ASOIAF fic: Enter Heaven in Muddy Shoes (1/2)
Title: Enter Heaven in Muddy Shoes
Author/Artist: vaznetti
For: netgirl_y2k
Pairings/Characters: Brienne of Tarth, Arya Stark, Podrick Payne
Rating: PG
Words: c. 11,000
Warnings: Spoilers through ADWD; violence and language as in canon.
Prompt: Brienne & Arya - Sansa isn't the Stark daughter that Brienne eventually discovers. I'd love some protective Brienne, and Arya being reluctant to trust anyone.
Disclaimer: I am not GRRM, which has allowed me to play fast and loose with his chronology and timing (mostly fast). I have, however, borrowed or only slightly altered a line or two of his, particularly when presenting a moment he had already written from another point of view. Title from Theodore Roethke, The Return.
Thanks: to Maidenjedi for a very quick and very helpful beta-read (and a wonderful suggestion for the title!), and to Linndechir for organizing such a great exchange.
I Maidenpool
Brienne went from ship to ship, each time with the same questions ("Have you been to King's Landing? Have you seen my sister, a girl of three-and-ten, blue eyes and auburn hair?") and each time the same response ("If I had, I'd have fucked her. I'd even fuck you, and you're the ugliest bitch I've ever seen"). It was a waste of time, she thought: she was planning to meet Nimble Dick tomorrow to find the fool he had dealt with. But she couldn't help herself. Perhaps Dick had been lying. Perhaps in some other port, one of these ships had encountered Sansa Stark. At the end of the pier was one last ship, painted purple, with three tall masts and purple sails. The Titan's Daughter, she was named, out of Braavos. It seemed no more likely than the others: could Sansa have fled not just King's Landing, but Westeros altogether? Surely not.
The ship's captain was grey-haired and clean-shaven. "No cabins," he said as Brienne approached the gangway.
"I don't want passage," Brienne said. "I am looking for my sister, a fair maid of three-and-ten, with blue eyes and auburn hair. She was seen last in King's Landing, and her-- our mother has tasked me to find her."
"What makes you think to find her here?" the captain asked. "If she is lost in King's Landing, seek her there."
"I believe she fled, ser. With a fool, perhaps, as her companion."
"So she had something to fear in the city," the captain said. "She is most likely dead."
"Or in a brothel. Maybe I fucked her there," one of the sailors added in a thick accent; the master glared at him and he backed off.
"She is a gently-raised girl," Brienne said doggedly, "a noble maid. She was last seen in King's Landing at-- on the day of King Joffrey's wedding. She might be travelling with a fool, or a knight. They might be looking for passage on a ship."
"In this madness?" the captain gestured toward the port, or more broadly toward the Seven Kingdoms as a whole. "She's most likely dead, I told you."
"She's not dead!" A boy jumped up from the deck. Filthy and scrawny, knotted hair, stained clothes. Not like the rest of his crew in that, and not in his accent either, which had nothing of the Free Cities to it. Not from King's Landing, either; there was something well-bred about it, which didn't match her clothes. Brienne's heart skipped a beat -- but Lady Catelyn's sons were dead, killed in Winterfell by Theon Greyjoy. "And she's not your sister," the boy added.
Brienne expected the captain to cuff him and send him off; when he didn't, she asked, "How do you know?"
"She killed Prince Joffrey and turned into a wolf and flew away. I heard someone say so. That's stupid: she couldn't turn into a wolf. But she killed Joffrey and ran away. She isn't dead."
"No," Brienne said. "How did you know that she isn't my sister?" The boy -- the child -- stared at her, chewing its lip. Grey eyes, Brienne saw, and a long face. There was nothing of Lady Catelyn there. She wished she had seen Ned Stark clearly enough to discern his face under the dirt. What else had Lady Catelyn said of her younger daughter? Hair like a bird's nest, half-boy and half-wolf cub. "What is your name, child?"
"Salty."
The captain shifted his weight as the ship rocked slightly. "We are bound for Braavos, and the tide is turning. This girl you seek, your sister, she is not here."
Brienne glanced at him: surely there could be only one reason for his caution? The child was still scowling at her. Could it be -- could she be -- Lady Catelyn's long-lost younger daughter? Jaime had told her that the girl was dead, but he had also admitted that they had never found her body. Brienne took a deep breath. The girl -- and surely she was a girl, Brienne could see that now -- stood still and straight as Brienne drew her sword; her hand went to a long knife hanging from her belt, while the master shouted and stepped back.
Brienne knelt and laid the sword on the deck. "Lady Arya," she said, and saw something shift in the girl's grey eyes, "Lady Arya, my name is Brienne of Tarth. Your mother charged me to find you and bring you safely to-- to bring you safely away from your enemies."
"I don't have a mother," the girl said quietly, her hand still on the knife. "I told the Hound to save her, but he wouldn't."
"I know," Brienne said, although she had no idea what the girl was talking about, or how she had come into contact with Sandor Clegane. "Lady Catelyn sent me away, to find you and your sister. I swore her my service and my sword." She took another deep breath. "If you will have them, my lady, they are yours."
Arya Stark was still staring at her, chewing at her lip. "The captain won't take me North," she said. "I told him that I want to go to Eastwatch, but he won't go anywhere but Braavos now."
"If you come with me, my lady, I will take you North. I swear it."
"I'm not a lady," the girl said. "But I'll come." She turned to the captain. "When you see Jaqen H'ghar, tell him I couldn't come with you. Tell him I had to go back to Winterfell."
He inclined his head. "Remember, girl, Ternesio Terys would have taken you to Braavos."
"But you wouldn't take me home," she said. She looked down at the sword, so Brienne picked it up and sheathed it, and led her down the ramp to where Pod was waiting.
"My lady?" Pod started. "I mean, ser?"
"Who's he?" Arya asked.
