'Will you let me do it myself?' Arya asked softly, watching Lord Tywin watching her.

His face was whiter and wilder than summer snow, and he looked wordlessly at her as she fingered the dagger on the table in front of her, enjoying the way the Valyrian steel surface seemed to heave and flow in the candlelight. It was a beautiful weapon. The steel had been folded half a thousand times, and each one of them was visible in the grey depths of the blade; each one a story; each one a miracle.

Arya ran her finger down the surface of the dagger and looked up at him again. Beads of sweat were standing out on his forehead and the skin beneath his eyes was darkening. She sighed. He was having one of his headaches, and he'd clearly been drinking wine instead of water. The stubborn old bastard.

He was avoiding her eyes now, only looking at her when she glanced down at the blade, and though the entire chamber was damp, the air swollen with the remnants of the evening mist that the fire in the grate and the candles had not managed to dispel, she could see that his eyes were glowing gold in precisely the same way that the Kingslayer's had on the previous day; a silent menace erupting out of the ice, fighting it as it called to him.

'My lord,' Arya ventured, 'did something…did something happen to your son when he served the Mad King? Something horrible?'

'Nothing more horrible than usual,' Lord Tywin replied, leaning back in his seat with a speedy nonchalance that did not fool Arya for a second, 'Why?'

She shrugged indifferently.

'No reason.'

The wind howled into the room through the gap in the wall, smelling of frost and death, and Arya glanced once again at Lord Tywin, who was still refusing to look her in the eye.

He wants me to close my eyes so he doesn't have to look at me when he kills me, she thought, grinding her teeth, well that's too bad, my lord. Northerners look death in the eye and tell it to go fuck itself.

She was not afraid of death, and she had always thought that he feared it as little as she did; the great Tywin Lannister who had sown salt into the fields of Castamere. When the guards had come for her, dragging her from her bed without so much as a clout on the head to wake her up, she had expected to be taken out into the woods and raped before being dumped into the Trident with her head cut off. Instead, she had been brought up to the solar, her chains biting painfully into her wrists, and Lord Tywin had told the guards to seat her in the chair before him, take her shackles off, and get out. And then he had sat staring at her and not staring at her, not answering a single question she put to him, and taking an awfully long time to simply get down to the business of killing her.

Maybe he doesn't want to…he doesn't want to…

Don't be stupid. You stupid, stupid little mouse. Remember who he is. Remember what he is.

Another quarter of an hour passed in silence; Arya playing with the knife, growing bored with playing with the knife, and eventually, thrusting the knife into the surface of the council table, making Lord Tywin jump, his cheeks colouring as he did so.

'Seven hells, will you please just kill me and be done?' Arya snapped as she jumped to her feet, 'I can't be brave forever!'

'Do you like it?' Lord Tywin asked her.

'Do I like what?'

'The dagger.'

Arya frowned at him in annoyance.

'Do I like the dagger?' she snarled in disbelief.

'It's a simple enough question, girl,' Tywin replied dismissively.

Arya folded her arms and glowered at him, his face growing paler as she did so.

'You disappoint me, my lord. You've never struck me as being the sort of man who enjoys playing with his prey.'

Lord Tywin did not respond to that. Instead, he leaned forward, plucked the dagger out of the table, and tossed it into her lap.

'When are you going to kill me?' Arya persisted, tossing it back at him.

'I have no intention of killing you, you wretched child,' Tywin replied, catching it deftly and propelling it tip-first into the table once more, 'I'm adopting you.'

Arya's head spun.

'Adopt – adopting me?' she spluttered.

'Yes,' Tywin said simply.

'Why?' Arya demanded.

'Sit.'

Arya sat.

'From this day forward, girl, you will not be my cupbearer, but my ward,' Tywin declared, as though he were doing nothing more important than dictating a list of military supplies, 'you will be given lodgings more suitable to your station. You will not bear my name and you will not display my colours, but I will settle a certain amount on you, which you will inherit on my death, as will my other children. You will thus be protected under the taboo against kinslaying, as will I, and we will never speak of this again.'

When he finished, he regarded her with no trace of warmth or affection, and Arya tried to respond several times; clamping her mouth shut each time she opened it; the words dancing in her head; the realisation glowing in her chest.

He didn't want her to bear his name or display his colours because he knew it would make her unhappy. She could no longer be his cupbearer because her identity being known would make it impossible for him to save face with his commanders. He was settling money on her so that no one would question the seriousness of the arrangement. But it all boiled down to one thing: he didn't want to kill her.

He didn't want to kill her, he didn't want to kill her…but he didn't want anyone to know that. Typical.

And suddenly she was angry again.

'And once you've 'adopted' me, my lord, what then?' Arya spat, waving her arms dramatically above her head, 'are you going to ship me off to King's Landing and lock me up in the Red Keep with my sister; force me to smile and curtsy at the little shit who cut my father's head off and pretend that all I want to do is kiss his royal arse?'

