[A Song of Ice and Fire]: Alive
She would have killed me, Arya thought, and then corrected herself; it would have killed me. Valar morghulis. And no man is meant to return.
“Gods,” Gendry croaked, again, and she was suddenly angry with him. Licking her lips, dry and cracked, she forced out, “Shut up.” He was so stupid, even if he’d grown up and his biceps were as big around as her calves he was still an idiot. Shivers ran down her spine and she tried to shove herself to her feet, but her legs were shaking now along with the rest of her.
She heard Gendry swallow. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” She thought of the claw-marks down her mother’s face where her nails had dug in. Thought about the foul smell of her breath in Arya’s face, three days dead and still alive, and retched. Gendry knelt beside her and pulled her hair back, his hands bigger than she remembered, still a smith’s, calloused and strong. She spat into the snow. “How stupid are you? Didn’t you notice-“
“Arya, you’re freezing.” She wanted to punch him for interrupting. If she could stop shaking so much she would have. And then he had to say it again. “Gods.”
She managed to smack his thigh at least hard enough to sting for that. “Stop saying that. It sounds stupid. I’m not that cold.” If she could stop shaking then nothing would be the matter at all. It was too bad she couldn’t do that.
He shook his head, and she could hear the stubbornness in his voice. Why was he always so stubborn? It wasn’t as though she’d missed his bull-headed, stupid…self. “The inn’s not far from here, we can at least go there.”
She shook her head and her jaw clattered. “I can’t. I have - business.”
“It can wait,” Gendry said, and maybe he really had gotten stronger because he picked her up bodily and stood up with her in his arms. His body was warm and his arms were very strong and secure, and she didn’t want to move away even a little. His heartbeat thudded against her back.
“You’re still tiny,” he said, after a moment, and she bristled. “I mean, you were always little, but you’re not - I don’t know.”
Arya ignored him. Her nose was hurting from the cold, and she turned her face into his chest. The leather smell was like the stables she’d spent so much time in at Winterfell, and even if it was rough and not really that pleasant, it was good anyway. Her - no, the monster’s hands on her neck had been cold, soft, mushy.
“What are you doing?” He asked, in a strange voice. Arya shook her head, wordless, and felt the moment when they crossed the threshold into the warmth of an inn, the change from the crunch of snow to the tramp of boots on boards. “Could I have a room,” she heard him ask.
It was a female voice that answered. “Of course, Gendry, there’s always room for you and your…friends, here. Will you introduce us?”
She felt Gendry hesitate, and remembered what an awful liar he was. “Just - call her Weasel, that’s good enough,” he said, and she breathed again, though the small sound of amusement made her want to turn her head and bare her teeth. They’d see how much they laughed then. They started up the stairs.
A safe distance away, Arya nearly snarled, turning her head so she could look up at his neck. “You didn’t tell me there was anyone else here.”
“It’s an inn, of course there are people here. They won’t-“ She could see his neck redden - “Think anything improper. Don’t worry.” Arya scoffed.
“They can think whatever they want.” She felt dizzy, giddy, suddenly. “It’s not like I care. Gendry, do you know what valar morghulis means?” He opened the door, holding her with one and a half arms. He really had gotten stronger. A man, not a boy. That was all right. Arya knew more about men than boys now anyway.
“No. What is that, some Northern thing?” She turned her head all the way to look up at him.
“It means, ‘all men must die.’ Valar morghulis, Gendry.” She could see his eyes widen. “But we’re not dead. We’re not dead.”
He let her feet down, though his arms were still around her waist, holding her upright. She lifted one slightly shaking hand and touched the pulse in his neck, and he didn’t move, like some kind of sheep. A dumb sheep.
“You stupid,” she said, and he wasn’t too much taller than her, so she could go up on her tiptoes and kiss him. Not like Sansa would have, and not like the different whores she’d heard talking about how to catch a man, just like herself, roughly and coarsely and because he was warm and living and she could feel his pulse jumping under her hand. Alive.
She was more surprised when he kissed her back. Arya wrapped her hands around his arms and let her fingers trace the curve of his muscles, as she could feel them defined, and shivered again.
“You’re still cold,” he said, sounding more dazed than anything, though his voice was husky too.
“I’m not cold,” she said, “I’m not cold.” Her knees wobbled and she held herself up on him.
“You need to lie down,” he said, and she looked up at him and frowned.
“I don’t want to. I’m alive. Sleeping is for the dead.” She rubbed his arms again. “When did you get so strong?”
“When did you get so - so -“ He flushed, and Arya couldn’t help but smile, giddily, stupidly.
“I’m all grown up. That’s what happens, Ser Waters. People grow up.”
“You don’t look like a,” he started to say, and stopped. She narrowed her eyes at him.
“Like a woman? Huh.” Her clothes were wet with melting snow and sweat. They needed to come off anyways. She undid the breeches first, kicking off her boots and sitting down on the bed to slide them off her legs. She held them out for Gendry’s inspection. “Don’t I?”
