The Old Bear's Daughter

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"You in command here?" two riders asked.

Juliana and Yoren walked both walked towards them.

"You're a long way from home," Yoren acknowledged.

"I asked you a question," the southern knight said.

"You did," Juliana nodded, "but since you asked without manners, we decided not to answer."

The man pulled out a piece of paper, "I have a royal warrant for one of these gutter rats you're transporting."

"Well, the thing is," Yoren told him, "These gutter rats belong to the Night's Watch. Now, that puts them beyond the reach of kings and queens."

"Does it?" the man asked, starting to pull his sword but he stopped as he saw the two in front of him already having daggers out. Yoren had his pressed to the man's genitals.

"It's a funny thing- people worry so much about their throats that they forget about what's down low. Now I sharpened this blade before breakfast. I could shave a spider's arse if I wanted to," Yoren pushed the man's chainmail to the side, "or I could nick this artery in your leg. And once it's nicked, there's no one around here who knows how to unnick it."

Juliana pulled the man's sword from its sheat, "We'll just keep that," she threw the sword to the ground, "The Night's Watch can always use some more steel."

"It seems you have a choice," Yoren told them, "You can die here at this crossroads a long way from home, or you can go back to your city and tell your masters you didn't find what you were looking for."

The man who didn't have a dagger between his legs spat on the ground. 

"We're looking for a boy named Gendry," the soon-to-be-eunuch spoke up, "he carries a bull's head helmet. Anyone turning him over will earn the king's reward. We'll be back with more men and I'll be taking your head home along with that bastard boy." The last part of the sentence was directed towards Yoren before the two riders turned their horses and galloped back to King's Landing.

Yoren put his dagger away and turned to the boys they had collected while Juliana picked up the sword she had thrown on the ground.

"It's good steel, what a shame that I don't fight with swords." She threw the sword at a boy nearby who managed to catch it with both hands. 

"What?" Juliana asked as the boy looked from the sword to her.

"Nothin'" he mumbled as he walked to help another boy with making a fire.

*****

After having gone hunting, Juliana was cleaning her blades in the river and washing her hands from skinning animals as she heard a few of the boys talking.

"If they come back, I say we yield," a boy with matted blond curls spoke. "Gendry's the one they want. Don't get caught in the middle of a battle."

The boy next to him, a big kid with a chubby face replied, "I ain't afraid of no battles."

"If you got within a mile of a battle, you'd fill your pants," Arry spoke. He was a small boy with a high voice who Yoren had picked up out of King's Landing the day they had executed Ned Stark.

"I've seen lots of battles! I saw-"

"Liar!"

Juliana smirked. She liked Arry and his feisty personality.

"I saw a man kill another man just outside a tavern in Flea Bottom. Stabbed him right in the neck."

"Two men fighting isn't a battle," the blond boy argued.

"They had armour on."

"So?" Arry asked.

"So, if they've got armour on, it's a battle."

Juliana, who was finished with her work and now just stayed to see where their conversation was going, snorted and exchanged a smirk with Arry.

"No, it isn't" the blond boy continued the conversation.

"What does a dyer's apprentice know about battles anyway?"

"Gendry's an armourer's apprentice," Arry spoke up as the person in question came back to the river. "Hot Pie, tell Gendry what makes a fight into a battle."

Gendry was a young man the same age as Juliana and had joined the group not too long ago.

The chubby boy, Hot Pie, turned to Gendry, "It's, um, when they've got armour on."

"Who told you that?"

"A knight."

"How'd you know he was a knight?"

"Well, it was 'cause he got armour on."

"You don't have to be a knight to have armour," Gendry explained, "Any idiot can buy armour."

"How do you know?"

"'Cause I sold armour."

"You become a knight if a lord or the King makes you one after or while serving them," Juliana told the boys, making them look at her.

"How do you know that?" the blond boy asked.

"My older brother was one."

"Your brother?" 

Arry furrowed his brows, "Don't you know who she is?"

The boys shrugged their shoulders and Arry explained, "That's Lady Juliana Mormont. She's the daughter of the Night's Watch's commander."

Juliana nodded, "But if you call me Lady, I might have to kill you."

She sheathed her weapons and made her way over to a firepit where Yoren was sitting.

*****

Not long after finding out about the Lady in the camp, Gendry found out that there was, in fact, another Lady there.

"So you're a highborn, then. You're a Lady."

"No. I mean, yes." Arya Stark, who now called herself Arry, replied. "My mother was a Lady and my sisters-"

"Yeah, but you were a lord's daughter and you lived in a castle and you- look, all that about cocks, I should never have said- And I've been pissing in front of you and everything. I-I should be calling you "my lady"."

"Do not call me "my lady"!" Arya protested.

"As my lady commands," Gendy joked as he taught about the irony of the only two ladies he knew not even liking their highborn status.

He was pushed back by the lady in front of him, "Well, that was unladylike." 

"Oh!" he exclaimed as he was pushed onto the ground by Arya and he laughed as she stomped away frustrated.