a gown of golden leaves | Arya/Gendry | M | Part 1/?
Via xx_pinkstar
prompt:
A Song of Ice and Fire, Gendry/Arya
Oh I am growing tired
Of allowing you to steal
Everything I have
You're making me feel
Like I was born to service you
AU: Prince Gendry meets Arya Stark a year after she returns to Westeros after having run away from her family, dishonoring herself and them. She should be sent to the Silent Sisters, but her family still cares too much for her. With no marriage prospects in sight, Robb proudly proclaims that Arya will always have a place at Winterfell.
a gown of golden leaves
Gendry knew it was a horrible idea, even before his father laughed and the Queen eyed him like he’d suggested he wanted to dance a jig in the dining hall without a stitch of clothing on.
He knew the Starks were fallen, knew that if he were a lesser man, even just a lord instead of a little princeling, his own house could be brought to shame for going there - but Kings Landing had grown dull and tired, and the marriage prospects had begun pouring in, simpering girls with perfect faces and no conversation skills beyond flattery batting their lashes at him day in and day out as if he had any say in who he married. The girls would do far better trying to seduce his father.
Not that it took much to seduce the King of Westeros.
And so despite the warning he was given, he and a few of the friendlier knights headed North. As an excuse, to make it look a bit less like his only intention was to meet the fallen family whose head had once been his father’s best friend, he visited Riverrun (though he avoided Casterly Rock with every bone in his body), and the Eyrie, where he met Jon Arryn’s strange wife and even stranger son. He visited the Twins, though he left the morning after his first supper with the horrible Lord Frey, and he spent months on the Kingsroad, eagerly camping out next to fires that grew less warm the farther north he traveled, trying desperately to capture the realm before he has to spend the rest of his life rearing children and controlling a kingdom he thinks is doomed to repeat the same sordid history it always has.
They reach Winterfell about a month after leaving, and Catelyn Stark seems annoyed with him, at the very least, and downright angry at the most. But she bowed low when he leapt from his courser and he saw Ned Stark do the same.
“We were hardly aware of your journey until we received your letter last week, my lord,” she told him when she rose, and he caught the meaning well. He could expect no grand reception here, no great feasts or bawdy decorations. It suited him just fine, though it did not seem to sit well with Ned Stark. “We don’t get many visitors, this far north.”
They didn’t get many visitors because their daughter is a wildling with too free a spirit, but no one mentions that.
He dined with them that first night, sitting next to the pretty Lady Sansa and trying to ignore the way her eyes took him in as if he were a delicious bite of something she’d never quite tasted before. On his other side Jon Snow drew him into conversation, first about the journey and then, when Gendry decides he likes this bastard boy, of the kingdom, of swordplay, of his very dearly beloved sister.
Arya Stark had the men of Winterfell wrapped around her little finger, Gendry soon learned. Though she didn’t bother to eat with her family that night, even for the future king of the Seven Kingdoms, nearly everyone had something to say about her. Jon regaled him with a tale of the little adventures they’d go on together as children, running through the godswood with sticks in their hands, she always the brave knight, Jon always the damsel in distress. Gendry laughed loudly when Jon treated him to his very well done damsel voice, and the Lady Stark looked over at them with disapproval in her eyes.
The next day Robb told Gendry all about Arya’s return to Winterfell after three years gone - how she’d left before she’d even flowered, desperate not to marry one of the many ugly Lord Freys (and Gendry knows there are many ugly Lord Freys), how the day she’d returned Sansa had been charming a boy named Willas Tyrell, who they’d all been certain was going to ask for Sansa’s hand, how she’d appeared at the gates on some wild Dornish sand steed, wearing heavy furs over foreign leather and linen clothes, long hair whipping in the wind. How Sansa had wept bitterly as the Tyrells left Winterfell, and how Bran and Jon and Robb had fought hard against her father when he’d told her she had to leave.
How, eventually, they’d worn him down, and the honorable Eddard Stark had suddenly been just a man, who cared deeply for his family.
