Chapter 14:

The feast lasted long into the night. It was a normal wild party for the Straw Hats, but for some reason they felt they weren't the cause of it. It felt like every party was like this one if that girl Lyanna was at it.

When Gendry said that everyone on the island loved her, he wasn't lying. The girl had so many friends and they weren't all nobles either. She invited them all to the feast and some girls walked in wearing fancy dresses while others looked like they came right off the streets. Everyone was greeted the same way though and most people called her Lady Lyanna to the surprise of the Straw Hat crew.

"Aren't you glad we decided to make her our ally?" Usopp said between mouthfuls of food.

Luffy's mouth was too full to answer and he shoved another chicken drumstick in while mumbling a positive response.

Zoro asked Gendry if he wanted to play a drinking game and the man said he wanted to but he had to keep guard on his Lady. It was an honorable excuse, but that didn't mean Zoro was appeased by it. He found some other guards who weren't on duty, they just happened to guard Lya often enough that she invited them to the feast.

Robin walked over and stood next to Harrick who was watching Lady Lyanna greet the guests at the door to the dining hall. The Lady was wearing a cute green dress and had a golden helmet on with the wings of an eagle sticking out on either side and a head on the front. "How can a party like this exist if the Lady has really lowered all the taxes and given money back to the people?"

The archaeologist was stunned at how prosperous this island seemed to be. Harrick never took his eyes of the girl but his frown lifted a little and he responded, "Gold. They say there's more gold in Casterly Rock than anywhere else in the world. If that's the case, then we've got the next biggest store. Miners found it the day Lady Lyanna became the ruler of Bear Island. It was an omen that she'd be the greatest ruler our island's ever had." Everything he said showed how much he truly respected her and how loyal he was.

Robin was amazed and looked over at the girl whose lands were prospering because of her innocent wisdom, and the luck of some miners. Or maybe it wasn't luck, perhaps it was one of the gods these people pray to. Robin was a very open-minded woman and wouldn't cancel out any of these as possibilities.

When the party got in full-swing, Lya was the first one up on the table and she wasn't even one of the drunk ones in the room. She was one of the youngest girls there, though there were a few her age that she was friends with. Most people she knew were older than her but she didn't care and she danced around the table to the music her musicians were playing for her.

"You like them?" Gendry asked Arya as they clapped along to the fast-paced music. Lya and one of her young friends were dancing in the middle of the table to the beat of everyone's claps.

"They're fantastic," the girl responded. "Are they the castle musicians or something?"

"Haha close," Gendry said over the sound of the music. "They play in the bar downtown in Ursan." Arya's eyes went wide and he laughed harder, "She heard them playing one morning when they were up all night and she was out for an early morning stroll. They're pretty good," the man grabbed a piece of bread from his plate and kept watching Lya. To anyone else, he was a party goer enjoying his food and the funny entertainment, but that was because he took his armor off to blend in with the crowd unlike Harrick.

The other Straw Hats wouldn't have recognized him without his armor if Arya didn't walk straight towards him when the party started. He was still watching Lya carefully, but he was enjoying catching up with Arya too.

The two of them laughed together through the night as the party raged on. Franky came in at one point to join in the feast and the boys in the room thought he was super cool when he opened up his chest and requested some of the cola drink the Braavosi merchants had. Luckily they had some and he refueled, also asking for some more for their ship. No one really understood what he meant, but Lord Brandon Stark agreed and who were they to argue?

The girls in the room were fawning over Chopper who transformed back to his normal small form after he sat Bran down at the table. He was loving all the attention despite how much he exclaimed he hated it.

Bran called Lya over at one point and the young Stark boy and young Mormont girl talked together. Robin could see what was going on and she walked over and sat on Bran's other side to take part in the important planning conversation. She felt it couldn't be left up to two children whose combined ages were still younger than her own. However, she was amazed at Bran's strategy and only had a few things to add when he was done.

"Are you sure you don't want more help?" Lya asked, seeming a little downtrodden.

"I'm sure," Bran said. "Taking Winterfell is only the first step. The Lannisters would never let us keep it, so King's Landing will be after."

"Can we do it?" The girl asked him and Bran nodded. "Alright then, I'll put my trust in you Brandon Stark." For the first time since they walked into her castle, the girl sounded serious.

Lyanna Mormont stood back up on the table but this time she wasn't dancing and she rose her arms above her head. The musicians stopped playing their music and everyone at the party quieted down and looked her way. "Thank you," she lowered her arms. "If you haven't already heard, Lord Stark is with us tonight and he has requested Bear Island's help."

The room was still silent and the girl looked around at her friends and some of the fathers with them. She looked at some of her own guards who she considered friends and smiled, "What do we say?"

"Lord Stark! Lord Stark!" People started chanting and hitting their silverware on the table.

