Arya
She was so angry she was close to tears. The second she arrived at the Twins, Arya's intuitions were begging her to turn around and leave again. She wish she had listened.
Arya almost wished she had never met Fianna at Harrenhal, she missed her mother and brother dearly but returning to them only set in stone a betrothal she never thought she'd be forced into. Much less by her King brother.
She never wanted to marry, all she wanted to do was be a warrior. Her father had told her that one day she would be wed to a Lord, the thought of it had made her nauseous. The thought of marrying a measly Frey boy, made her homicidal.
A knock sounded against her door, which she promptly ignored. It was either Robb, her mother or Fianna and she didn't wish to talk to any of them at the moment.
Despite the fact Arya had ignored the knock, the door opened anyway and in entered Fianna, a remorseful look on her face.
"Go away," Arya immediately warned, seated at the window seat she stared out at the Stark camp, who were settling in.
"No," Fianna refused, much to her annoyance. Arya's head whipped around to glare at her good sister.
"I said, go away," she spoke again, but Fianna only approached her and sat on next to her on the window seat. "You must be deaf."
"I must be," Fianna conceded, smiling softly.
"If you're here to convince me-"
"No, I'm not here to do that. I'm here to see if you're okay," Fianna moved to place her hand on Arya's arm, but the younger girl quickly shrugged out of her reach.
"I'm fine, now piss off," Fianna sighed, running a hand through her long hair in frustration. Arya began to study her then when she was sure Fianna was looking out the window. Sansa would love her, she thought.
Arya always thought Fianna was alike with herself, being a sword-wielding warrior. But she could see now that she was a lot like Sansa too, with long, shiny hair and a pretty face. Fianna even changed into a dress for the wedding, one that her sister would die to even touch. From the waist up, it was skin-coloured and covered in red lacy flowers, from the waist down, fell folds of red silk that swished when she walked. Even the very crown on her head looked as rich as Joffrey's because it was on her head, Sansa would love her indeed.
"I'm not going to the wedding," she told Fianna stubbornly.
"Why? It's for Edmure, he'll consider it an insult if you don't attend."
"No he won't, he'll be jealous and wish he could skip it himself," Arya muttered, crossing her arms over her chest. "I have a... feeling."
"A feeling?" Fianna looked to her with scrunched eyebrows.
"I have a bad feeling about this place, and the last time I had this feeling I watched my father get beheaded five minutes later," Fianna's heart clenched at her words, she felt the exact same.
"I know, me too," she replied in a quiet voice.
Looking back out the window, Arya noticed another party of guests arriving.
"Roose Bolton just arrived," she commented, causing Fianna to roll her eyes.
"Well now I feel even worse," she drily laughed, causing Arya to look at her this time.
"What do you mean?"
Fianna bit her lip, debating on telling her. Surely Arya would keep it secret? The girl was wise beyond her years and she herself had a bad feeling about their stay at the Twins.
"I got a raven from Tiernan, my cousin, a couple of months ago, after he and Ramsay Bolton went to Winterfell," she began, lifting her dress so she could rest her legs on the window seat.
"What did it say?" She asked curiously.
"That.. we shouldn't trust the flayed man," she told her seriously, her eyes looked troubled by this.
"The flayed man as in the Bolton's," Arya realised, blinking rapidly in surprise. "But they're Robb's banner men, and Roose is Robb's right hand man."
"Exactly, if he was to betray us he would know exactly how to hit close to home."
Arya's niggling feeling only grew at this, looking back out the window ominously.
"Are you going to tell Robb?"
"I don't know. If it comes out that Roose isn't a traitor, he'll assume that Tiernan is."
"So you're only protecting your cousin?" Arya asked defensively.
"Well my baby will be born a Stark, we're running out of Bua family members here," Fianna forced a laugh, and it took Arya a few seconds to truly hear what she just said. When she did, she whipped around, her mouth and eyes wide open in shock.
"You're pregnant?" She whispered in shock.
"Yes," she nodded, and despite the eery feeling in the air and the tension between the two, Fianna couldn't help but let out an uncontrollable smile.
"I'm going to be an aunt..." Arya found herself smiling too, and with tears welling in the older girl's eyes, Fianna leaned in and wrapped her arms around Arya tightly.
"I'll get you out of this, don't worry."
-
Arya was still seated in that same position when her mother and brother burst in later on.
"What do you mean you're not going to the wedding?" Robb asked immediately, to which Arya rolled her eyes at.
"I'm not going to that stupid wedding."
"Arya, the Freys will take this as a slight if you don't go," Catelyn warned her, considerably more calm than her son.
"I don't care what the damned Freys think!" Arya got up from her seat, her talk with Fianna had soothed her somewhat but now she was angry all over again.
"Do you not care about this war, is that it?" Robb asked furiously.
"No! I don't give a damn about this war! You and Joffrey and Stannis are running about like you're the children, not me! I don't care about it I just want to go home!" She bellowed.
"We won't have a home to go home to if we don't win this war, Arya!"
"Robb," Catelyn placed her hand on Robb's arm in an attempt to calm him, but he barely noticed.
