Chapter 1 - King's Landing

Gendry

A foul breeze forced open a window, smashing it against the stone wall with an expensive-sounding crash.

Gendry Baratheon woke upright at the noise. He felt blindly in the dark room around clean sheets to find the small war hammer he always kept within reach. The hammer's steel cold in his grip, he slowly took in his surroundings: King's Landing. The wind - the very same wind he had welcomed to cool him from suffocating days forging in the Street of Steel for most of his life - stunk of shit, sweat, and death. Four years had passed since the fateful day a lonely queen lost her mind, momentarily sinking deep into her family's history of bloodlust and pyromania, burning nearly half the city's population of one million people. The air still occasionally carried their memories, remnants of ash and blood that flew with random gusts as if to take back their healing home city.

The sun had not yet bathed the sky in its warm light. He might still manage a few hours of sleep before their damned council meeting if his mind would stop playing its cursed games. Twice this night he had dreamt of someone he usually drove from his memory - of small, dangerous hands and soft breasts; a scarred abdomen under his lips; the moans and whimpers of a northern wolf in the night.

Simply remembering the dreams caused part of him to stiffen beneath his sleek sheets and he knew he would be able to sleep no further.

Cursing, Gendry kicked the sheets off of his body and swung his legs to the floor. He lowered his forehead to his hands for a moment before stepping across the cold stone to a reddish desk littered with scrolls and half-used quills. There was much that could serve as a proper distraction - letters to write and sums to balance, lordly duties that were only beginning to feel normal. He scraped a firesteel into its accompanying tinderbox to light a torch and began another day as the Lord of Storm's End.

The night transformed into day in the open window above him, and soon Gendry was interrupted by a soft knock on the door.

"Lord Baratheon," a voice sounded. He knew the tone too well - he had used it himself when he had to speak to lords that demanded answers from him in Tobho Mott's shop, avoiding their gaze and speaking indirectly to remain respectful. Now those who deserved a realm of their own just as much as he did used it when serving him. It twisted in his gut as a deep-felt guilt.

"Enter." His voice croaked from lack of use, still thick with sleep and lustful dreams he tried to forget.

A young serving girl slowly opened the door. She was likely just a few years younger than he, with long blonde waves pinned in a simple style upon her head and wearing a shapeless shift the shade of day-old tea. In her slight arms she carried fresh clothing, undoubtedly sent up by the King as a gift. The woman placed them upon the bed and stood uncomfortably with her hands clasped behind her back and her gaze firmly set upon the floor.

"I'll return with a meal to break your fast shortly," she whispered before scurrying out of the room.

Gendry wondered if she knew his story. Of course not. And why should she? His tale was hardly the rousing adventure other lords made it out to be when asking his favour - a bastard from Flea Bottom, someone this very servant would have brushed aside just a few years earlier. He had been in the right place at the right time, been the result of the right boarish royal oaf's drunken night with a tavern wench, and now he ruled one of the six kingdoms. To castle staff, the last note was all that mattered; he was a lord and a lord alone.

He pushed back his chair and rose to run a large hand across the soft clothes waiting for him. Well-woven fabrics still felt strange on his skin, slick and untrustworthy like the smooth scales of a serpent's belly. He much preferred the coarse texture of rough-spun linens or the shelter of thick leathers. These were the smooth silks of the nobility - he wanted no part of them. But, King Bran had sent them to him and even Gendry was not foolish enough to refuse a king.

The pile unfolded into a handsome tunic the colour of a thunder-filled sky and newly tailored leather trousers. For just a second, he wondered how a tailor had learned his measurements. It was a foolish thought; their ruler had known exactly which blade would kill the Night King, he did not need to ask for something as simple as measurements.

The serving girl returned with a wooden tray filled with a bowl of honeyed porridge, a plate of smoked fish, and a thinly-sliced apple. A warm cup of mulled wine accompanied it.

"Thank you," Gendry said to the girl. "What is your name?" He had long ago made sure to know the name of everyone who passed through Storm's End, surely could show her the same favour.

The girl's green eyes widened in uncertainty as her mouth twitched upwards into a knowing smirk. She thought he wanted her.

"Ellyne, m'lord," she responded with a raspy breath.

"Thank you, Ellyne." Gendry hadn't meant to do that. He was always forgetting the ways these things might be understood - a simple pleasantry spun into whatever it was other lords did with the serving staff. Now he'd need to take special care not to acknowledge Ellyne more than others, lest he awaken to her sliding into his bed to keep him warm in an effort to please.

The girl looked confused, then mildly disappointed before looking back to the floor and exiting swiftly.

One thing was certain - Gendry would never get used to this life.

...

The council meeting passed slowly. It always seemed to drag far longer than it needed to. Self-important lords managed to find ways to talk about themselves and boasted of their successes well into the hot afternoon. Finally, they voted on their final matters and sipped imported wine in a way Gendry could only consider bitterly ironic.

