Bruise

"Hello-o!" Arya shouted as she walked into the house and dropped her jacket and bag of fencing gear. "Anyone home?" She hoped there wouldn't be. If she was alone, she could go up to her room and turn her music on as loud as she liked without anyone bothering her about it. (None of the rest of her family had an appreciation for hard-core metal for some reason.) But luck did not favor her that afternoon.

"Yes, I'm in the music room," her sister called, voice muffed from passing through several walls. Of course Sansa would be in the music room, she thought sourly. All she ever thought of was her stupid harp or her stupider boyfriend.

"Where is everyone?" she asked, going through the living room and the dining room to get to her sister in the music room. Sansa was perched primly on her favorite chair, her large harp leaning demurely against her shoulder.

"Mother's at prayer group, dad's at work, and Bran and Rickon are at soccer practice. Do you know what you're wearing to Robb's rehearsal dinner tomorrow?" At this, Sansa looked up from her harp. Her eyes went wide. "What's on your neck!?"

Arya touched her throat in confusion: the simple gold cross she wore to make her mother happy rested between her collarbones, same as always. "What…?" she started, but Sansa was already out of her chair, pulling one of her innumerable makeup compacts out of thin air and flipping it open to reflect Arya's neck back at her.

Ah. That. Damn.

"WHY IS THERE A HICKEY ON YOUR NECK?" Sansa screamed, sounding eerily similar to their mother.

"It's not a hickey!" Arya exclaimed angrily, blushing.

"What else could it be?"

Several long moments of unintelligible screaming followed, one sister accusing, the other defending, and when Sansa finally subsided into angry, self-righteous silence, Arya explained loudly, "It's from fencing! I forgot to put my gorget on and someone stabbed me! It's a fencing bruise, not a hickey or anything!"

Sansa, who liked to think that she was a reasonable, level-headed person, paused to consider the legitimacy of this claim. It was true Arya frequently came home with bruises from fencing (some of them quite ghastly)… There was no reason why she couldn't have one on her neck, really.

"Well, alright," she assented calmly. Arya resisted the urge to roll her eyes at her oh-so-reasonable tone. "You stay right here for a second while I get some concealer. We don't want Mother seeing that and getting the wrong impression. Especially with Robb's rehearsal dinner tomorrow! Do you know what you're wearing yet?" This last was called in from the hallway as she went upstairs to collect the appropriate shade of concealer for her sister. As soon as she was sure she was gone, Arya pulled out her phone and shot off a quick text to Gendry: You may never give me a hickey again. They're too much trouble!

A/N: Love me some Arya/Gendry! (and BTW, she's about 16 or 17 here, not 10.) I have Arya's bruise right now, but it actually is from fencing! Anyway, GoT is owned by GRRM, all hail the master!

E.I. signing out