Some things you can't go back to

because you let them slip away.

The Bear stalked down a dim passageway in Acorn Hall, purposely ignoring how the rough, grey stones of the floors beneath his boots looked very much like the rough, grey stones he had walked over hundreds of times, thousands, in the corridors of the House of Black and White. Had he been a man of less discipline, he could've easily lost himself to his memories for a few moments, or a few hours, his recollections bleeding one into the next (his master, his brothers, his love, his sister, his choice, his pain, his hope), but he brushed those thoughts away as easily as a gnat is brushed from a sleeve, Faceless after all.

His training was good for something, it seemed.

He had no time for such self-indulgence; he sought the Cat (his sister, his choice, his hope), and he knew where she would go. Or, more precisely, he understood who it was that she would go to, but the where of it was something he had been forced to discover (lest he wander this unfamiliar keep for half a day, knocking on doors and peering into rooms). He noticed her absence when the party broke its fast in the dining hall soon after the sunrise. The Bear knew if she were not sleeping late in her chamber (and when had she ever done that?) or terrifying knights and squires in the training yard, there was only one other place she would be found: with her mother.

The Lady Stoneheart.

In the Bear's short stay beneath the Smallwood's roof, he'd overheard the whispers, mutterings of those who had newly seen the resurrected Catelyn Stark. The scandalized utterances came mostly from servants, expressions of fear, and of barely contained revulsion. Though Arya had not spoken overmuch of her mother to him since learning of Catelyn's survival (survival wasn't quite right, though, was it?), he understood that Lady Stark had died, her murder a brutal, contemptible thing, decried in the Riverlands and beyond as the foulest of sins. And he also understood that somehow, the lady walked once more, a band of men sworn to serve her following close at her back.

Some of the servants claimed the woman was no woman at all, but a daemon, spat up from one of the seven hells to scourge the land, punishment for the violation of guest right perpetrated at the Twins. Others said that she was a wraith, driven to murderous rage by the loss of her children. Still others believed her to be a woods witch, an instrument of the old gods, sent to rid the world of unbelievers, making offerings of them to the trees and crows. The proof of that could be seen readily in the wilderness surrounding the great castles of the land, or so the braver of the servants swore. In those places, those dark forests and lonely woods, the tree branches hung heavy with the corpses of countless of Freys and Lannisters and anyone connected to them who chanced to cross paths with the Brotherhood. Lady Stoneheart mercilessly cleansed the lands she roamed, devouring life unworthy, fueled by righteous hatred and a desire for revenge

And if that was true, there was much of her mother to be found inside of Arya Stark, the Bear realized.

The assassin considered the Lady Stoneheart for a moment. He had yet to see her, but thinking of her caused his brow to furrow, deep creases forming above his nose. Something akin to dread crept up from his toes and clenched at his gut as he thought of his sister in her mother's company. A corpse, three days in the river if the stories were to be believed, walked these very same passageways. Fire magic, or blood magic, or something even more sinister, perhaps, was surely at the core of her resurrection. The knowledge chilled the Bear to his very center.

For who knew better than he the price which must be paid for such magic?

And that thought he brushed away as well (his love, his choice, his pain), though not as easily as a gnat is brushed from a sleeve. It rankled him to realize it was the principal elder's lessons he heeded, but still, the false Dornishman ruled his thoughts. Where a plump-cheeked, smiling face had tried to form in his mind, the Faceless knight instead replaced it with the face of his sister. The Cat's wide, grey gaze descended over those large brown eyes framed by dark curls, bouncing and taunting. Olive's flirtatious smile was erased in favor of one of his sister's scowls.

The Faceless knight rounded a corner and found the narrow stairwell which descended to the lowest level of the keep. He took the steps two at a time, the sound of his footfalls surprisingly light for a man of his size. Stealth, he had learned from his Faceless master, but grace was the gift of his sister and her water dancing.

Grace, she had to spare. Obedience was a different tale.

It did not surprise him in the least that the Cat had ignored her host's instruction to give her mother the solitude and peace Lord Smallwood claimed the lady had requested. The large assassin snorted slightly to himself at the thought. The master of Acorn Hall did not understand Arya Stark at all if he believed any words from his lips could ever stop her from doing exactly as she pleased. The Bear doubted even Him of Many Faces would have the power to dissuade his sister once she had decided to do a thing.

