Arya floated idly on the surface of a pool in Harrenhal's godswood, her clothes an untidy, sopping wet pile of rags somewhere on the bank, her muscles aching from falling over and getting up again more times than she could count, only to be knocked over once more, the world turning upside down, and then becoming still again.

After four years of practicing nothing but the sword and dagger, Jaqen had decided that she needed to learn to fight with a spear. She had had her third lesson that morning, and already detested it more than any other weapon she could think of. Who in their right minds would want to fight with an unwieldy, useless and completely boring piece of wood – nothing but a glorified quarterstaff, really – when they could choose a sword instead?

'A girl is foolish to say such a thing,' Jaqen had said the first time she had made that particular observation, and he had trained his spear on her before motioning to her to do the same.

She had repeated her words many times that morning while Jaqen effortlessly knocked her down again and again, his advice that 'a girl must defend' falling on deaf ears; and it had been that, together with numerous other contributing factors, from 'forgetting' to practice to being so stupid as to mention the Red Priestess' shadow to Lord Tywin, that had eventually led him to poke her smartly in the ribs; the impact throwing her backwards and into the water.

She had surfaced to find him leaning on his spear and regarding her with amusement rather than anger, his eyes twinkling in a way that made her want to throttle him.

'A girl must defend,' Jaqen had repeated sunnily for what felt like the hundredth time that morning.

'Why did you need to push me into the pool to tell me that?' Arya had sulked in return.

'A girl is forgetful about the spear and defense. Now she will never forget again.'

Sometimes, Arya wondered why Jaqen bothered with her at all. He could have left Harrenhal ages ago, and he probably should have done, too. Didn't Faceless Men have more important things to do with their time than brutalise peasants and teach half-wild little girls to fight?

Arya didn't flatter herself for a moment that he stayed on her account, though she sometimes caught him gazing at her in a rather more serious way than she would have liked. Four years was a long time for a Faceless Man to stay in one place. He had told her this many times. And yet day after day, month after month, year after year, he would reappear without fail in the godswood with a sword or a dagger, and attack her without warning.

And seven hells, but she did love it.

They always trained in the early mornings, in the half-darkness that preceded the sun when it was only just starting to creep up behind the clouds. The world would be grey, then, and sad, and in the beginning Arya had complained because she would have to wait an hour before the greens and reds would start to erupt out of the greyness, creating worlds and layers of worlds on the surface of the pool, and the hush would have a colour to it, like Winterfell. It would have been nice to come to the godswood every morning and find it in colour; find it like home. But 'a man had patrol duty,' so they would fight every morning in the greyness, and the world would come alive around them, just as it was doing now, while she learned to deal out death.

Jaqen had left her not five minutes previously, making her promise that she would practice the spear instead of running off to the sword after twenty or thirty seconds; and when he had gone, she had rapidly pulled off her clothes and shoes, throwing them untidily onto the bank and drawing the dagger that she always kept knotted to her thigh, thinking to throw that too. Some instinct stayed her hand, however, and she had returned the blade to its tiny sheath before pushing out to the center of the pool again, laughing and hooting and splashing just as she had as a small girl at Winterfell; calling up a distant echo of the days when her father had still been alive; when her family had still been whole; when she had lived beneath the gaze of gods that cared for her.

And floating on her back, the water in her ears dulling the sounds around her, she had looked up at the enormous tree above her; its bark so pale in the pre-dawn light that it might have been a weirwood. And gazing up at it, and dreaming of home and the North; the cold invading her bones like an old friend; Arya was suddenly struck by how human the old, almost-weirwood tree looked, its bark pale and fragile as flesh, its red and orange leaves like gashes against it, like blood. And in the moment that she thought of blood, the leaves of the tree rustled a little too loudly from a place beyond her vision, and she knew that he was there. She knew his gaze without seeing it, and she sank back into the pool until only her head and neck were visible, her fingers closing around the hilt of her dagger.

'Enjoying the view, Kingslayer?' she called out, paddling to a place where she could reach the shallows easily.

'Not quite,' his voice returned immediately, and she whirled around to find that he had been leaning unnoticed against the almost-weirwood tree, watching her for the gods only knew how long.

His hair looked silver in the half-light, and though he looked her blandly in the eyes, he seemed half-afraid of her, his irises a different colour and a different expression every time he blinked.

'The view is quite superfluous, I'm afraid,' the Kingslayer continued, 'in the army, one sees enough naked twelve-year-old boys to last a lifetime. The squires will insist on bathing, though their innocence abandons them soon enough.'

'I see,' Arya replied, having been compared to a boy far too many times for the jape to hurt her, 'so you only fondle people you're related to as opposed to twelve year old boys?'

