Fic: Carved From Stone 2/7
Title: Carved From Stone 2/7
Words: Around 4000
Characters: Arya, Gendry, Lady Stoneheart
Summary: Sandor Clegane is never captured by the Brotherhood without Banners, and Arya's journey takes a divergent path.
A/N: Once again a huge thank you to my beta kimberlite8
Part Two
They rename the former Lady Stark, calling her Lady Stoneheart, and Arya thinks that it is fitting. There is no mercy left in her mother now, and very little of love. It seems to Arya that she is only a shadow of Lady Catelyn, that only part of her mother has been brought back from the dead.
Lady Stoneheart scares Arya a little, though she tries her best to overcome it and to see her mother inside. She remembers Lord Beric's words, of all the pieces of himself he lost each time Thoros brought him back to life, and wonders if that has happened to her mother too. Does Lady Stoneheart know what is missing from her now? Does she remember the happy times, when they were all still at Winterfell? Does she ever think about all the good memories as well as the bad ones? Arya is not sure, as protective as Lady Stoneheart is of her, the only words she ever speaks to Arya now are about vengeance and justice, rather than those a mother would.
As different as Lady Stoneheart might be from Lady Catelyn, Arya has realised that her resurrected mother is not so very different from herself.
They are both filled with rage, grief, and a desire for revenge. It is simply that the truth of her mother's nature is seen on her face, while Arya's is hidden within her heart. Lady Stoneheart might be as different from Catelyn Stark as night and day, but Arya finds that she recognises the emotions that compel her mother all too well.
Each night, Arya repeats her list, wondering how many names need to be added to the end of it. She has not added the Freys to it as yet because she doesn't know their names, there are so very many of them after all.
While she may not speak it aloud as Arya does, Lady Stoneheart also has her own list, and Arya knows that she won't stop until she has crossed off all the names.
It is difficult to understand Lady Stoneheart when she speaks; she croaks, gasps, and wheezes like a death rattle, the sound of a dead woman. Arya is able to make out the words though, knows exactly what her mother says.
"My son. They broke their promises and killed my son." Lady Stoneheart wheezes, when she is able to speak again, the sound coming out torturously. "He came to feast, put down his weapons and sat to celebrate. We will kill them all now. Every last one of them. We will not allow a single one of them to live."
It is the same thought that Arya had had, one week ago by the river as she looked upon her mother's corpse, a thought that still drives her. It does not sound right though, coming from her lady mother's lips.
"Yes," Arya reassures her mother, "We will, we'll take revenge for our family. We won't spare any of the people who hurt you and Robb."
Lady Stoneheart nods her approval.
Arya had once worried that her mother would no longer love her if she knew that she had become a killer.
There is no need to worry anymore, now it is what her mother will value about her most of all.
/
The first time that they ambush Freys it is a quick thing, they find some riding along one of the roads near the Twins and engage them in battle. By the end of it there is one injured Brotherhood member and two dead Freys.
The second time is even easier, a party of five men come out riding the next morning to look for the first two. Arya kills one of them herself. With the heat of battle upon her it had been easy, and Arya had felt the thrill of it, the satisfaction of the deed. These men had killed her brother and his bannermen after all. Killed her mother too.
They deserve to die, and Arya is glad that there are seven less Frey men in the world, that they have paid for their treachery. Her mother approves, is happy, as happy as a dead woman can be anyway.
They sit around the campfire that night, eating roast rabbit and listening to Tom sing a victory song, and Arya wonders if she's made Lady Stoneheart proud.
The next day, when Lady Stoneheart announces that they'll offer to ransom the dead men back to the Freys in order to trap more of them, Arya notices a flicker of unease in Gendry's gaze. It might be a trick, but what does it matter after all that the Freys have done? They'll face justice in the end, no matter how it's done.
He glances towards her then, a question in his eyes, and Arya turns her face away.
She doesn't want to hear what he has to say.
/
With Beric Dondarrion gone, the Brotherhood without Banners turns to Lady Stoneheart for leadership. Arya's mother has always been a natural leader, she is a true lady after all - the daughter of Riverrun, the mistress of Winterfell. Now she dresses in grey as a Silent Sister would and plots revenge from underneath the earth, in the protection afforded by the Hollow Hill.
It is meant to be a place of safety but all Arya can think is that it is that it is a fitting place for them, a grave dug for their corpses.
She isn't dead yet, but she's possibly the only one left of the Starks now that isn't. There's Sansa… but Arya has heard no news about Sansa since the time she left King's Landing and for all she knows, Sansa might be dead now too.
