Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and elements from A Song of Ice and Fire belong to George R.R. Martin. No copyright infringement is intended.
It made him strangely jealous to watch Sansa and her brother play in the snow. The wolfling had thrown snowballs at him, and Sansa had asked him to join in. He'd said no and turned away. He couldn't close his ears to their joyful shrieks though, not unless he went inside. He stayed there listening to them, reminding himself no sworn shield worth his salt would leave them outside alone.
The memory of his first winter came to him. He remembered the childish delight of trying to catch snow flakes. That had been before Gregor burned him, when he was still innocent. She had helped him build his first snow-knight. It was his last, too. She didn't live to see the next winter, and by then Sandor was scarred ugly and angry, and he preferred playing with his sword to playing in the snow, always pretending to slay Gregor.
He couldn't ignore the giggling anymore. It sounded...conspiratorial. He turned. They'd built a snow-knight. A good one, too, but then Sansa was very good at things like that, better than his sister had been. He could see the lines of the knight's armor and sword. He walked around to take a look at the front.
"Do you like it?" Sansa asked shyly.
In place of the usual sort of helm, this snow-knight bore a helm with the face of a dog. It was a snow Hound. A flurry of emotions swarmed Sandor. Grief. Anger. Longing. Even something that felt a bit like joy. He laughed. "Well done, little bird."
"I helped," Rickon said loudly.
Rickon would have seen his snarling hound's head helm when he visited Winterfell as Joffrey's bodyguard. It had been nearly five years ago though, the wolfling couldn't remember. This was all Sansa's doing. Done by anyone else, he would have taken it for mockery. But however much she had changed, Sansa was not cruel.
He wasn't sure what she was. Kind and forgiving for certain. She'd taken him into her service when she found him disillusioned with the Faith, even though he'd held a dagger to her throat and made her sing the last time they'd seen each other. Sometimes when she looked at him, well, if he'd been a handsome man he might have thought she wanted his sword in her service indeed.
She was smiling now, her eyes on him while she teased her brother. "He would have looked more like a horse than a hound if you'd helped any more."
"Let's build a horse too, so he won't be lonely."
"Perhaps this afternoon. We've been out in the cold long enough."
"I'm not cold." The wolfing began to gather snow for the snow-horse.
"I'm cold. I'll shiver and my teeth will chatter. You don't want that, do you?"
"Shaggy will keep you warm. He kept me warm when me and him and Osha were hiding from Theon."
As if summoned, the huge black direwolf stalked out of the godswood. Yellow eyes stared at Sandor. At first he'd kept his hand on his sword hilt whenever the animal was near, though he knew his throat would be torn out before the steel cleared the scabbard. But Sandor had grown comfortable enough with the wolf that now he merely returned the stare.
"Let's go inside and have some warm milk, then we'll come back out."
"Shaggy wants honeycakes."
Sansa took her little brother's hand. "Shaggy will have honeycakes." She held out her other hand to Sandor and gave him a mischievous smile. "Will Sandor have honeycakes too?"
His instinct was to ignore the outstretched hand and the smile, to walk pass her brusquely, or to snarl something nasty. Sandor had always known he'd never have the love of a woman worth loving, had reminded himself of it constantly until he hated himself for wanting it. And yet so many strange things had happened, dead men rising, dragons - perhaps this wasn't impossible either. Sandor seized the proffered hand. "Sandor will have honeycakes too."