Chapter Sixty-Three: A Dream of Spring

Winterfell

Arya Stark

In the songs, the heroes always won. At the end of the tale, they would march down the cobbles, ride down the steps, surge over the wynds, and the cheers of the people would carry them along. The king would knight them or honor them or grant them a castle on high. If not the king, then the people would raise them to the seat of the highest strength in the land. Nymeria came to rule Dorne, the slaves rose up and ended the Valyrian empire, and the living conquered the dead for all of time to come.

Oh, the heroes would suffer along the way and thousands would still be lost, but they always won in the end. The fallen became noble sacrifices. The survivors remembered them until the very end. That was the fun of it all. Every man was a legend, and every woman a star.

But that was in the songs. In those, Arya Stark was a great hero whose story would be told to all the generations that would ever be. In those, she was scarred but beautiful, rough but kind, alone but not lonely. In the songs, she would be remembered – was already remembered – as a great hero, devoid of faults and devoid of fears.

In that, the songs were wrong. Arya had her faults. Arya had her fears. Gods, no matter how much she whispered Syrio's words to herself, they never went away. They never stopped being just on the verge of right.

Fear cuts deeper than swords.

Fear cuts deeper than swords.

Fear cuts deeper than swords.

It was a lie, she knew, but one that stayed with her nonetheless. Fear hurt, but not that much. Dying hurt worse.

In the songs, she would be proud now. Sat atop a pale grey steed, underdressed and underprepared, ready to journey out into the great unknown without a moment's hesitation.

All of that was true. But the songs did not mention the men around her, packed in furs. Men sworn to ride beside her and die beside her, if need be. Three of them armed with valyrian steel. All of them armed with dragonglass.

She wondered how the songs would remember this. A finishing act in the great mummer's play that was her life? The Dawnbringer marching off into the unknown for reasons never asked and never known? A hero's sacrifice? That was the closest to the truth. Still, Arya was no hero, and the songs were not true and had never been true.

Nymeria and her wolves stood behind her. Would they sing of them too? Would they sing of Jon and Dany, Rhaegal and Drogon, Sansa and Gendry? Would they mention Bran in his tree? Ryndon Martell? The kindly man in his House of Black and White, across the Narrow Sea?

She had her guesses. Some, but not all. They would know of the dragons and Jon and Dany, and they would know even of Ryndon the Prince and Sansa the Queen. But Bran? Gendry? The kindly man? They would fade into the background. Little mentions in the songs that could be anyone at all.

More than anything, she wished she was one of them. A no one. No one's daughter and no one's hero. No one at all.

It was Bran who deserved to be sung of more than her. Especially now. He was the reason they were traveling north, after all. And so too was he the reason Jon was following.

"Go North," Bran had told them, his voice carried on the winds as their father's had been once. "Find your answers. Find your healing."

Jon had heard it as well as she, and, though he had agreed to not tell Sansa, he had not agreed that she ought to go it alone. And so, his horse was saddled beside hers. And so, his packs were filled with meats and water. And so, his wife was mounted on a snow-white horse, while their dragon remained behind. That had been Sansa's idea. If Arya changed too much and too quickly, they couldn't let her be within a thousand miles of the last living dragon. Jon and Gendry had been furious at that, and Dany seemed concerned, but Arya had agreed. Silently.

And now they were fit to march. Alone together, across the world in search of answers that would surely never make her any happier. She didn't want to go any more than she'd wanted to go as a girl of one-and-ten, but North meant she would be away from her people. And, if something went wrong – if she went wrong – nothing would ever make her happier than that.

"I think the horse's fed enough."

She jerked, violently rearing to face this new threat. Her hand scrambled for her sword, but it laid on Gendry's belt and she carried nothing more than Sansa's dagger. She went for that next, but a hand over her own stopped her. That and blue eyes. Blue eyes that were darker than her own, but still so bright, she could hardly blink but for seeing them.

