4.

Arya

She could have done without being woken early by a dragon. To make her disapproval clear, she came down to breakfast as late as she could without missing it altogether. She regretted her decision as soon as she sat down; her sister's stinking husband had already eaten everything good.

"How can anyone eat all that bacon?" she grumbled for the third time. He rolled his eyes at her; it was not a pretty sight.

"Shut up about it."

"And Bran set my pillow on fire," she sulked. Several voices sprung up at once;

"I got bacon!"

"Thought we said no fire –"

"Why did Bran set your pillow on fire?"

"I'll eat all the damned bacon I want to!"

"Bran, did you burn Arya's bed linen?"

Bran was stretched out in front of the fire at the other end of the hall, as still and placid as a stone sculpture of a dragon. He replied with a low, rather lazy, rumbling noise;

"He says she threw it at him, what did she expect?" Gilly translated mildly. She got up from the table and went over to sit beside Bran. The dragon pushed his nose up into her hand for a stroke. Arya watched her smile and bend in to tickle the massive creature and rolled her eyes at the way the two seemed to play with each other; it had to be the strangest friendship she had ever seen.

"Arya should know better than to throw her pillows at a dragon," her sister was saying, but before Arya could get too annoyed Sansa hailed down a serving girl and asked her to bring more bacon. She chalked this one up as a victory and stuck her tongue out at The Hound. She knew he wasn't The Hound anymore, not really, but she could not get the moniker out of her head all the same. He glared back at her witheringly and stuck his tongue out back at her when he thought Sansa was not looking. She was. She was always looking.

"Stop that you two!" she chided for the millionth time in her life – "Honestly, how old are you both – Arya you should know better and Sandor – you should really know better."

But she said it more affectionately, Arya noticed and kissed him lightly at the end of it. She watched him smile back at her sister just like a big dumb dog and interrupted them loudly with a round of retching sounds, finishing off with a resounding–

"Yuck!"

"Oh shut up!" Sansa turned back to her, temporarily forgetting that she was supposed to be the mature one – "Or I'll kiss you too!"

"Ewwww!"

"The children are better behaved than you!"

At the far end of the table Shireen and the little ones smiled angelically just to prove her right. Rickon glared and stabbed the table just to prove, she was sure, that he could be just as bad – almost as though he was proud of it. Before she could come up with another riposte Sandor intercepted the bacon that was supposed to be hers. She yelled, Sansa smoothed, Sandor grudgingly gave her half her bacon.

"He's such a pig," Arya grumbled with a mouth full of bacon – "You should have seen him eat pig's feet – you wouldn't have married him then."

"Oh, you should have seen yourself eat stew," he fired back.

"Well I learned it from you didn't I?"

"Go fuck yourself."

"Ohhh –" Arya raged, fighting for a reply – "Dracarys!"

Bran growled softly.

"He says -" Gilly blushed a little, but grinning – "Fuck off with your Dracarys."

"Sandor –" Sansa sighed, "Look, you're even teaching the dragon bad language."

Sandor made a noise that attempted to be a protest.

"You should have heard him go on about you," Arya headed into a new form of attack – "He never shut up about you, it was Sansa this and Little Bird that until I wanted to vomit –"

"Oooh Gendry –" Sandor mocked, to hide the fact that she was making him squirm with awkwardness – "Gendry's so pretty, he could take you any day, you should see his muscles –Spending the day at the forge are we? How many blades do you need?"

"Oh shut up!" lame though it was she had gone red. She threw a bit of bacon at him. He ate it.

"Thanks."

"Oh how lovely," Sansa sighed with weariness at the both of them – "It's good to see one of you learning manners."

Arya's eyes were tired from rolling;

"I'm going out!" she grunted – "Enough of you all, I'm going –"

"Going where exactly?" Sansa asked gently, though Arya could hear the smile in her voice without having to look.

"Going down the forge," she muttered. She could hear Sandor's laughter ringing in her ears all the way out the door.

It was a beautiful morning in the courtyard, the sun streaming in over the walls, spreading a soft blanket of warmth across the stones that would toast them by midday. She stopped when she was far enough away from everyone and where they would not see and smiled to herself; the morning was going perfectly. The wake up routine of banter and abuse was almost as sweet and warming as the sunshine.

And now the gold warmed her face, a light breeze sent up the rustle of leaves and the smell of the trees, she could hear the ever thrilling sound of metal clanging reaching up to her from the forge and the day offered itself up to her in noise and smell and sensation.

She ran down to meet it.

_x_

I know, I know, this went kinda crack, eh well, I'll go more serious in the next one, which is gonna be Sansa again cause I can't stay away! – I may even do some pwp again finally!