His eyes flashed.

'I have told you not to talk about my sister in that tone, Stark.'

'And I've told you to go fuck both yourself and her, if I recall correctly. Though it would be pleasanter if you could refrain from trying to kill one of my siblings this time. I'm sure you'll think of some other way to amuse yourselves.'

The Kingslayer's lip curled into an expression of the deepest contempt.

'How extraordinary. You open your mouth and our father's words come out.'

Arya began to tremble, and not from cold; her heart quivering violently in her chest and she bit hard on her lip to prevent herself from showing how much that remark had hurt her.

He's not my father, and the stupid Kingslayer is not my brother. He's not. He's not. I'm not Lord Tywin's child, and I don't talk as though I were. I speak like Father and Mother, and Jon, and Aunt Lyanna who died long ago, and everyone I love. I speak like a Northerner; I speak like a Stark, not like some cruel old man who'll die alone with no pack.

You love that cruel old man with no pack.

Yes. And this motherfucker is pissing all over it.

'He's not my father,' Arya growled, 'he isn't.'

'He is now, little girl,' the Kingslayer said, 'he owned you from the moment you agreed to become his ward, just like he owns me, and Cersei and Tyrion; and you'll never be free, just as we never will be.'

There was bitterness in his voice, and laughter, and youth, but its timbre contained no self-pity and no arrogance, which surprised Arya…pleasantly. But she hated the things that he said. She wanted to cry out and tell him he was wrong; that Tywin wasn't like that; that she knew Tywin; that she knew him because he was like her. But even though the Kingslayer's face was lined with anger and resentment, it also bore a kind of serenity that only came with truth. Tywin might have found a way to keep her alive. He might have welcomed her into his family and treated her well. But he had not set her free, and he would not. She knew that.

Tywin might be a cruel old shit, but at heart, he's…he's… he isn't a monster. Not really. He's just overly-fond of acting like one.

'He isn't like that,' Arya declared, 'he isn't.'

The Kingslayer threw back his head and guffawed mercilessly, enraging her further.

'Try telling yourself that when you realise what an enormous mistake you've made,' he laughed.

'You're wrong,' she declared.

'If I'm wrong, then why are you getting so angry?' he asked, his voice laden with mockery.

'Because you're wrong!' Arya shouted.

Suddenly the Kingslayer's face changed; all good humour and allégresse disappearing so quickly that Arya could scarcely believe how little a time ago they had been consuming his entire being. He was looking at her as though a greater fool than her did not exist, his entire demeanour aggressive and angry, but not in a way that made her feel afraid. There was distress in the way he held himself, an anxiety that had nothing to do with his own interests. He didn't want to hurt her. He wanted to save her.

I don't need saving. Least of all by him.

'You're wrong,' Arya repeated, 'you're wrong.'

'But what am I wrong about?' the Kingslayer spat, 'tell me! When he found out who you were, did he send you with a full complement of guards to Riverrun? To your family?'

'No, but he couldn't have –'

'Your loyalty to your captor is most touching, Stark.'

'You don't understand!'

The Kingslayer folded his arms and regarded her contemptuously.

'Do you want to spend the rest of your life in a cage?' he demanded, 'could you endure that?'

No.

'What do you think?' Arya murmured.

There was a long silence, the Kingslayer's eyes never leaving hers.

'I think you'd sooner cut your own throat,' he said.

His voice was fierce, and astoundingly soft, and Arya was overwhelmed by the distressing feeling that she was arguing with someone that she had known all her life. She looked down into the water, the truth stinging her eyes, thinking of Tywin, unable to summon the slightest bad feeling towards him. She had never felt like his prisoner. She had not been a prisoner.

But then she thought of the Valyrian steel dagger. And then she thought of Castamere. And she looked up once more at the Kingslayer, remembering what he had said: 'I think you'd sooner cut your own throat.'

'He would have killed me otherwise,' Arya reasoned softly, 'he would have killed me.'

The Kingslayer gave her a small smile.

'Then you should have chosen death,' he replied, 'it would have been preferable, believe me.'

What in seven hells has happened to this man that he cares so little for his own life? It isn't right. Nobody should feel that way.

You felt that way for longer than you care to remember. You still do. You simply choose to forget about it.

'Is death what you would have chosen?' Arya asked, 'if you were me?'

The Kingslayer shrugged.

'Yes. Except I'd have had the guts to stick a sword in his throat first.'

Arya leapt to her feet. Rivulets of water ran from her hair to her breasts and down her thighs and legs, her skin prickling with cold, the blade of her dagger clutched in her hand, the hilt touching the back of her wrist.

