I can recommend an Ed Sheeran accompaniment if interested. Or else, just sit and watch the sun set in the autumn and marvel at how the sky can be pink and orange and yellow and grey and blue when it's seconds from being black.
The snow had just started falling when Arya turned the oven down. She was stood in her mother's kitchen staring out at the garden, looking towards the woods at the bottom. The sloping lawn would be completely white in a few minutes, she knew, and the ground already frozen enough not to be muddy.
The lights in the trees twinkled, catching her eye even from this distance. She could see figures moving down there, and she felt her stomach clench. One of them would be moving back towards the house soon.
She turned an ear to the hallway, but there was no sound other than the happy chatter of a newly reunited family. Robb and Jeyne had gotten in half an hour ago and had barely had time to take their coats off before Ned and Catelyn were pestering them to see the sonogram. Arya didn't blame them, it was their first grandchild after all. Sansa and Rickon were in the living room with them too, half cooing over their unborn nephew, and half rolling their eyes at how soppy Robb had become. Jeyne had mellowed him beyond what Arya had thought possible, and now he went doe-eyed over the slightest thing to do with his family.
Gods, he was going to cry, wasn't he?
There was a figure on the path now, a dark shape in the swirl of snowflakes, lighting the tea-lights in the lanterns and hastily unravelling the industrial length fairy lights as they went. When the last lantern was lit and the figure disappeared round to the front of the house Arya smiled to herself. Dinner would be ready in just under an hour, everyone was here, and it looked like everything in the woods was ready.
"Hey, everyone?" Arya's voice trembled a bit as she stood in the doorway to the living room, but she pretended not to notice, "You're going to need to put shoes and coats on. You've got five minutes." They all looked at her, already in her thick parka with the hood pulled up and the fur almost obscuring her face. She was met with confused looks and a groan off Sansa.
"Why?" Her sister frowned, "Is this some 'family bonding activity'? Or is it just because you've forgotten what snow looks like?"
"No." Arya said more defensively than she needed to. She hadn't been in the south that long. "It will all become clear, but I promise you are going to want to come." When none of them moved she gestured firmly to the door, "Come on! Jon and Bran are already out there!"
"In the snow? Isn't it freezing out?" Jeyne wrinkled her nose at the window. It was coming down thick and fast now and hardly anything could be seen through it.
"Yes." Arya said impatiently, "They've been getting it ready. Now hurry up and meet back in the hallway when you're ready, we all need to go out together."
Even with both a deadline and the prospect of a mystery event it still took the Starks too long to do as Arya said. By the time everyone was ready Arya had nearly bitten through her lip from nervous chewing.
"Are we all here?" she asked her crowded family.
"Present!" Rickon stuck his hand in the air grinning cheekily at his sister.
She smiled back. "Good. Gendry, you in there somewhere?" she reached up on her toes to see if his dark head was somewhere in the thicket.
His voice called back from the opposite side of the pack, close to the door, "I'm here!"
"Good!" She beamed, breathless now, "You okay to guide them down?"
"Ready and willing."
Arya couldn't see Gendry, but she knew his eyes would be twinkling as he let his lips twitch into a smile.
As they shuffled out into the night Arya grabbed her father's hand and pulled him back.
"Actually, dad, I need you to stay with me for a minute. I just want to ask you something."
Her father looked down at her with surprise, but also a warm smile. "Of course."
.
The snow wasn't as bad as it looked. For a family of northerners it was barely even worth worrying about.
Or so Jon had said about ten times in the last twenty minutes. They had been focusing on threading the last of the lights through the trees, but Jon had still found time to worry. Bran nodded at him, but Jon could feel the mild disbelief. They had come to the end of their decorations now and were each standing with large umbrellas over the largest collections of candles to stop the snow putting them out too soon.
Jon looked up towards the house where they could see people moving. The candles they had placed in jam jars swung on their ribbons as a cold wind rushed through the trees. The front door to the house opened.
