Jaime watched the haunting grey of the North explode back into Arya's eyes, and with it came the sight of her fear as well as his own.

He had sat facing her for ten minutes, shaking her and speaking to her and pleading with her, but she had not responded to any of it. It had been like talking to a corpse; frightening in a truly unspeakable way; and Jaime remembered how he had mercilessly mocked that idiot bastard Snow with stories about the grumpkins and white walkers and wargs beyond the Wall; the stories of the blood of the First Men. Then Jaime had begun to think, and eventually to pray, that he, not Snow,had been the true idiot all along and that the little wolf would wake up. But then she had opened her eyes and stared silently at him, looking frightened and doubtful and not a word of explanation escaping her lips, and suddenly he was angry with both her and himself.

'What the fuck was that?' Jaime demanded, almost clapping his hand over his mouth at the way that his distress made his voice warp and crack.

But Arya was looking fixedly over his shoulder now, with the terror and wonder of a child, and as Jaime stood and turned to follow her gaze, he observed a monstrous wolf, greater even than Robb Stark's direwolf and almost the same height as Arya herself, loping slowly across the forest floor towards them, its fur a deep grey and its golden eyes alive with the taste of blood.

Arya had leapt to her feet before he could tell her to run, and she was slowly approaching the beast like a blade drawn to a whetstone, the sound of her footsteps like missiles on castle walls. Jaime seized her arm in as hard and forceful a grip as he could manage, whispering or shouting at her that they needed to run are you mad have you lost your mind have you gone completely insane we need to run you need to run. But she wasn't running, and he wouldn't run without her, and his limbs were like mortar; preventing him from taking her in his arms and carrying her.

She was looking into his eyes and talking to him with her eyes; her eyes that were grey and that made her her again, not whatever she had been when the snow had arisen in them and buried her, and suddenly she was speaking aloud in a tone of such exquisite gentleness that he felt tears form in his eyes, though he couldn't fathom why.

'It will be alright,' Arya said.

The direwolf was coming, and growling all the while, and the growls became fiercer and more terrible as Arya approached; and Jaime's heart was choking up with fear and with anger at himself that he hadn't convinced her to run and that he wasn't intervening now. He was transfixed. His feet couldn't move, no matter how hard he screamed at them to. He drew his dagger and prepared to throw it at the first sign of trouble, and Arya was holding her fucking hand out as she drew nearer to the direwolf; its growls like thunder on the walls of Winterfell; its eyes full of anger and savagery. Jaime gripped the dagger harder, Arya's hand was mere inches from the direwolf now, and he feared that if she touched the beast, she would not just lose her hand, but her life.

Arya touched the direwolf's snout, and there was a horrible pause.

'Nymeria?' she said.

The direwolf whimpered in response, and began to lick Arya's outstretched hand.

Arya gave a strangled sob, and a laugh, and another sob, and as she put her arms around the direwolf's neck, burying her face in its fur, the beast moved its head and began to lick her face with such enthusiasm that both girl and wolf were knocked to the ground in a tangle of limbs and fur.

Jaime's heart lurched as he darted forward, dagger still at the ready, but Arya was curling up in the direwolf's fur and snuggling in it, pulling the beast's ears and laughing softly, and crying, as it continued to mercilessly lick at her face, and at her tears.

Jaime was mesmerised and mystified by the sight; feeling like an intruder on the edge of something that he should not be witnessing. Then Arya sat up, the direwolf's head in her lap, and asked him in a thoroughly childlike way:

'Do you want to pet her?'


They had an instant disagreement on the question of petting the beast. Jaime refused on account of the number of times that Robb Stark's direwolf had enjoyed growling at the bars of his prison (and sometimes within it); Arya told him not to be stupid and declared 'it's almost the same thing as petting me'; Jaime protested vociferously and insisted that it was not remotely the same thing as petting her; Arya blushed and stated stiffly that she had not meant that; Jaime kissed her fiercely and offered to prove his case; Arya shoved him away and called him a miserable coward; and eventually, Jaime stretched out his hand, prayed that the gods didn't intend to make him lose his left hand too, and gave the beast a tentative stroke.

