold muddy soil and sniffed the air.
The smell of the smoke coming from the fire she had set on the Twins had disappeared long ago, concealed by other smells, but she thought she could still detect it, sticking obstinately to her clothes, for weeks after she had left the wild and dangerous streams of the Green Fork.
The weather was slightly less cold than it had been during the whole week: now snow had given way to a clammy rain, slimy with mud, its stickiness sweeping through her bones.
All around her, the ice weighting on the branches of oaks and alders was melting, giving the trees the look of weeping ghosts, their skeletal fingers swaying eerily to a non-existent breeze, pointing at her, both in accusation and in beckoning.
I've dreamt of Nymeria again, she thought, stretching and standing up from her makeshift bed made of leaves and moss inside the hollow she had dug up under the roots of a weirwood, to hide from the cold and the wild beasts which haunted the swamp. The pale bark was still encrusted in ice: she put her lips on it, warming the cold layer until it melted under her kiss, and avidly sucked the drops. The frozen water tasted of clay, stone, lichens and blood: an acrid, somewhat bitter tang.
The flavour of the forest.
Arya smirked. She felt like one of the Children of the Forest of Nan's old ghost stories, the ones Bran constantly asked for before going to sleep. She examined her hands as though she expected to see only four fingers with long, sharp black claws. Nan's tales always ended with High Heart and the sacrilege of Erreg the Kinslayer, who cursed the place forever. The nightmares resulting from the tales were made of shivering whispers among the trees, of fleeting touches of damp, rotten fingers, of mean, red eyes hiding under the bogs, of mad laughter and hushed weeping sounds echoing in the wind.
But now that she was mere miles from the hill of High Heart, there were no ghosts. Only her.
Only Death.
And Death doesn't bother itself with ghosts: the nightmares of her childhood were mild and pale compared to the dreams of darkness and vengeance that filled her up.
Dreams of blood and fire. And meat pies.
In the House of Black and White, Jaqen H'ghar, or whoever the Faceless Man truly was, told her she had finally become no one. But she knew better. In Braavos she had found her true self again: after the many weeks spent in darkness, her eyes had learned to see beyond the light, beyond the solid world, beyond its lies and games, and now she could see and hear everything, as if she were one of the greenseers of the legends.
When she was a child and her head swirled with dreams of becoming a knight, she had envied so much her brothers' training: sword fighting, archery, jousting were disciplines barred for her because of her sex.
Now she knew that swords, crossbows and knightly virtues wouldn't keep her and her family alive, in the war to come.
In Braavos she understood that she would have needed a whole new set of skills, a completely different kind of training, to do what she was supposed to do, to become what she truly meant to be.
She didn't harbour a true grudge toward the Waif, not really: yes, she had hurt her and tried to kill her more times than Arya cared to remember, but ultimately she had only been a means to an end. Jaqen H'ghar had fomented their animosity and rivalry to make her better: the Waif had been the final test.
And now the training was over.
She had left the House of Black and White with a purpose, finally knowing her own name, her true identity: the Faceless Man didn't have anything else to teach her. Once he had explained to her how to don and change one's face with another, she had laughed aloud: the trick was pretty simple, when one knew where to look, not more than smoke and mirrors. Some would call it magic, but the truth was a lot funnier and a lot more dangerous.
She had learned how to be a ghost a long time ago. To disappear, to blend, to go unnoticed. Now she knew how to act, to wear a mask, to pose as another person entirely. She thought of Lady Crane fondly. Maybe, when all this would be over, she'd join a mummer's company and travel all around the known world.
She had stayed hidden in Sisterton for several weeks, biding her time: there wasn't a better place to gather information than a smuggler's den. Posing as Mercy, a pretty wench serving patrons at the Belly of the Whale, Arya didn't have any problem in uncovering secrets, facts and rumours.
Men's tongues, she found out, became zealously loose if there was a sweet girl with green eyes and teasing dimples flirting with them, eager to listen to the wild stories coming from the North, particularly in the last months.
She could wait. Time was on her side.
