Winter Is Our Fury

Chapter Seventy Six: What About The North?

"Looking healthy." Maester Wolkon examined Aris' round belly. "Seems fully matured, could be due in days time, I shall start preparing the birthing chamber right away and it would be wise to have men watching you incase of emergency." instructed the Maester.

"I'll see to it." replied Aris. The moment Aris awoke from a short rest, Sansa saw to it that she see saw the Maester.

"These pains will become more frequent closer to the time, and judging by the size of your belly, it's rather a little too large to be a girl." he emphasised. "But, we may not know for certain."

Aris nodded in understandment. "Almost perfect timing."

"I couldn't agree more." Maester Wolkon pushed a weak smile. "Now, I don't want to worry you, there can be complications during child birth. The midwives will be there to comfort you all the way and teach you on raising a baby."

"Thank you, Maester."

"I'll also inform Jon and Lady Sansa of these preparations. You are free to leave, my lady."

After redressing herself and Aris left the Maester's chamber, she wondered outside. All day Gendry was on her mind and she promised she'd return to see him. He was hard at work in the forges sweating from the steam and covered in dirt and remnants of dragonglass.

"Your sister is scary." informed Gendry loading a bucket of dragonglass into a pot to melt down.

"Which one?" smiled Aris sitting in a stool and watched him run around the tables.

"Arya. She was here not long ago."

"Oh, yes. I know what she is."

"You mean unusually skilled with throwing knives?" Gendry heaved the pot over the raging fire. "Then again, so where you." he then took to a paper Arya had given him. The design for her weapon. "She also said you went to bed smiling and she asked about us."

They shared affectionate kisses last night. Of course Aris went to bed smiling. "Us?"

"I didn't know what to say." he said shyly and took to sharpening newly made arrow heads. "Is there an us?"

"Do you want to raise a baby?"

Gendry slowed his work deep in thought and it made Aris nervous. "I don't know the first thing about babies." he said. "But you're a lady and I'm just a bastard son of a king."

"Randyl is a bastard too."

"Who? Is that what you're naming the baby?"

"No." laughed Aris. "The other boy I've taken in. I met him not long after we left the Brotherhood. It's a long story I'll have to tell another day... if we live."

"Right." Gendry nodded slightly confused and resumed his work. Aris found herself staring at Gendry while he sharpened arrow heads and checked the pot melting over the fire before pouring the contents into a mould. "What?" he noticed her staring.

"Nothing." she shrugged enjoying the moment. 

"Lady Aris." Randyl came wondering into the forges. "Maester Wolkon asked for me to fetch you. He says someone important is here."

"Did he say who?" asked Aris and Randyl shook his head eyeing the man working with the dragonglass.

"Who's he?" he asked softly.

"Gendry, this is Randyl." she introduced the two.

"Oh, I've heard about you." said Randyl eyeing the man up and down.

"And I've heard about you." Gendry took to the same eyeing technique surprised that a young boy would be so firey.

"Get along." Aris poked Randyl's side as she rose from the stool. "I'll find the Maester." and with that said she left the forges. Randyl stayed staring at Gendry and Gendry staring at Randyl.

"What are you lookin' at?" Gendry finally asked. This boy had the same attitude Aris did when they first met.

"Hurt her and I'll hurt you."

"What could a little boy like you do to me?"

"I can shoot you. Or stab you. I can use weapons."

Gendry nodded. "You might not be blood, but you remind me a lot of her."

"How?"

"Always shooting things and stabbing people. She nearly shot me several times when we first met." Gendry pursed his lips and tried to resume his work but the boy kept staring at him. "What?!" and the boy shrugged finally tearing his eyes away. Gender shook his head with a sigh and pulled the freshly made sword from it's mold and set it into the fire to heat up.

"So, what are you to Aris?" Randyl asked sitting in the stool Aris was moment ago.

Gender shrugged. "Don't know yet." and he took the heated sword from the fire and began to hammer it into shape over the anvil.

"How did you two met?" the boy curiously asked.

In the meantime, Aris headed back into the hall to find a cluster of Greyjoy men who parted ways for her. She furrowed her eyebrows confused. She wasn't expecting the Greyjoy's.

"Aris." Theon greeted from the cluster of Greyjoy men.

"Theon?" Aris circled him to stand before Theon and his men. He wasn't the broken man she last saw with Ramsay. He stood before her well groomed and in Greyjoy armour. Seemed like he pieced his broken pieces back together. "What are you doing back?"

"I..." he trailed off. He hadn't managed to piece back every piece as of yet. "I wanted to apologise."

"For what?"

"Everything."

"Theon, you helped Sansa escaped and if it weren't for you she might never had gotten help."

Theon clenched his jaw staring down at her swollen belly and he sucked in a shaky breath. "But I left you behind with Ramsay... look what he did to you. I'm so sorry."

"I was pregnant before that, Theon, there was nothing you could have done."

Several footsteps approached and Aris turned to see Daenerys and Sansa who entered the hall and Sansa froze in her path. Daenerys merely looked confused upon the Greyjoy men wondering why they were here.

Theon came forward and knelt before Daenerys. "My queen." and it came as a surprise that Theon already knew Daenerys.

"Your sister?" she asked.

"She only has a few ships and she couldn't sail them here. So, she's sailing to the Iron Islands instead to take them back in your name." explained Theon.

"But why aren't you with her?"

Theon looked to Sansa and Aris. "I want to fight for Winterfell, Lady Sansa, Lady Aris. If you'll have me."

Without hesitation Sansa leaped forward into Theon's arms with tears in her eyes and embraced him in a tight hug. Her answer was clear enough. So if Sansa would welcome Theon back, so would Aris. Only, she was unaware of the conversation held between Sansa and Daenerys concerning the North.