"Seriously," he told her, not even bothering to look at her hips or the empty scabbard hanging there, "damned thing's eating better than I am."

She blinked once, twice, and then forced all the fear away from her. Fear cuts deeper- A smile broke on her face, forced but present, and just the least bit real. "Didn't think that was possible," she told him. "Sansa said you had three rations."

He scowled. One hand cut through the air, while the other remained firmly against his back. "A bleedin' moon ago!"

"She won't let you live it down."

"Her or you?"

Arya shrugged and returned to petting at her horse's hind. "Shouldn't you be readying yours?"

"I couldn't ready a horse if you paid me."

She paused. "Aren't we? Paying you?"

"Not a copper."

"Jon said the forge-"

"I haven't been forging for the castle."

"Making yourself a new hammer?" His own had a thin crack running through the head, and there had been talking of replacing it. Only talk, but enough that no one could blame him if he did. The hammer had served him well in King's Landing and, unlike her, he didn't see fit to part with it.

"A sword," he said, instead.

She thought of the sword, Kingslayer, sat on the stand atop Sansa's dresser, and the sword she'd lost in King's Landing. Neither made her any happier.

"Thought you'd prefer hammers," she said.

"I do."

She reached for the hand that was still firm behind his back. Somehow, he was quicker. He spun away from her first lunge, grinning all the while. She never should have shown him the water dancing steps. But then, she'd never thought he would actually use them.

She could have lunged again – she would have gotten it – but something about him made her pause. She couldn't put her finger on what exactly it was, but it stopped her all the same.

"Jon told me about your… problem," Gendry said. There was nothing solemn about the way he said it, only a nervous excitement that seemed to have overtaken him. Why excitement?

"I hope he did, seeing as you're coming with us."

He nodded, stupidly. It seemed his confidence was bleeding more by the minute. "Not that- I mean, yeah, yeah he told me. And I… I don't know what'll… what'll happen along the way. I don't know if we'll make it, or if it'll matter at all, or if you'll… and I'll…"

She had nothing to say to that. Neither of them were much good with words. They'd never had to be. Gendry and her, they'd just known. Known without speaking, understood without hearing. Most times, all it would take was a spare look, and then they would understand every word the other had to share. Every fear, every concern, every little joy and anger and sorrow. This time, they were too far off-keel, and he was far too anxious to manage it, but even so it sat between them, a silent assurance that neither would stray too far.

His arm spun, a mockery– no, not a mockery a tribute to the way Arya always twirled her hand. A long thin piece of metal slapped him upside the head, but Arya hardly even noticed his curses as he pulled it back down and showed her his work.

It was bigger than it ought to have been. Longer, thicker. The weapon of a woman grown, not the toy of a child. The hilt was just as she remembered it, if just a bit better fitted to hands that had grown larger and stronger. The scratches were gone, and the leather was not nearly so worn, but it was the same, and it was enough to make her choke on more than just the cold.

She took it, fingers shaking and breath coming short. The leather was soft, supple. The steel was firm and strong, whole and solid, cold and familiar. The only true change was the little mark at the point where the steel met the crossbar, where there had once been a wolf's head, and where now there sat only the face of a bull. Horned and fat, instead of short and sharp. There were tears in her eyes, she realized, stroking the mark. She hated crying.

And yet, she couldn't help it. Because this sword that was everything, from her pack to her place to her path to her own person… was whole. And if Needle was whole…

"Gendry," she whispered.

"You asked me to be your family once," he told her, after a long breath. Suddenly, her mouth was dry, and she could not say why. "I don't know what's ahead, Arry, but I've lived without you, and I don't want to anymore." He smiled, just a bit. A shaky smile, but there all the same. "So be with me. Be my family."

