Oh, you're in my veins

…and I cannot get you out

Three days more of hard riding had brought the combined forces of the Riverlanders and the Brotherhood Without Banners close enough to Riverrun that they could just make out the castle's outlines in the distance when they were atop a high, bald hill. It was getting late, the castle silhouetted against the sun low on the horizon, and so they rode down into the dell to find a likely spot to make camp. As their horses ambled on, Arya could sense the tension growing in the lords. Ser Brynden rode by her side and urged her to keep the hood of her cloak raised while Lord Smallwood and Lord Piper found reasons to take turns riding by her side, usually under the pretext of discussing rations and watch schedules with Ser Jaime or Harwin. Gendry stuck close by despite the Kingslayer's disapproval and of course Ser Willem and Ser Jaime themselves were never out of ear-shot.

Baynard rode at the rear of the company, glowering in silence most of the time, but even he seemed more alert than in days past.

Arya understood the reason for their trepidation, even if she scoffed at them, naming their fears far-fetched.

"No one will recognize me," she complained to Brienne as they dismounted to make their last camp before arriving at Riverrun.

"Perhaps not, my lady, but we will soon be amongst a large contingent of Riverlanders with divided loyalties. Though the risk may be small, if even one of them calls you out for who you are, your life would be in immediate danger, as would the lives of those who are sworn to protect you. A modicum of caution is small enough sacrifice for you to make, is it not, if it might protect your men?"

It made the girl uneasy to think the lives of so many men (and the life of Lady Brienne herself) were bound so tightly to her own. Still, she'd sought to be the leader of the Brotherhood, and she'd accepted the oaths of the heir to Raventree Hall as well as Ser Gendry, however unwillingly. She supposed in his own way, even Ser Jaime was pledged to her, and she had not refused him when he asked to be of service to her. It was late to complain about the responsibility she'd garnered now. The Maid of Tarth was right: Arya could not repay their loyalty with carelessness, no matter how it chafed her to have the men around her behaving as though she were a helpless maiden who might be stolen away by a mythical beast at any moment; a maiden who would require rescuing from a tall tower or a monster's lair.

The thought was too ridiculous, like a cross between one of Sansa's romantic songs and Old Nan's frightening bedtime tales, only instead of ice spiders and gallant knights, this story pitted unscrupulous lions and their vassals against River Lords and outlaws. She snorted at the preposterousness of the situation, but she was the only one who found the idea laughable, it seemed.

The girl first sighed, then grunted her agreement with her companion's assertion. Caution was indeed a small sacrifice to make, however unnecessary she found it. Nodding sharply, she removed her pack and bedroll from Bane, then turned to face Brienne.

"Fancy a spar after supper?" the girl asked, grinning.

"Is your arm fit for it yet?"

"Fit enough, thanks to Ser Pod. I'd like to work out some of the stiffness at any rate."

"Well, then, I'd be happy to oblige." The knightly woman bowed slightly to Arya, taking her leave to lead their horses off for feeding and watering. The girl watched her go, smiling. She liked that Lady Brienne was not hesitant to face her and she respected the larger woman's skill and strength. She thought perhaps they could learn from one another, and when it came to studying the nuances of various fighting styles, there was no more eager student than Arya Stark.

Of course, she had another motive for her request. The girl hoped to utterly exhaust herself, something that a long day's ride had not quite accomplished. She had need of sleep tonight, as deep a sleep as she could manage. She had tried and failed to achieve such a state ever since she'd met with the ghost of High Heart, her mind grasping at a notion she could not quite dismiss. It was something the wood's witch had said to her; a mocking remark the crone had thrown out at the end of their confrontation; one which begged to be considered.

We know a thing or two about dreams, don't we, lovely girl?

Despite her protestations, Arya's men arranged camp for her and she was left to wander, her hands idle. Ser Brynden soon found her and Harwin joined them in short order. The girl had the distinct impression this was somehow planned and she was being corralled.

"You'd better get on with it," she muttered, eyeing the both of them suspiciously.

"My lady?" the heir to Raventree Hall laughed, bemused. Harwin was more straightforward.

"You are your father's daughter, milady," the Northman remarked, "there's no mistaking it. To the point, aye, and no nonsense." He said it with an air of pride. There was little guile in Northern ways, and Harwin seemed pleased to note his little lady had not been so long gone from Winterfell that she had lost the quality.

At the mention of her father, Arya grew a wistful. She wondered if perhaps being less to the point might have served Lord Stark better, once he had crossed the Neck. His Northern ways were admired in the North, but his practicality and blunt honesty, his very honor, had not been appreciated in the stinking viper pit that Westeros called a capitol. Still, she was loath to fault her father for his integrity, even if it had cost him his head. She bit her lip, hard enough that the pinching pain kept her eyes from misting.

"No nonsense," she agreed, sniffing slightly. "So, out with it."

