❈ | 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]

If she can use a sword, she's not going to find a husband or have babies to begin with. I don't - I don't see how you can have both.

[chlorophylliac]

I'll grant you that some men are intimidated by strong women, but they shouldn't be allowed to reproduce anyway.

What about your warrior queen, Nymeria? Was she any less a warrior for finding a husband?

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

She conquered Dorne with her husband.

But it was his family that ruled in Dorne after.

[chlorophylliac]

Regardless, she was able to have both. Her strength as a warrior, and her womanhood as a wife.

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

The stories don't say if she was happy as a wife.

[chlorophylliac]

Or if she wasn't.

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

Maybe she hated being married. Maybe she regretted it.

[chlorophylliac]

Not a strong argument. In centuries to come people will read the legend of warrior-queen Arya Stark and think maybe she might have been happier if she'd put aside her sword and gotten married.

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

[She laughs, not just because she thinks it's ridiculous that anyone could think that of her.]

I'm not going to be a queen. [Though she remembers she was a princess, for a little while, and that's less funny.]

Are you married?

[chlorophylliac]

No.

[ There's a very, very long pause. ]

But I had children, once.

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

[She senses a delicate topic, but she'll push on anyway.]

What happened to them?

[chlorophylliac]

I was given the choice to surrender them or watch them die.

I surrendered. And they were slaughtered anyway.

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

Did you kill the ones who did it?

[chlorophylliac]

Yes.

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

Good.