Chapter Text

“This is fascinating,” said Sam, pouring over the ancient book. His face was flushed and his eyes were wide; it was nice to see someone having such a good time while the army of the dead camped outside. “It was a treaty. The Others retreated to the Land of Always Winter, and in return humans wouldn’t trespass there.”

“We broke the treaty,” said Sansa. “The Wildlings, and the Night’s Watch…”

“There’s, ah, more,” said Sam.

Jon had been sitting by the fire, his elbows resting in his knees and his head hung low. “Craster’s sons,” he said, and everyone turned to look at him.

“Who’s Craster?” Arya asked. She wished she knew more about Jon’s life at the Wall. It sounded horrible, and exciting, and terrible, and fascinating.

“Craster was a wilding,” said Sam, blushing and looking up at the ceiling. “He- ah- he took his daughters as wives. Every daughter over and over.”

“He left his sons in the woods as newborns,” said Jon. “On a stump. I followed one- it was the first time I saw a Walker. He came for the child, and we let it go. Craster left all his sons to the Others.”

“Babies,” Sansa whispered, her fingers over her mouth as though she could hold the truth in. “Little babies, given to the dead.”

“It’s in the treaty,” said Sam. “Cathal Stark was keeping to it- he took a Walker to bed, and I assume they gave their children to the -ah, bride’s family.”

“So what do we do?” asked Sansa. “We’re not going to give them children, are we?”

Everyone turned to look at her.

“Well, we aren’t?” she said again, her cheeks flushing.

“No,” said Jon. “We aren’t. Maybe we can reach a new treaty.”

Arya looked at him from her spot in Jaime’s lap. He was in a chair across from Jon, and he’d tugged her into his lap as soon as they’d returned from the crypts. He’d been quiet and patient, and for the first time Arya realized that Jaime likely had access to more information about the politics and history of Westerosi rule than anyone else left alive. He’d outlived… five rulers? He’d been related to two hands of the King and had stood countless hours of guard outside the King’s chambers or the Small Council room.

He was used to this.

“What could they possibly want?” Arya asked, and Jaime stroked his palm up and down her back. Nobody had said anything about their seating arrangement. No one had even blinked.

“I don’t know,” said Jon. “But they want something. Otherwise, they’d be killing us.”

That sentence hung in the air like a noose.

“We have to try to talk,” said Jon after a while. He pushed himself to his feet and walked slowly to the door.

“How’s Queen Daenerys?” asked Sansa as Jon paused in the doorway.

“Dying,” said Jon, and he closed the door behind him.

When he left, it was a long moment before anyone moved to follow him.

Arya slid off Jaime’s lap and broke the stillness. Jaime followed her to the door, and the two of them climbed the stairs after Jon. She had no idea how much time had passed since the storm had come- it could have been a few hours. It could have been a few days. She knew she should eat, but she wasn’t hungry. She knew she should want sleep, but the idea of it gave her the jitters. She wanted the war to be over… but she wasn’t ready to die.

Jon was at the top of the wall, looking down into the blue-eyed army. The leader of the Others was still waiting where he’d been, snow swirling around him.

The terrible, unearthly voice came again, the sound like sap freezing in trees. “ Did you find my terms?”

“We found your history,” said Jon.

“ Then you found my terms.”

Around Winterfell women were silently crying and people were clapping their hands over their ears.

“What do you want?”

“Peace between our kinds. Space for the living, and space for the dead. New brothers for me to raise, and new brothers to rule. We will rebuild the Wall, stay in the Winterlands, and fade with magic from the forefront of the world.”

“What do you want in exchange?”

“ Every few generations a Stark man must rule on the Wall. Every few generations our peace will be rewritten in blood: a sharing of yours and mine. Marriage, and children, and peace.”

“There are no Stark men to rule the Wall.”

“ Your watch has not yet ended, Lord Commander.”

Arya realized she was crying. There was only one way this could end.

“Are there women of your kind?” Jon asked.

“ Not yet .”

“No,” said Jon, and Arya heard his voice crack.

“No,” Arya echoed, feeling her knees go weak. Jaime hauled her against him, pinning her to his side.

Arya hadn’t buckled when her father’s head hit the platform in Baelor Square. She hadn’t collapsed when her friends were killed along the Kingsroad, when the Tickler was murdering people day in and out, when she saw women raped, or when she sailed away from everything she’d ever known.

She hadn’t allowed herself to falter, not ever. She couldn’t. She had to return to Westeros, had to avenge her family, had to do what she could.

Now it was all tilting again.

“ A queen lays inside dying, taking her unborn child with her.”

A muscle in Jon’s jaw twitched as he clenched his mouth shut. It’s his, Arya thought. Jon’s baby, dying with Daenerys.

“ She could live forever,” said the Other, his voice like ice shattering as it slid off a branch. “ And your child. Forever, freely.”

“No,” Jon growled, color rising in his cheeks.

“ It is not your decision to make. Ask.”

“No.”

“ ASK.”

Jon turned away from the wall, blinking hard. Arya slid to the stone as he passed her; this was for him to do. This was for him, as killing Lady had been for Father. Arya wept while Jon talked to his queen, his dying love. Jaime crouched and held her and said nothing. There was nothing he could say.

