Epilogue: Walder Frey Part II

A/N: Apologies if Lord Walder's voice is off. He's just so narsty that I couldn't make myself re-watch his stuff enough times to get it right.

Walder Frey was old. She'd known he was old – the entire plan depended on him being old! – but it was still strange to see him propped up in bed, wrinkly face and white stringy hair, sitting there looking like a harmless, sour old man.

She wished he wasn't wearing nightclothes. Walder Frey was an evil she'd lived with for near two years now and she expected... more. He looked pathetic.

She was still deciding what to do. They'd taken her poisoned pin away, which certainly qualified as something going wrong. As per the Hound's instructions she was supposed to just keep her mouth shut and fuck Lord Walder, and start again tomorrow thinking of a new plot.

Or, if she couldn't bear to do that, she was supposed to give him her true name and let herself be taken prisoner, and just wait for the Hound to get her out somehow.

She didn't really want to do either of those things.

"Well?" Walder Frey said. "Come closer, girl. These eyes aren't what they used to be. Let's see what you've got under there, hm?"

She hated him so much she was shaking as she reached for her laces. Her innocent-maid face held, but not by much. He complained when she peeled the dress down off her shoulders. "I've got great-granddaughters with bigger tits than that! How old are you?"

"Twelve and a half, my lord. I've just... I've just flowered." Covering herself up with her hands, the way she'd practiced, was a very good idea: he was making her feel dirty just by looking.

"Well, you'll be maiden, at least," he laughed in his awful thin old-man voice. "Nice and tight. You wouldn't believe some of the sluts who've tried to pass themselves off. Like I wouldn't know! Now come on: let's see you."

She walked around naked in front of her friends without a second thought, but now it was almost impossible to make herself let go of the dress and let it fall away. He was beckoning, licking his dry old lips. His vile greedy eyes were on her, all over her, making her skin crawl, peeling her apart. She realized suddenly that those same greedy eyes had watched her mother and Robb-...

She knew at once that there was nothing to do but kill him. Now.

She walked slowly over to the bed, and without a word climbed up on top of him – to his cackling delight. She could smell him. The Hound's breath always stank of wine but this was worse. Old and rotted. She ignored it and leaned in anyway.

She sealed over his mouth with hers, like a kiss, but then sucked the breath from his lungs. That way, he couldn't even scream when she pushed her fingers into his greedy eyes.

He flailed and knocked her hands away pretty fast, but now that it was begun she'd figure a way to do it somehow. She knew where his throat was and even without the stiletto she still had her teeth. When she tried to dive for him, though, he grabbed her neck, clamping down harder than the Hound ever had in practice. She couldn't breathe.

Didn't care, though. She was stuffing his mouth up and her other fingers were finding his eye socket again, and that was more important than breathing. There was flesh by her mouth and she snapped at it. Got it between her jaws. That's it, wolf girl. Like that.

The moon was bright enough to show that the figure coming down the path was too small to be an adult. The wolf girl. Definitely the wolf girl. Her gait was slow and staggering, and her arms were wrapped around her middle.

She could be hurt. Not hurt badly; she'd walked too far and too well for that, but still. He got up and went to her, refusing to run but then he was running, in all his armor no less. He was completely winded when he reached her.

"Girl," he gasped, trying to catch his breath. His ears were buzzing; he had to squat down or risk falling. "You all right?"

She raised her head and in the moonlight it almost looked like shadows... but he'd seen enough corpses in the moonlight to know better. He touched her cheek and tasted his fingers. Yes. And she was smeared with it forehead to chin. "Arya?"

He reached out to take her by the shoulder and shake her, but it was skin he grabbed, wet and sticky, and he looked her up and down then and discovered that she was naked as her nameday, painted and spattered everywhere with something, and he didn't bother tasting this time because the way she was trembling told him more than enough.

"Come on, girl." He did shake her then, short and hard. "If you've got wounds I'll dress them. Tell me."

She whimpered and pulled away. "No. No, I'm-... fine." The words were hoarse and indistinct. She cleared her throat. "My jaw hurts."

"He break it for you?" He reached for it to try and tell for himself, but she pulled away even more violently.

"Don't touch me."

"You're cut," he said, without touching. "Above your eye." He could see from the way the moonlight shined off it: her scalp had split open at the hairline, and fresh blood was running down her face. "Where else? There's a lot of blood. Yours or his?"

Her skin had been clammy when he'd touched it, but that might be just from walking through the night wet and naked.

"His. Some at least. Lots." She grinned, and her mouth was dark and he had a good idea of why. She started to giggle. Clapped a hand over her mouth to stop it-... and then hissed.

Her knuckles glistened with cuts – she'd probably hurt her hand. He sighed. He'd told her not to use her fists. As soon as she was in shape for a lecture she was getting one.

"I killed him," she said. Her words were so garbled he could hardly understand her. "He fought me but I'm all right. He doesn't hit as hard as you." She started laughing again – then coughing. "My throat hurts though. From choking. His throat I bit. At first it wasn't... but I got my fingers in and then it... really bled. And once he was dead I was... biting and... ripping pieces off him. I got to bone in some places. If I was a proper wolf I would have just eaten the whole thing."

