Chapter 10- Running

DING DONG

"Finally, I'm bloody starving!" Arya said, and her stomach rumbled as if on que. "Up you go." She slapped Jon's back playfully while he rolled his eyes.

"Yes, my Princess." He quipped back, while she stuck her tongue out at him. Still, he did as he was bid. He paid the delivery driver and brought the food into the living room, the smell of succulent, deep-fried chicken wings smacking Arya's nostrils, an animalistic hunger consuming her for the contents of the bucket Jon had just placed on the table. "Dinner is served, your Highness." He bowed before her, while he smiled a smile he reserved only for her. She giggled before leaning forward and picking up a wing, biting into it while Jon got one for himself, and plopped back onto the sofa.

She gave out a food moan to convey her pleasure, and Jon shifted uncomfortably. Since when was someone eating chicken so erotic?

He'd been feeling like this more and more lately. Arya had this effect on him that sent his stomach barrel-rolling, and his heart would work overtime on the pumps. It wasn't anything specific that she did, it just seemed to be caused by the essence of her, her presence being enough to kickstart these sensations. It didn't help that they were already so close, the promises they made to each other after his true parentage was unveiled still holding up over two years later. They would spend many days like this, lounging together, cuddling and talking until the sun rose on the next day. Jon found that he only truly felt like his true self around her, and when she would giggle the way she had all her life, it sent shockwaves of warmth through his being that made him feel complete.

But underneath the surface, he felt a longing. A longing for more.

A longing for her.

He couldn't say anything of course, she was far too young, and also his cousin. It would be the world championship of wrong, especially as Catelyn stalked the house like a manic parrot, lashing out at anything she could see. The fact Jon was still there was a miracle.

As he sat down, Arya pushed her back up against him, then rubbed the back of her head against his upper arm and shoulder, silently asking permission for her to be wrapped up in them. He obliged without hesitation, and she snuggled against him with a satisfied sigh, taking another bite of chicken.

It hit Jon again. The tension building in his abdomen and slowly pooling around his lungs as his breathing became heavier. The yearning he felt for her was causing him physical and emotional pain, but he couldn't bring himself to say or do anything. She was his cousin by blood, not to mention being raised as siblings. He would feel as if he were desecrating the memory of Ned Stark if he did as his heart desired, not to mention he would be flogged through the streets of Winterfell by Catelyn if she caught wind of even the slightest impropriety.

Perhaps if he knew how she felt at that exact moment, he would have changed his mind.

Arya wanted nothing more than to turn her head a hundred and eighty degrees and pull Jon Snow into the kiss of the century. But she too was holding back. Her own uncertainty and fear of ruining her relationship with Jon made her see some sense. But was sense in the face of love? It didn't fill the void she felt in her soul, a void she knew could be filled if she had the courage to do so. But she never felt worthy of such affection anyway, especially from Jon.

'Arya Horseface' they called her, still to this day. By her sister's friends mainly, but it seemed the entire school had caught wind of the nickname and saw fit to mock her with it. Horse pictures were stuck on her locker, people neighed and whinnied at her in the hall, there was even a chant in her name gathering momentum. She had very few friends and even fewer defenders. While Sansa's use of the term had died down by now, she made no moves to try and prevent the torment of her little sister. Arya's rule of no crying in front of people stood firm, even in the blizzard of hormones that adolescence caused, but she could be found in the privacy of a toilet cubicle wiping tears from her large grey eyes during lunchtime, or sat under a secluded tree trying to suck the moisture back into her tear ducts at the end of the day.

She was strong. But she was still human.

She'd taken the whole 'horseface' insult to heart, now to the point she truly believed it. She would wake up some mornings and see her reflection only to be caked in disgust.

Even now, sitting in the protective grasp of Jon Snow, she felt deflated just thinking about it. She could see her reflection in the darkness of the television screen as Jon flipped through channels, and felt that same self-loathing every time.

"You're very quiet." Jon observed, finally settling on the news, nothing else taking his fancy.

