a/n: A sequel to "NORTH WINTER HIGH SCHOOL: THE WALL (MILITARY) ACADEMY" and "NWHS:tW(M)A-INTERLUDE". Set in the same world and takes place two-years after the previous fic.
The Ages are listed as the following:
Robb - 22
Sansa - 20
Arya - 19
Bran - 17
Rickon - 14
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Jon - 21
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Gendry - 21
Ygritte - 22
Tanner - 28
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Fic: Summary: Arya has been training as a Crow under Lt. Karl "The Skull King" Tanner's hard thumb for the past two-years. While out on a routine watch with her ex-partner Jon Snow at the Fence in the Beyond, things take a turn when it appears the Wildlings are mounting for an attack.
********Game/of/Thrones********
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The Wall Academy:
Elite Military Training Depot
(White Walkers, Wildlings, & Wights)
Chapter 13: —
Arya found herself in the worst possible position that she could have known—tethered to Ygritte the Wildling Wh-Princess. Apparently Qhorin and Tanner thought it was a bright idea to have the person who wanted Ygritte dead the most, guard her.
They were ready for their insane mission, everything was packed (they were limited to supplies that could be stowed in their packs, mainly MREs, water canteens, ammo, survival tarp and blanket, flares, etc.), and they mounted a few snow-gliders over to the Fence where Joker and Crash were keeping watch over the tunnel ten-feet beneath that the half-breeds had dug out in a impressive feat.
Jon and Arya were tasked with re-digging the hole with field-sized, retractable shovels, shoving all the snow that had filled the hole back up and clearing the way out, Ygritte being temporarily handed into the custody of Crash and Joker. It was tiring work, just shovelling out the snow in the tight space; as the smallest one, Arya was made to go into the hole first, and she wondered how the fuck those half-breeds had done this when it was frozen snow, not loose-packed snow that they were dealing with now.
She popped nothing but her head and upper torso through the other side of the hole like a groundhog covered in powder and cleared the immediate area on the other side of the Fence, before she called clear and Jon started to pass their supplies and gear through.
Arya wondered grudgingly why they couldn't have used Ygritte as a mule, though she wasn't blind-folded, her hands were bound with a 14-inch length between them, and though she believed that to be a little too generous, it would be well enough for her to be in this hole instead of Arya, but instead the Wildling got to put her feet up.
It was nearly an hour before the tunnel was cleared and all the supplies trekked over. She pulled herself up onto the other side of the Fence. She had thought that it might feel different for whatever reason, but she felt all the same, her anger like a black mould in the corner, held in check for the time being. Jon crawled through next before Ygritte was sent through and Arya attacked them back together as Tanner and Qhorin came through last.
Joker and Crash would stay on the other side of the Fence, in the Beyond, to help guard the Fence along with Karp and Firechip. If everything that could go wrong did go wrong with their mission, it was Qhorin's crew that would stand between the Wildlings reaching the Wall.
When they got resettled on the other side of the Fence, in what was commonly and inaccurately called the Neutral Zone (what a joke!), Jon became tethered to the two woman as well and the three shared a snow-glider as Tanner took another, and Qhorin took the last, each man taking on a portion of their supplies.
She had to admit that she felt slightly better knowing that Jon was behind Ygritte who was behind herself; if the Wildling tried to pull some sneaky shit and take her out from behind, Jon had her covered. But she couldn't help but think back to how he reacted back when Arya made to kill her; he was a little too quick to jump to her defence when their ROs hadn't even twitched a brow—but even then, she knew that Jon would never let her be killed (hopefully he would come around with some rational thoughts and soon).
Qhorin took the lead; Arya, Ygritte, Jon, the center; and Tanner the rear. The storm's second-wind hadn't quite revealed itself fully, and the sun tentatively reached out through the dark grey clouds with false hope, just in the subtle change in the wind it was obvious that it was near.