Suddenly aware of how public her meeting with Arya Stark had been, Brienne said quickly, "Back to the inn. We'll talk there." She pushed Arya up onto her horse and walked it back through Maidenpool, looking around and behind whenever she thought she could. No one seemed to be following, true, but she thought it just as well they were leaving the town at dawn.
At the inn Pod stabled her horse and Brienne took them all up to her room, closing the door behind her. "Who is that?" Arya asked again.
"My lady, this is Podrick Payne, my squire, Podrick, this is--" but she got no further. The girl cried something ("Payne!" Brienne thought) and leaped forward at Pod, knocking him backward into the wall. Arya punched him hard in the nose once and reached for her knife: Brienne grabbed her and hauled her back before she could get it fully out of her belt. "My lady, what are you doing?"
"He's a Payne!" Arya said, twisting in Brienne's grasp. "Like Ser Ilyn! He killed my father!" She kicked Brienne in the knee and nearly got away.
"He didn't do anything! He's my squire," Brienne said, wrapping her arms around the girl's body to hold her still. "He's not Ser Ilyn, he can't help who his family is!" Could this be Arya Stark, this child struggling in her arms, desperate to get to Pod? It seemed impossible to believe, but the strength of her reaction to Pod's name seemed to prove it.
"My lady!" Pod said.
"Don't call me that," Brienne said, and at the same time she heard Arya say, "I'm not a lady!" She laughed a little in surprise, and Arya wrested away and turned around to say, "It isn't funny."
"No, my lady," Brienne said. Was this how Jaime had felt whenever he called her wench, she wondered.
"I told you I'm not a lady!" Arya said again, scowling. "Anyway, how can you trust him? I told you he's a Payne."
"He's helping me find your sister," Brienne said.
"How does he know Sansa?"
"She was my lady," Pod said through his fingers. He was clutching his bloody nose and staring up at them from the corner. "My other lady, I mean, not Lady Brienne. She was married to my lord. My other lady was. Not Lady Brienne."
"Who was that?"
"Lord Tyrion. But he disappeared, and so did my lady, and Lady Brienne -- ser -- was looking for her. Are you really my lady's sister?" He looked doubtfully at Arya.
"One day I'm going to kill Ser Ilyn," Arya said. "What are you going to do about it?"
"My lady!" Brienne protested.
"You're a knight," Arya said. "You kill people too. I've killed lots of people, and I can kill him too." She sounded perfectly certain, as if killing knights was nothing unusual. Surely no daughter of Lady Catelyn could speak and act like this -- and then Brienne wondered whether those who knew her own mother felt the same when they looked at her. But Brienne wanted to be a knight, not to kill them. "What are you going to do about it?" Arya asked Pod again.
"Nothing," Pod said. "He frightens me."
"Lady Arya," Brienne said cautiously, "You can't simply announce that you're going to kill Ser Ilyn. He's a knight, and the king's executioner."
Her face was dark. "He killed my father. He cut off his head, and I saw him do it."
"My lady," Brienne said, more gently this time, "I know. But he is down in King's Landing, and you asked me to take you north." Arya turned away to kick the wall, but was silent. Brienne let loose a sigh of thanks: she had not been sure what she would have done had Arya demanded that they change their plan and go south to find Ser Ilyn.
"What about my lady?" Pod asked. "My other lady?"
"Lady Arya, I do have one rumor of your sister. She fled King's Landing on the same night that Dontos, the king's fool, disappeared. And there is word of a fool hiding out on Crackclaw Point, looking for three berths on a ship sailing east. It might be Dontos."
Arya turned back to the room. "And Sansa might be with him?"
"If it is him, then she might be. I must go to see, but perhaps you should wait here in Maidenpool."
"No." Arya said.
"It may be dangerous, my lady," Brienne began, but she could tell already that Arya wasn't listening.
"She's my sister, not yours," she said. "She's part of my pack."
II Crackclaw Point
They left the next morning, riding out of Maidenpool at dawn, through quiet streets. Arya rode behind Brienne, still dressed as a boy; she had let Brienne trim her hair and had washed, but her clothes were still ragged. They had agreed that it would be better not to let everyone know who she was, at least until they were in the North, but Podrick kept calling her "my lady" and "my lady's sister," and even Brienne had called her "my lady" in the room, and once on the stairs. Arya had ignored her: she'd told them over and over that she wasn't a lady, and they shouldn't call her one, but they kept forgetting.
A man was waiting for them outside the gate; Brienne said he would take them where Sansa might be hiding. She seemed to believe him, but Arya kept an eye on him anyway, and kept her hand near Needle just in case. She wasn't entirely sure she trusted the lady knight and her squire either; she thought she still might need to run away, although it had been nice to eat hot food and wash in hot water and sleep in a real bed. Maybe someday they could be part of her pack, too, although she wasn't sure that Podrick would be much use.
They took the road along the coast, with Brienne's guide talking and complaining the whole way. Arya watched her watch him, felt how she never relaxed as they rode along. But they spent the nights in inns with wide warm beds, in rooms with doors that closed and locked, she and Pod and Brienne. And she and Pod had both laughed at Nimble Dick's floury fingers, the day he tried to steal Brienne's gold. That night Arya had got up in the dark to feel the edges of Brienne's clothes and belt and bedroll, to find out where the gold was really sewn in. Nimble Dick had got caught, with his stupid fingers full of flour and his stupid stories about dead kings under the ground, but Arya wouldn't; she found the gold and more beside, a long, sharp sword. She lifted it carefully, although it was heavy in her hands, then put it back where she found it, wondering why Brienne kept such a fine sword hidden away.
Nimble Dick was stupid in a lot of ways, with his stories about Clarence Crabb and his shelf of whispering heads. "Heads don't whisper after you cut them off," she told him scornfully. "They're just dead."
"You don't know fuck," Dick said. "There was real magic in those days, and the blood of the First Men is strong in here Crackclaw Point. You'll see when we get there: those heads are still whispering now."
