arya’s ship is wrecked in shipbreaker bay and now she has to wait out the storm in storm’s end wink wonk
“Lord Baratheon?” Gendry looks up at his name.
“A woman was sailing last night, and her ship crashed near the dock, My Lord.”
Gendry furrows his eyebrows and stands. It had stormed all of last night and it continued to storm now. Who in their right mind would have been on a boat last night? “She said that you would know her and asked if she could come in, but I wanted your permission first.” Gendry can hear his heart pounding in his ears. He had to remind himself that she sailed West. She wouldn’t have been near Shipbreaker Bay. “She said her name is Arry, My L-” Gendry stands from his desk and urges the young man to take him to the woman. He has to stop himself from running to the dock.
He walks out into the thunderstorm and finds Arya climbing the hill with a few more staff. She’s drenched from the storm and shivers with each step. He’s away from the prying eyes of almost everyone except for a few people, so he runs out to her to pull his cloak up and cover her head for the rest of the walk. Arya rolls her eyes at the gesture, probably wanting to remain independent on her walk up, but she grabs the end of his cloak to pull around her shoulders when her teeth chatter again.
They make it inside the castle and Gendry turns to face Arya. He rubs his hands up and down her arms, attempting the warm them. “What were you doing in the storm, stupid?” He mutters.
Arya shrugs. “I didn’t know it was going to storm.” Gendry shakes his head at her. He clasps her face between his hands and checks her head and neck for any new wounds. She was scarred from the wars, but she didn’t have any fresh injuries on her face. Arya doesn’t push him away, and she stands still for him, waiting for him to finish determining that she’s okay. She brings her hands up to clasp his wrists and Gendry leans forward.
She was alive. She was here.
He hears someone clear their throat behind them, and Gendry quickly releases Arya’s face, taking a step back. He turns to the sound, and all of the staff who had stopped to gawk at their Lord quickly turned away and went back to their work. Ser Davos stares at Gendry before he bows to Arya.
“Ser Davos,” Arya responds with a similar bow.
“Mayhaps Lord Baratheon would be kind enough to have a bath drawn for you and for you to be given dry clothes,” he says, narrowing his eyes at Gendry, but smiling anyway. Gendry stands still for a moment, processing, before he abruptly nods.
“Yes, yes, of course- I- please excuse me,” he says and Arya covers a laugh with her hand. “I’ll ask Jenny to draw you a bath,” he promises. “You can stay until your ship is fixed. There’s plenty of rooms,” he says. Arya nods at him and he rushes off to find Jenny.
Unfortunately for Arya, Southern ladies wore breeches even less than Northern ladies. She was able to borrow a dress from one of the maids who was her size, but that was the only thing that could be offered to her while her clothes were washed. Gendry assumed that she had brought other clothes with her, but they had no doubt been soaked in the storm and needed to dry before she could wear them again. Gendry stands from his chair when she steps into the room.
“If you say I look nice, I’ll rip your throat out with my teeth,” she hisses. Gendry was glad to know that her journey hadn’t changed her too much. Ser Davos chuckles from beside Gendry.
“You look dry,” he says. Arya lets out a puff of laughter through her nose.
“Do you have any wine?” She asks. Davos sets the wineskin by the empty seat in front of Arya. She sits down and bites into a bit of bread before she pours a cup of wine. “Will Lady Baratheon be joining us?” She asks, and Gendry tries not to splutter at her question.
She raises her eyebrows expectantly and Gendry shakes his head. “There isn’t a Lady Baratheon.” Arya covers her smile by taking a sip of wine.
“So, there’s no one else?”
“Well, if you’ll both excuse me, I have some ravens to send…” Davos cuts in as he picks up his plate and stands. Gendry opens his mouth to protest, but Davos sets a hand on his shoulder. “It’s important that I leave and send them right now,” he insists and steps out of the room. Gendry swallows thickly, not sure if he’s ready to be left alone with Arya.
“There haven’t been any potential ladies?” Gendry chuckles nervously and Arya studies him.
He shakes his head. “Ser Davos wants me to marry,” he says.
“No, Arya, I don’t. I asked you if you would marry me, and you said that you wouldn’t. Forgive me for not looking for another bride right away,” he mutters. She had to know that that would have been a sensitive topic for him, considering the only woman he had loved enough to ask to be his wife sat in front of him, sipping wine while demanding details about his romantic life.