Mylon Tarth, a distant cousin who had taken Brienne's role as the heir to the Sapphire Isle now that she could no longer hold lands, was the first to leave. He raised his brows at Gendry in a silent observation that the meeting had been pointless, then swallowed the last of his wine and drove up a cloud of dust with each step out of the gravel. Gendry exhaled a tired chuckle at the sight.

He turned his gaze to Bran, who sat coolly in his wheeled chair. The new throne now, he supposed. A throne that traveled with its monarch was certainly the first of its kind.

The King met his eyes with a knowing look. Gendry had mostly gotten used to this at their annual meetings, but this time he could not help but wonder if their ruler could see the images that had filled his dreams the night before. He hoped not. Even a king as even-tempered as Bran the Broken would not sit idly by as the man before him replayed the ways he had made his sister gasp and tremble with pleasure in the night. Gendry tried to think of anything else - the blow of a hammer to hot steel, the angle at which he'd needed to strike to set dragonglass from its moulds in Winterfell, the freezing air filling his lungs as he ran back to Eastwatch by the Sea.

He sheepishly looked back at him to see that same strange look bearing into his core. It wasn't as bad as his first time hearing from the young king, but it was still uncomfortable.

"My sister does love you," Bran had told him upon the conclusion of their first council meeting just a week after he had been made regent, "That was a large part of her motivation to leave." That only made Gendry feel worse, and he had kicked every loose stone in his path back to his temporary quarters after that meeting. Uncomfortable or not, the simple staring he encountered this time was at least better than that.

"Your grace," he started, "I'll be leaving as soon as I can, either tonight or in the early hours of the dawn. The Stormlands have much to resolve at this time." It always felt foolish telling Brandon Stark things, considering the fact he knew all.

King Bran nodded, "Thank you, Lord Baratheon. I wish you safe travels back to your home."

Gendry smiled lightly and stood to leave the dragon pit. He still had a few things to do before beginning his ride home. As he left, Bran dismissed the other lords and ladies, requesting his Hand speak with him privately.

Once he reached his room, Gendry threw his clothing and books into a pile and stuffed them into a sack. He ripped the new tunic from his body and relished in the feeling of the more rugged undershirt he pulled over his head to wear beneath a leather jerkin. The scrolls fit easily into the bag, and he was packed in a matter of minutes. How other lords needed an entire cart to haul their belongings for these meetings was beyond him.

A small but heavy bag closed off with twine sat at the bottom his packed satchel; Gendry pulled it from the contents and locked the door to his quarters behind him on the off chance that Ellyne or another serving girl might try to surprise him when he returned. He stopped by the kitchens on his way, requesting some ham, boiled cabbage, and fresh bread. The servants eyed him oddly as he stuffed the containers into the leather bag slung across his left shoulder.

The hallways of the rebuilt Red Keep wound until they reached an entryway still in construction. Gendry squeezed through the masons rebuilding the arch and let his feet carry him past the gates and along the burnt remains of the former city. His thoughts wandered as he walked towards Rhaenys' Hill. He found himself considering the spelling of words he could never quite get right; each step was another letter he had forgotten, a silent consonant or a vowel that pulled out the word in ways his tongue remembered but his mind did not.

His feet nearly took him past his destination: a small entry built into the side of a long-abandoned apothecary. Half-crumbled stairs turned sharply twice before he got to the door he wanted. He knocked in a rhythm that always came back to him when he returned to Flea Bottom: two knocks, three fast raps, a slap, and a definitive hit with the meaty end of his fist.

A woman cracked the door. "Melyra," Gendry greeted kindly, smiling as she opened the door wide enough for him to enter. Her hair was the shades of a fall harvest, tones of gold, wheat, and auburn swimming together into a long plait that hung down her wide back. The woman was heavy with child, he realized. She closed the door and shuffled into the poorly-lit room.

"Ryland," she called loudly, "We have a guest."

"When will it come?" Gendry asked as he nodded towards her large stomach.

Melyra smiled and rubbed the fabric over her belly with a small, dirty hand. "Two moonturns."

"It's about time we have some little ones making a mess of the place and not just old men like you." A man emerged from a curtain separating the one off-shooting room in the back. His mousey hair was greased back and hung limply to his shoulders, a reddish scraggly beard covered most of his chin and neck. Gendry chuckled from the doorway. The home looked half destroyed as it were, but he would never have noticed had he not spent the past few years in a castle.

Gendry had known Ryland back when they were both unwashed boys nicking bread and running from guard dogs through the streets of Flea Bottom. He had even gotten Ryland a few years as a smith's apprentice before the gold cloaks came for him, though he heard it ended up being more sweeping metal shavings and filling buckets than actual smithing.

