Chapter Fifty-Eight: More Than A Song

Winterfell

Arya Stark

The pyre was high, wide, and tall, and hardly a tenth of Winterfell's dead were stacked within. Most had been left in King's Landing or on the road south, and they would never know this place again. Her father was among those who were gone, her brothers, her mother. No matter how long they waited, none of them would ever return.

These weren't even people of Winterfell. Not truly. These were the wights that had fallen, not the ones who had risen. They were men from the Last Hearth, from the Wall, from the lands beyond. People she had never met and never would. Yet, as she watched the pyre, she found she didn't care about that at all. They were people, and she had failed them, and now they were dead.

There was a crowd circling the pyre, most holding torches, leaves, or sticks. There were no flowers to be lain, nor honors to be given, and these were all that were left. Some of the children, she knew, planned to leave snowballs atop the corpses when all was said and done. It was as good an honor as any, she supposed, and she doubted the dead would mind.

Jon stood before the pyre, beneath the logs stacked higher than the keep itself, his hands bare but his face hard. He was dressed in his finest cloak, the furs black as night and thick as a castle wall. Beside him was Sansa, in a dress that reached her ankles, and beside her was Dany, still wearing the armor from the battle. She was far from the only one. Some men still bathed in their armor – too afraid to strip themselves and leave their skin for some Walker to grab. Arya was one of them. Gendry, too, had taken to wearing his leathers at all times.

When Jon spoke, his voice was loud and pained. "We're here to say goodbye to our brothers and sisters, our fathers and mothers, our sons and daughters. We're here to say goodbye to our friends and our foes. People who fought beside us. People who died beside us. They were our maesters, our farmers, our smiths, our lords, and our herds. Merchants, septons, orphans, and all the rest. They set aside their differences to fight together against a threat that would have seen us all gone. They fought for us, for the future we could build. They gave their lives for that." His fists clenched at his side, as the masses hung their heads or stomped their feet or laid their arms point-first into the snow.

A single man of the ironborn shouted out, "What is dead may never die."

A scattered few answered in return.

"They were the swords in the darkness," Jon said, "the shield that guarded the realms of men, and we will never see their like again."

He took a torch from a man in the crowd. Though Arya stood beside the man, her face carefully blank and shrouded with a scarf, she knew not his name nor his face. She might have asked, before, but now she could not bear to.

As Jon returned to his post, Sansa spoke, her voice tried and true. "When I was a child, my lord father told us that there was one lesson every Stark must learn before they read, before they walk, before they so much as talk. Winter is coming. All of us have seen winter now. All of us know its touch." Without her urging, Arya's hand went to her own throat and danced over the scars. They still burned cold, even with the soft winter air easing the bitter bolts of pain. "That warning has been in the Stark words for thousands of years, preparing us for this night, and I have never been so proud of the people of the North, the Vale, the Riverlands, the Westerlands, the Crownlands, the Reach, Dorne, and all the other lands beyond these that answered the call."

With each place she listed, the cheers came, quieter with every name, but always there. People who had lived and loved and lost and had now come to rebuild the lives that were gone.

"My lord father told me that winter was coming. But words are wind." She waved a hand to the pyre. Tiny tears took shelter in her eyes. "They were the swords." She rubbed at her eyes with the sleeve of her dress. She looked to Jon. "We will never see their like again."

Above their heads, far below Rhaegal in the skies, Bran stood upon a crumbled wall, and shouted "Never!"

The man at Arya's side shivered, even as he prepared another torch for Sansa. She took it, gracefully as ever and returned to Jon's side.

Dany took her cue to step forward, her voice wavering but never dying. "These men, these women, and these children made promises to their kin. They promised good lives, safety, food on the table, shelter when they need it. They kept those promises. Slaughtered the enemy at their doorsteps, defended their sons and daughters from creatures of the stories-" Rhaegal's call sang from the sky, and tens of thousands of men shuddered. "-but the fight is not over." Now, it was the cry of the crowd that took to the air, as loud and proud as the dragon's song. "We cannot lay down our spears until the people of the world are safe." Violet eyes studied the crowd, and a thin smile made it to her lips. "These men promised peace and prosperity to their people, but neither can come until winter is done. If we are to honor their memories, we must forge a future in their image. We must survive this winter and see a new age for all of us. We must keep their promises for them, to honor them, for we will never see their like again."

