The Dark Dragon || Game of Thrones

Gone

The girls rode off slowly before galloping into the nearby forest when they were at a safe distance from the camp.

By the time the sun was beginning to rise, Rhalla was exhausted. She didn't realize that she didn't eat nor sleep for far too long until she couldn't hold on top of the horse any longer.

"We should rest, my lady." Kyra advised when she heard her panting.
"We can't.. stop. They'll find us." Rhalla stubbornly disagreed.
She was still a ward to the Starks after all, and after what just happened, she shouldn't be surprised if Robb sent men and his direwolf to keep one of their most valuable prisoner.

"I don't think they even noticed our absence yet. Otherwise, they would've already tracked us. Besides, lord Robin is the one in charge tonight. We're safe for the moment, and you need to eat, and sleep. Alright?" her friend scolded her as any caring older sister would.

Rhalla parted her lips to protest but decided to give up and listen to Kyra. She did need to rest, after all, and with the pain in her legs and her soreness, she would probably fall off anytime soon.

She climbed down her horse and tied it to a tree before sitting on a log, appreciating the comfort while Kyra took care of gathering a few branches for a small fire that would keep them warm for the night, or rather, the morning.

When the distraction of focusing on escaping was gone, all memories from the events that Rhalla had just lived rushed back in.
She tried to remain strong, but the tears started pouring even more than they did before.

All of it was real. It was truly happening.

Kyra saw her and took her in her arms.
No words were needed. Just a presence. A caring and comforting one.

Rhalla was just a girl after all. She was heartbroken, weak, young, and she had gone through so much. She never imagined that the end of hers and Robb's story would be this way.

He was her first love. Her first time. She gave so much into their relationship that now without his love for her, she felt empty. Like there was no reason for her to keep going.
She was now lost in a void of sadness and despair that she didn't think there was a way out of, and if there was, she couldn't find it through the pitch black dark that blinded her.

There she was, fleeing again, as she had been doing her entire life. But this time, there was no twin sister to protect, nor an assassin hired to cut her throat. Still, she kept looking for her way out, because she was a fighter. A survivor. She knew that the world wasn't done with her yet. She had a bigger part to play, and she tried to keep that in mind, because that was how she was going to get over the horrors she lived and saw with her own eyes.

All her dreams weren't meaningless. Her visions weren't false. She knew they were real, and she was sure that they would come true soon.

And that night, Rhalla cried herself to sleep..

*******************************************

"Do you have any idea where we'll be going?" Kyra asked her friend as they rode further into the forest, using the sun as a compass.
"I don't know. I thought about writing to Jon. He's the only friend I have left." Rhalla told her, trying as best she could to not focus on the terrible pain in her back.

After getting used to comfortable beds and warm meals, it was hard to sleep on the hard ground and be satisfied with some tasteless rabbit's meat that Kyra was lucky and skilled enough to catch.

Jon was her friend, but she doubted he still considered her that way with all the time they spent apart. The Night's Watch changes a man. But she hoped he was still the good-hearted person she once knew and loved, and still did, and that the odds had been in his favor, unlike for her.