Chapter Fifty-Two: Chicken Scratch

Arya Stark's Chambers

Daenerys Targaryen

Three days had gone by since the meeting in the small council chamber, and they had hardly moved at all.

Three days, they talked back and forth. During meals, after meals. In the light, in the dark. Together, apart. Some nights, she and Jon had lain in bed, huddled beneath four separate blankets with a fire in the corner, and talked until they had both slipped into sleep.

There were several plans floated and dropped. They could reach out to the Company of the Rose – a band of Northmen who had fled after Torrhen knelt – and offer them the seats of their old houses. But they hadn't ravens trained for Essos, and, even if they had, they had no way of knowing where the Company was. In time, the ravens would fly again. But time could be short or long; it all depended on the wind.

They had argued that they could bribe lords and ladies to go north. They could help establish order there and then return south to their families when winter was done. But the coffers of the North had emptied during Robb's war, and the Boltons had stolen the rest.

They had even proposed not to go back to Winterfell. To find some safe haven in Essos and shelter there until winter passed. But it would be a hard travel, and they would be just as unsafe there as anywhere else.

The only idea that seemed sound had come when they were gathered in Arya Stark's rooms, eating her food while she sat and watched from her bed. She did not raise a word to argue it, and there seemed too much for a single woman. Tully and Jon had already arranged for most to be sent down to be rationed among the smallfolk, and Sansa Stark had sent her own offerings to the kings and queen of the kingdoms.

Dany wondered if Sansa might ever tire of this game, as she had. But she showed no hint of stopping, and Dany did not mind enough to ask her to.

There were six of them gathered in the room. Arya Stark, of course, and the blacksmith who hardly ever seemed to leave her side, while Jon, Sansa Stark, Lord Tully, and herself made up the rest.

They argued over there food, and Dany didn't bother to swallow before she spoke. She simply talked through a mouthful of ribs of some wild boar – ribs that tasted of charcoal and ash, despite the fine cook that had made them – and tried not to laugh when Sansa Stark frowned.

As she listened on, the Lady Sansa proposed a partnership with the Reach. A marriage, perhaps, though she knew not if they would take the bride. They would take Arya Stark at a moment's notice, of course, but none had spoken the words when she was there to watch them. That would come later, surely. It always seemed to with these types. Jon would refuse. He always did.

It annoyed her, this secret bargaining. Even when Dany had been a queen, politics had frustrated her. Now, when she had relinquished her say so that she might be freed of it, she would rather swallow fire than listen another moment. Yet here she was, listening. She looked to the fire, yearning.

If Jorah was there, he might have distracted her. He would have been by her side, whispering about his million plots and schemes. Had he stayed, they might have offered him his seat again, his exile shed like a winter coat.

But Jorah had died, and every time she thought of him, it hurt anew. He, who had been beside her all through her days as the Mother of Dragons, gone. He, who had stood with her at Viserys' end, gone. He, who had fought beside her in Winterfell and King's Landing, gone.

He had not even been graced with a noble death, as he might have wanted. A sword in hand, protecting her from some vague threat. Instead, he had died days later, alone with Arya Stark, and she had not yet spoken of his last words. She had hardly spoken at all.

I should have been there, she thought. I should have known.

"You offer them lordships," Edmure Tully was saying, as Dany let her ribs fall to the plate, untouched. Jon looked to her, concerned, but Dany waved him away. With him, the plate.

"They aren't Northerners," Sansa Stark said.

"No, but they are people, and they are hungry, afraid."

"Give them a purpose," she said, suddenly agreeable, as if that was the key to solving all their troubles, "and they will love us."

Jon shifted, uncomfortable, but Edmure pressed on. "No," he said, frustrated. "Give them a purpose, and they will live."

Gendry the smith and Arya Stark both startled at his words. Gendry in particular shifted, frowning, as his eyes traced every piece of silk stitched into Tully's cloak.

