ARYA II

Bran was sulking. He had been since they arrived in the godswood, and Arya had quickly grown tired of it.

The boy sat at the foot of the godswood's lone heart tree and was wearing a pout that seemed to match the unsmiling face behind him while his sisters played one game after another around him. His still nameless direwolf sat quietly by his side, mirroring his master, even as its own siblings happily chased one other through the woods.

The godswood was beautiful today, Arya thought, as she finally collapsed from an exhausting round of monsters and maidens. Sansa quickly followed suit, falling beside her just as breathless as she was.

Her body rooted to the ground, Arya took the time to admire the greenness all around her. Despite the days growing colder and shorter, the godswood stayed defiantly in the throngs of spring. The leaves of the surrounding ironwoods and sentinels had yet to give up their luster, still remaining a rich dark green, while a warm, earthy smell was alive in the morning air. Looking at it all, she couldn't help but wonder whether the godswood would stay this way when she returned from the south. That was if she ever did.

Mother and Septa Mordane had told them all of their leaving only a few days ago but it still felt unreal even now. The thought suddenly made Arya's eyes go misty. She rubbed the brewing tears away with the back of her sleeve before Sansa or Bran could notice and buried the sniffle that had come over her.

Big brothers don't cry, so why should big sisters? She reminded herself.

Arya looked towards her brother through watery eyes, watching him as he still sat by the heart tree with his head in his hands doing nothing.

He was being stupid, Arya judged bitterly. Stupid and selfish. He was going south same as they were, making this one of the last times they'd be able to play in the godswood together, even if was just the three of them. Arya had hoped that her brother would realize that after getting bored of moping and join them in their games, but to her dismay, he kept on complaining and looking forlorn at the broken tower nearby.

She knew that Jon could do that too sometimes, and Sansa as well, but at least they had better reasons than not being able to climb some stupid wall or tower. That's what Arya assumed anyway. It wasn't as if either ever truly told her much about the causes of their melancholy.

Jon should be here, she brooded, and not for the first time. Robb and Rickon, too.

But Robb was off hunting with Father and the stags, while Rickon was with Mother in the Great Keep. Jon, though, had refused them, wishing to be left alone to his brooding no matter how hard they begged him to reconsider. Sansa had accepted the final refusal stoically as if already suspecting their brother's answer, but for Arya, the rejection had stung sharply.

Arya was suddenly angry then, furiously so. She was angry at Bran for being stupid, angry at Father for taking them south, angry at the fat, stupid king for forcing him too, and angry at Jon for not coming along with them.

Springing to her feet quickly, Arya searched the ground around her and found a nearby stone that stood out in the godwood's undergrowth. In the corner of her eye, Arya saw her sister half-risen up with a curious expression on her face. Before she could say a single word in recrimination, Arya had already plunked the stone from the ground and launched it in Bran's direction.

There was more anger than planning in the throw, but even still, Arya had the presence of mind to angle it so that the stone wouldn't hit her brother but instead land with a thud at his feet. Bran's reaction was just as instantaneous she had hoped, with the boy immediately raising his head in surprise to the sudden sound. His direwolf did much the same, the beast's ears standing tall at attention.

"Oh, stop it," She finally snapped at him, her voice more scathing than she had intended. "Why are you sulking so much? It's not like we stopped you from doing something important or anything."

Bran squished up his face. "I only wanted to climb," he mumbled under his breath. "I still don't see why I can't. I already said that I didn't want to play any of your stupid games. I don't see why you girls can't just leave me alone?"

Arya clapped her lips together, forming a hard line. Of course, he'd just go on whining some more, she thought darkly. Why did she ever think otherwise?

In the back of mind, Arya tried to remember that Bran was still her baby brother, that he was no better than Rickon really, even if she was only a year older than him. She knew that meant that sometimes baby brothers could be stupid and trying, but even knowing that it was hard to not to be frustrated with him now.

Arya's retort was on the tip of her tongue, ready to be unfurled when she finally noticed that Sansa had fully risen from her spot and had quietly moved to her side. Her older sister quickly put a hand to her shoulder, stopping her before she could say something she'd come to regret later.

