The rains did not let up. They rode through woods and fields, fording swollen streams where the rushing water came up to the bellies of their horses. Arya pulled up the hood of her cloak and hunched down, sodden and shivering but determined not to falter. Merrit and Mudge were soon coughing as bad as Watty, and poor Ned seemed to grow more miserable with every mile. “When I wear my helm, the rain beats against the steel and gives me headaches,” he complained. “But when I take it off, my hair gets soaked and sticks to my face and in my mouth.”
“You have a knife,” Gendry suggested. “If your hair annoys you so much, shave your bloody head.”
He doesn’t like Ned. The squire seemed nice enough to Arya; maybe a little shy, but good-natured. She had always heard that Dornishmen were small and swarthy, with black hair and small black eyes, but Ned had big blue eyes, so dark that they looked almost purple. And his hair was a pale blond, more ash than honey. (Arya VIII ASOS)
So I just realized that the scene above has an earlier paralleling scene:
The rains came and went, but there was more grey sky than blue, and all the streams were running high. On the morning of the third day, Arya noticed that the moss was growing mostly on the wrong side of the trees. “We’re going the wrong way,” she said to Gendry, as they rode past an especially mossy elm. “We’re going south. See how the moss is growing on the trunk?”
He pushed thick black hair from eyes and said, “We’re following the road, that’s all. The road goes south here.”
We’ve been going south all day, she wanted to tell him. And yesterday too, when we were riding along that streambed. But she hadn’t been paying close attention yesterday, so she couldn’t be certain. “I think we’re lost,” she said in a low voice. “We shouldn’t have left the river. All we had to do was follow it.”
“The river bends and loops,” said Gendry. “This is just a shorter way, I bet. Some secret outlaw way. Lem and Tom and them have been living here for years.”
That was true. Arya bit her lip. “But the moss …”
“The way it’s raining, we’ll have moss growing from our ears before long,” Gendry complained.
“Only from our south ear,” Arya declared stubbornly. There was no use trying to convince the Bull of anything. Still, he was the only true friend she had, now that Hot Pie had left them. (Arya III ASOS)
I just find this really amusing. In the top quote it’s raining and everyone is wet, Edric Dayne is getting ill, and he complains, and Gendry scoffs and is rude. However, in an earlier scene Gendry is also complaining about the rain! But what makes this even better is this parallel:
The next day they rode to a place called High Heart, a hill so lofty that from atop it Arya felt as though she could see half the world. Around its brow stood a ring of huge pale stumps, all that remained of a circle of once-mighty weirwoods. Arya and Gendry walked around the hill to count them. There were thirty-one, some so wide that she could have used them for a bed. (Arya IV ASOS)
By sunset they were at the top, making camp where no harm could come to them. Arya walked around the circle of weirwood stumps with Lord Beric’s squire Ned, and they stood on top of one watching the last light fade in the west. From up here she could see a storm raging to the north, but High Heart stood above the rain. It wasn’t above the wind, though; the gusts were blowing so strongly that it felt like someone was behind her, yanking on her cloak. Only when she turned, no one was there. (Arya VIII ASOS)
I just find it funny how obviously jealous Gendry is. And in my opinion this whole Gendry/Arya/Edric triangle is meant to be a tamer mirror to the Robert/Lyanna/Rhaegar triangle. Arya even looks and acts like Lyanna. And Gendry looks like a young Robert. And Edric has the same coloring as Rhaegar with the ash blonde (a dull sort of silver color) and they roughly have the same color of eyes. Rhaegar’s eyes are a deep purple, almost indigo, while Edric’s eyes are a dark blue that look almost purple. Of course, I feel this is just an innocent mirror and Gendry wouldn’t hurt Edric, and I also believe that Edric is just one Rhaegar parallel out of a couple of others in the story, but I do find this fascinating, and funny. Poor Gendry is so jealous! LOL
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