And so Lady Stoneheart plots her vengeance and keeps Arya close by her side, always close, as if afraid that at any moment she might die like the rest of their family. Arya stays and listens to the plans and tries to avoid Gendry's eyes when she sees him looking at her from across the fires.
He doesn't know. He couldn't. He can't understand how she feels and she's not even certain that she understands it herself.
Arya sits by Lady Stoneheart, Lady Stoneheart who used to be her lady mother, and tries to pretend that she really is with her family again, that she's found her mother at long last. There are days, on which Lady Stoneheart expresses her pride in something Arya's done, in an enemy that has been killed, that Arya almost feels it's true.
There are other days though, when she desperately wishes that her mother would hold her, that she would be as she once had, with the same love and care, that Arya cannot deny the truth. Lady Stoneheart is not Catelyn Stark, and all the warmth in her has been replaced by a bitter cold.
Arya stays with her anyway, as often as she is able, and hopes that her presence might bring her mother's shade comfort, even if it brings little to Arya herself.
And so she sits by Lady Stoneheart whenever she's in camp, listening to her words and storing them away as she speaks of plans for vengeance and death and justice. Arya carries out her mother's commands, participating in raids on Freys and Lannister and Bolton soldiers, and killing her fair share along with the other Brotherhood members.
It brings her far less satisfaction than she had once thought it would.
Arya has realised after all now, she knows in her heart, that no matter how many Freys or Boltons or Lannisters they kill, it will never bring her family back to her again.
/
The months pass.
Lady Stoneheart's justice now takes the form of trials followed by hangings, and the Brotherhood begins to call her The Hangwoman.
Arya hates it, hates it just like all the other names they've given her mother, even if they all fit her much better than Lady Catelyn would now.
Lady Catelyn Stark would never have wanted to be known as the Hangwoman or Lady Stoneheart or any of those other names, Lady Catelyn would have objected. But that was before… before Freys and Boltons betrayed them, before Lady Catelyn died and Lady Stoneheart came in her place.
Standing there, watching as some of the Brotherhood members prepare the captured Bolton men for the hanging, Arya knows that they've gotten what they deserved. They betrayed her family, turned a wedding into a massacre, broke the most sacred of all laws in Westeros.
There are times when they're not certain whether the men they catch participated in the Red Wedding or not, but they kill them anyway. Arya isn't sure if that's right or not, she doesn't know how she feels about it. She doesn't like to think about it at all.
"It's justice, no matter how it's done." Gendry speaks in a low voice beside her, his tone sincere as if trying to impress something upon her. "Any man who betrays guest right is the worst sort of traitor, one who has betrayed gods as well as men. Even if they only stood by and allowed it to happen, they still deserve to die for what they did."
Arya knows that Gendry hasn't been entirely happy about how things have happened. He's a stupid stubborn headed bull, and he has his own ideas about right and wrong. He still stays though, doing the Brotherhood's work and remaining close by to her whenever there is any fighting. It makes her think, it makes her wonder why he does.
She nods, and allows her fingers to brush against his for a moment, the smallest amount of human touch.
Apart from Gendry and Lady Stoneheart, nobody touches her anymore. She is the daughter of a dead woman after all, and death might be catching.
"We'll get them all one day." Arya murmurs, confident that they'll be able to now that Lady Stoneheart leads them. She hopes that she may have her mother's strength, and the courage to see it through. "Every last one of them."
"That's a lot of people to kill," Gendry says quietly, his voice lowered so that others can't hear. "Do you know how many Freys there are? Hundreds from what I've heard."
"I don't care." Arya replies stubbornly, "They were all responsible and they'll learn now what it means to betray my family. They'll learn that the North remembers."
"All of them?" Gendry asks her. "Even the women? Even the children?"
That makes Arya pause. She had never thought about the women and the children before, and what should happen to them. She supposes that some of the women might have known what was going to happen, but none of them would have actually participated. Frey women aren't like the Mormont women who fight alongside men after all, Frey women are stupid and useless, none of them would know how to kill a man. And the children… Lady Catelyn Stark would never have harmed a child, never, no matter what their parents had done. Yet Arya has heard that her mother's last act before death was to slit the throat of a lackwit, the last thing she did before her own throat was slit.
From what she has seen so far, Arya is not yet sure whether what Lady Catelyn Stark would never do would hold true for Lady Stoneheart as well or not.
"I don't know," Arya admits, "I don't know what we'll do with them. I guess we'll let them be."
"And who's going to tell Lady Stoneheart and the Brotherhood that?" Gendry asks, his voice soft but his tone hard. "Who's going to decide when it's time to stop?"
Arya has no answer for that; she looks across the fire to where Lady Stoneheart stands with Thoros, waiting for the hanging to commence.
