Chapter Text
Bran once told Arya to listen to her dreams when she could. That sometimes they had meaning, but she would have to decide the meaningful from the nonsense. But deciphering dreams was Bran’s specialty and he had been locked in a tree for twenty years now, leaving Arya alone to wonder if her nightmares were prophesy or paranoia.
She’d always had more nightmares than most, which she blamed on the many horrors of her past. Watching loved ones die. Narrowly surviving several wars. Being a hostage to more than one family, some more wretched than others. Killing the Night King and tasting death before she was dragged back into her body. Twenty years later, those things still haunted her in the night. It was the past her dreams dwelled on, not the uncertain future. And she dreamed of the dead more often than the living.
She dreamed of Rickon as she remembered him--a wild six year old weaving through the trees of the godswood. The wolves ran all around him and nipped at his heels and it was hard to tell if they were friend or foe. He did not seem to mind. He laughed anyway. Because he was a Stark who did not think to fear the wolves or the winter that took him.
Sometimes she dreamed of Bran sitting at the foot of a great weirwood with limbs that stretched on forever until they disappeared into the black of the night sky. The stars were their leaves and they fell to earth in a glittering shower. The tree… it was withering.
Sometimes she dreamed of her father, polishing his sword beside a frozen pool, surrounded by an army of bleeding trees, ignorant to the distant echo of voices calling for his head. He looked up at her and spoke in a somber voice.
“Winter is coming, Arya. It always comes again.”
But tonight, she did not dream of the north or the godswood or any Starks who had passed on. She dreamed of Tywin Lannister.
They stood on either side of a great stone slab dotted with stone figures of all sorts. It took Arya a moment to recognize it as a very large Cyvasse board. It was her turn. In the midst of the dream, she did not remember what moves had brought her here, but somehow she knew it was her turn. But it seemed there were no good moves on the board.
“You’re hesitating,” he told her.
“I’m thinking,” she replied.
“You finished thinking some time ago. Now you’re hesitating.”
She glared at him. He was infuriating even in her dreams. Even after twenty years in the grave. Sometimes, she could almost believe it was really him and not a memory she had conjured up.
“The board is set perfectly,” he said. “If you struck now, you would win. So why don’t you?”
“I can’t. The losses will be too great.”
“It doesn’t matter how many pieces you lose. A win is still a win in this game.”
“In this game, yes,” Arya said. “But we’re not talking about a game, are we?”
“You tell me. This is your dream.”
Arya frowned. Even in visions he saw fit to test her. “We have peace right now. The longest peace in living memory. It wouldn’t be wise to act rashly and spoil that.”
“So you will wait for someone else to act rashly and spoil it then?” Tywin asked. “If you let someone else take charge of the future, you will be at a disadvantage when the peace fails.”
“You don’t know it will fail,” Arya said.
“Yes I do,” Tywin said. “And you know it as well. You know the truth.” There was something glowing in the darkness behind him. Two somethings. Two eyes glowing like embers. And beneath them a gaping maw slowly opening, revealing the fire swirling inside.
“What truth?” Arya asked softly.
“There’s always another war,” he told her. And then the flames engulfed him and the board.
They did not engulf Arya. Instead they knocked her back into the waking world, leaving her gasping beneath the covers. Her heart hammered against her ribcage like a warning. Run, it said. Run.
Arya was used to running. She was used to assassination attempts and loss and war and so many other things that a young girl should not have endured. But she was not used to peace. Even after all of these years, she did not know how to face it. It was not peace. It was simply… a time of waiting. Waiting.
Waiting for the next war.
For a while, she tried to go back to sleep. She stared up at the ceiling, listening to Jaime’s steady breathing beside her. She tried to match her breath with his. But her mind would not quiet.
At last, she gave up and slipped out from beneath covers, pulling on a robe over her night gown. Then she drifted toward the door. She grabbed her dagger from the bedside table as she went—almost instinctively. Twenty years ago, she driven that same dagger into the Night King’s heart. Now she was rarely parted from it. It was not wise for the Lady of Casterly Rock to go anywhere unarmed, even in her own home.
