Missing Verses

by Atman

It was something that happened more and more as she had re-entered the world at large. Sandor Clegane was everywhere, even though he was dead, even though she didn't set eyes on or meet him ever again.

Author's note: Far from my first fanfiction, but my first in the ice and fire universe. Set after A Dance with Dragons. I own nothing and earn nothing from this. Though feedback is very much appreciated. Enjoy!

---

For no one, in our long decline,
So dusty, spiteful and divided,
Had quite such pleasant friends as mine,
Or loved them half as much as I did

From quiet homes and first beginning,
Out to the undiscovered ends,
There's nothing worth the wear of winning,
But laughter and the love of friends

You do retain the song we set,
And how it rises, trips and scans?

― Hilaire Belloc

---

Her caravan proceeded slowly, along a path made only slightly less treacherous without sinking sands or quicksilver currents, still frozen in the now years-long winter. The Bay of Crabs came to the fore step by searching step, horses, mules, and men alike testing their footing on the permanent ice bridge that encased the delta where the Trident met the sea. She had long ago learned the value of slow procession. If Littlefinger had taught her anything, it was how to appreciate an investment, and how to make an investment appreciate.

Petyr Baelish and his maneuvering had been easily enough arrested with the smallest of instant gratifications when his infinite patience helped him cling onto a long term payoff and she'd eventually been able to steer him and feed him bitter delays and detours while making him think them sweet delicacies. There were some manipulations of which only a woman was capable. Her investment gained her a clear head and unburdened shoulders while removing the weight on her surrogate father's shoulders by lopping off his ever-scheming head, using his own pawns and knights. When it happened, she shed the skin of Alayne Stone as if it were a suit of soiled armor; somehow she'd been cloaked in something that never allowed the name and life to overpower her.

She was only able to abstract what.

Years had passed since she'd set foot outside the Eryie, where she was insulated from most all word of the world outside. Years had passed since a knight she knew was worthy of the songs had come to her, vowing to be her shield only to be locked away. They gained their freedom together, but they and the few knights and men at arms she'd recruited to her service were not enough to curry power enough to challenge the clashing rulers of the seven kingdoms, or even to survive with the hordes of white walkers shambling from the north.

So the newly rediscovered Sansa Stark rode south with an ever harsher winter and wights at her heels. She stopped at each town and holdfast to bolster her numbers and to shelter, but nowhere had proved safe enough to stay more than a sennight.

They crossed a small moat of a comparative trickle of river water still flowing and began to hear the ringing of metal on metal. Sansa had never paid enough attention as a lady in waiting to have the ear to discern whether the sound came from a smithy or a training ground. Either way, it seemed the Silent Brothers no longer merited their namesake.

Smoke was billowing from inside the Quiet Isle's keep and other buildings, quickly lost in the roping winds and the dark clouds that always moved, but never moved away. A hooded head lifted to see her party and ducked away. Sansa looked uncertainly to her shield and tucked further into the folds of her riding wear.

"Don't worry my lady. That isn't the sound of fighting. Not real fighting anyway."

A few of their horses teetered treacherously on the ice sheets as the Brothers came to welcome them, swords and torches belted around their habits. They passed a wooden structure wedged into the place where the river water forked around the island. Even the peaceful Brothers had been compelled to leave their old life and take up arms and words.

Once the brother in lead had removed his cowl, her shield spoke and bowed. "Elder Brother."

"Brienne of Tarth. It is a great thing to see you again and whole." He tugged at his wool and leather gloves, breath leaving steam in the air as he squinted at a hint of seldom seen morning sunlight. "Did you ever find your charge? The Stark maid, was she?"

The lady knight nodded then motioned to her right, where her charge sat ahorse and under layers and layers of fabric.

"Lady Sansa Stark."

She removed her hood to greet him and noticed the slight and brief reaction to those Tully blue eyes. Once they elicited stares for their beauty. Now, ever sharper in their blazing azure, it was not uncommon for those she encountered to be wary or openly afraid of her resemblance to the raised dead. Their fear she understood, but it still made her angry.

