(no subject)
Recently, Arya seemed to be finding herself of more than one mind about a lot of things.
Despite how many names she'd worn, over the years, this problem was a fresh one. If she'd been anything, in the past, as Arya, as Arry, as Weasel and the rest, she'd been decisive. She'd always seen, clearly, the way forward. Not at first, and sometimes she'd gone the wrong way, but she'd always been able to pick one.
Not now.
The change in the island was just the latest thing she was in conflict about. Every year, the climate changed, and every year she'd been a little less excited. Every year, it snowed, but it wasn't the North. It wasn't Winterfell, it didn't have the smell, the precise right combination of snow and smoke and pine needles.
But for part of her, that was fine. She wasn't meant to go back there, was she? It was done, and there was nothing for her there. But she still had her wolf, she had her wolf back, and her wolf hadn't thought she should kill Seifer. And if she wasn't meant to do that, to serve the Many-Faced God, what was she for? If she wasn't no one, who was she?
So the change to a city sat strangely. Years past, it would have excited, purely, an entirely new space to explore, but she found herself drifting through it, in carelessly thrown on breeches and shirt. Neither fashion nor cold concerned her much. She absorbed it, the new city, all the same, learning all the secrets she could, but the main thing she learned was that this is another place that isn't home. A thing she wasn't even sure she'd recognize.
Today, she wasn't exploring. She was hunting. It had, before the change, at least still made her feel some purpose, some use. But now people could go and get meet from stores, from people whose only secret was how they existed at all, and dissipated soon after. A city full of ghosts she couldn't learn from.
But she wanted to, and she'd found a way. The only problem was that pigeons were easy.
They'd been easy when she'd been nine. She'd been training intently, constantly, since then, and it had been eight years. She was faster. She was much faster, and better, and sometimes she wondered how she'd fare against Syrio, as she was now. She still remembered him as faster than anything she'd seen, but that had been a long time ago and memory played tricks.
(She couldn't even really remember what Gendry had looked like, or Hot Pie, or others.)
However fast he'd been, she was fast, now. A single pigeon wasn't any challenge at all. She'd found a flock, instead, on the ice of the river. That added something, too. She paused, some distance away, then put one foot back and launched herself into motion. Closer, but not too close, about the same time as her deliberately incautious rush made the pigeons realize it was time to move, she stopped running and simply slid across the ice.
The wooden training sword she was using -- she wasn't about to waste either of her real swords, sheathed on her hip, on tis -- moved in a single serpentine motion, quick as a snake. Quicker. She could have taken any snake, any day, she was sure. Taptaptaptaptap and birds fell, and she slid on, to a halt, end of the wooden sword reaching the ice.
"Too easy," she said, turning and starting to collect the dead pigeons. "Stupid birds." Then she turned, to face whoever was approaching, and held one of them out. "Pigeon?"
Despite how many names she'd worn, over the years, this problem was a fresh one. If she'd been anything, in the past, as Arya, as Arry, as Weasel and the rest, she'd been decisive. She'd always seen, clearly, the way forward. Not at first, and sometimes she'd gone the wrong way, but she'd always been able to pick one.
Not now.
The change in the island was just the latest thing she was in conflict about. Every year, the climate changed, and every year she'd been a little less excited. Every year, it snowed, but it wasn't the North. It wasn't Winterfell, it didn't have the smell, the precise right combination of snow and smoke and pine needles.
But for part of her, that was fine. She wasn't meant to go back there, was she? It was done, and there was nothing for her there. But she still had her wolf, she had her wolf back, and her wolf hadn't thought she should kill Seifer. And if she wasn't meant to do that, to serve the Many-Faced God, what was she for? If she wasn't no one, who was she?
So the change to a city sat strangely. Years past, it would have excited, purely, an entirely new space to explore, but she found herself drifting through it, in carelessly thrown on breeches and shirt. Neither fashion nor cold concerned her much. She absorbed it, the new city, all the same, learning all the secrets she could, but the main thing she learned was that this is another place that isn't home. A thing she wasn't even sure she'd recognize.
Today, she wasn't exploring. She was hunting. It had, before the change, at least still made her feel some purpose, some use. But now people could go and get meet from stores, from people whose only secret was how they existed at all, and dissipated soon after. A city full of ghosts she couldn't learn from.
But she wanted to, and she'd found a way. The only problem was that pigeons were easy.
They'd been easy when she'd been nine. She'd been training intently, constantly, since then, and it had been eight years. She was faster. She was much faster, and better, and sometimes she wondered how she'd fare against Syrio, as she was now. She still remembered him as faster than anything she'd seen, but that had been a long time ago and memory played tricks.
(She couldn't even really remember what Gendry had looked like, or Hot Pie, or others.)
However fast he'd been, she was fast, now. A single pigeon wasn't any challenge at all. She'd found a flock, instead, on the ice of the river. That added something, too. She paused, some distance away, then put one foot back and launched herself into motion. Closer, but not too close, about the same time as her deliberately incautious rush made the pigeons realize it was time to move, she stopped running and simply slid across the ice.
The wooden training sword she was using -- she wasn't about to waste either of her real swords, sheathed on her hip, on tis -- moved in a single serpentine motion, quick as a snake. Quicker. She could have taken any snake, any day, she was sure. Taptaptaptaptap and birds fell, and she slid on, to a halt, end of the wooden sword reaching the ice.
"Too easy," she said, turning and starting to collect the dead pigeons. "Stupid birds." Then she turned, to face whoever was approaching, and held one of them out. "Pigeon?"