embrace the world in grey

by TheTenthSunrise

Two Wolves are sent North. Deep in the North, beyond the Wall, a lone Wolf survives the cold. A Young Wolf lies in the dark, and waits for rescue. Winter draws ever nearer (or, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives)

12. THE BLOODY WOLF III

CHAPTER TWELVE: THE BLOODY WOLF III

Arya Stark returns to Westeros, and encounters a man on the run. The Winds of Winter arrive at the doors of the Lords of the Crossing. A wolf reunites with her girl.

---

She remembers White Harbour in a vague sense of the word, with her memories being more akin to flashes of a trip from years ago, some diplomatic endeavour. A hand in hers, the breeze in her hair, the unending smell of people and salt and the sea. Her father's laughter and a jovial Lord. A sept, crowned in Snow, and statues of the Seven looming over her. Her brothers. A city, the first any of them had ever seen. Her mother's flame-red hair in a city of endless white stone.

The white-washed walls and endless blue-grey sea and sky are unchanged. The New Castle looms over all, and in tens of windows, candles flicker and burn, gold and yellow spires of light in a city of seemingly endless washes of white blue and grey like the sea it sits upon. Over the walls and keeps the merman of House Manderly whips in the wind. Sailors go about unheeded, voices call, and the city is neatly organised. The wind carries her hair and makes a chill run through her.

The sailors she's sailed with said that a storm was coming, and looking over at the grey clouds that hang in the distance over the Narrow Sea, Arya Stark thinks that they have no idea just how true that is. She has a plan, and all she needs to see it through is a horse, some food, and better clothes. She palms the last remnants of The Hound's money at her side. Enough for food and clothes, but not a horse that can match her needs, most likely.

She'd been a curt and quiet passenger, and she knows the men have not missed her Northern looks or the way she stared at the sea, but they were not paid to ask questions and so they did not do so. When she gets off at White Harbour, she knows that they are not sad to see her go. And she is not sad to go either, standing in Westeros for the first time in well over two years, now. And in The North, at that. She is, at long last, in the lands of her house.

She briefly entertains, as she wanders the streets, making her way to The New Castle and demanding she see Lord Manderly, declaring herself a Stark, but wariness buys out that flight of fancy. She has no idea where The North stands, and last she knew, The Boltons had stolen Winterfell from her house, and her brother was in chains. She cannot trust The Merman's Court to hold true, even if everyone probably says The North Remembers whenever they get the chance to, like any Northman does.

She finds herself in an inn, and sits in the corner, watching men drink and laugh and say raucous things to the serving girls. A few spare glances towards her, but she knows she looks wolfish and cold, and that she is not one even the most foolish man looks at and gets ideas about. The thin blade glimmering at her side helps with that, she is sure, and draws attention too. She cannot linger here long, but she gets some ale, just to quench her thirst.

The sun is setting low in the sky by the time she leaves the inn, having stayed longer than she intended, and she feels nerves crawl up her spine as she clings to the edges of the cobbled streets, remembering the days she'd spent in Flea Bottom following the arrest of her father and destruction of their household. She is not that slight little girl anymore, no, she is far more dangerous, but fear is not always a bad thing. It keeps one on their toes and keeps them aware, and she does not want to be caught unawares in any city at all.

She runs her fingers over Needle's hilt, feeling unnaturally wary. She slips into the shadows and watches the street flow by, seeing nothing for a moment. But then she sees a man, doing his best to look auspicious from the other side of the street, a man she'd seen in the tavern. She sighs heavily and goes back out into the street. Better to get it over with now, she thinks, taking a turn down a darker and far less crowded road.

Immediately, the man pounces, but she is ready for him, grabbing him by the collar and helping him throw himself forward to the ground. He gets to his feet, unsteady, and she stands calmly, her hands behind her back, Needle glimmering in the low light. He smiles when he sees it, "Pretty blade you got there."

"Would you like to see me use it?" She replies, her voice lilting and just on the edge of a tease. His eyes light up with a familiar lust, and she smiles. Drawing Needle in a quick moment, she strikes out stabbing him in his gut before he can blink and make another innuendo. He groans, and she pulls Needle from his gut, leaving him to bleed in the street, and slipping into the shadows as she hears someone cry out upon finding the would-be thief.

She needs to get out of the city. But she does not rush. She buys a warm travel cloak and new boots from an old tailor, buys the last of a baker's scraps from the day, and sets out to find a horse. She knows that a theft and a murder in a night would not be uncommon, but she hopes to avoid someone realising that they were carried out by the same slip of a girl with a strange and noticeable blade at her side. She quickens her pace, ever so slightly, pulling her cloak around her, hiding Needle.

Her chance comes as she stumbles upon an inn and an attached stable. Glancing inside at the glowing interior, she sees some men who look like sellswords laughing and drinking inside, and when she peers inside the stable, she sees a fine few–unattended–horses. Smiling, and with her bag growing heavy at her side, she makes quick work of taking the strongest horse and slowly slipping into the night with it. It is only when she is around the corner that she saddles the horse, and disappears before her presence is ever even noted.

She rests only once she is some fifteen miles from White Harbour, tacking her horse up on the edge of the White Knife. She has a long ride to The Twins and many days of riding before her, but she feels nothing more than at peace. Some snow falls softly around her for a little, barely sticking to the ground, but she smiles all the same, looking up at the stars. Her stolen horse is asleep, and she figures she can catch some rest, even as nervous as she feels.

Her nerves prove to be for nought as she rises with the sun, saddling her horse and beginning the slow journey to her first destination and the first batches of names on her list. With luck, she'll be there in two weeks or so, but she isn't counting on it, not that she needs to. She has patience, and she has time. Once she is there, anyway, it will not be hard to do what she needs to do, to answer for the horrors that she remembers. Her grip tightens on the reins.

Being back in The North does not prove to be easy, though. She isn't caught in any real storm, but her memories do catch her. And they are not the hints of a visit from years ago, a whisper of a touch, the vague outline of something that fell out of her reach long ago. They are real and hot and vivid, and she finds herself, many nights, staring at the crackling flame, and getting lost in her memories.

She'd let Grey Wind go, that horrible day, but she has no idea what good, if any, came of it. She thinks her brother and his wolf are still alive–can almost sense it in her bones–but she's heard no word of what their fates are in truth. But she remembers how he'd looked at her, and how for just a moment, it was like she was meeting Robb's eyes too, and everything would maybe be okay. Walder Frey.

She'd left Sansa behind. She'd left them both without their wolves when they most could have used them, and that Black Brother, Sam, had said he'd seen them, but she wants Nymeria beside her so much it hurts. They'd only had a few scant months together, in truth, but now, even five-plus years since their parting on the King's Road, she still can sense Nymeria like a hole in her heart. She'd left Sansa behind to the whims of the Lannisters. Cersei Lannister.

She'd failed Gendry. She wonders where he is now, if he's alright, if he's found a way to survive this chaos. She misses her friends too, him and Hot Pie, the three of them who escaped Harrenhall together, with the help of Jaqen H'ghar. She hopes that they're both alright and that the fucking Brotherhood won't fucking bother her again. She'd probably skewer them, anyhow. The Red Woman, Beric Dondarrion, Thoros of Myr.

She remembers Harrenhall. The Mountain.

Slowly, her mind turns to Sandor Clegane, probably long since dead, but she cannot be sure. He'd always seemed a tough old man, and she finds, in the lonely nights, that she does somewhat miss, in some sense of the word, his company, however sour it may have been. He'd protected her, died for her, and now he no longer lies on her list. His brother does, though. They'd never spoken of it, but she knew he knew. She knows that if she ever got the chance, she'd let Sandor get the kill. His hatred for his brother is older than she is.

She thinks of her own Brothers. Jon, all the way at The Wall. Robb, who knows where. Bran and Rickon, alive but hidden in the wilds, according to Sam. She thinks even of Theon Greyjoy, who Sam said had betrayed them, betrayed Robb, and yet…something burns in her throat when she tries to say his name. She wants answers, first, she thinks. She wants at least the chance to ask how and just why. He'd been the one to teach her to shoot, laughing without a care when she'd said one day she'd catch him by his furs and skewer him to a target, ruffling her hair.

Her memories are what warm her and guard her heart as she finally draws over the hill and sees The Twins in the distance. The Frey banner flies in the afternoon breeze, and she feels bile and hatred rise up in her throat, making it hard to breathe. The last time she was here, her brother's men were being butchered, and her mother was murdered and thrown into the river. She stares balefully at The Green Fork of The Trident, before heading closer.