"Here they come."
Bran nodded, but didn't speak. He was fiddling with the umbrella, trying to get it to rest in the tree branches so that he could leave it unattended.
"How do you think they'll react?"
Not for the first time Jon drew up a picture of Catelyn Stark standing in a clearing in the snow in her housecoat with an utterly bemused expression on her face. Or Sansa, wrapped up in a coat covering what they all knew was her pyjama top, even though claimed otherwise. Or even Robb, unshaven and bewildered.
Bran cracked a grin. "Oh I'm sure it'll be fine."
.
Gendry kept his head down. In life generally, but tonight particularly. It was the best way to go about it, he thought. It wasn't that he was shirking the responsibility for this idea, nor was he in any way having doubts, but he knew that if he spoke to anyone now he would probably burst from all the stress of this business. It had been a busy few weeks of secret preparations, as well as all the laughter and excitement and daily questioning whether this was a good idea or whether they were about to estrange Arya's entire family, but it was nearly all over now. Just the final bit to go. And telling the Starks why they were being dragged out into the snowy woods in the middle of winter. He had tried to push that task to Arya at first, to Jon when they had told him, even to Bran when they had let him in on the plan this morning, but they had all insisted that it had to be him.
And he was nervous.
It was ridiculous really, of all the things to be scared of tonight. It wasn't the words he would speak or what came after that scared him, no, it was telling the Starks what was about to happen.
Still, it was better that they were here. He could only imagine what it would be like if they had just turned up and announced it had already happened.
Gendry took a breath, letting the cold wash through him. He had worn his thickest coat because knew Arya wouldn't be wearing one, but that didn't mean he wasn't shaking. Her family around him filled the night with their cooing over the lights and their excited laughter and playful banter, but Gendry kept his eyes pointed towards the clearing. There would be time to laugh later.
.
Her dress was knee-length and only slightly flowy. It was easier to hide away in her suitcase that way, and she never had been one for ball-gowns, but standing in the shop in this dress she hadn't been able to resist the extra fuss and adornments. She didn't regret it as she looked in the mirror now. Tulle fell to the ground around her and for a second as it fluttered over her arms she felt beautiful.
Her dad helped her pin it to her head, flowing out from the blue flowers and the loose curls.
She had spent perhaps too long that afternoon in the bathroom fiddling with Sansa's curling iron, wrestling her usual messy mane into something soft and delicately tousled. She thought it looked okay in the end. And even if it didn't, well, it wasn't like they had hired a photographer.
She didn't think they were tears in her dad's eyes, but she didn't like to ask just in case. Even on a day like this you still don't want to see your dad cry. She took his hand, leaving her coat hung on its hook but pulling her wrap more firmly around her, and opened the front door.
She had known what they had been planning on doing in terms of decorations. In fact, it had been her who had bought them – yesterday on their way to the airport - but that didn't mean that it didn't leave her a little bit breathless when she stepped out of the front door and onto the path that provided her an honour guard of lanterns down to the woods.
When they reached the edge of the trees it really did feel like stepping into a fairytale grotto. There were paper lanterns hanging, candles everywhere and thousands of twinkling lights. The snow was falling less insistently here under the trees, but where it did fall it caught the light and looked like sparks.
Arya laughed to herself; this definitely made up for having to cook dinner by herself. The boys had really outdone themselves. It was magical.
.
The group fell silent in a hush of – what was it? Astonishment? Excitement? Shock? They were stood in a semi-circle around Gendry, all staring at him, those blue Tully eyes particularly seeming to bore holes into him courtesy of Arya's siblings, but most of all from Catelyn. Jeyne was smiling but with an eye on her husband. Bran and Jon were standing back and they all seemed to be waiting. The silence was broken by Robb.
"What?"
He looked angry. Or perhaps his face was just scrunched against the cold. Sansa held a touch more of real outrage, with her hands on her hips.
"I'm in my pyjamas!" she exclaimed, folding her arms over her chest as though they didn't already know that.
