Disclaimer: I definitely do not own this series.
A/N: I wrote this quite a long time ago just for fun. I'm not sure it's very good but I figured I'd share it anyway and this isn't all that I've written but I also haven't completed it yet either. I like the parts I wrote later on better so I'll probably upload them soon.
Arya had a choice to make and she knew that she must decide quickly. She looked from Clegane who lay dying on the ground next to the horses, Stranger and Craven. Now would be the perfect time to escape… Her thoughts were broken up by the sound of Clegane's raspy voice.
"Do you know where the heart is, girl?" he asked, glancing at the dagger on her hip.
She thought he might ask for this. The infection from the wound in his thigh had put him in a deadly fever. They had tried boiling water to clean the wound but it hadn't done much and now he asked for a quick death instead of the slow and agonizing one he was currently facing. "The gift of mercy" he had called it when they met the dying soldier alongside the road. She thought of Mycah and the way the Hound had slaughtered him. It was getting very hard to remember Mycah now, so much had happened since. And then she remembered stupid Sansa defending him, "he's Joffrey's sworn sword, he was obeying orders."
She looked back at the Hound, the burns on his face, the sweat on his brow and the blood and pus seeping from the wound near his hip.
"Just do it," he growled at her.
Then for just a moment her stubbornness, anger and bitterness evaporated. She thought of all the things her mother and father had taught her. What was right and wrong, what was honorable, what was good. Despite all the things the Hound had done, killing Mycah, tying her up, yelling at her, and threatening her, he had saved her from getting killed by the Freys too and he'd also stuck by her unlike her old "pack" that had included Gendry and those other stupids. He'd saved her life; she should try and save his. That way the debt would be repaid. She ran to Craven and mounted up before she could change her mind. She wheeled the horse around to head back toward the last village they had passed through.
"A wolf finishes her prey," Sandor growled.
"I'm coming back," Arya called over her shoulder "with a septon or any kind of healer…something!"
"I'll be long dead by the time you return," he groaned "don't bother, just kill me now..."
"You're not going to die!" Arya shouted as she rounded the bend and their little campsite disappeared behind the trees. "Even though you deserve it," she muttered to herself.
Arya pushed Craven hard as they navigated the twisty path through the woods, he was sweaty and out of breath by the time Arya reached the outskirts of small village. She stopped Craven alongside a farmer who was driving a small cart filled with straw and pulled by a small pony.
"You there," Arya called to him "I need help! I need a healer!"
The old farmer gazed up at her. "The closest thing we got around here is old Wyatt," he replied slowly.
"Is he any kind of healer?" Arya asked pressed. If she didn't find one soon, the Hound really would be dead. Not that she cared much, she reminded herself.
"Wyatt serves just fine for us common folk," the farmer replied, squinting up at her. He seemed annoyed with her urgent manner, but honestly what person looking for a healer wouldn't be urgent?
"Alright, where may I find him?" Arya asked; this Wyatt was probably the best she'd be able to find.
The farmer pointed straight ahead toward the little clutter of farms and cottages. "Old stone cottage in the center of the village, there's several carvings of the seven outside of it, old Wyatt is the best we can get by way of a septon and the cottage is as close to a sept as we're likely to get."
Arya was off towards the hovels before the old farmer could even finish his sentence and without as much as a thank you which caused the peasant to murmur something about poxy brats.
Arya quickly spotted a tumble down stone building with a few crude wooden statues of the seven scattered around it. Arya quickly picketed poor, sweaty Craven who began to thirstily devour a nearby mud puddle. She burst through the sept door.
"I need help someone!" she called into the dimly lit room. There was a rough stone altar and a few more statues and also some candles, but no sign of anyone. There was a door to the left and Arya wasted no time crossing the room and pulling at it as she shouted: "Is anyone here?" Just as she was about to pull, the door burst open and Arya was swept behind it and squished against the wall.
"Hello?" called a feeble voice. A skinny old man with shaggy grey hair, a face covered with stubble and robes that vaguely passed for a septon's peered around the room, still pushing the door that was pinning Arya against the wall.
"Over here," Arya grunted pushing against the door.
"Where?" the man asked blankly, looking down around his feet as though Arya might be lurking down there. The man smelled strongly of wine. With a good shove Arya managed to squeeze out from behind the door and toppled to the floor. The man jumped back in surprise.
"Well, hello child. Do I know you?"
"No," Arya groaned and clambered to her feet. "Are you Wyatt the healer?"
"Why yes, I suppose I am," Wyatt replied vaguely. "And what are you called my boy?
Arya hesitated for a moment. Not because she had been mistaken for a boy (that happened all the time) but because by now she had so many aliases it was hard to think which one to use.
"Arrie," she decided on adopting the old name from her days with Gendry and Hot Pie. "I'm called Arrie and I need your help. There's a man quite a distance up the road that has a wound to the hip. It's been leaking pus and blood for days now and he's terribly fevered. If we don't go to him now, he'll die and that's if he's not dead already."
Wyatt at least seemed to realize the urgency of the situation.
"Alright Arrie. I shall gather some supplies and be on my way. May I ask who this man is?"
Arya bit her lip, disgusted by the lie she was about to tell, but she could think of nothing else to say that wouldn't require a lot of explaining.
"He's my father," she replied.
After much coaxing, Arya convinced Wyatt to mount up on Craven behind her. He had gathered various herbs and potions along with some bandages in a burlap sack as Arya tapped her foot impatiently. There was a heated but, brief argument in which Icarus tried to insist that he was too old to ride. Arya drew that dagger that the Hound had given her which prompted the old septon to ask for a boost. So, Arya heaved him on poor Craven who didn't have a very long rest and they rode off.