"There isn't any magic now, and there wasn't any then," Arya said. Magic might have saved Robb and her mother, if he and his men had really been able to turn into wolves. The Freys would never have been able to kill them then: they would have ripped their throats out and eaten their hearts. And they had the blood of the First Men too, more than these stupid people out here in the woods did anyway.
"Every part of the Seven Kingdoms has its own heroes," Brienne said. But then she told a story which was even stupider, about a knight who wouldn't use his magic sword. Maybe that's what she had in her bedroll.
"If I had a magic sword, I would use it," Arya said. "What's the point of being noble and dead?"
Nimble Dick laughed. "That little girl has the right of it. Ser Clarence would have wiped his hairy arse with your noble Ser Galladon."
Brienne looked hurt at that, and tried to argue, but Arya had already stopped listening. There were no magic swords or noble knights, and she wasn't going to spend her whole life waiting for one to come along. In bed at the inn that night Pod whispered, "His stories aren't true, are they, my lady? Heads don't really come back to life and talk?"
"Let's cut yours off and see," Arya said, before Brienne hushed her and told Pod that no, they were just stupid stories and not to let Dick frighten him. But after that Pod stopped speaking to her for a while, so Arya didn't care.
They were four or five days out from Maidenpool, saddling the horses in the inn's forecourt, when Pod finally spoke to her directly again. "Who are those people?" he asked as they tightened the girths on his horse. "The people whose names you say at night?"
"No one," Arya said. "None of your business."
"Were they--"
"I told you they were none of your business," Arya said. She gave him a push and he fell back, so she finished saddling the horses herself.
"You shouldn't hit Pod," Brienne said from the doorway.
"He shouldn't bother me, then."
Brienne must have told him not to, because after that he kept away from her, as much as he could, with the four of them travelling together, anyway. But eventually they came to the end of the inns and villages, and slept in the forest under the dripping trees, wrapped in a blanket. They couldn't make a fire, and it was cold and wet. Nimble Dick wrapped himself in a blanket and went straight to sleep, snoring loudly enough to wake his stupid dead kings, and Brienne stood up to walk around their camp. Arya didn't have her own blanket any more, so she and Pod had to share a blanket on a bed of needles. Arya kept finding little pine cones hidden in the pile; Pod lay very still beside her, but she could tell he wasn't asleep.
She sighed and sat up to throw another pine cone out into the woods. "I didn't hit you that hard," she said.
Pod sat up next to her. "It still hurt."
"If you want to be a knight you'd better get used to people hitting you. That's what they do, but with swords." He shrugged a little. "Did you really know Sansa?" she asked.
Pod jumped and swallowed. "Yes, my lady. I mean, not my lady. When she was married to my lord."
"You said they made her marry the Imp," Arya said. "Was he cruel to her?"
"To my lady? No!" Pod said.
"You have to say that, because you served him. But if he wasn't cruel, he wouldn't have married her. I'll kill him too, one day." Sansa had always dreamed of marrying a knight or a lord, someone tall and brave and handsome. She would have hated the Imp even if he hadn't been a Lannister.
"But he didn't hit her, not like the knights did."
"Knights hit each other, stupid. Not girls. Or not girls like Sansa." Although Ser Gregor was a knight, and Ser Amory, and they had killed lots of girls, and raped more. But that sort of thing couldn't happen to Sansa, with her smiles and courtesy. Courtesy is a lady's armor, Septa Mordane had told them, although only Sansa had paid attention. Armor was better armor, Arya thought, a coat of mail like Brienne had.
Pod swallowed again, looking even more nervous. "They do, sometimes. When the king tells them to. Joffrey made them. Ser Meryn, and Ser Boros, and the others. King Joffrey ordered them to beat her, until my lord made them stop. I saw it too."
Arya's hands clenched around the blanket they were sharing. "I should have killed him," she said. "I could have told..." She stopped herself. "I could have done it myself. By the river. But he was going to be king, and Sansa thought he was her prince. Stupid prince. I hope she did kill him. He deserved it."
"No, my lady," Pod said. "I mean, yes. I mean, I don't know."
"Sansa loved knights. She used to, I mean. She was always talking about how noble they were. But I hate them. I hate them all." She turned her head and saw him staring, big eyes in a white face. "Tell me their names, all the knights who hit Sansa. Tell me everything."
Pod didn't know everything, but when he was done Arya wanted to run all the way back to King's Landing to find Joffrey's body so that she could hit him again, and again, and again. She stood up and went to find Brienne. "You go to sleep, Lady Brienne. I'll watch." Brienne looked doubtful. "You have to sleep some of the time," Arya said. "I can watch." And she wasn't going to sleep anyway, not in the wet after hearing Pod's stories.
She waited for Brienne to breathe evenly, and then started to practice her water dancing; she hadn't practiced in a long time, and her arms weren't as strong as they had been. "Quick as a snake," she said. "Ser Meryn. Strong as a bear. Ser Boros. Smooth as summer silk." She lunged again; Pod had killed Ser Mandon, although not for what he had done to Sansa, and he didn't think Ser Osmund had ever hit Sansa. "My lord stopped it," he had said. "Lady Sansa married him because he was kind to her."
"But she wasn't happy," Arya had said.
Pod had looked at the ground. "No, my lady," he had admitted. "Mostly she was frightened."
Now Arya danced along the wet ground, over needles and slippery leaves. Sansa might be at the Whispers, and Arya would have to be ready to save her.
*
They were all wet and cold and tired by the time they reached the Whispers, except for Nimble Dick, who looked more and more cheerful and told even stupider stories. They still seemed to frighten Pod, although he had stopped jumping whenever Arya spoke to him. Brienne kept looking behind them, to check the man who was following them: Arya bet that he was working with Nimble Dick. They were probably planning to kill Brienne and take her gold.
"The fool is in there?" Brienne asked, staring at the crumbling, ivy-covered walls. Arya could hear whispering under the ground; not the dead, she thought, just the sea. She shivered a little anyway, because it was so damp. They'd had to go all the way around the castle wall to find a way in, a little gate half-overgrown with blackberries: Arya looked, but all the ripe ones were gone.
