It was not often her father held feasts for all the lords and surrounding people of Winter Town, might be it happened around once a month. If Arya was nine as she assumed she was, that gave her a month or maybe two before the news of Jon Arryn's death arrived. One or two moons turns before the Fat King and his bastard son turned their reins North. She needed to come up with a real plan.
Arya sat up on the dais with the rest of her family, except for Jon Snow. The injustice of it burned in her skin like fire. How had she been so blind when she was younger? She'd known Jon had hated being a bastard, that he'd been treated unfairly. But when she'd seen the glare her mother had sent him before the feast had started...it had taken everything to hold her tongue. She studied him now, drinking more than a few cups of wine at the back of the hall. The brother she loved more than life itself, who she wasn't even able to sit with, the brother that had died trying to save her in another life; excluded from their family because of some stupid title.
Her eyes scanned her plate next, fresh pork, mashed potatoes, steamed carrots and beans, and soft bread served with butter. When was the last time she'd eaten like this? She glared at her meal, the only time she'd eaten this well in the past five years was when she'd been sent to assassinate some wealthy target, and had to suffer through dinner with them first. She closed her eyes and held back a sigh. Just eat your food and act bloody natural. All she needed to do was endure this dinner and then she could investigate the idea she'd come up with while cleaning, the idea that might give her a plan.
Once again she only really spoke when spoken to, and simply listened to others conversations. Arya sat at the end with her younger brothers beside her, mother, Robb, Sansa across from them. Father sat across from their mother and she listened as he spoke of bringing more crops up from the South this season. Apparently the maester's were calling for a long winter. You've no idea, she thought bitterly as she ate a mouthful of potatoes, but froze halfway through; spoon sticking out her mouth.
That's not possible. Arya squinted her eyes as she stared at the back of the hall, past all the lords and ladies, all the knights and wealthier members of society. The man she was staring at eyed her back, clearly noticing her shocked expression and half eaten mouthful. Pulling the spoon back to the table she blinked and slowly swallowed her food, glanced down. He can't be here... glanced up. The man with the long brown hair continued his conversation with the women beside him but his eyes kept darting back to her. Mance Rayder, King Beyond the Wall. What the hell was he doing here?
The rest of the dinner went by agonizingly slow. Arya's mind was racing with questions, but how could she even ask them without raising suspicions? When the time came where most her family were done eating she excused herself to go to the privy, making sure no one was watching her, she turned abruptly and got lost in the crowd. Glancing a few times up at her family to be sure no one had seen, she scurried to the back of the hall, finding the Wildling King caught up in a pretty blond. At least pretending to be, it was clear to her he had no real interest in the girl. Arya considered her options a moment before picking a drink off the table, gliding past the adults and tilting her cup a little too far to the right.
The blond let out a gasp and glared up at her, "Gods girl, are you a half-wit? You just split wine all over my dress!" Mance cleared his throat and gave the blond a warning look.
"Apologies My Lady" Arya said polity, ignoring the insult. "It was an accident."
The blond looked ready to scold her further but Mance interrupted, "You're Lord Stark's youngest daughter, aren't you?"
She nodded "Aye, My Lord"
The blond girl paled "I-I'm sorry My Lady, please forgive me."
Arya scoffed "I split the wine on your dress, remember?"
She nodded, "Excuse me." The girl stood and fled the Highborn Lady she just called a half-wit, the girl would probably spend the rest of the night paranoid Arya would tell her father. She watched her leave the way a cat might watch a mouse, but facing back to Mance, she smiled.
"A little young for wine, don't you think?" he offered, plucking the cup from her fingers and Arya shrugged. "I can't imagine your father approves." he said putting the wine out of her reach.
"What he doesn't know won't hurt him." she reasoned and Mance snorted. "I'm Arya."
"Abel."
"Abel." she repeated, eyeing the liar up and down, "I've never seen you before."
"I'm sure there's a lot of people here you haven't seen girl, do you presume to know everyone in the North?"
Arya climbed up on the seat the blond left empty, "More than you'd expect." Mance glanced around, possibly looking for an escape. "Do you believe in magic My Lord?"
