Chapter 9:
"Are you sure about this?" Robin asked the girl standing next to her.
The Thousand Sunny was docked at Eastwatch and they watched as the huge army of wildlings led by crows started marching. The women, children, and every wildling now south of the Wall were heading to Castle Black where they would decide what to do with them.
Arya stared into the distance and at the men in black cloaks in front of the thousands of wildlings. The one in the front seemed to look back for a second and she knew Jon was looking back at her. She gulped and nodded her head, "One month, I'll see him in a month."
While Luffy, Zoro, and Usopp were sleeping off their injuries, the rest of the crew met up in the kitchen when they arrived at Eastwatch. Arya was confused why they called her too, but they said she was a full member of the crew now and it didn't matter how long she'd been there.
At the meeting, someone suggested going South, but then Robin made a point. If Nami wanted to make a map of the entire islands of this strange land, then they were already so far north. It would be a waste not to go around the top of the island now when they'd have to return sooner or later.
They asked Arya how long it would take and the girl had no idea. She said no one she knew of had ever gone far enough past the Wall to see the end of the frozen waste.
The pirates knew the land couldn't go on forever since they were still on the Grand Line. A continent this huge would have to end sometime and there was enough land south of them that they didn't think it would be much farther north. Nami agreed with Robin and the plan was set.
Franky asked their new member if she was coming and they all looked to the end of the table where she stood. Arya told them that she'd follow them and keep getting stronger while she did. What she didn't mention was that the last week was more fun than she'd had in the last seven years, no, her whole life. She didn't want it to end so soon after it began.
Then they called Jon into the kitchen and asked him what he wanted to do. Luffy wanted him on the crew and Arya did too, though she was confused why he would break his oaths to join. The man made a point of telling them all his responsibilities to his own people and the free folk, but then he said he'd be joining them.
It was a shock to Arya, but she was happy to hear it. Jon wasn't finished though and he'd heard their plan about navigating around the top of Westeros. He said he'd meet up with them in one month at the other end of the Wall on the west side.
Originally he thought it would take longer, but his sister told him how fast the ship was that it made it from Braavos here in a little over a week. He had no idea why his sister was in Braavos, but he'd have to ask her when he returned to their ship.
The man brought them a lot of black fur cloaks, and the pirates found them to be incredibly warm. He said the journey would be freezing that far north and they thanked him. Then the Lord Commander had to leave since his men were getting restless being surrounded by so many wildlings.
The free folk were sticking to their word and staying with the crows instead of running around raiding villages, so they were off to a good start. The tension was still high though between the enemies who had a ceasefire for the first time in forever. Even as the pirates watched them walk away towards Castle Black, it was clear the crows didn't trust them. There were men in black cloaks walking on the far south of the group, keeping them boxed in between the Wall and their men so that it made the free folk almost look like prisoners.
"Do you think the peace will hold?" Nami asked and the blonde haired man next to her nodded.
"As long as that Tormund guy is around, he'll keep them banded together," Sanji replied.
Usopp was walking on the deck slowly and the crew turned and smiled to see him up. Chopper started yelling that he should still be down, but he said he wanted to say goodbye. The long-nosed man got to the side of the ship and looked out over the snow covered distance.
It wasn't hard to locate Wun Wun. He was the only giant in the crowd. The other crew members were surprised when the giant man stopped walking and slowly turned around. He stared back down the path he just marched and straight at the pirate ship docked at Eastwatch.
From this far away, they couldn't hear if he was saying anything, (not that they would have understood it anyway), but Wun Wun raised a hand above him and waved.
Usopp grinned and held up his left hand, waving back. Wun Wun turned back around and started walking with the crowd, but Usopp stared up at the hand that he was waving. Only three of his fingers were sticking up and he had white bandages around the rest of his hand. He lost his Kabuto slingshot at Hardhome too and it was definitely destroyed in the Gaon Hou beam.
The sharpshooter didn't look around, but he could tell the rest of the crew was looking at him and he smiled. "Don't think the Great Captain Usopp needs those fingers!" He pointed down at them with his left index and smirked, "I'm the best sniper in the world! What's a few fingers here or there?"
He sounded unusually brave considering the situation and the others started to laugh. It was an awkward laugh, but he succeeded in easing the tension a little.
The truth was, Usopp didn't feel he had the right to complain about what happened. Sure, he lost two fingers, but he watched countless people get killed in horrible ways. If anything, he got out on the good end of the deal. With that optimistic attitude in mind, he went back inside per Chopper's demands to get more rest.