Harwin nodded grimly, then spoke. "Well, then, here it is: when we join the encampment at Riverrun, we'll meet the Blackwood forces who've marched from Raventreee Hall and the rest of the men of Pinkmaiden. Lord Vance and his men are likely to be there as well."

"Blackwood, Smallwood, Piper, and Vance," Arya mused, her gaze soft and unfocused for a moment. "Plus, the Brotherhood." She slid her eyes slyly to regard the men. "My, that's practically an army."

Harwin and Brynden glanced at each other, but the look did not linger. The Northman continued.

"The Brotherhood will garb themselves as men from the houses…"

"So, the men of no banners will carry banners?" she asked with a chuckle.

"Aye, to prevent us from being recognized for who we are, and keep us from meeting our ends swinging from trees, milady. The Riverlands broadly supports our brotherhood, but the Freys and the Lannisters feel a bit differently."

"I imagine they do," the girl said softly. His words had sobered her.

"When we set up on the perimeter of the camp, you're to be in the center of our forces, at all times," Harwin instructed, giving her a pointed look. "The lords are like to spend much of their time in the castle, but you're to stay as far away from it as we can keep you, and as hidden as possible."

"It's my mother's home…" the girl started, bristling at the thought of being banned from entry. It wasn't that she'd even considered that she should enter the castle; she'd not given it much thought, to be honest, but being told so absolutely that she could not was another thing entirely.

"Aye, it was, but now it's home to your enemies, milady, the enemies of the North, and should they discover you there, I fear you'd never leave its walls again. Not alive, in any case."

The girl snorted, her hand moving to Frosts' hilt automatically. "No Frey or Lannister could stop me leaving, however much they might try."

"Lady Arya, please," Ser Brynden interjected, his tone all seriousness. "We are entering dangerous territory. We must keep our wits about us. The Lannisters already hold my brother Hos to guarantee our allegiance. I suspect they'll dangle him in front of us if they question our loyalties. We cannot risk them taking you, too."

The girl thought to argue; to explain how there was no risk. Or, rather, how the risk would be all on the part of her enemies, if they chose to hinder her. She thought to emphasize once again how so few people alive in Westeros had lain eyes on her to know who she was. Even those who had once known her father or her aunt by sight and might place Arya in their line of descent by her Stark look were unlikely cross her path. She wished to soothe their worry, somehow, but in looking at their faces, the girl realized her endeavors would be fruitless. These men had decided there was real peril here, and nothing she could say would dissuade them from trying to shield her from it.

No matter how she would insist she needed no shield.

"Very well," the girl agreed stiffly. "I will do as you wish."

"By rights, milady, you should have a great pavilion and be waited upon. Stark banners should fly overhead. By rights, the great lords of the land should pay their respects to you, but we must not alert the host to your presence. Your tent must be humble and unadorned, I'm afraid." The Northman spoke the words regretfully and Arya thought the idea of her sleeping in furs on the ground of a common soldier's tent pained Harwin far more than it did her. She smiled at him.

"You may arrange my accommodations as you see fit and I'll make no objection."

Harwin nodded crisply, satisfied with her acquiescence, and took his leave of Ser Brynden and his lady. Brynden, however, seemed less satisfied. He narrowed his eyes and studied the girl, choosing not to speak until the Northman was out of ear shot.

"What?" Arya asked as she caught his look. Her tone was all innocence. She even fluttered her lashes a little.

"I have heard what you've said, my lady," Ser Brynden replied. "I have also noted what you've not said."

"What haven't I said that you feel you need to hear?"

"I haven't heard you say you will steer clear of the castle."

"Was that not implied by my agreement?"

"I don't believe so," he said, shaking his head. "In fact, to my mind, it seems you were most careful not to imply anything of the sort."

"Do you trust me so little, ser?"

"When it comes to keeping yourself out of trouble, I trust you not at all."

Arya feigned offense. "I? Endanger myself? Really, Ser Brynden, that is most unfair. I defy you to name one time I have put myself in any danger!"

"Does dueling a nearly-knighted squire with sharp steel in the dark not count as endangerment where you come from, my lady?"

The girl scoffed. "Baynard? I'm in more danger of my jerkin choking me as I dress than I am from that mangey weasel."

"Then there was your choice to leave the safety of Raventree Hall where my father would have happily hosted you for years, if need be."

"Well, I'm not the one who arranged the hunt."

"The hunt you insisted you be taken on when no other women planned to join, you mean? The hunt you merely used as a cloak for your escape plan?"

Arya pursed her lips but made no reply.

"And let's not forget your refusal to accept the offer of shelter and safety in Lord Harroway's town," the knight said, frowning. "You decided it was wiser to ride through the heart of the Riverlands, risking bandits and enemies, to meet your mother at Acorn Hall."

