#Wren has no choice but make do with the occasional letters from home

[ask-wren-zhang]

For your ask post:

If they were ever granted one wish, what would they wish for?

Sighs in wistful lactose intolerance, "to eat a cheesecake." 😔

[7deadlycinderellas]

The Starks at War, ch2

AO3 link

Catelyn had been a girl still, at the outbreak of the Great War. In her youthful naivete, she had believed the propaganda; that the war would be brief and the boys she knew would come home in glory.

Her vision had been shattered.

Her engagement to Brandon Stark had been a terribly childish decision in retrospect, the last act of tradition, the union of two great families before the walls came down.

When he had died, she had felt that her world would end. Ned had held her when he could, and when the war ended they had fallen in love amidst their shared grief. Lyanna’s death had dealt another blow to Ned, unexpectedly. Lyanna had somehow managed to thrive during the war instead of being crushed by it, and in the end, her work managed to crush her anyway.

Yet here Catelyn is, hanging blackout curtains and watching as her children leave Winterfell one by one.

Sansa had been the first, seemingly both terrified and impatient to leave. Ned and Cat had half considered pulling her out of school, but everything was already prepared, her fees paid, and her school was in Kent, far from London.

Robb was eighteen in June. He joins up immediately, taking a spot in the RAF before he could be conscripted.

When Ned raises an eyebrow at his choice of service, Robb grins softly and says,

“I get seasick.”

Jon joins him soon after. Theon has joined the regular British army, haunted by his father’s words about choice of military service.

Catelyn had looked at Ned when all three of them left, with a sinking feeling in her stomach.

“They wouldn’t...not again?”

“No,” Ned insists firmly, “Everyone remembers exactly what happened then”.

When the Great War had started, all the men who could had enlisted. The army had often posted men who were from the same villages and towns together, in hopes that their already created camaraderie would make the transition easier.

It had resulted in some villages losing every single one of their young men. The idea of losing even one of her sons, even Theon, who had already left, even Jon, who she was sometimes embarrassed of, made Cat want to weep. She was so grateful for Bran’s condition, and Rickon’s age, even if thinking so made her feel a traitor.

Ned had left almost immediately afterwards to return to London. He says the government will likely want him to turn production towards the war effort, and he wants to get on top of it, especially once most of his work force disappears. He doesn’t tell anyone that watching Robb and Jon and Theon all walk down the road together broke his heart.

Bran and Arya stare after them with jealousy. They’re both supposed to be doing their schoolwork, but it’s hard to focus on maths and history when history feels like it’s happening around them.

Arya has her own responsibilities though. At the end of the month, petrol is rationed. She rides her bike to the shops every few days, to buy and carry home whatever they need. They have to cook and keep up the house mostly themselves now. The cook and the older maid have both left to return north to their families, and Beth looks like she wants to leave every day. Old Nan moves back in with her sister down the road by the church, though she still comes by to help out with Rickon

At the end of September, Arya gets another unwanted surprise.

“You’re joining up too?” She demands.

“I’m eighteen next month,” Gendry tells her, “And if I don’t join now, I’ll get drafted and might not get a choice where I end up. The Navy says they need mechanics. All the planes and tanks and everything now.”

Arya bites her lip.

“I know, it’s just. It feels like everyone’s leaving. Father’s in London again now, and Robb and Jon and now you too. It feels like everyone’s leaving and I’ll be stuck at home cleaning and knitting socks and listening to the wireless and trying not to pace and panic.”

Gendry sighs a bit.

“You’re fourteen now right?”

Arya nods.

“Keep your eyes open. With all the men enlisting, they’ll need women to do everything we would be, they did during the last war. They’ll be opening up the services to women more soon I’d bet too. But let’s hope it doesn’t go on long enough for you to be able to enlist.”

Suddenly, he starts to look a bit shy.

“Could you…”

Arya furrows her eyebrows. Shy isn’t a look she’s ever seen on Gendry, and she’s fighting the urge to make fun of him.