Usually-put-together Sansa being caught so off guard seemed to be the catalyst for hysteria they needed. Rickon started laughing, Jeyne caught his eye then turned to her husband full of giggles, and suddenly the clearing was full of noise again.
Catelyn was the only one not laughing, but her stern expression had softened somewhat as she looked at Gendry.
"Why now?" she tilted her head and waited for a sufficient answer.
Gendry had none to offer.
"Why not?"
Arya's mother looked at him with a mixture of concern and wonder. That didn't seem to be the right answer, but Gendry couldn't summon up the words to explain anymore. He had spent all day trying to think how he would phrase it, how to best explain that of course this was happening, and that when you thought about it for more than a minute it made complete sense and it was less of an impulsive decision and more of an eventual necessity, but now when it came down to it there was no need for persuasive rhetoric. There was just Gendry standing in front of Arya's family, and they understood. And there she was too, standing with her dad a few feet away.
The others might have turned to look too, but he didn't notice because she was dressed in white and her nose was red with cold and she was biting her lip like she couldn't stop herself from laughing and gods she was this ethereal figure in the snow and the light and if his feet weren't numb and if his hands weren't shaking he thought he might have been dreaming.
It was the shortest aisle in history, but Gendry doubted there was ever a sweeter embrace at the end. Not least because Arya's fingers were turning blue and his coat was warm.
"It's so cold!" she whimpered, "Why did we think was a good idea?" she was half speaking, half gasping her words out in puffs of warm dragon-breath.
Gendry laughed, "Did we?" There hadn't really been a discussion about how this would happen, it had more been Arya daydreaming and Gendry declaring those dreams to be the plan, but they both knew that even if they had spent weeks to-ing and fro-ing they would likely have ended up back here, at Winterfell, at the place where they had finally kissed and gone on together, refusing to look back. The snow was just an added winter feature.
Arya shivered again and Gendry laughed as he pulled her close, wrapping his coat around her. She tucked her arms around him and leant against him chest, looking out at Jon with the book in his hands, and Bran with the rings, and the rest of her family standing in varying degrees of delight and disbelief.
Her mother was crying, but so was Robb, and it looked like Bran's eyes might be glistening.
"Hi guys." Arya grinned at them. She felt Gendry's chest rumble with laughter and she tipped her head to look up at him. He bent down and kissed the tip of her nose.
She heard her sister laugh, "Oh Arya." When she turned to look, Sansa shook her head affectionately and then frowned and patted her pockets. "I don't have my phone, does anyone have a phone or a camera? You should have at least one nice photo of this."
They all looked at each other and a rippled of laughter broke out again.
"Here," Jon reached into his pocket and pulled out his slightly battered iphone, tossing it to Sansa who caught it neatly. When she was ready she held it up and grinned.
"Okay, go ahead."
Jon cleared his throat and grinned at them.
"We're here, on this snowy night in this finely decorated place, to witness the marriage of our tiniest sister" Arya stuck her tongue out at him, "and our friend, Gendry." Sansa tapped away on the phone, trying her best to capture the affectionate look on Jon's face before he looked down at the book in his hands. "Now, this gives me a long script to read, but as the bride has astutely pointed out, it's quite cold, not to mention there's food in the oven that we need to get back to before it burns."
Bran gasped quietly and muttered, "Yes!" but they all heard, and all grinned, nodding in agreement.
"Exactly. So let's keep this short. Vows and rings and that's about it." Jon nodded at them.
Arya clicked her tongue, "Chop chop, I want to be married already."
Gendry snorted, "You just want to be warm already."
She winked up at him, "That too."
"Could you just say your vows?" Jon's exasperation was lit with humour, but had the desired effect.
"They're in my pocket." Gendry poked Arya in the back but she just shook her head, holding onto Gendry a little tighter. He reached down and tickled the small of her back. She wriggled and grudgingly stepped away. Gendry didn't let her go far, but reached for her hands and held them in his larger ones. He smiled down at her. "I don't actually need the notes." Arya huffed, but Gendry kept smiling, "do you want them?"