Elder Brother soon tucked away his visible apprehension and surveyed the party, biding them to come to the stables. As they walked, he turned to Brienne, who remarked that one did not need to follow the Path of Faith to reach the island anymore.

The Elder Brother smiled sadly, but not without happiness.

"What of your other vow? To see to the end of the Hound?"

Sansa eyed her curiously. "As you said, Elder Brother, the Hound is dead and so too all who wore his helm to further besmirch his name."

He nodded. "It is an abominable thing to have to endure other men adding to your sins after death." After a moment, he added. "What of the helm? I should like to return it to where I buried him. Maybe bury it too. Where it might protect his sprit from further infamy and injury and correct my past mistake of leaving it out to where others might use it in evil."

The Maid of Tarth looked over to Sansa, who nodded almost imperceptibly, head now low in her cowl again. "My lady keeps it in her carriage."

All dismount at the stables, which are half full. There are many geldings, foal, and mules, even a big black destrier that seemed better fit to ride in tournaments than graze in the troughs of monks. Brienne reaches out to pat the neck of the only being Sansa's seen in years taller than her sworn guard, but her mailed glove falls quickly after apparent second thoughts, though to Sansa's eye the beast looked to be leaning to nuzzle her hand. Instead she talks to Elder Brother once she's handed her reigns to a stable hand and helped Sansa to the ground.

"Your isle seems a good deal more crowded than when I last saw you, Elder Brother."

At this he frowns, but agrees. "The Quiet Isle has been able to maintain its relative prosperity, even into this winter, longer than most of our men have seen. We've revoked a number of our rules in order to accommodate the refugees that seek shelter here and the wights who seek warm flesh." He sighs deeply. "The river doesn't wash up bodies anymore, but we still find that the dead make their way to the island and are not reborn in the way our order intended."

Brienne stops in her tracks to face the monk. "Surely you no longer dig graves for the dead in the frozen ground?"

Elder brother smiles ruefully as they pass the lichyard, and indeed there are what appear to be new graves, but there is also a something resembling a giant pit filled with ash and unburnt wood.

They clamber up the wooden stair as a hooded brother clears the path upward of snow and ice. Mounds of snow cover the once verdant arbour and the roughhewn stones of the outer wall have multiplied, now accompanied by thousands of sharpened wooden pikes which jut out at all angles. Nearly beyond her vision, over the hill, she can see the entrance to a training yard, and hear the footfalls and hoofbeats of men fighting still.

Sansa took in her surroundings and thought that the population of the Quiet Isle probably now rivals that of Maidenpool, or anywhere else in the Vale. She feels lost and not a part of the conversation, every word heard and each new person met only seemed to make the world a smaller, less hopeful place. Ahead a windmill is turning softly.

Elder Brother continues. "Even in ground as hard as iron, the dead seem to be able to escape. We're now charged with making funeral pyres." He looks behind them "One of our brothers has opened a kennel so he would be interested in tending to your dogs, if you would allow it my lady."

Sansa nods distractedly. "Of course. Thank you Elder Brother." Another man in a cowl took the dogs away to the kennels in the south.

"Your men and ladies are welcome to our common hall. We'll have some food brought out shortly, along with some mulled cider. I'm afraid our stock of wine is gone. I have discovered a way to increase its potency by boiling it and collecting the vapors and we've since reserved all that was left in our barrels for anesthetics and wound treatment." He stopped walking and faced them, bowing. "I need to prepare for our brothers' return from the west with people and supplies from God's Eye and Harrenhal. Brother," he motioned to another monk who walked with them, "Please take our guests to the women's huts and prepare extra pallets in the eastern halls for the men."

Once the Elder Brother left them to return to the walls, Brienne slowed her pace to match Sansa's. She placed a gloved hand on her shoulder. "My lady… What troubles you?"

Sansa exhaled, temporarily obscuring the world with the brilliant white billows of her breath. She adjusted her cloak and the riding blanket she'd wrapped around her body, wool stained grey and darker and dragging through the snow.