The girl attempted to distract the Riverlander from his tirade. "That was hardly a danger, with you at my side, Ser Brynden." She gave him a sweet smile, but he was having none of it.

"Is that why you abandoned me and stole out from the camp in the dead of night, then? You may recall, I was only at your side because I rode like mad to track you down!"

Arya lifted her chin imperiously. "We were never in harm's way. We arrived quite safely at Acorn Hall."

"Ah, yes, Acorn Hall, the place you most recently quit so that you might parade yourself under the nose of Emmon Frey, a man who owes his current position entirely to the overthrow of your mother's family and the bloody coup that ended your brother's reign. As if that weren't enough, his wife's Lannister relations are sure to be about as well. How delighted do you think Cersei Lannister would be to receive the only known living Stark as a gift from her aunt?"

The girl heaved a sigh, her jaw working. She flicked her grey eyes up to meet Ser Brynden's gaze and after a moment, she began to chew her lip. She was thinking on what degree of honesty she was willing to display so that he might understand. She would betray nothing of her skill, beyond what he already knew, she decided. He did not need to know that her confidence and fearlessness stemmed from her training alongside assassins, and from her ability to know the mind of any man she chose (and to turn those same minds to her own purpose, with enough concentration). He did not need to know that the Many-Faced god seemed determined to smooth her path or that she had entered the Nightlands and brought back with her… something.

"Ser," she finally said, "you know that I have made an oath to my mother."

"I do."

"So, you understand what it is I seek to accomplish."

"I believe so."

"Then can you not also see that I can give no promise to avoid the castle? Not if doing so means I must forsake my oath. I must take opportunities when they present themselves, and there are like to be…" Here, she paused, smiling a little as she stared off into the distance for a moment, then she met the knight's gaze once again and continued, "…ample opportunities when we reach Riverrun."

"That I do not agree with, no. Opportunities you may take safely, I can allow for, and better yet, opportunities you may direct those of us who have sworn our swords to you to take in your name. But I do not see that flaunting your Stark blood in a Lannister stronghold will net you any benefits, my lady, and worse yet, it may get you killed."

"What if I weren't to flaunt my Stark blood?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, what if I were disguised? As a servant, or a squire, or the like?" She did not tell him how complete her disguise could be; how impenetrable. She did not tell him that she could take the face of a guard or a cook or a Lord Emmon himself if she chose. Ser Brynden did not need to know all that.

"You want to play dress-up so you can sneak into Riverrun?" He sounded incredulous. "This seems a sound plan to you?"

"Do you think it wiser to storm the gates with swords drawn?"

"I think it wiser for you to turn your horse around and make for Acorn Hall or Raventree Hall, my lady. Barring that, I think the wisest course is the one Harwin has outlined for you. Stay hidden, among friends, and do nothing to draw the eye of those who hold Riverrun."

"I do not intend to draw anyone's eye, Ser Brynden."

"My lady, intended or not, you will draw every eye in every room you enter." The heir to Raventree Hall took the girl's hand in his own and bowed, pressing a kiss against her knuckles. "Please," he continued, straightening, "at least allow me the illusion of believing you'll consider my counsel."

Arya smiled fondly at the knight, then nodded. He gave her a wistful look, obviously wanting to believe the lie he saw in her expression, then took his leave of her.

"What was that all about?" the Bear asked, walking up to his sister only moments after Ser Brynden had left her.

"He wants me to keep my head down while we're near Riverrun."

"Sounds like good advice." The large assassin watched the girl as she watched the knight's retreating form. "But… not advice you're likely to take, I gather."

Arya laughed lightly. "We'll see."

The false-Dornishman abruptly changed subjects. "Our brother's back is healing well."

The girl slid her eyes sideways, looking at him. "I don't care."

"Yes, you do."

"What makes you think so?"

"Because wounds that heal poorly are prone to putrefaction, and putrefaction has killed many men."

"Again, I don't…"

He interrupted her. "If you'd wanted him dead, you would have killed him with your steel, sister. You can quit pretending."

"What do you think I'm pretending about?"

"You're pretending you have no feeling for him, but I know that no matter how he goads you, not matter how you two fight, you still think of him as a brother."

The Cat snorted at the idea.

"You do," the Lyseni insisted. "And, you feel sorry for him."

"I don't!"

"You do. Sorry, and even a little guilty."

Arya's mouth clamped shut and she glared at the Bear.

"You know that he does what he does because he's fulfilling his mission, and his mission is to bring you safely home. And you know that your paths would never have crossed had your families not become entangled when you were but small children."

The girl dropped her eyes and chewed her lip.

"He lied about Gendry," she murmured, "and his lie could've killed him, an innocent who was no threat at all."

"Yes, he lied, but he did it to protect you. You may not appreciate his methods, but you cannot deny the truth of why he employs them."

Arya eyed the large assassin suspiciously. "Why are you telling me all this?"