"And who's fault is that?! I don't feel safe here, I'm staying in my room!"
"Arya, please," Catelyn stepped toward her, her eyes wide pleadingly. "Just come to the ceremony, you don't have to attend the feast afterward."
"I would have attended the ceremony if you hadn't sold me off like a sheep," she replied, her eyes deadly. She didn't look like a little girl then, she looked like a grown woman.
"What do you mean you don't feel safe here, we've made an alliance with the Freys you're safer here than on the road," Robb ignored her mention of the betrothal.
"You're so blind, Robb, you can't even see that the only people you can trust here is your family, you're a fool."
"A fool?!" He erupted suddenly, his anger matching hers, brother against sister. "How am I a fool just because you have a bad feeling?"
"I'm not the only one who doesn't trust your friends!" She practically spat the word.
"Who else doesn't then? Pray, tell me," he begged sarcastically.
"Your own wife doesn't even trust them!"
This gave him pause, he knew Fianna was weary here but what had she been telling Arya?
"She clearly mustn't trust you either, seeing as she hasn't told you that Roose Bolton is a traitor."
Arya knew why Fianna didn't tell Robb, but at that moment all she wanted to do was hurt him like he had hurt her.
At that moment, with perfect timing, Fianna entered the room.
"What is going on in here? You can hear the shouting all around the Twins," she spoke in a hushed voice.
"What does she mean by 'you haven't told me Roose is a traitor'?" He turned slowly to face her, the second look of betrayal she received today.
Fianna paled at his words, her eyes darting back and forth between him and Arya.
"I- I was going to tell you, I'm just not sure-"
"Tell me what?" His tone was much darker than when he spoke to Arya, and so much more frightening. Fianna swallowed before answering, blinking quickly.
"I got a raven from Tiernan after he went to Winterfell-"
"By the gods Fianna! That was months ago!"
"I know. All it said was that we shouldn't trust the flayed man."
"And you didn't think to tell me that my most trusted advisor might be a traitor?" He asked with narrowed eyes.
"I didn't want to get Tiernan in trouble.. Ramsay Bolton's army is so much larger than his if he invaded Baelfort, we couldn't take another-"
"It's like you don't want me to trust you. Every time I think I can, you give me a reason to think I shouldn't."
"Robb.." she whispered, her eyes prickling as he stormed past her with such speed her hair flicked slightly with the breeze.
Fianna cast her gaze down as Catelyn left too, unable to meet her good mother's eyes. When she looked up and saw Arya looking right at her, the younger girl suddenly felt bad. She should have pushed Fianna to tell Robb herself, she was just so consumed with anger at him she was using anything she could throw at him.
Fianna shook her head in disappointment at Arya before leaving the room too, guilt ravaging both girls.
-
While the wedding was about to begin, Arya snuck downstairs, making sure to stay out of sight of Fianna and Robb as she fetched Chroi and Grey Wind.
Lord Walder had insisted that those "beasts" were to be kept away, shoved into wooden pens with bars for "his safety".
Robb had obliged, Fianna wasn't happy at all. But at Robb's hand, she agreed. Arya had watched from the window earlier as Fianna sadly locked away her most trusted companion.
Sneaking up to the pens, Arya unlocked the latches on both pens and freed the direwolf and wolfhound, clicking her tongue and patting her leg for them to follow her.
She wished so much in that moment that Nymeria was with them and that she didn't have to force her to leave before, but she knew that was the right thing to do at the time.
Arya led the two animals to her chambers and when they followed her in, she swiftly shut the door. Instantly, she felt safer knowing they were there and able to protect her.
She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror when she closed and locked the door, and slowly approached the reflective surface.
Her hair had grown longer now, as long as it was when she first went to King's Landing. Her mother had pushed her to grow it to try to force some form of femininity onto her.
She wished she hadn't listened. More than ever, she wished she was Arry. Then the Freys wouldn't want her to marry one of their own. She longed for her old short hair, dirtied appearance and breeches. Even more than all of that, she longed for Gendry and Hot Pie. Arya was so preoccupied with being reunited with her mother she didn't have time to think about them too much. But now she wished they were here, Gendry in particular. He would tease her about the Frey boy, but make her laugh none the less.
In a daze, half sad and half frustrated, she crossed the room and lifted needle into her hand before returning to the mirror and raising it up.
Arya clutched onto half of her hair and began to saw at it. Needle wasn't the sharpest of blades so it didn't cut easily, but eventually the hair began to fall from her head as she chopped at it. She accidentally nicked the side of her head with the blade and let out a grunt of pain as the hair dropped around her shoulders and feet.
When she was done, she was left with hair unevenly and shortly chopped. With the breeches and shirt she already had on, she looked like a boy again. Desperate to further the appearance, she opened the window swiftly and reached her hand out, rubbing it against the stone wall until it was black with dirt and mud. Then, she rubbed it all around her face.
With eyes watering and hands shaking, Arya looked back into the mirror and immediately felt safe again. Now the Frey boy wouldn't want her, no boy would want her because she looked like a boy herself.
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It all kicks off in the next chapter, I hope you're ready!