Arya didn’t know how long it had been when Jon reappeared. He didn’t say anything to the Other, just looked at Arya and jerked his head towards the stairs. On numb, wobbly legs Arya followed him down to the yard.

“She said yes,” he whispered. He had silvery tear tracks on his face, and Arya was frozen in place, afraid that if she tried to hug Jon now he’d shatter under the weight of all the burdens he carried. “Do you know what she said?”

Arya shook her and Jon tried to smile, bitterly, devastated. “She said, “Jon, you died for your beliefs. Let me die for mine.””

He turned his face to the wall and wept silently. Jaime turned away and all Arya could do was rest a hand on Jon’s shoulder. It lasted thirty seconds, maybe less, and then Jon was wiping his eyes with his sleeve and turning to Arya again.

“Take care of them,” he said. “Take care of Bran and Sansa.”

Arya was crying again too. “I will,” she whispered. “And I’ll visit- you can’t stop me.”

Jon almost smiled again. “No one ever could.” He reached for his waist and began to unbuckle his sword, the Valyrian blade with the direwolf hilt. He pressed it into Arya’s hands. “I can’t take it,” he said. “I can’t take a blade that would kill my woman.”

He’d given her a sword the last time he’d left. He’d left her holding hope. Now she held grief, and ashes, and regret.

“No,” Arya sobbed. Her eyes blurred with tears and she swiped them away. She would remember this. She would remember and tell everyone of the sacrifice that Ned’s hated bastard had made for the living.

“Yes,” said Jon, pushing the sword against her chest.

“Wait here,” said Arya. She dashed away, to Mikken’s old shop, and from beneath the forge she drew out a long, thin package.

“Here,” she said, pressing Needle into Jon’s hand. “Don’t go unarmed- don’t go alone.”

Jon dropped the swords and grabbed Arya, hugging her to him. They cried on each other’s shoulders, cried like all hope was lost, and in so many ways, it was.

Daenerys’ handmaiden and knight walked out of the great hall, their queen lying on a litter between them. She’d been washed and dressed; her hair rebraided. She was a queen, and she was going to a wedding.

She was a queen, and she was going to a funeral.

“You don’t need to do this,” said Jon, taking Daenerys’ limp hand.

“I know,” she whispered. “But you would.”

Jon blinked long and hard, squeezing back tears. Arya didn’t even try to stop hers.

The woman from Naarth and the knight from Bear Isle carried their queen through the gates of Winterfell. Jon walked beside his queen, and Arya and Jaime and the living residents of Winterfell followed after.

A long path had been left from Winterfell’s gate to the Night King. He nodded to Jon as the party arrived, then turned his attention to Daenerys. “Welcome, sister,” he said, and laid his palm on her forehead.

The effect was instantaneous. Daenerys’ already milk-white skin paled, turning translucent. Her lips turned blue, and her eyes deepened from violet to the darkest of indigoes. She sighed, long and deep, and continued to sigh, her eyelashes flickering, and then she breathed no more.

She sat up slowly, and looked from her handmaiden to her knight.

“Khaleesi,” her knight said softly, tears in his eyes.

There were tears in everyone’s eyes. This wasn’t a story that could be hidden away, or shamed, or forgotten by the few who remembered it. This was a story of beginnings and endings, a time of war and peace, a time of life and death.

“The balance is restored,” the Night King boomed. “Ice and Fire, Dead and Living. We will await you at the Wall.” He nodded, took Daenerys’ hand, and led her away into the dark. She looked back as she went, her eyes fading from indigo to blue, and then she was gone.

Jon was left standing by an empty litter, tears freezing in his beard. “I’ve got to go,” he said. “I have to.”

“I know,” said Arya on a half-swallowed sob. “I know. We’ll bring supplies; we’ll come, don’t worry.”

Someone brought Jon a horse, and he swung up, Arya’s little sword looking foolish at his side. “Goodbye,” he said, and then he was cantering into the night after his dead beloved.

The snow faded, and the wind died away. Those who had watched Daenerys’ sacrifice stood silent, wondering how the fight for the living had ended so quietly, and with such little fanfare. Was this what their loved ones had died for? Was this all there was?

People began to trickle back into the Keep, because what could they do? Life went on. Bellies needed to be filled, babies needed to be rocked, the old needed to be tended. Life went on.

Arya and Jaime were the only ones left outside the keep when the darkness began to clear. The clouds had thinned, and in spots the sky had faded from deep, impenetrable black to navy, to charcoal, to lavender. Mourning colors- morning colors.

“Sunset,” whispered Arya.

