Arya

Mystique shivered and pulled the heavy coat tighter around her body.

"I warned you," Arya said with a smirk.

"Quiet," Mystique growled.

"I told you that when you shapeshift it is just your own skin that becomes the clothing so you'd need to buy extra clothing. 'Oh, perhaps, but I have been everywhere, Arya!' you told me. 'I am far older than you, Arya!'. And now look at you… your lips are blue without you needing to change them!"

"Brat," Mystique got out.

"Even your insults are freezing."

Rather than answer Mystique somehow managed to burrow herself even deeper into the heavy coat that, due to its size, was more like a massive fur blanket than anything else.

Arya glanced over at Gambit who merely smirked. Of the members of the Brotherhood that had come along only Gambit seemed to have no problem with the cool bite of the Northern air, much to the annoyance of Mystique and Gendry. The latter had whined that he was built for heat thanks to working in a forge most of his life but had, at the very least, gotten his jacket on right away when they'd set out from White Harbor. Mystique had tried to power through, wearing her white dress and elegant leather coat so she might look regal, only to give up within in the last two days.

It had been a source of utter amusement.

"And there will be hot baths at your home?" Gendry asked for the tenth time that day.

"Very hot," Arya assured him. "And there are great underground pools too… we all used to swim there. Remember Theon?"

"I do," Theon said. "Though I don't think we'll be doing that this visit. Or ever again."

"What do you mean?" Arya asked, confused. "Why wouldn't we?"

That caused Theon, for some odd reason, to begin stammering.

"You've gotten a bit… big for that," Brienne stated. The large green woman was riding on one of the horses that were normally meant for the large Mandarly men, so that she didn't crush a standard-sized horse.

"You're afraid we won't all fit?" Arya asked. "The pools are rather large."

"Its… not that," Theon got out, refusing to look at her.

"What is wrong with your voice?" Arya said, crinkling her nose. "Why is it all squeaky?"

"Gambit think it might have somethin' ta do with how you've developed, chere."

Arya frowned, looking down before she finally got what they were all getting at. "…so? Its not like I really have much in terms of tits."

"Language…" Mystique got out, though with her teeth chattering it came out far more broken up than she meant it too.

"I don't see the big deal," Arya stated. "We swam there all the time. I've seen you naked and you saw me naked."

"You were… five," Theon argued. "Now you're near my age."

"And? Its not like you want to fuck me."

"Never!" Theon exclaimed.

"Exactly. No one would want to fuck me. Well, except the Essosi but they are weird."

"She… she honestly doesn't realize, does she?" Gendry asked Gambit who shook his head.

"Realize what?" Arya asked, looking about. "Realize what?"

"Your grace," Lord Manderly said from the wagon he was riding in (others had tried to claim it was so he could look over the goods he was bringing to Winterfell but the Lord of White Harbor had merely laughed and slapped his gut, proclaiming it was because he was so fat). "I think what Lord Theon-" and it still threw Arya off that Theon was now Lord Theon Bracken, head of a Bracken cadet branch in the North even if he hadn't a castle or a wife or smallfolk yet, "-is hinting at is that it would cause quite a scandal if you two were known to be bathing together. What with you both being close of age and your… features?"

"He means you are very attractive," Mystique blurted out. "And that you can't go running around thinking you still have an ugly little boy's body when you are a beautiful woman."

"…no I'm not."

Gendry grabbed his head and groaned; Arya quite agreed, everyone was being silly.

"Let's… let's try this again," Theon said slowly. "Lord Manderly said you look like Lyanna Stark. Is that correct?"

"It is," Arya said.

"And do you think you look like Lyanna Stark?"

"Yes." She remembered well the statue in the Crypts of Winterfell, as well as some of the drawings Maester Luwin had shown her of her deceased aunt. While many preferred the drawing of her standing on a staircase, the wind catching her hair, Arya far preferred a much simpler sketch of her aunt with a sword in her hand, throwing back her head and laughing. She didn't know WHO Lyanna had just defeated but Arya had always known that she had utterly destroyed some fool and was reveling in it. That was the woman she could believe had bewitched a Dragon Prince.