Arya had never been on the other side of the Fence, but it looked all the same to her, white, white, and more fucking white. But as they continued on, the way lit merely by their high-beam flashlights mounted on the handles of the snow-gliders as the sun was once again snuffed out as the wind picked up harshly, that the ground wasn't as level as she had first predicted. Sometimes she didn't even realize that they were going up-hill until she got to the other side and it was a quick transfer down the mounds of snow.
—
They happened upon a pretty good camp area, big rocks covered in accumulated snow drifts made for great shelter from the harshest of the wind. Even if they wanted to built a fire, in these conditions it was impossible; so they huddled in a tight circle and ate a MRE each, before they all bedded down.
Arya took first watch by choice; she wouldn't have been able to sleep right now anyways.
They transferred Ygritte over to Jon and she watched in disgust as they bedded down together, laying rather close. She knew that it was just for survival, for warmth, but when the woman had lowered her scarf to take a sip from the water canteen and sent a smug look the brunette way, Arya couldn't help the but seethe and think it was something else, too.
Before Tanner settled down himself, he grabbed her arm and turned her, blocking view of her from the others with his taller body and put their faces close. He forewent the scarf and whispered to her. And though the wind was much louder than him, she heard his murmured words anyways, and felt appropriately cold inside afterward.
Just because you are out here, doesn't mean you are free.
She found herself a position on top the covered rocks, one that allowed her a view of their close clustered camp, and after that. The second storm hadn't hit the yet, but would be on them by the time they broke camp and continued on their mission.
She kept ever vigilant, despite that watching the fat snow flakes fall and then dance around in a haphazard way was making her eyes ache and kinda tired at the same time, but she kept her eyes open, herself awake by thinking of what might happen were she to fall asleep and they were attacked; be it by Wildlings or half-breeds—and Ygritte sleeping so close to Jon. The thought made her angrier than was probably necessary, but it got the job done.
Two hours later, she was still and frozen, and would have fallen asleep right there at the end of the shift, if she didn't think it would kill her. She slid down from her perch on cramped legs, Qhorin taking her place.
After a glance towards Jon and his night companion, she made bed away from them and nearer her RO. Right now, she was finding Tanner of better company than Jon, and that spoke volumes. She fell asleep rather easily, all the work through the day finally dragging her under for a much needed rest.
Too soon, it felt, she's awoken and they ate briefly before heading out. She tethered herself back to Ygritte, in time for a water break. She'd done this in front of Jon and Tanner so many times over the years, that there was no mystery left, but against her will, her cheeks turned hot under her scarf as Ygritte pointedly watched her—so when it was the Wildlings turn, she did the same (not the most fun way to spend the morning).
The storm was on them, and visibility was cut in half.
"You try and pull something—lead us into a trap—and I'll put a knife in you nice and slow; got it?" Arya growled to her at their glider.
"Don't you worry, little troll. I'll hold yer hand th' whole way." Ygritte replied condescendingly.
"Just do as your told." She said, turning around.
This time, Arya's snow-glider was in the lead, with Qhorin and Tanner following behind the threesome.
Jon had held out a compass to her, but the older woman shook her head; these were her lands, even in a storm she knew them like the back of her hand. She guided Arya with pressured hand-signals on her shoulders.
Arya didn't know where they were headed, this were uncharted land for her. They weren't supposed to go beyond the Fence for a reason, and the deeper they went, the more on-edge she became. The blizzard became so severe that they were forced to make camp early. The had just come to a stop when she heard Jon's muffled cry of pain.
She reacted instantly, without thought. She didn't know if this was a planned ambush on Ygritte's part, but she couldn't take the chance that it wasn't. She smashed her elbow backwards, and even as it was blocked by raised arms, she was already bringing her left fist around.
She struck ribs as Ygritte used the length between her bound hands to her advantage, Arya kneed her in the thigh, making her stance falter. Arya felt it wrap around her neck; even through her parka and scarf, it was still dangerous. She needed to end this fast. Yrgritte was taller than her and she used it to her advantage and came up between her arms with an uppercut. It wasn't enough to knock the older woman out, but enough to daze her.