“Well, soldiers are supposed to have people to write to and write to them.”

That’s what this is all about?

“Soldiers are supposed to have sweethearts write to them.”

“I don’t have one of those,” he takes a long pause, “Or parents or siblings. Or that many friends really. I know you already have your brothers to keep in touch with, but could you write to me?”

Arya feels her face flush. Her stomach is twisting with a feeling she doesn’t understand.

“Sure, sure I will.”

She turns away back home and tries to forget how lonely he looked.

Beth can handle most of the cooking now, as long as it’s nothing fancy. That leads to Arya having to help with most of the cleaning. There’s less of it now, now that there’s two fewer people in the house, but Catelyn insists that they don’t close anything up.

“We may need it soon,” she says cryptically.

Because Catelyn is a lady with a capital L, and if there’s one thing a lady is good at, it’s saving face and keeping together with other ladies.

And the ladies of the country are organizing.

Children flood the countryside, from London mostly but also Cambridge and Bristol and a few even from Leeds and Manchester. Everyone’s terrified of air strikes, but no one seems sure of where will be hit. The children are large and small, dirty and clean. Siblings together grasp hands, and lone ones wrap their overcoats on tightly. They all have cardboard signs hung around their necks.

They stick them wherever they can fit. Nearly everyone in the village takes at least one. The Reeds take in a rather fat young man who had worked in a bakery in London and had screamed when he first saw a frog. Jyana Reed had said that the house was already beginning to feel empty, with her husband having rejoined up with the service, despite his age. Winterfell even hosts three; a small girl not yet speaking much, whom Arya calls Weasel, and a young woman from the East End with a newborn baby.

“I’m calling him little Sam,” the mum says, “After a man I knew.” Her name is Gilly, and she looks to Cat like she’s never had a proper meal before.

The news is almost strangely quiet. Hitler keeps trying to do things, and occasionally a ship sinks, but for a country at war, it feels rather calm.

And every once in a while the air raid sirens blare.

The pamphlets sent out with the black out directions also give safety instructions during an air raid. Everyone keeps their gas masks handy. They’ve all been drills and false alarms so far, but the raids take a special toll on Bran.

“It’s bad enough having to be carried down into the cellar every time, but what if one happens when I’m alone? I can probably drag myself down the steps- slowly- but I’ll be stuck having to hope that someone comes by and finds me. If I get down into the cellar before the bombs hit anyway.”

“At least your cellar has a proper staircase. Ours is just a ladder.” Meera tells him. She’s got a suitcase with her and has come to return something to Arya. She’s just turned eighteen, and is joining the women’s Navy. They’re so close to Portsmouth, but she’s being sent all the way to Liverpool to train.

She’s come by to say goodbye.

“I wanted to dodge Arya. I’ll write to her, but I don’t want to give her another face leaving to stick in her mind.”

“If you’d worn your uniform, you might have scared her off. I’m not sure militarism would suit her. “

“I haven’t been issued my uniform yet. Everything is being requisitioned. All the clothing factories are making service uniforms now.”

“Aren’t you...scared?” Bran had asked her when she had first told them.

“All the posters and things keep saying Wrens are “Never at Sea”, but I’m not sure I buy it. They’re throwing everything at the Germans. I’m not sure how long it will even be.”

She tries to smile, but can’t quite, and tries to lighten the mood.

“Besides, I can swim. Swim and row, so basic training might be easier on me.”

Her face goes serious again. Meera not being able to smile feels like something deeply troubling to Bran.

“Can you take care of Jojen for me? With Dad gone too...Mum will have enough to worry about without having to worry so much about him too. Make sure he takes his medicine. Make sure he remembers what’s going on when it doesn’t work and he seizes anyway. “

“I can try, “ Bran says honestly.

Jojen’s been bringing over his charts and books, and the two of them are trying to teach themselves morse code.

