The next time Gendry woke up, he was feeling better than he had in months. His entire body still felt like one giant bruise, but he still felt better. He managed to sit himself up, and before Gendry could really come to terms with being awake, two people threw themselves at him to hug him. There was a mouthful of curly black hair in his face as his sister's held onto him as if for dear life. Gendry held onto them just as tightly and didn't release them until they pulled away from him. Neither of them were crying, but they looked like they were about to. Edric was in the bed next to him, and despite his sister's practically sitting on him, Gendry managed to reach across and squeeze his little brother's hand.
"I'm so glad you're all okay," Edric said. The infection and all of the blood he lost from losing his foot left Edric looking rather fragile, but he was the one who talked to the villagers and got them the help they needed. "I don't think I've panicked like that since I was a kid when all of you just fell over like that."
"You would have crawled to the village to get us to help if you had to," Gendry said. "I saw you do it, and whatever you said to these people, you got us the help we needed. We're all safe now because of you." Edric's ears turned a little red.
"I told them the truth, and it turns out trying to control places half a continent away doesn't go over well with these people. They aren't fans of the Second Sons, so they were all too willing to take us in," Edric explained.
"Still, your words got us here," Mya said. Gendry realized for the first time that he could be away from his siblings again if any of them wanted, but the mere idea of not being able to see all three of them made a knot form in his stomach. It reminded him of the early years with Arya, and it took a long time before he was able to be separated from her for any amount of time and not fall into a panic that he was going to lose her.
"Weneya says we can keep this hut," Bella explained. "She said it belonged to one of her children that was lost at sea and no one has lived in it since. It's ours for as long as we want it." Now that he was awake, Gendry could see that there wasn't much to the hut. There were four small pallet beds and a small fire pit in the corner. There was a little room for storage and food but not much beyond that. "I was thinking we could push the beds altogether and in a corner. That would give us more room." Gendry liked the sound of being closer to them, and the three of them moved Edric and pushed the four pallet beds together. Now it sort of looked like one of the massive beds at Storm's End. Gendry pushed that thought from his mind and looked at Edric in the lone chair.
"We need to figure out a way to get you moving again, little brother. I can't keep carrying you around like a newborn babe," Gendry said.
"Oh fuck off," Edric snapped, and the tension in the room broke. Gendry felt lighter than he had in months as he pulled Edric onto his back, and the four of them ventured out into the village. Weneya had given them some new clothes already, and there was a nearby lake so they could finish washing the blood and sweat from their bodies. They met with the local fisherman, and one of them pointed to his leg made out of wood that he had to create when he lost his foot to a large sea creature. Gendry wasn't the best with wood, but with a little help, he figured he could probably make it so Edric could get around on his own again. Weneya invited them to dinner that night, and it was some of the best fish Gendry had ever had in his life. The other villagers were all kind and laughed with them. It was nice; it was more than he felt like he deserved at that moment, but seeing his siblings smile again was worth it.
A month later and Gendry felt like they were all settling in nicely. He once asked Weneya if the village had a name, and she looked at him like he was an idiot. It took a few attempts, and the local fisherman helped, but Gendry managed to create a wooden foot for Edric to walk on. The four of them would spend long nights in their hut teaching Edric, essentially how to walk again. It was the same process that Sansa had to go through with Theon, but Gendry tried not to think about all of that too much. If he thought about the North or Arya that much he'd be struck with an overwhelming sense of guilt. Here he was, carefree and even a little happy in this village, what right did he have to be happy without her? It felt like a betrayal of some sort, and he only felt more guilty the less he tried to think of his old life.
Gendry didn't feel any better about being away from his siblings, and they stuck close to him too. He supposed this was natural considering what they went through, and some of the villagers thought they were a little strange, these four siblings that hated to be apart from one another, but none of them cared. They were all better when they were close, and that was the only thing that mattered. When the sun was down and it was dark, they would whisper to each other about trying to figure out a way to get back home, but the village was small, and there weren't any large cities or trading ports for miles. They would have to go back west, and then they might run into the Second Sons again and run the risk of slavery. Every day they would decide, together, if they were going to stay or if they were going to go, and every day that they chose to stay, Gendry felt like he was letting Arya down somehow.
He wondered, sometimes at night, if she believed that he was dead. As far as all of Westeros knew, they were dead and gone, so of course, no one would be looking for them. Davos would stop at nothing to figure out who killed them, but that didn't mean he would ever figure it out. And even if he did, the chances of someone telling him the truth about the four escaped slaves wasn't very high. Everyone who knew him and loved him was in this room now because the rest of those people were moving on. They had to, that was what grief told them to do, and Gendry knew he couldn't resent them for that. He wondered if Arya would move on, maybe even fall in love again, and while that thought was like taking a sword to the gut, the thing he wanted above all else was her happiness. If he couldn't be there anymore to make her happy, then maybe someone else could.