"Yeah, just thinking." She replied, trying to pull herself from the stupor she was in. Her tone must've worried him somewhat, as he moved his head to look over hers. The angle they were positioned in caused him to be upside down to her, which earnt a small smile on her lips. He tapped her nose delicately so that the small smile could grow.

"What's wrong?" he asked, holding her a little tighter. He wanted her to feel safe.

She sighed.

"Why can't I be like Sansa?" she asked, feeling like an idiot for asking it. For what it's worth, she had no interest in being like Sansa. She enjoyed the act of self-harm many girls called eye makeup, she could be blindingly moronic and irritating, and she experienced at least two mental breakdowns a month because some boy she was talking to said something she didn't understand.

Seemed like too much effort to her.

But somehow everyone liked the eldest Stark sister, in both a romantic and platonic sense. She had a wide circle of friends, and men pined after her like she was their salvation. With flowing red hair, shapely woman's figure and high, sharp cheekbones, she was by no doubt a beautiful woman.

And then there was Arya.

They both came from the same place, the same parents, but somehow Arya felt like she drew the genetic short straw.

She felt no hunger for the volume of affection that Sansa seemed to attract, but sometimes she felt sad that perhaps no one would look at her the way so many did at Sansa.

"Why do you want to be like Sansa?" Jon asked, shifting so he could look at her face properly. "You're way more fun than Sansa."

Arya smiled and blushed, but that didn't answer lingering questions.

"But she's… Gods it sounds so stupid."

"Hey, talk to me, little wolf." Jon cupped Arya's cheek, stroking it lovingly. "What's got you down?"

"I got some more horse pictures the other day." She said, looking down at the floor.

"We've been over this Arya, you should go to the teachers. Or you can tell me who's doing it and I'll kick their arses for you?" he gave his offer in the form of a joke, but he knew that presented the opportunity to do so he would kick the arse of whoever was behind this cruelty.

"But what if they're right Jon? I'm nothing like Sansa…" she was cut off abruptly by Jon's index finger falling onto her lips.

"Arya Stark, you listen to me. You are a beautiful young woman." He spoke with such confidence and passion that Arya felt a tingle run down her spine, and a warmth rise within her. "Whoever made the correlation between you and a horse is either blind or insane. Sansa is beautiful in a completely different way to you, but you're just as, if not more, beautiful than her. It's a matter of perception really. People at your age just can't really see it yet. Believe me, give it a few years and you'll be kicking admirers away from your doorstep."

Jon wasn't lying. He knew that with age more eyes would turn Arya's way, as the built-in cruelty many teenagers possessed is stripped away by adulthood and clearer heads. Some of Jon's, be it very limited, friends already looked at Arya like she was some kind of goddess, Gendry just to name one, who's tongue would dangle down to the floor whenever he saw Arya wearing something that showed even a square inch of skin.

Jon wanted to rip that tongue out of his mouth sometimes.

"You're very sweet Jon, but we both know that's not true."

"It is, Arya. I swear, it is."

Sometimes Jon forgot Arya was a teenage girl. Between her many tomboyish traits and her prickly demeanour she still wanted some things that other teenage girls wanted, that other teenagers in general wanted.

Protection.

Acceptance.

Affection.

He was the only person in the world to give her all three.

He moved her upwards, so that she was sitting side by side with him. He grabbed both sides of her face and kissed her forehead lightly, as he had done for so many years. He ignored the urge to continue southward, down between her eyebrows, down the bridge of her nose, then finally to rest upon her lips which tempted him day after day, her habit of licking and biting them not helping with his already faltering self-control.

"Arya you have to stop this. Seriously, it makes me so mad that you think about yourself like that. I think you're absolutely lovely, any guy would be lucky to have you."

He continued to fight the urge.

Arya looked up at him with watery eyes. She wanted to believe him, he seemed so sincere too. But there was the voice in the back of her head, which sounded suspiciously like Sansa's, telling her that he was only saying it to protect her feelings. She was trying with all her mental might to beat that voice back into the dark corners of her mind. Jon's fingers tracing her cheeks and the warmth that she felt made an ache form between her legs. By now she had worked out what that feeling meant, and she, just like Jon, was trying to fight it.

