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Chapter 7: The Riverlands

Arya I

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Arya sat in the tavern, listening to the people around her as she nibbled on her bread. It was good bread, freshly baked, and she'd stolen enough coin to pay for it too. She thanked the barmaid as the woman refilled her cup of water (she could have asked for ale, but didn't want anything that would dull her senses and reaction times), and then refocussed her attention on the conversation a group of men were having a couple of tables away.

"They said his head were on the dais, just sitting there with a wide open mouth and eyes frozen in terror," the first man said. "And there was bits of dead body in the pie as well. Human bodies. Later they found his sons in a pantry, so they figure the parts were from them."

"Are you sayin' he ate his own sons in a pie?" another man asked.

"I'm just saying what I heard. Besides, I wouldn't put it past him. Everyone knows what he did at the Red Wedding. He broke Guest Right. He murdered his own King and all the King's men. And the King's mother. And the King's wife and unborn child… Man does somthin' like that, who knows what else he'd do? Maybe he decided he had too many sons, so had them baked in a pie for his supper."

Another man snorted. "Rubbish," he said. "I heard there was writing on the floor. The servants who found him couldn't read it, but it was all written in blood. They called for the some of the lords, and the lords said what it said, right, was 'the North remembers'. That means it was a vengeance thing, not just old Walder Frey baking his sons for dinner."

"You don't know that," the first man insisted. "Maybe old Walder Frey was having a nice piece of son pie when the Northman assassin showed up and killed him."

"Did they ever find the one that did it?" a third man asked.

"No, they searched the Twins all over for weeks, but found nothing."

Arya sighed and leaned back in her seat.

She'd heard this story being told more times than she could count. It had spread like wildfire after she'd left the Twins. Everyone hated the Freys, and no one mourned old Lord Walder, but the exact manner of his death seemed to hold a kind of horrified fascination to some people, while others considered it poetic justice.

In the last tavern she'd visited, there was even a group of minstrels who'd made up a song about it.

But Arya wasn't listening in taverns just to hear countless retellings of how she'd killed Walder Frey. She was actually hoping to hear something about the Brotherhood without Banners.

The Brotherhood had sold Gendry to the Red Witch for a bag of gold, after they'd promised him he could be one of them. He'd wanted to join them, and they lied and betrayed him, and Gendry was probably dead now because of it. Or… well, he might be, anyway. She didn't actually know what had happened to him. But in any case, Arya had put both Thoros of Myr and Beric Dondarrion on her list.

Oh, and the Red Woman too. Only she had absolutely no idea where the Red Woman might have gone, whereas she knew the Brotherhood was somewhere in the Riverlands.

She would have to kill Thoros first, she thought, so he couldn't bring Beric Dondarrion back after she killed him.

Only she had to actually find them first, which was proving rather difficult. She'd thought to cross both their names off her list while she was still in the Riverlands, but nobody was actually talking about them. Or at least, not about where they might be.

Giving up for the day, she got to her feet and made her way past the other tables, heading for the door of the tavern. She'd stolen a thick fur cloak to keep herself warm, and pulled the hood up before she stepped out into the drizzle of cold rain. It was dark outside already, the days getting shorter and colder now that winter was here.

Her boots squelched through the mud as she made her way along the path, paying careful attention to her surroundings to make sure she wasn't being followed.

A wagon, drawn by a tired looking old horse, drew up beside the village stables just as she reached them. She kept walking past as the man driving the wagon jumped down and spoke to the stable master about the cold and the weather, and something about the Freys…

"It was the Brotherhood," the man from the wagon said, stopping Arya in her tracks.

"You sure? A lot of folks hate the Freys. Doesn't mean the Brotherhood's involved," the stable master replied.

Arya looked over her shoulder, saw both men standing outside the stables, then ducked behind the wall so she'd be out of sight if they looked her way.

"But who else would be brazen enough to hang Freys in the middle of the woods, on their own land? And not just once, but time and time again. Besides, don't the Brotherhood stand for justice and all that?" the man from the wagon asked.