"Never!" Bran cried again. Faces around Arya turned to find him, but none could see him against the ash-stricken walls. Once, they had been grey, not the black that colored them now. Times had changed. Everything had changed.

Dany stepped forward to claim her torch, and when it was lit, she turned to march back to the others. Only, she did not march alone. As she took the torch, her other hand took Arya's arm and forced her forward, across the dirt fields where battles had been fought and lost because she wasn't there.

Gendry did not follow. She knew as well as any of them that it wasn't his voice they wanted, and she knew that he knew it just as well. But even so, he would have followed her. He would have! Which meant… he knew. Bloody cunt.

Sansa had warned her this might happen, but she hadn't listened and she hadn't believed it. Now, as Dany carried her before the pyre, she could only see an obsidian spear poking out between the logs, broken and missing its other half. Theon's, Sansa had said. Their father's ward. Their father's ward who had taken Winterfell, who'd betrayed Robb!

And then… he'd fought for them, because Arya wasn't there, and he died for it. All of these people had died for it. Not the ones in the pyre, but all the rest. The ones who'd gone south with the man she'd killed – the Stark she'd killed.

Jon's hand came to her shoulder, and it was just enough that she could ground herself again. She took a breath, caught Sansa's nod, and turned to face the others. Tens of thousands of people watching her, studying every trace of her for some hint of who she was, for some reason why Dany had taken her from them and brought her to the center for all of them to see. They didn't know her. They shouldn't.

Her hands went to her throat and the scarf came away as she forced it back to her side. Her scarred hand was trembling, she realized, as the ones in the front muttered, and word spread from man to man to man. Gendry smiled at her, and he didn't even look at her scars when he did. The rest did though, and when she spoke, her voice shaken and weak. Stronger than in King's Landing, stronger than at the Crossroads, but weaker than when she'd last found herself in this dead castle.

"They were good," she told them. There was more to be said. Much more. But Arya was not Sansa. She had not been made for poetry, for speaking, for any of it. That was Sansa's game, not Arya's. Arya's was war and death and cold. Arya's was blood and steel and ice. This was not her place, and so she ended it as they all had, and said no more after, "We will never see their like again."

Already, the man who had once been at her side was reaching for the next torch. He'd had four, the cunt!

Dany had planned this. No, judging by the interest in Sansa's eyes, they both had.

"Never!" Bran called, one final time. She watched him take to the air, wings rough and jerking. A single feather came down from the sky and landed at Arya's feet. He had few left to spare.

She shut her eyes, stepped forward, and claimed the torch. The flame was hot and bright, and, if she watched carefully enough, she could see the snow on her palm turn to water as she held it closer. Her throat was burning again, and the scar on her arm too. It made her more uncomfortable than it ought to have. Neither had hurt since they'd left the inn.

They marched together, and then each separated, and Arya was alone before the pyre. Others were filling in between them, each carrying torches of their own. They were staring at her, whispering, and some tried to speak to her, but she only bowed her head and shut her eyes. She could not see her brother anymore, nor her sister, nor Dany. But she heard Jon's voice, loud and clear even in the gushing winter winds. "And now their watch has ended!"

The others around her set their torches to the pyre, and so she did her own. The flames danced from torch to logs, and the oils inside caught within a moment. She stepped back and the fire grew, her hand cradling her throat as the pain grew with it. Sparks danced and sang and leapt from the wood to the dirt. Lucky, she supposed, that the ground was still too wet and too cold to catch, else they might have taken even longer to rebuild.

