They whispered of Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning, deadliest of the seven knights of Aerys's Kingsguard, and of how their young lord had slain him in single combat. And they told how afterward Ned had carried Ser Arthur's sword back to the beautiful young sister who awaited him in a castle called Starfall on the shores of the Summer Sea. The Lady Ashara Dayne, tall and fair, with haunting violet eyes.
Catelyn Tully hates Arya Snow.
It's not- Not exactly something she can help. She loathed herself for it once, when the girl-child-upstart-bastardchild was racing her muddy way through the halls of Winterfell, her smudged face everywhere, when Ned would try to ask her to be a mother to his bastard child, how dare he.
Then it settled into a blank acceptance of the fact. She is a woman who hates an innocent child, and has hated her-it since it's infancy.
Since she rode into a grey grey world, carrying it's heir, her Robb, the light and warmth of summer in his hair, so like hers, in his blue-blue hair. Robb in her arms, she rode into the world she was to rule over, lady to it's equally grey, frozen lord, mother to his child.
For that moment, she had been equal to the task, proud of having already done her duty and more, proud of presenting her lord with his son. He had been waiting for her; the news of her arrival had preceded her. Eddard Stark, less vibrant than his brother, less wild and yet- More famed, the Baratheon king's brother in all but blood. He is a Stark. Her fathers' voice whispers to her, Honor in everything. He will treat you with- if not warmth, than honor. It's more than many can ask.
He had helped her dismount, his hands rough, dry and startlingly warm around hers. She had taken Robb from the arms of her companions, and held him up to him- Eddard- no Ned Stark, as he'd told her to call him on their wedding night.
"Your heir, my lord," she had said, summoning the most teasing smile she could.
He had smiled as he took the babe, and ease in his movements she had not expected. Men were nervous around their children, she knew. But the smile melted the ice of his eyes, and made his face, for an instant, kind, and his hands were large and tender with the babe. Her heart had leaped with hope.
For that moment, she had been the lady of Winterfell, coming into her new land as the mother of it's future lord, welcomed as the herald of the future.
Then she takes it away, her surety in this land that was to be hers and her son's.
Ned orders the infant brought to Catelyn after dinner, which they take in private, in the bed-chamber that is now theirs.
This is Arya, he says, she's mine.
Bastard, she thinks, and- It doesn't hurt. Not like that. Catelyn knows about men, their needs. And he has been separated from a new wife for a year on campaign. It's not exactly a surprise.
But it's a blow to her pride to be shown her husband's by-blow, for the child to have been kept in his house, fed at the table that is to be hers.
Catelyn asks him to send the child away. I can overlook a bastard, she says, Let him not be paraded in front of me.
He refuses.
And suddenly, she's a stranger again. A stranger to the land, unloved by her people, a bastard-child chosen over her dignity.
Arya Snow belongs to this- wasteland- more than Catelyn Tully ever will.
Catelyn goes to see the child later, banished as it has been to to a wet-nurse.
Makes the woman unwrap the child from it's furs.
Grey- Stark-grey eyes blink up at her from under a wild mop of dark hair, first calm, then, as the child gets colder, screwed up tight as it begins bawling.
It's a girl, Catelyn checks coldly before allowing it to be wrapped back up.
Later, she leans tenderly over Robb, running her fingers through his Tully-red hair, watching his blue-blue eyes trying weakly to focus on her, loving him with every fiber of her being.
It's a girl. she tells herself, Robb will never be threatened by her.
Everything that Robb gets, I will give her, Ned says to Catelyn once.
Robb learns to talk before Arya. His first word is a slur of mother. Arya's first word is an approximation of Robb.
Arya learns to walk before Robb, and when he does take his first step, it's with her determinedly trying to push him upright.
When Ned sends Robb to the arms master, he hesitates over Arya, glancing helplessly at Catelyn. Catelyn looks back serenely.
And I will give her nothing, she had answered.
Arya goes with Robb.
The girl is plain, her face long, her eyes grey, her hair brown. She is half wild, always dirty, and always in the way.
Sansa is born.
Perfect, lovely Sansa.
Something in Catelyn feels vindicated, the part of her that measures her children, her beautiful children, against the bastard Ned keeps with him. Sansa is a more lovely new born than Arya at four years of age.
But Sansa is Tully beautiful, and Arya- Arya is an undeniable Stark.
Somehow her children always seem to loose.
Catelyn gathers her courage and asks Ned if Ashara Dayne is Arya's mother.
That is the only time in all their years that Ned ever frightens her. "Never ask me about Arya," he says, cold as ice. "She is my blood, and that is all you need to know."
The lesson Catelyn takes from that is that Ned loved Arya's mother.
Catelyn gets a Septa for Sansa, to teach her how to be a woman, a lady.
Arya, wolf-wild, runs with Robb, rides with Robb, learns with Robb and fights with Robb.