"Arya…" Gendry starts to say, reaching out a hand to touch hers once again.
Arya jerks her arm from him and walks away towards her mother, as he looks at her with an expression that says he understands all too well.
He doesn't.
How could he when he's never had any family? It wasn't any of his kin that were murdered at the Red Wedding, he can't know how she feels. How could he possibly understand what it finally means to get her mother back when everyone else is gone - no matter what she might have become? Lady Stoneheart is the only family that Arya has left now, and Arya will help her to get vengeance for their family in whatever way she can.
Arya knows that the Bolton men deserve to die, she's glad that they do, and Gendry is wrong, he's an idiot. They will have their revenge, they will have justice, and once all the names on Lady Stoneheart's list are done they'll be able to go home again.
Lady Stoneheart gurgles, preparing to speak. Arya steps forward, towards her mother, steps up beside her to hear her words.
"See, my daughter, see how our enemies die," Lady Stoneheart rasps, as they string the Frey men up. "They killed your brother, and now they'll all die. See them kick and plead as they do so."
Arya stands beside her mother and watches, until the men hang limply from the end of their ropes.
/
She loses count of the number of men that have died and the number that she herself has killed.
Sometimes a week will go by with nothing at all, but those times are seldom now. Sometimes there are raids upon supply wagons to conduct, and sometimes ambushes of soldiers who have wandered away from their main host. Sometimes the men are not soldiers at all, but outlaws who rob or harm the smallfolk.
Killing has become easier, almost second nature now, but Arya finds that there is not the same satisfaction that there was in the beginning, when they first began. At first it had made her feel brave, the way she had always wished to, but there is an emptiness inside her too, that the killing does not fill. While sometimes they will find a Frey that had a part in the Red Wedding, the majority of the men they kill are only common soldiers, with no real value. A question echoes through her mind and refuses to go away, a question asked months ago by Gendry, of when it will be time to stop.
Arya finds herself wondering the same thing more often than she would like, though she would never admit it to him.
How many Freys are there? How many Boltons and Lannisters in this world? Arya's old list of people to kill sometimes feels more real than the vengeance they carry out here. With her list the success can be measured as names are crossed off, she will know when it's finally over.
They are not fighting a war anymore, not really; there's no army to defeat, no territory to win, no victories to claim. There's only killing and more killing, and no idea how far it's advanced them towards their goal.
Sometimes it seems that there is nothing left to her life anymore except killing, no other reason for her to be alive. Sometimes Arya wonders if this going to be her life forever now, the only one she'll ever know. She feels pieces of herself slipping away day by day, pieces of life and laughter and hope. Arya feels as if she is only a shadow of herself now, a reflection of her mother, day by day slowly turning to stone.
She wants to ask Lady Stoneheart whether she has a plan or not, and how they'll know when they've finally won. How many names are there to cross off her mother's own list, and how will they finally finish their vengeance for her brother and the North? Arya is not quite certain that there will ever be an end to it, and she wishes that just once she could speak to her mother like she used to, to have her reassure her that everything would be alright.
Through all that Arya has done, she has always wished to go home, to see her family again, and now that possibility seems like nothing more than a dream. She dreams sometimes, of the towers of Winterfell as she last saw them, of the godswood and the hot springs there, of laughing with her brothers and sisters. She dreams of seeing Jon again, of having him ruffle his fingers through her hair and call her little sister. Arya dreams and when she wakes she is careful to shut the thoughts to the darkest corner of her mind, where she might best forget them.
On a particularly cold autumn day, when the threadbare cloak around her does far too little to keep her warm and the emptiness inside her seems to have grown too large, she screws up her courage and finally asks her mother the question that has haunted her; of how they will know when they have finally won, of when they will finally have completed their vengeance.
"When they are all dead." Lady Stoneheart replies, and when she looks at Arya it seems as if her gaze pierces to Arya's heart, where it might see the doubts that she tries to hide there.
Arya does not ask again.
/
They ride up to the Inn at the Crossroads, leaving their horses with the stable boy before they go inside.
They've been on a foraging expedition, gathering food and money for the Brotherhood's cause and on the look out for any stray enemies that they might eliminate. Lady Stoneheart has left on one of her journeys, wanderings that she sometimes undertakes to learn more of the situation.
"We'll stop for some food and ale," Lem announces as he dismounts from his horse, followed quickly by Tom. He is hard these days, harder than Arya remembers him being before. They are all harder, even Gendry, as much as he tries to hide it.
He reaches out to help her down but Arya shrugs his hand away. She doesn't like to show weakness, doesn't need anybody's help now.
They enter the inn and there, right there in front of her, are The Mountain's men.