How Sansa had hated her so fiercely that first year, until the night they’d been lost in the woods after losing track of the group they’d been out with, and how afterwards the two girls had been thick as thieves, mystifying everyone with their bent heads and whispered giggles, for there had never been two sisters more different from each other.
And then, of course, how she’d heard of Gendry’s visit to Winterfell and disappeared from the place a day later.
Bran and Rickon were more starstruck by him than anything else, but even Bran had lauded his sisters skills with a bow, and Rickon had told him all about the water dance she used to fell all her enemies in the yard.
Catelyn spoke to him little, and tersely at that, but even though she seemed not to know what to do with her daughter, it was obvious to him that she would never send Arya away for what she’d done.
He was jealous of this girl he’d never met, he realized, a week into his stay. Her family was wonderful, her brothers smart and kind and wickedly funny, her sister loved her despite the low prospects she had now of ever marrying, her parents loved her so dearly they’d shamed their family before disowning her, and she’d been places besides, seen the world and been the person she wanted to be.
Gendry promised himself he’d meet this girl, and figure out once and for all what made it so easy for her to live the life he’d always wanted.
“You’ve been looking for me.”
Gendry paused, feet stalling before the forge, and let his eyes sweep over to the doorway, where a girl leaned against the frame, eyeing him the same way he'd seen knights eye him before a melee.
She wore breeches that hugged her body closely, accentuating full hips and lithe muscle, and though her tunic was loose it fell over full breasts that she seemed to be trying to keep hidden beneath the odd leather vest she wore over top.
Her hair was pulled back on both sides in simple braids, the rest tied back with a leather strip. The tail fell low on her back, and when he glanced up at her face he could see the knowing look in her eyes.
"Have I? I wasn't aware."
She held his gaze. "Is there any other reason for the future kind to visit the fallen Starks than to see the wild daughter they let return to the fold?"
Her response annoyed him for some reason. "I've been travelling the whole of the Seven Kingdoms. Am I just to ignore the whole North because your parents love you?"
Her eyes flashed, and she pressed a shoulder against the frame of the forge doorway. "The whole of the Seven Kingdoms? Tell me, is is sweltering down in Dorne? And how is old Lord Lannister? Or your uncles Lord Renly and Stannis, how do they fare? Have their crops been harvested yet? Does poor Shireen have a suitor to speak of?"
Angrier still and not entirely sure why, Gendry shot back, "She's as many suitors as you milady." The word rolled strangely off his tongue, but there had been a time when Gendry had run wild enough to sneak off to Flea Bottom almost daily, and for some reason it was that wild boy who was responding to Arya Stark.
She smirked at him, her lips curving like she knew she was getting under his skin. When she started to walk away, Gendry saw the sword strapped to her hip, a thin little piece of castle forged steel that looked barely thick enough to slice a cat, let alone kill a man in armor. He watched her slide past him, hips swaying gracefully, her hair swinging enticingly, and as she swung past him she turned on her feel, still backing away. "Until next time, then, My Prince." She bowed her head low, hand rolling towards him almost mockingly, and her silver eyes gleamed mischievously before she turned again and disappeared down a corridor.
Gendry wasn't certain he wouldn't hit her, if he followed her now, so he took a moment to collect himself, and when he'd calmed, he shook his head, wondering why in seven hells he'd wanted to meet the girl.
******************************************************************************************
He sought her out the next morning, or he tried, at least. He had no idea why, but something in him was drawn to the insolent girl, perhaps the same something that sometimes prodded Gendry to egg on Cersei when she was in one of her mad tempers, or goad his father when the man was drunk and angry. Of course once he’d sought her out it was impossible to find her on his own again, but Gendry imagined that more than likely Arya Stark knew how not to be found by people she didn’t want to find her.
Sansa sighed when he finally gave up hope and asked her, but she picked up her skirts all the same and took him down to the yard, where he found her yelling fowl curses at Theon Greyjoy as he sparred with her brother Jon. It took him a long moment to realize that she was speaking in another language, some course and clipped dialect that Gendry found almost violent, though he coulnd’t say for sure whether it was the words themselves or the way Arya was saying them.