The halls of Casterly Rock were cavernous and in the dark of night, they threatened to swallow Arya. Winterfell was not small by any means, but it always felt cozier to Arya. She could walk from one end to the other in good time. She could wander the Rock for hours and still not see every corner. She was sure that even after all of these years, there were still places in its depths that she had not seen.
She lit a lantern to guide her way through the darkness. She did not know where she was going—only that it felt better to be walking than laying uselessly in bed. She listened to her soft footfalls on the stone and breathed in the icy air. Winter was drawing to a close, but the nights were still quite cold. Arya did not mind. Years down south and she had not lost her wolf’s blood.
Eventually, she ended up outside the doors to the library. A book might be preferable company to the silent darkness. She used to read through the nights after the Northern Civil War. It was the easiest way to fight off Ramsay Bolton from her nightmares—simply refusing to sleep at all. Besides, back then, she still had an awful lot to learn about the West and its people.
Memories of Tywin’s lessons rose in the back of her mind and she shook them away. She opened the great doors of the library and slipped through the crack.
Surprisingly, the lanterns on either side of the door inside were already lit, and when she paused just in front of the door, she heard something shuffling in the shadows. Calmly, she grasped the hilt of her knife and moved forward. Just in case the shuffling belonged to an intruder. But when she peeked around the corner, her grip on the knife relaxed and she let out a breath. Of course it wasn’t an intruder. She should have known the culprit behind the lit lanterns.
Tybolt sat at one of the central tables, a small stack of books beside him. He leafed through a rather large volume, completely absorbed in the words. He did not even look up as she slipped around the corner.
Arya’s mouth twitched and she moved quietly toward him, selecting a random book off the shelf as she went. She dropped the tome right in front of him, and the resounding smack jolted him from the words. He blinked a few times before focusing on her face.
“Mother… I didn’t see you come in.”
“Clearly,” she said. “Don’t we have a rule about reading all night?”
“When I was a child,” Tybolt said. “I’m a man grown now.”
“You still need sleep. Even when you’re grown,” Arya replied.
He raised an eyebrow. “You’re up, aren’t you?”
Her eyes narrowed. He had her there. “At least I tried to sleep. I know perfectly well you’ve been here since sundown.”
“Not since sundown,” he said, lifting his chin. “A few hours after. I lost track of time.”
“You always do,” she said, tapping her chin. He corrected himself, lowering his head. He had the same tell she did when he was a child and he had carried it into his adult years. It was one of the only ways he resembled her. Any outsider could identify him as a Lannister. Green eyes, golden hair. High cheek bones and a strong jaw. He looked like his father to be sure, but more than that, he looked like his grandfather.
Genna told Arya many times that Tybolt looked like Tywin when he was young with one notable difference—his smile. Tywin rarely smiled even when he was young. Tybolt smiled openly and often.
Their similarities were only physical in truth. Tybolt was sweet natured from early on. Soft spoken. Bookish. He was not shy, but neither did he speak up unless he felt he had something to say. He preferred to watch and listen, and he never drew the focus in a room. In that way, he could not be more different from Tywin. And that was for the best in Arya’s mind.
Arya sat down across from Tybolt, nodding at his book. “What are you reading?”
“ The Aftermath of Robert’s Rebellion ,” he replied. “The maesters at the citadel only finished it a few years ago, but we hadn’t received a copy until a few days ago. There is a lot to talk about. I imagine it took a long time to transcribe.”
“No wonder its such a large book,” Arya said. It was strange that the years in which she had grown up now found their place in a book. It was stranger still knowing her name must be inside of it. She had always admired the heroes of the history books but never thought to join them in the world of paper and ink. “Is it a good read?”
“Its an interesting one,” Tybolt said. “It’s a bit overly complementary of the new Targaryen dynasty for my tastes.”
“We do have a Targaryen queen,” Arya said. “It was bound to be complementary.”
“They paint her as a savior who descended from the heavens,” he said. “You’d think she was the one who killed the Night King.”
“Well, you never know,” Arya said. “Perhaps this book decided she did.”
“No,” he flipped a few pages ahead and turned the book to face her, tapping on one of the lower paragraphs. Arya skimmed the words.
After a long battle on the Isle of Faces, the Night King was defeated by Arya Stark of Winterfell, now Arya Lannister of Casterly Rock, when she drove her Valyrian steel dagger through his heart. And thus the Long Night was ended.