Slipping in is as easy as ever. She clings to the shadows and watches the server girls go about in silent fear, her bag growing heavy at her side. Some part of her wants to just use one of those faces, but a new server girl will be noticed by, at the very least, the other servants. So she hardens her heart and gets to work. The girl dies easily and painlessly, at least, and Arya has enough wherewithal to whisper an apology before she does her gruesome work.

She stores Needle and her clothes away near the servant stables where she'd tacked up her horse, should she find the need to get away quickly. She blends in with the servants, and it is there she hears the news of expected arrivals and a certain army being on her way. She gets an idea, a cold and dark one, but something that makes the wolf in her curl up and snarl in vicious triumph.

Lothar and Black Walder do not see her coming. She thinks of Hot Pie and his pies and his smile as she does her work, and there is no guilt in her heart as she does so. No guilt for the men who helped senselessly murder her mother, who took her brother from her, who took so much for her. Walder Frey has no idea what is coming. And neither does The Lannister Army that is here to celebrate stealing Riverrun from them again, using her broken puppet lord of an Uncle to do their work.

The North Remembers. It is a grim promise, yes, and one that rings true, that hammers in tune to the beat of her heart as she prepares her plan, as the names and faces of all those whom she will kill before she leaves The Twins flash by her mind. Walder Frey. Edwyn Frey. Black Walder. Emmon Frey. Lothar Frey. All of them, all of them and more. There will be no House Frey by the hour of my departure, no male heirs left to pass on that name. Nothing but tens of scared girls and blood on the floor.

Her father's face fills her mind, and she blinks away tears. He would rue to see what she has become, but a part of her thinks, desperately, Understand, Father, that I had to become this. That this is how I was forced to survive. She knows it would break both her mother's and her father's hearts to see what she has become, to see and understand the cruelty she is about to enact, but she hopes that, in whatever heaven they have been at last reunited in, they can at least see and understand why. That they can know that she does this for them, because of them.

A long time ago, she and Jon had spoken of Joffrey and how he married the sigils of House Baratheon and House Lannister in his sigil, placing the sigils of his supposed parents in equal regard. Of course, she knows now the truth, but she remembers what Jon had said, too, how he'd suggested she marry The Tully Trout with The Stark Direwolf. She'd laughed at it, but now, the Tully words cross her mind, as scrap and a murmur of a voice she will never hear again. Family, Duty, Honour.

They'd mocked her Uncle Edmure, the Freys she'd overheard. Mocked how he'd bent and broken, and she feels her heart ache for her Uncle, so far away, trapped in his home, doomed to forever be haunted by the fact that he is the groom of The Red Wedding. That while he bedded his wife, his sister was murdered, and his nephew was betrayed in an act so heinous it should have had the gods come down and smote The Twins right where they stood. But they did not. And now Arya does what they could not.

She loves her House. She loves her family, and she loves The North. The North Remembers. This is for them. This is for Robb, wherever he is. This is for Grey Wind, looking at her with eyes that she knows were not all his own. For her mother, lost forever to the Waters. For Edmure, haunted and hallowed. For every man who died here. For the family and the life she will never get back.

For the little girl she was. For the little girl who was finally killed that day, ending a slow death that started when a man asked her What do we say to the God of Death? For herself, for the girl whose father always tried to instil a sense of her house, of their honour and the legacy she was inheriting, for Arya of The House Stark. The North Remembers.

—

A girl sees a man and feels something coil up low in her gut. Jaime Lannister, The Kingslayer, looks oddly disquieted, especially next to that upjumped sellsword at his side, but she cares little for his troubles, as her own stew lowly in her gut. When he and his companion catch her watching, the latter smiles at the Kingslayer and says something that is, no doubt, lewd in manner. She resists the urge to roll her eyes and goes to serve another table.

Jaime Lannister killed Jory in the streets of King's Landing. She remembers that well enough, remembers how kind and good Jory had been, how he'd always laugh and play along with their jokes and games when he had the chance, how he always did his duty but never seemed cold for it. Their father had always trusted him implicitly, and she wishes Jory could have survived to see them all grow up, survived to see what they all became. But that was, as some would say, in The Gods' plan.

She comes around a while later, and pours them both their drinks, doing her best to appear like nothing dangerous as the sellsword grins at her and starts running his mouth, as Jaime Lannister sits right there. Her heart aches a furious tune in this room, but she fears that if she meets The Kingslayer's blue eyes, she will murder him before night's end, for what he did to Jory, for what his House did to hers. She's certain he doesn't even remember Jory's name, and that makes her heart beat faster and angrier, though it doesn't show on her face.

"Quiet, aren't you?" The sellsword says, glancing at the Kingslayer when he mutters something that sounds like leave her alone. She just smiles and leaves them be, far too aware of how The Kingslayer watches her go, how his eyes bear into her from afar. He, she thinks, is jumpy and nervous but for what reason she cannot quite say. Discontent with the knowledge of what transpired here? Or something more?

She's serving another table when she thinks she figures out what is going on here. Two men, drunk out of their minds and lascivious and lewd in all the ways that make her bristle and want to put them on her list just so she has an excuse to rid the world of them, are speaking loudly of their theft of Riverrun. But it is not Riverrun that interests her, nor their japes at her uncle's expense, no it's what they say about her Great Uncle that gives her pause.

"And that fucking Blackfish swam upstream again," one of them says, taking a long swig of his drink. She draws closer and fills it up, going down the table so she can keep an ear on what he is saying. "First he turns tail at The Wedding, now he slips away like a slippery fish once more. Doesn't that old man realise we're gonna get him eventually?" He snorts. "Can't wait to see his trial. Maybe they'll bring The Young Wolf about for it." That gets a round of laughter.

Her mother never spoke extensively about her own uncle, but what little she did share and the whispers Arya heard during the height of the war is enough to make something start spinning in her mind, half-finished ideas and threads of a slowly unspooling plot. She does not know her great Uncle Brynden, but she knows he was loyal to Robb, knows he is free, and knows that he's one of the best damn soldiers running free. Would he say no to some revenge? She thinks not.

She glances back, momentarily, at The Kingslayer. There is a sort of regret in his eyes, and she wonders how he feels about losing one of the top generals of The Northern forces once more. She has no real skill in tracking, but if she was him, she'd start trying to find some allies, and The North would look quite appealing, if but for the possibility that some Stark is running wild around there. She tightens her grip on her jug of ale and hardens her resolve.

She is nearly giddy by the time the revellers leave, but she keeps that to herself as she serves the lonesome Walder Frey some more ale. His sickly eyes trace her figure as she brings him her pie, saying, "You're not one of mine, are you?" She feels a thread of disgust rise up in her at the thought, and while she wants to say thank the gods, no, she does not.

"No, m'lord," she says instead.

"Didn't think so. Too pretty," he says, and she resists the urge to roll her eyes when he slaps her ass. The knife hidden under her clothes grows heavier, but she betrays nothing as she pulls away slightly, feeling disgust roll up in her as she sees his lecherous smile. His eyes harden as he looks around the empty room. "Where are my damn moron sons? Black Walder and Lothar promised to be here by midday."

She does not smile, but it takes effort to do so. "They're here, m'lord."

"Well, what are they doing then? Trimming their cunt hairs?" He snorts, and she remembers how they both died so very easily by her hand, how satisfying it was. But it will not be half as satisfying as what she's about to do now. He takes a bite of the pie. "Tell them to come here now."

Her eyes do not leave him, a sort of sick and twisting pleasure coming up in her belly. "They're already here m'lord." He looks around the room, looking half a fool and twice as doomed. She leaves forward, doing her best not to smile as she points at the pie and says, in a voice like the toll of a bell signalling death, "Here, m'lord."

He straightens and takes a better look at the meat pie. Slowly, he turns his horrified eyes to her, and she says, voice flat and dead, "They weren't easy to carve. Especially Black Walder." He breathes heavily, looking at her with horror and she at last lets a smile cross her face, as she pulls the face back and stares down at him with her Northern face, and her Stark eyes, and the hatred of a wolf. He looks at her in abject horror.

"My name is Arya Stark," she says at long last in her own voice. The colour all but drains from his face. "I want you to know that. The last thing you will ever see is a Stark smiling down at you while you die." He tries to run, but she is faster, and her blade is silent. She cuts his throat like her mother's throat was cut–to the bone. He chokes and he sputters and he tries to fight, but he dies. Valar Morghulis, she thinks, All men must die.