She shook her head, a certain smile on her face, "No, I know what I'm promising."
"Well then."
In the silent pause when Gendry took a breath before he spoke, when the two of them were just Gendry Waters and Arya Stark who messed about and loved each other, in that silence where the snow was still falling and Gendry thought once again how there was nothing he could do to deserve her, he felt the potential. The future that they both knew they would have whether they said these words or not. But as he looked at Arya, he knew he wanted to say them, wanted to confirm what they both knew.
"I vow to you Arya Stark to be your husband. I will love you, honour you and protect you. I will be faithful through good and bad, sickness and health, rich and poor. I will love and cherish you for as long as we live. I offer myself to this woman in the sight of these witnesses," he turned to look at the Starks, faintly lit in the darkness, "that she may be mine and I hers."
The words were old, but re-ordered and updated. Not quite what Arya's parents had said, nor even what Robb and Jeyne has sworn a few months ago, but some kind of mix of all the things they wanted to say, all the parts of their lives they wanted to mix. North and South, old and new.
Arya squinted up at Gendry through the snow, his blue eyes constant in the flurry and in the glittering darkness.
"I vow to you Gendry Waters to be your wife. I will love, honour, and protect you. I will be faithful through good and bad, sickness and health, rich and poor. I will love you and cherish you until the end of our days. I take this man in the sight of these witnesses, that he may be mine and I may be his." Arya caught her dad's eye and for the first time she thought she might cry.
The only sound was the wind brushing through the trees, and the shuffling of people, but Arya couldn't help but sniff. Bran offered her a tissue when he stepped forward.
"Thanks." She nodded at her younger brother.
"er- the rings?" he held up a plastic bag, still sealed at the top, with brightly coloured plastic rings inside. They looked like they had come from a crane machine at an arcade and Arya couldn't help but let out a peal of laughter that cut straight through any romantic atmosphere they might have acquired.
"I didn't think you'd actually do it!" She cackled, watching as Gendry ripped open the package with his teeth.
He winked at her and turned to their witnesses, "Normal rings don't fit Arya; her fingers are too small."
They laughed, but didn't quite seem to get the joke. Sansa was shaking her head again, but the phone was up and Arya was sure she would be grateful for that later. Surely her face had been priceless.
Arya was staring up at Gendry as she laughed, not quite able to catch her breath. They had joked about getting toy rings, since they hadn't found time to go and pick out wedding rings, but Gendry had promised to get Arya a ring that would blow her away.
And in fairness to him she was feeling blown away by how ridiculous this was, the prospect of wearing a plastic spider ring on her finger, and of offering a bit of cheap plastic to represent their eternal, undying love. She held in a snort and tried to compose herself.
"It was very nearly a packet of Haribo rings, but they only had starmix." Gendry shrugged apologetically, not helping Arya's giggles at all.
"You ridiculous human." She reached out her hand to him, with laughter still resting in her throat.
"I give you this ring as a symbol of our marriage."
It was supposed to be serious and romantic, but Gendry was smiling and he gave her hand a squeeze so she knew it was okay to laugh.
"Oh isn't it just?"
"Hush now, you. I give you this ring, and the other one that we'll get when this one breaks, as a symbol of our marriage."
Arya laughed again, but quickly found herself with eyes full of tears as he carried on, the seriousness of the words catching up with her, and the fact that this was Gendry, and he meant every word.
"All that I am I give to you. All that I have I share with you."
She thought of their flat back in Kings Landing, how they had painted it together on the first day they moved in, how they no longer knew whose DVDs were whose and who had paid for dinner last. She thought of the nights that they had spent together, staying up talking when the rest of the city was asleep, learning each other's thoughts and dreams and bodies, screaming and crying and being honest. She thought of all those moments, the kisses and touches, everything that already meant they belonged to each other, that their lives were entangled inseparably.
