Myrcella extracted a crumpled piece of parchment from the pocket of her gown and handed it to Arya.

'Read it.'

Arya unfolded it with difficulty and began to read.

"My dear princess Myrcella –"

'There's no need to read it out,' Myrcella snapped.

Arya noted the vehemence of the princess's reaction and reasoned that reading aloud seemed a sensible way to proceed.

"I am sorry that I have not spoken to you since the night of our betrothal," Arya read, '…well, it starts alright.'

'Keep going,' Myrcella insisted.

Arya kept going.

" – but to confess the truth, I was much too overcome to risk seeing you' – you haven't tried to kill the poor man already, have you?'

Myrcella shot her a withered look, her cheeks pink, and impatiently indicated that she should continue.

"For most of my life, I have considered myself a wretched anomaly: a Dornishman who likes to study (can you imagine?), who fights out of duty and not out of taste, who is more content in his own company than in that of others. In that way, I am like my mother. For that reason, I am hated by my father, and therefore, by many others. His hatred has made me adept at hiding, and most often, I am loath to enter a room unless it contains some place in which I may secret myself. Until our encounter behind the curtain, I thought I was the only one."

Arya paused, her eyes flickering from the letter to Myrcella.

'Are you sure you want me to see this?'

'It means nothing to me.'

Arya looked at the page again.

"I did not think that there were others who sought solitude, others who were always running. But then you…the expression on your face as you turned to face me…I shall never forget it. Your cheeks and eyes were coloured with a kind of murderous desperation to be left alone at all costs, but then you smiled, and I felt that in that moment, you understood me far better than those whom I have known my whole life, and that you did not mind my strangeness. In that moment, I did not take you for my betrothed; merely some lonely and beautiful girl who was like me. I knew that I would probably never you see again, but I knew too that I would always love you. Then, when it was revealed to me that my betrothed and the woman behind the curtain were one and the same, I must confess to feeling nothing but shame. Shame for the letters I had written you. Shame for how I had treated you without knowing you. Shame that I had imagined you as a name on a family tree. Wretched because I now loved you, and had done my best to make you hate me. I write to you with no expectations, only to present you with my most heartfelt apologies and to assure you always of my love, respect and fidelity. I remain, my princess, your most obedient, etc."

Arya stared at Myrcella.

'Is this what you need help with?'

'That and fact that I can't stand to be in this city or with these people for another instant,' Myrcella confidently replied.

'Why do you need help with this?' Arya insisted, gesturing vehemently at the letter in her hand, 'the gods have laid a pack of blessings on your head.'

Myrcella turned red with wrath.

'How is this a blessing?' she seethed.

Arya rolled her eyes and found herself thinking of Tywin. Why can't people just think?

'Because it's insurance,' Arya drawled, 'no man who could write this to you will ever harm you or attempt to turn you into something you're not. This is your fortune assured.'

'But I don't want to marry him!' Myrcella exclaimed.

'Why not?' Arya asked, surprised, 'he seems like a nice lad. And you're blushing.'

'Because I don't want to get married!' Myrcella screeched, ignoring that last comment.

'Very few women have a choice in the matter,' Arya shrugged, 'this letter proves that you're one of the lucky ones. It may not be something you want, but your husband will do his best to make it as pleasant as possible.'

Myrcella leapt to her feet in a rage.

'What is wrong with you?' she demanded.

'What do you mean?' Arya asked, staring.

'This isn't you at all,' Myrcella growled, 'would you give the same advice to your own daughter? Would you tell her to just accept being married against her will? Would you stand there like a septa telling her to think of her country and get on with it?'

Seven hells, does she still not understand?

'No,' Arya stated, blandly, 'but my daughter is not the princess of the Seven Kingdoms. You were never going to be able to choose your own husband, and if I know Cersei at all, she probably made sure you always knew it.'

'But I don't like him, Lady Arya.'

Arya ignored that.

'What are these other letters that he feels so guilty about?' she asked.

'Oh, those,' Myrcella sighed, 'when our betrothal was first announced, Tommen suggested that we start a correspondence.'

'And did you?'

'I'm not sure it counts as a correspondence. More like a vitriolic exchange of insults via raven scroll.'

Arya's face broke into a wide smile.

'Well, that's a good sign,' she said.

Myrcella clenched her fists and appeared to be visibly restraining herself.

'Why is that a good sign?'

'I can't imagine having a husband who didn't insult me every day,' Arya shrugged, 'what would I do with him?'

'Why would I want a husband who insults me?' Myrcella seethed.

'It's not really about the insults,' Arya mused, 'but rather about what they really mean.'