She exhaled. “That is more or less what happened.” Her gaze jumped to the next page and caught on the heading ‘ The trial of Tywin Lannister’. She quickly averted her gaze and turned the book back to face Tybolt. “I suppose I have no real need to read this… since I was there.”
“You should though,” Tybolt said, playing with a corner of one of the pages. “So you can tell me which words are true and which are not.”
“Hmm.” She replied, which was not a definitive ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
“For instance, the way they talk about our family,” he said. “My grandfather. Tywin. I wondered if he was as terrible as the book claims.”
Arya’s mouth twitched into a humorless smile. “Yes, he was very terrible, Tybolt. Very terrible on many occasions.”
“And did you hate him?”
“Sometimes,” she said. “But not as much as I should have.”
Tybolt sighed, clearly frustrated with the answers. “You never talk about him, mother. Can’t you give me more than a few words?”
“It was complicated, Ty,” Arya said. “That’s… all I can say right now. Complicated.”
“That’s still not very many words,” he replied petulantly.
“No, its not, is it?” Arya stood from the table and paced off toward a large cabinet. Inside, she found a Cyvasse board. The same Cyvasse board Tyrion had given her when she was still very young. She returned to the table and set it between them. “You need a break from reading. Play a game with me.”
She was blatantly changing the subject and she knew Tybolt could see it, but he did not protest. He closed the book and pushed it to the side. “Fine. One game. And this time I’ll beat you.”
“You can try,” she said, unfolding the board and scattering the pieces onto the table. “Which color?”
“The white,” he said. “And I want the broken king.”
Arya felt a strange sense of melancholy rise within her. “Oh? And why is that?”
“Because,” he shrugged. “It feels like good luck.”
She smiled softly and passed him the piece. “Perhaps it is, Ty. But it won’t help you win.”
It had been twenty long years since Arya first came to Casterly Rock to stay. Arya had been only eighteen then. Even younger than Tybolt now. And she had faced more trials than most faced in their entire lives.
She stood before lords who doubted her capabilities, armed only with Tywin’s last letters and her own wits. Even Jaime had to prove himself before their new subjects. Tywin was one of the great Lords of Casterly Rock–the one who earned his title. The fear and respect he commanded could not be equalled. Jaime might be a first born son, but he was still looked upon as weak by the lords. A lesser replacement. If a golden haired son of Lannister could be doubted as a proper successor, his young northern wife could be easily set aside if allowed.
But Arya had no intention of allowing it. And neither did Jaime.
Jaime read Tywin’s final letter to the Western lords in the hall that day. The words demanded that each and every house of the West swear their loyalty to Jaime of House Lannister and his wife, Arya. The fact that Arya’s name was included beside that of her husband was a shock to many.
But they did not protest. Not in the sight of gods and men and the ghost of Tywin Lannister. They knelt and swore their oaths beneath the weight of his final command. And then they withdrew to scheme in the shadows for how they might gain influence over the weaker willed eldest son of Tywin Lannister and his outsider wife.
It was a difficult first year. Many lords tested the waters with questioning Jaime’s authority. With Arya they were even more blatant. They condescended to her at court and some would not even look her in the eye. They were slow to pay debts once called upon, as if searching to see how militant their new leadership would be with collecting the taxes. They whined and whimpered about the Long Night being difficult for everyone. And yet, when Arya road through the countryside and asked questions of the farmers, she found the local lords had gladly drained the populace of their usual coin. Some even more than usual.
Then there was the incident when House Brax. Flement Brax was particularly egregious for his refusal to pay taxes to House Lannister. After Jaime issued summons at court, the man made the mistake of commenting on Jaime and Arya’s lack of fingers.
Not even three hands between you, and you expect us to bow quietly?
Arya rose without a word from her seat and strode down to meet him. She asked him which hand he fought with. And once he declared that he fought with his right, she severed two fingers from his left hand in front of the court.
There. Now we have enough fingers for three hands. And if you don't pay your debts, my lord, I'll take your good hand. Then my husband and I will have a full set.
Strike fast. Strike hard. That was her father-in-law’s advice. And she had every intention to follow.
