A/N: So yes, this one took me a bit, I got caught when I had to think about how to board frozen ships, and also there was a 20 day trip to the Philippines a week or two after the last chapter. I'm still not entirely back into a writing schedule yet, so shooting for six weeks for the next, but perhaps I will surprise even myself and get back to my four week posting schedule. After all, we've finally transitioned into Act III with this chapter, so everything should be easier going forward.
Or at least I hope it will...
Ch 24 - Escape
He spun the fiery brand of Longclaw about him, gauging distance, before turning to spare one last glance towards his half sibling-
Cousin, if he believed the story of his birth, but to Jon, Arya would always be his little sister.
Saw her glance back, one final look before Ghost took her beyond his sight.
"Fair winds, little sister, fair winds."
Jon turned his attention back to the fight, the first of the White Walkers had come close enough to begin their swings and he stepped and parried in earnest. They were fast, but so was he, and the length of a bastard sword was nearly unmatched by the arsenal the Others regularly used.
"The night is dark and full of terrors," he informed them, blocking high before dropping down on one knee and cutting across a luminescent midsection. His target vanished, with a high shriek and a fog of mist.
"I am the sword in the darkness," Jon told another, swiveling a parry into a downward chop before he caught a shoulder plate and sank through. The armor shattered, then smoked with the rest of the body.
"I am the shield that guards the realms of men." He said, taking a twisting step back and letting an axe swing nearly graze him. The ones with axes were stronger, but always slower, and he took the opportunity to strike at an exposed neck, separating head from body before both dissolved into nothing.
And so it went, until all the White Walkers had been dispatched in turn, but the wights took a far different strategy. When struck with Longclaw, they would only be cut or cleaved, with the wounds catching fire afterwards. They would not ignite and vanish instantly, like their swifter counterparts.
A few had fallen to his blade, or succumbed to the fire that engulfed them, but many more still came. His swings were countered by leather and mail, and what they lacked in speed they made up for in sheer numbers. They massed about him, some missing limbs and on fire, but still moving forward, Jon felt hemmed in, with barely enough room to turn, much less strike. Escape was futile, he would be cut down by daggers in the dark once more.
As they piled upon him, he wished only that Melisandre could be with him for his final moments.
There was a flash and a spark of fire, and the weight that had been pressing down on him vanished into a haze of fog and steam. Flames licked across the ground. Jon stepped away from the burning earth quickly, not because of the heat, but for the sake of his boot soles. Though he was fireproof, his clothing was not, and it was a lesson he had learned through far too many costly wardrobe errors.
Jon sheathed Longclaw and looked around, catching the telltale red silk that could only cover one person. Melisandre was watching him as she leaned against a burning tree. A knowing smile played about her lips, red and inviting as any ember on a cold night.
"Lead us from the darkness, my Lord." She stepped forward and opened her arms wide. "Fill our hearts with fire, so we may walk your shining path."
He never knew if Melisandre was being serious when she spoke about her god, some things she took as unbending laws of nature, offended if he dared to question her, others, she merely smiled at, as if the subject was a jape meant only for her.
Jon had given up trying to separate the two long ago, and simply accepted whatever she chose to tell him. It was much easier that way.
She knew too much for him to doubt her. It would be during battle, the odds stacked against him to the point where one misstep could mean his death, or worse. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, she would find him, and a wash of purifying flame tilted fate back in his favor.
It was strange, and frightening if Jon stopped to think about it, so he didn't. He had numerous willing ignorances when it came to Melisandre, her knack for getting him out of tight spots was just one of many.
He walked towards her, stopping when he was within easy reach. She dropped her outstretched arms and tilted her head, considering him.
"That was foolish of you." She chastised him.
"There was someone I had to take care of." Jon explained, stepping forward.
Melisandre was a creature of vibrance and life, more so than anything else that dwelt this far north, and she fascinated Jon to distraction when not in the midst of fighting. He pulled his gloves off and dropped them into the snow, they were mostly for appearance when he wasn't fighting, the cold barely touched him anymore.
