Chapter Text
“I’ve always wanted to be as good of a Marksman as you are,” Bran says as he watched his sister practice her long-range shots. it was mid-day and there was no sun in Winterfell, but the winds were soothing as they swept over the castle's walls.
“You have something better than a Marksman’s eye,” Arya replied thoughtfully, yet she still couldn’t fully understand the extent of his power.
“All gifts come with a price,” was Bran’s truthful answer.
A sad smile graced her lips as Arya nodded in understanding. I paid my price, she thought as she sent another arrow flying at the unfortunate target it would hit in just a few seconds. She renounced her family, her heritage and her responsibilities for years - and it cost the people she loved the most. Her father always told her that a family should remain together and yet she did the exact opposite, just as he did for his friend Robert.
In the winter we must protect ourselves, look after one another.
Arya would always blame herself for leaving them, for leaving Sansa, just like she’d always blame herself for Mycha’s death. Though that was years ago and so far in her memory that the young girl could have sworn all of it had happened in another life, in another place.
Bran broke Arya out of her thoughts as he asked: “Do you think you could hit that barrel?” He lifted a gloved finger and pointed at a wooden barrel about 60 yards from his position. The cask had probably been used to house wine but had since been discarded next to old broken broomsticks and empty grain bags. The winds had blown quite a bit of snow on top of it, but the familiar shape remained easily distinguishable even from that distance.
Arya trained her eyes on her new target before she drew the bow and let the arrow go quickly. It hit the barrel with swift force and plunged a few inches into its hollow carcass. She turned back to her brother, a smirk on her face, and was met with a similar one on his. “Even you knew that was way too easy.”
“Perhaps,” he chuckled and spotted a stack of hay bales used to feed the horses, though it was placed far away from the livestock. “Hay bales, over there,” he pointed at the object that was just about 100 feet away from Arya.
Bran watched as his sister rolled her shoulders, evaluated the distance for a moment as she slid the arrow against her thumb. She placed her right foot behind her, lifted both arms up in front of her and drew the bowstring as she did so. Not a second passed and the arrow was airborne and headed towards its intended target.
Once the arrow had reached its destination, Arya turned towards Bran with another smirk. The cold filled her lungs once more, and though she was sober this time, it felt just as great as the night she had spent outside admiring the night’s sky with her sister. They even got into a drunken snowball fight where even Arya had trouble hitting Sansa who had been just a few feet away from her. They had woken up with throbbing headaches but genuine smiles graced their faces throughout the whole day. “Is there anything else you wish me to poke holes through, brother?”
Bran noticed the looks they had been getting for the past few minutes, and though no one was willing to say anything he knew that the passerby and the guards weren’t exactly enjoying that arrows were flying around everywhere around people. Even if Arya was an incredible shot, there was always room for error. “I’m not certain that the guards are enjoying our little game.”
Arya shrugged in her usual nonchalant manner as she grabbed another arrow and readied herself once again. “They’re our guards as well, what are they going to do?”
He couldn’t come up with a single answer, so adopting his sister’s nonchalant attitude, Bran spotted the perfect target. “Sansa’s window shutter, up there. Third on the left.”
Arya had shaken her head from side to side slowly, knowing the string of curses that would be yelled at her soon enough, but she couldn’t resist the opportunity to irritate her sister. The window was at least 200 yards out from what she could tell and the winds were pretty horrid, for an arrow at least. She would still make the shot.
Bran noticed that this time Arya paused longer as she aimed, and it paid off in the end. He locked eyes with his sister when she turned around, almost amazed she made the shot herself, and for a moment they were both nervous as they waited, the suspense killing them - though not as literally as Sansa would.
“ARYA!” Sansa’s yell cut through the blowing winds and echoed around the castle’s courtyard.
The marksman dropped the bow and ran behind Bran, pushing his chair with all her might, though she didn’t possess the strength to lift him up the stairs, which caused them to be easily intercepted by the guardsmen.
Arya couldn’t remember the last time she heard Bran laugh so carefree, she decided she wanted to hear more of it - he deserved it after all.
Sansa walked through the grey walls of her family’s castle, and though the way was illuminated by candleglow, it didn’t make it any easier to travel through the numerous dark corridors. Petyr insisted on escorting her to her sister’s bedchambers, even if there was a guard posted in nearly every entryway. She barely paid mind to what he was saying, something about wanting the Veil Knights to travel south to King’s landing. She only addressed him to reply with a firm no and that they will instead travel to Riverrun along with a few of Winterfell’s guards and claim it for House Stark.
