Fic: Carved From Stone 5/7

[onborrowedwings]

Part Five

The boy’s name had been Olyvar.

Arya learns it three days after his death, from Thoros of Myr. He had been her brother’s squire and when the Freys had broken with the Stark’s after Robb’s marriage he had begged to be allowed to stay.

“She shouldn’t have killed him,” Arya needs to say it out loud to somebody, but there is less bite in it than

Comments

[kylathelurker]

I really love how Arya is beginning to change the world around her even if she's not aware of it. I really love how you see Thoros beginning to question is his own faith in the red 'god'. I love how once more you make these subtle comparisons between Arya's situation and Sansa's own. How their knights are not the knights of old but real men who act as lights in their darkness.

I also have to say I do appreciate the fact you didn't rush things between Gendry and Arya. That you respect the fact, despite everything she's witnessed and endured she is still very young and new to the relationship scene. I love Gendry even more for understanding this as well and just holding her when she asks to be held.

I thought it was touching too how Gendry shows her first hand that she's transformed from the awkward duck into a beautiful black swan (or wolf). How again he reminds her of who she is and what she is meant to be. I thought that moment was just incredible. How he knows just when to connect with her and how in a way that no one else can. How it gives her strength to carry onwards until she is strong enough to walk away and never look back.

[onborrowedwings]

You know I love coming of age stories ;) The character development and slow realisations and changes in ASOIAF are so fantastic that whenever I write these characters I want to try to emulate that - to send them off on a journey where they grow. I know we both see so many similarities between Arya's and Sansa's journeys, their slow disillusion with the ideals they once held.

I do love Gendrya, and while they may never be canon they certainly had a very real bond in the books, the way he used to try to look after her and how she wouldn't leave him when he was captured despite the fact she could've gotten away. That certainly could grow into something more! But it needs time, and these kids are still rather young.

Growing up being teased for her looks, Arya does reflect on it and I can definitely see it being unreal to her, that somebody could regard her as pretty. But they are each other's strengths, and she will get there in the end, she's almost ready now!