Brienne had become familiar enough with her to sense when something was amiss, but still wasn't able to intuit what.

"I hate how they talk about him like he's gone. Just like everyone used to – still does sometimes – talk about my family."

The lady knight hesitated in leading her words from her mouth. She knew this denial of the dead was not proper, but proper can only get you so far in this world.

"But he is gone… They are gone."

Her lady's blue eyes pierced and burned as they shot back to the knight's face. Brienne took an unconscious step backwards and bent her knee in unspoken apology. Even memories have presence. Must have presence.

"Not to me."

---

After she and her people were settled into their huts, Sansa released Brienne to train or converse with the brothers as she wished until dinner. She walked the grounds and familiarized herself with the buildings and apartments. It was one of the few places she'd visited since leaving the Eyrie that wasn't burned or burning. To her eyes, the Quiet Isle was a splendor exceeding Kings Landing, and more pleasant besides. Soon, after she looked out to sea, where the waves were just visible on the horizon, barking led her to the kennels.

She took in the rows of waist high housing for the dogs and the large fenced area where they could run, play, and be trained. Many of the hunting hounds she'd brought with her people loped in the snowy, dirty field with terriers and mastiffs. In the middle of them, but walking to the gate was a man who worked with a few dogs at a time to slide under shields and pull and chew the unprotected arm on the other side. Her hair unbound and waving in the sea breeze, she leaned on the fence until the man concluded his training.

When he turned after closing the gate behind him, he nearly stumbled away from her. Her frown grew as she studied the small, close-shaven man, with clear brown eyes quickly regaining his composure and regular breaths.

"Milady. Your hounds are well trained and hale, if you don't mind my saying. Pretty rare these days for dogs to be well cared for."

"You're the kennelmaster?" Her question was half accusation.

"Aye. I'll look well after your bitch too, she's pregnant."

"You're rather jumpy for a trainer."

He fingered his cowl nervously. "You just scared me is all." When her scowl didn't leave her face, he continued. "Have I done something to displease you milady?"

Sansa sighed and softened, pulling the dirty blanket taught against her arms. In the years since she resided in Kings Landing, she'd not forgotten her courtesies, though she has found that she takes much longer to remember them and more often has to use them to undo the damage her countenance has caused. Smiling, she shook her head and begged his forgiveness for her poor manners; her trip has been long and tiring. Wanting to engender herself to the brotherhood, she sought a topic to make the kennelmaster more comfortable.

"Do you ascribe to the teachings of master Clegane? Your mastiffs look brave and vicious."

At this, a smile lit the kennelmaster's face.

"Aye. Used to work in the keep meself, before, before…" He grew wistful and then uncomfortable. "Milady has a kinship with the dogs. That is a heartening thing for an old man to see." He waved his hand at the field and in the general direction of the bay. "These days, any dogs you come round are half-starved, or worse, in the bellies of half-starved smallfolk. 'Is no way to repay loyalty, and all a dog wants to do is please his master."

She smiled sadly and then intoned, "A dog will die for you, but never lie to you."

"Aye."

Sansa sniffed and she could see in the man's keen look that her eyes glistened, though she couldn't feel it. Wanting to leave suddenly, she turned and nearly ran into Brienne, who arrived at her side with the Elder Brother, both in armor, both breathing heavily.

She turned to her shield. "Did you train with the men, Brienne?"

"Yes, my lady. Thank you for allowing it. It has been a long while since I've faced a new sparring partner and these men have been well-trained."

Elder brother seemed to take a bit of pride in the lady knight's statement.

"Were you a knight before you took your vows, Elder Brother?"

"Yes, my lady. I had already butchered men and knightly vows when I died at the Trident to be reborn into new vows, ones which I've kept. These times," he sighed, obscuring his face, "require some parts of me that died before, and so I must pray that they now are instruments of faith."

Sansa nodded. "Are you the master-at-arms for the brotherhood, or are there other former knights in your employ?"

He shook his head. "I am neither the master-at-arms nor the only nobly trained warrior here. Our martial leader is far better with arms than I, and younger too." The brother laughed.