The three of them ate the food Gendry had brought with him quickly. It seemed cruel to tell them of his own life, complaining about the people who contributed to his wealth just by existing on his lands or telling stories about the antics of his court. Instead, he listened as Ryland described the small smithy he had managed to open after the sacking of the capital; he had a new apprentice, a nephew of Melyra's, who was utterly incapable of putting the tools where they belonged. Melyra spoke of the babe she'd soon bring into the world. She still mended clothes for the seamstress two streets over, but the metalwork would bring enough coin for her to stop until the child slept through the night. Gendry did not mention the child they had lost in the burning of the city, a young wisp of a thing that he had met when she was first born just two weeks before Davos fetched him for their journey north.

The sun was still in its final hours when their evening finished. Melyra rubbed her stomach absentmindedly while Ryland refilled his ale; Gendry's hands found the small sack within his otherwise empty bag and slid it underneath the table, blocking it from Ryland's view with his leg and foot. They had this argument nearly every time he returned to King's Landing, and he and Melyra had decided it was best to keep it out of sight. Gendry was a proud man himself- he could understand his friend's reluctance to accept the gold dragons and silver stags that now sat beneath his table. Melyra thanked him with her eyes and he smiled kindly in return.

The two men embraced briefly before Melyra walked with him to the stairwell.

"Thank you," she said softly while hugging him as best she could with her swollen belly between them.

"I'll try to get some things sent down here in the next few months," Gendry responded, gesturing towards her future child.

Melyra thanked him a second time and walked back through the door. Being around them again made Gendry feel strangely lonely - this could have been his life, had he stayed in the capital. He might have had a wife of his own caressing her stomach and dreaming of the child they would soon bring into the world. Of course, he might also have been burned alive or crushed by the Dragon Queen's destruction.

The fact that he had narrowly escaped death on many occasions was not lost on him. Though much of the city was under construction, piles of rubble still cluttered the narrow streets of Flea Bottom. Every ashen heap of burnt stone reminded him how unlikely his survival would have been had he never gone off with Davos. Few he knew had survived that. Davos had told him of the ways their own soldiers had turned on the people, gutting and raping innocent civilians like it was sport. He tried to stifle the gory images his mind conjured and pushed onwards, up the hill towards the castle.

"If it isn't the only other low-born lord," a voice rang out behind him. Gendry tensed; lowborn or not, he had never taken to the lord of Highgarden.

"Ser Bronn." His voice came out more tired than he expected and he wondered if it was obvious that he did not want the man's company.

"Headed to the Cherry Pit?"

"No, starting the journey back to Storm's End once I find Ser Davos," Gendry explained.

"Ah come on, I'll pay for the first round of ales." The cutthroat-turned-lord steered him by his shoulders before he could refuse.

The Cherry Pit was a brothel located deep along the Street of Silk. Although they sold basic food and drink, its visitors came with only one purpose. The guard outside nodded at Bronn and didn't seem to notice Gendry at all.

They sat at an open table nestled against a curtained wall; a beautiful woman with chestnut ringlets flowing over full breasts somewhat covered by a sheer lavender gown quickly brought them each a large ale. Gendry tried to ignore the way her light brown eyes stayed glued to his as she slid him his overflowing cup.

"You've never come with me," Bronn said after taking a long drink.

"Not particularly fond of paying for a woman." He had never understood the appeal.

"Try it once. Trust me, you'll see why we pay for these ones." Bronn drank again and stared at the dozen women working the floor. Some were topless and others wore thin shifts that showed their bodies as if they wore nothing but smoke - all were beautiful.

"I'm sure they're quite experienced," Gendry replied before sipping from his ale. The barkeep had watered it down so much he had to inspect that it wasn't entirely clear. "It's the purchasing them part I don't like." That was true. He had seen enough people sold and bought like pigs for slaughter to be comfortable believing these women were fully involved in their decision to be here. "Besides, doesn't knowing she's only in it for a coin steal the joy from it?"

Bronn was distracted by a freckle-covered redhead walking towards him.

"Fuck, don't fuck, I don't care. I'm fucking as I please." He smiled at the approaching woman and pulled her by her exposed waist onto his lap. Gendry rolled his eyes at the obvious farce of her fake giggle and drank more of his diluted ale.

A woman with intricate black hair and almond eyes that glowed from afar inserted herself into his view a few tables over. He looked away, but it was too late. The woman sashayed over, taking extra time to sway her rounded hips with each step. She feigned interest in the contents of his cup as an opportunity to brush her breasts against his shoulder. Gendry ignored her awkwardly.

"M'lord," she said throatily as she stroked his arm. He drained his ale and put down a silver stag before shaking his head at her and walking back out onto the street.

Brothels were a waste. All the women in this world who would willingly sleep with a man for free, and some still chose to waste their coin.

The night air was thick in his lungs as he walked back towards the Red Keep, hoping desperately that Davos would be in his quarters - the less time he spent here, the better. Davos was peacefully seated in his room when Gendry knocked and slowly opened the door, his nose deep in a book about naval strategy. The Onion Knight quickly folded the corner of the page he was reading and walked over to the already-packed saddle bag waiting by the door. The book remained in his hand as he walked with Gendry to his adjacent room and then out to the stables to begin their ride south.