“I wanted to get licensed to do amateur radio broadcasting before this all started,” Jojen admits, “But the government shut down all the bands. It’s too bad, it could be dead useful.”

No one remaining at Winterfell gets much from the outside world, except through letters.

Ned writes that London has transformed. So many businesses have closed up, and houses lie empty, abandoned. He says he will return to Winterfell as soon as he can.

Sansa says that nearly half of her classmates didn’t return to school.

 It means classes are all super small now, which is sort of nice. I finished up senior-level French last year, so I’m doing more in independent study. The teacher says she doesn’t know why, I’m already top of the class. English is much the same as it’s always been. Only one of the history teachers returned, so we’re all stuffed in one class.

    Headmistress says that because of the war, they’re offering several extracurricular courses for girls who wish to support the war. I’m taking typing and first aid. I do miss my dancing lessons- the dancing master has joined up- but some of us girls still practice in the common rooms in the evenings.

Margaery got into some trouble when she decided to start a German club. She’s nearly as fluent in it as she is in French- it sounds so much lovelier coming from her than from me!- and she insists that it could prove useful for all of us if the war continues.

 All the blackout rules are terrifying though. The dormitories are such a big building, and seeing it in total darkness is like a whole different world. And the sirens. I fear I will hear them in my dreams.

She doesn’t tell them about the girl who was outside past curfew when the sirens went off. She’d returned to campus hours after, her head bloodied, having been struck in the dark by a carriage before pulling herself to the side of the road and cowering in a ditch until the all-clear blew. Headmistress had sent her home with nary a word to the others. Sansa still didn’t know how badly she’d been hurt.

Catelyn sighs again at Sansa’s letter. Typing and first aid. Sansa should have been spending her days imagining her debut into society, of meeting someone she could marry, of being a true lady as she was born for. She’d so hoped her starry eyed dreamer of a daughter could be spared the horrors that this conflict was going to bring. She could just see Sansa going into nursing with her huge heart and no idea the sorts of things she would see.

First Aid though. That sparks Catelyn’s mind, for her more wayward daughter. She reaches out to Mya, who was the daughter of a groom who had once worked for the Starks, but knew her daughter in an entire different role.

And a week into November, Arya does something she hasn’t done in over a year. She puts on her Girl Guides uniform, and goes into the village for a meeting. Her former patrol that had dwindled last she had been there, now was swollen to bursting with evacuees from the cities.

 I’m old enough to be a Ranger now she says when she writes to Gendry, Though my uniform isn’t right for it. It’s no matter now, no one’s getting any new ones. I used to go a lot, I loved the camping trips and cook outs. I even learned to use a knife there. But Mother always fretted about me spending all my time around the village girls, told me I was destined for a different life, and when I got older all the girls started wanting to do needlework badges and stuff about babies and so I bailed.

     This week we went around painting the sidewalk curbs white, so people can see them better in the blackouts. Next week we’re helping dig public shelters and starting our first aid training. I still think the songs are stupid though.

Most of Gendry’s letters have been him whingeing about basic training. Arya’s not sure to what end- he’s not going to get much in the way of sympathy from her, and she’s more than capable of whingeing right back. Besides, she thought, he should be used to terrible food and spartan living conditions, having basically had to care for himself since his mother’s passing when he was twelve. Perhaps he shares her opposition to being told what to do, she thinks, and wants someone to agree with him.

Robb and Jon also send letters, more once they both finish basic. They’ve both passed qualifications and are assigned to become fighters. This horrifies Catelyn and excites Arya and Bran.

Robb’s letters are more of what’s expected. Complaints about the food, the lack of privacy. Arya snickers at that, it can’t be as bad as boarding school can it? How much he misses everyone. That hurts.

Jon repeats all of Robb’s sentiments, but also speaks of his pilot’s training.