"I don't know. Seems more likely to be Northman vengeance."

"There were plenty of men from the Riverlands who marched with the Young Wolf as well. And after the Red Wedding… well, the Freys are all guilty of that. You don't have to be a Northman to think justice needs to be served." There was anger in the man's voice.

The stable master picked up on that anger too. "Did you lose someone?" he asked.

"My younger brother," the man with the wagon said. "He was no one important. No one they had to kill. But he was one of the soldiers in King Robb's camp, so the Freys killed him all the same. Wasn't even a fight, from what I heard. I mean, who'd be expecting anything? They were there for a break from the war. To attend a wedding. They had Guest Right. And the Freys were supposed to be on the same side. Only then they went out through the camp and slaughtered everyone."

"Aye, it was a bad thing they did. The Freys are cursed forever in the eyes of gods and men. I'm sorry for your loss, friend."

"Oh, aye, everyone's sorry for everyone's losses. But most won't do anything about it, will they? Personally, I'm just glad someone's finally doing something. Outlaws or no. But if you think about it, when the so-called lords are worse than criminals, anyone who's looking to do what's right is going to end up being named outlaw."

The Brotherhood were hanging Freys? Arya frowned and bit her lip, before peering around the corner of the stables.

"You want to be careful who you say such things to," the stable master warned the other man. "If the wrong person hears, you'll be the one hanging."

"I know. But every so often a man gets sick of playing loyal subject to a bunch weasel-faced pricks and pretending nothing's wrong. Anyway, enough of that. I'll need the horse stabled for the night, but I'll be off again on the morrow."

"Where you headed?"

"Is that any of your business? Here, should be enough coin to pay for the stables," the man with the wagon handed over some money. "Make sure the wagon's chained up and out of the way too, so no one steals it."

"Will do."

The stable master unhitched the horse from the wagon and led it into the stables as the other man trudged off towards the tavern.

Arya continued walking, moving off into the trees, thinking about what she'd heard.

If the Brotherhood were hanging Freys to avenge the Red Wedding… well, obviously that was a good thing. Arya herself had considered staying at the Twins after killing Lord Walder, in order to get rid of more of the Freys, but the lord's death had caused so much commotion and made everyone so suspicious that it had seemed like a better idea to just get out of there and leave the area for the time being.

It would have been easier to simply poison everyone at the Twins, but she hadn't wanted to kill those who were not actually guilty. The children, servants… people who weren't involved in the massacre of Robb and his people.

So she'd travelled south, and started searching for the Brotherhood, thinking she could deal with Thoros and Dondarrion, and then return to the Twins to deal with the other guilty Freys once she'd dealt with the Brotherhood.

Now though… if the Brotherhood were actually helping to get justice…

If they were. The Brotherhood were liars after all. It might not be true. But how could she find out?

Perhaps she should head north again, return to the Twins and see for herself.

She reached a secluded enough place, deep in the woods, sheltered by a small rock overhang, and settled down to sleep, keeping Needle and a dagger close, just in case.

That night, she dreamed that she was a wolf, running through the undergrowth, her smaller cousins running with her.

The forest was filled with scents and sounds, her sharp wolf senses picking up far more than a human ever could. Her eyes saw clearly in the dark. Many of the trees were bare now, their leaves long since fallen. If she looked up, she could see the moon and stars through wide gaps in the branches.

She picked up the scent of prey and ran faster.

Hooves pounded the ground a little further ahead. The scent of fear and musky deer filled her nose. Her pack was driving the animal this way.

The deer was soon in sight, and she leapt forward, knocking the animal to the ground and ripping out its throat.

The taste of hot blood filled her mouth. She leaned down and ripped off a chunk of meat from the deer's belly.

Several smaller wolves emerged from further back amongst the trees, some panting after having chased the deer. But they all stayed back until she'd had her fill, then moved in to eat once she settled down at the edge of the clearing.