Arya dropped out of the lengths embrace and wrapped her arms around Ygritte's knees, pulling her to the snow. She scrambled onto the woman's chest, pinning her, even as she fought to reverse their position. Arya felt the strike to her cheek more than saw, half blinded by the snow and such, her right hand found and pressed on Ygritte's neck even as she was continually struck at. She brought her left fist back and punched through the Wildling's arms, and landed her mark—the nose. Ygritte grunted, but continued striking at Arya.
Arya leaned forward, adding more pressure to her neck, using the position to hinder the woman's strikes, before she grabbed the Glock from her thigh and did a glancing blow with the butt, before going again and landing a center shot on her forehead. Ygritte's resistance weakened, but only stopped completely when Arya struck her once more, and under her the woman went slack in her unconscious state; Qhorin said that they needed her alive, whether she was on the Wall's side or the Wildlings' side.
Their scuffle took no more than a minute, and Arya quickly turned around, looking for Jon and ignoring the cold satisfaction at the unconscious princess beneath her. "Jon!" he was in the snow, clutching at his leg. She crawled from Ygritte to him, the short few feet distance making her binding with the unconscious prisoner taunt. She looked open-mouth at the red splotch on the white snow pants, and the shaft that protruded from the side of the young man's left thigh.
She heard loud pops and knew that they were gunfire, but she focused on Jon for the moment as she pulled the scarf from her face (feeling cold instantly cling to the exposed flesh, and sting of the whipping snow) and used it to tie around the shaft of the arrow to keep it in place, they were going to have to cut it out later when they had the time. Wildlings weren't known for poisoning their weapons, it contaminated their meat, so she wasn't worried about that; she just needed to stop this bleeding.
"I'm going to have to break it," Arya told him.
His soft brown eyes were tinted with pain and he shouted through clenched teeth as he clutched his thigh, "Just do it!"
"It's gonna hurt like hell." She'd never been shot before, by bullet or arrow, so she couldn't say she knew exactly how deep in hell the pain really was, but she could suspect—she held the bottom of the shaft nearest his flesh to hold it steady and snapped the shaft no thicker than her index finger.
Jon grunted harshly at the action, but made no further noise as he gasped for breath. She made sure that the scarf was tight, both acting as a binding and bandage.
She couldn't believe that the Wildlings (not half-breed because they didn't seem to need weapons) thought it was a good idea to shoot arrows in a blizzard. For all they knew, the arrow that found Jon could have just as easily altered seven inches in the wind and hit Ygritte instead; it was a bold choice, but it wasn't like they had guns or anything.
"You good?" she ignored the blood that now covered her gloves—Jon's blood.
"Yeah." At the moment the wound was going to hinder him, but not kill him; in the long run, without proper treatment, the same couldn't be said. "What the hell is going on?"
"We're being attacked," Arya explained, shrugging out of her rifle strap, and pulling the bolt action as she looked out into the blizzard, searching for the enemy, for the target. "Wildlings, most like, look at the arrow you so generously allowed to use your thigh as a mark."
"Where are Qhorin and Tanner?" he questioned her instead, pulling his Glock from his thigh, thumbing the safety off, and cocking it, his other bloodied stayed at his injured thigh.
"I don't know," she admitted, keeping her eyes trained outside of them, though she could still hear the occasion pop of a gun being fired, they seemed to be fainter. "By the sound of it, they seemed to be moving—and not closer."
Jon nodded. "Ygritte?"
"I couldn't take the risk, so I knocked her out."
Jon didn't protest like she might have expected from the way he had been acting since they found out that Ygritte may or may not be the enemy (that fact was still on the fence), (but maybe this finally turned him around), but all his said in an even voice was, "Alright."
She gave him a brief glance but couldn't discern anything from his expression hidden behind the goggles and scarf. "Cover me, okay?"
"Sure."
She shouldered her Remington again, it resting next to the pack on her back as she turned back to the redheaded Wildling. The woman was still unconscious and Arya dragged her the short distance back onto the board of the snow-glider. Both her and Jon knew that they had to move, an arrow had already found them, and they couldn't risk a second. Once she made sure the unconscious Ygritte wouldn't roll off, she helped her injured partner on as well.