"Is Sansa there?" she asked. It wasn't the kind of place she had ever imagined seeing her sister. It wasn't a romantic ruin, like in a song: it was just a ruin, dirty and broken and wet.
Brienne glanced at her. "Stay back here," she said. "Don't go running in to look for her."
"I'm not stupid," Arya said. "But I'm going with you. If it is Sansa, she'll know me, not you." At least, Arya hoped she would. She knew that she was filthy and dressed like a boy and not the kind of sister Sansa wanted, but she hoped Sansa would want her and wouldn't care about all the things she'd done. Maybe after Joffrey and the knights at King's Landing she wouldn't care so much about pretty things. Maybe she'd want a sister who knew water dancing, not regular dancing.
Brienne stood and thought. "Very well, my lady," she said. Arya winced at the title. "But stay behind me, in case it isn't Lady Sansa. Pod, there's a sword in my baggage roll. Bring it to me." She handed her own to Nimble Dick. Stupid Arya thought. If there was going to be trouble, it would be Nimble Dick who started it.
She was right, but not in the way she thought she would be: he walked right in and started shouting for the fool, and just for a moment Arya was convinced by his confidence that no one here would hurt them, that it really would be Sansa and her fool and some other friend (Jeyne Poole, she thought, maybe she still had Jeyne with her, Arya wouldn't even mind that). Then the men came out, and she saw them.
Shagwell, Pyg, Timeon: she remembered them from Harrenhal, and looked about to see if the rest of Vargo Hoat's men were there, while Nimble Dick screamed and begged and died, and the three men started to approach Brienne. And then Brienne's voice said clearly, "There are only three of you," and Arya stopped remembering and started seeing.
Brienne was wasting time, letting them get closer and closer to her as they talked. They were facing her, watching her sword. Now and then Pyg or Timeon would spare a glance for Arya, but they weren't watching her, not really. Light as a feather she thought. Quiet as a shadow. She crept closer, half-listening to their talk. Making for Riverrun, Timeon said, and the Hound stole her. Then three of his brother's men, at the cross-roads-inn. They were talking about her, Arya thought, and they didn't even know she was there. She was behind Pyg now, and Needle was in her hand. It would take two quick steps, she thought, quick as a snake.
She struck him low in the back, where his leather jerkin met his breeches, pushing with all her strength so Needle went through him and out the front, then dancing away and back when he twisted as he fell and struck at her with his broken sword. Brienne had seen: she rushed Timeon at the same time, striking the spear out of his hand with her sword -- his hand went too, and as he stumbled and clutched his wrist she shoved the blade down his throat and pulled it out again. Pyg was back on his feet, coming for Arya, holding one hand across his stomach. "It was me," she said, "I killed the Tickler in that inn, stupid." She tried to get behind Pyg, but he kept turning and she wanted to stay away from where Shagwell and Brienne were circling. Then a rock came out of nowhere and Pyg fell to the ground. Arya leaped on him, stabbing Needle into his chest and neck so that blood dribbled from his mouth and he wet his breeches. Pod jumped down from the wall to help her up. She shook his hand off; she could have done it on her own, anyway.
Brienne was done with Shagwell as well: one stroke of her sword had sent his head spinning down to the ground. It landed with a thud and rolled over to lie by Nimble Dick's body under the white weirwood tree. She barely glanced at it before coming to Arya's side. "My lady, are you injured? Are you--"
"I told you I'm not a lady," Arya said. "I told you not to call me that."
"But you..." she looked down at Pyg's body. "Did he hurt you?"
Arya glanced down at him as well. "I killed him. I told you, I've done it before." Brienne was staring at her now, with an expression Arya couldn't quite read. Was she angry? Arya wasn't sure why she should be.
"I'm sorry," she said finally. "I'm sorry you had to do that."
"I'm not," Arya said. She still didn't know why Brienne looked so upset.
Brienne walked over to Dick's body. "I'm sorry," she said to him too. Then she looked at Arya. "My lady, it seems Sansa was never here. But these men claimed that she was with the Hound. We can search for them in the Riverlands."
"That was me," Arya said. "They were taking me to Riverrun, to my mother, and the Hound stole me. Sansa was never here. She was never here," she said again, "and I don't know where she is!"
She ran back out the gate and past the blackberries and stood looking over the cliff, down at the waves crashing into the broken tower below her. It was stupid, she thought. She should have known Sansa wasn't here. She hadn't seen her in years, and Sansa probably wouldn't even want to see her now, wouldn't want to recognize her. She was probably somewhere nicer than this, anyway, somewhere warm and dry and safe. She didn't need Arya.
Even if she did, there was no way to find her, Arya thought. She screwed her face up against the wind which was trying to draw tears from her eyes. Stupid, stupid, stupid. She threw a stone over the cliff, but it was lost against the rocks and water below.
A bell jingled, and for a moment she thought it was Shagwell, back again from the dead like one of Dick's stories. But then she heard it properly and no, it was harness. The rider, she remembered. Nimble Dick's friend. He wasn't going to be happy to find Dick dead.
She couldn't fight a man on horseback, but she remembered Pod's trick. There were plenty of rocks, and she gathered a few and hid behind some bushes. The horseman would have to come around the way they had to reach the postern gate, and she would be waiting for him. Her aim was good now. Calm as still water Syrio had told her, but it was anger making her strong now. One rock sent him reeling, and the next knocked him right off his horse, which skittered to the side and ran back to stand at the edge of the woods. He fell badly and Arya was on him, grabbing his own dagger to stab him in the heart, just like she had the boy at the crossroads in.
Brienne came running out. "My lady," she shouted, "are you hurt?" But then she came up and saw. "Ser Hyle?" she said, her voice full of confusion.
The man gurgled. "Tarly sent me..." he said. "Find the Stark girl." His head fell back.