Jon curled a finger and tucked it under Melisandre's chin, lifting it ever so slightly before he leaned in for a kiss. She tasted of warmth, and spices whose names were always on the tip of his tongue but never fully remembered.
"But you knew that."
She made a nonchalant gesture. "I saw a grey girl riding hard to the north, did you see the cage that held them before the dragon snatched it away?"
Jon scowled as he remembered, nodding.
"Battered and broken, that was as dead a horse as any I have seen." She bent low and carefully collected his gloves from the ground. She kept them in one hand, taking Jon's own in the other. "It was your real sister, was it not?" She smiled and began to walk, setting a brisk pace despite her casual conversation. "Those grey Stark eyes are certainly attractive, and quite hard to miss…"
"You saw her?" Jon asked. "Not in the flames, you truly saw her?"
"Do you doubt my visions again, Lord Snow?" Her tone was neutral and Jon had no idea whether she was angry, or simply teasing him.
Flustered and tongue tied, Jon failed to answer.
"I did see her, with these faulty, shallow, near blind eyes non believers trust in so much. She made it past the worst of the fighting, Ghost was the true spirit of agility."
"Then to the docks?" Jon asked, impatient and hopeful.
"I did not follow her that far," Melisandre told him, "you had greater need of me."
"I was not doing that poorly," he argued, "I dispatched the White Walkers."
"And despite your victory, you allowed yourself to be overcome by wights ." She reminded him.
There were three long blasts on the horn, and they both cast a glance in the direction of the ships. Jon saw the problem first and broke into a run, drawing Longclaw as he let go of Melisandre's hand.
The defensive line had broken, and the enemy were swarming the docks.
"We will need much more than Lightbringer to make our way beyond that."
Jon took her words with him as he joined the fray, hoping she would find a way to do just that.
The crunch of snow gave way to the creak of ice swollen boards as Ghost made it to their makeshift harbor. He slowed to a stop and Arya managed to dismount, having regained most of the sensation in her limbs. Before she did anything else, she needed to locate a weapon. Her daggers would be as useful against these things as her sword was, but the Wildlings must have been using something else if they had lasted this long.
There was a body lying face down in the snow at the start of the dock, a weapon loosely clutched in deathgrip. She walked towards it and knelt to examine it, being no stranger to death or its corpses. The weapon was a crude club, with chunks of what could only be some type of shattered glass embedded into the wood. Dark brows knitted together in confusion, why would glass be important?
She tugged on it until the club came free, then began to stand up. The body stood up with her, bright blue eyes blazing in the darkness.
How could this be? The weaponry was obviously from Jon's supplies, since it was not the glowing blue she had just seen. There was no army she knew of that used anything like this. It had to be from a Wildling, which meant their own dead were now turning against them.
Arya hefted the club, feeling out the strange and uneven balance before she took a swing at her new enemy's unprotected head.
The fractured points sank in with a sodden thud. She jerked the club free and waited expectantly for it to burst into mist or flame or whatever it was that her special weapon was supposed to do.
A dark, half frozen sludge oozed out of the holes in the side of the White Walker's skull, but it kept coming towards her, unaffected and menacing.
Arya noticed it wore a mail vest, but its arms were only covered in fur and soft leather. She could try her bravo dagger, but that was mostly a defensive weapon, and meant for the piercing attacks of the water dance. Puncturing this foe had been of little use.
Reaching behind her, she looped her finger through the ring and twisted out the twin of Daenerys' blade. Arya lay it near the long bones of her forearm and swung out, using the additional force to cut.
The metal went through easily, and didn't shatter. It was almost too easy, and when the resistance she had been expecting wasn't there, Arya lost her balance and only quick footing saved her from falling headlong into the thing.
A hand fell, barely bleeding, and continued to move towards her alongside its owner.
How did they fight these things?
She took a step back and then launched a kick, knocking it back a few steps, but it kept coming. With such soft body parts, tearing this foe apart with her sword would have been little more than a targeting exercise, but she no longer had such a blade.
