I don't wanna look at anything else now that I saw you ;

It's far from the homecoming he imagined when he set out south to end the war to the south so they could all focus on the war coming for them from the north. Truthfully, he wasn't sure if he expected to come back at all, the plan in the back of his mind after dealing with his supposed half brother and the lions was to swing back and head straight for the Wall and the fight there. And that's a fight he doesn't expect to come home from, though he voices that thought to no one. No man wants to hear they're on a suicide mission and he doesn't want to upset Sansa with a final goodbye.

Aegon talked him into peace instead of a duel, and as much as Jon doesn't like it, doesn't trust that his half brother isn't also expecting him to die in war against the white walkers, he makes do with what they have. They bring their armies to Winterfell, to rest and supply their men before they plan to march further north.

The brothers ride side by side into Wintertown, a sign of solidarity and peace that was Davos' idea actually. Jon doesn't think he would have cared much about his half brother's wounded pride, when these were his lands, these men named him their king and any outsider who tried to lay claim to it was never going to be welcomed. Perhaps truly, that's why Davos suggested it, to keep the smallfolk from protesting in the streets as the armies converged on Winterfell.

He's said very little to Aegon, except to point out landmarks or answer a question but that's less about respect and more that Jon has never been a man of many words and being half wolf these days, with the dreams and the connection between him and Ghost even during waking hours has made him even quieter than before. Almost as if he is trying to mimic the wolf entirely, never making a sound wherever he goes.

There's a commotion by the front gates, someone is pushing their way through the crowd and Jon has a hand on Longclaw's hilt as he draws his horse to a stop. There could be any number of reasons for someone to make for the two would be kings of all seven kingdoms, and it isn't until after his men have unsheathed their swords too that he realizes who it is. The sword on her hip gives it away.

She's older, but just as scrawny as he remembers and alive. "Stop," Jon commands, swinging down from his horse and tossing the reigns at no one in particular to catch. Reuniting with Sansa at Castle Black was its own kind of bittersweet but it's nothing compared to the wave of emotions washing over him to come face to face with his favorite sibling again. No one else, not even Robb, could have invoked the look on his face or the way his hands tremble at his sides.

"Where in the seven hells have you been?"

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So much has happened since she last set foot in Winterfell, riding south with father and Sansa and two wolves. She still dreams of Nymeria sometimes, more frequently as she came north. For a while, Arya was certain she was being followed. The fear shifted as each night came and her small camp was never touched, and then faded all together: there was a pack out there, she'd heard it from the few folks she'd met on the road. But they never touched her, rarely showed themselves, and after a while, she came to see them as an honor guard bringing her north. At night, the wolf dreams showed her how big her pack was, how well they understood, how fervently they followed.

Inside Winterfell, there were no wolves, at least not the kind that ran on four legs. For a time, she wondered how to reveal herself, but the thought of facing Sansa after everything scared her off. In Arya's memory, her sister is still the spitting image of their mother, painful to look at and harder now to see disappointment in. Sansa won't understand all that's passed, there's no way to explain it right.

But the people she meets along the way tell her that there are armies marching north, too, and if she's patient - the people might be wrong, but the wolf dreams aren't, she knows, she knows - then Jon will be here soon.

He doesn't disappoint her, as if he ever could. There's a platinum haired dragon riding at his side, but Arya only notices this other would-be King because the things she learned at the House of Black and White have seeped into her bones. Jon is the only one that matters, Jon is here and she is here and finally, finally--

She shoves her way forward, pushing people aside civilian and guard alike. It doesn't matter who she frightens, Jon would never let them hurt her (he'll recognize her, he will, even after all this time). She sees the blonde boy lean over, grabbing the horse's bridle when Jon leaves its reigns. She sees the hand-and-a-half sword at his back, and the new scars on his face. She sees the whole of his army behind him, the only hope that Winterfell truly has. She sees it all, but her eyes never leave his face.