“No,” said Jaime. “Sunrise.”

~~~

Arya listened numbly as the dead were tallied. Sandor and Brienne, most of the household guard. Too many people that Arya hadn’t known, and couldn’t properly mourn: she didn’t know their names.

The war was over, and there was no rejoicing. Instead it was more confusion, more pain, more grief.

Arya wished she was in the House of Black and White. Never had the fountain seemed more appealing- and yet… Jaime.

He sat with her while she mechanically spooned broth into her mouth. He carried her to bed, ignoring his own pain to save her hers. He tucked her in, and held her, and when she cried, he did too.

They slept the day away, waking again at sunset. Jaime fetched them food and still they didn’t talk. They ate and drank and slept again.

Finally, twenty four hours after the dead had gone, taking Jon with them, Arya woke feeling like she might be able to speak without screaming or crying for death. It was cold in their room, as it always was, but Jaime was warm.

He’d lived. They’d both lived. She’d asked him to come home, and he had. He’d become home. Home wasn’t one person, or one place, or one immutable set of feelings. Home was fluid, and she could love many people. Jaime was pack.

“I love you,” she whispered into the frosty air, tasting the words on her tongue. She’d practice now, so that when she screwed up enough courage to actually tell Jaime, she wouldn’t choke on the words.

His green eyes popped open, soft and clear as spring. “I love you, wolf-girl,” he said. “And here we are: alive past the end of the world.”

“I know,” said Arya softly, but her eyes were dry. “It’s a new world, now.”

“Will you spend it with me?” Jaime asked, drawing her closer.

“ Yes.”

~~~

It took three days for supplies to be gathered for the Wall. Sansa found material for Daenerys, arguing that just because she was dead- or transformed, or whatever- there was no reason that she couldn’t have a dress.

A few years ago- a few weeks ago- Arya would have found this an incredibly stupid thing to be worrying about. Material? For a dress?

But now… it was humanity. Sansa was the best at being human, at remembering that people needed to eat, needed to be heard and hugged and tended. Daenerys had given up everything: her crown, her people, her life, and Sansa was taking her something of home. Something thoughtful.

She might not only be the most human of the remaining Starks. She was probably the best of them.

It took three weeks to get to the wall. The unnatural night of the Others had faded, but it was still winter, and huge drifts of snow made travel near impossible. Usually those of the North would remain in their castles and keeps for the winter, relying on their glass houses and supplies to keep them through to the thaw. These were strange times, and for the most part the group was able to follow the path already trampled by the retreating army of the dead.

Once again Arya slept by Jaime’s side, and once more no one dared comment. They’d seen him fighting with his golden hand and the sword made of a fallen star. He’d been chosen by something; they didn’t care what.

Every night in their shared tent Arya and Jaime talked, curled together between their furs. She told him in detail of her flight from Baelor’s Square, of how afraid she’d been the first few nights on the road with Yoren. She told him of the wonders of Braavos, of the Titan and the depths of the House of Black and White, the acrobats and the mummers and the fishermen, their skins burned chestnut brown.

In his turn, Jaime told her of his life at Casterly Rock, of standing for hours outside Queen Rhaella’s door, of hearing the screams of burning men echoing in his head. He told her about being made Kingsguard, of fighting alongside Ser Arthur Dayne, and learning that Cersei was pregnant for the first time.

“Do you want that?” Arya asked carefully. “Children?”

“Ah. No. I’m too old, wolf-girl and…”

Arya watched emotion flicker across Jaime’s face. She didn’t need to know the exact fear, but she could guess: he was too old to watch the wonder of children, too crippled to protect the vulnerable, too scared of making another Joffrey.

“I don’t want children,” said Arya. Jaime didn’t make her explain, either. She didn’t need to say, “A child would be too vulnerable,” or “I would suddenly be too slow,” or “Let Sansa make the babies, I’ll protect them.”

The Wall, when they came to it, was beyond description. The day was overcast, and yet the little bit of light available reflected off the shining ice. The sea was smashing against the rocks of the north, and the rubble of the broken Wall lay on the plain below in glaciers the size of Winterfell.

Jon and Daenerys had been waiting for them, standing high on the rubble where the Wall should have been. The Night King was with them in his crown of bone and ice. Those from Winterfell dismounted and walked towards the scene of destruction, their eyes trained on the white figure, the dark figure, the blueish figure.

Light and dark and in between, thought Arya. Life and death, and those between. Balance, thought Arya. The Faceless Men had been right again. It was all about balance.

Silently, like the growing of the dawn, the Night King raised his hands above his head. The air shimmered, and between his fingers formed a crown of ice, spikes running along the top like trees, like a wall, like a mockery of the iron throne that Daenerys could never have. He placed it on her head and she nodded, her movements even more graceful than before, her face ever-placid.

Jon was next, and he was not nearly as calm. Arya could see it in him: the anger, the fury, the self-loathing and regret. He was crowned in ice as well, ice as black as the White Walkers’ night, and at its peak a white wolf-head howled.

This time Arya was dry-eyed. When the Other led Jon and Daenerys up slick steps carved into the ice of the Wall itself she squeezed Jaime’s fingers tightly, but she didn’t cry as Jon and his bride ascended further and further, eventually moving out of sight. Those from Winterfell remained still and quiet, waiting to see what would happen next.

For a long while there was nothing: just the crash of the angry steel-colored sea and the screaming of the wind. It was the coldest Arya had ever been, and once more she mourned Jon’s fate. He wouldn’t even have a warm body to cuddle at night.

I’ll remember what he did, she said to herself. And I’ll see everyone else remembers as well. The White Wolf’s sacrifice won’t be forgotten, not this time. The North remembers. It will always remember.

The magic began with a whisper on the breeze. This wasn’t the Night King’s voice, not again. This was the subtlest of sounds: pine needles rubbing together, sap beginning to run, the stirring of roots deep in the earth. The air began to shimmer again, stronger and stronger, until every instinct that Arya had was telling her to look away; that the face of a god was not something that any human eye should see.

