fandomweekly | [#097] TRUTH AND LIES (GAME OF THRONES)

Theme Prompt: #97 - White lies
Title: Truth and lies
Fandom: Game of Thrones
Rating/Warnings: PG. Spoilers for Season 8.
Bonus: Yes
Word Count: 1,000 words
Summary: Arya is furious at her sister for lying and breaking a promise that will keep their family safe.

Arya strode across the courtyard with purpose. Normally she would have paused to enjoy and admire the sight and sound of her home and all the strange new people who inhabited Winterfell's grounds. What would her father have thought of all of this, she might have wondered. Could he have done all this? Rallied the North and aligned them with Wildlings and Night's Watchmen and Dothraki and Unsullied? He'd never even seen the kinds of people and things she'd seen across the Narrow Sea. In many ways her father was as naive as everyone else in the North.

Naivety was going to get them all killed, she realised, quickening her pace towards the large wooden hall. There was a guardsman standing there to let her in. He bowed slightly before pulling open the heavy door. She might have warned him not to do it again but for the fact that she was saving all her ire for Sansa. She hated anyone here treating her like Stark nobility, but if they weren't careful, there would be no Stark nobility left for them to serve. Her right hand drifted unconsciously to the hilt of the Valyrian steel dagger at her hip. Strange that it wasn't her left instinctually reaching for the hilt of Needle at her other side. The dagger was still a recent addition compared to the years she'd kept her sword at her side, yet somehow she knew the dagger was more deadly. Enough to have killed the Night King, so surely capable of killing anything else that stood in her way. A time may yet come that she'd need to use its deadly power again.

She navigated the warm stone halls with practised ease. She'd learned their many twists and turns as a child and could have moved around them with her eyes closed. Silent as the fog, sharp as a raven and quick as a snake.

The door to her parents' chambers, now those of the rightful Lady of Winterfell, came upon her quickly. She gave one courteous knock with a gloved hand but didn't wait for a reply before letting herself in.

Her sister Sansa sat elegantly on a chair by the looking glass, brushing out her long auburn hair, still dressed in her bedclothes. She may still have enjoyed dressing in long flowing gowns and fussing with her hair, though she no longer had handmaidens to do it for her. Sansa had grown up, as had Arya, yet something of the young elder sister Arya remembered still remained.

Sansa turned in her chair, letting the brush in her hand gently drop into her lap. 'What is it?'

'You told Tyrion,' Arya replied without preamble. Saying out loud filled her with vile rage. Her sister was the smartest person she'd met, yet of all the stupid, childish things she could have done…

Sansa's blue-eyed gaze met hers, unwavering. 'Who told you?'

'No one.'

Sansa sighed and gave a roll of her eyes. 'One of your faceless men then, or perhaps it was you wearing the face of another.'

Arya took a step closer, keeping her hands clutched together behind her back. 'Does it matter? You swore. You swore not to tell another soul.'

'I didn't know what I was swearing to. None of us did.'

'He's our brother,' Arya reminded her. Perhaps not the kind that shared mother or father, but a brother by blood, Lyanna Stark's only child, and true heir to the Seven Kingdoms. More a brother to Arya than any of her trueborn brothers had been. 'We have to keep his secret.'

'Do we?' Sansa challenged her. 'His dragon queen knows the truth but she won't dare tell anyone. No as long as it means he has the better claim to the throne.'

'And what good does that do us?'

Sansa stood, towering over her sister at her full height, and looking every bit as regal in her underclothes as she did properly dressed. 'I did what I had to do. Tell me you don't think Jon would make a better king. I swore but this is more important than some promise.'

Empty words. Arya didn't rise to the accusation. Calm as still water. 'You are my sister. The smartest person I know. You survived King's Landing and Ramsay Bolton. You reclaimed the North and held it, even when Jon wasn't here. You accepted the hard choices and rid us of those who sought to tear our house apart, yet you cannot see how dangerous a thing you've done.'

'I told Tyrion the truth. That's all.'

'And how long until he tells someone else? How long until everyone knows it?'

'People have a right to know. They'll choose Jon. I know they will. The whole North stands behind him. Other houses will, too.'

Arya gave her sister a disparaging look. 'Until our dragon queen decides that he's a threat and has one of her dragons burn him alive. Don't you understand? This is why he made us swear. He loves her, but he knows that she'll kill anyone who stands between her and power.'

Arya could tell Sansa was growing annoyed with her. 'Which is why we have to stand up against her! The Iron Throne belongs to Jon. He is our true king.'

'He's a dead king so long as one other person knows the truth. The Dothraki and Unsullied still outnumber all of the North put together. Danaerys will use us to take what she wants and then as soon as she has the throne, she'll remove anyone who challenges her. Just remember that. She'll burn the North rather than let them support their king.' Her hand drifted back to the hilt of the dagger.

Sansa's eyes followed its movement, watching it cautiously resting there. 'What are you doing?'

'Heading south,' Arya replied. 'I still have Cersei to kill, and Jon will need someone to watch his back. If I have to kill the dragon queen as well, then so be it.'