This one is based of the prompt "Midnight". Set in the not-too-distant future where both Arya and Gendry are at Winterfell preparing for the War. Enjoy, read, review.
She'd spent so long in the dark. She had spent years travelling, her identity hidden under her dirty boy's clothes and shorn off hair, and long, lonely, cold nights spent exposed under the stars. The House of Black and White was lit only by candle and even then, they were used sparingly. And then the justice those Faceless Men had taught her to exact had plunged her into a different darkness – one she had never known, permanent with no light to guide her out. No family. No companions. Only nothing. Only no one.
She had spent so long in the dark.
And now it was the Long Winter and the nights were near endless and she hated it so much more than she thought she would.
Her room was never cold. A good fire in the hearth chased away the shadows. Yet sleep wouldn't find her as she lay there and watched the moon climb to its highest peak.
Midnight.
She sighed and threw the heavy furs off her. Any chance for sleep was gone – not that she did much of that anymore. She climbed back into her breeches – dirty ones from the day before – and tucked her sleeping shirt all haphazard and loose inside.
Nymeria watched lazily where she was curled by the fire. Arya watched the dancing flame, the logs crackling and popping and the occasional puff of white ash drifting onto the flag stones like snow. And she wondered – she wondered if he would still be stoking the fires at midnight, too.
She huffed again and strapped Needle to her waist and left her feet bare. Nymeria grumbled and took to her feet and plodded to her side. Arya scratched her ears.
"You don't have to come, lazy girl. I'm only going to the forge."
If it were possible, Nymeria looked delighted and retreated back into the room, leaping on Arya's bed now that she had it all to herself and curling herself up to sleep.
"I should be disgusted that he's won you over so quickly." Arya shook her head and slipped out the door.
It wasn't far to Winterfell's forges from her chambers. Bran the Builder had preferred them close-by and so hadn't set them far from the family halls. He had, in fact, place them inside Winterfell itself. A respectable smithy had been built in the main courtyard. But when one walked through the great doors and walked to the back of the main forge, they were taken into a vast place. There were different rooms for different fires for different temperatures for all manner of different metals.
She still smiled when she remembered Gendry's face after Jon had showed it to him and proclaimed, 'It's all yours."
He'd barely left it since. He even slept there, gently refusing Sansa's offer of chambers in the castle. "I'll have plenty to be getting on with, Lady Stark," he'd said.
And he'd been right. Even now as she approached his forge with the doors thrown open she aw the fires were burning and she heard the sharp sting of steel being beaten.
She watched him. He was surprisingly deft for a man his size. He held a tiny hammer and gently tapped an obsidian arrowhead into shape. Even from her spot by the doorway she could see the fire reflect of its mercilessly sharp edges. It was magnificent, like everything he crafted.
"Can't you sleep?" His voice was gruff and tired.
"No. Neither can you."
He put his hammer down and added the arrowhead to the pile. "No."
She padded over, silent as Nymeria, and hopped up on his workbench. She saw his eyes flit down and an amused twinkle sparked behind them.
"Where are your shoes?"
"I didn't need them. I was only coming to see you."
His face softened as it always did when she said things like that, and said sweetly, "Highborns. Touched in the head, the whole lot of you."
She punched his shoulder and he dutifully cursed her.
"Watch it, Waters," she smirked. "There are some who would argue that you're highborn, yourself."
He frowned and nudged her with his massive shoulder which really didn't feel like a nudge at all. "Only if they haven't met me."
She caught his hands and traced the rough callouses. For a long time now, she hadn't easily trusted those with soft hands – hands that got others to do their dirty work for them. Sansa was the only exception, and that's because Arya was the one keeping her lady's hands so soft. Gendry's hands had always been rough – had always been honest. Even when lies would have served him better.
"You can't go traipsing back in the snow with bare feet. Your toes will drop off."
"Such a southerner."
He huffed a breath that might have been a laugh as he set about putting out the fires for the night – or what was left on it as dawn would soon be chasing the horizon. She knew that it was always an early start for a blacksmith.
"Then I'll just have to stay here," she said. "You know, for my toes."
And Gendry gave her that soft funny look again and smiled until she could see dimples. "As m'lady commands. For your toes."