"I should like to train with him, Elder Brother." Brienne said.

He lent a cautious eye to Sansa and spoke after some time. "Perhaps if you stay long enough, you shall, if your lady would allow. You are most welcome to remain a part of our community. I know there are few places suitable to inhabit these days, but I daresay this is one of them." He wiped his hands on his breeches and said, "Come. Let us eat."

The sun had begun its descent along the forested hills long ago. Days were not long in the long winter. It was twilight already and they walked to the main hall, spacious for what had been meant for a cloister of holy men, but now connected to a truly walled city, with defended keep and all. Tapestries of the treasures of the ruby ford adorned the walls, relics of time when the men had little else to do but create and preserve. Statues of the Seven stood in corners and many windows and sconces provided light for all hours.

Not everywhere was lit. Stranger's likeness was in a dark corner, floating above genuflecting worshipers, who prayed for the souls of the wights they dispatched, the friends and family they'd lost, or that those they lost would be led away by the god of death instead of being left to wander the earth. It was unusual to see so many worship before Stranger, but in these times it seemed fitting, Sansa supposed.

She and Brienne sat near where they saw the Elder Brother at the middle of one of five long tables of rough-hewn wood. The tall, hand-thick double doors opened frequently with the other brothers coming in from their tasks, and quickly shut them behind to keep the cold winds away. Three fireplaces blazed, and in alcoves above them, savory stews held cream, herbs, and shellfish. Trenchers, cups, and bowls were served, all polished driftwood, bright and beautiful. Cowled men filled them with dark breads and light ales or spiced cider.

A big man came through the doors as she sat eating, seeming to fill the doorway. An irrational part of her mind wondered if it was Bronze Yohn or the Lannister's dog, former dog, but that was a silly thought, for both had been dead for years now. As the dark shape became illuminated in the hall, she realized he was not so tall as either of the dead men, nor as broad. The Hound would have filled both doors with his shoulders and would have ducked through the arch.

It was something that happened more and more as she had re-entered the world at large. Sandor Clegane was everywhere, even though he was dead, even though she didn't set eyes on or meet him ever again.

Each tall man was a half-hand too short at least. Burly men too slight, their feats parlor tricks rather than superhuman. Broad ones too narrow or rotund. Every rasping voice was reedy and high and all men were not him. Just as those with gentle grey eyes were not her father and any pair of beautiful blue eyes she saw was never under a veil of her mother's silken red hair. No unruly tomboy was her spirited sister, now surely a woman grown, if she lived.

After a moment heralded by a brother offering her more food and drink, she realized her vessels were empty and she was much hungrier than she expected. The simple hearty food in the relaxed and unpretentious atmosphere warmed her and gave her heart. She removed riding blanket, setting it beside her.

All of the tables were of a level. The only sign of honor was that the Elder Brother sat at the head of her table; all the other chairs were at the edges of the oblongs, save one which was empty at the other head of the table and no one moved to fill it. Much of the hall was occupied by the brothers, who still held onto much of their habitual silence, but at the tables where the refugees sat, there was laughter and singing; things she'd not heard in a long while. She smiled and was glad.

Sansa put down her cup, empty again, and entered into conversation with her shield and the Elder Brother.

"You serve your brothers alcohol, Elder Brother?"

He smirked. "We've taken no vows to abstain, my lady. There are many benefits to cultivating fermentation, not the least of which it having a highly sought item for trade. Making the ales, cider, and wines are good work for my brothers, the fruit of which they may enjoy as a medicine, antiseptic, and relief of stress and soreness of this hard life." He waved to the back tables. "We don't allow drunkenness, but sometimes the refugees give a bit of trouble."

"Big Brother usually keeps them in line, though," another monk intoned and the Elder Brother smiled, nodding.

He saw Brienne hesitate to accept more food. "We have plenty. Our hunters and fishermen are accomplished. Our stores are overfilling. Our glass gardens are growing more food than we can even hole away. Eat, Brienne."

It was her turn to smile, beautiful despite her scars, happy to see something of prosperity again.