...

.

...

Arya

King's Landing looked infinitely better than it had when she'd left. Large structures dotted the skyline, children skipped rocks along the shore - there was life again.

Arya took a nervous breath and turned to her companions on the ship's deck.

"I imagine I'll return in the morning. Are you sure you don't want to come with me? My brother would show you no limit of comforts." One of the three smiled kindly at her.

"We are here better," another said, her translation still causing her to misorder words with slight inaccuracy.

"I look forward to exploring the men," joked the woman who had smiled. Arya snorted and shook her head in amusement.

"They don't bathe as much here," she warned her. "Just be back by mid-day tomorrow and we'll leave for White Harbor."

They nodded and she started down to the ramp leading back to the main docks. Arya Stark had returned to Winterfell.

Podrick Payne met her just moments after she had reached the cobblestones that led from the shore. "Lady Stark," he called warmly. It had been years since Arya had heard anyone refer to her as that.

"Podrick," she responded, glad to see a familiar face.

"King Bran said we'd find you here. I hope your travels were all you wanted them to be." He seemed more muscular now, but was largely the same as he had been when she left King's Landing four years prior. She noticed that he moved more like a fighter now, subconsciously shifting his weight to be ready to parry a blow at any moment. A white cloak was pinned to his armour.

"You're a knight," she observed aloud, "I should be calling you Ser."

Podrick flushed and smiled in discomfort with her excitement. "I just followed Ser Brienne. Still, not bad for a lad who thought he was going to die for stealing a ham."

They made good time walking up to the Red Keep as Podrick told Arya of his many endeavors serving under Ser Brienne in the Kingsguard. It was less than half an hour before they entered the gates; Arya was surprised to see they had been mostly rebuilt after escaping their destruction the last time she had been within the castle grounds. Stepping through the main gates, she tried her best to stop the screaming and scent of burning flesh she knew existed only in her mind.

Podrick paused before the Throne Room, opening the left door for her to enter.

Arya had not seen the throne room since her childhood - it was not on her route with Sandor and she had not wished to see it again after Jon had killed Daenerys. The room had changed greatly in the many years that had passed since then - it had been over 10, she realized with a sense of surprise. Gone were the lavish marble floors and massive, elaborately-decorated columns; in their place was a floor of dark, well-polished wood and columns of dark stone. It looked positively Northern. Visitors still were kept at a distance from the king, though now he sat upon a smooth stone platform elevated a hip's distance from the ground. Arya figured there must be a ramp somewhere behind him that she could not see. At the center of the tree grew a young sapling. A weirwood, Arya thought with delight. Bran had seemed so far removed from his past self, from his family, when she had seen him last. These breaths of the North blew into a gust of pride.

"Sister," he greeted her. His voice was still as distant as it was when she left, but there was a tiny undercurrent of happiness beneath it.

Arya ran around up the back of the platform and embraced him.

"Princess Arya," Ser Brienne's voice was firm, not unlike the way her mother's had been when warning her while around lords and ladies in her childhood. She hadn't properly considered the fact that Bran's kingship made her royalty as well - that was conceivably just as true with Sansa's status as Queen in the North.

"My apologies Ser Brienne, it has been too long." Arya smiled at Brienne and nodded; she knew the knight was not one for physicality.

Bran asked a servant to bring them lunch and Arya wheeled him over to a table bathed in coloured light that poured in through the stained glass above them. She realized in horror that this particular panel had an image of her on it - her body was held up by an icy hand around her throat, her dagger moments away from plunging deep into the heart of the Night King. Arya looked back towards her brother and took a seat.

"I was nearly certain you'd arrive yesterday," he said. His eyes were creased in the way they always were when he was trying to understand the various parts of a problem he hadn't yet solved.

"I had hoped to arrive the day before yesterday, actually. One of my crew fell ill and we had to stop in Greenstone for two days until he passed. Bran nodded as if his mind was still processing her words.

"You went to the Stormlands." She ignored the knowing tone of his voice. Her crew had not come across House Estermont while they were there; they had not interacted with anyone of nobility. Besides, the sun had long since bleached the direwolf from her sails and she had not used her real name. The Lord of the Stormlands would never know she had been there, even if that role were somehow still filled by a certain former smith.

The serving girl returned with two small plates and a tray of cheese, bread, and smoked meats.

"Thank you," Arya said, smiling into the girl's hazel eyes. She nodded quietly and backed away from them without a word.

Arya dove for the cheese, not even bothering to stack some on her plate before devouring it. "Mmm," she savored, "I missed cheese."

"They don't have cheese west of Westeros?"

Arya shook her head as she swallowed the massive chunk of sharp, salty food. "No cows," she answered simply. It occurred to her suddenly that Bran of all people should have known that already. She took a knife of another, softer cheese and spread it across the fresh bread; the flavors melted beautifully in her mouth. "Bran, could you not see me in the West?"

