The Deserter's Song

They had buried the guards' bodies, moved as much as their cold feet could, and set up a night's camp.

Now Gendry sat by the fire, sipping whatever mulled wine was leftover with Anguy who, like Gendry was too tired to actually sleep.

"You could not have had an easy month." Anguy said, coughing up the half-rank wine from his lungs. It sure wasn't altar wine from the High Sept, but it would do the trick to get him drunk enough to sleep.

"All she said was 'where's my sword?'" He said glumly, chugging back the little swig Anguy had left for him.

"What over and over again? She did seem like she could be a chatty little thing when I met her at the Tourney." He laughed.

"Once." Gendry replied.

"What do you mean, once?"

"She asked it once, three days in or something. Didn't speak to me again. And she's talkative too, some days we were training in the Keep..." His voice trailed off after that.

"What happened to you?"

Gendry told him...

The second Yoren saw Arya he'd gone straight for her hair, "She'll be Arry now, until I saw otherwise." He shoved the shredded tendrils of hair into the fire.

Gendry stared at them singeing in the coals, he would miss her hair. "Do I get a a new name too?"

Yoren looked up at him. "You get a bastard's name." He moved Arya's unconscious body to the side and stoked the fire. "Your Grace, when we're done here, no one will recognize you. And you'll look so terrible they won't want to ask your name, let alone look at you."

With his face covered in blood, and that blood having been dried with coals and dirt from the fire's hearth, Gendry changed into the clothes Yoren had gotten him from under the cot of whatever shop they were in. A simply tunic and breeches, not unlike the ones he'd worn during his off days, working in the Forge, practicing with Arya.

He'd always found it ridiculous: working, practicing, dancing around with the sword in his hand, sweating in clothes someone had sweated over. Silk from Meereen, handcrafted princely clothes. These clothes he wore now, these were Arya's clothes. Clothes of carelessness, clothes of someone who dressed in the dark, and lived without a second thought. And now she was lying unconscious, slumped in a corner, with a dead father lying three roads away.

"Time to go." Yoren said.

Gendry sighed, the sleeves on his new shirt were so short they rode up to his elbows. He hauled Arya back up into his arms and carried her through the dark corridors of King's Landing's alleys.

The newest batch of recruits for the Night's Watch were comprised of the usual types: men who were down on their luck, men with no future in the Capitol, poor boys who's masters had let them go, and of course, criminals. Despicable criminals who he wouldn't trust around Arya in a million years in any other circumstance. But he was desperate, and that can make men do unspeakable things.

He could only imagine the same must be true for the men being carted around in cages. He had always felt that the policy of sending criminals to the Wall was non-sensical. Most went out of necessity, and few out of honour. He'd read in the history books that the Night's Watch used to be a position of integrity, no he could only imagine that the criminals they sent up there were mostly just trying to stay alive in the freezing cold.

There was a man, with white and red hair, eyeing the two of them. Eyeing Arya. And he was getting under Gendry's skin. He was watching her ever move, the way she walked, the way she stayed three feet ahead of Gendry at all times. Gendry could practically feel his blood boiling. He began to move towards him when he heard his name called.

"Waters!" Yoren was yelling, though it took Gendry more than a minute to respond. "Waters!" Yoren tried again, pointing at Gendry, as he was not the only one to go by that name in this group.

So far, no one on the road had recognized him. But he felt as if he was pushing his luck. He could see Arya's fists itching to punch him again, all in the name of continuing to hide his princely identity.

Yoren pulled Gendry close and yanked his eyeline away from Arya. "Leave the man in the cage alone. I'll tell her the same, she doesn't seem to be listening to you much lately."

"No, she's not." Gendry replied tiredly.

"Soon we'll be stopping for the night." He looked around for a place to set up camp. "You keep an eye on her. She's bound to take off any minute. It's been almost a week, I'm amazed she's only tried to take off twice. She's gearing up for another go. Tie her down, knock her out again, I can't explain a third escape attempt. There are other kids here not running off and if they did I wouldn't tolerate it. So why would I put up with one annoying bastard kid who won't sit still? She already looks suspicious enough running off to the woods to piss and blushing like fucking maiden when the others do it in front of her."

"Arya doesn't blush." Gendry chuckled, though there was no mirth in his voice.

"She does, perhaps not like a maiden, but she does."

They slept anywhere they could: under bridges, in trees, against the walls of inns to guard against the wind, in stables for the warmth the horses could provide. These men were prisoners, but they weren't in prison yet.

