#jaime finds cersei and tyrion in others bla bla

[vivacissimx]

This is a disorganized post but part of what is so precious about Jon & Arya's relationship is how parallel their interior worlds run. They're separated by distance and maturity but from the very beginning, they're finishing each other's sentences and worried Robb won't want them. Making a brief list so I don't go all over the place

TO HELL WITH FORGIVENESS

Arya stepped away from him. "You don't deserve the gift of mercy."

The Hound watched her saddle Craven through eyes bright with fever. Not once did he attempt to rise and stop her. But when she mounted, he said, "A real wolf would finish a wounded animal."

Maybe some real wolves will find you, Arya thought. Maybe they'll smell you when the sun goes down. Then he would learn what wolves did to dogs. "You shouldn't have hit me with an axe," she said. "You should have saved my mother." She turned her horse and rode away from him, and never looked back once.

-ASOS, Arya XIII

This is so... Arya has spent a long time with Sandor at this point. She's seen him at his most human, struggled with the losing the memory of Mycah, and she's just spent a whole night washing Sandor's wounds as best she can. Sandor is begging her to kill him and by walking away she serves him the most devastating blow possible.

Ser Alliser seized Jon by the arm.

Jon yanked away and grabbed the knight by the throat with such ferocity that he lifted him off the floor. He would have throttled him if the Eastwatch men had not pulled him off. Thorne staggered back, rubbing the marks Jon's fingers had left on his neck. "You see for yourselves, brothers. The boy is a wildling."

-ASOS, Jon IX

Janos Slynt's face went as white as milk. The spoon slipped from his fingers. Edd and Emmett crossed the room, their footsteps ringing on the stone floor. Bowen Marsh's mouth opened and closed though no words came out. Ser Alliser Thorne reached for his sword hilt. Go on, Jon thought. Longclaw was slung across his back. Show your steel. Give me cause to do the same.

-ADWD, Jon II

Glendon Hewett was a seasoned man and a strong one, a sensible choice to command in Cotter Pyke's absence. But he was also as much a friend as Alliser Thorne could boast, and a crony of sorts with Janos Slynt, however briefly. Jon could still recall how Hewett had dragged him from his bed, and the feel of his boot slamming into his ribs. Not the man I would have chosen. He rolled the parchment up and slipped it into his belt.

-ADWD, Jon X

Jon's feud with Janos Slynt is deadly, based in Ned's execution, but his relationship with Ser Alliser is entirely his own. Jon takes Ser Alliser's taunts personally. Inarguably ADWD is showing Jon's political prowess but no small part of that is Jon's personal feelings to the point that even when Alliser Thorne is off ranging, Jon mistrusts the man's friends.

Jon & Arya both hold grudges close to the chest.

NORTHERN POLITICOS

While Robb understands that the loyalty of his bannermen doesn't come without effort on his part, Jon and Arya's relationship with Northern politics includes a healthy amount of... not mistrust, but wariness. A realism as to where loyalty begins and where it ends. In Arya's case this is marked by a growing wealth of experiences in the Riverlands, whereas Jon was 14 when he left Winterfell and gleaned it from his time there.

When she got closer, she saw that he was a northman, very tall and thin, huddled in a ragged fur cloak. That was bad. She might have been able to trick a Frey or one of the Brave Companions, but the Dreadfort men had served Roose Bolton their whole life, and they knew him better than she did. If I tell him I am Arya Stark and command him to stand aside. . . No, she dare not. He was a northman, but not a Winterfell man. He belonged to Roose Bolton.

-ACOK, Arya X

This is not just because Roose has terrible vibes - Arya also doesn't tell Robett Glover (who she has zero reason to mistrust) who she is, nor does she give more than a passing thought to finding the Karstark men in the Riverlands after she hears of their various crimes. She's just naturally wary and inclined to have her trust earned.

"If Your Grace wishes to lose all of my lord father's bannermen, there is no more certain way than by giving northern halls to southron lords."

-

Maege Mormont had ridden south with Robb, Jon knew. Her eldest daughter had joined the Young Wolf's host as well. Even if both of them had died, however, Lady Maege had other daughters, some with children of their own. Had they gone with Robb as well? Surely Lady Maege would have left at least one of the older girls behind as castellan. He did not understand why Lyanna should be writing Stannis, and could not help but wonder if the girl's answer might have been different if the letter had been sealed with a direwolf instead of a crowned stag, and signed by Jon Stark, Lord of Winterfell. It is too late for such misgivings. You made your choice.

-ADWD, Jon I

"Why should I beg for what is owed me?"

"Ask, I said, not beg." Jon pulled back his hand. "It is no good sending messages. Your Grace will need to go to them yourself. Eat their bread and salt, drink their ale, listen to their pipers, praise the beauty of their daughters and the courage of their sons, and you'll have their swords. The clans have not seen a king since Torrhen Stark bent his knee. Your coming does them honor. Command them to fight for you, and they will look at one another and say, 'Who is this man? He is no king of mine.' "

-ADWD, Jon IV

JUDGE, JURY, EXECUTIONER

By this I mean both Jon and Arya perseverate over whether a person deserves to die. They can't help but juxtapose death with honor and judgement. It's Ned in both of them.