"Because Mother doesn't want you too," Sansa answered Bran matter-of-factly. She left her sister's side and casually walked up to their brother at the heart tree, giving Arya a quick sideways glance as she did that made the younger Stark girl turn an embarrassing shade of red.

When she got to Bran, she bent down slightly so that her eyes were level to his. "There are better things to do than climb around like a squirrel all day, you know. Like spending time with your sisters right here and now."

Bran looked just unconvinced as he had when they first arrived and Arya quickly spied the brewing rebuttal on her brother's face. "But Father—"

"But nothing," Sansa declared firmly, cutting him off with those two words and a quick wave of her hand. Looking at her then, with her auburn hair long and shining again, Arya couldn't help but be reminded of their mother. Not sure whether her sister would think that a compliment or a rebuke, Arya kept the thought to herself.

Despite his sister's words, Bran just squished up his face again and mumbled something under his breath that Arya couldn't quite make out. Given how her sister pinched her nose and sighed, though, it seemed more likely than not that Bran had just said more of the same.

Sansa shook her head miserably. "I should have done this before," she lamented with bitterness so affected that might as well have been a line from a mummer's play to Arya's ears. "I thought you'd come around eventually, but it seems I'm going to have to take matters into my own hands, dear brother."

Bran tilted his head to one side, obviously confused to her meaning. That's right, Arya realized, giggling softly to herself even as she covered her mouth as to not give the game away. She's never done it to Bran before.

Before Bran could even ask what she meant, Sansa had already lightly pushed him off his stump, sending him tumbling to the soft, mossy dirt of the godwood floor.

In a flash, Bran's direwolf was standing at attention, its yellow eyes fixed firmly on Sansa. For half a second Arya feared that the beast would bare its teeth and snarl or even a make a lunge in Bran's defense, but in the end, it did neither.

The grey wolf continued to gaze at the elder Stark for a few more passing seconds before finally looking towards its fallen master who was just in the process of getting back up. When it saw that Bran was fine it just went right back to resting as if nothing had happened at all.

"You pushed me!" Bran accused Sansa incredulously, still shocked that she had done it.

Sansa put a hand to her chin and made a parody of being aghast at herself. "By the Gods, I think you're right," she said, before adding in a lower tone, "I could have been worst, though, trust me."

Not sure of what to make of that Bran went back to arguing. "It wasn't fair," he shot back, wiping away the dirt on one his pant legs as he did. "You didn't warn me or anything."

"Well, now you know," she answered flippantly, shrugging. "Now. What are you going to do about it?" She asked, a knowing grin on her lips.

Bran must have finally gotten the hint because his grimace slowly began to turn upward, his eyes lighting up in turn. "Get you back for it."

Sansa made a show of looking unimpressed, rolling her eyes and snorting. "Words are wind, little brother. If you can catch me, catch me. Don't just sit around talking about it."

That finally did it. Bran saw the challenge there and took to it without another word. In a flash, he swiftly reached out with his right hand to catch his sister only to find himself grabbing at the air as Sansa deftly avoid him by inches. Turning on her heel to make her escape, she blasted off into the thickness of the godswood, filling the woods with her uproarious laughter as she did.

Undaunted, Bran made a dash for her, swearing up and down and again and again that he would catch her in due time as he moved in pursuit. Not wanting to be left out, Arya made a proclamation of her own. "I'm playing too!" She shrieked, before breaking into a run herself as she tried to keep pace with her siblings.

They didn't plan on it, but by the time they ringed the godswood twice over, Arya found herself helping Bran in his hunt rather than competing with him. Sansa didn't seem to mind, though, and encouraged them between bouts of laughing as they tried and failed to get her.

Eventually, though, teamwork won the day when the pair, at last, managed to chase their sister to a corner of the godwood that's ironwoods were so packed together that it was impossible to go down the path before them any further. Without a word spoken between them, Bran took the right, whilst Arya took the left of that narrowing corridor. Together they flanked their sister and jointly tagged her before Sansa could even try to double back and escape them.

Their game at an end, all three collapsed to the godwood floor, too exhausted to move, but with smiles on their faces, nevertheless. None of them said a thing for a while, their lungs too tired to do anything more than make low, hungry gasps for air.

