Dear readers, this is the translation of a short text already published on a different site. It is me who wrote it but as I am no native English speaker, I do hope it will sound okay for you all the same ...
He liked the harsh landscape of the North, it was not so hot and not many people lived here. He had never really liked King's Landing, the city was too crowded and stuffy, and those who lived there were either wealthy and conceited or poor and disgusting.
Sandor did not particularly like his fellow men, but if he were not the loner he had been all his life, he would have preferred the company of the Northmen. They seemed hard and taciturn, but also honourable, maybe because there were hardly any sworn knights to be found up here. He was stared at all right, but it seemed to him as if in the North, the curious stared less or less intensively than in the South. He was used to it, though, and had stopped caring years ago, so he could not be too sure whether this feeling was right. Anyway, no one bothered him and that suited him well, because the only thing he wanted was some peace and quiet.
There was one exception, however, and he consciously perceived it for the first time on the morning of his third day in the enormous castle of Winterfell. He was in the stable grooming his war horse, Stranger, when the beast suddenly started rolling its eyes and prancing about in a nervous manner. Sandor immediately realized there must be someone else around, but he could neither see nor hear anyone.
As the stallion would not stop snorting excitedly and stepping on the spot, Sandor opened the door of Strangers stall to look up and down the stable lane but it was dark and deserted. Only the other horses moved in their stalls munching hay and snorting softly. Shaking his head, he returned into Stranger's stall, but his horse did not want to be groomed any more. The stallion rolled his eyes and neighed irritably. Sandor followed Stranger's look and noticed for the first time that they were not alone in the stall. In the stable, an intermediate ceiling had partly been installed, in which hay and straw bales were stored in considerable numbers. Leaning its back against one of the strong wooden beams, knees pulled to the chest, a child was squatting several feet above him.
It was a little boy, so it seemed to him, wearing a thin linen shirt with a green doublet, a leather jerkin and trousers of the same material. Sandor estimated his age at six years approximately, although he was not particularly good at estimating the age of children and besides, the little one's face was in the shade.
"What in all Seven Hells are you doing up there? You are scaring my horse!"
Sandor was angry, he liked the early hours of the morning best, because he was usually undisturbed then. He needed his rest in return for dealing with lickspittles, fools and sons of bitches for the rest of the day. And with the crown prince who in his opinion could also shine in the two latter categories. The child above him did not move.
"Come down here, boy, or I'll come for you", Sandor growled. "Come down on the spot, because if I have to pull you down myself, you will regret it."
Finally, the boy came to life, he pushed his legs over the edge of the board and let them dangle. His answer, however, surprised Sandor.
"As you will. If you come up here to fetch me, the ground is going to collapse. You're too heavy." The little one's voice was soft and bright. Sandor's brow furrowed.
"Then I'll get you down with a pitchfork, damn it. Down here, now!" he snapped at the boy.
The legs dangled a little faster, then they were quickly pulled up again, the boy got up and disappeared between two hay bales and out of sight. The ceiling creaked dangerously and a few moments later he was back, much to Sandor's annoyance. He balanced across the wooden wall beside the stable door, fleet-footed and agile, but Stranger put a sudden end to the spectacle. The war horse rose, snapped at the little figure and the boy only managed to escaped by taking a brave leap into the stable lane, disappearing from Sandor's view. Cursing, the big man rushed through the swinging door, determined to teach the boy a lesson he would not forget.
As it turned out, he could save himself the effort. The little one was lying in the middle of a pile of horse apples, the disposal of which nobody hat taken care of, flat on his stomach. Forehead, cheeks and nose were smeared with horse manure, and also the shock of brown hair had suffered a great deal so that a hellish smell emanated from the boy. Only now could Sandor see his face clearly for the first time, which was dominated by big, grey eyes that did not really match the somehow oblong shape of his face. Sandor approached him menacingly, but the desire to pull the boy out of this mess by his equally messy hair resided quickly.
The bright grey eyes in the boy's small, pale and unattractive face were anxious, but finally his face twisted into a mischievous grin which after a few seconds expanded into a radiant smile revealing a wide tooth gap in his mouth. Horse manure clung to his face like freckles and Sandor snorted contemptuously. The boy started to giggle, quietly at first, then louder so that Stranger began to prance wildly in his stall again.
"Shut up, damn brat! I really don't feel like pulling you out of that shite, but if you don't fuck off immediately, you will feel my riding crop, that'll make you suffer. If my horse hurt himself because of you, you're dead, I swear it by the Seven!"
The boy stopped laughing immediately, lowered his eyes and murmured: "Forgive me, Ser. I didn't mean to scare him really …"
Sandor spat, just inches past the child's head. "I'm no Ser."
The little one looked up to him in astonishment, his eyes darted over Sandor's cruel scars, but there was no expression of disgust or fear in his face unlike in most other people's.
"Who … who are you then?"
Sandor spat again, but did not reply. Someone else did it for him.
"That's the Hound. What are you doing on the floor, Lady Arya?"
Sandor spun around, irritated. He had heard no one enter. The maester of the castle whom he had noticed around before, but whose name he did not know, was standing just a few steps behind him. Yet he did not look at him, Sandor, but at the unlucky fellow that was lying in front of them in the dirt. The maester shook his head, rolled his eyes to the sky and sighed.
"You were not back in your room by daybreak, my lady. Your wolf is howling after you and Septa Mordane informed your High Mother. You will be confined to your room again. Especially when they see how you are looking like right now."
The boy who was no boy rose to his feet and the whole extent of the fall became evident. The light-coloured linen shirt underneath the jerkin was brown with horse droppings and yellow with urine. Dirty straw clung to his doublet and jerkin and was tangled in the child's shaggy brown hair.
Sandor could not hold back a guttural laugh.
"A lady, huh. The thought would have never occurred to me. You are the ugliest lady I've ever met. If all the ladies in the North are as ugly as you are …" He snorted scornfully.
The fuzzy-head now straightened up to her full size, which was about that of the gnome, and glared at him.
"You are mean. And it's not even true. My elder sister Sansa is quite pretty."
"And you are not. And won't be, even if you wash yourself. But maybe, you'll smell better then."
Sandor left the maester and the dirty child behind and withdrew into Stranger's stall.
The arrival of the second unknown person that morning had made his black stallion even more nervous and Sandor walked slowly over to him, talking to him softly and trying his best to ignore the two others.
"You are going to have a bath now and I will tell Septa Mordane to come up with an appropriate punishment for you", the maester ordered.
"Please, Maester Luwin, I would really like to stay with the Hound. He was just about to show me his horse."
Sandor could not believe what he was hearing. The little one was lying through her teeth but he could not detect any sign of bad conscience in her voice.
The maester shook his head sternly. "Arya, I do not want to repeat myself." One could tell he was getting angrier by the minute. Surely, he too was sometimes overwhelmed with the liveliness of this child.
The girl pulled a face. "See you later", she peeped over the stable wall. "I'll bring an apple for you horse."
Sandor pretended not to hear. Their steps moved away and the stable door creaked feebly as the man and the child stepped into the cold courtyard. Sandor had good ears and could still hear the distant voice of the white-haired maester.
"You will not do that, child. This man is dangerous. His reputation is more than dubious, stay away from him!"
Ned Stark's daughter answered something he only half understood, then the stable door closed with another light creak. Sandor shook his head. He thought he had misheard, but maybe the child was not only naïve, but also damn stupid. Still, the phrase stuck in his head for the best part of the morning while he doggedly resisted thinking about the meaning.
"But I like him …"
