A fearful high thin sound emerged from her throat, the sound of a man trying to suck a river through a reed; then it stopped, and that was more terrible still.
"Arya! Arya, please," a voice begged of her. "Please don't go again, you can't, I need you!"
That voice could only belong to one person. She knew it, somewhere down deep, but the name wouldn't come to her tongue. She saw a flash of red - blood? No, not blood, but hair. Red hair, like their mother's. "S-" she tried, but the word was choked from her.
"Sansa," the voice said. "It's Sansa, your sister. You know me, don't you?"
Sansa. That had been her name. Of course she knew Sansa, didn't she? If only she could open her eyes, she could see the red and she would know. A drop of something warm and wet hit her cheek. Blood again, she thought. But this smelled more like salt than iron; another droplet rolled down her cheek. "Nnnn …" she tried again, annoyed as droplet after droplet hit her. Was it rain? "No."
She heard a choked sob from above her as hands grasped at her frantically. "You don't know me?" asked Sansa, sounding hysteric. "He said-he said you might not wake up again, and that if you did, that … that you wouldn't … that you wouldn't be you anymore. It's all … it's all my fault, isn't it?"
"Nnnnn-no," she repeated, the only word she could remember.
Her eyes struggled to open, to see where she was, what had happened, to see that flash of red. Sansa was nothing more than a blur above her, trembling hands wiping away at the tears she had spilt upon her sister's cheeks. "It is, it is," she insisted. "I didn't mean for it … for this … the queen told me that if I just-just told her, that I could stay and I could marry Joffrey and be queen, but-but I-"
It started coming back to her now. More and more flashes of red. Not hair this time, but the blood she had wanted. Her father's blood, Jaime's, her own - it had poured from her ears, she remembered. She remembered the dirt and the sound of horses' hooves, the taste of the Hound's blood, metallic and sweet- "No," she said again, more firmly this time.
"She promised me they wouldn't hurt Father, she promised but she lied and oh, Ser Loras-"
"Shut up, Sansa," snapped Arya as she struggled to sit despite the pain coursing through her every limb.
Sansa threw herself on top of her, holding her into place. "You have to lay still," she urged. "You'll hurt yourself."
They'll hurt you, Arya thought. They'd have her head for this, she knew, whether it be a Baratheon or Tyrell. She remembered the corpses that littered the streets of King's Landing, all good and loyal men, all men her sister had put there. "You're a liar," she accused. "You haven't talked to the queen in days. Do you understand?" She didn't, Arya could tell. Confusion was etched in her features, her brow knit tightly together. "Not in days, Sansa. Say it."
"I haven't talked to the queen in days," said Sansa.
"That's what you say, even if Father-" Arya hesitated, trying quickly to take in her surroundings. It was dark inside, but she could see the sun creeping in through the corners. The biggest hint of all was that they seemed to be moving - a carriage, but headed to where? "Where is he? Where's Father?"
Sansa looked away from her and Arya's stomach sank. "He hasn't woken up yet," her sister admitted. "Lord Tyrell, Willas, he said that Father should be fine. He lost a lot of blood but we're no more than a day's ride from Highgarden now. He says it's only Father's leg that may be a problem, but that he'll live."
Arya finally felt as if she could breathe again. Her father would live, her sister was alive, and Willas could not tell Sansa things if he were dead. "What happened to Ser Loras?"
Everything hurt.
Nothing was quite as miserable as going from such blissful nothingness to a world full of pain, but apparently it was necessary. At the very least, Cersei seemed to think so. "You've been asleep long enough," she said, no tenderness to her voice. He'd have been a great fool to have expected any from her.
He opened his mouth, trying to speak as the world came into blurry view, but his voice had not been used in several days and nothing came out despite his best efforts. Cersei let out an impatient sigh as she sat down beside him on the bed, waiting for him to rediscover his voice. "Wh-" he tried, but his throat burned. Cersei brought a goblet to him and he quickly downed half its contents before laying back in the bed, already feeling dizzy from the exertion. "Where is she?"
"Who?" asked Cersei. He gave her a look. "That little beast left you for dead and still you ask after her," she remarked with a laugh, though Jaime had seriously doubts she actually found him, or the situation, particularly funny. "Has there ever been a bigger fool?"
"You wouldn't be so angry if you had her," Jaime noted, wincing as he lifted an arm up so he could glance down at his abdomen. Wrapped in bandages, he couldn't see what damage she had done to him, but he could certainly still feel it.
Cersei's jaw was clenched so tight Jaime might've mistaken her for Stannis Baratheon. "What happened?"
He had fallen in love with Arya Stark. That was the short and long of the tale. He had fallen in love, let his guard down, and taken a Valyrian dagger to the gut for it. It was a very short story with little room for interpretation. "You know what happened."