Arya looked up into the sky. Morning was giving way to noon and she could feel the sun's rays warm her face. She saw the green canopy of ironwood leaves around her, too. Looking at it all she realized that she never wanted to leave that spot or that moment. Again the ghost of tears started to well up in her eyes. This time she let them fall shamelessly.

Bran heard the sniffing first. He raised his head to search for their source, quickly finding his sister's stained face.

"Arya?" He called to her, his face puzzled. "What's wrong? I thought we were having fun? Are you still mad about before?"

"That's not why, Bran," Sansa answered thoughtfully.

Arya saw the pitying look on her sister's face and suddenly wanted to do nothing more than run away from her and Bran. "It's nothing," she lied, trying to clean her face as she did. "Nothing's wrong with me."

Sansa wasn't convinced, and neither was even Bran for that matter. The two kept staring at her and at that moment Arya had to fight the urge not to roll over and die right then and there.

"It's all right to be sad about leaving home, Arya," her sister said kindly, her voice filled with warm empathy. Her sister was rarely mingy, at least to her anyway, but it was queer to hear her sound like that. It reminded her Mother again.

"You're not the only one, you know," Sansa went on, throwing a finger Bran's way. "Bran cried too when he tried to say goodbye to Hodor."

The lordling looked as if Sansa had just caught him stealing tarts from the kitchens. "How did you know?" He demanded, surprised and blushing.

"It's a seeeeeecret," Sansa japed, making one of her mischievous smiles before growing serious again. "It doesn't really matter, Bran. Honest. It's natural to feel gloom when you're leaving home for the first time. That goes for all us."

"Even you?" Arya dared to ask.

The question came out doubtful. Arya bit the inside of her cheek in repentance, but she would not take it back. She couldn't. It had been gnawing at her since Mother told her that they were all to go to the south with Father and the fat king's family. That was bad enough, leaving Winterfell and the North for some stupid southron castle that she'd never seen before, but since then she had seen her sister constantly in the company the king's ever smiling, golden prince, so much so that she was surprised that her sister had even come up with this day together in the godswood.

Arya didn't know what to think of that. She still didn't in truth. Originally, she thought her sister hated the prince. She had told her that she didn't want to marry him, after all. That meant she hated him didn't? Arya wasn't so sure anymore, and that nearly scared her more than leaving Jon and the only home she has ever known. Going south might not have been so bad if her sister was with her. But if she meant to spent all her time with the prince what was left for her? Father? Bran? One had his duties, while the other seemed intent to squire for some famous knight.

Sansa watched her curiously, searching her face for something that Arya hoped she'd never find.

"What would make you ask a question like that?" She asked, more puzzled than anything else. "Of course, that includes me. Why would it not?"

Arya kept her eyes low. She searched for the right words to say that would explain how she felt but none seemed forthcoming. In the end, though, it turned out to be a wasted effort.

"Theon says you're in love with him," Bran cut in. He said the words so innocently that they came across as more a question than an accusation. "That you're lovesick, and that's why you disappear with him all the time." The boy furrowed his brow. "That's not true, is it?"

Sansa looked at the pair of them as if they had gone mad before putting a hand to her harried face.

"Bugger me," she swore aloud, half-serious with indignation. "I'm going to strangle that damn squid before we leave, mark my words."

The curse got a gasp out of a Bran, but a warm giggle out of Arya. Her sister was rarely one for tact or delicacy when it came to her words, and it felt good to hear speak so honestly again. Its presence had been too long gone in her mind.

Her tears forgotten at that moment, Arya found her courage again and asked the lingering question once and for all. "So, it's not true, then? About you and the prince?"

Sansa wrinkled up her nose as if she had just smelled something foul in the air. "Our dear ward Theon is cursed with an overindulgent imagination, sister. It makes him see things that aren't there and twist what is to suit his vulgar fantasies."

Her sister sighed deeply. "He's a being a nosy gossip," she continued philosophically, whatever anger she felt a moment ago replaced with dry exasperation. "We'll deal with more of the same once we're in the south, and I doubt they will be as harmless as Theon. Words are wind, to be sure, but they can cut deeply if told in the wrong ear."