Polliver and the Tickler, drinking along with some pimply nosed squire; Polliver has his hand down the serving girl's bodice. Arya stops, forces herself to remain quiet while next to her, Gendry tenses. He recognizes them immediately, just as Arya does. Lem and Tom take a moment longer than they do, but the Mountain's men certainly recognize them in return.
Arya almost can't believe it, it's been so many months since they escaped from Harrenhall that she had doubted she would ever see the men again, but there they are in front of her. Her eyes stray to Polliver's side and sure enough there is Needle. Her hands ache to reach out and grasp the hilt, to grab it and simply run, but she would never be able to get away in time.
"Well, what have we here?" Polliver asks, as he looks them up and down, taking in Lem's yellow cloak. "A few lost brothers, wandered away from their outlaw band. Delivered yourselves right into our hands. Come with us quiet like and you'll get to live for awhile longer."
Lem snorts at that, though Arya and Gendry remain silent. "Think you'll take us to that mad dog you serve from House Clegane? Don't you worry, we'll be sure to send your corpses to him instead."
Polliver laughs at that, "Better not be calling him that to his face or he'll kill you more slowly than he needs to. We're looking for another dog though, the younger pup, Joffrey's dog. He turned craven at the Battle of the Blackwater and ran away, along with a prize. The Northern Girl. Might be we'll spare you if you can tell us where they are."
Arya can't help herself, and the words burst out of her before she can stop them. "What Northern girl?"
"The Stark girl that King Joffrey was to marry. Traitor's blood will show in the end it seems, she was seen riding out one of the gates with him."
Her sister… with the Hound. It doesn't make sense, Sansa would never agree to go with him, he must have kidnapped her, must have forced her to go with him.
Arya has no chance to think on it though, because in an instant the men in front of her have moved, hands reaching for their weapons, and she quickly reaches for her own.
/
Arya has long since washed The Tickler's blood from her hands, but whenever she closes her eyes his face swims in front of her again and she can hear herself screaming, asking him his own questions as she stabbed him over and over again in the back.
Lem and Tom had done for Polliver while Gendry had finished off the squire. At the end when the fight was finished they had dragged the bodies outside and then spoken with the Innkeeper to hear the latest news from King's Landing.
Joffrey is dead, poisoned at his own wedding feast; there are three less names on Arya's list now and she doesn't know how she feels about it. Once it would have been sizable victory, but with so many more people to kill now, it seems rather small to her. Arya finds that she cannot really recall what Joffrey's face looked like anymore, it makes the victory somewhat less sweet.
Sansa has disappeared and nobody seems to know where she has gone except that she was seen leaving with The Hound the night that Lord Stannis attacked King's Landing.
It doesn't make any sense to Arya, that Sansa would be with the Hound, or that he would leave the Lannisters in the first place. Did she choose to go with him or did he take her against her will? He had killed Mycah… and Arya can't think of a single reason why a man like him would help her sister. His name is still on her list and she promises herself that if he's harmed Sansa then she'll track him down and kill him, no matter how long it takes. Yet if he'd helped her sister, helped her to escape…
When Arya has changed so much, it's possible that Sansa has too. Maybe Sansa has also become hard, in the time they've spent apart. Maybe she also has an emptiness within her heart, maybe she chose to trust a monster just to save herself. Arya doesn't know. Arya doesn't think she'll ever know, considering that the Battle of Blackwater was months and months ago and there's been no news of her sister since then.
Sansa could be dead, killed either by the Hound or by other enemies. She could be fled to a far off land. She could even now be making her way North.
Arya doesn't know, but it chips away at her just a little bit more, knowing that she might never see her sister again. Apart from Jon, who wasn't allowed to bear the Stark name, Arya is now the last member of her family known to still be alive.
Arya is the lone wolf who survived, while the pack is gone.
But what is it that she lives for when she is the only one left? How much is left of Arya Stark now, when sometimes she feels that she is nothing more than a shade like her mother?
"Are you alright?" Gendry asks her, his hand suddenly upon her shoulder, startling her from her thoughts, examining her carefully as if to check if she is injured.
"Yes," Arya tells him finally, though it is a lie. His hand is warm even through her cloak and jerkin, and as much as Arya wants to shrug him off she also wants him to remain.
Gendry nods, clearly unconvinced, his brows knit together in concentration as he looks at her intently. "You tell me if you want to talk about it," Gendry says before he turns to mount his own horse, "I'm still your friend, Arya."
It is a small thing, but it warms her. It is enough to remind Arya that she is not so completely alone as she has felt these last few months, that there is still something other than killing to live for.
