Jon Snow tucked a few books under his arm before turning his boots towards the forge, leaving the warmth of his room as he always did at this time of day to teach Lawna her words. It would be better, truthfully, if a septa or a maester taught her, for Jon was intelligent enough, but not nearly a teacher, but he liked teaching her. Sometimes, it felt nice to have a fellow Snow at Winterfell.
And, when Arya was gone, it was especially nice to have the little girl around. She reminded him so much of how Arya was at that age. She had wit, though was not as ready to offer it as Arya had been. A life of being a lowborn bastard had taught her to hold her tongue, and she was very shy, unlike her mother. But when Lawna was comfortable with someone, she was just like Arya. A bit haughty at times, loud, and very unconventional, waving her favorite wooden sword in the air and shouting about imaginary battles in her head. More often than once it had brought a smile to Jon's lips, remembering how it had been when they were all young and unaware of the horrors war had to offer.
However, when he got to the forge, there was no trace of Lawna, or Arya. Instead there was only Gendry, beating away at the metal, and Jon knew at once that he and Arya must have argued, for there was that black glitter in his eyes and his face was set as hard as stone.
Jon liked Gendry well enough. He was a bastard, like himself, but his lord father, or whoever his father had been, was not as kind and gracious as Lord Stark had been towards Jon. For Jon, there was no question who his father was, and the Starks, besides Lady Catelyn, had always felt like family. Gendry had no family. His mother had died when he was very young.
Once more, Gendry had not experienced the life Jon had. Jon might have been a bastard, but he had been taught and brought up close to his highborn brothers. Gendry knew nothing of refined talk or education, and so, before Lawna had arrived, Jon had tried to teach him to at least read.
"I don't see no point in it," the blacksmith had said gruffly. "I don't need to read in the forge."
"Hmm yes," Jon had said absently, writing out letters in long, slow scrawls. "But I don't want to teach you for the forge, though I could remind you that it'd be helpful if you could read the orders that you're charged with."
"I can listen when people tell me what they want," Gendry said with an annoyed shrug. "But if you aren't teaching me for the forge, then what are you teaching me for?"
"Oh because I want to," Jon said, admiring his handiwork. "And because I'm tired of hearing how illiterate Arya thinks you are."
Gendry seemed surprised at this.
"Why do you care?" He asked. "I don't mind."
"You don't mind?" Jon asked dubiously, giving Gendry a pointed look.
Gendry frowned.
"Well, it is irritating," he said, his face pulled into an annoyed expression just to think about it, "but it's true."
"Well not anymore," Jon said, pushing the letters towards Gendry. "At least, not anymore soon. I'm going to teach you."
It hadn't been as easy as it would be with Lawna. Gendry, despite being a fine person, was not the most apt for learning. But he was a stubborn man, a determined man, and once he set his mind to something, he did not stray from it. They struggled together through it, long into the night or any moment that Gendry was free from work, and, more or less came out successful. Gendry could read, but, admittedly, not very well.
"Doesn't matter," he had said one day, obviously fed up with it. "I can read better than most men, and that's all I wanted to do anyway."
It seemed to do the trick. One day, Arya had come back from the forge looking stunned, and Jon had known without asking that she had caught Gendry reading. The look on her face had been worth the nights of struggle. It had taken a very good amount of self restraint for Jon to keep from laughing.
But Jon's lessons, how ever questionably effective they might have been, had proved fruitful. One day, when he had decided to go for a short walk, he had passed by the forge, and saw that Arya (who, interestingly enough, had been fighting less and less with Gendry) was sitting there, in the forge, appearing to have just snatched something from Gendry.
"No, no, no," she had said, pointing to a bit of paper with writing on it. "It's a longsword, see? Looong. Look with your eyes, stupid."
"I look with my eyes just fine," Gendry had snapped, snatching the paper back, but Jon had seen just a hint of a smile flash onto his lips.
Jon had felt a real smile spring to his. Arya had seemed buried when she first arrived, so much so that she really wasn't Arya at all, but someone with her face. But gradually, with time, Arya seemed to poke through her frosty, vacant mask. And the arrival of Gendry had seemed to pull her out more and more.