And die they all will. She steals his face and gets to work on finishing off the last of House Frey. She steals a single moment to herself, before all of Walder's numerous sons and grandsons come around, crouched at the edge of The Green Fork, her fingers ghosting through the rushing water, her mind aeons away. She stares down the length of the river, thinking of her mother.

She wasn't the perfect daughter, she wasn't Sansa. But her mother loved her, and she had her mother's passion and sharp tongue and the stubborn streak of both her parents. She was no Southern Bride, but she was her mother's daughter, and now she is an orphan with nothing left of her parents save for ghosts and memories. Tears come to her eyes and she lets them silently fall, thinking of her mother and how she'd kiss her brows and tuck her into bed. She wasn't perfect in the ways she thinks her mother wished, but she was her daughter, and she still wants to do right by her memory, at least.

Walder Frey had died slowly. That is almost enough to make her think that she is doing something right, remembering the whispers she heard of The Red Wedding, how they said that her mother begged and wailed and how she still died. Her bones are somewhere out there, in this river, laid to rest in a place she is unlikely to ever find. She picks up some dirt and lets it run through her hands, thinking of a summer long since gone and a flash of red hair and calloused hands.

That night, all of House Frey is there, and as far as they know, nothing is wrong. But they are sheep, all of them, and the wolf is amongst them. She takes a long swig of her drink, watching the Freys laugh and drink and say cruel things to their sisters, who float like shadows through the edges of the room. She will spare them because they had nothing to do with their father and brother's mummer's farce, nothing to do with the butchery that happened in this very room.

They will sing songs about what happened here. A new Rains of Castamere, for House Stark, warning of their own vengeance and their own grief. The thought comforts her.

She rises at last, slamming her cup on the table twice to shut up the idiot Freys. Tens of expectant eyes go to her, and she feels anticipation rise up in her slowly, maddeningly. "You're wondering why I brought you all here. After all, we just had a feast. Since when does old Walder give us two feasts in a single fortnight?" She begins, and scattered laughter fills the room. "Well, it's no good being lord of the Riverlands if you can't celebrate with your family. That's what I say!"

He is no Lord of the Riverlands, in truth. But she cannot do anything for her Uncle, not while he hangs in a Lannister noose, and she prays that he will forgive her for her inability, should they meet and should he learn of what she is about to do. She snaps her fingers and a serving girl begins to serve the wine, feeling all sorts of ready as she raises her cup and begins speaking again.

"I've gathered every Frey who means a damn thing so I can tell you my plans for this great house now that winter has come. But first, a toast! No more of that Dornish horse piss! This is the finest Arbour gold! Proper wine for proper heroes!" Proper heroes, she thinks with a scoff. Doomed to die within minutes. She raises her glass and says, "Stand together!"

The men echo their House Words, and she watches as they down the wine, but she does not drink herself. At her side, one of the serving girls moves to take a sip herself, but she snaps at her, "Not you. I'm not wasting good wine on a damn woman." Forgive me, she thinks, but his cruelty is what is going to save you. The girl does not take a sip again, thoroughly cowed, and she looks across the room, voice darkening as she begins again.

"Maybe I'm not the most pleasant man. I'll admit it. But I'm proud of you lot. You're my family, the men who helped me slaughter the Starks at the Red Wedding." They cheer. Her heart hammers in her chest, fury and hatred boiling up, but she swallows it down and quiets the cheers. They will not be cheering by night's end. They will be dead. They will be gone. The North will have their vengeance, and there is nothing anyone here can do to undo what has already been done. She smiles.

"Yes, yes. Cheer. Brave men, all of you. Butchered a woman pregnant with her babe. Cut the throat of a mother of five. Slaughtered your guests after inviting them into your home. But you didn't slaughter every one of the Starks." Glances are exchanged. Men begin to groan, a few looking up at her awkwardly. Their awkwardness turns to fear as their brothers begin to cough. Her smile widens, her heart hammering in the beat of her father's voice, her mother's blood, her brother's crown. "No, no, that was your mistake. You should have ripped them all out, root and stem."

Someone collapses, coughing up blood. Everywhere she looks, men are dying, dying in the very room where they butchered her mother, ruined her House. "Leave one wolf alive," she says, remembering a wolf dream from a lifetime ago, remembering Lannister soldiers killed by Nymeria and Lady, "And the sheep are never safe." Once more, she reaches up and removes Walder Frey's face. She watches the scene for a moment.

She hopes, that in whatever heaven her mother is in, she is watching this, seeing what Arya has done for her, done for the blood that was spilt here. They didn't really kill any Starks, no, just the wives of ones and the men who carry the direwolf sigil, but the distinction only matters to her when she thinks of their claims that they were the ones to topple the mighty House Stark. Robb and Grey Wind both live, this, she believes. They have no backing to warrant their claim of toppling the oldest ruling house in the whole of Westeros.

She turns to the serving girl as the last man dies. Her eyes are wide and horrified, and she smiles flintily, looking all the parts like the wolf she is. "When people ask you what happened here," she says, drawing closer, "Tell them The North Remembers. Tell them that Winter came for House Frey. " She looks at the girl, waiting until she nods to nod back and walk away, walking through a field of blood like the one in the wake of The Red Wedding.

No one hinders her, no one stops her. The Lannisters will hear of this before long, but she will be long gone by then, and she hopes that someone has the intelligence to figure out who she is, just so they can feel fear. She has been off the board since her father's death, lost to all armies, presumed dead. But she is not dead, she is far from it, and now the whole of a House is gone in less than two days by her own hand.

She retrieves Needle and her clothes, and finds her horse, saddling it and getting up on it. She leaves the stables in no great rush, listening to the Keep come alive behind her as it reels from the murder of their Liege Lords. No one stops her as she leaves. No one really sees her go, no one knows who she is, knows who the girl who has just burned it all down was. But maybe they will learn, maybe someone clever will put it all together. But she will be gone to the wind by then, out of reach once more.

And so, Arya Stark leaves The Twins once again, but not as a little and scared girl who has just been orphaned. No, she leaves as a Wolf of Winterfell, blood on her hands and a sword gleaming at her side, and a few less names on her list.

—

She ruminates on what she wants to do for some time, heading generally South, but not straying too far from anything, just staying far enough that a lonesome Lannister patrol won't find her while she figures out what to do and what name to strike next. Cersei is the chief name on her list, and The Mountain is probably with her, thousands of miles away. The Brotherhood and The Red Women seem much more attainable, if but for the fact that she has no idea where she'd expect to find them.

Revenge, as she is learning, is only so easy as accessibility. She knows her strength as a Faceless Man, but there's the question of how to use that without getting caught in the nest of vipers that is King's Landing. And Cersei, the self-styled Queen, apparently, would be wary and paranoid, which could prove to be a difficulty when attempting to bypass that and murder her where she stands.

There's so many moving pieces she's finding, and it's maddening to try and align them all and figure out how to complete her list. She'd gotten lucky with Meryn Trant, and Walder Frey was too much of a bumbling and incompetent fool to be that dangerous once she got a face and The Lannisters weren't there to protect him. But The Brotherhood are good at what they do, and even then, there's be nought a whisper of them in any of the taverns she's bought a night in (with some money she stole from The Twins before her departure).

The Horse is a good companion though, and while she does feel some shade of regret for the theft, she doesn't linger on it for too long. They'd have found themselves a new horse some way or another, probably, and will only carry the resentment of the theft, not any hope that they can get it back. She spends many nights leaning against it, a small fire at her feet, staring at the stars as they twinkle above her head in dizzying spirals of light. The moon is a sickle in the sky, pale and looming.

It is about a week from her actions at The Twins when she gets an odd feeling in her gut like she's being watched. She pauses for only a moment, before stroking the fire, far too aware of the eyes on her back, the hesitance of the stranger. She pokes at the fire and eats an apple, Needle at her side making her feel fearless, however foolish that might be. The blade has gotten her this far, after all, and very few Westerosi Knights can contend with a Braavosi Waterdancer for long.

And that's not all she is, anyway.

At long last, someone comes from the woods, and she glances up to see a man in a heavy, roughspun cloak approaching her, hands up in a gesture of surrender. His hair is grey, and his jaw is covered with stubble that makes him look worn and tired. He is tall and lean, with a few scars on his hands, and a sword hanging at his side, half hidden by his cloak. But his eyes are what grabs her attention as they meet, a familiar blue looking back at her. She clears her throat awkwardly as he approaches.

