Fanfiction only. I own no part of Game of Thrones.

Prettier Lies

"Where the fuck you think you're going?"

"With you."

Clegane glowered down at her, but Arya pretended not to notice. She cinched the saddle's girth tighter and mounted.

It had taken nearly three weeks of threats and dirty looks, but Clegane had seen to it that the maester's vile potions slithered down her gullet. At first, he had held her nose and craned her head back to force her to keep them down. Once when she spewed the third medicament down his chest, he'd only given her the filthiest possible look before uncorking the first and starting all over again.

"Why the fuck are you doing this? I left you to die, remember? You ought to have the decency to let my gut rot in peace."

Arya coughed and began to heave. Clegane clapped a hand over her mouth and held her head in a vice grip.

"Maybe I'm healing you up so I can have the pleasure of carving you up myself."

Arya clenched her teeth and willed her stomach to accept the maester's tarry concoction. She moaned against Clegane's palm and heaved into her mouth. Clegane's hand didn't budge. She glared up at him in deepest misery, but he shook his head grimly, the whisper of a grin curling one side of his mouth.

"Swallow."

When Arya complied, he released her, and she staggered away, wiping her mouth on her sleeve. "You really are the worst—"

"Worst shit in five kingdoms. Aye, so you've told me."

Now that Jon was mustering to ride out against the White Walkers, she'd be damned if she'd be left behind subject to Lady Sansa's dominion. She'd take the ice and the dead and Clegane's foul temper any day over that.

Clegane guided Stranger closer and hissed, "Why?"

Arya turned her horse so she didn't have to meet his gaze. She shrugged nonchalantly. "I've never seen the Wall."

"Aye, and you're not going to see it now." Clegane grabbed the gelding's bridle and pulled its head round so he'd stop dancing around the courtyard and Arya was forced to look him in the face. "We're not stopping at the Wall. We're riding out to face the White Walkers, and you're in no fit state to ride, little lone fight." He glanced witheringly at the young Northmen scurrying past and lowered his voice. "Most of us won't come back. I probably won't come back. I can't promise I will be able to bring you home safe."

"I got here safely on my own once. I can do it again."

Clegane narrowed his eyes at her and color rose up his neck. "Oh, aye, a fine job you did. If I hadn't drug your stupid ass to the maester, you'd have been coughing up blood within days from a belly full of rotting gut wounds. The Stranger would have taken you, and you'd be in your tomb next to Rickon."

He released her horse's bridle turned away bitterly, but she grabbed the leather strap on his gorget and drug him back. He glanced from her hand to her face, his eyes smoldering.

They glared at one another for a tense moment until Arya dropped her gaze guiltily. "If it weren't for you, I'd have died a long time before I got a knife in the belly." She met his eyes again. "I know you'd have brought me all the way if you could have. It wasn't your fault."

Something changed in his eyes, and his sneer lost some of its ferocity. She continued, "We were both safer when we rode together. I saved you from a knife in the back more than once, and I was a child then. I'll do better this time." Arya released him and sat up in her saddle. "If the day comes when just one more blade could have made the difference, I'll gladly have my blood mingle with yours in the snow to save the North."

Clegane glanced at Jon, striding through the courtyard and issuing final orders. "Does he know?"

Arya snorted. "Jon's busy being the King of the North, and Sansa reigns as Lady of Winterfell. No one really believed I was alive until I walked through the gates. I'm sort of a spare Stark, really. I won't be missed."

"You're still a Lady of Winterfell."

A sly smile curled the corner of her mouth. "I'm no one. The White Walkers have snatched a great many deaths back from the one god, and I'm going to help you retrieve them. Valar dohaeris."

Clegane released her horse's bridle and shook his head. "You're a woman grown. You can decide for yourself, but don't come on my account."

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

After all the carrying on about the Dothraki hoarde and the Unsullied warriors, Jon didn't wait for Danerys's forces to join them. Instead, he marched them northeast at a blistering pace. She supposed she should have been more concerned about where they were going and why, but it was sufficient for Arya that they had left Winterfell behind and there was killing to be done ahead.

Arya and Clegane rode towards the back of the column amongst the Wildlings, so it was days before Jon realized that his sister was in their midst. When he did find out, he was furious. He tried persuading Arya to ride and camp with him, but she staunchly insisted on riding with Clegane. Clegane said nothing, and they returned to the comfortable rhythm she remembered from when they rode together through the Vale and Riverlands. He tended their horses while Arya made the fire, and it was a rare day when she didn't take a hare or goose with her bow while they rode.