His face went bright red, so she folded up her legs and undid her vest instead, pulled it off over her head. “I’ll need some dry clothes,” she noted. Arya wanted to feel his heartbeat again, but he was still staring, like a dumb sheep again.
“What’re you looking at?” Gendry swallowed; she could see the apple in his throat bob up and down. She didn’t bother to look down at his breeches as he took a step toward her. “Come here,” she said, deadly serious, “Come here, look me in the eye - the eye, mind you, I know other things are more interesting - and tell me again I don’t look like a woman.”
He came a few steps over, looked her in the eye, and said, “You don’t. Look like a woman.” He was lying, she knew he was lying. It was all over his face.
“Damn right I don’t,” Arya said, and moved one leg to knock Gendry off his feet and back onto the bed. He fell with a yelp of surprise and she straddled his belly, pressing a hand to his chest. His heart seemed to jump, as one with a knife in it did in the last moments of life. “I’m alive,” she whispered, watching his eyes. “I’m Arya Stark.”
He made a soft sound and tried to sit up. She pushed him back down. “What are you playing at,” he asked, flushing angrily, and she shook her head. The skin tingled down her back and she’d never been so cold. She bent over backwards to reach her shoes and get the small knife out, her head resting for a moment on the bulge in Gendry’s breeches. Flipping back upright, she noticed that his face had gotten even redder, though it went rapidly pale when he saw the knife.
“Gods,” he said, and she said, “Shut up,” and cut his clothes apart, peeling them away from his chest.
“You’re warm,” she told him, and didn’t know if she was tired of being alone or just needed the warmth. She was, however, surprised when as she threw the knife back into the pile of clothes, Gendry’s warm, strong, smith’s arms wrapped around her and tightened and he kissed her.
Arya noticed that he was better at it than she was. She’d never understood what the big deal about kissing was, but it felt good, and his mouth was as warm as the rest of him. She spread her hands against his chest and worked the skin with her fingers.
He tried to put her on her back and she flipped him over again; he tried again and this time she hissed at him and he stayed. He was hers, he was alive, and his hips were moving with frustration, pressing against her buttocks.
“You can take them off yourself,” she told him, and climbed off, stripping off the overlarge shirt. She could tell Gendry was looking at her as he sat up and clumsily unlaced his breeches, and she turned her back and paced, restless.
“You look like a cat,” he said. When had his voice dropped like that? It was low and husky and made a different kind of shiver run down her spine when he talked like that. She turned on him and bared her teeth.
“I’m not a cat. I’m a wolf.”
He pulled his breeches off and tried to stand, but she pressed her thumb against a point on his leg and he stopped moving. She planted her hands and knees on either side of his prone body and ignored his cock’s attempts to reach her.
“What do you think?” She asked, seriously.
“I’m not exactly thinking right now,” he told her, and she thought that was funny, so she laughed. Gendry groaned a little and Arya looked up and down his body.
“You know,” she said, “You look a little ridiculous like this. All flat and hairy with just one thing sticking up. No one ever mentions how funny it looks.”
Gendry’s ears turned bright red and he opened his mouth, but she sat up and eased him into her.
She’d always thought it would be hard, to make sure everything fit together, that there would be a lot of bumping and moving around and awkwardness, but she was surprised at how easily he slipped into her, first, and second at the thrill that jolted up her body.
Under her, he made a slightly strangled sound, and she could feel herself start to shiver again, so she kissed him instead. His big, strong hands grasped her buttocks and she could feel his hips working, jerking in short little thrusts against her. She dug her nails into his shoulders.
“I’m alive,” she said, into his mouth. Sansa had always believed those songs, Arya thought; wasn’t it funny that now she had one herself? The monster was slain and here she was with her gallant knight - true, there was more grunting and sweat than in songs, and Gendry wasn’t exactly a knight, but the warmth was spreading from her loins through her body, as if each thrust lent her some of Gendry’s heat.
This time when he rolled her to her back she didn’t fight him, though she bit his lip to let him know he wouldn’t get this every time. She’d known it wouldn’t last long, but she was still surprised when he jerked and stiffened, and equally surprised that she could feel him come.
Gendry pulled his lips away from hers and pressed his face to her shoulder. “I love you,” he said, muffled. “I think I do. I mean it.”
Arya closed her eyes and felt his heart beating against her breastbone, with the same hammering rhythm in her own, and didn’t answer. She was still alive. Her mother was dead, her fathers were dead, her brothers and sister were dead, but Arya Stark was still alive.
**
She woke in the middle of the night, nestled comfortably against Gendry’s chest. He was snoring, but that wouldn’t have woken her. She knew important noises from unimportant ones, now.
She touched his chest for a moment, thinking, and then stood up slowly and slipped on her breeches, her shirt, her vest, her boots, and slipped outside.
The great grey wolf was waiting for her in the woods. Arya and she watched each other, measured each other, and Arya opened her arms. “I missed you,” she said, softly. “Come with me.”
It was time to go. The lady would come back to her knight when she had finished slaying the last of the monsters.