❈ | 034 | Video

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

[The girl on the screen is older and taller, though not by much on either account: a few feet, a few inches. Her hair has been allowed to grow out, though it's pinned (messily) at the back of her head. She looks a little less like a child, a little more like the person she could grow into. The surroundings are different, though: gone is the cell from the House of Black and White, with its tiny bed and small chest for clothes. This is a bigger room, enough space for two girls to grow in and live in and fight in. It's the room she shared with Sansa in Winterfell, all old stone with furs on the bed.

She still chews her lip, though. She has a lot on her mind.]

I'm afraid.

[She doesn't sound it, even makes a face and looks a touch angry at saying it out loud. She doesn't like admitting it, she never has, but this feels important. Behind her, Nymeria lounges on the bed, huge and daunting. She is older, bigger, too.]

Not scared - maybe I was the whole time. I hated feeling like a scared little girl, so I stopped. I stopped everything but anger. Anything else hurt.

[She reaches up and touches her chest.] I had a hole, here, after my family died. I didn't think it'd ever heal, so - I stuffed it with other things, till it scabbed over. Anger, and revenge.

[She rubs the spot over her heart, then drops her hand again, tugging at the edge of her shirt.]

But I'm not so angry, anymore. I have pictures, of everyone, [and there is indeed a photo album sitting open behind her on the bed, near Nymeria's paws] and I realized I was forgetting what they looked like. But I remember what all the Lannisters look like. I remember every stupid golden hair. But I don't remember what Rickon looked like. He was only three. Or four - I don't remember anymore.

[Chewing on her lip again, Arya leans back and grabs the photo album, dragging it into her lap. These were gifts, from Christmases past, things she never asked for, never wanted, but needed very badly. She pulls out one picture, holds it up for the camera except pretend he looks younger.]

This is him.

[She gives it a moment, then tucks it away, and closes up the album beside her.] I don't have any pictures of the people who killed him. I don't want any. I think - I'd rather remember what my brother looked like, than the person who killed him.

Comments

[Video]

[mistconduct]

[In contrast to Arya, Chris looks significantly younger - as young as he did when he first set foot on the barge - and a good deal more scared. They're actually similar in age now]

Oh, what, you're not scared?! What the fuck is wrong with you? Why aren't you piss fucking terrified?

No one cares about your stupid dead family!

[Video]

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

[Her nose wrinkles immediately, and the 'what the fuck' is pretty clear on her face.]

What are you so afraid of? [She doesn't ask why he isn't older. Obviously it must be the flood that she is totally not affected by. Obviously. u_u]

[Video]

[mistconduct]

What the fuck do you think?! I've been fucking kidnapped! We all have! There's fucking aliens and dogs and we're prisoners? Any of this wringing a bell, bitch?!

[Video]

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

You're a warden, camel cunt!

[mightthinkthat]

I understand that. Anger is always good for stopping the flood (no pun intended) of the injury. But eventually you have to move on. Before it hollows you out.

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

I think it already started to. I wanted to disappear into something else, but I don't want that anymore. I don't want to be faceless again.

[mightthinkthat]

For me, it was caring about my legacy, even to the point that I was all right with being killed. [He still doesn't so much regret it as it gave him what he needed: an out and a sense of closure regarding his life before.]

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

What changed it?

[darknessb4me]

Or maybe your going soft is what got him killed.

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

Or maybe you're a camel cunt who talks about things he doesn't know.

[darknessb4me]

I got it right on the first try? I don't even know you. It must be more obvious than you think.

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

I wasn't even th--

You do too know me!

[pvtparts]

[Polly is silent a long, thoughtful moment. So, it would seem Arya was effected as well. But rather than going backwards in time, she's moved forward. It's interesting. And it's refreshing to see. Polly hasn't even begun to give up on Arya, but it's always seemed Arya's given up on herself. Perhaps after this has passed, she'll start to gain some of it back for herself.]

Well, it's good to see you've managed to get your priorities straight, lad.

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

[She makes a face at Polly because some things will probably never change, and shrugs.]

Maybe. I don't know if I wish I missed them more or less.

[pvtparts]

Fortunate for you that you don't get much of a choice in the matter then. You miss them as much as you need to, lad. Some days it might be more. Some days less.

The important part is that you do. I know you don't need me telling you so, but family's important.

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

[Another shrug. She doesn't need to hear it, and sometimes she doesn't like the reminder. But she brought this up herself, so.]

Do you miss your brother?

[outlets]

[Well now. This is interesting.]

It would seem you've learned a lot in such a short amount of time, piccina.

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

It wasn't that short.

And I'm not that little anymore, you know.

[outlets]

You're not that big still either.

[But aw, she learned what piccina means.]

And just how long has it been?

[indispensible]

[Vin has no pictures of her brother. She doesn't truly know if she wants any. He was cruel to her, although he thought he was doing it out of necessity. She can't separate him from the pain he caused her, or from the pain Ruin caused her.]

[But Arya's brother was just a boy. A little boy.]

[Her expression is as soft as it ever gets, which is - not very. She presses her fingers to the screen, a fleeting touch to a phantom boy's face. (What if she and Elend had had children? An impossible question.)]

You didn't love those people. You loved your brother. Love your brother. Isn't that the difference?

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

I guess so. Yes. [She'd cared about Theon once, too - not as a brother, but as an ever present part of home. The same as Joren and Roderick, as Maester Luwin. Now she thinks he lived longer than he deserved.]

But he could have been Lord of Winterfell. So they killed him.

[indispensible]

Fate is cruel.

Fate is the cruelest thing there is, except for the end of things, and for men.

[hart_or_hand]

I lost a little brother and sister when we were young, too. [It's more than he would say to anyone else on this ship. But she's a kid and she's bringing up memories of his family. And, damn it, he still has a soft spot for kids.]

Your little brother was cute.

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

[She shrugs - she never thought of Rickon as cute, doesn't really know how to quantify what cute is.]

What happened to them?

[hart_or_hand]

They got sick. It shouldn't have killed them but... Da couldn't afford a motel room let alone medicine.