Arya watched anyway. She believed in no gods but death.

It was like watching mountains grow from the earth. The ground trembled beneath Arya’s feet and slowly, inexorably, shards of ice ripped from  beneath the snow and began to climb into the sky, casting shadows longer than houses, longer than castles, longer seeming than the White Knife. It continued to rumble and grow into the sky, widening and darkening at it went, and when the ground danced so much that horses began to bolt and people began to cry it stopped; everything shuddering to a halt.

The wall had been rebuilt. The treaty had been sealed in blood. Victory- even life- was bittersweet.

“Do not forget, Starks,” said the horrible voice of the Other, and then he too was gone.

The remaining men of the Night’s Watch came forward, along with Sam and Bran.

“We need to report the commander,” said one of the men. His face was narrow and his hair was already thinning, but his eyes were set and calm. Nobody who’d lived through this war was young. Age didn’t matter when you’d seen the dead come for all you loved.

“I’m going with them,” said Bran.

“But-” said Arya.

“Not to the Night’s Watch,” said Bran, his eyes vague again. “Beyond. I am the Three-Eyed Raven, and my heart tree is calling.”

“Are you stupid?” asked Arya. “No men are allowed beyond the wall, that was the whole point!”

She could feel Jaime choking on laughter beside her, and she ignored him. She could sense that that would be happening quite a lot in the future.

Bran smiled, but didn’t look at her. “I’m not a man,” he said. “I’m the Three-Eyed Raven. The Others understand. They’ve seen me before.”

And then there were two, Arya thought, watching Bran slide away, his sledge towed by two of the black Brothers. Arya and Sansa, and there the Stark line ended.

Or so she thought.

It was another three weeks back to Winterfell, and by then she’d noticed that things were going a little strangely for Sansa. She was green in the mornings, with little beads of sweat clinging to her forehead and upper lip, even in the bitter cold of a northern winter. She was sleeping in the saddle so much that she decided to ride in one of the wagons, and she was chewing ice like it was the most delicious of sweets.

Arya didn’t know much  of anything about babies or pregnancy except how to avoid both, but when Sansa took her aside a few weeks after their return to Winterfell Arya had to feign surprise.

“I’m pregnant,” Sansa whispered. They were in the far corner of Sansa’s warm chamber in the family wing, and Arya wondered about the secrecy.

“Alright,” Arya whispered back. “Do you want it?”

Sansa blinked half a dozen times, seemingly flabbergasted by the question.

“There are potions,” Arya began, not sure how Sansa had made it to the ripe old age of twenty without hearing of such things.

“Of course I want him,” Sansa hissed, her face flushing. “But what will I tell people?”

“That his father died in the war?” suggested Arya. She wasn’t sure where this conversation was going, wasn’t sure why Sansa seemed so upset. If she wanted the baby she’d be happy, wouldn’t she?

“ We weren’t married!” Sansa hissed.

Oh. That. Right.

“You could lie,” said Arya. It was obvious to her, but maybe Sansa wouldn’t see things that way.

“No,” said Sana.

“Alright,” said Arya, a little proud of how patient she was managing to be. “We won’t lie. Will you tell people who the father is?”

“Do I have to?” asked Sansa.

“No,” said Arya. “Look, Sansa, you don’t ‘have’ to do anything every again. You’re the heir to Winterfell, the North is yours. If someone still tries to make you do something you don’t want to do, I’ll kill them.”

“That shouldn’t make me feel better,” said Sansa, her voice wry. “But it does.”

The sisters smiled at each other. Secrets, thought Arya again. Maybe some secrets don’t have to be bad.

“I think you should tell people,” said Arya, her voice a little softer. “I think you’d do yourself, and the child, and Sandor a disservice if you kept the truth to yourself.”

Sansa gasped a little. “How did you know?” she asked.

“I watched the two of you,” she said. “How you smiled at his curses, how he watched you when you weren’t looking.”

“He saved me,” said Sansa, and for a moment she sounded like herself back when she’d been ten and four and they’d both been innocent. “Twice, in King’s Landing. He was my only friend, and- he kissed me-”

“I traveled with him,” said Arya when Sansa trailed off. “For about six months, before I sailed east to Braavos. He was good to me,” she said. “He protected me, too.”

“What happened?” Sansa asked. They were still huddled in the far corner of Sansa’s chamber, and they were still whispering like toddlers hatching a plot.

Telling Sansa that I left Sandor for dead on the side of a hill isn’t the conversation to have right now, Arya thought. “Another time,” she said instead.

“But- Arya-”

Something was still on Sansa’s mind.

“This baby will be a Snow, and there must always be a Stark in Winterfell!”

“Then it’s a Stark,” said Arya. She could feel the end of her patience fast approaching.

“That isn’t how it works-” Sansa began doubtfully, but Arya cut her off.

“Look,” she said. “We survived the end of the world. Half the population of Westeros is dead, Others rode, the Wall fell, and dragons died. Most of the great Houses are extinct, and the remaining members are mostly bastards and cripples and dwarves. We can rewrite the rules, Sansa, we can rewrite all of it.

