ARYA
Arya pulled the bowstring back to just below her chin, letting it settle restlessly there for a few moments. She looked across, to Anguy the Archer on her left and then to Thoros of Myr on the right, both training their bows on the deer. She knew that even if she missed, Anguy would hit the deer for certain, and would probably bring it down in one shot. She had never known Anguy to miss. Then again, if he had ever missed, would she have remembered it?
Then, curiously, she did remember something. Anguy standing beside her, in a different forest. "Never aim your bow," he said, "never aim, just shoot."
Maybe she had remembered it wrong, because it looked like he was aiming now. Or maybe it didn't matter at all.
Or maybe it does, said a whisper in her ear. If you remember one thing, Arya, you might remember another.
That was Bran's voice, she was almost certain of it. He must be speaking to her from Winterfell, from behind the great wall of snow and frost that had fallen across the Neck. Or maybe she was imagining that, too. Maybe Bran was dead. Maybe everyone north of the Neck was dead.
That was when the deer moved.
Arya released the string just in time. Her arrow darted forwards with a low hiss, and struck the deer through its hind leg. It might have run off, but Anguy and Thoros had both been paying attention, or both had better luck. The deer crumpled in the clearing, breaking a crust of frost beneath its corpse, one arrow in its neck and another just above its heart. Anguy gave a whoop of delight. "That's mine, I think!"
Arya let out her breath and followed them down into the clearing. The deer was still stirring, very feebly, so Anguy went up with his dagger and sliced its throat. "Fair shots, my friends," he said, standing, "but I believe mine is the one what killed it."
"Yes, well done," said Thoros flatly. "You must be very proud."
"Nothing wrong with a little pride, my friend."
Thoros smiled ruefully. "The red priests in Volantis would disagree. Something I learned to my sorrow."
"Why?" asked Arya.
"Some of us are too good to sit among stuffy manuscripts for years on end," replied Thoros. "They tried to punish me with the impossible task of making King Robert see the Lord's light, hoping that a few years sleeping in alleys and living off bowls of brown would teach me some humility. But they underestimated how easily some men are pleased by the sight of a flaming sword."
"You were fat then," she said. "Weren't you? When I first saw you in King's Landing. You aren't anymore, but you were."
"And you are very impolite for a lady," said Thoros. "And as I recall, you always have been."
Anguy grinned. "Didn't anyone at Winterhell teach you manners?"
"Winterfell," Arya said. They must have gotten that from Hot Pie. "And yes, they did. I just don't think I listened very much."
"Not much of a lady, are you?"
She seemed to remember that Gendry had said that to her, once. But nevermind that. Gendry was stubborn and stupid. He didn't matter anymore.
"No," she said, "I'm not much of a lady at all. That hasn't changed, at least. I don't think I've changed that much."
The last was more to herself than to them. But Thoros shook his head. "Everything changes child, even when you try to bring it back the same. You saw what death did to your lady mother. And to Lord Beric."
"But I didn't die in Braavos," said Arya.
"A part of you did," Thoros replied. "Same as a part of your sister died when she went to King's Landing, and a part of your brother when he left Winterfell."
"I'm not a child," she snapped. "I know everything won't be the same, when we get back to Winterfell."
"I don't think you do," said Thoros sadly. "And I think you are afraid of it."
She wasn't afraid of it. At least not in the way Thoros was implying. It was inevitable that some things would change, yes. When they got back to Winterfell, the castle would have been ransacked and maybe burned, and the rooms and the people would not be the same, because they had been uprooted during the war. And Bran would not have his legs: no more climbing. But some things would stay the same. The heart tree, she thought, in the godswood. They will not have uprooted that. And Jon. I will go up to the Wall and see Jon, no matter what Sansa says. And he will laugh when I show him Needle and he will muss up my hair and call me "little sister". Won't he?
Shortly thereafter, she, Thoros and Anguy left the clearing together. Thoros slung the carcass of the deer over the back of his big horse, while she and Anguy rode a little ways ahead of him, scouting out for dangers. Not there would be any. The only dangers on these roads were outlaws and wolves; outlaws would surely run and hide when they saw the vast Northern army coming, and wolves preyed on those weaker than them, and did not attack on armed encampments.
The ride back to the encampment took them about an hour, by which time all the tents had been set up and makeshift palisades had been established. The sun had gone down, and the moon rose up in its place, a bright white eye without a pupil. It turned trees and hills into dark silhouettes, and on the hill above the camp Arya glimpsed some strange silhouettes indeed: jagged shapes, craggy and tall, but definitely manmade.
"Oldstones," said Thoros of Myr. "There was once a castle here. The seat of House Mudd."
Harrenhal was a sorry ruin, but at least it was serviceable, once you put up tapestries over the gaps in the stone and set the fireplaces blazing. But as they drew closer, Arya saw that Oldstones was far worse. No one had lived here for hundreds, or maybe thousands, of years. The stone was cocooned in weeds and moss, with tiny dying flowers spreading through the cracks. What must once have been walls had lost their shape and were now slowly bending over, like hunchbacked old men.
Like Harrenhal, it had been great once. But like all great things, it had come to an end. And no matter how hard you tried, you could not put it back together.
