12. Gendry

After the raven the northern lords mainly left Gendry alone.

The rest of the Kingsmoot had of course been lost in an uproar. The Karstarks had immediately declared that this Sansa was likely a fake, like the "Arya Stark" who had married Ramsey Bolton, or that the raven itself had been a lie. Lord Umber had demanded to know from whom the raven was sent, and tore the message in two trying to snatch it from Barth's fingers. Lady Lyessa Flint had loudly accused them both of treason. Gendry had felt a deep sense of relief.

The arguments continued for several days, and it soon became clear that no one was willing to take decisive action until the existence of Sansa and her army was disproved, which meant, at least for the short term, the lords and their men-at-arms were going nowhere. Barth miraculously managed to the corral the lords into volunteering men both for a proper castle guard and for a patrol to keep order in the devastated countryside. Wildings fleeing south were a problem; instead of begging at Winterfell for provisions like the Westerosi smallfolk they took what they could from those they met. The patrol brought back more rumors of an army of the dead behind the wall.

The newly-formed castle guard put Anguy out of a job. He and some of the boys occasionally took watch shifts, but Anguy declined to participate the patrols. Gendry almost never saw him, although he some evenings he heard him drunkenly singing with a few of the Karstark men. When they did encounter each other, they didn't speak.

Edric was nearly healed and seemed to enjoy instructing swordsmanship, so Gendry turned the group over to him and a man-at-arms from House Glover, and devoted his time to the forge.

The smallfolk had successfully dug up two chests of obsidian that had been buried more than thirty feet underground at the base of the First Keep. What must have once been fine oak had nearly rotted away, one of the chests fell apart when they tried to open it. Both chests were filed with a fine black dust, buried in which were larger pieces of the strange black rock. Some of the pieces had already been shaped into dagger-like rods, but others were shapeless lumps, no more useful as a weapon than a chunk of rock.

As the blacksmith, it fell to Gendry to figure out what to do with the obsidian. At first he tried setting some of the longer pieces to a metal hilt to make a dagger or short sword, but the black rock proved almost impossible to shape by a blacksmith's craft: it melted at a higher temperature than steel, and once molton, cooled to quickly, leaving Gendry with too little time to shape the tang. After he had shattered two pieces he gave up on the approach and sent the usable pieces to the cordwainer, who wrapped one side the sharp rock in leather or in pieces of rope to make crude daggers.

Next Gendry tried mixing the black dust with steel and forging weapons from there; but the same problem applied; the metal heated poorly and then cooled unevenly, resulting in fissures or at best a highly warped blade. After many days of frustration he forged a pure steel broadsword, and while it was still hot filled the long, shallow grooves on the side with obsidian dust. The result was terribly ugly; the obsidian did not melt itself but stuck in the molten steel like sand, making the flat of the blade rough and bumpy but the blade still sharp.

Gendry laughed out loud at his creation and left to look for some lunch. The winter air was a relief after the heat of the forge, although Gendry knew that he would soon be longing for the warmth again. He was lucky to work in one of the warmest spaces in the castle; in King's Landing the heat had often been a trial, but here it was pleasant. He realized as he left that he hadn't left the forge, except for food, for nearly a week.

Anguy was sprawling in a corner of the hall with a Karstark man, Gendry thought his name was Graf. There was a flask beside him, and he looked flush; he had been drinking, Gendry thought, although it was hardly past midday. He didn't see Gendry at first because he was laughing so hard at some joke that the boy sitting by them must have told. Gendry hadn't seen him laugh that way since before Lem died.

Gendry didn't recognize the boy, who was still gesturing to renewed guffaws from Anguy and Gaff. He looked about 13 but tall for his age with straw blonde hair, green eyes and a few freckles. Something about him looked familiar and Gendry found himself staring. Anguy noticed his gaze and suddenly the laughter stopped. Gendry quickly grew angry. He didn't know why Anguy had to be so difficult.

He quickly ate a bowl of stew from the kitchens and started back across the outer yard towards the forge. The patrol was returning and he paused to hear their report to Lord Umber, who had appointed himself the castle master-at-arms.