Men liked to talk to her in jest about the death of Stannis Baratheon: the king with the flaming heart on his shield wasn't very popular among the smugglers and the pirates who landed on the Three Sisters, since the times when he was his brother's master of ships. When the news of the destruction of the army of the Lord of Light, led by a Red Priestess who reportedly could see the future in the flames, reached the town, Sisterton exploded in joyful songs and dances: the parties lasted for days, even after they almost ate and drank up all the provisions of stocked fish and meat for the upcoming winter. On the last day of celebrations, Lord Godric Borrell himself was seen at the head of a parade, where two dummies made of straws and twigs, their faces painted to resemble Stannis and his red whore, were hanged and put to the stake.
She had heard about the Great Sept of Baelor in King's Landing, the death of the Tyrells heirs and Tommen's suicide: she remembered him, a plump, silly thing covered in padding as Bran repeatedly hit him with a wooden sword.
''Tis pity that his bitch of a mother is still alive: I wouldn't mind seeing her burn!' one of the tavern's patrons had said and she had inwardly smiled in relief. Vengeance was still hers.
News from beyond the Neck was sparse and not always reliable: a sailor from White Harbor had talked about Sansa Stark's marriage to the Bolton Bastard and about the Flayed Man banner flying atop Winterfell. That hadn't made any sense at all. It took two more days, and the chuffed stories of a stranger coming from the Dreadfort, for Arya to learn the truth.
Later that evening, as she unceremoniously dropped the man's body into the bay's cold waters, she recited her names of hate: Queen Cersei, The Mountain, The Hound, Walder Frey, Ramsay Snow, Beric Dondarrion, Thoros of Myr, the Red Witch, Theon Greyjoy, Theon Greyjoy, THEON GREYJOY.
A few days later, she crossed the Bolton bastard off her list, when accounts of the so-called Battle of the Bastards reached the island. There was still discordant news about her brothers: hearsay was that Rickon hadn't been killed by the Kraken, but by Ramsay himself. The rumours about Bran were even stranger: people coming from Last Hearth and Karhold, trying to escape either the wrath of the Starks of Winterfell or the cruel bite of winter, spoke of a ghost that looked like Brandon Stark, haunting the Fist of the First Men, where he was seen riding a gigantic elk, while he gathered an army of Children of the Forest to fight against the Others and the wights.
White Walkers, wights…a deathly menace beyond the Wall, an Army that was said to have wiped out thousands of years ago, raised again against the realms of men…these hearsays were even crazier, but Arya had learned a long time ago not to judge merely on words.
Words are wind.
The only way to ascertain the veracity of gossip would be to go North, and see for herself. But, although the Direwolf might be gracing the battlements of her ancient home once again, Winterfell still had to wait.
She still had a job to do.
When she heard about the siege at Riverrun, with the Lannister army doing the dirty work for the Frey traitors, Arya knew where to go.
There were other names on her list to cross.
Places to be, people to kill.
On the road to the Twins, across the Bite and the Riverlands, she had learned everything she could about the Red Wedding: details, names, even what was served at the banquet. That's when the news about Jon having been proclaimed King in the North reached her. She hadn't been impressed, at all.
Because it had worked so remarkably well the last time, she had bitterly mused.
Infiltrating the Twins, lit up for celebration and with the guards even more loose than usual, had been painfully easy.
There were so many people either so drunk that they couldn't even piss straight or dozing off with their bellies full of stuffed trout, honeyed mutton and onion soup that no one noticed the new lass serving at the tables.
Later, when the blood spurting from Walder Frey's sliced throat warmed her hands and his body quavered under the last spasms of life, she felt she could finally breathe again.
Wearing the face of a page, she climbed down to the dungeons, freed her uncle and told him to take his wife and son and get the hell out of there, as fast as he could.
Then, while the house still slept, unaware of the blood staining the marble stones of the Great Hall, she set fire to the damned buildings.
To be really, really sure that what was dead stayed dead.
That's where the dreams began.
Dreams of moss and trees, and frozen hilltops, and golden eyes, calling out to her like a siren's song.
She hadn't planned to travel so deep into the Riverlands: her main target was still the capital, where the Queen was, and the Mountain, even if she heard that nowadays he went by another name, but her feet had driven her further south, almost all the way to High Heart, farther away from Winterfell, as though a force compelled her to keep going, searching for…she wasn't quite sure what.
South of Pennytree, the Riverlands had become one immense marsh: the Red Fork had flooded, swelled by the copious rains of the last weeks, thus changing drastically the landscape.