"So when do we leave?" Franky asked the others. It was strange, this place felt overwhelming at times. They knew the world was so much larger than just these places, but the islands here were so large and diverse than it felt like anything could happen.
Their captain was asleep so they all turned to Nami who had a faraway look in her eyes. She snapped her head back to Franky and said, "Right away. Sanji, how much longer will the food you got in Braavos last for?"
"I bought enough for two months journey so if we plan on being at the other side of the Wall in a month, we should still have food to spare." He paused then added on at the end just as a warning, "We all have to make sure Luffy doesn't sneak into the fridge and eat all of our food."
The others all grimaced, "Don't want that happening again."
Franky and Arya were surprised and the others told them how it had actually happened before. The cyborg started laughing, and although Arya was more concerned about it, she started laughing too.
That afternoon, they thanked the guy with the scar on his face. The man at Eastwatch thanked them back saying that he heard they gave some of his brothers enough time to escape. Arya promised to pass the message on to Zoro who was still the one who should be thanked and was still unconscious and then they headed off.
By night time, they were already nearing Hardhome again, but this time they would keep heading north past it. When they sailed past, there weren't any white walkers around which seemed weird.
"If their leaders are gone, shouldn't they just be wandering around? I was sure at least a few would still be around here," Sanji muttered as they sailed past the empty shore. There weren't any bodies there and it was almost impossible to tell there were tens of thousands of people living there until just recently.
Only the remains of tents that weren't blown away by the wind and some broken pieces of buildings destroyed by the ship's super cannon were still there. It sent an ominous chill down the spines of the members of the pirate crew on the deck.
Arya had to train by herself that night since Zoro was still out cold from his injuries and the medicine Chopper gave him. The girl borrowed a sword from Eastwatch and she was now incorporating her weight training into her swordplay. The Water Dance was much harder with a heavier sword.
Syrio would have been able to do it, she thought and a small smirk appeared on her face. She'd gotten rid of Meryn Trant, and she knew her dancing teacher would be proud of her for training hard.
She finished swinging the heavy sword around in her usual techniques and was amazed. The training Zoro had her going through was really working. The sword wasn't huge, but it was large enough that she thought she would get exhausted after a little while of using it. Instead she lasted the whole hour she set aside for it and was drenched in sweat when she finished.
Then she walked over to Zoro's weights and took the smallest ones which were still huge and started lifting them. She curled them, pushed them over her head, picked them off of the floor. The different workouts got all of her muscles feeling like they were on fire, but the pain was a good pain and she knew she was getting stronger while she did it. The only pain that was bad was the pain in her twisted ankle, but she had to fight through it and keep training. If she let a hurt ankle get to her, how could she show her face to the men who were actually badly injured.
When she went to check on them before bed, she couldn't feel more proud to be a part of this crew. The injured men had fought bravely against the horde of white walkers. In Braavos and on the trip to Westeros, she thought of them as traveling companions, but never really considered herself one of them. But what they told her earlier when she was brought into the important meeting. They told her she was their, 'nakama,' and she was happy.
The girl went to bed and whispered the names of those she had to kill. It always got her down to speak of them because they reminded her of those she'd lost. But it was a necessary reminder to keep them in her heart.
She finally was heading off to sleep after the long day when she heard restless moving on another bed in the room. Franky made her a bed during her first few days on the ship and she no longer slept with the orange haired woman, but she could see Nami moving around on her bed.
Arya got up and walked closer, looking down and seeing Nami's scrunched up face. She looked afraid as she rolled around under the covers and Arya started shaking her awake.
"Ahh!" Nami shot out of bed and Robin looked over from where she just woke up. The younger woman had a hand over her chest and was breathing deeply. Robin flicked on the lights and Nami saw her friends staring at her closely.
"Are you okay?" Arya asked the older teenager.
Nami looked at them and tried to say yes, but the word wouldn't come out of her mouth and tears rose instead. "That was horrifying," the other two both noticed Nami shaking in her bed and it was warm enough inside the ship that it wasn't from the cold. Franky's Adam Wood was crafted perfectly and the ship was airtight, keeping the frigid northern air out.
"Nami," Robin started and the fact that she didn't call her Navigator-san was enough to show she really cared. The older woman was never good at girl talk, she'd never been on a ship that there was more than one woman on it before. Baroque Works didn't count because the agents were all very secretive and it wasn't really a crew she was on. Now she had two girls sharing a room with her and she could give it a try, "What do you want to talk about?"
