Arya was waiting for Sandor after the scarred man left Winterfell. She'd had him watched and was informed when he demanded supplies and one of the surviving horses from the sables. She was surprised he took as long as he did to head off and seek his revenge.
As Clegane trotted down the Winterfell's road towards her, Arya smiled when his eyes first widened and then narrowed in annoyance at her.
"What the fuck do you want, Lady Stark?"
Arya smirked.
"To ask you to stay, of course."
That wrung a grunt of a laugh from Clegane.
"Bullshit," he said and rode passed her.
Arya's smirk stretched to a grin before she spurred her mount to follow.
"Is it hard to believe that I'd ask you to remain in Winterfell?"
Sandor was quiet for a moment, his eyes focused on the road. When he turned to answer Arya, she'd already come to ride abreast of him.
"It's hard to believe you forgot all about that prayer of yours. You want me to stay and look after your cripple brother while you ride off to King's Landing to get your vengeance, is what I think."
Arya's grin widened. Clegane unraveled her motives after exchanging only a few words. She should not forget the man was as smart as he was mean.
"I need someone I trust to look after him. Someone I know will kill any fucker who tries to hurt him."
"Then ask Brienne of Tarth. She almost killed this fucker you're looking at to protect you."
Arya's smile faded. Though her face betrayed nothing of her feelings about Ser Brienne of Tarth, her silence still gave Clegane all he needed to understand why Arya hadn't done just that.
"You don't trust her."
Arya turned away and looked at the road ahead. It'd been trampled dark and muddy after near on a thousand recovered Northmen tracked over it to march south and join their countrymen gone ahead of them.
"I don't."
Clegane went quiet again. It was a strange silence and Arya looked at him. Sandor was staring back at her, his long stringy brown hair half hung over the scarred side of his face. The scarring made reading him harder than most, but the man was so blunt and honest it wasn't as though one needed to translate every twitch of muscle and flow of blood to understand Clegane's intentions.
"Nothing could have saved her from the Stranger's grasp down there," Sandor said finally without a hint of warmth or comfort.
Arya didn't reply. She didn't want to talk about Sansa. There was no point in doing so. That way lie sadness and served only to remind Arya there was nowhere to put her rage.
"I can offer you private quartering in the Keep and a hundred dragons," Arya said.
If she could get Sandor to stay and guard Bran, Arya can afford to offer such, and more.
The coin couldn't be spent on food or much else these days, not while the Lannisters held the Reach, and the Riverlands had only just stopped burning, so there was plenty for the spending. Not only did Arya have access to Winterfell coffers, but the Botlons as well, and Roose Bolton apparently had been tight-fisted when it came to spending coin. Arya took great pleasure in putting Bolton's gold in service to House Stark.
Between them, the Dragon Queen and Jon's armies commandeered half the food and feed from Winterfell's stores. It would have been devastating before the Long Night, but of the hundred thousand Northmen who came to fight, more than half of them died. Most of those who did survive and weren't too injured were now marching south. Even with their stores heavily depleted, Winterfell still had enough to feed everyone already present, and another five thousand who might come for shelter, for a year easily enough. Whatever supplies and provisions were brought in from holds as their residents sought safety in numbers and the high walls of Winterfell would bolster their stores as well.
Also the Dreadfort's maester received a letter from the Citadel claiming winter could end much sooner than predicted. It had lasted nigh on two years thus far and would linger throughout the current year, but according to the learned men in Oldtown, days are getting longer, and winter may not last another. After Daenerys won the Iron Throne, and there was no doubt, she'd win it, Jon would ensure that the North was delivered whatever it needed to survive the waning days of winter, and once Westeros entered spring.
Arya could not be haphazard with her house's finances, of course, but coin was unlikely to be an issue for some time.
"Shove your gold. We both know your Dragon Queen will burn whoever stands between her and that fucking throne to ashes," Sandor said. "I want his head. I'm not going to taste his stinking blood sitting on my arse here in the snow."
"Two hundred dragons."
"You little bitch."
Arya smiled again.
"Is that a: Yes?"
"No, it's not."
"Three—"
"No amount of gold is going to have me stay here."
Ayra grunted and focused on the muddy road ahead. After they'd traveled awhile, she spoke again.