"But he's so simple!" Sansa had complained.
He might have been simple, but Jon liked him all the same. He liked him admittedly much less, however, when he found out that he had impregnated his sister.
The desire to throttle the blacksmith was there, and Jon couldn't help but feel a vindictive battle cry sound within his head at Sansa's angry outburst, agreeing with her fully. But just as soon as the feeling came, it left. It was true, despite being far less than happy with the man, Jon did like him. And he knew how much Gendry meant to Arya. He just hadn't known how much.
The thought of them being together, though it was very obvious, still brought a twinge to his heart and a twisting to his gut.
After Arya had leapt to her feet, all fury and shouts, and stormed from the room in nothing but her nightdress, Jon had decided to go after her. He had given himself a good hour to think before he made his way down to the forge. Not only did he have to sit down and process the information, to get it into his head that Arya was pregnant, he also didn't want to be in danger of saying something to her or to Gendry that he might later regret.
When he made his way down to the forge, however, he found no trace of Arya or Gendry, and for one, blind, insane moment he was sure they had run off together. But then he had drawn closer, and saw that they were both there.
"She's sleeping," Gendry said, staring out into the yard, the look on his face making Jon think that he wasn't really there.
Jon saw. Arya lay on a dingy cot by the fire, curled up in a ball beside Gendry, her hand in his as he sat next to her, staring off into space. The look on his face was shocked, struck, but there was something else too. Something Jon couldn't quite place. A happiness. But it was hidden, forced back, and so it might not have been that at all.
"She told you then?" Jon said, and he could hear the accusation in his tone.
"Yes," Gendry said, his voice heavy. "She told me. She came in here all hellfire and raving like she always does. Shouting about Sansa. But she said that the maester had given her a sleeping draft, and it wasn't long until she took to the cot."
There was a long, stretching silence. One where Jon breathed very deeply, trying to quell the growing anger in his chest.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
Gendry laughed at this.
"And have my head chopped off?" he said with a dark chuckle. Jon felt something flare within him.
"She's my sister!"
Gendry's eyes looked solemn.
"I know," he said softly. "I know."
Jon felt the anger within him die down a bit. Gendry looked so solemn, so stoic, that it was very hard to hate him. Especially when he knew that the blacksmith had most certainly never forced himself on his sister. Even now, their hands were entwined. Jon felt stupid for not seeing it before.
"What are you going to do?" He asked, and this time he didn't sound so angry.
"I don't know," Gendry said with a deep sigh. "Whatever she lets me do, I suppose."
They both looked at Arya, looking so innocent in her sleep, though she was never innocent. Not really.
"You're the father," Jon said, in spite of himself. He supposed there was part of him that still didn't really want to believe it.
"Yes," Gendry said, and to his credit, his eyes never left Jon's. "I am."
"And will you be a father? To the child I mean?"
Gendry's face pulled into a frown.
"Yes of course," he said at once. "I won't abandon her."
"You did it once before," Jon hadn't meant to sound so harsh, but this was his sister, this was Arya, and he wanted to know the blacksmith's full intentions. He would not be left in the dark, as he had been before.
There was no mistaking the regret that flashed across Gendry's face.
"I'll never leave her," he swore. "Or the child, by the old gods and the new, I swear it."
And in that moment, Jon knew it would be so. No one could deny the ringing truth in his words, or the harsh sincerity of his voice. As they were spoken, so would they be.
And he had kept that promise. Even when Arya rode away, leaving a screaming infant in his arms, Gendry had stood vigilant. Waiting for her. And not a single person in Westeros could question what a good father he was. He loved that little girl so, and they went everywhere together. An inseparable pair.
But today it appeared that they were separated, because Lawna was no where in sight.
"Where's Lawna?" Jon asked immediately, frowning. "Surely something's not wrong?"
Gendry slammed his hammer into the piece of metal he was working on, hard. Jon suspected that Arya had something to do with the lack of the little girl.
"Did you quarrel with Arya again?" He asked with a sigh, and Gendry gave him an annoyed look.