She was aware of his scheme, she could smell it from a mile away. The unsullied were on Cersei’s doorstep, and so was the rest of Daenerys’ army - one wrong step and it’s an all-out war. Petyr was always big on letting others fight his own wars and she wasn’t going to trick her into fighting his. She had no claim to the throne, not unless both Lannister twins would die and her marriage to the imp was somehow legitimized. Even then, she had no desire to sit on the Iron Throne - her place was in Winterfell with her family.
Sansa stopped a few doors down to Arya’s room and turned towards Petyr, cutting him mid sentence. “Wait here,” she glanced at the guard who nodded at her as she continued down the corridor a few paces and entered her sister’s bedchamber without knocking. She closed the heavy wooden door behind her and turned around, her mouth almost hit the floor at what she saw. “Oh, Gods, what in the-”
Arya lay on her bed, on her stomach, the large fur blanket had been pushed down her to her ass and left her back completely bare. A woman, who Sansa guessed was not a noble born, sat on Arya’s ass and was massaging her sister’s back and shoulders.
“Why yes, you can come in Lady Stark,” Arya’s muffled voice was highly sarcastic, but relaxed.
“You could have said something, Arya!” Sansa shrieked, shielding her eyes behind one hand.
"You could have knocked," Arya laughed.
“M’lady,” the woman greeted Sansa with an unabashed smile as she continued to work the pesky knots in Arya’s left shoulder blade.
“It’s for my sore muscles, from training,” Arya explained, and wondered why she needed to justify her actions at all. She couldn’t help a laugh escape her when she tried to make contact with Sansa’s eyes, but they wholeheartedly refused and instead, they frantically darted anywhere else but her own.
Arya had started getting massages for her sore muscles back in Braavos. There was no real practitioner of this heavily criticized form of medicine that she knew of, though she had heard of stories that would usually deter anyone away from it. Though Arya wasn't just anyone, and she had quickly realized that the only place where she could find someone who would at least consider doing this for her on a daily basis, was at a brothel. At first, her request was met with laughter but she dropped a bag of coin in one of the ‘workers’ lap and the rest was history.
This particular woman who had taken a comfortable seat on her backside, Nalia her name was, had done this for her since she arrived in Winterfell a fortnight ago. For the first time, her request wasn’t met with laughter, Nalia had acquiesced to her request without hesitation.
Being a lady isn’t so bad, Arya had thought with a grin. She hadn’t practiced archery in years and her left shoulder blade was killing her from shooting so many in a day, but Bran loved to watch her and she could always use more practice.
Nothing more had come from these encounters, but Sansa didn’t know that and the furious blush on her face was enough to make Arya decide to have a little fun with it. “And it helps me relax ,” she closed her eyes as Nalia dug her fingers into the painfully tight knot in her shoulder blade and groaned a little louder than necessary.
Arya heard a chuckle and she knew Nalia had caught on - she may not have been born into a particularly wealthy family but she was a smart lady nonetheless.
“I really don’t think I need to know what ‘relaxes’ my sister,” Sansa replied, still slightly agitated. She wondered what it was like in Winterfell before Arya got here, and though the words peaceful and normal came to mind, though boring was not far behind.
“So, what is it then?”
“I need to speak with you,” Sansa’s frustrated sigh was met with a raised eyebrow and she wondered if Arya was doing this on purpose. She also really wished that Arya would stop making those sounds. All of this was highly inappropriate and she was running out of things to look at. “This is a private matter,” Sansa pressed on, her glare now firmly planted on Arya’s oddly relaxed frown.
“Of course, m’lady,” Nalia stood up and pulled the covers up to cover Arya’s back.
“Bran wants to speak with us,” Sansa’s eyes followed the woman until she was out of the room. She blew out a breath she didn’t know she was holding when the door closed behind them and then turned to her sister, who had begun dressing. Sansa caught a glimpse of the angry scars on Arya’s stomach before she turned away to give her some privacy. “He says it’s important.”
Sansa wasn’t aware, nor would she ask, what kind of relationship her sister had with this woman, yet it didn’t sit right with her. Perhaps because she felt the need to protect her younger sibling from anyone older than her, but then again she shouldn’t have been surprised that Arya would do something so unladylike.