They were working outside of the hut when someone called out an alarm. Gendry looked up, and they saw a small group of all too familiar soldiers riding toward the village. He grabbed his siblings and pulled them all into the hut. They had the weapons they stole from Daario, and Gendry managed to keep them in decent form, but that didn't mean anything. They stayed in their small home, weapons in hand, and listened.
"Soldiers, what can I do for you?" Weneya asked.
"Looking for the elder of this village," one of the soldiers said.
"I'm the elder of this village, now, what can I do for you?" Weneya asked again. There was a brief moment of silence, and Gendry assumed these soldiers were trying to figure out whether or not she was telling the truth.
"Some slaves and fugitives escaped from Meereen and were last seen heading east. We're checking all of the villages in the name of the Second Sons," the soldier said.
"No runaway or anything has come through this place. I should know, I know everyone here, so I'm afraid you'll need to check elsewhere," Weneya said.
"We'd rather check ourselves," another soldier said, and there was the sound of the men getting off of their horses. Gendry closed his eyes and knew what was going to happen. He glanced at Edric, who was already baring his teeth at the entrance to their home. Both Mya and Bella had daggers in their hands and looked plenty deadly with them. They had taken the lives of plenty of Second Sons since they started running, and they looked keen to do it now. This group couldn't live, or they might come back with more. This group needed to die. Gendry glanced at his siblings and got three nods back. The four of them emerged from their hut and stared down the soldiers.
"Well, well, look at that," one of the soldiers said with a smirk. "We've been looking for the four of you. If you come quietly, we promise only to hang one of you for murder. The other three can go into slavery as intended."
"We're not going anywhere," Edric snapped. "And you aren't going to hurt anyone in this village. You want us? Come and get us."
"You heard the boy," one of the soldiers said, and they all pulled their swords. Gendry wasn't going to let Weneya or anyone else pay for his crimes; he knew his sisters and brother felt the same way, and if that meant dying on their feet, then so be it. No village would suffer for showing them kindness. Gendry clashed with one of the soldiers, and while he wasn't weak, he wasn't as strong as he used to be. The soldier was fast and was wearing armor, which was a luxury that Gendry didn't have. He managed to duck out of stab that would have gutted him, but the sword came back faster than he could block. The pain across his face was unlike anything he had ever experienced, and his vision immediately went red. He heard each of his siblings cry out in pain, and rage took over.
Gendry could hardly see through the blood, but he managed to slice the throat of the soldier he was fighting so deep he nearly beheaded the man. He turned and killed the man who was about to slice Mya open. Her eye was freely bleeding and hardly looked like an eye anymore. Gendry turned to see Edric fighting one-handed as there was a deep cut in his shoulder. He killed his soldier just as Bella stabbed the one that was trying to hurt her through the eye. She was holding a hand to her head over her ear. They were all hurt and bleeding, but the soldiers were dead, and no one would hurt the village. Weneya walked up to them and placed a hand on Gendry's cheek.
"You were going to die to protect us. For that, we owe you a debt we can never repay," she said. "Now, you've all gone and hurt yourselves again. Inside and let's see how bad everything is."
It turned out that things were rather bad for them. It didn't take long for Weneya to declare that these injuries were not one's that could ever fully heal. Mya explained that she took a pommel of a sword to her right eye. The eye was gone, there wasn't anything left, and there wasn't any way to heal it. One of the old men from the village made her an eye made of glass that she could use, but that was the most they could do. Bella lost her left ear, and with that, she also lost some of her hearing. It was something that could adapt to someday, but Bella always prided herself as someone who could listen and hear more than what people were saying. She tried to remain strong, but Gendry could tell she was hurting. Edric took a sword to his left arm, and Weneya informed him that while he wouldn't lose it, he wouldn't be able to fully use the limb either. Edric took that particularly hard now that he had lost his right foot and now some of his left arm.
Gendry didn't lose any body parts, and he was very lucky that the cut across his face didn't take an eye or his nose but was a terribly large scar that started on his forehead, went across the bridge of his nose, and down nearly to his mouth. In terms of injuries, Gendry knew he was the lucky one compared to his siblings. They took care of each other as they once again began to heal. Gendry hated that he had let himself get complacent because it was only a matter of time before the Second Sons came to this village searching for them again. He thought about whether or not they would be better off running, but he looked out at the sea. They had no ship and no idea what was east of Essos. All they could do was live and heal just as before.
Gendry closed his eyes and prayed to gods that he didn't believe in for just a little peace.
Arya groaned as she slowly managed to open her eyes. The first thing she noticed was that despite the room she was in being rather dark, the light hurt her eyes. The second was that her head was killing her and that her body felt like a bruise. Arya managed to sit herself up and found herself in her room. The door opened, and Asha walked in with some food and a drink.
"I was wondering if we lost you little wolf," Asha said, and Arya winced. Her voice was very loud, even though she was speaking normally.
"What happened?" Arya asked after she drank some water.
