Chapter Text
They call her the Wolf Blade.
They say she leaves a trail of crimson everywhere she goes—that when she reclaimed Winterfell, she stained its grounds with the blood she drained from her enemies. That she hunted down every last member of the Houses who destroyed hers, and there was nothing left for the crows when she was through with them.
(She is as ruthless as the Northern winter, as harsh and unforgiving.)
The ruins of her wrath-induced slaughter are dripping red, soaking the earth—and the tableaus she creates are masterpieces of pain, death, and destruction.
She is the sword of the gods, wielded to serve their divine retribution, and wolf’s blood runs true in her veins.
(No enemy trembles before her now, because no enemy is left.)
Arya Stark stands before the woman who now sits on the Iron Throne. Her stormy grey eyes drink in the sight of the famed Mother of Dragons, noting every detail and committing them to memory—the Targaryen-violet eyes, the flawless skin, the aristocratic tilt of her head, the fine line of her jaw. Arya is no stranger to beauty, having seen her fair share in the streets of the Free Cities, but this—this is incomparable.
She is incomparable, Arya thinks. She has seen her before, but that was in the middle of a war against the undead army—and it was from afar, when the Queen was riding one of her dragons. Here, up close, Arya can see everything. And if she did not possess remarkable self-control, her breath surely would have caught in her throat.
(And she looks so alive, so warm.
And the wolf within Arya howls for a taste of that life, of that warmth.
She tramps it down, firmly.)
Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen, First of Her Name—Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Queen of the Rhoynar, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Breaker of Chains, and Mother of Dragons (and quite possibly a few more epithets which she earned and had made her a living legend)—is studying her with an inscrutable expression, and Arya can feel her own men shifting anxiously behind her.
She couldn’t blame them, not really; Arya accepts the fact that even grown men who rallied behind her when she took back the North can indeed feel intimidated beneath the intense gaze of the most powerful woman in the world.
“They say you can’t be killed,” the Mother of Dragons finally addresses her, her eyebrows rising in quiet skepticism.
“Valar Morghulis, Your Grace,” Arya answers, her tone cool and calm. “Anyone can be killed.” She remembers telling Tywin Lannister the same thing, several lifetimes ago. Back when she was a pathetic prey to the lions.
(But there’s no lion left now but one, and he’s as much of a predator as Arya was when she first arrived at this wretched capital, all those years ago.)
Wolf fangs ended that cursed bloodline.
(Because the poor pup grew to be a murderous she-wolf, and she demanded the lions’ throats.
She ripped them out herself; her muzzle is still wet from their blood.)
Now, though—now, she faces a dragon.
(Funny, how her life seems to be a cycle of playing both the hunter and the hunted.)
“And yet here you are, despite being believed dead all these years,” there’s a note of curiosity in the Queen’s statement.
(And maybe Arya would satisfy that curiosity, someday.)
“It was a string of circumstances I had no control over that had kept me alive.” It was not luck—for if that were the case then her life should have been a lot better—and it was not fate either. Arya had stopped believing in those things since her father’s head was chopped off, having been branded a traitor by the very people he had only ever wanted to honour and protect.
“That may be, but I hear your own resourcefulness and determination helped as well.”
Arya shrugs. “I was properly motivated, Your Grace. I had a list of things I had to do, and to accomplish them I needed very much to still be breathing.”
Daenerys nods in understanding. Everyone in the Seven Kingdoms—and quite possibly in places on the other side of the Narrow Sea—is aware of how Arya Stark took it as her mission to bring down all those who had wronged her family and guide her siblings home. Arya had erased every Bolton, Frey, and nearly every Lannister from the world—the only Lion remaining is the one she herself has employed to be her counsel, who now silently observes them. “And these things are done,” she said.
The Red Wolf sits as the Lady of Winterfell (the Queen in the North, some say, but those who are afraid of the disrespect that might imply to the Dragon call her the Warden of the North, like her Lord Father), with the wild Wolf Cub by her side. The Sage Wolf, whose powers are in equal parts great and mysterious, advises her in ruling their territory.
“They are done,” Arya agrees, her voice cold, her face drawn tight in that somber expression for which Northerners are known. The grey eyes of her ancestors are filled with grief and rage far beyond her years, churning inside like her own private thunderstorm.
Daenerys tilts her head, appraising her (and there’s a glint in her lilac eyes that makes Arya’s mouth run dry). “Your accomplishments, personal they may be, are viewed as a service to Westeros. You have plucked the weeds, and the fields are now ready for plowing. You are a hero, Sword of the Gods.”
Arya bows her head. “You honour me, Your Grace.” It’s more than she expected.
(She’s more than I expected.)
“Not enough,” Daenerys says. She waits for Arya to look at her again before continuing. Her tone brooks no argument—it is not a request, but a royal demand. “I want you to be my knight.”