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[lonewolflives]

It was fortunate that the damage hadn't been worse, she supposed, but ultimately Summerfell had seen enough trouble with the weather that it was built to take it, or at least to be easy to fix up afterwards

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[giftless]

There were a few wolves though still that felt a connection to Arya, even if she might not feel the same in return. Or, at least, Honour made short work of finding her on the beach that day, his human in tow, a few schoolbooks slung over his back in a bag. Edmund simply followed the wolf's lead today and headed over to Arya with the push of a heavy look from Honour.

"Sure that one wouldn't like a rider and a gallop?" he asked, recognizing the horse for his temperament if not his name. There were quite a few after all, and some named so oddly in his mind.

[lonewolflives]

Honour was odd in a different way, having gone from Edmund to this, and nevermind that traitorous would-be kraken in the middle, but there was at least a direct link there, as evidenced by Nymeria appearing out of the trees to greet him, also.

"I'm sure he would," she said, "but I'm also sure he wouldn't like pulling something because I didn't warm him up properly first."

The problem being that Benjen did not seem to particularly believe in this concept and would have happily run off anyway.

[giftless]

"Shame he's not a Talking Beast and you could just explain that to him and let him suffer the consequences," Edmund said with a faint grin. Phillip had always been rather the opposite of Benjen; though proud, he tended more towards reasonableness and a dislike of activity. Thinking of the Horse turned Ed's smile a little sad.

"One would think the other horses would have softened him up a bit."

[lonewolflives]

"You would, wouldn't you?" Arya said, turning around to fix her grip on the reins as Benjen tried to tug them free again; she didn't particularly fancy chasing a horse down the beach. "I think he might just do it for extra attention, now he's in the others."

[teenagerenegade]

Horses make Charlie kind of nervous. It's a fact about him that both perplexes and amuses Edmund, especially when seen alongisde the fact that Charlie did learn to ride when he was a kid. He's a fairly decent rider. He just doesn't really enjoy it.

Backpack on, he pauses, a safe distance away.

"Hey, Arya. How's it going?"

[lonewolflives]

Although Arya didn't really follow how someone could not like horses, in this particular case any nervousness was probably warranted, ill-tempered as he could be.

Still, she risked lifting one hand from the reins to offer a wave, tightening her grip with the other to compensate.

"Hi, Charlie. It's all right. Fixing shit up after the storm, mostly. How'd you fare?"

[teenagerenegade]

"Pretty good, I think," he says, wandering a little closer, though still managing to keep his distance. "My hut's a little worse than Ed's, but we don't spend a lot of time at my place anyway."

[lonewolflives]

"Aw," Arya said, with a playful little smirk, "thinking of moving in? Finding a ring?"

[turnedoutfine]

Alexis noticed the horse first. She'd ridden before, not much but some, and she was thinking it reminded her of Black Beauty when she noticed the girl leading the horse looked like she was around Alexis' age. "Your horse is beautiful," she said, when she got close enough where she didn't have to shout.

[lonewolflives]

"Shh, you'll only encourage him," Arya said, peering at Benjen as if expecting him to start preening, although he contented himself with a snort and a toss of his head that would have lost her the reins had she less of a grip on them. "He is, and doesn't he know it. He's not really mine, though."

[turnedoutfine]

"I wouldn't want him to get a swelled head or anything," Alexis replied, smiling. If he wasn't this girl's she wondered who he belonged to - maybe someone who wasn't on the island anymore. "What's his name?"

[lonewolflives]

"Benjen," Arya said, "My aunt named him after my uncle. It was a lot funnier at the time, believe me. And mine's Arya."

[sallyslingshot]

The beach was one of the few places on the island that, to Alex, felt almost like home, making it a place she frequented, when not getting her bearings on the rest of it. She had never once, though, seen a horse on the beach of the island she'd come from - or anywhere, really, before this place, for that matter - and it was enough to make her pause, one corner of her mouth quirking up in a wry smile. "Nice horse," she said, about the only thing there was to say, to the girl who seemed to be about her own age, something that was still novel enough after three months to bear mentioning. "It's yours?"

[lonewolflives]

"Don't let it go to your head," Arya told Benjen, as he tossed his mane. "Sort of," she said to the girl. "I'm his caretaker, I guess. His owner's not around any more."

She supposed Robb might argue that was a shared responsibility, but Arya rather felt that as jobs went, this one was hers specifically.

[sallyslingshot]

Statements like that, Alex was finding, were more commonplace than not. The way people could just disappear here, vanish into thin air, was something both curious and worrying; she'd certainly never heard of anything like it before, and if it was true and people just went home, like was common belief, then she had nowhere to go but to be dead. Much as she may not have liked this place, it was enough to make her hope for a long stay.

"That's nice of you, to look after him," she said, head tilting to the side. "You know a lot about horses?"

[lonewolflives]

"I grew up around them," Arya said, with a slight shrug to dismiss the idea it was especially nice of her to do something she would have expected from anyone in the same situation. "When I was a kid I was always hanging about places like the stables. They used to call me Arya Underfoot."

And Horseface, but there was certainly no way she was about to bring that up.