What to do, should she run? This White Walker was slow, but if she failed to stop one, what would happen when the other fallen allies rose or more came? Probably the same thing she had seen happen to Jon, and she had no flaming sword to call her own.
Arya's decision was made for her when a wild, throaty battlecry split the air and she saw a large warhammer strike her nemesis. The head spun off into the darkness, and the torso flew back, but the limbs remained, feebly wiggling in place.
"Y'all right thar, lass?" A large, bearded man asked her. "Y'are a lass, aren't cha?" He squinted in the darkness.
"For the time being, yes." Arya answered vaguely.
"Tormund Thunderfist." He introduced himself, extending the thundery appendage in greeting.
She took hold of his forearm and shook it, her hand barely able to wrap halfway around it. "Arya," she said of herself, "Arya Stark." There was no point in lying, not here, not if these people knew Jon.
His eyes widened and bushy eyebrows disappeared into his helm. "First I meet myself a queen, now I get a Stark beyond the Wall," he shook his head in consternation, "they'll call me Tall Talker fer th' honest truth."
"I came with a group of sailors on that queen's dragon." She mentioned. "You wouldn't happen to know which ships already have crew, would you?"
Tormund looked confused. "There's none as I can say, they're packed nice'n tight, but no crew."
"How can there be no crew?" Arya asked sharply, shrugging past Tormund and jogging further down the wooden planking, then stopped when she saw the problem.
A milling group of Wildlings and a handful of black clothed men that she assumed were part of the Watch milled about between the ships, some holding torches. Old Ben was shouting down to a few people that were almost willing to obey, but the rest looked on with hard, resistant eyes.
Arya heard Tormund's heavy footfalls catch up to her. "Let me guess," she said aloud, "the Wildlings don't take orders…"
"Not especially, no," Tormund said, "and it's a sure no if'n you call 'em Wildlings."
Arya turned to look at him. "What do you prefer instead?"
"Tormund, as I said." A broad grin flashed.
Arya took a deep, calming breath. "And if I were naming more than just Tormund Thunderfist…?"
"Oh, why din'chu say that before?" Tormund said, feigning enlightenment. "Them's the Free Folk."
"Tormund," she tried again, politely, "might I ask a favor?"
"Depends," Tormund looked at her, "is it a large favor?"
Arya hadn't spent countless hours playing the Lying Game and not learned to read hidden tells, this was an invitation to another time wasting trap. Were these stubborn, thick headed people really worth saving?
Jon and Daenerys thought so, and that had to be enough for the time being. She would play the game, she would play it and win.
"No, actually," she rounded on him and advanced, getting right up next to him at a distance that she hoped was uncomfortably so. "It's a small," Arya held up a hand and held two fingers apart, drawing them closer at every word, "tiny, slight, bit of a thing."
The Wildling's ego deflated considerably at this.
"You wouldn't mind boarding my ship with me, would you, Tormund?" Arya pulled out the few feminine wiles she had stored away for just such an occasion, even going so far as to bat her eyelashes. "Since it's such an insignificant favor."
"Which one's yers?" He asked, clearing his throat uncomfortably.
"Let's find out, shall we?" She walked, and Tormund followed.
She parted a group of Wildlings who seemed to be arguing about which ship would sink slowest. Arya looked at the vessels they had to work with.
It was a valid concern. The ships were half frozen, a quick look at the closest one revealed icicles dripping from the canvas and the deck faintly gleaming with a sheen that would prevent any sure footing.
If she couldn't do this, how were untrained Wildlings and the Watch supposed to?
She felt the bulk of Tormund behind her. "I hope you wore your good boots," she remarked loudly, "because that's our ship." Arya pointed to the ship she had just been looking at, icicles and all.
She felt eyes on her, and only the most strident of arguments still continued as she wrapped her gloved hand around the ice encased rope that lined the gangway.