Arya had learned to move slowly in the mud, using long branches as walking sticks and meticulously checking the trail with them, before taking each step, to make sure the ground wasn't hollow below the surface and that it could support her weight.
It was a long, tiring progression, but to be swallowed into a marsh after she survived so many things would have tasted like a bad joke from the Gods.
So she patiently journeyed south, not really sure where her feet would take her, following the pull she felt in her dreams, letting reeds and thorny shrubs leave their bloody kisses on her legs and arms, crushing in her palms the leeches that glided under her shirt and pants during the night and envisaging it was Cersei's heart she was squeezing.
Worse than leeches were the flies and gnats, which didn't leave her alone not even when it had started raining again.
She lived on mud crabs, frogs and snakes, on acorns, red berries and the flowers and stems of wild lilies, like the little crannogwomen and men her father often spoke of fondly.
She found a turtle, on a foggy morning, and it was a feast for the ages.
It was nearly impossible to say how many days she had spent in the meadow, now: the sky was always covered, grey clouds full of rain and snow weighing down on her, and the nights were growing longer. Birds and bigger wild animals, predators and preys alike, had almost completely deserted the swamp, migrating south in search of milder climates.
Only the comforting howls of wolves kept her company in the night.
Once she caught a deer stuck in the mud: she got closer, Needle at the ready, but instead of giving it the gift of mercy, and salvaging what she could for a hearty meal, Arya had sat on the swamp's edge and watched fascinated, as the beast desperately attempted to free itself, only to be swallowed deeper and deeper, its cries more and more frightened, its forelegs flailing frantically, until two or three air bubbles erupted on the flattened grey-brown surface of the pond and silence descended again on the marsh.
But there wasn't only game in the woods: sometimes Arya felt as though she was followed, golden eyes staring down at her in the darkness only to disappear at the first bleak light of the morning. Shadowcats and wolves bigger than horses haunted the Riverlands, but she was more worried about the presence of human predators, than animal ones.
She was crossing a particular tricky patch of unstable peg blogs, when it happened again: the thin hairs on her arms and nape raised, as she sensed danger lurking from the edges of trees and bushes.
Needle was swift and ready; her left foot not so much.
The bog under her trembled without warning and in a second Arya lost her balance and sunk into the muck below, waist-deep. She tasted blood in her mouth, where her teeth had dug into her tongue.
She would not let the distraction to cost her her own life.
Unbidden, came to her mind words lost in the very fabric of time, words spoken in an exotic accent, an accent she had learned to love, to a little girl who looked like her, but wasn't her anymore.
Fear cuts deeper than swords.
Panic surged inside her, but she forced herself to stay completely still: she remembered the deer, how its movements only hastened its end. Her arms were still free: she tried to lie on her back, floating over the surface like a snake would, but her feet were trapped and she felt as though the mud was solidifying around her ribcage. Breathing was becoming difficult.
Not like this.
I'd look like a bloody fool if I die here in this fucking swamp.
Not today. Not today.
She tried to reach the branches of the weirwood stretching over her head, but there was nothing to grasp onto. If anything, it seemed that the twigs were growing farther apart, eluding her extended hand, as though pulled by an invisible force.
A rustling of leaves and bushes had her head spun around, searching for moving shades in the penumbra: if a shadowcat would find her in this predicament, dying suffocated would be the last of her problems.
She raised Needle as another noise from her left startled her and made her sink deeper.
"Come out and fight, you foul beast!"
"I've been called names before, but foul beast…"
Arya started.
Perched like some sort of bird of prey on one of the peat bogs in front of her, stood a woman, older than any other woman she had ever met, with white-bone skin covered in wrinkles and big, bloodshot eyes that surveyed her like she was the oddity.
She looked like the Crone herself.
Maybe just like the Crone, she could be moved to show guidance and wisdom.
"Help me!"
The old bat cocked her head in curiosity and stood up, balancing her bare feet like an accustomed, although decrepit, dancer.
Arya gathered that she could not have been four feet tall.
The creature skidded over the murky surface, somewhat gracefully and a lot swifter than her age would allow, and reached a more solid patch of grass, unscathed. Arya was still trying not to sink lower: she seemed to be able to brush something with the tip of her boot…the ground, or maybe…
"Get me out of here! Please!"
