Fantasy and Myth

Arya Stark

Author's Note: If you have not seen Season 8 of Game of Thrones, beware of spoilers.

The servants of Death were present at the battle of Winterfell, on both sides of the conflict.

The White Walkers and their leader, the Night King, brought the deathly cold of winter down upon the living defenders.

The Red Priestess was believed to be on the side of the living, but she delivered many in to the hands of Death. Whether by sacrifice, shadowed magic, or whispered words which guided entire armies to their doom, she did her work well. When at last her task was done, she surrendered herself into Death's embrace.

Death's greatest servant was the unexpected, a champion turned destroyer. A girl fought against the Night King. Swift and sudden. Quick as a snake and quiet as a shadow. One hand was all that was needed.

During the war, the Night King brought a dragon back to unlife with a touch of one hand. The touch of a single finger turned infants. Yet none took notice when the Night King grabbed a girl by the throat and wrist and she was not turned. They did not observe how the master of the dead was surrounded by his unliving followers with no room for an assassin to pass. They only watched their enemy fall, but watching is not seeing. 

If a pawn who threatened is sacrificed, the movements of another will remain unnoticed, and the girl keeps secrets. The girl is a sword. That is all. As long as the Night King had endured, the people would've stood together. With the White Walkers apparently gone, fighting began anew in the south, boundless armies reduced to great piles of corpses and massive cities to rubble.

Every battle, no matter the victor, only added to the ranks of the dead and diminished any possibility of resistance when the end truly came. When the slaughter was finished, the girl stepped forward to claim more than a throne, but to claim everyone in the city and the realm. They thought the girl still part of their family, but though a tongue may lie, eyes shout the truth. A girl's eyes turned glacial blue as a hand reaches out to either side and lifts upward. The dead are called and answer, rising to serve again.

A storm surged across the sky, bringing ice and snow upon the lands. In the moments before it reached King's Landing, a girl told those nearest her, "Winter has come for you all."

A year has passed. From King's Landing to The Wall, snow covers everything in the stillness of the grave. Only White Walkers travel the lands of Westros, riding their dead horses, seeking the living to turn or to kill.

In the frozen city of King's Landing, a girl sits upon the Iron Throne. Arya Stark. The Night Queen. No one. The time will come when a girl will extend her frozen grip here, across the narrow sea to the domain of Braavos, even to the ends of the world. Valar Morghulis. All men must die. Valar Dohaeris. All men must serve, either in life or death. A man cannot say when a thing shall happen. A minute. An hour. A month. Death is certain. The time is not. But, what do we say to Death? Not today.