She stores the thought away inside her, within her darkness, and allows it to grow.
Words: Around 4000
Characters: Arya, Gendry, Lady Stoneheart
Summary: Sandor Clegane is never captured by the Brotherhood without Banners, and Arya's journey takes a divergent path.
A/N: Once again a huge thank you to my beta kimberlite8
Part Two
They rename the former Lady Stark, calling her Lady Stoneheart, and Arya thinks that it is fitting. There is no mercy left in her mother now, and very little of love. It seems to Arya that she is only a shadow of Lady Catelyn, that only part of her mother has been brought back from the dead.
Lady Stoneheart scares Arya a little, though she tries her best to overcome it and to see her mother inside. She remembers Lord Beric's words, of all the pieces of himself he lost each time Thoros brought him back to life, and wonders if that has happened to her mother too. Does Lady Stoneheart know what is missing from her now? Does she remember the happy times, when they were all still at Winterfell? Does she ever think about all the good memories as well as the bad ones? Arya is not sure, as protective as Lady Stoneheart is of her, the only words she ever speaks to Arya now are about vengeance and justice, rather than those a mother would.
As different as Lady Stoneheart might be from Lady Catelyn, Arya has realised that her resurrected mother is not so very different from herself.
They are both filled with rage, grief, and a desire for revenge. It is simply that the truth of her mother's nature is seen on her face, while Arya's is hidden within her heart. Lady Stoneheart might be as different from Catelyn Stark as night and day, but Arya finds that she recognises the emotions that compel her mother all too well.
Each night, Arya repeats her list, wondering how many names need to be added to the end of it. She has not added the Freys to it as yet because she doesn't know their names, there are so very many of them after all.
While she may not speak it aloud as Arya does, Lady Stoneheart also has her own list, and Arya knows that she won't stop until she has crossed off all the names.
It is difficult to understand Lady Stoneheart when she speaks; she croaks, gasps, and wheezes like a death rattle, the sound of a dead woman. Arya is able to make out the words though, knows exactly what her mother says.
"My son. They broke their promises and killed my son." Lady Stoneheart wheezes, when she is able to speak again, the sound coming out torturously. "He came to feast, put down his weapons and sat to celebrate. We will kill them all now. Every last one of them. We will not allow a single one of them to live."
It is the same thought that Arya had had, one week ago by the river as she looked upon her mother's corpse, a thought that still drives her. It does not sound right though, coming from her lady mother's lips.
"Yes," Arya reassures her mother, "We will, we'll take revenge for our family. We won't spare any of the people who hurt you and Robb."
Lady Stoneheart nods her approval.
Arya had once worried that her mother would no longer love her if she knew that she had become a killer.
There is no need to worry anymore, now it is what her mother will value about her most of all.
/
The first time that they ambush Freys it is a quick thing, they find some riding along one of the roads near the Twins and engage them in battle. By the end of it there is one injured Brotherhood member and two dead Freys.
The second time is even easier, a party of five men come out riding the next morning to look for the first two. Arya kills one of them herself. With the heat of battle upon her it had been easy, and Arya had felt the thrill of it, the satisfaction of the deed. These men had killed her brother and his bannermen after all. Killed her mother too.
They deserve to die, and Arya is glad that there are seven less Frey men in the world, that they have paid for their treachery. Her mother approves, is happy, as happy as a dead woman can be anyway.
They sit around the campfire that night, eating roast rabbit and listening to Tom sing a victory song, and Arya wonders if she's made Lady Stoneheart proud.
The next day, when Lady Stoneheart announces that they'll offer to ransom the dead men back to the Freys in order to trap more of them, Arya notices a flicker of unease in Gendry's gaze. It might be a trick, but what does it matter after all that the Freys have done? They'll face justice in the end, no matter how it's done.
He glances towards her then, a question in his eyes, and Arya turns her face away.
She doesn't want to hear what he has to say.
/
With Beric Dondarrion gone, the Brotherhood without Banners turns to Lady Stoneheart for leadership. Arya's mother has always been a natural leader, she is a true lady after all - the daughter of Riverrun, the mistress of Winterfell. Now she dresses in grey as a Silent Sister would and plots revenge from underneath the earth, in the protection afforded by the Hollow Hill.
It is meant to be a place of safety but all Arya can think is that it is that it is a fitting place for them, a grave dug for their corpses.
She isn't dead yet, but she's possibly the only one left of the Starks now that isn't. There's Sansa… but Arya has heard no news about Sansa since the time she left King's Landing and for all she knows, Sansa might be dead now too.