It licked his hand and started to sniff him. Its nose was very wet.

'She likes you.'

'What would have happened if she didn't?'

Arya snorted with a derision that she only reserved for one person.

'Ask Joffrey.'

It was only the degree of emotion and bitterness with which Arya began to speak of the incident on the Kingsroad five years ago that made details of it come flooding back to Jaime's mind. He had paid so little attention at the time (he had still been fuming about Bran Stark, most likely) that he remembered almost nothing of it beyond feeling a momentary amusement at Joffrey's defeat by a little girl, and at the way that Renly Baratheon had to be led guffawing from the hall at the very thought. Above all else he remembered Cersei's anger at not getting a nice wolf pelt for her bed. But the rest of the business: the bite, the butcher's boy, Arya's flight into the woods, the slaughtering of one wolf in the place of another; he remembered almost nothing of those. At the time, it had not been important.

But as he watched Arya's tiny hands with their long fingers disappear again and again into the direwolf's deep grey fur, the beast growling pleasantly in enjoyment, he realised that what had been less important than a grain of salt in the passage of his life had been of paramount importance in hers. He wondered if he would have felt differently had he spoken more than two words to her during the royal visit to Winterfell.

Would things have been different? If we had met before?

'Everyone said that she ran away after she bit Joffrey,' Arya scoffed, stroking the direwolf protectively, 'but she never did; she was too brave for all of them. I chased her away. I hit her with a rock and told her to leave because I knew they would kill her, and then Cersei, that bitch, made them kill Lady instead when she didn't do anything, and me and Sansa fought so much that by the time they killed Father, we still hadn't had anything resembling a proper conversation.'

The direwolf growled fiercely, making Jaime jump, and he momentarily remembered the fear he had felt only minutes before at the snowstorm in Arya's eyes and on the surface of her skin.

'What happened to your eyes just now, Stark?'

She stared at him in confusion.

'My eyes?'

'They turned white.'

'What?'

'While you were – what exactly happened to you?'

She was shaking her head with genuine bewilderment.

'I don't know, I – '

'Do we have you, or this wolf of yours –'

'Nymeria!'

'– Nymeria – to thank for this?'

And he looked around the wood at the bodies of the Hill tribesmen; the sprawling pack of wolves still feasting on those that they had not reduced to food for crows, and as he looked back at Arya, he saw the stirring of something primal in her eyes; a half-remembered regret that she was not feasting with them. And he knew, then, that while the pack may have come at Nymeria's command; Nymeria had come at Arya's.

The notion frightened him to the marrow of his bones.

Seven fucking hells. What if she hadn't come back at all?

'Have you ever done something like this before?' he asked.

He watched Arya struggle to find the words; wanting to help her; not knowing how.

'I…I've dreamed about it,' she stammered, 'but I never thought it was real.'

'You never thought what was real?' he insisted.

'I don't know!' Arya exclaimed, shushing Nymeria as she growled once again and fixed Jaime with a resentful glare, 'I – I always used to dream about it –'

'But about what?' Jaime pressed.

'Being with them, being…being a wolf. I've dreamed about it for a long time. Hunting, and having a pack, and being fr - it doesn't matter…'

She stared at her hands.

'I dream a lot. I've even had one or two dreams on this journey. I was having one the night we…the night you dreamed about the Mad King. But when I…when I almost died, after I fell into the river, the dreams started getting more…alive…and I knew that Nymeria was here, somewhere, even when I was awake, and then today… then today I saw you knocked over and I thought you were going to die, and…and it was like my head was torn wide open, and I went to the wolf dream and screamed for her, and she came and brought help because I couldn't help you myself and I thought you would –'

He leaned in and kissed her softly; her lips feverishly warm and salty from her tears.

'The next time you decide to call Nymeria,' he growled in indignation, 'you help yourself first. Not me.'

She smiled, and playfully nipped his bottom lip a little harder than was necessary.

'Don't tell me what to do, Lannister,' she said.

