Game of Thrones: Fanfic: Playing her part

[m_findlow]

Title: Playing her part
Fandom: Game of Thrones
Characters: Arya, Gendry
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 758 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for findlow's prompt "Any, any, picking the right fight" at fic_promptly
Summary: Arya might be small, but even a small sword is deadly in the right hands.

'What kind of name is Gendry, anyway?' Arya said, stomping over a large rotted log that stood in her path.

'Could ask you the same thing,' he said, clutching a short sword in one hand and his bull helmet in the other. 'Never heard of an Arya before.'

'It's Arry,' she said, getting annoyed at him. No one else was supposed to know. It was bad enough that Yoren knew, and now Gendry had sussed her out. She wanted to laugh. The rest of them were so stupid they didn't even realise she was a girl and not a boy. Were these really the best boys they could find to join the Night's Watch? Jon was way smarter than any of them. Maybe he was so smart he could be their Lord Commander one day. He would have picked her out as a girl straight away. Perhaps she was being too hard on Gendry. It wasn't his fault he was clever.

'What are you planning on doing if we make it to the Wall?' Gendry asked. 'Intending on taking the black?'

'Maybe I will,' she said, puffing herself up and gripping the top of Needle's hilt in her hand, where it rested against her hip in its slim sheath.

'I don't think even Yoren would let you do that.'

'Doesn't matter. My brother Jon is part of the Night's Watch. I'll stay with him, or we'll go back to Winterfell.'

He laughed. 'You really don't know much about the Night's Watch, do you?'

She frowned, listening to the trickling water of a nearby stream. It made her want to pee, but she couldn't. Not here where everyone else could see. 'What do you mean?'

'They don't let women stay up there. Or girls,' he added looking down at her. 'And if your brother is sworn to their cause, it's treason for him to leave. They'll take his head.'

'No one has to know I'm a girl, 'Arya replied. 'Everyone here thinks I'm a boy. They won't tell anyone.' She stopped, forcing him to look back. 'You won't tell anyone, will you?'

'Girls don't belong on the Wall,' he said, sighing, as if that were obvious.

'I can fight,' she said, pulling out Needle and brandishing it.

'You're too small. And that's not a sword.'

'It is so. Jon had it made for me. It was a gift before he left to join the Night's Watch. He's small too.' He wasn't small exactly, but he was well shorter than Rob and Father, and most of that other boys at Winterfell. 'And I was trained by the best swordsman in all of Braavos, Syrio Forell.'

'Oh, is that what the daughter of a high lord can afford? To teach little girls to fight?'

'I'm not little and I'm not a girl. I killed a boy in King's Landing, you know.'

'Liar.'

'I did.'

'Oh? And how did you kill him?' He stepped up to her, overshadowing her with his height. 'Tell me how you killed this boy.'

She poked his leather jerkin gently. 'Stuck him with the pointy end,' she said, repeating Jon's own instructions to her. Syrio's teachings had all come to naught that day as she skewered the boy like a piece of meat. It really could poke a man full of holes.

'I could do it again,' she warned, 'but I won't. You're obnoxious, but not enough for me to kill you.'

He laughed in her faced, hugging the bull's head helmet so hard to his stomach as he doubled over from the effort that she thought he might poke himself full of holes with its pointed horns.

'Right, well, then Arry, I suppose I'd better make sure we get you safely to the Wall. If I ever meet this brother of yours, he'll murder me if anything happens to you.'

'I can take care of myself, 'she huffed.

'Oh, yes, that's why Hot Pie nearly knocked out all of your teeth the first time you met. If it weren't for me...'

She raised her sword against him and he put up his hands in mock defense. 'Okay! Okay! Just promise me that if you're going to keep picking fights all along the Kingsroad that you'll at least pick the right fights.'

'What kind are those? 'she asked, genuinely interested.

He shrugged. 'Rabbits, squirrels. Badger if it's already wounded and half dead.'

She punched him in the stomach and stormed off, leaving him laughing behind her. She'd show them all. No one messes with a Stark.