"You'll die."
"Everybody dies. Thought you'd realized that by now."
Arya's grip on her reins tightened.
"Fuck you, Clegane."
"Ride back to your castle and get the Tarth woman to protect your brother. Better yet, protect him yourself."
"A thousand dragons."
Sandor grabbed Arya by the arm and brought both their horses to a standstill. An instant later the point of her dagger was under his chin. Clegane didn't blink. He stared at her with his hard, dark brown eyes, and snarled into her face.
"You left me to die once, and you were right to do it. So, do it again!"
His fingers dug into Arya's arm. They'll leave bruises on her skin though she was covered in leather and light mail. Arya hardly felt Sandor's grip, she could only feel the tension in the arm holding her dagger to Clegane's throat, and the pit opening wider and wider deep in her belly.
"You can't save me," Sandor hissed through yellowed, crooked teeth.
Two pairs of hard, pitiless eyes locked, with neither giving slack nor a hint of mercy to the other.
"Go off and fucking die then, Sandor!" Arya snarled at last, lowering her dagger from his throat and sheathing it again. "You dumb son of a bitch!"
Sandor released Arya's arm and smiled down at her. For once, Arya thought it wasn't a nasty, ugly thing to look upon.
"Aye, I will," he said. "And a clever little bitch like you better long outlive me."
Clegane spurred his steed forward and galloped away. Leaving Arya behind to grit her teeth as angry tears burned her eyes. No matter how hard she tried, Arya couldn't keep her teeth clenched, and the words that boiled in her chest burst out of her in a breathless rush.
"Come back!" Arya said, but Sandor was too far away to hear her. Then softly, just a whisper to herself, she said:
"Please, come back."
Ser Brienne finally confronted Arya after weeks of both women avoiding the other.
Arya's evasion of Brienne was not an effort she made with any deliberateness. Arya thought very little of the woman in every sense, and so would not have bothered to hide from the knight, but nor did Arya seek out the woman. It was Brienne who was careful to keep her distance and only approached Arya in the Great Hall that night because the kingslayer had recently crawled out of the maester's turret.
The Lannister had left Tyrion's bedside rarely since the Long Night, and in all that time, Brienne refused to leave the kingslayer. This changed after the Bolton's maester informed Arya the dwarf was on the mend and making something of a recovery. The Imp was at least well enough to bid his brother journey from the maester's turret and bring him real food to eat instead of the porridge the maester forced him to subsist upon. Tyrion also implored his brother to let him dine without being stared at by an audience.
His brother's request freed the kingslayer to take meals in the Hall, and with Jaime Lannister came Ser Brienne of Tarth, and ofttimes her squire as well. They broke their fasts and ate their suppers meals together in what seemed to be companionable, if not intimate silence, and when done, the knights and squire took their leave and returned to the Imp's bedside.
During these moments, Arya noticed the kingslayer was no longer spurned by Northmen in the castle. He could sit on a bench or at a table in the Hall, and no one moved away in their disgust as they'd done when Jaime first came to Winterfell. Like with Gendry, the Lannister, Brienne, and even her squire had been seen fighting back wave after wave of the undead after wights breached Winterfell's gates.
The North may well always look down on the Lannister for being Southern, and for the war that his son and kin began, but the Northmen will never forget the strength and bravery he showed that terrifying night. It was the same with Brienne of Tarth. There are still those who look upon Brienne with disapproval, as Westeros, North or South, will not accept a knighted woman happily or quickly. Though none dared question she had the strength and courage to match any man.
Arya sat with a group of wildlings she had come to know from their work clearing the grounds. She said little to them, and they said less back, and the arrangement suited them all well. Arya gave Jon's noisy wilding friend leave to sit at the high table, along with anyone else who wanted to join him. Arya didn't think she could ever be up there again without her family there to sit with her. The red-haired man and those who sat with him laughed and drank with abandon, their lively cheer drowning the rest of the Hall's more relaxed atmosphere.
The table had been quiet as she ate, but the quiet changed when Ser Brienne approached. The wildlings had no trouble accepting a capable woman, unlike Northerners who still had not looked upon a woman as a knight favorably. The wildlings' strange silence came from the uncomfortable tension Brienne exuded as she stood stiffly behind Arya, and how Arya's hand curled around the hilt of Needle even as she took a swallow of strong ale.
