“Everything Syrio Forel had ever taught her vanished in a heartbeat. In that instant of sudden terror, the only lesson Arya could remember was the one Jon Snow had given her, the very first.She stuck him with the pointy end, driving the blade upward with a wild, hysterical strength.”

“Arya, What are you doing?""Syrio says a water dancer can stand on one toe for hours." Her hands flailed at the air to steady herself.Ned had to smile. "Which toe?" he teased."ANY toe," Arya said, exasperated with the question. She hopped from her right leg to her left, swaying dangerously before she regained her balance."Must you do your standing here?" he asked. "It's a long hard fall down these steps.""Syrio says a water dancer NEVER falls.”

“a few days ago she had been wandering around with a swatch of black silk tied over her eyes. Syrio was teaching her to see with her ears and her nose and her skin, she told him. Before that, he had her doing spinds and back flips. "Arya, are you certain you want to persist in this?"She nodded. "Tomorrow we're going to catch cats.""Cats." Ned sighed.”

“She stood on the end of the dock, pale and goosefleshed and shivering in the fog. In her hand, Needle seemed to whisper to her. Stick them with the pointy end, it said, and, don’t tell Sansa! Mikken’s mark was on the blade. It’s just a sword. If she needed a sword, there were a hundred under the temple. Needle was too small to be a proper sword, it was hardly more than a toy. She’d been a stupid little girl when Jon had it made for her. “It’s just a sword,” she said, aloud this time . . . . . . but it wasn’t.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.”

“No one had ever called her wild before. She wanted to be wild now, for him. Wild seemed more enticing then a bowl of berries.”

“ Why , instead of teaching her poetry and drama and needlework, had her governesses not taught the most important lesson anyone could learn - that life was really not going to be easy after one was free of the schoolroom?”