THE FAMILY WE MAKE

Gendry III

A lifetime ago, in the damp caverns the Brotherhood had called home, he'd spoken the truth as he had believed it to be.

You wouldn't be my family, you'd be m'Lady.

Looking at her now, clad in leather and coated in filth, Gendry knew he had never been more wrong.

Winterfell's forge was much the same as every other forge in every other castle or cave or Flea Bottom alleyway that he'd ever worked in. It was kept dark enough that the temperature of metal could be judged by its colour and hot enough to tan exposed flesh in a way the sun could never hope to match, the only difference here was the presence of walls separating the various workstations from each other. To preserve heat, Arya had told him. Truthfully, Gendry was grateful for any extra warmth and would be forever amazed that a tiny thing like Arry didn't freeze to death the moment she stepped out of the forge.

She was at the anvil now, hammer in one hand and tongs in the other, as she shaped the rough form of a dagger out of heated steel. What she lacked in physical power compared to the other smiths, she made up for with precision and control. With training, Gendry had no doubt she could become quite a competent bladesmith. As it was, she seemed to enjoy his teachings, and the physicality of it had helped calm some of the restless energy that forever radiated from her.

"Remember, you're moving the metal," Gendry reminded her with a smirk as she whacked the same portion of metal back and forth a few times, "Not removing it."

Arya shot him a dirty look but took the advice all the same as she returned the piece to the flames and moved to work the bellows. Aside from the physical enjoyment she seemed to get from working with him, she also appeared to relish the opportunity to be Arry again, as she had been when he first met her all those years ago. She hid in plain sight among the other smiths, dressed as they were in worn, sleeveless tunics and britches protected by a leather apron and the leather cap under which she had tucked away her hair. Apparently, Lady Sansa had balked at the idea of her cutting it off again.

She suited the look, Gendry decided, with her lithe, muscular frame and…

And that was enough of that. He'd say she'd grown into a woman while they'd been apart, but she hadn't, really. She was still just as tiny and boyish and rough as he remembered… Perhaps it was him who had changed? Or perhaps nothing had changed at all.

You know you shouldn't insult people that are bigger than you are.

Then I wouldn't get to insult anyone.

"What are you smiling at?" Arya asked, returning her project to the anvil and grabbing the hammer once more.

Gendry shook his head, aware that he was still smiling. "Nothing. You should let that rest for a moment after this round."

Arya nodded absentmindedly and gave the piece a few more strikes before setting it aside. "Sansa's plotting."

"Is that unusual?"

"Doesn't appear to be."

"She's not," Gendry began, then stopped, considering his words. Arry wouldn't care, but he was learning quickly that castle walls have ears and many of those ears belonged to her sister, "Only, when you used to mention her… She's not what I expected, I suppose."

"Nor I," Arya swung herself up to perch on a nearby workbench and wiped her soot-stained hands on her pants, "She's less stupid than I remember."

The smith snorted. "I should aspire to one day receive such a compliment," he teased.

"Fuck off."

Gendry grinned at her as he selected one of his ongoing projects to put into the forge. Silence lapsed over them, as much as silence could with the roaring of flames and endless pounding of hammers on metal around them, as he waited for the metal to take the heat.

Arya sighed behind him, grabbing a whetstone from the bench next to her and setting to work putting the final edge on the blades they'd finished already. "I only wish I'd been able to work out how he found out about the Targaryen girl…"

'He' could only be the man Arry called Littlefinger, the one her sister had tasked her with watching. Gendry had seen him once or twice now, first by chance in the courtyard while gathering supplies for the forge — he'd been at Lady Sansa's side as she conversed with highborn Lords he didn't recognize — and later in the forge itself, but fortunately never when Arry was there. It was the rest of the statement that was the question, "What about the Targaryen girl?"

"She's gone. Took off on her dragons after they landed at White Harbour. Sansa and Baelish think she means to intercept the Lannister army at Highgarden."

"Oh," Gendry blinked, "Well, that's alright, isn't it? Less folks for the North to fight?"

The look Arya gave him would have cowed better men. "I don't care about the Dragon Queen, balls-for-brains, I care about how Littlefinger knew. Messages go two ways and if he's got someone in her camp… Of all the days to be stuck up a fucking tree…"

Gendry didn't ask. Some things he was perfectly happy not knowing. Instead, he pulled the metal from the forge and set to work forming it into a serviceable sword. King Jon had ordered the creation of weapons intended to be used to wield fire, and Gendry had taken it upon himself to experiment with a few different designs.

Master Mott had complained often and loudly any time the drunk priest, Thoros, had come in search of a new blade. What he did to his work wasn't worth the money, he used to say. The drunk may as well use a broom-handle, for all quality mattered to him. For that reason, and despite his status and proximity to those who might seek to commission their own blade from the craftsman responsible for his famed burning blade, Gendry and the other apprentices had been given dominion over the priest's swords. Of course, Thoros had also been known to haggle relentlessly (and drunkenly) and bemoan the set price each time he visited, which had likely played a part as well. What the young smith remembered most, however, was the unusually deep fuller the priest had favoured. They had never spoken about it, specifically, but Gendry had always believed that the fuller must have played a part in keeping his blade aflame.

So far, his experiments with varying the depth and width of the fuller had yielded limited results, including one particular failure which had nearly set his hand alight when the oil funnelled past the crossguard. Arya had found it hilarious. Gendry, less so. Still, he carried on, changing his design each time. This latest version included a fuller with indents down its length and the edges of each divot pinched up and over to create a lip around its circumference. He hoped the smaller opening versus the larger interior would help hold the oil in place even as the sword moved. He also hoped to test it when Arry wasn't here. For now, though, the blade needed roughing out into something workable.

They worked in companionable silence for a while until the metal under Gendry's hammer needed the chance to rest. Only then did Arya speak.