"Direwolf," said the patrol leader breathlessly, before he had completely dismounted. "There was a Direwolf in the eastern woods, nearly as big as my horse."

"Lady Sansa" said a man-at-arms wearing Glover colors.

"Don't be a fool," snapped Lord Umber. "Lady Sansa's wolf is dead, everyone knows that." He turned to the patrol leader. "It must be wild. Don't kill it if you can help it, that's a bad omen—but double your patrol."

No, not Sansa, Gendry thought. The patrol disbursed but he was frozen to the spot, a wild excitement running through his veins. He couldn't let her see that he knew. He couldn't let anyone see—she would run. A crowd had spilled from the hall into the yard to hear the patrols' report and she was surely among them, and was watching him now. Stiffly he returned to the forge.

The afternoon was a blur. He mended a helm and forged three new broadswords—Barth wanted to arm some of the smallfolk—and he knew he was working quickly, almost feverishly, but he hardly seemed to notice the work.

It had been dark for some time when he finally paused to rest and drink some water. His excitement from earlier was gone and in its place was a deep fatigue; he stared moodily into the fire, which had begun to die down. Fire, sacred to R'hllor, he thought bitterly. He knew more about fire than most servants of the red god. He knew its moods, strengths, and powers. He knew its limitations.

The helmet he had mended earlier was on the end of the bench where he was sitting, and with a sigh he picked it up and began to polish it with a rag and a mixture of oil and grit he kept on hand for the purpose. The mixture was too oily and on a whim he threw in a pinch of obsidian dust.

The obsidian seemed to work wonders. Gendry spat on the helmet and wiped a small area clean; it reflected the fire almost like a mirror. He peered at it closely and turned it, marveling at the detail with which he could see the rest of the room. There was a window on the yard side that was set high in the wall; on clear nights Gendry could see stars, but tonight, in the reflection of the helmet, he saw something else: a blurry, brown shape and a bit of yellow. A boy, curled into the windowsill.

Gendry paused for a second and then continued polishing slowly. The reflection grew clearer as he did but the boy did not move, and Gendry realized she was waiting for him to leave. She must want some thing here, he thought.

When the helm was bright he put it down. It was far into the night but the fatigue that he had felt earlier was gone. Instead of retiring to the small adjoining room where Milken's bed lay, Gendry took off his smith's apron and bunched it into a pillow, lay down on the bench, and closed his eyes.

The boy waited for a long time, more than a half hour. Gendry started to think he'd imagined the blonde hair in the window, and he started to drift off. Then he heard it, ever so faint, a soft thud on the earthen floor. He waited still, until he heard another sound, a faint scrape. He lept from the pallet and ran towards the door, but the boy was already there. Gendry lunged and yanked the back of his cloak, and then grabbed his hair making him cry out, the swords falling to the floor. He turned the boy around, grabbing his arms.

"Arya," he said.

The boy spat in Gendry's face and kneed him in the groin, causing him to grunt and fold over in pain, but Gendry didn't let go of the boy's arms and instead fell forward, pinning his legs under one knee. He transferred both of the boys wrists to this right hand and with his other hand tore his ragged shirt, grimacing when the boy bit his cheek, drawing blood. But sure enough, there was the misshapen birthmark below the left collarbone, and breasts wound tightly with a linen cloth.

The boy seemed to panic, her attempts to escape still ferocious but undirected. Gendry picked her up bodily, she was really so small, still making sure to hold her arms and her legs, and keeping her teeth as far away from his skin as possible. He carried her to the back room where Milken had slept and threw her onto the bed. She was up at once sliding past him towards the forge, and Gendry had to grab her and pin her again. He dragged her back to the forge and cast around, looking for the old pair of manacles that had been left in the forge for repair long before Gendry had arrived.

When he found them Arya went live, jerking from his grip and hitting the floor, but Gendry kept his hold on her wrists, nails digging into her flesh, and slammed her against the wall, her shoulder and then her head hitting the stone with a crack.

