Author note: Right, dear readers, I know that this chapter is most likely going to feel like a filler episode, especially in the later half, but there is a reason to why I am adding this chapter: I am sick and tired to death of ASOIAF fandom acting as if poor Sansa is some form of classist, awful bully to Arya, when Arya actually is the one causing a lot of trouble because of parental favoritism from Ned, who fails to realize that maybe Arya should need some more sternness from him, for her own good, rather than him keep doting upon her. / Rogercat
~X~X~X~X~X~X
Morning of March 6, Dunharrow in Rohan:
Despite most of Dunharrow currently being a refugee camp with new Rohirric families arriving everyday from all across the Kingdom, given that Queen Elia had requested the evacuation so less lives risked to be lost in raids and attacks on the common villages, said families tried to get some form of normal life in the camp.
One example was to send the older, preteen children to get water from the Snowbourn. After all, water was needed for cooking, washing and a lot of other things to make life somewhat more normal.
"Excuse us! Let us through, please! We are carrying buckets filled with water here!"
Celia and Amanda were trying to help out with whatever tasks that would not be too difficult, alongside other children around their age group. By helping out, they would not be in the way for the mothers cooking food on big fires just outside the tents or other adults helping to build up more temporary homes in the tents or caring for the livestock that many farming families had brought along from their homes.
"Celia, a little more to the right!"
The older daughter of Lysa heard the warning from her sister, and smoothly avoided tripping over a newly raised tent pole while still carrying the bucket of water. This was one of many examples of how the two former Arryn sisters tried to help each other, thanks to knowing of their respective struggles like the nearsightedness of Celia and Amanda in social situations outside the family.
"Thank you for bringing us some of the water needed to make the midday meal and dinner later, children," one of the mothers greeted the group, carrying an iron pot that was already filled with oatmeal. The cooking fires had also been going for a while since an hour or so before dawn, so many were already making things ready for the first meal of the day.
Outside the portal between Harrowdale in the mountain side and the empty store building in the Old Palace, Lysa was helping to ensure that the offered food goods from Dorne was divided as equally as possible so that no family in the camp risked to be without. Next to her, Eorl was holding the back of her skirt with one hand and his favorite stuffed toy in the other hand, wanting to be near his mother for now.
"About twenty more families arrived yesterday, the same hamlet since they arrived together and clearly knew each other, and they did warn of more to come. Those families who live the farest away from Harrowdale, naturally need the longest time to travel here and hope that they will not be attacked on the way."
"True enough," Mellario agreed before turning her attention back to the Dornish men and women helping to divide the food, then lifting up a wax table in her hands to write a personal report for Doran and Arianne so they would know if something was not right in the calculations for the food.
"Lady Lysa? Can you help to interpret a little? Some of the families are a little worried about the foodstuff given to them since they have elderly family members with difficulty to chew or infants still nursing at the breast," one household maid hurried to call from where the food was being divided to families standing in long rows.
"Of course!" Lysa responded, taking the hand of Eorl so they could walk together. Despite having lived in Rohan for not even five years and still was a far away in being as fluent in Rohirric as Elia was after nearly fourteen years, Lysa still took pride in that she now had been living enough long in Rohan to be able to act as an interpreter in situations like this. Of course, she knew that Celia and Amanda were far more fluent in Rohirric thanks to still being children that would catch on the everyday talk from anong playmates faster than a adult and her dear little Eorl knew very little of the Common Tongue in Westeros, being far more used to the language of Dorne than that of the Vale of Arryn.
While their mother was helping out with the food now after breakfast, Celia and Amanda were tasked with babysitting some younger children, for there was more than one mother who needed a quick rest, especially if the families had newly arrived in Harrowdale and had spent a lot of time trying to unpack whatever they could bring along.
"Sit down on the grass, all of you, else I will not play on the harp!"
"Play for us, Celia!"
Even with her congenital nearsightedness, Celia refused to let her handicap make her look passive or unable to take control of a situation herself. She may never become a shield-maiden, and Amanda could be a little too blunt at times because she did not always recall her social manners in the right moments, but Lysa had seen how both her daughters would thrive in Rohan as adults, rather than the stiffing expectations they would have faced in Westeros.
