Arya Stark (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thatsnotme) wrote2019-10-15 02:15 pm
thatsnotme) wrote2019-10-15 02:15 pm
we are ghosts among these hills
It wasn't safe to return to Winterferll, and after all she's lost that was almost too much. Until she remembered, Jon wasn't at Winterfell anymore. He joined the Night's Watch, and Castle Black had to be safe for a girl pretending to be a boy, if anywhere was.
The road wasn't safe, but it hadn't been, not once since she'd left King's Landing. And it had been lonely, without Gendry or Hot Pie or even the Hound. More than once she felt watched, and clutched Needle in cold hands while she huddled under a tree, too afraid to light a fire. Fear cuts deeper than swords, she told herself, and kept her breathing calm and quiet. Sometimes she would climb trees, try to sleep in their limbs; that stopped after she almost broke her arm falling out of one in the middle of the night.
At least there were the wolf dreams: they kept her warm at night, and fed, and comfortable. She never realized how many wolves there were, between the riverlands and the north.
When she first sees the Wall, she halts on the Hound's horse, mouth agape. She feels like a stupid girl, but for a long moment she can't bring herself to move forward. It's only when the destrier stomps his foot in the cold that she nudges him forward. It's still up here, quiet - a little like her earliest memories, but missing the laughter and the shouting. She'll never hear that again: it's only her and Jon, now, and maybe Sansa, if she hasn't turned into a bat or a wolf or been killed by the Lannisters. People say all sorts of things.
Mole's Town she avoids completely, though gods she is tempted to stop there. The fires promise at least some reprieve from the cold - but they also promise people, and people talk. She bites her lip and carries on, and by the time she arrives at Castle Black, the Wall looms too high to see the sky on that end without tipping her head all the way back. The horse doesn't like it when she does that, so she pushes on instead, and there, in the dead of night, she sees the gates.
Arya stops short of them, suddenly nervous. What will she say to them? Can she walk in demanding to see Jon? Should she sneak? She could send the destrier in ahead of her, maybe smack him on the flank and send him off to make a commotion as a distraction. As she eyes the horse, she decides he's much more likely to kick her in the head for trying it. The Hound liked his meanness.
They're sworn to the realm, she reasons. There are traitors of all kinds on the Wall, aren't there? They go there to find their honor again. So they can't turn her over to the Lannisters. Won't.
Except, the Freys were meant to be on Robb's side, and they killed him.
She wraps her hand around Needle's hilt, squeezing hard. Sneaking, then. It's easier than she thought; they don't look much toward the south, it seems. Leaving the horse near the gates, she watches as he stamps inside, too proud by half for an animal. It hardly causes a commotion, but it does distract a few folks, and she makes her way into the fort itself, searching the most in tact places first.
The road wasn't safe, but it hadn't been, not once since she'd left King's Landing. And it had been lonely, without Gendry or Hot Pie or even the Hound. More than once she felt watched, and clutched Needle in cold hands while she huddled under a tree, too afraid to light a fire. Fear cuts deeper than swords, she told herself, and kept her breathing calm and quiet. Sometimes she would climb trees, try to sleep in their limbs; that stopped after she almost broke her arm falling out of one in the middle of the night.
At least there were the wolf dreams: they kept her warm at night, and fed, and comfortable. She never realized how many wolves there were, between the riverlands and the north.
When she first sees the Wall, she halts on the Hound's horse, mouth agape. She feels like a stupid girl, but for a long moment she can't bring herself to move forward. It's only when the destrier stomps his foot in the cold that she nudges him forward. It's still up here, quiet - a little like her earliest memories, but missing the laughter and the shouting. She'll never hear that again: it's only her and Jon, now, and maybe Sansa, if she hasn't turned into a bat or a wolf or been killed by the Lannisters. People say all sorts of things.
Mole's Town she avoids completely, though gods she is tempted to stop there. The fires promise at least some reprieve from the cold - but they also promise people, and people talk. She bites her lip and carries on, and by the time she arrives at Castle Black, the Wall looms too high to see the sky on that end without tipping her head all the way back. The horse doesn't like it when she does that, so she pushes on instead, and there, in the dead of night, she sees the gates.
Arya stops short of them, suddenly nervous. What will she say to them? Can she walk in demanding to see Jon? Should she sneak? She could send the destrier in ahead of her, maybe smack him on the flank and send him off to make a commotion as a distraction. As she eyes the horse, she decides he's much more likely to kick her in the head for trying it. The Hound liked his meanness.
They're sworn to the realm, she reasons. There are traitors of all kinds on the Wall, aren't there? They go there to find their honor again. So they can't turn her over to the Lannisters. Won't.
Except, the Freys were meant to be on Robb's side, and they killed him.
She wraps her hand around Needle's hilt, squeezing hard. Sneaking, then. It's easier than she thought; they don't look much toward the south, it seems. Leaving the horse near the gates, she watches as he stamps inside, too proud by half for an animal. It hardly causes a commotion, but it does distract a few folks, and she makes her way into the fort itself, searching the most in tact places first.
no subject
Jon doesn't have much of an idea what he'll do now, except he knows that he can't continue to stay here. Tormund has offered a place with the Free Folk but they haven't got much of a place to go either this side of the Wall. Going back to the other side is out of the question and he should care more about the threat there, the Others and the Night King are still coming for them but he just doesn't... care.
Something's wrong inside him, has been since he woke up on this side of death. He's tired, so tired of fighting and what even is the point if stubborn men and their egos ruin everything. He's angry but he's not at the same time, and with the deaths of his murderers, Jon doesn't find any peace. It doesn't feel like enough, when he really wanted to rip them limb from limb and feed their guts to Ghost.
Ghost is perhaps the only thing that does feel real and living and worth caring about, though he has no doubt the direwolf would have no problem continuing on without him. He needs Ghost more than Ghost needs him. Their bond saved him, something he can't put into words even if he wanted to, which he doesn't. He doesn't want to talk about it, any of it, with anyone.
It's late into the night when Ghost rouses from his spot by the fire, and goes to scratch at the door. Doesn't let up when Jon tells him to lie down, and with a sigh, the master gets up to let him out and after pausing for a moment to grab Longclaw, follows after the wolf. Ghost seems to be on a mission, leading them directly towards some scrawny boy with a bad haircut.
"Sorry," Jon says when Ghost goes right for the kid. The direwolf scares most people, even grown men have fallen off their horses around him. "He won't bite. Probably."
no subject
Because if Jon doesn't recognize her after all, she doesn't know what she'll do. All those months on the road, all those days calling herself Arry and Weasel and mouse and ghost and - all along she told herself, Jon will still recognize me.
But he can't if she doesn't look at him.
Forcing herself to stand upright, she finally lets go of Ghost, rubbing a hand apologetically over the wet spots her tears left in his fur. "Jon," she says, knuckling her fists across her eyes. "Don't you recognize me?" She dreamed of this, the days she was still with Yoren - he'd muss her hair, and they'd say I missed you at the same time, the way they used to. She doesn't know if things will ever be the way they used to be.