Arya
Someone was poking her. "D'you think she's dead?" someone asked, a man with a lowborn affect. "Who knows? She screamed like she was getting gutted herself when she faceplanted into the floor." Another man answered, and then she was moving, in someone's arms before they set her in a bed. Her limbs felt like bags of bricks and her eyes wouldn't open but Arya could feel them poking her with something like a flat rock. Finally she got out a slurring grunt, gargling noisily. I'm alive, she tried to say. Stop with the poking. "Gods, still kicking." The second man said, the sound of him backing away quickly a dead giveaway. She could hear another man in the room, hear his breathing, but he hadn't yet spoken. "Maybe one killed the other." The second man said. "What?" the first asked. She opened her eyes and it felt like she was working a gatewheel on her own. "Careful, she's waking up…." the first man warned. When the blurriness cleared, Arya could see a sellsword on her left, a handsome green-eyed man on her right and someone on the other end of the room, too far for her to see. The green eyes sparked her memory. Jaime Lannister. Her left hand twitched. I lost Needle, she realized. Lannister shrugged. "You missed." he said simply. "Got the bricks instead of me." He held something up, she had to squint to see. Needle had snapped in half at the hilt and that was all the man was holding. Jon gave me that sword. Her eyes began to water. "Although, whether you wanted to stick me or miss is either of you's guess." he said. The sellsword gave him a confused look. "I think I have this under control, Ser Bronn-" "My hairy ass you do, Kingslayer-" "-if she kills me you can be off, you've nothing to lose here." "I don't kow about that. We've still got pressing business, remember?" he looked at Arya. "Don't kill him yet. I mean it. There's something important he needs to do. Then run him through." he said before stepping out with the third man.
The Kingslayer pulled up a chair and sat at her bedside while Arya tried to get feeling back into her body. "Whatever went on in there, I suspect the half less keen on doing me in won." he said, looking at her with a mixture of curiosity and confusion. "Ned Stark's younger daughter looked like him. You look nothing like a Stark. Or do you and she just share a list of grievances with House Lannister and I've confused you terribly?" he asked. "Not exactly unlikely, unfortunately. We've rather mucked the riverlands up." Her fingers twitched and all of a sudden the face was so hot, the underside of it so prickly. Her arm shot up and tore it away, making Lannister calmly vomit into a bucket. "Please don't ever do that again." he said weakly, the golden façade gone. All Arya saw was a tired aging man in armor he had no business wearing. "You look like shit." she told him. "Feel it, too. At least you look a Stark now." he replied. She expected No One to force her to fly at him, strangle him as he gasped for breath, bury Needle in his throat. Needle's gone, she remembered. The only voice she could hear in her head was her own. So is she, she slowly concluded. It's just me in here. It took her a bit to get the strength to sit up. "Feel it, too." she said, smiling a bit, tears trickling from her grey Stark eyes. He snorted in amusement in turn. "Were you headed for King's Landing?" he asked quietly. She didn't answer, but that seemed to be a confirmation all its own. "Look. I don't know where you went off to, where you've been since the day your father was arrested." he said slowly. "But killing Cersei, or anyone else, isn't going to bring him back. Take it from someone who's been killing people for years. I've not yet seen hide nor hair of my lady mother." Arya gulped, trying not to start crying. "Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like. What Cersei's children would have been like, if they knew. Myrcella told me right before she died that in a way she'd always known. If I was to be murdered, would Myrcella hound my killers to the edges of the map and past them, let the chase become her world?" he looked to her. "Lord Eddard was lucky to have a daughter so dutiful, so devoted. If misguided." she sniffled. "Lady Stark, you may not think it but you're a child. You haven't so much as sniffed life yet. You were a child when your father was murdered and since then nothing has mattered but the chase, and when your prey was downed I'll wager your nattering shadow came up with another and another until you were more her than Arya Stark. Fear death fades quickly when you're afraid of part of yourself." Her eyes narrowed. "You speak as if you know me, Kingslayer." she said finally. "I know myself. I was sixteen when I killed Aerys and that's been all that's ever mattered since. Until someone took away what made the Kingslayer, the golden lion's golden claw." he held up his right arm and pulled a leather strap, the hand falling to the floor with a metallic clunk. "There is no more Kingslayer, Arya Stark. It's just me now, trying to make sure a few people around me see the next sunrise in this mad fucking world. I don't rightly think I'll amount to much as Jaime Lannister, Handless Cunt, but it beats the alternative." he stooped and fetched his metal hand. No more No One, Arya thought. No more Ghost of Harrenhal. "Are you going to do anything? About me?" she asked. "What's there to do? I'll not go back to Cersei for a new hand, let alone to give her some runt of a girl I can't be certain is Arya Stark." he smirked, a ghost of the man he'd been at the welcoming feast Father held for King Robert. "Are you going to do anything? About me?" he asked. "No. I don't want to do anything about anybody now." she replied.