"Right, be quiet so all of you can hear…"
Celia began to play on the lyre that she had been gifted on her tenth birthday by Tirward, and Amanda began to sing when a familiar, simple melody was being played.
In the distance, their step-grandparents were also listening, watching the children to see if there would be any trouble suddenly showing up.
"It was a good choice, what the Queen did back then. Without our son entering her life, I am sure that Lysa would have been a lot more unhappy, struggling to have a healthy son from a much older husband who did not care for the two daughters she gave him."
Stopping in her knitting for a moment to count the stitches done so far, Tirwald's stepmother added in without looking up from what she was doing with her hands:
"Honestly, I would have liked to give her late father a firm hit over the head with your sword and then a long, verbal enlightenment to open his eyes to the mind-numbing idiocy of his actions and how this damaged whatever trust Lysa would have for him, husband. Selling off his younger daughter as a broodmare to a much older and childless bridegroom, while her sister gets the brother of her original betrothed?! Even if Lysa did fool around a little because she was curious about how it is to sleep with a man, that still does not justify the huge age gap she faced in her first marriage! Honestly, what is wrong with wanting to kiss a boy that is her own age and sometimes accidentally taking the next step as a result of the mood?"
Her husband nodded, knowing better than disagreeing with his second wife. Besides, even if they had never met Host Tully, the whole "forcing Lysa to marry a husband that was even older than himself"-thing had left a less than nice impression of the late Lord Tully for Tirwald and his family.
"Well, it is perfectly natural to be curious about romance and sexual matters, as many are at that age when their bodies start to mature. Sadly, some cultures have very strict views on the virginity of young girls, especially those of high status, and getting forcefully married to such an old man, all to give him the heirs that he should have tried to beget many years earlier on a previous wife, was not the right way of handling such a situation with Lysa."
Lysa had not told her new parents-in-law the full details of her getting pregnant by Petyr outside marriage and forced into a traumatic abortion by Hoster when he found out, but they were not fully blind to a guessing of the reason to why Jon Arryn had been given her as a such much younger bride, and coming very close to the truth without even knowing about it.
"Grandfather! Grandmother! Please help us gather the children again before something bad happens! I do not want Celia and myself to be scolded for bad babysitting!" Amanda cried out in distress to the old couple when the younger children chose to run in different directions, Celia cursing loudly over how they could not sit down nicely for a longer while.
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In Meduseld, the King and Queen were checking on the daily reports that had arrived this morning as well.
"Mostly good news, thankfully. There have been a few attempted raids by the Uruk-hai and Orcs on families who are on the way to Harrowdale, but the Dornish riders across Rohan have managed to avoid too many deaths thanks to acting as escort and protectors for the families."
Théodred still needed to rest, but he had insisted on being laid down on a stretcher temporary out on a pair of benches in the Golden Hall, if only to be able to personally see what happened outside the royal bedchamber, and the household maids needed to change the bedsheets anyway. With a pillow to support his head and a thick blanket to keep warm, he was using the time to set his signature on various documents that Elia had read aloud for him.
"That is good. I am annoyed that my injuries prevent me from leading the Rohirrim into battle against the enemy, but that can not be helped because Saruman wanted Rohan to become weakened with my death. Thankfully, I am not the only adult man in the House of Eorl right now, I trust my father and cousin to do their best in my stead."
Elia looked at her husband. He did try to hide it, but his body language spoke of a great wish to personally beat up Saruman for the murder attempt on him, and that was not a big surprise. The King of Rohan was expected to lead his people in both peace and war, so for Théodred, not being able to take a bigger part in the fighting against Mordor was a low blow against his pride as a warrior.
"It would have been a great sorrow for us all if you had died, besorg. Aégnor would have to be crowned as a underage King in a very troubling time, and his grandfather would have to lead the Rohirrim in his place."
"Yes," her husband admitted, "that is why I tried so hard to stay alive, even with your medicinal treatment, until Aragorn arrived. I did not want to leave my beloved family behind, or leave my Kingdom without a leader."
Some time later, when Elia had gone outside to see how things were in the rest of Edoras, the King of Rohan noticed his stepdaughter sitting in a corner of the Golden Hall, fully focused on what appeared to be a sketch for a new painting.
"Rhaenys, I can see that something is troubling your mind. Is it something you can talk about?"