Jon fought well - he was strong in his blows but light on his feet, smart and quick, using his opponents weaknesses well. And Theon - well, Theon was shit, really, but there was an awkward sort of grace to his movements.
Arya yelled something, and Theon shoved Jon away from him, turning to the girl. “You know I can’t understand a word of that savage language, you bloody bint! You’re not helping!” He turned back to Snow, but when he did realized too late that the distraction had cost him. Jon’s sword swung hard knocking Greyjoy’s aside, and Snow grinned as he pressed the point of the blade under Theon’s chin.
“She’s helping me,” Jon joked on a grin, lowering the sword. Gendry watched Theon glare hard at Arya as she stepped into the yard across from Jon, picking up the sword Greyjoy had dropped.
Theon grumbled as she muttered something out of Gendry’s earshot, and he bit back a smile when the man bit out a retort, letting Arya know that if he knew any other languages he’d be screeching them in Arya’s ear the entire time she and her brother sparred.
“Wouldn’t change anything,” Arya told him, going into a stance completely foreign to Gendry. “You can’t even manage standing side face when you fight.”
It became obvious where Theon’s style had come from. Whether Arya had tried to teach him or he’d just been trying to immitate her Theons moves were all Arya. Every move she made was graceful and fluid. While Jon was all fast brute, Arya was quick as a sprite, using the least amount of force to create the biggest blows. She was good, something Gendry should have expected, he supposed, but it hadn’t hit him until now that she must have done something, in all that time she’d been gone. Her skills were foreign to him, but the way she spun and twirled and ducked and jabbed, he knew she’d beat him in a fight. Even Jon seemed to know he was outmatched. Gendry had seen the man fight before, and usually he could tell that Snow had the upperhand - he was one of the best swordsman Gendry had ever seen, but he fought differently with Arya, not wasting as much energy on hard attacks, keeping his own jabs and slices to a minimum, his body coiled tight and his moves more controlled, almost as if he just meant to prolong the inevitable.
Gendry watched them in fascination for a time, amused when Greyjoy shouted out at them, doing nothing to distract the duo from the spar. When all was said and done, Arya seemed to disarm Jon almost effortlessly, her blade swinging up and around, in one motion slipping the sword out of Snow’s hand, up to press the point of the blade to the exposed skin at her brothers neck.
Jon laughed at her triumphant grin, reaching forward to ruffle the girls hair.
Gendry watched them for a moment, starting finally when Sansa spoke beside him. “She’ll never be a queen,” she said softly, almost as if the words hurt to say. “The world will never let her.”
He nodded silently to himself, glancing over at her. “She’d never want to be a queen, though, would she?”
Sansa’s gaze was knowing, and her face told him all he needed to know about a princes chances with a woman like Arya Stark.
****************************************
The first raven came three months after his departure from Kings Landing. His father asked after his health, mentioned some new trifling argument between Renly and the Lord Petyr Baelish, and finally requested he return soon to the Red Keep. Gendry sent back a denial.
The second was more stern, all business, letting him know that his presence at Winterfell was now well known, and was no longer appropriate.
The third Gendry burned without reading.
****************************************
Sansa was a delightful woman, once he got to know her. Like the rest of her family she had a wicked wit, and a beautiful laugh, and knew more affairs of state than even Gendry. And better, she would often tell him stories of the antics she and Arya got up to. His favorite story was of the time, not a month before Gendry had arrived, that they’d snuck into the village to meet with the psychic there. Sansa had been nervous, and Arya skeptical, but the woman had known things about the two of them that no one else could have known. When they’d ridden back, later in the night than either had hoped, they’d been accosted by wildlings, and Arya had tossed her a sword Sansa had strugged to even hold aloft. Arya killed one, two, three, four of the attackers, but the fifth had set his eye on Sansa, creeping after her as she watched her deadly sister. She’d cried out while Arya was still in the midst of a fight, “I don’t know what to do!” and her sister, not breaking her eyes from her opponent, had responded in typical Arya fashion, “Stick him with the pointy end!”