Dany could not help but be surprised herself. For all she had heard from Viserys, the Tullys were monstrous people, who would steal the food from their King's plate and their peoples' bellies for no other reason than to gorge themselves. They were kin to the Starks and the Arryns and friends to the treacherous Baratheons. They would rather see the kingdom starve than offer one morsel of their own to the crown. Viserys had promised her that the smallfolk and Tully bannermen would not hesitate to rise against their liege lords if it meant a Targaryen returned to the throne, and Dany had believed him for far longer than she ought.

Dany had expected many things of Edmure Tully. Cruelty, a clever tongue, a hunger for more than just the River King's Crown. She had not expected this.

A man who wished to protect his men and his women and his children, the ones he was sworn to aid. A man who sought to help them, not for political gain, but simply because they were hungry and afraid. A man who cared.

In her days in Essos, Dany had met precious few who had helped their people just because they needed help. It was why hundreds of years of slavery had preceded her, and only stopped when the dragons came to eat.

If this man was to be King in the Riverlands, perhaps she had made the right choice.

"What of Arya?" Sansa asked, pointedly. "Are we to bring her with the smallfolk? We've seen what people will do with her."

"She's right," Jon said, unhappily, before Edmure could respond. "It won't be safe."

The answer came from across the room, accompanied by half a dozen coughs and a whine so pitiful, it reminded Dany of the sounds Viserion had made as he fell from the sky into the cold dark waters. "No," the voice cried, barely even loud enough to hear from so far. And then, Arya Stark was doubled in on herself, choking on the burns at her throat as Gendry beat at her back with all the strength he had. Three days had passed since she had last spoken, and it seemed she had recovered little.

Jon surged to his feet, his own plate abandoned to the floor. He made her way to her side before Dany could move a single muscle. Sansa stayed, looking worried but content to stay and watch.

"What'd we tell you about that?" Jon pressed, as he offered her shoulders his own hand. She pulled back, as if his very touch burned like a dragon's breath.

At times, it seemed she tolerated the smith better than her own brother. Dany could relate, she supposed, though she could not imagine flinching from Jon the way she had Viserys.

Jon gave no sign that he noticed the slight, but Dany knew him too well not to see the hurt in his eyes. He hid it well, but it lived there. As his sister suffered, so did he. Perhaps that was why Dany pitied the girl. Or, perhaps it was simply because she was a girl in pain, and Dany had been that very same girl too many times.

And perhaps that was why she rose from her seat at the table, leaving Edmure Tully and Sansa Stark behind her. Maybe that was why she stalked forward, hesitant as a wild dog before an unknown man. Maybe that was why she stood before Arya Stark and said, slowly and carefully, "Why does she not write?"

And where the girl blanched, her smith turned to gaze at Dany with utter disdain upon his face. It lasted for only a moment, before clarity struck, and he was turning back to look at his lady with unabated pleasure in his eyes. "Your hand's better! You can write! Why didn't you-"

Jon, too, seemed delighted. "Paper," he said, "and a quill. And ink. King Edmure, can you-" He need not go any further. Edmure was already retrieving the set he'd been using the past quarter hour. By the time she had recovered her breathing, all three were sat upon her chest, and they had even brought a tray table for her to lean on.

She looked to Jon first, and, when he nodded, she took the quill in her right hand, took a breath, and set it to page. In the time it took her to scribble out her first sentence, Sansa Stark had joined them by her beside. When it was done, they all looked as one.

Wordless sprawl. Utter wordless sprawl. It was as if they had given a dragon the quill and set them about writing. Words molded together, black marks were scattered across the table, and in places, ink sopped through the page. Dany checked to see if the girl was trembling, but, so far as she could tell, the hand was steady.

They looked at the page for a long while. Edmure was huffing to himself, while Jon's smile degraded into a frown. Sansa looked as if she had fallen from her horse, and Gendry hadn't reacted at all, except to look to them. He hadn't even bothered glancing at the page.

Jon was the first to break the silence. "This is…"

Sansa finished for him. "This is worse than your stitching."

The girl nearly laughed at that. Then her hand fell to the empty scabbard on her right hip, and all hints of a smile were gone.

