Fanfiction only. I own no part of Game of Thrones.

Breakfast

Clegane swam to consciousness through a warm haze. As they neared Eastwatch, Jon had pushed the army to reach the fortress before winter could unleash its rage. They'd ridden hard for days, and Arya had had to rouse him to send him to bed the previous night, as he had fallen asleep before the fire. It was still a few hours before the dawn, and it took him a few minutes to realize what had awakened him.

Arya had continued to share his furs and her warmth, her arm wrapped around his chest or his waist. Most nights she stayed right there until morning. This morning, though, her face was pressed into his neck, and one of her hands had found its way between his mail and his tunic. In her sleep, she'd hooked one of her slender legs around his.

Clegane didn't dare move lest he wake Arya. Frankly, he couldn't imagine how he was going to extricate himself from her grip with any sense of decorum. He was more aware than ever of her invitingly soft body pressed against him, and her breath tickled his neck. Arya murmured, and her hand slid down his belly. In spite of himself, he was horrified to feel his desire stir. He snatched at her wrist before her hand could drift any further.

"Ow! What's wrong?"

"Shut the fuck up or you'll wake the whole camp!"

Arya came awake in an instant. She looked down at Clegane, and her breath hitched, realizing that in her sleep, she'd practically twined herself around him.

He pressed his eyes shut and hissed, "If you'd be so kind to . . ."

"Yes, of course!"

Clegane released Arya's wrist, and as she unhooked her thigh from around his, she unintentionally slid against his tightening desire. Most unhelpfully, she froze.

"Are you—"

"No."

"But—"

Angrily, he growled, "Yes, damn it! I woke up with a pretty woman wrapped around me! What do you expect to happen?"

Slowly, cautiously, Arya unwound herself from around Clegane. "It's not my—"

Clegane turned his back to her. Hotly, he spat, "I know that."

Arya laid back down behind him, close enough to share his warmth but not near enough to touch him. They laid for an eternity in silence. Finally he rose and took up his bow and quiver. As he passed, she caught the strap of the quiver.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to."

He stooped and ran his hand over her disheveled hair in an uncharacteristically affectionate gesture. "I know, little wolf. Go back to sleep and I'll fetch back some breakfast."

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Arya hadn't slept well after Clegane had left, and she'd laid huddled under their furs wondering what in Seven Hells she was going to say to him when he got back. Arya flipped open one of Clegane's saddle bags and pulled out a skin of sour wine and took a long drink, hoping it would clear her head. She capped the skin and stepped out of the tent to find a hulking shadow crouched over the coals from the previous night's fire warming its hands. At first she assumed it was Clegane, but when the shadow lifted its head, it materialized into the Thenn. He smiled slowly when their eyes met.

"Where's your big friend?"

Arya narrowed her eyes. "Hunting."

"Me too. Come to our fire; I'll make sure you don't go wanting."

"No thanks."

When he moved, it was like a mountain cat, lithe, almost a pounce. He towered over her and brought his face low into hers. "I insist."

Arya's hand went to her waist before she realized that she'd been so distracted this morning that she'd not thought to strap on her sword belt. Her eyes flew wide when she realized she was unarmed.

The Thenn narrowed his eyes. "Of course, we could stay here if you prefer."

He must have seen it in her eyes the moment she decided to turn for her weapons. Before she could duck into the tent, he pushed her hard and was on her. He kept one hand clamped over her mouth while he tore at her clothes with the other. He pushed her hauberk up around her throat, and the weight of the chain choked her. She bucked and kicked, clawing at his arms and trying to stop his hands as they stripped her bare. She twisted beneath his massive weight in hopes of squirming closer to where her sword belt laid tangled somewhere beneath the furs.

"Go ahead and fight. When I'm done, you'll be mine, and the north will belong to Wildlings for the rest of time."

Arya screamed against Treyg's palm as he loosened the ties on his pants. Suddenly, the flap of the tent flew open, and Clegane's great sword cleft the Thenn in two, splattering blood and gore across Arya's bared skin. She kicked herself out from under him and tried to pull her clothes back together.

Clegane stepped over Treyg's shuddering corpse and knelt beside Arya, gathering her to him. Burning with shame and shuddering with fear, she coiled into a ball within the sanctuary of his strong arms. Many times, she'd been threatened with rape, but never had she come so close.

