AN:

Thanks for all the great reviews you all have left me. This chapter only mentions Gendry, but I have Gendry's chapter done, so I will post that soon.

Chapter 4

The trees blended into a vast, dark blur all around her as she sped around them with raw freedom. She was led by her nose and followed by her grey cousins.

Down a slope they ran in unison, the bright moon above them lighting their way. They were not too far now. She could smell the group of men by the river. She could hear their hearts beating, counting down the seconds they had left to live.

Water splashed as they cut through a small stream. They are just over that hill.

And then her teeth sunk into a tender neck, the taste of blood as sweet as summer air, shocking her into ecstasy. Her nostrils flared.

She tore off flesh from bone and relished in the wet, choking sounds that the man managed before the life left him.

There were agonized screams all around as her pack tore the men to pieces. It was music to her ears.

Arya cracked her eyes open a fraction and saw total darkness. She shut them quickly, trying to grasp the lingering visuals from her dream. The silver forest, reflecting the moon light off every possible surface. The dark crimson blood, pooling out of her victims... all those vibrant images were fading from her mind's eye. She frowned against the mattress. There was a knot on the small of her back, so she turned on her side with a wince. Her mouth tasted sour and any trace of the taste of blood had left with her dream. It made her feel heavy with sadness.

Once she had dressed, her nose led her to the kitchen in the same way it had led her to her prey in her dreams.

"And who are you this morning?" the kindly man was already sitting in the table, eating his eggs.

"Beth. Blind Beth."

"Would you like to see again, Blind Beth?"

Yes. "Not today." she sat at the end of the table. "Ask me again, come morrow."

She didn't need eyes to know the kindly man simply nodded at her answer.

"What three new things have you to tell us that you did not know before we last spoke?"

Arya blinked, a habit she had formed after trying to hold back from biting her lip. "The boy I mentioned the other day. I found out he is tall."

The kindly man swallowed his food. "Does he have a name?"

"Doesn't everyone?" Arya heard him exhale sharply in annoyance. "He gave me his name, but it was a lie. So I just think of him as Hollow, since that is all I picture in my head when I speak to him. A hollow person."

"A tall, hollow person." the kindly man's voice was almost mocking. Arya nodded. Umma placed a plate of warm food in front of her. Arya's mouth watered as the pungent smell of cooked peppers reached her nose. "Do you speak to him often? This friend of yours?"

He is not my friend. "Beth has no friends." she stabbed her fork into a slice of pepper and pushed it in her mouth. It was slick with oil. Yellow peppers. Her favourite.

"What about Cat of the Canals? Does she have friends? And Arya of House Stark. Did she leave any friends behind in Westeros?"

Arya swallowed the food in her mouth, licking at the oil in her lips. I had friends. She thought bitterly. A pack. Two boys she had picked up along the way when the gods had split apart her first pack, her family. In a way those boys had become her family. But then... then they left her.

"No. Arya has no friends back in Westeros."

For a long moment, there was no answer. Arya thought the man was gone. He had a habit of sneaking in and out of rooms unnoticed. It made her toes curl with irritation.

Finally, after a long, drawn out silence, he asked, "What else did you learn?" making his presence known.

After breakfast she went to find the dead bodies in the temple. It had been a busy night. She found five corpses. The serving men carried them down to the vaults where she stripped them of their clothes and possessions. She thought of nothing in these moments. She only worked, trying to visualize what was before her. Her fingers were her eyes in the darkness and with them she could see the corpses, their faces, their simple or intricate outfits. The last expression on their faces when they had exhaled their last breath. Some died smiling. Others still had sticky faces from the tears they'd shed.

While unlacing the jerkin on one of the men, she found a small folded piece of paper stitched on the inside of the softened leather; near his heart. Arya blinked in the darkness and began picking at the stitches with her nails. It took her a while. The stitches were thick and tightly woven, but they finally gave and she pulled at them until the paper came loose. She unfolded it and let her fingers graze over its surface. All she could feel were the creases in the paper and the small holes that dotted all around it from the stitches.

Arya did not know what drove her to do it, but when she folded the paper she didn't place it down with the rest of the belongings. She slipped her hand under her robe and tucked it into her small clothes.

She resumed her duty, feeling the corners of the folded paper poking at the soft skin of her hip as she moved over the corpses.

That evening, when she had gone out to beg by the canals near the Green Eel, she came close to discarding the thing twice. It rested noticeably against her hip and distracted her from listening to her surroundings. It even distracted her when walking. The bump on the bridge came out of nowhere and her walking stick broke with a strained crack when she tried to stop her fall with it.

"You have one skinned elbow and a fractured wrist." the waif finished wrapping her wrist up and pushed the cup of milk under Arya's nose. "Drink." she commanded, and Arya gulped it down quickly, holding back a gag.

There was no safe place to hide the paper. Arya thought about sneaking out later and hiding it with Needle, but as she stretched on her back that night she decided she would roll it up as tightly as she could, and push it through a small tear on the side of her mattress. She padded it out so that it could get lost amongst the rags and laid on her side, closing her tired eyelids. She would be in the forest soon. The winter breeze in her fur. The starry night above her.

"Cersei." her lips moved to form the name.

"Ser Gregor."

Note: don't forget to review!