'And what do they really mean?'

Arya paused for a moment, attempting to sound eloquent.

'When you love someone beyond rational expression,' she said, 'irrational expression is all you have left.'

'But I didn't like insulting him!' Myrcella screeched.

'Really?' Arya drawled, the beginnings of irritation stirring within her at the child's insistence on disagreement for the sake of it, 'you didn't like insulting him? Really?'

'No,' Myrcella declared, tossing her head in a thoroughly infuriating manner, 'I only like insulting handsome men, never the plain ones.'

'Seven hells, how you do remind me of Jaime!' Arya shouted.

'That's not true, I am NOT LIKE UNCLE JAIME!'

'Stop with the witty remarks, then!'

Myrcella drew her fist sharply back and sent it barrelling towards Arya's face. Arya placed one foot between both of Myrcella's and tripped her up, sending her sprawling into a flowerbed.

'Now that's the problem with having a bow as your preferred weapon,' Arya observed, 'you tend to be shit at close quarters unless you make a conscious effort not to be.'

Myrcella, looking red-faced, exhausted and humiliated, made no attempt to rise to her feet and settled herself casually among the roses, as though falling had been her intention all along. Arya rather wanted to slap the arrogance out of her. But in that moment, in Myrcella's flippancy and casual insistence on being right, she saw only Jaime, and that staid her hand.

'You asked for my help,' Arya said, 'at the moment, I don't feel much inclined to give it. But your father is my husband and that makes us family, and I don't have too much of that left, thanks to your grandfather Tywin.'

Myrcella was frowning, the skin between her eyes crinkling just as Jaime's did when faced with an unexpected onslaught of sincerity. Arya kept talking.

'You asked me what advice I would offer my own daughter if she were in your position. She never would be, but you can listen if you'd like. I would make Joanna two suggestions. One, ensure that her betrothed meets with an unfortunate accident – '

'I like this option,' Myrcella interrupted, her legs stretched out in front of her, 'that, or running away.'

'That's the second thing I would tell Joanna,' Arya admitted, 'but while it might work in her case, it would never work in yours.'

'And where is that written?' Myrcella demanded, 'I can run away and I will.'

'Don't be an idiot, Myrcella.'

'You just said you'd tell Joanna to run away!'

'Seven hells, would you pay attention?' Arya snapped, 'Joanna is not a princess. Joanna is not the sister of a king who has signed a binding legal agreement promising her to a prince. Our laws consider Joanna to be the property of her father. They consider you to be the property of the state. There is nowhere for you to run to. Even if you went to the ends of the earth, Tommen would find you. He would search every room, every street and every gutter on earth until he had you back. You would be free for a while. But eventually, he would find you.'

'Yes,' Myrcella desperately replied, 'but those weeks or months or years…they would be better than nothing.'

'You don't know what you're talking about,' Arya declared, 'how could you? You're a princess. You've never wanted for anything in your life. You've never grown hungry. You've never walked more than one consecutive mile or ridden so long and so hard that it hurts. If you get caught in the rain, you can take off your wet things and put on dry ones. If mud ruins your shoes, you have twenty other pairs with which to replace them. I wouldn't be surprised if you had no idea how to dress yourself or brew your own tea. You know nothing of the world, or the hardness of freedom. If you ran away, you would die.'

'I'd rather die than marry,' Myrcella scoffed.

Arya sighed.

'If you really wanted to die, you would have done it by now. I would know.'

Myrcella looked at her in alarm.

'You would?'

Arya watched Myrcella sit still among the flowers, the loveliest and most luminous of them all, the same age that Arya had been when she had tried to die. She thought about Jo in ten tears time. Would she end up like this if they tried to tame her? Would she end up like this if they didn't?

She trembled suddenly, wildly, with the desire to talk to Jaime, to make it better, to tell him that she would drink the moon tea, that she understood now, that they couldn't have another child because they had no idea how to raise the one they already had.

My dearest love, you were right. Why are you always right?

Arya realised that Myrcella was still looking at her. The child's wildfire eyes met hers, and they were as Jaime's eyes, filled with sorrow.

'Observe Trystane.'

'I-'

'Shut up.'

Myrcella clamped her mouth shut.

'Write to him if you will not speak to him. Find out what sort of man he is. Then in a month, if you still feel like marrying him will kill you, write to me, and I will help you-'

Myrcella's face lit up in joy.

'Oh, thank you, Lady Arya, thank you, thank-'

'- but if you disrespect Jaime again, I'll tell Tommen everything. Understand?'

Myrcella's face hardened, but she nodded. Arya turned her back and walked away to find her husband.