"Think they'll kill us soon?" Edd asked as he tested the strength of his bonds for the thousandth time.

Caitie watched as he tried to break them, to no avail, and sighed, having lost all patience for his morbid attempts at humor a long while ago. "You've been saying that every five minutes since the moment we got locked up. Give it a rest."

"But I'll be right sooner or later."

Though Edd seemed to feel otherwise, Caitie thought it was lucky he hadn't been right yet. But so far, their imprisonment had been rather uneventful. Tanner and his band of mutineers had been too distracted by infighting, Craster's daughters, and wine to check much on Caitie and her friends. Other than the food and water which Dirk brought them nearly every day, the mutineers left them alone.

With one exception: Rast. He would join them in their little prison every few days or so, taking great pleasure in threatening or taunting them, though he was too afraid of Tanner to do more than that. Caitie, Grenn, and Edd usually responded by pretending he didn't exist.

Until, the night before last, he'd said, "Maybe I'll carve you up just like I did piggy," and Caitie's heart had stopped. Rast had grinned when he saw her face. "Tasted good, too. Coulda sworn it was real bacon."

No. I saw Sam escape. I saw him get out of the great keep. But, another, darker voice had added, he would have gone back for Gilly. What if they took too long? What if...

What if those screams she heard at night were Gilly's?

"You're lying." It was Grenn who had spoken, and Grenn who gave her the strength she needed to see clearly. He didn't have Sam. It wasn't possible, because the keep was too small. If she could hear the cries of Craster's daughters, then she would have heard his.

"Am I?" Rast asked, brow arching.

"Yes," Caitie said, and she couldn't help what came next. "I know you are, because Tanner's got you on his leash—"

Rast stepped forward, fist swinging, and the punch he gave her echoed in the privy. Caitie spat blood, and her mouth throbbed in pain, but she didn't think he'd knocked any teeth loose.

"You piece of fucking shit—"

Edd shuffled forward to take the attention off her. "You didn't scare us before and you don't now. So either chop us up like you want to, or get the fuck out."

Rast growled, but he never made good on the threat, storming out and slamming the door behind him. And after that day, they'd learned not to respond when he tried to torment them.

But Caitie wasn't an idiot; she knew that the longer she stayed, the likelihood of him discovering her grew larger. And when that time came... Well, she didn't want to think about it. Terror beat at her all the time, every moment of every day. At night it got even worse, since that was when Craster's daughters would scream and cry and beg for mercy.

Thinking about it did not help.

So instead, she simply glared at Edd, watching as he still struggled hopelessly against his chains. "At this point, it's more likely they'll soon forget about us and let us starve to death. Or maybe they'll get bored and Tanner will final let Rast torture us for entertainment."

Grenn snorted. "You two could try to be optimistic."

Caitie blanched, and before she knew what she was doing, she snapped, "Optimistic? If I'm lucky, they'll kill me before—"

She caught herself before she could finish the sentence.

Grenn waited for her to elaborate. When she didn't, he asked, "Before what?"

"Nothing."

He shot her a skeptical look.

Caitie pretended not to see it. "Well," she said, choosing her words more carefully this time, "we can't just sit here forever waiting to be tortured. It's been long enough already." And it had been. She'd lost count of how many days had passed; lost count of how long she'd spent with her wrists burning like fire, covered in her own filth, not having seen the sun beyond the one tiny window in the outhouse, and terrified of the mutineers finding out the truth.

"I don't see anything else to do but die," Edd said.

At his statement, she shut her eyes, knowing she had to say something. Because, unlike them, Caitie did see something else to do: escape.

That night with Rast had been the last straw, and she'd spent the days between then and now coming with the bare bones of a plan—one she believed might actually work. She just couldn't bring herself to voice it. Partially because of the plan itself, and partially because she would have to do something she really, really didn't want to: she would have to tell Grenn and Edd the truth.

To be honest, she didn't know if telling them would help her or hurt her. Caitie didn't want to believe they'd ever tell the mutineers or... or worse. But to give in to that want could prove catastrophic.

Except what other choice did she have, knowing that neither of her friends had any ideas of their own? And what kind of friend was she to keep it from them when it could potentially get them out of here?

"I do," she said gravely. "We're going to escape."

"Right…"

"If you have a better suggestion, I would love to hear it," she snapped. When Edd looked like he was going to make a sarcastic comment, she added, "Other than waiting to die."