Gendry found her again then, and Sansa after him. Dany and Jon were still gone, but Bran was overhead, and the three of them followed as he called them. They made their way through the crowd, Gendry shielding Arya with his body as people came to question her and thank her, and one even grabbed her arm until she pulled it back, and why would they thank her when she was a kinslayer and a killer, and all of them had died for her, just to get her in place, to get her training, to make her move just so, because she'd gone south, and because-

She shook her head, tried to get her bearings. She couldn't go down that road. It was the path to madness. Some things were best ignored. Not forgotten – never that – but overlooked. Some pains lay best in memory.

She made her way to the godswood. It was no relief. There was no heart tree in the godswood; she knew that already. Instead, there was dirt and a hole where there had once been water and a chair with wheels that sat where once the weirwood had been. Bran sat in the empty seat and a green-cloaked woman stood behind him, alternating between a scowl and a frown whenever she looked from the bird to them.

"Your Grace," she said to Sansa, and then looked to Gendry and shook her head. When she looked to Arya, she called her princess, and Arya had to grit her teeth to keep from spitting her protest.

"Lady Meera," Sansa greeted her, amicably. "Why-"

"Your brother," Meera said, pushing the chair a bit. She scowled again, clenching her fists as Bran squawked his anger. "He'll want to wait for him. He can explain it then."

And so they waited. In silence. Abject silence. Meera of House Reed stood above Bran, glaring daggers at the bird as he watched her, his head cocked and wings flat against his lithe black body.

When Jon and Dany arrived, there was no time to be wasted. Bran stood, spread his wings and watched the feathers fall. Molting. Why was he molting? Wasn't it winter? And besides, she had seen birds molt in Braavos, but never so much and never so quickly.

"Tree," Bran told them, hopping down from his chair. He stood where the heart tree had been, wings spread and shaking.

"What of it, Bran?" Jon asked.

He looked to Meera, cooing an apology. She grumbled and shifted the spear from hand to hand as she spoke. "The Children of the Forest planted the weirwoods thousands of years ago." She ground her teeth. Every word was coming forced. "He wants to plant another."

Bile surged in Arya's throat. For the life of her, she could not say why.

"Good. That's good," Jon said, until he saw Meera's face. "Isn't it?"

"Sure," she said. She stabbed the tip of her spear into the snow and ground her knuckles against the butt. "As long as you don't know how they're made."

"Green!" Bran said. He pecked at the ground, for a moment looking more bird than boy. It was discomforting to see.

Did I look like that on the Blackwater? More wolf than woman? She'd tackled Jon, tried to drag him away. She remembered that much. Had she been human when she'd attacked the wight? She didn't know, and that scared her more than anything.

Had Jon been? He must have lived in Ghost the same way she had lived in Nymeria. Did it scare him too to see Bran like this?

"How are they made?" Sansa asked, stepping forward, taking charge. Arya had never been more grateful for that.

Gendry was looking at her with worry. She tried not to react to it. She didn't like being the invalid again, and she wasn't going to be. This was Winterfell. This was home. It was easier to be strong here, even if everything was harder to forget.

"Blood," said Meera. "Blood and sacrifice."

"Green," Bran insisted again, as Arya's blood turned to ice. Her left hand slid beneath her leathers to catch on the blue scar emblazoned on her other arm. It burned hot, just the way it had when he'd first touched her there and burned from flesh to bone.

She knew sacrifice; she remembered it. Sacrifice at a heart tree. Sacrifice by another Stark in another time. But then had been sacrifice for a pact, not sacrifice for a tree. Black obsidian in a pale chest that turned to blue and cold and death, war and magics, blood and sacrifice and cold and death and death and death and death…

Gendry's hand took her hand the way he'd taken the knife once when she'd brandished it in the hollow hill when the Hound was screaming and the fire was raging, and fire was different; it was hot and painful and it was almost as hard to breathe through as cold and death and death and death...

"Breathe," he whispered. No one else seemed to notice. Sansa was busy talking to Meera, and Jon was busy panicking over Bran – because it had sunken in for him too, because the both of them understood sacrifices, because the both of them understood death, even if he didn't know cold and death the way she did, because no one else could, but Sansa said he'd touched Bran too hadn't she, and Bran hadn't felt like this, had he? – and Bran would know, but Bran was gone and blood and sacrifice, and- "Breathe."

