Beyond the Wall.

[Deleted]

As Aranya, Doyle and Lustrig rode out beyond the Wall, she felt a flash of fear. Her third eye was opening, and she had a brief glimpse of a snake writhing. But when Aranya blinked, the vision was gone.

"Snakes?" she hissed to herself. "I'm going mad."

[Deleted]

They rode out towards the haunted forests. Their packhorses were laden with food, and her black courser was steady and surefooted beneath her. Something about the sound of the horses breathing was reassuring. Living, breathing, warm flesh, that was what she had to be reminded of. In this cold, dead country, it was easy to forget who you were.

Aranya let her consciousness drift outwards, seeing with her inner sight. She became conscious of many animals, large and small, none threatening.

And then the snake appeared again, hissing.

[Deleted]

"Are there many venomous snakes beyond the Wall?" Aranya asked Doyle.

"No, my lady," Doyle was puzzled. "It's too cold for them."

"The most venomous bastards are in Dorne," Lustrig offered.

[Deleted]

"There is a snake here," Aranya muttered, mainly to herself. I saw it in my mind's eye.

[Princess Ariel Targaryen]

Later that night, as she curled up for sleep, Aranya once more saw the vision of the crone who had been her teacher.

"You will need to practice by yourself for the next few days...it will be...difficult for me to contact you. But beware...cast your eye not too far, and open it not so widely that you cannot close it again while I am gone."

"What do you..." began Aranya, but the face was gone, and she was awake again. "Cast my eye not too..." she asked herself, puzzled. Her eyes were nearly closed, heavy-lidded. She had not truly slept much in the past few days, her dreams taken up with her studies and worries of the threat beyond the Wall. The cold made her sleepy. It would be so easy to just take a little more of a nap...

[Princess Ariel Targaryen]

Aranya felt herself cocooned in heat, seeing the precious warmth around her, rather than the light; she could not know whether she was in complete darkness or bright sunlight, only that she was engulfed in sweet flame. She kissed the heat, the source of warmth, and felt an answer as her forked tongue stroked the hot flesh of her thigh. Forked... came a thought unbidden, then she abruptly wondered whether she had thighs. She didn't, but she did, and they were being licked, and she was licking them...

What? How...where... She stroked her head absently, her hand reaching down to her smooth head, nestled between her shapely legs. What the fuck is going on? came a detached voice within her mind.

[Princess Ariel Targaryen]

Oberyn,[/i[ she thought, almost absent-mindedly. Who's Oberyn? Why am I asking who... Her head, the one with hair, began to shake.

"Who are you?"

Aranya lay, her slender body relaxed, between a pair of shapely, feminine thighs, a hand resting on her head, now pressed in her hair. "Who are you?" repeated the silver-haired lady in a strangely compelling voice, as Aranya quickly pulled her head up and away, her hair falling to cover her heaving breasts. "And why, pray tell, are you in my dream? I was having the most lovely time, and Oberyn takes careful handling at the best of times." The lady gazed upon Aranya, and her eyes seemed to grow inhuman; two lidless, yellow pits like the eyes of a serpent, and a visibly closed third eye.

[Princess Ariel Targaryen]

"I'm Aranya. Are you..." she was getting confused. This woman reminded her of stories of the Princess of Dorne, but she had been the snake, and the woman, the snake pleasuring the woman, pleasuring herself...chills crept up her arms as she remembered the stories of the Princess' magic.

"Are you Emelia of Dorne?" Aranya asked quietly. "And a warg? Maybe you can help me. I have had dreams, dreams of cold white snow flowing over an ice Wall, bringing with it an army of white walkers."

[Deleted]

"Wait," Aranya looked at the naked woman, then at her own breasts, and the snake slithering idly over satin skin. "Wait, wait. Is he...er..."

[Princess Ariel Targaryen]

Emelia smiled as the snake began to slither off of the nude body of Emelia. "In a matter of speaking, you were him, as well as me. So yes, you were fucking me." She grinned and gently cupped Aranya's cheek, gazing briefly at Aranya's nude form. "If you'd like to repeat the experience in the flesh, without Oberyn of course, I'd be happy to oblige sometime. But we digress."

Emelia looked into Aranya's eyes. "You were speaking of the Others. Are they coming, then, without a dragon to burn them back?"

[Deleted]

Aranya was still trying to get a grip on the situation. The only times she had ever slept with women was when they were sharing a man in their bed. A snake had never been on her list of conquests.

She shook her head, trying to clear it, trying to remember that she was still in a dream. "You'll believe me, I know. You may even know how to interpret my dreams better than I do. My dreams have been of the Others. I see them walking, silent and almost invisible in the snow, marching over burned villages. They're not alone. Dead people walk among them, dead men, women, children, even wolves and bears. They all have burning blue eyes. And then the snow overcomes the Wall, and they cross into the realm.

"No dragons either," Aranya added, staring at her legs blankly. "And the ass of a Lord Commander has led practically his entire force deep into the wilds. He might be dead. He might be marching among the Others."

[Lord Rhodri Arryn]

"Eh, wench, wake up. You talk too much in your sleep," Lustrig says, prodding Aranya. "How can you sweat so much in this cold?"

[Princess Ariel Targaryen]

Emelia nodded gravely. "I have read of them, and it's entirely -too- convenient that the dragon dies with the first flurries of winter. Dorne may be safe from snow, but not from worse dangers. Damn it."

She looked Aranya in the eyes harshly. "Valyrian steel and dragonglass can slay the Others; obsidian is more deadly, as it burns them to the touch, but making it into a sword is a fool's game. Do you know how to call fire from dragonglass, Aranya?"

[Deleted]

Aranya's face was flushed; her body had been writhing. Now she lay still in the snow. Frustrated, her stallion mounted Lustrig's horse.

////////

"How do you know about the sword?" Aranya demanded, but then she suddenly noticed that the sword was beside her. "It's apparently old, the crone told me," Aranya said, taking it. "She's old herself; said she's been saving it. And she told me about obsidian being deadly to the white walkers. But we never spoke about calling fire from dragonglass." Aranya tilted her head, as she always did when she was thinking. "What does it mean? How do you do it?"

[Lord Rhodri Arryn]

"Oh hell," Lustrig says, as the horses start whinying. He knows to well to try and get in "Captain Snow's" way, but he tries to pull his gelding away. "Aranya! Tame your beast" he shouts, as she continues to sleep.

Ser Doyle watches with a laconic smile. The sight of the one-handed man trying to pull apart the two horses struck him as too funny to help with.