Arya focused down to keeping her hand shut while trying to place the tips of her boots on the tiny wooden slats that still managed to peek up from the ice. She ignored the onlookers, and the quiet increased after each step she took. When she had made it halfway, only one voice could be heard still arguing, and the calm stillness that belonged to either No One or the water dancer came to the fore.
She could do this, felt the deep certainty of it within her.
Arya kept moving, one carefully placed footfall leading to another until her hide covered fingers slipped off the rope and she reached out, trying to grip the railing that surrounded the deck.
She failed, nearly sprawling as her palms slid out from under her and her right arm windmilled for balance. It gave her left the hair's breadth of time needed to free her sheathed dagger and slam it into the bannister top, the angled tip cracking the ice and splintering the wood beneath as the blade bit and held. Muscles tensed around the grip in long embedded memory as feet that could leap rooftops through a bitter storm found purchase beneath her.
A long exhale as the flurry of motion dissipated into equilibrium. She could do this, had done it, it seemed, but the others could not, the others needed help.
Sharp grey eyes hunted the deck, and found a shapeless bundle near the mainsail. The canvas was encased in ice, like everything else aboard, but beneath it…
Arya pressed a foot against the carved spindles of the railing. She pulled her dagger free and pushed off, dropping softly to her knees as she surged forward in a graceful glide across the deck.
The crystalline sheet fell away easily as she folded back the canvas and revealed her prize, a length of coarse, unfrozen rope. She looped it around the thick wood of the mast and tied a quick bowline.
"Tormund!" She shouted over her shoulder, finding another anchor to propel her back to the railing. "Prepare to make good on our bargain."
End of the rope in hand, she slid back to her starting position, considering the fastest way to return to the dock as she did.
It was insanely dangerous at worst, and irresponsibly foolhardy at best. Jon would have cuffed her for even thinking it after all he had risked for her mad dash to the pier, but it was the best she could come up with under the circumstances.
She gingerly wrapped the rope around her right hand, wincing as it brushed against her still healing injury. Sitting back a bit, Arya kicked her legs out to where the gangplank lay and hooked her bootheels around the outside edges.
It was no different than the countless times she had stolen a shield from the Great Hall to use as a sled, wasn't it?
She hoped so.
Arya kicked off with a wild yell, slipping down the icy ramp and gaining speed as she flew over the endless depths of freezing water that she was fervently not thinking about as she tried her best to also ignore the painful cramping of her legs. The strain of holding her in place and keeping her from skidding off the track and into the sea was almost too much for her when the rhythmic, jarring thuds of the raised treads stopped and she smacked into Tormund's waiting knees.
"Well, lass, seems you've brought me a present." Tormund reached down and unwound the rope from her trembling hands. He looked dubiously at the gangway and the twisted fiber in his hands, sighing deeply. "Guess I'll give it a go then, seeing as you've got work to do."
"Work?" Arya asked, not sure what he meant.
Tormund jerked his head towards the rest of the docked vessels. "Are my eyes lyin', or are there five more boats same as this'n?"
"There are…" Arya said slowly.
"Then I s'pose you'll have to pull that trick o' yours a few more times then, eh?" His craggy face broke into a smile, and he winked. "Any orders fer me once I'm up there?"
She stood up, thinking. "Find a way to walk across that deck and open the sails."
"Any ideas fer how to do that?" Tormund asked, one ruddy eyebrow rising.
"None." She breathed, getting ready to dash to the next icy ship. "That's why I'm asking you to."
With a wink of her own, she turned and made straightaway to the next gangplank.
She hadn't had this much fun in a while.
It wasn't until Arya was nearly finished that Tormund had a breakthrough. She had just shaken out her length of rope when his yell caught her attention. Arya turned to look, and noticed he had also attracted the interest of the slim lines of slowly moving Wildlings trying to make it to the relative safety of her ship and the other three she had scaled before this one. Panic gripped him as he slipped and fell into a storage keg, knocking it over. The sturdy wood cracked open under his immense weight, the top popping off to upend its contents across the deck.
