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Chapter 3: Settling in

Next morning ….

Beach Camp, Unknown Island between King's Landing and Meereen

Arya walked along the threshold between the jungle and the beach, picking up sticks as she went and ignoring the sweat gathering on her back. Once she had all her arms could carry, she headed back towards the plane wreckage. On her way, she tried to ignore the sight of Tywin covering the mass grave.

She dumped the sticks into a pile by the entrance to their makeshift shelter. She climbed inside and saw a body-free area. There were bloodstains everywhere but she felt better knowing she could now sleep under a corpse-free roof.

She flipped open an unzipped holdall and exchanged the now very damp tank top with a plain grey t-shirt that totally covered her once-white shorts completely. She tucked it in as best she could and returned outside.

Tywin was sitting in the shade of the wreck breathing deeply. His shirt was soaked with sweat, he'd discarded his waistcoat and his trousers were rolled up his thighs.

Arya threw a bottle of water at his head from their dwindling pile. He only just caught it in time. He made no remark just turned the cap and drank greedily.

"I could've helped," Arya said, tapping at the ground with one of the many sticks she had collected.

Tywin finished off the bottle in a few gulps then wiped the dripping sweat from his face with what used to be someone's t-shirt.

"Burying bodies is no task for a little girl."

"But digging graves is?" Arya bit back and produced a cereal bar from her pocket.

Tywin noted the minor display of frustration as Arya practically inhaled the bar. He knew she was trying to keep busy. To not think. To not let her mind, erode the hope she clung to.

"If you want to be helpful. Keep collecting dry wood and we'll soon have enough to start a fire."

"Why? We should be looking for survivors before they …" Arya trailed off as her eyes flicked to the two graves in the distance.

Tywin's eyes followed where hers had gone and he sighed, "This island is large enough that it would take days to traverse all over it. We aren't in a position to do that with our limited supplies either. Lighting a fire means smoke in the sky. Any survivors will try to locate the source of the smoke and come to us."

"What if they are injured?"

"If we don't know their location, we can't help them anyway," Tywin saw Arya about to protest again and cut her off, "Listen, in this type of situation the first concern would always be yourself. Making sure you are in a position to survive before helping others. There is no point in us finding any other survivors just so we all die slowly from the elements."

Tywin could tell Arya still wanted to argue but the slight girl gnawed on her lip and then lifted her chin, "What is our next move then?"

"We have supplies on the plane but they will dwindle. We need to be able to survive off the resources we can find on this island. Now, what do we need to survive?"

Arya remained silent behind cautious eyes.

"I'm not tricking you."

Arya huffed then sat down in the shaded sand next to Tywin, "We need food and water."

"Yes, and?"

"Warmth and … shelter?"

"Very good. We have access to the latter two," Tywin said, pointing towards the sticks and then the wreckage around Arya. "But we have a limited supply of food and water that was onboard the plane. We need to find alternative sources now if we are going to survive in the long-term."

Tywin saw Arya shudder at his last word and knew the implications were grim but he was a survivor and he didn't just roll over and die. It wasn't in his nature.

Arya clicked her fingers, "When I was collecting the sticks, I saw a small waterfall. We could get water from there?"

"Yes, any running water is safe," Tywin nodded thoughtfully, "We can refill our bottles at the top and use the pool at the bottom to bathe in."

"The jungle must have animals in it and I saw lots of fruit trees yesterday as well. I saw bananas, coconuts, um a weird yellow-orange on vines."

"Passion fruit," Tywin corrected, "We should leave the hunting for another time and focus on gathering fruits. I found a fishing rod among some of the luggage."

"Do you know how to use it?"

"Yes, now go collect some more firewood," Tywin demanded as he started to place the sticks together.

Arya's scowled at being ordered around which earned a painful reminder that the cut on the side of her head was still healing but she set about bundling up more wood with a purpose that hadn't been there in the morning.

For the next few days, the fire burned and the smoke rose. Arya busied herself collecting fruits, filling dozens upon dozens of water bottles, exploring the coastline every day and stoking the fire but after the fifth day with no visitors appearing at their camp the hopelessness broke her tough girl act and her mind couldn't escape the fact her father was dead, most likely somewhere at the bottom of the ocean.

Tywin didn't notice her absence at first. He was knee-high in the ocean with the fishing rod in his hands contemplating who had planted the bomb on the plane and effectively killed him and everyone on board. He mentally processed who would be the likely candidates to have the audacity to do such a thing. There was Olenna Tyrell, a business rival whose interests were clashing with his own. Perhaps Tyrion had finally had enough and snapped at being disinherited. Maybe it was one of his own men seeking to supplant him as CEO of Casterly Rock Industries. All he knew for sure was that they were ruthless, willing to kill hundreds of innocents to take him out of the picture. Perhaps there was even a new player he hadn't even seen coming, he was getting older as Genna was constantly reminding him. Had he missed a new threat to his dominance?