The Bear could not be sure why their host had even bothered with such a dictate in the first place; whether Lord Smallwood had hoped to choreograph the reunion himself, creating a formal spectacle for his household and his guests, the sort of ceremony these Western lords seemed to demand and relish, or whether he hoped to somehow keep the two Stark women from meeting at all. The large assassin did not concern himself for long with Theomar's murky aims. Let his clever sister puzzle that out, if she so desired. He merely wished to find her, and assure himself of her well-being.

And assure himself that she was not engaged in some foolhardy plan more like to break her neck than further her cause.

Her cause.

The Bear thought of his sister's cause, of the names she whispered to herself in the night, and the creases above his nose deepened even more. He quickened his pace.

He'd already been to his sister's room and there, he'd found the chambermaid tasked with attending the Smallwood's most distinguished guest. The maid admitted to telling "the great lady" (oh, how the Cat would frown at that!) where she might find the sept the previous evening as she'd helped unpack the Stark heir's things.

" Oh?" the Faceless-knight had said, moving closer to the maid as she gathered up the supper dishes that had been left untouched on a table near the bed. "And where do you suppose my lady is now?"

The girl had swallowed nervously. "I... I think she must still be in the sept, milord. Her bed's not been slept in, and she didn't eat one morsel of this food." The maid had whispered that last, as if it were some scandal or great secret.

"And where, my dear, is the sept?" The 'my dear' had been pronounced with a touch of warmth as the false Dornishman tilted his head slightly, a small smile curving his lips just so.

The servant had been reluctant to answer his question at first, fearing retribution if the fearsome Lady Stoneheart and her daughter were disturbed, but he'd finally gotten it out of her, persuading her with soft reassurances and even softer touches. He had been mostly Faceless then as well, purposely ignoring how the curve of one girl's neck and the taste of one girl's skin could be so very unlike another's.

Had he been a man of less discipline, he could have easily lost himself to his memories for a few moments, or a few years, recollections crashing one into the next (his love, his sister, his choice, his pain. His love. His sister. His choice. His pain), but he brushed them away, Faceless after all.

When he'd pushed open the heavy door leading into the dimly lit sept, the Bear found the two Stark women there. The elder, seated on a bench, was bent at her slender neck, bringing her whispering lips close to her daughter's ear. The girl knelt before her mother, her arms wrapped tightly around Catelyn's legs, her head in Catelyn's lap. All Arya's dark hair had come unbound, trailing over her one shoulder as her mother's thin, pale fingers raked through it, over and over again. The sight of it made the Bear pause, a slight frown tugging at his mouth as he studied the strange tableau.

It looked wrong, somehow. More than that, it felt wrong.

It might have been a tender scene, but for the savage expression on Catelyn's ruined face and the sound of her ceaseless, rasping utterances. Her murmurs, despite their muted delivery, somehow seemed to fill the chamber with hoarse echoes, reminding the Bear of the choked whispers of the dying in the main temple chamber; desperate prayers pushing out past stiffening lips at the feet of this god or that, the final pleas of those who had sought the gift from his order. As he stood in the doorway and listened, the assassin began to wonder if Lady Stoneheart had no need of breath, so constant were the quiet words which poured from her mouth and into her daughter's ear.

The robes covering the woman's knees were wet through, stained by the silent tears tracking down Arya's cheeks and onto the rough spun grey cloth. The girl did not seem to blink, did not sniffle or rub at her eyes, but merely stared into the distance and wept without sound. This sight disturbed the large assassin most of all.

The Cat never cried.

His memory cast itself back to their last night in the Braavos, and he recalled his sister thrashing in her bed, talking in her sleep, caught between a nightmare and her grief, held captive in that strange twilight between waking and dreaming by one of the waif's potions.

Almost never, he amended grimly, walking once again, moving through the sept's doorway and finally entering the chamber.

At the faint sound of leather soles scuffing stone, Lady Stoneheart's scratchy whisperings halted abruptly. The women both looked up then, their heads turning in unison toward the sept's door and the man looming just inside of it. Ser Willem cleared his throat.

His tone was almost apologetic as he bowed slightly and said, "My ladies."

