The harder the struggle, the more glorious the triumph. –unknown

Raya Stark was blistering cold. She was sure she was going to freeze to death. She had grown up in Winterfell. She was accustomed to the cold, but this was something new entirely. The farther north she went the colder she was. She was an idiot for leaving the safety of the wall and an idiot she would die, but she was fine with that. If she died the cunts at the wall would tell her uncle she had gone off to find her brother, Jon Snow. She didn't understand how his "brothers" had left him beyond the wall. Some bunch of brothers they had proved to be. The only brothers Jon had were Robb, Rickon and Brann. He was an idiot to believe otherwise. Robb would have come back for him. Hell, she was coming back for him alone at that.

She shivered involuntarily and her mind shifted. Robb had gone off to war, to avenge the death of their father and he'd taken their mother along with him. Sansa was still soon to be wed to that little idiot Joffrey and Arya was missing. She'd left Rickon and Bran to fetch Jon. She knew that he couldn't very well leave the wall to help Robb, but she needed to see him and not one person telling her that the wall was no place for a girl was going to stop her. Just as not one man at the wall had been able to deter her from going beyond it.

So, here she stood, in to snow almost above her boots, her black hair pulled back in to a tight braid down her back. She'd dressed herself in some of Jon's clothes from the watch and none of the men had stopped her. She assumed it was because they figured she would die in them. She would be damned. She had pulled on three of his shirts atop her own undergarments and an over shirt along with a cloak. She had her bow and arrow with her along with a sword she prayed to the Gods she wouldn't have to use. Ghost trotted along on one side of her and her own direwolf, River took up the other side, only distinguishable by the gray patch on his chest.

She was determined to not let Jon die. She was closest to him, Robb and Arya. She loved all of her siblings naturally, but Sansa was… different and Rickon and Brann spent more time with each other or the other boys than with her. That didn't make her love them any less. She was just closest to the select three. She was sure Robb was closer to her and Jon was closer to Arya, but she'd never spited her brother because of it and Arya had never been upset with Robb. She was sure they all had their favorites. They were human after all.

Raya wasn't sure how long she'd been walking. She wasn't sure how long her lip had been involuntarily quivering or why her hand seemed to be glued to her bow and arrow. She was sure her knuckles were turning blue, but she would freeze to death before she returned south of the wall without her brother.

She remembered Robb and Jon telling her that she was far too hardheaded. She remembered her mother chastising her and telling her she was setting a horrible example for Arya and that she should be more like Sansa. Please… as if she would lie down and morph in to another version of her younger sister. Never. Her father defended her however; her and Arya. He reminded her mother that they were Starks- born of the first men. It was their ancestor Brandon the Builder that had put up the damned wall to protect the north from the white walkers. There were plenty of ways she'd imagine herself dying; during child birth or on a battlefield but she had not once thought that she would freeze to death. She was born of the first men and snow was in her blood. She was bred to survive the cold. She pulled her cloak tighter around her.

She had been walking for Gods knew how long. She had seen quite a few sunrises. She napped during the day and walked during the night. She refused to freeze in her sleep. She walked through the darkness even if she couldn't see specifically where she was going. The men of the night's watch had pointed her in the right direction hopefully and she had continued on that path. Either she would reach Jon or she would reach forests or mountains. She would reach something… hopefully before something reached her.

She thought about warging but knew her body wouldn't survive being left in the conditions surrounding her. She'd spent a total of two name days with the Reeds at Greywater Watch, her thirteenth and fourteenth and they had helped her come to term with her "condition", a secret that stayed within the family. Upon her return to Winterfell she hadn't been able to practice regularly but she had in fact practiced her warging- sometimes on the direwolves that roamed the halls and sometimes on a few random ravens. It would be useless to do so now however, if the outcome was her returning to a body on the brink of death.

Ghost and River paused and Raya stopped in her tracks. She watched them circle around each other and then they started to walk quickly in another direction. River had never proved wrong before. Raya pushed forward. The snow that had wedged itself on to her was at home in the cold. It was so cold the snow hadn't melted against her and she didn't know if she should have been thankful for that or bitter. Ghost gave out a whimper and then sped up. Raya turned her walking in to a slight jog. She couldn't feel her legs. River fell in stride beside her.

She thought she was seeing something, but there was a chance her blue eyes were betraying her. She didn't stop however. She simply drew her arrow and bow as she went. Ghost broke in to a run then and Raya followed suit. It took everything in her to not fall over her feet and then she heard him. She heard her brother.

"Ghost?"

"Jon!" Raya yelled and then she propelled herself harder than she ever had.

Jon changed his stance a little to catch his eldest sister as she flew in to his arms.

Jon fell to the ground and River growled after the wildling girl that had taken off running through the snow.

A/N: I don't know if I'm going to continue this or if it was just a drabble, but thank you for reading this through if you did. I just wanted to write a fic about either OC/Theon, OC/Robb or OC/Tormund and I leaned towards Tormund for some reason.