"My Lady," Brienne said, "I would request a word. If you will allow."
Arya took her hand off her sword then tore into a greasy chicken leg and chased it with a swig of ale. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand before she responded without turning to look at the knight.
"Fuck off."
"I—Yes. Is there a moment you would find more to your liking?"
"I said: Fuck off."
The tables surrounding them grew quieter, but the laughing and shouts from the High table more than made up for the missing noise.
"No."
There was steel in Brienne's voice. Arya let a smile come to her lips and then smothered it before she turned around to face the other woman.
Brienne wore all her golden Lannister armor. It gleamed in the torch and firelight, as did the bejeweled guard and golden lion's head pommel of the Valyrian steel sword on her left hip. So too did the silver hilt of the Kingslayer's blade that sat on her right.
The woman's clear blue eyes weren't weepy and remorseful anymore, Arya saw. As they'd been since the Long Night. Now Brienne's clear blue eyes were as hard and unbending as her refusal had been.
"What do you want?" Arya said.
Brienne stood straighter and lifted her chin.
"Only to speak of matters of great importance, to you and your family, My Lady," the woman said.
Arya took another large bite of chicken as she looked Brienne up and down. The knight had finally grown a spine and was ready to confront Arya's anger toward her. It was almost enough to regain what little respect Arya had had for the woman.
Arya took another drink of ale before she slammed the cup down and stood in a quicksilver motion. The room had fallen entirely silent when the wildlings at Arya's table got to their feet as much from alarm at the suddenness of her action as the charged stare between her and Ser Brienne.
In the silence, from far across the Hall, Arya heard the Kingslayer's worried whisper of: "Brienne."
Brienne didn't flinch and remained stiff-backed. Nor did the knight reach for one of the swords on her hips. Arya didn't know what she might have done if the woman had done so.
Arya's lips twitched.
Oh, but she did know.
I am no Frey. I will spill no one's blood here. Not in this place.
"Follow me, then," Arya said and started away.
The crowd watched on silently as the two women wound their way through the crowded room and left the Great Hall.
Arya sensed Brienne's confusion when she was led not to the Training Yard, but instead to the sept. Once the knight realized where she'd been taken, her confusion turned to misery. Arya let them inside with a smile.
Arya had never loved this place and had even less love for what she'd been forced to learn here. Nor did Arya love Septa Mordane's efforts to turn her into Sansa. But it was part of Home and as familiar and welcoming as any of the better places Arya loved in Winterfell.
Her Mother had come here to pray. If Arya concentrated, she could still smell her Mother in the air. She could scent Mordane, Jeyne Poole, Beth Cassel, and Sansa.
All gone now.
Brienne waited quietly while Arya lit a fire, showing enough sense to know her help was not needed or wanted. After the hearth began to burn bright and hot, Arya glanced around the now better-lit space and pushed away the memories that tried to crowd in and drown her.
Brienne's poleyn scraped against the sept's stone floor when the woman knelt. Arya sighed, disappointed to discover Brienne's mettle had so quickly dissolved coming here.
"Rise, Brienne," Arya said. "I don't ever want that from you."
"My Lady—"
"I don't need that from you, either."
"I have failed your Mother, Lady Sansa, and your family. I failed you. And I cannot ever hope to regain the trust of your house for this complete failure of mine. So—"
Arya turned when she heard the swords on Brienne's hips being drawn from their sheaths.
"These blades were reforged from your family's greatsword," Brienne said, still knelt, as she laid both on the ground in front of her. "Thus, I and Ser Jaime Lannister, we return what was stolen from House Stark."
Arya stared down at the swords, each laying parallel, hilt to point before her. They were beautiful, no doubt, gilded in polished gold and silver, and glittering with rubies. The fascinating dark gleam of their Valyrian steel beautifully accentuated by the firelight was captivating… But they weren't Ice. They were no longer her Father's sword, no more than they belonged to House Stark.
"What do you want for these in return?" Arya asked.
Brienne's head shot up, and a fiercely offended expression made her face beautiful in its outrage.
"To think we would dishonor ourselves so! Nothing! We ask for nothing!"