Arya wrinkled her nose. Despite the cold evening air, and even as far away as she was, the familiar aroma of salted fish reached her, redolent of her varied lifespans in and about Braavos. Tormund tried to rise up, slipping down with a resounding thud as he lost his footing amid a small mountain of fish over the ice. He tried again, fell, tried, fell, and the corners of Arya's mouth curled up in amusement as she fought down a broader grin. Then Tormund stood up, unassisted by barrel or railing, and her jaw dropped. He crowed, the victorious 'har' ringing in the air, surefooted and tall as if he stood on dirt and rock instead of ice.
Salt. A whispered memory of the house staff of Winterfell scattering handfuls of shining white crystals across the stones and walkways. The crunch beneath the steady soles of Arya Underfoot as she dashed across the grounds and slashed at imaginary foes, no more afraid of falling than Bran was of heights.
Salt would save them, nearly all their food was preserved that way. Dropping the rope, she grabbed the railing and pushed off, using the extra momentum to power a kick into the slats of a nearby keg and punch a hole through the ice and wood. Kneeling, Arya reached in and pulled out a handful of salt, trying to avoid the meat packed within, they would need all the food they could salvage. She threw it across the entryway on the main deck, trying to spread it evenly. She cupped her hands and shouted into them.
"Throw salt on the ice," she suggested, because ordering them to was impossible, "the barrels are full of salt!" She repeated herself several times in multiple directions. It would have to do for now, Arya had one last ship to scale.
Grabbing up her rope once more, she sat back and kicked down the gangplank, sparing a glance towards the land side of the pier and almost immediately wishing she hadn't.
Their enemy was nearly upon them, White Walkers spilling out onto the frozen wood. Some were newly risen, fallen Wildlings that now marched to the beat of an otherworldly drum; others were partially decayed, their dangling limbs plodding forward by sheer enchantment. Whether former friend or decrepit foe, both held eyes of shining blue menace, the promise of conversion a worse fate than any torment dredged from the depths of the Seven Hells.
Arya's attention was divided as she raced down the ramp of the fifth ship, trying to form a plan while not falling to her death, when she first heard the screams. Cornered by the horde of animate dead, the Wildlings swarmed the ropes and her heart sank as she heard not one but several splashes, terror overthrowing caution as the impatient refugees created more enemies in their haste. She kicked her heels into the frosty dock and stood, desperately hoping that whatever resurrected the chilled and drowning bodies didn't know how to swim.
She pelted towards the shoreline, doubling her effort as she heard Tormund shout her name.
Their ship was the closest to the advancing enemy line, and because it had been the first she had scaled, it was already mostly full of people.
Terrified, trapped, screaming people.
Arya drew her knife and bravo dagger, sprinting for all she was worth as she nervously searched the lines for any ethereal, steel shattering blue blades.
There were two at the back, rapidly moving to the front, and she ran past the entrance to her ship, resigned to her fate.
"Tormund!" She called out behind her. "Get those sails down and cut the lines or we'll wish we were just dead!"
Stopping to make a stand and buy them time, Arya took a modified duelist's stance to accommodate her shortened blades. Her blood surged and her heart thundered in her ears as she waited for them to come at her.
Dany would be so angry with her, but she would understand.
Eventually.
Thankfully for her steel, the slower White Walkers closed first, she felt leather and bone cleave beneath her keen edges with little more resistance than parting water. She crouched and drove upwards, spilling putrid, half rotted gut ice from a falling body. At the height of her extension she caught sight of those cursed blue blades again.
Arya sighed, and prepared herself for the inevitable end. Maybe, if she tried hard enough, if she focused and moved with every ounce of speed she had, she could wrest the weapon from them and use it as her own.
A memory of the debilitating cold exuded by the blade gave her pause, but what other choice did she have?
The thump of her heart intensified, and it took her a moment to realize that the sound was coming from outside of her body.
From overhead.
