The Hollow of Harrenhall [IC]

As darkness gave way to light, Arya couldn't hide enough of herself to avoid the mind numbing pain of seeing the world below the ground.  Her ears rang with every echo of Jon's feet against the stone steps, growing louder as he grew closer to the top.  Northerners put out their lights as the brother ascended the stairs, as if trying themselves to shield her from the pain, but nothing dulled the sense.

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When Arya opened her eyes, the warmth of Jon's arms around her was gone.  She panicked at sat up, her head reeling once more when the light reached her.  Slapping her hands over her face was the only thing which helped, only to realize they were clean.  Her nails were even trimmed a bit, the blood and grime dug out from beneath the growing claws.  Someone had taken the time to bathe her, change her too now that she noticed the simple male garb she'd been put in.  

"Oh, good you're awake." An unfamiliar female voice reached her ears, Arya panicked at reached for Needle at her side, the panic thickened once she realized it wasn't there.  Her hands met clean sheets instead, brushing uselessly against the cream colored tunic, much larger than herself.

"Get away from me." Arya threatened.  Her eyes were shut though, and it was hard to make out the blurred figure in front of her.  A woman, that much she figured out from the sweet tone and calm voice. "Don't touch me, I'm not going back!"

No, that's wrong.  This is Jon, Jon came.  It's not the Hound.

"Arya, calm yourself." The woman reached out her hands and tied a thick wool cloth around the child's face.  Darkness was back, and she could find comfort in that at least. "My name is Talisa, I understand you've been in the cells for quite some time now."

She didn't sound dangerous, her hands were smooth, they reminded her of her mother's which brushed against her face.  Sick with a mysterious flu, Catelyn Stark had watched over her child for a week until she regained color in her face.  Those same hands weren't near, but this is the comfort Talisa brought her.

"Where's Jon?" Arya asked of her, pleading silently for her brother to be brought back.  Instead another grip embraced her, and had she not been so timid already, she would've tried to fight the man who held her in his arms.

"What about me, hm?" Robb Stark, brother by blood, held Arya in his arms.  So it wasn't just Jon then.  Which could only mean he'd defected from the wall to join Robb after all.  What in the Seven Kingdoms were they doing at Harrnehall then?

In other words, there was plenty wrong, but she wouldn't die. "Not today..." Arya muttered ominously under her breath, the teachings of her old 'dancing' master heavy in her heart. She was sure he was dead and gone, but his words kept her strong. "That is what we say to the God of Death."

Talisa pulled the two men outside of the tent to discuss Arya.  All throughout the days she'd spent sleeping, what she spoke of in her sleep alarmed her.  Of demons and Hounds, a man named Hot Pie, and of Gendry.  None of it made sense to the foreign Queen, and she hoped that the brothers might have been able to figure at least a bit of it out.

"She talks of men in her sleep, whispers their names over and over until she is no longer restless.  When she does not say their names, she cries, the cells have driven her mad!  I would be surprised if she managed to sleep the way she went on."

"Who though?" Robb Stark was just as if not more confused by his baby sister's behavior.  What happened here, at Harrnenhall?

"Here, I wrote them." Talisa supplied a piece of parchment as quickly as she could and held it out for the three of them to see. "It was all she spoke of, all night."

Armory Lorch.  Weese, Chyswyck, Dunsen, and Raff the Sweetling.  The Mountain.  Ser Meryn Trant.  Ser Ilyn Payne.  The Hound.  Joffrey.  Cersei.  Tywin.

"These are all incredibly dangerous men, last I heard, those four there.  Weese, Dunsen, the other two.  They were part of the Hound's torturing squad.  Then there's Joffrey, but what do they have in common?"

There was little time to ponder the curious list before a scream pierced their ears.  Arya had pulled the cloth from her eyes, determined to see again, and blinded by the light her eyes deceived her into thinking the tent was another place. "Get away from me!  No, no, no!" She fought against the invisible hound and his gang of torturers.  Her arms thrashing beneath the bedsheets, eyes wide with fear with their pupils nonexistent.  Talisa was fast to cover them, worried for her sight.

"No one is here-"

"I'll kill you, Hound!  You killed them, you killed them all!"

"I think that would be best, for now." Talisa nodded solemnly.  She hadn't expected such a violent reaction from Arya, the sun on her eyes must have been worse than she'd originally thought.  With one problem under control, she turned to Jon and his bleeding face.  Practiced hands tended to his cut without a word.  When she finished, she turned to Robb, clearly having enough issues for one night.  

Between wounded soldiers, a defected brother of the Nights Watch, and one lunatic of a Stark, her moral was defeated just like that.  Without batting an eye he exited the tent with her, looking for a more private location to get her mind off of things.

Arya whimpered in her sleep, the images not entirely gone with the curative poppy in her system.  She fought the Hound a thousand times in her head, but each time a new face was there to take the blow for her.  Hot Pie, Gendry, Robb, her mother, father, poor Sansa, and finally Robb.  His was the worst.  They'd always been so close as children and to see him be lopped in half by the Hound's monstrous frame was more than she could bear.  Silent tears slipped down her face in surprising agony.  

"Jon." Arya cried out for her brother.  Of the four brothers she had, he was her favorite, her brother in black as she was the rogue lady of the family.  She may as well have taken the black, Gods allowing she ever find a husband who could understand her.  Her eyes fluttered open to a half dazed state of mind, the room spinning under the influence of the drug.

"Don't go." She begged of him.  "He's going to kill you again, don't go."

Utter madness spewed from her mouth.  There was no Hound, no sword which would cut clean through flesh and bone within Harrenhall any longer.  Still she cried for him to take cover and hide.  

"Jon." Arya lifted a bony hand to find him.  Where'd he gone?  Had he left her, just as Gendry had?