"Alright!" The girl shouted proudly and calmed everyone down with another wave of her hand. "Bear Island will help out our High Lord in any way that we can. For now they want to stay as a small group to infiltrate Winterfell and free it from the control of the Boltons."

"Boooo!" All the kids in the room chanted. The name 'Boltons' got the whole room of children angry and parents had to scold their kids for cursing.

It was mainly Lya's fault for ranting angrily about them all the time that all of her friends hated them so much. The girl frowned and then smirked, "But I want to make sure we're helping them in any and every way that we can!"

Bran and Robin both looked up surprised at the girl on the table who winked at them. This wasn't in the plan but the girl pointed to a different table and called out, "Ser Gendry of Ursan!"

"Guess your cover's blown," Arya whispered as everyone turned to the normal young man sitting at the table. The guy sitting on the other side of Gendry was shocked he was sitting next to a knight the whole dinner as Gendry stood up.

"I request that you accompany Lord Brandon Stark to Winterfell and ensure he safely retakes his home." The young man seemed against leaving Lyanna here and the girl smiled at him, "Don't worry, Ser Harrick can protect me just fine. Isn't that right?!" She called over to the door but the man wasn't there. "Huh?"

"I'm behind you My Lady," the man wearing full armor said and he was in fact on the other side of the table, staying close at all times to the girl he was to protect.

Gendry smiled at her and nodded, "I'm at your command Lya," he was her friend before he was her guard and was the only one who responded so casually with her. "Well actually," he turned his head towards Bran, "I'm at your command Milord."

"Hey that was mine!" A voice shouted and everyone looked over to a different table. A long nosed man was fighting with a different teen who had a Straw Hat behind his back tied around his neck by a string. They were fighting over a drumstick and trying to pull it out of each other's hands.

"That's seventeen Zoro, you're falling, burp, behind," Nami slammed down another mug as Zoro was finishing his sixteenth already with a dark red tint on his face. There were several passed out men around the two of them.

"Don't play with your food!" Sanji kicked both Luffy and Usopp and caught the drumstick before it hit the floor. He sniffed and took a bite before his eyes opened wide, "Who was the cook? This chicken is delicious!"

"You like it?!" Lya called over and hopped down from the table to run over to the pirates who were having a lot of fun. "Wes made it, but he let me help season the meat!"

"Seasoning it is the hardest part," Sanji told her with an impressed look on his face.

Everyone in the room was initially shocked the strange people would interrupt an important conversation like that, but Bran, Gendry, and Lya were all laughing and enjoying themselves so everyone else did as well.

One man at the table near Robin smiled at the guy next to him. "This is so much different than feasts at The Eyrie or Highgarden. Everyone here is much less formal, even with the Lords and Ladies."

The other guy responded, "Lady Lyanna may be ten, but I'd lay my life down for that girl a hundred times if I could."

"Here here," every person in a ten foot radius said and they clanked their cups together before taking another swig.

"Say, Lya," Luffy mumbled between some potatoes and then swallowed hard to calm himself. He grinned at her, "You want to join my crew?"

"Yes," the girl responded instantly, "but I can't."

"Huh, sure you can," the pirate replied and the girl shook her head.

Lya sipped some of her apple juice and smiled at the pirate, "Thank you for offering Luffy, but sometimes the things you want to do aren't the most important things." He stared at the ten year old who smiled down at her food, "I have responsibilities to my people here on Bear Island, so I can't leave them."

He stared at her and scratched his head, somewhat understanding. "You'll have to make a similar choice someday, hopefully soon." He tilted his head confused at her. "When you take the Iron Throne you'll have millions of people looking to you for guidance. If you run away someone worse will come in and take your place, so you'll have the responsibility to the people who can't defend themselves. It'll be up to you as Protector of the Realm to, well, protect the realms."

By this time, everyone at the table was looking at the girl. Both Zoro and Nami seemed to sober up a little while she spoke and they looked at each other and then to their captain. What the girl just said had a large possibility of getting their captain to abandon this quest for the Iron Throne altogether.

"That's alright," Luffy said and took another bite of his food before looking straight up at the ceiling. He was smiling softly, "I always wanted to find One Piece, if anything more than just to see if it was real. But the main reason I wanted to find it was because it would be an adventure." He looked down at his crew members who were sitting at his table around him, "As long as we're adventuring together, we'll be alright."

Lya nodded and excused herself politely so she could go run around with some of her slightly older twelve and thirteen year old friends.

Luffy amazed his crew by how calm he was about this, but he meant it. If they got to go on an amazing adventure to become the King of this place, then so be it. Besides, the pirate thought, it feels good helping Arya and all these people: those wildlings who were escaping from the zombies, Bran and Summer, and now Zansa, or was it Santa?

