the world keeps turning (it's us that just stands still)

7

The men are closing the gates.

Arya is only watching.

She had meant to help, because with the time running short as it is, she had thought that no one was going to complain about an extra set of hands, even if those hands belong to a girl.  But then Jon had caught sight of her from his perch outside the commander's quarters and sent the Hound down to get her, Clegane cutting through the mess of rock and ice and wheelbarrows and men like it was magic, and then he was grabbing Arya by the scruff of her fur cloak, his hands just gentle enough to call them guiding instead of forceful.  It is not good for someone to be seen manhandling the sister of the King in the North (Arya refuses to think about it in terms of her title, as in, it is not good to be seen manhandling one of the north's remaining princesses), even for someone like the Hound, so he keeps his hands where they belong.  After their time on the road, Arya hadn't thought he would stick to the terms of propriety quite as well as he was doing, but the Hound seems determined to turn over a new leaf.

"I thought you were my sworn sword," She had snarled, and didn't struggle, because the Hound was trying to be proper but his patience was still just as thin.  She doesn't much fancy being thrown over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and dumped at her brother's feet.  She's too old for that, and occupies much too high a position to be sent sprawling on the floor.  "Thought you were done being some king's lapdog."

Arya meant the words to be cruel but they didn't quite make it there, maybe because she was so small and he was so big and nothing they say to each other comes without a little bite.  He laughs instead of getting angry, and Arya can feel more than hear the rumble of it in his chest.

"Your brother doesn't think that that pit is any place for a lady."  It wasn't.  Arya would like to argue that there was no place on this stupid Wall that was fit for a lady, and yet the ladies seem to be here anyways, even though they always had to be on the look out for men that forget their vows or seem to think forcing themselves on a woman was worth the punishments that Daenerys had set out for anyone who might lay a hand on a woman who is unwilling.  "Can't say I disagree."

She didn't either, not really, and she remembered Gendry's warnings about what these men were willing to do, when the two of them were in the armory with her leaning on the wall and him staring down at the dragonglass that just refused to melt.  He had kept up a running commentary on who these men are and what they had done- rapers and murderers and wife beaters and thieves, and there were good men, too, but in the middle of war most people forget to be good men.

(Will you?  She remembered asking, and in the darkness his eyes looked like hot coals, glowing by the light of all that fire.  Arya had promised to stay until the end of his shift so Gendry could walk her back to the tent.  Forget what it means to be a good man?

No, he had said, and there was a smile on his face, even though nothing about his warnings were all that funny.  It just made her want to reach for her sword, and to make her list of names a little longer.  I can't imagine I'll be forgetting anytime soon.)

When Arya comes to stand beside Jon, he doesn't look at her.  He's got his hand (the one with the old burn scars that he won't talk about) wrapped around the hilt of Longclaw, the same way he always does when he starts thinking of the whitewalkers.  Arya gives him another minute before talking, during which she kicks snow over the side of the walkway and ducks back into the shadows to keep from being seen when it lands on someone's head.  Gendry had started the game, but Arya took it up with a sort of vengeance.  There was precious little entertainment here when Gendry and Jon were working.  She would take what she could get.

"They'll be coming soon.  The watch hasn't seen anything yet, but with the snow," Jon pauses, seems to be wondering how much to tell her.  He's so worried about scaring her.  Arya wonders how he possibly could be, if maybe he refuses to listen to the stories that he has heard about her, that maybe he hadn't learned that in his time away Arya had become Sansa's little executioner.  "We might not see them until they're right up on us."