Nami sniffled and pulled her blanket close as Arya hopped up on her bed and sat on the other side. Robin sat with her legs off the side of her own bed and looked at the other one where Nami was trying to hold in her tears. "Everything," she whispered. The navigator started recalling what happened from seeing the first zombies get over the wooden gates, to when they ripped the guards apart. She talked about the woman Karsi, and her kids, and how the woman was eaten by a pack of white walker children. Then how Karsi got back up when the King rose his arms. She mentioned the little kid whose head she smashed herself and the guilt kept rising as she told them how she made the conscious decision to leave them behind. "It was cowardly, I know," she buried her head in her knees, "but I just couldn't stay. It makes it so much worse that no one scolded me for it. Everyone's pretending like it was alright-"
"It was alright," Arya said, for the first time speaking since Nami went on her rant. The woman lifted her head a little but the child leaned in closer to her and looked serious. "We all made it out of Hardhome. That's all that matters!"
Robin was smiling at the young girl who was making Nami feel better. The child was better at this than she would have been and Robin was content with just listening.
"But you could have..." Nami began and was cut off.
Arya continued, "It doesn't matter what could have happened. You escaped and we escaped. The fact that you got out of there sooner just made it easier for the others to get out of there without having to worry about you. If you were still waiting, one of them would have went after you, and they might have died." That was all Arya needed to say to make Nami's face light up. "We got the best case scenario," she stated and smiled, "all of us are still alive!"
"You're right," Nami said and wiped the tears from her face. "I know I'm not as strong as the others, and sometimes running is all I can do. I guess, I was just scared I'd lose them."
"Don't worry," Arya said and hugged the pirate woman. She hopped off the bed and smiled at both of them, "They're so strong I don't think anyone can stop them."
The women shared a few laughs and Nami thanked them before Robin turned back off the light. She couldn't get that zombie child's face out of her mind, but she would try for her friends to stay focused. A map of Westeros, she smiled and thought of how large this island was that she had to spend a month just getting around the top of it, It really will be a difficult challenge.
They fell asleep and the next day everyone was up on the deck moving around. A few of them were surprised to see Zoro, Luffy, and Usopp walking around, despite Chopper screaming at them all the time. Most were used to seeing it by now and enjoyed themselves like any other day on the open sea.
"Zoro put your bandages back on!" Chopper yelled at the man as he saw a pile of bloodied white bandages tossed aside on the deck.
"It makes it hard to train," the swordsman replied and swung his sword down again as he taught Arya some moves. He liked her Water Dance, but that didn't mean he couldn't teach her some other styles she might like.
Chopper growled furiously, "They're supposed to stop you from training!"
Everyone on the pirate crew was doing something different on the large ship traveling north. Franky was working on some central heating invention of his. Nami was moving her tangerine grove inside for the harsh environment they were about to enter.
Robin was studying a book of the major houses of Westeros that she 'borrowed' when they were docked at Eastwatch. It was mainly on their history so she didn't know much about them at the moment, and that was what she really wanted to know. Arya was too out of the loop to know much except that Joffrey Baraetheon was the King and his grandpa Tywin led their armies.
The girl was actually out of date on her information and still had no idea Tywin and the King were dead. She knew a little about Stannis, but they got more information about him from what little bit Jon told them about the other King.
While Robin studied up on the Targaryan empire, which suddenly emerged after the mysterious Doom just like the World Government, Usopp was trying out his new weapon. Arya felt really bad for her friend who lost his fingers and when she got to Eastwatch, she requested a bow for him with the sword she was lent. She also asked her brother, when no one else was around, to get the Castle Black forge to make something else besides her new weapon while he was there. She figured Zoro was probably tired of missing his third blade and Jon remembered what type of swords he used and agreed to get him a third one made. Arya was planning on making it a gift to the man for all the time he spent teaching her.
Usopp had been thinking about making himself another slingshot, but the bow really interested him. He decided to give it a try and started training with it as soon as the girl gave it to him as a gift.
The days went by fast on their way north. The hills covered in show and large cliffs started to flatten out on their left as they sailed up the coast. It got to a point where all that stretched for miles was a barren frozen desert. There were no trees, hills, or any sign of life near them.
Five days into their trip, Nami was standing on the left side of the ship. She was staring out at the frozen wasteland, looking for anything interesting or out of place. It had been two days now without seeing the smallest shred of life on the landmass.
Franky had the paddleship moving the Sunny because the wind was against them and the sails were pulled down.
The boat was pushing through the water and Nami kept looking around before she saw something. There were large storm clouds up ahead and it looked like it was going to snow again, but there was something under it. The woman moved from the side of the ship and walked up the steps and towards the bow. Her breath could be seen in front of her face and she rubbed her hands inside her gloves together.