"So," the smirk on her face was not reassuring in the slightest, "I thought we might start with something simple…"

Gendry groaned, even as he set his work down and moved to lean against the workbench next to her. "Arry…" he sighed, "I'm a smith, nothing more. I'm alright with that."

Meeting with the King and Lady Sansa as the son of Robert Baratheon had been the single most nerve-racking experience of his life. Sure, he'd felt terror far greater than what he'd felt walking into the room, but he would gladly face that fear a thousand times over before experiencing the feeling of inadequacy that being alone with his best friend's family had brought him again. Even when Arya had appeared from Gods only knew where to fill in the story of their meeting and travels together, all he could see was the same thing that had led him to that moment in the cave…

You wouldn't be my family, you'd be m'Lady.

He'd panicked, later, when there was no one but Arry to witness it. He wasn't a Lord. He wasn't a Prince. He wasn't highborn, nor important, nor worth anything more than the trade he could provide.

"I haven't the mind to be a Lord!" he'd told her, fully aware that he was well past desperate by that point.

"I'll say," she'd agreed sarcastically, "You can think."

"It's not funny, Arry. I can't be a Lord. I can't be anything."

Arya had sighed then, and turned serious. "Why not?"

"Why?" He'd been panicking and frustrated and trying to explain something that his best friend, highborn little Lady that she was beneath the sharp edges and sharper words, just couldn't understand. And he'd broken. "I… Fuck it. I can't sit a horse, Arya. I can't wield a sword. I can't do sums. My mother was a whore. I've got no learning 'sides smithin'. I can't even read, nor write… I can't be what you are."

She'd left it, then, without expression or response, and hadn't mentioned it again. But she hadn't forgotten, and nor had he.

Now, in the heat of the forge, she wiggled a piece of paper over his shoulder. "C'mon, Gendry. I've been reliably informed that my penmanship is atrocious, you'll hardly be learning proper reading off it."

It was the tiny, and quickly extinguished, trace of hopeful excitement in her voice that swayed him. He rolled his eyes with a long-suffering sigh. "Fine," he grumbled, even as he took the paper from her and peered at it warily, "What do I do?"

Arya leaned forward, resting one forearm on his shoulder while she pointed out the appropriate scribbles with her other hand. "Each of these marks is a letter — "

"I know what a letter is — "

She cuffed his ear at the interruption. "Shut up. Each letter makes a sound. Put them together and groups of letters make even more sounds. Put those together and you get words."

"Seven Hells, Arry…"

"It's easy enough once you get the hang of it."

Somehow, Gendry very much doubted that but a glance up at Arya's face revealed that genuine quirk of her lips that he was forever trying to bring out, so he kept his doubts to himself and tried to focus.

"See, this is a G," she indicated a scribble, "It mostly makes a gee or gh sort of sound."

"That's two sounds, Arry," Gendry pointed out, "And what do you mean, mostly?"

His teacher waved her hand dismissively. "It's fine — "

"It's really not — "

"This one is an E. It makes an eee or an eh."

"Fuck me…"

"And this is an N," Arya carried on, ignoring his commentary despite the smirk which betrayed her amusement, "It makes a nhu sound — "

"Mostly?" Gendry guessed dully.

"Mostly," Arya agreed, "See, together gu, eh, nhu. It makes the sound gen."

He felt a fond smile wiggling its way onto his face. "You're teaching me my name."

"I told you, we'll start with something easy," she gestured further down the paper where Gendry could now recognize that all the words started with the same three letters. The gen sound. "Names are odd," she continued, "Folks spell them in ways that don't always follow the normal rules. But, I figured the first thing you should learn would be your own name, so I wrote out a few different spellings for it, and we can pick the one you — "

"It's this one."

"Come again?"

Gendry was staring at the page, an odd feeling of not-quite-remembering swirling in his gut as he stared at one particular scribble. He knew that word. "It's this one," he pointed.

"G, E, N, D, R, Y," Arya read out, frowning, "Gendry. How do you know that?"

"I…" Gendry shook his head, racking his memory as far back as possible, "I've seen it before, I think. My mum showed it to me."

"Your mother could read?"

Gendry looked up to see a thoughtful expression on his friend's face. "I don't know. I suppose so. I was only little when she died, but I remember there was a paper I was to give to Master Mott after she was gone…"

Arya considered him for a long moment before clearing the expression away. "I'm sorry you lost her."

"It's common enough," the young smith shrugged, "The older I get, the less I remember of her. Gods, I've known you longer now than I ever did her."

"A poor replacement, I'm sure."

Gendry smiled fondly. "You'll do."

Arya kicked him none too gently in the side. "Jon used to say something similar about his mother. That it was common not to know her, that lots of lads don't, and all that. Even when I was furious at mine, or thought she couldn't love me for what I was, he was always the one making sure I never took her for granted…"

"Then I'm grateful to him," Gendry smiled, running a callused finger over the scribble that was his name absentminded, "Your brother — that is, His Grace, seems like a — What?"

Arya was laughing, properly laughing in a way that shook her entire body. "Don't do that. His name's Jon, and he's my brother. That's all."

The young smith frowned. "He's the King, Arry. It's only proper to address him as such…"

"I know, I know," her laughter died down, but the smile remained, "But it's just us, and he's Jon. I've seen him clad in a woman's nightdress tucked up in my bed so that I could sneak to the kitchen without Mother knowing…"

It was Gendry's turn to laugh at the mental image that sentence conjured up. "How did that work?"

"He was the only one of my siblings with hair like mine, we just made certain the rest of him was under furs. Mother never did find out."

"Why the nightdress, then?"

Arya's smile turned positively wolflike. "Couldn't be too careful."

Gods, her poor brother. "Of course."