"You found her," Brienne said. And then, "Oh, my lady, what have you done?"
To Part II
Author/Artist: vaznetti
For: netgirl_y2k
Pairings/Characters: Brienne of Tarth, Arya Stark, Podrick Payne
Rating: PG
Words: c. 11,000
Warnings: Spoilers through ADWD; violence and language as in canon.
Prompt: Brienne & Arya - Sansa isn't the Stark daughter that Brienne eventually discovers. I'd love some protective Brienne, and Arya being reluctant to trust anyone.
Disclaimer: I am not GRRM, which has allowed me to play fast and loose with his chronology and timing (mostly fast). I have, however, borrowed or only slightly altered a line or two of his, particularly when presenting a moment he had already written from another point of view. Title from Theodore Roethke, The Return.
Thanks: to Maidenjedi for a very quick and very helpful beta-read (and a wonderful suggestion for the title!), and to Linndechir for organizing such a great exchange.
I Maidenpool
Brienne went from ship to ship, each time with the same questions ("Have you been to King's Landing? Have you seen my sister, a girl of three-and-ten, blue eyes and auburn hair?") and each time the same response ("If I had, I'd have fucked her. I'd even fuck you, and you're the ugliest bitch I've ever seen"). It was a waste of time, she thought: she was planning to meet Nimble Dick tomorrow to find the fool he had dealt with. But she couldn't help herself. Perhaps Dick had been lying. Perhaps in some other port, one of these ships had encountered Sansa Stark. At the end of the pier was one last ship, painted purple, with three tall masts and purple sails. The Titan's Daughter, she was named, out of Braavos. It seemed no more likely than the others: could Sansa have fled not just King's Landing, but Westeros altogether? Surely not.
The ship's captain was grey-haired and clean-shaven. "No cabins," he said as Brienne approached the gangway.
"I don't want passage," Brienne said. "I am looking for my sister, a fair maid of three-and-ten, with blue eyes and auburn hair. She was seen last in King's Landing, and her-- our mother has tasked me to find her."
"What makes you think to find her here?" the captain asked. "If she is lost in King's Landing, seek her there."
"I believe she fled, ser. With a fool, perhaps, as her companion."
"So she had something to fear in the city," the captain said. "She is most likely dead."
"Or in a brothel. Maybe I fucked her there," one of the sailors added in a thick accent; the master glared at him and he backed off.
"She is a gently-raised girl," Brienne said doggedly, "a noble maid. She was last seen in King's Landing at-- on the day of King Joffrey's wedding. She might be travelling with a fool, or a knight. They might be looking for passage on a ship."
"In this madness?" the captain gestured toward the port, or more broadly toward the Seven Kingdoms as a whole. "She's most likely dead, I told you."
"She's not dead!" A boy jumped up from the deck. Filthy and scrawny, knotted hair, stained clothes. Not like the rest of his crew in that, and not in his accent either, which had nothing of the Free Cities to it. Not from King's Landing, either; there was something well-bred about it, which didn't match her clothes. Brienne's heart skipped a beat -- but Lady Catelyn's sons were dead, killed in Winterfell by Theon Greyjoy. "And she's not your sister," the boy added.
Brienne expected the captain to cuff him and send him off; when he didn't, she asked, "How do you know?"
"She killed Prince Joffrey and turned into a wolf and flew away. I heard someone say so. That's stupid: she couldn't turn into a wolf. But she killed Joffrey and ran away. She isn't dead."
"No," Brienne said. "How did you know that she isn't my sister?" The boy -- the child -- stared at her, chewing its lip. Grey eyes, Brienne saw, and a long face. There was nothing of Lady Catelyn there. She wished she had seen Ned Stark clearly enough to discern his face under the dirt. What else had Lady Catelyn said of her younger daughter? Hair like a bird's nest, half-boy and half-wolf cub. "What is your name, child?"
"Salty."
The captain shifted his weight as the ship rocked slightly. "We are bound for Braavos, and the tide is turning. This girl you seek, your sister, she is not here."
Brienne glanced at him: surely there could be only one reason for his caution? The child was still scowling at her. Could it be -- could she be -- Lady Catelyn's long-lost younger daughter? Jaime had told her that the girl was dead, but he had also admitted that they had never found her body. Brienne took a deep breath. The girl -- and surely she was a girl, Brienne could see that now -- stood still and straight as Brienne drew her sword; her hand went to a long knife hanging from her belt, while the master shouted and stepped back.
Brienne knelt and laid the sword on the deck. "Lady Arya," she said, and saw something shift in the girl's grey eyes, "Lady Arya, my name is Brienne of Tarth. Your mother charged me to find you and bring you safely to-- to bring you safely away from your enemies."
"I don't have a mother," the girl said quietly, her hand still on the knife. "I told the Hound to save her, but he wouldn't."
"I know," Brienne said, although she had no idea what the girl was talking about, or how she had come into contact with Sandor Clegane. "Lady Catelyn sent me away, to find you and your sister. I swore her my service and my sword." She took another deep breath. "If you will have them, my lady, they are yours."
Arya Stark was still staring at her, chewing at her lip. "The captain won't take me North," she said. "I told him that I want to go to Eastwatch, but he won't go anywhere but Braavos now."
"If you come with me, my lady, I will take you North. I swear it."
"I'm not a lady," the girl said. "But I'll come." She turned to the captain. "When you see Jaqen H'ghar, tell him I couldn't come with you. Tell him I had to go back to Winterfell."
He inclined his head. "Remember, girl, Ternesio Terys would have taken you to Braavos."
"But you wouldn't take me home," she said. She looked down at the sword, so Brienne picked it up and sheathed it, and led her down the ramp to where Pod was waiting.
"My lady?" Pod started. "I mean, ser?"
"Who's he?" Arya asked.
Suddenly aware of how public her meeting with Arya Stark had been, Brienne said quickly, "Back to the inn. We'll talk there." She pushed Arya up onto her horse and walked it back through Maidenpool, looking around and behind whenever she thought she could. No one seemed to be following, true, but she thought it just as well they were leaving the town at dawn.