"Do you have a song to give me?"
What?
"Do you know the Song of Ice and Fire?" she asked, her eyes sparkling in excitement. "No, I suppose you don't. Nobody knows it, yet," crestfallen she added in a whisper, more to herself than to Arya, and exited from her field of vision.
Panic and annoyance fought in equal measure inside Arya: a crazy, albino woods witch, who talked in riddles and left her to die in the swamp, that was the last thing she needed, right now.
A truly disappointing end to my adventures: the lads would be inconsolable.
"Do you have money?" the woman's dismembered voice raised again, echoing through the trees.
Arya frowned: what in the Seven Hells would an old dwarf probably related to the Children of the Forest do with silver stags and golden dragons?
"I don't have anything to give you, nor money, nor songs," she called in the air.
"But you do have names," said the voice, this time from above her head. The dwarf was hanging upside down from the branches of the weirwood, her long, milky hair tickling Arya's nose: she looked like one of those mouse-like animals with that strange pouch over their bellies which the smallfolk of Braavos called didelphos.
"Names like drops of blood, names like faceless faces…" she sing-sang, her long claw-like nails scratching her forehead.
How does she know about the names?
"The names are mine," Arya growled and bared her teeth, suddenly on the defensive.
"One of those names doesn't belong to you, child. It belongs to the valonqar."
The woods witch disappeared again into the branches of the weirwood, the rustling of red leaves the only clue of her presence.
"This girl has many names, but only one death awaits her. You should have died a long time ago, you should have died many a hundred of deaths. In the belly of the Red Keep, on the road to the Wall, in the hall of Kings and Dragons, on the streets of the city of the Titan. But here you are. How many lives does this girl have?"
"Many," Arya said defiantly.
"Not enough," the old woman answered, voice thick with scorn and sarcasm.
Silence once again fell on the marsh; Arya craned her neck hopelessly. She could not feel her legs any longer, and her breath was coming out in laboured puffs. The mud had reached her chin, and she was growing more tired by the minute.
Then, all of a sudden –
"You'll die!"
The witch was standing once more on the bog in front of Arya, clearly amused by her startled reaction.
"Could you just stop doing that?!" she blurted, now positively freaking out. If this old witch didn't want to help her, Arya hoped that she at least would just leave her alone, so that she could die with some of her dignity still intact.
"Everyone will die. Valar Morghulis," the crone went on, with a caricature of a curtsey. "But you're not going to die in this meadow. You won't give me songs, money or names, so you'll repay this old, sad woman with life, instead of death."
She rested her eyes on the weirwood; Arya followed her line of sight, until it seemed to her that the branches of the tree were bending, bowing, leaning over her.
A trick of the light.
No.
It wasn't a trick of the light: the tree was flexing its white fingers toward her, forming a cradle of twigs around her upper body.
Arya looked up to her with questioning eyes.
"How would you know I won't kill you the instant I'm out of this marsh?"
The woman smiled morosely.
"Fire couldn't kill me. What makes you think you could?"
After a moment's hesitation, Arya put the hilt of her sword in her mouth and, with both her hands free, grabbed the branches. The weirwood gave a lurch and pulled her out of the marsh with a loud squelch.
The contact with the freezing air made her shiver instantly; the heart tree laid her down gently on the ground, then its branches retracted to their natural position.
"You're still a long way from home, little wolfling," the woman spoke in hushed tones, her eyes glossy and slightly out of focus. "You don't have to fear the bogs, you only have to fear the bird. Keep the stag close. And when the avalanche will come, the wolf who's not a wolf will fly to the end of the world and pierce the heart of darkness, and, after that, blue roses will blossom in the ice and the princess, with fire in her heart and storm in her eyes, will be cloaked in the lion's pelt."
Arya's eyes followed her as she scampered to a puddle of murky water and looked intently at her face reflected into the surface.
"The dragon has three heads…the dragon has three heads…Snow! Snow!...smell of burned trees over the hills…black wings obscuring the sun…a great darkness…a sea of fire and tears…you must go south to go north…"
The witch was making less and less sense. Arya should have run as far as her feet could take her, leaving her to her mysteries and visions; instead, the girl kneeled next to her, trying to see in the puddle what she was seeing: "Who are you?"