She looked up, and after some moments of thinking, she came over to his side.
"I am scared, Feder. Because I dread that when Mara closed that portal between the two worlds so long ago…"
Ah, he could guess what she feared to say. He and Elia had talked about this just yesterday evening, before falling asleep for the night.
"Rhaenys. Khamûl became a Nazgûl because he witnessed nearly everyone in his whole family be murdered by a treacherous son who desired Mara in the same unhealthy manners as the Targaryens, and he made that choice out of desperation to protect Mara and Neith alongside their unborn sons from the same fate. What if Mara had not managed to escape Tar-Minyatur, you wonder? Would Princess Nymeria of Ny Sar have an ally to become her husband and Prince Consort when trying to unite Dorne? Would the descendants of Mara and Morgan Martell have to suffer the same fate as the bloodline of Neith, locked up in a golden cage and facing the horror of being murdered in order to keep them under control? Would Morgan even have manage to be born alive, and not murdered right after birth by Tar-Minatyr to cause Mara anguish?"
Rhaenys took a deep breath, imagining those "what-ifs" scenarios in her head. Yes, the pregnant Mara had not been able to open the portal again and died in Dorne without ever seeing her homeland of Kemet again, but on the other hand, her son had managed to grow up and become the ancestor of House Martell without Sauron managing to find them, right up to the very moment when Théodred had showed up right in time to save his future family from a horrible death on the orders of Tywin Lannister. The mere idea of what sort of fate that Morgan could have faced, if Mara had not been able to escape, was clear. House Martell would never have come into existence.
"You are right, Feder. Even if it was not intended at that time, Khamûl did indirectly save Mara and Morgan by giving her that order to bring herself and her unborn son to safety. By taking that risk with the portal, and facing the dangers of an unknown world, Mara ensured that her descendants in House Martell were given the chance to exist without the threat of Sauron hanging over their heads."
For Rhaenys, it felt better now to have heard such words that reminded her of things that could have been very different in the past. If anything, a proof of that small actions could have consequences on a larger scale than imagined.
"I will keep making the outline of this drawing and see if I can find the right colors for it, if only to forget what is happening in the wider world for now."
The King nodded with a smile over that she seemed less sad now, sending her off to do what she enjoyed.
~X~X~X~X~X~X
In Minas Tirith, an evacuation of the civilian population was also going on.
"On orders of Lord Faramir, everyone who is not a soldier or trained in the arts of healing needs to evacuate to the south and west parts of Gondor!"
Messengers were walking around in the streets on all the seven layers of the city, informing of what Faramir had ordered to do.
"Those who have relatives out in the country that they can join, please inform the adminiastion in charge of the evacuation! The Orphan Labor Force are also helping to keep records of the families that may need to spit up for whatever reason!"
In one of the state-owned city orphanages, a lot of families were asking the staff to help send their children with the Orphan Labor Force, especially those with many young children.
"How many children? Which village? What sort of relatives do you have there?"
Among everything else, Sansa and Arya was sitting in a corner of the orphanage building, dressed in the same light grey woolen dress as the other orphaned girls here, trying to see if they could spot their father or one of the familiar Stark guards who had joined them south to King's Landing to form a small household while the sisters and Robb was being educated in a more southern manner, to widen their world beyond the North because of their blood ties to southern noble houses and not having Argella be the one needing to adjust the most in her future as the next Lady Stark by marrying Robb.
"Why is Father not coming here? Surely he or Robb would have sent out the guards to search for us, if they were injured?"
Both of them still had a little unclear memories thanks to the concussions of the brain that they had gotten when the staircase had collapsed from the burning hail, but they did remember that something had happened in the capital of Westeros.
"I do not know, Arya…I have tried to ask the women who work in this place, but no one seems to understand what I am saying!"
It had came as a huge shock for Sansa, the moment when she had realized in horror that no one here seemed to speak the Common Tongue of Westeros or that the name of House Stark or their father got no signs of recognition, and she was scared of that this could mean for her and Arya.
"I will ask again, please do not cause any trouble before I come back, Arya?" the older sister pleaded, knowing that her younger sister was being very restless after being in bed for many days and needed to walk with crutches due to her broken left leg. And Sansa knew the signs of Arya getting frustrated over something from their shared school lessons both at Winterfell and at the royal court in the Red Keep, she could see it in Arya now.