Grenn put what Caitie supposed he meant to be a comforting hand on her shoulder, chains around his wrists clinking as he did. "The Watch will send people, eventually."

"I can't wait that long!"

He blinked in surprise at the outburst and removed the hand. She hadn't had an outburst in a long time, mostly because she had barely spoken to either of them since getting thrown into the privy. It was easier not to talk; to pretend she was somewhere—anywhere—else.

There was an awkward pause while Caitie took a breath, trying to reassure herself that she was making the right decision.

After everything they'd been through together—losing Jon, the army of the dead, all that had happened at Craster's Keep—she trusted them both. Neither would betray her to the mutineers. Besides that, Grenn and Edd would find out about her eventually, no matter what. Better she told them now, on her own terms, in her own way.

"If the mutineers found out about me," she started, shaking her head, "death would be the better option."

Caitie had hoped Grenn and Edd would catch on, but they only stared at her in confusion.

Gods, they were going to make her say it.

"Listen," she said. "If I tell you this, you have to promise you will never repeat it to anyone."

"Caitie, what—"

She cut Edd off. "Promise. By the Old Gods and the New."

"I promise," Grenn said without any hesitation.

Caitie smiled gratefully and waited for Edd to agree as well.

"Fine," he sighed dramatically, "I promise."

Her hands shook as she readied herself. Once she continued, there wouldn't be any going back. Her fate would be sealed the moment her secret left her lips. Summoning whatever bravery she still possessed, she spoke. "My name isn't Caitie. It's Lady Caitriona of—" She bit her lip to shut herself up, knowing she'd erred in mentioning her title. She didn't even know why she had added it. But at least she had stopped herself; it would be even worse to give them her family name. "I mean, it's Caitriona."

Fortunately, the two men were so caught up in their astonishment to notice the omission.

Edd forgot to keep his voice down as he exclaimed, "You're a girl?"

"Could you say that any more loudly?" Caitie hissed. "Do you want the mutineers to hear?"

"I knew it," Grenn said, though he still sounded shocked.

She twisted to look at him. "You knew?"

"I mean, I didn't know. But I always thought you were too pretty to be a boy."

Not knowing the proper reaction, Caitie simply laughed, trying to act as though she wasn't completely caught off guard. "Thank you."

Grenn gave her a grin in return.

"But you're not just a girl," Edd cut in. "You're a lady."

Caitie winced. "You caught that."

"I knew you were highborn. But a fucking lady? Explain."

"My father is a lord," she said simply.

Edd scoffed and rolled his eyes at the non-answer.

Grenn furrowed his brows. "Does anyone else know?"

"Only Jon and Sam knew."

He was silent for a long moment. "You told Jon and Sam, but not me?" he asked, low and accusing.

The tone surprised Caitie. "I didn't tell them." She tried her best not to sound defensive. "They just sort of… found out on their own."

Grenn was about to respond—whether with anger or understanding, she couldn't be sure—but Edd beat him to it. "But if you're a lady, what the fuck are you doing out here?"

"That," she said, sighing, "is a very long story. If we manage to get out of here, I'll tell you—I promise."

Edd and Grenn exchanged glances before nodding in agreement. "Do you have a plan?"

"Yes," she replied. Taking a deep breath, she walked them through it, trying to sound more confident than she felt. "The way I see it, we have three problems. The first is our bindings, the second is our lack of weapons." Caitie flinched when she remembered that the mutineers had taken her daggers from her—the ones Owen and Cerys had given her. But there wouldn't be time to get them back—not if she wanted to escape with her life. So, with another, deeper breath, she put it out of her mind. "The third is the hardest to overcome: we can't fight our way out, even if we solved the first two. We're too weak, and there are too many of them. We might be able to kill a few of the mutineers, but eventually, they'll kill us or worse."

"I thought you told us you had a plan," Edd said flatly.

"I was getting to that," she replied with a roll of her eyes. She hadn't done it in ages, but the thought of escape had given her a burst of energy. "It seems to me like our best option is to try and sneak out of here unseen. Tanner doesn't have enough mutineers to patrol the entire perimeter of the keep, so we should be able to slip by. But to do that, we need to get the keys to these chains and the door."

"And how do we do that, m'lady?"

Caitie shot Edd the nastiest glare she could muster, but otherwise, she didn't take the bait. "Dirk has the keys we need. Usually, he wouldn't get close enough for us to take them. So, when he brings us our next meal, I'm going to—" She swallowed nervously, hating this idea the more she discussed it. "I'm going to tell him the truth."