This was a moment when it all could've happened. All they needed was a little more courage and the suffering in the future could've been avoided.

Instead, they backed down.

Arya kissed his palm.

"Thank you Jon." She said, before grabbing another chicken wing from the bucket, then snuggling back into his side, his arm draping around her shoulders once she was comfortable.

She felt herself wobble internally. Was she right or was she wrong? For the first time she wondered if Jon felt the same way about her that she felt about him. He had called her beautiful, and had always been there for her when she needed him. She shook the thought as wishful thinking. How was an attractive, strong, beautifully dark and rugged man like Jon Snow going to be interested in her?

If only she knew.

BOOM!

The shell landed about twenty feet in front of Jon, causing him to stumble backwards as the force of the explosion rippled through the air. Fortunately, it had created a convenient opening for him in the city wall, as they had just sealed the main gates to prevent the Dothraki from coming through. Unfortunately, that hole was just as easily used by the Dothraki as it was by Jon, so the city's defence was decidedly blown to bits. A few more direct hits and the city walls will crumble into dust, and dust won't defend Braavos.

Troops were still descending everywhere, thousands and thousands of Dothraki troops falling with misleading elegance towards the ground below, machine gun fire doing what it can to cut them down, but more and more seemed to be landing and moving into attack formations.

Jon wasted no time whatsoever, and ran through the large hole in the wall, into the city proper. He reasoned with himself that he had two options: head for the embassy while it still stood, and hopefully get evacuated with it's staff, or run for the port and hope that he got luckier than he did in Volantis.

Neither were great, but no other options were presenting themselves. Jon had a decent observation of the city, and he saw that the Dothraki shells weren't landing on the centre of the city, it was too far in to be within range, and the bombardment was focussed on the walls and structures closest to the armada. The main city port wasn't within striking distance of the Dothraki shells yet, but he knew it was only a matter of time. The embassy presented itself as the better idea.

The Dothraki were swarming in large numbers, ready to sack the city. It wouldn't be long until the familiar screams reached Jon's ears again, when the Dothraki seized a city there was rape, murder and looting guaranteed.

He couldn't see that again.

Taking one last look at the overlay of the ancient city, he ran in the general direction of the city centre, praying to the Old Gods and the New that they would save him, somehow.

Arya charged through the bustling port, gun firmly in hand. She seemed to be the only person running towards the city and not away from it at that moment, so the human soup that stood in her way was slowing her progress. She grunted in frustration. There wasn't time to waste.

Chancing a look over her shoulder, she saw the mass of people desperately loading onto boats of all shapes and sizes. Fishing boats, leisure boats, military boats, rowing boats, trading boats, they were all now bursting at the seams with people. Arya couldn't help the wash of sadness that came over her when she saw those people. If her ship had been sunk in the open water, these ships were going to get sunk too. Most of them probably would never leave the port. And all the other people, who were so desperately clawing their way towards the boats, their only ticket to freedom, would probably never leave the port either. Arya had heard enough of Jon's musings on invasions and surprise attacks over the years to know that an invading force would eliminate any means of mass escape as soon as possible, and this port was the best means of escape in the city. The city airport would be preoccupied with putting military planes in the sky for the city's defence.

It paid to listen to Jon Snow.

Finally, Arya found an opening in the growing human maze which constantly moved around her. Sprinting as fast as she could, she jumped to grab onto the top of a brick wall, and hoisted herself up onto it. Surveying what she saw before her, she could only feel her core crack. The city she had longed to visit for so many years, her and Jon's top destination, was being razed to the ground before her very eyes. The titan had already fallen, and the city walls were being ravaged by shells, as was the outer city. Her childhood dream was dead.

But Jon was not.

She hadn't anticipated this. She had planned to wait for Jon at the embassy until he arrived, when she would make sure he came back home safely.

She wasn't even sure where he was.

But he had promised to come to Braavos. And she was going to take him at his promise.

She was going for the embassy.

Hauling off of the brick wall, she landed softly on the ground and began her mad dash towards the city centre, keeping a lookout for signposts.