"Yeah, yeah."
Sansa really did not want to leave Arya alone, but if there was someone asking for them, she had to let that person know that they were here.
"Alright…."
Naturally, just as Sansa feared before leaving, it did not take long for Arya to become bored. Even with her bright auburn hair, it was impossible to see Sansa clearly in the mass of adults and whatever they were carrying.
"There is nothing fun to do here…we may not have school lessons, but I want to be outdoors!"
Taking her crutches, the younger Stark daughter tried to walk around in hope of finding something to do even with a broken leg.
In the small courtyard, a young girl who was maybe five years older than Sansa, was cutting up lemons to add in cups of drinking water for the gathered children. A kitchen maid from a noble household here in Minas Tirith, who had been sent from her workplace with a small donation to charity, and given permission to evacuate alongside the orphans later today.
"The lady of the House felt sorry for all the chaos now during the evacuation, and sent over those as a treat for you who live here in the orphanage. No, no! Be careful, the juice is pretty acidic," she warned one small boy who tried to take one of the peels in his hand for a closer look.
"Your mistress is very kind," one girl smiled over the sounds of her friends who tried to taste on the lemon rinds:
"Sour!"
When Arya arrived, the older kitchen girl naturally could not help but notice her broken leg.
"Oh, oh."
"One of the two weird girls!"
"Yeah, those who can not speak Sindarin!"
"Ehm!"
The kitchen maid faked a loud cough as a reminder that they should not speak in that way about others. It was a poor habit to have, and often the cause for bullying of other children. This girl had a broken leg, and should not have to face such treatment.
"Be nice, or I will have to tell the Matron and her underlings about what you just said."
Arya, who had seen the lemons playing there on a wooden cutting board above the small marble table, knew that Sansa would have asked if there were some lemon cakes or some similar sweets. For them, being nobles used to sweets being available if they so desired between meals and a very different menu when food was to be served, it had been a shock to see the orphanage staff serve mosty bread, cheese, grains, vegetables and a soup or stew. Almost no meat at all, they had not seen any fish dishes and they could forget the idea of being served eggs yet at meals, as it was still a little too early in spring for chickens, ducks and geese to have started laying enough eggs for any excess eggs to be sold for money on the market by the farmer or those in the city who owned poultry.
"I want those lemons for my sister."
But the kitchen maid shook her head as a response, despite not really understanding what Arya had said. But her look at the lemon had spoken enough details.
"Wait on your turn if you want to have some lemon water, there are some children ahead of you in the row, and I need to cut up the remaining ones."
However, Arya did not like the response. From her point of view, being refused like this, when she had been polite, felt like an insult. She was used to the servants of Winterfell being friendly to her by being one of the children to their employer, and her restlessness from the last couple of days did not help.
"I said, I want those lemons for my sister!"
In return for the more demanding tone, the kitchen maid gave her an annoyed glare. Honestly, who had been in charge of this girl and her upbringing? Was she coming from a noble background, sent to the orphanage temporarily to learn about how to not take things for granted or to learn some humility because she was a problem child in the classroom? Some noble families were said to use this method to deal with troublemakers among their children, according to gossip below the stairs.
"Wait on your turn, ill-mannered brat."
Turning around, the maid began to chop up the remaining lemons without giving any more attention to Arya, who now let her impulsive side take control over what she felt to be an unfair treatment by a rude adult.
"I ASKED FOR THOSE LEMONS FOR MY SISTER, STUPID WOMAN!" she yelled in a loud voice, scaring a few of the other children to run a small distance away. And then Arya swung out with the right crutch because she would trip over if she used the left one, aiming for the maid. The adolescent narrowly avoided being hit in the head because even if Arya was much shorter no one wanted to be stricken with a stick in the head, but she tripped over and as the maid fell backwards on the stones, the crutch instead hit the wooden cutting board from the side. One lemon half, partly crushed from earlier, flew up across the air by the strike, and no one could act in time to prevent this acid citrus half from landing on the maid.
"AAAAAAAAGH!"
A howl of agony echoed across the courtyard, catching the attention of those who were indoors or at the front of the orphanage building, the maid holding her hands over her left eye where the acid lemon juice had hit her eyeball.