"I'm not a Lord" he reminded her.
"Which title would you prefer?"
"Abel is fine, I don't have a title."
" Everyone has a title." she argued, then motioned around them, "Lord's, knights, bakers, servants, stewards" placed a hand on her own chest "Lady" she gave him a knowing smile, "King?" Mance grew so still then he could've been mistaken for a statue. "Anyway, do believe in magic?"
"Do you?" he asked taking a rather large drink from his own cup of ale.
"I do."
Manse seemed positively confused as to the nature of their conversation, "and what kind of magic do you believe in child?"
"I'm not a child." she peaked up at the dais to check on her family and noticed her father was missing. "and all sorts, I've read all these stories. Skinchagers and resurrections, wood witches who can see the future, visit the past...dragons and the Others. Do you believe in any of those?"
"Skin-changers? Of course." Mance didn't seem to know the rules of her game, but he decided to play along. "Resurrections and wood witches...I've heard some tales. But as for The Others and dragons, they're gone from the world."
"and if they came back, do you think we'd be ready?"
He frowned, "Men beat back the Others once, we could do it again."
Arya snorted at the certainty in his voice. "Maybe if we were prepared."
"You should be going back, before your family misses you." he suggested.
Arya studied him a moment, the long brown air and dark eyes. He didn't look as tired as she'd seen him, less worn down from war and loss in this time. There was no use in telling him the flat out truth, he'd think her crazy. "I had a dream once where I met someone like you."
"Did you now?"
She nodded, "He believed in all sorts of magic, told me I could use it to save him and everyone else." Mance raised an eyebrow. "I did what he told me, and-"
"Arya?" her fathers voice cut her off as he pushed his way passed a drunken knight. "What are you doing?"
She glanced up, little grey eyes full of innocence. "Just talking to this...what was your title again?"
Mance cleared his throat, "It's just Abel My Lady."
"Talking with Just Abel." she finished.
"You said you were going to the privy." The sternness in his voice would have been enough to strike fear in her when she was a girl, but now she could only find the idea of him trying to parent her amusing. She didn't smile though.
"I got distracted" she offered.
"Come on, your mother's looking for you." those words would've been even worse once.
"Okay." Arya jumped up off her seat, "It was nice to meet you, Just Abel."
"You as well, Lady Arya" he smiled "and settle my curiosity before you go, what did that man tell you in your dream?"
Arya let her nine year old face grow as serious as she could, "To make sure we're prepared this time." she held her stare longer than normal before her father ushered her away, hoping against hope he'd remember their conversation someday.
Arya stood still as stone as her mother chided her about talking to strangers, apologized polity without any excuses. Finally her mother seemed satisfied and sent her to her room early before the feast ended. Arya could see the frustration on her parents faces, see their confusion as Arya simply apologized where she was sure she once might of screamed it wasn't fair, and she'd talk to who she wished. But she didn't have time for any of that, only a few moments after the Septa left Arya in her room, had she made her own exit.
Quiet as a shadow Arya made her way to the library. The room was half the size of the Great Hall, yet it was still an impressive collection. Arya felt uncharacteristically tiny as she roamed among the dusty old shelves, most the volumes far out of her reach. She'd never spent too much time in here when she was younger and in another life, books were just so bloody boring in comparison to watching her brothers train in the yard. Yet after the Kindly Man had forced her to sit down and read countless novels, she'd grown a grudging kind of love for reading. She was never a fan of sitting still, but all the impossible pieces of knowledge that hid away on these old crumpling pages had appeased her well enough.
She spent half an hour searching hopelessly and sighing in frustration, until the door opened and maester Luwin entered with a handful of books and his chain ringing softly as he moved. "Lady Arya?" he asked surprised.
"Maester Luwin, perfect, I need your help."
"Ah, what do you need?" he asked uncertainly.
"A book." she said reading the spines of a few novels on the history of the Targaryen's reign. "A book on magic, do we have any of those?"
"Magic?" Luwin shook his head, "Magic is gone from the world My Lady."
