Chapter 3: Storm's End

"Surely you jest, Father?" Arya Stark demanded of her father as they sat in the deserted hall. He had summoned her just that morning to inform her that he had been contacted by a lord of the realm, seeking her hand in marriage.

"It's no jest, Arya," Ned Stark replied, a small uncomfortable smile playing at the edges of his mouth. "There was a raven a few seven-day ago, requesting a match between you and Gendry Baratheon, heir to Storm's End. Robert has asked that we travel there so that you and Gendry might meet and decide if the match might be agreeable."

"And you expect me to just nod and smile and daydream of the babes I'll be expected to bear? I am not Sansa, Father. I will not pretend to be happy about this match. I thought you promised me it wouldn't have to come to this?" Arya demanded, her cool grey eyes snapping icy fury at the man who had sired her.

"When did I promise that?" Ned asked, chuckling in confusion.

"When I was just a girl and Sansa told me that no man would ever want me because I have a horse-face and wear britches and am always muddy. You told me that would be ok because I didn't have to marry," Arya replied seriously.

"You knew this day would come, Arya," Ned told her, watching her as though he expected her to attempt to assassinate him.

"You really want me to travel across the realm to meet some Lord who will reject me when he sees that I'm not like the other Ladies? When he sees I'm no lady?" Arya asked him, wondering what could have possessed her father to do this to her.

Arya was no fool, she knew there were few lords in the realm looking to welcome a good-daughter who couldn't be controlled. Word had spread quickly that they didn't want her, and Arya had been overjoyed to hear it. Part of her wondered if perhaps this was some desperate attempt of her mother's to see her wedded off and no longer the laughing stock of the Seven Kingdoms. Another, smaller part of her knew her father wouldn't be telling her all this if he hadn't already agreed to meet these Baratheon lords.

"Would I do so if I thought that would be the case?" Ned asked her reasonably and Arya felt the hope she had to avoid this situation begin to die. No, she didn't think he would drag her across the realm if there was a likelihood this Gendry Baratheon would say no.

"I don't want to marry him, Father," Arya replied quietly. She didn't know what else to say. With her mother and her sister she could argue and scream and fight and try to flee, but there was no use trying any of that with father.

Arya knew in her heart that her Father loved her, perhaps more than he loved the others though he'd never admitted it. There was an understanding between them that she'd simply never had with her siblings or her mother. Father knew her feelings on marriage and he didn't need to hear them again. He knew too that had he told her this without the intention of whisking her off immediately, she would run for the hills, so Arya knew there would be a horse saddled and ready in the stables awaiting her, along with an armed guard and probably her mother to begin their travel to the Stormlands before afternoon fell.

"I know, love," Ned said heavily, getting up and walking over to her. Arya held her breath when he placed his heavy hands upon her slim shoulders, tilting her head back to hold his grey-eyed gaze. She could see the regret in his eyes at the idea of letting her go and she knew in her heart that it hurt him almost as much as it hurt her to even consider letting her go.

"You're going to make me, aren't you?" She asked, voice very tight as she attempted to blink back tears that unexpectedly threatened.

"I'm going to make you meet him, yes. I wouldn't even consider allowing this match if I didn't think this would be right for you, Arya. You know that, don't you?" He asked her, still staring at her mournfully.

"Right for me?" Arya demanded, letting her anger flare in attempt to fight back the tears that prickled her eyes at his expression and his tone. "Doing what's right for me is letting me stay here with you and mother, with Robb and Nymeria. With Bran and Meera. With Rickon. Winterfell is my home. And now you tell me you want to send me away South to the heat and the oppressive storms of that place. Away from the cold of the North, away from my family, away from everything I know. How can you say this is right for me? You know my feelings on marrying a lord who only wants to fuck babes into my belly to continue his House! And now you tell me some Southern lord will be right for me?"

She was screaming by the time she paused to draw breath, and she could see the way it was breaking her father's heart to see her so upset.

"I believe he will be," Ned answered, "Would you like to know why?"

Arya growled like the wolf she was so often referred to in an uncanny replication of the snarl coming from the wolf at her feet. She didn't answer, knowing Father would tell her.

"He asked for you, Arya. He's met with several other ladies and he's turned them all away because they were too prim and proper and demure. They've asked for a woman who will be as capable of running a castle as him, who will challenge him when he makes a bad decision, who won't be afraid to tell him when he's being stupid." Ned told her, and though she didn't show it, Arya was surprised to hear such things. "Now, if they wanted a woman who would just bear his children and smile at his under-lords, he'd have married that Lannister girl or one of your Targaryen cousins. They wouldn't have come calling on you."

