Arya Stark liked to think she wasn't the type of person prone to panicking or falling apart. She normally felt that role better reserved for Sansa whenever she got caught up in one of the pranks of their brothers or whenever Arya decided to get back at her for being a superior arse over stupid lady things that she still was convinced didn't actually matter to anyone but the Septas who made a living teaching them because they were hired by ladies who had been taught by Septas before them on and on in endless line stretching back to the first days of the seven-faced god..
But these weeks approaching her thirteenth nameday certainly had felt like she was coming close to the edge.
Ever since her brother (always brother no matter how many people tried to put bastard before the more important word that defined what he was to her) Jon Snow had left almost three years ago, she'd been alone among the crowd in Winterfell for the most part. Bran and Rickon would play with her, but it had thus ever amounted to play since Bran had only just recently started catching on to the fact that he should take her seriously when she said she wanted to practice archery or swordsmanship.
Robb and Theon forever saw her as a tagalong little girl to be avoided while her mother and Sansa were more apt to admonish her and ask why she couldn't be more proper. Perhaps if being a proper lady made sense, Arya would've been more inclined to try. But as it was she saw no sense in learning sewing simply because sewing circles were what a highborn lady was expected to sit within while their lord husband met with other lord husbands and attended to matters that held some measure of meaning.
Her strange dreams of her brother Jon had provided comfort and advice that she continued to use to this day, his discussions leading her to be able to hide away from her lady mother just at the edge of the godswood and upon the roof of Mikkan's smithy that faced Winterfell's walls. It had helped improve her sneaking and her footwork as well her environmental awareness. But then she had discovered all at once that it had been Jon himself speaking to her through her sleeping mind.
And then she had been forced to watch him horribly lose a fight against a smoke demon before his beaten and broken body had sunk beneath the waves: like a piece of flotsam no one would miss from yet another ship swallowed by the uncaring sea.
She had run to him atop the water, her insubstantial spirit form trying to reach him through the lapping waves and cursing her lack of solidity with every move. His hand had been extended toward the sea surface as though he was trying to reach her when she tried to pound upon the lapping waves in a futile effort to reach him. But then he had abruptly descended further by his waist: looking for all the world as though the sea was pulling him into its depths so that none other would claim him.
She'd awoken to Sansa shaking her and a shrill screaming that took her some time to realize was herself. As what she had seen all came crashing into her memory at once, she'd broken down sobbing. She could barely breathe as Sansa's arms met behind her back, holding her to her only sister's body as she tried to desperately draw air. Despite her most fervent internal wishes, she found she couldn't deny what she had seen.
Jon was dead. And she had been able to do nothing in the face of it.
If there was one feeling Arya despised more than any other, it was a feeling of helplessness in any stripe or shade. This particular hatred of hers was why she'd be more prone to running from her mother rather than argue with her over her lessons or her lack of decorum. Whenever her mother began the familiar tirade of 'why can't you be more like your sister' and fixed her with that disappointed look she could never escape, Arya always felt as helpless as a newborn babe.
She had tried to be more ladylike. To do better at the things her mother and sister and septa had always preached were the marks of a decent highborn lady. But after countless fruitless efforts, she knew that the rub of it lay in that she couldn't and didn't want to change who she was. Just as she knew her mother couldn't and didn't want to see her for who she was. And she was forced to face that impasse every time they had to have the same stupid argument about the same idiotic things.
She didn't see Sansa bid a chambermaid to run fetch their mother and father. She didn't notice that they brought Maester Luwin with them. She only noticed that the maester was trying to speak calmly with her, trying to get her to look at them and see them soon after Sansa had moved out of his way so that his access to Arya was unimpeded.
Her eyes fixed on her father. He had to be told. He was the one who'd given Jon permission to run off like an idiot.
"Jon's dead!" She shouted accusingly at him, her grey eyes bloodshot from her crying. "He's dead, he's dead, he's dead!"
Each repeated proclamation felt like she was constricting her hands around her own throat until she had to close her eyes and curl her head down toward her chest in order to focus on breathing. She tried to calm down. She wasn't being successful thus far. Even now she could feel her mother and Sansa's eyes on her, trying to figure out what she was talking about. Irrationally, she felt a burst of hatred bloom in her chest for them. They'd ever sought to remind her brother that his presence was unwelcome in Winterfell. Maybe if they had tried to look beyond the end of their own noses, they could've seen he was their family too. Maybe he wouldn't have felt he couldn't turn to anyone in Winterfell for help when he saved her. Maybe he would still be here instead of sinking to the bottom of a watery grave.
