Just a little one shot I wrote based off a tumblr prompt: what if Arya and Gendry had chosen to live among the commonfolk of Westeros? This may become a series of drabbles if there is any interest!
The little town in the Riverlands had taken less time to heal from its wounds that some of the neighboring regions. If an outsider asked how they'd done it, a villager would smile politely and shoo them on their way, not willing to give up their town's information easily. If a new member of the town asked though, well that was a different story entirely. They'd receive a knowing smile and be pointed towards the more laborious side of the village and told who to seek out.
The town blacksmith was Gendry, and he was more than willing to train any child who wanted to work in the forged as long as they followed his every order. "It's dangerous, if you don't know what you're doing," they'd all heard him scold many times before. "So either wait outside or listen to what I say."
Gendry Waters could always be sought out if someone needed some extra help with a horse or heavy crate, as it was obvious in a glance that his time in the smithy had brought him great strength. He was always willing to help— as long as you'd wait for him to finish his work before the heat leeched out of the metal and let him close up the smithy so no one could wander in and get hurt. He was always willing to help with the harvest, and if the men ever needed help transporting a wounded man back from the river, Gendry would always be the one to help carry the injured fisherman to his wife's workroom.
Arya Waters was the town's healer. She did much of her treatments in a airy, organized room adjacent to her husband's forge. The walls lined with shelves of woven baskets and clay jars always awed a person during their first visit to her workroom. The child particularly loved visiting her and could be found eagerly popping in to say hello to Healer Arya even when they weren't sick. Once they were old enough, they were always welcome to join her in twos or threes when she ventured into the woods to restock some of her supplies. The older towns folk had seen her cautious glances and quick reflexes to any surprises (something that was particularly useful to avoid any childish pranks) and were more than happy to allow the children to join her and learn how to find medicinal herbs for themselves.
It was a well-known fact that Healer and the Blacksmith has chosen their village because of how quiet and out of the way it was. They were cut off from the more active part of the Riverlands by a raging bend in the river that many dared not ford. The closet bridge was half a day's travel away at the next town over, which could be reached in quicker time if haste required (something that happened from time to time when Arya's services were sorely needed). Amongst the older folks, the ones who had know many wars and skirmishes before the dark years that tore apart Westeros had seen the haunted look in the couple's eyes and secretly rallied together under an agreement: the Healer and Blacksmith were to be protected.
And so they did.
Arya and Gendry Waters became a part of this Riverlands town's family. The healer mended their physical wounds, and the Blacksmith listened to their emotional ones when needed as he hammered away in his forge. They partook in the seasonal festivals and knew every villager's name, especially considering how Arya was the first to hold all of the village's newest generation. Soon it was as if they'd lived there all their lives.
And if the elder members of the village were ever heard to whisper how much Gendry resembled his father's line, of how his blue eyes could be as calm as the seas or as stormy as his family's ancestral lands, it was brushed off from others as a whimsical tale. And if the few families with ties to the North and deep Riverlands ever ventured to the forest's Heart Tree and thanked the Old Gods for their wolf healer from the North, who was as kind and just as both her families always were, then it was ignored at fantastical prayers.
For the village agreed: Arya Stark and Gendry Baratheon would never be found living in their backwater town.
And if anyone suggested differently? Well, they'd best move along now.