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As she crawled through the rather cramped passageway, Arya found that she could not quell the feeling of excitement that had flared up in her abdomen. The anticipation grew with each inch she crawled, until it felt as if her stomach would burst at any second. When the dim light at the end of the passageway came into view in front of her companion, Arya felt her anticipation turn into something akin to hunger.
Gendry opened the entrance and darted his eyes from left to right, listening closely for any sign of movement from the outside. After a few moments, he apparently decided the coast was clear as he slid out of the hidden passageway, beckoning for Arya to follow behind.
She did, landing with a light thump, before proceeding to brush some of the dust off her extremely dirty britches. Sansa would be positively horrified that not only did Arya get to visit the Red Keep before her, but she was doing so in dirty, tattered clothing. Arya thought on this for a moment before determining that she did not care in the slightest. She was not here to converse with the ladies of Court, but for another reason entirely, one that she was certain her older sister would not approve of anyhow. Glancing up and down the hallway- which was quite dark and only lit with infrequent torches- Arya felt the hunger return. Gendry had promised her dragon skulls, and dragon skulls were all she wanted to see here. "Where are they?" she asked, not wanting to wait a moment longer.
"You know you could try and control your excitement just a little," Gendry said, rolling his eyes even though the smile never left his lips.
Arya shrugged, "I see no need to."
"You hit me twice on the way over here," he reminded her.
"You were moving too slowly," she argued, a slight smile gracing her own lips. She wasn't ashamed of her excitement. In years to come, Arya knew that she would go on a million adventures - each one more daring than the last- and see a great many wonderful things, but this was her first time seeing anything as amazing as a dragon skull, and she intended to savour it for all it was worth. Besides, she knew Gendry was just teasing her; he had an extremely annoying habit of doing that.
"My Maester says patience is a virtue," he said, amusement making his bright blue eyes twinkle in the torchlight. It reminded her of the look Jon got in his eyes when he mussed her tangled head of hair and called her 'little sister', and the memory made her smile grow wider.
"Your Maester is an idiot," she replied. "Now, where are they?"
Gendry chuckled lightly. "This way," he said. As she followed him down the hall, Arya thought that being friends with a prince certainly had its advantages.
The sight of the first skull took Arya's breath clean away, and made her stop in her tracks. Even though she had known what she was about to see, nothing could have prepared her for the magnitude of encountering her first dragon skull. It stood tall, more than twice as tall as she could ever hope to be, and she was struck by the black colour of the bones, not having expected that at all. The blackness of the bones blended in with the darkness shrouding the hallway, and light only permeating through the cracks of the skull in a couple of places, which Arya thought made it look all the more magnificent.
"That one is Balerion," Gendry's voice said from behind her. Turning her head towards him, Arya saw that he was leaning against the gigantic tooth of another of the dragons, a skull that seemed a little smaller than the one that currently held both her attention and amazement. "He was the dragon that Aegon the Conqueror rode into battle. At the 'Field of Fire', Balerion, along with Vhagar and Meraxes, took to the sky together and defeated an army five times the size of the Targaryen troops."
"You sound as if you admire them," Arya commented, a look of curiosity overcoming her features as she raised her grey eyes to meet his blue ones. King Robert's excessive hatred of House Targaryen was common knowledge. Indeed, during her eavesdropping at the tavern a few days ago, she had learned that the king had sent an assassin to kill the last Targaryens, so it struck her as odd that the same hatred was not ingrained in Gendry.
He chuckled for a moment before replying, "A dragon is much more impressive than a stag, I can tell you that much."
Arya had no sooner opened her mouth to reply when she heard the low sound of footsteps coming towards them. Gendry indicated for her to hide, and she did so, crouching inside the jaw of Balerion and pausing for a second to stroke the cold, dark bone of his skeleton.
The man who approached brought a foul smell with him. His black beard was thick and coarse, and Arya could see, even in the dim lighting, that it was matted with dirt. She could also see that he was slightly stooped as he walked, as if an old shoulder injury was bothering him. He certainly looked as out of place in a castle as Arya herself did.
"Who goes there?" Gendry called as the man came closer.
"My name is Yoren," the man said. His voice was as rough as his appearance, and Arya thought it seemed a little familiar, though she was certain she had never seen this man before in her life. Glancing over him again, Arya was struck by the horrific, old burn marks plaguing one of his hands.
"You're the recruiter for the Night's Watch," Gendry said. "I've seen you before."
"And you are the Prince of the Seven Kingdoms," Yoren said, looking disdainfully at Gendry, almost as if he hated him. Fear caught in Arya's chest as his eyes moved towards the skull of Balerion. "I can see you there, you know."
Knowing she had been found, Arya moved from her hiding place to stand next to her friend, and she fervently hoped that she would not be in trouble. "What happened to your hand?" she asked, the words tumbling out of her mouth before she even knew what she was saying.
Yoren's eyes studied her, hardening as she asked her question. "The Great Fire of Winterfell," he replied without skipping a beat, and Arya sensed rather than saw Gendry tense beside her. Frowning, she tried to remember if she had ever heard of such an incident. Her father was from the North, but he seldom spoke of his life there, and her mother had warned her and her siblings not to push the subject with him. She looked up at the man again, but his eyes were focused on Gendry. "But your father would know all about that, wouldn't he, my prince?"
Looking at her friend, Arya could see the way his jaw clenched at the thinly veiled accusation. "My father played no part in what happened at Winterfell," Gendry said evenly, "and you should not speak of him that way. He is your king."