The deer didn't last long, and there wasn't enough to feed many of them. Most packs only had a small family group of wolves, but after she'd been left alone, her brothers and sisters too far away to reach, she'd needed to find a new pack. Now there were so many of them, and they all followed her, the lone direwolf in a pack of hundreds of smaller wolves.

She got to her feet and turned north. She couldn't recall why, but she needed to see what was going on around the castle that stretched over a river. The Crossing. The Twins, some part of her mind whispered.

She threw back her head and howled, calling the pack and hearing them answer.

It was time to head back north, and see what was going on at the Twins.

When Arya woke, she was disorientated for a minute, adjusting to her human form again after spending the night running as a wolf.

It was daylight, and she was alone in the forest, huddled under her cloak, with nothing to defend her but her sword, dagger and wits. No wolves. No pack.

She remembered the dream.

She'd had wolf dreams before, back when she'd crossed through the Riverlands as she'd been running from King's Landing. She was fairly sure that when she dreamt, she was Nymeria, her direwolf. The dreams had stopped when she'd gotten too far away, but started again when she was on her way to the Twins to kill Walder Frey.

She was almost sure that the dreams were real. Stories of the huge wolf pack were all over the Riverlands, after all, and that fit with her dreams. And besides that… well, something about the dreams just seemed too real for them to be just ordinary dreams. And if the dreams were real, that meant Nymeria had picked up on her need to know what was going on at the Twins and was heading north.

Arya grinned. She hoped the wolf pack terrified the shit out of the Freys, when they reached the Crossing.

In the meantime, there were other things she needed to do in the Riverlands. She may have had difficulty learning about what the Brotherhood were up to all this time, but she'd learned plenty of other things.

The Lannisters and Freys had taken control of the Riverlands after the Red Wedding. The Freys were given the position of Lord Paramount as a reward for betraying Robb, but the people of the Riverlands hated them for it. The Blackfish, her own great-uncle Brynden Tully, had reformed the Tully army and retaken Riverrun, but then the Lannisters marched north and… There was a siege, and most people agreed the Blackfish could have held out for a long time… Only for some reason, Uncle Edmure had gone and yielded Riverrun to the Lannisters. The Blackfish was killed, but the Tully army surrendered. She supposed that was better than them all dying, and hopefully meant it could be reformed again.

But why had Uncle Edmure yielded the castle? He was supposed to be on their side.

Some men called Edmure Tully a traitor for what he'd done, and Arya had to admit that her first reaction was anger and disgust as well. How could he have just let the Lannisters take the castle? Other people said he was just a broken man, after having his family slaughtered at his own wedding, and then being kept prisoner ever since.

Arya wasn't sure if she should consider Uncle Edmure a traitor or not though. She'd never even met him, so how was she supposed to know what he might or might not be capable of? If he was a traitor, perhaps he should be left in a cell to rot. If he wasn't, perhaps he should be rescued.

So was he a traitor? She needed more information.

She sat up and pulled an apple from her bag, eating it as she considered her next move.

Probably the best way to get information on Edmure Tully would be to get into a castle and listen to what was being said there. The lords and the castle servants would likely know more about what happened than the average person in the fields and taverns; the people she'd been listening to while trying to find out about the Brotherhood, because the Brotherhood prided itself on helping the smallfolk, not high lords.

She pulled out the map she'd stolen. Right now, she was on Bracken land. She could sneak into their castle, Stone Hedge… but the Brackens had yielded early, and then helped the Lannisters subdue other castles that tried to stay loyal to the Starks. She didn't really want to sneak into a castle held by cowards who'd yielded and then gone and helped the enemy.

Riverrun wasn't too far away. It was in enemy hands, but the men there might be more likely to discuss what had happened with Uncle Edmure, since it was the castle that Edmure had forced them to give up. But Riverrun was also the seat of the Lord Paramount, and so would be well guarded.

Not that she couldn't still get in, but it might be better to try a less important castle, since she was only intending to gather information at this stage. Besides, the enemy might say horrible things about Edmure Tully and call him a traitor even if he actually wasn't one. Lannisters and Freys were liars, after all.

