AUTHOR'S NOTE: So this is my first and probably my only foray into a universe that isn't Harry Potter. This was written for abhorsen.'s Extremely Open-Ended Game of Thrones Challenge. It is only a drabble/a v. short one shot about Arya and is sort of a combination of the show/books, I guess? I've never really explored fanfiction outside HP so I don't really know whether it's a pile of shit or not. If it is, er... sorry? If it's not, let me know in a review! ;)
Most of the time, Arya Stark of Winterfell doesn't know who she is.
So many names, so many faces. She thinks they are like liquid, dripping over her features as a constant wash of water, almost a selection of second skins. But then again, water feels too soft, too easy - and nothing is ever easy.
Arya isn't supple liquid. She is the last remnants of strength, the bitter struggle for survival. She is mean and lean and determined to sink her teeth into life, to hold on.
Perhaps she is fire.
She burns new identities into her skin without hesitation, disfigures them to fit her agenda - Arya, then Arry, then Weasel and Cat - and destroys them when the time comes. They become ashes in her throat, ashes in the dust. Ashes, ashes, ashes. Lost in the air she breathes (inhale, exhale, cold air in and warm air out), for she is breathing, despite what has happened along the way.
Most of the time, Arya Stark of Winterfell simply survives.
Her days are grey and primal. Basic survival instincts are all she knows: fight or flight, claim her territory or retreat, show that she is a true threat. Night skies call her Nymeria and the sun sees no difference. She has the same instincts and vibrates with the same energy. . . She is simply in a different form.
She is.
That is all there is to her: the mere matter of existence. She has forgotten what it means to be dizzy with laughter, to be engulfed with love, to know that you will wake up tomorrow and the day after and infinite days after that. She is a woman of action (do this, do that) yet she goes through the motions like a puppet at a mummer's show.
Until she drives a knife into someone's chest.
When that happens, Arya Stark of Winterfell comes alive.
There is something sweet about controlling who lives and who dies. She delivers death in the form of a needle, thin and light but sharp, and pinpricks the heart with a sure flick of her wrist. She is the final blow of the sword in the darkness, the unseen shadow. Not a noble lady, perfect and meek, or a little girl who cowers behind the skirts of greater men and women.
She serves no one and no god.
Power.
That is what it is, that is what fuels her. The euphoric rush of power as she cradles someone's life in her hands. How strange it is that years and years can cease to matter in a single moment, how it is she who can end everything in a final heartbeat. She is driven by the prospect of one day clutching the last seconds of Cersei Lannister, of Ser Ilyn Payne and the Mountain in her fist. Of power over them all.
(Home is an abstract concept in her head. She thinks of it as her ultimate goal, the last step in this erratic dance she is in, yet she never yearns, never dreams, never kills for home. She kills for her family, the family that once was, but does not dare to picture them waiting for her. Such thoughts are nothing more than invitations for disappointment, for failure.)
Most of the time, Arya Stark of Winterfell doesn't know who she is. But as she slides her knife across Walder Frey's throat, fingers slick with blood and breathtaking bliss, she knows that she is the true goddess of death, the purveyor of destruction, and that she is alive.
Valar morghulis.
Winter has arrived.
And fin.