"May I join you, my lady?" He asks her, his voice rough but not unkind, carrying a Riverlands accent with it. She looks at him appraisingly, his last two words ringing in her head. My Lady. How interesting. She nods, and he sits across from her, looking at her appraisingly, like he's seeing something familiar. She herself is doing the same, running through all the possibilities of who this man could be. It seems quite the coincidence that he would just show up, and yet…

"What is a girl like you doing out in the woods alone, and for so long?" He asks, voice twinged with some ulterior knowledge. She glances up at him with a sly grin, and his eyes seem to harden, brows furrowing a bit, and she has a sudden worry that she has only now just noticed him. She is quite aware of things, she will say, but this man seems to be hardened, and if it is…him, he would know The Riverlands better than anyone else, better than her, certainly.

"I'm going South," she says, and she knows he catches The Northern lilt to her voice when he seems to draw back for a moment, studying her again with an appraising look. She pulls a knife out and grabs another apple, splitting it in two and handing the other half to him. He takes it after a moment, and she asks, "How about you, my lord? " She raises a challenging brow.

"Looking for allies," he says after a pause, a smile on his face that reminds her of her mother. She chews on her half of the apple, resisting the urge to bounce her leg as she thinks. She'd picked up on no trace of him in the past week, but that does not mean much, does it? She isn't a tracker or even a Ranger, and there is something gnawing at the back of her mind, making her think that this was no chance encounter. "It is odd, you know."

"What is?"

"You left The Twins a scant week ago, and you have travelled what…travelled barely to the Mouth of the Trident? You seemed in such a hurry when you left that castle. And yet you make little progress." She freezes, and he looks at her with a smile as she jumps to her feet, her hand on Needle, her face cold. "What is even stranger is that mine own kin does not recognise me."

She stills again, her grip on Needle loosening a bit. "Before you ask, child, no, I have not been following you for long. I was rushing North, following the fall of Riverrun, and was perhaps a day out from The Twins when I saw a host of Lannister men rushing to it. A day later, I found a girl and a horse, travelling south, murmuring names. I stayed away, but followed until I was certain she was who I thought."

"How did you know?" She asks, sitting down slowly, appraising the man who is almost certainly her Great Uncle Brynden, the missing outlaw known to many as The Blackfish, with a sharp eye. "No one has seen me in years."

"You have The North in you, and your mother's fire," he smiles wanly. "It was more the whispers. Your words to what Freys are left have travelled far, and your description has as well. And village people love to speak of strangers. Most of those Lannister men are too big of fools to put two and two together, but I remember a boy who spoke of his sister and her fire and how she looked, and a niece who missed her daughters with such a fury she would do anything to see them freed."

"But I was not certain until you spoke," he says. "You caught what I said, I saw. My Lady, not m'lady, and you made the same choice. And with that Northern Accent, I was almost certain. I took a gamble of course, but it would seem I am correct, aren't I, Arya Stark?" She laughs slightly in utter disbelief, looking away. He laughs too, a deep and raspy sound.

"You're my Uncle Brynden," she says, and he nods. Her nerves give way to a sort of giddy feeling, and she loosens her hold on Needle at last, kicking up the fire. It crackles and burns and she stares into it for a long moment, before asking, "Where do you plan to go now?"

"I could ask the same of you," he says, looking at her with a sad look. "I…received a visit, right before Riverrun fell, from a woman named Brienne of Tarth. She said that she was your sister's sworn sword, and that she and your half-brother Jon Snow were seeking to reclaim Winterfell from The Boltons and that they would like my help. I did not believe the woman, not at first, but by the time I did, it was too late to render help. She went North, and I once more swam away from those treacherous Lannisters."

"Brienne of Tarth?" She asks, furrowing her brow. "Tall woman, blond and blue-eyed? With blue-grey armour?" He raises a brow and nods after a moment, and she laughs, unable to help herself. The woman who killed The Hound is now Sansa's sworn sword, according to this man. Her laughter fades for a moment, a sudden thought seizing her and she looks at him with a wary eye. "How do I know that you are who you say?"

He does not look any shade of surprised at her accusation, his face sobering after a moment. He stays silent for a few long breaths, eyes trained on the fire, a grief unlike anything else etched into the lines of his face. "Your brother's wolf was named Grey Wind. Your mother would always sew trouts onto scrap fabric when she did not know what else to sew, because it was the first thing she learned how to sew. When the summer snows fell, you and your siblings would throw snowballs at any unsuspecting passerby." He smiles sadly. "Do you need more, my lady?"

"No," she says hoarsely, looking away as the memories come to her mind. Once, she remembers, she and her siblings had managed to hit their father, and he'd spent the better part of an hour ignoring his duties in favour of some good old-fashioned revenge, roping in their mother towards the end. She still remembers how he'd picked her up by her waist, throwing her over his shoulder, and how his laugh had boomed amongst the stone and snow of Winterfell, her giggles acting in harmony with it. "I believe you are who you say you are."

He nods, and says very little more, at least for some time. The sun sets low over the horizon, then, and only then, does she break the silence again, looking at his face as she asks, "How did you escape? How did you survive The Wedding? What happened?"

He looks grieved, but not surprised by the question. Curling and uncurling his fingers, he takes a deep breath, eyes miles away as he says, "Luck, I suppose. I left the Hall early, to relieve myself, and I suppose they all thought I'd just get caught up in the rush. But I heard the first scream, saw the first body outside and I…I ran like hell. I regret that decision, to my last, but I knew that I had to survive, chiefly, and that attempting to save my niece and your brother would have my head on a spike before dawn. So, I ran, and did what I could to take back my home and keep it in the hands of House Tully."

Grief is in every inch of his countenance as he continues. "I held, for some time, yes, but I have failed once more. I have failed to avenge the people they took from me, failed to honour the words of my House or the Oaths I swore to your brother, My King. And now Edmure sits in Riverrun, a broken and destroyed man, and I can do nothing but watch as what little remains of him is strung up like a puppet by Cersei Lannister and her brother, and my home is taken from me, and I am branded an outlaw for remembering and honouring my oaths." He spits on the floor, eyes cold. But then he looks slowly towards her. "They say House Frey is gone."

"It is," she agrees, and he smiles sharply, delight in his eyes. Perhaps it is uncouth to celebrate death, to revel in it, but is that not what The Freys did, cheering the murder and horror they wrought? A mother of five and a woman pregnant with a baby who would never be born, both butchered senselessly, needlessly. Her brother, wrapped in chains, his Dire Wolf only free because she was there at just the right time. "And I am the one who killed them."

"You are indeed," he agrees, looking at her with an expression that she cannot read, not in the slightest. "I will not ask how, for I feel I do not want to know the answer, but I will say this: Cersei Lannister sits The Iron Throne now. The Boy King is dead, and she has what she wants, at long last. She does not care for House Frey and will be glad to see them gone, but less glad to hear that no one knows who successfully saw to the end of a whole House in less than a week. She will be searching for you. You would do well to find some allies beyond your old grey uncle."

"I have unfinished business with The Queen," she says cooly. She can feel The Blackfish's eyes on her, sharp and unyielding, missing little. "I have a list of names, a list of people I intend to see dead by my hand, at least. The names of the people who have helped destroy my family, the people who have taken those who I care about from me. She is top of that list, and I intend to cross her name off of it before the end."

"I'm certain you do," he agrees, running a finger over the hilt of his blade. "I would do much the same, had I the rage left in me. But all I have left is grief and pain and old bones that cannot break the people who took my beloved niece from me. I do not intend to stop you, Arya, but I counsel you to wait, if but for a moment, to see what comes of your sister and brother's hope to take back your home. It is a long and cold way to King's Landing."

She thinks of Jon and Sansa, together somewhere out there, probably laughing and happy and not alone, and feels something sour in her. She wants that, wants that more than anything, but she wants Cersei more than anything too. They are a fleeting hope, and she cannot put trust that they have taken Winterfell, not until she knows. The only faith she knows is the prayer of names she whispers every night, the only truth in her is the inevitability of death. Valar Morghulis. What do we say to the God of Death?

"If I still choose to go South," she ventures, glancing up at him and seeing an expressionless mask on his face. "Will you choose to hinder me, Great Uncle? I have faith in Jon and Sansa–I must have faith in them. But I cannot put all my hope in a conquest that I have little knowledge of, hope in a fleeting dream. The one thing I have known for certain since my father's death is that list, is those names. The North Remembers–I remember. They killed my father, they killed my mother, they took everything from me. And now I want to take it all from them."