He looked up at the stained glass above them.

"Glimpses. Enough to know you were still alive, a few flashes of injuries and fear." Arya studied his face as he spoke. He had grown a beard in the years she was gone, though it still struggled fill out properly. The wiry auburn hairs framed his mouth and jaw but were still sparse along his cheeks, like a forest regrowing in the early years after a lightning storm. "It seems there are no weirwood trees there?"

It all worked itself out in her mind now; that tree within his platform was only an extension of Bran's eagerness to have a weirwood in the South. It was never the nostalgic emblem of the North she had been so proud to see - it simply increased his powers as the Three Eyed Raven. Something about that realization made her feel oddly empty. Bran was not Brandon Stark, he was Bran the Broken, King of the Six Kingdoms and fabled greenseer. Arya focused on breaking down a particularly hard piece of dried pork with her teeth as she considered it.

"I heard about Yara's Rebellion," she said when she had worked through the meat and finally felt the silence between them become too heavy. "As soon as we got to Lonely Light I knew something was wrong." She had even considered wearing another face, but no one recognized her. "They told me you killed her after she stormed the capital."

"Not me. Ser Brienne," Bran said coolly as he looked to his kingsguard. If Brienne heard them, she made no indication; her soft blue eyes continued to stare off at nothing in particular.

"I'm sorry I wasn't here. I should have protected you." Arya hadn't slept for days after hearing the news. Someone had tried to kill her brother while she was out selfishly frolicking around new lands.

"You were where you were supposed to be. You found your way back when it was time for you to return." His words were simple on the surface, but still dug deep into her gut. She wasn't supposed to be west of Westeros, she was supposed to be making sure her pack was safe. Arya took a sip of the watered wine before them and looked to the weirwood sapling. She wondered if Bran had it ripped from its home in the North just to force it to King's Landing, then cursed herself for thinking so bitterly.

"How is Sansa?" She asked, turning back towards her brother with genuine interest and hope.

"She is well," he said as he sipped his own goblet. "The position of Queen in the North suits her, but you already know that." Arya felt her mouth turn upwards at the image - Sansa ruling their home, this time as its own kingdom. She could picture her sister, always so regal and perfect, effortlessly commanding men to collect more grain or stockpile a particular fort. Her dark copper hair would be perfectly plaited and pinned just so above her face, likely wrapped around a crown of some sort, and her dresses would remain creaseless and clean. Arya was sure Sansa hadn't slouched or even breathed too loudly in years; she was even more sure that she was the ruler the North deserved.

"And Jon?

Bran looked at her with a soft smile.

"Jon is happier now than he ever could have been south of the Wall." Arya returned his smile. "He lives with the Wildlings now, a King Beyond the Wall in all but official title."

"Has he left the Night's Watch, then?"

Bran looked off towards the tray between them.

"There isn't a Night's Watch, not really." That made sense - between the extinction of the White Walkers and improved relations with the freefolk, there was no need for a Watch at all.

"You knew that when he was sentenced." It wasn't a question. Bran smirked but did not reply.

"He's a father now." Arya felt her eyes water at the thought; Jon would make an excellent father. She wanted desperately to meet her little niece or nephew, to teach them to fight and hold them as they dozed off by a fire or tuck them into bed after they had run themselves into a deep exhaustion.

"Has he come south? Or do you write him?" She knew it was unlikely, but couldn't help but ask. If there was a way for her to connect with her favourite sibling, she would learn it.

Bran was quiet for a moment. "No," he finally stated simply. Arya couldn't shake the feeling that there was more he hadn't told her.

She wanted to ask more questions, to learn the names of Jon's child and its mother and find out if Sansa had been betrothed to some lord Arya had long ago forgotten. She did not want to ask about the lord Bran had referred to earlier - that was information she neither needed nor wanted. Arya did not ask any of it, instead chewing a rough heel of bread. She looked again to the weirwood sapling and studied it further. It would be generations, perhaps whole lifetimes before it was even half the size of its relatives in the godswood of Winterfell.

"I've told grandmaester Tarly to expect you later today." Arya looked back at her brother and nodded.

They sat in silence for nearly an hour after that, until Bran finally pushed back from the table enough for Arya to know he was just as ready for their meeting to end as she was. She pushed him wordlessly up the ramp to his platform, then embraced him once more before hopping off the front.

"Arya," Bran called to her. She turned around to face him. "House Stark owes Lord Baratheon a great favour." She felt her heart drop into her gut. What was he talking about? "Lord Gendry risked his life for me during Yara's Rebellion. I would not be here without him."

Arya tried her best to keep her face calm at his statement. It felt random and forced, like he was bringing it up only to measure her response.

"He always was quiet honorable." she carefully settled upon those words - they seemed appropriate, respectful but distant.

"Yes, he's a good man and an astute lord. He and Ser Davos managed to convince Dorne to stay neutral during the war."