When Arya awoke again, she wasn't moving. No, her bed now was quite stable, and rather inviting. It felt as if she were resting stop a pile of warm, soft sheep, enveloping her tiny frame to keep it safe. It was difficult not to succumb to its seduction once more, but she needed to know where she was.
Her gaze drifted first to the the sunlight drifting in from her balcony, covered in ivy and yellow flowers that crawled across the walls even inside her room. In the distance, she could see a large lake surrounded by tall, green trees. Looking around her room, she realized that green seemed to be a pattern. A green canopy overhead with gold trimmings, golden roses sewn into her green blanket. Green and gold, she thought. Tyrell colors. They must have arrived in Highgarden while she slept. "There she is," a voice spoke, accompanied by a warm, rough hand engulfing her own. "There's my little soldier."
At first she thought she might still be dreaming when she saw her father sitting beside her. Sansa had told her he was likely to recover, but she struggled to believe it. She feared the worst, as she often did, but how could she yet deny him when she could feel his hand within hers? "Father," she said. "I thought that you-"
"I'm alright," Ned assured her, "and so are you."
"But your leg," said Arya. She had seen Jaime's sword go clean through it.
Ned glanced down at his wrapped leg. He had expected to lose it, truthfully, and likely would have had he been in Winterfell. The Maester at Highgarden seemed to know more. "I may not be as spry as I once was," he admitted. "But I'll walk again, they say." He was smiling at her now, but that couldn't stop the lump growing in her throat as she tried to choke back her tears. "What is it, sweetling?"
"I thought that I was … that I could be …" she tried, but the lump grew larger still, blocking her words from escaping her throat. She had thought she could be a knight, like Ser Jaime. Like Ser Arthur Dayne. She had worked so hard for so long, training under the man himself, but when it had come time to fight, she had been nothing. No more than an annoyance to him, like some insect that he must keep swatting away. It hurt her, down deep in her soul, far more than her body ached. "But I wasn't. You and Mother were right to tell me no."
Ned smiled again, the corners of his eyes crinkling. She had always loved her father's smile, but it was not often that she got to see it. "And here I was preparing to tell you how wrong I've been," he admitted. "It was you who took Jaime Lannister off the field. It was your wolf who stopped Sandor Clegane. We would not have escaped had they been able to fight, Arya. It was that wolf of yours that saved me, she-"
"She bit your arm, I know," said Arya, looking sheepish. "She's sorry for that."
Her father's smile had gone now as he stared at her. "How do you know that?"
"Well, I don't … I don't know she's sorry, but I know she would never mean to-"
"No," her father interrupted. "How did you know she bit my arm? I've not told a soul what she did, and you … I feared you dead, you could not have seen." Hadn't she seen? She could remember it perfectly. "What did Nymeria do to the Hound?"
"She bit his leg and then his hand, and then Anguy shot him with an arrow. Right in the shoulder," she said, tapping on herself where she'd seen the arrow go through.
Ned had seen how Arya's body draped in the archer boy's arms. She'd been limp, unconscious, and there was no way she had seen her wolf tearing into the Hound. She could not have known how the wolf had saved him, and yet she remembered details that had already gone fuzzy for him. "And how did it taste?" he wondered. "My blood." Sweet, she thought. Like her favorite tarts. But how could she say that? How could she know it? "You have a wildness in you, child. 'The wolf blood,' my father used to call it. Lyanna had a touch of it, and my brother Brandon more than a touch. It brought them both to an early grave. And you … you have more of it in you than even Brandon. You're quick to anger, unyielding, foolhardy with your bravery and …"
"And?"
"And you have a very unique bond with your wolf," her father said. "A bond that could get you killed."
A gentle knocking on the door prevented Ned from sharing his thoughts, but Arya had a sneaking suspicion he hadn't planned on sharing them anyway. He had said more to her today than in all her previous days combined. "You're awake," Willas called from the door, a heavy tray filled with tea and biscuits balanced in his arms.
"Only just," Ned answered for her. "We'll talk more later," he promised, patting her hand gently before struggling to his feet. It was not as effortless as it had always been before, but he stood tall in the end, giving Willas a curt nod as he hobbled out of the room absent the assistance of a cane.
If Arya had wolf's blood, Willas had the blood of a snail. He was slow and deliberate, calculating, even, and took so long with setting up her bedside table that she began to grow anxious. He'd not said a word since her father left, nor spared her a glance. She watched him as he finished with her tray, then moved around her bed to adjust her curtains. "I'm sorry," she finally blurted, unable to sit on and watch as he moved about her room like a handmaiden instead of her intended. "About your brother." He paused to glance at her. "He was … kind, my sister says. I never spoke to him, not really. But I know he was a …" She looked to him again, praying he may step in to help her, but he didn't. "... good swordsman, and a … good brother, and … a-"
"He was a knight," said Willas. "Blood is the seal of their devotion."
A cold response, thought Arya. He may have been a knight, but he was still his brother. "Still," she insisted. "I am sorry."
