It Won't Be Worth It Without You

The pack survived indeed and they were the last of the Starks. Now that the wars are over, Arya didn't know what to do with her life. With her brother Bran being proclaimed as the King of the Six Kingdoms, her sister Sansa declared as the Queen in the independent North, and her brother/cousin Jon being sent to the Wall, she asked herself the question, what will I do now?

Every person on her list is dead now. Even the ones she'd taken off it, who ended up saving her life, like the Hound and Beric Dondarrion. But oh how she wished she was the one who ended Cersei's life, but the Dragon queen got to her first. Well, not really, it was the debris that killed Cersei and her twin brother/lover Jaime. With Daenerys leading the sacking of King's landing, she was mostly on her dragon.

At first, Arya didn't know what to think of Daenerys. She'd only heard stories about the dragon queen when she was in Braavos. When Jon forged an alliance with her she was like, an army to defeat the Night King and two dragons? Sure. Arya literally went to Winter Town to see her army march to Winterfell. She saw the Unsullied, the Dothraki and the dragons.

Whoa! She thought. They are real.

But Arya saw other people in the dragon queen's entourage that she didn't expect to see.

First, Sandor Clegane, the Hound. When she saw him, everything in her body screamed, How the fuck is this man still alive? I left him to die. But despite how much she hated him for trying to sell her for ransom, she had learned a lot from her time as his prisoner and appreciated his efforts to keep her alive and it's the reason she had taken her off her list. And it was him who convinced her to live by telling her to leave the Red Keep and the city while it's being sacked.

Second, Gendry. Oh, Gendry. Arya smiled when she saw him on horseback heading to Winterfell. She was glad that her old friend had managed to survive after all those years. He looked different now. He had gotten rid of that thick black hair of his and he radiated an aura of self-confidence she had never seen before. They had managed to catch up, and she ended up sleeping with him before the battle against the dead. Afterwards, he was legitimized to be Gendry Baratheon, Lord of Storm's End. And much to her surprise, he went looking for her, kissed her and asked her to be his lady, to which she declined.

Anyways, Daenerys Targaryen's true colors came out when she forcibly took King's Landing. Arya had witnessed many helpless and innocent men, women, and children die in the hands of the Unsullied and Dothraki and some Northmen, and from the burning heat of dragon fire.

This is the queen who wants to rule the Seven Kingdoms? Burning innocent people alive because she wants to sit on a chair made of swords? No. Seven hells, no. That white-haired bitch needs to die.

Sansa had already warned Jon about how she was too hungry for power and insisted to take the Iron throne from Cersei when they had just defeated the Undead Army. And both she and Sansa knew that Jon would be a better ruler than Daenerys ever will, but alas, he never wanted a crown, even if he was the rightful heir.

When she heard the news that it was Jon who killed Daenerys, she sighed in relief. But it left Westeros without a ruler. The position for a new king or queen was open. Tyrion nominated her brother Bran and the other lords and ladies agreed to proclaim him as the new King. Sansa had insisted that the North should retain its independence, to which King Bran approved.

Now, everyone seemed to know where they were going afterwards. Everyone but Arya.

Her thoughts went back to Gendry. All I know is that you're beautiful and I love you and none of it will be worth anything if you're not with me. He had said. Never in a million years did Arya ever thought someone would say that to her, but Gendry did.