The laugh that escaped Yoren's lips was completely without humour. "A king is just a man and sometimes a poor man at that, and a king without honour is no king at all." Gendry opened his mouth to protest, but Yoren continued, not leaving him room to speak. "What he did to House Stark was a travesty, and while a dead man may have no use for his reputation, Lord Eddard Stark did not deserve history being rewritten to brand him a traitor."
"My father did not do anything," Gendry protested, although there was a slight reluctance to his tone that confused Arya. It was almost like he did not believe the words he spoke. There was a war going on in his eyes, a war between what he wanted to believe and what was actually true. She was going to tell Yoren to stop, but Gendry gave a slight shake of his head to tell her not to get involved.
"Exactly!" Yoren said. "He did nothing. A good and honourable man died, and he sat back and watched. Our beloved king allied himself with the Lannisters, let cruelty reign over the North, and the realm has paid the price for it every day since."
"This has nothing to do with the Lannisters-" Gendry began, but the faltering of his words told Arya all she needed to here.
"This has everything to do with the Lannisters," Yoren spat, and the look in his eyes scared Arya. "Whoever controls the gold controls the realm, and since the Lannisters shit gold, we are all their humble servants."
Arya had heard more than enough. "Stop it!" she said. "None of this is Gendry's fault, and I think it is about time you left."
Yoren blinked at her as if he had forgotten that she existed before uttering one last thing, "You know, someone once told me that the wolves will come again. You should prepare yourself for that day, my prince." He gave a mock bow before continuing on his way, and Arya gave a disgusted look to his back.
"Who are the Wardens of the North?" she asked her friend once Yoren was out of view.
"House Bolton," Gendry replied.
"Are they as cruel as he said?"
"They are as cruel as men can be," was the only answer she received.
Arya's catapult had just defeated Robb's dragon. Although, she strongly suspected that her brother was letting her win, Arya was quite proud that she was learning the rules of the game so easily, being as they were quite complicated. Robb had been taught Cyvasse from a sailor from Volantis years earlier, and her parents had only bought him a Cyvasse board for his last nameday, but since then he had been teaching all his siblings to play. Jon, Bran, and Arya quite liked the game, but Sansa preferred to do needlework or read a book in the evenings, and Rickon's impatience and temper had made his first and only attempt a disaster. Her mother had thought it best if he did not play any more board games until he was a little bit older, and Arya was quick to agree in that regard, having narrowly escaped having her head walloped by Rickon's flying king.
Robb was just about to capture one of her elephants when the sound of voices outside reached their ears. Her mother and father had taken Bran and Rickon for a walk only a little while earlier, with Jon having gone to meet a friend, and Sansa having disappeared entirely after dinner. The voices grew louder and louder the nearer they got to the house, and, frowning, Robb rose from his seat to go investigate. Arya followed closely behind.
Outside, they found Sansa and Jon, who were clearly in the middle of a heated argument and were not distracted by their presence in the slightest.
"You will not ruin this for me," Sansa said. Fresh tears welled in her eyes as she said the words. There was anger in her tone, and Arya thought she detected a hint of pleading in her voice as well.
"If you think the heir to Highgarden is going to marry a commoner from King's Landing, you are beyond delusional," Jon's words may have been a little harsh, but his tone was compassionate, as it always was towards his siblings. It was the patient voice he used when he was trying to teach Bran how to shoot an arrow, or trying to explain something difficult to Rickon. With a start, Arya realised that they must be discussing the young man she had seen giving Sansa a rose in the marketplace. If she remembered correctly, Highgarden was the seat of House Tyrell, and if that was so, Jon's words held a lot of truth in them. The nobility of Westeros rarely strayed outside their own class for marriage. This Tyrell boy would surely marry a lady, as Arya was certain Gendry would when the time came. A strange twinge curled in her abdomen at the thought, but it was gone after a couple of seconds, so she did not dwell on it.
"What is going on here?" Robb asked, his voice as grave as his expression.
With wide eyes, Sansa glanced at them before brushing past Arya and leaving her three confused siblings behind in her wake. After a pause, Jon answered Robb's question, "She had been carrying on a romance with Willas Tyrell, the heir of Highgarden and insists that he intends to marry her."
Robb shook his head in disbelief. "I'll talk to her," he said before following their sister inside. Arya knew that Sansa would pay heed to Robb's words before she would Arya's or Jon's, so she left him to it.
When they were left alone, Jon sighed before asking, "You don't harbour any ambitions about marrying your friend, the prince, do you?" His words were a jape, but there was a slight fear hidden deep inside his grey eyes.
"I do not wish to marry anyone," Arya replied scornfully, and it was true. She wanted adventures more than she wanted anything else in the world, and she could not see herself having the kind of life she wanted if she married anyone , least of all a prince.
"Good," Jon replied, mussing her hair before drawing her into a hug.
Smiling, Arya watched as he headed inside before a slight noise from down the street grabbed her attention. A dirty, little boy sat there, the same little boy that she had seen outside her house on and off for over two moons now. He always gave her an uneasy feeling, and it seemed to Arya that he was watching the house, although she knew that was a ridiculous thought. Bran had told her as much when she had mentioned it to him. When the boy saw her looking at him, he scrambled to get up and ran down the street without as much as a backward glance.
Shaking the silly thoughts from her mind, Arya headed back inside.