❈ | 031 | Video

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

[With all these people graduating lately and all her wardens gone off, Arya has been doing a lot of thinking. She's wormed her way into the CES - she always seems to find a way - and is sitting against Nymeria, using the direwolf as a pillow. She's wearing a modern looking zipper hoodie over her usual threadbare attire; the zipper is open, but the hood is up, and on its top are two fuzzy, gray wolf ears. There's dirt on her face when she clicks the feed on, in a swoop from her cheek to her jaw; on the other side she's managed to accumulate a couple scratches. She doesn't seem to notice either.]

There's no one left from Westeros, besides me. Tyrion's gone. Viserys used to be here; I don't think there are a lot who remember him. Jon Snow was here, too. But he left.

[They all left is what she doesn't say out loud. She scratches at her jaw, somehow missing the dirt.]

I've been here a long time, though. I checked - it's two years, now. [She doesn't pause; she's already let that sink in.] Your worlds are all different from mine. You treat people like babies till they're old; you call them kids until they're eighteen, twenty. In Westeros, and Essos, and all over in my world - a girl is grown when she's flowered. [She makes a face, because it's a dumb euphemism, but it's ingrained.] My brother was a king when he was fifteen. He wasn't a boy, he had a beard and led men and killed his enemies. [And he died.

She pauses for a moment, looking up as a shadow passes over her, presumably a cloud.]

When I was littler, I wanted to know if I could build castles, or be a High Septon, or be a councilor to a king. He said I could marry a king, and my sons could be Septons and builders and knights and lords. Well I'm not getting married, and I'm not having sons, not ever.

Is that what it's like in your worlds, too? I don't mean, do they say no and you do it anyway, that's not any different. Are girls allowed to be rulers and builders and fighters where you all are from?

Comments

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

That's so stupid.

[mistconduct]

Well, when you're rich you can afford to be stupid.

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

When you're rich, you can't afford to be stupid.

[mistconduct]

I'm rich. I know about being rich. Are you?

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

Nobody's rich here.

[mistconduct]

Jesus fuck, Arya! I'm rich at home.

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

And my family was rich, and they were stupid, and now they're dead.

[mistconduct]

Well, same with mine, okay?

Also some extenuating circumstances but what the fuck.

Are you bringing them back?

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

So, when you're rich you can't afford to be stupid.

Bring who back?

[mistconduct]

My dad didn't die because he was rich or because he was stupid. He died because he was an asshole to people and it came back. Shit does that sometimes.


Your family.

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

That's part of not being stupid, Chris.

[No she does not want to have this conversation.] I'm an inmate.

[mistconduct]

...Fair enough.

Yeah, but not forever.

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

I have been for two years.

[mistconduct]

Wow. I must be way smarter than you to have graduated way earlier.

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

Or you give up easier.

[mistconduct]

Sorry, did you want to graduate or not? Because I wasn't sure if this was some sort of bullshit poser stand.

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

I want justice.

[mistconduct]

Do you want justice more than you want your family back?

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

[Yes. No.] They can't come back. But I can get justice.

[mistconduct]

They can come back. Jesus, Arya, everyone on this Barge who's an inmate came back. People who are wardens make deals to specifically bring people back.

I'm asking if you had a choice, would you either bring your family back and not get justice, or get justice but go your entire life without ever seeing your family again?

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

[She wants to see them. Her real family, not the monsters from Silent Hill. She wants to see Robb and Grey Wind standing beside each other, not with the wolf's head on her brother's body. She wants to see Sansa Stark, not Lannister, not the girl they say turned into a wolf and flew away on bat-wings. She wants to see Bran climb and jump, she even wants to see Rickon.

She wants to see Jon, not the Black Bastard on the Wall, but her brother. She wants to see her lady mother and lord father the way they were before the king came to Winterfell, not water-bloated and bleached white, not hurt and injured and desperate and dying.

Nymeria can feel the way she goes tense, and turns with a questioning whine, nosing at the side of Arya's face.

Ser Gregor. Dunsen. Raff the Sweetling. Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, Queen Cersei.

Valar morghulis.]

All men must die. And I'm going to kill the ones responsible.

[mistconduct]

Two years of bullshit, Arya. If you don't get out of here, you're never going to kill them.

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

I'm not growing, Chris.

[mistconduct]

...

Like, literally? Or metaphorically?

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

I'm not growing up. I don't know how old I am, but I still know what I want after two years spent here. I know what I want, and I'm going to find a way to get it, even if I have to spend ten years here only being nearly grown.