The old tongue, harsh and clipped, felt thick in his throat. His mastery of it was... incomplete. And so, he mostly nodded, grunted, and gestured, speaking as little as possible. Not that he was expected to say much, anyway. These fine, fat lords did not seek his counsel, and should it be required, he would have to rely on the boy-chief to translate his words anyway, for no fine, fat lord understood the Old Tongue, save for a few common words.

Magnar: Lord.

Skagosi: Stoneborn.

Sygerrik: Deceiver.

He smiled slightly at that.

Even as a looming, brutish savage, half a giant, he was still handsome, beneath the caked tribal paint and smelly furs and tangled beard. He might have chosen differently, and probably should have, but he could not help himself. Thick, Myrish lashes curled above eyes bluer than the Shivering Sea on a summer day. All men had their flaws. He supposed there were worse sins than vanity.

And he had always preferred to look at things through his own eyes.

Whether looking through false eyes or his own, however, he could see nothing of his little wolf in this boy-chief's face, but there was no doubt this boy was a wolf in his own right. Barbarous, fierce, always bristling, only a moment from baring his teeth, the boy radiated a barely-contained threat everywhere he moved.

Much like the hulking, black beast that skulked around his master's back, always pacing, always watching.

Lillikaskoer: Shaggydog.

The boy, ten, or maybe one and ten, was large for his age, with long, fiery locks twisted into well-oiled braids. His Wildling nursemaid would not allow that tell-tale Tully hair to mat. How the boy howled and fought her attentions, yet she always won out. Perhaps in protest of her grooming, or perhaps in a show of fealty to his adopted home, the boy's pale cheeks and freckles were masked by the same deep blue paint the Faceless Skagosi himself wore, and bits of bone and feathers were stuck here and there in his braids. He looked a proper cannibal, and the assassin could not be certain the appearance wasn't simply a reflection of the truth.

After all, eating the meat of a unicorn was considered the gravest of sins on Skagos, and not much else with flesh for eating walked that forsaken rock. And it would explain the name the Skagosi clansmen had bestowed upon the boy, the name he now preferred.

Bludvargg.

Bloodwolf.

Of course, it could be reasoned that he had earned the name when Lillikaskoer ate the Magnar of Heligatrad. The attack was not unprovoked, and for all its brutality, the clansmen of Heligatrad agreed it was just (the Faceless warrior apprehended that justice had a somewhat different meaning on Skagos than in other places). The Magnar had made some insult toward the boy-chief, and an off-hand threat. The menace was sufficient for boy and wolf together to leap, one armed with a crude bone dagger, one with sharp claws, and both with teeth. When the tribesmen talked of the carnage, the one thing their stories always had in common was how both boy and wolf had been covered in the Magnar's blood by the end, their hair slick with it, and how the pair had sat afterwards, growling and snapping, while the blood dried stiff and red-brown around their mouths and in their hair, shaping it into sharp peaks like the points of daggers. It had taken the Wildling woman two days to cleanse the boy and make him recognizable once more.

It had only taken a moment for the clansmen to proclaim him Bludvargg, Magnar of Heligatrad.

There was another part of the tale that the false-warrior had not heard. A part that was known to the boy-chief alone.

As the barbaric boy growled and glowered, his skin painted and prickling with the drying blood of his enemy, the scarlet leaves of the holy tree for which the village was named had whispered high above the heads of the clansmen. Even as the Stoneborn shouted and cried out, "Bludvargg! Bludvargg! Bludvargg!", the wind had sighed through the branches and leaves of the weirwood, murmuring different, older names, ones the boy-chief sometimes forgot.

Rickon.

Winterfell.

Stark.

And even amid the clanging of spears against shields and the guttural cries of the Skagosi, the boy-chief heard.

Ignoring Ser Willem's protestations ("You should eat, and rest first, my lady." She had merely snorted in response), Arya found her way to the bailey yard of Acorn Hall. The castle was small, almost more of a holdfast, and the main Bailey yard was used as a training ground as well. It wasn't that the yard was particularly well suited or well outfitted for the task, it was simply that it was the only space large enough to allow for several fighters to swing their swords and spears at once, without knocking into walls or tripping over troughs. Of course, much of the business of the hall traversed the yard, so there was the added obstacle of dodging groomsmen leading horses and maids carrying baskets of vegetables from the root cellar to the kitchens. Arya welcomed the extra challenge, though she was not entirely sure the servants felt the same, at least if one were to believe their harried steps and alarmed expressions when an errant jab or careening knight came too near them.