"Maester Luwin, bring Arya to my solar. I feel we should discuss this in a more private setting." Her father said, his voice as implacable as the walls of Winterfell itself.
She kept her head down as the maester brought her to her feet and gently walked with her, only keeping his hand on her shoulder as long as it took to escort her out of the doorway and turn the corner into the hall before dropping it to his side while sticking closely to her side. Even if he more often deferred to mother and the septa's ideas on whether she should attend lessons or not, Maester Luwin knew how Arya preferred to be treated and sought to accommodate her wishes where he could.
Case in point: he didn't ask a moronically obvious question about if she was alright, merely walked with her and provided a solid presence for her to know was by her side as she tried to fruitlessly dry her tears. She had to be strong. She had to get her father to believe. She had to know she wouldn't be the only one forced to endure the knowledge of her brother's death.
That he would be mourned as he deserved.
They came to his solar in what seemed to be no time, the moon shining bright upon the dark wooded desk that held her father's papers. Maester Luwin escorted her and seated her in one of the chairs that sat before the Lord of Winterfell's while he himself retreated to one of the nearby bookcases, turning his back to her so that she wouldn't have to hide her watery eyes and almost silent hiccups of suppressed emotion.
In what seemed to be the blink of an eye, her father was in the room with her. He was in the chair beside her own instead of his traditional lord's seat in front of the window that was supposed to make him look imposing to those who brought his attention upon them. His grey eyes that she'd always been told looked so much like her own seemed troubled even as his mouth was downturned in the beginnings of a frown.
"What happened Arya?" He prodded gently, obviously trying not to upset her further.
She felt Maester Luwin's eyes on her back now, obviously waiting for her answer. She took a deep breath before she launched into her explanation of what she had seen. She told him of the dreams she'd had of Jon before, how he'd been changing into something scaled. She told him of Jon advising her, how it had felt like she'd managed to have her brother back. Then she told of the ship. The fight that had come from it. The thing disguised as a man that called itself Jon's brother and hurt him so badly. And finally she told of watching Jon sink beneath the water and being powerless to help or do anything.
As she spoke she watched her father's face for any sign of some emotion: shock, anger, sadness. But all she could discern was his usual attentive focus that possessed him whenever he spoke with anyone. When she finished, there was a silence. Maester Luwin spoke after some moments of quiet.
"My lord, perhaps these visions are unintended effects bourne of Jon's efforts in the sept." He suggested.
Arya opened her mouth to dispute that she was imagining this. She had already thought that before and this latest vision had proved it couldn't possibly be fake. Why in the world would she imagine Jon dying in such a painful fashion?
"That may well be." Her father began before Arya interjected.
"I didn't imagine this!" She shouted, starting to stand in her agitation.
Her father's right hand alighted on her shoulder and applied enough pressure for her to sit again as his stern gaze fixed upon her.
"I am not saying you did Arya." He told her. But he had, hadn't he? Why else would he agree with Maester Luwin's thoughts on this being a false vision induced by Jon's healing?
"But I want to ask you some questions." He continued. Arya met his eyes, unwilling to back down. She nodded. If this was the way to convince him than so be it.
"Did you see the name of the ship Jon was on?" He asked quietly.
Arya shook her head. She hadn't managed to pick that up in the chaos and the confusion of the night. Jon likely knew the name of it but he'd never felt the need to say it aloud.
"Did you see the name of any other ship? The name of the man who was possessed?" he asked.
Arya was forced to answer no to both those questions.
"Do you remember what anyone besides Jon looked like?" He asked.
She was able to tell him of the one eyed man. How he'd been an ordinary eye-patched man with an air of menace and danger about him even before he started cackling and leaking smoke from his eyes and the rest of his body. But she could tell him nothing of the specifics except for the red eye upon the sail that had dominated the last ship Jon had been on, having been understandably preoccupied by the battle occurring before and through her.
Her father looked toward the window when she described the sail. She had seen his eyes when she told him of what the creature had sent to Jon. About R'hllor. About the Doom of Valyria. But as he looked back toward her and began to speak she was sorely disappointed by what he said.
"While I am certain you believed it to be real Arya, I cannot say the same for myself." He said, his eyes meeting hers.
There was something in them. What was it? Regret? Sorrow? Resignation? An odd mixture of them all? Or an unnamable feeling that she hadn't seen her father express before?
"I want you to speak nothing of this to anyone. Until we receive word from Jon, I will not say that he is dead. And I would ask that you do the same for me." He instructed, expression softening along the lines of his face.
Her stomach felt cold when she noticed that expression. She was sure of what it meant: that he did indeed believe her, but wasn't going to act upon it because it was not the way things were. Because it was simply a dream: something to be endured in the slumbering hours and forgotten upon waking no matter how weighted and portentous they appeared to be.