It was easy said, but impossible in truth when the Many-Faced God was staring her down and nodding to her brother, and there was naught she could do to answer.

"Why?" Jon was asking, his voice strained and tight. He was braver than her. Arya wouldn't even dare try her own.

"We don't need a heart tree," Sansa told him.

Bran only shook his head. "Weirwood," he said. "Green."

"The greenseers do," Meera clarified. Her gaze was steady, but there was pain in the curve of her brow and just the slightest tremble of her jaw. Tight. Too tight. Forced to be. She was a good liar, but Arya knew better. Arya was better.

"What does that matter?" Dany asked. She hardly seemed as emotional as the rest, but that was to be expected. She hadn't known Bran the way they had. I didn't either. "Why do we need greenseers?"

Bran looked to them all, but when his eyes met Arya, his pale white eye trained too carefully on the marks on her throat. "Others," he said.

Meera shifted her spear between her hands. Once, twice, four times. "In case they come back." Five. Six. "Greenseers can't control their visions without the weirwood, and the Night King-" Only then did she look to Arya. Ten. Eleven. "-destroyed the rest."

"They can't," Gendry said, mouth agape. "Come back, I mean. They can't. Arry killed them. All of them."

"I'm sure they thought that in the last Long Night too."

Fear cuts deeper than swords, she reminded herself, but the fear came all the same, gripping her heart and driving it wild, gripping her throat and her arm, and cold and cold and I can't-

She took a breath. She took another. They came shorter than they ought to, but they still came. She was alive. This time.

She reached for Nymeria and found her in the woods outside the castle gates, hunting for meat that was scarcer than it ought to be. We shouldn't have burned the bodies, she thought, horribly. The direwolf turned when she called her though, and when Arya slipped back into her own skin, Jon was begging the bird and Sansa was staring, slack-jawed and confused.

"He'll still be him," Meera said. She was still moving her spear. Part of Arya wondered how many times it had switched hands since she'd last taken count. "Whatever that's worth…"

"He's my brother," Arya said, defensively. Her voice was stronger than she expected. Angrier, too. "It's worth a lot."

Meera shook her head. "No, he isn't."

"Don't-"

Meera looked to the bird and shook her head again. "He died in that cave." She wasn't angry, only sad. "Delude yourself all you like, but we all know it's true. He's more Bran as a bird than he was a raven, but he's still just a tree." Whatever that meant, it was enough to make her steady her spear and bury the butt into the snow. "I came to Winterfell with my brother to pledge fealty to the Starks. I came again with my father to do the same. Find us when the bird is dead."

"You're not staying?" Sansa said.

She spun her spear into the sheath on her back and made for the main keep. When she was nearly gone, she turned to catch their eyes one last time and said, "I've done enough for him." And then she was gone, and the answers with her.

All this for a tree?

No.

Once, when Arya had been a little girl in Harrenhal, she'd gone to the heart tree and begged for answers. She'd prayed for days, always coming and going between duties, even when Gendry and Hot Pie found fleeting moments to mock her for it. "It's just a tree," Hot Pie had told her, scratching his hair and frowning. Gendry hadn't corrected him, because he hadn't known either.

But it wasn't just a tree. The weirwood never was. The old gods had been there in that godswood. They whistled their answers through the bright red leaves and spoke through the carved face. They wore her father's voice, telling her to be strong, to be a direwolf, and she had been. They made her! She'd stood on her own two feet and shrugged off the wool that had been cloaking her fur. A direwolf on two legs, but a wolf all the same.

And, if Sansa had spoken it true on their journey north, Bran had been the same. He'd gone to the weirwood and heard the answers, and he'd learned from the old gods themselves, just as she had learned from them and the Red God and the Many-Faced. They were Starks of Winterfell, and the gods had never shied from speaking to them. Who was she to speak against them? Who was she to question them? The gods are not mocked.

But she had mocked them, hadn't she? She'd beaten death twice over, and she'd killed him herself. She'd abandoned the gods urging her north, and she'd gone south to the gods that had taken everything from her. She'd stolen a face, stolen lives, stolen names. She'd been a kinslayer, a monster, and the gods rewarded her for it.