Arya and Zoro were sparring on the grass deck that was lightly covered in snow and they watched Nami walk by and paused. They were both wearing the black fur coats of the Night's Watch over their usual ones and they followed the woman towards the front of the deck.
Usopp was on the bow of the Sunny and he was practicing with his bow. He had picked it up fast and Arya was a little peeved when the man shoved his skill. She could hit a target from pretty far away, but it took her a while to learn how to do that. He shot his first few arrows a couple of days ago and now he was already hitting targets farther than she could dream of hitting.
The sniper lowered his bow as Nami walked past and he saw Zoro and Arya behind her. He scratched the itchy bandage under his coat and then followed the group to the edge of the ship where they looked over the smiling lion's face. "Whoa," Usopp muttered and the others were amazed too.
The land up ahead suddenly stretched out so they would have to cut right and go around it. The impressive thing though wasn't the land jutting out, it was the mountain range on the land. It stretched from the point they were heading towards all the way to the left into the horizon of the frozen waste.
As the ship got closer, more of the crew members went up above deck to see for themselves. The mountains were huge and the snowstorm started to pick up as they got closer.
It began to get harder to see and the water got choppier with it. Franky didn't want to use too much cola on the paddles so they stopped using them and unfurled the sails a little to get through the storm.
While they were sailing through the rough blizzard, Nami was shouting out directions from the bow of the ship. She had to look closely through the fog to see where they were going and making sure they didn't hit any icebergs.
"Wee!" Luffy grabbed a rope and swung himself to the other side of the ship where he grabbed the other rope and opened the sails a little per Nami's orders. He was enjoying himself in the rough storm and then Robin asked him how he wasn't cold since he came running out of the cabin in only his tank top and bandages.
Luffy stopped swinging around for a minute while the snow covered his hat and he exclaimed, "It's cold!" He crossed his arms and started shivering with chattering teeth.
"Notice it sooner!" Half the crew including Arya shouted at him. They laughed as he ran back inside to get a coat on.
The orange haired navigator on the front part of the Sunny smiled as she could see an end to the fog in front of her. There was a split in the storm and she could tell it wasn't over, but it wouldn't be as rough for a little.
Nami navigated them right into the clearing and the sigh of relief got caught in her throat. The water was still choppy so the others were still at work keeping them afloat, but her shouts suddenly halted. The woman was staring through the end of the storm and out on the stretch of land that emerged in front of them. She was planning on getting there and then following the coast around to the east side of the mountain range before going around it, but now she was afraid.
"Turn the ship to starboard!" She yelled. "Bring us northeast!"
"Roger!" Most of the crew thought she was talking about the storm, but if anything she was putting them further into the storm.
The navigator looked out between the large gap in the mountains. It was right in front of her and she couldn't miss it, not with that deathly green glow. There was one mountain larger than the others around it. The path leading to it wasn't long and the clouds above it were black and mixed with a dark green light.
In front of the mountain, on the long path leading out onto the frozen waste, there was a shade of brown mixed in with the snow. At first Nami thought maybe it was dirt, a section of the ground not covered in ice, but that didn't make sense this far north. It was when she looked closer that she saw what they really were and her heart clenched.
They disappeared back into the fog of the blizzard and she felt the cold wind hit her in the face again. She had to start shouting out commands to the crew again, but that light seriously freaked her out. None of them were moving...
The woman led her crew through the storm and they were all panting with fatigue when they finally got out of it. The Thousand Sunny was at the edge of the mountain range where the elevation of the land continued to move north again. As they sailed around the east edge of the continent to move further north, they saw that there was nowhere for them to land anymore. On the edge of the water there was only a steep cliff that led up into the mountains.
The icebergs sticking out of the water were more plentiful now than ever and Nami came up with a decision. "Alright everyone!" They all gathered on the lower deck and looked up to where the woman was calling down to them. "For now on, whenever I'm not watching where we're heading, we have to drop anchor."
She was always navigating them, but in this dangerous area she would have to be staring at the water when she made her decisions. She wasn't going to spend the entire day doing that and called out, "Most navigators would call this part of a sea a ship graveyard. They'd say it was unnavigable, but I say phooey!"
"Yeah!" Luffy, Franky, Chopper, and Usopp shouted. "Nami can get us through anything!" Usopp called out.
"You go sis! Yow!" Franky posed with his arms diagonal above his head. He was SUPER excited.
"And if you can't, we'll all drop in the water and freeze to death long before we drown," Robin said calmly and everyone shouted at her for saying it in such a scary way. Luffy just started laughing and the crew dropped anchor for the night.