Arya sits in silence with him for a while, slowly chewing bits of her food. She refills her cup of wine. “You seem like you’ve done a good job. With being a lord, I mean.“
"Ser Davos helps me. I only get the chance to smith a few times in a moon because I spend all my time reading and writing and working.” Davos kept reminding him that if he had a wife, he would have less work to do by himself and more time to smith. That was the point that Gendry usually excused himself from the conversations.
“Have you met the commonfolk?” She asks.
“I visit the towns as often as I can. I bring bread for their children.” Arya nods.
“My father always said that a good Lord brought a different man to his table every night to listen to him and try to help him.”
Gendry gives Arya a soft smile. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you,” he says.
“I’m glad that you’re here,” Gendry starts, “but I’m just trying to understand why you decided it was smart to sail through a place named “Shipbreaker Bay,’” he teases.
Arya rolls her eyes at him and stands. “It was a faster route,” she says with a shrug. Gendry wants to ask what it was a faster route to, because the Stormlands were East, but Arya has already left him.
Gendry wakes up in the dead of the night to his door creaking open. He hears it latch and he sits up in bed, rubbing his sleep ridden eyes. He watches as Arya pulls her shift over her head in the dim firelight. She drops it to the floor and silently treads to Gendry. Her hands fumble with the furs around him, but she pushes them aside to climb into his lap. Arya reaches for his shoulders and he waits. He wouldn’t kiss her without knowing she wanted him to. She moves her hands up his neck and to his cheeks.
“I’ve missed you,” she whispers. “Gods, I’ve missed you,” she repeats and traces the pad of her thumb over his lips. She looks at his mouth and back to his eyes.
“I’ve missed you, too,” he says. Arya lets out a strangled sound, like a laugh and cry, and she smiles. She surges forward to kiss him. He rests his hands on her hips as she tugs her fingers through his hair. Arya leans down on her side and pulls on his shoulders. He twists to lay her on her back and she grins up at him when he moves between her thighs. She missed him, he thinks as he smiles into their kiss.
Gendry trails his hand down her back and smiles at her. She rolls her eyes, but Gendry knows she can’t be annoyed with him when she’s laying like this. She was resting against his side, with her chin on his chest and her leg hooked in between his. She was light, but his body was still starting to get sore from her laying on him. He wouldn’t dare ask her to move a bit, though. He was happy. So happy.
He pushes her hair behind her ear with his other hand. She rests her cheek in his palm.
“Where else would I go, stupid? I don’t have a ship,” she says.
“No, stupid. I mean even after your ship is fixed… stay.”
Arya lets out a slow breath. “I haven’t gone west yet.”
“You’ve been gone for over a year. What were you doing?”
“I sailed around Westeros. Queen Yara of the Iron Islands welcomed me and she gifted me with a better ship. (edit: i wrote this before the finale when arya threatened yara and got her banging stark ship so just pretend like they’re pals bc its a relationship we deserve) I had never been in the Westerlands before and I wanted to see the grand Casterly Rock for myself, so I went. I stopped in Dorne for a while, and I swam in the famed pools,” she murmurs. She traces circles on his chest with her fingers.
“Why’d you start sailing North?” Gendry asks.
Arya bites her lip. She moves her face away from his hand and starts to pull away from him, but Gendry keeps his other hand in the middle of her back to prevent her from leaving his side.
“It was easier,” she whispers. “I thought my family was dead the first time I left Westeros, but now I think of them all the time. Sansa and Jon and Bran. They’re all alive,” she says.
“You don’t want to leave them.”
Arya shakes her head. She presses her cheek against his heart. “I tried to, but I couldn’t make myself. I miss them.”
“Then don’t leave them. Go North,” he prods.
“And leave you?” She says, giving him a small smirk.
“I think I’ll survive as long as you plan to return.”
“Then I plan to return,” she promises.
“Good.” Gendry tilts her head up and leans forward. “But your ship won’t be fixed before the storm is over, and the storms down here can sometimes last days. I’m afraid you can’t leave just yet,” he whispers.
Arya grins. “Whatever will we do until then?”
“I can think of a few things,” Gendry teases and strokes her jaw. Arya laughs and kisses him.
annaxmalina
yousharknotpass
areudirty
pixelskylines
andulkaphoto
gummygunk
2087
