Chapter 5: Arya

It was the first time in a very long time in a long while that Arya heard Sansa talk on the phone. Part of her was thrilled—Sansa had taken to screening her calls lately. Part of her was infuriated.

"Wait, he said that? You're kidding me. You're kidding me! Jeyne, that's hilarious! You didn't!"

They were in the living room, and had all been peacefully doing homework until Sansa's phone had buzzed and she had surprisingly and gleefully answered. Roslin was curled up in an old armchair, reading a novel for class; Sansa had Ethics and Government readings spread across the couch and Arya and Hot Pie were taking up the floor, books about food and linguistics open to random pages.

Arya wanted to throw her semantics textbook at Sansa, but Hot Pie was using it.

"Can't you go somewhere else to talk? We're working here," she demanded loudly.

The look that Sansa gave her made Arya want to throttle her. Sansa was supposed to be doing better, wasn't she? She was supposed to be acting more like a human and less like an oblivious pink princess, wasn't she? Where was the girl who had the dark sense of humor and the quiet commentary? Sansa sounded rather like a squawking hen as she jabbered away to Jeyne Poole.

"It's just Arya. Don't worry about it. Yeah it's fine. It's not usually a problem." Sansa was getting up and moving towards the staircase, where she sat down. It was better, if only slightly. Arya could still hear every word coming out of her mouth. "No, really it's been fine so far. I think it's just being away from Winterfell. But go back to…uh huh. Uh huh." She squealed.

"Please, dear gods, shut up!" shrieked Arya.

Hot Pie looked as though he would like to sink into the floor.

"Just a second, Jeyne. Arya, I'm trying to have a conversation with my best friend."

"Can't you do it in your bedroom, where you can close your door and not distract me and my friend while we try to finish our Semantics project."

"I was here first."

"Sansa, we're not twelve."

"Arya, you can also go to your room." She paused, listening to something that Jeyne was saying. "Jeyne says hello," she snapped.

"Tell Jeyne I say hello, and ask her to either call back later, or to convince you to be reasonable and go somewhere else."

"Or perhaps you can be reasonable and let me finish my phone call."

She knew this all too well.

This was the stalemate. When Sansa had power and Arya had rage and neither of them would back down. It was the way that they usually interacted when they were home, and the way that she had hoped to every god imaginable that they had put behind them.

She supposed she could blame Jeyne Poole for the fucking phone call.

But it was hard not to blame Sansa when Sansa was like this.

She stared at Sansa and Sansa stared back.

Robb had once jokingly called this glare the Greatsword, because Arya's eyes were steely grey and Sansa's were like ice and thus the combination of those two made them the great Stark Heirloom—the Valyrian Steel Greatsword Ice. He'd been over proud of the analogy.

She hadn't found it funny then and she certainly didn't find it funny now.

Then, something happened that Arya was not anticipating.

Sansa looked away.

Sansa never looked away.

Sansa always sat there, beautiful and smirking, until she and Jeyne Poole had convinced Horseface Stark to go away, or until someone had intervened on Arya's behalf. (Arya had stopped being able to win on her own when she hit puberty, for some reason that she never fully understood.)

But Sansa was climbing the stairs, and saying into the phone, "It's fine. It's over. Sorry to have interrupted. You said that he liked matching underwear—who cares about that. Honestly!"

Arya heard the door slam, and then Sansa's voice was muffled to a light murmur.

"I would have thought with that many siblings, you'd be used to the noise," muttered Roslin.

"I can do noise. I can't do Sansa."

Roslin nodded. "Well, figure that shit out, because I won't put up with it and with as many siblings as I've got, I think I can take both of you."

Arya took a deep breath, turned back to Hot Pie and, without saying a word, glanced at the outline he had been working on.

She didn't see it though.

She saw Sansa looking away.