All of this was done under Yoren's watchful eye. He kept Arya in line, she barely listened to him, but she was deaf when it came to Gendry. She always walked near the men in cages, or took off to the forest whenever they sat down for a meal or a rest. She didn't speak to anyone still. She nodded semi-obediently at Yoren, she told others to "Piss-off", her language growing more and more obscene with each encounter. It was unbelievable to Gendry that she felt she could get away with it, as she had no muscle, and no Needle under her belt to back herself up. No one would ever believe she was a daughter of Winterfell.

Then one day when Arya got particularly mouthy with a scrawny blonde boy named Lommy, Gender understood her tactics. The boy was maybe a year or two younger than Arya but a foot or two taller, and in an attempt to show some strength to the group of men he undoubtedly feared, he charged at Arya when she told him to

Two weeks into their travel, they passed along the side of the King's Road, miserable bandits, miserable thieves, miserable men. After sixteen days, she spoke.

They'd pulled off the road for the night, resting in stable house of a man who didn't even know they were there. When all others were asleep, Gendry heard whispering.

He was facing one of the walls, eyes wide open, just thinking. Everything was silence. Some men mumbled in their sleep, and enormous baker's apprentice who'd been caught stealing, called himself Hot Pie, was snoring so fiercely loud that at one point he heard someone threaten to throttle him in his sleep. Eventually everyone nodded off, until there was just him, laying there, staring at a wall.

"Can they bring a man back?" She asked.

He thought maybe she was talking to him, but her voice was far away. She positioned herself on the other side of the room from him.

"I don't care and I don't much care to know." He heard Yoren reply.

He fought the urge to turn around, just to see her speak. He was feeling drowsy now and her voice seemed as if it was from a dream of the past.

"I care."

"Dont."

"Not many men... just one."

"Get it out of yer mind, Arry."

"I'll ask them myself."

"You don't go near them." He said sternly.

"I'll go wherever I want."

"Not while I'm watching you. Like your Lord father wanted me to."

"Shut up."

They were silent.

"No man can bring back the dead, Arry. Nor would you want them to. Gruesome business, to the absolute least."

"How would you know?" She grumbled. "Unless it can be done?"

"He's gone, Arya." Yoren said, voice now above a whisper, and still harsh. "He's dead."

He waited for a response that didn't come. It felt to Gendry like hours passed before he heard anything else.

"Yoren, did you hear that?" She asked.

Gendry's ears perked up, trying to find what she had found.

He heard nothing, then the squeaking of the door, then heavy footfall before a book hit his lower back.

"She's gone. Go after her." Yoren grumbled, half-asleep. "Make sure she don't get too lost."

He followed her out the woods, always staying a few yards away. As if she could get lost out here.

He found her at a clearing and she knelt down, from the shadows a wolf stepped out. Not a direwolf, a regular sized wolf, but still he could tell the connection was there, it was her sigil after all. His mind flashed back to the day in the Red Keep's dungeons, naming house sigils. She'd run away then too.

She looked calm and at peace for the first time since their days of swordplay in the Smith. Possibly the most at peace he'd ever seen her.

Her hand reached out and traced the wolf's snout, over his head, behind his ears. The beast seemed to relax into her touch. And then it was gone. She continued on into the forest but Gendry did not follow. He knew she would be okay.

She returned hours later. The men were still asleep, and Gendry finally found himself nodding off too. In the back of his mind he heard the door creep open, and knew she was silently treading around the bodies on the hay-filled floor.

This time, she didn't cross to the other side of the room, she stayed near him. And every minute or so, she would inch a little bit closer, until eventually Gendry felt her lie flat against him, her chest against his back. her body was freezing, cold as ice from the wind and wet, like she'd been in the river.

He rolled over, feigning sleep, and slung his warm, large arm over her and pulled her closer. She tensed and her prepared himself to be woken up by a slap, but then she relax into him, and soon lulled off to sleep, and he did the same.

Gendry woke up to a foot in his face. Arya was sleeping on the other side of the room.

Four days later, they would finally find the Brotherhood.

He hadn't told Anguy about Arya coming to him at night. He wasn't even sure it had happened anymore, he'd practically been asleep, and Arya hadn't even so much as looked at him since. He'd probably dreamt it, along with every moment of theirs that he thought had happened. Perhaps he'd always been on this road, and he was Gendry Waters instead of Gendry Baratheon.

Anguy was looking at him like he was crazy as he came out of his daze. Gendry down the rest of his drink. He felt crazy.