When the girls were alone in their room, Nami felt comfortable talking about what she saw. Unlike the boys, she knew the other women on the ship wouldn't go rushing into obvious danger when they heard about it. "In the middle of the storm," she started while they were hanging out in the girls' room, "I saw an ominous mountain bathed in green light."
Arya looked confused and tried to picture it herself. Robin just stated, "Yes, that was odd." She told them she got a glimpse of it too.
"Well I doubt you saw this," Nami said and spoke in a lower tone for them and only them to hear. Arya leaned in but Robin could still hear fine so she stayed on the chair where she was sitting. "In front of the mountain, were hundreds, maybe thousands, of bodies."
The archaeologist's eyes went wide and Arya was stunned too. "Were they white walkers?" The Stark girl asked. There shouldn't have been any wildlings this far north, no one should be this far north.
"No," Nami replied, "they were just bodies. I couldn't tell from the distance, but they were definitely people. It was like an entire army gathered at the mountain and then dropped dead."
Robin and Arya were silent for a few seconds. It sounded spooky and maybe mapping out the north wasn't the only thing they would be doing on this voyage. Robin spoke up after a few moments of thinking, "Perhaps that's where the white walkers from Hardhome went to," she offered as a suggestion.
"Why do you say that?" Arya asked, wondering how those zombies would have made it so far north before them.
"Hmm," Robin tried to come up with her reasoning. "The large mountain Nami spoke of could have been the home of the white walkers for these millennia you said they were missing. If so, then the army would have returned to their base."
"But then why are they all dead?" Arya said and then decided to change her question, "Like dead dead, not undead."
"Yeah," Nami agreed, "I don't see why the army would come this far north just to collapse and die."
"That," Robin started and took a long pause. The others leaned in, "I do not know." Nami and Arya fell out of their seats and Robin chuckled.
The three of them had become much closer on their journeys from Braavos to the Wall and now around the north of Westeros. Before coming to this land, the Straw Hats underwent a massive change. They gained a new crewmate and got back two of their old ones. Their ship the Going Merry was put to rest and they had a new one now. It was a very different Straw Hat crew.
The biggest change for Nami was her best friend. Almost immediately after Water 7, Robin started opening up to her more. They'd been traveling with each other since leaving Alabasta, but through Sky Island and everything that happened, she was never really that close to Robin.
It was during the short trip after Water 7 and their journey in Westeros that they'd really become much better friends. Not only the two of them though, the younger girl with them also became close to the older women.
Nami and Arya were much closer in age, but Robin felt she had more in common with the more serious girl. It was a good split for Arya who found both of their differing personalities likable and they were turning into more than just friends for her.
Neither Robin nor Nami mentioned the list of names they occasionally heard before going to sleep, to the men in the crew. They didn't feel it was necessary for the boys to know, but after talking to each other about it one afternoon, they agreed to have Robin have a talk with her.
A week and a half had gone by since leaving Eastwatch and the steep cliffs of ice mountains were still on their left. Nami told them they were heading west now and had curved around the northern bend at some point. It must have been a gradual turn that took over a day because none of them noticed the change in course. They were still heading a little north and most of the days were now spent inside the cabin.
Franky went outside to shovel off the ship and Nami had to go up to direct them, but it was so cold that no one wanted to spend much time up there. The crew seemed unable to not have fun though and the cabin was always full of noise as Chopper, Usopp, and Luffy constantly ran around.
Arya and Zoro often had cold weather training sessions where they stood on the deck and had to remain completely still. The cold air made Arya want to shiver, her body tried to shiver, but the girl's will to stay calm and not lose to Zoro won out.
The man was impressed she lasted so long this time and when they went inside and heated up, he gave her one of his rare compliments. The few words of 'good job,' looked like they made the girl's day and she was more cheerful than usual.
After dinner, Robin was alone with Arya and she was asking about the other houses of Westeros again. She moved from the Baraetheons to the Lannisters and saw how the girl's face turned into a snarl for a second before she replied.
While Arya was talking about the Queen, Robin stopped her and asked, "King Joffrey, he's one of the names on your list correct?" She heard the way the girl described him and seemed to be a bad one.
Arya went wide-eyed, "Nami told-"
"I heard on my own," Robin replied, not wanting false accusations to be thrown around.
"Oh," the girl said and looked down a little. She felt bad that she instantly assumed Nami had betrayed her trust and looked back up at Robin, "Yeah, Joffrey's there."
Robin took a deep breath and asked the girl sitting on the bed across from hers, "May I ask why?"
