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[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]

[Honor, Vin thinks, is overrated - a luxury, a thing of privilege which she has only recently had the opportunity to see in action as an equal. It didn't speak much to her. If someone is to hurt her or hers, she'll destroy them. And maybe that's wrong, but it's been what's necessary.]

[She doesn't kill indiscriminately. She kills precisely, not because she's upset but because she has people and places and things to protect. Or - did.]

[Vin opens her eyes and half-smiles at Arya, a fleeting expression that is neither gentle nor kind.]

Are they good to you? Your pack.

[Maybe a question with an obvious answer, but she so rarely believes in the inherent goodness in people. Sometimes good people are found, like gems in silt, in the crevices of cave walls - but overall, people will do such ugly things. Beat their baby sisters to keep them quiet. Arya shouldn't be treated that way.]

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

[It's the kind of smile Arya can appreciate, the sort that tells a lot but never enough. No lady's smirk for her, just promise. There's a lot of promise in a smile. Arya turns her knife, stands sideface again, and lifts it, ignoring the blood on the glass blade.]

Yes. [It's mostly true; she's afraid, always, that they will leave her like so many others have. She still tells herself that she doesn't need them, that she'll be okay on her own, and that's true - she would be all right on her own.

She just doesn't want to be, anymore. ]

They're good. And I'm good to them. [They need me, is what she doesn't say out loud; she doesn't let herself think, and I need them.]

[indispensible]

[Vin can read between the lines. She knows well enough what it looks like when someone needs something they feel they shouldn't need - when they need other people, though that's not usually safe. She knows this from the inside.]

[Again, she's surprised at how pleased she is to hear this - or see it in Arya's eyes and her body language. It's very important. She'd be nothing without her crew. She'd be a ghost, the powerless kind. A wisp on the wind.]

Good.

Let's carry on, then. Fight me.

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

[Arya shifts her grip, eyes Vin for a long moment, and nods. Yes; this is the kind of teaching she understands. The kind that teaches with pain, but not too much, the kind that gives real lessons that apply to more than just fighting. She waits, still as a statue, then darts forward again.]