"Lyanna was said to be one of the most beautiful women in Westeros correct?"

Arya just nodded. She knew that the queen had taken offense to that and that Sansa had once, and only once, claimed that if Lyanna was as wild as was claimed she couldn't have been 'a beauty'. It had only been their mother whisking her to her room that had stopped several of the guards from mutinying over that remark and Sansa had never made the mistake of claiming such things again.

"So if you look like her… and Lyanna was beautiful…"

"…I don't follow."

Theon hung his head. "I give up."

"And we are having another discussion about your self esteem issues," Mystique commented.

Arya crinkled her nose at that; she honestly didn't get why everyone kept saying that.

Lord Bolton just shook his head. "It is quite troubling that you do not see the truth of the matter, Princess. You are a great beauty."

But Arya just shook her head. "I am no beauty. I am a wild creature. Arya Underfoot. Arya Horseface." Brienne suddenly looked at Theon who rapidly began to shake his head 'no', much to Arya's own confusion. "Everyone said so!"

"Nope!" Theon said quickly when he saw Mystique now also glaring at him. "Never said that. Not one bit! I might have joked about her preferring to use swords to needles but everyone knew that! She was much better in the courtyard than with the Septa… she liked it when I said that!" His voice was getting squeaky again.

"That is true," Arya said. "I was horrible at all I did when it came to 'womanly lessons'." She said the name with utter derision.

But Lord Bolton just stared at her, his pale face and dark eyes making her think of an Other from Old Nan's tales. "Your father mentioned to me once that you were quite skilled in managing a household."

"He… he did?"

"Indeed," Lord Bolton said. "We were discussing marriage prospects. I had decided against your sister but my son, Domeric, would have been a good fit for you, had he lived." And Arya found it so odd the man didn't seem upset by that at all. Her father still grieved his siblings yet Lord Bolton didn't seem bothered by his son's death at all. "He said that you were quite good at managing the timetables for the servants and balancing the books. That whatever Lord you married would never fear going into debt."

"Well… yes, I suppose so," Arya said. She had enjoyed those lessons… it was fun to look at the numbers and make them 'dance', as Maester Luwin had said. They obeyed her far better than her own feet. "But I couldn't sing or dance or the like."

"Those are Southern Notions," Lord Bolton said before, once more, looking at Lord Manderly who now looked rather concerned. What was Arya missing? Why was everyone so put off on her understanding her place in the world?

"Your grace," Lord Manderly tried again, "you are-"

But Gambit suddenly held up his hand, cutting off the Lord of White Harbor.

"Quiet," he snapped and Arya instantly was alert. Gambit was many things but "serious" wasn't one of them so the fact that he was giving them commands with no smile whatsoever? That had Arya at once going for Needle. "Gambit smells blood in the air."

Lord Bolton sniffed. "I smell it too… and the wind isn't blowing in the right direction. Rot as well." He drew his sword and that was the sign for all his men to do the same, as did the soldiers of White Harbor who made up the escort. Lord Manderly, with surprising speed, twisted around and moved to the front of the wagon, taking the reins from the driver who drew forth a bow. Theon was already notching an arrow while Mystique drew her own blade. Lady Brienne slipped off her horse and tensed, nostrils flaring as she stared ahead, while Gambit pulled out his fighting staff and twirled it. "Princess, you should-"

"Would Lyanna have stayed behind?" she retorted.

"No," Lord Bolton said. "But she is dead-"

"And I am not!" Arya said and with a kick she had her horse in a gallop, the others racing to catch up with her. 'I fought against the Sentinels. I battled the Cult of the Mandarin. And now I am home, in the North. I am its Princess now but I am not one that will sit in a tower and wait for knights to come to me. I am Shadowcat of the Brotherhood of the Blackfyres… I am the Wild Wolf… and I will protect my home!'

She drove her horse to gallop all the faster.

It took her about 5 minutes to finally see the village and when she did her nerves were so frayed that it was almost a relief when she saw the large village looming before her as she crested the hill.

"That is Snowdrop!" Lord Bolton called out, having managed to ride beside her the entire way. Where others had begged her to stop the Leech Lord had, at the very least, given up trying to stop her and instead moved to ride along side. "A Winter Village!"

