Chapter 4:
Lunch was pretty quiet compared to the large dinner they had the night before. They were eating some Braavosi meal Sanji got a recipe for and it tasted delicious, but the mood wasn't as happy as the night before.
Arya knew it was her fault that the joyful crew were being pretty quiet and she sighed. Whenever she was looking down at her food she could feel eight pairs of eyes on her and she decided to end it. She lowered her fork and knife and looked up at Usopp who was halfway through a joke.
He stopped talking and looked at the girl who looked around at them all. "When I was nine years old, my father got me 'dancing lessons' with the former first sword of Braavos, Syrio Forel. He taught me to fight, he was my friend." Everyone was staring at the girl who was suddenly opening up after not saying anything about herself except for her name for the last two days. "When," she paused and then took a deep breath, "when we were betrayed in King's Landing, Meryn Trant was sent to retrieve me and take me to the Queen. Syrio stayed behind to fight him while I escaped, and he was killed."
She stopped talking and waited a few seconds. Everyone at the table stared at her. They all had disturbing and sad things that happened to them in their past, and they could see this girl had a lot of darkness in her eyes. This didn't seem like even the tip of the iceberg of the painful weights dragging her down.
Usopp looked to Robin and realized she was right. He was too quick to judge their new friend and he mentally cursed himself for what he said earlier. "I'm sorry for what happened to your teacher," Chopper whispered, having felt similar to her at one point in his life. He knew at the moment he watched Doctor die that he could have killed Wapol and everyone else at Drum Castle, he would have done it too if he had the strength and if Dalton didn't stop him. "It must have been hard."
Arya looked around with a lowered jaw as the crew started comforting her. She only wanted to tell them so they wouldn't keep acting so weird about it. "Thanks," she whispered and got back to her food so they would stop talking about it.
The room got louder as the conversation changed and the awkwardness of the beginning of the meal went away as everyone started letting loose again. They started talking about the dragon they saw among other things and the party kicked off. Arya started laughing as Luffy, Chopper, and Usopp put chopsticks in their nostrils and bottom lips to make funny faces.
Seeing the young girl laugh made the rest of them more at ease and they laughed along with her. For the rest of the day the crewmates alternated who was hanging out with their new friend and teaching her the ropes of what it meant to be a Straw Hat. She wound up spending most of the afternoon with Zoro who talked to her about her fight earlier and gave her pointers.
Her main problem was her strength and he guessed correctly that she wasn't training her muscles, only her skill. He introduced her to the weight room in the crow's nest and she watched him lift a large amount of weigh in awe. "Every day you will come up here for an hour and weight train after you train with your sword."
The girl heeded his advice and she knew if she could pierce armor or at least block attacks from enemies she'd be a much stronger fighter.
The day went by without further incident and then the next day came. Over a week went by on the Narrow Sea with the easy-going crew and their new member who was getting more and more relaxed the more she spent time with them. Luffy especially made her feel at ease and she always found herself laughing when she was with him. It felt so good- laughing. She hadn't done it this much since back when her family was still all together back in Winterfell.
While most of the crew was under the guise that Arya was changing, Nami knew differently. The girl still listed off names every night that she planned on killing and she didn't know the reasons behind any of them. She wanted to tell the girl that killing them wasn't the answer, but the woman didn't know whether or not that was necessarily the case. If Luffy had killed Arlong she wouldn't have cared, she was trying to do it herself for years.
"We shouldn't be far now," Arya said out loud while she was fishing with Luffy and Usopp on the side of the ship. She sat between them with a fishing pole in her hands as they sailed up the coast. They had hit land a day back, but they were still south of the Wall from Arya's information and were traveling North with the shoreline on their left.
"What does this place look like that we're heading to?" Usopp asked and since they were just waiting for fish to bite their hooks, they didn't have much else to do.
Arya looked at him and said, "It's called the Wall, what do you think it looks like?" Luffy started laughing as Usopp blushed and came up with an excuse. "Just kidding," the girl said after teasing the sniper and he relaxed, "It's hundreds of feet tall, stretching up into the clouds where you can barely see the top of it unless it's a sunny day."
The two boys listened to her in amazement as she described the grandeur of the Wall. "...stretches for miles from coast to coast. I believe we're in the Bay of Seals now, so Eastwatch by the Sea should be in sight soon."
"You really know your stuff," Usopp complimented her.
She groaned, "While I was trying to sword fight and shoot a bow, my parents got me teachers on how to be a 'proper lady.'" Arya held up her hand as quotes and the boys laughed, not being able to imagine the girl between them in a dress. "One of those classes was learning all about the lords, their lands, and the geography of Westeros."
"So which house owns the Wall?" Luffy questioned.
"No house," she replied. "An ancient order guards it from the savage invaders from beyond the Wall called wildlings. The Night's Watch. My brother Jon is a brother there and we're going to find him."
"Sounds like a cool group of people," the sniper mentioned as he went back to paying attention to his fishing rod.