In the end Sansa had barely managed to raise the sword before Arya had been on the final man, slicing his throat from ear to ear as her sister trembled with false bravado.
She’d been learning from her sister since then, little tricks to overpower people bigger and stronger than her without having to heft a sword in her arms, and though she whispered to him how unladylike it was he could tell she was proud of what she’d learned. She even kept a small dagger at her belt, something she begged him not to tell her parents even as she showed off the blade with pride in her eyes.
Gendry found himself wishing he could stay at Winterfell forever, and when the ravens stopped he grew comfortable in the idea, even occasionally wondering what his father would do if he denounced his right to the crown.
Arya scoffed when he told her as much, rolling her eyes at him. “What would you do then, stupid?”
He was stupid, for even as he blew off the question in order to steal food from her plate, his eyes drank her in, trying desperately to memorize the mocking grin on her warm, beautiful face.
********************************************
Beneath the leaves of the weirwood tree, Gendry felt at home. With Arya by his side, explaining to him in great detail how Danaerys Targaryen had looked and fought and smiled and laughed with her in Pentos, Gendry was sure there had never been a person he liked more than Arya Stark.
“…and her dragons!”
He started, gaze wrenching from her long callused fingers. “Her what?”
She repeated the words slowly, as if he were a fool. “Dragons. There are three of them.”
“The dragons have been gone for thousands of years. I’ve seen their bones.”
She scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Dried out ruins of defeated beasts. I’ve seen them too. And I’ve seen the real thing.”
His brow furrowed at her reply. “You haven’t seen the old dragons. How could you?”
“With my eyes, of course.” When he bent his head forward, waiting for her to continue, she let out an impatient sigh. “I saw them before I sailed to Pentos. Snuck into the Keep. I was so little then, and they were so big - it was the first time anything frightened me so badly in years.”
“And now? If you saw them now?”
She smiled. “I’d think of the Mother of Dragons riding into Westeros on her live ones and wonder what could ever be more frightening than that.”
“You are a strange person. Every time I think I know you, you turn out to be something completely different.”
“Well you are a strange prince, to be trying to figure out Arya Stark when your father must be trying to sell you off to the best of the great houses,” she told him, her voice tinged with annoyance. “I never asked you to come here, Gendry Baratheon.”
“I’ve offended you.”
“Your entire being offends me, My Lord. Every day you are here brings more pain on my family, more whispers and talk of dishonor.”
Gendry stood, suddenly. “My being here? You are the one who stayed! If you’d never returned, your family would have thought you lost - could have returned their honor and lived their lives as they should have. Sansa would be married, Robb would have become a great lord, your father and mother would have ended their days as the most honorable house in all of Westeros.”
Arya was on her feet too, face red with anger. “They begged me to come home to them! They cried for days when I returned, and when I tried to tell them it would be better for Sansa, for Robb, for Bran and Rickon, even for Jon if I left, they begged me again to stay! I hate what I’ve done to them, I hate it, but even the mention of me leaving makes them angry and sad, and they are the only things in this world I care for enough to be miserable myself.”
He should have known, really, that the only thing keeping this wild woman here in a place where she could never be truly free was the family who adored her, but as ever, she continued to surprise him.
“Perhaps I should leave, then. If my presence makes you more miserable than you already are.”
Her eyes flashed with something primal and desperate, but when she spoke her voice was soft. “Perhaps you should.”
********************
He didn’t leave.
He knew there was no reason for him to be in Winterfell any longer, not after so many months, but Jon and Robb, and even Theon had become some of the only true friends he’d ever had, and Ned Stark’s words of advice were well thought out and fatherly, Sansa was the only lady he’d ever met that he thought he might be able to stand for more than a minute. And Arya.