Thanks to her time training with the faceless men, Arya knew how to tell when someone was lying, even if they were very good at it. But knowing someone was lying didn't mean she could get them to tell the truth.

No, it would be better if she could find a castle that was still loyal to the Starks and Tullys. Hopefully they'd have a more honest view on whatever had happened. Every castle and holdfast in the Riverlands had yielded by now, but…

According to the rumours she'd heard, the Blackwoods of Raventree Hall had been the very last castle to yield to the Lannisters. The last one still flying the Stark direwolf banner. They'd only yielded when there was no hope for them. When they literally couldn't hold out any longer.

Raventree Hall wasn't too far away either, and it was north of here, so if she decided to go on to the Twins afterwards… well, it was on the way, so to speak.

Decision made, she put the map away and gathered up her things.

She stole a horse and some supplies before starting out.

As she rode away from the recently restored village, the war torn lands became more apparent. She was used to the sight, so it didn't surprise her, but it was easy to see why people were so worried about how they'd survive the winter. Villages, holdfasts and fields had been burned and razed by the Lannister forces, leaving little behind but stone ruins and charred corpses. Stores of harvests from before the war had apparently been stolen or burned too, except for that which had been kept secure behind castle walls, or a few random granaries and mills that just happened to have been lucky enough to escape the raiding.

The farmers couldn't plant new crops until spring either. For now, there was still food available, but from what people had been saying, they feared that it wouldn't last. The castles might eventually stop supplying their settlements with stored grain and other supplies as winter worsened, and many smallfolk had no idea how they would survive if and when that happened.

Arya rode alone through the ruined land for several days. At night, she hunkered down beside whatever wall she could find, or camped out in the woods, if there was a woodland nearby.

On the fifth night there was a thunderstorm, and Arya shivered under her soaked cloak, huddling in the meagre shelter that was the best she could find that night.

She had to travel upstream to find a place that seemed safe enough to cross the Red Fork, the river swollen with the recent heavy rainfall, but eventually managed to find a bridge.

Not long after she cantered away on the north side of the river, it started to snow.

She kept going, and eventually reached Blackwood Vale.

She looked over the area from her place at the edge of the woods. The forest ended at the start of the valley, and the ground ahead of her was a bare expanse of half-frozen mud with a scattering of snow. She could see a small town and some more distant buildings in the valley, but the castle towered above everything else.

Raventree Hall was an old castle, with big square towers covered in moss. It wasn't as old as Winterfell, though, or as big. A moat encircled it, and hidden within the stone outer walls she could see a tall wooden keep.

Arya kicked her horse into a trot and approached the town cautiously. She found the local inn and paid for several days room and board. When she retired to her small room, she locked the door, carefully stowed Needle away and then collapsed on the bed, revelling in the luxury of a soft mattress and four walls to keep out the weather.

The next day, Arya began observing and listening to the people who came and went from the castle.

She quickly discovered that a group of servant girls from the castle liked to wander into the town almost every evening, and followed them. She learned their names, some facts about their lives, and the names, habits and personalities of the other people in the castle.

She discovered that another servant named Myra had recently left Raventree Hall to return home to her family, and hadn't yet been replaced. And that the castle Castellan and the Steward had gotten into a huge argument, though the servant girls weren't sure exactly what the argument was about. But as a result, the Steward and Castellan were not speaking to each other at the moment.

Arya had intended to use another face to get into Raventree Hall, but discovered to her frustration that she'd lost her bag of three carefully stored faces somewhere along the way. It had been tied to the saddlebags, but had evidently come loose at some point on the journey, and she hadn't noticed.

She could always get new faces, but to take another face, she'd need a fresh dead body, and she wasn't going to kill someone who didn't deserve it.

Well, if she didn't come across someone suitable, she'd just have to get into the castle wearing her own face instead.

Probably no one would recognise Arya Stark's face anyway.