At the inn Pod stabled her horse and Brienne took them all up to her room, closing the door behind her. "Who is that?" Arya asked again.
"My lady, this is Podrick Payne, my squire, Podrick, this is--" but she got no further. The girl cried something ("Payne!" Brienne thought) and leaped forward at Pod, knocking him backward into the wall. Arya punched him hard in the nose once and reached for her knife: Brienne grabbed her and hauled her back before she could get it fully out of her belt. "My lady, what are you doing?"
"He's a Payne!" Arya said, twisting in Brienne's grasp. "Like Ser Ilyn! He killed my father!" She kicked Brienne in the knee and nearly got away.
"He didn't do anything! He's my squire," Brienne said, wrapping her arms around the girl's body to hold her still. "He's not Ser Ilyn, he can't help who his family is!" Could this be Arya Stark, this child struggling in her arms, desperate to get to Pod? It seemed impossible to believe, but the strength of her reaction to Pod's name seemed to prove it.
"My lady!" Pod said.
"Don't call me that," Brienne said, and at the same time she heard Arya say, "I'm not a lady!" She laughed a little in surprise, and Arya wrested away and turned around to say, "It isn't funny."
"No, my lady," Brienne said. Was this how Jaime had felt whenever he called her wench, she wondered.
"I told you I'm not a lady!" Arya said again, scowling. "Anyway, how can you trust him? I told you he's a Payne."
"He's helping me find your sister," Brienne said.
"How does he know Sansa?"
"She was my lady," Pod said through his fingers. He was clutching his bloody nose and staring up at them from the corner. "My other lady, I mean, not Lady Brienne. She was married to my lord. My other lady was. Not Lady Brienne."
"Who was that?"
"Lord Tyrion. But he disappeared, and so did my lady, and Lady Brienne -- ser -- was looking for her. Are you really my lady's sister?" He looked doubtfully at Arya.
"One day I'm going to kill Ser Ilyn," Arya said. "What are you going to do about it?"
"My lady!" Brienne protested.
"You're a knight," Arya said. "You kill people too. I've killed lots of people, and I can kill him too." She sounded perfectly certain, as if killing knights was nothing unusual. Surely no daughter of Lady Catelyn could speak and act like this -- and then Brienne wondered whether those who knew her own mother felt the same when they looked at her. But Brienne wanted to be a knight, not to kill them. "What are you going to do about it?" Arya asked Pod again.
"Nothing," Pod said. "He frightens me."
"Lady Arya," Brienne said cautiously, "You can't simply announce that you're going to kill Ser Ilyn. He's a knight, and the king's executioner."
Her face was dark. "He killed my father. He cut off his head, and I saw him do it."
"My lady," Brienne said, more gently this time, "I know. But he is down in King's Landing, and you asked me to take you north." Arya turned away to kick the wall, but was silent. Brienne let loose a sigh of thanks: she had not been sure what she would have done had Arya demanded that they change their plan and go south to find Ser Ilyn.
"What about my lady?" Pod asked. "My other lady?"
"Lady Arya, I do have one rumor of your sister. She fled King's Landing on the same night that Dontos, the king's fool, disappeared. And there is word of a fool hiding out on Crackclaw Point, looking for three berths on a ship sailing east. It might be Dontos."
Arya turned back to the room. "And Sansa might be with him?"
"If it is him, then she might be. I must go to see, but perhaps you should wait here in Maidenpool."
"No." Arya said.
"It may be dangerous, my lady," Brienne began, but she could tell already that Arya wasn't listening.
"She's my sister, not yours," she said. "She's part of my pack."
II Crackclaw Point
They left the next morning, riding out of Maidenpool at dawn, through quiet streets. Arya rode behind Brienne, still dressed as a boy; she had let Brienne trim her hair and had washed, but her clothes were still ragged. They had agreed that it would be better not to let everyone know who she was, at least until they were in the North, but Podrick kept calling her "my lady" and "my lady's sister," and even Brienne had called her "my lady" in the room, and once on the stairs. Arya had ignored her: she'd told them over and over that she wasn't a lady, and they shouldn't call her one, but they kept forgetting.
A man was waiting for them outside the gate; Brienne said he would take them where Sansa might be hiding. She seemed to believe him, but Arya kept an eye on him anyway, and kept her hand near Needle just in case. She wasn't entirely sure she trusted the lady knight and her squire either; she thought she still might need to run away, although it had been nice to eat hot food and wash in hot water and sleep in a real bed. Maybe someday they could be part of her pack, too, although she wasn't sure that Podrick would be much use.
They took the road along the coast, with Brienne's guide talking and complaining the whole way. Arya watched her watch him, felt how she never relaxed as they rode along. But they spent the nights in inns with wide warm beds, in rooms with doors that closed and locked, she and Pod and Brienne. And she and Pod had both laughed at Nimble Dick's floury fingers, the day he tried to steal Brienne's gold. That night Arya had got up in the dark to feel the edges of Brienne's clothes and belt and bedroll, to find out where the gold was really sewn in. Nimble Dick had got caught, with his stupid fingers full of flour and his stupid stories about dead kings under the ground, but Arya wouldn't; she found the gold and more beside, a long, sharp sword. She lifted it carefully, although it was heavy in her hands, then put it back where she found it, wondering why Brienne kept such a fine sword hidden away.
Nimble Dick was stupid in a lot of ways, with his stories about Clarence Crabb and his shelf of whispering heads. "Heads don't whisper after you cut them off," she told him scornfully. "They're just dead."
"You don't know fuck," Dick said. "There was real magic in those days, and the blood of the First Men is strong in here Crackclaw Point. You'll see when we get there: those heads are still whispering now."