Arya looked at her brother skeptically. Gendry with a mind for politics? The thought alone seemed ludicrous. For just a moment, Bran's eyes glinted with something like wordless directive. She was certain she imagined it.

Bran excused himself for a meeting with his Master of Coin and Arya headed off to the library, where she had a feeling she'd find Samwell Tarly.

The serving girl who had brought them their lunch escorted her through open, winding halls to a large pair of oaken doors in the south wing of the castle.

"The library, m'lady," she said before struggling to push open a heavy door. Arya pushed open the other one with ease and looked the girl over. She was small, shorter even than Arya, but thinner. She likely hadn't eaten consistently in her childhood, and her movement suggested fragile bones.

Arya handed her a silver stag. "For bread or soup," she said while trying not to show the guilt she felt. The girl went to reject it but ultimately nervously accepted after seeing Arya narrow her eyes; her feet scurried off quickly as Arya entered the doorway.

The library was gorgeous and lonely - an expanse of thick wooden bookcases stretching up until they reached a walkway that wound around the top section of the room, crowded with yet more heavy shelves. The collection had clearly taken damage during Daenerys' sacking of the city; many of the shelves were filled only half-way. Arya stepped forward and inhaled the scent of parchment, old boiled leather, and horse-hoof glue, a familiar smell that carried her mind off to afternoons spent locked in her room with only a few books to entertain her after her mother or septa had caught her doing something improper. She smiled softly at the memory.

"Lady Stark!" Bran had told her the maester would be ready for her, but he seemed caught off guard.

"Grandmaester Tarly," Arya replied kindly. He was a friend of Jon, and any friend of Jon was a friend of hers. She wondered briefly how he had become a maester already, yet alone a grandmaester. Had he circumvented his training at the citadel? Or, perhaps maester training was less intensive than Maester Luwin had described. "I hope you are as well as you appear," He did look to be well - his eyes had lost the anxiety and insecurity they always shouted in Winterfell. "And that your children and Gilly are healthy and happy."

Sam grinned and nodded, his brown eyes wide. "They are well, my lady. We're expecting a third in a few moonturns."

Arya felt her smile return as she took in his words. "That's wonderful," she said. "Have you spoken with Jon at all?"

Sam pursed his lips and looked at her strangely, then shook his head. "We sent ravens back and forth a few times at first, but I haven't received anything in years. I stopped writing, eventually." His voice rose as if he were asking a question, but his face looked quite sad. Arya did not know how to respond; she simply nodded and looked towards the tall pile of scrolls on a table behind him.

"I've had these copied and extended so you might mark them as you please. Bran said you'd be bringing your own maps?"

Arya nodded and walked towards the table, sliding a bare hand across the glossy black paint. She opened the large satchel sitting upon her right hip and removed four scrolls one at a time. The first was the largest. A map detailing masses of brown, green, and blue unfurled to take up most of the table; it was carefully marked in neat handwriting, with each symbol corresponding to a perfectly organized key.

"I contracted a cartographer," Arya explained hastily. "This is the best of the maps. I didn't get as far in the lands of the West as I would have liked, but the locals tell me it extends so far in every direction that they've never heard of someone seeing two ends in one lifetime.

The second map was smaller but equally as professional. A large river spanned the scroll, framed by mountains to the north and east, an expansive lake to the west, and green land to the south. "Is this a forest or plains?" Sam pointed a plump finger to the land extending beyond the river. The number eight was written across its center, but there was no matching number in the key.

"It's mostly forest. It's all detailed here," she rummaged in her bag for a pile of small leather-bound books. Each had a number burnt into the decaying leather covers. She flipped through the pages and found the one with a large eight across the top section of the page. "This is Ohnasagenarat, a large village where I stayed for nearly a year. One of the crew who returned with me, Niiotha, is from here." Sam's beady eyes looked at her suspiciously.

"My lady, are you saying you brought foreigners across the Sunset Sea?"

"They welcomed me in their homelands, I'm happy to do the same for them in Westeros." Sam nodded uneasily.

"Do you think they'd be open to a trip to Oldtown? I think the Citadel would benefit from meeting them and learning of their homes."

Arya shifted her weight as she considered the proper response. She would not let her friends be poked and prodded like cattle so that the maesters might feel more intelligent. "I can ask them." She quickly moved to the third scroll.

This map was clearly not drawn by a cartographer - a ragged shape laid in the center, something vaguely resembling a circle with two fat, uneven legs and a rough outline. "Our cartographer didn't last the entire trip," she explained when she saw the look of utter confusion upon the grandmaester's round face. "I'm afraid it's much less detailed here, and I'm fairly certain it isn't to scale. I did try to include as much as I could in this, though." she handed him another small notebook, this one burned with a 3.

The final map was essentially just a stiff rag of blue dotted like the egg of a gull with occasional blobs of brown and white.

"They're supposed to be islands," she explained. No people lived there, but there were many interesting animals."