“What was it Maester Luwin used to say? History is recorded by the victors. We’re the victors, Sansa. We can make this world anything we want if we’re brave enough. Give this babe your name, our name, and refuse to feel shame over it. If you feel no shame, nobody can use it against you.”

Sansa nodded slowly. “I’ll do it,” she said. “You’re right.” She smiled over at her sister. “You’ve always been the brave one.”

Arya shook her head. “You’re brave too,” she said eventually. “You have the bravery to endure.”

Endure Sansa did. Those first weeks back in Winterfell were chaos; so many soldiers had died and been buried in snow that it took seemingly forever to determine who was living and who had fallen to the army of wights. Everyone was organized and shuffled inside of the keep, and eight weeks after the dead has first come the discussion as to what should happen to Westeros began in earnest.

Arya learned that the players were Ser Davos, the Onion Knight, Hand of Stannis Baratheon and Jon Snow. Missandei was Daenerys’ former handmaid and translator. Grey Worm was Missandei’s… something, and the leader of the Unsullied forces. They knew and trusted Tyrion. Arianne Martell was there as well; she’d originally come with Daenerys’ attendants. Arya wondered how Daenerys had managed to strike that truce.

Gendry sat with Davos, comfortable with the other low-born man. Arya had spent a few hours with Gendry up on the walls, laughing about all they’d seen and learning what adventures the other had been on. It was sweet: gone were the children who’d loved each other, and in their place sat a man and a woman who’d never regain all that they’d lost. They were friends; soldiers who’d fought in their first real battle together. They’d been forged together in the bloodbath that had been Harrenhal, and distance hadn’t ripped that apart.

Podrick was alive, and he sat between Tyrion and Sansa, quiet and calm and reliable. He fascinated Arya: he had to be twenty, and yet he’d never chafed at still being a squire, just as he’d never complained about squiring for a lady knight.

A Dothraki screamer had been voted into the room. He paced off to the side, and Missandei translated for him.

Lords Manderly had survived the war as well, and he’d been annoyed that Sansa wouldn’t take his council in this decision-making process.

“I respect your opinions,” said Sansa. “But you haven’t been south of the Red Ford. You haven’t seen how this kingdom was ruined, and you don’t know the truth of the games that were played.

“And you do?” Lord Manderly had growled.

“Yes,” said Sansa sweetly. “I do.”

Arya had been impressed.

Now, at the first gathering of the remaining players in Westeros, everyone sat stiff and silent.

“I’ve had this nightmare before,” said Tyrion, breaking the oppressive quiet of the room. “But I was naked, and my father kept trying to stick the Hand pin into my flesh.”

Gendry chuckled, Missandei rolled her eyes, and Sansa just sighed.

At that point the door opened and a slightly weathered knight wandered in. He nodded to Tyrion and Jaime before taking a chair next to Podrick. “Look at us and the fancy folks,” he said in a stage whisper.

“So,” Tyrion continued as though they hadn’t been interrupted. “Who will put us all back together?”

Everyone looked around at each other. In the back, the Dothraki man rattled off something, harsh and guttural.

“The Dothraki wish to return home,” said Missandei. “They demand boats to transport them back to their sea.”

“We have no boats,” said Davos. “The dragons got ‘em, or the Greyjoys.”

Missandei translated, and the Dothraki man glared.

“Nobody holds the Reach,” said Jaime. “The plains there might resemble the Dothraki sea enough to keep them content while a fleet is built?”

“We can’t pass the Reach over into Dothraki hands,” said Arianne. “They do not speak our language, they do not grow grain, they do nothing but rape and loot.”

“We have no boats!” Davos repeated.

Wisely, Missandei elected not to translate all this.

“They’d likely be happy in Dorne,” said Tyrion. “Are you volunteering to host them?”

Arianne pressed her lips tightly together.

“That could work,” said Tyrion. “They’d enjoy your horses.”

“You pledged yourself to Daenerys,” said Missandei to Arianne. “And so did the Dothraki. The Queen gave herself up for all of us; we should support her wishes where we can. I will also go to Dorne, and I will translate for you there.”

“Do you speak Rohynish?” asked Arianne, all venom.

“Yes,” said Missandei serenely.

Davos beamed at her.

“Wonderful!” said Tyrion. “Only six more kingdoms to go.”

“The North is its own,” said Sansa. “ Its. own.”

“See?” said Tyrion. “It’s been twenty minutes and already we’re down to five Kingdoms and one iron throne to sort out.”

Jaime and Arya glanced at each other, green eyes meeting grey, and then Jaime turned to his brother.

“We should melt that thing down and toss it in the sea,” he said. “It’s meant nothing but blood from the beginning.”

Everyone looked at Jaime, wide- eyed.

“I told the soldiers I don’t want to rule, and that’s true. Everyone who wanted to rule is dead; everyone who had to declare themselves the rightful goddamn king is dead. If we were the seven kingdoms again we would be forced to work together, to trade, to be allies. The only thing that’s united us for the last two hundred years was fear of whatever arse sat the throne.”

Davos was nodding, Sansa looked intrigued, and Tyrion was grinning. “Brilliant,” he said. “I had a speech all prepared, but Jaime beat me to it. Good work, brother.”

Jaime sighed.

The arguments went on. Tyrion pointed out that the Night’s Watch voted on their next Lord Commander, and Davos replied that most smallfolk would ignore a vote, or agree that all the old House members needed to be executed and tossed in the sea.