The Cat found herself in need of the distraction after her many hours in her mother's company. Catelyn's exhortations and explanations and designs, endlessly rasped into the girl's ear, bounced and rattled in her head and in her heart. There was so much, too much, for her to consider in her current state, and she thought that steel and sweat would better serve her than disjointed contemplations at that moment. Her teeth buzzed, her insides scratched, her fingers flexed and relaxed, flexed and relaxed. Arya hoped movement, and violence, would claim her focus and cure her unrest. She could sort out her plans, and her mother's, after she'd had some sleep and sustenance.

But first, she had a great need to dance.

She practiced with Harwin, who was a better horseman than he was a swordsman, but the yard was nearly empty when she first arrived, and so she could not afford to be choosy with her partner. The Northman quizzed her on her meeting with her mother as she danced and ducked his blows, lazily tapping her blunted training swords against his as she moved.

"How do you find the Lady Stoneheart, milady?"

"Find her?" Arya seemed preoccupied.

"Her mood," he clarified. "How did she seem to you?"

"Aggrieved," the girl replied, the flat of her heavy blade slapping harshly against her partner's shoulder. All laziness about her efforts seemingly evaporated in an instant.

"Oomph!" Harwin grunted, stumbling back slightly. He squinted at the Cat before replying, "Yes, though she runs thin on targets for her grievances."

"Really?"

Their blades clashed, the sound of the ringing steel mixing with the whinnying of a horse and the annoyed clucking of chickens that scattered as an off-duty guardsman edged carefully along the wall of the yard, disturbing their pecking and scratching.

"You mother has had us at our task for quite some time, milady." The Northman moved cautiously around the girl, trying to keep out of her reach. It proved more difficult than he credited. She tagged his hip crisply with her smaller sword, even as he continued his explanation through gritted teeth, wincing at the pain of the blow. "The countryside is nearly devoid of enemies now. Ones that are breathing, at least. There are still plenty of Freys to be seen swinging high overhead, if you're inclined to stroll through certain woods. I wouldn't recommend it, though. The smell..."

"There's Walder Frey," the girl interrupted, her tone light. She moved like a snake then, coiling, sliding, dangerously close. Harwin retreated, avoiding her quick strike, but just barely. The Northman's tone took on a lecturing quality. He sounded almost exasperated, and Arya suspected this was not the first time he'd discussed the subject.

"Lord Frey is protected by high stone walls and a wide river too deep to ford. Lannister forces patrol the region, and only the gods know how many household guards are sharpening their blades beneath the roof of the Twins as we speak."

"Not everything worth doing is simple, Harwin." The girl moved deftly aside, avoiding the Northman's powerful cut.

"It's not a matter of simple, milady," he grunted in answer. "It's a matter of impossible."

"Impossible? Hmmm," Arya mused. "All the greater the glory will be for the man who achieves it, then."

"It won't be glory people talk of when they discuss any man attempting that mission, I assure you, milady. It'll be his foolishness, and where to bury his bones."

She considered Harwin's words, then replied, "As you say. Utter foolishness." She slipped past his thrusting longsword then, so fast and so quiet that he could not make sense of her proximity, even as she pressed a thin knife against his throat. He had not even realized she carried it. She had dropped the smaller of her training blades to grasp the dagger and he felt its sting before the blunted rapier had even hit the ground. The hilt of her heavier training blade pressed firmly against the small of his back, forcing him to straighten, pushing his neck uncomfortably against the sharp edge of her tiny dagger. "Who could be so bold?" she whispered. "Who could be so cunning?"

Harwin swallowed, his eyes turning toward the girl's face below his own, then said hoarsely, "She would never ask it. Not of her own daughter."

Arya dropped the knife from Harwin's neck and stepped back, cocking her head as she studied the man's worried expression. Slowly, her lips curled, a small, malicious smirk shaping her mouth before she spoke again.

"She wouldn't have to."