"Not really," Arya added on, "A lot of people think of them as a joke and most of the new members are taken from prisons to protect the wall and for the prisoners to avoid executions or horrible punishments. I traveled with a group headed for the Wall once and most of them were rapists and killers."
Usopp gulped and he didn't know if he wanted to go to the Wall anymore. "Hey," Arya shouted and put both hands on her fishing rod. "I've got something, whoa!" It pulled her towards the ledge but Usopp and Luffy each grabbed onto her. "It's a big one!"
"Zoro! Sanji!" Usopp yelled as his feet were skidding on the wood and he felt himself getting pulled off. Luffy was straining himself and yet whatever was under the water was tugging at them.
Zoro dropped down from the crow's nest and Sanji ran out of the kitchen. The two of them ran over and saw what was going on and grabbed on too. "It must be as big as a Sea King!" Sanji yelled as the five of them together were still getting pulled.
"You can do it!" Nami cheered and Robin smiled next to her as two more ran down. Franky and Heavy Point Chopper got on either side of Arya and pulled on the lines of pirates.
"One, two," Luffy called out and then they all pulled at the same time. "Three!" Everyone tugged and a massive shadow came close to the surface of the water and flew out from the strength of all of them pulling.
Nami fell backwards and most of the crew hanging on the rod and Arya dropped their jaws. The girl herself dropped the fishing rod and fell backwards, causing the men pulling back on her to topple too. "It's the Drowned God!" She screamed in panic.
The enormous mythical kraken was on the wrong side of Westeros with the Iron Islands being on the West side. "It's huge!" The captain yelled as the kraken lifted up and hovered in the air for a second. "I've got it!"
"No I do!" Zoro yelled.
Sanji wished he had some far ranged attack he could use to join in but instead he just watched as the other two of the monster trio prepared. "72 Pound Cannon!" Zoro yelled and swung both of his swords hard in front of him.
"Gum Gum Rifle!" Luffy yelled.
Zoro's slashes cut through the tops of the six legs and Luffy's twisted arm hit it right in its eye and knocked it out cold. The huge squid hit the water and a giant wave splashed over their ship and one headed for the shore.
"That was amazing," Arya whispered. If they really try to take King's Landing, no one could stop them. She stared at the swordsman and wondered if anyone in the Seven Kingdoms could stand up to him in a fight. All Luffy needs is a family name backing him that would make him legitimate enough for people to rally behind. He needs support from one of the kingdoms, but there are no Starks in the North. If they could take it, I could rally the Northerners to his side.
The girl's thoughts were interrupted by a sight far in front of her. Everyone was talking about the kraken and Sanji was getting them together to go and grab it so he could cook it for lunch, but Arya rose a hand and they all stopped talking and followed where she was pointing. "There's the Wall."
No matter how many times she prepared herself for it, or told the others, every single one of the people on the deck muttered the same word, "Wow."
Franky admired the giant ice wall coming out of the fog that must have been near impossible to make for the early men without any technology and limited tools. "There's Eastwatch," Arya pointed and there was a small castle on the edge of the water at the base of the wall, stretching out into the sea a little ways.
"Wait," Luffy said with a serious look on his face and they all turned to him. "Before we go there," he turned back over the edge at the floating remains of the kraken, "Let's eat it!"
I'm about to eat the God the Greyjoys pray to. I hope I don't get smitten, the girl smirked as she thought about it and then frowned. The Many-Faced God comes in many forms, one of which is the Drowned God. All of them are Gods of Death.
"Luffy," the girl began, "You, Chopper, and Robin can't swim right?" She asked.
"That is correct," Robin responded.
"Then I suggest you don't eat the Drowned God," she whispered as she stared at the kraken's corpse. "I wouldn't test your luck any worse than you already have."
"God? Hmph," Zoro looked at the overgrown fish and grunted. If there was a God, which he didn't think there was, he definitely wouldn't look like that.
"Don't worry about it," Luffy said and stretched his arm out, grabbing one of the huge tentacles and pulling it towards the boat.
"We can only take this much anyway," Sanji said since just the tentacle was wider than the length of the Sunny.
The rest of the drowned God they had to leave behind while Zoro sliced up the tentacle into smaller pieces for them to travel with. Arya watched him the whole time and said, I've never seen a stronger swordsman. She didn't want to tell him though since she knew he would be disappointed at the lack of competition.
The Straw Hats pulled the kraken's pieces on board and then started moving again. The Thousand Sunny sailed up the coast until it reached the huge fortress at the east of the Wall.
From up close, the Wall was really amazing. The whole crew stared in awe at it. Even Arya had never been here in all her years of living in Westeros. "Let's go see if anyone's here," the girl suggested.
Luffy was already on it though and pulled in a huge breath of air. "HELLO! ANYONE HOME!"
"That's one way to get their attention," Franky laughed and they watched as several men in black cloaks were running out of the doors and looking over the water behind the fort. It was half on land, half over water and there was a large dock sticking out of it without many ships on it.
One man pushed between the others in black cloaks and walked to the edge of the dock where the boat was floating. Zoro had dropped anchor so they were staring at the men below all brandishing swords. "They look a little more intimidating than those sailors," Sanji said, hoping they'd be a better fight if it came down to it.