She was enraged. For four years she had lived on nothing but her wits; she had seen things, horrible things, things that had made dreaming a nightmare and memory a curse. And waking in the night covered in sweat and choking on the vomit of her own past, she had wanted to die so many times that she could not count them all. But Tywin had made her happy again and Jaqen had made her brave again; she had found freedom in imprisonment; and the power of life and death in a place of prayer. And now, this bitter, irritating old shit had the audacity to stand before her trying take it away from her; thinking that he knew her; thinking that he had a clue what was happening inside her head; calling her a prisoner and a coward. He didn't understand. He couldn't understand. She was a prisoner, but she was free as well, and her freedom today would not be the same as her freedom tomorrow, or next week or next year. Freedom was liquid, just as Tywin was liquid gold and Jaqen liquid steel, and no coward could admit that in a million years. The prospect was far too frightening.

'I'd have had the guts to stick a sword in his throat first,' the Kingslayer had said.

Then let's see if you've got the guts to stick one in mine when I try to kill you.

The blade of the dagger was hard and hot against her hand as she approached him, her eyes flickering over the exposed base of his throat. He remained completely still, leaning casually against the almost-weirwood, his eyes smarting painfully with something like remorse, or sorrow. When she reached him, she stared at him for a long moment, her breath lost, her thoughts mixed in with the mortar of the dagger in her hand and the green of his eyes; how large they were, how brilliant. Her fingers still clutched around the blade, she swung her fist towards his throat, aiming for its base. But he was far too quick for her, and in one swift movement, he had knocked the blade out of her hand, slammed her against the almost-weirwood tree, and kissed her.

Grazes erupted across Arya's back as the Kingslayer's tongue filled her mouth like war. Anger and guilt seemed to tear out of her in one, painful flight as she opened her lips for him, though she could feel her fingers spasming uncontrollably and slamming against his chest like tiny sledgehammers, wanting to push him away, but choosing instead to wind themselves around his neck and pull him so close to her that she could feel his teeth and every movement of his jaw against her lips as he smiled and kissed her again. His erection was jutting so hard against both her and the laces of his breeches that she cried out in surprise, and, scarcely aware of what she was doing, she allowed him to pick her up like a child and press her once again against the wood, her skin screaming in protest as she parted her legs and wrapped them around his waist, relishing the gasp that escaped him before his mouth consumed hers again, the palms of his hands travelling from her thighs to her sides to her breasts, her nipples turning so much harder beneath his cold fingers that she almost screamed aloud.

The godswood was dissolving in a riot of red and green, and that's strange, Arya thought innocently when he first thrust against her; don't people have to take their pants off to do that?

But she soon didn't give a fuck what people did or did not do, because the longing between her legs was unbearable. She moaned and leaned against him, wrapping her arms around his back, covering every square inch of herself in him, forcing him to take her weight as he pushed against her; her skin and his, even separated by layers and layers of clothing, becoming changelings, shape-shifters, nomads that could warp into each other and become each other and know each other, two different things that were actually one thing, two things that became more of one thing each time they came together. Her entire self felt vulnerable and wide open to the entire world, but it didn't matter, because he was with her, her body crying out a song of him, a song without breath.

He didn't take her maidenhead, and he didn't come. Neither did she, and though she had heard that she should be embarrassed about such things, she found that she could not think what there was to be embarrassed about. She felt suspended with him in togetherness, the intensity of joining and being not abating; the pain in her skin indescribable, cold from the icy air and burning from him; and remembering what she had thought at the beginning: 'he is also two people at the same time. He is also running from himself.'

He's spent his whole life in disguise, and he doesn't want that for me. He doesn't want that for me because he understands it. He knows it. He lives it.

Everything had become very quiet, and they remained wrapped up in each other, not breaking apart, her legs still clasped around the Kingslayer's waist. His lips were nestled softly in the nape of her neck, her face was buried in his hair, and for a while they breathed quietly together; a part of something, whatever it was, or could be. Then she softly kissed him again, and I am him and he is me, Arya thought, and she chuckled as he nipped gently at her bottom lip, his tenderness making her so wet that she wanted to tell him to take her maidenhead right there and be damned.

You stupid, blushing, innocent little whore, she thought to herself, what the fuck are you doing?

'Let go of me,' Arya commanded.

The Kingslayer deposited her on the ground without a word, and she walked to the edge of the pool in search of her clothes and her knife. She pulled on her jerkin and breeches, though they were wetter than Braavos in summer, and glanced once more at the Kingslayer, who was once again leaning against the weirwood, looking at her with an irritating smile on his face. She walked across the clearing to where he stood, picked up her knife, and set its point against his throat, drawing blood. To Arya's disappointment, he didn't even flinch.

'You touch me again,' Arya snarled, 'and I'll kill you.'