Jon heard the gunshots behind him, indicating that the city's defenders were now under assault. A siege was difficult for the attacking force, but Braavos hadn't even been remotely ready. The front line was still six hundred miles east of the city, and was holding fine, even with the southern front collapsed. The Dothraki troops grew in number by the second, and the shells continued to fall around Jon like explosive confetti.

He had to be quick.

Looking out to the sea, he saw the boats of troops, still getting closer to the shore. There had to be at least ten thousand of them, with at least five thousand having fallen from the sky. So far, all Jon had seen of the Braavosi defenders was that they were aging retired soldiers, or inexperienced conscripts still in training, and they couldn't number more than two thousand. They were fetching musket rifles out of broom cupboards and reading the instruction manuals on the heavy artillery instead of using common sense.

This was the true incompetence of power. Jon had long been talking about it to anyone who'd listen. New Valyria, the Six Kingdoms and the North had been unchallenged for centuries, and believed without a shadow of doubt that their way was undefeatable as a result. They'd grown comfortable. Then confident. Then cocky.

The Dothraki possessed impressive military strategy for a new age of warfare, and the aging nations to the west couldn't cope, still arrogantly holding onto the idea that their philosophies were perfect.

Their incompetence would doom the world to subjugation.

BOOM!

Jon was knocked clean off his feet by a shell which landed behind him, and he landed unceremoniously on the ground, scratching his face as he did so. The pain would probably be worse if it weren't for the kick of adrenaline which soared through his blood. There was nothing like the prospect of imminent death to make you feel so alive.

Jon clambered back onto his feet and kept running. He needed to be clear of the city walls which were still being battered by shells. The further he got, the safer he was from being blown apart. For now.

Continuing to run through the streets of the ancient city, Jon couldn't help but admire it's beauty. He and Arya had dreamed of coming to Braavos, and while it pained him that she wasn't with him, and also that the city wouldn't be standing come nightfall, part of him was glad to have visited before the end.

He had no idea if he would make it out alive.

Jon was relying on signposts to get him through, the winding streets of varying width didn't offer any directional assistance, neither did the hundreds of panicking civilians running in random directions through the city. Where were they running? Didn't they know that nowhere was going to be safe once the Dothraki breached the walls?

Speaking of which…

Jon felt the hairs stand up on end as he heard roaring coming from a few streets away. Chancing a look back, he saw a tsunami of Dothraki troops running through the battered city walls and swarming through the outer city like fog. The screams of the dying grew closer and closer.

Jon turned and ran as fast as his legs would carry him, shells still raining down from above.

Maybe the Red Priests were right.

The only hell was the one they lived in now.

Arya had no idea where she was. All she could see were winding streets and terrified people. The constant noises which bounced through the air didn't help, and only served to disorient her more. She was looking all around her for any signs. Thankfully, Braavos being the melting pot of culture it was, the signs were in several languages, including the Common Tongue. Her eyes fell on a sign which indicated that the House of Black and White was only half a mile to her right, and, the House of Black and White being a major destination in Braavos, she assumed that would be a good place to start her search for the Northern embassy.

So she ran.

She was small, no taller than five foot three inches, but she was quick, and impressively agile. She wove through the frightened crowd with relative ease when they were all moving in the same direction as her, bolting past even the fastest with elegance.

It didn't take her long to reach the ancient building, shrouded in mystery about it's past. Who knew what happened in there? It had been many things over the centuries, a religious centre, a sacrificial chamber, but these days it was a prestigious military academy. Through all her life, she had wanted to train here. Her and Jon often saw demonstrations by the Braavosi warriors who emerged from the ancient structure, her jaw agape with their skill and power. For a brief moment, the siege was pushed to the back of her mind, and she appreciated that after all the years of wanting to visit, she was finally here.

But reality hit back fast.

A shell landed only three streets over, shaking the ground beneath Arya, who nearly fell over as a result. Regaining her balance, she looked up to see that the shells were landing further and further inside the city.

She was running out of time.

Suddenly, she saw the doors to the House of Black and White swing wide open, and it's students poured out into the square and then branched out into the surrounding streets. Hundreds of fighters, men and women alike, ran out at incredible speed, carrying weapons of all descriptions with them, heading to the other side of the city, where Arya could tell the Dothraki had breached the walls.