"What is going on here!?" the Matron called in her most authoritative voice, hurrying outside with a few of the female staff members right behind her.
"That strange girl tried to hit the visiting kitchen maid for not giving her lemon water ahead of us!"
"And caused that lemon half to land over her eye!"
All the other children pointed at Arya, who realized that this was not going to be a good situation. Walking over to the maid, the Matron gently removed her hands to see the full damage.
"Get her inside and help her flush that eye with plenty of water! Make sure to lift both the upper and lower eyelid from time to time to get all that acid out! And get a healer here!"
Leaving the maid in the care of her staff, the Matron grabbed Arya hard around her arm. Then, raising her hand, the old woman proved herself to not be weak and frail despite her age as Arya almost was knocked over by the slap on her cheek. But the younger Stark daughter did not get many moments of shock over the physical punishment, or even time to get angry.
"You!" the Matron hissed with a furious face as she pulled the stunned Arya almost face to face, "what in the names of the Valar was you thinking!? Have you never learned that citric acid can cause eye damage and even blindness if the juice enters the eye!? If you think that you will escape punishment for this sort of behavior, forget it!"
And with that warning, Arya found herself tossed forwards over the stone stable, the dress pulled upwards to reveal her bare buttcheeks and spanked forcefully with one of the crutches, and it was not taking long before she was crying and screaming from the pain.
"No! NO! Stop it! Please stop! Please, do not hurt her anymore! Please, let Arya go!" a horrified Sansa pleaded from where she was being held back by two older employees, preventing her from coming to her sister's aid or do anything else to interrupt the punishment.
Finally, the punishment was over. But Sansa, who now hurried over to Arya and hugged her for comfort, could see that her sister honestly was terrified.
"I am here, Arya, I am here…" Sansa whispered in her best attempt to calm herself as she held the trembling body of her crying sister close to herself.
"Mother…I want Mother, Sansa…"
Yet Sansa could not believe what she just had witnessed. Not even Maester Luwin would punish her or Arya in this way during the lessons in reading, writing and mathematics. Nor would Septa Mordane, and the septas in control over the school lessons of the noble girls at court tended to favor sending the troublemaker to sit in a "corner of shame" and still having to follow along in the lesson. How would Father react, if he learned that someone had dared to strike Arya in this manner?
"Write up in the younger girl's information papers about the eye damage she caused today. I am not a healer, but I would be surprised if that kitchen maid ends up becoming blind in that eye which the lemon juice hit. If so, the younger girl needs to work and earn money that will be given away as compensation."
The Matron also gave order about that in the information papers about Sansa and Arya that had been created at their arrival to the orphanage, there would be a notification for any foster family out in the country of Arya being aggressive and needing strict discipline in the form of hard work and absolutely no cuddling that could rewake her old behavior which Ned had caused by his favoritism and escaping from consequences resulting from her actions.
In short, Arya had just gotten a first, rather brutal taste of that not all adults would accept her behavior even if she was a young child, and that she actually could hurt other people without meaning it originally.
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Author note: I headcanon that in Rohan, such a huge age gap as it was between Lysa and Jon Arryn is deeply frowned upon, because the young bride might be around the same age as a granddaughter to her aged groom and the unlikely changes of the resulting children being healthy, as proved by that Celia have congenital nearsightedness despite this not being a trait in either House Tully or Arryn from canon, and Amanda have Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism. In fact, birth defects were acknowledged in the children of older men and women even in antiquity.
As Sansa and Arya have found out so far in the orphanage, there is a wide difference between what they are used to eating as nobles (remember, House Stark is the Lord Paramounts of the North, only next to the royal family in social rank!) and what the commoners are eating.
Remembering that scene in the GOT book where Sansa and Arya have an argument and Arya ends up tossing a blood orange on Sansa, straining the new dress that Cersei had given her? Given that lemons are the most acidic citrus fruit, here Arya is learning the hard way that her actions can actually harm other people and that such behavior, even from a young child, is not accepted by every adult around her, something which Ned has failed to teach her. Both Westeros and Middle-earth are medieval worlds, physical punishments of children and adolescents for bad behavior would not count as child abuse as in the RL 21th century