"Not even to allow you and your Lannisters to remain in Winterfell?"
The knight's anger wavered as she considered the Imp's injuries and Jaime's devotion to his brother's care. Tyrion's condition would surely worsen without the attention of a maester, even one such as Bolton's. Brienne dropped her gaze to the floor.
"You would turn us out?"
Arya glanced at the swords and then back at the woman kneeling before her.
"Pick those up, Ser Brienne of Tarth, and stand."
Brienne let her eyes meet Arya's for a moment before she carefully sheathed the blades and stood.
"Every man, woman, and child who fought for the living may remain here for as long as they wish. Even your Kingslayer. Even you."
"T-Thank you, My Lady," Brienne said.
Arya made her way to the door, and as she passed the knight, Brienne called to her.
"Lady Stark, I know I have no right to ask anything more of you, but honor demands that I do try. For it is what I owe you and your house."
"You wish to keep serving House Stark," Arya said without turning around.
"I do."
Arya laughed then spun about to look at the tall, handsome woman. Brienne's hope shined bright in eyes already brilliant and crystalline. Arya eagerly looked forward to shattering that hope.
"Do you wish to be parted from your Kingslayer? Do you believe he will desire to remain in the cold North away from the warm bosom and cunt of his sister?"
Color climbed up Brienne's cheeks. She flushed with so much anger and embarrassment, Arya couldn't separate one from the other.
"Jaime is not the man you believe him to be, My Lady."
As if I care what kind of man he is!
"Is that so?" Arya said. "Then let me ask you this: Why should I accept your service to my house again?" Arya's words carried the sting of venomous accusation.
"I-I do not ask for any special position. Not captain nor Master-At-Arms. I will guard your privy if you so ask it of me. I only ask to be allowed to prove myself of use to you!"
"Of use! Of use! Like you were of use to her?" Arya shouted, rage welling from the depths of her being she had long forgotten dwelled inside her. Arya advanced on the knight and glared up at her ugly, ruddy face. "How many Starks have you sworn to protect, but have yet to protect even one? Your service is worthless, Ser!" Arya spat. "I would sooner again let the Imp try his pathetic hand at protecting anything than allow you—"
Tears sprang to Brienne's eyes as her face fell. She ducked her head and silent sobs shook her shoulders. Shame and sadness surrounded her in equal measure when she collapsed into a boneless heap of muscle and clanging armor onto the sept's stone floor. She smothered her mouth with her gloved hand until her tears ran rivers over her fingers and thumb.
It is easy to be cruel, Arya's father once told her, but much harder to be just.
Her Father had been right—he'd been right about many things.
Arya was being cruel. Cruel to a woman Arya knew did not deserve cruelty. A just woman. A strong and courageous woman who was everything Arya wanted to be when she was a child.
Arya went to Brienne and knelt before her. Arya did not hold the woman, though wished she could. Arya did not think she could hold anyone ever again.
I did not embrace Sansa before I sent her down into that place… I should have… I…
Arya could place her hands on Brienne's mailed shoulders and press her forehead gently against the top of the woman's blonde, bowed head. The glow of the firelight and the smell of Brienne's tears and ghosts surrounded them.
"Forgive me, Ser Brienne. If you can still consider me worthy of your service, I will accept it gladly. If not, know you will always have a place here in Winterfell. Forever welcomed."
With that, Arya released the woman and stood. Brienne raised her head and glanced up at Arya with tears, and if not joy in her eyes, then something like relief. Arya nodded, then left Brienne in Catelyn Stark's sept to consider Arya's offer and the future ahead of her—whatever, wherever, that may be.
Another two thousand small folk came to settle in winter town over the next moon's turn. Some had returned after Theon's—or rather, the Bolton's sack of Winterfell—but most had come from the far north. From The Last Hearth and Karhold. Those who survived the White Walkers after they scoured the land to swell their ranks before marching south on Winterfell.
Karstark and Umber. Mormont. All Houses dead.
Young Lady Karstark had fallen during the Long Night. She died with her people, who'd fought beside the Iron Born in the godswood. The boy, Ned Umber, and his people were the first to die, slaughtered not long after the Wall fell to the Night King's undead dragon. Arya had gathered Lyanna's Mormont's body herself. Crushed by the hands of a wight giant.