She wanted to try and get into the castle without being noticed, as people would hopefully be less suspicious if she already appeared to have been allowed in. She'd looked for a weak point along the walls, but couldn't see an easy way in. The best way, it seemed, would be to simply sneak in through the main gate, but it was always well guarded.

Maybe she'd have to talk her way past the guards then.

One evening, a fierce, biting wind struck up while the servant girls were in the village, driving icy sleet into everyone's faces. Suddenly, everyone was hurrying from one place to another, avoiding being outside as much as possible.

It was too good an opportunity to miss, and Arya joined the back of the group as they returned to Raventree Hall. If anyone questioned her presence, she'd make up a story, telling them of how the Steward had just hired her, but she was new to the area and just happened to approach the castle at the same time as the other servants were returning.

Nobody questioned her though. The guards on the gates were squinting and averting their faces from the icy sleet and the wind, and didn't notice the extra girl at the back of the group.

She followed the servants across the yard to the servants' entrance, and only once they were inside and walking down the corridor did they realise Arya was there.

Of course, then they asked who she was and she told them her story. Taking inspiration from her direwolf, she introduced herself as Nym, short for Nymeria, the new servant girl. She explained how she'd been hired to fill the vacant position after someone named Myra left.

They shrugged, and one of them, a blonde girl named Lysa, showed 'Nym' to her new room in the servants' quarters, explaining that it was Myra's old room.

Arya thanked her, then went off in search of the Castellan and the Steward. She found the Steward first, and informed him that she'd been hired by the Castellan. Then she found the Castellan and told him that she'd been hired by the Steward.

She was told to be up early for work the next morning, and then allowed to return to her room to rest after her journey.

She had another wolf dream that night.

Nymeria and her pack had reached the land around the Twins.

She padded through the forest, following the smell of meat gone bad. She found the source easily enough, a dead body, hanging from some rope tied to a tree branch overhead.

She snarled silently. The meat was too rotten to eat, the stench foul, but part of her was pleased with the sight. It might mean she was getting closer to those she sought.

The pack moved through the forest, finding more hanged corpses, some fresher than others. She eventually found one that hadn't started to rot yet, and sniffed at the ground nearby, hoping to pick up the scent of other men. When she did, she lifted her head to the sky and howled in triumph, calling her pack.

They were getting closer.

Three wolves emerged from the woods, saw the hanging body, and moved towards it, sniffing. Then one of them snarled, leapt up, grabbed the leg of the body in his teeth and started stripping meat from it. The others followed.

She left them to it and followed the trail she'd picked up.

Eventually she heard the sound of men's voices up ahead, and crept forward, hiding in the bushes as she peered out at the scene in front of her.

There was a small campsite in a clearing. She saw three captives, bound and on their knees, surrounded by a ragged group of armed men. She recognised Thoros of Myr, and Lord Beric Dondarrion, as well as a couple of other men. But there were unfamiliar faces there as well.

She watched and listened from her hiding place as Beric Dondarrion questioned the captives, all three of whom were Freys, about their involvement in the Red Wedding. All three captives turned out to be guilty. One was angry, saying that Robb Stark betrayed the Freys and broke his promise, and deserved to die. The other two cried and pleaded for mercy, insisting that they were only doing as they'd been told, and although they had helped kill Robb's men, it hadn't been their idea.

Arya snarled silently, showing her teeth in the darkness. No one had showed Robb or Mother any mercy at the Red Wedding. Or Grey Wind, her brother's direwolf, or their men. Instead, the Freys had slaughtered them all at dinner and laughed about it. They even sewed Grey Wind's head onto Robb's body and paraded it around like a grotesque trophy.

Ropes were strung up from thick tree branches overhead, and the Freys were forced to stand on three cut tree stumps as nooses were pulled over their heads. The Freys pleaded. The Brotherhood ignored them. Then the tree stumps were kicked out from under them and the Freys died, their bodies twitching as they were strangled to death.

Unnoticed by any of them, the direwolf retreated from her hiding place and returned to her pack.