They rode back towards the Brotherhood's tents, but as Arya dismounted she found Sandor Clegane waiting for her. "A dog come to see a wolf?" Thoros asked mockingly.
"Why are you here?" Arya said.
Clegane scowled. "Girl," he said brusquely, without any respect. "Your sister wants you. In her tent."
"I'm with Thoros and Anguy—"
"She isn't expecting you to refuse. And it's for your own good."
Arya was a little shocked by the boldness of it all. But then Thoros of Myr said, "go on, child. He's right about that."
She was about to shout at him, to remind him that, at the Crossroads Inn, they had sworn to follow her, and accept her orders. But she forced herself to follow the Hound, if only to deny Clegane the pleasure of reporting her defiance to Sansa. She wasn't stupid. She knew that her sister had tasked Clegane with spying on her. And the Blackfish. And maybe even Rickon.
So, then. It was time for another supper with Sansa, populated by lies and things unsaid.
She expected to see the Blackfish and Rickon waiting with her. But tonight it was just her and Sansa. Her sister waved a hand to dismiss the Hound. And there they were. Sansa sat at one end of a long table, finishing a last reply on a bit of paper.
"What are you writing?" Arya asked.
"A letter."
"Obviously. To who?"
"To whom," said Sansa irritably. "But if you must know, it is for Bronze Yohn Royce. I was wondering if he might do us the favour of reducing some of our grain tariffs between the Vale and the Riverlands."
"Well, they should. They don't need it as much as we do."
"If only it were that easy." As she spoke, Sansa poured a neat blob of hot wax onto the envelope, sealed it with her stamp, and set it aside. "You may sit," she said.
"I am thankful for your ladyship's gracious permission." She sat.
"Well, you looked like you might stand there all night." Sansa glanced away from her, through the tent flap. "Cold night?" she asked.
"Colder than you might expect."
Sansa reached over to the middle of the table and unveiled two platters: roasted pork, greens, crumbly cheese, baked plums. She passed one platter to Arya, along with a knife, then sat back down with her own. "I have sores," she muttered. "And that's just from riding. I'd hate to be walking in this."
"Wear more padding in your clothes," suggested Arya. "That should soften the impact if they're chafing."
"I know. But it was midday by the time I figured that out." She scoffed. "The march stopped because her ladyship's thighs were hurting. Do you know how foolish that would make me look?"
"Yes," said Arya, "but then they wouldn't hurt so much."
There was a long pause. And then, almost impossibly, Sansa smiled. "You were always better with practical things."
She is being too nice. It made Arya wary. "I suppose I was."
"I know that… there have been things in your past. Things you might not want to talk about. And I have things like that, too. I think… I think we should put it behind us. Whatever we've both done is done. Our past is our past."
Arya nodded slowly, though in truth this all felt too easy to her. "That sounds like a good idea. But… you don't seem sure."
Sansa deliberated, chewing her food slowly. Then: "You said something when you first arrived at Raventree. About…"
"A list," said Arya.
"A list," her sister agreed. "A list of people you're going to kill."
"Yes. What are you asking?"
"I'm asking…" Uncertainty seemed to flood through Sansa. But she had come too far now to turn back. "I'm asking whether you… whether… you haven't actually killed any of them, have you?"
She could have lied then and Sansa would never have known. She had not played the game of faces as Arya had. But Sansa wanted truth, no doubt. It was time to see which sort of 'truth' she wanted. "I have."
Sansa should have known better than to be shocked by that. Her mouth fell open a little. "But… when?… why?... how did it feel?"
"Which question do you want answering first?" Arya said acidly. Then: "There were many times. I did it because I had to."
"And… how did it feel?"
"How did it feel?"
"I don't think I'd be able to actually kill someone," said Sansa.
Arya was reminded of the waif hitting her with the switch. You lie, she thought. "You'd be surprised what you can do when you're in real danger. The first person I killed… he was a stableboy, in King's Landing. He said he was going to take me to the queen. To Cersei. She's on my list. The very last person, actually."
"Are you going to kill her too?" Sansa asked.
"No."
"You're not?"
Why did she sound so surprised? "Cersei is at Casterly Rock. Hundreds of leagues away. It wouldn't be worth my time. And… I'm here with you now."
For a long while neither of them spoke.
"I wouldn't have survived what you did," said Sansa eventually.
Arya thought about it a moment. "I wouldn't have survived what you did, either. I wouldn't have let Joffrey imprison me. I would sooner have died." She softened her tone a little. "And I would have. Died, I mean. But it's like you said. The past is the past."
"The past is the past," Sansa agreed. "The future is all that's worth considering." Another pause ensued. Then she said, "The Blackfish wanted to talk to you, by the way. About Oldstones. I told him I'd send you to him. You don't have to, but—"
"It's all right," said Arya. "I'll go."
So she did. She went and found the Blackfish sitting outside his tent. He did not say much. Only, "Come and walk with me."
They climbed the hill together. Neither spoke until they reached the top, where the cracked stone sepulcher of King Tristifer Mudd, the Fourth of His Name, awaited them. The long-dead king's stone visage had worn away; all that remained was the vague suggestion of a face, and upon it what was surely a crown. But beyond that, it might have been any king. It might have been Robb.
