DISCLAIMER: This story is entirely based on plot and characters from George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire

Soft-spoken sweet-smelling Sansa, who loved silks, songs, chivalry and

tall gallant knights with handsome faces.

Tyrion, on Sansa Stark

Bitter

Tyrion's legs ached.

Sixty-two, sixty-three, sixty-four…

The rain that had fallen most of the evening in King's Landing was now a torrential Spring downpour and the wetness seemed to permeate even through the walls of the castle. He counted off the rungs in the damp darkness as he climbed. He was used to it now, having practiced the climb more than once, and he was certain that no one suspected. There were spymasters who brought whispers to the Hand of the queen. No one could imagine the little man would resort to such an effort and subterfuge as spying for himself.

Seventy-seven, seventy-eight…

It had been years now since he had returned to the Red Keep, or what had been left of it. The Tower of the Hand that he remembered had been long gone, brought down in what he had heard had been a spectacular wildfire-fueled blaze, thanks to his sister Cersei's fear and revulsion of him.

Did she think I was hiding within its walls? I well could have.

Eighty-six, eighty-seven, eighty-eight…

Though many parts of the old castle had needed re-building, Maegor's Holdfast had mostly withstood the attack by dragons and it was here that the Northerners were staying as guests of the new princess despite Tyrion's insistence that the family of the bride had traditionally always stayed in the Maidenvault.

Though Traitor's Walk would have been more appropriate for some, if not a black cell.

The other towers had been rebuilt over the old foundations and as much as possible according to the original design. Since no actual plans existed, it had to be rebuilt based on memories. The current queen's Targaryen ancestor had built the Red Keep, and it was that castle she meant to claim as the last dragon.

Daenerys Stormborn, the Unburnt, Queen of Meereen, Queen of the Andals and the Roynar and the First Men, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Breaker of Shackles, and Mother of Dragons.

The Targaryen dynasty had reclaimed the Iron Throne; and Tyrion Lannister, the Imp, the Half-man, had returned as Hand. He had taken his revenge on those who had ridiculed him, insulted him, and cast him out and now Tyrion Lannister wielded the power he felt he deserved. They all bowed and showed respect to the Lord Hand and he liked it; he made it his business to know them, to know what they wanted and what they feared. Many even feared him.

But for how much longer?

One-hundred-and-twelve, one-hundred-and-thirteen one-hundred-and-fourteen…

Daenerys Targaryen had abdicated only the night before, after the wedding feast of her nephew Aegon, who now stood to inherit the Iron Throne. A young man; and rash despite his careful education, Tyrion thought: how else could he have chosen such an unsuitable bride?

The She-Wolf. The Wild Rose of the North. Arya Stark was a rag-tag girl who ignored all the proscribed graces and courtesies of young women at court, who strode the keep in boots and breeches and practiced sword fighting in the Bravvosi style. Nothing was known of the years she went missing: had she hid in Flea Bottom, the Riverlands or the Vale? There had been rumours that she had fled to the Wall, but that turned out to be some other Northern girl. Some said she had stowed away to Essos, and worked as a serving girl, a cutpurse, and even a courtesan, it was whispered scandalously. A traitor's daughter, some still styled her. Tyrion knew what a farce Ned Stark's confession had been, and how unjust and unwarranted his execution on the steps of the Great Sept of Baelor, but he kept that to himself. He found the less he gave voice to his opinions, the more forward others were with theirs: they mistook his silence with agreement, and talked some more. The Hand only smiled indulgently though he had learned long ago how ugly and menacing he could appear when he smiled. He had learned his lesson, but the scars remained and so he smiled anyway.

Small wonder my smiles never reassured her. One-hundred-and-forty, one-hundred-and-forty-one…

The little one had taken no more of a liking to him than her sister had; he was still a Lannister, even after all that had happened since then, since the girls had lived in the Red Keep under Robert's rule. But nevertheless he had repeatedly inquired after her older sister in the North because he had needed to understand.

Why?

He knew, or thought he knew why she would not want to return to him. He had told her that he had not asked for the marriage; and she had been very clear that she did not want him, and hid herself away behind the façade of her cold courtesies.

"Courtesy is a lady's armor."

She had been a lady, certainly, though she had been but a child.

She was not a child any longer.

And she was no longer his wife, but the Hound's.