Drogon. Arya realized, tilting her head back to look as she slashed off another body part. She could see the Targaryen queen, short lengths of silver white hair cascading around her head in the rushing dive.
Could Daenerys see her? She remembered the speed of the fall, the rushing pull of the wind at her whole body.
No, she wouldn't be seen, she'd be obliterated with the rest of their enemy.
Her decision made, Arya kicked off the still fighting corpse and slid backwards across the ice, using the momentum to turn and force her feet to grip the treacherous surface of the dock.
She felt the beginnings of a warm breeze on her face and realized belatedly that she wouldn't be fast enough. Arya sifted through her thoughts, trying to find a meaningful way to say goodbye to Dany, if only in her mind.
Something inhumanly strong tackled her from behind, she thought back to the advancing blades and the possibility of her death taking the form of something far worse than oblivion chilled her worse than any cold.
Taken to the ground, her arms pinned beneath her, she could only pray for the sweet kiss of fire to free her from the horrors of joining the blue eyed fiends.
She waited, for the painful shock of cold and the blessed cleansing flame, but all she felt was weighty pressure and the acrid scent of singed fur.
Muffled screeching reached her, the delightful, horrifying shrieks she had experienced watching Daenerys command Drogon's breath or Jon swing his flaming sword into the scourge that tried to annihilate them.
The weight vanished and a large but familiar muzzle wedged beneath Arya, trying to lift her slack body. She gripped handfuls of thick fur and pulled herself upright, sparing a moment to bury her face in the direwolf's coat.
Nymeria. Arya spent a moment luxuriating in survival and reuniting with her wolf before she looked back to where the White Walkers had been swarming moments before. All that remained was blackened and steaming wood. She looked down and saw wet planking beneath her boots, realizing the ice had melted under Drogon's onslaught. There was a flash of motion as canvas unfurled all around her, the fire had freed the ships as well. The motion on board was reminiscent of a normal crew of sailors, inexperienced sailors, but sailors nonetheless.
A phalanx of wolves led a group of Watch and Wildlings rushed through the charred massacre and swamped the dock. Nymeria howled in greeting and Arya squinted, seeing a smallish body, capped with an unruly mess of auburn hair, whose arms locked around the neck of a silver direwolf, its coat nearly twin to Nymeria's.
Bran's wolf.
Bran was alive.
Not far behind was another crowd of White Walkers. Even with the dragonfire provided thaw, there would not be nearly enough time for everyone to board the vessels and cast off before they were cut down and converted.
Just when she thought all hope was lost, she spotted Jon's flaming sword, bright amidst the gloom of the chill sky. Near him was a woman dressed all in crimson silk, with hair so vibrant it made the Tully red of her mother and siblings look drab by comparison. She raised her hands and shouted a word Arya didn't recognize. A wall of fire shot up, separating their people from most of the White Walkers and giving them time to board the ships. She watched them run past her, the majority getting as far away from their enemy as possible before taking the time to race up the gangway. It meant that most people overlooked the vessel she claimed as her own.
Except for the wolves.
Bran's wolf pelted up the walkway, followed close behind by two small people with eyes so green she barely noticed anything else about them, except that one was a girl. She was strong and lanky as Arya, with a glass tipped spear strapped to her back. She moved with the grace of a hunter despite the awkward weight of the boy she supported, his arm sprawled across her shoulders as his legs feebly pumped alongside her.
Ghost refused to board, skittering back and forth at the base of the ramp. Jon had probably told him to leave in spite of his instinct to protect, and he was waging a war against himself because of it.
Jon and that strange red woman were the only things fighting off several dozen of the slow, lumbering White Walkers, and all around them the fire licked and spread across the quickly drying wood. They retreated as Jon slashed and parried and his crimson accomplice drove the flames ever higher. White Walkers fell one and two at a time, but it never seemed to be enough to grant them a clear escape. There was a crash and the sound of shattering wood, a barrel full of something shining and viscous was flung impossibly far from the docked vessel and landed midway between Jon's retreat and where she stood alongside Nymeria and the prancing Ghost. Her eye caught the arc of a lit torch as it was flung out into the spreading pool, instantly igniting it.