He believed but he would not act.
As he hugged her and kissed her forehead before telling her she needed to get some sleep and he needed to speak with Maester Luwin, she brought her arms to hug him back out of habit rather than a true sense of relief or comfort. He would not act. And her brother's corpse would remain unknown, unrecognized, unmourned.
As she closed the door to her father's solar behind her and made her way down the corridor back to the room she shared with her sister, she felt drained in mind and body. She could only hope that when she slept she would dream of Jon and see him again. That their father's optimism was the truth of what had happened.
But her hope would not come to fruition.
Her dreams were darkened and filled with shadows that grabbed at her from every direction. No faces, no voices. Only the slightest of whispers, only the barest of touches as they came closer and closer to her no matter how fast she sprinted. She awoke in the morning tired and in a worse mood than she normally was upon being forced into the waking world too early.
The following days were no kinder. Her lord father acted as though nothing were different while her sister and mother were apparently convinced her newly befouled temper simply needed the advice of a gentle lady now that she was becoming a woman herself.
Her mother had been sorely disappointed when Arya's melancholic anger was somehow not improved by her suggestion that she consult Septa Mordane on finding comfort in the seven. Her sister had surprisingly more practical advice than that. Sansa had suggested that Arya do things that made her feel better without hurting anyone: things like eating her favorite foods or resting in her favorite places. But then again, her elder sister had fallen victim to nightmares that kept her awake for a time even after Jon had left and so could be said to have more experience with visceral unnatural nightmares than their mother.
Even with that in mind though Sansa had been acting strange ever since Arya had woken up screaming. Instead of taunting her about it, she had been strangely silent. She had even taken to gently reprimanding Jayne Poole whenever she started up with her 'Arya Horseface' routine. If she hadn't been in such a foul state of mind from the constant phantom whispers and touches that disturbed her dreams these days, she might've asked her sister if something had happened to her.
As it was, she couldn't find it in her to care. Especially not after she discovered the strange reaction cold things had to her. Wherever she walked, snow and frost had taken to thickening somewhat. If there'd been none on the grass where she tread, it left behind merely a light dusting that melted soon after she walked away from it. The result was more pronounced when she was barefoot. It was starting to get the chambermaids and servants irritated, constantly finding irregular tracks of melted water inside Winterfell. Though fortunately the castle was heated enough by the hot springs that flowed through the stone that they couldn't see it made trails following behind her.
If she kept something in her hand too long, it would be cold to the touch. Yet she herself couldn't feel the cold anymore as others did. She'd found that out after deciding on a whim to simply wander the edge of the wolfswood late one night wearing only her shift and slippers and never once feeling the bite of winter or the chill of the wind.
Between the constant awakenings in the night, the strange sensations of what she suspected were the beginnings of magic she didn't understand and had never experienced before combined with the determination of all her family to act as though everything were carrying on as ever, it was a wonder to her that she didn't start losing her already frayed temper with them.
But yet on this night her dreams shifted again.
As she wandered through the darkness, she heard one whisper that spoke her name clearly.
'Arya.' It called to her. 'I'm here little sister.'
Her thoughts raced as her unseeing eyes darted through the oppressive darkness, seeking the voice of her brother. She'd seen him die! How was he here?!
'Seek me out Arya.' He said. 'The shadows will guide you if you know how to trust them.'
She looked and looked, the almost touches distracting her as she sought any source of light within the darkness. She knew from experience that no matter how much she ran she could never outrun the touches. And so she decided to try something different and crouch down.
As her hands touched what felt like stone beneath her unseeing eyes, she heard a light crunching. Her knees started to feel wet while her hands told her that the ground was covered with something that felt frozen to her touch. There was snow and ice down here that she'd never felt before. Her mind raced as she put together what Jon's voice had said with this new information.
'Trust the shadows he said.' She mused to herself. But she couldn't do that, not without entrusting herself to something that was inherently untrustworthy and blinding. But now she'd found something that seemed to be in her favor in this dream world. Now she just needed to figure out how to get it to tell her where Jon was.
She stood in a low crouch, her toes flexing slowly to be sure she felt the snow still beneath her feet. Ignoring the sensation of entrapment and surrounding bodies she could neither see nor hear, she carefully put one foot in front of the other, toes flexing with each step to be sure she still felt the snow as she wondered how she'd be able to tell she was getting closer to Jon.
