"You need to take her away now," the woman said in a hushed hurry. "You saw what they did to her today. It's only going to get worse. And that goes double for you. We can't just wait around until Stannis comes and Tyrion almost burns this place down and then you develop some serious PTSD in the wake of it all." She shook her head, flustered.
He realized then that he was staring at her like an oaf, mouth hanging open slightly as her tried to make sense of her rushed words, strange accent and confusing way of speaking. He closed his mouth in a tight grimace, determined not to let on about how little her understood of her frantic monologue.
"The Imp?" he asked gruffly, feeling the corner of his mouth twitch in his annoyance. "Burn down Kings Landing? And what in seven hells is Peetee…" He trailed off slightly, trying to remember the turn of phrase she used.
"SD," she finished for him. "PTSD. Not that you would know what that is," she muttered to herself quietly, waving a hand dismissively and glancing over the ramparts. The cool wind coming off the sea pushed strands of her hair across her face, which wore a worried look underlined with a hint of desperation. She turned her head back to address him once more. "Look, all that really doesn't matter right now. You just need to grab the girl and get the hell out of Dodge."
He found that his mouth was once more agape, his brow furrowing in confusion at the strange woman before him. She seemed to realize then that he had once more failed to grasp her meaning.
"Ok, ok. What I mean to say is…" She screwed up her face for a moment in concentration, looking for the right wording. "… you must needs go to Lady Sansa and tell her you're leaving the service of the King and heading North. To Winterfell. Make sure to mention Winterfell."
To Winterfell.
For a moment he put the foreign woman before him out of his mind and pictured it in his head. He could go to her that very night. They would leave in the protection of darkness. No one was like to question them on their way out of Maegor's; he was seen often enough escorting the little bird around the castle at his Grace's behest. Once they were safely out of King's Landing, he would see that they disappeared south into the Kingswood. Those sent after them would assume their path pointed north and take immediately to the King's Road, but instead he would take her into the wood and through the mountain pass to Grandview, where they could hire a skiff or barge to take them downriver to Stonehelm. From there it would be only the matter of buying passage on a ship headed north.
Suddenly he found himself with a fully formed plan for escape. How long had his mind been unconsciously been sorting out those details? He thought back to the day he had accompanied the King to the little bird's room, just after her father had been executed. The girl had been trying to reason with the boy, trying to get away from him, trying to get back home. But as the man very well knew, there was no reasoning with Joffrey. And when the King told the little bird that he did her a favor, that he had been merciful by giving her father a clean death—that was the moment the Hound saw something change in the girl's eyes. It was as if the stories and songs that formed the foundation of her worldview began to shatter beneath her feet. He could see the innocence drain from her eyes, a dark anger filling in the gaps.
He had felt suddenly as if he was watching himself, watching his own descent into darkness as the stories he had believed in had fallen out from under him in one foul, fiery swoop. Sandor was a little boy again, overwhelmed by a pain more intense than anything he had ever imagined. His father was perched on the side of his bed, rubbing a stinking liquid on the side of Sandor's face with an old piece of fabric. Pieces of skin came away sometimes with the cloth, which his father picked off before applying more ointment.
"You'll sit still if you know what's good for you," his father told him stonily when Sandor squirmed and whimpered as the pain shot through his jaw where his father had placed the rough cloth. "Foolish boy. That was his toy," he added, shaking his head wearily.
Sandor felt the ice-cold stab of injustice, a pain more acute than his burns. "It was my face!"
"You should have known better! It was his toy. And so are you." The fear was clear in his father's voice. "You should see that clearly now. Maybe now you will learn how to play along. Save the rest of your face. Give him what he wants."
In that moment in her bedchamber with the King, the little bird had turned a mirror on him once more. As much as he cursed her and called her stupid, he knew in the pit of his stomach the truth, knew she was a mirror to his past. But he wouldn't bear it to continue. He would not watch as she turned into the darkness as he once had, taking refuge in the anger he found there, his only comfort. Yes, it had been at that moment that his mind had begun to plan…
"Hello?" the woman asked impatiently, bringing him back to reality. "You in there? Have you even heard a word I've been saying? We have to get her out!"
"Oh, we is it?" he asked, eyes narrowing at her with distrust, wondering at her motives. "And why are you so desperate to get the girl out of King's Landing? What concern is it of yours?"
Her face, which had worn a look of frustration and impatience up to this point, now fell. When she answered, her voice was defeated rather than frantic.
"Because it's all my fault," she confessed, looking at her hands. "I messed it up. Everything that's happening to her is because of my mistake."
She paused to push the wind-blown hair out of her eyes, taking a deep breath as if to steady herself. "And now it's up to me to fix it," she declared, the defiance in her voice coming back. "But I need your help."
Then she smiled, as if sharing a private joke with herself, and her eyes fixed on his once more. "Help me Sandor Clegane. You're my only hope."