He says nothing for a long moment, looking at her with an unreadable expression. There is something aged in his eyes, something forlorn, something deeply apologetic. But even then, he clears his throat and manages to say, "I will not hinder you if that is what you so desire. But I hope to travel with you, Arya, my kin and blood. Your mother loved you dearly and desperately, and I would see you safe, if but to honour her memory and the love of my king. Do what you must, but allow me to travel with you."

She thinks over it for a moment, and tries to think of all the reasons to say no. But she is coming up short. Brynden Tully is one of the most prolific veterans alive, the veteran of half a hundred battles, at least. Robb had kept his council, kept him close, and he'd never wavered from that trust, neither of them had. Her mother had loved this man who still calls Robb his king, who has fought tooth and nail for the survival of his house. What reason does she truly have to say no?

And so she says yes, and his eyes brighten with the first spark of a very familiar fire. He says little more of it, beyond offering to take the first watch, and she sleeps easily. By the time the sun rises over the land, they are both on their way to the nearest village, where they're planning to pool what funds they have to buy a horse off of someone, although she's not sure that either of them has much confidence in the endeavour.

But their worries prove to be for nought, and before noonday, they are both astride horses, blades hidden under either their cloak or saddle, and they're travelling steadily along the eastern bank of The Trident, The Crossroads in a scant day from them. He is good enough company, if quiet, but he does share a few stories with her, his voice like song as he regales her with tales of his life, of wars long since fought, and especially, of her mother and brother.

It is then that she gets the sense that there is something he is not saying. He seems hesitant to dive into any discussion of the rest of her siblings, and his eyes get a strange look in them whenever she mentions Jon. She'd think it was because of the bastardry, but there seems to be something more to it all, something he is almost nervous to say, for fear of reaction. She lets him keep his secrets, but never quite shakes the nagging feeling in the back of her mind of something being amiss, of there being something more to his obfuscation.

But all thoughts of that disappear as they hear the singing. Exchanging a glance, they slow a bit, carefully approaching the noise, and she knows they both noticeably pause when they see the soldiers, sitting around a fire, and their red cloaks and lion insignia. They glance up at the pair of them, their singing drawing to a stop, eyes widening as they see the strangers.

"Pretty song," she says, heedless of the glance Brynden gives her. "I've never heard it."

"It's new," One of them replies with an easy smile.

"Are you hungry?" Another asks, and she feels both herself and her uncle pause. "We've got some rabbit. More than enough to go around." She glances at her great uncle and sees a hard look in his eyes, but there is a resolve in them too. He glances at her, and their eyes meet. He turns back to them, and in a voice that slightly hides his highborn Riverlands accent, replies.

"We would not want to steal your food."

"It's not stealing, friends. We're offering," One of them says, turning to get a better look at the pair of them. Again, she and Brynden exchange a look, now one that is certainly of surprise coupled with a sort of unease. But food is food…"Come on, it's gonna be a cold night." They exchange yet another glance, and with no way to say no, now, both dismount and tack up their horses in silence. He sends her a warning look, and she nods, pulling her cloak around to hide Needle as he fastens his own blade to his side quietly.

Slowly, they come to sit around the fire, and she is well aware of the looks the Lannister soldiers send the blades at their sides, but she supposes it is trying times, and that would be enough of an excuse for many. "You heading South?" One of them asks, offering them both some drinks.

She nods. "King's Landing."

Brynden picks up on it. "Me and my Granddaughter are trying to escape the turmoil before Winter comes."

"Poor folks," one of them says, gathering scattered laughter. Brynden takes a sip of the proffered ale, his eyes hard as Valyrian steel as he scans the company. Should it turn to violence, which she is hoping it doesn't, truly, she has at least the comfort of his skill, if not the comfort of retained anonymity.

"Is it that bad, now?" Brynden replies.

"Depends on your taste–If you like your streets covered in shit and pig's blood, it's the perfect place for you," one replies with a snort, and Arya hides her own smile, remembering her time in Flea Bottom well enough. Brynden's lip quirks slightly, but he does not laugh as well, and she can tell that the strange, weathered man is off-putting too many of the men around the fire.

"All my life, I wanted to see The Red Keep, the Sept of Baelor, the Dragon Pit. Then, when I finally make it, they wouldn't let me within a mile of The Red Keep," another adds on, and her eyes stray briefly to their swords, "And the Sept of Baelor is blown to hell, and The Dragonpit is a damn ruin."

They both pause, looking at the man who said it with wide eyes. "Pardon?" Her Great-Uncle says, and the soldiers exchange nervous looks. They'd both been forced to cling to shadows and that news had not reached them. Perhaps…They had said that Tommen Baratheon was dead and that Cersei had The Iron Throne now, but she never quite questioned just how. She feels something twist inside her, remembering those steps, all those long years ago, now.

"Just blew right up, killed King Tommen and Queen Margaery," He says with a shrug. She glances again at her Great Uncle, the mythic Blackfish, and sees a look of deep trouble in his eyes as he takes another sip of his ale, and says nothing.

"The people who live there, they'd skin you alive if they thought they could make two coppers off your hide," One of them says with a snort, and someone agrees, calling it The worst place in The World. Arya can't quite disagree, but she thinks that there are worse things one would have to do, just to survive. She remembers what she saw there, remembers how different it had been for her. They're just people who are doing their best to survive. They all are.

"What are your names, friends?" Another asks.

"Cat," she says after a moment, and Brynden stiffens at her side. Smiling easily she continues, she gestures to Brynden, "And this is my grandfather, Sam." He glances sidelong at her, but she does not pay attention. "We're trying to get South before the snows come. How about you? What are you doing in The Riverlands?"

"There's been some trouble with The Freys up at The Twins," one says, and she takes a sip of her own drink to hide her smile. He jerks his chin to the men around him. "So, we're part of the army that's been sent to keep the peace." They're both offered some food and after a brief hesitation and being spurred on, they take it. "You from around here?"

"I was," Brynden agrees, a sharp edge slipping into his voice, but she thinks she's the only one who notices it. "My granddaughter, Cat, here lived closer to The North with her family, but once the War swept through…her da and ma, my daughter, died pretty early on in the fighting. Her brothers rode off to war, and so I've been looking out for her, as much I can. Ain't been no word of any of them, not since The Red Wedding, so we're gonna try to make a new life, away from the fighting."

They exchange awkward looks. "Your grandsons…er, fought for House Tully, I suppose?" One of them asks, and Brynden takes a long sip of his drink, looking at them cooly from over the edge of his mug. They all shift as they wait for his reply, the air suddenly that much more tense. She watches her Great-Uncle carefully.

"They did," he agrees, "Like any man or boy of The Riverlands. And I miss those boys fiercely, but there's no blood between you and me personally. Everyone fights for someone, and sometimes, they fight for the losing side. I've seen many wars happen, seen King's come and go. I know the price you gamble every time you go out there and risk your neck. You boys are a long way from home, been having adventures. What are you fighting for?"

"Endless adventures," One of them says, and she can't quite tell if he's being sarcastic. "They'll be singing about us for years!" Scattered laughter, and when she studies her Great Uncle Brynden's face, she sees a sort of humour in his eyes. He knows soldiers, no matter the army. It must be some comfort, to be back amongst them.

"The truth is when we left home, we couldn't wait to get away. But now we've been gone a while, we can't wait to get home," One of them says, face twisting into a sad smile.

"I just think about my dad out there on his boat all alone. I ought to be out there with him," Another laments, and she feels her heart hammer in her chest.

"My wife just had our first baby."

"Boy or girl?" Brynden asks a smile on his face, a real smile.

"Oh, who knows? You think soldiers get ravens with news from home?" They all laugh, and she feels something loosen in her chest, like an old knot. These men are not the propagators of the violence that has befallen their house. They're just men doing what they're told to do. The man smiles softly, and says, "I hope it's a girl." When someone asks why, he glances at her and Brynden. "Girls take care of their papas when their papas grow old. Boys just go off to fight in someone else's wars."

"That they do," Brynden agrees, and she knows his mind is years away, to the nieces and nephews he helped rear, to The Wars he saw break this land, to the boys he saw die. He looks up at the sky and the stars that begin to peak through the evening gloom. "If there's anything I've learned though, it's that dying for something you believe in, for someone who you believe in is endlessly better than dying for someone who doesn't give two shits about you." He sends a challenging look to them.

It will not change these men in a day. But they're good men, tools of a larger power. She is a player in the game, and they are merely the pawns people like her use to enact their horrors. They're not like The Frey men she and The Hound killed, all those years ago, for what they said of her mother, how they mocked their death. They're just more men who want to get home and make something good out of it. They're not Cersei, and they're certainly not The Freys.