"Your mother was here," said the Blackfish. "She and your brother both. They came this way when they rode up to the Twins."
"To the Red Wedding," Arya said. Had she and the Hound come this way too, trailing after them, minutes too late to save them?
"Aye," said her great-uncle. Then there was a pause, and then he said, "but she came this way again." He turned to stare very deliberately at Arya.
She tried to hide her surprise, but the Blackfish was not easily fooled. He knows. Somehow he knows. There was no point in hiding it. "Stoneheart," she breathed.
"So you met her," said the Blackfish.
Arya confirmed. "I did." And so had he, obviously. But her next thought was an odd one. "Does Sansa know?"
The Blackfish stared at her. "And what if she does?" It was meant to be probing, no doubt, but Arya had been playing the game of faces for years. "She doesn't know," she said, "and neither does Rickon."
The Blackfish's slight twitch confirmed it. "Your mother," he began. "Would have wanted—"
"Would have wanted me and Sansa to exist peacefully," she said cynically. "As though nothing had ever come between us at all."
She received a sage nod in reply. "And what has come between you?" the Blackfish asked.
It was the sort of thing a child might ask. She could think of a dozen answers.
The years, she might have said, but that was wrong; for it had only been a few years. Sansa had not changed unrecognisably, and neither had she.
Our goals, she might have said, but they wanted the same thing – to go home – even if they went about finding it in separate ways.
Ourselves, she might have said, but they had reconciled. Hadn't they?
Yes, it was the sort of thing a child might ask. And yet it left her stumped. "I don't know," she had to say.
"Well," said the Blackfish. "It seems to me that there's nothing for you to have grown apart over. But forgive my ramblings. What do I know, eh? Just the advice of one old man… one old man, mind, who made the exact same mistake with his own brother. When I came back to Hoster at the start of the war, it was the first time I had looked upon his face in fifteen years. My own brother! I thought, for a time, that I hated him. Yet when I looked him again, saw him lying weak in his bed – and when I saw his face, I knew that I loved him still."
Did she love Sansa? Well, she thought she did. But she would never admit it, and she would certainly never say those three words out loud. Not only to her sister, but to anyone.
And yet they were truth. Unspoken truth. Stark truth.
"I was here too," she heard herself say. "Not when she died. Before. Me and the Hound, we were riding up to the Twins. We missed them – Robb and Mother – by minutes. But I know that if we had gotten into the hall with them, we would have died too. And sometimes, in the days after the wedding, I wished I had. But I didn't, and now I'm here. And I think that's better."
The Blackfish stood staring at her for a long time. "When you know what it is like to lose something," he said, "then you know how important it is to protect it."
After that he left her. Left her with the words still ringing in her ears, and they were truth too. Sansa had said, I have to protect you, and Arya had looked upon that proclamation with scorn – how can you protect me? But now she realised that it was not so much the reality that mattered as it was the sentiment. And, she thought, I have to protect you too.
Jon had given her Needle, but it was Father who had sat her down with it on the steps of her cold King's Landing room, and Father who had told her what it was really for, and it was Father's words she recalled now. Not for the first time, but now, she chose to say them aloud. "The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives."
Arya set off at a walk. The ground was grey and mushy under her feet as she crossed beyond the sepulcher, and descended from the summit. She needed a place away from the camp to think, though she had no doubts that she would soon return to Sansa and the others. Maybe she would find Rickon by the campfire, and apologize to him for being so distant lately – though she was not sure her brother had noticed.
Then something moved in the bushes ahead of her and her senses came alive at once; her hand danced, with instinctive violence, to Needle's hilt, and drew it a half-inch from its slim scabbard. The air bristled, brushing at the back of her neck. And then, before it ought have been possible, she heard the bushes parting, and from between them came the wolf.
It was not any wolf, and she knew it instantly, even without seeing its massive size. She had, in all these years, never forgotten. For how could you forget part of yourself?
"Nymeria," she said, and the name, which had been a pup's name, seemed equal parts absurd, for the direwolf now stood near as tall as a horse, and fitting, for there was surely no other beast of the forest who so befitted the name of a warrior queen.
The clearing was very silent. The sounds of the camp below, the smell of its smoke and the light of its fires, had become non-existent. And the silence was so perfect that it could only have been fashioned by the gods, to give them this moment alone.
She harboured, for half an instant, a hope that she might bring the direwolf along with her, as Shaggydog did for Rickon. But Nymeria was wild, that was plain. And Arya herself was the cause of it.
There was still a part of her in Nymeria, though. Even in this great beast of the wild, there was still some girl. And the reverse was true. As she stretched her hand out towards Nymeria, she thought, maybe, that it was not so much a gesture of affection as it was a formalization of the exchange that must needs take place. She could imagine it now, like the writing of a will.
To Nymeria, the wilderness. To Arya, the world of men. Each had their role to play. One the conquering warrior queen, the other the stalwart protector of the hearth. Each bound to live in their separate spheres, and each free to follow their separate ways.