"Don't move dammit!" He yelled. Everything seemed tinged with red. He managed to get one of her ankles inside the old manacles and clamped it shut, still holding her wrists. He fit the other iron cuff fit around her second ankle but it wouldn't shut; he hauled her towards the fire and his tools.

She was crying now. "Let me go," she said. "Please let me go." She spoke with the boy's voice. "Please let me go."

"Not until you talk to me," Gendry growled. His head was hot and unfocused and his breathing was heavy, but there was cool moonlight coming through a small window above him, and the body against his seemed so familiar, calming, almost. But the face, the face was wrong. And that made him furious.

He grabbed his hammer from the anvil and with one blow force the manacle shut. Ayra screamed, and he knew he the manacle must have pinched the skin; there was blood running down her ankle over her foot. Gendry fumbled for the clasp and managed to shut it, and then flipped Arya onto her stomach and used the remains of her shirt to tie her hands behind her back. I'll have to get rope for later, he thought.

"Gendry?" Came Barth's gruff voice from down the doorway, accompanied by a terrified looking boy —Calin— who must have gone to fetch him. "What in seven hells are ye doing?" Gendry stepped back from his position and the blonde-haired boy slid down the wall, face expressionless, body limp, staring straight ahead. "Who is this boy? Gods, you can't just go lockin' up people!"

Barth looked vaguely horrified. Gendry felt his face flush. "It's not what it looks like! She stole from me," he said hotly, before he realized how stupid that sounded.

"I don't know what you're talking about, but that there is a—"

"No it's a woman, and she's a thief and a mu—" Gendry paused. Barth was looking at Arya, whose breast binding was clearly visible through the tatters of her shirt. Arya stared straight ahead. Barth looked at her face again and his expression of horror deepened.

"Look, just trust me. You have to trust me on this," Gendry said. "I'll look after her. She just can't get away, not right now."

Barth gave him another troubled look before looking at Arya again. "Look here boy, I don't know what that is…" he said. "Just, don't keep it out here where the boys can see… and by the Old Gods, don't keep it here long."

—

When he woke the yellow-haired boy was staring at him with a livid look of hate on his face. Last night Gendry had found a bit of rope in the back of the forge and tied his hands more firmly behind him, and then tied his manacled feet to the legs of the small bed. The blood from the cut on her ankle, which thankfully had proved to be shallow, had congealed around the iron of the manacle bloodied the cloth that covered the straw; Gendry could see that the the right side of her face, that had been forced into the pallet was mainly yellow and blue, and that she had kicked off the furs he had covered her with sometime in the night and was shivering.

He himself was on the floor, half-covered by his cloak; he must have drifted watching her. Beside him were four daggers that he hand found on Arya's body the night before, two in her short boots, which he had removed, one on her belt, and one strapped to the inside of her leg. There was pale sunlight streaming through the small barred window near the foot of the bed; too small for a human to slip through, Gendry hoped.

Gendry ran his hands through his hair and rubbed his eyes. He sat down on the edge of the bed and she turned her head into the pallet away from him. He put the furs back into place, and readjusted the ties on her wrists where they were chafing.

"Arya," he began. "Kyra." He ran his hands through his hair again. " Whoever you are. Look, I'm sorry it has to be this way. But I couldn't just let you go." He paused again. The yellow hair sent a shiver down his back. "I don't know what happened to you, but I need you—"

What did he need? Oathbreaker wasn't his, not really. It was more hers than his, really, if you thought that the metal had come from her father's greatsword. She hadn't hurt him—well, she had knocked him unconscious, but apart from that, she and her wolf had saved their lives. All she had done was lie to him. His hand, which was resting on the fur by her shoulder, tightened.

"I need you to show me your face, Arya. I need to know it's you, and I need you to tell me you're alright."

The yellow-haired boy said nothing. Gendry sighed and left the room. The door didn't lock,so he took some more rope and a padlock—there were many useful things to be found in a forge—and tied it messily shut. He started the fire for the day's work and went to find some food in the hall. When he brought it back the fire was hot. He had taken a bowl of the oat-y mush they were serving back with him, but realized that giving her food would require untying her hands, and Gendry didn't feel up to that it at the moment. Instead he started work on a few pieces of chain mail. It was delicate, absorbing work, and half the day was over and the gruel long cold before he got around to it.