"There isn't any magic now, and there wasn't any then," Arya said. Magic might have saved Robb and her mother, if he and his men had really been able to turn into wolves. The Freys would never have been able to kill them then: they would have ripped their throats out and eaten their hearts. And they had the blood of the First Men too, more than these stupid people out here in the woods did anyway.
"Every part of the Seven Kingdoms has its own heroes," Brienne said. But then she told a story which was even stupider, about a knight who wouldn't use his magic sword. Maybe that's what she had in her bedroll.
"If I had a magic sword, I would use it," Arya said. "What's the point of being noble and dead?"
Nimble Dick laughed. "That little girl has the right of it. Ser Clarence would have wiped his hairy arse with your noble Ser Galladon."
Brienne looked hurt at that, and tried to argue, but Arya had already stopped listening. There were no magic swords or noble knights, and she wasn't going to spend her whole life waiting for one to come along. In bed at the inn that night Pod whispered, "His stories aren't true, are they, my lady? Heads don't really come back to life and talk?"
"Let's cut yours off and see," Arya said, before Brienne hushed her and told Pod that no, they were just stupid stories and not to let Dick frighten him. But after that Pod stopped speaking to her for a while, so Arya didn't care.
They were four or five days out from Maidenpool, saddling the horses in the inn's forecourt, when Pod finally spoke to her directly again. "Who are those people?" he asked as they tightened the girths on his horse. "The people whose names you say at night?"
"No one," Arya said. "None of your business."
"Were they--"
"I told you they were none of your business," Arya said. She gave him a push and he fell back, so she finished saddling the horses herself.
"You shouldn't hit Pod," Brienne said from the doorway.
"He shouldn't bother me, then."
Brienne must have told him not to, because after that he kept away from her, as much as he could, with the four of them travelling together, anyway. But eventually they came to the end of the inns and villages, and slept in the forest under the dripping trees, wrapped in a blanket. They couldn't make a fire, and it was cold and wet. Nimble Dick wrapped himself in a blanket and went straight to sleep, snoring loudly enough to wake his stupid dead kings, and Brienne stood up to walk around their camp. Arya didn't have her own blanket any more, so she and Pod had to share a blanket on a bed of needles. Arya kept finding little pine cones hidden in the pile; Pod lay very still beside her, but she could tell he wasn't asleep.
She sighed and sat up to throw another pine cone out into the woods. "I didn't hit you that hard," she said.
Pod sat up next to her. "It still hurt."
"If you want to be a knight you'd better get used to people hitting you. That's what they do, but with swords." He shrugged a little. "Did you really know Sansa?" she asked.
Pod jumped and swallowed. "Yes, my lady. I mean, not my lady. When she was married to my lord."
"You said they made her marry the Imp," Arya said. "Was he cruel to her?"
"To my lady? No!" Pod said.
"You have to say that, because you served him. But if he wasn't cruel, he wouldn't have married her. I'll kill him too, one day." Sansa had always dreamed of marrying a knight or a lord, someone tall and brave and handsome. She would have hated the Imp even if he hadn't been a Lannister.
"But he didn't hit her, not like the knights did."
"Knights hit each other, stupid. Not girls. Or not girls like Sansa." Although Ser Gregor was a knight, and Ser Amory, and they had killed lots of girls, and raped more. But that sort of thing couldn't happen to Sansa, with her smiles and courtesy. Courtesy is a lady's armor, Septa Mordane had told them, although only Sansa had paid attention. Armor was better armor, Arya thought, a coat of mail like Brienne had.
Pod swallowed again, looking even more nervous. "They do, sometimes. When the king tells them to. Joffrey made them. Ser Meryn, and Ser Boros, and the others. King Joffrey ordered them to beat her, until my lord made them stop. I saw it too."
Arya's hands clenched around the blanket they were sharing. "I should have killed him," she said. "I could have told..." She stopped herself. "I could have done it myself. By the river. But he was going to be king, and Sansa thought he was her prince. Stupid prince. I hope she did kill him. He deserved it."
"No, my lady," Pod said. "I mean, yes. I mean, I don't know."
"Sansa loved knights. She used to, I mean. She was always talking about how noble they were. But I hate them. I hate them all." She turned her head and saw him staring, big eyes in a white face. "Tell me their names, all the knights who hit Sansa. Tell me everything."
Pod didn't know everything, but when he was done Arya wanted to run all the way back to King's Landing to find Joffrey's body so that she could hit him again, and again, and again. She stood up and went to find Brienne. "You go to sleep, Lady Brienne. I'll watch." Brienne looked doubtful. "You have to sleep some of the time," Arya said. "I can watch." And she wasn't going to sleep anyway, not in the wet after hearing Pod's stories.
She waited for Brienne to breathe evenly, and then started to practice her water dancing; she hadn't practiced in a long time, and her arms weren't as strong as they had been. "Quick as a snake," she said. "Ser Meryn. Strong as a bear. Ser Boros. Smooth as summer silk." She lunged again; Pod had killed Ser Mandon, although not for what he had done to Sansa, and he didn't think Ser Osmund had ever hit Sansa. "My lord stopped it," he had said. "Lady Sansa married him because he was kind to her."
"But she wasn't happy," Arya had said.
Pod had looked at the ground. "No, my lady," he had admitted. "Mostly she was frightened."
Now Arya danced along the wet ground, over needles and slippery leaves. Sansa might be at the Whispers, and Arya would have to be ready to save her.
*
They were all wet and cold and tired by the time they reached the Whispers, except for Nimble Dick, who looked more and more cheerful and told even stupider stories. They still seemed to frighten Pod, although he had stopped jumping whenever Arya spoke to him. Brienne kept looking behind them, to check the man who was following them: Arya bet that he was working with Nimble Dick. They were probably planning to kill Brienne and take her gold.
"The fool is in there?" Brienne asked, staring at the crumbling, ivy-covered walls. Arya could hear whispering under the ground; not the dead, she thought, just the sea. She shivered a little anyway, because it was so damp. They'd had to go all the way around the castle wall to find a way in, a little gate half-overgrown with blackberries: Arya looked, but all the ripe ones were gone.