Arya didn't say anything else. She wanted to. She wanted to kick and scream and have them strap her to her horse and drag her the whole way so they would know just how much she didn't want to leave Winterfell and didn't want to marry an idiot. She wanted to, but she wouldn't. She could see it in her father's eyes that he would do so if he had to, but she could see to that if they arrived and this Gendry Baratheon wanted a wife that she wouldn't be, he wouldn't leave her there, no matter how much her mother might try to insist on it.

"Do you mean to leave me there?" Arya asked him, feeling her heart break as she looked past him and around the hall, "Do you mean to leave me in that place I've never been with men I've never met?"

"Don't do this, Arya," Ned said and though he sounded stern Arya could almost hear the way he begged her not to say such things, not to put him in this position. "Don't make me tell you that if I think it's a good match that, yes, I will see you married to Gendry and leave you in Storm's End as his wife where you will bear him sons and help him run the castle and be his wife."

"Why? Why must I marry? Why can't I stay here?" Arya demanded, her voice icy now and a glare levelled at her father that would chill even the sunniest of days.

"Because that is what highborn ladies do Arya. That is how the world works. Just as I took up the place of Lord of Winterfell and married your mother when my brother died, doing my duty to the Stark name, you will do the same. You will marry a lord and you will bear him children. You will not try and kill him in his sleep, you will not maim, injure or otherwise dishonour him. You will be his wife. You will bear his children and you will do so because I am asking it of you." Ned told her seriously, his voice hardening at her expression, "I don't want to do it, Arya. I don't want to see you forced into a marriage with a man you don't want, far from your home and your family. I don't want to leave you there. But that is the way of the world, and you my girl, must learn that even being a man and being a Lord of the realm does not mean people can do whatever they want."

"Well I want to stay here. I want to ride into battles and fight with my swords. I want to be free to do whatever I feel like rather than stuck in a life I will hate just because it's my duty all because some stupid old man somewhere made some stupid rule that women should be of less value than a good war-horse. I am not some chip to be bartered for the political alliance it will make for you, Father. I am not just going to go and be some stupid man's wife and sew him things and let him fill my belly with his sons. I will not sit quietly in a castle when there are wars to be fought. I am more than that. If you can't see that and this lord can't see it, I will simply prove it."

"And how do you mean to do that?" Ned asked him.

"If he wants to marry me, he's going to have to fight me for the privilege," Arya replied coldly, "And when he loses you will allow me to renounce my title as a Lady. If you do not, I will flee from them, flee from you and flee the realm. I will go beyond the wall and become a wildling woman, free to make my own choices and do as I wish. Or I will cross the narrow sea and join the ranks of the Faceless Men, where I can put my skill with weaponry to use. I will not just go quietly and be some idiot's wife just because he has deluded himself into thinking he wants a woman like me."

With that said, Arya pulled her shoulders from her Father's grip and spun on her heels, stomping away from him furiously. Her mood did not improve when Theon and Robb met her outside the door to escort her to her chambers, where she was made to change into riding attire by her mother before she was frog-marched to the stables and handed the reins of her horse, told that they would ride for the Stormlands just as soon as she was mounted up.

~ O ~

A score of nights later, Arya was grimy and cranky and glaring up at the looming castle of Storm's End from horseback as it grew in the distance. They had been travelling for what felt like forever, and had long since left the North and the calming coolness of the air. Here, the air was thick and muggy with moisture. It clung to her skin and made sweat gather beneath the folds of her riding tunic.

Arya hated it.

Father kept assuring her that it wasn't always this oppressive. That it was the result of the near constant summer storms that gave the Stormlands their name. Arya didn't care. She missed the chilly air and the summer snows of Winterfell. She missed the peace of the Godswood. She didn't at all fancy the sight of those thick, rolling thunderheads that had been gathering out over Shipbreaker Bay in the distance beyond the castle where her possible husband awaited her arrival.

The lands were rich and lush with field upon field of green grass that waved in the slight breeze that had begun to build, but Arya found no beauty in them. She longed for the rolling hills and snow-browned grass of the North. She most certainly did not look forward to their arrival at Storm's End, even if there was the promise of escaping the gathering storm. She dreaded the meeting of Gendry Baratheon, and though she'd been informed by her mother that she had met him once before when they'd come to Winterfell, Arya had no interest in it. Or in him.