And so Lady Stoneheart plots her vengeance and keeps Arya close by her side, always close, as if afraid that at any moment she might die like the rest of their family. Arya stays and listens to the plans and tries to avoid Gendry's eyes when she sees him looking at her from across the fires.
He doesn't know. He couldn't. He can't understand how she feels and she's not even certain that she understands it herself.
Arya sits by Lady Stoneheart, Lady Stoneheart who used to be her lady mother, and tries to pretend that she really is with her family again, that she's found her mother at long last. There are days, on which Lady Stoneheart expresses her pride in something Arya's done, in an enemy that has been killed, that Arya almost feels it's true.
There are other days though, when she desperately wishes that her mother would hold her, that she would be as she once had, with the same love and care, that Arya cannot deny the truth. Lady Stoneheart is not Catelyn Stark, and all the warmth in her has been replaced by a bitter cold.
Arya stays with her anyway, as often as she is able, and hopes that her presence might bring her mother's shade comfort, even if it brings little to Arya herself.
And so she sits by Lady Stoneheart whenever she's in camp, listening to her words and storing them away as she speaks of plans for vengeance and death and justice. Arya carries out her mother's commands, participating in raids on Freys and Lannister and Bolton soldiers, and killing her fair share along with the other Brotherhood members.
It brings her far less satisfaction than she had once thought it would.
Arya has realised after all now, she knows in her heart, that no matter how many Freys or Boltons or Lannisters they kill, it will never bring her family back to her again.
/
The months pass.
Lady Stoneheart's justice now takes the form of trials followed by hangings, and the Brotherhood begins to call her The Hangwoman.
Arya hates it, hates it just like all the other names they've given her mother, even if they all fit her much better than Lady Catelyn would now.
Lady Catelyn Stark would never have wanted to be known as the Hangwoman or Lady Stoneheart or any of those other names, Lady Catelyn would have objected. But that was before… before Freys and Boltons betrayed them, before Lady Catelyn died and Lady Stoneheart came in her place.
Standing there, watching as some of the Brotherhood members prepare the captured Bolton men for the hanging, Arya knows that they've gotten what they deserved. They betrayed her family, turned a wedding into a massacre, broke the most sacred of all laws in Westeros.
There are times when they're not certain whether the men they catch participated in the Red Wedding or not, but they kill them anyway. Arya isn't sure if that's right or not, she doesn't know how she feels about it. She doesn't like to think about it at all.
"It's justice, no matter how it's done." Gendry speaks in a low voice beside her, his tone sincere as if trying to impress something upon her. "Any man who betrays guest right is the worst sort of traitor, one who has betrayed gods as well as men. Even if they only stood by and allowed it to happen, they still deserve to die for what they did."
Arya knows that Gendry hasn't been entirely happy about how things have happened. He's a stupid stubborn headed bull, and he has his own ideas about right and wrong. He still stays though, doing the Brotherhood's work and remaining close by to her whenever there is any fighting. It makes her think, it makes her wonder why he does.
She nods, and allows her fingers to brush against his for a moment, the smallest amount of human touch.
Apart from Gendry and Lady Stoneheart, nobody touches her anymore. She is the daughter of a dead woman after all, and death might be catching.
"We'll get them all one day." Arya murmurs, confident that they'll be able to now that Lady Stoneheart leads them. She hopes that she may have her mother's strength, and the courage to see it through. "Every last one of them."
"That's a lot of people to kill," Gendry says quietly, his voice lowered so that others can't hear. "Do you know how many Freys there are? Hundreds from what I've heard."
"I don't care." Arya replies stubbornly, "They were all responsible and they'll learn now what it means to betray my family. They'll learn that the North remembers."
"All of them?" Gendry asks her. "Even the women? Even the children?"
That makes Arya pause. She had never thought about the women and the children before, and what should happen to them. She supposes that some of the women might have known what was going to happen, but none of them would have actually participated. Frey women aren't like the Mormont women who fight alongside men after all, Frey women are stupid and useless, none of them would know how to kill a man. And the children… Lady Catelyn Stark would never have harmed a child, never, no matter what their parents had done. Yet Arya has heard that her mother's last act before death was to slit the throat of a lackwit, the last thing she did before her own throat was slit.
From what she has seen so far, Arya is not yet sure whether what Lady Catelyn Stark would never do would hold true for Lady Stoneheart as well or not.
"I don't know," Arya admits, "I don't know what we'll do with them. I guess we'll let them be."
"And who's going to tell Lady Stoneheart and the Brotherhood that?" Gendry asks, his voice soft but his tone hard. "Who's going to decide when it's time to stop?"
Arya has no answer for that; she looks across the fire to where Lady Stoneheart stands with Thoros, waiting for the hanging to commence.