For a moment she hesitates, even with that look on his face. Arya knows that she could paint her sword several times over with the blood she's spilled. But it's Jon. If anyone will ever understand, it's him.

"Essos," she tries to tell him, but the word might well be lost to the wind as she launches forward, throwing her arms around his middle. The cloak he wears is heavy and huge and her arms aren't wide enough to get all the way around him, but she tries anyway, and ignores the tears as they slip into his furs.

He wants to clarify, because he's pretty sure she said Essos and how she got there has to be as fantastical of a story as how he left the Watch but all thought of that is wiped away when she throws herself at him. She's taller now than the last time he saw her, though not by much, still a scrawny, scrappy thing and it's just as easy as he remembers to lift her into his arms.

They'd thought her lost, dead more than likely. No one had seen any sign of her since Ned Stark lost his head in King's Landing. There haven't been any rumors about her. It was a mystery, a little girl lost to the world, and it's been so long, he'd just assumed her dead.

Jon holds her tight, uncaring if the entirety of the North watches their usually quiet, solemn king become misty eyed reuniting with his little sister. She'd always his favorite, not just because they were the only two to look like Starks instead of Tullys but because she never cared that he was her bastard brother. It never mattered to Arya who his mother was, she made that obvious as a little babe when only Jon could calm her down from one of her tantrums. Robb was his best friend and he still considers Ned Stark his father but Arya made him feel more a part of the family than anyone else.

"I can't believe you still have it," he murmurs, low enough for only her to hear. The little sword he had made for her digs into his side a little though he makes no move to put her down just yet.

There's more muscle on her now than when they last met - built swinging a small sword and hauling a clam cart, mostly, so scrawny is still a pretty apt descriptor. What muscle she does have is bent to squeezing him about the shoulders, clinging and careless of all the watchers on. They can wait.

(She hears chuckling, good natured, people like seeing the Starks happy; mostly she hears confused murmurs, tired soldiers, feels someone staring and trying not to. She heard so much on the road, and in her dreams, but those questions will come later.)

"Of course I do." She leans back to look at him, still smiling, tears streaking her face. She's not ashamed of them, to hells with anyone who might try changing that. "It saved me life so many times. I could never let it go."

And that is the truest way she could possibly word it. It has been lost, and she murdered men to get it back. When she had to give up all the pieces of Arya Stark, Needle was the one thing she couldn't bear to give to the sea. And it had waited for her, for the day she reclaimed her name and sailed for home.

While he still holds her, she reaches over his shoulder, turning the hilt of his sword so she can get a better look at the white wolf. "Ghost the second?"

Jon gives her one last squeeze and a quiet laugh before he set her down. If only to show her the sword properly because he doesn't think she'll let it go until he does. He pulls it from the sheath, the light highlighting the ripples in the steel easily, knowing she will recognize it for what it is, having grown up with Ice like he did.

"It's called Longclaw, The last Lord Commander gave it to me, fashioned a new pommel to look like Ghost, yes."

Valryian steel is not all that common in the Seven Kingdoms. He doesn't know every house that has one squirreled away, though it would make this war coming for them easier if he did, but he doubts many if any of the ones left are a bastard sword like his. A bastard wielding a bastard sword had a kind of poetry to it, the Old Bear had told him when he'd given it to him. Jon found him more of a father figure to him than Rhaegar Targaryen ever could be.

"Who is in the godswood already, I think." Jon might still struggle with the wolf dreams but he has learned to keep Ghost close when he insists on it, and trust there's no immediate danger when the direwolf takes off. "He'll be happy to see you. He followed Sansa around for weeks."

Valyrian steel is impossible to hide, and Arya's eyes follow the rippling all down the blade. Without a word she reaches for it, knowing he'll share: Robb may have been the one he trained with, when there were no guests about, but he'd seen her stare at the yards the same as she'd seen him, both wishing to be down there.

When he mentions the real Ghost, Arya can feel the smile spread across her face, and feels that it's a sad one. She hopes Sansa didn't mind the shadowing - hopes that, maybe, it gave her some peace.