Arya looked hesitant but didn't break eye contact with her older friend. Anyone in the Seven Kingdoms would know why Arya Stark wanted to kill Joffrey Baraetheon. She thought back and started, "A little over six years ago, I went to King's Landing with my father and sister."
She paused and Robin could see Arya was debating something in her head. The girl finally spoke again, "One of the days we were on the King's Road, me and my friend Micah were sparring with wooden swords. Joffrey was the Prince at the time and he came to us and started cutting Micah's face, so I hit him." Her face was full of guilt when she said that and Robin nodded her head to motion for the girl to continue.
"He started swinging his sword at me, so my pet direwolf, Nymeria, charged at him and bit his wrist. I knew Nymeria wouldn't be allowed to live after that, so I made her run away," the girl's eyes got darker, "Joffrey lied about what happened and Cersei demanded that my sister's wolf, Lady, had to be killed to settle the score. They killed her because Joffrey was a mean little monster."
The girl's fists were clenched hard and she was staring into Robin's eyes angrily. Just the thought of the King made her lust to kill him. Robin sighed and whispered, "To hold a grudge against a child for lying isn't uncommon, but do you really think he has to die because of it?"
Arya didn't speak, but her eyes closed and she clenched her fists tighter. She decided to only tell Robin this much, but she couldn't handle this. "Are all the reasons for the people on the list like this?" The older woman was trying to help, she really was, but that one question made Arya's eyes snap open and Robin leaned back a few centimeters unknowingly.
The girl glared at Robin and was clenching so hard now that her fingernails dug into her palms, drawing blood. "Do I need another reason?" The teenager growled, "Was Lady not enough? How about Micah," the girl was getting louder as she growled at Robin. "Joffrey sent his dog after him and he ran my friend down."
At the moment she didn't even care about the Hound. Thinking about that day made her furious at him again even if he was just following Joffrey's orders. She kept going though, too enraged to stop, "How about my father?!" Robin tried not to look surprised but she still opened her mouth a little as the girl was yelling at her. "My dad was the best, most honorable man in the kingdoms! And that little prick had his head cut off! He stuck it on a wooden spike and ordered everyone in our household executed. Their heads decorated the castle walls while they rotted!"
"Arya," the woman whispered.
Arya had never been able to let loose before. She wasn't able to tell people who she was before in fear that they would give her up to the Lannisters. Then when she traveled with the Hound, he wasn't the type of man to shout her problems at. Besides, everyone knew already. She wasn't finished though and the people standing outside the girls' room in the cabin stood still as she kept screaming.
Sanji and Nami looked at each other and their mouths dropped a little more at the next sentence out of the girl's mouth. The orange haired woman heard Luffy and Usopp running over from the other room and she walked over, shutting the door and telling them to go away. She didn't want anyone else to hear Arya's secrets if the girl didn't want them to. She felt bad listening to them herself, but she wanted to know why this girl had her list, and it was easier than getting Robin to tell her later.
Nami looked at Sanji and held up a finger to her lips but it was unnecessary. He wasn't planning on telling anyone.
Down in the women's room, Arya was on her feet glaring down at the woman on the bed in front of her. Robin continued to meet the girl's gaze the entire time as she yelled. Arya didn't even notice her voice was raising as she vented. "Or should I kill them because of what they did to my brother?" Her voice suddenly cracked and she wasn't yelling anymore. The sadness was too overwhelming to scream it out and she said in a normal tone, "They killed him and his direwolf, and then, I s-saw..." she stuttered and could barely bring herself to say it, not knowing Sanji and Nami had their ears pressed to the door up above. She continued in a steadier voice, "They sewed his direwolf's head, onto his body," the girl muttered and broke eye contact with Robin for the first time. The older woman didn't even want to imagine what her brother looked like. "They paraded him around the keep, the fearsome King of the North, slaughtered at a wedding."
"Arya," Robin said and the girl looked back up at Robin's eyes. The older woman wasn't looking back at her eyes though, "Your hands," she whispered and Arya looked down.
The child unclenched her fists and stared at the blood soaking her palms and dripping on the floor. "Oh," she said, looking down at a few small splotches of blood on their carpet. "Sorry," she muttered.
"You have nothing to be sorry for," Robin said and stood up fast, grabbing the girl by the shoulders. She pulled Arya in for a hug and the girl stayed strong as she stood there in the warm embrace. She was not going to break into tears again, she'd cried too much recently. Arya did like the hug though and it helped get her mind off the image of her brother's body with Grey Wind's head on it. It was the most brutal thing she'd ever seen, and she wished she could erase it from her memory.
