this is our homecoming (this is a land half forgotten)

2

They're going to kill the queen.

Gendry's not sure why he's surprised. Not sure why it wasn't a goal of his own, really. She had tried to kill him. Sent him on the run and sent her gold cloaks to cut him down. So many people had died because of it, and the only reason Cersei didn't get what she wanted was because Arya lied for him.

"I want to kill her." Arya's voice rings out, echoes against all the stone. Most people jump at the sound, the lords twisting on their benches and craning their necks to look at her. She always waits off to the side, far enough away from the table at the front to stop keep from being addressed but close enough to be able and step in to protect her family if needed. "I want to be the one to kill the queen."

There's silence, after it. Arya stares at them all in turn, and when her gaze meets Gendry's, he makes her be the one to move on.

(He thinks this is part of the game, too. Her doing these things, admitting to things she had done, always trying to shock him, like one day she's going to say something so terrible that he finally leaves. Though Gendry doesn't know what she could do that was so terrible it shocks him more than fighting an army of dead men. He had always known about her list of names.)

"Arya." Gendry remembered Sansa from the stories that Arya had told her older sister, always better, always a lady, the one stuck with her head in the songs, always wanting to get away from Winterfell. This woman in front of him is nothing like that girl in the stories. None of the Starks are. "You're not an executioner."

Arya stays where she is, raises her chin. "She's on my list."

A lot of people were, at one point.

Not so many left, now.

"She's hurt a lot of people." Daenerys voice was gentle. She's had a special softness where Arya's concerned, maybe because she's Jon's favorite sister, maybe because she thinks that she owes Arya a debt for the time she saved her life. Maybe just because Daenerys knows what its like to be a girl trying to become something the world says should not exist. "You aren't the only one who wants her dead."

Beside her, Tyrion shifts. There were a lot of people in this room she tried to have killed.

"She's sitting on my throne." Daenerys voice was gathering speed. Jon's hand twitches, like he wants to caution her but is too mindful of the eyes watching. "I'm going to take it back."

"But she's not who took it from you. That was her husband. And my father. Robert is the one who sent you running." Arya tosses her dagger from one hand to the other. Gendry shifts and tries to edge his way back into the crowd. It doesn't seem like a good line of conversation for a Baratheon to take part in. "But Cersei. She's the one who was hunting me."

And me, Gendry wants to say, but he doesn't often bring up that point, because it reminds Arya that he left her, once.

"You said once that your brother told you stories, about all the bad men who took your home from you and what he would do to them. But I didn't have a brother. I didn't have stories like that. I had a list of names." Arya takes another step forward, and around them, men tense, the unsullied reaching towards their swords. They had been told to obey the Starks, but their loyalty would always be to the queen first. "I said them every night. That's what I had faith in, that I was going to cross them off one by one, no matter what it took. And that's what I did."

Daenerys stands, her skirts sweeping behind her on the stone. "We'll both make them pay. After the war." She reaches out, her hands tightening on Arya's shoulders. "After the baby is born."

The baby had been a point of contention between advisors.