Season 8 Fics

Inevitable

The castle is full of dead men.

Arya avoids them.  Most the others had joined the clean up effort, dragging bodies out of the courtyard and to the massive fire waiting just beyond Winterfell's walls, taking stock of their food stores and stripping the dead of their weapons and armor, sweeping away the bloodbath that had become the crypt.  It was an all hands needed kind of operation, and even though Arya had never hid behind her noble status to get out of work before (she had loved pretending to be a commoner, when she was younger.  Common girls got to play in the mud, never got scolded because their stitching was crooked or letters too scratchy), she does now.

Not, of course, that anyone would ever order her around now.

She was the one that killed the Night King.

The one that stopped the war.

(Her brother knelt to her, Dany hovering in the crowd behind them.  It had taken everyone a long time to get to the Godswood, but they came- The Hound making his way to her first and stopping short like he had remembered that she was not some little girl on the Kingsroad that he had the right to protect, then the men, jostling each other to catch a glimpse of her, and then her brother and sister shouldering their way to the front of the crowd.  Jon had taken one look at her and dropped down to his knees in the snow, bowed his head and laid his sword on the ground in front of her, and Arya did not know what to do.)

There's footsteps behind her.  Heavy ones.  She doesn't flinch, doesn't move to grab her dagger.  Arya knows who they belong to. 

Gendry.

"Heard a rumor that you were the one who killed the Night King."  He's hanging back, though she doesn't know why.  She's the one who came to the forge, even though its empty and the fire's gone cold.  Gendry has to know the only reason she ever came here was to see him.  "That true?"

Arya stares at him for a moment. 

She's not sure how to handle this.  Other people had dreamed of having their names known by everyone, living forever in the songs and the stories, but not Arya.  Arya hadn't wanted to be a knight, or a princess, or one half of some tragic love story the way her brothers and Sansa had always seemed to.  The world made her grow up before she ever got to have her own dreams.  She only ever wanted to make her father proud, and when he was gone, she just wanted to make the people who took him from her pay.

And they will.

Though it's going to be a lot harder to do that when everyone keeps staring at her.

(Not that it matters that people know her face.  She has others.)

"It's true."  She's not going to tell him about it.  About the terror that had caught in her throat, that she had thought she was going to die.  About Syrio's words ringing in her ears, and then Melisandre's prompting, and Arya knew, somewhere deep in her stomach, that this is what she had been waiting her whole life to do-protect her family.  Protect the north.  Syrio, Bravoos, the faceless men- they had trained her for this moment. 

All men must die, of course, but Arya does not believe that any god would let them die like that.

(Death has many faces.  I look forward to seeing this one- what an idiot.)

Gendry looks pleased.  "Did you use that thing I made you?"

She had, up on the ramparts.  Arya had taken down fifteen of the things before the archers could even release their arrows, with Davos watching.  But that's not what he meant.

"No.  The dagger."  Littlefinger's dagger.  "I lost the weapon."  She doesn't know when.  It had been in her hands one moment, and she was falling the next, and then the only thing she could worry about was how fast she could run.  "Sorry."

"Don't be."  He shrugs, and he is still smiling at her, softly, even though she is not smiling back.  Gendry is so gentle.  Arya's not sure she knows what to do with that.  "I can make you a new one."

It's such a stupid, underwhelming thing to say, considering that they had just faced down an army of the dead, and Arya laughs, and keeps laughing, and Gendry is still smiling, so it seems like a natural conclusion, really, to cross the room to him and fall against him. His chest is heaving and he smells like smoke, the smoke from the fire burning all their dead, and Arya chokes on it, wanting to get away from the reminder and also wanting to never let him go.

"You're okay, yeah?"  Gendry pulls away from her, and at her side, he is tracing over where the scars of old cuts wound round her stomach.  She wonders if he knew that they were there, and if he did, if he was doing this subconsciously or on purpose.  "He didn't- they didn't hurt you?"

She wants to tell him.  About the Hound and Dondarion coming to save her.  About being buried under the crush of bodies, how they smelled like rot and freshly fallen snow at the same time.  But she doesn't.  He would have his own stories, his own fear, things that he would not tell her because he was so intent on treating her like a lady, and Arya will not bother him with hers.

Not yet.

At least not until the dead stop burning.

"No."  He shakes his head, and she knows that he, too, is lying.  She can always tell when someone is lying.  Gendry only ever does it when he wants to protect her.  "No.  We did it." I did it.  "We made it out."

"Yeah."  She steps back into his arms again.  They hadn't, really.  They were pledged to fight for House Targaryen.  There was still plenty of fighting to come.  "We're alive."

"We are."  He sounds surprised at the thought.  She's not, not anymore.  This what she had been meant to become- a dagger for the North.  "And we're going to stay that way, alright?"

She doesn't argue.

She won't.

This is part of who she was supposed to be, too.