Gendry and Arya walked over to their table and sat down with them. The man introduced himself to them again and mentioned he was a blacksmith as well as a knight. He was modest and said he only became a knight recently so he probably wasn't as good as they'd expect, but Lya ran over and started bragging about how he showed so much skill that the first sword of Bear Island, Harrick, agreed to train him personally.

"That Frowny face guy is really that strong?" Arya wondered.

"Why don't you ask him yourself?" Gendry asked. The girl turned around and saw Zoro already looking behind them to where the older man in full armor was standing, protecting Lady Lyanna from any threats that might come at her.

Wow, he exerts power, Arya knew she was no match for this man and wondered how she'd fare in a fight against Gendry. He's been training under a master swordsman for over a year. I have for only five and a half weeks... Is that really all it's been?

So much had happened it was hard to believe sometimes. Her hand lifted up and rested on Gendry's back as he sat there talking to Zoro. The green haired man was asking about Gendry's technique, but both of them stopped talking when Arya touched his back, "Sorry," she whispered hoarsely, "for a second I thought I was probably hallucinating. But I wasn't," she lowered her arm again and closed her eyes, full from the food and extremely happy with the way things were turning out.

She tried to get serious and remember their mission, but Gendry draped an arm across her shoulders from his seat next to her. The other pirates were all talking to each other and he smiled at her, "I don't think you were ever this happy the two years we traveled together. Don't spoil your own good mood."

The girl was shaken from her serious thoughts and she grinned again.

The party started to wind down earlier than the pirates expected. Lya passed out, she was too tired after running around the whole night. When she did, her exhausted young friends were taken home by their grateful parents and soon the dining hall was clearing out.

Luffy was still dancing on the table, entertaining the remaining guests, while the rest of the boys fell asleep in the large room with the exception of Chopper. The reindeer carried Bran off who was feeling pretty tired and they followed the guards off to a guest room.

Nami, Robin, and Arya were led a different direction to their guest room. The youngest girl turned to say goodnight to Gendry, but he was passed out in between Zoro and Usopp. After Lya told him he'd be traveling with the pirates, he was relieved from his guard duties for the night and was allowed to take part in the celebration. She started cracking up and decided to let him stay there with his head down on the table.

When the girls got to their room, they were happy to see three king-sized beds in the room. The older women were setting up their areas and Nami was having some trouble with the sheet. After the long party with lots of drinking games, she was starting to feel some of the effects of the alcohol.

"You okay Nami?" Arya asked as the orange haired woman gave up and dove onto her unmade bed.

The navigator sat up and smirked over at Robin who smiled back. Nami turned to Arya and said, "I am, are you?"

The girl looked a little confused and sat on her own bed. It was the biggest bed she was ever sleeping on and it felt as comfortable as the one Franky made her on the ship. Nami giggled, "You were acting different all night," the woman said.

"I was?" Arya didn't realize and she thought back during the night to figure out why Nami would think that.

Robin nodded from over on her nicely made bed. The woman in her late twenties added, "You seemed unusually cheerful at the feast."

The girl looked at the other two and didn't really know what they were talking about. "I was just talking to Gendry the whole..." She saw the smirks on the two women's faces and her eyes widened. "Uh uh," she said and shook her head.

"Uh huh," Nami replied back with a nod.

"I'm a fighter," she told them and lay back on her bed unconcerned. "I've never dreamt of marrying knights or lords like other girls."

"Maybe not," Nami said. She didn't really expect Arya to be that type of girl, "But, the heart wants, what the heart wants."

"You're crazy," Arya told them. Me, and Gendry?! We're just friends. Besides, the girl lying on her bed frowned and she clenched her eyes shut. I let you get taken. Thoros of Mir, Beric Dondarrion, the Red Woman. They took you away from me and I couldn't stop them. Her eyes snapped open, Never again.

"Roose Bolton, The Red Woman, Beric Dondarrion, Illyn Payne, the Mountain..." she recited her names with a few changes from what she heard from Gendry. Tywin and Joffrey were dead; she was mad she didn't get to kill them herself. "Cersei Lannister, Walder Frey."

The girl finished her long list and both other women in the room stayed quiet. Arya had been happier than they'd ever seen her earlier tonight, but she kept reminding herself of her pain. "Arya," Nami whispered over, "you can't keep doing this to yourself. Let some of the pain go."

"I can't," Arya said. "It's been harder than ever to keep reminding myself. But if I don't," she whispered, "I feel like I'll forget about them. I don't want to forget," she said.

"You can't ever forget," Nami stated and stared up at the same ceiling the other girls were looking at. "But you can make it easier on yourself if-"

"I don't want it to be easy," the girl responded coldly. "I want to hate them every time I swing my sword."

"You don't have to hate..." Nami started but the girl cut her off.