Between bites, Brienne asked, "I see that some of the brothers still wear scarves. Do some still keep the vow of silence?"

"Aye, but only for a day in seven. I've found that those who wear the scarf reflect on their thoughts better than those who do not, so they are the ones to take confession. It turns out that confessors are more penitent for a jury who passes no judgment."

Sansa smiled at that remark.

"What news of the rest of Westeros, Brother?"

"Castle Black still stands, with the help of the Dragon Queen's beasts. If tales are to be believed, even one of the dragons met its end by the Others, and the two that remain haven't been enough to stem the tide south of the Wall, as you've no doubt noticed, but they are surely culling the numbers of the white walkers."

"What of Kings Landing?" Sansa asked.

The monk took a long pull from his cup and she could smell an almost floral draft of the ale in his response.

"The Faith Militant still holds a tenuous grasp of the city. The smallfolk seem like the change in leadership," he claimed with a frown.

"And you do not?"

"Anytime a man-made faith rules man, removing choice of partaking in that same faith, it removes the power of the belief itself. The Seven should guide man, not be a tool to subdue them. At least power is spread now, in the hands of many incompetent men instead of one mad one…"

"Surely the Faith can't be so bad if the smallfolk approve," Brienne mused.

Elder Brother snorted in his ale. "They approve of the usurping, the ending of the game for the Iron Throne. For the time being, anyway… Besides, they haven't been taxed yet, as the Faith set in order the various accounts and debts, they will no doubt reinstate them. They've not left the war and war and administration are expensive."

Sansa nodded, eyeing the appraising looks sent her way by the rapidly debauched free folk.

"How did the Faith come into power at the capital? I am surprised the queen allowed it."

"The former queen caused it, if unwittingly, and perpetuated it at her trial."

"Cersei was on trial?" Sansa's eyes widened. Petyr had kept much from her, it seemed.

"Indeed," Elder Brother nodded. "Her grasp on events seemed to slip away years ago and her growing paranoia made her careless and bold – too bold to be without family or other allies. The Tyrells named her an adulterer after a Kettleblack confessed to fornication and murder at her beckoning. She chose to have a trial by combat and was represented by a Kingsguard."

"Her brother, no doubt."

To Sansa's surprise, the monk shook his head.

"If she sought her brother's help in this, he did not respond. Perhaps he thought it petty revenge: she having him die protecting her lacking honor with him lacking his sword hand." A dog came to sit by him and he scratched him behind the ear. "The Champion she ended up choosing was far more capable."

"Who was it, Brother?"

"Ser Robert Strong."

Both of the women frowned as they thought on their history of the houses in Westeros. "I thought the house Strong had ended some time ago."

"Indeed, most of the realm had thought the same when he was named kingsguard, and that surely an eight-foot tall, 40 stone knight would have been noticed at some point before then."

"The only man I've heard of even close to that size was the Mountain," Brienne mused.

"Some have speculated that Robert Strong was he, brought back from the dead by the sorceries of the disgraced maester Qyburn." The women gathered closer at his almost conspiratorial tones and he continued the tale without prompting. "Strong made quick work of the Faith's champion, but proved to be uncontrolled, as several in the crowd were killed during the trial, including the young king Tommen. When this happened, Cersei flew into a rage and attacked Qyburn, revealing that he had created the champion and, however ineffectually, controlled it.

"This led to some new immediate charges against the former Queen and the charges against Margery Tyrell were dropped. She and Qyburn escaped with his abomination, having regained control of it. I suppose she knew that he had no true power without her and she no protection without him and his indefatigable giant."

More cider and ale arrived when their food was taken away as scraps. Sansa was warm by the fire, and despite the grave topic of conversation, was happier than she had been in a long while. She slipped off her hood and let her face and head of thick red hair show. Some of the refugees took notice, but none approached.

"Where did they go after?"

"Most assumed that she would go to take Casterly Rock, since Tyrion had fled and Jaime was seemingly uninterested in it. Instead, she went after you, my lady."

Sansa gasped. "Me? But why?"