After Harwin bowed and wordlessly retreated from the yard, the Cat found herself alone, but not yet spent. And so, she practiced familiar drills, the ones taught to her by Syrio Forel. She had long since mastered them, surpassing the need for them, but she performed them still, from time to time. They brought her back to an age when her most pressing worries had been avoiding her septa's glares, imagining the best retorts to Sansa's biting criticisms, and capturing the feral cats which roamed the Red Keep. As is the way with the young, still untouched by the world and its horrors, she had not understood how carefree her life was then, but she understood it now. Syrio's drills carried her back to that time, and she could almost grasp the sense of unnamed joy she had felt then, amid the clacking of wooden swords and the Braavosi man's quick, pointed instructions, happy noises filling the room where they practiced.

" Lift your sword. Higher, boy!"

" Your arm must be straight, boy, unless you mean to duel the flagstones!"

" Boy! You will be paying attention or you will be a dead boy!"

Arya moved her body so that she stood sideface, closing her eyes and repeating the drills once again, training blade cutting the air before her in swooping arcs. Nimble turns and snaps of her wrist brought her sword into contact with the blade of an imagined opponent and she dueled with a precision that would have made her old master proud.

"I'm not a boy," she recalled saying to the Braavosi man. "I'm a girl!"

Syrio had shrugged in a way that would become very familiar to her over time. "Boy? Girl? You are a sword, that is all."

"I am a sword," Arya breathed quietly, eyes still closed. She moved meticulously through the steps of the drill, just as she'd learned them from the First Sword of Braavos. "I am a sword. That is all."

And for a moment, the sweetest, briefest moment, she felt it again, that joy of unspoiled childhood. The insouciant jubilation of a naive young girl whose father had indulged her in her fantasy. She had been allowed to believe that one day, she would be more than just the wife of some mealy-mouthed lord. That one day, if she chose it, she could be...

A sword.

" Who are you, child?"

The Kindly Man's words bubbled up inside of her, unbidden; unwelcome. The memory was like a splash of icy water on her bare back and she froze, opening her eyes and staring straight ahead. Her sword remained at the ready, as if she expected the principal elder to step from behind the hay wagon in the corner of the yard and threaten her with his own narrow blade.

Arya dropped her arms, looking down at the scuffs on the toes of her boots and sighing deeply. He would not make it so easy for her as to show his face here, at Acorn Hall, and allow her to seek her vengeance with so little effort on her part, and she was no longer a child to be appeased by such fantasy.

" Who are you, child?"

" No one," she had replied without hesitation.

The Kindly Man just shook his head, looking at her sadly before he walked away without further comment.

She wondered if the elder would have been less disappointed if she'd answered that she was a sword. Or the ghost in Harrenhal. Or Arya Stark. Or any one of a thousand other things or people or ideas she had been or would be or wished to be.

The Cat scowled, her cheeks burning with a sudden fury. Unreasoning, unthinking, she bounded toward the hay wagon and began hacking at the piles of straw within, gracelessly chopping and slashing as she grunted and cried out. Her utterances were nonsense, mere sounds, unformed expressions of hatred and frustration and anger: for the Kindly Man; for the names on her list; for her own impotence; for herself, wasting time on pointless memories. She held the training blade with two hands, like an axe, and swung wildly, her blows unrelenting. If a man had hidden himself beneath that straw, his skull would have been crushed and his chest caved in by the time she was through.

Exhausted, finally, she stumbled back, the muscles of her shoulders and arms burning like wildfire. She breathed heavily through her nose, sweat beading on her forehead as the blinding white rage in her mind subsided. She bent over, wheezing a little from the exertion (and the hay, too, most like), leaning on the heavy training blade like a crone leaning on a walking stick. She gasped and began to laugh at herself.

"Ridiculous child!" her little voice pronounced and the girl could not dispute the charge.

And then all she could think of was how disappointed Syrio would've been at such a display. The lack of finesse. The absence of control.

"My gods," she snorted, "the grip." For her dancing master had been an absolute daemon when it came to proper grip. She shook with laughter then, thinking of it. He was like to have thwacked her arse with his wooden sword a time or two, had he witnessed her two-handed grip on the training blade and the brutish way she swung it into the hay. Early on, Syrio had taught her that the grip must be delicate, a mother's touch; a lover's caress. She closed her eyes once again, breathing deeply, and remembered.