Her head snapped and her red eyes were now observing her, clear and sharp like an owl's.
"I'm no one," she said matter-of-factly, with a condescending smirk, as if Arya were none the wiser.
Was she mocking her?
Arya didn't like her, at all. But she didn't shy away, when the old woman reached out with a dirty, wizen hand. The touch on her cheek was surprisingly soft beyond the callouses and the signs of old age.
"Remember: a life for one death. Beware of the bird," she warned again.
A flock of ravens fled from the treetops, alarmed by some hidden menace; Arya sprang to her feet, alert and watchful, and tensely spun around, checking her surroundings and up, in the spaces between the trees' branches.
Up above, an eagle's high-pitched scream could be heard.
When Arya's eyes returned to the pond, the old woman had already disappeared into thin air.
After her encounter with the woods witch, Arya found that it was somehow easier to cross the marsh: the rains gave her a reprieve, and the mud under her feet had gradually solidified, making her steps more secure and the trail a lot less dangerous.
A pale sun had peeked out from the black clouds, gleaming shyly through the trees' branches. Her heart felt lighter: soon she would be able to hear the sweet babble of the Little Tumbler, the main tributary of Blackwater Rush, and surely the Wind's Ravines couldn't be much farther away. There, protected from cold and bad weather by the natural granite caves that opened inside the hills and mountains, Arya would finally be able to bathe, to scrub off this damned crust of mud which was making her skin itch almost painfully.
Only a few hours later, the swamp ended almost unexpectedly and, before her, the Waterfalls of Florian's Helm came into view, the drops of water vapour caught into the colours of a rainbow.
Here and there, spiky icicles hung from the edge of the rocks, the water still running wild under the frozen surface.
It was beautiful.
Arya smiled and, after a quick perusal of her surroundings to make sure she was alone, she stripped and dove in.
The water was so cold it left burning marks on her skin, but the feeling wasn't completely unpleasant. She grasped a handful of sandy pebbles from the riverbed and started vigorously scrubbing the mud away.
This was said to be the place where Florian the Fool found his sword, embedded into a stone at the feet of the waterfall, its hilt glittering with diamonds and topaz and jacinths.
Caliborne…Calabrun, Arya let out a long, wistful sigh, Sansa would know.
The cold was making her feet and hands go numb: all her muscles screamed with stiffness and her nipples were practically blue.
She was about to come out of the water when, above the roar of the waterfall, she heard a high-pitched yelp followed by a splash of water: desperately clinging to the slippery side of a rock, there was a wolf pup.
The stream in that point was stronger and the wolfling was struggling and getting weaker and weaker, but the water was also shallow, so Arya could get to him with relative ease as the water only reached her knees.
He must have fallen from the rocks up there; it's a miracle he avoided the stones in the river.
The poor thing, scared to death, scratched her breasts and shoulders in the desperate attempt to hold on and let out loud whines and wailings.
When they reached land again, Arya tried to catch him by the scruff, but the little demon bared its teeth and closed its jaws on her palm.
A little more than a nip to free himself, surely not to hurt her, but nonetheless Arya released him at once.
"You're welcome!" she called after him, holding her bleeding fingers to her mouth, while the pup vanished in the bushes' shadows on the borders of the woods.
But she hadn't taken more than two steps in the direction of her clothes, when she heard a low, deep growl coming from the trees.
This is not a pup.
She carefully backed away until she reached her sword and held her breath, as from the shadows emerged the biggest wolf she had ever seen.
It had thick, grey fur and golden eyes shining dangerously with hot rage; the pup was cowering between its long legs, as the beast stretched its head, frothing at the mouth, its muscles taunt and ready to strike.
It could not be a mere wolf, not with that size.
Arya heavily breathed in, as a sense of familiarity rushed from her memory: a scent of wildness lingering in her bedchamber and a warm softness under her hand while she slept, a giggle when a wet tongue would lick and gently bite the point of her ears, the sound of feet padding along beside her, never leaving her alone, the feeling of being herself and at the same time someone else outside her skin.
She remembered a time when she truly belonged.
Needle slipped from her hand and clattered on the ground, as realisation hit her.
"Nymeria…"
If the direwolf recognised her, or the sound of her own name, she didn't show; instead she bared her sharp teeth even more, in her eyes a savage brutality brought forth by rejection and hurt.
