Back To Winterfell || Arya Stark

Cold Blood

It was now dusk outside where Arya's horse was tied up, waiting patiently. She placed her hand on the saddle and looked across at its moonlit mane. She turned to look at the Inn once more, her hollow eyes unmoving. She blinked, and turned back again, swiftly clambering onto the saddle. She slid her feet into the stirrups and silently rode away.
Her body quickly became accustomed to the familiar ups and downs of the trotting horse as she stared out at the passing landscape with a solemn expression. She knew what she had done, she knew she had murdered those men in cold blood. But it's either theirs or mine, she thought. She pondered as to whether she should have killed all the witnesses too. Word could get out, and they have all seen my face. She paused and let her mind think about it.
"Lives are not worth taking if they are an unnecessary act of injustice." She said conclusively, trying to reassure herself, "They had done nothing wrong."
She noticed she was talking to herself again. She often did that. Sometimes she wondered if it was a way of consoling herself, or a distraction from her ever growing loneliness. She thought back to Jaek. I could have had someone, she thought bitterly, but as soon as he came they took him away. Her grip tightened on the horse's reigns. She shut her eyes in sadness and frustration. She was confused as to why she kept on thinking about him. I hadn't even known him that long, she told herself, it was just that he was interesting and intriguing, his personality an intricate design that she longed to figure out. But now it had been sliced up and left to rot. She hated the world for being that way and thought back to when her heart first broke, when Syrio told her to go, but 'there is only one god.' She quoted in her head, 'and his name is death.'
As she said it, a cloud veiled the moon's light and darkness enveloped her. She peered into the blackness, listening to her horse's hooves crunching the frost on the ground. She shut her eyes and listened to night owl in the distance, she thought she heard a wolf howl too, but she couldn't be sure. The clouds then moved on and the moon revealed itself once more, painting the land in a ghostly reflection of itself.
"I guess we'll stop here." She said to her horse, gently pulling on the reigns until they were still. She patted it in appreciation and tied it to a nearby tree.
She didn't bother to make a fire that night for fear of being spotted, and instead lay down against the tree, wrapping herself with her cloaks to protect her from the winter's cold night. The scattered stars pierced her eyes as she gazed at the night sky wistfully.
      However she felt empty. The hole inside her she had tried so hard to stitch up had been ripped open once again. She closed her eyes and tried to rest, a thing she did so rarely now. Jon, she thought, I'm going to see Jon. And she thought of his face and his smile and his hugs and she slowly drifted off to sleep.