Arya nodded. She knew of Winter Villages, as her father had taken her and her siblings to several of them. They were large with many buildings and barns but whenever she'd visited they had always been near empty. She'd wondered the first time they'd seen one if there had been some disease or a battle that had wiped out the people but her father had informed her that it was empty because it was summer.

"During the warm summer years," her father had told her as they rode past a building with a large chimney and a faded sign that made it clear it had once been a bakery, "only a few people remain here, paid to maintain the buildings and ensure that they are protected. Everyone else is on their farms, working the lands. There are also several fighting men who protect the great barns where food is left… not just grains and such but preserves, salted meats, and pickled vegetables. When fall comes the farmers will begin moving their families here, with the strong men being the very last to leave their lands. Every possession they own will be shifted to the Winter Village and their wives, the older members of the family, and the children will see to it that the communal homes are ready for Winter. For when the fall does end and the true snows appear all will gather together to ride out the long winter and the darkness that will come."

Winter Villages had a pretty similar build. They were built on rises, land that either naturally rose or had been built up. Snowdrop was the former, based on the hilly area they were riding. The walls were tall and thick but Arya knew that inside Snowdrop they wouldn't look that tall at all thanks to how the ground rope up, so that one could walk along the earth and nearly see over the top if they were a tall man. They had to be like that in order to prevent the snows that blew against them from causing the walls to come crashing down. There were wide entry ways, and many of them, that allowed oxen teams to push great snow plows along the road paths and out of the village. The buildings had sharp steep roofs so the snow would fall to the ground and not crush the buildings into kindling and many of them went down just as many stories into the earth as they did into the sky, for the earth could warm a building far better than walls. The barns were some of the best built in all of Westeros for they protected the food and thus had to guard against the cold and the pests.

'One can always wrap another blanket around themselves,' Maester Luwin had once told her, 'but one can't eat what isn't there.'

But as they headed towards the gate Arya found herself staring in shock at the village, knowing for a fact that something terrible had happened and not in the 'well, these things happen sometimes' variety. The gates, which were large enough to allow two standard wagons to easily pass through, had been torn off their hinges with one of them having been driven into the ground so deep Arya wondered if they'd ever be able to be retrieved.

And then… there were the bodies.

"By the Seven," Lord Manderly whispered as the wagon came to a stop outside the gate. There was no need for them to enter, for they could see easily the butchery that lay within. Bodies… so many bodies. Though perhaps not that many victims. It was honestly very hard to tell thanks to the fact that they had been torn to bits, strewn about the ground.

But not just the ground, either. Someone had been… creative.

"You shouldn't see this, princess," one of the Manderly guards said, reaching out to try and pull Arya away but she merely nudged her horse forward, avoiding to grab.

"I've seen far worse," Arya said coldly. "And Winter is Coming."

She couldn't be for sure but she was rather positive she saw Lord Bolton and Lord Manderly both nod to one another.

Flesh had been torn from bones and both had been scattered about as decorations. Through one wall arm bones had been driven deep into the wood, forming the pattern of a heart, much like what lovers would draw on rocks or carve into trees along with their names. The flag of House Stark had been torn down and in its place was the skin cut from a man's flayed head with half of the muscles torn off had been left on one of the Sunstone lamps that the village must have just installed, so that the mouth glowered in a way that had Arya suddenly breathing hard-

"Arya," Brienne said suddenly, causing her to jump and nearly phase through her horse. "Arya… what is it?" But before she could answer Brienne frowned, eyes drifting to the Sunstone lamp. "… the Cult?"

Arya nodded. The way the light was flickering in that mouth reminded her of the Cultists. How their flames seemed to want to burst from their bodies. And suddenly she was back in Braavos, feeling the heat on her skin, smelling people being cooked alive, the screams that suddenly turned to shrill screeches only to disappear into the cracking of timbers-

"Arya?" Mystique said and she blinked, realizing that she had somehow gotten outside and was now sitting on the cold Earth, her mentor kneeling down beside her. "Arya…"

She didn't care how grown up she appeared. Didn't care about appearing like a Princess.