"That'll be in the last book, I suppose." Arya nodded and reached for the final contents of her bag.

"I have a few more that detail the people. There are some descriptions of their cultures, rough transcriptions and translations of their languages, and a general explanation of a day in their worlds." The people had been Arya's favorite part of traveling; everywhere she went there was a smiling babe grasping at her hand or a kind elderly woman eager to feed her and tell her about her life.

"I plan to go to the Citadel once I've visited Sansa in the North. Hopefully I can answer any questions and fill in any gaps left by my records."

Sam smiled at her excitedly. "That would be lovely."

Arya turned and walked back through the thick doors. She had scarcely gotten around the corner when she heard labored breathing and quick, heavy steps running after her.

"Lady Stark! Er, Princess Arya?" The original title had been bad enough, but this princess nonsense was not going to last long if she had any say over it. She unscrunched her nose and turned to face Grandmaester Tarly. "If you see Jon - on your journeys up north, I mean - can you tell him I say 'hello?' And about the child, if you can?"

She nodded quietly in commitment.

Sam thanked her and shuffled back to the library; Arya wondered sadly if he knew that Jon had a child of his own now.

Images of Jon and his new family flowed endlessly in her mind as she walked back to the throne room. She could picture them frolicking in the snow, Jon still in his Stark furs with a curly-haired babe gleefully seated upon his shoulders, Ghost nuzzling the baby as it slept, a beautiful wildling woman scolding them both for putting too much wood in the fire. She focused on the warmth radiating from her stomach rather than the loneliness panging somewhere below her lungs. Imagining Jon's happy family was the first swallow of rum on a cold day - it spread through her core like warm candle wax.

At least one of the Starks deserved a happy family. Maybe one day it would happen for Sansa, too. Mayhap she'd find herself a handsome lord of a kind disposition and gentle hands. Arya hoped she already had.

She arrived to find the throne room empty. Bran had gone off to a series of meetings, Podrick explained to her. He found her a serving girl, this one different from the one who had brought her to the library, to take her to her room and see to it that she had what she needed for the evening.

"Bran will have someone find you in time for dinner," he assured her before they ascended a staircase to the visitors' chambers.

The evening passed with less interest than Arya would have expected for her first night back on the mainlands of Westeros. Dinner, although delicious, passed without incident. She found herself yearning for the liveliness of those with whom she'd shared the sea. The hours after dinner were no better. She wanted to get up and leave her room, to go find her crew and drink with them, break up a fight or two, maybe get into a fight of her own - she could not. Arya focused instead on her balance; her sea-tired legs needed a reminder of their power. She water-danced around her room, practicing her strikes and speed until there was a knock at the door.

A man stood before her wearing a white cloak. He had a short beard of little more than grey stubble and thinning dark hair that receded from a prominent widow's peak to mostly bare temples; his nose appeared to have been broken at least twice, and his lips were thin and dry.

"Princess Arya, I heard a commotion." There it was again, that damned title.

"I'm fine," Arya insisted with an even-tempered voice. "I was just practicing my bladecraft." The man twisted his small mouth before nodding. "If you'd like to arrange for someone to spar with you in the morrow -"

"I'll be returning north tomorrow, but thank you," He nodded curtly. "Good night, Ser." She closed and latched the door as soon as she had finished the sentence, unconcerned with courtesies. It was reasonable for Bran to post someone outside of her door, she reminded herself. Still, it made her uneasy.

Arya wiped her face with the washing bowl and looked towards the window open in her room. The pane was cracked on side, its pins bent out of place as if it had been struck violently. The quality of the wood on either side of the gash made her think it had happened recently, but her knowledge of woodwork was not so good that she could be sure it hadn't happened during the Dragon Queen's destruction. Outside, the city was quieter than she'd have expected - perhaps King's Landing had never fully recovered from the devastation.

Arya left the window open and lit the half-used candle that sat askew on the mahogany writing desk below it. The room, as off-putting as it had felt when she first arrived, grew on her with time. She removed her clothing and changed into a thin night dress to lie frustratingly far from sleep in the large bed. There was something familiar about this, something about the texture of the sheets and the feeling of the air - she couldn't be sure what it was. Perhaps she had entered this room when staying in the castle as a child. Yes, she decided, that must be it.

The floor was cold against her feet as she fetched a fur from the chest in the corner and laid it over the sheets. Satin was too slippery for her to sleep properly, and she'd need sleep before her journey. She tried to imagine how Sansa might react at the surprise of her sister's visit - she could imagine those Tully blue eyes widening with delighted shock, or perhaps narrowing with disapproval that she hadn't given Winterfell the time to prepare. No matter how she reacted, Arya would be happy to see her again. Could Sansa know how to reach Jon? Mayhap she had an idea of where his camp was. Arya would gladly ride north of the Wall if it meant a chance to see her brother.

Eventually imagination overtook her restless mind and pulled her into dreams of wandering snow-covered lands with a family far less troubled than that she had left.