"Warn," Bran insisted. He must have seen something in her face, for he then said, "Breath. Breath. Breath." As if she'd forgotten. He'd warned her for a long time, and she never listened.

But there had been greenseers before, and no one had listened to them. There had been warnings and songs and gods themselves guiding them, and no one had listened. Jon had sent letters from the Wall, he'd said, and no one believed a thing.

The gods are not mocked, she knew. But the weirwoods are gone, and the gods are all dead.

Jon was still shouting at the bird, and Sansa still muttering in her confusion, but Bran was looking to her. Bran was waiting, and… what?

Was he expecting her to agree? To let her brother sacrifice himself for- for what? A tree? Some way for some man, thousands of years in the future, to know their stories? To see what they'd suffered? Arya hadn't seen a thing of any of it, and it has still been her sword that pierced the King's back. The greenseers hadn't helped at all. The old gods of the North hadn't done a thing to help her.

But… they had, hadn't they? Bran had sent the Dornishmen, the Reach, and the Westerlands. Bran had warned the Riverlands and saved her uncle and all the rest. And he'd only been able to do it because Bran was a greenseer with a weirwood.

She didn't know what to do, and that hurt worse than anything else. So, instead of doing it herself, she went to her knees before the bird and held out a hand to him. He climbed into her palm, talons scraping her fingers and drawing blood all across her left hand, but she was too numb to feel it.

"Do you want this, Bran?" she asked, and suddenly the whole of the godswood was quiet.

He nodded. His talons dug in deeper. Blood was dripping down her hand to her arm and then to the ground, staining the white snows red, but she didn't care. Not now. Not when he wanted it. But was it the way she'd wanted to be a wolf again, or the way she'd wanted to be no one? She didn't know how to ask.

"You'll die," Sansa said.

"No," the bird said. For once, it was no screech. It was Bran now, through and through. "Flying…" He looked to all of them, wings flapping aimlessly against her arms. "We. Must. Al-ways. Land."

"It's wrong," Arya said. "You've given enough."

If a bird could laugh, Bran did. "Winter. Coming," he told them. "Stark."

He flew from her palm then and made his way to the ground. It should have startled her. It didn't. The feathers fell from his wings like skin from a face. Quicker now than before. He crouched in the snow, wings spread and eyes wide open. For a moment, Arya thought she could see a hint of Tully blue in those cold white eyes, but then it was gone, and so was he. The bird crumpled in the snow, a puppet with its strings cut.

They would return in a fortnight to find a sapling in the snow. In the centuries to come, it would grow as large as any other, tall and foreboding with leaves as red as the sunset and a wood as white as a warg's eyes. Generations of Starks to come would swing from its branches, laugh beneath its shade, bathe in the black pool beside its massive trunk. They would carve a face, as the legends would guide them, and it would look like Bran had, though they would have no way to know it. It would be smiling, and it would whisper to all the children who climbed it, to all the girls who fought with stick swords beneath its leaves, to all the sulking boys in the grasses, and even to the proud lords who would come before it to pray. And when came the ones untrained in the arts, but with eyes green and unopened, he would send them messages and dreams, and he would teach them to fly.

But that was in the centuries to come, and this was now. Now, there was no sapling. Now, there was no tree. Now, there was only a family in mourning, standing over the only semblance of remains they would ever have for their lost little brother. The corpse of a bird. Now, they were alone in the godswood, and now, they were lost.

There would be a feast in the hours to come. A feast without much food to be had, nor wine to be drunk. But they would feast. A feast to those who were gone, and a toast of melted snow to the ones that would never return. The people would chant for her, for Jon, for Sansa, for Dany, and for the North. None would say a word for Bran, or Rickon, but they would for Robb. They would chant those five words that haunted her dreams every night, and Arya would flee the room, while Jon would try to comfort her with promises of a statue for Bran and a statue for Theon and all the rest. It wouldn't work, but she would pretend it had. And whenever she shut her eyes, she would see the wolf's head, and she wouldn't say a damned thing.

