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Arya gasped for breath when the icy grip around her throat shattered. She caught herself and tore her gaze from the now empty space in front of her. All around her the Night Kings wights were turning to ice and snow.
It was over.
She had done it.
Blue eyes, that she had closed forever.
The silence was deafening. She slowly pulled her head around to look at her brother- no, the boy who used to be Bran. She could feel that it wasn’t him anymore. He remained stoic as he had in the face of death, knowing exactly how the events would unfold, even if she didn’t know what she would do, he had.
She held the stare for a moment, then glanced down to the Valerian steel dagger that he had given her, in this exact spot not long before. Her hands shook briefly, and she immediately steeled herself and shot up without a word. She took one last look at Bran, and began walking towards Winterfell. Leaving the Godswood, and passing the body of the now deceased Theon Greyjoy. She knew she should feel sorrow, but there was time for that later. She cared only for one person right now, someone she refused to believe dead.
The flash of blue eyes and knowing smile made her heart ache, and she began to walk faster.
She practically had to climb over the bodies of the dead. Wights, Northerners, Dothraki, Unsullied, she didn’t have the time to discern. Walking through the gates of her home, as she had done hundreds of times before, she frantically searched for the blacksmith whom she’d seen not 3 hours ago.
Gods. Where the hell is he?
He wasn’t dead. He wouldn’t dare.
Weaving between the injured and the mourning, she became inwardly frantic. Quickly scanning every face she could, acknowledging that many people wer
e still alive. Jon being one of them.
Relief hit her as a wave of cold and death blew through Winterfell.
He was sitting by the other survivors, staring at the blood soaked ground.
Although everything in her screamed to run, to fly to the man she loved, she calmly walked towards him.
She stopped directly in front of him, as he saw her shoes enter his vision he quickly looked up.
A few things flitted through his warm blue eyes, annoyance, confusion, then astonishment. He jumped up and wrapped his arms around her. She almost wriggled free, but the exhaustion from the nights fighting finally hit her, and she melted into him.
Into her Gendry.
Arya plopped down onto the seat next to him, and sighed.
“I killed him.” She deadpanned.
“...you’re going to have to be more specific milady. I’m sure you killed quite a few-“
“I killed the Night King. In the Godswood.”
He looked shocked for a moment. Then smiled.
“Well, if anyone could have done it...it would have been you.”
She stared at him, but as always, his smile broke her composure. For a moment, she felt like a Lady flirting with her betrothed. The underlying promise of young love in every sentence.
Then another gust of dust, smoke, snow, and death tainted air assailed the castle. And it snapped her back into the mask. There were dead to be buried and burned, and when the dust settled she knew there would be important conversations to be had.
Arya got up, but in a split second decision she grabbed Gendry by the hand and pulled him behind the door of a nearby supply room. Hands around his neck, she gazed into his eyes for a moment. So much unsaid between them, and the thrill of surviving the battle, of living another day spoke to the possibility of a future. She pulled him down into a passionate kiss. And they stayed there for a moment.
Not a lady, not a bastard, but two people, in love. Filled with joy and relief at having survived the impossible.