She looked at the gun in her hand, ensuring it was still ready to fire if she needed it to.

She hadn't come this far to die.

As quickly as she could, she followed the world-class warriors, hoping they would lead her where she needed to go.

Jon felt the fear rise in his chest as he realised he may have made some terrible mistakes. His desire to keep moving no matter what had likely caused him to make a wrong turn somewhere along the line, as now he had no idea where he was or where he was heading, and the signposts no longer supplied him with the direction of the city centre. He could still hear the Dothraki closing in behind him, with nothing to slow their approach. He needed to go a specific direction. They didn't.

Jon, who was still winding in and out of various streets, was desperately thinking of how to escape his present predicament. This is when having Sam around would be useful, he would tell him how to always find your way to the centre of a city by following one of the walls or something along those lines. It hurt to think of his fallen comrade. But he had promised Sam he would find Gilly, and he intended to honour that promise.

He was not dying today.

He realised he needed to think logically. There must be a sure-fire way of getting to the city centre with limited directions?

That's when it hit him.

He was still being constantly bombarded by the Braavosi residents who were running, presumably back to their homes, to defend them. In most cities, people lived in the suburban areas more than the city centres. If Jon could figure out a direction people were running away from, he could run in that direction and, if his theory proved true, it would lead him to his desired destination.

Maybe Sam rubbed off on him in some positive ways too.

Jon's eyes began to survey the fleeing civilians, and he did note that there was a direction most seemed to be moving from, not towards.

He had no time to test his hypothesis, but when the Dothraki were approaching from the rear, he had no choice.

He had done more running in the past two weeks than he had ever done in the prior twenty-four years. His legs were sore, the muscles crying out for relief and only the prospect of death stopped his knees from buckling.

He wanted to rest.

He supposed he would, one way or another.

Either in the arms of the woman he loved, or dead in the dirt.

The marathon would be over soon.

Arya kept moving alongside the fearsome warriors, weaving through the city streets like ferocious cats. The rumble in the distance grew louder and closer by the second, and Arya realised she was one of the only non-military individuals in history to be running directly towards a Dothraki assault instead of away from it. As bad as it sounded, she would be doing this for no one else other than Jon.

Not Robb.

Not Sansa.

Definitely not her mother.

Only Jon would warrant moves this suicidal.

Finally, some street signs came into view, and Arya's heart skipped a beat when she saw what she was looking for.

EMBASSY FOR THE KINGDOM OF THE NORTH (0.8 MILES) à

A small smile emerged on her face, and she broke from the crowd to run in that direction, taking the side roads and narrow alleys to avoid the congested streets full of the terror-stricken people. She couldn't blame them for their fear. If she wasn't so focussed on the task at hand, she would probably be terrified too.

Still, she ran as fast as she could.

Well, until a large, muscular arm grabbed her by the waist and dragged her into an alleyway.

"GET OFF ME!" she shouted instinctively, trying to free herself from the grip of this stranger.

The man stood head and shoulders taller than even her late father, and he decked her in the temple with incredible speed, knocking her onto the ground.

"SHUT UP!" he roared, throwing himself on top of her, scratching at her clothes.

Arya knew what was going on. Screaming for help would do her no favours, everyone was preoccupied with their own survival to worry about her. She felt the man's hands attempt to drag down her tights, with very limited success due to the kick he received in the stomach.

"You stupid bitch!" he threw himself on her again, with much more force this time, pinning her to the ground by the neck as he dabbed his hand at pulling down her tights again.

His grip on her neck was tight, and she couldn't breathe even if she tried. She clawed at the man's face, trying to push him off, but she was stuck in his grip. Her lungs began to starve, her brain screaming for oxygen. Fumbling around, Arya's hand found the gun she had dropped when she was hit earlier.

She got her grip on it just as her tights began to rip.

BANG!

The contents of the man's brain splattered over the wall next to them, his lifeless corpse collapsing onto her ungracefully, and his grip around her neck was released.