Overlooking the clear signals that screamed at her Do not come closer, or I'll rip your throat off, completely naked and unarmed, Arya took two steps toward the direwolf.
"Nymeria, it's me!"
But the wolf's growls only grew louder and her fur stood on end so that she looked even bigger. Arya stopped dead on her tracks.
I hit her. I've thrown rocks at her. She was my friend, my only friend, she had tried to protect me and I pushed her away.
A deep sense of misery emerged from within her, woe and ruefulness clenching her heart and lungs.
The wetness all over her cheeks came unbidden, as a surprise not entirely welcomed. If she were to be honest with herself, she didn't even think she could still cry, after all this time.
The realisation both confused and annoyed her.
It's been so long…the last time I felt this way was when Mother and Robb died.
She thought herself impervious to such girlish emotions, but Nymeria, her yellow eyes, was conjuring up such painful memories, so heavy on her heart, that Arya found herself crouched on the frozen ground, her bare knees bent and her empty palms held up in surrender, or maybe in the silent hope of a conciliatory hug.
"Forgive me."
The wolf flattened herself, ready to lunge, body stiff and ears lying flat against the head.
I don't care if she tears me to pieces, I only want her absolution.
"Nymeria, I'm sorry!" she literally bowed before her, her hands outstretched and beseeching, harsh breath puffing in clouds of condensation before her.
The growls relented and then stopped; Arya risked a glance upward. Nymeria was still in a predatory stand, but she wasn't grinding her teeth anymore; instead, slowly, very slowly, her snout drew closer, sniffing tentatively the air between them, until Arya could feel her warm breath over the point of her fingers. She didn't dare to close the little distance, but found herself leaning in, yearning for a touch.
Like coming home.
A distant howling into the woods broke the spell: Nymeria fell back, raised her muzzle and answered the pack with a long, guttural AHOOOO that ricocheted against the rocks of the waterfall and up in the snowy sky; then took her cub and left without looking back.
Only when her muscles became stiff and numb with cold, did Arya raise from her kneeling position and recovered her discarded clothes.
Five days went by, and as she followed the course of the river farther south, Nymeria wasn't doing anything to cover her tracks: she wanted Arya to know she was following her, testing her, to see if she was worthy to be taken back. But she didn't show up again.
For now, she could feel her moving close to her, like a second heartbeat, and, from time to time, at night she felt herself wrapped up in the warmth of her furs, even though, when she opened her eyes again in the morning it was to the loneliness of the woods and to a sore back, half-frozen against the hard ground.
On the sixth day's sunset, Arya finally came across human life: around a fire, eight men with mismatched armour plates were finishing in silence a frugal meal of rabbit soup and mushrooms.
The last remnants of the Brotherhood Without Banners, Arya mused as she immediately noticed Beric Dondarrion, the Red Priest and Anguy the Archer; the other four, Arya didn't know them, but the last, she would have recognised that burned face in a million.
How was he still alive?
What in the Seven Hells was he doing with them? Why weren't they at each other's throats?
Arya waited, concealed by night, until the fire died out and the men fell fast asleep, well wrapped up into their wool cloaks, their bellies full and sated; then, silent as death, she went to work.
After she had finished to set the traps and to tie hands and feet, she settled snugly across the camp fire and helped herself with the leftovers of the dinner.
"This is really good," she exclaimed loudly as she sucked the hollow of a bone, not caring about changing or hiding her own face. She wanted to be recognised. The men, spooked, started to rouse. "What did you add to get it so flavoured? Cilantro and fennel, I would say? We should share recipes: I make a mean meat pie!"
Anguy was the first to get on his feet, only to get his ankles trapped into one of her snares and to fall, face first, on the hard ground with a girlish yell. Beric tried to instinctively reach for his sword, as Thoros attempted to no avail to stand up.
"Don't bother. I took off all your weapons. I could have killed you all, and you wouldn't even notice."
The Hound didn't talk, didn't even move, but his eyes bore into hers, a weird glint dancing maliciously in them.
Was it admiration?
She remembered when she had tried to sneak up on him to hit him with a rock.
Kill me and you're free. But if I live, I'll break both your hands.
She was stupid, then; now, she could easily tie up nine grown men, allegedly dangerous men, without them even stirring.