Her dancing master appraised her grip, adjusted it, then stood back to inspect. "That is the grip," he said. "Do you feel it? The difference?"

The girl nodded.

" You are not holding a battle-axe," he groused, in his way. "You are holding..."

" A needle," the girl interrupted, finishing his sentence.

" A needle," her instructor repeated, his approving smile sending a thrill straight through Arya's chest. "Just so."

She grinned and then turned sideface, ready to begin again.

"My lady," a voice called from the edge of the yard. Arya's eyes flew open and she saw Jaime Lannister striding toward her. She dropped her sword to her side and scrutinized the golden knight.

"Ser," she greeted, her voice and face guarded. She was not certain what she should make of this renegade Lannister. The Maid of Tarth certainly trusted him, but Arya had always instinctively mistrusted the Kingslayer, even as a girl of nine watching him ride through the gates of Winterfell, haughty expression on his handsome face. And she blamed him for her father's wounded leg, though in the greater scheme, a festering leg in plaster was the least of Ned Stark's troubles at that time.

"What crime has that pile of straw committed against you? Tell me, my lady, and I shall have it flogged."

The knight's green eyes twinkled with mirth.

"Merely an exercise, my lord," the girl answered stiffly. "Sometimes, I have an overabundance of energy, and I find it difficult to perform the more mundane of my daily tasks if I do not find a way to spend it first."

"It seems you're in need of a sparring partner." He grinned. "To help you spend that... energy."

The girl bit her lip, looking at the knight's golden hand. He followed her gaze and laughed a little, the amused sound not completely masking the bitterness there.

"Don't worry, my lady. I've learned to use my left hand very well since Vargo Hoat relieved me of the burden of my right."

"So have I," Arya said with a sly smile. "Though the Bloody Mummers left me with both hands intact."

The golden knight was befuddled. "When did you chance across that pack of rabid dogs?"

Arya turned her gaze toward the morning sky, feigning difficulty with recollection.

"Oh, I suppose it was years ago," the Cat answered.

Ser Jaime's eyebrows were raised in surprise but then he squinted, grasping at some remembered bit of knowledge. "I do seem to recall some talk of you in Harrenhal, now that I think of it. Must have been there, right? They were there at the same time as you?"

"They were," she admitted, and did not add, and Jaqen was there, too.

"Wasn't that where you fell in love with Robert's bastard?"

Robert's bastard? Thinking of Jaqen as she was, she was confused for a moment.

"What?"

"Yes, you and our orphaned blacksmith. I remember now. He heroically rescued you from Harrenhal and brought you safely to the Brotherhood, so that they could reunite you with your mother."

"That's not what hap..."

"But then the Hound stole you away, isn't that so? What an adventure that must have been!" Jaime seemed quite delighted with the tale. He elbowed Arya conspiratorially. "I can't say you chose the more handsome of the two, but at least Clegane was true-born, whatever else you may think of him. Does that make you the Lady of Clegane's Keep now?"

Nothing he said made sense to her. She knew he was teasing her, but fatigued as she was, distracted by thoughts of Jaqen, and by her memories of Syrio and the Kindly Man, she did not find Jaime's japing funny in the least.

"What in the seven bloody hells are you blathering about?" She wasn't sure why she was allowing him to irritate her, but she felt a great desire to smash her fist against his perfect nose just then. If Ser Jaime read the menace in her, he chose to ignore it and continue his needling.

"Oh, was the marriage not consummated, then? I had assumed you were widowed and..."

Arya's sword came crashing down on Jaime before he could finish whatever jibe he had been planning, but he caught her blunted blade with his golden hand and pushed her back with surprising strength, considering he barely had time to intercept her strike. Only her excellent balance kept her on her feet. The girl looked at him with disbelief.

"It's an unconventional technique, I'll admit," the knight grinned, holding up his golden hand and turning it this way, then that, "but what use is a hand made of solid gold if you can't use it to stop a sword every now and again?"

The Cat stopped her attack, her mouth slightly open in disbelief. She took a tentative step toward the man, ready to defend herself if necessary. He made no move to threaten her and so she took another step and then reached out for his golden hand. Jaime did not stop her as she took it and gently held it between her palms, inspecting it. There were nicks and gouges all over its surface, the entire shining appendage marked and scarred.