He thought of the girl he had met all those years ago who was unafraid to swear and spit and stand up for herself, how much she was still like that and how much she had changed. He thought of the girl who let him see her cry only after a year of dating, who had found a dying ratty dog in an alleyway and loved it back to full health, who was standing in front of him wearing a plastic child's toy as a wedding ring in the middle of a snowstorm, promising to never leave him and he knew she wouldn't.
"All that I am I give to you. All that I have I share with you." The green plastic ring didn't even properly fit over his first knuckle but that didn't mean he didn't have a lump in his throat when Arya put it on his finger.
They didn't need to be told that they were now married, they had already sealed it with a kiss before Jon could say a word.
Their family clapped and Rickon wolf-whistled, making them all laugh again.
"We should have had confetti!" Jeyne said wistfully. She was tucked under Robb's arm and his face was mostly hidden in her hair.
"No, we have snow - nature's confetti!" Arya stuck her tongue out to catch a snowflake.
"And nature's weaponry!" Rickon cried, stuffing a handful down the back of Robb's collar. He in turn rounded on his little brother and threw him down into the snow. Jeyne squealed and Sansa pulled her out of the way, well-practiced in avoiding playing in the snow. It took no time for Jon and Bran to join and Arya even thought she saw her father gather a handful of dusty snow in his gloved-hand before her mother threw him a look.
Arya watched, laughing still, before turning back to Gendry. He was watching her and the look on his face made her lean up and kiss him again.
"Come on, dinner will be ready by now." She kept one hand tight in Gendry's and used the other to sweep her veil to one side, gathering it in the crook of her arm. The end of it was damp and there were a few leaves in it, but she didn't mind. "I don't think I can feel my toes at all anymore." She observed, curling them up in her satin pumps.
"Do you want me to carry you?"
Arya grinned. "Oh yes! Hurry me away, fair prince!" she mimed fainting into his arms, but before she could stand straight he had picked her up off the ground, bridal style. She squealed and laughed and kissed him.
The group eventually made its way back to the house laughing and playing in the snow. A battle began between the older boys and the younger, and Sansa and Jeyne stood cheering on the side-lines. Ned and Catelyn looked on, watching their children play, watching when Gendry finally put Arya down, on the top step outside the front door. They surely must have seen how she pulled him down to kiss her again, her hand on his face, an arm around his neck, how he held her as close as he could. When Ned turned back a few minutes later the step was empty and the door ajar.
They took the few minutes before everyone else came back to stand next to the fire in the kitchen with their arms around each other. Arya had let go of her veil and she felt it as it fell to the ground, loosened by Gendry's hands in her hair. His cheeks were cold, but this lips were warm and she found that his neck was too when she tucked her nose in under the collar of his shirt.
"I can't believe you wore a full suit."
He smiled against her lips when he replied, "If you were dressing up for it, I thought it only polite to do the same."
"I love you in a suit." She ran her hand along the buttons of his shirt.
"I know."
"I love you out of a suit too."
"I definitely know that." His eyes twinkled as she raised her eyebrows at him mischievously.
They heard the front door open again, and someone called their names.
She sighed, "But for now I suppose I'll have to love you in an apron."
He pecked her on the cheek one more time before turning to pull an apron over his head. When he turned to offer her one she was standing looking at him with a particular look on her face.
"What?"
She beamed, smiling like her face couldn't take all the happiness she had inside.
"I love you Gendry Waters."
He reached for her, his arms wrapping around her as they were wont to do, his lips falling to hers, "I love you too Arya Stark."
.
Author's note:
I know that GOT vows are different, but I just really love those bits of the traditional church vows, and I couldn't find specific vows from ASOIAF or GOT for the Northerners other than 'I take this man' and the ones Robb and Talisa said in the show, so I just swirled all the bits I like all together and there we are!
Thoughts and feelings on this much appreciated. Thank you for reading!