Are his scars any less menacing than mine? One-hundred and seventy-seven, one-hundred and seventy-eight…

She had stared down at him guardedly when he had spoken to her, the first chance he had to speak to her alone since she and Clegane had been staying at the Red Keep almost a sennight previous; and her beautiful face held the same immobile expression she had worn since the moment she had arrived in King's Landing, with her eyes fixed on some vapid middle distance, as though refusing to acknowledge where she was and what was happening around her.

Just like when we were wed.

But the Hound was following in right behind her, to escort his lady wife to the wedding feast; and so he had wished them happiness though he doubted it heartily, for her anyway, most especially for her.

Rumors had circulated for years, in the North and throughout the South when it was revealed that Sansa Stark, once Lady Lannister and suspect in the regicide of King Joffrey, was living in the North as the Lady of Winterfell, ruling in the name of her youngest brother, and married to none other than the late King Joffrey's former sworn shield turned deserter of the Kingsguard and the Battle of the Blackwater, Sandor Clegane. The Hound and his lady wife were now styled Lord and Lady Clegane, thanks to the Dragon Queen, Daenerys Stormborn. The rumors all varied widely but were all whispered avidly as truths:

He had abducted her and raped her and she had needed to wed him so that she would not birth a bastard. She went in fear for her life and the lives of their children.

He had needed to flee North to escape the consequences of deserting the Battle of the Blackwater and the sack of Saltpans. He was but a dog hiding amongst wolves. She had only wed him to keep him loyal, though who could truly trust a turncloak?

She had seduced him and used him to re-gain the North, just as she had used Lord Baelish to escape King's Landing and hide in the Vale; just as she had meant to marry the heir to the Vale, first young Lord Arryn and then Harrold Hardyng. She was the daughter of a traitor, the wife of the Imp, murderess of young King Joffrey, the eldest surviving child of an exiled and disgraced house. She had left naught but dead or ruined men in her wake. He had been commanded to wed her because no other man would have her.

She loved him, and he her. They had fought their way North to bring her home to Winterfell and to help liberate the North from the Ironborn, the Freys and the Boltons; and then the Others. They were heroes of the North, and of the realm. He had so impressed the young queen with his strength, his bravery and his humility that she had raised him to lordship, and his young brother had rewarded him with lands and a castle, albeit a ruined castle: the Bolton's Dreadfort.

He received no inkling of clarification from the younger sister. She had no reason to like him either, he supposed; though he had tried. All his inquiries after his once-child bride were rebuffed with vague replies and, he thought, grudging courtesy: Lady Clegane is well, my Lord Hand. Her sister, and his former wife, was fine and the North was being rebuilt with her guidance. That was all the youngest Stark girl ever deigned to tell him. He had heard that the sisters had not been close as girls; they were far too different for that, and the little one had hated Clegane, so perhaps she truly had naught to tell him. Even when it was whispered that Lady Clegane was dying after she had birthed her third child, the girl had told them nothing; only that her sister had named her second boy for their brother Robb, the young King in the North.

Another child, another son for the Hound, he had thought then, but may cost her life. Have the gods no mercy for the girl at all?

At least no one could blame him for her misery now. For certainly she did not seem happy to him; no more than she had seemed happy when she was at court after her father's death and then after they were forced to marry. She still had that air of distant sadness covered in cool courtesy. And Clegane, the Hound, still looked as fierce and mean as ever; though Tyrion noticed he did not drink as he once had, not even when wine and ale was brought forth in abundance; not even, his spies had told him, when they were only in the company of the other Northerners. The new princess, now queen-to-be, Lady Arya Stark had held a separate, small reception for the Northern lords and their retainers in the Queen's Ballroom. Few of them had come South for her wedding; and though they claimed that it was time for Spring planting in the North, Tyrion suspected most were unwilling to risk sending sons or daughters of their houses to court where they might never return. Daenerys liked to keep members of every house at her court to ensure their loyalty; but only Arya Stark had been taken from the North and many had resented it. Other visiting lords and ladies had sniffed disdainfully that she had favored her family's people with a separate feast, even though such favoritism had never been uncommon at court. The North had rebelled against the Iron Throne, not only once but twice if one counted Robert's Rebellion, and yet, in the eyes of many, they seemed not to be paying for it; but the queen had fought in the North with her dragons when she first came to Westeros and Sansa Stark...Sansa Clegane had been the first to bend the knee to the young Targaryen girl and her Northern lords had followed. They say the North remembers, and Daenerys Targaryen remembered the North.