"You hate," the girl said. "You both hate. You'll never lose that hatred." The two women looked down in surprise towards the other bed where Arya was staring up at their ceiling. "I've seen it in your eyes, even if you try to hide it. I know less about you than you do about me, but I do know you both feel intense hatred."

Nami's mind flashed to Arlong. The man was laughing as he put a bullet through her mother's chest.

Robin's mind was black with the symbol of the World Government in the background. There were flames all around it and her island appeared under attack by battleships.

"The biggest difference though," Arya continued quietly, "is that we're going to find those I hate. You'll never see those who wronged you again."

The orange haired woman looked away. She's right. There was always a chance of Arlong escaping and finding me, but on this island we're completely isolated from the rest of the world. I'll never see him again. A small weight lifted off of her chest, but at the same time she understood what the girl was saying.

"You don't know that," Robin whispered. She was thinking about the World Government and she grabbed her left arm, "They'll never let me escape." Her mind was swirling; she'd been running her entire life and this girl was now telling her that her pursuers would never be able to find her. "They'll find-"

Arya cut her off, "No they won't." She didn't know who this 'they' were, but the woman was wrong. "You're the first people I've ever heard of coming from across the sea in thousands of years. However you got here, it was by complete luck and no one can follow you."

The short girl with black hair became quiet and was shaking in rage. Sansa, I don't even remember what the last thing I said to you was, but it probably wasn't nice. We were always mad at each other, but now, the girl shaking in her bed stopped and calmed herself down.

The other women were thinking about their own pasts, but they were still worried about their younger friend too. "We'll definitely save Sansa," Arya stated louder than the rest of the conversation they'd been having. "And I'm going to kill the Boltons."

A/N Hey everyone! Started that chapter off really happy, and it slowly got more and more depressing by the end. Next time the crew leaves Bear Island and heads to find Jon Snow, but does he really know anything? XD Will Bran and Jon get reunited at last, or Valar Morghulis Jon Snow? Eh who knows? I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and I think the girls (Nami, Robin, Arya) are going to have to tell each other more about their pasts soon. Don't know when, but I feel like that'll be an interesting chapter to add.

Mazzax

I wouldn't be surprised if someone discovers haki by accident, and since Luffy wouldn't have much of an explanation beyond "will the thing to happen" actually create new ways to use it. Like, since armament haki creates a forcefield of sorts, and you can spread it around stuff like weapons, why not bend it into other shapes as well? Who needs a haki ability that allows you to hop on the air when you could just make wings out of it instead? I'm sure Dany would have a ball with that. Dany: "Hey, Drogon, let's go flying! Oh, no I can do it myself, thanks." *Dany forms wings out of haki and flies away* Drogon: "Lol what?"

Haha yeah that's a downside to turning Dany into a dragon, dragons riding other dragons seems a little nuts. But maybe Daario could get one and then Dany will have four dragons on her side or something. The whole Haki idea you had sounded a little crazy to me at first, but I thought about it a little more and that would be really cool. Large black wings sprouting from Luffy's bac would make him a terrifying foe, (more so than he already was!) Thanks for the review!

Guest

Will Luffy and the other meet Brienne and Podrick? I'd assume that they'd join the crew because of Brienne's oath, and Podrick's loyalty. One of them should get a devil fruit power, Brienne with a Paramecia type like the mini mini fruit to grow and shrink in size, or Podrick could have the more more fruit allowing him to make other things grow in power and size up to 100 times. Podrick should maybe get conquerors Haki too, he is an underestimated character with lots of potential and courage which is why in a time of extreme stress like during the siege of Winterfell he should unlock it like Luffy did at Marineford.

Hadn't though about Brienne and Pod too much, but there are a few issues there. I like Brienne, and she would probs try to follow the Stark kids around if she found them, but both Arya and Sansa denied her before. Neither of the girls likes her very much, in fact Arya kinda hates her for killing her friend The Hound, whose K/D spread was through the roof. Pod is loyal to Brienne, so if she gets denied, I don't see Big-Dick Pod joining the crew, though I love his character. Not everyone will be getting DFs either, cuz I feel like that would be a little much to have them start appearing all over the place. Thank you for reviewing!

GR

orgin mean originally, Luffy want 10 m,embers, read chap 1,
Didn't know Gendry was alive, actually I don't even remember his name lol, just remember that a son of Robert was with Arya in season 2 or 3.

Lol, now I get what you were saying. Although Luffy said he wanted ten members, I think that was mainly for the manga to focus on getting ten and sticking with it, (although I'm hoping they get some new nakama at the end of this arc) I don't think Luffy would not let someone he likes on the crew solely because he hit a certain number of people. Thanks for the review and to everyone who gave feedback on the story! 'Till next time!