Chapter One: The Wrong Road

Kings Landing

Arya Stark

She wasn't there.

When Winter came for House Stark, she was nowhere to be found. When the snows fell and the white winds blew, her pack was months away. She was in the South, the cold fingers of a gelded glove wrapped tight around a golden queen's golden throat.

The Kingslayer was dead on the road somewhere with a wound in his heart, his face skinned, and his hand stripped and buried. His sword was pinned to her side, a foreign weight, but a necessary one. His armor - heavy and uncomfortable - covered her shoulders. His face cloaked her own, and his golden hair ran down her skull.

"Do you know why I'm doing this?" she asked, as a pair of green eyes bulged and reddened. The Kingslayer's face twisted uncomfortably as she spoke, but that was expected. Wearing a foreign face had never been all too comfortable.

While she stared, Cersei Lannister gasped and gurgled. Even that was more than she deserved.

"Because you're the woman who sparked it all," Arya said, because it was completely true.

Because Cersei was the reason Sansa was married to Ramsay Bolton. Because she was the reason Jon was dead at the wall, betrayed and forgotten while the world moved on. Because Cersei was the reason her mother was a corpse in a river, her throat gaping like the opening to the Narrow Sea. Because she was the reason Robb had his head replaced with a wolf. Because she was the reason an honorable man had been snuffed out before his time. Because she was the reason Arya Stark had to die young.

Had Cersei done something – had anyone done something – else, Ned Stark's head would have remained on his shoulders. Arya Stark would have been home in Winterfell before her first moon blood. She would not have grown up amongst rats, fleas, and assassins. She would not have been forced to eat raw pigeons, bugs, and whatever scraps Tywin's men would throw at her. She would not have been beaten, dragged through the mud, and left blinded and scared on the streets of a foreign land. She would have grown up a Stark. She would have grown up.

Cersei gurgled something that was almost a word, but wasn't. A long time ago, Arya might have relented and let her speak. Instead, a gelded glove pressed harder into a windpipe. Cersei shut up.

"I want you to know that I've waited for this." Her every word came paired with the Kingslayer's inflections, and she loved it more than she ever thought she would. It made Cersei wince with every word, and that was sweeter than any cake. "I've said your name every night for years, waiting for today. Soon, I'll never have to say it again. You're the last one left, you know. The only one."

Ilyn Payne hadn't even screamed when she found him. He tried to fight her, of course, but she was quick. Quick as a snake. Calm as still water. Fear cuts deeper than swords.

She wasn't afraid now. Not in the moment. While Cersei gasped and choked, she felt invincible. Like a woman blessed.

Afterwards was when the fear settled in. After she'd killed Ilyn Payne. After she'd burned the Mountain. After she'd killed the Waif. After she'd killed Walder Frey and all the Frey heirs. After she'd killed Meryn Trant and Polliver and the guard at Harrenhall and the fat little stable boy who'd just been trying to save himself. That was when the fear set in, when the deed was already done. Everything before that was easy. It was only after that she could sit down with her head in her hands and think about what her father would have thought, her mother, and how disappointed Jon and Robb would have been to see her use their lessons for this.

But Cersei Lannister was different, she thought, she hoped, she prayed. This woman was evil and cruel. This was the woman had her father killed, who killed Lady for nothing, and who still convinced Sansa to be her stupid pawn. Cersei Lannister deserved it.

They all deserved it. That was the point of the list. The point of her prayer.

"I want you to know that it was me," she whispered into Cersei's ear. And then, her free hand went to her own face, the fake skin was peeling, and the ghost of Arya Stark was staring down at the first and last name on her list. "I want you to know that."

She had been afraid that Cersei wouldn't recognize her. That, over the years, the Queen of Westeros had overlooked her enough that she had forgotten the one threat that mattered.

A whisper escaped Cersei's throat. A soft sound, like wind through a weirwood or like the rush of the sea's breeze on Braavos. It was barely audible. Had Arya been standing another inch away, she would never have heard it.

But Arya was near, and so she heard Cersei Lannister whisper, "Lyanna?" as the light left her bright green eyes.