Though he didn’t see her for nearly a fortnight after their fight, his whole body tingled with the knowledge that he had angered her. When she finally returned, she called him stupid and thrashed him soundly in the yard, her graceful body pinning his as she grinned triumphantly.
There were stirrings in his body when she looked at him, when she spoke to him in course Dothraki or explained a stance in water dancing, when she laughed at him or yelled at him or smiled at Bran and Rickon, stirrings that could lead to no good, not when his father had surely found a suitable wife for him by now. Sansa was the only one who seemed to fully understand, and she smiled kindly, if a little sadly, as she reminded him time and time again of what Arya was.
But though he knew exactly what Arya was, he couldn’t help the way his eyes followed her flowing grace, the way his heart sped when they yelled at each other, the euphoric feeling he got when she smiled at him or praised him.
He had been doomed from the moment he heard her name.
**************************************
The raven reached them six months into his stay at Winterfell. The King was riding North.
There had been no reason to prepare for such a large party in many years at Winterfell, and Gendry watched carefully as the flurry of activity around the house grew frenzied. Gendry spent every spare moment he could trying to drink the place in, for he knew that once the Baratheons and the Lannisters descended upon Winterfell, he’d never see the place again. He begged Jon to join his knights to little success, tried to get a promise out of Robb to visit Kings Landing, invited Sansa to join the court at the Red Keep, even promised Ned he would be Hand, when Gendry was king. He grew more desperate as the days drew on, barely sleeping, ever more often thinking of what would happen to the realm if he did not become king.
Joffrey would be a horrible king. Miserable, really, but Gendry was less and less sure any Baratheon would sit the throne after his father. The Targaryen girl held a deep and abiding hatred of the man she called the Usurper, and Gendry knew it had long been her intent to take back the Iron Throne, even before Arya had told him stories of her he’d known that. And with dragons, there was no real reason to think she might fail.
But still. It was his duty to serve the realm, his only duty in this life that he’d always meant to follow through with.
But his duty was the one thing keeping him from what he truly wanted.
*******************************************************
“What do you want?”
He found her in the forge, hammering away at a blade that looked similar to the one Sansa had. She was alone, the smithy in with the maester over some sickness or other.
“You,” he said softly, catching himself when her eyes swung up in surprise. “Wanted to see you.”
She gestured vaguely to herself before turning back to the blade on the anvil. “Here I am.”
“Could you be serious for one bloody moment?”
“Not really,” she told him, not looking up from her intense study of the steel.
Before he could stop himself he strode forward and slipped a hand underneath her chin, silver eyes lifting in surprise to meet his blue ones. “You are the most frustrating woman this world has ever beheld.”
“Good. Means your new wife will be wonderfully easy to handle.”
Gendry felt the anger start to build in him, and tried desperately to keep it in check as he blazed on. “You don’t have to be this girl, Arya.”
She yanked her head back. “I am this girl. I’ll never be anything else!”
Gendry followed her around the table as she began to back away from him, and he watched her carefully. Her eyes were wild, her face flushed, her body tense. But she had no weapon on her, and she didn’t get more defensive as he approached, instead seeming to shrink and deflate. “You could be more,” he told her softly, now, reaching for her again.
This time she let him, standing still as his fingers curled around her cheek.
“I don’t want to be anything else,” she told him, face turning up as his body crowded her own, breath coming out in short bursts. Gendry could hear her heart pounding as loudly as his own.
When he bent his head forward and slanted his lips over hers, it felt like the world might burst at its seams. Her lips were soft and warm and they curled in a smile against his, and when he opened his mouth and pressed forward, she responded easily, if a little clumsily. The thought nearly made him sing, for Arya excelled at everything she’d ever done barring sewing, but she didn’t excel at this. His fierce little warrior had never been kissed before, and he wanted no one else to kiss her ever again.
When they parted, panting, Arya looked up at him and sighed, the hand that had clenched in his hair trailing slowly across the side of his neck and down his chest before she brought it down to her side. “I can never be your queen, Gendry,” she told him, eyes serious and calm.
“Just be mine,” he told her, bending for another kiss.