The silence that enveloped Winterfell's courtyard was different from the one she had known in her childhood. The centuries of stone and cold, the traces of past battles and joys, had become part of the place, but for Arya, everything felt new. She had returned here after long travels, trials, and losses, bringing with her a new perspective on the world, herself, and her family. In Winterfell, where her childhood now seemed like a distant myth, she felt how both the walls of the castle and she herself had changed.

The return was strange, contradictory. Here, she was known as one of the Starks, but every step, every glance reminded her that she was no longer the person she once was. Arya returned not just as the daughter of Winterfell, but as someone who had forged her own fate in the farthest corners of the world. And despite the cold and the expectations that drew her back into the past, she couldn't shake the feeling that she had left something important behind — the person she once was.

Then, as if a ghost, in the shadow of Winterfell's gates, came a barely audible rustle. It was a sound she immediately recognized, without needing to see it. The intuition, sharpened over years of travel, did not fail her. She continued her movements, but her words, as though drawn by an invisible thread, escaped her lips, needing neither surprise nor fear. "Ah, it's you..."

She didn't turn, continuing her training, but her voice held neither anger nor fear only indifference, masking the weariness beneath. Arya's attention was as sharp as the blade of her sword, but this was not a fight, only a meeting with someone she may have been expecting, or perhaps not. And in this silent, cold greeting lay the entirety of her changed essence.