She had smelt death before. The rotten corpses she had left a trail of on her journeys. The many different animals that she'd killed for food. But they were nothing compared to how death smells now.
Piles upon piles of dead lay mounted up around Winterfell. The walls, balconies, training yard, gates littered with bodies; some alive, mostly dead. For the first time, she had underestimated the danger of her enemy. An enemy that could not be seen until they swarmed in like flies killing everything and anyone in their way.
She was not afraid. Her dancing master had once said, "Fear cuts deeper than swords". As she looked the night king in the eyes, she had felt a sense of understanding. He had once been a person like her. The children of the forest stole his humanity for there own selfish needs, much like what the house of black and white had attempted to take for her.
It was an instinct now to kill. The night king had grabbed her neck and arm, the ice burned her flesh. In an attempt to protect herself, family and people, her blade swiftly slipped into her other hand which found the weakness in his armor.
She could not bring back the dead. She wondered the impact it might have had if she'd found the night king earlier; if she'd known her own prophecy. The princess that was promised. She remembered old nans stories of the prince that had ended the long night by bringing upon a weapon light bringer. Its power came from killing the thing you'd loved most. His wife became the main victim of that prophecy.
She stood as the valyrian steel dagger clattered to the floor along with the millions of icy particles that had once made up the night king and his many commanders. In the distance, she could hear people shouting for missing loved ones. No one shouted for her.
She often wondered how she would explain her past to everyone, especially Jon and Gendry. How do you explain faceless assassins and decade-old prophecies? or Valar Morghulis and the people she had met on her journey? The people that she'd killed? She wanted to tell no one but they would demand answers, they always did, especially the dragon queen.
She herself had begun to question how she'd survived to kill the night king. "Swift as a deer, quiet as a shadow, quick as a snake, calm as still water" Syrio had once taught her as a child. She remembered her childhood then; her vulnerability and innocence. The things that had happened to her still left her traumatized as she cried in her sleep for her dead father and sweated awake at the dark thoughts of the faceless men.
She allowed herself to take deep breathes, calming her emotions before those who survived crowded the Godswood to see who had killed the night king. They would all expect Jon yet it had been her along; a girl with no name yet a list full of them.
Arya had never wanted to be a hero, a knight maybe but never a hero. For once in her life, she'd done the right thing and maybe people would look at her differently; most likely even more terrified than they did when she killed Littlefinger.
She watched as her brother rounded the corner. He had yet to notice her as he put his whole focus on their younger brother. "You're okay", Jon asked the brown haired boy, "What? How? Who killed him?" Bran slowly turned to face her even though she seemed invisible to everybody else.
"It was her. Arya killed the night king. The long night is over. Arya Stark is the princess that was promised." Bran finally spoke. All the eyes latched onto her. She was invisible no more. She was the girl that looked death in the face and killed it.
Not today.