"Because you've paid him back for what was done to Gendry. Can we now have peace between us?"

The undisguised look in the Bear's eyes gave the Cat pause. She had not realized the strain her brother had been under. She saw hurt and pleading in his gaze and felt sorry for her part in bringing him to this point. She moved to place her hand on his arm, gripping him lightly in a sort of comforting gesture.

"I'll not raise a hand to him if he doesn't force me," she said softly.

"He won't. But that's not enough."

"What do you mean?"

The large man sighed. "Speak with him, sister. Like you did on the ship."

The girl balked at that. "Why? Why must I? Why does it have to be me?"

"For the same reason it had to be you on Titan's Daughter," he replied simply.

Arya shook her head, frowning. When she thought of what the Rat's actions had wrought, how Gendry had suffered for them, she felt a deep, burning anger in her core that she could not deny. The very suggestion of making peace with the Westerosi assassin brought bile into her throat.

"Please," the Bear whispered softly. "I'm going mad, worrying that one of you will kill the other. I'm going mad with the constant animosity between you two. Please, sister. For me."

When the girl saw the look on her brother's face, and heard the imploring in his voice, she gave in. Her eyebrows knitted together and she chewed her lip, then nodded her assent.

"Thank you," he murmured, and the gratitude in his tone broke her. She looked away quickly so that she would not risk a tear.

Selfish, spoiled child, she admonished herself. How could you not see what this was doing to him?

Arya vowed to do better, then; to be better. After all the Bear had done for her, she owed him that much.

Baynard was tending horses rather sulkily when Arya found him. It seemed to her that wearing the face of a squire was vexing for the assassin and she wondered if he'd planned to take a new face, or even wear his own, once they'd turned North for Winterfell. That could explain some of his resentment of Gendry and even the Brotherhood. As long as she and her Faceless escort rode alongside the outlaws, the need for this particular disguise of the Rat's remained.

"Brother," the girl said as she approached. She kept her voice low, but there was no one nearby to hear her address.

The Rat merely growled.

The Cat watched him work for a few moments, brushing and soothing the mounts, then she fell in with him, working alongside the assassin. The work was more natural to her than him, anyway, raised as she was with horses.

"What do you want?" he finally asked. Arya blew out a breath and shrugged.

"I want… I want our brother to stop his worrying."

This made the false-squire snort. "He'll never be done worrying as long as you two keep company. Never."

Understanding dawned on the girl. "Is that what it is between you and me?" she asked. "All this time, all this bitterness…"

"I don't know what you mean."

She was not dissuaded. "On the ship… I had thought all of this was due to the fate of your father, of your family. I'd thought it was because you'd spent all those years blaming me for it, as a sort of proxy. But now…" The Cat's mouth opened and she stared at her Westerosi brother. "Now I see."

The Rat was reluctant to encourage her, it was plain to see in his manner and his expression, but he seemed unable to stop himself. "Now you see what?" he spat.

"That a part of it has always been about him."

"Don't be stupid."

"I'm not being stupid. You're angry that you have to share him. You don't like that he's found friendship elsewhere. Before me, there was only you two. You're jealous."

The Rat stopped his grooming and turned to face his sister, scoffing. "The conceit! Is that what you really think?"

"Well, if not jealousy, then what?"

"It's not jealousy," he insisted, "it's fear."

"You're afraid to lose him?"

"Yes, but not the way you mean."

The Cat was taken aback by her brother's honesty, even if she didn't fully grasp his meaning. She asked him to explain himself and was surprised when he obliged her.

"You can't know what we are to each other. You can't understand it, because you came to us so late. He and I… we hardly have a memory that exists before we were together in the temple. We came to the order so young, and grew up together, not just brothers of the house, but like real brothers."

The story was akin to the one of her master and the handsome man. They had come so very young to the temple, practically on each other's heels, and had been close as brothers all that time. Arya wondered if she had been the wedge between the Bear and the Rat, the same as she had proven to be between Jaqen and his Myrish brother, however unwittingly.

"I never meant to steal his affections. And I haven't! He is as much your brother as mine."

"I know that," he spat. "I told you, I'm not jealous."

Arya was confused. "But you think you're losing him; that I'm stealing him, somehow…"

"No, you don't understand. I'm not afraid of losing his friendship to you. I'm afraid of losing him, my only family in this whole world. You're going to get him killed."

He said it so matter-of-factly that at first, Arya thought she'd misheard. She repeated his words to herself, in her head, and when she did, her heart clenched. "What?"

"If not in some foolhardy attempt to rescue you or defend you, then in his defiance of the House of Black and White, or did you forget that he's taken an oath of loyalty to the most lethal, fearsome, and pitiless order of assassins in all the world?"

"He's done nothing to break that oath!" she protested.

"Not yet, no, but he will, I have no doubt. And it will be for your sake. And he will bleed for it."