"She blamed you, in her paranoia and madness, for the death of Joffery, and the fall of her family. Regardless, another man of the Faith caught her before she could reach you in the Vale and set the undead Strong aflame after knocking off a helmet which covered naught but blackness and blood."

"I can't imagine anyone facing such a monster in single combat," Brienne remarked. Sansa could; she'd seen it before, at a tourney for her true father.

"Aye, though he ended up not being quite so alone. Another fought with him and Cersei and Qyburn were dead as well before the day was done. This other man took her body to the Westerlands and recuperated there himself." He smoothly drained the rest of his drink and folded his hands in his lap. "Enough of past ills. Let us speak of the present, dark as it is, still grows more pleasant by the day. Winter is releasing its hold on the lands and the hordes thin."

"Elder Brother… Forgive my saying so, but those sound like words from someone who hasn't seen the rest of the world lately. Step off your Quiet Isle and the world still freezes and burns, overrun by the Others," Sansa responds.

The monk shakes his head with sad and coaxing eyes. Refugees come walking by looking at her, looking like they might try to talk to her, but her scowl - or maybe something else - makes them veer away. Her frown deepens.

"And your words sound every bit as though they spent most of the winter sheltered from it, my lady. My brothers and I ride out frequently. Sad though it may be, the worst of it is passed. That does not mean that the present days are good or prosperous, only ripe for us to grow. The only question that remains is: what will you do now?"

"As I have for the past decade, Brother: I will survive."

Though he smiled, she couldn't help but to think that the response disappointed him.

More men walked by, giving her a wide berth as she sat thinking. She allowed a cowled man to refill her driftwood cup and closed her eyes after the Elder Brother excused himself. He walked out of the hall with another brother, she presumed, only he wore mail and held a helm and had steel arms at his side. His eyes cut to her and they vanished into the darkness of the dying winter's night.

Brienne looked to her as if to ask if they ought to leave as well, to retire after a long journey with full bellies for once. Sansa nodded, but they sat waiting for the crowds to dissipate before getting up to go. A monk sitting near them watched as they waited.

"A specter stands behind you, my lady. That is why they avoid you."

Sansa narrowed her eyes at him. "I need not be reminded of my family and how they follow me in my grief, brother. Nor do I want the attention of lechers and brigands."

He shook his head. "No. It is not your family I think, but something hulking and snarling, repelling people from you despite your pretty face. And do not tell me it is your eyes, my lady, they do not truly resemble a white walker's. As for driving people away; don't you want an ever growing retinue of retainers and masses to adore you? Don't you want to retake the north? Become queen even?"

"I did… I want…" She grimaced and looked at him fully in his eyes, deep set and brown, seeing the complexities under a simple brow. "These are not guesses about my desires and thoughts. How can you come to know, presume to know, these things about me, even if they are no longer true?

"What we desired in youth, our dreams, even if we no longer look at them as attainable or true, shape us to whom we become. I am a septon, child, and I take many confessions. Not all are made with words."

"What I thought and wanted as a child doesn't matter anymore. Little does."

She sighs and suddenly feels more tired than she has in months. Numb to thought and action, she bids Brienne to help her to her quarters and goodnight to the septon. Once again wrapped in her riding blanket and with her hood up, Sansa steps outside into the cold night air. The stairs down to the hovels are lit with braziers and the floating torches of the brothers ending their evening tasks and heading to their pallets. By the stables men who looked like they had newly arrived dismounted and tended their steeds, mail and armor jingling and clanging as they moved. Other, unarmored men and some women were with them and Sansa even thought she heard some children amongst them.

Her knight came into the hut first and stepped aside to let Sansa settle in. The new arrivals without shuffled along noisily, some sitting around a blazing bonfire, talking and laughing, while others nervously made their way to their beds. Brienne shut the rough-cut door to the outside, and stuffed a rug underneath that kept out the cold. A fire was making shadows dance in the hut, warm and cozy, sparsely decorated and small though it was. They scarcely wrapped themselves in furs before sleep took them.