'That would be most detrimental, both to Joffrey and to you,' Tywin responded coldly.

'Why do you even care what happens to me? You'd have cut me in two on the day we met if I'd told you who I was.'

'Careful, girl.'

Arya grasped the arms of her chair and leaned back, a mocking smile twisting her lips.

'You must be getting something out of this,' Arya said, 'you're an intelligent man, and you like looking after your family's interests. You wouldn't do this just because you like my company. That would require emotion of some sort, and emotion is weakness, isn't it my lord? So let me guess how the Lannisters can possibly benefit from this. Ooh – I know! Adopt me, and you hold one of the keys to the North in your pocket. Of course! Joffrey can control us from King's Landing and you can control us from here! Perfect!'

'From a strategic point of view, it certainly is an excellent scheme,' Tywin conceded in a self-congratulatory tone that made Arya want to scream.

'An excellent scheme?' Arya echoed scornfully, 'there's a gigantic gaping hole in your 'excellent scheme' that a child could see with their eyes closed.'

'Is there?'

Arya smiled at him with all the impertinence she could muster.

'You have to consult a septon to adopt someone, my lord,' she said, 'and the septon will never believe that you adopted me before I tried to kill the Kingsl – Ser Jaime.'

'The septon will believe what I tell him to believe,' Tywin growled.

"The septon will believe what I tell him to believe," Arya imitated shrilly, 'you're so dangerous, aren't you? Threatening stupid old men with death and disembowelment if they don't do what you want?'

'Can I take it you decline?'

'Tell me once and for all what you gain from this stupid plan, and I may just decline politely!'

Tywin seemed to consider that, and gazed thoughtfully up at the ceiling as he prepared his argument.

'I gain a highborn captive of ancient blood who can assure her brother's good behavior,' he said, 'now that my son is no longer the Starks' guest.'

'I'm a hostage,' Arya responded dully, not even bothering to phrase the sentence like a question.

'If you've considered yourself free for the past four years, then I am sorely disappointed in you,' Tywin smirked in reply.

Arya folded her arms.

'Go on.'

'I gain control of the North should your family meet with a tragic accident - '

'What do you mean?' Arya interrupted, her heart leaping into her throat.

'They are in open rebellion against the crown, girl,' Tywin explained, waving his hand impatiently, 'it's a miracle that no tragic accidents have yet befallen them. So to sum up: I gain a hostage, I gain the possibility of controlling the North, and I gain the refreshing prospect of having a child who truly is as smart as she thinks she is.'

'What do I get?' Arya demanded, ignoring the warmth that was spreading in her chest.

'You don't get your throat cut open,' Tywin replied blandly.

'It's not fair.'

'Life rarely is. You of all people should know that.'

Arya hated herself for the smile ghosting across her lips, and for a moment she was sure that she could hear her father shouting at her from beyond the grave, begging her to stop.

'I would sooner entrust a child to a pit viper than Tywin Lannister,' he had once told her mother.

A strong choice of words. And her father had never been prone to exaggeration.

'I already have a father,' Arya said, raising her chin in defiance, 'no one will replace him. Not you. Not anyone.'

'If you try to call me 'Father,' girl, then I fear this will end unpleasantly before it has begun. Now give me your answer. I grow tired of bickering with you.'

Arya nodded once, and Tywin nodded back.

'Good,' he observed gravely, pulling out a clean sheet of parchment and beginning to write.

'In the meantime,' he said, his quill scratching so hard against the paper that Arya thought he was going to tear a hole in it, 'we shall have to devise some fitting punishment for you.'

'Punishment?' Arya repeated slowly.

Tywin snorted.

'I do not allow attempts to be made on the lives of Lannisters with impunity, even if one of my own children is the one doing the actual attempting.'

'What…sort of punishment?' Arya ventured, as calmly as she could.

'The swords in the armoury have required a good polish for some considerable time,' he shrugged.

'You want me to polish…all the swords in the armoury?' Arya repeated piercingly.

'Indeed.'

'But there are thousands of them!'

'Would you prefer scrubbing out pots in the kitchen?'

'No.'

'Then you can begin immediately. Starting with this one.'

He pushed the dagger across the table at her.

'Take it. It's yours.'

Arya took it without question, knowing he would be offended if she refused, not entirely wanting to refuse.

'Thank you, my lord,' she mumbled.

'You can go,' he said sharply.

Arya rose to her feet and walked to the door.

'And let me make one thing very clear, Lady Arya,' Tywin declared menacingly when she opened the door to leave, 'if you try to kill anyone by the name of Lannister again, I will have you hanged. Is that understood?'

'Yes, my lord,' Arya replied, and she knew he wasn't joking.

'Good. Now fetch me some mulled wine. My skull is about to crack open.'

Arya put her hands on her hips.

'I will fetch you some water, and nothing else.'

The corner of his mouth turned up slightly, and as Arya walked down to the kitchen, the Valyrian steel blade still clutched in her hand, she could have sworn that Tywin Lannister had smiled at her.