"He is an evil man," she announced that evening when she returned to the House of Black and White. "His lips are cruel, his eyes are mean, and he has a villain's beard."

The kindly man chuckled. "He is a man like any other, with light in him and darkness. It is not for you to judge him."

That gave her pause. "Have the gods judged him?"

-ADWD, The Ugly Little Girl

He raised Longclaw over his head, both hands tight around the grip. One cut, with all my weight behind it. He could give her a quick clean death, at least. He was his father's son. Wasn't he? Wasn't he?

"Do it," she urged him after a moment. "Bastard. Do it. I can't stay brave forever." When the blow did not fall she turned her head to look at him.

Jon lowered his sword. "Go," he muttered.

-ACOK, Jon VI

The wind whistled through the bars, and Jon Snow shivered. His leg was throbbing, and his head. He was not fit to kill a kitten, yet here he was. The trap had teeth. With Maester Aemon insisting on Jon's innocence, Lord Janos had not dared to leave him in the ice to die. This was better. "Our honor means no more than our lives, so long as the realm is safe," Qhorin Halfhand had said in the Frostfangs. He must remember that. Whether he slew Mance or only tried and failed, the free folk would kill him. Even desertion was impossible, if he'd been so inclined; to Mance he was a proven liar and betrayer.

-ASOS, Jon X

YOU DON'T KNOW WHO YOU ARE...

"Who are you?"

"No one."

"A lie. A sad little lie, child."

-AFFC, Arya II

[Varamyr] had known what Snow was the moment he saw that great white direwolf stalking silent at his side. One skinchanger can always sense another. Mance should have let me take the direwolf. There would be a second life worthy of a king. He could have done it, he did not doubt. The gift was strong in Snow, but the youth was untaught, still fighting his nature when he should have gloried in it.

-ADWD, Prologue

"You think so?" She knelt and scratched Ghost behind his ear. "Your Wall is a queer place, but there is power here, if you will use it. Power in you, and in this beast. You resist it, and that is your mistake. Embrace it. Use it."

I am not a wolf, he thought. "And how would I do that?"

-ADWD, Jon VI

...BUT YOU'LL LEARN

Needle was Robb and Bran and Rickon, her mother and her father, even Sansa. Needle was Winterfell's grey walls, and the laughter of its people. Needle was the summer snows, Old Nan's stories, the heart tree with its red leaves and scary face, the warm earthy smell of the glass gardens, the sound of the north wind rattling the shutters of her room. Needle was Jon Snow's smile. He used to mess my hair and call me "little sister," she remembered, and suddenly there were tears in her eyes.

Polliver had stolen the sword from her when the Mountain's men took her captive, but when she and the Hound walked into the inn at the crossroads, there it was. The gods wanted me to have it. Not the Seven, nor Him of Many Faces, but her father's gods, the old gods of the north. The Many-Faced God can have the rest, she thought, but he can't have this.

-AFFC, Arya II

"Who could have done this thing, I wonder?"

"Arya of House Stark." She watched his eyes, his mouth, the muscles of his jaw.[...] When she woke the next morning, she was blind.

-AFFC, Cat of the Canals

This is after she kills Dareon for desertion of the Night's Watch, and the first time she answers the Kindly Man's question with something other than "no one." And as soon as she does that, she has a wolf dream, and she loses her sight.

He thought of Robb, with snowflakes melting in his hair. Kill the boy and let the man be born. He thought of Bran, clambering up a tower wall, agile as a monkey. Of Rickon's breathless laughter. Of Sansa, brushing out Lady's coat and singing to herself. You know nothing, Jon Snow. He thought of Arya, her hair as tangled as a bird's nest. I made him a warm cloak from the skins of the six whores who came with him to Winterfell… I want my bride back… I want my bride back… I want my bride back…

"I think we had best change the plan," Jon Snow said.

-

Jon fell to his knees. He found the dagger's hilt and wrenched it free. In the cold night air the wound was smoking. "Ghost," he whispered. Pain washed over him. Stick them with the pointy end. When the third dagger took him between the shoulder blades, he gave a grunt and fell face-first into the snow. He never felt the fourth knife. Only the cold…

-ADWD, Jon XIII

Jon decides to ride to save Arya & kill Ramsay, and he loses his life! They're both pulled in two directions but ultimately they choose honor over duty, and to nobody's surprise they choose each other.

The choice to be Arya Stark and Jon Snow above No One/Lord Commander Snow, even if for just a moment, is a parallel one with parallel consequences.

Jon and Arya represent to each other the choice they will always make; they're what breaks the stalemate of the human heart in conflict with itself.

I don't think there's any possibility of an Jon Arya reunion being jarring. It's another post, comparing how Jaime & Cersei fracture to how Jon & Arya can't even when they try, but we don't need to get into that it to see the point. They are and always have been too similar, and years apart haven't changed that. If anything, they're two of the few people in asoiaf who both love & can still truly understand each other.