"Yes, yes, I know. But surly we have a few volumes on the topic?" she reasoned. Luwin eyed her suspiciously, and just when she thought he might refuse her, she pressed on. " please? "
He sighed, "It figures when you finally wish to pick up a book, it'd be one full of nonsense." he muttered under his breath and walked to the back of the library, placing his own books aside on an old desk. "What exactly are you looking for?"
Arya shrugged as she watched him bend down and unlock one of the drawers with an old iron key. "Why's it locked?"
"They've always been locked away" he said, "Some maesters from before my time thought information on magic a dangerous thing, a thing only to be seen by trusted eyes." he grunted as he flopped the dusty old books on the desk. "old men full of superstitions."
Arya grinned, "You are an old man."
"Not so crazy as them I hope." he gave her a kind smile, one of the ones she always missed.
"Well you do still keep them locked away." she teased.
"Yes well, they were mostly forgotten" he told her as he started shuffling through the books. "Alright My Lady, what would you like to read?" he began picking them up one at a time "We have one on the powers of priests and priestess"
" No thanks" she muttered and he gave her an odd look.
"Okay...how about this one about wargs and skinchangers?"
"Better" she agreed picking it up, Arya already knew what she was capable of, of what she would be capable of. Yet she saw no harm in the chance to learn more. She blew the dust off the cover to see a large white bear with a rider cloaked in black, stuck in a snowstorm. Both their eyes glowed with red paint.
Luwin began listing off titles, books on sorcerers across the narrow sea, dragons and sea monsters, even one on the magic the Faceless Men possessed (which she picked up just to see how much they really knew) and many more about magic she'd never heard of. Fear gnawed at her stomach as they got near the bottom of his pile and not a single word on wood witches. He pushed one book aside without reading the tile and instantly she reached for it; a tiny black notebook with a cover lost in dust.
"What about this one?" she asked as she pulled it toward herself and wiped the dust off with her hand, frowning as the blue-grey ink stained her fingers.
"Careful child, that one's very old." he warned, "and written in another tongue."
"High Valyrian" she noted as she read the single line written red on the front, her gut falling to her toes. The cover was painted with the phases of the moon, the title written at the bottom under the full one. I Lost Everything Going Back.
"Yes...how'd you know that?"
"You must of shown me the words once, how else?" she waved it off as she opened the book. The thin yellowed pages were sprawled with messy black ink, and as she shuffled through she noted beautiful paintings on near every sheet. She didn't really read it, but words stood out at her as she skimmed the lines. "What if I can't change anything?""I fear I've made a grave mistake." "The witch was a liar." It was then she realized she was holding someone's diary. "T-Thank maester Luwin" she looked up and managed a smile, "I think I have what I need." Picking up her other two books and sliding them under her arm, she cradled the diary tenderly in her hands, not daring to brush away a single word.
Arya fled the library before Luwin could ask her anymore questions, made her way back to her room without being disturbed and closed the door behind her. Throwing the books on the bed, she lit her candle and crawled across the navy blue blanket until she sat in the center, holding the diary as if it might jump up and bite her. What little words she read didn't seem promising, and with the title "I Lost Everything Going Back" she wasn't sure how helpful these pages would be.
What's it matter what they lost going back? Arya had already been an orphan when she sought out that Witch Mance had sent her to, she'd already lost all her brothers and only the Gods knew what had happened to Sansa. All of Westeros had fallen apart by the time Arya had made it all the way North, the Wall had collapsed and the Night King's undead army had crushed all the ones in the North, what pathetic little armies they'd had time to prepare. Arya Stark had nothing more to lose, so she opened the notebook.
Time was lost to her as her mind got lost in the girl's messy hand writing. Madysen Feller was her name, a girl of one and twenty, at least she was before the Witch sent her back to when she was six and ten. Madysen had lost the love of her life Ragnar in war, a senseless battle fought over an island in the South, one of the broken arms that once connected Essos and Westeros. The girl had been so heart broken she'd begged a Witch to bring him back, instead she'd told her she could give Madysen another chance. A chance to make sure the battle never happened.
