Setting foot back on Westeros felt strange. The ground itself seemed odd; the expanse of wild on the shore where she had demanded to be let off even stranger. "This one thanks you," she said, curtly, to the captain. "Valar morghulis."
He touched his forehead respectfully. "Valar dohaeris."
It wasn't easy to recognize things. The land had been burned, ravaged, torn. But she knew the one place she was going. And this time, she wasn't unprepared.
She stole across land by night, not that anyone saw her when she moved during the day. She slipped under their eyes, strangely unremarkable even with her relative height. She stooped to hide it, and her training served her well.
She didn't get a horse. It seemed - extraneous. Somehow, she didn't think she would need one.
Back in Westeros, the long forgotten dreams started again. Dreams of running, of flying across the ground with a multitude of brothers and sisters behind her, because there was somewhere she needed to be, someone she had to find. When she woke up, the dreams were confused and muddled. But she found them oddly comforting.
When she crossed into the Riverlands, she understood why.
It happened one day as she stole silently over marshy ground. The snow was thick on the ground, now, but it was easy to walk on top of it, now that she knew how, and it was silent but for the quiet whisper of the flakes as they fell.
A soft sound, somewhere to her right, and she turned, immediately alert, drawing the slender blade at her waist that she refused to surrender. Stick it with the pointy end, she thought, abruptly, and almost snorted.
Then something emerged from the snows, and she fell still, staring. A wolf, the size of a small pony, breath steaming from her open jaws, grey coat rimed with snow. Her ears were pricked forward, and a moment later it occurred to her to wonder how she knew this particular wolf was a she, and why she wasn't afraid.
Arya Stark, she thought, in a flash, Arya Stark of Winterfell. And breathed before she could help herself, "Nymeria?"
Her sister, great and powerful, forged through the snow and touched her nose to her - to Arya's - leg, and Arya sank into the snow, her breath hitching. And understood the dreams.
"You came to find me," she said, softly, and then another sound caught her attention and she started.
Standing loosely behind Nymeria, wary, hackles up and nervous but inclined to trust their great leader, nearly 500 other wolves, yellow eyes gleaming.
Arya's breath caught in her throat, and she remembered. "When the cold winds blow," she whispered, shivering, but Nymeria wrapped her furry body around her prodigal sister - "The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives."
The pack survives.
This time, Arya could almost hear Nymeria's voice. We run together. She straightened, and nodded, once, and took a deep breath. "We have work to do," she said, softly. Vengeance, she imagined Nymeria agreed.
They turned into the snow and forded west, the image of twin towers fixed in both their minds.
A fortnight later,news reach to all the corners of Westeros.House Frey has been wiped out,the Twins are burned to ashes and Lord Frey is in pieces.