Arya couldn’t really disagree with that assessment.

In the end it was agreed that Davos and Gendry would rule the Crowlands and Stormlands with Gendry acting as Davos’ heir. Tyrion would return to the Westerlands, Asha would rule the Iron Islands (if she could take them), and the Martells would remain in Dorne. Sansa and Arya would rule together in the north, and one of the young Manderlys would be sent to rule the Veil on behalf of Robyn.

At one point Tyrion turned to Missandei and Grey Worm. “Do you know anything about farming?” he asked them.

“No,” said Grey Worm. Arya wanted to know how he’d gotten that name.

“A little,” said Missandei. “But only from books and - ah- diplomatic conversation.”

Translating for other men, thought Arya.

“Would you like a castle?” asked Tyrion.

Grey Worm began to smile, gradually at first, and then a shockingly white grin. “Yes,” he said. “We would like a castle.”

Missandei snapped her head around to look at him, and then blushed at Tyrion. “I think we would,” she agreed.

Tyrion nodded and looked at Arianne. “Looks like you’re going to have to learn Dothraki after all,” he said.

“I’d just like to remind both of  the Lannisters in the room that I am owed one castle,” said Bronn. “Don’t make me say the stupid motto.”

“A Lannister always-” said Tyrion, and Bronn, who had been rocked back in his chair, brought the front legs down with a thump.

“Don’t you fucking say it,” he said, shaking his thin cigar in Tyrion’s direction.

“How would the Riverlands suit you?” asked Tyrion, scribbling manically on a piece of parchment. “Lots of fish in the rivers, and I hear there’s currently a surplus of redheaded women.”

“I like redheads,” said Bronn. “Put me down for that.” Next to him, Podrick was still blushing.

In the end, it was easy enough to divvy up the Kingdoms. It was much harder to write a common law that would rule them.

“You can’t invade another kingdom,” Tyrion explained to Bronn. “Because then the others would be obligated to ride to war against you. This only works if we all work together.”

“What if the other fellow invades me first?”

“Then the rest of the kingdoms would go to war with him.”

Trade agreements were tentatively arranged. Boundaries were finalized. And ethics were discussed.

“No more bastards,” Sansa declared.

Everyone looked at her.

“It’s stupid to blame the baby,” said Sansa, and Arya heroically kept her eyes from drifting to Sansa’s still-flat stomach. “And it’s stupid to make the children the man’s property, when he’s involved for a few minutes at most.”

Bronn banged on the table in agreement, Arianne drawled that Dorne had always done that, and Missandei looked amused. In the end, the line about bastards went on the proposed lists of laws.

“What if two Kingdoms disagree?” Podrick asked.

Tyrion looked thoughtful. “We need someone to go around and be the dealbreaker. To look to the good of Westeros as a whole.”

“Jaime,” said Arya immediately. She hadn’t chimed in until now; it wasn’t her place. She knew nearly everything there was to know about fighting and death. She didn’t have the slightest idea how to rule.

“He stood outside nearly twenty years worth of Small Council meetings. He doesn’t want to rule, and he’s spent most of his adult life riding around Westeros.”

Davos looked thoughtful. “He’d work. What would we call him?”

“King’s Justice is already taken,” said Bronn cheerfully.

“Who is this?” asked Grey Worm.

“The executioner.”

Grey Worm scoffed. “Death is not justice.”

“Ambassador?” suggested Tyrion.

“We haven’t asked if the man will do it yet,” said Davos.

Everyone turned to Jaime, and Jaime turned to her. “I’d have to travel,” he said. “And we’d always have ravens coming and going.”

“I can ride,” said Arya placidly, trying not to let hope show. Every day she felt less and less Faceless, and everyday she felt more and more whole. She wanted this for Jaime. He still worried that he didn’t have any purpose without his hand, and he couldn’t be more wrong.

Jaime was clever and intelligent and loyal and stubborn and good.

He was hers, and she loved him.

“We’ll do it,” said Jaime. “Two for one.”

In the end they decided to call him the Keeper of the King’s Peace.

“What king?” Bronn had asked.

“All of them,” said Jaime. “And none.”

“We could make you a pin,” Tyrion offered, running a fingertip over the Hand badge he still wore. “Handy things, pins.”

