Chapter 3: We Are Wolves

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"Where's Sansa?" Jon asks the lady knight as the people gather in the courtyard. They look at each other as Ser Brienne falls to the ground on her knees. Sam and Tormund look at each other anxiously but none of them are brave enough to tell him the truth. A great silence envelopes them all, a great contrast to what it was like minutes earlier, when all of them thought the world has come to an end. It was broken as Pod starts to sob as soon as the realization hits him.

"The crypts. You were with her. Where is she?" Jon asks Tyrion. He gulps before answering.

"We led the people out of the crypts and I didn't see her after." He remembers how he tried to hold on to her but the last thing he saw was her flaming hair as his brother Jaime took him to safety by the collar.

"Sansa!" Jon shouts as he starts to walk towards the nearest keep.

"Jon!" Arya calls and Jon stops on his tracks. He turns around and looks at her. Arya shakes her head looking morose. Jon's eyes widen in disbelief and his face fills with anguish. He looks at everyone around him and each person who catches his gaze flinches in fear.

"She's still alive, we have to find her! Search every keep, every chamber!" He barks at them as Daenerys and more people enter the courtyard.

"Jon, listen to me! I saw it with my own eyes. Before I reached the godswood. The wights got to her." Arya relays as she moves forward to him.

"How can you be sure it was her?" Jon questions as he marches towards Arya.

"You think I don't know my own sister?" Arya fires back.

"Where is she? I need to make sure it was her. You could have made a mistake! She could still be out there alive!" Jon shouts frantically as Daenerys watches curiously. She has seen Jon angry before, but never like this. The dragon has woken, she muses.

"I asked our people… to take her body and burn it..." Arya says reluctantly.

"No, no, no..." I need to see her one last time.

"I had to do it. I wouldn't bear to see her rise as one of those monsters, Jon." Arya states with conviction. She knows it's true.

I could have. For the last time, I would…for I know it would still be her, and I'd let her take me, Jon mumbles.

"I should have been here with Sansa, I promised I would protect her." He declares but Arya knows Sansa wouldn't want Jon to risk his life for her.

"She wouldn't like that." Arya says.

No she won't. She was stubborn and kind and brave. WAS.

And the truth hits Jon anew and he can't control his rage anymore.

He screams and trashes about, drawing his sword and hacking and slashing on the dead bodies around him.

Arya leaves first, and everyone else follows, until he's all alone.

Jon exhausts his last remaining strength, and he slumps to the ground and cries quietly, as if it's a crime to weep for a dead sister. Cousin.

"Sansa… I'm sorry, Sansa…" He chants, as if she can hear him.

…

"What now?" Arya asks as soon as she enters Bran's chamber.

"They're in the Kingsroad, not very far away. Go." Bran replies.

Arya nods her head and makes for the door but she stops and turns around.

"We're a pack, but we have to go our separate ways for a while. Hold the North when Jon leaves for the south." She says.

"Arya...'' Bran retorts. Arya smiles. She likes it when her brother says her name, it sounds gentle and lovely when it comes from his mouth. But she knows what Bran would say, that he cannot be lord of anything. But things have changed now.

"The Night King is dead, and I know that there's still some part of the Bran we used to know slowly creeping its way back into you. Find him. Let him out. Please." Arya pleads and Bran looks away, but Arya moves closer to him to take his face with her hands and look at him straight in the eyes.

"You may be the three-eyed raven, but I used to be a faceless assassin, Jon used to be Lord Commander of the Night's Watch and Sansa had to bear different names to survive, but we're Starks. And there must always be one in Winterfell and right now I want you to be that Stark. It doesn't matter what else we all are, we're still one of the same thing. We're wolves." Arya declares. She lets his face go and stands upright.

"Besides, if you're not our little brother anymore, why would you warn Sansa and I about the gold cloaks?" Arya smirks which earns her a little smile from her brother.

"And Gendry?" Bran asks.

He does know everything, doesn't he? Arya muses.

"He'll have to stay here. To protect you." Bran nods in understanding. Arya gives him one last hug and heads to the door. She has one more person to say goodbye to.

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