Arya stared until her own eyes were red and wet.

#

The list was done.

Six years after her father's head landed on the Sept of Baelor, it was all avenged. The Red Wedding, the Sept of Baelor, and – from what she heard as she walked the streets to the Red Keep – even Theon's betrayal of Winterfell. The Boltons were gone, the Freys were gone, and now the Lannisters. Three Great Houses reduced to rubble, and two by her own hand.

She should have felt happy. She should have run through the streets, cheering and singing, and declaring to the world that "Arya Stark is going home!"

But the world didn't work like that. It hadn't since the Hound killed Mycah, and Father killed Lady.

Maybe she was supposed to be happy, but she didn't feel it. Instead, she still felt as if Meryn Trant had caught her in the chest with the same blade that killed Syrio, and had left a gaping hole that could never be filled, no matter how much she tried.

Father was dead. Mother was dead. Robb was dead. Bran was dead. Rickon was dead. Jon was dead. Even Sansa, who had smiled and celebrated with the Lannisters as their father knelt on the stairs of the Sept – even she no longer bore their name.

It was just Arya left. The last of the Starks.

She walked through the streets of Kings Landing to the sound of tolling bells.

The gold cloaks were running about like sheep without a shepherd. The peasants were celebrating in the streets, drinking, laughing, and not caring to shy too far away from the strange girl with the sword at her belt.

They would have been scared, if they knew. They would have run away screaming. But she was in her own clothes again, rather than the Kingslayer's. Her hands were washed clean of blood, and her Needle was sharp and silver, not dull and red.

She kept her eyes forward, and the world ignored her. They shouldn't have. They should have run.

There were ravens flying overhead. Black ones flying out to all the lords and all the ladies of the realm. They were the signs of her triumph. She should have smiled at the sight of their freedom, drank in the swell of cheering as the smallfolk celebrated their flight.

Instead, she focused her eyes on the white ones that were flying in the wrong direction. In truth, they should not have been flying at all. It had already been winter when Arya left Braavos. These birds should have long since finished their flight.

With the sight of those birds came the discovery of others. She could hear a few in the crowd reacting to it, shouting and pointing as the birds flew by.

Three things, she thought. Three things you did not know.

"They're flying the wrong way! See there, they should be heading from the Keep, not to." One.

"Ain't all of them heading to. That one's just flying about, isn't he?" Two.

"Those ones don't even have letters!" Three.

I can go back to the House now, she thought, and immediately hated herself for thinking it.

There was one that landed near her. She reached out - swift as a deer, quiet as a shadow – and caught the bird in her bare hand. It struggled in her grip, but Arya's grip was strong. The bird stayed until the bird calmed. From there, it was easy work to strip the letter from its leg.

She had to strain her eyes to read it. The ink muddled and the words were especially sloppy. That was strange in itself. Most times, the maesters with weak hands would make their servants pen the notes in their stead. Or, at least, that was what Maester Lewin told her when she asked.

It was a lucky thing, she supposed, that Jon's handwriting had been just as poor, or she wouldn't have been able to read it at all.

Another oddity: there was no greeting tied to the letter. Just a quick message, clearly rushed by whoever had been penning it, before it was strapped to a shoddy bird and set off to fly.

Winterfell has fallen, it read. The Walkers move South. Use dragonglass, fire, valyrian steel. Nothing else works.

And then, at the bottom,

Jon Snow.

And the heart, that Arya thought broken, pounded.

A/N- In this series, we'll see what happened in Winterfell with the Night King, while Arya was finishing her list down South. We'll see a world where the Long Night lasts more than one episode, and where the Azor Ahai prophecy makes a bit more sense. I'm going to do my best to hit most of the same narrative beats, but without the weird direction the show took to get there. This will almost certainly be the shortest chapter, since I'm treating it as a prologue of sorts.

I'm also going to merge the personality of characters between the shows and books. That's why Arya's a little less insane-murderer-who-takes-pride-in-feeding-a-man-his-child and who instead feels empty after killing. It's a characterization I personally like a bit better.

One final note- this is a repost from ao3, but by the end of the week, they'll have the same amount of chapters.