"Sit up," he said.

The green-eyed boy stared resentfully at the floor. Gendry almost smiled. "Look, I'm not going to let you go until you talk to me, but I'm not going to let you starve either. And you won't be able to eat when I tie your hands again, so you might as well eat now."

Arya-not-arya did nothing. The bruise on the side of her face had really gotten quite ugly.

"I'll get you something for that," said Gendry.

When he came back with some snow and a wet rag the boy had not moved. He loosed the ties on her hands and left the snow, the rag, and the half-eaten bowl of gruel on the floor. In the evening, when he returned with more food, the scene was the same - except the boy had curled up at the bottom of the bed, leaving the food untouched, and the snow had melted into the packed earthen floor. When he checked on his prisoner before sleep, the same—save for the rat that had half overturned one of the bowls and was licking at it's contents.

"You're being ridiculous," he snapped. "And you know we can't afford to waste food, not even for the the spoiled Lady of Winterfell."

The boy sat bolt upright and shot him a furious look, and then turned and spat on the food. The rat scattered away.

"Fine!" Gendry yelled. "Have it your way!" He stalked out of the room and locked the door, and made himself a bed on the bench with his cloak.

The next day was the same. Gendry brought food and water in the morning, and again the boy refused to touch it. (This time Gendry put it on a stool to keep it from the rats.) After lunch he went to the laundress and asked if she had some spare clothes; the boy's shirt was of course in tatters and his breeches weren't in much better condition. The laundress asked if he wanted clothes for a boy or girl and he said, "either" which left her confused and indignant. She gave him a homespun dress.

When he went in to leave the dress and more food he saw that his morning offering had not been touched and began to worry. She was too small to go without food for bruise looked to get worse and he looked pale. Was he really hurting her by keeping her here? He poured his frustration into his work, and fell asleep exhausted on the bench late in the night.

When he woke he lept up and ran to the padlocked door. The wooden frame of the bed was broken where the manacles had been pegged and yesterday's bowls were empty. The breeches and the remains of the shirt lay in a heap on the floor. In the corner was a light-haired, weeping figure. Gendry ran to her before he thought.

"Kyra," he said.

She lifted her head and Gendry could see no trace of a bruise, but her face looked haggard.

"How could you do this to me?" she said through tears. Gendry had never seen Kyra cry, and he was baffled. "All I've done is help you… I know… I know I took the sword, but I brought it back— I brought both of them— look," she cried dramatically, and pointed her arm towards the open door. Gendry turned and saw an oblong cloth package on the floor of the forge. Through one side of the cloth peeked a glint of gold.

Gendry went to it in a daze and picked up cloth. There, slightly dusty, was Oathbreaker, the blade he had known and loved, and its twin. He stared at the metal speechless. Kyra had stopped crying and come into the forge. He watched as she dragged her feet about the room, searching for something - the key to her chains. She found them and one ankle came free, but the manacle that he had hammered shut, still crusty with dried blood, wouldn't come free. The irons were comically large on her feet. She yelled in frustration and grabbed the hammer from the forge, and, stumbling under its weight, dragging the heavy link behind her, walked to Gendry and pressed it into his hand.

"Gendry, let me go. You need to let me go."

Gendry stared at her dumbly. He had loved this woman, had shared his bed with her for nearly two months, and yet he didn't know her at all. Could she really be the same as the girl he had travelled, fought, and starved with?

"Gendry!" she hissed, a wild look of desperation on her face. She was sweating from the effort of moving the iron on her feet, but still pale.

There was a long pause. "No."

Kyra's expression shifted slightly, the plea turning to anger and then back again. "You're being stupid, Gendry. Take the hammer and get this thing off me. Now."

"Not until you show me your face."

Kyra was angry now, "You are talking about things you don't understand. You stupid — stubborn— bastard, don't you think there is a reason for what I've done? Don't you think I know more than you? All you're doing is getting in the way, like you've always—"

"I SAID NO," Gendry yelled, his face getting hot.