Arya took traveling the west personally with a small group of men-at-arms to collect the taxes. She made a point to speak with the smallfolk in each region to get a sense of how much money their ruling lord had drained from them. Then, armed with their testimonies, she entered their keeps, treated with them, and made clear exactly how much they were to pay before she left.
If you wish to pay your debt in other ways, you may of course say so, Arya said. I may accept a payment of blood or flesh. But gold will be much less painful for you.
Most paid the money. After hearing the stories of Lord Brax, none wished to lose their fingers.
Soon, Arya gained a reputation. She had only to play with the hilt of the Cat’s paw dagger to make them nervous when she spoke to them. They began looking her in the eye when she spoke. They stopped complaining about her equal seat beside Jaime Lannister. A few made the mistake of trying to complain directly to Jaime about her involvement. They always found an unsympathetic party.
“I’m afraid my father thought very highly of the Lady Lannister’s abilities at ruling in life,” Jaime said. “I hope you would not ask me to dishonor his memory by excluding her from these matters. I do value her input.”
By the year’s end, the thorns had been ripped from the valley and Arya finally felt able to put down roots. She became pregnant with her first son. And thus her family and her new life in the west truly began.
The past twenty years had not been easy. Each season brought its own challenges. Two more fierce winters which devastated the farmland. A few small rebellions, including that of the Serrets who surrendered all control of their silver mines to keep their lives when their plotting failed.
There were books to balance. People to advise and rule. Lords to bicker with. Dinners and balls to attend. And that was just in the west. Arya and Jaime also made frequent pilgrimages to the Red Keep for Daenerys’ annual council, as well as to the seats of their other major allies. The Stormlands, the Reach, the North. The entire continent was slowly but surely rebuilding from the Long Night and they could not afford to be disconnected.
In the midst of the constant balancing act of ruling, there were children. Tybolt first, a sweet faced, golden haired boy with Lannister looks that could appease the lords that cared about that sort of thing. Elissa a year later, a daughter with deep brown locks with the smallest hints of Tully auburn.
Three years after Elissa came the twins–Nymeria and Marcus–both dark haired and with the severe features of the north, like their mother. And one year after them came the last of Arya’s children. Johanna. She favored Jaime’s side of the family, the first since Tybolt to do so.
Five children, in Arya’s mind, was plenty. Two sons. Three daughters. She bore them into this world, screaming all the way. And once Johanna’s particularly difficult birth was at an end, she vowed never to do it again. She refused to take the risk and Jaime, who had lost his mother to childbirth, did not protest.
Arya had not pictured herself as a mother in her early years, even though it would of course be expected of her. She would not call herself a natural at the task. But she loved her children dearly–each and every one. She would defend them. She would kill for them if it ever came to that. And she supposed that was what parenthood was in the end.
Twenty years. Five children. Arya had born the Lannister name longer than the Stark name.
There were times that Arya Stark seemed far out of reach. That little Stark girl was born and raised in a time of war. She saw the beginning and ending of the War of the Five Kings. The Northern Rebellion. The Western Civil War. She saw four rulers sit the iron throne.
She touched death a handful of times. She defied it when she killed the Night King and ended the Long Night.
Arya Stark lived through so much hardship in her short years. And Arya Lannister, while she had faced many trials, had lived in relative peace.
So yes, there were times when Arya Stark felt very far away. But there were other times when she felt very close indeed. When the girl she once was breached close to the surface of her memory and grasped at her mind with wounded hands.
Do not let your guard down, that girl told her. There are always more enemies to deal with. Always more lurking in the shadows.
This peace will not last. Not forever.
It never does.
“I win,” Arya said as she made her final move.
Tybolt sight, knocking the king with the cracked crown over. “It shouldn’t surprise me. How is it that no matter how many times we play, you always beat me?”
“I know you well, Ty,” Arya said.
“What does that have to do with anything?” Tybolt asked.
“Because,” she said simply. “Knowing your enemy is the key to defeating them.” She sighed. “Now. We should both be getting back to bed.”
“One more game,” he said. “Just one. Then I’ll sleep.”
She regarded him for a long moment before nodding once, returning the king with the cracked crown to his rightful place on the board.
“All right. One more game.”