She gasped for air, but her lungs were still constricted by the giant who was bleeding onto her clothes. She kicked and squirmed to free herself from being underneath him, still taking deep breaths to try and enrich her starving lungs.

BOOM!

Arya was jolted from her position by the shell which landed on the far end of the street, throwing herself back onto her feet, still dizzy from lack of air.

She took a moment to compose herself, not only to adjust to the environment again, but also for the quivering in her knees to dissipate.

Is this what war was like? Did everyone suffer, even the innocent?

Arya looked around her.

Of course they did.

The innocent always suffered the worst.

She took a last look at the man who had tried to rape her, and the hole she had put in his head, which was still leaking blood, which trailed down the slightly sloping street slowly.

Her first kill.

She didn't feel bad about it, as for her it was probably a matter of life and death, so better him, a rapist and murderer, than her.

Still, she couldn't quite shake the thought that she'd just taken someone's life, and it wasn't hers to take.

BOOM!

The philosophy would have to wait.

She was alive, and that's all that mattered. Her neck was sore, and she could feel the air touch her skin through her ripped tights, but that seemed so trivial when the city was crumbling around her.

Back to the task at hand: finding Jon.

She checked the gun to make sure it was undamaged in the scuffle, which it was.

'Five bullets left.' She thought, grasping the weapon tighter in her hand. 'Better make them count.'

BOOM!

The shells were landing closer and closer to the city centre, and Jon was still too far out for his liking. He continued to sprint, his tactic of running in the opposite direction of the masses seemed to be paying off so far, judging by the increase in shops and office buildings, and the decrease in residential properties.

He silently thanked himself for paying attention in human geography at school.

BANG BANG BANG!

Jon barely had time to process his thoughts when the all too familiar bullets from the assault rifles homed in behind him, ricocheting off buildings. Turning his head to look behind him, Jon lay eyes on Dothraki troops no more than thirty feet from him. He still had an assault rifle to hand, but using it was to be a last resort. His primary weapon was to be his legs.

He darted into another alleyway, hoping he could maintain distance and make it to the embassy.

And then what?

This was all falling apart.

At this rate, the Dothraki would storm the embassy and kill all the staff before he could even reach the front desk.

The port would be rammed by now, and shells would blow it to smithereens just like in Volantis.

Realisation was slowly beginning to dawn on Jon, but he had to push it to the back of his mind. He would have to be lying cold on the ground before he gave up.

Jon was pulled from his thoughts when he ran directly into someone.

A Dothraki solider.

The two opposing forces fell to the ground, dropping their weapons as they did so. Jon reached out to grab the gun and fill the enemy with countless bullets, but he seemed to have other ideas.

Jon was grabbed by the back of the neck and thrown like a ragdoll across the street, his back striking a solid brick wall, pain emanating through his body as it happened. The solider then kicked Jon in the shin to force him to his knees, before pummelling his stomach with his fists.

The wind was knocked right out of Jon, the pain was searing and he hadn't yet had time to recover. He likely never would, the relentlessness of the solider who was still beating him black and blue never gave him the opportunity.

Jon felt the world go fuzzy around him, and the punches and kicks he was receiving slowly became less painful as they increased in number. The sounds around him, such as the shells, the bullets, and the fists landing on his body began to drift away, becoming quieter and quieter.

He could feel the call.

Peace was there, he need only reach out and grab it.

Everlasting peace from this rotten, stinking world.

He felt his life flash before his eyes, the fists still raining down on him, literally attempting to beat him to death. He saw many things, the bullies at school, his Uncle Ned's face, ridicules from Catelyn, Bran's broken body…

And then there was Arya.

Just seeing her in his mind's eye was enough.

The Gods could shove their everlasting peace where the sun don't shine.

Jon snapped back to reality.

He needed to survive.

He promised.

He started to reach for something, anything really, which could relieve him from the attacker who was beating him within an inch of his life.

The spare revolver he always kept in his back pocket!

Jon kept it there whenever he went into a battle, just in case he needed it.

Reaching round to his back pocket, doing so with very limited coordination, he found…

Nothing.

He felt again.

Still nothing.

Then it struck him.