"I'm not-" she said, suddenly sputtering as badly as he'd been. And, somehow, for all that she'd grown, for all that she knew it wouldn't matter at all, and for all the other reasons that could have come to mind, that distant fear was still the only thing that came to her. The same tired worry that ought to have bled away when she was dying on the road from Harrenhal, slaving in the House of Black and White, and carving ice from flesh. "I'm not a lady," she said, blinking hard to keep from tearing. "That's not-"

For a moment, he was angry. Really, truly angry. As angry as he'd been whenever Polliver looked her way on the march, whenever Raff made some comment or another, whenever Hot Pie went on about yielding. His teeth bared and his shoulders stiff and, still, he didn't take his eyes off her.

"You think I care about that?" he snapped. "I don't want a lady. 'S a fool who does. I didn't talk to the stupid little lady up in her castle, did I? You ever see me waiting at your sister's bed, all sewing away at tapestries? No, I talked to little street rat orphan idiot. The one who only ever sewed with that Needle of hers, and took care of anyone around her, even when it was stupid. The one who lived like I did, grew up like I did-" She opened her mouth to protest, but, for the first time, he was quicker. "-oh don't bother. How long'd you spend up in your castles, and how long did you spend out of them?" Half my life, she thought. "D'you think you'd have lasted in 'em? No more than I'd have. I never wanted a lady in a castle, Arry. I wanted Arry. Not m'lady, not Lady Stark." Somehow, he still spat that name the way he always had. "I wanted Arry. I wanted you."

And suddenly, there were no more protests to be made. Nothing to do at all but reach for his collar and pull him closer. To hold him in front of everyone, secrets be damned, and kiss him until she couldn't breathe anymore, and then to keep on. To dig her fingers through his hair and feel his hands on her frozen skin, and to feel warm for the first time in far, far too long. And, when they broke apart, there was nothing to say but "Yes." And then to laugh with him, laugh into his mouth, laugh into his shoulder, and laugh and laugh and laugh. A giddy little stupid laugh like the Sansa of her childhood might have made, and to not care about that at all.

And, when they set off, to ride side-by-side with him, though she knew she ought to have ridden ahead. To smile and laugh as Jon made his faux-threats and asked how he'd missed this so long, and for Dany to mock him all the same.

To feel, for the first time in a long while, like a person. A real living person. And to feel like Bran was right after all, because she'd found her answers before she'd even left the castle proper.

And to pass over the rolling hills and great icy steps, ready to ride to the land of adventure and answers. There were others following them, who would ride both behind and before them. Some who'd rather live as wildlings than men in a castle, and who were coming if only to join them in the journey to the Wall. They were staring at her, but she found she didn't care one bit. She had Needle, and she had the dagger, and she had Gendry and Jon and Dany. They were just tagalongs, just like she'd been with the Watch a thousand years ago. Some on horseback, some not. Some prepared, some not. Like her.

She looked back at Winterfell, at the castle of her father and her father's father and his father's father's father. She looked at this land that had succored her and swaddled her and spat her back into a world that was cold and dark and hateful. She looked at this land her people had known for a thousand generations.

I'll find you again, she promised. It was an oath her herself as much as to the castle. Different roads...

Above her, a raven cried for corn. Before her, a direwolf led them all, prowling while a pack of men and women and wolves followed her every step. Behind her, a weirwood continued to grow, two feet tall and sprouting leaves as tall as she'd been and as red as she was. Beside her came the homeless people following a homeless woman to a land devoid of people. Against her, a familiar sword was hanging at her side.

The bard stood on the walls of Winterfell, playing a tight harp and singing a hopeful song. It carried her as much as the horse and helped her stand as tall as her shadow. And, as Arya ran, he sang louder and louder and louder.

"When the snow falls, and the white winds blow…"

Gendry was beside her too, sat atop a saddle of his own and smiling. He looked back at Winterfell, at the red sun blighting the rolling white hills, painting the whole of the world crimson. But he looked away, looked to her, and his grin grew somehow wider.

"When the banner's called, and in comes snow…"

Jon was pushing forward, watching her with the fear in his eyes that never truly left, but a proud smile sprawled across his face. He was the one most convinced, she knew. He was the one who had always believed Bran best, even more than her Uncle Edmure had, even after the birds in the Riverlands had called him south.