Jaime declined the offer, and Arya wondered if he was tired of people seeing the cloak or insignia or badge he wore as opposed to just seeing… him.

~~~

Winter broke after only six months, and nobody trusted the weather to be true. False springs had been recorded before, and no one could know that this was the start of a new pattern. How could they predict that as magic faded from the land once more, and as the Night King’s treaty was upheld, seasons would cycle annually as opposed to every decade or so?

Sansa’s baby was born in the spring. He had red hair and grey eyes, and Sansa named him Cathal. “For the man who ended the last Long Night,” she said while still in her birthing bed. Arya had been there for the whole bloody ordeal, and when it was time for her to pack her saddlebags to ride south with Jaime and the other men, she took along a year’s worth of moon tea.

Jaime thought it was funny, the bastard.

“You were greener than she was,” he teased when Arya walked out of Sansa’s chambers.

As snow melted and ice thinned over rivers, the army of the south prepared to  march again. They only had a tenth of their original numbers, but they were alive and the land was thawing. It was a time to celebrate. The night before Arya and Jaime were due to ride with them, he found her in the godswood.

She was kneeling by the still pond, remembering another fountain that she’d spent so much time studying. She knew he was behind her- she was the flower that followed his light: she knew his scent, his footstep, the way he breathed, the rhythm of his heartbeat.

“We don’t need to go,” he said. “We can wait, if you wish-”

Arya rose and went to him, tugging him down for a kiss. “I’m ready to go,” she said.

Jaime looked at her, his beloved green eyes wary. “I don’t want you to feel obligated to me, wolf-girl,” he said gently. “You’re yours, no matter what I may say. If you want to stay with your sister, I’ll come home.”

Home, Arya thought, glancing around at her ancestral godswood. What a cold place this would be without Jaime.

“You’re my home,” she said, taking his hand in hers. “Where you go, I’ll go. Where you fight, I’ll fight. You’re home, Jaime, and I’m not leaving now that I’ve found you. You’re pack.” Arya had spent the bitter winter months practicing telling him her secrets and feelings and thoughts, but it still felt a little bit embarrassing and a little bit terrifying to pass her heart so fully into his hands.

The corner of Jaime’s mouth twitched, and Arya’s heart fluttered.

“Careful, pup,” he said. “Those are sounding an awful lot like vows.”

“I’m not in a maiden cloak,” she pointed out with a grin. Then in a stage whisper she added, “I don’t know if you’ve heard, but rumor has it that I’m no maiden.”

Jaime was smiling fully now, too. “I had heard something of the sort,” he said. “Didn’t some musty old text mentioning the wolf lying down with the lion?”

“That was ‘lamb’,” said Arya. “Very different.”

“You’re right,” said Jaime. He was in his leathers, complete with his sword, and despite his greying hair (possibly because of his greying hair, but Arya wouldn’t go there) he looked beautiful and ferocious and human.

“You can’t ride south with that,” she said, gesturing to the sword. “All great swords have names.”

“About that,” said Jaime. He unbuckled the sword and passed it to Arya, and for a moment she remembered the elation and the suffocating grief of the last person who had handed her a sword like this. “I was thinking you should take it.”

“No,” said Arya, pushing it back at him. “This is your sword, Jaime.”

He didn’t take it, and he wasn’t smiling anymore. “It isn’t,” he said. “And it never was. It was made from your father’s sword, Arya. It was always meant to be here in the North. I was only delivering it.”

This was her father’s sword, recast in Lannister gold. How dare Tywin? How dare he?

But- this was also them, her and Jaime, north and south together as one, something new and beautiful and unique.

“It’s your sword,” she said finally, pulling her gaze off the blade and meeting Jaime’s eyes again. “But I’ll name it for you.”

“What did you have in mind?” he asked.

“Honor.”

Jaime blinked at her, then began to shake his head.

“You carry it with you,” she said. “And you always have. Carry Honor, Jaime, and be proud.”

He looked down at the sword and up at her, and then tossed it away. “I fucking love you,” he said as he wrapped his arm around her waist and captured her chin with his fingers, kissing her roughly. “I really fucking do.”

“I know,” said Arya, fumbling at the laces of his pants. “I love you too.”

It was almost as violent as their coupling had been in the First Keep. Jaime was practiced in making a girl orgasm quickly, just as he was used to having sex in unconventional locations. He dragged them both to the ground and set his back to a weirwood tree.

Arya unlaced her own breeches, and as soon as they were loose Jaime’s fingers were inside, stroking and circling and toying with her.

“I love this,” he said, pinching her clit. “I love that despite all the things you’ve done, I’m the only man that’s been here. If that makes me stupid, we can tack that title onto all the others.”

“I like it too,” said Arya, freeing Jaime’s cock from his trousers. He shuddered as her fingers grazed teasingly over his balls (how Arya loved that feeling of power), and then they were pleasuring each other in time.

“Jaime,” Arya panted, her hips rocking into his hand, seeking more and not finding it. “I want-”

“I know what you want, pup,” he said, sliding his hand from her folds. “C’mon.”

Arya slid home and thought that she’d never get used to that very first thrust, that sensation of having gone from painfully empty to delightfully full.

Jaime’s good left hand hooked onto her left shoulder, his arm spanning across her back, anchoring her to him. “Fuck me, wolf girl,” he growled.

She did. She howled when he bit her, sinking his teeth into the curve of her shoulder, and when he skimmed his lips down to worry a nipple she could feel herself going slick and wet around him; dampness on both their thighs.

“I’ve said ‘fuck the gods’ before,” said Jaime, shoving his hand between Arya’s thighs to toy with her nub. “And I’ll say it again, but if the gods are real-”

He bucked up into Arya, making her groan and rest her forehead in the sweaty shadow of his throat-

“-I hope they’re watching,” he rasped, and Arya fell into bliss in his arms.

Moments later, as the sweat began to cool on their bodies and Jaime’s cock began to soften in Arya’s cunt, he pressed a kiss to the top of Arya’s head. “Are we married now?” he asked.

Arya began to laugh. “Quite possibly,” she said. “You didn’t wrap me in your cloak, though, and no one stood witness.”

She felt married. It felt transformative, different. She’d leave here more his than she’d been when she came, and yet she’d also walk out of the godswood more free. Love was funny that way.

“I’m glad there weren’t any witnesses,” he said. “I was already held prisoner by one set of Starks, and I can’t say I’m too keen on repeating the experience.”

Arya kissed him to shut him up, and the kiss tasted like joy.

“Do you want to get married?” he asked as she laced his breeches up again.

“No,” said Arya, picking up Honor and passing Jaime the sword. “As far as I’m concerned, I already am.”

He kissed her again, and this time her back was to the tree and he was pulling on her hair so tightly her scalp stung, and she was thinking she was going to have to go for his trousers again when he pressed a kiss to the end of her nose and stepped away. “You’ll be the death of me, wolf-girl.”

“I love you,” he whispered to her again as they left the godswood.

“And I love you,” she whispered back.

Coda:

When they rode south Arya wore Brienne’s blade, Oathkeeper, the other sword made from Ice. Jaime rode Redemption and carried Honor, and if that wasn’t worthy of a song, Arya wasn’t sure what was.

The kingdoms broke apart, and the kingdoms knew peace. Farms prospered, children were born who had never known hunger or war, and Jaime and Arya went from House to House, helping to create laws and broker treaties. They occasionally killed bandits, which Arya said kept things interesting.

Arya and Jaime were there to watch the iron throne smash into the sea beneath King’s Landing. No one had been able to decide what should happen to it; on that topic there seemed to be no compromise.

It was the first order that Jaime ever gave as King’s Peace: Throw it into the sea! he’d yelled, and together Arya and Jaime and Davos and Gendry had dragged the monstrous chair through the Red Keep and over the side of the cliffs.

“Iron doesn’t like the sea,” said Gendry as they watched the waves below. “Salt water eats right through it.”

Good, Arya thought. The Throne had been forged in fire and blood. Let salt and water rend it apart.

Soon enough whispers about the Kingslayer stopped, and rumors about Goldenhand began to fly. When Jaime first heard a song that mentioned his title he winced and Arya laughed. “Be thankful it’s flattery,” she said, and that night Jaime tied her arms above her head and had her begging him for release. Who said revenge was best served cold?

Westeros prospered, and a new generation was raised. The new rulers of the kingdoms needed Jaime less and less, for they were growing into their own as kings and queens and players in this new, more benevolent Game. Arya and Jaime were able to stay longer in Winterfell, where Jaime became the most requested nursemaid the keep had ever seen.

“I don’t know why they like you so much,” Arya groused as Sansa’s third child, Cat, grabbed for Jaime’s nose.

“Because I’m prettier,” he suggested, cooing to the child. Arya just rolled her eyes.

Life went on, as life always does, and Longclaw hung over the Great Hall of Winterfell, the blade sharp and every-ready. At least once a year Arya and Jaime would visit Jon at the Wall.  He was older too, and tired, though Daenerys hadn’t changed a day. She recognized and knew her visitors, but every year she talked less and less.

“She’ll leave me, one day soon,” said Jon matter of factly.

“But-” said Arya.

“She will,” he said, and he sounded resigned. “She’ll never die, Arya. I will. My knees hurt when I have to climb all the way up the Wall,  and I’ve more grey in my hair than black.”

“Then you can come home,” said Arya. Come home where it’s warm , she wanted to cry. Come home where we love you .

“We’ll see,” said Jon.

He didn’t come home. Cathal was ruling Winterfell when the raven came announcing Jon’s death and the election of a new Lord Commander. Arya and Jaime mounted up once more, this time to travel through the kingdoms reminding everyone who lived that their lives were owed to Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen; that when the ultimate sacrifice had to be made, there was a King and a Queen who had made it.

Songs were sung, and histories were written.

It was the last Grand Tour Jaime and Arya made. After that they were content to stay home, holding hands by the hearth, and watching the seasons change.

