Work Text:
She was an assassin without anyone to look to for orders, and that made her dangerous.
She was also a Stark.
“My father thought her to be dead,” Tyrion mused. “A girl her age in Westeros does not survive for long on her own.”
“My brother always said that the Starks had a different kind of strength,” Daenerys said softly. “We are the blood of the dragon; ice runs through their veins.”
“I do not doubt it. But how did she land on this side of the world?”
“The same way you and I did; by ship.” Daenerys turned from the window to face Tyrion. “You met her once? At Winterfell, when you still served the Usurper?” At his nod, she went on. “What do you remember of her?”
Tyrion smiled a little ruefully. “I was only in the hall for a little bit, long enough to get a plate of food for myself and Ned Stark’s bastard son, but as I recall, she flung a spoonful of food at her older sister. I later saw her in the practice yard with her half-brother with a bow and arrow, after her younger brother was crippled. She seemed to be a fierce little thing. It isn’t difficult to see how she grew up to be a fighter.”
“She hasn’t fought anyone.”
“She was missing for close to three years,” Tyrion reminded her. “No one knows exactly what she’s done in that time, except for herself. Unless she is extremely lucky, and Starks rarely are, she has fought to survive this long. She has fought to wind up here in Meereen, where the whole world knows that the Dragon Queen resides.”
“Not for very much longer,” Daenerys said thoughtfully.
“Your Grace,” a small voice said from the door, and they turned to see Missandei in the arched door to the room. She was as small as her voice, and yet Tyrion had seen immediately that Daenerys trusted her deeply. He was unsure what such a young girl could have done to earn that trust, or how he had done the same. “I have had food brought to the Stark girl in her chambers, but she has requested to take her meal with you.”
“Lady Stark,” Daenerys said automatically, like she couldn’t quite stop herself. Tyrion smiled a little. “She is the daughter of a lord. Yes, bring her here. I wish to speak with her as well.” As Missandei left, she sighed. “Our fathers were enemies.”
“And yet she is here anyways.” Tyrion took a seat to wait. “You do not have to be enemies as well.”
“I’m beginning to understand that,” Daenerys agreed, and a few moments later Missandei returned with a dark-haired girl in her wake.
She had been given clothes to replace her travel wear and had clearly bathed sometime after her arrival. She had braided her hair back into what Daenerys thought must be a Northern style and held herself tall. Grey eyes flicked from Daenerys to Tyrion and back again. “Your Grace,” Arya Stark said, somewhat stiffly, like she wasn’t used to the words. “Is that right? I don’t know what they call queens in Essos.”
“We’re all from Westeros here,” Tyrion said gently, and saw Daenerys visibly relax. “Why Lady Stark, it has been quite a long time since we have met. Please sit and eat. You must have come a long way to make it to Meereen.” She did as he said, but she was tense, eyes rapidly moving all over the room. Ensuring escape, he thought. He hoped it would not come to that.
Daenerys sat at the little round table as well, reaching out to take some fruit and pouring a glass of wine. Arya seemed to take this as a good sign, because she took some food and ate in a way that seemed suspiciously controlled, like she was far hungrier than she wanted to come across. Tyrion thought that she probably was, and felt a pang of sympathy for the girl.
The silence became uncomfortable in all of a few seconds, and he took it upon himself to break it. “A Stark, a Targaryen and a Lannister partaking in a meal together,” he said. “Perhaps the world truly is ready for a change. Lady Stark, what is it that brought you here to Meereen? Why are you in Essos at all?”
“With all due respect, My Lord, I think I could ask you the same.” Arya set down her food and struggled for a moment to find words. “I know the history. Your houses have not been friends since your brother killed your father.” She turned to Daenerys with those words. “And our houses have never been close, Your Grace. I expected your men to kill me the moment I told them my name.”
“Ser Barristan knew your father briefly in King’s Landing,” Daenerys spoke for the first time. “He would never have stood for it. And nor would I. You must have been desperate to seek out a Targaryen that might not even exist.”
“I was,” Arya said softly. She raised a bite of food to her mouth again, which Tyrion suspected was a reason to stop talking. She was much like the Starks of old, he thought: cold and cautious and daring to do what most never even imagined. He wondered again where she had been these last years.
Daenerys set down her glass of wine, looking steadily at Arya now that they had exchanged words. “Why are you here, Lady Stark?”
“Your Grace, please call me Arya,” the girl said, meeting her gaze with determination. “It isn’t safe to be a lady or a Stark anymore. To be the missing daughter of Eddard Stark anywhere in the world could get me killed.” When both Daenerys and Tyrion nodded their assent, she continued. “I suspect that your travels are as complicated as my own. I will tell you everything that you ask, but the most important thing right now is this: I escaped the Faceless Men in Braavos. I killed a lot of their men to do so, and they may still be after me.” She lowered her gaze. “No one fails them and lives.”