Since they'd left, her father's loyal men who rode with them had been telling stories of the noble battle-deeds of Gendry Baratheon. They always did so loudly in the hope that she would overhear, ensuring her impending doom was never far from her mind. She had learned many things about Gendry since they'd rode out the gates of Winterfell, the foremost of which was that he was terrifying to even the most battle-hardened soldiers. Huge and hulking they spoke of him with reverence and a little fear in their voices as they told tales of the way he swung his mighty war-hammer, crushing legions of soldiers single-handedly. They spoke of the truly terrifying sight he made decked out in full battle armour, of the heart-stopping fear he instilled in his enemies when they caught sight of his enormous antlered helmet as he sat astride the twenty-hand destrier he rode – the only steed large enough to hold such a ferocious and powerfully built man.

Other deeds too had been spoken of around the campfires they built each evening. Of his penchant for smithing in his free time, of the ways he differed from his whore-mongering father, the quite nature of the fierce man. They told of his Baratheon temper, so easily flared and destructive in its expression. The men spoke of how he would make a fine leader, and she had heard more than one of them comment that it would take such a powerful, fierce and relentless man to contain a woman like Arya as his wife.

Mikken had told them that if there was any man in all the Seven Kingdoms with any hope of hanging onto Arya Stark, it was Gendry Baratheon. He'd said that all the others were too proud and too pathetic to tolerate her fiery nature and her defiant will and her ruthlessness. Arya had been pleased to hear him speak so highly of her, and put out that he thought this Baratheon lord stood a chance at keeping her as his wife.

Didn't he know that even the fiercest lords had to sleep sometime?

"There it is," Ned announced as the castle loomed in the distance, the last sight before the land fell away in sharp cliffs and into the sea below. Arya would admit that it was an impressive structure, though she wouldn't do so out loud lest someone hear her and get the wrong idea. However, the tower and the strong stone walls did hold her attention in spite of how loath she was to be seeing it at all. It wasn't as impressive as Winterfell, she thought bitterly.

She could feel the eyes of her father's men and the eyes of her mother on her, waiting for some reaction, and Arya refused to let one show. She eyed the structure with boredom and a cool detachment, her steed stirring restlessly beneath her when thunder growled in the distance. Nymeria, her direwolf, loped alongside her horse as the party began to move forward once more, and Arya was thankful for the presence of the wolf. She was Arya's only source of comfort in this journey, and as they drew ever closer to the castle and the lord's waiting inside, Arya felt her resentment for her situation grow.

~ O ~

"Milords! Milords!" The messy haired stable boy shouted, dashing into the Hall of Storm's End with a bang of doors and a flurry of excitement that interrupted the midday meal the Lords Baratheon were enjoying. "Riders, Milords! Riders coming down the King's Road. A whole host of 'em!"

Gendry glanced at his father as he got to his feet. They'd received a raven that very morning from Lord Stark indicating that their party should arrive before nightfall, and his apprehension over meeting Arya Stark had been growing with each passing hour. Word of their coming had spread through the Stormlands and lowborns had been flocking to the city to witness the arrival of the Starks. Gendry was nervous. He wouldn't admit it aloud, but he was nervous about meeting.

He wondered what she looked like, what she was like as a woman, whether she would fear him. He'd wanted to don his armour and greet their guests in it, all the better to gauge whether his father was right in believing that Arya Stark might not fear him in his battle armour, but he'd decided against it. It set a bad standard to greet invited guests dressed for war. Even if his men had jested that he'd need it to keep the Lady Arya from murdering him on sight.

He strode out of the hall after his father, across the court yard and up onto the battlements where several of his men had already gather to watch and await the approach of the Stark host. Gendry was surprised when he caught sigh to of the group.

"There's no wheelhouse?" He asked, glancing and his father who's brow wrinkled into a frown too.

"I wondered how they meat to get here so quickly dragging one. Clearly they didn't bring one," Robert replied, frowning deeper now.

"Then where are Lady Catelyn and Lady Arya?" Gendry asked. "Is this even the Stark host? We've had some whispers lately of raiders in the outfields. Maybe they've banded together and think they can storm the castle."

"Bandits don't fly banners, boy," Robert told him, "Especially not banners bearing the Stark sigil. Ned must be losing his mind if he's travelled all this way with his daughter and his wife on horseback alongside his men."