"I'd like to see him again. The wolves followed me all the way here." Just normal southern wolves, at least, she thinks they are. Her time with Nymeria was so much shorter than Jon's, and she doesn't really know how to parse her dreams as somewhere between fantasy and reality. For a moment she wraps one hand around Longclaw's hilt, hefting it with one hand to test the weight. Too heavy for her by far, but that won't stop her admiring it. When she hands it back, she can see Aegon watching them from the corner of her eye; he may be used to lying, but he didn't learn the way she did. He wants something, and they have it. Arya doesn't let it cross her face.

Handing the sword back to him, blade flat in one hand and hilt balanced in the other, she smiles up at Jon. "It's a good sword, and a good name. That's the most important part." He taught her that. "Can they spare you?" She nods behind him, knowing a soldier's good will only extends so long when he has to stand about doing nothing. She won't be the reason any have cause to hate Jon.

For a moment, Jon narrows his eyes at her, the corners of his mouth turning towards a frown when she mentions wolves following her home to Winterfell. There's something more to that story, he's certain of it, even if she doesn't realize it herself. Though he can't put his finger on it just yet, because he's equally as certain that if it was Nymeria then Ghost would know his littermate was alive and well and nearby and he would've seen something in his dreams by now.

It's something to ponder later, at another time, because she's right and there's more important things that require his attention right now. Jon sheathes his sword as he turns to look over his shoulder at his half-brother and his men, of which hardly any of them bother to hide the fact that they've been watching the reunion. The northmen must realize who she is. Jon and Arya have always been the only two Stark children to have the Stark look, where the rest took after their Tully mother. The sellswords, the wildlings, the stragglers must have no idea who the King in the North would be embracing so fiercely.

He sighs quietly. "Probably not yet."

Being king is more work than being Lord Commander was and some of the men there hated him so much that they murdered him over it. It was never his intention to be named King in the North. He never wanted to steal Sansa's claim to Winterfell. And now here he was, with a larger throne being thrust at him and a family legacy he definitely never dreamed of.

Jon offers her a hand, and a little smile in return. "Come. You can meet my supposed half brother and then we can catch up properly."

His expression isn't missed, though she doesn't allow herself a reaction. She regrets it soon after, but the moment has already moved on; she's too used to it, to keeping still, to being as quiet as a mouse, watchful as a hawk. She learned her lessons too well, and they cling to her bones even now, home again. It will wait, he'll bring it up before too long: her lessons tell her that, too.

Arya's eyes follow his, to the dragon prince and the northmen and the exiles and more. She sees the eyes that mark her, and the ones that don't, and the ones who may not recognize her, but will remember. Well, they'll remember this face, anyway. She feels his sigh as if she made it herself, and wouldn't need more than that to kn ow his answer. He's a king, now - not the bastard brother she loved, though he is still that, too. She'll have to learn to love Jon the King, the same as she thought she'd have to learn to love Robb the Lord, and Robb the King. Please, she thinks, in one of the few childish inclinations she's given into in years: you old gods, don't let him go the same as Robb.

They let her down before, though, so she adds another prayer: He of Many Faces, it's not his time.

She takes his hand without even a second's thought. "He thinks it's true." She doesn't nod to Aegon, but her eyes find him immediately, so that Jon knows. He's not so difficult to read, and though he tries to avert his gaze, she can see him watching from the corner of his eye. More than that, she can see the jealousy. He may never have seen her before, but she marked him as one who's guessed correctly.

Arya already doesn't like him.

She squeezes Jon's hand, and sighs so only he can hear. "Might as well get it over with. Lead the way, Your Grace." The latter half she says only a little louder, half a decibel, but it comes with an arch look: he can be King in public, and she'll support him with her dying breath, as she always would have - but he'll always be Jon to her.

