Monday, February 12, 2018

ACoK 30: Arya VII

Arya, being inquisitive as she is, wonders what King Harren originally named the five towers of Harrenhal. Now they are known by their post-Dragon burning names: the Tower of Dread, the Widow's Tower, the Wailing Tower, the Tower of Ghosts, and the Kingspyre Tower. Together the five towers can also form Voltron: The Defender of the Universe. 

Arya now sleeps and works in the vaults beneath the Wailing Tower. Not to be confused with a "Whaling" Tower, as it would be hard to extract oils from Cetacea from a stationary, land-bound tower. 

Life still sucks for Arya, but things are moderately better than before. She can regularly eat food and bathe now. She occasionally sees Gendry working in the forge and Hot Pie in the kitchens. And although she still fears for her life it's not as bad as when The Mountain was having people executed every day for no reason. 

Arya mainly sweeps the floors, runs errands, sends messages, delivers water and food to Lannisters men, and sometimes does some table bussing. Her boss is Weese, who is a giant piece of shit.

Arya: I'm adding him to my list of names of people to die. Fuck this dude.

Arya doesn't bother to learn the names of her co-workers. Not because she's anti-social, but because people here tend to die, and she prefers not to get to know people's names if they're just going to die soon anyway.  A lot of these morons are scared of the "Ghost of Harrenhal." But Arya isn't scared of ghosts. She's scared of these very much alive asshole Lannister men.

Sometimes she feels like revealing who she is to see if that will get her out of this situation. But she figured Weese wouldn't believe her, and would just beat the shit out of her for making up a story. So she doesn't do anything. 

Arya's only source of entertainment, since TV hasn't been invented yet, is vicariously listening to stories being told by all these Lannister men. They talk and talk and talk, and act like "the help" isn't even there, listening. Like they're nobodies that are too stupid to hear. 

Solider: Oh, do you know about this girl here named Pia? She is sleeping with EVERYONE. All you have to do is take a number.

Other Solider: That's nothing! Have you hear about the wife of the jailer? She's pregnant... and not by him!

Third Solider: Did you hear Lord Lefford keeps a candle by his bed at night because he's scared of ghosts? Hahha! What a punk!

Soldier: That's nothing! I hear the cooks spit on certain people's food. Want me to tell you which ones?

Other Solider: Who cares about spitting in food? I heard a rumor that Joffrey Baratheon is a bastard. Lord Tywin ordered the message about it to be burned.

Weese: I hear those Baratheon brothers Stannis and Renly are claiming the throne. Crazy, right?

Third Soldier: That's old news. I hear that Beric Dondarian is finally dead. Killed by the Bloody Mummers.

Solider: That's such bullshit. Everyone claims they killed Beric. Amorch Lorch said he killed him too.

Other Solider: Yeah, and The Mountain claims he killed him already... TWICE!

Arya: What the fuck is this shit? Gossip Girls: Westeros?

Two weeks later, the aforementioned "Bloody Mummers" arrive in town riding their strange black-and-white horses. They are a rag-tag group of sellswords carrying a flag with a black goat on it. They look like they have seen some shit... and killed tons of people along the way. 

Vargo Hoat: Greetings, I am Vargo Hoat, leader of the "Brave Companions."

Solider: What the fuck is that you're riding?

Vargo: A zorse.

Other Solider: SHUT UP! Just call it a fucking "Zebra."

Third Soldier: Why do you have a goat on your flag?

Vargo: G.O.A.T. Greatest Of All Time. YEAH!

Soldier: Really? That's what the goat stands for?

Vargo: Nah man, we're from the Free City of Qohor, in Essos.  Our god is a black goat. That's all.

Immediately these "Brave Companion" guys start getting into fights with the other soldiers. Probably over petty arguments like, "Who the hell worships a goat?" Lord Tywin has to hang a bunch of people just to calm everyone the fuck down by letting them know "Hey, if you get into another fight I will hang you."

It's a pretty effective strategy. 

The Brave Companions don't stay long. Soon they leave to go out to battle again, but not before dropping some more gossip that Arya can overhear. 

Vargo Hoat: Hey man, we're heading out to go fight Roose Bolton by the Ruby Ford. Peace, bitches!

