ᴡɪɴᴛᴇʀ ʟɪᴠᴇs ɪɴ ᴍʏ ʙᴏɴᴇs

[wolfchild]

[ She stumbles into snow. The cold slices into her. Soaked, filthy, with travel-stained clothes turned almost to rags on her skinny frame and matted, tangled hair only just growing out again, she looks little like a girl, much less like the missing younger Stark daughter.

She sniffles and wipes her nose with the back of her hand. Her face is uncomfortably hot yet she's freezing. Her shivering near knocks her off her feet as she clambers up the steps. ]

My mother…

[ Arya feels her eyes fill with tears. She was going to find her mother and her brother. She was almost home. It wasn't fair. ]

Comments

[wolfchild]

I remember. It's autumn now. It'll start snowing soon.

[secondchances]

You'll have to wait to see that first snowfall, looks like. We're still covered in snow, here. Obviously.

[Up a tower they go.]

Let me know if any of this sparks your memory.

[wolfchild]

Aren't all the rooms the same? They'll all have a bath.

[ She opens the first door without a name they reach. ]

[secondchances]

That works, too.

[The "default" rooms make her tense, after finding so many rooms of people she knew set back to this without warning, but she swallows it down and steps around Arya to head to the bathroom. She leans over the tub to turn on the faucet.]

[wolfchild]

[ Having grown up with servants to bathe her and forced to spend company with men without privacy, Arya stopped feeling self-conscious long ago. Without waiting for Steph to leave, she takes off her shoes and strips off her shirt. Her feet are hard with callus, a reminder of being made to walk shoeless through the countryside. The skin of her arms and her shoulders is only occasionally broken by slender, faint scars, but her lower back bears long, horizontal lines that continue under her breeches from one of many beatings. ]

[secondchances]

[Steph was about to turn and offer to give her some privacy, but there goes that. She makes herself look busy setting soap and a washcloth on the edge of the tub, but she sees those scars. The signs of a beating aren't specific to one world. Again, she feels herself ready to seethe.

However, she keeps her anger and her questions to herself, instead touching the water to check its temperature.]

Nice and warm. You can get in.

[wolfchild]

Thank you.

[ She drops all her discarded clothes in a sodden pile on the floor and steps in the tub. ]

[secondchances]

You're welcome. It alright if I stay?

[wolfchild]

[ A shrug as she sits in the tub. ]

I don't care.

[ Clearly she's not going to be left alone so whatevs. ]

[secondchances]

[Steph sits on the floor, arms resting on the edge of the tub.]

Then I'll stay. My time is better spent here, anyway.

[wolfchild]

[ Sticking her head under the spray. ] Why?

[secondchances]

It's either spend time with you, or run errands. Obviously, you're the much better choice. The circumstances could be better, but... well. They'll get better.

[In other words: things will get better, whatever the hell happened.]

[wolfchild]

You won't get a reward.

[ It's a cautious warning. She doesn't think Steph is after money—she couldn't know what Arya was worth, could she?—but it bears stating. She has nothing and no family to be ransomed to. ]

[secondchances]

I'm not looking for a reward.

[Her eyebrows are up.]

This--isn't like that.

[wolfchild]

[ For some reason, the response makes her feel bad. Grabbing the soap, she starts cleaning off weeks of grime. She keeps her eyes on the water swirling dirty around her. ]

[secondchances]

You just looked like you could use someone, in that moment.

[wolfchild]

I don't. I'm fine on my own. If I hadn't been with others, I wouldn't have been caught.

[ It was all Gendry and Hot Pie's fault. But she was the one to drag them out with her. She didn't want to go alone so she made them come. And then they left her. She thought them her pack, but they weren't really. She was left utterly alone and when the castle tired of her here it'd send her back to the dogs.

She scrubs harder at her skin. ]

[secondchances]

Caught by who?

[wolfchild]

You won't know of them. You wouldn't want to.

[secondchances]

Doesn't seem like it.

For what it's worth, I'm sorry about whatever it is that's going on with you. [She's not expecting much from that comment, Damian never took sympathy well, even at his breaking point.] You look like a tough girl, so I'm sure you'll find your way through it.

[wolfchild]

[ It reminds her of what Lady Smallwood told her before she left. It'd have been better if she'd stayed with her at Acorn Hall. Arya only nods and keeps washing. When the water runs mostly clear, she shuts it off. ]

Where's the— [ She looks for a towel. ]

[secondchances]

Towel. [She gets up to grab one, holding it open so Arya can step into it, if she wants. Steph's pretty sure she can wrap it around her like three times, at least.]

[wolfchild]

[ Considering she weighs 90 lbs wet, probably. Arya stands still so Steph can wrap it around her. She bites on her lip as she waits. ]

[secondchances]

[Steph wraps it around her.]

There we go.

[wolfchild]

Are there always clothes in the rooms?