Robin kept holding the girl and the short teenager couldn't see the look of shock on her adult friend's face. That was gruesome, and she said she saw it. I'm surprised she didn't break down a long time ago. The woman frowned and thought about her captain, The enemies we'll be facing in this place aren't the same kind as the ones we've been facing. We will be forced to kill bad people here, and I don't know if Luffy's ready for it.
Arya pulled away from the hug and a small scary grin appeared on her face. "I killed the man who did it," she whispered. "The one who sewed Grey Wind's head on Robb's body. I stabbed him in the neck over and over until he was dead."
This time Robin couldn't stop herself from flinching. The girl only grinned for a split second at the beginning of her talking, right when she remembered why she did it. It was the first man she killed. "Arya," Robin said, no longer going to try to stop the girl from killing, "if you ever need to talk about something like that again, you can come to me. Or Nami, I'm sure she'll be willing to listen."
The young girl nodded her head and then walked up the stairs. She got to the door and stepped out, then sighed. The chef standing in the kitchen with his back to her and the woman sitting at the table with her map were both so tense she could sense it the moment she walked in the room. They both took an extra second to turn around and Sanji's shout about a cute girl in his eyes wasn't very enthusiastic.
"How much did you hear?" Arya asked.
Nami gulped and Sanji stopped calling out her beauty and they both looked at each other sheepishly. The navigator lowered her head a little and said, "When you started talking about your dad."
"Oh," the girl muttered and walked towards the door to the rest of the ship.
Sanji mentioned as she reached the doorknob, "We won't tell the others. I understand why you'd want to keep that a secret."
"And Arya," Nami said as the girl was twisting the doorknob, "I'm sorry about your family." It wasn't much consolation, but it was all Nami could give and the girl nodded.
It was already late at night, but the ship was still pretty lively. It went from one of the best days Arya spent with them to one of the worst quickly and the girl walked quietly down the hall of the ship. Really the only bad part about the day was bringing up her old memories out loud, but it wasn't like she didn't think of them every night.
Whenever she thought about Walder Frey, all she saw was her brother that way. Illyn Payne reminded her of her father a few seconds before he got his head cut off. She tried not to let it interfere with her training and otherwise, so she kept it bottled up until night when she could release it.
Arya walked past a room where Franky was inside working on some invention of his with Usopp. They looked out in the hall seeing a shape walk by, but it was gone by the time they looked up.
Chopper was giving Zoro new bandages around his wounds that were healing fast. Usopp and Luffy were already almost at a hundred percent, but he still had some time to go. The two of them in the med bay snapped their heads to the right as they thought they saw something but the shadow in the doorway kept moving.
Zoro narrowed his eyes as he wondered what Arya was doing heading in the direction of the door. She probably just needs some air, he decided.
The girl walked over to the door and put on her black coat and then one of the fur cloaks over it. She walked outside and closed the door fast. Franky had a new heating system inside that made it so they didn't have to wear their coats all the time, but they weren't supposed to leave the doors open for too long or the heat would get out.
She stepped out onto the snow covered grass and the icy wind hit her immediately. The visibility was low, but the huge ice wall leading up the cliffs of Westeros was on her left and she walked over to the right and looked out over the water. There were some icebergs around her and she could see ice forming on the chain of the anchor they dropped for the night. "I said too much," she mumbled out loud.
"What'd you say?" A voice said from above her and she was so shocked she stumbled and slipped on the snow. The next thing she knew she was falling off the side towards the water below. An arm wrapped around her multiple times and then lifted her back up and dropped her on the snow.
She was breathing heavily and snapped her head around to the man who almost killed her and then saved her life. She couldn't decide whether to be angry at him or thank him and she wound up just shouting, "Raahhh!"
"Raahhh!" Luffy shouted back and the girl stared at him like he was an idiot. The pirate in the red coat was an idiot and he was playing around in the snow by himself to show off to the others when they got out there. "You want to see my snowman?" He pointed behind him and Arya's eyes went wide as she saw the huge snow ball that was only the base of the thirty foot tall snowman.
"How long have you been out here?" She asked him and stared at her captain who started laughing.
"I dunno," he said and marveled at his snowman again. "Since after dinner," he replied and Arya sweatdropped. He spent more time just playing in the snow than she was able to last in her cold weather training earlier that day.
"So what did you say too much of?" Luffy asked while looking at his snowman.
Huh?" The girl replied and then remembered what she muttered to herself before almost falling into the sea. "Oh yeah," she frowned. I never wanted to tell them all that. It just kind of, came out. "It doesn't matter," she said.
"Okay then," her captain replied.