Arya flung herself at Mystique and sobbed.

"Its Braavos," Brienne said somewhere to her left. "We… ran into something very bad there."

"Horrific," Lord Manderly murmured. "We heard word of the attack for some sailors but I hadn't realized she was a part of it…"

"We all were," Theon said, sounding a touch ashamed. "I didn't realize how much it affected her though…"

"Arya, focus on me," Mystique commanded and she found that if she listened to Mystique's voice things weren't that terrible.

"Knew the Princess shouldn't have been allowed in there…" someone said to her right and Arya felt shame flash through her and she tried to yank herself away from Mystique but her mentor refused to let go.

Then there was a scream from that guard and she flinched.

"Be wise not to talk that way in front of ol' Gambit. His hands tend ta slip."

It took several long minutes but finally Arya managed to get control of herself. When she did she pulled away at last, scrubbing her face with her sleeve.

"She might look like an adult," Mystique said with a hiss to someone, "but she is still a child. Though-" and she reached over and with fondness tucked a few strands of hair behind Arya's ear, "-one who has seen many things and is far stronger than you realize."

Arya managed a nod at that. She still hated that she had allowed herself to show such weakness in front of the soldiers and especially her father's bannermen but she didn't feel as bad when she saw Theon and Gendry looking rather pale as they kept glancing at the village.

"What… what could have done that?" Arya managed to get out.

"Iron Born," Theon said darkly, much to Arya's surprise. He didn't like to talk about it but something had happened since she'd last seen him and the boy that had crowed about the Iron Islands and how they were the greatest warriors and sailors in the world had become a man that seemed to hate the lands of his birth.

Brienne shook her head. "This is too theatric for the Iron Born."

"You've never met my uncle then," was his cool response and Arya frowned at that. What could Theon be getting at with that comment?

The Lord of White Harbor shook his head. "While the Iron Born did manage to make it far more inland than ever in recorded history when they tried to take Winterfell-"

"The Iron Born took Winterfell!?" Arya screeched, her earlier trauma forgotten as she sprang to her feet and looked at Lord Manderly.

"Oh no no no. They attempted."

"One would say they did hold it for a few hours," Lord Bolton stated but Lord Manderly shook his head at that.

"I disagree. Lord Robb remained uncaptured and remained in Winterfell and the guards were still fighting when Lord Rickon and his allies arrived. Thus they never gained full control of the castle." He chuckled. "If I came to the Dreadfort and declared while you were on the privy I had 'taken the lands of the Boltons' had I really or was I a madman?" The Leech Lord remained silent, clearly conceding the point. "But as I was saying the Iron Born did make it deep into the North but that was by using the western shores and avoiding such attacks as this. To attack here they'd have been forced to sail around Dorne to reach the eastern shore."

"Asha Greyjoy managed to escape with some of her men," Theon pointed out. "A squid that was insulted and injured will do mad things."

Arya raised her brow at that. Theon referring to someone clearly related to him as 'a squid'? He had hated it when people referred to him as such and yet there he was doing the same? 'What exactly happened while I was in Essos?' she wondered.

"There are no tracks," Gendry suddenly said, causing all to turn towards him. "Look at how muddy the ground is. You can see the tracks of our horses easily enough. But there are no tracks from whoever did this."

"They climbed the walls," someone suggested.

But at once Brienne was shaking her head. "Then how did the gate come down? That was torn down and something POUNDED it into the earth." She walked over to the half-buried barrier and squatted, grabbing it with her meaty hands and giving a grunt. The wood creaked as it slowly was pulled free of the earth and Arya's eyes went wide as she saw just HOW deeply it had been buried. While she didn't fully uncover it what she did yank out showed that it had been driven down with tremendous force. "The only footprints near it are my own. So how did it get ripped away and flung here."

"Someone like you, chere?" Gambit suggested.

"Which… would be a terrible thing," Lord Bolton said slowly. "It is barely a relief to have one such as yourself on our side. To have them as an enemy…"

Brienne glowered at that but Lord Manderly spoke before she could respond to the Leech Lord's comment. "The world is changing, my friend. The old tales are being opened, the old songs sung again; releasing what was once confined to the page and the mind of dreamers. We must accept that some new fantastical being is the cause of this."