"Arya…" Gendry starts to say, reaching out a hand to touch hers once again.
Arya jerks her arm from him and walks away towards her mother, as he looks at her with an expression that says he understands all too well.
He doesn't.
How could he when he's never had any family? It wasn't any of his kin that were murdered at the Red Wedding, he can't know how she feels. How could he possibly understand what it finally means to get her mother back when everyone else is gone - no matter what she might have become? Lady Stoneheart is the only family that Arya has left now, and Arya will help her to get vengeance for their family in whatever way she can.
Arya knows that the Bolton men deserve to die, she's glad that they do, and Gendry is wrong, he's an idiot. They will have their revenge, they will have justice, and once all the names on Lady Stoneheart's list are done they'll be able to go home again.
Lady Stoneheart gurgles, preparing to speak. Arya steps forward, towards her mother, steps up beside her to hear her words.
"See, my daughter, see how our enemies die," Lady Stoneheart rasps, as they string the Frey men up. "They killed your brother, and now they'll all die. See them kick and plead as they do so."
Arya stands beside her mother and watches, until the men hang limply from the end of their ropes.
/
She loses count of the number of men that have died and the number that she herself has killed.
Sometimes a week will go by with nothing at all, but those times are seldom now. Sometimes there are raids upon supply wagons to conduct, and sometimes ambushes of soldiers who have wandered away from their main host. Sometimes the men are not soldiers at all, but outlaws who rob or harm the smallfolk.
Killing has become easier, almost second nature now, but Arya finds that there is not the same satisfaction that there was in the beginning, when they first began. At first it had made her feel brave, the way she had always wished to, but there is an emptiness inside her too, that the killing does not fill. While sometimes they will find a Frey that had a part in the Red Wedding, the majority of the men they kill are only common soldiers, with no real value. A question echoes through her mind and refuses to go away, a question asked months ago by Gendry, of when it will be time to stop.
Arya finds herself wondering the same thing more often than she would like, though she would never admit it to him.
How many Freys are there? How many Boltons and Lannisters in this world? Arya's old list of people to kill sometimes feels more real than the vengeance they carry out here. With her list the success can be measured as names are crossed off, she will know when it's finally over.
They are not fighting a war anymore, not really; there's no army to defeat, no territory to win, no victories to claim. There's only killing and more killing, and no idea how far it's advanced them towards their goal.
Sometimes it seems that there is nothing left to her life anymore except killing, no other reason for her to be alive. Sometimes Arya wonders if this going to be her life forever now, the only one she'll ever know. She feels pieces of herself slipping away day by day, pieces of life and laughter and hope. Arya feels as if she is only a shadow of herself now, a reflection of her mother, day by day slowly turning to stone.
She wants to ask Lady Stoneheart whether she has a plan or not, and how they'll know when they've finally won. How many names are there to cross off her mother's own list, and how will they finally finish their vengeance for her brother and the North? Arya is not quite certain that there will ever be an end to it, and she wishes that just once she could speak to her mother like she used to, to have her reassure her that everything would be alright.
Through all that Arya has done, she has always wished to go home, to see her family again, and now that possibility seems like nothing more than a dream. She dreams sometimes, of the towers of Winterfell as she last saw them, of the godswood and the hot springs there, of laughing with her brothers and sisters. She dreams of seeing Jon again, of having him ruffle his fingers through her hair and call her little sister. Arya dreams and when she wakes she is careful to shut the thoughts to the darkest corner of her mind, where she might best forget them.
On a particularly cold autumn day, when the threadbare cloak around her does far too little to keep her warm and the emptiness inside her seems to have grown too large, she screws up her courage and finally asks her mother the question that has haunted her; of how they will know when they have finally won, of when they will finally have completed their vengeance.
"When they are all dead." Lady Stoneheart replies, and when she looks at Arya it seems as if her gaze pierces to Arya's heart, where it might see the doubts that she tries to hide there.
Arya does not ask again.
/
They ride up to the Inn at the Crossroads, leaving their horses with the stable boy before they go inside.
They've been on a foraging expedition, gathering food and money for the Brotherhood's cause and on the look out for any stray enemies that they might eliminate. Lady Stoneheart has left on one of her journeys, wanderings that she sometimes undertakes to learn more of the situation.
"We'll stop for some food and ale," Lem announces as he dismounts from his horse, followed quickly by Tom. He is hard these days, harder than Arya remembers him being before. They are all harder, even Gendry, as much as he tries to hide it.
He reaches out to help her down but Arya shrugs his hand away. She doesn't like to show weakness, doesn't need anybody's help now.
They enter the inn and there, right there in front of her, are The Mountain's men.