Clegane tore off his gloves and gently probed Arya's face and arms in the near dark, looking for injury. "Are you hurt? Did he—"

"No. No, not yet, but he would have done if you hadn't come back." She pressed her face into Clegane's neck and sucked in his familiar scent, drawing comfort from his nearness. "Thank the gods you came back."

Clegane wrapped his cloak around her. "Get dressed. I'll be right back."

Clegane rose, but Arya clutched at his fingers. Still deeply shaken, she was reluctant to let him go quite yet. "Where are you going?"

Clegane glared at the dead man soaking their furs with his blood in the middle of the tent. "I'm going to kill every fucking Thenn in Jon Snow's army."

Clegane turned to go, but Arya held him. "Not yet. Don't leave without me. Jon needs to see what they've done."

Stiffly, he nodded and turned his back while she wriggled out of the ripped and bloodstained clothes. She tossed her hauberk at his feet. "See if you can get the blood out of my mail. I don't think I can stand to have the stench from a fucking Thenn on me for the rest of winter."

Arya dressed quickly, pulling on her brigandine over a padded jacket since she wouldn't be able to put her hauberk back on before it was thoroughly dried. Through the flap of the tent, she could see Clegane rubbing snow into the mail, and his hands trembled with his rage.

Arya grabbed one of Treyg's heavily muscled arms and hauled his seeping torso out of the tent, his entrails dragging behind.

Clegane glanced up darkly. "I'll get the rest."

Though the camp had started to rouse with dawn, silence descended and spread throughout the camp as Arya and Clegane drug their respective halves of Treyg, a trail of blood and offal being spread behind them. It was sheerest luck that they met the King of the North before they reached the Thenn camp.

"What in the name of the gods have the two of you done?"

Arya looked up darkly at her brother. She was panting and sweating heavily from the effort of dragging Treyg through camp and didn't have the breath to respond.

Clegane answered for her. "Taking breakfast to the Thenns."

Jon goggled. "Stop! You've murdered one of their chiefs! You can't just—"

Clegane ripped his sword from its scabbard and rounded on Jon. He drug Treyg around so that his still erect cock flopped into plain view. "Murder? I cut through a filthy Thenn before he could rape your sister. Now, I'm going to kill every fucking Thenn in this army in restitution for what he nearly did to Arya."

"We." Arya glared around at the assembled men.

"Aye, we." Clegane shrugged angrily at the concession. "Your sister feels entitled to do her own share of the killing."

No doubt drawn by the commotion, the remaining three Thenn chieftains fought their way through the crowd. One of them took in the two halves of Treyg, one at Arya's feet and the other at Clegane's, and he smirked darkly.

"If anyone deserves restitution, it's us. You've deprived us of our war chief." He flicked pale grey eyes up to Clegane. "If you'd done a better job pleasing your woman, she'd not have gone sniffing after Treyg."

Arya's blade was out and pressed into the fleshy underside of the man's chin before anyone could stop her. A thick ribbon of blood trickled down his throat.

"What's the punishment in Thenn Valley when one man rapes another man's woman?"

Reluctantly the shortest of the three Thenns answered, "Twice the woman's weight in bronze and pelts."

Arya's eyes flashed. "And what if the woman is a member of the Magnar's own family?"

The Thenn glanced uncomfortably at Jon Snow and recognition dawned as he registered their likeness. "Death."

Arya pressed her blade deeper, and the Thenn grunted. "How many deaths?"

The chieftain drew himself up straighter. "One for every finger on her hand."

Arya twisted her blade subtly, and the blood trickled more freely. He gasped quietly. "Shall we call our debts even, or shall Clegane and I continue killing Thenns?"

"We will consider justice served."

Arya nodded curtly and withdrew her blade.

The bleeding chieftain lowered his head slowly and smiled wolfishly at Arya. The Thenns shared several words in the Old Tongue and laughed. Arya sneered, and she responded coldly in the same language. Shocked, they retreated with a snarl, dragging Treyg with them.

Jon watched them go. "What did they say?"

Arya plunged her blade into a snow bank to clean it. "He said he saw what Treyg liked about me. He said he'd have offered ten times the wolf bitch's weight in bronze if he'd known I had such a bite."

"Where did you learn the Old Tongue?"

Arya glared at her brother. "The same place I learned the Thenn laws . . . inside the face of the Thenn."