Morning came quickly, and Arya awoke with a start, eager to begin her day. After giving the scrolls to Grandmaester Tarly the day before, she had only a mostly empty bag and a few weapons to count among her belongings off of her ship.

Podrick returned to bring her to breakfast, where he, Tyrion, Brienne, and Bran accompanied her. A feast of fresh fruits, sweetbreads, and honeyed goats milk awaited them. Arya's hunger rose over her manners again, and she found herself swallowing the food without properly chewing it. She did not care.

"Lady Stark," Arya was grateful to Tyrion for not referring to her as royalty, "Your brother has said you experienced much adventure in the West. Are you planning to share your knowledge with the maesters?"

"Aye," she replied between sips of milk."I met with Samwell Tarly yesterday and informed him of my plan to visit the Citadel after I reunite with Sansa."

"I'm sure they'll appreciate it greatly. Just think of all the books they'll craft with your intel." Arya thought she heard a slight tone of bitterness in his voice.

"They will write what they choose to," she supposed. That didn't mean it would be accurate.

"Have you written the Queen in the North of your impending arrival?" The last Lannister asked her. It was easy to forget that he had been married to Sansa once - she wondered if they remained in contact. "No, I was hoping to surprise her."

Brienne smiled across the table at the innocence of the thought.

"Ser Brienne," Arya asked her, curious as to why she had not yet heard anything of substance from Westeros' first female knight, "Have you visited the Sapphire Isle since becoming Lord Commander?"

Brienne looked at her solemnly.

"I have not." Arya felt foolish for asking. Of course someone as honorable as Ser Brienne would not take temporary leave to see her family. "I do write my father somewhat frequently. He says Lord Baratheon is an excellent liege lord and that Tarth benefits greatly from his leadership." Brienne eyed her kindly while speaking, and Arya quickly filled her mouth with the nearest sweetbread. She could feel Bran's cool gaze upon her again.

"That's good," she managed feebly. Her wits returned to her and she thought of her lady mother. "I'm sure your family misses you dearly." The words sounded like something Sansa might say, not her. Brienne smiled sadly and nodded before looking to Podrick.

"Ser Podrick, I believe it's time for your rounds." The young man nodded and excused himself. Arya wished she had a reason to exit in his place.

The others chatted casually over their meal, and Arya was more cautious with her questions this time. She listened to Tyrion's explanation of the architectural changes they were implementing in the capital, and sat patiently as he spoke for nearly twenty minutes without pause to describe his plan to stimulate the healing economy of King's Landing and put more money in the hands of the kingdom. "To be invested back into the city," he assured her when he caught her brows raising in judgment.

Finally their time came to a merciful end. Arya hugged her brother tight against her to bid him farewell and smiled warmly at Ser Brienne and Lord Tyrion.

Her small feet could not lead her back to her ship fast enough.

Niiotha was the first to greet her; she waved cheerfully from where she was perched upon the prow of the ship. Arya climbed up to the adjacent side and inquired as to her evening. Niiotha was an interesting woman - she could stitch someone just as quickly as she could bleed them dry, and she enjoyed anything remotely alcoholic. Niiotha's dark brown eyes glimmered as she pointed towards the main cabin of the ship with her full lips.

A man was emerging, his sandy hair an utter disaster and his cloak turned with wrong side facing out. The two women laughed at the sight.

"Hey, get down to this place and aid," Yuisaraq shouted. Arya noted that she had to practice the Common Tongue with her more and slid down to help her with the ropes. The woman was taller than Arya but not as tall as Niiotha, with shoulder-length hair gathered roughly into a quick bun; her dextrous brown hands easily uncoiled the mainsheet and began to raise the sail so that they might depart.

"I thought you said mid-day," a groggy voice complained. Palomai stood before her, his chest bare and his eyes still half-closed.

"We're all here, why wait?" Niiotha argued with him every chance she got.

"You look rough," Arya laughed. He glared at her in response.

"He and I only return a few hours ago. We wanted explored the city for days. Do you know there's a total street of just bread?" Yuisaraq didn't talk often, and her excitement caught Arya off guard. Had she been this excited when her ship first came ashore in the West?

"Bread? There's an entire street where they just make weapons! Street of Metal, they called it."

"The Street of Steel," Arya corrected absentmindedly.

"Look at these!" Niiotha sprinted to her cabin and back in just a few seconds before pulling a number of steel daggers out from a burlap bag.

"Too small," the man observed, "look at Arya's face, she's seen better." She had - she had seen better not only in the Valyrian steel dagger that still sat upon her hip, but hastily created out of dragonglass in preparation to defeat an incoming army of the dead.

Yuisaraq finished hoisting up the sail and steered them from the harbor.

"Now we go north, right?" Niiotha asked them excitedly. She had told them all about Winterfell and the North, and the friendliest of her crew was thrilled to see the land of her tales.

"Actually, we're going south first. I'd like to visit an old friend."