Only once does Ned look to Catelyn, says, 'She's a child, Cat.'
Catelyn says nothing, but she cannot bring herself to be a mother to the bastard. Cannot bring herself to teach the child how to be a woman.
Arya eats at her table, plays with her children, learns with her son.
She looks at Sansa with only confusion in her eyes.
Once, only once, when she is alone with Catelyn for an instant, lingering in the doorway, she asks,
Is she not like me?
Sansa and Arya play Come-into-my-castle once and only once.
They're both laughing, and the game has been going fast, heraldry and history and minor squabbles flying through the air, until Sansa styles herself queen of the Seven Kingdoms, and Arya laughing, claims Lady Stark as her title.
"You're never going to be lady Stark," Sansa says in her clear voice, 'You're a bastard."
Arya's head flies up, and she stares past Sansa, straight at Catelyn, her grey eyes accusing, hurt, knowing exactly where the words come from.
But the hurt doesn't last long.
Angry, she speaks equally clearly, "I," she says slowly, "Am going to be a dragon slayer. And then I will be a lady on my very own. So there!" She stomps her foot, whirls, and runs.
Arya doesn't play with Sansa after that, and Sansa, unable to comprehend her elder half-sister, distances herself easily.
Ned calls Arya's temper wolf-blood. 'Lyanna had a touch of it,' he says, 'and Brandon more than a touch. It killed both of them.'
A Stark-trait, then.
Jon is born.
Catelyn... looks at Jon's eyes, grey stark eyes, and thinks finally.
Arya loves Jon, the baby that looks like her. It takes away from Catelyn's triumph a little.
Ned goes to war.
Bran is born, her sweet summer-child. She misses Ned while he is gone, even though she has not thought to love him.
He returns with the hostage, Theon Greyjoy, and she is glad, and it comes to her that finally, finally, she is home in the north. She welcomes Ned back, knows that he too loves her.
She knows now not to mention Arya Snow.
Theon Greyjoy joins the boys and Arya at sword-play and strategy.
The men at arms start to call her Arya-Underfoot and it sticks. She's more urchin than anything, and that- that suits Catelyn. Let her play with the servants, stay in the mud. But every night, the girl cleans up to look more like a Stark than a Snow, to eat with her family, and more often than not, follow her father on her rounds.
Once Ned comes to her bed after the dawn practice with the boys, and he's laughing, chilly, as he enters.
"Arya just took down Robb," he laughs, "She's a quick hand with a sword, and I fear we're neglecting her strengths, training her like us."
Catelyn doesn't respond, and he too grows silent after a bit.
He sighs when he slips into bed, the ghosts that usually share it with them more corporeal than most days.
When Robb and Arya are eight years of age, Maege Mormont comes to Winterfell.
She argues long with the lord of Winterfell, and the subject is Arya.
Ned comes to her one last time and asks, "Could you be a mother to Arya?"
Catelyn shakes her head.
When Maege leaves, it's with Arya.
Arya is fostered at Bear Island for five years.
She comes back to visit in interims, laughing with Robb, as they always have, listening to Sansa occasionally, from the vantage point of someone older, talking to Jon, as someone who takes him and his quiet, fanciful ways seriously, watching Bran climb with an impressed expression on her face, and playing with baby Rickon.
When she comes back for good, she is thirteen and a woman flowered. She grows into her long face, and her body, always lanky and all limbs, settles.
Theon Greyjoy falls in lust with her, at-least. Catelyn thinks it's a good match, the hostage for his family's behavior and the bastard, but politically speaking, the insult might be too much for the Greyjoys.
Whispers of Lyanna follow her, right along side Snow, and Stark-Bastard.
She still joins the boys at practice, and, even Catelyn observes, is better than them, as a whole.
And when Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell dispenses judgement, she rides with him.
Aaaah, there's that done, then. This is me splitting from canon. I'm trying reeal hard to get Arya's hot tempered tone in, along with a little control on that, cuz early on, most of what Arya spouts is along the lines of 'You dare touch me? My father is Eddard Stark and he'll cut your hands off.' Which won't do for a bastard child whose father is afraid of getting his wife super mad at him if he's particularly good to the bastard. Which is not to say he won't cut their hands off. Just that Arya mightn't be so certain of it.
Also, Maege essentially went, 'Your southern wife isn't taking care of your daughter, who you did kinda acknowledge, so it's kinda your responsibility to make sure she's doing good, and she's kinda growing up. She needs girl-talk. Periods and like birth-control and shit. Give her to me and I'll bring her up on badass women.'
Also- this is all Catelyn POV, so it misses out on what Arya was talking about with Ned, which she has been doing, and Ned doesn't discuss this with Cat, clearly.
Also- I don't like Cat. Nothing against her, I really REALLY understand where she's coming on with Jon, cuz ouuuch. I just don't like her.
Hija