Sansa wouldn’t admit this out loud, but her relationship with Lord Baelish could easily be viewed the same way, and it was - though she was far more wary of him now than the time she had spent with him in the Eryie. She would never let him manipulate her the way he did, his unwanted affection seemed useful only because he had power over the Knights of the Veil and Winterfell desperately needed allies.
At least that was what she let herself believe, for now.
Once Arya had dressed the pair made their way through the castle accompanied solely by the sound of their boots hitting the ground and the clinking of Arya’s sword holster. Sansa had only spoken to send Petyr away without giving him anything to suspect. He had departed with a courteous bow to them both, to which Arya replied with a scoff. It took a great deal of willpower for Sansa not to laugh at the look on his face before he turned and left.
The Stark sister’s shared a smile before they made their way outside and met up with Bran in the Godswood.
“Sisters, there is something I must share with you both.” He announced gravely, “Lord Baelish is an enemy to the House Stark.” He had seen the outcome of his betrayal for both past and present events and he knew that if he didn’t warn his siblings, Petyr would attempt to divide them.
Bran knew the kind of deal Lord Baelish had silently made with him as he gave him the catspaw dagger and he hadn't agreed to it. He had let his father get executed and Bran couldn’t find a sole reason to pardon this betrayal. His only hope is that his sisters would see eye to eye with him.
“What a surprise,” Arya threw in sarcastically.
Sansa, worried by what her brother had seen in his visions, asked him: “What do you mean?”
"That dagger I gave Arya is the dagger that was meant to assassinate me when I was sleeping after my fall. He told mother it belonged to Tyrion Lannister when it was his all along.”
"Petyr wanted you dead?" Arya asked with a frown, "why?"
"He didn't, but Kin Joffrey did at the time and Petyr gladly helped him do it." Bran turned his saddened gaze on his older siblings face. He could see the anguish she hid so well behind her eyes and it killed it to stare into it every single day. “But that’s not all he did, isn’t it?”
“He murdered our aunt and-and he sold me to an awful man who raped me every night I was with him,” Sansa’s voice shook as she let her eyes roam over to the tree’s blood red leaves - it was the first time she admitted it to them even though she was sure both Bran and Arya had already figured it out from what she had previously said.
Sansa felt the leather of gloves brush against her cold hands and then slowly intertwined with her own. Sansa stared down at Arya, who kept looking at Brann though she wasn’t seeing him - all she was seeing was red. Sansa squeezed her sister's hand and she received a gentle one in return.
“He’s to blame for father’s execution,” Arya spoke, though she was mostly thinking out loud. Her mind had already killed him at least a hundred times by now. She couldn't wait to see his blood spill out in front of her and though the thought scared her, she couldn't worry about that right now.
The three of them remained silent for a long while, the siblings seething in mournful rage - some more than others.
Sansa broke their long silence, effectively bringing everyone back from their own inner turmoil. “Can we sentence a man to die without proof, with just words?” Would Jon’s supporters agree with them? Would the Veil still pledge to House Stark after Petyr is executed? Sansa was far more worried about the outcomes of this political kill, and yet a part of her was afraid to let him die. How would she feel? He had been her mentor for years, though her had betrayed her, and her family, numerous times. She knew what must be done, but she felt she wasn’t strong enough to carry it out alone.
“Whether we bring him to trial or not,” Bran turned his gaze to Sansa, “ultimately you will sentence him to death,” he moved his eyes onto Arya’s brown ones, “and Arya will kill him with the dagger with or without a trial.”
“Then it shall be done.” Sansa left them both without speaking another word.
Even if her brother and sister would help her carry out Petyr’s sentence, she felt she was all alone to feel the conflicting emotions she couldn’t quite describe. She had no qualms about letting Ramsey’s hounds eat him, and perhaps she should view Petyr’s execution the same way. He hurt her, beyond words, and had cause a world of grief to her family - if he let him live, she would still be the weak, naive young girl she once was.
Jon placed her in charge of Winterfell and that meant protecting her House from anyone would would wish or cause harm to her and her siblings. She needed to carry out this sentence not only for herself but for the North just as well.
The Others take him wherever they may, he will harm the Starks no longer.
Her gift came with a price too.