"It's hardly what my father had in mind when he had it made for me," Ser Jaime confided, "but then, there's not much about me these days that he did have in mind." The knight smiled at her and Arya saw a sadness in his eyes that she could have never predicted.

"The same could be said for me, ser."

The knight regarded her quietly for a moment, then said, "I suppose that's true." Jaime smiled again, a thin smile, one that did not indicate much happiness at his thoughts. "Shall we continue, my lady?"

Arya thought of his remarks about her in Harrenhal and Robert's bastard and the Hound, and said, "Oh, yes. Let's do."

They both stalked away, finding their desired positions, and turned, raising their swords. Before either could make a move, however, they were interrupted by Lady Brienne, jogging into the yard and calling after them.

"Ser Jaime," Brienne started.

"Wench," Jaime greeted amiably, his smile broadened by the exasperated look the large woman gave him them.

"...and Lady Arya," Brienne continued without pause, "I think you'd better come."

"What is it?" the girl asked.

"The Lady Sto... Your mother, I mean, is ready to hear Ser Gendry's petition."

"Oh, is that all?" said the golden knight lazily. "Hardly worth interrupting training, don't you agree, Stark?"

Arya considered. Gendry had told her he did not need her intercession. Despite that, the girl had still mentioned to her mother Gendry's part in bringing her to Acorn Hall and into the protection of the Brotherhood and the River lords. She might have even embellished her old friend's part a bit, to cast him in a more favorable light (that she had lied to her mother in a sept had not bothered her one bit). But Catelyn had so much else to tell her, all through the night, and into the morning... The girl couldn't be sure how her mother would deal with the blacksmith-knight.

Brienne gave Ser Jaime an annoyed look, but addressed herself to Arya. "Your mother... is not known for... leniency, my lady. I think it best if you were there, to speak for him if need be."

The girl nodded, then moved to replace her training sword.

"Really?" Jaime said, disappointed, though Arya could not be sure if it was because their duel would be postponed or because Brienne was showing concern for Gendry. The girl ignored him, continuing to walk away even as he called after her, "Stark, does this mean you're still in love with him?"

You could throw a dagger just past his ear, maybe nick him a little, her little voice suggested.

No, she decided, it's my favorite throwing blade. I'd have to go back to retrieve it, and there's no time.

Most of the Brotherhood had gathered in the dining hall by the time Arya and Brienne arrived (Ser Jaime trailed in not long after them, likely not wishing to miss the entertaining scene of watching Gendry beg for mercy from a woman renowned for denying it). The high windows filtered down the sunlight and the room, though not exceptionally bright, was much less dim than the sept had been. It was for this reason that Arya was startled by her mother's appearance.

Catelyn (Lady Stoneheart, Arya recalled with a grimace), stood at the far end of the chamber, where the high table for the family and noble guests was arranged. She looked thinner and frailer than she had seemed only a night before, her face and neck so unnaturally pale that Arya rubbed her eyes and blinked, thinking perhaps the appearance was merely a trick of her fatigued mind. Even from across the room, she could see the wound in her mother's neck, black and ragged, and looking at it caused the girl's heart to pound.

Lady Stoneheart was dressed in the same grey rough spun robes she had worn the night before. The plain garment was belted at the waist with what appeared to be a measure of thick cord, the sort of thing used in work around farms or by other sorts of laborers rather than something a lady would choose as an adornment. That as much as anything startled the girl, for her mother's appearance had never been anything less than impeccable, fine and polished, for all the years of her memory. Yet here, beneath Lord Smallwood's roof, the woman looked more like a beggar in the streets of King's Landing than a highborn lady married into one of the greatest houses in the land.

No, not even a like beggar, Arya corrected herself. Like a beggar's corpse.

The girl's face fell, and she was enveloped with an unexpected sadness.

"Lady Arya, are you well?" Brienne asked discreetly. "You looked... suddenly pale."

Rule your face.

"No, I'm fine," the girl lied. "The exertions, earlier... with no rest, and no food... I should probably find some bread and ale when we're done here."

"I can have someone fetch you some now, if you like, my lady."

"Don't trouble yourself. I'll be fine."

"Forgive me for saying, but I hope you aren't worrying yourself unduly. With you here to vouch for him, your mother will not deal so harshly with Ser Gendry as she otherwise might have."