“Tell me why I shouldn’t give you to them right now,” Daenerys challenged. “I will not risk my men for a girl I don’t know anything about.”
“They won’t hurt you or any of yours,” Arya promised. “They only kill when they’re asked to. I came here to escape them, but I also came here because I know that you want to take back Westeros. I want to come with you. I want to go home.” Her words were rushed, and while her face remained composed, Tyrion could read the desperation in her eyes. She wore the expression of a girl who had known far too much evil for her age.
He touched the back of her hand where it lay on the table and was pleased when she didn’t flinch. “Finish eating, Lady—Arya. I think your story would be a very interesting one to hear, indeed.” He smiled a soft smile, and she tilted her head.
“You were the most interesting part of King Robert’s procession when you came to Winterfell,” she said honestly. “‘The Imp’ they called you. I’d never met a man that was smaller than me.” She was still looking at him. “I was with a lot of different people for a long time, and they said that you became even more twisted looking than you already were in the Blackwater battle.”
“Do I live up to your expectations?” Tyrion asked calmly, even as Daenerys tensed and opened her mouth.
Arya shook her head. “I’ve seen worse.” She didn’t say that he wasn’t horrifying to look at. But she didn’t look away as she spoke, and he thought it might be one of the most honest things anyone had ever said to him. She’s a wise girl. She continued eating, and when she was finished, Missandei came to clear the table, and Daenerys moved to the balcony of her pyramid. “Tell me how you came to be here,” the queen commanded, and Arya joined her side overlooking the city. Both turned to look at Tyrion and he situated himself between the two women.
“A man of the Night’s Watch rescued me after my father’s execution,” Arya began. “He cut my hair off so that I looked like a boy and meant to take me back to Winterfell on the way to the Wall. I never would have gotten out of the city if it weren’t for Yoren. Me and this other boy, Gendry, the gold cloaks were after us, but they never realized I was there. They wanted him. Yoren wouldn’t let them have him, kept saying he was bound for the Wall, and they killed him. We were taken to Harrenhal, where they were questioning prisoners about the Brotherhood Without Banners and killing them if they didn’t know.” Her voice was toneless, face blank. “I was recognized as a girl and chosen to be a cupbearer for Roose Bolton. At the time he was on side the of my brother Robb.”
“Why didn’t you reveal who you were?” Tyrion asked. “He might have taken you home.”
But Arya shook her head. “I didn’t trust him. And neither did Gendry.”
“This Gendry knew who you were?” Daenerys said suddenly, looking at her.
“He figured out I was a girl and I told him who I was. We kept each other safe.” Her brow furrowed, like it hurt her to talk about him.
“You cared for him.”
Arya finally met Daenerys’s gaze. “We escaped Harrenhal together with another boy that had been with us from King’s Landing. The Brotherhood Without Banners found us and were taking us to Riverrun, to my mother and brother, and he said he might stay with them but I was taken by the Hound and I—I don’t know what happened to him.” She swallowed, gazing down at the city. “All we had was each other for a long time. He was special, important, or the gold cloaks wouldn’t have wanted him. If the Brotherhood was offered enough gold they would have handed him over to them. They were going to give me to my brother for a ransom. They were kind, but they never lied about their intentions.” Now that she was talking, she didn’t seem able to stop, and Tyrion knew that Daenerys didn’t quite understand all of what she was saying despite everything Tyrion and Ser Barristan had taught her of Westeros. But she didn’t interrupt Arya, and the girl kept going. “The Hound and I got to Riverrun in time for me to see my brother’s body lifted to a horse and his direwolf’s head in place of his. I wished—I wanted to die as well. All that’s left of my family is my sister and Jon Snow. They could be dead too, for all I know. I could be all that’s left.”
The pause she took allowed Tyrion to speak. “Your sister escaped King’s Landing after Joffrey’s death,” he told her kindly. “She could not have done so without help. Someone meant to take care of her and take her somewhere safe.” It was of small comfort, he knew, but she nodded anyway, and continued slowly.
When she finished, Daenerys began asking questions, wanting details, wanting explanations to the parts that she didn’t understand. Arya answered all of them, if somewhat reluctantly, and at last there were no more questions and they all three fell into silence for what felt like hours, though must have only been minutes.
“So we take you with us to Westeros,” Daenerys said. “What then?”
“I trained with the best assassins in the world,” Arya said without hesitation. “I know how to kill without detection. I could take out anyone you ask, but there are people that I want dead too. And I want to kill them myself.”
“Name them,” Daenerys commanded.