~~~

One morning, when Arya was grey and old, she woke to find Jaime cold beside her, gone in his sleep. After burying him in the crypts (over Sansa’s hollow protests, for Sansa had learned to love him too), Arya made one last trip south, riding though King’s Landing, right to the threshold of the abandoned White Sword Tower. Up she climbed, up and up, her knees creaking on the stairs, until she made it to the door, a door no woman had been allowed to enter.

Inside was a dust covered book on a round table, its cover faded and grey. All the knights of lore were here, knights of summer, of a time that hadn’t seen the dead walking. Arya slowly turned the pages, the knuckles of her swordhand stiff and gnarled. Finally she found the page she sought: Jaime Lannister, the youngest man to be made Kingsguard, the only Kingsguard member to ever kill his king.

Slowly Arya pulled a vial of ink and a quill from her bag and began to write. She wrote, carefully and neatly, as light filtered through dust-covered windows, all of the deeds of the Last Lion. She wrote of his war, of the diplomacy he’d learned, of the vanity he’d shed. As the light faded she added another sheet, for her man would not be remembered by history for the one beautiful, impulsive act he’d made in his youth. He would be known as a man who grew great despite himself, despite his family, despite it all.

Before she left Arya looked through washed-pale eyes at the bit of blank parchment at the bottom of the page. There she wrote, in careful script: Goldenhand the Just, beloved by all who remember him .

THE END