Sometimes Arya just watches the sunset, when the sky is red-dying and the ground is cracked under her feet.
The army around her is too still for so many humans, their brave tents drooping. Their lives are so small, so easily taken away (she has already watched so many of them died in her time amongst the Varden) but they mourn their future deaths, they want their precious years.
(They want to die old.)
She wants to die; she wants that sword in her flesh like she's never wanted anything before. (But she keeps going, watches herself become something that's all iron will and rage and hate.)
She envies humans, and their mortality. They speak of never-dying as if it's a gift, but she knows it's a curse. Elves were never meant to live forever.
Arya knows that this war may be doomed, that they could all die, crashing against the ramparts of Urubaen. (Fight, Rhunon had once told her, fight until your last breath, fight until it doesn't matter anymore. Until you are nothing but the fight. That's when you'll have your revenge. And she had said, too-old to be a child, too-young to realize everything that could've been, so be it.)
Dust swirls in the air, disturbed by too many feet, a doleful drum that speaks of blood to come, and though they sleep, it brings back memories. She was a child when she first killed, blood spilling warm over her hands (whispering of what she wasn't supposed to be, but would become).
"Arya," The word hangs in the air, almost precious, but vanishing before she can grasp at it.
"Nasuada," She replies, watching the girl out of the corner of her eyes. It's all too easy to see herself in Nasuada, to reach out to that fragile thread of sameness.
The human bites one dark lip, the skin white with tension. She keeps her distance (they all fear her here, and so they should. Even the elves look at her as if they're not quite sure what she is).
"Come inside," She rises to her feet, dusting off her leather pants, and enclosing Nasuada's fragile wrist with her hand, hard with calluses from to many years holding a blade.
The young woman looks at her, sick with desire and fear, and doesn't resist.
It's not quite a replacement for love, but Arya will take it.