Next Arya hears rumors about captives from the Battle of the Green Fork. She tries to meet some of them, thinking that maybe these Stark-allied men can help her escape. One of them is a goddamn fat Manderly son. So he doesn't care about escaping. He just cares about whether or not the kitchen has eel pies to eat. It doesn't, but he eats everything else anyway. 

The next group to arrive in town is led by Ser Amory Lorch, the same dick who burned down the village they were in and had Yoren killed. But who she sees with Amory is what REALLY pisses her off.

Arya: OH SHIT! It's Jaqen H'ghar, Rorge and Biter. I freed them from that caged cart when the barn was on fire. And what do they do? They JOIN team Lannister? FUCK THAT! I hate them. I should have never saved their lives. Just like Gendry said. I'm going to strongly consider adding their names to my list.

Arya thinks she's all slick and shit. She thinks Jaqen H'ghar didn't even notice her when she walked by.  

She goes to bed that night and is awoken by a man holding her mouth down. 

Jaqen H'ghar: A boy had become a girl. A man is very confused by this. Is this some Katelyn Jenner shit?

Arya: No, I was always a girl. Just pretending to be a boy.

Jaqen H'ghar: A girl has saved three lives. Therefore three lives is owed.

Arya: Wait... what? Can you speak in a less cryptic and poetic voice and just describe the situation to me in plain English?

Jaqen H'ghar: You saved me, Rorge and Biter from dying. The Red God was expecting three lives. According to my particular religious beliefs, because you saved our three lives... I am now bound in service to kill three people of your choice in return.

Arya: Oh damn, that is a SWEET religion. Oh man. SO MANY NAMES! SO MANY NAMES!  Weese, Dunsen, Chiswyck, Polliver, Raff the Sweetling, the Tickler, the Hound, Ser Gregor, Ser Amory Lorch, Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, and King Joffrey and Queen Cersei. How do I even choose?

Jaqen H'ghar: I'll give you some time to sleep on it.

And so he leaves.

Arya takes some time to consider who she wants to kill. The next morning she yawns and Weese beats the shit out of her for it. So Weese is a pretty strong contender on the list. She thinks about running to Jaqen to give him the name ASAP. But then again... can she really trust this guy? He is with the Lannisters now, after all. Is this some sort of trick? 

Weese sends her to go up and see if some Lannister men need their clothes mended. She walks into the room and hears a bunch of them talking. She decides not to interrupt them because she might get beat for interrupting them. Or for NOT interrupting them. This is a lose-lose situation, really.

Chiswyck: Hey, so check this out. I got to tell you all this awesome story. We went to this alehouse, right. And there was this cute serving girl. So we all started sexually assaulting her and she ran away. Then we went to the kitchen to go grab her. Then all of us started repeatedly raping her. Over and over. Her brother ran out to protect her, and so Raff just stabbed him in the heart with a knife and he died. Then The Mountain was like, "this isn't rape, we're just having sex with a whore." And he threw the girl's father a silver coin as payment. But then check this out... after we all repeatedly raped that girl, the Mountain asked for some change back because he said that the girl wasn't even worth a single silver. HAHAHAHA! Isn't that the best story ever? So hilarious! What a great tale! I tell it everywhere I go. It's all true and represents the type of human being I am. The type who lives to be involved in gang-rape while forcing the girl's father to watch as that happen and as while we murder his son.

Arya: Oh, this is one sick fuck.

Arya walks away without even asking is anyone needed their clothes mended. 

Weese: Did you ask?

Arya: Nah.

Weese beats the shit out of Arya. She doesn't care though. Two days later, she runs into Jaqen H'ghar in some big hall where she's filling everyone's wine cups. As she walks to to Jaquen to fill his cup, she whispers in his ear...

Arya: Chiswyck.

A few pass and nothing happens. She thinks maybe Jaquen is full of shit. BUT THEN... she hears some more gossip.

Solider: Did you hear, man? Fucking Chiswyck just randomly fell off a walkway and died!

Other Solider: Oh MAN! That's messed up. I wonder if it was the Ghost of Harrenhal.

Arya: HAHAHA... I, ARYA STARK, AM THE GHOST OF HARRENHAL, MOTHERFUCKERS!!!!!

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