Arya

If there was one thing Arya had learned over the years, it was that lessons were stupid. She could already do sums better than Sansa could, and she was three years younger. She could read and write almost as well as her sister too. And if those were it, then maybe she could see why lessons were something she needed to participate in; sums and reading and writing seemed like useful things she would need to know. Except they weren't all she was being taught. Why did she need to know how to sew and embroider? What use was there in learning the lyrics to all those stupid songs? What use was it learning the banners of the southern houses, or being taught the history of Westeros as a whole, when she was of the north?

As far as she was concerned, there was no further need for lessons with Maester Luwin or, and here she shuddered, with Septa Mordane. So she skipped her lessons as often as possible. The problem arose when she skipped them too many times in a row because then her mother would be informed, and before Arya knew it, she'd be getting a stern, sometimes shrill, lecture about why lessons were important. Afterwards she'd attend lessons for a few weeks, sometimes a month or two, depending on how long her ears rang from the dressing down, before she'd start skipping them again, and the pattern would repeat. On the rare occasion, her father would be the one to talk to her, expressing his disappointment in her for not taking her lessons seriously. When that happened, she'd attend the lessons a bit longer, to try to get rid of her father's disappointment, but it would never last.

When her father had informed her that Sansa, and her friend Jeyne, would be joining him at King's Landing, she thought that would just leave her and Beth Cassel, who was a few years younger, as the only attendees of Septa Mordane's lessons. She had forgotten that Robb's new wife, Wynafryd, would be joining them. And in turn, she was joined by her sister Wylla, which at first was only supposed to last a few days, but was now to last a few years.

Wynafryd and Wylla joining in on her lessons had kept Arya at them longer than usual. She was interested in the two of them, Wynafryd because she was to be her goodsister, and Wylla because of her green hair. However, the interest had waned and the day Jon had gone to visit Castle Black, and her father and Sansa left to head to King's Landing, with Bran accompanying them as Ser Robar's page, she had started skipping her lessons again.

Until her mother had found out.

"Beautiful stitch work Wylla," Septa Mordane praised, smiling at the green-haired girl.

Wylla blushed lightly under the praise and gave the septa a small smile.

Aya looked at her own work and scowled. It was terrible. The stitching was uneven with large gaps in between. To her untrained eye, in the five years since she had started joining Sansa in these lessons, it didn't look like she had improved in her needlework at all. Why couldn't Septa Mordane have traveled with Sansa to King's Landing, and leave Arya the hell alone?

There was a knock at the door, before it was pushed open and one of the house guards stepped into the room.

"Pardon the interruption Septa Mordane, but guests are arriving and Lord Robb wishes Lady Arya and Lady Wynafryd to come to the yard to greet them."

At first Arya scowled at being called a lady, she hated when the guards called her that, but then as she processed the words said she felt her eyebrows go up. She hadn't been informed of any guests arriving, so who was it that had come?

"Come Arya," Wynafryd said as she stood, "let us greet the newest guests to Winterfell."

Arya didn't need to be told twice. She dropped what she was working on to the floor and quickly fled the room after her goodsister. She had a suspicion that Wynafryd knew who the guests were, which meant that they were expected, at least by Robb, but despite having a general hatred of being kept out of the loop, she didn't find herself caring in this instance. Whatever she had been kept out of the loop of had gotten her out of the rest of her lessons, and that was good enough for her.

Nymeria, who had been laying just outside the doorway of her lessons, shot to her feet as Arya ran by. The direwolf easily fell into step behind Arya as she bounded down the steps.

Together they arrived in the courtyard where her mother, brothers, Maester Luwin, Ser Rodrick, Grey Wind, and Shaggydog were all already gathered. Entering through the open gates were ten men dressed in chainmail and leather, with the Bear of House Mormont flying above their heads. Behind them were three people, a woman and two girls around Arya's own age, and a small wagon being pulled by a draft horse.

However, it was the woman who caught Arya's attention. She was a short, stout, gray-haired woman, who only came up to her mother's chin. She wore, under her green surcoat adorned with the Mormont sigil, patched ringmail, and at her hip hung a spiked mace. She was quite possibly, the most interesting woman Arya had ever seen.

While Arya didn't know who the woman was specifically, she knew she was a Mormont, and would have been able to tell even without the bear sigil. The Mormonts were one of the only houses in the north where almost every woman wore armor and carried a weapon.

"Lady Maege," her mother greeted, smiling warmly at the older woman as she dismounted her horse.

"Lady Catelyn," Maege Mormont greeted in turn. The two women hugged, briefly, before Maege bowed her head to Robb.

"Lord Robb."

"Lady Maege, thank you for coming."

"Thank you for allowing my daughters the privilege of fostering at Winterfell."

The two daughters in question climbed down from their horses and approached their mother. Maege guided them both in front of her, placing a hand on each of their shoulders and beaming with pride.

"This is Jorelle," she nodded at the shorter of the two girls, "and this is Lyanna."