---

When she awoke, it troubled her that she had slept well past morning. Two trays of cold food lay on the table which Brienne must have left as Sansa oblivious and without dreams, ignored bells for matins, mid-day worship, and two meals. Her trouble was more than diminished by how rested she felt. She shoved a thoughtfully placed basin next to the fire and barred the door and bathed after she allowed the water to cool some.

She dressed and donned her cowl and blanket to face the outdoors after placing fresh logs on the fire. Walking along the island, she listened to the peaceful sounds of men, and some women, at work: the din of the forge, bustle in the kitchens, grinding in the mill, and sawing in the lumber yard. Even the sounds of fighting were calming, with the ring of metal on metal unaccompanied by shouts and screaming. The sight of smoke came without a sickening smell of charring flesh, but with succulent dishes. Lemons from the south might never make it here, but all else reminded her of the old comforts of home. It all seemed so normal, serene, like the ravages of the world didn't touch it.

Boys and girls ran by her, playing Jenny Oldstones, and she smiled. Her sworn shield approached.

"My lady," Brienne spoke. "Elder Brother would like to take the Hound's helm to his grave now, before the light fades."

Elder Brother stood to Brienne's side, serene, but exhaling steam like a smith's water barrel. Sansa nodded. "I will go fetch it."

Both others seemed to realize not to insist that such a menial labor was not the task of a highborn lady. They walked together to the wagons, and Sansa again noted the strong build and heavy chin of the Elder Brother.

Now in front of the covered wagon, he stopped and waited for Sansa to retrieve the helm with hands folded in his sleeves. Sansa hadn't wanted to think any more of him, or the lack of him, than she already did. Most thoughts ended with her missing his stolid, strong presence and began with a ghostly rasped word of advice or condemnation. The Hound had stayed at her heels, would always, it seemed.

But she'd never see him again.

Sansa stepped into the carriage and sidled into the seat on which the Hound's helm sat, shrouded in white cloth. She turned it and held it in her hands, looking into its empty maw and feeling how heavy it must have been to sit on his shoulders. When she dropped from the wagon, she had it tucked under her arm tightly, holding it carefully by the hole created where the shorn ear had been on the growling black face. Only a castle's smith could have repaired the meticulous craftsmanship. It may have been Sandor Clegane's only concession to ornamentation in life, painstakingly designed to keep others away and be even uglier than what was beneath it.

As the Elder Brother reached for the helm, she quickly turned and smoothly walked on before realizing she did not know the way. She turned to face him, his face serene, though she knew she must have given him a start with her unladylike action. Sansa stopped and then sighed.

"I'm sorry, Elder Brother, but as you say, these are different times. While you must resurrect parts of yourself, I must give life to parts I've never had. A lady must be strong now, and independent. Please allow me to develop my strength."

He nodded wordlessly at her response, pensive. Then he swept out his arm and began walking, briskly overtaking both women and trudging into the tree line.

They were silent for some time, listening to the wind and the soft crunch of their boots on snow. Sansa noticed how the thick cedar and pine forest was dotted with stumps; the trees no doubt felled for firewood and building material, but with more than enough standing to provide cover and keep the homes of the native fauna, leaving a population enough to hunt. Sparrows twittered as they alighted tree to tree along the shores, singing songs she couldn't.

It was not long before they reached their destination. The snow-covered cairn was half-hidden by juniper and jasmine bushes atop the hill overlooking the Trident.

"Would that it was morning," the Elder Brother sighed, apparently unable to resist for so long the need to confess, or coax out confession "And that the world were not blanketed by clouds. The scattering of light on the snow and water would have been a view to behold and long in coming," he continued, cowl removed, as he began to uncover the rocks of the grave with Brienne's tacit help.

Sansa sat on a nearby stump and placed the helm in the virgin snow where it buried itself to the snout and the contrast of its darkness made it impossible for her eyes to escape gazing at the gaping maw. It had rusted in place, half-open, as though the Hound were consuming a hidden man beneath to no avail, for it was dying or dead already anyway, and waiting to be buried. Even the helm has accepted his death, she thought, bitterly. It would make no effort to honor the dog, master, or whatever he was to it.