As she walked on, she felt the snow thin somewhat for a step before the next had it feel as though nothing had changed. Frowning in the pitch black, Arya crouched down where the last step had been, her hands felt the snow where she'd stepped only a few moments before. Her touch confirmed she hadn't been imagining the sensation: the snow was thinner here than it was further on. The further she reached into the direction, the more she felt of the slightly thinned snow levels.
Remembering Jon's attempt at healing being based in fire, she couldn't help but smile to herself. She loved it when things like this resolved themselves like this.
'Guess that answers the question of how to find him.' She reflected. With renewed confidence and a sense of impending resolution, she forged onward through the ever thinning cold.
What felt like hours later, she'd faithfully followed the thinning ice and snow until it was but a skim layer of water on solid stone beneath her feet. She could see a flickering light in the distance. But she didn't hurry forward, her previous experiences of the dream world and her by now ingrained seeking of the lessened cold telling her not to rush without knowing what waited in the shadows of the surroundings for her.
At last, she was standing before the fire. And there, sitting on the opposite side, was Jon.
His hair was longer, his skin had a great deal of scaled patches in the flickering firelight and he had grown what appeared to be pauldrons of solid red fur on his shoulders. But his grey Stark eyes were unmistakable. As was the genuine smile he gave her when he saw her.
"It's good to see you little sister." He said, subtle smile and bright eyes radiating his joy at seeing her again.
She slowly came around the fire, bringing herself face to face with him as she took in his attire. He was barefooted, his trousers slightly too large for him and chest bared for her to see the spider web of snow white lines and cracks that decorated his left arm.
So many emotions swirled inside of her that she could barely decide what to do with them all. There were two things she decided had to be done before she said anything as he stood up, her face reaching the top most edge of his chest.
Her right hand came up in a flash and slapped him hard enough to turn his head to the right. Immediately following that was a hug around his middle that audibly caused his ribs to creak like a wooden support asked to support too much weight. His arms settled around her back and shoulders as his steady heartbeat resounded soothingly in her ear.
"You promised me you wouldn't scare me like that anymore." She chastised, tone equal parts peevish and relieved.
"I wasn't given much choice in the matter." He remarked, tightening his arms around her as if to reassure himself that she was indeed here with him. "But for what it's worth, I am sorry that I scared you again."
She could hear the genuine regret in his voice at scaring her again. Knowing him as only she does, she knows he truly never would've wanted to scare her or cause her turmoil. He is too loyal to his family, to those he loves for that.
"There's no point in asking you to avoid that sort of thing is there?" She mumbled into his chest.
He lets out a short laugh.
"Probably not." He answers truthfully. He pulls back slightly before affectionately kissing her forehead. "But there's no harm in it either. Who knows? I might even manage."
She laughed in response, the scratchiness of his budding beard a strange sensation on the skin of her scalp just below her hairline. She let it go for now, more important matters needing to be addressed at this moment
"Where are you Jon?" She asked as they both reluctantly let go of each other and settled down into their customary position before the fire: he leaning against a solid surface just behind his back, she settled on his right side as her head rested upon his shoulder. His right hand was cupping her right shoulder as always, letting her relax as the familiar placement allowed her to feel safe in such a routine arrangement.
"On my way back to Winterfell." He told her.
"I'm glad to hear it." She said, smiling at the fire as her eyes remained upon its flickering outline even while the bright center remained steady in the nonexistent air of this place.
"And when I get back, I'll be training you in the art of magic." He promised in a blunt no-nonsense tone.
Her head came up as she looked at the right side of his face in some surprise. He could've easily figured she needed him to help her get a handle on it just from the fact that she was speaking to him within dreams and hadn't realized it until she watched him die. But Arya couldn't help wondering if he'd be able to help her with the cold as well.
"I don't think I'll be able to do what you do." She told him, eyes searching for a reaction. Not so much as a twitch. So he already knew or he didn't think it'd be a problem. Or maybe it was a little bit of both.
"I know." He responded. "But our powers are connected. And in any case," He turned to look at her, the right half of his expression in shadow as it contrasted with the bright firelight on the left side. "I would welcome your ideas on how to use them. That is how we managed to make things most interesting around Winterfell before." He finished, a playful quirk of his lips letting her know he was thinking of the things they had done around the Stark ancestral home to keep everyone on their toes.
"Like teaching Sansa how to play come into my castle?" She asked absently. A smile came to her own face as well as she recalled that had been the first and only time her sister had requested she play the child's game come into my castle with her.
"I was thinking more of when Jayne Poole slapped Theon for constantly stealing her things." He admitted with a brief laugh.
