For Dawn, who requested Jon/Jeyne, Red Wedding, and maybe Robb baby. I tried, but the fallout got me better than the foundation.
We're all ghosts. We all carry, inside us, people who came before us."
― Liam Callanan, The Cloud Atlas
Bran found Arya in the godswood, kneeling before no one with a sheathed sword on her lap. Her eyes closed in concentration and Bran wondered which voices she heard beneath the weirwood tree—Bran only ever heard his father's and it twisted like gravel in his gut.
"You didn't have to do that."
"Of course, I did."
She can't even look at me, Bran thought, we are the only wolves left in the world and she can't even meet my eyes.
"I would never betray you, Arya. I swear—" he said, his voice shaking.
Arya finally opened her eyes and tossed her brother a look of disgust.
"Bran, you dolt, we need peace if we want to keep our independence. Queen Shireen wants to be Baelor the Blessed and bring the North back in to the fold, but Prince Daved is quite happily wedded and bedded. Swearing before the gods that I will never wed means her daughter gets to be Queen of the North and we can't afford a war right now. Winter is coming, little brother. Ff-father bought us a summer respite with his life. I will not give up the North to anyone, not Shireen, not starvation, not even my own ss-tupid heart," Arya sobbed, tears spilling down her cheeks.
Bran swooped down on his sister, pulling Arya into a tangled embrace, the sword sliding off her lap.
"I want my own b-babies, Bran. Mine, just mine. I want sweet babes to kiss and cuddle and be their mama. Alys, Arthur, and Aemon. No ghosts, no Robs, or Rickons, or Sansas to shadow them. Just mine, Bran."
Bran rocked his sister, burying in his nose in her fine, brown hair and cursed every Frey, Bolton, and Tully to the seven hells. For the dead, the disappeared, and the years of disquiet obscuring his sister and which brother she resembled; Father died honorably, but we have live, Bran prayed, please just let us live—isn't the blood of three generations of Starks enough to pay for a little bit of peace? Bran felt Arya pulling away from him, drawing the steel into her spine and ice into her eyes—his sister, his sovereign, the bitterly named Snow Queen of the North. I will give you babes, wolf pups to fill these halls with laughter and love and drive out all the old ghosts, Bran silently swore, I will marry the southern princess for you and have a dozen children.
And never, Bran closed his eyes as Arya kissed him gently on the forehead, never name them for our ghosts.
Winterfell has enough to haunt her.