"Is Sansa there?" she asked. It wasn't the kind of place she had ever imagined seeing her sister. It wasn't a romantic ruin, like in a song: it was just a ruin, dirty and broken and wet.
Brienne glanced at her. "Stay back here," she said. "Don't go running in to look for her."
"I'm not stupid," Arya said. "But I'm going with you. If it is Sansa, she'll know me, not you." At least, Arya hoped she would. She knew that she was filthy and dressed like a boy and not the kind of sister Sansa wanted, but she hoped Sansa would want her and wouldn't care about all the things she'd done. Maybe after Joffrey and the knights at King's Landing she wouldn't care so much about pretty things. Maybe she'd want a sister who knew water dancing, not regular dancing.
Brienne stood and thought. "Very well, my lady," she said. Arya winced at the title. "But stay behind me, in case it isn't Lady Sansa. Pod, there's a sword in my baggage roll. Bring it to me." She handed her own to Nimble Dick. Stupid Arya thought. If there was going to be trouble, it would be Nimble Dick who started it.
She was right, but not in the way she thought she would be: he walked right in and started shouting for the fool, and just for a moment Arya was convinced by his confidence that no one here would hurt them, that it really would be Sansa and her fool and some other friend (Jeyne Poole, she thought, maybe she still had Jeyne with her, Arya wouldn't even mind that). Then the men came out, and she saw them.
Shagwell, Pyg, Timeon: she remembered them from Harrenhal, and looked about to see if the rest of Vargo Hoat's men were there, while Nimble Dick screamed and begged and died, and the three men started to approach Brienne. And then Brienne's voice said clearly, "There are only three of you," and Arya stopped remembering and started seeing.
Brienne was wasting time, letting them get closer and closer to her as they talked. They were facing her, watching her sword. Now and then Pyg or Timeon would spare a glance for Arya, but they weren't watching her, not really. Light as a feather she thought. Quiet as a shadow. She crept closer, half-listening to their talk. Making for Riverrun, Timeon said, and the Hound stole her. Then three of his brother's men, at the cross-roads-inn. They were talking about her, Arya thought, and they didn't even know she was there. She was behind Pyg now, and Needle was in her hand. It would take two quick steps, she thought, quick as a snake.
She struck him low in the back, where his leather jerkin met his breeches, pushing with all her strength so Needle went through him and out the front, then dancing away and back when he twisted as he fell and struck at her with his broken sword. Brienne had seen: she rushed Timeon at the same time, striking the spear out of his hand with her sword -- his hand went too, and as he stumbled and clutched his wrist she shoved the blade down his throat and pulled it out again. Pyg was back on his feet, coming for Arya, holding one hand across his stomach. "It was me," she said, "I killed the Tickler in that inn, stupid." She tried to get behind Pyg, but he kept turning and she wanted to stay away from where Shagwell and Brienne were circling. Then a rock came out of nowhere and Pyg fell to the ground. Arya leaped on him, stabbing Needle into his chest and neck so that blood dribbled from his mouth and he wet his breeches. Pod jumped down from the wall to help her up. She shook his hand off; she could have done it on her own, anyway.
Brienne was done with Shagwell as well: one stroke of her sword had sent his head spinning down to the ground. It landed with a thud and rolled over to lie by Nimble Dick's body under the white weirwood tree. She barely glanced at it before coming to Arya's side. "My lady, are you injured? Are you--"
"I told you I'm not a lady," Arya said. "I told you not to call me that."
"But you..." she looked down at Pyg's body. "Did he hurt you?"
Arya glanced down at him as well. "I killed him. I told you, I've done it before." Brienne was staring at her now, with an expression Arya couldn't quite read. Was she angry? Arya wasn't sure why she should be.
"I'm sorry," she said finally. "I'm sorry you had to do that."
"I'm not," Arya said. She still didn't know why Brienne looked so upset.
Brienne walked over to Dick's body. "I'm sorry," she said to him too. Then she looked at Arya. "My lady, it seems Sansa was never here. But these men claimed that she was with the Hound. We can search for them in the Riverlands."
"That was me," Arya said. "They were taking me to Riverrun, to my mother, and the Hound stole me. Sansa was never here. She was never here," she said again, "and I don't know where she is!"
She ran back out the gate and past the blackberries and stood looking over the cliff, down at the waves crashing into the broken tower below her. It was stupid, she thought. She should have known Sansa wasn't here. She hadn't seen her in years, and Sansa probably wouldn't even want to see her now, wouldn't want to recognize her. She was probably somewhere nicer than this, anyway, somewhere warm and dry and safe. She didn't need Arya.
Even if she did, there was no way to find her, Arya thought. She screwed her face up against the wind which was trying to draw tears from her eyes. Stupid, stupid, stupid. She threw a stone over the cliff, but it was lost against the rocks and water below.
A bell jingled, and for a moment she thought it was Shagwell, back again from the dead like one of Dick's stories. But then she heard it properly and no, it was harness. The rider, she remembered. Nimble Dick's friend. He wasn't going to be happy to find Dick dead.
She couldn't fight a man on horseback, but she remembered Pod's trick. There were plenty of rocks, and she gathered a few and hid behind some bushes. The horseman would have to come around the way they had to reach the postern gate, and she would be waiting for him. Her aim was good now. Calm as still water Syrio had told her, but it was anger making her strong now. One rock sent him reeling, and the next knocked him right off his horse, which skittered to the side and ran back to stand at the edge of the woods. He fell badly and Arya was on him, grabbing his own dagger to stab him in the heart, just like she had the boy at the crossroads in.
Brienne came running out. "My lady," she shouted, "are you hurt?" But then she came up and saw. "Ser Hyle?" she said, her voice full of confusion.
The man gurgled. "Tarly sent me..." he said. "Find the Stark girl." His head fell back.
"You found her," Brienne said. And then, "Oh, my lady, what have you done?"
To Part II