Arya
She awoke to the feeling of Jon shaking her, about an hour before dawn. He was fully dressed for travel and the tent was nearly completely packed up.
"We need to go," he said gruffly, "Vero spotted a hunting party just a few miles away. Best we get moving."
She nodded at him and made to get up before realizing in a wave of shame that she was still naked beneath the blankets. Last night had not gone at all the way she'd expected. Jon had made her feel wonderful, beyond wonderful. Good gods when he'd kissed her there…
But then he'd left her. He'd left her and she'd called after him like some lovesick ninny and he hadn't even looked back. She was surprised he'd come himself to wake her at all, although she mused uncharitably that he couldn't send Olly to find her in such a state of dishabille.
She felt her cheeks flush as the thought and defiantly pushed herself up from bed, walking naked across the tent to her pack without greeting him at all. He may have made a fool of her last night but she knew the sight of her body affected him and she wasn't about to make this any easier on the pigheaded crow.
She heard him cough and shift uncomfortably behind her but kept her eyes fixed on her pack as she bent over and began to rummage through it for clothes, refusing to acknowledge him despite the tingling feeling that began in her nether regions. She couldn't remember ever being this angry at him in her life, and she whipped her clothes on with an indignant huff.
She turned back to face him then and caught the troubled, almost longing look on his face before he shook himself and turned to leave the tent.
"Gather all your things. We need to get on the road."
Twenty minutes later she was mounted on her horse and they were headed out up the north road. They agreed that the best way to approach was to circle around the Dreadfort and come towards it from the south in order to avoid any sentries posted to keep an eye out for the Nights Watchmen. Jon felt that they should go North a ways, so as to get out of the immediate area. Then they would part ways, with any of the Nights Watchmen who wished to return to Castle Black heading North through Last Hearth, and the rest of the party swinging around west.
They trudged north in the snow for hours, with little conversation, and Arya found herself staring daggers into Jon's back. She was stewing in her own bad mood as she rode along, cursing herself for getting distracted by Jon and wondering if the best course of action would be to leave in the middle of the night once they stopped and close the door on him and Arya Stark for good. How could she let herself get so off course? And for someone who was neither her brother nor interested in being anything more to her. She felt ridiculous, but what was worse is she felt utterly, and terribly alone.
Around midday they stopped by a stream to rest the horses for a bit. Jon turned Bjorn round so he was facing Arya and his men, with his jaw set and Arya noticed that he barely spared her a glance before he started speaking.
"My sister and I will go to refill the water skins and talk over what must be done. Those of you who wish to return to Castle Black ready yourselves, and be prepared to part with us when we return."
Not liking his presumptuous way of ordering her and them about, Arya sat on her horse defiantly, making no move to get down and do as he bade. He came up next to her and looked up at her eyebrows arched in silent challenge.
"Afraid to be alone with me now, are you?"
She felt rage cloud her vision and angrily she threw herself out of the saddle, pushing past him and making her own way down to the icy stream. He followed her down wordlessly until she stopped at the bank and bent for a drink.
"So, let me hear it then. You're mad at me and you've every right to be. I took advantage of you last night and that was inexcusable. I should never have taken those liberties with you, and it won't happen again."
She almost choked on the water she was pouring into her mouth at his words.
"Gods damn it all, Jon! When will you get it through your thick, half frozen skull that I'm not some chaste child? I'm not mad at you for the liberties you took, I'm mad at you for leaving me, and for making it quite clear how little interest you had in what I had to offer. Gods, could you not have just said? Just told me that you've no interest in anything to do with Arya Horseface and have done?"
He grabbed her by the arms and almost shook her then, pulling her into him and glaring down into her eyes, his own matching eyes flashing in barely controlled rage.
"No interest? Gods Arya are you serious? You can't be; you must just be trying to bait me. You think I would've slept outside in the snow if I had no indecent interest in you? You think it was easy for me to leave, easy for me to stop myself from taking you where you stood when you bent over your pack this morning doing Gods know what?"
"Then why did you leave?" she bellowed glaring into his eyes.
"Because I cannot, we cannot—"
"Weren't you listening last night; didn't you see your hand? You're not my brother!"
He sighed, sounding as if he had the entire world on his shoulders.
"Aye I was listening Arya. What do you think I've been thinking about all this time? When I'm not berating myself for despoiling you I'm tearing out my hair at the thought that everything I've ever known about myself has been a lie. I would give my soul a thousand times over to speak with our- your father once more and hear the truth from his lips. In my heart I know it to be true, I always knew that Ned Stark was too good to beget a bastard while his wife grew with child at home, and yet… Gods Arya you don't know how hard it is to lose all claim to the only family you've ever known, even if half that family is dead and gone."
Despite herself she felt her legs move to take her to him, and a moment later she was hugging him tightly.
"You've lost nothing. You'll always be one of us, you always were."
She could almost feel him smile above her, though her face was pressed against her chest.
