They are piling up the bodies for the dragons to burn. It is awful in all the ways living after battle seems to be.

The stench of rot, from the wounds of the living and the dead.

The slow ache of limbs, and the way her eyelids keep trying to close.

The weight of her arms from lifting heavy bodies, one after another after another.

At least there are no bodies of their enemies to carry away. But perhaps it is worse to see Winterfell littered with lifeless men, and know all of them are their own.

Sansa is helping, instructing tired fighters, even doing some of the searching herself. She lifted her hand to Arya when she arrived, but Arya didn't move to join her.

There was something about being near Sansa when Arya knew that her sister could have died, that she nearly did. It crawls through her brain as she carries, drags and searches dead bodies, alongside knowing how many of these people might have survived, if she had moved faster.

She strips a dead man of all his weapons, puts them in their pile to keep, then hauls his body onto the growing heap.

This is the part of war no one bothers to speak of.

She knows Gendry is alive. She saw him in the healers rooms when she rushed in there, trying to keep track of everybody she loved. She had seen him, grunting in pain as some other wounded girl took out a spear-head from his leg, and let him see her too.

But when he called out to her, she left.

She wasn't going to watch him die. Better to carry the dead, who couldn't complain about her slow progress. Another man taken to the pile. And another.

In the end, Sansa approaches her anyway. The men near Arya mutter when their Lady approaches. They had glared when Sansa had issued orders earlier too. Arya looks up, surprised, and sees Sansa flinch at what the men say.

Idiots.

To them, Sansa is a Queen who led her people into a battle that slaughtered them. Sansa failed to keep them safe. Their families are dead and Sansa's family is alive, and that isn't fair.

They hadn't seemed to have a problem with her. Maybe they even thought she was a hero, because she had plunged a knife, and that knife wound had turned out to matter more than any of the rest.

She shouldn't blame them for their anger at Sansa. It is how men are, when they are in pain.

But she wants to stab them and snap them into pieces. She wants to punch all their faces for ever daring to make her sister flinch. It is the first real feeling she's had since she'd left Gendry's bed the morning before the battle began. She smiles a little, and grabs her sister into her arms.

They are alive. And she will hold onto the people she loves.

Author Notes:

This is very short because I wanted to post something before the next episode aired, let me know if you liked it & want more like this!