Rivers of Fire and Blood

Arya VI

Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to the Ice and Fire Novels, Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon TV shows. However, I decided to have a little play around with the characters. I do not earn any money from writing these stories, it is for my entertainment and is something I like to share.

Arya loved to go on adventures, she hated being left behind anywhere, she had always been the same. Therefore when Sansa asked Arya to stay in Winterfell instead of travelling to Essos with them, they were completely surprised to hear she was happy about it. It wasn't that Arya didn't want to go, she did, but she wanted to travel on her own terms, and preferably on the back of a dragon, the one who was currently a little too small for riding. It was her desire to help that baby dragon grow quickly which fuelled her desire to stay. There were other reasons Arya was quite happy to stay in Winterfell for the time being. Sansa had given her a role which she thought might play to her strengths. On the face of it, she was hiring the Winterfell guards, or Winterguards as she had named them. They were to be trained in subterfuge despite them being on show in Wintertown. However, Arya had been recruiting her own little spies. These included the whores of the town brothel, children, innkeepers and farm hands. In the castle she had started using her faces again, now that she was no longer pregnant, the magic worked. She had also discovered she could easily warg into any animals around the castle, however whilst ever Drogon was around, there were no rats or mice or anything untoward, although there were still plenty in Wintertown. Arya knew they would return the moment Drogon left, therefore she was getting herself poised to warg into different creatures. She had even taken to asking the Freefolk to help her hone her skills. This was fairly urgent as there had been a betrayal, someone had posed as a guard and set Tyrion and Ranny up. Arya needed to search for the culprit and deal with them quickly, despite nobody having seen anything of this man since the day of the attempted wheelhouse ambush.

However, the main reason Arya wanted to stay behind was Strygga. As much as Arya had never wanted to be involved with anyone on a deeper level than sex, Strygga had something about him she couldn't put her finger on. He was an amazing warrior, especially considering he was one of the Freefolk. Instead of using brute force, he had genuine skill with a sword, and she had spent many an hour sparring with him in the practice yard. Admittedly, that wasn't what she found attractive in him. He was more like one of the princes Sansa had dreamed about when she was young. Strygga was handsome, there was no doubting that. Yet he was also intellectual, almost bookish, he could start reading and completely forget where he was or even notice the time. He seemed to love poetry, and had a good singing voice. Ranny had clearly taught him a lot about his culture and heritage, as he was also able to dance and sew, although Arya noticed that sewing was a common skill among the Freefolk. Since arriving, Strygga had shaved most of his beard off, leaving a goatee on his chin and a moustache, which revealed a much more youthful face than she had originally encountered, where she'd assumed he was of a similar age to Jon, when in fact he was only a year older than Arya. She had noticed his movements were lithe, almost catlike, the way he swayed his narrow hips made Arya's belly flip, something which she hated herself for. And as much as she hoped that maybe a good fuck with him might get him out of her system, she had a bad feeling it wouldn't work, in fact it could potentially make matters worse and she'd want him even more.

With this in mind, Arya had to just try to keep going, pretending her little infatuation might disappear, all the while having to work extremely close with him. Especially when it came to discovering the origins of why there must always be a Stark in Winterfell. Arya had always assumed it was just a way to make sure nobody captured Winterfell and would bow to the Starks, but she was no longer sure that was the case. The moment her family had left Winterfell, then the world had started to fall to pieces, and Arya wasn't going to risk a second coming of the whitewalkers just because she didn't want to stay at home for a few months.