That, perhaps, was what was wrong with her jaw: she'd been gnawing on corpses all night. "Frey meat would make even a proper wolf puke," he said calmly. "Let's rinse your mouth out and get you cleaned up."

She backed away and snarled at him like an animal, showing teeth. "I don't want to rinse. I can still taste him."

He sighed. "Girl..."

"Don't call me girl!" Her voice cracked, uneven. She coughed again and wiped at her bleeding face – with her bloody hand, so it didn't much help. "I just- I was-..." She turned away and he saw that there were streaks and smudges all down her back, too. What had she done, rolled in it?

"What's the matter?" he said, when she kept shaking. "Are you wounded somewhere?"

She shrugged, shook her head. Not really, that meant.

"Did he rape you?"

Shook her head.

"Scare you?"

Shook her head.

"And you did kill him, didn't you?" Nod. "That's what you wanted. Then what in the seven hells is the problem?"

She sniffled hard and coughed. "It didn't help," she explained at last, her voice grating and failing. "My mother and my brother are still dead."

Still dead? "Well you didn't think they were going to rise up from the grave, did you?" he laughed, before he caught himself. "No- girl-... Stop, damn you, stop it."

She was marching away, head high. Moving fast but unsteady – walking on an injury, it looked like. He should stop her before she made it worse.

He chased after her and grabbed her arm. (And what he grabbed was wet: not dried blood, but open wounds. Frey must have scratched her deep.) "Girl."

"Shut up," she rasped. "I'm not an idiot. You know what I meant."

"Yes yes all right. We can't stay here though. Come on."

"Fuck off."

She wouldn't mount her own horse, so he wrapped her in his cloak and hauled her up to ride double on his. She fought a while but soon gave up.

"I want-..." Her voice was only a whisper now; her throat must be a fucking ruin. It sounded like she was still talking, but he couldn't make out the words.

He winced. "Your mother?" he guessed.

She nodded hard.

Too bad; she's dead. What the fuck do you want me to do about it? Wrong answer. He thought of something a little better. "I know. Weep if you like."

She did weep, wildly. Not for long, though; she became an armful of dead snoring weight in minutes.

Once it went from full dark to grayish light, he stopped to take a better look at the girl. She was a mess. The cut on her scalp had clotted finally, but her hair was clumpy with blood. There were scratches down her forehead and cheek; Frey had probably clawed for her eyes. Her lip was split – at best; she might even have torn all the way through her mouth at the corner there. He couldn't tell; there was too much caked blood. Her nose was swollen some and had bled too, didn't look crooked at least though. Swelling over one cheekbone.

When he went to unwrap the cloak from her, she woke up instantly and squawked in pain. "It's all right," he said fast. "It's just me, it's S-..." He tripped up on his own name, realizing suddenly that she never used it. "Your bloody guard dog. You're all right, I think. I just want to make sure. Couldn't tell in the dark."

She clung to the cloak and whimpered when he tugged – no wonder; it was probably fused to her with blood. "I'm. Fine." She had to croak the words out one at a time. "Let. Go."

"This is a bad fucking time to discover your womanly modesty," he growled at her. "We're going to find water to clean off in, and if you don't want me to check you over you're going to do it yourself."

She shook her head hard.

"Girl-... All right," he sighed at last – she looked so beat-up that he didn't have the heart to bully her. "For now just show me the worst one."

For a moment he feared she wouldn't cooperate, and he'd be doing it by force after all, but at last she shifted inside her cocoon and extended one skinny little arm. He winced at the huge patch of mangled flesh on her forearm. "Bite?" It was bad. There were strips of skin and more dangling off her.

She nodded. "It's- how I- kept him quiet," she rasped.

A worthy goal, but she couldn't find anything better to stuff his mouth with than her own body parts? But he kept the criticisms to himself for the time being. "That will fester if we don't clean it," he said instead. "Sit and hold still."

"It'll fester anyway." She sounded as if she didn't care, and she didn't fight him as he washed it out. (He didn't like that – the wine and the touching should be horribly painful.) "You should sear it," she whispered dully. "I know you won't though."

He ignored that and just wrapped bandages. "That'll hold you til we get home to the maesters."

"I'm not going home," she said.

"Why the fuck not?"

"I can't go back to Sansa right now." She sucked at nothing and made a face. "I've still got bits of Walder Frey in my teeth."

He held the wine out to her. "Rinse?"

"I don't want to rinse. Shut up and leave me alone."

"All right."

"Want to wash today?"

"No."

"Want some clothes?"

"No."

"How's the arm?"

"Fine."

"Hand?"

"Fine."

"Today I'm doing your damn face. You don't want to look like me. And I don't want you to look like me; I'm the one has to look at you. Sit down."

…

"Are you going to ask how bad it is?"

...

"Well in case you're interested: it could be worse. But this one here will scar. This as well, probably. And that half a tooth won't grow back. Does this hurt?"

"No."

"That's good at least. Maybe not broken."

"It doesn't matter."

TBC.

So, it looks like their patented Serial Murder As Grief Counseling strategy might not be as effective as they'd hoped. Who knew?!

Also, I am still dying of sadness after the episode this week. Waaaaaaah! Although he did get an amazing fight scene. Like damn.