When Arya woke the next morning, she lay in bed for a while, thinking about what she'd learned. The Brotherhood really were helping to avenge Robb and their people. It made her think more kindly towards them. Maybe she should even consider taking Thoros and Beric off her list.

There were more important people still on her list that definitely needed to be killed though. Tywin Lannister, who had helped the Freys plan the Red Wedding, was already dead; killed by his own dwarf son while Tywin was sitting on the privy. Arya couldn't have come up with a better way for him to die.

But there was still Cersei, Ilyn Payne and the Mountain. All three of them would be in King's Landing… but she still needed to finish her business in the Riverlands first, which meant finding out what had really happened with Uncle Edmure, and deciding whether she should go and rescue him.

With that in mind, Arya got up and went to get instructions on her duties for today.

The next few days she spent cleaning. Scrubbing floors and washing clothes. Since she was mostly alone during that time, there wasn't much opportunity to listen to any important conversations. But she'd learned patience in Braavos, and so cleaned without complaint. And she paid careful attention whenever she was with the other servants, in case they had anything interesting to say. On the third day, she was tasked with mending a hole in someone's tunic. She didn't protest, but hoped that wouldn't become a regular part of her duties; she hated that sort of needlework.

One evening, she was sent to serve dinner to Lord Tytos Blackwood and his family.

This was the first time she'd actually seen any of the Blackwood family themselves. Lord Tytos Blackwood, the Lord of Raventree Hall, was a very tall, thin man with a hooked nose and black and grey beard. He had a cloak made of raven feathers, which he took off and handed to another servant, a man called Miles, when he entered the room.

When Lord Blackwood saw Arya, he blinked in shock, then narrowed his eyes at her for a minute. Studying her intently.

Arya froze.

Shit. Had he recognised her? If so, how? She knew she'd never met these people before.

And yet… looking back at the lord, she did feel a strange sense of recognition, but it was one she couldn't place.

She turned away and started ladling soup into bowls, trying to think of any time she might have met the Blackwoods before. Had they visited Winterfell once or something?

Perhaps she should have waited until she found another face she could use after all, but it was too late now.

But she was sure she hadn't met them before, which made the weird sense of recognition even more confusing.

Lord Tytos' sons and daughter walked into the room, talking amongst themselves, and sat down at the table. Each of them briefly met Arya's gaze to thank her as she handed them their soup. Two of them, Alyn Blackwood and Edmund Blackwood, the younger sons, ignored her after that.

But when she met the gazes of both Brynden Blackwood, the eldest son and heir, and Bethany Blackwood, the youngest child and only daughter, Arya felt that same strange jolt of inexplicable recognition.

The two of them turned to stare at her as she moved to place the large bowl of soup on the counter at the side of the room, trying to act like nothing was wrong. She picked up a platter filled with bread, and started handing it out to the family.

Lord Blackwood remained standing, watching Arya suspiciously.

Arya continued to curse inwardly. When had she met these people before? The three of them that she recognised, Lord Tytos, Brynden and Bethany… she must have met them before, but when?

Brynden, a twenty-something man with the same dark eyes and straight black hair as his siblings, exchanged a look with his father.

"Who are you, girl?" Lord Blackwood finally asked her.

"Nym, m'lord," Arya said, curtseying as best she could while holding the bread platter. "Short for Nymeria, m'lord."

"I haven't seen you before."

"I was only hired recently m'lord. To replace Myra after she left. Is there something wrong?"

Lord Blackwood hesitated, then finally sat down at the table with his children. "No, child. Could you pour the wine?"

"Of course m'lord," Arya said, fetching the wine and doing as she'd been asked.

Lord Blackwood started talking to Brynden about matters to do with managing their lands.

Arya relaxed a little. Bethany was still staring at her, but then her brother nudged her and gave her a look, and Bethany looked away and started eating her bread.

Once the meal was over and the family had left Arya to clear up, she wondered if it would be best to leave this castle and go elsewhere to get the information she needed.

