The dagger clattered from her hand as she thought for the first time since she had understood the words the Red Woman had spoken. Her hand shook as she stared at the ground. The Night King had gone, had dissipated when she'd killed him. How could that be? He had been so huge, such a shadow over their lives. And now he was not even dust.
Arya turned around, teetering from foot to foot. The bodies of the Ironborn were scattered around them, Theon's face alone standing out to her. She could not process her feelings about that. All of the dead she had sneaked past, all gone. All the dead were gone. Only the dead that were once living.
Bran was silent. Arya didn't know if she wanted him to speak or not. She didn't know what she wanted. She had no idea what to do. She wanted to run away, to cross the seas, to go somewhere she had never been before and where she knew no one. She would be no one. She wanted to run back to Winterfell, to what remained, to find her sister and her brother and Gendry.
Arya's thoughts flashed back to the night before. She wanted to see Gendry. Suddenly she was moving, Bran forgotten. She had to get back to Winterfell. Who was still living? Was Gendry alive? The Hound? Jon?
Each thought propelled her faster and faster until Winterfell was in sight. Bodies were lying where they had fallen, some in piles of three or four on top of each other. One of Daenerys' dragons obscured the view of the door to Winterfell.
Arya found her brother crouched there with the dragon queen, an awful noise coming from her mouth. As she grew closer, she identified the cause of the sound: Ser Jorah Mormont was dead. A good fighter. They would miss him in the war to come, against Cersei.
Arya supposed she should tell Jon that she had been the one to destroy the Night King, should probably give him all the details. That could wait until the sun came up. Arya skipped down and back up the moat whose fire had finally gone out.
Lady Brienne gave Arya a nod from where she was leaning against a wall with Jaime Lannister, silently and yet so closely that Arya questioned that relationship, not for the first time. Still, Arya was glad they had both survived, even if she did wonder how much help Jaime Lannister would be when it came to killing the woman who he had reportedly loved his whole life. Brienne's usefulness, however, Arya would never question.
The Hound, she found around a corner, on his own. He did not notice her. She should have spoken to him, thanked him for saving her life, thanked him for a lot of things. She didn't. She had yet to find Gendry.
The forge had been her destination since she'd left the Godswood and she was only moments away when something crashed into her. Her dagger was out and pressing into the midriff of whatever it was-
"Arya!" Sansa cried out. Arya stumbled backwards, dropping the dagger again. Fumbling to pick it up, she began to splutter. Her sister looked better than any of them, of course, along with the dwarf who was stood beside her. "Arya," Sansa whispered again and took her back into her arms. It was over. It was all really over. "Arya, the corpses in the crypt, they came to-"
Arya stopped listening. Over Sansa's shoulder, she finally saw him, stepping out from the forge, where she'd known he would be, provided he had survived. He had probably heard Sansa shout her name. Arya pulled away from Sansa wordlessly and heard her call after her.
She couldn't bring herself to care. There wasn't conscious thought in what her feet were doing and it was pure luck that she didn't trip on any bodies. He was moving towards her and she towards him and then finally - finally she was in his arms. The numbness seeped out of her as she began to sob quiet, almost soundless, rasping sobs, her face buried into his chest.
What Sansa thought, what Lord Tyrion thought, what the Hound thought, what Jon and Daenerys thought, what Brienne and Ser Jaime thought, she didn't care. She was alive and he was alive and she felt alive and it was over. The Great War was over.