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1. You’ve gotten too good at protecting yourself. Maybe nobody can tell, but you think that’s in your favor. You’ve certainly been doing it long enough. When they came for your father, it knocked you flat. When they came for your brothers, it hurt like hell. When they came for your mother, you couldn’t breathe. But when they came for your sister, they were already numb. And then you were all they had left, and you learned the power of choosing your words carefully and choosing your allegiances even more so. So your sister’s disappeared, presumed dead. So the rest of your family is gone. So the Lannisters want you dead to complete the whole set. You’re raw meat in a lion pit, but what they don’t know is that you’re a wolf, too.
2. You’re so fucking tired of people trying to kill you. You’re so fucking tired of running for your life. But you’re nothing if you’re not fearless. Your sister is afraid of everything, and you’re not afraid of anything, and that’s the difference between you two. You didn’t run away because you were afraid. You ran away because you understood the danger, you stole away in the cover of night with Gendry by your side because he was in as much danger as you. You hitchhiked and stole the car and you were technically a criminal by the time the sun came up. Now you’ve lost count of the crimes you’ve committed. But fuck if it’s wrong, because you’re alive, and you’re actually living. And you’ve gotten so, so good at not being afraid.
3. You’re in Amsterdam. You’re listening to two American tourists talk about you like you’re not even there. “Be careful of that one. You know how many pickpockets there are in Europe,” one of them is saying in a heavy Southern accent that makes you want to hurl. “You’re right, she’s filthy – street punks,” says the other. “She looks like she smells terrible.” You smell fine. You’re not a punk, you’re a fucking fugitive. You shift a little closer to them and when they edge away, you smirk. You finger the switchblade in your pocket. Just because you can.
4. Don’t think about your sister. Don’t think about the things you said to each other before she disappeared. Don’t think that she might be out there somewhere. Don’t think that she probably still hates you. Don't think that you're the one who should be dead in her place. Don’t think about your sister.
5. Others will offer to protect you. Don’t let your pride get in the way. Don’t get attached to them, let them serve as bait – any bodies between you and the bullet are good. Can they teach you something? Good. Let them in, let them stay. The rich girl who takes you under her wing and takes your boyfriend off your hands, thank God. The bodyguard who sneaks into your room with liquor on his breath, scares the hell out of you because you never know where his allegiance lies or how far he goes once you dissociate. The banker who wants you for his own because you look like your mother, who you dare to want back because times are desperate and love is dead and risk management is all you know anymore. You can play them for time and let them protect you but when it comes down to it, you are your own top priority.
6. So you used to have this gun. Your brother bought it for you the last time you saw each other, and it’s all you had left of him for a long time, but it’s long gone now. So now you’re in a bar basement and all of a sudden everybody’s fucking shooting but nobody’s aim is worth shit. And all of a sudden you’re pretty sure, that’s your gun. That’s your Glock .22 with your fucking family’s seal engraved on it, what the fuck would some stranger on this side of the world be doing with a Stark direwolf on their pistol? And you’re angry. And you want it the fuck back, because if you’re going to avenge your fucking family, you’re going to do it with the weapon they gave you, because that’s the only way to make it fair, to keep the sickness away from the inside of your brain.
The Hound’s the only one in this room who can shoot straight, even sloppy drunk, and the smoke’s starting to clear as the two of you start to pick through the sea of former Lannister goons, and you walk past the body on the floor and take your gun from his hand. And suddenly you recognize his face, because you’ve seen him kill before. And you recognize your initials monogrammed on the barrel. And he starts to stir, and you put your finger on the trigger, and you give him five good seconds to recognize you before you put a bullet right between his eyes.
7. You can’t trust men because they’ll only end up dying on you. The problem is that the only people you trust are men.
8. You fell in love when you were sixteen and stupid. All anyone ever says is that you’re a stupid girl and a bad liar and you can’t speak for the second part but when you fell in love, you were stupid, and you should have known better. You want to rewrite history, tell yourself it wasn’t love, but you know better than that. You were operating on naiveté and love songs about girls who don’t know how beautiful they, you, really are, and by the time you realized how wrong you were, the lions had you in their den.