"We got through the storm. You lost your footing and hit the ground pretty hard. There was some damage to the ships, and we lost a few men but not nearly as bad as it could have been," Asha explained. "Get some rest, and when you can look at the light without wincing, you can come out of your room. I'll be coming by to check on you later." Arya nodded and fell back into her bed. She thought about what her siblings said about her getting lost at sea and that if she was with any other captain, they might not have made it through. Arya closed her eyes and tried to get more rest.
She was able to leave her room the next day, and Arya walked out onto the deck. The sun was shining, and while it was a little bright, it wasn't anything that she couldn't handle. Arya spent the rest of the day and for the next moon or so working on the ship. There were a few more storms but nothing like the one they passed through. The sun was high and hot, two moons into their journey when Arya walked out onto the deck after getting some food. The water was so calm it almost looked like a pond or a lake. She liked it until she looked at Asha, who was frowning.
"What is it?" Arya asked.
"These calm waters," Asha said. "The sea is chaos and terrifying and beautiful, but she is rarely calm. Something isn't right." Asha walked away to talk to the other crew members and signal the second ship that something wasn't right. Arya didn't know if she agreed, she thought the water was nice, and she walked to the railing and looked over. It was too dark to see anything, but she wondered what was down there. The sea was dangerous, Arya realized just how unprepared she was for all of this in the first storm, and she needed to respect it. She blinked, and for a moment, she thought she saw something beneath the water, something big. The instincts that had saved her life on more than one occasion told her to take a step back, and she did. Arya was about to call out to Asha to say what she saw when something slammed into the ship hard enough to knock Arya to her hands and knees.
Asha called out orders, and everyone sprung into action. Whatever was in the water hadn't surfaced yet, but Arya didn't know what it could possibly be. She had Needle on her, but Arya didn't know how much use the sword would be against a sea monster. Something that looked all too familiar emerged just off the side of the ship, and Arya froze as she heard Asha swearing loudly behind her.
"A Kraken attacks a Greyjoy," she spat out, and it hit the ship again. One of the tentacles emerged from the water and reached out toward the men on the ship. Arya slashed at it, but the wounds hardly seemed to be making a dent. The tentacle wrapped around one of the men with a line around his waist. It began to pull him back toward the water while he was screaming and struggling. Arya tried to grab the line, tried to help him, but the moment she tried to wrap the line around her hand for better leverage, the Kraken yanked the man back with extreme force. Arya felt something in her hand snap, and she blinked down at her left hand; she was missing the last three fingers. They were just gone, snapped off by the rope and the sheer strength of the Kraken.
The pain took a moment to catch up to her, but the hit was like getting thrown from a horse. It knocked the wind out of her, but there wasn't time to try and deal with the wounds. Arya reached into her pocket and pulled out the bandages that she kept on her at all times. She wrapped her hand the best she could, tried to ignore the blood soaking the cloth, and tried to fight off the Kraken. Nothing seemed to be helping, and the beast kept knocking people into the water, and they didn't come back up. Arya felt a little dizzy, and she knew she was losing blood. Arya took a crossbow that she found on the deck and positioned herself just overlooking the rail into the water. The Kraken was in there, and she just needed an opportunity to get it. She could still pull the trigger on a crossbow with two fingers.
The body of the massive beast emerged from the water, and she stared into one massive eye. Arya didn't hesitate as she fired the crossbow, and the bolt hit the Kraken. There was a terrible screaming sound as the tentacles began to retreat back into the water. Everything went silent as they all waited to see if the Kraken would return. A minute went by, then another, and Asha called for everyone to remain on alert. She looked furious as she stomped over to Arya.
"A Kraken attacking a Greyjoy. That shit pisses me right the fuck off," Asha snapped, and she looked down at Arya's bloody hand. "Did you wrap a rope around your hand?"
"Yeah," Arya whispered, and she winced painfully. Asha called for the healer and slowly unwrapped the wound. There was no denying that her fingers were gone, and there wasn't going to be any getting them back; they were lost to the sea. "I've seen this injury from green sailors, and I should have told you not to do this. The healer will be able to treat you, and that brother and sister of yours are going to string me up for maiming you."
"They wouldn't," Arya insisted. "I made a stupid mistake, and I paid for it." The healer walked up to her, and he let Arya lean on him as he took her back to her room to get stitched up. When she slept that night, she swore she could still feel her three missing fingers.
Two moons at sea turned into three, and there was still no sign of land, and now the third moon was starting to come to a close. They had begun rationing the supplies, and Arya thought she remembered what it was like to be hungry and thirsty all the time, but the sea air seemed to suck everything out of her. She was leaning heavily against the railing, wondering if starving to death was going to be the way she died, when she heard something that sounded like a bird. Arya blinked and wondered if she had started hearing things, but then she heard it again. She looked up and there as a gull flying in the air, and her heart skipped a beat.
"Asha!" Arya called out. "There's a gull!" Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at where she was pointing. There was a brief moment of silence before everyone started to cheer. A gull wouldn't stray too far from land, and if there was a gull, that meant that land couldn't be that far away. They had found what was west of Westeros and Arya just hoped that Asha's predictions were correct. She hoped that they would find the east side of Essos, and maybe her missing her husband.