She heard footsteps and looked up to see that Bethany had returned to the dining hall. She stood in the doorway for a while, a slight girl of about three and ten.

"Is there something you need m'lady?" Arya asked.

Bethany didn't reply for a minute, just looked at her.

Arya went back to clearing up.

"I know what you are," Bethany Blackwood finally said.

Arya looked up, a confused frown on her face. "I'm sorry, m'lady?"

"I said, I know what you are."

"I know what I am too, m'lady. A loyal servant of your father's household." She curtseyed.

Bethany rolled her eyes and let out an exasperated sigh. "I don't mean that. I meant, I know that you're a skinchanger."

That gave Arya pause. "I'm sorry, m'lady, but I don't know what you mean."

Bethany's eyes suddenly turned completely white.

Arya jumped back in shock.

A minute later, a raven flew through the corridor to land on Bethany's shoulder.

"You. Are," the raven said.

Bethany's eyes returned to normal. She stared at Arya as she lifted one hand to stroke the raven's feathers. "You are a skinchanger. I can tell. Because I'm one too. Skinchangers always recognise each other, Father says, unless their powers are completely dormant and unused. Father says I shouldn't talk about it to outsiders, but you're one of us, aren't you? I didn't even know there were any other skinchangers in the Riverlands. Where's your animal? What do you skinchange into?" She sounded a little excited.

"Nymeria," Arya whispered, thinking of her wolf dreams.

She remembered the stories Old Nan used to tell them. Skinchangers were supposed to be able to take the form of animals. Some stories said they could actually change their shapes and become the animal, other stories said that they could enter the minds of animals and control them. Which… now that she thought about it, well… it did sound a bit like what Arya did in her wolf dreams, when she dreamed that she was Nymeria.

Was that what her wolf dreams were? Her mind unconsciously skinchanging into her direwolf while she slept?

"What's that?" Bethany asked.

"I… nothing m'lady," Arya replied, unsure of how to respond to this.

Bethany smiled. "Look," she said, lowering her voice. "I know that it's not something we're supposed to talk about, but I won't tell anyone, I promise. My father and my brother Brynden already know, because they're skinchangers too. But I've just never met another girl skinchanger. I swear by the old gods and the new that I won't tell anyone else."

Arya bit her lip. "Alright," she said slowly. Perhaps Bethany could explain more about what her wolf dreams meant. It didn't mean she had to reveal who she really was or anything.

Bethany practically skipped into the room, before turning to close the door. She sat down on one of the chairs at the table. "So, what do you skinchange into?"

"A wolf, m'lady. But only in my dreams," Arya said.

"Really? So you're a warg then. My family likes to skinchange into ravens. That way we can fly, see?"

Her eyes turned white again, and the raven on her shoulder took off and flew around the room. "Fly! Fly, fly, fly!" it called.

The raven landed on the table, where Arya had put the pile of plates, and hopped over to grab a sliver of uneaten bacon in its beak.

Bethany's eyes returned to normal again.

So… her eyes going white was a sign that the girl was skinchanging into the raven? More importantly, she was doing it while awake, consciously, which would be a pretty useful skill, if Arya could learn to do the same…

"You can… skinchange into the raven whenever you want to, m'lady?" Arya asked.

Bethany nodded. "Father says I need to practice to get it right, but that I can only do it secretly, because other people, people who aren't skinchangers, would react badly if they found out. It's fun though, so I don't mind practicing."

"Do you think you could teach me how?"

Bethany nodded. "We'll have to ask my father, because he's better at teaching this stuff. But I'd like to have a friend to talk to about this. Maybe he'll let you be my handmaiden?"

Arya smiled. "I'd be honoured, m'lady."

Bethany got up, opened the door and left the room.

Arya continued cleaning up the dinner table.

Lord Blackwood was not happy when he found out that his daughter had been discussing her skinchanging abilities with a servant.

"How many times have I told you to keep it a secret, Bethany?" he asked his daughter.

