Somebody – Jaqen, most likely – had once told her that time did not exist in the black cells; that the idea of days, weeks and months was crippled by the darkness. He was wrong. In the dark, time did what it liked and showed her what it liked; the smell of the blood the only thing reminding her that the present existed at all.

Father must have been in here at some point. Sometimes, between the rattle of keys that would bring hard bread and occasionally water, she fancied she could see him sitting next to her, the same sweat pouring down his face; the same thirst torturing his tongue. But she could not talk to him, or touch him. He was trapped in his moment, and she in hers. Time did what it liked in the black cells, broken only, and yet hardly at all, by the rattle of keys.

She remembered a crowd of kingslanders before the Great Sept of Baelor and a crowd of soldiers before the city walls; she remembered crying and shrieking like a stupid, helpless little girl and cutting throat after throat after throat like a killer. I love this, she had thought, I love it. And the wildfire was rolling up into the clouds and ripping them asunder, and she was falling under the force of it, a soaring pain in her limbs as she got to her feet again. And Jaime was falling and not getting up again - she could see it was him – and bile was rising in her throat as – oh, gods

She had cut the man's throat. She had painted him red. She had screamed as she did it, and it had felt good, but she might as well have opened her own throat as well for all the good it had done. This doesn't make things better, she thought, it doesn't make you any less of a mouse; any less of a little girl that can't change anything. Because no matter how many people you kill or how good you are at it; you're never there when it matters. You couldn't save Father. You couldn't save Tywin. You couldn't save -

Another rattle of keys. Another piece of bread. Another unspoken refusal of allegiance.

The blood of her enemies was still on her. It was sticky in her hair and rank on her clothing; so much of it Jaime's; so much of it. In the maester's tent, it had covered everything. Arya's hands, the maester's hands, the hands of the men helping him; their clothes; the floor; the bottles of wine and milk of the poppy that they poured into him as he choked; more and more and more of it, floods of it, as the plate and boiled leather were stripped from Jaime's torso and he was held down, the maester preparing his tools and barking at his boy to pick up a lamp and hold it closer.

As the light had fallen harshly on Jaime's upper body, Arya had gasped aloud. His skin was stretched tightly over his bones with a sickening tautness; every bone in him, from his shoulders to his ribs looking fragile enough to snap in two and powerful enough to punch right through his skin; thin; brittle; exhausted; too fucking exhausted to be wearing armour and fighting battles.

The guilt had almost driven her to her knees.

She had touched nearly every inch of him at some point; been so close to him that she had been sure her arms would break from the pressure of trying to hold him closer. And she hadn't noticed a thing. Not once.

But then he had always worn leather, and shirts beneath that, he had always –

Stop this. Stop it.

Feeling any guilt at all was absurd, weak, stupid, traitorous. This wasn't a tragedy. This was justice for her brother and her family. Justice. This was what was right.

So she had forced herself to watch. When he had started to scream, she had even told herself she was happy about it; that she had saved his life not as a kindness, but as a punishment.

I should have let the maester take the entire arm. Bran's legs are worth far more than one stupid hand, no matter who it belongs to.

Jaime's eyes were so pale they were almost grey; not seeing what was in front of him, not able to; his remaining fingers scratching the air like claws as the maester's assistants held him down; and his fingers seemed so different; so different from earlier that day, when they had folded into hers and purged the blood from her hands, turning her face upwards into his.

Stop this, she spat at herself, Stop it.

Do you know what you should do, you love-struck little fool? You should run. Run for your life, and be happy this has happened. Because every time he looks at that empty space and feels the twitching of fingers that don't exist anymore, he'll think of Bran and what he did and curse you for not letting him bleed to death.

Another rattle of keys; another unspoken demand for allegiance; another 'fuck you' whispered to the darkness as she remembered running while a conflagration of colours poisoned the sky like a plague; the sunlight adding to it, acknowledging it like a brother, and bringing with it gold cloaks, who caught her before she had gone half a mile.

Cersei had been covered in blood, no, in crimson velvet, and wearing some ridiculous ornamental breastplate, pretending that she hadn't spent the entire battle hiding in some hole at the bottom of Maegor's. Arya didn't remember much of what Cersei had said to her. She only remembered spitting in the bitch's face, and feeling a certain satisfaction at being considered dangerous enough to be thrown into the black cells.

The appeal has worn off. I'm going to die here.

She had a dream about a man with no hair, his shaven head covered by a hood, the torch in his hand burning as softly as the tones of voice. Father was having the same dream next to her, and this is Lord Varys, she thought, the Spider with the little birds. Father didn't like him, or Mother. Or Tywin, for that matter. Something my three unfortunate parents have in common. That's funny. That's hilarious.

She laughed so hard that she almost passed out.

Her laughter bewildered the eunuch; whose lips moved a great deal. And his voice was very soft, and 'dying here is honourable, if inane,' he said, and something about revenge that made Father fade away from her, leaving her alone with Varys, his torch and his words; his words that woke her up.

'The revenge you want will be yours in time.'

The revenge you want will be yours in time.

And suddenly Tywin was sitting next to her, looking silently through her, his mouth set in agreement, his eyes ice blue.

Tywin's never seen the inside of a black cell in his life, she thought, you're losing your mind. The heat's driven you mad.

But the next time she heard the rattling of the keys, she spoke; her voice leathery and hoarse in her throat, and asked that the Queen be informed she was ready to come out.

The sunlight was too bright for her eyes, and Joffrey was too small for his throne. He looked swallowed up by it; a boy playing in the mouth of a monster and not even seeing the danger. The crown sat jauntily at an angle on his head, and his stupid pouty lips were just the same as he listened to her speak the words,

I, Arya, of the House Stark -

The crowd around her was silent this time, and far away from her, and would have stayed silent had he once again pronounced the words 'Ser Ilyn! Bring me his head!'

Her head, not his. Remember you're you, remember you're not -

'Your Grace,' that stupid bitch Cersei was saying, her golden hair coiled around her head someday I'll strangle you with it, 'in the judgment of your small council – '

Joffrey made her say the words again. And again. She heard snickers from the crowd as she stumbled over the words, the light too harsh, her throat too dry; Tywin growling at her to straighten up, Father begging her to live.

She finished. Joffrey was smirking at her. He leaned back in his ugly iron chair and clapped, the sound ringing solitarily to the throne room vault.

'I think we should make her swear again,' he said, and the entire court laughed.

She swore again. She swore twice more. And as Joffrey finally bade her stand, her eyes made him a promise.

Someday, I'm going to put a sword through your eye and out the back of your skull.