My sincere thanks to Nysandra, who edited this for me and showed me how to finish it, and to Bubug, who illustrated it so incredibly. Thank you so much... -W.G.
They rode all through the long, long night. The green faded away, was gone, was black, and then was glowing with the dawn. She nodded against the arm and woke in fear over and over again, until she was unsure if she was awake or asleep, and still the horse kept on. The wood had become dense and the horse picked and danced. They went through shallow streams, up a low ridge, a long pale field like a shallow sea in the moonlight, then down, into grey-purple dales. Then it was bright morning and there were birds everywhere above them in the trees and crackling brush, and no smoke at all.
It was in a middle of a scattered clearing that he brought the horse to a halt. He lifted her off slowly and she found she couldn't stand, and so she lay where he'd left her. The horse was crusted with salt and the Hound unpacked it, muttering to it and coughing while he brushed. She closed her eyes, the sun bright orange through the film of her lids. The lassitude returned, slow and throbbing. She thought of her mother, and then of Cersei, stroking the back of her neck, smiling her soft smile at Ilyn Payne. My other mother. It crushed her a bit, that thought. But now no mothers at all and I'm away in a wood. How would her mother ever know, ever hear, that she had not burned with all the others, had not staggered bloodied back through the gate, like Lollys, a little girl stumbling. Oh, Arya, oh no. A bright flash of Arya, running. She pushed the thought away, hard. Everything in the world is gone.
When she woke, not long later, the man was crouching beside her and he had bread in his hand. In the bright light he was again so much bigger than she, and with his face, weary and flaked with ash and blood, he was like a fiend from a nightmare; but he had bread. It was dried and salted; she took it quickly from his hand and turned away to eat it.
He settled down across from her and ate his. The girl avoided his eye, chewed her hard bread.
"It's a long ride. You remember, you've made it before. Be longer now as we're going through the wood. No roads. You'll do what I say."
She shuddered into her bread. "Where are we going?"
He regarded her with disdain. "North. Like I said. Had you forgot what I said? Did you forget where we went? We went out the Iron Gate." He swallowed, frowning. "Don't ask questions. Listen to me and don't ask, after this. You'll end up with your people, can't say who, yet. Someone North. It'll take a long time through the wood. If you try to run, you'll not make it far. If you meet someone in the wood, and you tell them what I've done," he leaned forward, tapped her knee, "I'll bury them right beside you, and go North on my own. Do you understand?"
She understood, and turned away, blinking. Her eyes were hot and sore. He rose and pulled the jute sack from the pile he'd unpacked from the horse, and threw it to her. In it were her dresses, all dusty with shreds of jute, and below it was a blanket pallet, more bread, some rags. "That's your bed. You should take care of your own bed. I don't expect you'll be good for a thing, but at least you can carry your bed." He stretched, dug back through the pile. "I'm going in the wood, and you'll stay here and go to sleep. I won't be far, I'll be able to see you. Remember what I said, about running." She nodded, wretched, and laid out her pallet. It was boiled grey wool, bristling with horsehair, and she looked at it for a long time, long after he'd walked off. She thought of running, hiding somewhere he couldn't find, but then she remembered the butcher's boy, and so she lay on her pallet instead.
Eventually, she fell asleep in the sun.