Chapter Text
Starfall was uncannily similar to Braavos.
With a wet humidity to the air, the Cat felt more at home there than should have been possible, the towering sandstone fortress casting shadows just as easily as the Titan, the Palestone Tower living up to its name. Though there weren’t canals, the island that House Dayne called their home was surrounded by a veritable fleet of rafts, barges and dinghies, all tied to a veritable maze of floating buoys across the Torentine.
But while stalking the streets of the island town, instead of the aptly-named Drifting Village, which was made up of true dwellings and tall, vaulted markets whitewashed to match their liege’s pale castle, Cat could observe the comings and goings of the noblemen. She did this for a time, before finally borrowing the face of a young Dornish boy from Starfall’s kitchens and sneaking into the lord’s solar, which the regent, Lady Allyria Dayne, eventually came to inhabit alongside her chosen steward and their guards.
Much like a squire Cat used to know, the Lady Allyria was round-faced and charmingly delicate, only a few years her senior in age. Unlike young Edric “Ned” Dayne, Allyria’s nephew, she had inherited the traditional Dornish colouring, sun-dark and golden in a way Cat’s Northern tan wasn’t.
It was a good thing, Cat decided, for didn’t know what her thoughts would have been, had Allyria been pale-haired and violet-eyed like the Mother of Dragons. Ned had been a noted albino—though Cat hadn’t known it in the time they met—and seeing Daenerys in someone she hoped to call family, however faintly, would have set a bitter tone to her new beginning.
Once more wearing the face of Arya Stark, the Cat considered the ruse to come, the two Dornish startling at the sight of her. Capitulating with a great many of their ensuing demands, Cat swore to her peaceful intentions on the Olds Gods and the New—the beginning of a long act; the Cat was a former member of the House of Black and White and respected the Many-Faced God, but Cat was a Stony Dornish-Northman, who held faith in the Old Gods and the New—and eventually, after at least half an hour, managed to get the Lady Allyria alone except for a single guard.
‘My tale is long and much of it unbelievable,’ she began, stating, ‘but to encapsulate the whole of it: my true name was once Arya Stark. I come to beg permission to use another.’
From young Ned, Arya Stark had learned of his milk-mother Wylla, who his aunt had summarily convinced her nephew was Jon Snow’s mother with a few well-placed truths. In her time observing Starfall, she’d discovered that Wylla had passed from sickness only two years previously, leaving only Allyria as a loose end in her schemes. It took little enough time observing the castle and its inhabitants for Cat to discover that Allyria was clever, beneath her gentle façade.
Pursing her lips, the Lady Regent of Starfall put upon a pseudo-confused mien at her statement, hiding a calculation behind her eyes. ‘Arya Stark is a girl of ten, if that.’
‘True,’ said the Cat, ‘and I am ten-and-nine. But Bran Stark will become warg and greenseer, greater than the world has ever known; the Blood of the First Men runs hot in his veins and the resurgence of magic with the Red Comet granted him the power to bend time itself.’
And there was the truth which took her the longest to convince Lady Allyria was true. Wargs and greenseers often had a presence in Northern fairytales, but none had the purported strength Bran did. The part of Cat that was Arya Stark had taken much offence on his behalf before Allyria finally—sceptically—agreed to humour her, asking what name she required of her.
Cat’s smile was grim as she replied.
One month later, dressed in new custom leathers and purple gambeson, carrying a sealed letter bearing the lilac crest of House Dayne, Catelyn “Cat” Snow, bastard daughter of Ashara Dayne and Ned Stark, trudged her way through the Riverlands. Destruction seeded the surrounding farmlands, smoke in the distance from the many fires set by the Riverlords and the Mountain alike. War consumed and did nothing else.
As Arya, Cat remembered the path of Yoren’s caravan, but time was not on her side, the journey from the Heart-Tree of Greenfield to Starfall having eaten up precious weeks. She discovered the remains of those attacked by Ser Amory Lorch and his forces at the barren holdfast, expression blank as she stood, silent, over Yoren’s grave. Arya had buried him—it was the least she could do for a man of the Night’s Watch—and the Cat was left with a shallow mound of dirt that smelt of death and had maggots crawling overtop, feasting on the meat of a man too stubborn for his own good. She gathered the axe that freed three men destined to die by flame and tied it to her belt.
Next came Tarber’s mound of stones and the storehouse by God’s Eye, where the Mountain had the Tickler torture smallfolk for news on Beric Dondarrian, raping his way through over a dozen women and killing them when he was done with them. The wolves had left little flesh on the corpses abandoned there in the dirt, so all Cat could do was offer a prayer for their souls.
I must be faster, she reminded herself later, when she was slipping into Harrenhal like she belonged. There were so many people that a new face meant little once she wore the familiar grey tunics of the servile class and a face of a pox-marked boy. Cat took less than a day to track down young Arya Stark, known in Harrenhal as Weasel, though had she been more familiar with her own look as a girl it would have only taken an hour, she was sure.
