Mother's Day owl to UnCat

[runaway-stark.livejournal.com]

Mother,

I heard that today is a holiday here where people send letters to their mothers and take them out to dinner. I wanted to tell you that I'm glad you're here and if you like I can ask the house elves to make food for you.

Love,
Arya

Comments

[ex-ladyston.livejournal.com]

Arya,

I...would like that very much. Now that my face would not make anyone lose their appetite, I would like it very much indeed. Where would you like to meet, and when?

-your loving mother

[runaway-stark.livejournal.com]

Mother,

I can meet you in the Great Hall in an hour.

Love,
Arya

[ex-ladyston.livejournal.com]

Arya,

I shall be there. You...may not recognize me, so I shall wear a black lace stole. (http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/nornovaknitwear/images/lacestole.jpg)

love,
Mother

[runaway-stark.livejournal.com]

As it turned out, Catelyn might have been the one who should have been warned. Arya spent most of the hour after her last owl cleaning herself up and showed up in the Great Hall without a smudge of dirt on her, hair brushed and clean, and wearing a long-sleeved dress that covered up her assorted bruises. Since she wasn't being forced to do so, she wasn't terribly angry about it. Needle wasn't even anywhere in sight (though the smaller dagger that she had been given for Christmas was tied against her leg, just in case. She didn't like being unarmed anymore.) She waited nervously, shifting her weight from one foot to the other every few seconds.

[ex-ladyston.livejournal.com]

Arya wasn't the only one who was nervous. The last time Catelyn had seen her daughter, she'd been a creature out of a nightmare; now, though she was still not her old self, she at least looked much more like the mother Arya had known.

When first she saw Arya, Catelyn hardly recognized her. She couldn't recall the last time (if there had ever been a time) Arya had willingly worn a dress, nor when she had taken such care to be clean and tidy. All her nervousness vanished in that instant--Arya had taken all those pains for her, and it struck her so deeply and sweetly that she had to blink hard. Her Arya was still her Arya, no matter how much she had changed--and grown; she looked near a woman now, young as she still was.

"Arya," she said softly, one hand--pale, still, far too pale, but at least nearly a living hand, now--holding the stole that draped about her shoulders.

[runaway-stark.livejournal.com]

Arya recognized her mother easily. She looked more like her mother and less like what Arya remembered from the dream she'd had once. The still-visible scars made her nearly boil over in rage, but she managed to hold it in check. She was trying not to scare or anger her mother.

She curtseyed, more than a bit stiffly. Courtly behaviors had never come easily to her, and less so now. "You're looking very well, mother." She smiled a little.

[ex-ladyston.livejournal.com]

What little of the tension remained in Catelyn broke at the sight of Arya curtseying. "My Arya, you look beautiful," she said, returning the curtsey and the smile. "You don't know what it means to me, to see you again." She reached out and touched her daughter's hair--so like Ned's hair; the brown hair of the Starks. Time had changed her; she seemed...harder, sharper, but she was still Catelyn's Arya, the daughter who, it seemed, would bow to nothing and no one.

[runaway-stark.livejournal.com]

Arya was proud that she managed to avoid flinching--despite being at Hogwarts for several months, she was still defensive and wasn't terribly comfortable with people trying to touch her. "How have you been?" She was more than a bit ashamed that she had seen so little of her family here, now that she had some of them back.

[ex-ladyston.livejournal.com]

"I've been well." Catelyn was surprised at how honest that was; since Dr. Cox had helped heal the worst of her wounds and scars, she had been, for the most part, content. "I do not go out as much as I ought, perhaps, but I have made some friends here."

Arya was old enough now that Catelyn did not try to take her hand as they moved toward the Great Hall; by Westeros' standards she was close to being a woman. It grieved her somewhat, knowing how much of Arya's childhood she'd missed, but at the sime time she could not help but be proud of how strong Arya seemed to have become. "And what have you been doing with yourself, here?"

[runaway-stark.livejournal.com]

"That's good," she said, genuinely happy. Her mother deserved some happiness after everything she'd been through.

"Needlework," she said, grinning a little ruefully. "And I think I may have made a friend or two." She didn't mention Ray and the guns. Somehow she felt that might upset her mother.

[ex-ladyston.livejournal.com]

Needlework. Somehow, Catelyn did not think Arya had taken up embroidery, but she wasn't sure just what Arya might mean.