Arya shook her head. "I won't let him be hurt."

"How will you stop it?"

"I'd kill for him!"

"No doubt. And he'd die for you."

The girl's mouth turned down and a furrow formed between her eyebrows. "I'd never let him sacrifice himself for me."

"And how will you stop it?"

"I…" She paused, looking at the Rat. She found no enmity in his gaze, only concern; concern for their brother, for what he thought was the Bear's inevitable fate. It drew her up short. She whispered, "I don't know."

"No," the assassin agreed, "and neither do I."

The girl was strangely quiet at supper, her look distracted as she chewed a somewhat charred piece of rabbit. She sat with her men in a circle around a blazing fire but their japes and stories did not seem to register with her as she stared into the flames, thinking. Ser Willem sat to her right, and leaned over to ask her if anything was amiss.

"Mmm," was her response, and she made no other attempt to engage with him, so he let her be.

After a time, the men drifted away, seeking their rest, all but Thoros who sat in a similar posture to Arya's, gazing into the fire. Brienne approached then, ready to spar.

"Oh!" the girl exclaimed, then laughed a little. "I'd forgotten." She had a sleepy look about her and she blinked a few times, looking away from the fire to the knightly woman.

"If you're too tired, my lady…" Brienne began.

"No, not at all. I… I'm just a bit lightheaded, after sitting here and staring at the fire for so long." She stood then, throwing the rabbit bone she still clutched into the flames and brushing her greasy fingertips against her breeches to clean them.

They decided to fight where they stood since the space around the fire pit was ample enough and they would have the aid of the light there. Thoros made no objection as they drew their weapons. He merely continued to gaze into the flames, a perplexed look on his grizzled face.

"We should take it easy tonight," the larger woman suggested, "and not risk tearing your stitches."

Arya glanced down at her injured arm and shrugged. "If it please you, my lady." She slid into her water dancer's stance, raising her weapons as her master had taught her in another life. Brienne batted at her tentatively, as though testing the girl's strength. When her longsword came in contact with Grey Daughter, Arya winced slightly, then gritted her teeth.

"I'm sorry, my lady," Brienne said, stepping back. "Shall we stop?"

"No, it's fine. Just stiff. I think sparring will help." And with that, she plunged in, pressing the Maid of Tarth with a flurry of attacks, which Brienne defended ably. As she moved, her muscles seemed to loosen up, and soon, all Arya could detect was the slight sting of her sutures pulling against the flesh of her arm. The feeling of using her steel again was so pleasant, so freeing, that she couldn't keep the grin from her face.

"Lady Arya, when you smile like that, you make me nervous," Brienne called out rather breathlessly.

"Perhaps I should adopt this as my war face, then," the girl called back, lunging at her opponent with a barking, "Ha!"

They crashed and danced and leapt and stumbled their way around the flames, around the red priest, for near to an hour when Brienne finally begged off.

"You've more stamina than me, my lady," the large woman admitted between gulping breaths. "I'm afraid I'm dead on my feet."

The girl was disappointed, for her energy was not nearly spent, but she thanked Brienne for her indulgence and sent the woman off to her bed. Sighing, Arya dropped down beside Thoros, feeling her own restlessness curling beneath her skin. After a few moments, she leaned in close and in an almost comically conspiratorial way, whispered to the man.

"What see you in your fires, priest?"

"Many things," he replied softly, his gaze still directed at the orange and yellow tongues that writhed before him.

"Will you tell me one?"

"I will, and perhaps you can make more sense of it than I."

She grinned. "What is it?"

"A wolf."

"A wolf?"

"A direwolf."

"Nymeria?"

Thoros shrugged, then added, "A direwolf eating a raven."

"Hmm. That's a strange sort of meal for a wolf," the girl commented. The priest ignored her.

"Then the raven eats an owl."

"How can the raven eat an owl if the wolf has eaten the raven?"

"You're the one who's supposed to be making sense of this, girl. And when the wolf eats the raven, it becomes a raven."

"And then the raven becomes an owl?"

"Just so. And the owl eats a mouse."

"And becomes a mouse…"

"And the mouse eats a man."

"I see now why you're having so much trouble interpreting these visions," the girl chuckled. "Have you considered asking your god to be less cryptic?"

"The man becomes a child."

"Do you recognize the man? Or the child? Are they familiar?"

Thoros shook his head and looked at her then. "I only recognize the woman whose hand the child holds."

For some reason, the hairs on the back of Arya's neck prickled and the buzzing in her bones quieted, just a touch, as though it were beginning to freeze in the chill of the night air.

"Who is it?" she whispered.

"It's you, my lady."