"Ain't crazy, milord," An elderly soldier manning the battlement interrupted, "Crazy would be forcing that little Lady into a wheelhouse and expecting her to stay in it. There ain't much ladylike about Arya Stark. She ain't the type for wheelhouses. Ain't the type for sitting in castles like a kept woman neither! Seen her gut a pig once, bare-hands and all. You want a lady for this castle, you best send them Stark's back North. You want a woman who'll hurl a dagger at you when jerk her pigtails, she's it."

Gendry eyed him, remembering that this was a solider who'd come south alongside some others from Ned Stark some years ago when the cold of the winters got too much for his old bones. He was a decent enough soldier in spite of his age, and he'd been in the service of Lord Stark for many long years before the cold drove him south. If any would know the truth to the rumours of Gendry's impending wife, it would be this fellow.

He turned his attention back to the riders on the road, and in the light of the gathering storm Gendry caught the flash of red hair that marked Lady Stark. She sat astride a bay gelding and wore a deep green dress as she rode alongside her husband. Lord Stark rode at the front of the company, astride a huge white destrier. Gendry's eyes didn't linger on them for long.

Riding beside her mother was a young woman in a blue riding tunic. She wore dark britches and her long dark hair bobbed in a braid against her back with the easy lope of her grey steed. One look at her and Gendry understood why she was so often compared to an ice sculpture. Her face was long, but beautiful, her chin pointed, her cheekbones high and sharp. Even from a distance Gendry knew her eyes were Stark grey and he could see them narrowed with anger and hatred as she rode towards his castle.

It was no secret that she wasn't happy about the idea of being married off to anyone, and Gendry tried not to take it personally. He followed his father off the battlements and into the courtyard to welcome their guests, apprehension almost making him stumble on the stairs.

He'd not expected her beauty. He had heard tell that she wasn't a troll, but he'd also heard she was nothing compared to the beauty of her sister or to the likes of Larissa Lannister. Lady Arya was a different kind of beautiful, and he suddenly understood his father's reference to the wild beauty of a wolf and how it fascinated and ensnared him.

When they rode through the gate, Gendry felt her eyes lock onto his the minute she spotted him and he tried to plaster a smile of welcome upon his face. He was not used to such an arrival, usually having more time to come to terms with meeting a new woman because she was secreted away in a wheelhouse rather than astride a horse and riding with the company. The sight of the humungous dire-wolf that loped easily alongside her horse made Gendry swallow involuntarily, realising that Arya wasn't the only she-wolf likely to rip his throat out if he put a foot wrong.

The beast was huge, it's coat thick and ruffled, grey flecked with bits of black and white. She was almost as tall as the horse Arya Stark rode, and looked as though she could easily kill anything that got in her way or threatened her mistress. Gendry wondered if she meant to keep it here with her and whether she treated it like hunting dog - confining it to the kennels when it wasn't time to hunt - or if it was a beloved pet that would follow her everywhere Arya went. Would Gendry have to share his bed chamber with a new wife and a humongous wolf?

He watched in fascination at the way her horse didn't balk even when the wolf wandered over and began sniffing at its legs while Arya dismounted with an easy grace he'd not seen in any of the other women he'd ever encountered before and he realised in a hurry that it was the ease of practiced movement that leant her such poise as she slid from the back of her horse to land neatly on her feet beside the beast. She was frowning as she dismounted, though he detected a flicker of a smile dancing at the corners of her mouth when her wolf dashed over to her, tail wagging happily and began trying to lick her face. Arya allowed the affection with a grin as she ruffled the wolf's thick fur around her neck before pressing a kiss to the top of the wolf's head.

He realised too late that he ought to have offered to help her down from her horse, the way he watched Ned Stark take the hand of his lady-wife, who smiled regally at him and allowed him to assist her off her mare.

"Ned!" Robert boomed, clearly growing impatient with the way they were all gathered as the party dismounted. They looked travel weary and Gendry noted the fact that Arya and even lady Stark looked a little grimy, as though they had spent many hard days riding in the mugginess of the afternoon.

"Robert," Ned Stark grinned a small grin as he stepped forward to shake hands with Gendry's father, where Robert pulled the man into a brotherly type of hug in greeting.

"It's been too long, old friend," Robert told him and Gendry found himself watching the pair. They had lived together as wards of John Arryn in their youth, and fought many battles together. Their falling out over Lyanna Stark had created a distance between them, but Gendry could see at a glance that the pair were both happy to see their old friend and brother in arms once more.