"If she starts waking up, hit her again, okay? We can figure out whether she's really on our side or theirs later," he just nodded and gestured east-south-east, away from the direction of where the arrow was fired from, but not completely back tracking and where they might encounter one of their comrades instead of walking into more enemies. "We gotta find cover and wait out this blizzard, and then we can get our bearings."
Jon covered their six as she got her snowshoe clad boots under her and started to slowly push-turn the combined weight of a grown man and woman on the snow-glider in the direction that they wanted through the blizzard. The pops of gunshot had gone from infrequent to nonexistent, and she didn't know if that was a good or a bad thing; if their ROs had killed off the enemy, or if it was the other way around.
Arya used the adrenaline that flowed through her to her advantage, ignoring her knee, the smooth surface of the snow making to easier on her. She wasn't sure how long she had been pushing for before they found some coverage from the blizzard, just that it was long enough that Ygritte started to wake up, and after a moment, Jon knocked her out cold again.
It seemed like a natural dip in the land with a snow-covered ice overhang, provided some natural cover. Arya cleared the immediate area before they settled down.
She made sure that Ygritte was secure before she knelt beside Jon. "How's the pain?" she asked, turning on her headlamp and directing the short beam at his injured leg.
"It only hurts when I move," he replied blandly, his voice laced with pain.
She took off the pack from her back and fished out the small field first aid kit. "Here." She gave him four aspirins and the water canteen. "This should at least take the edge off. Sorry, but we can't risk anything stronger."
He just nodded and pulled his scarf from his face and greedily drank the tablets down, any bit of relief was welcome. She took off her outer gloves, leaving her in her more manageable fleece pair; and he grunted through his clenched teeth as she carefully untied the blood-sodden scarf wrapped around the arrow shaft and around his thigh.
"So, how does it look, doc?" he gasped as she inspected the flesh through the tear in his snow pants. The blood that had already soaked through was frozen, but the wound still seeped blood.
The arrow didn't go all the way through, which might not sound like it, but would have been the preferred option. If it had been, they could have just broken off the end of the shaft, and then pulled the rest of the arrow out through the other side; Jon's was imbedded.
"It didn't hit an artery," she told him. "So that's good."
"Anything else?" he said sarcastically. Jon watched her as she bit her lip. "Arya."
She sighed, and it was briefly visible past her lips. "It would have been better if it went all the way through, but it didn't. It's dangerous to try and remove it without me knowing what the arrowhead looks like, but it's probably worse if we just leave it in there."
"Okay..." he looked down at it with a craned neck for a long minute from where he lay on his right side. "So, we take it out." He said finally.
Arya looked at him. "Are you sure? Because... well, I'm not necessarily qualified for this kind of thing. I could just make it worse; I could nick something—you could bleed out and I wouldn't be able to stop it!"
He gave a dry huff of laughter. "I'm as sure as I can be." She still didn't look convinced and started to chew on her lip. "It has to be done, Arya. And I trust you more with this than myself. Get it out, and patch me up—I can't be out of commission; not with what's happening right now."
"Okay." She took a deep breath and stared at the wound before she gave her head a little shake. "Give me your headlamp." After some adjustment, he handed it to her and she secured in over her hood and settled it next to her own already trained on his leg. "If we're gonna go through with this, then I'm going to give you something stronger than those aspirin, okay?"
"But I thought you-"
"I changed my mind."
"Reassuring," he deadpanned.
She ignored him and got out the single shot field morphine; it wasn't enough to knock him out completely, but it would be damn close. "This is going to hurt like a bitch, Jon. Trust me, you're gonna want it." She tore the hole in the pant leg around the wound wider so that she could see it properly and he shivered at the invasion of cold before he yelped as she jabbed him with the needle. But then he moaned in somewhat of a relief as the throbbing, burning, stabbing pain seemed to let up more than a notch as the morphine worked its magic almost instantly and he laid back in the snow.