"Lawna's in the castle, with Lady Sansa and all the other highborn ladies," Gendry said gruffly, ignoring Jon's question about Arya.
"Why on earth would she be there?" Jon asked, smelling trouble at once. Gendry shrugged his shoulders.
As if to answer his question, Jon heard a commotion, and then turned sharply around to see the little girl barreling towards them, her face red and blotchy and tears streaming from her eyes. There was a clatter of metal as Gendry dropped his tools and opened his arms to her. She collided with him, burying her head into him and crying.
"What's the matter?" Gendry demanded at once. "What's wrong?"
"I'm sorry I said I hated you!" Lawna wailed. "I don't father, I don't really! I was just angry!"
"What?" Gendry sputtered, perplexed, pulling Lawna away from her grip on his shirt and looking at her in the eyes. "Is that what this is all about?"
"No," Lawna admitted, her voice muffled as she wiped her nose on her father's scarf. Gendry gave Jon a grimace.
"Then what is it?" He asked gently. "What's wrong?"
"Don't listen to them! Honestly, they're all silly little gnats the lot of them!"
Jon looked up to see Arya striding forward, all haste, her hand on her stomach and her face screwed up in anger.
"What's going on?" Gendry demanded again, and suddenly he didn't sound gentle. He sounded furious. "What have you done?"
"I haven't done anything!" Arya snarled, glaring at the blacksmith just as fiercely as he was glaring at her. "Sansa wanted me to go sew with the bannermen girls-"
"SO YOU DECIDED TO TAKE HER ALONG?"
Gendry had never looked more murderous, and Jon suddenly wondered if he should step in and say something.
"Perhaps it's time for Lawna's lessons?" He offered weakly, but they ignored him.
"You're always saying I should spend more time-"
"Arya what could you have been thinking?" Gendry cut across her, his voice as hot and hard as the metal he worked. "She's a bastard child! She's got no place sewing with highborn ladies-"
"She's better than all those highborn ladies!" Arya interrupted him hotly. "And she's my daughter-"
"Oh is she now?" Gendry said, his tone mocking and his eyes black with rage.
"How dare you?" Arya sounded just as deadly and just as angry. But underneath all that, she sounded hurt as well.
"I will not have you going and hurting my daughter-"
"OUR DAUGHTER!"
"Our daughter?" Gendry repeated. "Oh so you've finally decided to shoulder some responsibility then?"
"Maybe if Lawna and I were to go to the library-" Jon tried to cut in.
"I ought to stick you with my sword!" Arya shrieked.
"Don't do that," Gendry spat. "You might upset yourself and hurt the baby."
"I am upset!" Arya roared. "And you've upset me!"
There was a sniffling sound, and then Lawna burst into tears again. While Arya still looked angry, something in Gendry's expression changed.
"I want you out," he snarled in a low voice. "The both of you."
"So glad you noticed I was here," Jon said in a very flat voice.
Arya bristled.
"Well, I'm not leaving!" She said indignantly.
"Oh yes you are," Gendry said, taking a step towards her. "You're getting out of my forge right this instant."
"How dare-"
"I dare because you're upsetting Lawna," Gendry said, his voice low and dangerous. "And I want you gone. You've hurt our daughter enough today. Now leave us be."
There was no denying the hurt that shimmered there, in Arya's eyes. She looked like she might burst into tears herself. But Arya would never show such a weakness. Instead, she turned on her heel and stalked off towards the castle.
"That was badly done," Jon said softly as Gendry held Lawna. "On both your parts."
"I know," Gendry replied, and his voice sounded hollow and dead. "I know."
And with that Jon left the forge, looking back one last time to see Gendry stroking the little girls black hair, his lips moving silently, and Jon wondered if he was telling Lawna a story of a lady knight, a great warrior, who rode over Westeros conquering her enemies and leaving fear in her wake. A true hero.
But heros, Jon knew all too well, were for stories and songs. And he had a sinking suspicion that Lawna would come to learn this as well, if she hadn't already.
Reviews, thoughts and opinions are always welcome! I don't really know what I want to do with later chapters, so we shall see what happens. =