"It has, you look well," Ned commented, agreeing with a smile. Gendry didn't doubt that the rest of the realm knew of Robert's like for drink and whores, but in the past moons he'd cut back considerably, slimming down with the decreased consumption of Dornish wine and the increased activity he'd involved himself in around the castle as a result.

"And you, and there's Cat!" Robert boomed, obviously excited to have company, he lurched forward, pressing a kiss to Cat's cheek while she gave him a tolerant but not entirely happy smile. "Ned, you remember Gendry?"

Gendry jolted out of his thoughts at the mention of his name, he'd gone back to eyeing Arya, who seemed to be glaring around the courtyard with a look of annoyance on her face, telling Gendry she did not want to be there and would probably prefer to fling herself from the cliff's into Shipbreaker Bay below than be in Storm's End meeting her husband.

"Lord Stark," Gendry smiled in welcome, steeping forward and offering his hand to Ned Stark to shake.

"Gendry," Ned greeted him, shaking his hand firmly and holding his gaze. Gendry knew he was being scrutinized by the lord and he knew that if he didn't win over Ned and Catelyn Stark he wouldn't have a hope in all the seven hells to marry Arya.

"Welcome to Storm's End," Gendry said, releasing Ned's hand and greeting Lady Catelyn with a kiss to the back of her hand. She eyed him wearing a much friendlier and more hopeful expression than her husband or her daughter did and Gendry had to suppress a chuckle at the way she seemed so hopeful to have anyone interested in Arya.

While the lord and lady greeted his mother and his siblings, Gendry turned his attention to his bride-to-be. She was shorter than him by a head, and lean. Her body was thin, bordering on skinny, and beneath the fabric of her dark britches and her blue tunic he could see the definition of muscles toned from many long hours spent riding and wielding a sword, if he had to guess. She was not beautiful in the way of Larissa Lannister or her cousin Rhaenyra were, with long flowing hair that hung in elaborate styles, swathed in the finest silks and dolled up with things to make her lips look shiny and full and red. Instead she bore a wilder beauty that he recalled seeing in Queen Lyanna. Her features were longer, her nose pert and just the tiniest bit upturned at the end. She didn't have the lush soft curves he'd seen on other women either, but was instead lean with just a hint of definition that marked the dip of her waist between her breasts and her hips. Her clothing did nothing to encourage him to think of her in a sexual way either, and he suspected it was a size too big for her, as though she enjoyed dressing in ways not designed to allow folks to confuse her as being a highborn lady.

"Robert, Gendry, you recall my daughter, Arya?" Ned's voice cut into his inspection of the girl who was doing her best not to bother looking in his direction.

"Aye, she's grown since I saw her last," Robert said, taking her hand and kissing the back of it. Gendry caught the way she tried to pull it out of his father's grip the minute he took it. "Grown as beautiful as her Aunt. You probably don't remember us little lady, but I'm Robert Baratheon, and this is my son, Gendry."

"My lady," Gendry greeted, taking Arya's hand from his father's grip and bending to press a kiss to the back of it, as was courtesy.

"Don't call me that!" Arya hissed, looking more annoyed by the second as she snatched her hand back out of his grip just as his lips brushed the back of it.

"Arya!" Lady Catelyn warned her immediately and Gendry got the feeling when Arya rolled her eyes in annoyance that this was a regular occurrence and display of poor manners.

"What would you prefer I call you then, if you don't like to be called my lady?" Gendry asked her seriously and he caught the way surprise flickered in her cold grey eyes at his reasonable reaction, realising that she must've been intending to offend him. He got the feeling she was going to make sure he knew just how painful she could be in the hopes of deterring him from marrying her.

Gendry smirked a little to himself. He hadn't wanted to be married yet any more than the woman before him wanted it, and he'd had every intention of putting it off for as long as possible. The sight of her though, made him think maybe he wouldn't mind being married so much after all and he was guilty of wondering if she would be as much of a hellcat in the bedchamber as she was rumoured to be outside of it.

"You can call me Arya or Stark or just about anything else. I'm no lady and I don't like to be addressed as one," She told him, sounding snippy.

Just as he opened his mouth to reply, thunder boomed across the sky and the storm that had been gathering all day looked poised to break open over them all.

"Let's take this inside, shall we?" Robert asked, sounding far too cheery and chipper for Gendry's liking as he waved over the stables boys to take care of the horses. "I'm sure Cat and Arya might like a chance to freshen up after such a long ride in this heat and Ned, we need wine!"