Back To Winterfell || Arya Stark

The Road Home

Arya felt the cold coarse air on her face and breathed deeply. This was home. She thought. She looked down at the boy trudging along beside her. For once, she felt tall. He had not spoken since they left, he had not complained or asked her anything. He had only occasionally glanced up at her and she had pretended not to notice.
     She would not have minded the silence if she was on her own. But silence in the company of someone else felt somehow wrong. So she piped up the question she had been wondering for a while now,
     "Who are you?" The boy lifted his head from his feet and looked out.
     "No one of consequence." There it was again. That strange voice that sounded as if he could have been Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and didn't know.
     "What's your name?" She asked, hoping to get something out of him. The boy was quiet for a bit.
     "Jaek." He said. "Just...just Jaek." His voice trailed off. There was a long pause again.
     "You haven't asked me my name." Arya said, trying to understand him, but even using all that she had learnt from the faceless men back in Braavos, she couldn't understand him.
     "I don't need to." Jaek said, turning to face her.
     "What, you think you know who I am?" Arya said, stunned by the answer.
     "You're no one."
He said it with such an air of authority. Arya tensed. How could he know? "No one to me, anyway." He said again. She relaxed. She cursed herself silently for thinking he could ever know. She could have given something away. "But to other people..." he started again, and she wondered what he might say. "You're Arya Stark."
     THAT'S IT. She thought, and pulled the horse to a stop. He stopped and turned to look at her. His face was calm and still, except for his eyes, which were glinting with excitement.
     "What makes you think that?"
     "Earlier, when you asked me why I thought you might be going to Winterfell, I said that Jon Snow would be there. He's a bastard, so why would you care about him unless you're family? Also, the youngest Stark daughter is still missing but from what I had heard, not dead. So there you were at the crossroads, wondering whether to go back."
     Arya was so taken aback she didn't quite know what to think or say. How had she been so careless as to let that slip past her. He was clever, she would give him that.
     "Is that why you were staring at me? Actually."
     "Yes." He replied calmly, "And that question I wanted to ask you, I was going to ask you your name, but decided you might stab me then and there, so I thought I would wait till an appropriate moment...Such as this." He gazed at Arya, and she caught his gaze. She looked away hurriedly and angrily.
     "Come on." She said quietly, regaining her composure, "It's a long road home."