After catching a few fish, Tywin waddled out of the water and dried his legs. He scanned the beach, but there was no sign of his fellow survivor. There was a pile of fruit inside an empty suitcase and a pile of filled water bottles in another. There was even another batch of sticks ready near the fire but Arya was nowhere to be seen.

He strung up his catch for the day from one of the plane's broken windows near the fire and dipped his head into the plane wreckage but Arya wasn't there either.

Odd, Tywin thought, once she'd completed her morning tasks, she normally liked to sit out the hottest part of the day under shade.

"Girl!" he shouted along the beach but only squawking birds answered him. Something was wrong.

He jogged towards the front of the jungle where Arya normally gathered fruit. He stopped by a cluster of coconut trees and bellowed, "Girl!"

His heart rate picked up as his mind was awash with scenarios of the Stark girl being injured or attacked by an animal or dead … like Myrcella.

He shook his head to dispel the image, Shouldn't have let her out of my sight!

He was about to bellow again when a heavy thump beside him caused him to bring out a knife. He looked down. A coconut.

"I'm up here!"

Tywin looked upwards and saw the little Stark nestled up in one of the trees holding another coconut. She threw it down beside the other one and Tywin backed up a little.

"What are you doing? We have enough food for the next few days. Come down."

"No," Arya said childishly.

Tywin placed two fingers on the bridge of his nose, "Fine, once this fit of insolence is over there will be a cooked fish waiting for you back at camp."

He turned away but another coconut landed right in front of him and Arya's cracking voice reached him, "There is no one else is there Mr Lannister?"

Ah the truth has finally reared its ugly head for her, Tywin realised and he was never one to mollycoddle, "Yes. We are alone on this island. If no one has come to us by now they either died of their injuries or never made it to this island."

Tywin heard the faint whimpering of sniffling above him. He took a step over the coconut at his feet before halting. He didn't know what made him turn back around, maybe it was the fact she was his only companion and wasn't incompetent like so many other children would be in this situation or it might have been the flashing image of Myrcella dying in his inner eye that spurred him back to Arya. Climbing trees was not a safe activity, especially for someone who had suffered a head injury only a week ago.

He picked up the coconut and made his way to the tree Arya was in and sat down with his back against the trunk.

"I know this is hard to accept. I know this is unfair. I know you'd rather your father was here instead of me but wanting never makes it so. We have to make do with what we have and we have … each other."

He heard rustling above him but powered on, ramming the knife into the coconut to relieve some of the emotional tension, "I have no intention of dying on this island. I will not give whoever wanted me dead the satisfaction of actually achieving the feat."

"It wasn't turbulence? Someone caused our plane to crash?" Arya's voice floated down to him.

"Yes," Tywin said, bringing the punctured coconut to his lips and drinking some of the milk inside.

"Who?" Arya asked, her voice closer now.

"I don't know but when I get back to civilisation, I will find them and I will make them pay."

He heard Arya drop beside him on the sand, "Can I help?"

"What I'm going to do you have no business in."

Arya blotted out the sun and stood in front of Tywin, "My dad is gone because someone wanted you dead. That makes it my business."

There was no nervous tapping of her hands and she maintained direct eye contact despite his heavy stare. She looked determined. He could work with determined.

"Fine," Tywin raised the coconut to Arya who took it with both hands and sipped at the opening. "But what we want to do doesn't matter if we don't get off this island."

"We'll just have to get off this island then," Arya stated matter-of-factly with her arms crossed.

Tywin felt his lips curl ever so slightly at the bold ambitious declaration. Step one of getting off this island was surviving on it. Once they could do that then he'd contemplate step two.

Tywin rose to his full height and brushed off the sand on his rumpled trousers, "Let's go back to the plane."

"You know my name is Arya?" she challenged, looking up at him as they started to walk.

Tywin looked down at her, "It's clearly not girl as you don't answer to that. How about Miss Stark?"

"Good enough for now," Arya said, before stopping and jutting out a hand. "Nice to meet you, Mr Lannister."

Tywin let out a bemused noise but shook the offered hand, "Nice to meet you too, Miss Stark."

When they release each other's hand Arya looked up at him, "Did you say you caught some fish?"

"Ye–"

She was running before he could finish his answer.

Author's Notes:

Their camping situation should be clearer now and they are developing a nice work like relationship. The focus of the story is Arya & Tywin so don't worry there will be more moments like the coconut trees coming soon :D

So, the plane was sabotaged! Well blown up! Will Arya & Tywin ever make it back to have their revenge and find out who did it? Is Tywin right in thinking he was the target?

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