Melted

1. The King's Road

A Lady.

Gendry still couldn't believe it himself. Even after she told him, even after all the pieces clicked together, he still couldn't reconcile the dirty little street urchin he had come to know with a lady.

But he had seen no hint of a lie in her grey eyes when she told him. Just some kind of determined vulnerability- a challenge almost. She was daring him to break her trust. He decided that he wouldn't.

He liked Arry. She was a reckless little spitfire, always saying what was on her mind and prone to bouts of violence. He wasn't sure how he felt about Lady Arya, though. He knew how to deal with Arry the orphan girl. He didn't have much experience dealing with ladies.

"Gendry!" Yoren's voice snapped him from his musings as he watched the men and boys bustle around him, readying to prepare camp. The sun was lowering in the sky, but it would be an hour or two still until darkness hit. "Go collect firewood for tonight. And take one of the little brats with you." He sounded weary, like a man on the edge of his patience. Ever since the Gold Cloaks came a couple days ago, Yoren's been harsher than usual with them.

"I'll go!" Arry exclaimed quickly. Lady Stark, He chastised himself in his head.

"Don't take too long." Yoren responded gruffly, barely paying any attention to the girl as she scuttled up to Gendry's side.

He looked down at her suspiciously. While he did know her secret now, and he liked to consider them at least somewhat-friends, she was rarely tagging along with him willingly. The only time they spent together was out of circumstance or necessity. They both preferred solitude.

She was up to something, he was sure of it. The barely-suppressed fire that burned behind her eyes when she looked at him only confirmed that.

They walked together into the thick foliage, picking up sticks along the way. Arry was eerily quiet, and it was making Gendry nervous. It was normal for him to be silent, as he wasn't exactly a man of many words, but there were days when he was sure that the Seven themselves couldn't get her to shut her damned mouth.

He heard a clattering noise behind him as Arry dropped her sticks rather suddenly. He turned around, only to see her brandishing her sword, pointing the little thing at his face. "What the-"

"Who did you tell?" She seethed, poking the blade against his chest threateningly. His own pile of firewood was abandoned to the ground so he could hold both his hands out, palms outturned innocently.

"What are you talking about?" He asked disbelievingly, trying his hardest not to be intimidated by the vengeful little girl in front of him.

"I know you told someone, bastard." She spat. "Who was it? Lommy? Hot Pie? One of the men?" She swung the sword she called Needle and he had to lean back so his nose wasn't lopped off. The deadly slice was so close to his face that he could hear her weapon sing as it cut through the air he breathed.

"I didn't tell anyone you're a lady- I swear!" This didn't help, it seemed, but only served to provoke her further.

"I. Am. Not. A. Lady!" She punctuated each word with a slash at his throat and Gendry was backpedaling so fast that his foot got caught on a rock and he tripped, his arm reaching out for something to catch him. His fingers made contact with Arry's shoulder, but she wasn't strong enough, and instead of catching himself he sent them both sprawling on the ground.

He heard a yelp of surprise leave her mouth and he prayed to whatever God cared to listen that one of them wasn't skewered by Needle on the way down. They tumbled on the forest floor for a few feet before the momentum of the crash wore off and they both lay there, panting for breath.

Gendry jumped up immediately, preparing himself for another attack from the tiny hellion. It never came.

She lied still on the ground with her face scrunched up and her eyes closed, like she was in pain. "Arry?" Gendry asked with some hesitancy, taking a few steps forward, approaching her as he would a wild animal. "Are you alright?" He crouched down and touched her shoulder gently.

This seemed to snap her out of it, because she gasped and bolted upright, sitting up straight. "Look at what you did, idiot!" She shrugged his hand away, struggling to get up and obviously having trouble.

"Sit down." He ordered sternly, giving her shoulders a gentle but firm push, and then holding his hands there so she would stay still.

She opened her mouth to say something, but he stopped her before any sound could come out. "Shut up. Where does it hurt?" A dim part of his mind reminded him that he could probably be beheaded for speaking to her like this, but he was still too angry with her to care.

She glared at him, not answering. "You're a traitor. I don't want your help."

He sighed, taking his hands off her shoulders. "I'm not a traitor. And you may not want my help, but you need it."

"You are a traitor!" She shouted back at him, ignoring his previous question entirely. "You're a traitor and a liar! You said you wouldn't tell anyone, but you did."

"Seven hells, Arya." He huffed, using her real name for once. "I didn't tell anyone! How many times do I have to explain that to you? What happened?" He asked, wondering what events lead to her attack.

"Why should I tell you?" Her voice was full of venom.

"Because I'm asking nicely." He shot back. "I could just leave you here, you know."

Her lip curled up in a snarl like the wolf-pup she was. "I was walking with some of the men. They were making a crass joke, something about cocks, but then one of them saw me and stopped. Said, 'Perhaps another time.'"

"So?" Gendry was unimpressed.

"So?" She repeated incredulously. "They never stopped before. They stopped because I'm a girl, because you told them I'm a girl."