"You let me go right now, or else—"

"Or else WHAT?" Gendry shouted. "Don't you dare tell me I've gotten in the way. All you've ever done is use me. You used me to get yourself here, you used me to protect your precious lady ass when you were a child — and when I refused to give up my chance at happiness to be your — your blacksmith boy you ran away! Do you know how long we looked for you? Do you know how long I waited for you to come back?"

Gendry was the largest man he knew at Winterfell, with the exception perhaps of Lord Umber, and he often intimidated large men without really meaning too. He hadn't yelled like this since they had tried to hang Brienne, but the girl in front of him wasn't backing down.

"USED you! USED you!" She screamed. "I SAVED you. Without me you'd be in pieces at Moat Caitlin — you'd still be slaving at Harrenhal - you'd be dead like Lommy! You ungrateful, stupid, bastard—"

Kyra hoisted the hammer with what must have been all of her strength and swung it at Gendry. Without thinking he dropped the swordsa and threw up his hands to catch it and easily ripped the hammer from her grip. Kyra had thrown her weight behind the hammer and when that weight was suddenly gone she lost her footing and pitched sideways, toppling onto a bench littered with tools and bits of metal and from there too the ground.

Gendry dropped the hammer and rushed to the fallen girl who was covering her face. There was blood leaking from between her fingers. He put his hand on her shoulder to pull her upright but she hit it viciously with

"Get away!" she cried, her voice stifled by her hands and a sob. "GET AWAY!" She dropped her hands from her face and swiveled towards him. Where Kyra's face had been was a terrible mask: where her eyes, mouth, and nose should have been were black holes, and in one eye squirmed a large, white maggot.

Gendry backed away and then turned and ran from the forge, slamming the door behind him. As he fled he could here choked sobs coming from the huddled figure on the floor.

—

He didn't return until nearly dark. He spent most of the day sitting in the hall staring at his food; he must have looked a fright because no one bothered him. After some time he went outside and watched Edric lead the boys in their exercises. They had gotten quite good, Gendry thought. Edric was a natural teacher. He saw that some of them were carrying obsidian daggers.

Gradually his anger cooled, and turned bitter. It was his fault, he thought. Ayra was gone. Kyra was gone. Whatever was in that room was neither of them, and he had been foolish to think that he could bring either of them back.

All he needed to do was go back to the forge and break her chain, and he could be free again. He had no master. There was no Brotherhood. The children were safe, or as safe as they could be, with the sisters in the south. As long as he kept his shot, Anguy would be fine; he might stay at Winterfell, or join the Karstarks. Edric would either take the black or return home to Starfell, where his birthright awaited him. There was nothing to hold him here anymore; he could go wherever he wanted, and be whatever he wanted to be.

When he finally returned to forge and saw that the workroom was empty he thought with relief that she had found a way to free herself and was gone; but when he walked into the back room he saw her.

She was sitting on the bed with her hands clasped around her knees, eyes on the pale patch of sky visible through the small window. The manacle was still around one ankle, chain and empty cuff curled around beside her. Her hair was dark brown, almost black, and falling loose on either side of her face. Her face itself was perfect. The last few years had defined her cheekbones and her jawline, but left the full curve of her cheek. Her mouth and brows were fuller, although the grey eyes beneath them were just the same. Her skin looked new and white.

She looked at him when he came in, and there was nothing in her expression, no flash of welcome, or of hate, or of any emotion at all. Gendry walked to the bed and knelt before her, taking her hands in his. They were ice cold. She looked down at him impassively, and, without changing her expression in the slightest, reached down to lightly trace the side of his face.

Suddenly he wished fervently that instead of this stone cold, perfect image he was looking at the face of holes and maggots. He groaned and jerked her roughly into his arms, kissing her eyes and her forehead and her hair, and pressing her face into his chest. She was freezing and tense but she didn't resist, and gradually he felt her body relax and curl into a ball against his body.