Thoros of Myr looked like a sausage, red in the face both for the wine he had drunk from his flagon during their meal and for the strain of pulling at his ropes.
"We don't have money. As for food and weapons, we've got plenty: take all you need."
Arya almost laughed out loud; they had taken her for a common criminal, maybe a boy escaped from the waste caused by Freys and Lannisters to an already abused land, or a girl lured to the little camp by hunger and cold.
"I didn't come here to bargain in things, Thoros of Myr," she said, standing up into the light of the fire. Thoros, and Beric next to him, both let out a sharp hiss, as they recognised her. "You and your Lightning Lord are both on my list."
"What list? Who are you?" cried out the Archer, craning his neck to have a better look at her. The Hound's coarse laughter boomed in the night. Arya ignored him.
"Where is Gendry, Red Priest?"
"I don't know."
"You do not know. But you didn't hesitate to sell him for two bags of gold to the Red Witch."
"I've explained to you why it must have to be done. We needed the gold to help defend the smallfolk."
"Oh. And how many smallfolk have you been saving with that gold since then, pray tell?"
The Priest's silence was everything she needed to hear.
"Lady Arya…"
She turned to Beric Dondarrion, her name and title strange and foreign to her own ears.
"I knew your father, some six or seven lifetimes ago…he was a true pain in the ass, constantly repeating those thrice-damned words: Winter is coming. Well, here we are. We're travelling north, to join up with your half-brother's army against the menace that's rising from beyond the Wall. If you wish to kill us for what we did to Gendry, go ahead. Nobody could say we didn't deserve it, and I personally would welcome the Stranger with joy and relief, like an old friend. But with the Boltons defeated, your place is at Winterfell, among the rest of your pack. There might be darkness and coldness in your heart, but your flames still burn warm and bright below the embers, I can see that. Come with us, fight with us. We'll need all the help we can manage. And maybe at the end of the journey, you'll find a small amount of freedom and peace from whatever it is that's eating you."
Freedom and peace.
Such risible concepts.
Her freedom and peace could only come when all her enemies would be dead, their blood warm on her hands.
"I won't come with you. But I'll let you walk away unscathed, so that you can reach the Army of the Northlands and fight whatever's rising from the snow. I'll spare your sorry lives, for now, in exchange for his," she raised her arm and pointed at the scarred man to her left.
"Sandor belongs to the Brotherhood."
"The Hound belongs to me."
"I don't belong to fucking anyone," the Hound, who had been silent throughout the conversation, blurted out, "less of all you, sodding Stark bitch!"
Arya cocked her head toward him, her lips thin in annoyance.
"You're coming with me, whether you like it or not. I could put you to good use for what I must do. Besides, you still owe me. I spared your life."
"Owe you? You left me to die after that dumb bitch almost beat me to a pulp!"
"Aye," she chuckled, "that was bloody fun to watch."
The Hound sneered in contempt.
"Look at you, all grown up! Your tits got bigger, but brain's still the size of a coin. I won't follow you, so you go ahead and kill me now. I am on your damn list, too, after all, am I not?"
Arya paused and studied him: in the past months his name had done nothing but get on and off that list, depending on which mood she would wake up in the morning. She couldn't make up her mind just yet: Clegane saved her ass on several occasions, he stopped her when she would have run to her own death at the Twins, he protected her along the way, and got her safely to the Eyrie. But he had served Joffrey and killed Micah…although she couldn't even remember anymore what Micah had looked like.
It was unnerving.
"You're currently not on the list. Doesn't mean you couldn't be back on it, come sunrise."
"What are you planning to do, anyway?"
"She wants to go to King's Landing and kill Cersei," Thoros said amicably, as though they were chatting about the weather.
Arya savagely smiled down at the Hound and added: "And your brother."
"My brother's already dead."
"Perhaps, but the Mountain's still walking and killing innocent people. Don't you want revenge for what he did to you? To your father and sister?"
For the first time, the Hound faltered.
"How do you know –"
"He might not be breathing, but he still lives, I tell you. If you don't believe me, ask your Red Priest. You've seen him in your flames, didn't you?"
Thoros glanced at Clegane and nodded once.
"If I come with you, you'll let the others go?"
She bowed her head in tacit approval.
"Alright…" he raised his tied-up hands. "Untie me, then."