Arya stared up into the blackness of her tent, still and silent, breathing deep and slow. She had called her list of names to Him of Many Faces (Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, Queen Cersei, traitorous black brothers, Walder Frey, the Kindly Man) and then tacked on one thing more: 'Please, let it be tonight. Please.' The images Thoros had described to her earlier played in her mind, over and over, so vivid and bold that it was almost as if her eyes were seeing them writ in color and light on the slanted, oiled canvas of her tent roof.

A direwolf eating a raven and becoming the raven. A raven eating an owl and becoming the owl. An owl eating a mouse, and becoming the mouse…

She'd worried that the vibrating energy deep inside of her would keep her from sleeping soundly as it had for all the nights since she had last seen her mother and father, there in that shadowed godswood of Winterfell. But as she stared into the darkness and envisioned the wolf and the raven and the owl and the mouse, as she envisioned the man (his face taking on a familiar look for her, his gaze bronze and piercing in her mind's eye), she felt herself drifting. It was a feeling akin to lying outstretched on a raft, floating amid the calm seas.

The buzzing of her bones lessened until it was nothing more than the soft purring of a sleeping cat and the girl's eyes fluttered closed. When they opened again, they stared through the trees of the surrounding forest several leagues to the south of the dell where the company had made camp. She was wearing Nymeria's skin and padded on large paws, trotting after two of her cousins. They'd scented some prey and stalked it silently.

Over the protests of the wolf, the girl broke into a run, passing her small cousins, and the prey, and then the rest of the pack, loping joyfully beyond where Nymeria had meant to range. She felt so free, so light, that she never wanted to stop running. The wind slicked her ears and fur down and when she burst into a clearing, she pulled up short, raising her snout toward the sky and howling, long and deep. The direwolf pulled against her mistress, trying to turn back for prey, and the girl took pity, releasing the beast so that Nymeria might satisfy her great hunger. Arya leapt from her wolfskin and burrowed through a feathered breast. She flew then, on strong, black wings, swooping and diving.

There was no feeling like it in the world.

No feeling like it, save one, she thought, but she would not allow herself to name it, lest she falter for thinking on it too much.

She knew not how long she flew, leaping from raven to owl, but fly she did, over the Riverlands, over the Hollow Hill and Blackwater Rush. She rose high into the night sky, wings spread wide, and watched the ground beneath her pass with her sharp avian eyes. She found other wings along the way, wings less spent, and hopped from one to the next as easily as a child might hop from one foot to the next while playing a skipping game. On and on she flew, always southward, somehow knowing that was right.

After a long while, the girl saw lights dotting the landscape near Bitterbridge. Down, down, down she drifted, until she could see that the lights came from campfires burning low and candles setting tents aglow. Her sharp eyes spied a scurrying creature there on the ground, and she jumped from her owl body and plummeted into the small, scampering thing. It had been exploring around the edges of the tents, looking for scraps to pilfer but Arya redirected its purpose.

Under the canvas of one tent wall, the grey mouse slipped, as easy as breathing, one corner having been staked too loosely, almost as if ordained by the will of the gods. Vaguely she wondered, Why this tent? Why this mouse? But perhaps that, too, was the will of the gods. She squeaked, a small sound, and stood on her two back legs when she saw the sleeping form of a man inside the tent. Her eyes were not so sharp as the owl's had been, but she saw clear enough. There was dark hair framing a handsome, hard face, features foreign to her, but there was something about him… something that pulled at her nonetheless.

He turned in his sleep, this man, rolling to one side, and sighing. Her ears pricked at the sound and she dropped down again to all fours and scurried as near to him as she dared. When she did, she heard him mutter in the slurred speech common to sleeping men.

"Where have you gone?" he asked, his voice slow and thick, only the words he spoke were…

In Lorathi.

Without a thought, she shed her skin once again and aimed for him, shooting as straight and swift as an arrow, plunging into the dream world where the man tarried. It felt… strange.

Brightness blinded her for a moment, after all the dark of the camp and the night sky, but she blinked and squinted, and the landscape slowly resolved around her. She turned, staring, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. She stood on a road made of smooth stones, a village street of some sort, but in the most foreign of places; somewhere she'd never been (though it seemed somehow… familiar). To her right, the street abutted a low stone wall and beyond that wall, a steep cliff dropped at least one hundred feet to the sea below. Waves crashed against the bare cliff, the water the color of sapphires in the noonday sun. To her left, the white walls of a house greeted her. There were large windows cut into bleached façade and below each, a narrow, wooden box was affixed. Fuchsia flowers trailed over the edges of the boxes, spilling fat, vibrant blooms nearly to the ground. It was so beautiful, she could hardly stand to look at it, and could hardly stand to look away.

In the center of the house's front wall, there was a door painted as blue as the sea below her, and the door opened as she watched. A young boy emerged, looking at her curiously with great, bronze eyes. Arya's breath caught in her throat as the warm sunlight shone on the child's head, revealing the white streak in his reddish-brown hair.

"Why is a girl here?" the boy asked in Lorathi.