Arya knew when the time came to resettle those lands after winter passed, it would be hers to deal with. There would be a need to provide Dreadfort with a new Lord as well. It was Sansa's by right, but Arya would raze it to the ground rather than claim it for the Starks.
The Manderlys, who'd come away less injured than almost every other major house in the North were already making their interest in Dredfort known, and Arya was fit to give it to them.
Many houses needed tending to, and Arya wasn't fool enough to believe once choices started being made that the Hero of the Dawn, as they were now calling her, could carelessly decide the new balance of power in the North. With Jon and the Iron Throne's backing, things should go much easier than going alone, but Arya wasn't callow enough to think depending on her brother to come flying in to solve her problems was a good and right choice.
Decisions needed to be made and troubles prepared for, and it was her duty to see them done. For that, Arya needed advisors she trusted who were smarter and wiser than her. People who cared about what others wanted and how they felt. People who understood how to make the proud lords of the North work together. People whose first instinct isn't to hold a sharp blade at their throats to get things done.
Arya needed a Maester Luwin.
She needed…
If Sansa were still alive, she'd be Lady of Winterfell, and Arya wouldn't need to be, would she?
Arya even thought to go to Bran. A font of knowledge that should be of great use to any Lord or Lady, but Arya did not trust her little brother to do what was right for the North or anyone. Not anymore.
Brienne, her sworn sword, and new guard captain knew not the North or its people well enough to advise Arya. There was the Imp. He was not an unthinkable choice, but he had yet to fully heal, and Arya did not want to be put in the position of holding back from killing the kingslayer when he protested his brother's abuse.
The Bolton's maester was unthinkable. At least Theon, worthless as he was otherwise, had rescued Sansa from Ramsay. The Bolton's maester had done nothing but give Sansa poppy for the pain his masters inflicted upon her. Something any midwife or woods witch could have done.
But as the fatigue of war wore away, and the world moved on, the North looked to House Stark for protection and aid, as winter and starvation threatened to take them all, just as Jon said. Arya was soon left with fewer and fewer excuses to turn away expertise from any source. Alone she could kill anyone, anywhere, with ease—but ruling House Stark was not something she could do on her own.
With so few options open to her, Arya swallowed her anger and drafted the Bolton's maester into her service. The decision to ask for Wolkan's aid became somewhat easier to stomach after Brienne told Arya the man swung dragon glass during the Long Night. It did not absolve his inaction when the Boltons tormented Sansa, for where was his bravery then? But it was something Arya could respect about Wolkan's character. It was something to build upon.
Arya did not think she would ever fully trust the maester, but she resolved to make use of him until he was no longer of use to her.
Even so, Arya knows Wolkan won't be enough. She is keenly aware she will not be enough. Arya wasn't meant to be Lady of Winterfell. It's not who she is, it never was, and she fears it never will be. But there's no one else, not until Jon returns, so she must.
Trapped though she may be by love and duty, Arya will rebuild the house of her Father. The house of her Mother, sister, and brothers. She will make it strong again.
One day, she will make it Home again.
Epilogue
When Wolkan rushed onto the secluded area of Training Yard where Arya and Brienne sparred, the man in a fit of unexpected bravery called out to the women. The maester before then was enduringly wary around the Lady of Winterfell even after she took him into her confidence. But Wolkan was no fool. The young woman did not trust him, but she listened to him on some things. Not all that she should, he thought, but enough so that he felt he was carrying out his duties and could be called a proper maester once again.
He risked her ire interrupting her training with the giant woman knight, but the news that came on raven wing that morning needed to be given, and quickly.
"My Lady! Ser Brienne! I bring news of the war!"
The women ignored him as they pranced in a deadly circle of whirling blades and quick evasions. Not with dull wooden swords, or blunted steel, but with Valerian and castle forged steel. The women wore light armor at least, but no helms. Nor did they use shields.
It was incredibly foolish. That's what Wolkan thought of the women dueling with live steel, but he knew better than to express his disapproval. Not after the last time he did so and was nearly banished from Winterfell. Well, perhaps not banished, as such. But certainly made to feel less welcomed in the Lady of Winterfell's presence than before. A feat Wolkan did not think was at all possible until she leveled a glare at him so alarming, he'd immediately apologized and quickly made away.