Polliver and the Tickler, drinking along with some pimply nosed squire; Polliver has his hand down the serving girl's bodice. Arya stops, forces herself to remain quiet while next to her, Gendry tenses. He recognizes them immediately, just as Arya does. Lem and Tom take a moment longer than they do, but the Mountain's men certainly recognize them in return.
Arya almost can't believe it, it's been so many months since they escaped from Harrenhall that she had doubted she would ever see the men again, but there they are in front of her. Her eyes stray to Polliver's side and sure enough there is Needle. Her hands ache to reach out and grasp the hilt, to grab it and simply run, but she would never be able to get away in time.
"Well, what have we here?" Polliver asks, as he looks them up and down, taking in Lem's yellow cloak. "A few lost brothers, wandered away from their outlaw band. Delivered yourselves right into our hands. Come with us quiet like and you'll get to live for awhile longer."
Lem snorts at that, though Arya and Gendry remain silent. "Think you'll take us to that mad dog you serve from House Clegane? Don't you worry, we'll be sure to send your corpses to him instead."
Polliver laughs at that, "Better not be calling him that to his face or he'll kill you more slowly than he needs to. We're looking for another dog though, the younger pup, Joffrey's dog. He turned craven at the Battle of the Blackwater and ran away, along with a prize. The Northern Girl. Might be we'll spare you if you can tell us where they are."
Arya can't help herself, and the words burst out of her before she can stop them. "What Northern girl?"
"The Stark girl that King Joffrey was to marry. Traitor's blood will show in the end it seems, she was seen riding out one of the gates with him."
Her sister… with the Hound. It doesn't make sense, Sansa would never agree to go with him, he must have kidnapped her, must have forced her to go with him.
Arya has no chance to think on it though, because in an instant the men in front of her have moved, hands reaching for their weapons, and she quickly reaches for her own.
/
Arya has long since washed The Tickler's blood from her hands, but whenever she closes her eyes his face swims in front of her again and she can hear herself screaming, asking him his own questions as she stabbed him over and over again in the back.
Lem and Tom had done for Polliver while Gendry had finished off the squire. At the end when the fight was finished they had dragged the bodies outside and then spoken with the Innkeeper to hear the latest news from King's Landing.
Joffrey is dead, poisoned at his own wedding feast; there are three less names on Arya's list now and she doesn't know how she feels about it. Once it would have been sizable victory, but with so many more people to kill now, it seems rather small to her. Arya finds that she cannot really recall what Joffrey's face looked like anymore, it makes the victory somewhat less sweet.
Sansa has disappeared and nobody seems to know where she has gone except that she was seen leaving with The Hound the night that Lord Stannis attacked King's Landing.
It doesn't make any sense to Arya, that Sansa would be with the Hound, or that he would leave the Lannisters in the first place. Did she choose to go with him or did he take her against her will? He had killed Mycah… and Arya can't think of a single reason why a man like him would help her sister. His name is still on her list and she promises herself that if he's harmed Sansa then she'll track him down and kill him, no matter how long it takes. Yet if he'd helped her sister, helped her to escape…
When Arya has changed so much, it's possible that Sansa has too. Maybe Sansa has also become hard, in the time they've spent apart. Maybe she also has an emptiness within her heart, maybe she chose to trust a monster just to save herself. Arya doesn't know. Arya doesn't think she'll ever know, considering that the Battle of Blackwater was months and months ago and there's been no news of her sister since then.
Sansa could be dead, killed either by the Hound or by other enemies. She could be fled to a far off land. She could even now be making her way North.
Arya doesn't know, but it chips away at her just a little bit more, knowing that she might never see her sister again. Apart from Jon, who wasn't allowed to bear the Stark name, Arya is now the last member of her family known to still be alive.
Arya is the lone wolf who survived, while the pack is gone.
But what is it that she lives for when she is the only one left? How much is left of Arya Stark now, when sometimes she feels that she is nothing more than a shade like her mother?
"Are you alright?" Gendry asks her, his hand suddenly upon her shoulder, startling her from her thoughts, examining her carefully as if to check if she is injured.
"Yes," Arya tells him finally, though it is a lie. His hand is warm even through her cloak and jerkin, and as much as Arya wants to shrug him off she also wants him to remain.
Gendry nods, clearly unconvinced, his brows knit together in concentration as he looks at her intently. "You tell me if you want to talk about it," Gendry says before he turns to mount his own horse, "I'm still your friend, Arya."
It is a small thing, but it warms her. It is enough to remind Arya that she is not so completely alone as she has felt these last few months, that there is still something other than killing to live for.
She stores the thought away inside her, within her darkness, and allows it to grow.