Her smile vanished as the earth and air rang out with the sound of horses approaching; Nymeria began to growl and bark and whine; and in a flash all the wolves were streaming silently and elegantly out of sight; leaving the corpses as they went. Jaime rose to his feet, followed closely by Arya, and the direwolf did not leave them, sitting proudly on her haunches at Arya's side as a company of knights bearing the moon and falcon of House Arryn burst smartly out of the trees and enclosed them in a prison of armour and steel. Jaime reached out and laid a hand on Arya's arm to stop her from drawing her sword as a richly-armoured and cloaked knight of perhaps four or five-and-thirty, proud and arrogant-looking, with a weak chin and beady eyes, drew his horse to a halt before them. The knight tried hard to disdainfully ignore both Nymeria and the way that Arya took an evident pleasure in not restraining her, but his skittish and nervous horse refused to let him. Nevertheless, he did a reasonably good job of appearing both courteous and intimidating as he stiffly inclined his head and began to speak.

'Welcome to the Vale, Lord Jaime; Lady Arya,' the knight said formally, 'if you wouldn't mind coming with us.'

'I would mind!' Arya replied loudly, 'we've done nothing wrong!'

'That remains to be seen, little girl,' the knight drawled in a mocking tone that made Jaime want to clobber him.

'The little girl,' Jaime growled in reply, 'is the future Lady of Casterly Rock and a ward of Tywin Lannister, Ser. I would advise you to speak to her with more respect if you don't want to come down with a terrible case of sword through bowels.'

'I'll thank you not to threaten me, my lord,' the knight sneered.

Nymeria growled, the knight jumped (and scowled) and Jaime grinned impudently; thinking that he might grow to like the wolf after all.

'To whom do I have the misfortune of speaking?' Jaime enquired with sweeping courtesy.

'Ser Denys Egen,' the knight replied, choosing to ignore the insult, 'Captain of Lady Lysa's household guard.'

'Indeed?' Jaime purred, cocking one eyebrow at him, 'any relation to the late Ser Vardis?'

Ser Denys bristled, but did not reply. Jaime's grin widened.

'I trust we are not responsible for tearing you from the fair lady's side,' Jaime said.

'Lady Lysa merely feared for your safety, my lord,' Ser Denys replied, casting his eyes over the corpses of the tribesmen, 'the hills are not safe for travellers.'

They're here to kill us.

'Casterly Rock thanks Lady Lysa for her kindness,' Jaime declared formally, 'may I inquire if Lord Baelish shares the lady's touching concern for my wellbeing?'

'He does indeed, my lord,' Ser Denys drawled, 'ever since their marriage –'

'Oh, a marriage!' Jaime interjected, 'how charming! I'm delighted to hear that they survived the ceremony. This year's wedding season has not much encouraged long life, I fear.'

Ser Denys proved himself to be entirely without a sense of humour by refusing to acknowledge the joke.

'Since Lord Baelish's marriage to the Lady Lysa,' Ser Denys continued drily, 'he has come to share her enduring concern for the well-being of her son, the Lord Robert. He has taken it upon himself to ensure that nothing is done to provoke the wrath of the crown, including allowing the Lord of Casterly Rock to die while crossing our lands. My orders are to find you and – '

'Lull us into a false sense of security, kill us and send Cersei our heads?'

' – to ensure your safety by escorting you to the Eyrie, my lord, and to treat you with the courtesy and respect that befits your rank.'

Arya laughed mirthlessly.

'Shall I introduce him to Nymeria, Jaime?' she asked, scratching the direwolf behind the ears, 'she doesn't like liars.'

'In a moment, my love,' Jaime replied, 'we may yet encourage Ser Denys to be reasonable.'

Jaime cast his eyes over Ser Denys again and noted, as he had only moments previously, that the knight wore uncommonly fine armour and a beautifully-embroidered cloak. But as Jaime stepped closer to his horse; his eyes flickering meticulously over every inch of Ser Denys' attire; he saw that although the armour was indeed beautifully-made, it bore the unmistakeable signs of excessive repair by an admittedly-talented smith who evidently knew it very well. The cloak was in a similar condition: superior craftsmanship maintained by superior craftsmanship. A man who preferred repair to replacement, or simply had no choice in the matter; a raging sentimentalist…or a knight with no money.

