this is our homecoming (this is a land half forgotten)

13

"Sometimes," She is saying, "when you open them, there'll be a pearl inside. I used to keep them- had a whole pouch of them when I walked around Bravos, and I'd hand them out to people I liked- the whores and the old beggars on the corner and the little girls."

Gendry hums, and reaches down to let the waves skim over his fingertips, ducking his hands under the water so he can catch the sea foam in his palms. "Why didn't you keep them?"

"We weren't allowed to have things. People who are no one don't have belongings." Another wave comes and she jumps over it, her heels digging into the sand when she lands. There was a whole track of her footsteps along the beach from her doing that- Gendry wading further and further out, and her just raising her voice so she can reach him. "People who are no one don't want."

"You could open it." He nods at the shells in her hand. "If there's a pearl in this one, you can keep it."

"No." She tosses it back in the water and smiles at him. "I don't want to kill it."

He laughs at that, because it seems so ridiculous, and before she can protest, there's another wave and it knocks him down under the water. Gendry does not know how to swim, and for a moment he panics, beats his arms into the sand and opens his mouth to scream when his head breaks above the water only to catch a mouthful of salt, but then his legs are under him and he stumbles backwards, falling back into the sand at her feet.

"Well." She's hiding a smile. He can tell when she's really angry and when she's not. He's the only one who can, other than her brother, but that's just because she never really manages to be mad at Jon. "That was graceful."

Gendry laughs. It was hard to be upset by anything now, even being dumped out onto the sad in front of the girl he loves and three of his best guards. Two weeks ago, they had been at King's Landing standing in the half built structure of what will be the new city sept, watching Daenerys and Jon say their vows wrapped in Targaryen colors. There was no high sparrow to marry them- Tyrion did that. There was no replacing of the cloak to put Daenerys under Jon's protection- under her law, there is no belonging, and if there was, it does not necessarily mean that the woman has to give up her house for the man. Instead, there was only matching iron rings to be exchanged, and a week after that, Jon's matching crown had gotten laid on his head.

The prince who was promised, finally come home.

It had been Arya's idea not to go back right away. Or, to pass by Storm's End and then keeping going, down south, down where the water was blue and clear and there would be no one to bother them.

I promised you after, She had said. The two of them were tucked back behind a tapestry in the middle of the throne room, curved back into the hole in the wall that was being hidden for the night. She had to press up against them to fit, her chin resting on his collar bone, and the way they are standing means that he can feel her pulse beating, feel her breath hot on his skin. I think this is after enough.

This, it seems, is what after looks like- him on the ground at her feet, salt in his mouth and tears in his eyes from the sting and sand spread over his skin in a decidedly non-noble fashion, and her staring down at him, laughing as she sinks down to her knees beside him.

"Do you want pearls now? I could get you some. Lords do that for their ladies." He calls her his lady, in private, when no one else can hear them. She never disputes it when he says that she belongs to him. It's only been public that it makes her snap at him or whoever else that uses the title. It drives the servants crazy, having no idea what was proper and what wasn't. "What do you want? A necklace? A ring?" She rolls over so her head is resting on his chest and rests her hand over the scar on his stomach. It had healed nicely, but it healed ugly. "I could make you a new dagger." He hadn't given up his forging. He finds it's something that gains him favor from the other lords and ladies, if he can present their sons with helms shaped like the animals of their house or can give a nice new knife to the fathers. "Are there pearl inlaid daggers? You could have the first."