You don’t trust liars and you don’t trust men, and everyone you know is one, the other, or both.
9. You’re better with Baelish than with anyone else, which isn’t saying much, but at least it’s saying something. He scares you, but you’ve come to accept that fear is just a part of your life, like hunger and boredom, something you experience regularly that can’t be avoided. You’d rather be scared of him than anybody else because at least you know what he wants and it’s something you can give him. But still, you protect yourself. You play your cards closer to the vest than ever before, because you know he can read you with a single look. You put away money in secret accounts, you give yourself safeguards and failsafes and take every precaution. You’re not sure whether it will ever be enough.
10. You speak Spanish in Spain and Italian in Italy and pick up a little bit of Dutch in Amsterdam, enough to get by. Weird, kind of, how this was always your strong suit. You probably would have studied languages in college. It’s weird to even think about it. You would have gone to Princeton like your mother and everyone else in the family, and you probably would have majored in linguistics and learned Latin and Greek and everything else. You would have gotten bored with academics but kept learning and gotten recruited by the C.I.A., and by the time you were 30 you’d be fluent in six different languages at the very least, and you’d be some kind of hotshot analyst, catching terrorists or whatever. But instead you’re sitting here in Berlin with the Hound right next to you, eavesdropping on a conversation in German and barely beginning to piece together how the sentences work. But Europe is safe. Europe is a continent with enough languages to hide between them.
11. You don’t let them in. You don’t touch Gendry, even though he wants you, even though you want him, even though your goddamn subconscious won’t let you dream about anything but touching him. You don’t touch Gendry because you don’t want it to hurt when you lose him. You let him touch you, perhaps. You let yourself like it. You don’t touch him, you don’t take anything from him, because you don’t want to get accustomed to it. You’re an addict, a thrill seeker, you want the adrenaline rush of the first time every time. You get bored so fast. If you never let yourself enjoy Gendry, you’ll never become bored with him; perpetual anticipation is the only way to ensure that you’ll never be in danger.
You don’t like kissing. You don’t waste the time on it.
12. You used to love fairy tales. You used to envision yourself as a princess. You want to rewrite history again, tell yourself it was only the dresses and the towers that you envied, but you wanted the whole shebang, you wanted to be saved, wanted the white horse and the prince with golden hair and the triumphant wedding on the palace steps with the shining crown and lemon cakes for everyone. The thing about fairy tales is that your fate is set in stone from the beginning. Nobody ever has a last-minute change of heart. Nobody goes from good to evil. Nobody changes. You’re born good, you live happily ever after. You’re born a princess, you die a princess. The evil queen is vanquished in a puff of green smoke and the prince is kind and gentle.
Well, in the end, you rescued yourself, all right? You hold your head high and you work for Baelish and you both plot your revenge on yellow legal pads in his penthouse apartment on weekend nights. You remain unbreakable; you taunt them by remaining unbroken. You paint your nails pale pink but your clothes are black and your hair is as dark and practical as you’ve become. And you know you did right, but it hurts to be so damn strong all the time, and you want to live in a world where there are princes who won’t hurt you and mothers who braid your hair and wipe the tears from your eyes and even though you’re grown now, you still feel very, very young some nights when you dream about the white horses.
13. You have only one objective, and it’s to disappear. So you seek out an old friend who can help you do just that. Normally, this would cost you. Thousands. Hundreds of thousands, maybe. But he is like you, and he has done terrible things too, and he wants to help you disappear, free of charge.
“A girl knows there is no coming back,” he says. “A girl cannot return to her old life.” You bite your cheek and swallow the blood and tell him you have no life to go back to. It’s not Witness Protection, but something even deeper. You’re okay with that. You’re not running because you’re afraid. You’re running because you’re bad fucking luck, because everyone who gets close to you dies. You’re graceless. You’d like to be faceless. You’d like to be erased. They’ll never find a body but Arya Stark will be good as dead and that’s the most noble thing you can do for anyone.
14. Who are you? You’re a survivor. And you’ll be a survivor until you die, white horses or not. You’re a princess. You’re raw meat. You’re a wolf.
15. Who are you? You’re no one.