It's thoughts of them, of wars and the like that dog her steps as they draw up to The Crossroads Inn, the place where it all began to unravel, all those years ago. It was here, or hereabouts, she last saw Nymeria. She met The Hound here, and last saw Hot Pie here. It was here that she regained Needle. So much has happened in this area, or hereabouts. She hopes, at least, Hot Pie is here this time.

She and Brynden get a table, and she spots her old friend a scant moment before he does. His brows shoot to his hair, and he smiles, quickly dropping off another table's food before sitting down at theirs, startling Brynden but making her smile as he greets her with a simple, "Arry!" The name and the good memories attached to it, however few they may be, makes her feel warm inside, makes her feel happy beyond words. Hot Pie glances awkwardly at Brynden.

"I can't quite tell you who this is," she says, keeping her voice soft, and glaring at him when he snorts. "But he's a friend. And um…so is he," she adds, addressing Brynden and gesturing to Hot Pie, who nods at him. She looks back at her old friend. "How have you been?"

"Good!" He says. "I've made…I like it here."

"That's good," she says with a smile. Hot Pie had always seemed happier and more untouched than most, harder to break. He's never stopped smiling really, and even Harrenhall didn't serve to break him. And she's glad for it, glad to see someone is untouched by the horrors of the last few years of near-constant warfare. She glances at Brynden as he calls over some ale, and sees him watching her friend carefully, but not warily. Simply gauging who he is.

"I can't believe you're here! Did you meet the big lady?"

"Big lady?" She questions, looking at him with a furrowed brow. From the corner of her eye, she can see her Great-Uncle do much the same as he sips at his drink.

"The Lady Knight?" He questions, somewhat hesitantly. Glancing around, he lowers his voice, so only they can hear. "Well, I figured she was a knight because she had armour on. She was looking for your sister, but I told her about you. Did she find you?"

She glances at Brynden, and he speaks at last to Hot Pie. "This…Lady Knight. Was she blonde, with blue eyes and armour, and a mighty fine sword at her side? Had a boy who looked far too old to be a squire at her back?" Hot Pie nods and Brynden laughs loudly, drawing a few eyes, but he seems heedless. "What a jape the Gods have pulled!"

"I met her," Arya says, a little curtly, before continuing, "As did my sister, or so I've heard." Hot Pie nods, smiling a little wanly now, and seeming to consider a question for a moment before seemingly abandoning it. They sit in awkward silence for a moment, and Brynden calls over some more food, and she tears into it half-heartedly, all too aware of her old friend's eyes on her, never mind her Great Uncle, The Blackfish. Sometimes, she thinks that The Blackfish is a whole other, much sharper, side to the man she has been travelling with, who reveals himself only rarely.

"Where you headed?" Hot Pie finally asks.

"King's Landing," she says, as she's told everyone, but she adds on the rest of the truth. "Heard Cersei's Queen now. She and I have some business that has been left unfinished for too long now."

"Heard she blew up The Great Sept," Hot Pie adds on, and Brynden grumbles something that sounds an awful lot like so did we. "That must have been something to see. There one moment, and then–Boom! Can't believe someone would do that."

"Cersei would do that," she says cooly.

Finally, Hot Pie seems to say whatever has been clearly nagging at him since the start of this conversation. "I thought you'd be headed for Winterfell."

She furrows her brows and looks at him strangely. "Why would I do that? The Bolton's have it."

"No, The Boltons are dead," he tells her, and she feels something like hope bloom in her chest. At her side, Brynden pauses, and she sees hints of the Blackfish rise up in him, take control, harden his eyes and make him no longer look like just another man who has been weathered by the storm. "Jon Snow and Sansa Stark rode south from Castle Black with an army of Wildlings and Northmen and won the Battle of the Bastards. They have Winterfell now."

"You're lying," she says instinctively. But Brynden had said that was what they were doing, but she'd never let herself hope, never let herself think about the possibility of it, because it's doing exactly what she thought it would do. Tugging her heart in two directions. Tugging her between her home and her vengeance. Her House and Her List. She glances at her Great Uncle and sees a determination in his eyes, at long last, a determination she had been yet to see until now.

Hot Pie shakes his head. "Why would I lie about that? They're your siblings, right?" She nods, and feels her breath come in as ragged pants, her heart straining against her chest. She wants to kill Cersei, she wants revenge, but all of that is being drowned out by the siren song of her home, memories of Winterfell. They are just out of her reach. They're a breath away. She glances at her Great Uncle and sees The Blackfish staring back at her.

"Thank you," she says, and hurries to leave. She can feel Brynden Tully, her Great Uncle, the man they call The Blackfish watching her as she saddles her horse, and he follows suit, saying nothing of it until they have left the Inn and they are alone on the Kingsroad with nothing but their thoughts and the other for company.

"Where are we going?" He asks, sounding like he knows the answer.

To King's Landing, to kill Cersei. The answer is right on her tongue, but the words that come out are words from the heart, a truth she cannot control, the whims of a girl she thought dead. "Winterfell. Home. We are going home."

—

They pass the twins unheeded, and they both smile as they see The Lannister army, camped out around there, and the general sorry state of it all. Her Great Uncle looks, dare she say, somewhat smug, and he doesn't stop looking smug until The Twins are miles behind them and they're pulling up to an inn that they'll stay in that night, instead choosing to look once more like just another harried traveller. She sends him a look that has him rolling his eyes and unsaddling his horse without a word, handing him off to a red-cheeked boy to tack up.

A few eyes glance up as they enter, stamping the mud from their boots and shaking off the rain that still clings to them from the storm that had caught them about an hour ago. It is strange to think that soon, that rain will become snow, and the whole of Westeros will be covered in it, covered in endless banks of snow. It will be a beautiful but terrifying sight to many people, but her own thoughts don't linger on it for too long, having never had much reason to worry about snow or anything like that.

She gets a table for them while Brynden barters for two beds for the night, and after a few minutes, he comes back, looking harried but triumphant, with two jugs of ale in hand. She smiles as she takes one, and he sits across from her, stretching his boots out with a sigh, crossing his arms over his chest and studying the room. She leaves him to it, sipping at her ale and watching the fire in the corner of the room flicker and dance, casting the room in long shadows and golden light that makes everyone in the room look alight with flame.

A few minutes pass with nothing more than murmured chatter from other patrons being accompanied by steady rainfall and the crackle of fire, but suddenly, the door slams open, revealing two wide-eyed men. They say nothing to the Innkeep at the bar who stares at them with a raised brow, going straight to a table that is already half full and collapsing into waiting seats and grabbing proffered jugs of ale. It is the closest table to Arya, and she turns away slightly, so it will not be obvious that she is listening in despite her doing just that.

"You're late," She hears one of their companions say, sounding frustrated. One of them seems to wave them off, and the same voice scoffs, and there's a sound like someone being kicked. "It's you who said we had to meet here before we went back to White Harbour, now you look like you've seen a damn ghost, Dawsin. Come on, what did you see that's got you so riled up?"

"Wolves!" One of the men, Dawsin she presumes, gasps out. The room goes quiet, and she is not the only one who turns to look at him with curiosity, but she is the only one who feels a foreboding sense of something she cannot name rise up in her, she is certain. Something tugs, tugs at the very back of her mind, just out of her true consciousness, but she is just barely aware of it, like a word on the tip of one's tongue. The man looks with wide eyes around the quieted Inn and swallows loudly.

"Wolves?" One of his friends repeats, and Dawsin and his companion both nod. The man makes a face, looking around with an expression of disbelief. "Well this might not be The Wolfswood, but they ain't unheard of around here, especially if you're going around squawking like a chicken." This gets a few scattered laughs from their friends.

The other man shakes his head. "It wasn't no ordinary wolf we saw, Cayle. It was as big as a half-grown horse, and it had some fifty others behind it. If I didn't know better, I'd think it was a Direwolf." She stills properly then, and she feels Brynden's eyes snap to her, a question in them that she cannot answer, clinging to every word that is spoken, needing to know more. The man shakes his head. "Thing just looked at us. I thought it was gonna eat us, so we turned and ran. Don't know what it did after that, but I don't think it's far."

No, Arya thinks, the sense in the back of her mind growing with every moment. No, she is not far at all. She glances at her great-uncle, and their eyes meet in a silent agreement. They will rest for the night here, and then figure out where that wolf was seen. He looks back towards the men, and clears his throat, drawing their attention.

"Where'd you see the thing?" He asks, his voice sounding a little rougher, likely on purpose.

