#i grew them myself | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

gazpachoandbooks · 7 days

Text

Arya and Hot Pie's compilation because their friendship is so important to me

"You better give Hot Pie the sword, Arry," Lommy said. "Hot Pie wants it bad. He kicked a boy to death. He'll do the same to you, I bet."

"I knocked him down and I kicked him in the balls, and I kept kicking him there until he was dead," Hot Pie boasted. "I kicked him all to pieces. His balls were broke open and bloody and his cock turned black. You better gimme the sword."

Arya slid her practice sword from her belt. "You can have this one," she told Hot Pie, not wanting to fight.

"That's just some stick." He rode nearer and tried to reach over for Needle's hilt. [...] The Bull shouted, "Behind you," and Arya spun. Hot Pie was on his knees, his fist closing around a big jagged rock. She let him throw it, ducking her head as it sailed past. Then she flew at him.

[...] By the time Yoren pulled her off him, Hot Pie was sprawled out on the ground with his breeches brown and smelly, crying as Arya whapped him over and over and over.

"Is it a fight?" he asked.

"I guess," said Hot Pie, scrambling on all fours for a big rock to throw. Arya could not believe what she was seeing. She hated Hot Pie! Why would he risk himself for her?

He scooped up the shortsword the officer had dropped. "Who wants this?"

"Me!" Hot Pie yelled.

"Don't be using it on Arry." He handed the boy the sword, hilt first.

"I'm scared," Hot Pie murmured when he saw the one-armed woman thrashing in the wagon.

"Me too," Arya confessed.

He squeezed her shoulder. "I never truly kicked no boy to death, Arry. I just sold my mommy's pies, is all."

"I need to make water," Arya explained.

"Well, use that tree right there." (Hot Pie) pointed. "You don't know what's out there, Arry. I heard wolves before."

The crying girl whimpered and wept, but when Hot Pie offered her a bit of goose she gobbled it down and looked for more.

Hot Pie squatted on the pallet beside her, watching her work. "Where'd you get a good sword like that?" he asked. When he saw the look she gave him, he raised his hands defensively. "I never said you stole it, I just wanted to know where you got it, is all."

"My brother gave it to me," she muttered.

"I never knew you had no brother."

Arya paused to scratch under her shirt. There were fleas in the straw, though she couldn't see why a few more would bother her. "I have lots of brothers."

"You do? Are they bigger than you, or littler?"

More spears flew. Arya yanked down Hot Pie by the back of his tunic. [...] Hot Pie dropped his shortsword when he tried to unsheath it. Arya shoved the blade back into his hand. "I don't know how to swordfight," he said, white-eyed.

"It's easy," Arya said, but the lie died in her throat as a hand grasped the top of the parapet.

"Behind!" Hot Pie yelled. Arya whirled. The second man was bearded and helmetless, his dirk between his teeth to leave both hands free for climbing. As he swung his leg over the parapet, she drove her point at his eyes. Needle never touched him; he reeled backward and fell. I hope he falls on his face and cuts off his tongue. "Watch them, not me!" she screamed at Hot Pie. The next time someone tried to climb their part of the wall, the boy hacked at his hands with his swordshort until the man dropped away.

She never saw how the skinny man got over the wall, but when he did she fell on him with Gendry and Hot Pie [...] Even as she was feeling sorry for him she was killing him, shouting, "Winterfell! Winterfell!" while Hot Pie screamed "Hot Pie!" beside her as he hacked at the man's scrawny neck.

Hot Pie stepped out of the barn. "Arry, come on! Lommy's gone, leave her if she won't come!"

Beneath her tree, Hot Pie barked like a dog. Kurz had told them to use animal sounds to signal to each other. An old poacher's trick, he'd said, but he'd died before he could teach them how to make the sounds right. Hot Pie's bird calls were awful. His dog was better, but not much.

Lommy and Hot Pie almost shit themselves when she stepped out of the trees behind them. "Quiet," she told them, putting an arm around Weasel when the little girl came running up.

Hot Pie stared at her with big eyes. "We thought you left us."

"Where's the Bull?" asked Lommy.

"They caught him," Arya whispered. "We have to get him out. Hot Pie, you got to help." [...] "Anyhow, I don't care what you say, I'm going back for him." She looked at Hot Pie. "Are you coming?"

Hot Pie glanced at Lommy, at Arya, at Lommy again. "I'll come," he said reluctantly.

Hot Pie kept stumbling in the dark and losing his way, and Arya had to wait for him and double back. Finally she took him by the hand and led him along through the trees. "Just be quiet and follow."

Hot Pie ate even better; he was where he belonged, in the kitchens, a round stone building with a domed roof that was a world unto itself. Arya took her meals at a trestle table in the undercroft with Weese and his other charges, but sometimes she would be chosen to help fetch their food, and she and Hot Pie could steal a moment to talk. He could never remember that she was now Weasel and kept calling her Arry, even though he knew she was a girl. Once he tried to slip her a hot apple tart, but he made such a clumsy job of it that two of the cooks saw. They took the tart away and beat him with a big wooden spoon.

"I'm making the morning bread," Hot Pie complained. "Anyhow I don't like it when it's dark, I told you."

"I'm going. I'll tell you after. Can I have a tart?"

"No."

She filched one anyway, and ate it on her way out. It was stuffed with chopped nuts and fruit and cheese, the crust flaky and still warm from the oven.

Hot Pie was told to crumble in the spices as the wine heated. Arya went to help.

"I can do it," he said sullenly. "I don't need you to show me how to spice wine."

He hates me too, or else he's scared of me. She backed away, more sad than angry.

Hot Pie said, "Hoot like an owl when you want us to come."

"I'm not an owl," said Arya. "I'm a wolf. I'll howl."

It made her feel bad to hide the truth from Hot Pie, but she did not trust him with her secret.

Hot Pie shifted his seat. "I know the song about the bear," he said. "Some of it, anyhow."

Tom ran his fingers down his strings. "Then let's hear it, pie boy." He threw back his head and sang, "A bear there was, a bear, a bear! All black and brown, and covered with hair . . ."

Hot Pie joined in lustily, even bouncing in his saddle a little on the rhymes. Arya stared at him in astonishment. He had a good voice and he sang well. He never did anything well, except bake, she thought to herself.

"If I served you a cup of soup full of dead flies, would you drink it?"

"Arry would," said Hot Pie.

"The bread will be better when I make it. You'll see, when you come back. You will come back, won't you? When the war's done?"

[...] Arya didn't know if the war would ever be done, but she had nodded. "I'm sorry I beat you that time," she said. Hot Pie was stupid and craven, but he'd been with her all the way from King's Landing and she'd gotten used to him. "I broke your nose."

"You broke Lem's too." Hot Pie grinned. "That was good."

"Lem didn't think so," Arya said glumly. Then it was time to go. When Hot Pie asked if he might kiss milady's hand, she punched his shoulder. "Don't call me that. You're Hot Pie, and I'm Arry."

There was no use trying to convice the Bull of anything. Still, he was the only true friend she had, now that Hot Pie had left them. [...] She missed him more than she thought she would.

#they grew on each other so much one petty fight after another #they annoy each other to pieces but they were there for the other unflinchingly i miss them so much #they're the epitome of “i can't fucking stand you but if anyone is mean to you i'll kill everyone in this room and then myself”#and i think that's beautiful #arya stark #hot pie #harrenhal gang #riverlands gang #asoiaf #valyrianscrolls

38 notes · View notes