fearcutsdeeperthanswords | Entries tagged with a girl has a name

[Private to Polly]

Where are you? I found a good spot. [She's sitting on a pile of pillows, with a blanket (or maybe a dish towel) wrapped around her head like a crown. And she's grinning. Her own smile, not Mercy's pretty little thing: Arya's smiles are big and open, but they have a little bite to it. The wolf blood will always run hot in her, even when she's happy.]

[Private to Riddick]

Will you do something for me?

[Public, later]

[Still seated cross legged on her throne of pillows, Arya stares down at the device in her hands. There's an odd little look on her face, below hair that's terribly messy after she pulled off the towel-crown - like she's confused but not, knows what she wants but doesn't, like she's hovering between two worlds. She feels like she is.]

I graduated.

[The words feel strange: she's never combined them in that order, that conjugation, and the newness is unsettling. But she hasn't been afraid of new things in a long time. She can't be afraid of this.

Reaching off screen, she grabs a cookie, and lifts it up to show the camera: it has a frosting smiley face.]

Do you always get sweets? [She's been here so long, but it feels like the one thing she never fully realized. Instead of waiting for an answer - it doesn't really matter, does it, not now - she takes a bite and tosses the rest back onto it's plate.]

I'm going home. I've been here a long time, three years maybe. And I'm--

[She hasn't grown, except when she returned home. She is twelve and thirteen and fourteen and fifteen all at once, and she can't take the stillness of her existence here anymore.]

I could stay, and make a deal. I could probably kick my inmate to graduating. I could have my family back.

[She chews her lip for a moment, looking off toward the pillow and blanket forts. Finally, she just rolls her eyes and huffs out a breath. That's stupid. She won't do it.]

But I still have family. And I'm going home to find them.

So - goodbye, I guess. This was a good flood.

[She flashes a smile, wolfish and toothsome and pleased, and turns the feed off.]

[When the video comes on, the view is skewed: if you look long enough, it may seem like you're looking at a small section of a blanket, possibly on a bed, and a fold of cloth to one sight. Up comes the camera after a moment and an in drawn breath, and the fold of cloth is one skinny leg, the blanket tucked on a bad. Only then does she turn the device around so she's visible.]

I'm-- [Arya Stark, she almost says, but she's afraid to. Last time there was Tyrion; last time there was Tywin. Better they should think she's dead. But there are people who she wants to know she's alive. She chews her lip a moment, and decides to forgo names all together.]

I'm looking for anyone from Westeros.

[Backdated to a day or two after the Silent Hill port.

The video clicks on, and Arya's eyes flicker into the camera and then away again, staring at some middle distance with a look that says she's seeing something not present. She looks a little shell shocked, but not particularly battered; she's washed since port - washed several times, because she can still feel bloated, waterlogged fingers on her shoulders - and her hair is damp and pushed back now, just long enough that it needs to be tucked behind her ears.

She's wearing the black and white robe she wears most days, but the starkness of the black has faded, and the white is much more gray by now. Around her neck is a chain, and in her hand is the ring she's threaded it through. It's a man's ring, with a gold band and a blue stone. She's turning it over in her fingers, sliding it to and fro on its chain.]

Rumpelstiltskin is gone.

[She falls silent again, and looks down at the ring instead of the camera.] He graduated, and now he's going to look for his son. He's been missing since he was my age, but he'll always be his son.

[This is right out of a note Rumpel left for her; it's no where in sight, though. She doesn't have to read from it. She doesn't add the rest - that Bae would always be his son, just like she would always be someone's daughter. It's too hard to think about, now, and it's definitely too hard to talk about. Her head droops a little lower, and it looks like that might be it - but a moment later she drops the makeshift necklace and straightens, finally looking at the camera. She's fierce looking - she's found her purpose and she's dogging it.]

You all don't have to call me Cat anymore. [She wavers, chews her lip, then draws a deep breath.]

My name is [Horseface, Underfoot, Arry Weasel Nan Nymeria Squab Salty Cat Beth - she breaths out, and lets them all go] Arya Stark. I'm Arya, of Winterfell.

[Something drops from above onto the bed behind her, and in the corner of the screen, Nymeria lifts her heads from her paws to look over as Arya turns, dropping the communicator to her bed. There's a hostled view of the ceiling, then dark fur as Nymeria comes to inspect. Eventually it's grabbed up again to be shut - but not before getting a glimpse of a black cloaked, lined in white fur at the collar, with a silver direwolf's head stitched into the fabric. The feed dies as she finds a note scrawled, Happy Christmas.]

[Private to Merlin]

[A bit later - long enough that she's decided to put the cloak on, with the fur brushing up against her cheeks - she adds this message on.]

Thank you. [It's a little awkward, maybe, but she manages it with minimal fidgeting.] For fixing him. [She doesn't add that it was her fault, that she feels guilty that he was hurt at all. If she's lucky, he'll just know that much.]

[She's seen Winterfell's grounds before, but never it's keep or the winter town outside it. Now, she's standing in front of the open, rusted gate, and she can feel her heart beating in her ears, taste iron on her tongue.

She's home.

Nymeria didn't wait for her before trotting off, snuffling through moss covered ruins, broken walls and smoke covered rocks. Nymeria is never very good at waiting; Arya isn't surprised, but she wishes the direwolf had stayed. Her stomach twists and her hand clenches and unclenches around Needle's hilt. Needle was Winterfell's gray walls. Everything looks wrong, now. It looks burned out, and empty, and nothing like the home she'd ridden away from years ago. She isn't sure how long it's been.

She walks through the rusted, almost unhinged gate - not with her head held high and her shoulders straight, as she'd have liked to, but with straining ears and darting eyes and careful steps. Silent as a shadow. She'd heard, in the Ragman's harbor, that Winterfell had burned, but she's never been able to picture it. She couldn't picture the wreckage of the court yard, or how she can't quite reach the bedroom she'd shared with Sansa, or how the crypt is half covered by stone and timber, not before seeing it..

Only the godswood is as she'd left it - or near enough - and the weirwood, with it's white trunk and red leaves and bloody face, is where she slumps, arms wrapped tight around her knees as she stares into the half frozen pond.

It's not home at all.

Later, she'll slip her skin and sprout fur and run with Nymeria, run through this place and hunt the animals who live where they shouldn't. She'll try to move beams and find her old room. And she won't come out any time soon.]

[The video clicks on, and those unaffected will notice that Arya looks different. When she arrived, her head was shaved bald; she hasn't kept up with that, but yesterday it was no longer than her chin. Today, it's well on its way past her shoulders again, and much less messy than one might expect. And she's in a proper northern dress. Hell has frozen over.

The expression on her face, at least, is a very familiar scowl.]

You can't put princesses in dungeons!

[It's an angry huff, but there's a reason this is public, instead of private to Arthur.] My brother is King in the North, and he'd cut off your stupid head himself for jailing me. [Behind her, Nymeria gives a quiet warning growl, more annoyed than distressed. That hasn't changed, either: they still feed off each others emotions. Arya tosses hair over her shoulder, and keeps glaring at the screen.]

Robb's a better king than Arthur can ever be. Robb never put little girls in dungeons. [Not that she likes thinking of herself as a little girl, but.] He's fair, and smart, and not paranoid like some kings.

[This is perhaps brought on by the last flood, which was very close but not quite like home, and she misses her family. And anger is less annoying to her than petulance.] You all think Arthur's good just because he's a king, but he's not. He's just a stupid craven.

[Private to Arthur]

You give me Needle back, or the next time I buy poison, it will be for you!

calm as still water, swift as a deer

fear cuts deeper than swords

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