They must have found a cask of lamp oil.
A collective cheer came from her ship, a distinctive 'har' strident amongst the ruckus. Flames surged, a charring holocaust encasing the White Walkers from both sides. Unfortunately, they had also trapped Jon and the mysterious woman.
A spark of indomitable will lit her from within. Bran was alive, and Jon was still alive, at least for the moment, and they were going to get out of here no matter how many of those undead things came for them so they could talk about everything they had just learned and make sense of it all.
"Ready to lose some more fur?" She turned to her wolf, who looked back with perfect understanding. She dropped her head a little to accommodate her slight rider as Arya leapt and climbed the rest of the way, slinging a leg over the top of Nymeria's shoulders and settling in before tucking her body close to the back of her wolf's neck, her view of their intended targets bracketed by fluffy grey ears.
A quick glance and her ship was the only one left, the members of the Watch and Wildlings weren't nearly as idiotically heroic as her family seemed to be. The heat from the blaze rose in the cold air and kicked up a brisk wind. The sails strained like aurochs in their traces, taut lines pulling hard against the disintegrating wood. She spotted a wild red beard towering above everyone on deck.
"Tormund!" She roared. "If I don't make it back, cut the lines and get them out of here!" Ghost still looked close to bolting, Arya lowered her voice, but kept an edge of steely command. "Ghost, stay with Bran, I'll be back with Jon." A flash of defiant teeth as his muzzle wrinkled. She didn't have time for this.
"Go!" She shouted the order and pointed to the gangway, Nymeria almost turning to face her smaller brother.
The white wolf shrank back, chastised, before slinking away and loping up the ramp to the ship.
She heard a scream and suddenly Nymeria was running, smooth bounds that ate up the distance between Arya and her brother in a matter of strides. A leap through the air, the heat of the flame easily felt through the thick soles of her boots. Burnt fur tickled her nose and she silently promised to make it up to Nymeria with a large, juicy cut of a fresh kill once they were out of the land Beyond the Wall and safe.
But first Jon needed to be saved, as he had saved her.
A White Walker came for them, a single bite fragmented its skull and shoulders and they fell to the floor in chunks. She scanned the writhing mass, confused when Jon's sword was not easily spotted.
In the middle of a crowd, a newly risen Wildling suddenly caught fire, and she was able to piece together what had happened. The scream had been from the red woman at his side. Jon was standing above her crumpled form, pressed from all sides by slowly shuffling corpses clumsily swinging bladed weapons with deadly intent.
"Nymeria!" She hissed, and the wolf grabbed a White Walker around its midsection, jerking her head across with such force that it bowled several of Jon's attackers over and gave them an opening.
"Jon!" Arya screamed at him, needing her brother to come with her, unwilling to lose him, to face that empty, black well of grief that would swallow her whole without him. She reached out as he sheathed his flaming sword, but instead of taking her hand, he pulled the strange woman upright, wrapping his hands around her waist and lifting her as high as he could manage. Stunned, Arya reacted, hauling the semi-conscious woman up with her and throwing her across her lap, keeping her left hand gripped tightly around the ornately tooled leather belt she had about her waist.
Then Jon fell underneath a crowd of pale, blue eyed demons and all she could remember was screaming his name over and over again as she reached into the melee and waited for the familiar feel of his hand in her own, not caring about the blades that cut into her wrist and arm.
For Jon, she would wait forever.
Fingers closed over her own, holding tight with a grip she knew instead of the aching, terrible strength of the White Walkers' frozen hands.
"Nymeria, go," she pleaded, and the wolf backed away. Arya pulled with her legs, refusing to be unseated or abandon this woman that somehow meant more to Jon than his own life.
Then his mottled hair emerged, familiar and not, alongside widened eyes that somehow mirrored her own and Dany's all at once. Then two hands clasped her arm and she leaned back, tugging with everything within her as she hauled Jon up alongside her.