He couldn't help but snort at her weakly-supported accusation. "You're paranoid."

"Then why didn't they tell the joke?" The words were probably meant to come out sounding like a challenge, but all Gendry could hear in her voice was whiny petulance.

"I don't know!" He was getting exasperated with her. "Probably because you're so little."

"I am not little."

He smirked. "Yes you are; you're tiny."

"Maybe you're just too big!" She argued, trying to get up again, only to make a noise that sounded a lot like a squeak when she put weight on her left foot. She gave up, sitting back down and crossing her arms with a humph.

"So it's your foot then? Or is it your leg?" He moved down so he was closer to the end of her body, waiting for her answer.

"Neither. My ankle." The fact that she was cooperating with him now had to be a good sign, or so he convinced himself.

"Alright, then. Let's have a look at it." He tried his hardest to sound professional and sure of himself, but to be honest he had no idea what he was doing. His skills in the healing arts weren't just pitiful; they were nonexistent.

He rolled up the pant leg of her breeches, careful not to touch her sensitive skin. After that he just kind of stared at it. There was no blood, so that was good. And no bones sticking out, also a positive. Does he touch it?

"You have to feel if it's broken, stupid." Arry interjected, sensing his hesitation.

"That's what I was about to do." He snapped.

He reached out his hands and pressed his fingers into the skin around her ankle, trying to feel for something out of place. His eyes flickered quickly to Arry's face, and he found her brow furrowed as if in deep concentration, biting her lip to muffle her noises of pain.

"Sorry," He breathed, and moved to finish his haphazard examination a little quicker, if only to spare her those few extra seconds of agony. "Nothing's broken, I don't think. Just a sprain." He concluded, pulling his hand away.

"Good." She nodded definitively. "It'll be better in a few days, then."

"I should think so." He slipped his hand under the crook of her knees and used his other to support her upper body as he stood up, holding her securely against his chest.

It seemed that this was a turn of events that Arry had not been expecting, because she gasped before batting her fists against him uselessly. "What are you doing, you idiot?"

"I'm carrying you back to camp." He said, as if the answer should be obvious. "Did you think you were going to walk?" He ignored her as she wriggled, leaning down to pick up Needle before stepping on.

"They'll know! They'll know I'm a girl."

"What, because I'm carrying you?" He rolled his eyes.

"You wouldn't carry Lommy." She pointed out.

"I might." He said, but it was a lie. He wasn't sure why, but it was. Why would he carry her, and not think twice about it, but not carry one of the other little alley rats? He filed that away as something to think about later.

Arry wasn't fooled either. "Liar."

"Would you prefer to ride on my back?" He offered, wondering if that would placate her.

There was a beat of silence. "No." She said, not giving any explanation. He didn't care, just shrugged and continued walking. She didn't fight him for the rest of their short journey.

As they emerged from the thick foliage out to the camp, a few men cast them sideways glances, but no one seemed too shocked by their behavior. He was just setting Arry down by the stream when Yoren walked over. He did a double take at her lying on the ground, cradling her ankle in her hand like a bird with a broken wing.

"What happened, boy?" Yoren rounded on Gendry, looking mildly furious. "Did you do something to him?"

"No!" He exclaimed defensively. His mind rushed for an excuse. Damnit, he was always such a terrible liar. "It was… there was a…"

"Well? Spit it out, boy, I haven't got all day."

He looked to Arry for help, but she just looked up at him with her big grey eyes. "Wolf!" He said, the first thing that came to his mind. Then suddenly, the words were spilling out of his mouth, before he could even stop them. "It was a wolf. We were collecting firewood, and we saw it. We went to run away, and he tripped, sprained his ankle." Yoren's eyes widened as he listened to the fabricated story.

"Wolves? We can't be sleeping here with no fucking wolves." He turned and began to yell. "Conner! Go grab some swords and some men, we're going hunting."

As soon as he walked away, Arry wasted no time in telling Gendry exactly what she thought of him. "You're a bloody idiot."

"Well, what did you want me to say?" He challenged. "That you fell as you were attacking me because you thought I told everyone that you were really Lady Stark?"

"You could have just said I fell, stupid." She hissed at him. "But instead you went on some glorious rant about wolves, and now they're going to be out there all night, looking for something that doesn't exist."

She couldn't berate him further, though, because at that moment they were swarmed by a bunch of young boys who had just heard the news. They wanted to know- how big was the wolf? What color was it? Did it chase them? Did it growl?

Arry rolled her eyes, but thankfully played along, and together they spent the night entertaining and scaring their companions with stories of the wild wolf that prowled in the forest.

A/N: Hello everyone! This is my first story for this fandom, but I have devoured basically every single other fanfic on this site. I am hoping to make this a six chapter long short-story. Each chapter can be read as an individual one-shot or together as a whole; it's not very important. I'm going to try my very hardest to stay true to the books, but the interwoven plotlines can get so complex and confusing at times, you'll have to excuse any major indiscretions on my part. Anyway, enjoy!