"And what is 'needlework', exactly?" she asked, with a very small smile. "I rather doubt it is the conventional kind." It gladdened her to see Arya smile, to know that she had friends here as well. This seemed as good a place for Arya as it was for she herself; there was no court here, no protocol and manners to constrain her.

[runaway-stark.livejournal.com]

"Needle's my sword," she explained. "Jon asked Mikken to make it for me before we left, and Father found a teacher for me when he found out."

[ex-ladyston.livejournal.com]

Swordwork...it was fitting for Arya, who was so much her father's daughter. "And you've been practicing here?" It was good, Catelyn thought, that she should know such a thing; though they were no longer in Westeros, there was no guarantee they would not all one day go back. "I am...glad you have it with you. I think your father would be glad, too." He would be proud of her, she thought.

[runaway-stark.livejournal.com]

She nodded. "I don't want to get sloppy." I need to be at my best if I have a chance at killing Queen Cersei, and everyone else when I get back to Westeros.

[ex-ladyston.livejournal.com]

Catelyn would have agreed with her, had she known Arya wished to kill Cersei--were there any way to do so here, Catelyn would happily do it. It would sadden her, though, to know that Arya was as set on it as she was--no child should have cause to wish someone dead, and if it wasn't for Cersei Lannister Arya would not have that cause.

"Perhaps I could watch you sometime, while you practise," she said.

[runaway-stark.livejournal.com]

"Maybe," she said, her face actually breaking into a grin.

The house elves arrived with food: deep-dish pizza and Coke. Arya had become increasingly fond of both since her arrival. "I hope you like it."

[ex-ladyston.livejournal.com]

Arya smiling--to see her smile did more for Catelyn than perhaps anything else could have. "Has anyone been teaching you, here? Is there anyone you practise with?" The food looked...interesting, and it certainly smelled good. She'd been introduced to all sorts of new things here, and on the whole she liked them.

[runaway-stark.livejournal.com]

"Not really. I've been out in the forest, away from people. I saw Lady Brienne the other day, though. When we first met, she said she was sworn to you?" She grabbed a slice of pizza, hissed as the still-very-hot sauce burned her fingers a little, and blew on it to cool it down.

[ex-ladyston.livejournal.com]

Brienne...Catelyn wasn't certain what to think of Brienne. The woman had been in Jaime Lannister's company, when first Catelyn came here, which was a horrible black mark against her; on the other hand, Catelyn had no idea what had happened before she came here.

"She was," she said at last. "She was sworn to find you and Sansa, if she could, and see that you were safe." Best not mention Jaime, not right now.

[runaway-stark.livejournal.com]

Arya shrugged. "I guess she succeeded."

[ex-ladyston.livejournal.com]

She had, at least technically, which was why Catelyn wasn't out for her blood. "How did you get here? Did you come of your own purpose, or did you just...find yourself here?" There seemed to be so many people on both sides, and, like so much in this place, it made no sense.

[runaway-stark.livejournal.com]

"I... I don't know. I fell asleep in Braavos, and when I woke up, I was here. I thought I was drugged at first. Was it the same for you?"

[ex-ladyston.livejournal.com]

Catelyn nodded. "I did not know how I came to be here; I don't sleep anymore, but one moment I was in Westeros, and the next I was here. I have met a great many people who might say the same, oddly. And many who were dead before they arrived." And not in the way she'd been, either. "How did you get to Braavos?" She knew next to nothing about what had happened to Arya after she'd fled King's Landing, and she feared to ask; if Arya's memories were too terrible, she didn't want to dredge them up.

[runaway-stark.livejournal.com]

"I took a ship," she mumbled. She didn't mention the Temple of the Many-Faced God. She didn't mention how she got to be on the ship, as that would mean she would have to tell about Jaqen and the deaths he had owed her, and the people she had helped kill. She wasn't quite ready to talk about that with her mother yet.

"But most of them came right after dying, not--" she hesitated. "You know."

[ex-ladyston.livejournal.com]

Catelyn nodded. She sensed there was much Arya was not telling her, but Catelyn could not fault her for it; they had all gone through things it might be best not to speak of, at least not yet.

"I was a...special case, I think," she said. "Though I am told there are creatures here much like I was--zombies, I think they are called. People who died, and were reanimated, only...not all the way."

[runaway-stark.livejournal.com]

"I haven't seen any. The dead people I know don't look dead. I know two others." Lily and Laura had both looked normal, like they could have just walked in off the road. "This place is very, very strange."