The whole world seemed to go quiet then as if some dark truth had just been spoken. The south always seemed an altogether different world in Arya's mind. A distant realm was so separate from her home in the North that it might as well have been Essos or any of the queer kingdoms that lay beyond the Free Cities.

The thought brought a memory to the front of the Stark girl's mind. She remembered how her mother had tried to tell her through a sad, brittle smile that everything would be all right. That, though, the Red Keep and all its strange new people and sights would at first be frightening and difficult to accept that eventually, she'd come to see the capital as a second home just as she had when she came to Winterfell with Father and a baby Robb at her breast.

A small part of Arya wanted to believe that. It was a comforting thought, after all, to think that though change would come it would not be so terrible, despite all her growing fears.

Her sister seemed determined to dispel that hope, faint as it was.

"We need to stay together," Sansa said suddenly, breaking the silence. She stood back up to her feet with a frantic energy that strangely put Arya on edge. She and Bran rose up as well.

Sansa looked at them with a dire expression on her face. "When we go south it will just be us, Father, Jeyne and a few of the guard," she began, her voice taut. "We can't trust anyone else there. Not the king, not the queen, nor anyone at court, not even…," she paused, trailing off for the briefest of seconds as some invisible battle played out her mind. "The prince and his siblings," she finally finished. "No one. Do both of you understand?"

Arya blinked at the question. She did not. Not truly anyways. She was fairly sure that Bran didn't either, but nevertheless, they both bobbed their heads in false understanding.

Their sister made a sigh of relief, blind to the uncertainty in her siblings' eyes. "Father doesn't know how dangerous it is there, which is why he'll need us… I'm sure of it."

She knelt down to their height and delicately put a hand to one of their respective shoulders. Her face was now so close to theirs that Arya could see the urgent gleam in her sister's blue Tully eyes. It was a look both familiar and foreign to her, and they almost made Arya squirm.

"Promise me, right here in the godswood, that when we arrive in the Red Keep that you'll look out for anything that seems wrong or might be a danger to Father. Promise me that if you do that you'll tell me first and no one else."

Doubt began to creep into Arya's mind then. Maybe their right, she worried despite herself. Maybe Sansa was mad like the villain queens in all the tales and songs? Seeing treachery and liars everywhere.

Arya brushed the fear aside. It wasn't true. Her sister was strange and different, just as she was. There was nothing wrong or mad about that, she told herself. Nothing at all.

"I promise," Arya pledged with more certainty then she felt.

Confused and not sure what to do, Bran quickly did the same. "I promise."

With their oaths made, Sansa released their shoulders and stood up, a smile now plastered on her face.

"Good, good," she repeated, though it seemed to Arya that words were more for herself than them. "I knew both of you would understand. That you would see the need."

Sansa stared off for a moment, apparently lost to her own thoughts as her brother and sister stood there in the godswood waiting for her to say something, anything, that would explain everything she had just said and asked of them.

After what felt like an eternity their sister's focus returned and fell upon an anxious Bran.

"Oh, and Bran," she said, her voice a mix of warm concern and icy warning that rooted her brother to the ground.

"Yes?" he asked hesitantly.

"You won't climb the walls of the Red Keep either will you." It was not a question.

The young boy quickly shook his head.

And with that, Sansa smiled brightly and tagged him once again, restarting their chase as if nothing of importance had been said between now and their last one.

As Sansa ran off into the distance Bran looked to Arya with a dumbstruck expression of his face. Arya couldn't blame him for wearing it, though, as she surely had the same look on her own.

Not knowing what to say to him Arya did the only thing at that moment that seemed normal.

"Come on," she said, readying herself for the renewed chase. "We need to catch her again." And so, they went, two confused children, breaking into a sprint as they followed their sister on the twisted path before them.

Author's Notes - Remember in the last chapter where I said that I couldn't make any promises about the next chapter being soonish? Well, sorry about that. Again. I knew this work wasn't going to be coming out on a regular basis, but I didn't imagine that it would take me so long to get them out. Once again, I apologize for the lateness and I hope that this chapter makes up for it.

Advice, criticism, and reviews are always welcome.

Peace.