"Not fantastical."

Arya turned and stared at what could only be described as a monster.

It was HUGE. She was used to seeing big muscular men… they seemed to thrive in Braavos, making the claims the people in the South had that the North was the home of large burly men utterly laughable. But the creature before her was massive, with broad shoulders that made him nearly as wide as he was tall and limbs that were as thick as her torso. His skin was slick, the color of obsidian but reflective and shiny like someone had coated him in grease from a kitchen. He wore no clothing, bare toes that ended in dagger-like points, and he was standing in the snow like he was on the warmest of Southern beaches. But it was his face that was the most terrifying. There were no true eyes with instead white splotches where his eyeballs should have been. And the mouth was huge and filled with razor sharp teeth and a long tongue that flicked out like a snake.

"Something deadly," the new arrival said before leaning back, clearly surprised. "Theon?"

"…yes?" Theon said, startled that the monster knew his name. Brienne moved to fight him only for the creature's face to peel away… "ROBB!?"

"Theon!" Robb declared and Arya was rendered utterly dumbstruck at seeing her brother's head on the monstrous body. She had heard whispers he had discovered some great power that let him turning into a monster but… but somehow…

'I thought him smaller,' she thought as Robb shrank down as the black body retracted, revealing his normal frame. 'Looking more like a man in ebony armor and not… this.'

Theon and Robb had embraced as she stood there in shock, clapping each other on the back, and then Arya saw Theon whisper something in her brother's ear and Robb went utterly stiff… before slowly turning and looking her right in the eye.

She swallowed.

"Arya?" he whispered.

"…aye?" she said softly and, because she had no idea what else to do, gave him a weak wave.

Robb lunged at her, wrapping her in a hug and laughing so loudly it made her ears hurt but Arya found herself laughing as well, clinging to him. Because in that moment it struck her at long last.

She.

Was.

Home.

Arya broke down crying again but this time her tears mixed with peals of laughter and a smile that threatened to break her face in half.

When they finally broke apart, though it did involve them keeping their hands on one another, Arya and Robb shared a look before they blurted out the same thing.

"What happened to you!?"

The two considered each other.

"Ancient Valyrian Ritual."

"Creature from another world that crash landed North of the Wall."

Both knew there was far more to it than that but it was enough for them at the moment.

She heard movement from within Snowdrop and tensed only for Robb to smile and shake his head. "That's just Roslin."

"And who is Roslin?"

"My wife."

Arya slowly turned her head to glare at the Manderly and Bolton parts of their party. "And WHY wasn't I informed that I had a goodsister?" Lord Manderly smiled sheepishly while Lord Bolton merely stared back at her with a cool challenging look. She truly wanted to hate the man for all he had said back at White Harbor but damn it all he just had a way of looking so calm and collected in the face of everything that she couldn't help but feel begrudging respect for him.

Would still probably end up killing him if he pulled any shit.

Robb's wife was at once what she expected and what she didn't. Or, perhaps, the better way to put it was that she looked just like who Arya would have imagined him marrying yet didn't.

'Its like someone took mother and father's ideal choice for the next Lady of Winterfell and merged them into one,' Arya thought as the woman walked over. A year before King Robert had come to Winterfell Arya had been unable to sleep and decided to explore the castle. While doing so she had happened upon her parents chambers and been utterly terrified to hear them fighting. Not bickering… but screaming at each other. Her mother ranting and raving while her father only chose a few words but they were so thunderous it had made Arya convinced he'd bring the castle down upon them.

The fight had concerned finding a wife for Robb. Her mother had argued that they needed to find a proper match for him and had discussed the likes of Margaery Tyrell or the Princess Myrcella. Had brought up that considering the Starks were still owed a princess thanks to the promises made in the Dance of the Dragons and Robert was technically of Targaryen blood it only made sense to marry his daughter to Robb. Of course she hadn't been that rational about it when Arya had begun eavesdropping; her mother had screamed her husband was 'being a fool' and that they were 'great beauties' and their grandchildren 'would be fair and beautiful as well' and 'attract the attention of all the South'.