And now a Northerner was to be their queen. At least one Stark girl seemed to be rising from the ashes of Winterfell. His spies reported that Aegon's bride-to-be had welcomed the Northerners personally, had jested bawdily and even out-drank a few. She was known to drink ale at table in the Red Keep. She had sat next to Sansa at the head table during the feast, and the sisters could be seen to be talking closely and fervently after their meal. Clegane had sat next to his wife, then stood nearby as the sisters spoke.

He never lets her out of his sight, they had said. Was he protecting her, or was there another reason? Many men would be willing to marry the sister of the new queen, especially such a famous beauty. Sansa had always loved gallant, handsome knights, he remembered, and so surely Clegane would remember as well; why would she not prefer to have one now instead of a scarred old dog? Tyrion knew too well that she certainly would have preferred one to himself all those years ago.

I'm not bitter; I just need to be certain.

He stretched out his foot and reached tentatively for the level ground to his left and found it. He moved carefully from the rungs of the ladder to the passageway within the walls of the keep. Another man would need to crouch or crawl but Tyrion could walk upright in the low, narrow space.

He wasn't bitter, he assured himself again; but he had to see if his instincts were correct. He may not have wanted to marry the girl when his father commanded it of him, but he had wanted to see her safe, no matter how much she may have despised him. Had she? She had certainly believed that she had reason to be frightened of him; he supposed he could not really fault her for that; try though he might to convince her otherwise.

I could be good to you.

But it had been no use. On their wedding night, he had offered to be kind, and had generously and sincerely pledged not to touch her until she wanted him, and she had told him that she would never want him. He knew that he was ugly, a dwarf, and a Lannister: he had never known which was worse in her eyes. No assurances on his part had ever breached the walls of her icy remoteness. She could never love or trust him. Yet somehow she had pledged herself to the Hound.

Clegane?

Tyrion had finally asked her why himself. He has been standing in the antechamber leading to the throne room where the feast would take place. He had last seen her at another wedding feast. Joffrey's wedding feast. She had been the most beautiful woman in the hall, he had told her, and he remembered how she had looked then: her hair a rich autumn auburn, her eyes a deep Tully blue; and the haunted vulnerability of her many griefs had only made her more beautiful.

But she had disappeared that night, leaving him to face a charge of regicide, abandoning him to his fate and showing how little he cared for him or their vows. One flesh, one heart, one soul: a mockery considering that she had no choice in the matter. He had even thought her guilty of the crime, or at least complicit and therefore party to his having been condemned to death. But he had been wrong: she had only been a pawn, as she always had been. How then could she have known that he would be arrested and put on trial for Joff's murder?

She had told Queen Daenerys what she had learned from Littlefinger after he had her spirited from Kings Landing: that Lord Baelish and Lady Olenna Tyrell had conspired to poison Joffrey so that the more pliant and sweet-natured Tommen could inherit the throne, and his brother's Tyrell widow Margaery as queen. Still, she had intended to escape that night and so had left Tyrion without a thought to be tried and executed. Only by luck and with Jaime and Varys' help had he escaped; much as she had with help from Dontos and Baelish, he remembered now. They had both fled their respective imprisonment, though in doing so she had fled him as well and he had not forgotten. But how had she gone from Baelish in the Vale to-

"Clegane? Truly, Sansa: did you needs settle for the second ugliest Westerman in the Seven Kingdoms?"

She had not flinched at his question. He thought mayhaps if he disparaged himself as well as the Hound, she would answer him. With all the ravens that had been sent back and forth between Kings Landing and Winterfell as their marriage was invalidated and they were exonerated for complicity in Joffrey's death, she had never mentioned Clegane once. He was to later discover that they had already been wed in their godswood before Daenerys came to Winterfell and that, shortly after their victory at the Dreadfort over the Boltons and Freys, she had borne him a child.

It had to have been against her will or out of duty: Sansa Stark giving herself willingly to a rough, ugly brute like Clegane? Granted the man was a fierce fighter and could protect her but surely some other lord or knight, some Northerner, could keep her just as safe? Surely living with Lannisters hadn't frightened her so much that she needed to wed and bed a killer.

At least she would not have needed her to kneel when he draped her in his cloak. Perhaps he should have jested about that too.

But the Hound had followed in right behind her and glared down at him with the old fierceness and hatred that Tyrion remembered from his days as Joff's shield. And so Tyrion had dropped his eyes and told them that he hoped they were both happy. Then, as he walked away, he was very conscious of his waddling in their eyes.

Did they both have to be so bloody tall?