The man in the front had a scar going down his left forehead over his eye and down to his chin. It looked like it continued on his neck and then disappeared into his cloak so they had no idea how large the mark was. He growled at them, "What is your purpose here pirates? Do you intend to join the Watch?"
"No," Luffy told the man in front of them. He had scruffy graying-black hair and the eye the scar went over looked around and then focused back on the pirates while his right stayed focused. Nami shivered and Usopp and Chopper each felt chills from more than the cold weather around them.
"We're looking for a Jon Snow!" Arya called out and stepped up neck to the captain on the bow of the ship. "I believe he's at Castle Black but we need to talk to him."
"What do you want with the Lord Commander?" The man in charge of the fort asked and Arya's eyes widened.
"Lord Commander, what's that?" Usopp asked the younger girl on his left.
"It means he's in charge of the Night's Watch. I don't know how he did it," a proud look washed over the little sister's face and she grinned. She stopped just talking to the pirates and called out, "He'll want to talk to me. My name is Arya Stark," the men standing on the dock looked surprised and she shouted, "He'll want to see his sister."
"Maybe so," the leader said and scratched his chin. He had a small beard at the bottom of his jaw and he thought for a few seconds while he scratched it. The man in charge of Eastwatch sighed, accepting the girl probably paid the pirates to bring her here since everyone on Westeros thought her dead. "Unfortunately, Lord Snow recently went beyond the Wall. He's trying to negotiate with the wildlings and bring them south."
"Why would he want to do that?!" Usopp exclaimed. All he'd heard about the wildlings was that they were savages who raided and slaughtered villages.
"Winter is coming," the scarred man said and looked at them with a grim expression, "and with it come things of nightmares. No one is safe beyond the Wall anymore. Jon took some ships and went to Hardhome to convince the wildlings to come back with him."
"We should've left the damn fuckers to die," a man said behind the leader and a lot of others agreed with him.
"What did he mean?" Chopper asked the girl next to him who was frozen in place.
"What comes with Winter?" Sanji asked the man down below.
"The white walkers," Arya stated and the man nodded.
"Thanks for the information!" Luffy called down to the man. He turned to his crew and grinned, "Now we know where Jon is."
"Luffy," Nami started slowly, "I know what you're thinking."
"Let's go everyone!" Luffy three his arms up in the air, "Beyond the Wall! To Hardhome!"
"Are you crazy!?" The man with the scar on his face shouted up at the pirates.
Sanji shrugged at the guy and said, "Yeah, he is. But we might be crazier for following him."
"Luffy, you really don't have to go that far North for me. If the white walkers are really back, after thousands of years..." Arya started but was interrupted.
"La la la! I don't want to hear it!" Luffy yelled and the smirked at her, "I want to find out on my own what these things are that can scare old beardy man down there."
"Old beardy man?" The scar-faced guy whispered, realizing he was being referred to.
Nami sighed, there was no changing their captain's mind now. She walked to the ledge as the rest of the crew got the ship ready. "How do we get to Hardhome?"
"Are you serious lady?" A man shouted at her.
Another man, this one short and blonde, laughed and he didn't look like he cared whether or not they came back. "Let them try. If the wildlings, giants, and wolves don't get them, the wights will." He yelled louder and pointed his finger behind him. "If you follow the coast here all the way to the tip of the land, you'll hit Hardhome. Give the Lord Commander our regards." He started laughing and the man with the scar down his face turned to him.
"When Lord Snow returns, it will be in the report that you sent his little sister beyond the Wall," the man stopped laughing and his eyes bugged out. "Prepare yourself."
"Don't worry, we'll find Jon first," Nami assured the man who gave them some good information. "Thanks!"
"Franky! I want to get there as soon as possible!" Luffy whined and the shipwright understood.
"Roger that Straw Hat!" Franky yelled and dropped down into the hold.
"Thought you said you were leaving," the leader asked as Arya Stark helped pull the sails up.
"We are," she said and braced herself. She looked off the side of the ship because she couldn't wait to see their reactions.
"Coup de Burst!" Franky shouted and the back of the ship lit up blue while they were turning around. The Night's Watchmen were staring slack-jawed as the ship shot out of the water and over the dock and their heads. It flew over a ship docked on the other side and then past the edge of the Wall where the pirates turned and got a good look at the other side of it. Unlike the southern side, there was no tower reaching up in the sky to bring men up the wall but they could still see a small gate on the bottom of the ice wall.
A few seconds later, the Wall was far behind them and soon became a line on the horizon as their boat landed. They skimmed on the water and then released the sails, heading full speed for Hardhome.
A/N Hey everyone, here's another chapter for you! The pirates are heading to Hardhome to find Arya's brother who will hopefully help them! I hope you enjoyed the chapter and are looking forward to the next ones. One Piece, zombie style! Only unlike Thriller Bark zombies, these ones are fucking terrifying! XD Thanks for all the reviews and feedback I've been getting to make this a better story! Till next time!