"You can't read it?" Gendry asked, as if anything on the page was even remotely legible.

Sansa squinted at it again, instead of answering, even tilted it a bit. The shift did nothing to clarify a single feigned word.

"I knew your hand wasn't the best," Jon said, an edge of humor in his voice that was soon tainted by Arya's frown, "but I don't remember it being like this."

She balled her hand into a fist. Tiny fists, each covered in a thousand silver scars that lined from the wrist to the knuckles, the tips of the fingers to the palm of her hands, the elbow, and beyond. Scars that spoke to years of fighting and training, and scars that Jorah had worn too, and Barristan and Daario and Grey Worm.

And, despite herself, Dany understood. There had been a time when she had gone years without ink, and, when she had set a quill to parchment, her writing had been poor too. Not so poor as this, surely, but poor.

So too had there had been many slaves of the Isle of Naath who had known their letters as children and lost them to age and bondage. Missandei had shown them to her, and there, she had seen scribbles near as terrible as this – though, still, never so completely dreadful.[l2]

How long had it been since Dany had written a missive? Fortnights? Moons? Had a nameday come between her last letters? And, if it had been so long for her, how long for Arya Stark? Did assassins teach letters to highborn girls? Did blacksmiths, and horses, and whoever else she had taken shelter with along the way? She looked to Arya Stark, to the shaking fists and grit teeth, and wondered just how long it had been.

That night, when Sansa and Edmure had taken their leave to rest, and Jon bid her to follow, she stayed her feet. Told him she would meet him in their rooms. Smiled while he protested. Turned when he was gone.

And all the while, the blacksmith and the Bringer of Dawn watched her every move. The girl looked so small, laying in a bed much too big for her beneath a mound of blankets. She looked nothing like the girl who had killed death itself, but very much like the girl who had escaped it.

She worked with her for hours that night, and the night after. They sat beneath the candles, as Dany watched her scribble across scroll after scroll. Within three morns, word had reached around the castle that the Bringer of Dawn was moving again. Dany did not know how they had heard, but within the fortnight, as Jon was collecting wagons and Lady Sansa was gathering rations, the guards came to them with stores filled with paper and ink, signed by some marcher lord she could not name.

At a certain point, the smith – Gendry – had begun writing with them. Learning the letters as she did, making mistakes when she did. Their spelling was equally horrid, their handwriting just as slanted, and their punctuation just as appalling, so he didn't slow the progress much. To a certain extent, he even helped. By the end of the second fortnight, when the slashes on her palm had faded to scars, he asked her to switch to using her sword hand. The letters came easier then, after a time, and her messages clearer.

Midway through the third sennight of practice, she was an active participant in the meetings, and she seemed happier for it. The first time she'd slipped a suggestion to them, Jon had hugged her until the girl had hissed and panicked. Then, once the meeting was done, he'd thanked Dany a thousand times in the bedroom, and she had gone to sleep sweaty and sated.

The next day, the Stark girl slipped more notes. The next day, Jon smiled at every one, and Sansa Stark… Dany had scarcely ever seen her smile, but twice she had to Arya's notes, and that said more than much.

"We can arrange an honor guard in Riverrun," King Edmure was telling them one night. The rest of the castle had fallen into their beds, after having finally recovered their sleep patterns once more. Dany envied them all. She had abandoned the throne, yes, for the betterment of the realm, but also that she might not have to sit through these droll meetings any longer. And there she was again, listening to tired old men drone on about tired old plans that had been covered a thousand times before.

"We are grateful, Uncle," Lady Sansa answered. "How many men do you have to spare?"

Dany looked to Jon, discontent, but the man took no notice of her gaze. He had already begun busying himself with balancing his quill on the pommel of his sword. He was paying attention of course, but the two of them hadn't slept much the night prior, and it was weighing on them both. It had been a long while since they had spent the night together to do more than sleep. They hadn't let the opportunity go to waste.

King Edmure's lips pulled. He looked no more pleased than Dany felt. "One, two dozen?" When Sansa mimicked his frown, he added, "It was not only the North who lost men in the Long Night."