"What's it to you, old man?" The man who'd been called Cayle says, jerking his chin up. "Wanna go get mauled by a wolf?" That draws scattered laughter, but it fades when they look at Arya and Brynden, at another wolf and the Blackfish, a veteran of so many wars. Not that they know that, but experience has a habit of making a mark on people like them. And these men don't seem to be some green boy fools.

"Maybe I just want some nice thick pelts for me and my granddaughter when Winter comes around," he says with a shrug, leaning back and letting the light catch on the hilt of his sword as it is revealed. Arya herself smiles behind a sip of ale, and she catches many of the men glancing at her own blade at her side, a nervous countenance coming about them. "Well, don't be shy. Where was it?"

"Probably two miles North of here," Dawsin stutters out, and Brynden nods, glancing at Arya, who just tilts her head with a raised brow. He smiles in tight-lipped amusement at that, fishing something from his pocket and tossing it towards the rain-soaked men. She sees their eyes widen as they take in the small coin purse.

"Next time you encounter a wolf, boy," her uncle warns, "Don't fucking run. They like chasing and hunting fools like you."

That night, while she is unlacing her boots, he asks, "Do you think the wolf he saw is a Direwolf? Do you think that it could be one of yours? That it could be your wolf specifically."

At first, the words that rise to her mouth are something along the lines of I don't know. But again, that brief hint of something tugging at the back of her mind makes itself known again, and this time, it is hard to ignore. Furrowing her brow, she looks out through the small window in the room with a candle burning low in it, at the rainy world outside. She has had dreams, for so many long years now, through eyes that are not her own, but none since she came home. Where are you? She wonders.

"It could be," she agrees finally, shucking off her boots and setting Needle down on the bed beside her. Her back is to him, and she can feel his gaze tearing into her, picking her apart, looking for something. His gaze is a heavy one, as she has come to learn, heavy and cold and not easy to break. "But it could be an exaggeration. It could be the ravings of a madman. It could be Nymeria, and it could be…"

She sighs as she trails off, glancing over her shoulder at him. He is sitting on the edge of his bed, eyes shadowed in the candlelight, but gleaming all the same. Frowning, she turns fully to him, one leg to her chest and the other stretched out before her as she picks at the threads of the blanket on the bed. "I had a dream, though, a long time ago. I was a wolf, and my sister was beside me, and we found a pack of some fifty smaller wolves. They became our pack, but then one day we left and travelled long and hard to the cold and barren North. To the brother who lay there." She meets his eyes and sees something dawning in them.

"I always suspected there was more to your brother and his wolf than he let on or even he himself understood," Brynden says after a moment. "I don't think there was anyone in that camp who could quite understand it, not even his wife. That Wolf was a part of him, it's no wonder yours seems to be much the same. These dreams, do you know if they are real? If they show what is truly happening?"

She shrugs. "I cannot say for sure. They hardly ever really made any sense to me. But I have seen nothing to prove or disprove those dreams, and so I cannot determine what is real or not." She smiles softly and looks away, still picking at the loose thread of the blanket under her finger. "But they were always a comfort to me. I would see my brother in them, sometimes, see Jon. He'd smile and ruffle Nymeria's fur, and it was like I was home again."

Again, like every time she mentions Jon, Brynden's face darkens peculiarly. When he catches her watching, he looks away, out the window, and swallows tightly. The room and the candles that light it make him look hollowed out and gaunt, like a man worn down by the toil of war, but maybe something else. She frowns at him. "What upsets you so much about Jon?"

He sighs and meets her eyes. "I will tell you once we find your wolf, Arya. But it is not what you think, not in full. I have my reservations about your father's choices when it came to his bastard, but I do not presume to know the whole of his heart. I know my niece's pain, and I know the shame it caused, but I will never understand what reasons your father had. And I liked your father, I truly did. My own biases have nothing to do with this, or at least not in the matter you presume."

She scoffs, unsatisfied, but now having learned better than to try and argue with him. She remembers her father to be stubborn in that he was unyielding and strict in his convictions, but she thinks her Mother and her Great-Uncle are stubborn in her way. They are bold and impassioned and do not like to be told what they can or cannot do, and do not like those who presume to be above them to try and stretch their hand out and take them in a noose. They do not like chains.

So, she leaves it be and sleeps fitfully. At some point she wakes and glimpses Brynden, sitting beside the window and staring at the drops of rain as they fall. The candle is nothing more than a pile of wax on the window sill, and in her sleepy daze, she can only barely make out the furrow of his brow and the set of his jaw, never mind the look of trouble that is all across his face. She closes her eyes and falls back asleep, right into the troughs of a Wolf Dream.

It is as disconcerting as ever. She can taste blood still in her mouth and can feel water running down her fur, heavy and unwieldy but easily ignored after enough time in it. The pack is around her, the pack that she abandoned when she finally sensed her brother in The North. They abandoned their pack for their kin, but now she has returned to them, and leads them closer to her girl, to the live wire feed that burns between them. She can feel it, in her dream, clear as day. The tug that pulls her ever closer to Nymeria.

They set off at dawn, the rain turning to sleet, and eventually into proper snow by afternoon time. Her mind is alight, trying to get a sense of Nymeria, but every time she tries to pull on her, get a sense of her, it all slips from her grapes just before she can get it, like a cloud of smoke. As the day goes on, she feels her frustration grow, and all conversation between her and Brynden ceases as the snow falls around them and they crawl deeper into the woods of The Neck.

But the snow, at the very least, serves to remind her of Winterfell, and the promise waiting for her there. She has no intention of making her impending arrival known, she just wants to surprise both Sansa and Jon and see their faces brighten and see their surprise. And then she wants to hug them until she can't breathe, and probably cry until she has nothing left in her to do so. And then, she will start to make it right. Do what they need and honour the words of her father from all those years ago.

Robb and Bran and Rickon, three of her four brothers may be lost to her, but Hot Pie had been certain that Sansa and Jon were at Winterfell, and that is more than enough for her. Still, she feels her heart waging war against itself, torn between vengeance and home, but then she thinks of Jon's smile and runs her thumb over Needle's hilt, and any doubt of her choice fades from her mind. The Lone Wolf dies, but the pack survives.

But her mind is mainly stuck on Sansa. Her screams have never left her mind, and the heartbreak of having to leave her sister is one she will never be able to fully recover from until she can go to Sansa and beg her forgiveness. She loves and misses her sister, more than anything, and she wishes she made that clear before it all fell apart, wishes she listened to her father before it was too late. Even now, his words ring clear in her mind, You and your sister cannot be divided.

And they won't be. Not if she has any say in it. She doesn't care if Sansa is still as annoying as ever, because Sansa is her home and her greatest regret. They'd both been scared little girls, back then, and Arya is certain that while they aren't anymore, that there's still something that lives on in them. A wound that has never been able to fully close.

It is perhaps an hour before nightfall, and the woods are almost covered in snow when her horse whinnies under her, and she feels a sudden sense of her wolf slam into her. And after so long apart, so long spent being bereft of it all, it's like a breath of air after she's been drowning for years on end. She gasps shakily, drawing her horse to a stop as Brynden does much the same, looking at her with those sharp eyes of his. He seems to know what she has sensed. He does not palm his blade, even as the horses begin to whine and shuffle nervously.

She slowly gets off her horse, and he follows suit, allowing her to hand him the reins as she draws closer to the clearing that they'd been on the edge of. The snow falls around her in dizzying circles, and she looks up at it with a smile, her heart hammering in her chest and mind droning with noise and a thousand thoughts, not all of which are her own.

And then the wolves begin slinking from the trees. Small and in shades of grey, they must be the pack that she'd seen in her dreams, the pack the men in the inn had spoken of. Despite all the warnings in her mind telling her to get out of there, all the common sense that does exist in her, she smiles and stands her ground. You are a Stark of Winterfell, her father's voice echoes in the back of her mind. The Wolf's Blood runs hot in you. The Blood of the First Men is your blood.

When she'd been dying in Braavos, fighting the Waif, it had been her blood and the desperate need to not face her death in that strange, foreign land that had saved her. The Darkness that her House had come from had saved and strengthened her. She had refused to die as anything less than a Stark, as the wolf she is, the wolf she has always been, even when she called herself no one and wore other lives.

And then, there she is, on a rock, staring down at Arya. Her golden eyes meet Arya's grey, and all the breath is blown from her lungs as she looks at the beauty that her wolf has become. She remembers how she'd looked, in Bran's arms as he handed her over. She'd blinked up at her, and Arya had smiled so wide her face hurt, her heart hammering in a tune that seemed to say, yes, yes, this is right where I need to be. And now it beats in that same pattern.

