Princess Arya Stark
Princess Arya Stark / Verya Telcontar
Princess Arya Stark, known in the elven tounge as Verya Telcontar, is the third child and second daughter of King Eddard by his wife Queen Catelyn. She is the younger sister of her half brother Jon and her siblings Prince Robb and Princess Sansa and the older sister of her two brothers Bran and Rickon as well as the foster sister of Theon Tuirseach.
Arya has lived her entire life in Kaer Invaerne, but has regularly gone with her siblings on royal tours to visit the various keeps and castles of their vassals across Arnor, she was especially fond of the stone halls of Erebor, the quaint villages of the shire and the beautiful elven realms of Rivendell, Lothlorien and the woodland realm, where she went into the woods and found her direwolf pup whom she named Nymeria after the rhoynar warrior queen of Dorne.
From youth, Arya was revered as a wild and free spirited soul like many of her family, known to be of the "wolf-blood" as it was called. She dreamed about being a warrior or a ranger or an explorer all her life, encouraged by her family and many in Kaer Invaerne, save for Queen Catelyn and her Andal attendants who thought it was unladylike for Arya to be so spirited.
Arya had been tutored by Septa Mordane, an Andal governess who taught Arya and her sister Sansa in the womanly arts, like needlework, music, dancing and wooing noblemen and Arya hated it. For a long time, Sansa and Arya fought and argued as Sansa was more interested and acclimated to Andal culture than Arnorean culture. Arya would often prank her sister and even once in a fit of rage called her an avaethron, a sindarin curse word for Andals, translating roughly to "conquerer, pillager or thief", a word that came into existance after the Andal invasion to enunciate the barbarity and savage nature of the Andals when they stole the lands of the free peoples in the south and killed all who stood in their way.
Queen Catelyn who did not speak sindarin had no understanding of how offensive it was for a Dúnedain to call another of their kin such a word, but when King Eddard heard of what had happened he scolded Arya angrily and explained just how cruel her words were, sending her to bed without supper that night.
Arya's demenour changed towards her sister when she was seven and a ten year old Sansa returned to Arnor from Tameria where she had reevaluated her view of Andals after hearing them speak so cruely of Arnoreans and how they wished death upon the elves, dwarves and other peoples of the north. Sansa then became more like Arya, still very lady like, but no longer spoilt or pretensious and no longer dismissive of Arnorean cutlure, embrassing herself as a princess of the Dúnedain like Arya always had.
When Arya was eight, she was taken to the woodland realm deep within the wolfswood where she like all her siblings before her found an orphaned female direwolf whom she named Nymeria and adopted as her life companion.
As a young woman Arya excelled in all the martial practices that her father allowed her to train in, sword fighting, archery and horseback riding. Arya also adopted the skill of climbing and scaling the walls of Kaer Invaerne after seeing her brother do it, but he was always better than her. Arya stated she wished to become a ranger like her brother Jon on several occasions. Women becoming rangers was rare but not unheard of and Eddard considered the request but was shut down by Queen Catelyn who would not suffer it. When Arya was twelve however, she recived a gift from Gandalf the Grey, given to him for safekeeping until she was ready for it by her brother Jon, who found it alongside Gandalf in a troll horde when he first became a ranger at the age of sixteen. The gift was an Elven dagger made in old Gondolin during the First Age of the old world. It was an enchanted blade that would glow blue in the presense of orcs or goblins, the blade's name was Maegnas which roughly translated to Sting in the common tounge, the latter name being the one Arya perferred.
Knowing Queen Catelyn would never let Arya train as a Ranger at one of the nineteen fortresses but also knowing Arya would never be the Andal princess Queen Catelyn longed for her to be, King Eddard began sending Arya to Lothlórien with her sister Sansa, where Sansa recived training and instruction from Galadriel in her uses of elven magic and ósanwe (the ability to communicate with others through thoughts). Meanwhile, Arya would be trained by the elf rangers of the Galadhrim, a mix of Sindar and Silvan elves living in the forests of Lórien. Unlike the Dúnedain rangers who scoured the lands of Arnor for orcs, bandits and monsters, the elf rangers of Lórien and the woodland realm served as ranging guards who protected the forest limits of their realms. The rangers of Lórien instructed Arya in great skills of acrobatics and archery and made her feel more herself than she ever did before and when they returned after each summer to their home in Kaer Invearne, Arya would tell her mother the elven maidens of Lórien only taught her needlework, dancing and other ladylike things.
Relationships
History
Sansa and Arya's relationship began as a heavily strained one as the two had been opposites since childhood. In every aspect of life the sisters seemed to clash growing up, where Sansa embraced the rule abiding femanine virtues attributed to a lady, Arya strived to be more of a tomboyish rouge and while Sansa worshiped the the Andal's seven gods along with the Valar gods of the north, Arya only ever worshiped the Valar.
Arya always argued with and pranked her older sister in their younger years, feeling Sansa was too spolit, pretencious and selflish, always dismissive of northern culture and wishing to be a proper Andal princess and escape to the south. Arya also hated how dismissive and cold Sansa was to their half-brother Jon and foster brother Theon.
Once when the two sisters were arguing, in a fit of rage Arya called Sansa an avaethron, an elven curse word for Andals, translating roughly to "conquerer, pillager or thief", a word that came into existance after the Andal invasion to enunciate the barbarity and savage nature of the Andals when they stole the lands of the free peoples in the south and killed all who stood in their way. This cut deeper for Sansa than Arya realised, finding it abhorrent to be called such a vile name.
It wasn't until Sansa went south to Tameria with Queen Catelyn and learned out cold and unfeeling the Andals were towards the Arnorean races, even calling elves and dwarves savages, disilusioning Sansa with Andal culture and humbling her a great deal.
When Sansa returned home, she began to slowly loose her selfish and snide personality, which Arya did not understand or trust at first but as she saw the sincerity in Sansa's evolved personality, she grew closer with her sister.
While Sansa and Arya would always be opposites, one being a maiden and the other being a warrior, the two grew to understand one another and respect their differences and their relationship becoming healed as the grew.
Sansa and Arya began spending lots of time together when the pair were sent to Lothlórien where Sansa studied sorcery under Lady Galadriel and Arya trained with the Galadhrim rangers.