Jaime Lannister watched the pair raptly, his trained eye absorbing every swing and parry. Wolkan spared a moment to be glad the man was finally able to leave his recovering brother alone. Even for only the span of a few hours. Though Lord Tyrion was not out of danger just yet, and Ser Jaime had every right to be near his brother in his time of need, Wolkan was weary of seeing the Lannister's tired, whiskered face day in and day out as he administered the healing arts upon the Dragon Queen's Hand.
Ser Brienne's former squire, now Ser Payne, also watched the spar. Though he seemed not to follow their moments as well as the Lannister, or with the same level of enthusiasm. Huanched next to the new knight was Lord Snow's enormous direwolf. Even sitting on his hind legs, the wolf was still nearly as tall as the young knight. Wolkan did not know from where Ser Payne found the courage to stand so near the beast.
Wolkan's impatience grew as the pair continued to dismiss him and spar on without pause. He clutched the letter in his fist before he realized what he was doing and uncurled his hand around the now wrinkled parchment. This news could not wait!
Wolkan harnessed his irritation and impatience until it overran his common sense, then he stalked onto the field of their dangerous mock battle. The moment he came within range of Ser Brienne's sword, was the moment she swung her blade at Lady Arya with lightning speed. Arya weaved away, evading the swing easily, but Wolkan was close enough that the sweat dripping from Ser Brienne's white-blonde hair and brow hit his face like warm raindrops when she whipped around with a follow-up to attack. Brienne noticed at the last moment Wolkan had stepped in the path of her sword's arc, cursed, and halted the point of her blade an instant before it slashed through Wolkan's cheek, and possibly half his skull.
"Seven hells!" Brienne shouted, cursing again before she drew back her sword.
Wolkan nearly fainted when he saw how near the sword had come to cleaving him open, but let his resolve strengthen his senses before terror stole them away.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" Lady Stark snarled at the maester. Her gray eyes glared at him through strands of her dark hair stuck to her face with sweat.
Wolkan did not cringe from her glower. Nor the implicit threat that always seemed to color her tone when she spoke to him. He had a job that needed doing.
"I bring news of the war!"
"You nearly got yourself cut, you bloody fool!" Ser Brienne exclaimed breathlessly.
Wolkan ignored her and her insult. His decision to set a single foot near them while they sparred did prove him a fool, after all. Wolkan instead lifted the missive in his hand and began to read its contents aloud, though he knew it from memory. Even had Wolkan not been trained to hone such a skill, the letter he held in his hand would have been burned into his memory regardless.
"Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, the First of Her Name, has died—"
"What?" Lady Arya and Brienne shouted at once. Jaime Lannister rose from where he'd been watching the two spar and went to stand beside Ser Brienne. His eyes for once showed concern for something besides his brother.
Or, Wolkan reconsidered, perhaps Ser Jaime's concern over Queen Daenerys's death was for his brother still?
"Queen Daenerys and her dragon, Drogon, were killed by Euron Greyjoy over Blackwater Bay with Scorpion bolts."
"Jon. What of Jon?" Lady Arya asked, her voice tight with fear.
Wolkan blinked. He'd never seen fear in Lady Stark before—only mirth, annoyance, or a terrifying air of cold rage. All aimed at Wolkan himself.
"Jon Snow lives," Wolkan said and moved his gaze back onto the wrinkled parchment in his hand. "Jon Snow later slayed Euron Greyjoy and burned all but one ship in the reaver's fleet. He now—"
Lady Arya snatched the letter away from Wolkan. Her eyes swept across the page and seemed to take in its contents in a single glance before she thrust the letter back into the maester's hands, sheathed her thin blade, and walked away. Ghost rose from his haunches and slowly loped after her.
"My Lady?"
When Lady Stark did not answer her sworn sword and abandoned the Yard entirely, Ser Brienne looked to Wolkan. The woman was too polite to take the letter from his hands as Lady Arya had done, but Jaime Lannister had no such compunction towards politeness. The Lannister read the remaining missive aloud.
"Jon Snow has proclaimed himself king consort, and Protector of the Seven Kingdoms in Queen Daenerys's name. He has also declared war on Queen Cersei Lannister, and any who stand with her."