"Nymeria," she breathes, and for just a moment longer, her wolf and she just stand there, closer than they've been since that day on this very road, where she had to force them to run and tore her and her sister from their wolves. And now they're together again. Now things finally feel right again. Nymeria slowly descends the rock, coming to stand right before Arya, and she barely dares to move or breathe as slowly, Nymeria presses her head closer and licks her cheek.

She laughs, and that seems to be enough for her wolf. She's on her back in the snow in an instant, Nymeria barking and licking her as she laughs and laughs and laughs, tears in her eyes and her heart soaring above the trees. She eventually manages to sit up and wrap her arms around Nymeria's neck, burying her face in her soft fur, smiling softly as she says, "I missed you, girl."

They make camp in that very clearing that night, and Nymeria spends only as much time away from Arya as it takes to sniff and lick at Brynden's hand before returning to her. She rests her head in Arya's lap as he starts up the fire, looking entirely unconcerned by any of the wolves that prowl about or sniff curiously at him. She herself feels almost more at ease with them around, knowing that any unsuspecting bandit that tries their luck against what will seem to be an old man and a young girl will find themselves a snack for a pack of wolves.

It is only once night falls that she turns back to the question he'd dodged earlier. Her hand buried in Nymeria's fur, and her wolf dozing softly in her lap, she meets her Great Uncle's eyes and asks, "What do you know of Jon? What are you hiding about him?"

He sighs, running a hand over his face and glancing briefly away. "When your brother received news of the murder of your younger brothers and the marriage of your sister to the Imp, it became suddenly crucial for him to procure an heir. He presumed you dead, Arya, and your sister soon-to-be. He did not know, of course, any shade of the truth, even about your brothers…" he trails off for a moment. She had told him about what Sam had said of them, but she doesn't think that truth changes much of his.

"Your mother suggested some other men. Distant relations, none bearing the Stark name. Anyone related to you all was either through her line or two or three generations back from your father. Such was the consequence of The Rebellion," he scoffs, eyes alight. "So, he turned to what family he knew for certain he had left. A Bastard, in cold exile at the end of the World, forgotten by the Lannisters, the perfect person to have on his side. He drafted a will, of sorts, naming Jon Snow his heir, and what's more, a legitimised Stark."

She feels the air leave her lungs. Jon never spoke of his bastardry in length to her, or really to anyone. But she knows that he always wanted to be a Stark, she could see how his eyes burned with want and desire every time it was made clear he was not one and would never be one. And Robb had given it to him, just like that? "I don't think it ever reached him. The Wedding happened before he could get the real word to him. It was an errand of secrecy, you see."

"Maege Mormont and her girls, along with Galbart Glover, were sent with fake orders into The Neck. What came of them, I know not, and anyone else who knows is a prisoner or dead. Or, me." He smiles bitterly. "I do not know your brother, and I don't want to pass my judgment and my house's slighted pride onto that judgment. Robb always spoke highly of him, and I never missed the part of him that just wanted his brother back, that boy that desired for some shred of his family to be within reach."

"Why hide it?" She asks him sharply. His eyes close and he bows his head, as if in prayer. "You said Sansa sent her sworn sword to you, begging for help. Why not pass his will onto Jon, if but to give him some legitimacy in the eyes of The North, some edge against The Boltons?"

"I was afraid, and I did not know or have reason to trust The Lady Brienne. I did not want to break something already fragile. Sansa was disinherited in the will, and I know that Robb will rescind that the second he gets the chance, now that she is not puppet to the Lannisters, but that will sow discontent, will it not? And how can I give a woman I know not the secret and last key to the kingdom of my nephew? It was not my secret to give to a stranger." He shakes his head.

"But my reservations serve nothing, and you are a Stark and my blood, at the very least," He says, voice growing stronger as he speaks. "I will inform Jon Snow of his brother's decisions, and we will go from there. I hope he is half the man you and your brother make him to be. He…despite all that Cat said, all her anger, he never seemed to be the creature of evil she feared. He seems, to me, to be a brother who was devoted to his house, who had married himself to endless duty." His eyes darken.

"It does make me wonder how he escaped The Wall, though."

"I'm sure Jon has a good reason," she defends, but the thought is gnawing at her mind too. But she is certain of what she says next. "Jon would not abandon The Wall and break his oath, nor would The North let him. He had Northern armies with him. They would not follow an oathbreaker nor a turn cloak. I'm sure his story is a good one and a true one. He has my father's honour and his sense of justice and duty. He always has." She pulls gently on Needle. "He gave me this blade."

"Did he?" Brynden asks, a light twinkling in his eyes. She nods, and he smiles. "I would have loved to be there, had your mother come to learn of it. She'd probably have marched right on up to The Wall to skewer your poor brother right where he stood."

She smiles, remembering her father's resigned sigh when he asked where she'd gotten it. There really had been no other obvious answer save for him, and according to Jon's next letter, he'd made his displeasure with his choice of giving his eleven-year-old sister an actual sword quite known. She'd said something cheeky in reply, although she cannot remember if he ever answered her back. It makes no difference, though. She will be able to see him soon, laugh with him in truth, hug him tight and never let go.

Nymeria huffs softly in her sleep, and Arya smiles, leaning over her and kissing her face, her fingers curling in her wolf's fur. It feels impossible, all of this. Nymeria, finally with her once again, having escaped the darkest dreams in The Hour of The Wolf. Winterfell, ahead, in the hands of her house, her brother and her sister and a chance at redemption and making things right again just in sight. She left Winterfell all those years ago, with a King and Two Princes who are now dead, and her father, who would lose his head while his eldest daughter screamed and she wept against the jerkin of a man who would die for her.

What do we say to the God of Death? Syrio's voice rings like a bell in the back of her mind, like the bells that called the people of King's Landing to The Sept of Baelor to watch her father die and to see the start of a war that would completely overturn Westeros. Not Today, she'd said, and now she still lives. Now, at long last, she is coming home.

Her list lies unfinished. Cersei Lannister. The Red Woman, Beric Dondarrion, Thoros of Myr, The Mountain. But they are all out of her reach, and not nearly as tantalising as old memories. Stone and snow and red leaves and a face carved into wood that wept blood. Summer snows and wind in her hair, the endless stretch of the wolfswood. Heated floor and roaring flame and laughter and light and the howling of wolves.

Robb's laughter. Jon's smile. Theon's lilting voice. Even Sansa's needles. Bran's unbroken energy. Rickon's eyes that never seemed to stop shining, the little brother who has never grown up in her mind. She doesn't know who any of them are anymore, but she wants to learn. She wants to come home and see them and, at long last, know her family, and the house that she was born into. She wants to go home, even if it has taken her so many years to do so.

Dawn comes slowly, but they do not move slowly. They are on their horses and ready to go as the sun is still stretching across the horizon, as the first snowfall of the day begins to come gently around them. Nymeria is at her side, a silent predator, and the rest of her pack follows her North at last, slipping through the trees, seldom making themselves known. But she can sense them, can see their shadows in the trees, and it hardens her heart and makes her smile.

Her pack surrounds her. Her Great Uncle is at her side, a proud and well-tested man. And Winterfell, at long last, seems within her reach again.

---

notes:

-the end of the first section is really important to me. arya's list isn't just about settling scores and killing people, it's about revenge for the people who she failed, for the people she couldn't save. she is, in that moment, making the conscious choice to say that. it's about them, it's about what you did to them, and it's about how that killed me, how that broke me. and now i break you. she really, to me, embodies to whole 'the north rememebers' thing. she does remember, and she will never forget, not at least until everything has been settled.

-ramsay and little finger are cunts and ain't shit-i have made this clear. but walder frey is just a vile old cuck and i was giddy writing his death. but i also find it very interesting how a name of THAT magnitude finally being struck from her list effects her. she's spent so long on that revenge, and now she's missing a little more fuel to the fire that's keeping her going. she is gonna get her revenge, but the real question is what happens after the list is complete, at least to me...

-NYMERIA! A WOLF AND HER GIRL. ONE. MORE. TO. GO.

-and now we have two more starks making their way home. both with some pieces of information that are going to make jon try and do something (characteristically) reckless, and force sansa to be the sane one of them all, once again. cant wait for the jon and sansa lament that their little siblings are all weird now and that they miss robb because they'd actually listen to him, lmao.

Next up, a new POV comes into play, and someone returns at long last from their Exile.