But that was in the hours to come, and this was now. And now, when she fled the godswood, she returned to her old room, leaving all the rest of them behind. For now, there was only time to strip her wet cloak, wipe the tears from her eyes, and drink the ale that Jon had left for her there.

The curtains were already drawn shut by the time she made her entrance. The blood had been scrubbed from the walls, she noted vaguely. It hadn't been two nights prior. The candle was lit too, the hearth aflame, and her clothes lain out for the feast. It wasn't too long ago she'd been the one laying out clothes, lighting fires, setting candles. Serving the enemy, while her brother marched to his death.

She made her way to the bed – smaller than she remembered it, but far, far softer. She hated it. They had been in the castle for days, and she had slept on the floor each and every night. Twice, a woman – named Nan, much to Arya's unvoiced amusement – had come in to bring food, drink, and clothes. Twice, she had tripped over Arya. Arya tried to convince her that she didn't need the help, but Nan had been insistent. She'd learned to knock, at least.

Now Arya sat on the edge of the bed and sunk into the soft frame. Feathers cushioned her, furs warmed her, and not a single morsel of dust flew into the air. A handmaiden must have dusted it.

But no, mayhaps not. As she looked to her pillows, she found herself swayed. After all, what handmaiden would leave something behind? And what handmaiden would leave behind a coin as rich as this?

She took it gingerly, flipping it between her fingers the same way the Tickler used to do with his coppers. Through the crevice between her forefinger and her middle, then to her them, then her pinky, then her knuckles, and back through the forefinger to the palm. But those coins had been smaller, weighed less, and were of far less value. This was no copper.

Iron.

Who? she wondered, but it made no matter. Whoever it was, they would be gone before she could could lift her head to look. There were thousands in Winterfell, and any one of them might have learned to climb the walls. Her window was too close to the ramparts. Fool, she cursed herself. Should have known.

They must have snuck it in during the funeral. While the rest of the world was mourning, they were playing their games. Always the stupid games. Games of life and death and lies. She threw the coin, so quick and so hard that a wad of dust exploded from the drawers it struck. She sat there, steaming, until the footsteps came, and then the knock upon the door. Loud. Even. Slow. Gendry.

She found the coin before she let him in. Drew her sword and let the coin fall to the bottom of its sheathe. When she returned Kingslayer to its place, nothing seemed amiss. The sheathe had been built slightly too long for the blade, and, for once, it did her good. It might clatter a bit more, but that made no matter. There were worse prices to be paid.

Gendry held no reservations when she opened the door for him. He slammed it shut with the heel of his foot and immediately leapt to embrace her. She let him. It seemed he was the only one she let anymore.

He said nothing of Bran, much the same way he said nothing of Father and Jory and Syrio and all those she'd lost. The same way he'd never talked of Lommy or Hot Pie or even Yoren and little Weasel. Someone else might have, but Gendry understood. Talking about it made it worse. It gave the memories more to haunt with and more to taunt with, instead of half-forgotten voices and words and faces.

Instead of saying anything about that, he pulled away, looked around her rooms, and said, "Not a bad place to grow up, if it wasn't so cold. Smithy's better, I'd say, but the rest? Seven hells…"

She let out a stupid little laugh. "I hear they're hot."

"The smithy? Aye, m'lady, it's-"

"The seven hells."

He laughed at that. They both stayed where they were, even when she shoved him for calling her m'lady again.

"Think they'll have pies at the feast?"

"No," she said. "Only worms."

His face twisted. "Still don't understand how you ate those."

"Don't understand how you didn't." Her voice trembled a bit – the smoke didn't help – but it came through anyway.

"They slithered down your bleedin' throat. I could see it!"

She shrugged. "It was food."

"I was happier starving, thanks."

"Stupid."

"Always." He grinned. "Way I remember it is we both survived, and only one of us ate worms."

Weasel did too, she remembered, but she didn't want to talk about Weasel any more than Gendry wanted to talk about the red woman. Instead, she said, "And which of us was hungrier?"

"Which of us was whinging more?"