She gave him no more than a glance before she turned to her work; she needed to get this done before that morphine wore off.
She snapped on some latex gloves that were in the kit, over her fleece ones; this had to be as sterile as she could make it so that Jon could avoid getting infection. She dabbed at the wound with antiseptic whips and his leg twitched. "You gotta keep a still as possible, Jon."
"I will, don't worry." He told her tersely. "Just do it already."
There was a short disposable plastic-handled scalpel in the kit and she took that out. "Alright, here we go." She placed her right hand on Jon's thigh to help keep it steady (because even with the morphine shot, he was going to sure as hell feel this anyways), and carefully lined up the blade with the end of the tear in his flesh and pressed, cutting it a centimetre, widening it. Jon gave a grunt, his leg tense, but he didn't move and she did the same thing on the other side. She wiped away the fresh blood, clearing her view, even as more bubbled up. This was the part the was really going to hurt like hell. "This is gonna hurt—badly." She warmed.
"I'm ready!" he told her.
She pushed on either side of the wound, stretching it open and he groaned. She needed to clear the arrowhead's path so that it didn't tear the inside of his leg (his muscles etc.) to shreds. She grabbed hold the shaft, and carefully started to pull it out from the pool of blood that filled the open wound and he cried out, but true to his word, he held still. It had been buried almost four inches into his muscled thigh. "It's out!" she pulled it free and instantly pressed pads to the wound, trying to staunch the new blood flow a bit as Jon shook underneath her. "I'm gonna have to stitch it up."
Jon nodded. "Try not to leave me hideously scarred," he gasped.
"We wouldn't want that," she agreed. She pressed the lips of his wound together, and gave him four stitches for good measure in the 2 1/2 inch wound. She cleaned it with a wipe, and put some extra pads on it before wrapping about half his thigh in gauze to secure the wound and compensate for the rip she had to tear bigger in his snow pants, his uniform and thermal wear. "Finished." She snapped off the latex gloves. He gave a chocked grunt as she helped him sit up, and propped him knee on a small mound of snow. "You okay?"
He nodded, his breath wobbling in the air in front of his face, his cheeks pale under his dark beard that had nothing to do with the cold. "I think I'll live."
She gave him a MRE and the canteen, made sure that Ygritte was still out, and took her Remington to go check the perimeter. It wasn't like she could see far in this blizzard, but it looked like things were clear at the moment. While this place was good shelter from the storm, and a hiding place from the enemy, it also meant they were like fish in a barrel.
After a bit, she went back to find Ygritte moaning lowly under the wind, and Jon in the same spot, his pain-lined expression hidden behind his scarf, his brown eyes trained across on their prisoner. Arya's own cheeks were stiff and frozen from the cold, so much for holding onto her latest scarf; she was just going to have to do without and hope that she didn't lose her nose to frostbite like that one half-breed that she had killed.
"How you doing?" she murmured from in front of him, looking down at his injured leg. There was some spotting through the bandage, but that was normal and to be expected—unless he was bleeding internally, that is. That would be something to really worry about, and something that she couldn't solve out here in the Neutral Zone, beyond the Beyond, and it wouldn't be something that she would discover until it was too late and Jon bleed-out, or more, bleed-in. Stop creating problems that don't exist yet, idiot, she mentally beratted herself.
"Okay," he told her. "I'm starting to get used to the pain."
She nodded and looked over at the Wildling princess as she put her bound hand to her head, awakening, but still half emerged. The time was narrowing.
"What are we going to do with her?" Jon asked, his mind on the same subject. "If she really was part of this attack-"
"The plan is still the same," she told him firmly. "But no more mister-nice-guy, we're gonna get some answers right now whether she wants to give them to us or not." Jon didn't protest as she started across the small space towards the other woman who started to push herself up.
Arya quickly corrected that with a boot to the shoulder, and a grunt from the reciever, back on the ground again. She kept the boot in place, remembering her thought that Ygritte was nothing but dirt on the bottom of her boots, and the corner of her lips curved imperceptibly upward at the thought.