Both her friends' eyes widened in alarm as she told them the rest, detailing what she would say and do, what she expected Dirk to do, what she needed them to do. She went through her plan methodically, keeping her voice even and her words devoid of any emotion—especially fear. Because fear wouldn't help her do what needed to be done. When they pushed back against her, she stayed strong, insisting it was the only way.

Grenn and Edd didn't say a word after that, too busy staring at her with odd expressions, as if they didn't know who she was or what to make of her anymore. Caitie wondered if they thought she'd gone mad after such a long imprisonment, but it was also possible they were only adjusting to finding out that their brother was actually a lady.

Finally, Grenn broke the silence. "I... I don't like it," he said. "But if you think this is the way, then I'm in. Anything to get out of this place."

Both of them looked at Edd, waiting for his seal of approval.

He shrugged. "Better than staying here."

That settled the matter. Caitie breathed a sigh of relief, and together the three of them waited for their chance for freedom.

On schedule, Dirk materialized the next morning with some bread—which, of course, had sawdust in it—and the tiniest amount of water. It wasn't nearly enough for three people, but they were used to that by now.

Normally, Caitie, Grenn, and Edd would wait for him to leave, then divide the rations up equally and eat in heavy silence. Their stomachs would still grumble from hunger afterward, and their heads would hurt from dehydration. But if all went to plan, it would end today. Repeating that thought over and over was how Caitie calmed her nerves throughout the night of waiting.

While Edd and Grenn pretended to sleep, she sat, watching the door expectantly, half excited and half afraid for Dirk to enter the outhouse.

Cerys had taught Caitie many things during her fourteen years of training with him, but one lesson that had always stuck with her was this: fair or not, being a girl put her in the physically weaker position, which meant she would have to find other, sneakier ways of winning fights. When she'd asked him for an example, he had told her that there were two things a woman could always count on a man to think:

One: that she is weak.

Two: that she finds him attractive.

And Caitie was going to use it to her advantage, just like Cerys had taught.

She heard the jingle of keys, the door creak open, and then Dirk was standing in front of her. "What're you doing?" he asked, face scrunched with suspicion when he saw her watching him.

Caitie faked a sniffle. "I'm sorry, Dirk," she said. "I just wanted some company. I'm really lonely."

"What're you on about?"

She steeled herself for her next words. "You haven't realized? I'm a girl," she said in the most sugary, falsely innocent voice she could conjure. "I told them—" She gestured to her friends. "But they didn't want me. Do you think you could just keep me company for a while?" Bile rose in her throat, but she swallowed it down and kept her face innocent.

"Shut up," he snapped. "You're not fooling me."

"I'm not trying to fool you. It's the truth."

He gave her a once-over. "Prove it."

Caitie sighed. She'd wondered how far she would have to go to prove herself. Hopefully, it wouldn't be too far.

Despite the pain from the chains as they cut into her wrists, she grabbed Dirk's hand and placed it on her breast. It was the first time Caitie could be grateful she'd filled out a bit more in the last year. And while it was uncomfortable, she was also desperate.

He stared at her as comprehension dawned on his features. "I was hiding from my father, you see," she said. "Promise you won't tell? I'll be so, so grateful if you don't." Caitie blinked up at him, making her blue eyes look as big as possible.

Dirk gave her another once-over, this time appraising rather than suspicious. "Well, you're prettier than those Wildling whores Tanner's shacked up with. Should've known you weren't a boy. Fooled us good, for a little girl." He looked thoughtful, debating his next course of action.

Caitie dug her nails into her palms as she waited for him to speak. Her plan depended entirely on whether he would tell Tanner, or try to rape her, first. She'd known going in that it wasn't foolproof—that she was taking a risk. But knowing didn't make it any easier in practice.

Dirk is a complete idiot, and I've heard him complaining to Errold and Rast about Tanner hogging all the girls for himself. He wants to fuck someone, and he's both stupid and desperate enough to try and fuck me. That's what she had told Grenn and Edd when they'd protested. She hoped she'd gotten it right.

After a pause, he tossed the food aside. "We'll see if I tell the others. Depends on what you can do for me. For now, I'll just have you to myself."

Just what Caitie had been counting on. She had to hold back her smile of relief.

As he grinned, she crawled to the back of the small room next to Grenn and Edd. The former opened an eye as Dirk came nearer.

"Come on, girly," he said, grabbing at her. "Show me that cunt of yours 'fore your friends wake up."