Madysen had made a mistake Arya hadn't been stupid enough to try yet; she told someone about what she did. She told her father Nathar everything, tried to convince him she'd really traveled back in time. Sadly he didn't believe a word of it, thinking his daughter had lost her mind, and as Arya read on and on she started to think Madysen was losing it. Her words became desperate as she grew more and more paranoid, not trusting and hating people for things they'd done in another time. Her father wanted to lock her away for her own safety but Madysen ran away before he had the chance. She ran to find Ragnar.
Whoever Madysen had been when she was six and ten, it was far from the heart broken women that the Witch sent back. And when Madysen had found Ragnar, he'd no idea who she was. The girl he would have fell in love with, appeared only to be some crazy girl who'd grown obsessed with him. Arya rubbed at tired eyes as she read Madysen's thoughts, the anger that had tainted her heart to black. Her family thought she'd lost her wits, and the lover she went back to save saw her as completely mad. Now all she wanted was to find the Witch and kill her.
Arya jumped as her door opened, and blinked the drowsiness from her eyes as her father walked in.
"I know it's early..." his mouth fell open slightly, "Arya, have you not slept yet?"
She yawned, "What time is it?"
"Almost dawn."
"Oh." Looking out the window she realized she could hear the beginnings of morning birdsong.
"What are you doing?" Eddard Stark came and sat on the end of her bed, such a surreal sight Arya could only stare slightly awe struck as he did so. One of his hands reached for the book in front of her, but in a flash she pushed it back.
"Don't" she said quickly and his frown deepened. "It's really old, and fragile." she added. Picking it up gently, she placed it to the side.
Her father gave her a warning look, reaching over her, he grabbed Madysen's diary. He gave the cover a long stare, flipped through a few pages, probably thinking she was trying to hide something. "Arya, this book's not even written in the common tongue. Why were you reading it?"
"I was just looking at the pictures" she lied, she hated lying to him.
"You stayed up all night looking at pictures?"
"No" she gestured to the other books, "I was reading those too."
"Wargs and Skinchangers...The secrets of the Faceless Men?" her father shook his head, "Arya...that dream you had the other night, are you scared to sleep?"
"No, I just wanted to read."
"You still haven't told me what it was about."
"It was nothing."
"You were crying." he reminded her but she didn't have an excuse for that. "You didn't seem to have any problem telling that stranger at the feast about your dreams."
"That was something different." she argued. Guilt washing over her as she read the pained look on his face, he had no idea what was going on with her. She glanced back down at the book, thinking about Madysen trying to tell her father the truth. Arya wouldn't make that mistake. "I'm sorry."
Her father flipped through the diary again, but looked around her room. "Did you clean?"
Arya shrugged, "Last night yeah"
"That's ah, that's good." he gave her an approving smile but she couldn't miss the confusion. It'd been a stupid thing to do, her mother trying to get her to clean when she was younger was worse than trying to give Rickon a bath.
"Thanks" she muttered, her eyes darting to the page her father had left open on the bed. She frowned as she recognized the painting of a weirwood tree wrapped around the edge of the yellowed paper, a thin passage of writing in the center. There were no weirwoods in the South, why would Madysen be drawing them? Arya pulled the book toward her and squinted her eyes.
"The Witch ruined my life, and one day I'll get my revenge. I've heard tales the bone white trees in the North hold secrets that whisper in their crimson leaves, answers to any question a man can think of. They say all a man needs do is bleed before the Gods, bleed as deeply as their ancient faces are said to. I can only hope the spirits of these trees will give answer to a women as well. I will find that Witch, even if it means my dying breath."
"Huh" she breathed, she could of hugged her father then. Finally, an idea. Arya still remembered the night at Harrenhal when she heard her father's voice brush her ear in the Godswood, and she didn't even have to bleed for it.
"Look, try and get some sleep before your mother comes and wakes you alright? I'll try and stall her if I can."
"I will, and it won't happen again, I promise."
"Don't make promises you can't keep." he chided as he stood up.
"I'm not, I swear."
"You've never been good at following rules." he muttered.
Arya smiled bittersweet. "Too much wolfs blood."
He paused at her door with an odd grin, "My father used to call it the same thing." I know.
"I love you." she blurted then, a sentence she'd wished she said more when she'd had the chance.
"I love you too Arya, now go to sleep."