❈ | 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

[indispensible]

Then what do you want to be?

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

I don't know. I wanted to be a Faceless Man. I want - I want to be strong. I want to be something others are afraid of.

[indispensible]

They were afraid of me.

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

Why?

[indispensible]

Because I didn't give up.

Because I wasn't afraid of them.

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

That's all? That's all you had to do?

[indispensible]

Over and over and over. Yes.

I have strength, too. But he didn't, not in the same way, and they were afraid of him, too. Because he didn't fear them. He didn't fear death.

[He loved whole-heartedly, all-consumingly; he loved his people. She doesn't say this.]

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

I'm not afraid. [She kissed a skull once to prove it, plucked a worm from its empty eye socket. She can be brave.]

Who did you fight? Who's them?

[indispensible]

People who wanted to use other people as things. As tools or slaves or - or chattel.

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

I was a sheep, once. Then I was a mouse. [Three guesses how she liked that, and the first two don't count.] I want to be my own tool.

[indispensible]

So was I.

You will be.

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

How did you do it? [She's not searching for answers to her own life, she doesn't regret most of what she's done. She's just curious, now.]

[indispensible]

I had help. From a lot of people, but mostly they showed me how to help myself. And I really, really didn't want to die.

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

I had help too. He made me a ghost. [But there's a little smirk on her mouth when she says it, because it wasn't like being dead, it was like being strong.]

[indispensible]

[Vin returns it. She thinks she understands.]

There's power in being intangible. A thing in the night.

What kind of ghost are you?

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

I'm not anymore. He only owed me three names.

But everyone was afraid of me, there, only they didn't know it was me. They just knew the ghost in Harrenhal. I only had to whisper a name.

[indispensible]

What happened when you did?

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

They died.

[indispensible]

[Her lips curve into a very, very small smile.]

You think your power is dead?

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

[She matches it, like the game she played with the waif in Braavos, mirroring expressions until she can control them.]

I don't have to whisper anymore.

[indispensible]

No.

Who is it you want to kill now?

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

The people who killed my family.

[indispensible]

[This doesn't fit in her head for a minute, until she switches family to Kelsier and feels the beginnings of rage.]

And who are you protecting?

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

[She hesitates, there, almost says no one, almost says myself, but there's another answer. It's shaky, uncertain, but it's the right answer.]

My pack.

[indispensible]

[There's that smile again. Approving.]

They give you strength?