No one had foreseen this outcome, least of all Arya. She could not understand why anyone would want to sit on this cold and lonely throne, and yet so many had fought and died for just that. The Dragon Queen had fallen along with her great beast and Jon had perished trying to save her. Gendry, her great big, stupid, bull-headed boy had been just another nameless soldier in a sea of combatants.

They had found his body later, counted amongst the dead. Before the number had even been tallied Varys had been up to his old tricks again, paving the way for the next heir to the Seven Kingdoms. Quite suddenly, Gendry had posthumously become the legitimate son of Robert and Cersei, long thought to be dead. Rumors of all kinds had been started as to how he had been spirited away in infancy to protect him from the late queens vile clutches.

And more surprising to Arya; somehow all of the appropriate documents and witnesses had been found to attest to the marriage of herself and the last of the Baratheon princes. Though, when they were supposed to have found the time to be wed while preparing for the Night King's army was beyond her capabilities of imagining.

Arya sat on the Iron Throne now, unhappy and reluctant. She lay her hand upon her growing belly, the only link left to the kings of the past; her child.

She had never wanted to be a lady, let alone a queen. Life beyond death had never occurred to her. The death of all of those names on her list. Perhaps she had half expected to dissolve into nothingness with Cersei's lifeless body at her feet. Regardless, motherhood had never once crossed her mind.

The lessons of her childhood seemed a lifetime ago; indeed, another life all together. But she would rule the Seven Kingdoms until the day the rightful heir could take the throne. Until then, she would be the lady that her mother had wanted her to be; would be the queen that would have made her father proud. She would live her life so that one day she would be happy to welcome the God of Death with open arms. One day, but not today.