Lannister let her rest. Paranoid as she was she still found sleep soon enough, even had a few glimpses of the world through Nymeria's eyes, waiting patiently in the woods outside Harrenhal. I'll be back soon, girl. Her thoughts echoed in the direwolf's mind. Nymeria whined as her mistress left her. She saw flooding towers and a bridge sinking into the Green Fork. The water had a woman's face and the full moon had one, too. Then everything became green fire and she saw a snorting creature, a bull, trapped in a ring of emerald flame. He grazed placid as could be, ignorant of the death that ringed him in. Arya cried out in dismay then a sharp pain shot up her side and she woke clutching her hip. I still have the ruby. I still have my reason, she remembered. No One wanted to go to King's Landing and kill Cersei. I wanted…I want to go to Dragonstone and give Daenerys this. Then she remembered the bull. "He's in trouble and he doesn't even know it. I have to go get him first." she said. The ruby twinkled in her hand. "You waited twenty years at the bottom of the Fork, you can wait a few weeks more." With that she got up and made for the door. As her hand laid on the wood she remembered what was in the room with her. She turned slowly, watching Needle's pieces glint invitingly from the dresser. Gendry would fix it for me, she knew. Then I could kill Cersei and it would be done. She walked to the dresser and carefully picked up the shards of blade, the little hilt. Instead of carrying them out with her though, she simply slipped them one by one into the crackling hearth. "I am Arya Stark of Winterfell." she said. "I am going to my family." She left the room feeling clean, feeling free of all that had plagued her since the day Eddard Stark had died. Sansa was right, Arya realized in the corridor. Being a lady is better than being No One. She found them sitting at a table sharing a small cask. "Who are you?" the sellsword, Bronn, asked rudely. It took Arya a moment to realize that he'd not seen her true face before. Before she could think of a good lie, she found herself blurt it out. "Arya Stark." she said simply. The third man looked up from the cask and she found herself staring into the face of Ilyn Payne, the man who'd struck Lord Eddard's head from his shoulders. She'd expected to feel hate, revulsion, disgust. Instead she felt nothing.
Evidently Lannister had expected a somewhat more spirited reaction to Payne's presence but she just sat down across from his empty chair. "I have to go to King's Landing." she said, looking in her lap. "Why can't anybody stay the f-" "Lannister interrupted him. "I thought you said-' "This isn't about that. There's someone…I…I don't know if he'll be there but it's where he's from and if he's alive, he'll be there." she explained. Lannister wasn't impressed. "I swore to Lady Catelyn to keep you safe and bring you home." "Lady Catelyn is dead and Winterfell is lost to me. I can go home myself. Once I've got him I promise, I will meet you on Dragonstone." she pulled out Rhaegar's ruby. "I have something for the dragon queen. Or if you'd rather go together, just wait for me at say, Duskendale. Give me a week." Payne coughed. "Or two. I will come, Ser. My father kept his word and so do I." she told Lannister. The man sighed deeply. "I hope you do. The last Stark would go a long way towards convincing Daenerys not to kill me on sight. Particularly because…" he exchanged a glance with Bronn. "Look. Do what you have to but do not linger in King's Landing. Nobody who wants to live seeks that place out. Get your friend or whoever he is and get away from the capital." His words reminded her of the ones she'd given Tylon. It sounds like there's more to it than just bad memories, Arya thought. "Is it bad?" she asked. "Whatever it is?" Lannister waited a moment before nodding. "Lady Arya, think keenly on your next move. He'd better fucking be worth it." he told her. She tried to picture Gendry Waters in her mind. Black hair, blue eyes, strong jaw, blacksmith's arm, stubborn as a mule, she knew it all by heart. A list that made her breathing quicken rather than slow, her heart flutter rather than freeze. "When you see him, you'll know." she said.
She went to find Hot Pie after. "I have to go. Only for a little while, though." she said. His face went from sadness to disbelief. "You disappear often, Arry. Never for just a little while." he told her. "I have toget Gendry. We'll meet you in Duskendale, it's a little ways from here. Tell Jaime Lannister I told you to go with him." Hot pie's eyes widened. "I can't just talk to-" "Once, no. These days anyone can talk to anyone else. I'm a lady, remember? You're talking to me just fine." she kissed his cheek and he actually gasped, hand to the spot. "Have you gone ill?" he asked. "No. I was ill, but I think I've finally shaken it. Bake Gendry a loaf of bread shaped like a bull, mh?" Mutely Hot Pie nodded and she hugged him before walking out the gate of Harrenhal. Arya Stark disappeared years ago surrounded by Lannister swords. Nobody will see me and think I'm anyone but a country girl. Unless they see Nymeria of course. "Ah, let them look. I'm not going to hide anymore, not behind lies or faces." she said to herself, feeling wonderfully careless.