Arya laughed too as she remembered that particular plan of theirs. She had been more impatient than Jon in seeing the value of it, but hadn't been disappointed by the result. Jayne had turned out to possess a surprising amount of power in her right arm: enough so that she'd accidentally knocked Theon into the weapons rack when she'd gotten fed up and decided his thievery had to come to an end. Their father's Greyjoy ward had involuntarily glanced at Jayne's hands every day for some time after that.
"Alright." She accepted graciously, settling back against his side again. "But you'll be the one to take the brunt of mother's complaints." She stipulated, unwilling to be the only one to deal with her lady mother's no doubt inevitable problems with this future arrangement.
"Deal." He declared as his lips found the top of her hair before turning back to face the fire.
They were silent for a while longer, content to simply be with each other in this place that had no distance between them as the waking world did. After a fashion, they were talking as they always did. Of Winterfell, of their siblings, of life. Before she was awakened, Jon warned her that he would be bringing a direwolf to Winterfell and that she might want to be prepared for a slight commotion when they came.
Arya was ecstatic to hear that she was potentially going to meet such a legendary creature that stories spoke of only living beyond the Wall the Night's Watch guarded. She couldn't tell anyone what had gotten her so happy after that night even as they asked and prodded her, but she knew Jon's arrival would not be dull in any way.
She was proven correct.
It had been another day at Winterfell: she was stuck in her sewing lessons with Sansa, Jayne, Beth and the Septa. When she heard shouting from the yard beyond the level of recruits practicing and her brothers mock fighting. She stood up in her seat, hurridly tossing the sewing hoop on the seat as she raced to the window.
"Arya!" Septa Mordane called to her indignantly. "What in the Seven do you think you're doing?!"
From the position, she could see guards moving toward Winterfell's gates with some agitation. Jon was finally home. And he had brought the direwolf with him. Without another word or glance, she bolted for the door, dodging Sansa's feet as she tried to trip her and ignoring Mordane's reprimand as she pulled the door open and sprinted down the stairs toward the courtyard. Before she knew it, she was getting toward the gate, a small crowd of the guards by the portcullis.
She weaved through them as gracefully as she could, an occasional bump on their hip or side the only sign she was making her way through the loosely packed crowd. Then she was at the front of them. And there, standing on the other side of the portcullis, was Jon.
His hair was as long as it had seemed in the dreams they shared. His beard was a bit longer. His clothes seemed ill fitting and dirty, his boots barely holding together. He carried only a dirk at his left hip, a short bow and a few arrows in a thin makeshift quiver upon his back. On his wrists, there appeared to be iron mancles with dangling chains attached. The spots of rust were pronounced and visible on them as he stood there, right hand upon the head of a truly huge wolf.
The wolf itself was fierce looking: its fur was a combination of browns and greys with the darkest concentrations of grey on its paws, a streak upon its nose disappearing up between its yellow moonlike eyes and upon its breast and low hanging belly. Arya almost gasped aloud when that last part registered in her mind, that Jon had not only discovered a direwolf but a pregnant mother to boot.
At the moment the wolf was busy panting and was apparently calmed by Jon's alternately comforting and restraining hand. How in the world he had managed to reach such an understanding with the legendary animal, she would dearly like to find out since he had only ever teased and hinted at it no matter how she'd pestered him in their shared dreams.
The men parted as her father came to the forefront, silent and watchful as the direwolf by her brother's side. His eyes took it all in, eyes running over Jon then the wolf. His right eyebrow had steadily ticked upward as he observed all of this before he ordered the gate open. As the clanking of the chains pulled the portcullis upward, he remarked to her brother that he missed the days when Jon's idea of causing a commotion was helping her make trouble around Winterfell.
"Don't think I haven't seen you Arya." He said to her after as Jon and the wolf came forward. "We'll be discussing your leaving the Septa's lessons later."
"In the meantime Lord Stark, I really think we should get Frost somewhere she can lay down." Jon interjected, his right hand now in a light grip on the direwolf's fur. "I think the litter might be coming soon."
As they made their way toward the kennels, Arya couldn't resist resting her left hand on the wolf's fur. It was soft enough to make her think of the fur lined cloaks she and her siblings wore when the northern weather turned on them as it was prone to doing. Yet it also possessed an undeniable warmth that came from still being a simple cover for a living, breathing creature that generated such body heat and had such an unmistakable presence.
"Frost." She repeated to herself, thinking of the name Jon had apparently given the direwolf mother. It suited her she decided. She sincerely hoped they could come up with equally suitable names for the pups when they came along.
A/N: Sorry this took so long everyone. Real life interfered, but you're not interested in hearing about all that. Let me know if the chapter meets expectations. Reviews help the well of inspiration's flow after all.