She swallowed, and answered him. "I came to find you." She looked around, marveling at the color and warmth and peace of this place. "Where are we?"

"Home," he replied, and a beautiful smile spread across his young face. Arya's fingers trembled with the desire to reach out and touch his cheek.

The boy gave her a look and then stretched out one small hand before him, beckoning her. She hesitated for only a moment, bringing her own hands to her lips, covering her mouth as she stared at him. After a few steadying breaths, she moved toward him and took the offered hand.

When his warm palm slid against hers, Arya closed her eyes and wrapped her fingers around his. He tugged on her, coaxing her toward the blue door, and when he spoke, it was not with a boy's voice, but a man's.

"Come, lovely girl," he said, his graveled tone so sweet to her ears that she sighed and wondered if she were the one who was dreaming. She followed, allowing him to guide her, her eyes still closed, afraid that if she opened them, his voice might fade away like smoke in the wind. "Will you not look at a man?" he asked with a hint of amusement. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, trying to drive away the fear that clutched at her heart; the fear of losing him.

I can't, she thought. Not again.

She steeled herself. And then she looked.

Jaqen gazed back at her, his smile fading as he peered intently into the burning silver of her eyes and he drew in a ragged breath.

"It is you," he murmured, dropping slowly to his knees. "A man has prayed to Him of Many Faces for so long, he began to fear he had fallen out of favor with his god."

She tried to speak, to say his name, but she couldn't find her voice. Instead, she took a half step, then fell to her knees before him, her posture mirroring his. She stared at him, her eyes meeting his, and then leaned forward to grasp at his arms as she began to cry. The Lorathi looked mildly alarmed.

"Is a girl not happy to see a man?" he asked, perplexed. "No matter, a man is happy enough for us both." He smiled, and there was all the world in that smile, and she gasped and held her breath for a long, dizzying moment. Then she laughed. She laughed as she cried and fell into his arms, reaching for his neck, his face, pulling it toward her so that she could press her lips against his mouth as the tears fell endlessly from her eyes. She laughed, and cried, and kissed him and kissed him, her fingers tracing the thin white scars on his neck, a gift from a cat long ago.

"Jaqen," she whispered finally, and once she said his name, she could not stop. "Jaqen, Jaqen, Jaqen, Jaqen."

"Shh. Do not be distressed," he soothed, murmuring the words between soft kisses as his thumbs found her cheeks and gently brushed at the tears on them. She laughed through her tears, pushing him over onto his back, onto the floor of the house with the blue door. She laid over top of him, pressing her ear to his chest so that she might hear his heart beating.

At the steady thumping she found beneath his breast, she choked back a sob.

"I thought you were dead, and then I wasn't sure, and oh, I've missed you. So much," she said hoarsely. "So, so much."

"Mmm," was all he said, stroking the shell of her ear with his fingers and kissing the top of her head.

The girl squeezed her eyes shut and tried to memorize the feel of his touch, his fingers as they moved over her ear, then her neck; his lips pressed to her hair. When she opened them again, she noticed that they were lying in an entryway, their tangled feet pointing toward the blue door of the house.

"Jaqen, where are you?"

"A man is here, lovely girl," her master replied, grasping her chin and tilting her head so that she was looking up at him. He pushed up with one elbow, leaning his head down to kiss her nose. "With you."

Arya shook her head, but the question she had asked was like a butterfly, fluttering away from her on gossamer wings. She reached for it, trying to make him understand what it was she wanted to know; trying to understand it herself, the wavering intentions of the dream confusing and hampering her.

"Where…" she started and Jaqen dipped his head further, his lips finding hers once again, and she breathed in, her nostrils filling with the scent of cloves and ginger and leather. She groaned.

The Lorathi pulled back, but only for a moment; only long enough to say, "This is Lorath. This was a man's home when he was but a small boy. His mother is in the courtyard even now, tending her flowers."

"No," the girl said softly, "I mean…"

But he did not wait to hear what she meant, and instead, sought her lips with his own again, more insistently, and she felt weightless. Her question dissolved and then all that remained was Jaqen's nose brushing along hers, and the sound he made low in his throat as he kissed her, and the fingers of his one hand curling around her neck while the other hand slipped to the small of her back and pressed her closer into him.

Forever, she thought. I could stay this way forever.

Her tears started anew.

It was joy, and longing, and relief. It was fear, so long held, and finally released. It was disbelief and lust and the purest love. It was so much, too much, and she felt as though the ice which had encased her heart was melting and all her flesh began to tingle the way a child's hands will tingle when they have played in the snow without their mittens and then return to the warmth of the indoors.

"Do not cry, lovely girl," Jaqen murmured, and he kissed the tears away from her cheeks and her eyes.

"I never want to leave you. I never want to be apart from you," Arya said. "Not ever again."

"And you will never have to. We can stay here, in Lorath," he told her. "Forever."