'Would you do me the courtesy of dismounting, Ser Denys?' Jaime requested, 'my neck is craning terribly, and I fear I'm not as young as I once was.'

Ser Denys regarded him testily, but dismounted all the same; his feet touching the ground with an arrogance that seemed to govern all his movements and decorate his face with a haughty sneer that Joffrey might have envied had he not been too dead to appreciate it.

'These…orders,' Jaime began, 'do they come from Lord Baelish, Lady Lysa, or from an authority higher than either of them?'

The sneer disappeared; the weakness of Ser Denys' face growing whiter and whiter as Jaime drew ever closer to him and spoke to him in a voice no louder than a whisper.

'You appear to me to be an intelligent man, Ser Denys,' Jaime observed, 'I like to believe that I am too; as hard as my betrothed tries to convince me of the contrary. And both of us – you and I – know perfectly well that Lysa Arryn doesn't give a fuck about anything that happens outside the Eyrie's walls.'

Ser Denys tried to take a step back. Nymeria growled at him. Jaime continued.

'Lady Lysa has kept the Vale in a state of total isolation from both the Crown and the world since the death of Jon Arryn. She wouldn't send her entire household guard out to 'protect' two fugitives. Or even to murder them. She has nothing to gain from either. Baelish does, however. And that only because he cares for the coin my sister will reward him with – not for Lysa Arryn's little brat.'

As he watched Ser Denys turn a pale shade of pink, and try (and fail) to divert his eyes, Jaime suddenly understood why Father had so enjoyed intimidating people. It was such tremendous fun.

He took a moment more to consider how that slimy little eel Baelish knew that he and Arya were in the Vale, then continued; wondering if he'd succeed in turning Ser Denys white again by the end of the conversation.

'I don't know if your orders come from Baelish or Cersei,' Jaime remarked, 'I don't care, quite frankly. It amounts to the same thing. You merely seem to be a poor knight out to make a bit of cash…in which case you have my sympathies.'

Jaime watched Ser Denys' face light up at the mention of cash, and plunged on; his voice grating deliciously against the back of his throat.

'Since my father's death, my sister's power has dwindled by the day. You must know this – even with as uninterested a liege as Lysa Arryn. Cersei sees traitors everywhere. She punishes good advisors and rewards the incompetent ones. She is an object of ridicule rather than fear, or love. The Game is eating her alive. Her days as Queen Regent are numbered. And if her days of power are numbered, then Baelish's days of powers are numbered…as are the days of either of them being able to provide money to those that serve them. As Lord of Casterly Rock and Warden of the West, however, I have no such difficulties, particularly when it comes to rewarding those who serve House Lannister well. Provided, of course, that I live, which I very much intend to do, with your esteemed assistance.'

Ser Denys' mouth was a grim line.

I have him.

'How much?' Ser Denys asked flatly.

'I'll give you your weight in gold every day for the rest of your life, if you like,' Jaime shrugged, 'all I require is that you and your men see us as far as the Eyrie, and do us the courtesy of not cutting our throats before we arrive. Killing us means gold for a while until Cersei falls. Not killing us means gold forever. Choose.'

Ser Denys pretended to think about it; folding his arms and posturing pompously.

'A generous offer, my lord,' he remarked nonchalantly, 'what will you do if I refuse it?'

Jaime felt his blood rising as he leaned forward and whispered in Ser Denys' ear.

'If you refuse, well…I do not need two hands to annihilate you before I die.'

Ser Denys blanched and stuttered visibly, before inflicting his frustration on his squire, calling the boy a clotpole and a fool when he failed to reach the front of the ranks immediately.

'Find horses for Lord Jaime and his lady!' Ser Denys roared at his poor squire, 'they will travel to the Eyrie as our guests. Quick about it!'

Jaime exhaled internally, his blood singing gloriously inside him as Ser Denys' squire ran to find horses. When he turned to look at Arya, she was sitting on her haunches next to Nymeria. And turning her head slightly; she smiled…and winked at him.