As it turned out, Jorelle was the older of the two. She was stocky in build with thick black hair and brown eyes. Lyanna was three years younger than Jorelle, two years younger than Arya, but was already taller than both, almost as tall as her mother, Lady Maege. She too had the Mormont black hair and brown eyes.

"Welcome to Winterfell my ladies," Robb greeted, bowing low. "We're honored to have you here. This is my wife Wynafyd, my sister Arya, and my brother Rickon."

"This is Shaggydog," Rickon said, petting his direwolf whose tongue lolled out of his mouth.

There were more words exchanged between everyone, but Arya wasn't paying attention to any of it. Instead she found her eyes drawn to a small mace that hung at Jorelle's side. It was a fraction of the size of the one Maege Mormont had, and it didn't have the pointy spikes, but the fact that a girl only a year older than her was not only trained in a weapon, but also wielded one, was mind-boggling to Arya.

Why couldn't she have been born a Mormont? Arya wondered what type of weapon she'd wield if she had. She was pretty good with a bow, at least she thought so. And she had used the practice swords and shields Bran had trained with ever since her younger brother could walk, which were now being used by Rickon, and she thought she was alright with them. The older Bran got, the bigger and heavier the weapons, and more recently, on those occasions she managed to grab the training weapons without anyone being the wiser, she found the shield getting too heavy for her to lift and hold up, at least with just the one arm.

Nymeria butted her head against Arya's hand, drawing her from her thoughts as she absentmindedly scratched her direwolf behind its ear.

"- and of course rooms have already been prepared for you, and some of our men can help you bring your belongings up to them. Arya, they're staying in the rooms near Sansa's and yours. Can you please show them to them?"

"Fine. Follow me … please," she added at the look of her mother.

Maege moved to the wagon and began directing the Winterfell guards who stepped forward to help carry the trunks that loaded the wagon. Jorelle and Lyanna followed after Arya and Nymeria, keeping a healthy distance between themselves and the direwolf.

"She's not going to bite you," Arya said in annoyance, noticing the two girls several feet behind her. "She only bites those I tell her to."

With careful steps, Jorelle approached Nymeria with one hand outstretched and the other gripping the handle of the mace at her hip. Not that the mace would be of any use against a direwolf, Arya thought. Nymeria would rip the arm off before Jorelle could even swing her weapon.

However, Nymeria allowed herself to be pet and seeing her sister was still in one piece, Lyanna stepped forward to pet the wolf as well. The direwolf was, like her owner, indifferent to the attention paid to it. Nymeria allowed the girls to run their fingers through her fur because they weren't a threat.

"You all have direwolves?" Lyanna asked, looking up from Nymeria.

"My brothers and sister, yes. When Jon comes back from Castle Black with Ghost there will be four direwolves here."

Nymeria, tired of being pet, bounded away from the three of them and, if Arya was to guess, went in search of either Grey Wind or Shaggydog to play.

"We hear them sometimes," Jorelle said, "on the northern shores of Bear Island. Depending on the wind, their howls carry across the Bay of Ice."

Arya led them up the stairs and down the corridor that led to where she and Sansa slept, their rooms adjacent to each other. There were six more rooms near theirs, one of them already occupied by Wylla Manderly. Jorelle picked the room on the other side of Arya's.

As the older Mormont daughter looked about the room, Arya stood in the doorway, casting subtle looks at the mace.

"Do you want to hold it?" Jorelle asked.

Arya felt the heat rise in her face as she realized she hadn't been as subtle as she thought.

"Could I?" she asked, trying to keep the eagerness out of her voice.

Jorelle answered by taking the mace from her hip and holding it out to Arya. The newest Stark she-wolf took the mace and looked at it in wonder. It was a little heavier than the training swords she had used, but most of its weight was in the flanged head. She carefully swung it a few times, careful not to hit Jorelle or any of the furniture in the room.

"How long have you had it?" Arya asked between swings.

"A few months. Mother says I'll continue learning how to wield it here under your master-at-arms."

The jealousy Arya had felt earlier came back in full, and she held the mace back out for Jorelle to take, no longer having any desire to hold it. A mace wasn't the weapon for her.

Lady Maege and her men only stayed for three nights before they departed to head back to Bear Island. Arya had spent the dinner of those three nights peppering Lady Mormont with questions about living on Bear Island, and why the women there were some of the few in the Seven Kingdom's who were trained how to fight.

"Bear Island doesn't have a large population, which always made us easy prey for the raiders of the Iron Islands." Here a look was shot at Theon, who sat on the other side of the table, sharing a joke with Robb that had Rickon looking between them confused. "On Bear Island every child learns to fear krakens rising from the sea."

Ever since the arrival of the Mormont sisters, every morning after she broke her fast, Arya found herself being accompanied by her mother to her lessons, the ones she had with Maester Luwin and shared with everyone, including Rickon and Robb, who swore he had no other duties that needed his attention in the mornings anymore.

"I don't understand why I have to take these stupid lessons," Arya argued one morning.

"Of course you don't," her mother said with a shake of her head. "You are young and willful but when you're older, and married -"

"Ew, I don't want to marry anyone!"

"- then you'll appreciate all these lessons you are to take."