He'd left it in his locker in Volantis. The division had been rushed out so quickly into the Dothraki organ grinder that he'd forgotten to get it.

It couldn't save him now.

The fists kept coming.

Looking past his assailant, he lay eyes on something familiar.

A flag.

The Northern flag.

Flying over the embassy.

Was this the final mocking from the Gods? To have come so close, only to fall here, two hundred yards from salvation?

He struggled to get free, but he was so dazed he could barely see, let alone coordinate an attack.

A fist which landed on his cheek threw his gaze up to the sky, which was alive with fire.

Pity.

He hoped for stars.

BANG!

The fists stopped all of a sudden. It took him a few seconds to notice, and even longer for clarity to return to the world.

He was incredibly dizzy, even turning his head made his stomach churn as if he were about to be sick, still, he saw his attacker lying lifeless on the ground before him, a bullet wound to his right temple.

Looking in the direction of the gunshot, Jon saw his saviour, who looked at him with wide eyes.

Arya continued to sprint through the streets, following the signs towards the Northern embassy. She was nearly taken out by a few incoming shells, one of which exploded directly above her on a bridge, and she had to dive forward to avoid being crushed by the falling mound of rocks and bricks.

EMBASSY FOR THE KINGDOM OF THE NORTH (0.1 MILES) à

She was close.

Looking up, Arya saw the flag flying over an old marble building, which stood majestically over a small open square.

BANG BANG BANG!

The gunfire caused Arya to pick up speed, running full throttle towards the embassy, but her path was blocked by terrified people, who were pushing and shoving in all directions. She fought to get through, so close to her destination, but she ended up getting trapped in the endless human tangle.

BANG BANG BANG!

Two people flopped onto the ground dead right beside Arya, and she looked up to see what she had only ever seen on television news reports.

Dothraki troops.

They had opened fire on the cluster of civilians who had so foolishly decided to play a game of human Jenga during an invasion. Several more people collapsed to the ground, some dead, some dying. The crowd screamed and the desperation to break free grew ever greater as the Dothraki used them for target practice.

The crowd moving faster did enable Arya to break free, but not where she wanted to be. She was forced to retreat back to where she'd come from, the way to the embassy still blocked. She instead decided to run up a side road which went round the back of the embassy, hoping that there would be another available entrance to the square that way.

Her legs were tired, only the adrenaline kept her going. Sansa and Bran's words echoed in her mind about nourishment and getting fresh air. If she would have listened to them, she would be physically much stronger than she was at that moment. Her self-neglect was proving detrimental to survival in the midst of a battle.

Rounding a corner at the end of the road, she saw the embassy at the end of the street, and she booked it.

However, she would only make it halfway before something grabbed her attention.

There were two men, one being beaten into a sticky pulp by the other. They were so preoccupied with their fight, and she was so preoccupied with her plan that she nearly tripped over them.

She had intended to keep going, to leave them to their fight and let the best man win.

But the attire worn by the man who was seemingly losing the altercation seemed familiar.

All she did was turn her head for a second look.

Then it hit her harder than any fist, bullet or shell could.

He was Northern, based on the military uniform.

He had jet black curly hair, which was stained and made sticky by blood, but she could still always recognise it. She took a step closer, all of this happening in slow motion within her head.

She caught the briefest glimpse of his eyes, grey like her own.

Her breath hitched.

Surely it wasn't?

But who else could it be?

Without a second thought, she dispatched the Dothraki solider with a bullet to the side of the head. Without the other solider in the way, Arya took a better look at the man who so closely resembled the man etched into her brain.

Jet black hair. Grey eyes. Strong. Large hands. Dark in every sense of the word.

Her heart leapt into her throat.

It was him.

"Jon?" her voice was the most tender it had been for two years, and she was terrified she had made some mistake, or that this was a trick, an elaborate deception designed to torture her even further.

The soldier's gaze focussed on her, and she saw his eyes go wide with shock as the world seemed to return to him from his previously dazed state.

His lip quivered slightly, and he blinked several times, as if he believed he was imagining her.

But there she was.

"Arya?"

TO BE CONTINUED