The Kingsroad was again void of travelers and Arya found plenty of places to sleep. She and the pack bedded down in ruined barns, stables, even a hut with no owner. The closer she got to the capital the more excited she got and only when she was a day away did she turn to Nymeria. "I need you to go now, girl. Don't look at me like that. This isn't like before. I want you and the others to be safe, even your ugly killers. Go toward the rising sun until you hit water, then north slow until you find a castle. Lay low and keep out of sight, I'll be there soon." she said earnestly. Nymeria gave her a long glance, licked her hand and bounded off. Her pack followed. Arya turned south and began to run. A new sort of hunger began to grow in the pit of her stomach, a mounting excitement that kept tiredness from her muscles and her eyes until she found herself sleeping in trees to not waste time looking for a ruined buildings. The reek of the Landing, of open sewers and unburied corpses hit her nose. I never thought I'd be so excited to be back, she thought. No, not excited. No One would have been over Cersei. I feel happy, she thought.
Coming up to the Dragon Gate Arya could see that getting into the city was a deal easier than getting out. The road beneath the gate had been trod by countless people and animals lately and Arya guessed the other gates looked much the same. Everyone has left, Arya realized. The place stank worse than ever but the streets were wide and empty save for the occasional fatted rat or wild dog. The Street of Steel is on the other side, on Visenya's Hill, she remembered. What gold cloaks patrolled looked like common thugs in yellow capes. Cersei has worse men chasing the criminals than the criminals themselves, Arya saw. She stuck to the side streets, going up buildings and across rooftops when she had to, arriving halfway up the Street of Steel with a frown. He's talented enough to be at the top, but would anyone take him on? She wondered. She checked a half dozen forges, seeing all manner of spectacularly built lads banging metal or polishing finished pieces but none of them could have prayed to pass for Gendry Waters. Come on, you stupid, you're here. I know you're here, she thought. She decided to go up rather than down, slipping in and out of shops with a half dozen brutish guards on duty in each. Far off cries to the Seven and the end of golden tyranny made Arya swallow uncertainly. Lannister spoke true, she thought. I best find Gendry and get gone before something bad happens. The higher she went on the Street of Steel the more nervous she got. She could sneak past any number of hired brutes but their very presence seemed to advertise that the city was a wrong word away from a riot that would blow it apart. Finally she found herself at the top of the hill, facing the entrance to a particularly fine shop. She heard several voices laughing and jesting, clearing away as the workday came to an end. "What do we think, lads? A tavern tonight? Or a trip to Chataya's, let's see if we can't get Strong and Silent to finally take up with a girl." He's already got one, Arya thought, running through the shop on silent feet.
Their backs were to her when she saw them but he was absolutely unmistakable. He was a foot taller than any of his friends and his thick black hair had been all she could think about for days. She sat on a barrel and waited, waited. I'm not ten feet from him. I was in Braavos and now I'm here. "Gendry, how are you going to make one of those girls from the Street of Silk an honest woman if you never leave Mott's?" asked a lad with brown hair and the beginnings of a beard. "I look like the kind of man wants silk on me?" Gendry replied, making the others laugh. "Trust me, lads, it's best for me if I don't have a family." Arya's heart broke and she could stay silent no more. "I can be your family." she said. The others looked to her in surprise. The brown-haired boy was about to yell for the guards when he saw Gendry stiffen. "You wouldn't have to smith, not for anyone but you. I haven't got a family left you need impress." she told him. Slowly Gendry Waters turned, storm-blue eyes wide in shock. He stared at her with his jaw hanging open. She sniffled. "You stupid. This is the part where the boy does something, I don't know what to do-" "-I do." he interrupted, striding right for her. She leapt off the barrel at him, her lithe weight nothing in the biggest arms she'd ever seen. She kissed every inch of his stupid stubborn bastard face she could reach, a hand around his waist and one clutching his shoulder. But for him kissing her back Arya Stark could have been showering affection on a granite statue. His friends stared in amazement as the pair continued, one of them coughing to announce their continued presence. With a last kiss on the lips that left Arya breathless and blushing like a maiden in a storybook Gendry looked into her eyes. "I knew you'd come back. Nobody in the world is stubborn as you." he said, forehead to hers. "You are." she accused him. "Stubborn as me and stubborner. And stupider. Now kiss me again or I'll beat you up." "As milady commands." he answered, obeying her to the letter.