Truthfully, Jon believes it too. He's met Jon Connington exactly once during their combined armies march North and the man didn't strike him as the kind of man who would put forth a pretender for the throne. If Rhaegar Targaryen's closest friend believes it, then who is Jon Snow to argue with it. Then again, the elder Jon didn't seem to believe the younger to be the son of his deceased friend, or if he did, didn't see him as anything more than another bastard to ignore. He was right about one thing. Jon Snow is a bastard, a different man's bastard than he thought growing up but one all the same, but he won't be ignored any longer.

Maybe, just maybe, Jon wants to believe it too because if it's true, then Aegon can claim the Iron Throne and Jon can stay in the North and reign in Winterfell. That's all he truly cares about, keeping his home and his sisters safe. After what happened to them the last time the Starks went south, he can't imagine bringing them back to King's Landing. Sansa, he knows, absolutely refuses to go. He can't claim to know Arya's thoughts on the matter but since they all thought her dead for the last few years, he can't imagine she wants to go back there.

"I think, technically, this makes you a princess now too," he murmurs back, squeezing her hand back as he teases her. Walking back to his half brother and the horses doesn't take long. Jon releases her hand only so he can take the reigns back from Aegon, with a small nod of thanks for holding his horse for him.

"Might I introduce you to my sister... cousin, Arya Stark." Somehow it's easier to acknowledge Sansa as his cousin but he can't truly think of Arya as anything but his little sister. Definitely more his sibling than the blonde man he barely knows. "The old gods have blessed us, we feared her dead for many years."

"I will hit you," Arya warns him, just before they reach the dragon prince. They talked about her as a princess in Harrenhall, too, and she'd had to bite her tongue there and pretend they were talking about someone else. When he lets go of her hand, she clasps both behind her while Jon introduces her. She's no lady, and maybe looking forward a little to throwing Aegon off by refusing to act like one.

This introduction is going to be difficult.

Sister, Arya thinks fiercely, though it doesn't cross her face. Cousin, thinks Aegon, who dismounts to greet her properly. He inclines his head, and Arya can see how carefully it's done - not too low for a king, but enough to show indulgence if not deference. He must have practiced that a thousand times.

"It wasn't the old gods who saved me," she says, though she offers little else. It's meant for Jon, but she doesn't take her eyes off the prince. "You came from Essos. Did you spend time in Bravos?"

It certainly isn't what Aegon expects, and he has to scramble mentally. "Yes - but I haven't been there in a few years." The silence hangs a moment, and he moves to fill it - only realizing once he's started talking that Arya's likely doing it on purpose, to put him on the back foot. She is. "I've brought my armies to Winterfell to help with the only war that matters, according to Jon." Jon, he says very specifically, so that he doesn't have to delineate between brother or cousin. It doesn't go unnoticed, and Arya cocks her head back as she looks up at him.

"Then he's made you see reason. Good." She's learned subtlety over the years, though the sharpness was always there. Aegon presses his lips together in a thin line, wiser this time: he's not going to let some girl goad him into making a fool of himself.

"Any king should be able to take counsel, even if he doesn't want to hear it." He keeps his voice calm and cool, though Arya can see that he fights to do it. There's a temper under there, one he's making efforts to control. The fact that he is, and that he chooses those words to mete out, wins at least some small approval from her. She doesn't show it.

"Your armies must be tired, Your Grace." Arya shifts just enough that it's not exactly clear to which of them she's speaking first. "My sister can welcome you to Winterfell." Give them bread and salt, she hopes, so that if he does betray Jon the gods will grant her the same wrath she brought to the Freys. "And camps can be set. It's going to be a cold night."

She looks up at Jon, then, and doesn't say a word: she hopes things haven't changed so much (that she hasn't changed so much) that he can't read her looks any longer. She'll meet him in the godswood later, him and Ghost, when he has a moment of freedom.

And in the meantime, she'll slip through the camps, listening to men on all sides talk, and hear what they have to say when they think no one watches.

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I don't wanna look at anything else now that I saw you ;

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