Now that she could tolerate eating meat again, Arya felt her strength returning and her spirits rose. She engaged in her usual bickering with Clegane with zeal, but it lacked the animosity it once had. Arya was surprised how often she could surprise him into smiling or laughing with her. She still asked many questions, but they were well thought out and to the point. Most often, he answered civilly, and as they rode north, she was able to pry much of what had happened to him since they had parted. In turn, she told him of her time in the House of Black and White.

"You were so hell-bent to get to Braavos. What did you do when you got there?"

Arya sighed and glanced around. Most of the camp had settled in early, and aside from a few Wildlings telling stories and drinking several fires away, they appeared to be the only souls still awake.

"I went to the House of Black and White to find Jaqen H'ghar."

"The fuck's the House of Black and White?"

"It's the temple of the Many Faced God." The corner of her lips quirked up. "There's a statue of the Stranger there. It's dark, and your days are spent tending the dead or ushering the living towards death. You'd like it." Clegane grunted noncommittally and tossed bones from the hare they'd roasted into the fire. Arya watched them sizzle and crack. "It's where I learned to be a Faceless Man."

Clegane glanced up. "Mummery and horse shit. I've heard tales about Faceless Men my entire life and never seen one."

Arya lifted her brows. "Do you want to?"

Clegane sat back and shrugged. "Aye."

Arya rose gracefully from the fire to retrieve the satchel that she kept close at all times. She'd seen Clegane's eyes on it more than once, and she knew he was curious, but not so much that he'd pry. She knelt a few steps into their tent and laid the satchel upon the wolf skins that served for her bedding.

"Come closer."

Clegane glanced around and repositioned himself so that the flickering light from the fire filtered into the tent, but his bulk shielded its entrance from prying eyes.

Arya lifted a glass vial to Clegane in salute. "Valar morghulis."

After taking a sip of the vial's contents, she capped it tightly and stowed it inside the satchel. She glanced at Clegane nervously, praying he'd stay silent when he saw. Arya drew out her Valyrian blade and quickly sliced around the edges of her face. Alarmed, Clegane scrambled to her side intending to seize her blade. Arya held out a hand to forestall him. The color drained from his face as her blood crawled and itched its way over her features. Arya selected a face from the satchel, and when she turned again to face Clegane, his eyes went wide and his jaw fell slack.

Arya sat very still for several minutes, watching him study her features. Sparkling green eyes, freckles, and an upturned nose had replaced her natural born face. Lustrous flaxen hair tumbled over her shoulders nearly to her waist. She'd chosen the prettiest of her female faces, knowing that the transformation would create the most dramatic contrast to her dark Northern appearance. Transfixed, he stroked a blunt finger down her sun-kissed cheek.

His throat was thick when he asked, "Can you feel my touch?"

Arya shrugged. "I can and I can't. It's as though I feel her feeling it."

He squinted hard at her before shaking his head in wonder. "You don't look like yourself, but I can still see you beneath. I'd know that smart mouth anywhere." When Arya grinned, he did too. Softly, he continued, "Aye, there you are."

Arya drew her fingertips over her features, and the second face flowed away like silk to resolve itself into a mask in her hand. She held the face out to Clegane, and he took it hesitantly. Holding it gingerly between his enormous hands, he stroked a finger down the bridge of the pert, freckled nose.

"All my life I've wanted to change my face. I'd have gladly killed anyone they wanted if I could have done it. To know that it could have been done so easily . . ."

Arya wrapped her arms around her legs and gazed into the fire, remembering. "It wasn't easy. They took my sight, broke my bones, beat me bloody more times than I could count, and damn near carved out my guts, but that wasn't the worst of it. They wanted me to give up everything I am to become a Faceless Man. My name, my family, my past, my future, my free will. Everything I loved . . . all my hate." She flicked her eyes up to look at Clegane. "In the end, it was my list, my hate, that I couldn't let go of. I was supposed to learn to be the soulless blade of the Many Faced God, but I failed."

Distantly, Clegane answered, "I could do that."

"Changing your face would have changed everything you are."

Clegane glared at Arya. "Aye! Wouldn't you rather have pretty young boy than a ruined, rabid dog to look at?"

Arya carefully drew the face from between his slack fingers. "She's much more beautiful than I am. Would you like me better if I wore her face? Exchange the wolf bitch for a southern lady? Perhaps we can try for a few days—"

"No!" Arya cocked a brow, and he growled softly. "No. I prefer the truth of who you are than a prettier lie."

Arya put away the face and clasped the satchel. She stood and looked down at him, her eyes hard. "So do I."