Arya pulled out from behind her back Thoros' dagger and stepped across his legs to cut the ropes straining at his wrists.
She felt him watching intently her every move.
"Where did you learn to do knots like this?" he asked, genuinely curious. She let out a small grin.
"From Braavosi sailors."
As the Hound freed himself from the other ropes around his torso and ankles, Arya cut down another man who ended up upside down, suspended from a tree, one leg trapped into the snare, the other flailing and making him comically twist on himself.
"We'll take two horses," she stated, as the man fell on the ground with a loud thud and a groaning. "Don't try and follow us. I'll know. And if I happen to hear that Gendry is dead," she added to Thoros in softer tones which did nothing to hide the steely menace under it, "I'll come for you: you'll be praying to your God of Light to make the pain stop, then."
"Don't I already?" he breathed out.
She thrust his dagger in the ground, few inches from his wrists, so that he would be able to cut the ropes by himself, and left, the Hound right behind her, silent and gloomy.
During the next few days, as they travelled south of Stoney Steps by horse, the Hound had been trying to coax the story of her whereabouts out of her, only to be met with icy stares and flicks of itching fingers on Needle's silvery hilt.
"Had I known you'd become so dull, as well as an expert on sailors knots, I would have saved myself the trouble and stayed behind with the Brotherhood. They're not particularly funny, but at least they've got wine."
"You still can turn your horse around and go back."
The Hound huffed like a petulant child, but didn't leave.
He can't, she thought smugly.
He wanted to reach King's Landing as much as Arya did: after all, she had promised him he would do the honours when they'd meet the Mountain.
Hate was a powerful motivation.
Exasperation was another, she considered, rolling her eyes, as her companion started again to hum another verse of Her Little Flower.
I'll end up killing him before we even reach the blasted Crownlands.
"Someone is following us," he said suddenly, interrupting the song right when the knight put his nose inside the lady's petals to get a good sniff.
"That's Nymeria," Arya confirmed, adding hastily: "my direwolf."
The Hound let out a bark of recognition.
"The fuckin' direwolf. You should have let her rip Joffrey's throat; would've saved us a lot of troubles."
Troubles did catch up with them, for a change, just across the Blackwater Rush: they hid behind a patch of bushes as the host of armed men, around a thousand soldiers, paraded across the land, their red-and-gold armours perfectly discernible even from a distance.
The gall of them.
They were taking a secondary road, less travelled and away from the Goldroad, probably for the same reason they were – to avoid troublesome encounters, but they were heading to Casterly Rock, that much was a given.
"That's Jaime fucking Lannister," The Hound said, pointing to a knight on a white courser at the head of the host.
She could barely make him out, but she had no reason to doubt the Hound's words. The dim light cast by an opaque sun reflected on the patches of snow and on his golden hand, that absurd, ugly, useless thing she had seen him wearing strapped on his right wrist at the Twins.
She did not know the whole story of it, just snippets and scraps.
A plan was quickly forming in her mind; surely she could spare some time to take care of the Kingslayer, and hear the woeful tale of his maiming.
The Queen would have to wait. She had another lion's pelt to collect.
As her eyes trained on the still handsome knight clad in red and gold, Arya smiled, already foretasting her satisfaction when she would look upon Cersei's pretty face, and roll at her feet her twin's golden head.
Arya is on the hunt and out for blood.
I have to admit that my little psychopath she-wolf is truly a joy to write and her chapters are usually engaging on many levels, character and style-wise. Opening this chapter with a Nymeria POV was risky, but I'm glad about how it turned out: it might even be one of my favourite parts yet.
With Arya and the Hound finally meeting up again (and Nymeria lurking along the way), I'm finally – slowly – building up the narrative to the first big reunion between some main characters previously scattered around Westeros. Familiar faces will turn up and there will be other reunions to look forward to!
Arya also revealed the answer to some of you questioning what Jaime meant when he talked about going "home": we're all going on a day trip to Casterly Rock, my summer children! Yay! So expect a chapter full of CR goodness, soon!
Ahh, the woods witch and her riddles…I'd like to know what you all think about it!
(The didelphos are nothing but opossums: "didelphis" is simply their genus scientific name; Caliborne/Calabrun is of course a reference to Arthur's Excalibur).