"Thanks for that little one, you've no idea how much it means to me to hear you say that. But you see now then why this cannot be between us, why even though my linage may be different than we thought for the love I bear your father—"
"I don't see that at all," she said, straightening and glaring up at him, "I think you're just being a coward."
"It's more complicated than that Arya, you're just trying to break everything down into a dare like you always do!"
She glared at him again, furious at him for saying so, in part because of how right he was. She was just about to answer back when Olly came crashing through the trees at a sprint.
"Sir! He's gone sir!"
"What?" Jon said going to the boy. "What are you on about?"
"He's gone sir. Maddox. Disappeared when we were supposed to be watching the horses. Vero had just finished telling him how he planned on staying with us an' seeing this through an' then next thing we knew Maddox was gone. Only the tracks he left were headed south, not north!"
Ramsay Bolton
As he knelt in the snow by the bloody carcass he felt the rage begin to boil over. This was his fourth prize hound to get its throat snapped by some creature in the woods and he couldn't for the life of him understand it. It was like some monster was trying to keep them from finding the crows' trail.
"Milord?" one of his liegemen said tentatively from behind. They always stood at least fifteen feet away from him, he noticed. Good. They should be afraid.
"Yes? What is it?" He'd realized long ago that he was truly more unnerving the more sugary sweet his voice was, and so even with his temper high the words came out in a syrupy sing-song.
"We found these milord. In the woods near where their camp was." The man hastily placed the garment in his hand before swiftly retreating back to a safe distance. Ramsay shook it out and felt his temper nearly get the best of him. They were caked in snow and torn, but he knew his own trousers when he saw them.
He felt his member twitch at the memory of the mysterious woman and got angrier still. Gods what a woman she had been. All fire, nothing like his subdued and broken wife. What fun it would be to break her too, to take the fire from her eyes. She was an opponent worthy of him, unlike these sniveling worms he was surrounded by. But why had she chosen the Lord Commander over him? Had she given that bastard the pleasure of ripping his trousers off her before letting him fuck her senseless?
If so, devil take his father and his plans with the dragon queen, he'd have his revenge on the Bastard of the Wall. Besides, there could only really be one Northern baseborn child elevated to Lord, and that was him. Any more, and his rise to the top became common place, unremarkable. He'd have his vengeance on Jon fucking Snow. And then he'd have the grey eyed girl all to himself.
Perhaps she'd offer herself up to spare Lord Snow pain. Ramsay burned at the thought, but whether it was more from rage or lust he could not tell.
"Let's go," He said, forgetting for once to lace his words with sweetness.
"Yes Milord."
They were mounting and just about ready to leave when a galloping horseman appeared on the horizon. With a flick of his wrist, Ramsay ordered the archers to shoot him – someone would have to pay for his bad mood – but then something about him caught his eye.
"Hold! Let's hear what he has to say first."
As the man approached he realized what it was – the man was clad in all black. Nights Watch then. Surely Lord Snow was not so stupid that he would send a messenger? Did he know nothing at all about what happened to people South of Mole Town?
"Wait! Sirs!" the man panted.
"I am Maddox… Whitewater. Is it… is it true that you still have prisoners at the Dreadfort who were taken… who were taken from the Riverlands?"
"Yes… yes we've some of those prisoners left I expect. Though they'd fetch a high price, what do you have to offer that I'd want?"
"I can... tell you everything you need to know about the Lord Commander." He said, his wheezing dissipating a bit.
A traitor then. Excellent. Ramsay's eyes sharpened and he glared at the man almost hungrily. "And the grey eyed girl who rides with him? Who is she? Can you tell me about her as well?"
"She's his sister."
Ramsays eyes flashed with rage and he gestured at the man so that his men seized the traitorous crow by the arms.
"Bad guess I'm afraid. His sister – or the girl he thinks is his sister anyway – is my lady wife. And I can assure you that that lovely little spitfire is not my lady wife. If she was, I'd expect I'd be at home now, dancing attendance on her, rather than out here freezing my bollocks off with these ugly whoresons. Kill him."
Ramsay turned sighing and made to get back on his horse. He supposed he'd just have to wait a little bit longer before finding out about his mystery woman.
"Wait please Milord! Its his other sister! The one who escaped the Red Keep! She's a wild unnatural thing, raised by war and heartbreak. They grey eyed girl is Arya Stark, please my lord I beseech you!"
He turned back to the man, still struggling to get free of his men. His eyes were wild, but they held the sign of turth in them. Ramsay had tortured enough men to know when they were lying out of fear and when they were being honest. Arya Stark. Gods be praised, finally a lady wild enough to match his inner bastard. Perhaps when her sister gave birth to his son in a few months' time he'd have her killed and start anew with her much livelier little sister.
"Stop! And you know things about the Lord Commander, and this long lost sister of his?"
"Yes milord," he said, his shoulders sagging with relief.
"Bring him. It's time we got back to the Dreadfort and made a report to my lord father."