But before he could do anything, Grenn was behind him, one hand covering his mouth and the other around his neck.

"Too late," he growled.

Immediately, Dirk let go of Caitie, clawing at Grenn's arm around his throat. Once freed from Dirk's grasp, she joined in along with Edd to keep the mutineer quiet.

Even with their chains, they were able to subdue him without much noise. In fact, the chains helped more than they hurt, allowing them to keep a tighter hold around Dirk's neck. Caitie thanked the Gods that Tanner and the others hadn't thought through their mutiny well enough to take the right precautions.

After what felt like years, Dirk's struggling stopped and his eyes turned glassy. His chest rose and fell one last time, and he was gone.

"Thank you," Caitie told his body, pretending to be calm, not wanting Grenn and Edd to realize how shaken she was. She hoped they couldn't hear her heartbeat thudding. They didn't need to know she wanted to curl into a ball and cry. "You've been very helpful." Caitie plucked the keys from his belt and unlocked her chains before moving on to Grenn and Edd.

"What you said—was it true?" Grenn asked, as he carefully removed his wrists from the chains. They looked the same as hers—red and painful, with blood oozing from them. If they made it home alive, she knew they'd have scars from it.

"Was what true?" she asked, grateful for a distraction from the pain.

"About your father."

"Oh." Caitie sighed, not having realized she'd mentioned it. "That. Yes, it was. But we can talk about it later. First, let's get out of here."

Opening the door a smidge, Caitie peaked her head out. There was only one mutineer she could see, standing guard in front of the entrance to the keep. But he had a direct line of sight to their door.

She frowned, thinking of a way to sneak past him—until she saw the stones at the base of the door.

She was able to pick one up through the door crack without making a sound. Once she had it in her hand, Caitie threw it as hard as she could towards a tree adjacent to the privy. It bounced off the trunk, and the mutineer's head whipped around to see what had made the noise. He grunted, holding his sword high as he slowly walked over to investigate.

This was their chance.

"Make sure to close it once we're all out." And with that, Caitie opened the door—slowly, so it wouldn't creak—tiptoed out in the opposite direction of the mutineer, mindful of any branches that would give away her position. Grenn and Edd followed her as she skirted around the building to the forest-facing side, away from the grounds.

Fucking hell, I think we actually did it. With the building shielding them from view, they could leave without being caught, start towards Castle Black, even see if they could find Ghost out here somewhere. Caitie was beyond glad she'd sent him off hunting before the mutiny.

Then the screaming started up, and she remembered Craster's daughters.

They cut through the quiet of the forest, screams of terror, anguish—pure and unabashed suffering; so loud they hurt Caitie's ears. All she wanted to do was rush inside and make them stop.

"We have to go," Grenn whispered, knowing exactly what she had been thinking.

"No. The mutineers are raping them. I can't leave them behind."

"You have to. I'm not leaving you behind to get the same treatment as them."

"But—"

"They'll know we've gotten out soon. We've got to go now."

She shut her eyes tightly, but Caitie knew he was right. "I know."

It took less effort than it should have. But she wouldn't have traded places with those girls for anything.

And so, she spun on her heel, ignoring the pain from her wrists, and started walking away—wishing death and worse upon Tanner and his band of monsters. Then she made a promise to herself that one day she would return. She would free Craster's daughters and she would kill the mutineers.

That would have to be enough for now.

They had only been walking at a brisk pace for a few minutes when Grenn started talking again. Caitie had been so wrapped up in her own thoughts, she'd almost forgotten he and Edd were beside her.

"So," he said, "where do we go from here?"

It was a good question. Luckily, Caitie had an answer ready. "We need to put as much distance between us and Craster's as possible today. Once the mutineers know we've escaped, they'll search for us. They won't want the Night's Watch knowing they're still alive."

She thought for a moment before continuing. "We've got to get to Castle Black, and quickly. The longer we stay out here, the more likely it is our wounds fester and kill us. Or worse, a wight or a Walker finds us. We'll have to find shelter for the nights, though. It'll be too cold to keep going."

"We can stop at one of the abandoned villages."

"That should do."

"One of us dies," said Edd, "remember to burn the body."

"Thanks for the reminder." Caitie scanned the Haunted Forest and took a deep breath. "Let's get a move on. It's a long way home."

Is it contrived? Probably. Do I care? Nope!

I also really hope someone noticed the Dragon Age Origins references in this chapter. If you like this fic, I promise you will like the game and I highly recommend playing it.