Hair shorn to her scalp to rid it of lice, Weasel was a pasty girl who hadn’t yet grown into her long jaw or gained enough weight to hide the jutting of her round cheekbones. In an objective manner, the Cat saw what a beauty Arya Stark could grow into, a strange thought considering what that meant for the Cat.
In the night, the assassin hid herself away in one of the tall towers. Due to the precarious nature of the brickwork, it was unlikely that the tower would be overrun with maids, like others being restored to their former glory, until at least scaffolding was put in place. The lack of traffic left made it a temporary safe-haven where she could sleep and practice her fighting forms.
If not for the twenty acres of forest she’d have to traverse to reach it, plus the general silliness of the idea, Cat would have slept in the boughs of a heart-tree only known to her through stories. Before Cat’s journey to the past, her conversation with Bran regarding their plans had brushed over the concept of appearing first at Harrenhal, at its base. The Heart-Tree was isolated and waiting for young Arya Stark would only require her patience—though in the end, they had decided on Greenfield, the closest they could get to Dorne without appearing in any densely-populated city of the Reach. Cat required an identity that would hold up under scrutiny. Their plans hinged on it. With her father dead—and Wylla—pretending to be Ashara Dayne’s bastard by Ned Stark relied singularly on Allyria’s testimony, a task she had already completed with unbelievable ease. Hells, she’d been gifted a writ of recognition!
However… ‘To change the outcome of Robb’s war, you must take a victory from Tywin,’ Bran had told her, long before they discussed where she would land. ‘Any form of legitimacy will do, but this is the best path you could take to prove your worth.’
Becoming Ned Stark’s second loyal bastard was more than enough to get her through the door. Making her kin to Jon in another form, while also neatly putting into question exactly where Jon came from, would also plant seeds in those who thought him a Dayne bastard due to his purple eyes, instead of a dragon. As for the victory…well, would it not be poetic for Catelyn Snow to take control of the lands where her parents first met, in honour of her family? It tied it all together.
Harrenhal would be Robb’s—and his bastard sister would be the reason why.
The Cat had a simple timeline of events for the foreseeable weeks. The Brave Companions had yet to arrive, which would mark the beginning of her schemes, but neither had Jaqen H’ghar. Of all her foes here, he was the most dangerous, for a Faceless Master could always recognise their students’ handiwork and it would confuse him at best, push him away from her watching gaze at worst—and Jaqen was not the type to run when he was confused. Uncertainty, however, could make a man such as himself unpredictable-
And that was a problem for future Cat. As she had a day or two until the arrival of the mercenaries, Cat dealt instead with a different problem. The child Arya had the potential to cause trouble—big trouble—so Cat came up a neat solution, slipping into the smoking forges and seeking out a man she had not seen in several years.
Gendry Storm was young in this time, of an age with Robb and Jon. However, that was where the similarities ended, his sheer height and broad Baratheon shoulders deceiving the eyes to add another two years. Cat stood ridiculously far beneath him, even full-grown as she was, and knew all too well that Gendry still had several inches left to pile on; the peril of surrounding herself with tall men, was that she noticed when they got taller.
‘Are you the Bull?’ Cat called upon approaching him, still wearing the face of the pox-marked boy. Gendry looked up only briefly from his hammering, grunting an affirmative. Luckily, the Cat had caught him at the right time, as he dunked the red-hot metal into a pail seconds later, steam billowing into the space between them.
‘What?’ he asked, grip on the sword noticeably tight. Not-so-coincidentally, they were alone in the forge, except for the fires.
‘Got a message for you,’ the faux-messenger said, crossing their arms. ‘Arry’s cousin, Cat, is in Harrenhal. Cat said to tell you that when things start to go tits-up, don’t let Arry sneak you and Hot-Pie out, that she’ll make sure your egg-something is kept quiet.’
Startled, Gendry stuttered out, ‘Arry’s cousin?’
‘I don’t know,’ the pox-marked boy rolled his eyes, shrugging and making to leave. ‘Gotta go find Weasel and tell ‘er the same thing, now.’
‘Wait!’ Gendry said, grabbing her shoulder with large, sooty hands. ‘You- tell Weasel something for me,’ he practically begged.
‘What’s in it for me? Lady Cat said I would get an apple tart when I was done.’
Hesitant, Gendry took his hand off her shoulder, then reached across the forge for a small knife, probably something he’d stolen from the dinner hall. When he pressed it into Cat’s hands though, she found it to be sharpened almost to the point of breaking. Weak, but acceptable for someone who probably wasn’t allowed to make his own dagger.
‘Here,’ he said, ‘Have that. It’s worth two messages, so bring me back one from Weasel, too.’
‘Fine. What’s the message?’
Gendry gave the pox-marked boy a short, but heartfelt message about keeping safe and staying low that Cat promised to give, feeling somewhat melancholy as she departed to find her young counterpart. While Cat wasn’t going to tell Arya the same thing she told Gendry, it would be along the same lines. She’d just have to phrase it carefully.
Weasel, of course, wasn’t happy about being dragged around a corner by some strange young man, baring her teeth as she asked hotly, ‘What do you want?’
‘Messages. One from Cat, one from the Bull.’