Nymeria, sensing the additional rider and the success of their mission, bulled through a crowd of White Walkers and began to run, knocking shambling corpses left and right in their haste, and then the wall of fire rose up before them. It seemed diminished, compared to what it had been before. The direwolf leapt and they flew, cold air negated by the flames below them and the warmth of victory.
One long stride, then another, each step breaking a link of the chain their foes had tried to bind them with. They were within reach of the ship when a fierce gale stirred from nothing. Arya chanced a look back, and watched the fire gutter to nothing in the intense wind. Blue bladed warriors led the charge, dashing through the formerly impenetrable defense as their slower allies followed. What had been her ship tossed in a tempest's fury, the sails a hair's breadth from tearing away and falling into the ocean.
"We're not going to make it, are we?" Jon asked quietly from his place behind her, his voice held a gentle resignation.
Not even the dark gift of the Many-Faced God could save them now.
"Tormund!" She screamed, fighting off the beginnings of panic. "Cut the lines! Cut the lines and sail!"
"Ah'll not kill ye!" He refused.
"Go or they'll take us all!" Arya pleaded, her voice hoarse. She heard the popping snap of the dock ropes being cut, one at a time. After everything she'd done, it had all come up short.
She had come all this way just to fail.
But Nymeria had other ideas. The direwolf didn't stop, didn't slow, did nothing but speed up until Arya's vision clouded and blurred the same way they had in her in the airborne trip that rushed them here to begin with. Nymeria was sprinting now, her goal the wooden gangway that lead up to the ship. Tormund had let it stand, refusing to give up on them entirely. The base supports skittered across the wooden dock as the ship slipped away from them, the gap of icy water between them and safety increasing with every passing moment. The thin platform had nearly dropped off when world tilted around them.
Nymeria had made the ramp with no time left to actually climb it.
Speed and momentum were the only allies left available, and the direwolf used them, springing off the flexing wood and sailing through the air, paws stretched out in front of her as if she could glide like Dany's children.
A smashing sound as they half landed, half fell onto the deck and railing. Desperate but friendly hands gripped her and it took all of her self control remember she was now safe and not to fight them off.
As safe as anyone could be, on a ship in the middle of a wintry Northern sea with an inexperienced crew and little idea of where they should go next.
Arya stood, trying her best not to tremble as everything that had just happened washed over her.
It was all right now, they had made it. Nymeria shook herself after rising up on all fours, a large swath of hair was missing from her back and haunches, and nearly half of her bushy tail was naked, but other than some patches of angry red skin, she looked relatively unscathed, considering they had dodged a blast of dragonfire and leapt over a wall of intense flame, twice.
Jon was bent over the strange red woman, talking quietly to her. It was then that Arya noticed the spreading blotch of dampness around her midsection, soaking into the crimson silk that she wore.
It was blood.
"She's hurt." Arya announced loudly, rushing over to kneel beside her brother. "Someone get me some water and gauze, maybe a needle and some gut."
Jon put a hand on her shoulder and shook his head.
"No," he disagreed, "I'm going to need a torch."
Someone pressed a torch into her hand, she didn't see who.
"She's not dead, Jon, just look at her eyes, they're not blue they're-" Arya stopped, staring. The brilliant ruby at the woman's throat sparkled with a light from within, faint and flickering.
"What is she?" Arya asked, stumbling back and letting fear of the unknown rule her better judgement.
"Her name is Melisandre." Jon growled, his tone angry in a way she had never heard. "She is a part of me, a part of what is yet to come, and if she dies, there was no point in saving me."
A blast of dragonfire consumed the dock and the remaining ship ignited like kindling, flames rising high and casting almost unbearable brightness upon them. The woman groaned, arching, the gem shone, and all around them shrieks rose into the night. Arya looked at her brother's eyes, wild and unrecognizable in the reflected firelight, and handed him the torch.
Was it the right thing to do? She didn't know
After what she had just seen, it was clear that Arya Stark knew nothing.