Father had, in cold thunderous words, stated that Robb would marry a woman of the North. That he wouldn't have Robb deal with rebellion from his bannermen by 'dishonoring them'. When her mother had demanded he explain… and then constantly poked and prodded him to respond… Arya's father had finally exploded, claiming that none in the North had ever accepted Arya's mother as a true Lady of the North because she never wanted to be 'Of the North'. That she was seen as a soft Southerner who didn't understand their ways and with it likely that Robb would rule during a Winter that might last 20 years or more he needed a strong wife that understood their ways.

That had, naturally, led Arya's mother to claim that Ned would prefer Jon to rule because there were always two constants when it came to Catlyn Stark: Sansa was the most perfect perfect-girl in the world and Jon wanted to steal Robb's birthright.

'Honestly, if they were attacked by a bear mother would have claimed that Jon getting his arm torn off while Robb only got some scratches was a plot to steal Winterfell.'

But Roslin was a blending of their ideals for Robb's wife. She was beautiful… not overly busty as she knew Robb and Theon had joked about when they thought she wasn't around… but she had a pretty face and graceful build. But there was a danger to her as well as she walked through the torn apart gates. She wore the heavy furs of someone that knew and understood battle, choosing not a dress but the breeches and long coat that she'd heard were favored by the Mormont women of Bear Island. And there was something sharp and dangerous in her gaze that reminded Arya of Mystique…

…it was rather startling when Arya realized she knew that look well.

Roslin… had killed people.

"Robb?" the woman called out.

"Roslin," Robb said with a soft smile, motioning for her to come over, "I'd like to introduce you to my sister, Arya Stark."

"Arya…" Roslin said quietly, a grin slowly forming on her lips. "Well… this is a rather pleasant surprise." She gave Arya a hug, though it was a touch difficult as Robb refused to let go of her, meaning that Roslin had to work around them both.

She could tell Robb wanted nothing more than talk to her but the massacre that lay in the walls just beyond him prevented that. "Is it like the others?"

"The same," Roslin confirmed.

"Damn."

"This has happened before?" Lord Bolton asked.

Robb glanced at the Lord of the Dreadfort and gave a sharp shallow nod. "It has. The fourth village we have found like this."

"Heavens," Lord Manderly murmured. "So many."

"Why has the North not been warned?" Lord Bolton said coolly.

"Because there is no pattern to it. Merely attacks. And with the War and the preparations for Winter communication between the Winter Villages and their neighbors is difficult. And one can not merely tell every village that something is attacking at random and we know nothing… the panic would be too great."

Roslin nodded. "Lord Stark, last we heard, commanded that all Winter Villages set up relay chains to keep in contact with one another, so that such attacks can be learned of far quicker. He is claiming he is worried about raiders. But many claim they cannot spare the men."

"They will when they learn of this," Mystique muttered.

Robb started when he finally noticed Mystique. "Another Child…" Arya realized that Mystique had, most likely while comforting her, reverted to her natural state.

"No, my Prince," Lord Manderly stated. "Lady Ravan is… someone else." Arya could tell he had wanted to say 'something else' but wisely changed his word choice lest her offend the woman. "She is unconnected with the Children."

"Ah," Robb said after a moment. "I suppose, with all that has happened, I shouldn't be surprised. And it is a relief she isn't another of our family returned. I don't think I could handle it if our Grandmother Lyra had returned."

"Our… what?" Arya said.

Robb gently squeezed her shoulder. "A long story."

"We have time for you to tell it," Arya said. "Winterfell is half a day away."

But Robb grew… pensive.

"We can travel with you only a short way, little sister. Then we must part."

"Part?" Arya said. "Why?"

"Roslin and I are attempting to learn what is causing the destruction that is striking these villages."

And with that he broke away and the black fluid burst from his skin, causing him to rise up and swell as he turned once more into the fanged monster she had first seen.

"But… I just returned," Arya whispered. "Can't you see me home?"

"It isn't our home… not at the moment," Robb declared, his voice so unlike what she was used to. "We are banished."