"What need have you to be sorry?" he asked her with a smile, coming at last to take the seat her father had vacated. "It wasn't a Stark who killed him."
"No," she said, perhaps a bit too quickly. "Of course not."
His eyes scanned hers for another moment, before gentle fingers brushed against her forehead, moving her damp, sweaty hair out of the way so he could lean in and press a kiss atop her head. Her first, she thought, as he pulled away, though she wasn't entirely sure it counted considering Robb had been the one to kiss her there last. "You're alive and you're you and I can keep you safe here," he said. "That's all that matters now."
"You did say I should have a taste of summer before it fades away," said Arya.
"You'll have more than a taste," promised Willas. "When you're well, of course. My brother-" Willas hesitated for a moment, looking away from her. "Garlan," he specified. "He's heard of your training with Ser Jaime and he's keen to see what you've learned. He trains with three or four swordsmen himself, to prepare better for actual battle. I know you're not ready for it now, but-"
"You would let me train with him?" she asked. "With a sword?"
"Let you? What kind of man do you take me for?" She could only stare at him. She didn't think it made him one kind of man or another to permit or deny her anything; it was his right, or would be, as soon as he was her husband. That was simply the way things were done. "I was not forced into this, Arya. I know what your father told you would happen if you failed to secure a marriage. This same threat was not held over my head. I could have married ten years ago or ten years from now and it would make no difference. I chose now and I chose you, and if you think I deliberately chose the most willful girl in the seven kingdoms because I hoped to snuff that out, then … you're not nearly as clever as I give you credit." Willas grabbed her hand and squeezed it gently between his. "When we're married, you will be afforded every freedom and every choice that I am, I promise you."
She didn't understand it, why he had chosen her, but the promise still caused an odd tightness in her chest. What would she do with that freedom? What was it she wanted more than anything? "And what …" she trailed off, looking away from him. "What if what I want is to go off to battle and kill Jaime Lannister myself?"
Willas smiled at her now. "Then may the gods have mercy on his soul."
A/N: You know, normally for these author's notes I have to write some sort of apology for taking too long or because the chapter is too short but … today I don't! :P Enjoy this rare example of a long chapter posted on time!
Special thanks to:
Indigo Cain: I also love our lil baby warg! It's super fun getting to write Arya as more capable with her warging abilities. She's also seemed to me as the one with the most wolf's blood, and I think if she hadn't been separated with Nymeria, they'd have started warging together as soon as Bran did. Neddard lives - for once, Sean Bean survives the first movie. :P
372259: Oh my gosh I completely agree about being upset Rickon and Shireen died, mostly because I don't think either will die in the books. Like ... Actual Cannibal Rickon Stark is not going to come back from Skaagos just to get killed by Ramsay. He's gonna come back a beast and Shireen … okay, well, maybe Shireen might die in the books but I'm hoping not. :'( You've totally convinced me they're a great ship.
Good guess for Sansa! Since she couldn't snitch on Ned to get him beheaded, I tried to adapt it to fit this narrative. But yaaaayyyy Ned doesn't die! It's so fun to keep everyone's favorite Papa alive. :) Thanks so much for the review!
Arya xD: Haha I would never abandon this story! I love it too much. I would also love to just write everyone falling in love with Arya, because how couldn't they? Alas … I could only give you one of your two requests! Ned lives, but Arya did make it to Highgarden. :P Thanks for sticking with the story!
Basker: Arya did warg into Nymeria and sacrifice herself for Ned. Fortunately, someone else was around to save her and Willas and Arya can still be together. For now. :P I do love my new job, thanks! And thank you for sticking with me, hopefully the new chapter being posted so soon makes ya happy! :)
Bella-swan11: Aaahhh you're really making me want to write Jaime kidnapping her like Rhaegar! So romantic! ;_; Thank you for your review!
Emma3mikan: Haha I'm sorry I left you feeling so nervous, but I've got to try to include cliffhangers SOMETIMES! :P Thank you for review, as always!
mirrormarie: I'm always happy to find a fellow Dany-hater! :P I'm glad you're enjoying the story so far and I hope you stick with me! :)
Lauren Bull: Haha I'm so glad I didn't lose you during my time away! Honestly, all of the people telling me what they want for Arya DID get a bit stressful, but I've started not reading the comments on the chapter before until I write the next chapter, and that's helped me out a bit.
Hahahaha I WISH I could've incorporated Gendry magically coming into battle to save Arya with his hammer! I WIIIISH! That would've been amazing! Sansa definitely needs tough love, but she won't be getting any from Neddard anytime soon. Maybe her sister will wisen her up a bit. :P
I'm glad you preferred this escape attempt more, because I definitely did too! Thank you so much for sticking with me and the story! :) 3
Everyone else: Thank you so much for all of your reviews! I really appreciate them. :)