 Story is they picked Robb and I because we went to a “good school”. Apparently having ridden horses or handled yachts is a good base for learning to fly. I didn’t really do much of any of that, but the instructor’s say I’m a natural. The steering, handling the g-forces, it comes easily to me. I feel like this is what I should be doing.

He doesn’t give too many elaborate loving descriptions of the planes they practice on, for fear of making Bran too jealous. He does send drawings though, as amateurish as they are. Bran tries to improve upon the crude sketches on his own, planning to send them back to Jon as a Christmas gift.

Because 1939 is coming to an end, and Christmas is coming with it, no matter what else is happening.

Ned returns home in December, once the snow is falling heavily and the countryside is as cold as it gets. He brings with him several boxes, that he claims they can’t open until the 25th. He returns to hugs and great cheer, at last, a Stark returning to Winterfell in time for Christmas.

Especially since he’s the only one.

“Last letter,” Arya says, morose when the envelope in Sansa’s pretty script arrived accompanying a large parcel.

It had been awful enough learning that Robb and Jon weren’t going to be coming home. No one was getting leave this year, no matter how little seemed to be going on.

 No one can get train tickets to go home, the government has cracked down on it so much. Some of the other girls come from as far away as Scotland. A few of us as staying with Margaery’s family for Christmas, they have so much room and are just over the hill. I miss everyone, I hope you all like your presents.

She resists the urge to gush about Highgarden, the most grand estate she had ever seen. The Tyrell’s were hosting several girls from the Land Army, and there were so many people and so much cheer that Sansa felt like an ingrate how much fun she was having.

Arya was still a bit sour when Christmas Eve comes. They couldn’t put lights on the Christmas tree even, because of the blackout rules. None of the shops in the village had window displays either. The church still held their Christmas Eve service, but they didn’t ring the bells.

The person who gives Arya back her spirit ends up being of all people, Gilly.

“I’ve never really had a proper Christmas!” She admits when they’re stuffing the Christmas goose to put it in the oven overnight. Jyana has come by for Christmas Eve with Jojen and the boy they've taken in, who it turns out has lots of Opinions about food. They will have a proper feast, if not as grand as in previous years, where they were usually entertaining guests, but there’s a goose and potatoes and lots of baked biscuits, even if they came after very long lines.

“What do you mean by that?” Arya asks her.

“We were terribly poor, never had a tree or nothing. The rain and snow would leak in through the roof bad in winter. And most Christmases Papa would just extra drunk and we girls would hurt for it.”

Catelyn comes over and cuts her off.

“You shouldn’t ask things like that Arya,” she whispers to her, “That girl’s had a hard enough life, without you drudging up memories of it.”

Arya can do that. She’s old enough to realize that she shouldn’t ask where little Sam’s father is.

And when Christmas morning comes Gilly claps her hands at the Christmas tree and the red and gold decorations on the tables and staircases, and even little Sam looks delighted no matter his size. Even Weasel, usually so stoic, looked dazzled.

There are gifts. Sansa knitted and sewed things in class to send to everyone. The pullover she’s made Arya is terribly soft and goes along perfectly with the enormous wooly hat Gilly had made her. Ned and Catelyn give all the younger Stark’s books, even Weasel and Gilly. Bran and Arya had collaborated with the Reed’s boy who had come to be nicknamed “Hot Pie” to make everyone fudge. And the boxes Ned had brought from London turned out to be new clothes, sizes that would fit everyone for some time.

“I remember the last war,” Catelyn comments later in the day when the others are full of Christmas dinner, enjoying their gifts and listening to the BBC’s Christmas programme.

“Buttons, ribbon, wool. Everything was in short supply,” Ned says completing her words. “And if Bran and Arya sprout up like Robb and Sansa did at their age, we would be in trouble.”

Cat stares out the snowy window.

“Tell me this won’t last as long as the last one Ned, “ she begs quietly, “Tell me this might not be our last Christmas together.”

Ned takes her in his arms and stares out the window into the world outside Winterfell and tries not to fear what the next year might bring.