Jon saw a future in this. He truly saw answers.

Arya didn't know what she saw here. Maybe just men. Men, women, children, horses, wolves, and much, much more. Answers might have been among them, but she didn't care. Not now.

"When lion's teeth chip away…"

There were leaves sprouting on the branches of sentinel trees that ought to have been dead. There was little game in the wood, but what was was getting more prevalent as the rabbits came out from their shelters and the rats from their tunnels. She could see a few of them now, scurrying underfoot. Six of them, pink-tailed and white-haired and bigger than any she'd seen in Braavos or in the Riverlands. One met her eyes, if only for a moment, and fled back to the trees, never to see her again.

"And all the Reach holds no sway…"

There was smoke behind them, billowing from Winterfell's many towers and spewing into the red-blue sky. Some grey and some white, but all of it alive and all of it whole. The world's humanity was returning to a place devoid of it for too long. There was warmth. People. Life. These people were a living monument to victory, just by the fact that they lived at all.

I did that, she thought. The very idea set her stomach twisting. Yet, out here, there was no pain. None at all.

"When Dornish spears bear no tips, and stags and deer have honors stripped…"

There, the clambering of hammers, the smell of horse dung and pine needles and pigeon pies, and the sharp taste of winter airs.

"When flayed men fall…"

There, direwolf banners strewn across the walls.

"And Iron pykes…"

Wolves in the Wolfswood.

"And towers tall…"

Ravens, black and white, cutting through the barren sky.

"And even Night…"

Dany rode beside her, cocooning a thick leather bag in her arm, and suddenly she realized that, though Dany had carried it for days, Arya had never thought to ask what was in it. She didn't ask now, and she knew she wouldn't.

"When the snow falls and the white winds blow, the pup may be small…"

Arya stared until her eyes were red and wet, and then she turned and pushed on. She headed north, as she always should have done. North to purpose. North to answers. North to healing. North with Nymeria, with Gendry, with Jon, with Dany. North to marriage. North to future.

Nymeria was ahead still, and, when she turned to face her wandering human, Arya kicked her feet and sent her steed into a sprint. And like that, Arya rode. Rode hard and rode fast. With Needle at her side and her family too, she rode off into the great unknown. For the first time in a long while, she wasn't afraid. Not at all.

Winter was here. But spring… spring was coming. And Arya was going to see it.

Not today, she thought. For once, the god heard.

#

But all wolves grow.


Final A/N:

So that's it then. After a long and winding road, we've finally reached home. The journey is over.

I'm not going to lie and say I'll have another story up next week, next month, etc. I don't know when I'll be back. I intend to be. I initially planned not to take a break at all, but I have work I haven't worked on in the months I've been writing this, and my own sandbox has been waiting on me to finish playing in someone else's. Plus, I've recently gotten the opportunity to do some freelance editing jobs, so I'm stretched a bit thin at the moment (even with the quarantine helping my schedule out a bit).

I intend to write a drabble series based off of Prince someday. No, I don't know when. Every single drabble will be canon to this story. It'll show pieces of the stories I'd planned, but which couldn't fit for some reason or another (like the Ryndon Martell-Arya discussion I alluded to but never showed). That'll be a pretty fun project, I think, and it'll be a nice palate cleanser while I work with my own story for a while. However, before you ask - no, there will never be a story or drabble that takes place any time after this final chapter, nor will I ever elaborate on an aftermath. I like this ending. I like the ambiguity of it. It's staying that way. If you want to write your own version of a post-ending ending, you've got my blessing, but it won't be done by me.

Anyway, for my last "anyway", I'd like to thank everyone who's read this mess of a tome until the very end! Thanks especially to everyone who's commented, reviewed, or reached out to me on tumblr! Your comments helped me keep this thing going, even past the point where the muse just up and died on me. So, thank you all so much! I hope you enjoyed this fic as much as I enjoyed writing it and reading all of your reactions! Thank you!