Ygritte stared up at her through amber tinted goggles with a blue gaze that wasn't that dissimilar from the Wildling-White-Walker half-breed, all but the glowing part that was. Arya reached down and pulled the scarf down to her pointed chin and purposefully made sure the beam from her headlamp pointed in her eyes.
"Did you lead us into that ambush?" Arya questioned.
Ygritte just gave her a slow blink through the goggles.
The brunette quietly grit her teeth. "I asked you a question, now answer it! Did you intentionally lead us into that ambush?"
Ygritte just looked at her with a bored expression that just ticked the younger woman off. Arya took her boot from her shoulder and dropped none-to-gently down on Ygrittes chest (much as Tanner had done to her what seemed like forever ago when she was training), and watched a condensed cloud of breath leave her lips forcefully. Let's see how bored she looked when the Night Wolf was finished with her. She pulled the dagger from her thigh and twirled it expertly in the palm of her gloved hand and pressed the point against the woman's pale cheek.
"Do you think I'm playing with you, is that it? You can call me a troll all you want, but you're my prisoner, now." She scoffed and pressed the sharp tip of her dagger into the flesh underneath, breaking the skin just enough to make a ruby bead of blood well up. "Qhorin said that you were a princess to the Wildlings, but al I se beneath me is nothing but a... Wildling Whore." She said it deliberately slow, annunciating each syllable, her lips twisted. For whatever reason, this insult always set the Wildling off, and though she didn't react in a grand way, her lips tightened and her eyes narrowed, and that was exactly what Arya was looking for. "Now, if you don't want me to carve it into your pretty-whore face, then answer the fucking question: Did you lead us in that ambush?"
Arya waited a long minute, never taking her eyes from the blue ones underneath her.
"No." She finally answered. Arya narrowed her eyes and pressed harder on her dagger, more blood welled and her assaulted cheek twitched in response. "Press that all ya like, carve it int' m' flesh. My answer's still th' same... No, y'ugly wench, I didn't lead us into a ambush."
"Then where were you leading us?"
"To where ya wanted t'go." Arya waited. "Where Halfhand tol' me to take ya—the-King-in-the-North, Mance Rayder."
"And who attacked us?"
"Proly a huntin' party that we jus' happened across."
"Uh-huh." Arya replied, sitting back on the woman's chest and taking the knife from her, but not getting up. She wasn't sure if Ygritte was telling the truth or not, but if she was on the Wall's side, she supposed it made sense and they didn't know that they had their precious princess and that was why they fired. "I'll accept that... for now." And finally, she pushed herself roughly from the woman; something that she also experienced from her mentor.
She gave the prisoner a MRE from her pack and took one for herself; she broke a little fast for the Night Wolf's taste. "So, what do you think?" Arya asked Jon after she sat down next to him.
His eyes never left Ygritte. "We'll just see where things are after we find Qhorin and Tanner."
-tbc-
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Note:
Okay, so for this chapter I have been having some major writer's block [wish I could tell you that I suddenly got a life, but that would be a lie], which hasn't seemed to be happening much since I started The Wall Military Academy trilogy, but seemed to plague me for this chapter. Like I said before, I just made it all the more complicated form myself, lol, but it'll be worth it in the eventual end, right?
The Key:
'Neutral Zone' = The space where the Wildling Clans made their home, the space after the Wall's Beyond and before the boarder of the Land of Always Winter.
Stark Notes:
~ Arya, Jon, Tanner and Qhorin head out beyond the Fence into the Neutral Zone with the Wildling princess as their prisoner and potential bargaining chip to end this war between the Wildlings and the Wall before it can truly begin, but are ambushed.
~ Qhorin and Tanner get separated from the trio during the attack and are currently MIA [missing in action] (not presumed dead).
~ Arya questioned Ygritte about her allegiance, but does not get a straight answer and the Wildling claims that she wasn't part of it, but Night Wolf is still suspicious.
Thanks for Reading!
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