‘Gendry?’ Her entire expression shifted into something alarmed. ‘What did he say? What happened?’
Scowling slightly, the Cat told her, ‘He wants you to stay low and keep safe. Was real nice about it,’ she said, putting on a grudging bit of respect. Weasel’s impression of the pox-marked boy was supposed to be that he didn’t care much, but could be relied on for bit-tasks, should she need his services and Cat’s plans went so awry that the pox-marked boy had to be her disguise.
Watching Weasel out of the corner of her eye, she saw the girl soften in relief, a tension in her expression smoothing.
‘And Cat? Who’s Cat, anyway?’
‘Dunno,’ the pox-marked boy shrugged. ‘Message from her to you is weird, though. Says to keep your weaselly face in Harrenhal until she speaks to you, and that Arry’s got a cousin about to turn the castle bloody. Then something about winter coming to a golden shit-stain.’
‘My cousin?’ Arya was shocked, clearly able to parse Cat’s hidden exchange via the pox-marked boy’s garbled message. After a few seconds of bulging eyes and a mutter of ‘Starks are coming for the Lannisters…’ the pox-marked boy demanded a message back for Gendry, showing her the sharpened knife he was paid with.
Like Gendry, it was mostly platitudes, with the added bonus of her demanding he trust the mysterious Cat. The Cat dutifully returned to the forge to tell the blacksmith, using her second trip as excuse to case the workshop again. ‘Getting lost’ in there was worth the backhanded slap she got from one of the Redcloaks, after discovering a bundle of curved knives she recalled belonged to the Tickler that had fallen behind a trunk.
I can begin earlier than planned, she thought with a smirk, twirling one of the Tickler’s blades thoughtfully. That night, the Cat snuck into the quarters of a Westerlands knight that had been at loggerheads with Ser Amory Lorch for the past week, uncowed by the Mountain with his liege at hand, and listened the next morning to Tywin Lannister’s call for the Tickler’s hanging.
‘It weren’t me! It weren’t!’ The Tickler gnashed his teeth and attempted to throw off the guards tying the noose around his head, but Tywin only scoffed.
‘My judgement is final. I have no use for insurrection among my men.’ The Lion of Lannister dismissed him with a single look, gesturing for the hangman. Cat would have watched the death of the one known as the Tickler, had she not already seen Weasel in the crowd, awed and revelling at his fate, or noticed the way the Mountain glared mutinously at his companion’s twitching feet.
A ’sickness’ befell Chiswyck. Polliver, waving Needle around playfully, stabbed one of his fellow soldiers in the eye when the man stumbled upon the blade, and was lashed for it. While Polliver’s wounds became infected immediately, Chiswyck’s death was on the toilet, similar bowel problems spreading through the Lannister men and some servants, just to make the attack seem less targeted. Not all ended in death, as clearly only the servants who ate the soldiers’ food instead of their own were affected. When the Brave Companions finally arrived, it was with wary eyes and twitchy sword-hands, obviously having been warned ahead of time that something was wrong.
Tywin Lannister held a council with the windows closed, heedless of the bird that had fluttered up into the rafters mere minutes before the shutters were barred.
‘Poison,’ the Lord Paramount said, grim as he could be. In the mind of a bird, Cat could see the minute twitches of his cheeks, but with such precision and the instincts of a sparrow, it was more difficult to see the larger picture. She relied on words and tone alone. ‘There are a confirmed two hundred and sixty-eight dead, so far, and the rest affected are useless.’
Ser Addam Marbrand, a captain of said forces, and particularly wan due to his own limited experience with Cat’s seasoned stew, twitched at that. ‘My lord-’
‘The poisoner does not care for rank,’ Tywin ignored anything he might have wished to say, bracing against the table. ‘They mean to cause chaos. The likelihood that the traitor works in the kitchens is high, as is the probability that this is the work of our enemies. If I do not have my troops, I will not be able to defend my homeland from young Robb Stark. He’s already taken the damned Crag. Give me solutions.’
‘My lord,’ said another Westerman, offering an idea. Two of both offensive and defensive actions were tossed around the table by the dozen Stark enemies, before the meeting ended and the Cat left her sparrow, aware of their plans to rout her out.
Immediate violence against another enemy would cause Tywin to hound her, if not leave the nest altogether. While Cat badly wished to slit Vargo Hoat’s throat, the worse threat was the Lord Paramount. His assassination would have to be soon—tonight, even. The risks she would have to take were high, but not insurmountable. Needed…especially considering the new arrivals at the gate.
Staying far from Jaqen H’ghar, the Cat infiltrated Tywin’s quarters, finding her hiding place within a large desk with locked cupboards. Picking one open was child’s play, as was oiling the hinges until she was satisfied, airing out the room to reduce any unnatural smells Tywin would take notice of. The Cat had taken a bath a little earlier, using the same soap as his maids, discarding of her pox-marked boy disguise in exchange for that of a Reacher girl’s. The Tickler’s knives were strapped to her waist.
And then, she waited for the Lion to appear.
Swift as a deer. Quiet as a shadow.