"Hot Pie," she said easily.

He laughed. But it didn't last long before his smile turned to a frown. He didn't say anything of it. That didn't matter. She could read it in the lines of his face, the tightness of his jaw.

"He's gone," she said. It was no question.

Gendry answered anyway. "I saw him."

"Who-"

"Beric."

She leaned back against the bed. Or rather, she let gravity pull her down onto it. Her head struck the center and little blue spots danced wherever she looked. Even the fire had twinges of blue. The fire had more than anywhere else, actually.

They sat in silence for a while, and then…

She was the one who started it. "Remember when he made that wolf bread?"

"Still don't think that's what it was."

"Tasted good though," she said. "Remember when he tried to yield to the Lannisters?"

"Three days before they got there." He laughed. "Pissed himself over the big one too."

We were all pissing ourselves over the Mountain, she knew. "He used to steal me cakes from the kitchens. They beat him with a spoon for it."

Gendry frowned. "He never stole me any cakes."

"He liked me better."

"Only because you scared him more than I ever did."

"I remember him running from you, not me."

"I remember you holding a sword to his throat."

"Needle," she said. Her throat was starting to hurt again. Badly.

He frowned. "Never asked how you got that back, did I?"

"I killed Polliver," she said. "When I was with the Hound."

"Good," he said.

"Stabbed him in the legs. Told him everything he said to Lommy."

"Good," he said.

"Killed one of his squires too."

"Good," he said.

"You're not angry?"

He laughed and laid back beside her. She couldn't remember if she'd barred the door or not after he'd come in. She didn't care.

"If you hadn't," he said, "I'd have done it myself. And I think it might be harder to clean a hammer than a sword."

There were two long hours until the feast. Arya didn't even notice them pass. And, if they stayed a little longer than they ought to, it didn't truly matter. If she nearly missed it entirely, that didn't matter either. Arya didn't much like feasts anyway.

Instead, she laid on the bed with Gendry – curtains drawn tight and voices muffled by each other's lips – as the fire dimmed and went out completely. In his arms, the world was nothing, and all that was were the two of them, hot and hungry and- not happy, but content. Aye, that was the word. Content. It didn't make her feel any better inside, but it helped her get through the night and that was enough. For now.

And maybe… just maybe… this was what her father meant when he talked about how much he'd missed her mother, even when she was by his side. Maybe it was why Robb had abandoned the Freys. Maybe it was why Jon had given away his crown, and why he'd gotten himself killed along the way. Maybe this was .


A/N: Editing note: I write these as I write the chapter, so bear that in mind for the shape of this author's note.

I really wasn't happy with Jon being the only one to have his say at the funeral scene in the show. It was a beautiful scene that I loved (and you can definitely see that in the speech I wrote Jon here), but I thought that other people deserved their say too. Dany had lost so much in that war and didn't breathe a word of it. Sansa was meant to become QitN, yet didn't address her people when they needed leadership. Bran was the one who held the memory of all those people and didn't say so much as a word to remember them with. I get why Arya didn't talk, because show!Arya sucked, but everyone else should've had their say.

Now to the controversial choice. Bran's gone. He's a tree now, instead of a bird. I thought that was pretty important. There's no guarantee that every White Walker's gone, that killing the Night King guarantees an end for all time. The Children probably thought it was over the first time too. The greenseers can't be allowed to die off completely, or no one can warn the next generation of fighters if this ever happens again. Bran may be the last Three Eyed Raven, but more greenseers can be born now. They'll have to teach themselves, but Bran can help them, some, and Meera too (if she decides to). Bran wouldn't have done much, otherwise, being a bird, so I thought this was a conclusion that at least gives him a bit more of a purpose in the greater narrative. The entire premise of Prince kinda screws him over, so this was the best I could do given what I had to work with. He's still got a role left to play, though, so this won't be the last we see of Bran.

And the less controversial choice? Weasel existed in Prince. Suck it, show.

Anyway, time for a Jon chapter, as he tries to figure out what the hell to do with the rest of his life. I'll give you a hint: it involves sad conversations, snow, and sand.