Then when those lessons were over with, and she was to go to her lessons with Septa Mordane, which was for just the girls, including the Mormont sisters, they were escorted by Robb. He made it seem like he was doing so to spend a few extra minutes with his new bride, but Arya knew it was for her, to make sure she made it to the lesson like she was supposed to, and Robb confirmed so.

"Don't give me that look Arya," Robb said on the third day of escorting them. "Do you think I like having to keep an eye on you? If you'd actually listened to mother, neither of us would be in this situation."

Jorelle and Lyanna had never taken lessons with a Septa before, since Winterfell and White Harbor were the only two places in the north that had one. That being said, they did learn the things Septa Mordane taught, like needlework and songs, just from a non-pious woman. The fact that even northern women were learning these things was baffling to Arya.

However, being escorted to her lessons by her family members to make sure she attended them wasn't the worst part of the past few weeks. It was watching from a distance as Jorelle attended the training in the yard, taught by Ser Rodrick and Hallis Mollen, the new captain of the guard that everyone called Hal, how to properly use the mace she had been gifted for her eleventh name day. She had asked again if she could train with the others, especially because Jorelle was able to, but her mother had again told her no.

She thought of writing to father in King's Landing, to see what he would say. He was of the north, and had often compared her to her aunt, who she heard stories of being a wild spirit that bucked a lot of the social norms. If either of her parents would allow her to train with a weapon it would be her father. Surely once he heard that Jorelle Mormont was fostering at Winterfell, and training with a weapon, then he would allow Arya to do the same. He would see how unfair it all was to her.

It was after another dreadful afternoon of lessons with Septa Mordane that Arya found herself watching as Robb and the new house guards finished up their training. Nymeria and Grey Wind wrestled with each other off to the side. Unfortunately for her direwolf, Grey Wind was the biggest of the pack and he knew how to use his size. Jorelle was with the guards, having left the lessons with the Septa early, and being instructed by Hallis Mollen on how to properly wield her mace. Internally, Arya seethed with jealousy.

She was interrupted from her envy by her mother coming into the area, a scrap of parchment clutched in her hand. She walked quickly through the training men, each pair stopping their sparring and stepping out of her way as she approached.

"Robb, we received a letter from your father."

He wrote to give me permission to train with the guards, Arya thought, growing with excitement. Her father must have heard from Robb or her mother that Jorelle was at Winterfell training to wield a mace, and he thought it was unfair to Arya, so he was giving her permission to do the same. She eagerly moved over to her mother.

"There was an explosion at King's Landing," her mother continued.

Arya felt her previous excitement drain away as she realized how childish her thoughts had been. Of course her father wouldn't be writing about that.

The men who were closest to her mother got confused and uncertain looks on their faces.

"An explosion?" Robb asked, his own brows furrowed.

"Apparently there was wildfire underneath the Dragonpit. He doesn't go into details but thousands are dead, and over a hundred buildings have burned to the ground."

"Was it an attack?" Ser Rodrick asked, moving from where he stood in front of the men to stand by her mother and brother. "Are we to raise the banners?

"He doesn't say," her mother said with a shake of her head. "He said he wrote to let us know he, and everyone of the north, is safe. He didn't want us to worry should word reach us."

The men murmured amongst each other as Robb pursed his lips in deep thought. She could tell her brother was thinking of how he should react to this. He was the Stark in Winterfell, and the acting lord while their father was away.

"If father wanted us to raise the banners, he would have said so," Robb finally said. "Either this isn't an attack or, if it is, they aren't aware of that fact yet. All we know is that King's Landing has lost a lot of lives and buildings. We should write to Lord Manderly. To send some ships with a gift of lumber from the North to King's Landing to assist in the rebuilding efforts."

Arya watched her mother nod approvingly at Robb's suggestion. "And we should see if the Manderly's have any supply of stone we can send as well. We can have the mountain clans send him more if needed."

Robb and her mother walked off to where Maester Luwin's rooms were, at the base of the rookery, to write the letter to Lord Manderly. Grey Wind trotted after Robb, while Nymeria quickly fell in line next to Arya. As she scratched at the side of Nymeria's head, Arya found her gaze shifting to Jorelle, the envy from earlier coming back in full force.

Until a shout went up from the guard at the North Gate. "Riders approaching!"

For a second time, the envy was forgotten as Arya's eyes widened and she ran to the steps that led to the top of the northern battlements, Nymeria at her side. Together, she-wolf and direwolf ran up the steps so they could see who was approaching.

A few miles to the north, emerging from the trees that obstructed the view of the Kingsroad as it entered the Wolfswood, were seven riders, one of them a child. Trotting along at their side was a very large dog. It was hard to make out but Aya was sure six of the riders, including the child, wore red and gold, while the lone rider next to the dog wore the grey and white of House Stark. Then she realized the child wasn't a child, but a dwarf. Which could only mean one thing.

"Jon's back!"

A/N: The immediate aftermath of the explosion will be gone over in Ned's next chapter. I'm not glossing over it by advancing ahead in these next few chapters.