"But we can't, Jaqen. This is a dream. It's only a dream."

"A man's most fervent dream."

She looked at him sadly. "It's not real. It's all just a dream."

The Lorathi chuckled, and looked at Arya. "This feels very real to a man." Quick as a snake, he grasped her tightly to him and rolled them both over so that she was lying flat against the rug of the entry hall and he was over top of her. He drank her in for a moment, his eyes tracing the lines of her face and of her neck, and then he lowered his head until he was kissing the notch at the base of her throat. "You," he purred, sighing heavily, "feel very real to a man."

The girl turned her face to the side, her eyelids fluttering shut as she reveled in the feel of him so close to her. He began to pull at the ties which closed her blouse around her throat, loosening them and tugging at the neck of the shirt. After a moment, he'd moved it aside so that her shoulder was bare and then she felt his lips on her collarbone, his teeth teasing the skin there as he nipped and kissed her softly.

"Just a… dream," she moaned, struggling for coherence.

"If it is, a man hopes he never awakens." Jaqen punctuated his assertion by trailing his tongue lightly along the length of her collarbone until he reached her shoulder. There, his lips found the small scar he had once remarked upon, the one she'd gotten as a child playing with her brothers.

Her heart squeezed almost painfully in her chest, and for a mad instant, she let herself live in his hope. Maybe we never have to awaken, she thought. And it could be like this forever.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, her fingers lazily twining themselves in his hair, and she whispered things to him, desperately, one thought bleeding into the next as his mouth moved ceaselessly over her flesh. She told him how she'd yearned for him, that her heart ached for his sake. She told him she'd thought of him a thousand times since they'd parted; a thousand thousand; more. She told him she heard his words, when she was troubled, when she was confused; that he came to her in those times, and he was her path out of the wilderness. She told him that she grieved his absence, and that she gazed at the stars only in the hope he might be gazing at them too, and that she loved him, oh, so very, very much; more than the stars numbered in the sky, or the blades of grass numbered in the Dothraki Sea; more than a man could fathom if given a thousand lifetimes to ponder it.

"Your love is very great indeed," the Lorathi said, settling beside her and pulling her to him, laying his cheek against the crown of her head. "There is only one thing which measures greater in all the world."

"And what would that be?" Arya murmured, allowing the feeling of complete contentment to wash over her.

"A man's love for his beautiful apprentice."

She smiled at that, then said, "But I'm no longer your apprentice, Jaqen. I've been exiled."

The Lorathi made a tsking sound, admonishing her. "Claiming you are no longer a man's apprentice will not excuse you from your dancing lessons."

"What?" she asked, confused and suddenly more alert. They were no longer reclined in each other's arms in the house with the blue door. Instead, she found herself in a dim passageway inside the House of Black and White, facing Jaqen. She was dressed in the black and white robe of an acolyte. The entire landscape had changed in an instant, in that jarring way that dreams have, which never seems jarring to the dreamer while it happens and only seems like nonsense upon reflection after waking.

"A girl must meet her master in the training room in a quarter hour, and do not be late," Jaqen said, turning on his heel to leave her, "or a man will be most displeased." The girl began to panic.

"Wait!" she cried. "Jaqen! Wait! Where are you?"

"Why does a girl ask such silly questions?" he called back over his shoulder as he walked away. Arya became more alarmed and felt as though she were being yanked away, even though she was standing still in the middle of the corridor. She did not seem to be able to get her master to answer her question, so she sought to impart one message she hoped would stick with him.

"Winterfell!" she cried.

"A girl is no one," her master chided just before rounding the corner, "and no one does not have a home named Winterfell."

"I'm going to Winterfell!" she tried again. "Find me there!"

She could not be certain he heard her, and as she ran after him to tell him again, it seemed as if the passageway grew longer and longer before her. After several more exhausting steps, she felt as though she had run into an invisible wall. She cried out.

"Cat!" the Bear hissed into her ear, "Cat! Wake up!" He was shaking her and she thrashed against him. "Quit fighting me and wake up! It's time for your breakfast. Everyone else is already packing."

The girl's legs were tangled in her furs and she kicked at them, panting hard. When she opened her eyes and saw the Bear's face peering down at her, she gasped, and then moaned, unable to hold back the sobs which shook her body. Her brother wasn't sure what to make of it, but he grabbed her up, holding her tightly, rocking and shushing her, letting her cry.

Far to the south, in a place where the Reach neared the Crownlands, a false-sellsword captain awoke with a start and stared around him, searching for something he knew would be impossible to find in this place. He swallowed his disappointment and stood, then dressed, leaving his tent and walking briskly to the edge of the camp. While others began rise and break their fasts and mill about, they looked to the east, toward the city they must conquer.

The captain's gaze turned northward.

"Lovely girl," he breathed.

In My Veins—Andrew Belle