"Hmm?" The girl turned to look at the knightly woman, her expression quizzical. "Oh, no. No, I'm not worried about that."

It was then that the bastard-knight walked into the hall, his jaw set grimly. He approached Lady Stoneheart and bowed respectfully, then found a seat between Thoros and Harwin. Then men all nodded to one another and Harwin clapped the knight reassuringly on the back.

"I think the last time she tried to hang anyone in the Brotherhood was when she had a noose around my own neck," Brienne recalled, pulling Arya's attention away from Gendry and his companions. "But, I hadn't yet joined her cause then, so I'm not sure that really counts." The knightly woman seemed to be trying to reassure the girl.

"My mother tried to hang you?" The girl was incredulous.

"I suppose, if we are being completely factual, she did hang me. Both me and Pod, but only briefly."

"Pod?"

"My squire. Well, he was my squire at the time. Now he's Ser Podrick, of the Hollow Hill."

"Ah. We've not met."

"I imagine he's about somewhere." Brienne craned her neck, searching the chamber. "Yes, there, in the corner, next to Ser Jaime."

Arya's gaze flicked briefly to an affable looking man, dark of hair, exchanging pleasantries with the Kingslayer. She turned back to the Maid of Tarth, her eyes narrowing a bit.

"So, my mother had you hanged, then changed her mind, one presumes fairly quickly?"

Brienne swallowed at the memory but nodded. Both women turned their eyes back toward the Lady Stoneheart and watched as Theomar Smallwood approached her. The two spoke in low tones, Catelyn clutching at her throat and wheezing out her gravelly whispers into his ear. The Lord of Acorn Hall nodded and then motioned to his man, a servant of some sort, who fetched a chair. Catelyn sat then, and with that action, the chamber became hushed.

Brienne leaned down to speak her own whispers to Arya. "Still, my lady, for all that she favors the noose, I expect that for Ser Gendry, it will amount to little more than a flogging."

"A flogging?"

Several of the men of Acorn Hall who had filtered in around them and some of the Brotherhood turned to stare at the girl then. She bit her lip and choked down further exclamation. She could see Ser Jaime in his corner, smirking.

"Mmm."

"But, he didn't do anything wrong!" Arya protested in a hushed voice. "She can't have him flogged!"

"He deserted, without a word to anyone, took weapons and a horse, not to mention the wolves, and then never thought to send word back to the Hill."

"But that was for me! He did it because... he knew I was coming. He just wanted to help me. And he doesn't control the wolves. If anything, Nymeria left and dragged him along!"

"And when you explain that to your mother, I'm sure she'll take it into consideration. Hopefully, the witnesses against him have a less compelling argument."

"Witnesses against him?"

Arya had not expected this to be such a formal undertaking. She'd thought Gendry would simply explain to her mother why he'd left, beg for her mercy, and it would be done. Brienne was talking as if this were an actual trial. Witnesses? Would they call Nymeria for testimony? She half-expected to see a septon approach and ask if they would all swear to tell the truth before the Seven.

"Well, there were those who had to cover his watches," the knightly woman explained, "but I imagine your testimony will carry as much weight as all that."

"Good." She hadn't realized she'd have to speak for Gendry in a trial. She had thought speaking to her mother in the sept would be enough to spare her friend any unpleasantness. Now, it seemed, other eyes would be watching and other ears would be listening.

And other men would be judging.

Ser Jaime's teasing words came back to her. Stark, does this mean that you're still in love with him?

Gods only knew what nonsense and gossip her testimony would fuel. She closed her eyes and sighed. It wasn't to be helped. If her words could save Gendry, then she would speak them, consequences be damned.

"But I don't understand why Lord Smallwood stays," Brienne was saying.

Arya looked up to note that Theomar Smallwood now sat on a bench near her mother's position, facing the mistress of the Brotherhood, as if he meant to spectate.

Why would Lord Smallwood care about such an unimportant Brotherhood matter? Why would he be interested in what happened to a low-born knight?

"Unless... Unless he means to give an account," Brienne continued, her words slow and thoughtful.

"An account of what?"

Lady Brienne's expression was both perplexed and troubled at that. "I know not, my lady."

Can't Go Back-Rosie Golan