“Cersei Lannister,” Arya said. “The Mountain. The Freys. The Boltons. I want them to know my name. I want my face to be the last thing they see as they die.” Grey eyes like steel looked dead into Daenerys’ own, and Tyrion suppressed a shudder. He knew bloodlust, but had never met one so young to hold it so tightly in her heart.
And Daenerys…Daenerys was nodding slowly. “And after I take Westeros?”
“I want to go home to Winterfell,” Arya answered. “I want whoever remains of my family with me. Please.”
At Daenerys’ call, Missandei came out into the sun. “Please retrieve the weapons that were taken upon Arya’s arrival,” she said. “And she must be given garment fit for travel across the sea.”
Within the hour, they stood in the throne room, an Unsullied on either side of Arya, and she knelt before Daenerys to swear fealty. Arya gazed up at Daenerys the whole time, eyes locked with the dragon queen’s, and Tyrion knew that despite her promised support, this girl was still a Stark, and the Starks’ loyalty lay first in family. Winter is coming. The words sent a shiver through him.
Grey Worm stood by Missandei’s side, but as Arya stood he stepped forward. “If Lady Arya agrees, the Unsullied wish to see her skills,” he said gruffly. “There will be no opportunity on the sea. Meaning no hurt to Lady Arya, but women of Westeros are not known for battle.”
Arya turned her gray gaze upon him. “Before my father’s death, I trained under Syrio Forel for a time. The First Sword of Braavos, they called him. I traveled with men of the Night’s Watch and knights that had abandoned their liege lords. My brother had this made for me before we parted ways.” Her hand fell to the long, narrow blade that rested on her hip. “The Faceless Men taught me to recognize poison by the temperature of its container and the air surrounding it. I know the quickest way to bleed a man out. And I can fight without my eyes.”
“Would you show us?”
“Yes.”
**
She moved with deadly grace and precision, even blindfolded. She preferred the blade she called Needle, but sparred with Grey Worm using long wooden staffs and then used the practice knives for training to show just how quick she was. Daenerys and Tyrion watched from the shaded edge of the yard as Arya moved deftly around three Unsullied at once, slipping past their long spears to press her blunted blade to their thighs or their throats or point it just over their hearts. On the other end of the yard, Ser Barristan was evaluating some of the younger of the Greyjoy army, but he kept turning to watch Arya dance around the Unsullied, and finally he approached Daenerys. “May I see how she is with a heavier sword, Your Grace?” Barristan asked.
At Daenerys’ call, the Unsullied stopped, and Arya turned to face them. She came forward, eyes narrowed at the old man. “Do you remember me, Lady Stark?” Ser Barristan asked.
“It’s Arya,” she corrected him. “You were in King’s Landing when my father was Hand of the King. Barristan the Bold, they called you, head of the Kingsguard.” She shifted to her right foot, hand at her hip above her blade. “The Kingsguard is meant to serve for life. They father no children and take no wives and they don’t abandon their posts. So tell me, Ser Barristan, what are you doing on the other side of the world serving a different queen?”
To Tyrion’s surprise, Barristan chuckled softly. “You know, everyone in the Red Keep always complained about you. ‘Lord Eddard’s wild daughter’ and the like. You practiced swordplay and made friends with the stable boys and didn’t attend any banquets if you could avoid it. So like your Aunt Lyanna to everyone who had known her.” He shook his head sadly. “King Joffrey released me from my post,” he went on. “Told me I was too old to serve the King of Westeros and that I should live out the rest of my days in a castle in the countryside. So I came here, to serve a queen instead. Maybe if the boy king hadn’t send me away, he’d still be alive.”
“I prefer having you in my service,” Daenerys said with a tiny smile. But Barristan’s words seemed to strike something in Arya, for she turned to Tyrion.
“May I ask you a question, Lord Tyrion?”
He nodded his assent warily.
“Did you and my sister really poison Joffrey?”
He smiled bitterly. “Unfortunately I did not,” he replied. “I sometimes wish I had. Then I may have done something of use to Westeros before I ran.”
Arya accepted his answer without anything more than, “I knew Sansa could never kill anyone. Even with poison.”
She readily accepted Barristan’s request to duel, and Daenerys was once again fascinated by the speed in which the old man still moved. He wasn’t as quick as Arya, but he moved boldly where she was fluid caution, and they danced for what seemed like hours but was really only a few minutes. At last Arya twisted under Barristan’s arm and knocked his sword aside with her own to swing her right hand up to his throat with her knife. “Yield.”
“You don’t fight cleanly, little lady,” Barristan said.
“If I did I would be dead.” Arya moved away, sheathing the knife and tossing him the big practice sword. When he inclined his head respectfully, her face broke into a small smile, before she twisted around behind him and snagged the sword from his loose hold, and again they began to dance.