They stayed like that for some time. He rocked her and smoothed her hair, and covered them both the furs that lay tangled at the end of the bed. She smelled like the cold and the forest - like Kyra had smelled. He wanted to know where she had been, what had happened to her, how she had gotten like this, but he didn't want to ask. He was afraid that saying anything would make her want to leave.

"I'm sorry, Arya," he whispered finally. "I'm sorry about your family. I'm sorry that I wasn't there when you needed me. And I want you to know— I want you to know that as long as I'm alive, I'll protect you." He paused. "No matter who you want to be."

She pulled apart from him and looked at him, and their eyes locked. "Gendry," she said. "If you want to protect me, you need to let me go."

"I will. I promise," he said hoarsely. The moonlight had illuminated her hair and a patch of the very white skin of her throat. He drank her in, tried to memorize her features, and what it felt like to be caught in the intensity of her gaze. "But not tonight." Carefully, he put a hand in her hair and traced traced her red lips with his thumb. She tensed and then pushed forward to cover his mouth with hers, and wrapping both hands in his hair and pulling him to her, her legs tightening around his hips. He picked her up and laid her on the bed.

They both woke with before dawn but lay for some time on the small bed, without saying anything or looking at each other. Their limbs were tangled with the furs and ge could feel her tense as she became more awake. When the first ray of weak sun spilled through the small window, she pulled herself from his embrace and sat up.

Gendry thought for a wild moment thought that he would not let her go, that he would just keep her her, his prisoner, forever. But her face was stone again, and he knew that he had no choice.

Unhurriedly she dressed herself, pulling on the breeches she had arrived in as well as the grey dress Gendry had found for her, as well as one of her boots. She picked up her second boot and the opposite side of the heavy iron still sealed around one ankle and walked calmly into the workroom, her back straight and head high. Like a lady. Gendry walked behind her dumbly, and followed her gaze as she looked down at the strange red-and-black swords that lay where he had dropped them the night before, ignominious in the dust.

"They're yours really—the swords," Gendry said. "They've been yours all along."

"The swords are for you," she said, in a voice that seemed far away. "Your master split them, and you must remake them. You are the blacksmith at Winterfell. It is your task to reforge them into one."

"I don't understand," Gendry said. "Why did you take Oathbreaker if you wanted me to have them all along?"

"They told me they were for the blacksmith at Winterfell," she snapped. "I didn't know that you would be the blacksmith at Winterfell when I left."

"Who are they?"

"It doesn't matter. Now get me out of this thing."

With some effort she lifted her leg and put it on a low bench, pulling up her dress and her breeches to expose the link. Gendry lifted her foot and turned it to find where he and cinched the iron together, and then took his hammer and a small wedge. He positioned the foot to be least and risk, and then with one, swift blow broke the cuff in two. Ayra sighed in relief, and then quickly grabbed the broken link and swung it at Gendry. This time, he wasn't read.

It hit him in the side of the face, not as hard as she could have swung it, but with enough force to send him staggering sideways. The rough edge of the broken cuff grazed his check and he felt wetness on the side of his face. Gendry braced himself for another attack, but instead she just stood over him, grey eyes blazing, holding the manacles like numchucks.

"What was that for!" Gendry said angrily, holding his aching face.

"For locking me up, you stupid bastard!" She said. Then she dropped the irons and whirled around, collecting her cloak and her daggers from the table where Gendry had left them, and pulling on her second boot. As she moved toward the door Gendry called, "Wait!"

She pivoted and looked at him. Her face was flushed and her eyes were full of fire; she was no longer the pale frozen goddess of the night before. He felt his heart fill with emotion, and he stood without being able to say anything for a few beats.

"Please come back," he said.

She hesitated for a second and then ran to him, throwing her arms around his neck and kissing him fiercely, forcing him to stumble back a step. She broke the kiss and hugged him tightly, leaning on her tip-toes to whisper into his hear.

"The swords are for you." The swords are for you.

And she was gone.

**NOTES

In which Gendry and Arya fight, and Gendry just wants to save Arya, and then they make up and it is all fluffy for like a half second. Classic Gendrya, we have arrived. And also now Gendry has the swords.

PS this is really Gendry's story, it was the whole time