Dany did not look to Arya Stark, but she could feel the girl shift.

"That is true," Sansa said. For all that she was courteous, she sounded no happier for it. "It might be best to send only the dozen then, Uncle. You'll have need of the rest with the Ironborn near."

Dany bristled. "Yara will not be raiding. She swore it to me."

Lady Sansa smiled, like a mother to her infant child, and that look never failed to make Dany wroth.

"I'm sure she won't," Sansa said, gracefully. "But I find it always best to be prepared."

"Either way, we'll need the men," Jon said, setting his quill on the table. "If we're bringing them with us, we need to make sure Arya's safe."

"Note!" Gendry cried, like the heralds in Meereen. It seemed to amuse him whenever he did, and it even seemed to amuse the Stark. Twice, Dany had caught her smiling when he called the note. It was twice more than Dany had seen since the battle.

It was Jon who read the note for them. It was always Jon. Supposedly, Arya preferred it that way, though she never seemed to react much when he did.

The first note he'd ever read for her had been a message he refused to share. The second, a request to send all the food to the smallfolk, and to tell them to stop sending it to her. The third, Jon kept silent.

It had been enough to make Dany smile, and she thought, by the look on the Stark's distorted face, this next one might do the same.

He read the words slowly, squinting all the while. "Keeq… go or… your men." He nodded. "Keep your men." Jon glanced back to catch her eyes, and his frown was playful as a frown could be. "Gods, Arya."

She shrugged a single shoulder, while her smith laughed. "Maybe m'lady should find somewhere better to write than my back."

The next note came crumpled and wordless. Gendry delivered it again, though not of his own volition. It leapt from her hand his head, and the once-King was stifling his laughter at the sight.

That laugh came rarer now than it had before, but hearing it still made her as warm as a well-tended fire. Dragonfire.

Soon, she told herself, glancing down at the map for the twelfth time that day. In truth, she looked to Dragonstone, where a single pebble rested on the shore. Rhaegal.

She had no way of knowing if she was safe, nor could she even say if he was even alive. It had been moons since she had last seen him, and much had happened since.

Yet somehow, she knew he would be alright. She would have known if he'd died. She would have felt the pain like with Drogon and Viserion. She would have felt all life flee her, until all that was left was pain and the hollow pit that still haunted her. She would have known herself a mother who had outlived all three of her children. But she hadn't. Rhaegal lived.

She would see him again. She knew it.

"How long before we set out?" she asked Jon, though he was still discussing the honor guard. She hadn't a mind for it any longer, not when Rhaegal was so close, and yet so far.

Jon looked startled, but recovered quickly enough. He shared a look with Lady Sansa, with King Edmure, and one final look to Arya Stark, who was busy scribbling another note on Gendry's back. He looked back to Dany, and said, "Tomorrow."

It was no lie. The next day, they set off on horseback and left behind this city of ashes and memory, of a legacy she had rejected and two dynasties that had died.

If she next returned, it would be on a dragon's back. The thought could not have made her happier.

I've officially hit the point where I had to make a second word document, because I couldn't even scroll without major delays.

This fic was supposed to be 20,000 words.

Well, the good news is I have about 13 chapters left to write, so that should only be… 50,000 words. Dammit.

Good news is that the pace is going to pick up from here. More time skips, quicker plotting, etc.

As for the chapter itself, we finally got some fluff and some comfort! I promised, didn't I?

Dany's using her experience to help a fellow battered kid make it in the world. She's had a lot of time to learn how to rehabilitate people like Arya, and it's nice to see her putting it to good use. Additionally, this gives Arya an extra tool of communication, and gives her a means to feel more human at a time when she desperately needs to. She just needed to get out of her head a bit, and Dany gave her the perfect way. Plus, how could I pass up some good old Arya-Dany bonding time? Even if it is just a quick mention.

I was gonna add some Dany-Sansa conflict, but eh let's just let these guys enjoy themselves for the first time since… okay, for the first time.

Anyway, check back in next time for a Sansa as our heroes get the hell out of dodge.