She looked at the big smile on his face and then at the snowman he made. A small grin formed on her face, "It really is good." Her praise made Luffy beam and he asked if she wanted to help.
The girl was already shivering from the cold, but he looked really excited and started talking about his plans for the head that was just a ball of snow right now.
They worked on it into the night and Luffy started throwing snowballs at one point. He was helping her more than Robin could ever try to do, and he didn't even know what was wrong. Arya loved playing in the snow with Luffy, but she finally couldn't handle the cold anymore and they went inside.
"Now don't tell anyone about the snowman until tomorrow morning," Luffy said to her in a low whisper as they heated up and took off their outer layers.
"Definitely," Arya agreed, wanting it to be a surprise.
Zoro walked in the room and looked at the two of them, "You were outside? What were you doing?"
Arya grinned and didn't say anything. Luffy on the other hand, "We made a huge snowman and gave it antlers and a blue nose to look like Chopper!"
"Idiot!" Arya hit him on top of the head. "Didn't you just say not to tell anyone?"
The pirate took off his red coat and realized his mistake, clamping his hand over his mouth.
"It's too late now!" Arya yelled but she was laughing before her sentence was even finished.
Luffy agreed and started telling Zoro what it looked like. He put his hands above his head with his fingers up to look like antlers and Arya started cracking up while Zoro sighed with a small smile. It was going to be great seeing everyone's reactions the next morning, as long as Luffy managed to keep it a secret for that long.
The swordsman looked over at Arya who was smiling and laughing every time Luffy said something. She was holding her side as it hurt from the laughter and she started begging him to stop. Luffy took advantage of the situation and started tickling the girl and Zoro had enough of this. As he was walking out of the room, he smiled though, Keep up the good work Luffy.
A/N Hey everyone thanks for reading! A few things I want to say before we get started with review responses: First, I never understood why Jon was show coming through Castle Black to get back to the other side of the Wall. Look at the map of Westeros and it doesn't make any sense to sail their ships to Eastwatch and then walk back on the other side of the Wall... plus, I had already written this chapter and wasn't going to change it for something that didn't make much sense to me, considering Jon was Lord Commander and didn't need Thorne's approval to get them inside. Anyway, the second thing I want to talk about is time, in Game of Thrones. So it's been seven years, but I've never been able to understand how much time has passed between episodes. However, the ninth and tenth episodes of this season were definitely a day apart at least for Stannis's plotline, so I'm making it a month between Hardhome and then. In the meantime we get a trip around the North which won't be as boring as I bet it sounds. Hope you enjoyed the chapter and Arya's well-needed let off of some steam. Now, time for reviews!
Erin
You have to one of my favorite authors on this site I love how fast you post this chapters, anyway short chapter but I liked it because it feels like a starter for a new arc. Can't wait to see what happens next.
Thank you! New arc time indeed! What was with those bodies? What will they see on their trip north?!
Shadowtail15
Good as always.
I just realized franky could easily give usop cyborg replacement fingers. And the Gaon ho was likely the only thing that could really turn the tables against the zombies and the white walkers out of all the straw hats Sanji and Upsop are the only ones at that point who have fire attacks and they had no idea that was the best way to kill the undead the only other straw hat with a fire attack before the was zoro and that was at the Thriller Bark Arc at the end of his fight with the zombie samurai.
Thanks! Usopp didn't know anything about the white walkers until he saw them on the other side of the fence. He hadn't heard anything about them except that everyone was trying to run, and now he def knows why. The cyborg fingers is a cool idea, and I kind of wish I had thought of it before writing the next seven chapters... but oh well XD. Love the feedback and thanks for the suggestions!
Guest
You said Sansa would appear in this chapter, you have failed me. I await her appearance, until then. Also spare Jon, there's many theories of him being alive, but I don't want to risk it.
Unless you can quote me saying Sansa would appear, I'm calling bologna. I don't think I ever mentioned Sansa showing up in an A/N, and if I have, then whoops! You'll have to wait a bit longer. With Jon, let's see if he survives the month he'll be spending away from the Straw Hats...
Vasto-Lorde26
Interesting chapter. I'm interested if the strawhats are going to witness the battle of winterfell or if they meet up with sansa and theon afterwards.
I'm still trying to figure that out myself, being right there in the chapter I'm on right now. Which plotline to follow, there are so many cool ones that episode that it's going to be tough. Hope you like how it plays out!
Master of Dragons God
nice chapter
Thanks!
thunder18
Great chapter Update soon
A chapter a day keeps the maesters away! Thank you! Thanks again everyone who read. 'Till next time!
