the world keeps turning (it's us that just stands still)

6

She and Gendry don't talk as much as she thought they would.

He's busy.  Everyone that has even an hours worth experience as a smith has suddenly found themselves working as hard as they can for as long as they can, and even though Gendry was a lord and could have said no, his training meant that he worked harder than any of them, and for longer.  The fires burn as hot as they can make them, as many as they can squeeze into such a small place without burning the wall down, and the men work round the clock.  Arya can barely sleep for the sound of all the hammering.

She's not sure that Gendry sleeps at all, what with the time he spends there, running from one forgery to the other on top of everything he does for Jon.

"We don't have enough," He tells her, when Arya had come to him and pulled him away from his anvil long enough to eat the handful of dried fruit she had brought for him.  That's one of the things he had complained about at the wall, how bad the food was.  Gendry had smiled when he saw what she had, and she didn't bother to tell him how much it cost her, to get fruit in the middle of the war.  She doesn't think he's ever eaten something that expensive.  "Even with all the fires, and all the men- no where near enough."

Arya didn't want to think about that.  The others are keeping up a brave face, but Arya had had served death before.  How could they hope to win, when every man of their own that falls is just another person that they have to fight?  How could they possibly have enough weapons to fight a force that large, how could they possibly ask the men to be able to fight, when their brothers fall in front of them and come back to life only so that they can kill each other?

"It's the dragon glass."  He continues, when she doesn't answer.  Gendry chews with his mouth full.  Jon doesn't.  Nobility is something that has to be taught, not just something that can be handed out.  Arya's starting to understand what Gendry means that no paper from Daenerys can turn him into a lord overnight.  She's almost glad of it.  Nothing Jon says can make her a lady, either.  It's like they're a matching set of misfits.  "It doesn't like to melt.  Doesn't like to bend."

"Neither do dragons."

"No."  They both moved to stare up at the upper part of the wall where Daenerys was standing.  Missandei was beside her.  The Dragon Queen had tried to leave her behind, but Missandei wouldn't hear of it.  "They don't."

Arya gets to sit in on the war councils.

Not that they're that much of a council.  It's just Jon and Tormund and the Onion Knight sitting around a table, sometimes with Grey Worm and Daenerys, sometimes not.  Sometimes Gendry comes.  Arya likes those meetings best.

"Enough with battle plans."  Jon wipes everything off the table with a sweep of his arm, sending the chess pieces they were using for makeshift markers flying across the room.  They roll across the floor and clack against the wall before finally coming to a stop.  "What good are battle plans against them?"

Davos starts forward.  Arya stays still.  She had learned to be still.  "My Lord."  Davos' hand makes a motion, either a spasm or  stretch.  Without the fingers, Arya can't tell.  "The men,"

The men want plans.  The men want information.  The men want stations, and battle formation, and a real idea of what their defenses were.  Arya knows it does not do any good- this is not an army they were facing, this is one being, one body that will climb and crawl and kick and fight until the very last of them, and for every one of those bastards that falls, two of their own men will be there to take their place.  It won't be a battle, it will be bloodshed.  Arya's only a girl, only eighteen compared to all their years of experience, but she still knew that drawing up battle lines isn't going to help them.