Bethany crossed her arms and raised her chin. "I am keeping it secret. From most people. But Nym is a skinchanger too, so it's not like we could keep it secret from her anyway, is it?"

"She has a point, Father," Brynden said, leaning back against a tapestry featuring ravens flying around a snow-covered woodland. Unlike his father, who looked tense and worried, Brynden seemed completely relaxed.

The four of them stood in Lord Blackwood's solar.

Lord Blackwood stood beside the fireplace.

Bethany stood by a pair of wide latticework wooden doors set with small panes of diamond shaped yellow glass. Those doors opened out onto a balcony overlooking the godswood, but right now they were closed.

Arya, or 'Nym', as she was pretending to be, stood beside the thick oak door that led to the rest of the castle. That door was closed as well. Lord Blackwood didn't want anyone overhearing the conversation, it seemed.

Lord Blackwood regarded Arya suspiciously. "Skinchanging is a gift only given to a few. And the only people I've ever heard to possess it are descendants of the First Men. They say that wildlings from beyond the Wall have it, on occasion, but in the Seven Kingdoms, the only skinchanger lines to survive the Andal invasion were those who were part of a powerful noble House. The North fought the Andals off, but they'd already had their own purge of skinchanger lines among the common people, after a warg king rose up from the smallfolk and tried to take over. So again, only skinchanger lines from powerful noble Houses survived. All of which makes me wonder… Who are you, Nymeria, to have this ability? You seem too well cultured and mannered to be a wildling, and daughters of noble Houses do not work as servants."

Sometimes they do, Arya didn't say.

Instead, she quickly made up an explanation. "My mother was born in the Riverlands, m'lord. A washer woman who worked in a tavern. She always loved stories though, so much so that she sometimes got noble lords to tell them to her instead of payment for their meals. Her favourite story was Nymeria and her ten thousand ships, so that's who she named me after. I never met my father though. Perhaps he was a wildling skinchanger. Or perhaps he was a noble lord with the blood of the First Men. All I knew of him was that Mother was upset by his leaving her. So she never spoke of him."

"I see," Lord Blackwood said with a frown.

"Please, Father," Bethany spoke up. "Let Nym be my handmaiden and have skinchanging lessons with us, please!"

Lord Blackwood's expression softened as he looked at his daughter.

Then he looked at Arya. "Is that what you want, Nymeria?"

"I'd be honoured m'lord," Arya said.

"Yet how do I know we can trust you with this?"

Arya shrugged. "Well, begging your pardon, m'lord, but it seems it's my secret too, is it not? If I'm also a skinchanger? And I really would like to learn. Honest."

The room was silent for a while as everyone looked to Lord Blackwood.

"Very well," he finally said. "You may attend my daughter as her new handmaiden. And attend the family skinchanging lessons," he replied. "But remember, Nymeria, you must never, ever speak of our abilities to anyone. I want you to swear, before the old gods and the new, that you will not reveal this family's secret."

Arya curtseyed. "Of course, m'lord. I won't betray your trust, I swear it by the old gods and the new."

Lord Blackwood nodded. "So be it."

Arya's duties changed after that. She was given a new room, next to Bethany's quarters, and was responsible for serving Bethany herself rather than the household in general.

Bethany was ecstatic to have a friend whom she didn't have to keep secrets from. Arya felt a little guilty, considering all the secrets she was hiding. But still… she could hardly tell them who she really was, could she? Yes, they'd fought for Robb, but then the war was lost, although they'd been the last castle to yield, they had eventually yielded to the Lannisters. She couldn't take the risk of trusting them.

So instead, she would play the part of Nym the handmaiden, and learn all about skinchanging.

And hopefully she'd still be able to learn what happened to Uncle Edmure as well.

And maybe they'd tell her something about what was happening in the North too? The smallfolk she'd listened to over the last few months had been concerned with the Riverlands, and sometimes King's Landing, not the other regions of Westeros. But the lords would probably be more interested and better informed about other regions.

Maybe they'd even know something about what was happening at the Wall, where Jon was.