Just like the rest of the world. There would be no reverence in a land full of those never sated for the only man to say enough.

Her hands shook and eyes stung. For a moment, just a moment, she wished for there to be a face to kiss under the visor, but that was from a bard's song and she no longer believed in songs, even if nightmares from the epic verses walked the land. A fool and his cunt don't belong. She sniffled.

But who was the fool truly?

The Elder Brother began to say a short prayer before moving the rocks on the grave, invoking which gods, Sansa couldn't say, but the Stranger was always the only to answer the supplications of men. The few colors of the world washed and withered into a blurry field everywhere she looked.

Brienne had come over to her, placed her arm around her shoulders, as the young woman pulled the blanket tighter around herself. It didn't make any sense to her now. As she sobbed silently on her knees, Sansa couldn't understand the reasons people were taken or the strength she had to go on without them, or why it had fled suddenly, chased away by powerful grief she'd been too afraid to face and too busy conquer. Only now had she stopped running and the memories she'd left behind had overtaken her, family and friends alike.

"…Even now does a lady look on the face of the Hound and despair, long after his death in my arms."

He seemed to worry at his interlaced digits and whether to say more and what. The Elder Brother frowned at the sight before him; trembling outstretched arms holding the mutilated dog's head out to him, while Brienne's arms held her charge. Taking the helm, he sighed and deposited it into the space he'd nested for it in the rocks. No effort was made to excavate the soil as it would have been a fruitless task.

The monk seemed unable to find the words he sought, so he replaced the stones and stood in silence. Snow began to fall, purifying the sepulcher again with its bucolic blanket. Silently, gingerly, he took the proffered armor and laid it facing the heavens atop the rocks. Then stone after stone was piled on it until the sound of weakened metal caving could be heard through the cracks.

At the sound Sansa broke free of Brienne's grasp and shuffled on her knees to the cairn, splaying her arms over it with shuddering and silent sobs. If the Elder Brother held any surprise at her show of grief it did not display itself in the soft grip on Sansa's shoulder or in his knowing voice.

"My lady…" he began, ever calm though wavering. "Your actions do not speak of the relief one has in the certainty that a symbol of their past torment is gone, but of the heavy grief of a dear thing lost. If you do not celebrate the death of such a terrible man, do you not at least take some comfort in it?"

She turned only slightly to answer after taking some measure to collect herself. "For a very long time, he and his were the only comfort I had, Brother. A source of strength I couldn't' find even in the gods, for no matter how pious I was, and I am pious Brother, they couldn't keep me safe from those who didn't keep them as I do."

He seemed to consider her words as Brienne hunched close by, short hair whipping in the wind. Lady knight listened intently, never having heard the story before, only aware through the sentimental objects and actions of the strange… affection her lady had for the burned man. She marveled at the Elder Brother's ability to seize confessions from even the surly and silent.

"I was separated from my family, betrothed to a cruel boy-king who killed my father and his family my mother and brother," she continued. "Sandor showed what little truth there was in beauty and what an ugly place the world truly is." The wind rustled the trees and more snow fell as if to agree with the sentiment. "He taught me to survive and he showed me queer kindness. There was much honor in him, more than all the knights and lords in that place, I think, and he kept me safe so that I didn't die living in a dream turned nightmare. He nearly gave up all he had to take me from that wretched place and I know he looked after my sister for a while." She swallowed hard. "The Hound was not loved, or treated as a man; kindness and affection were never his to receive and all he had to give was thought to have been burned away with half his face."

She swallowed another sob, and shook her head.

"…But it wasn't. And nobody saw that until it was too late."

The Elder Brother nodded, rubbing her back with a soothing hand.

"That was as fine a eulogy as a man could ever hope to have," spoke the monk. He exhaled sharply, pushing away the dense flakes. "He spoke of you, you know, when I found him dying. You were much on his mind in the end."

She turned to face him fully now. Tearstains lined her face, made red and blotchy by cold and crying.

"You are right that there was kindness and affection in Sandor, hidden under the Hound's helm."

He took Sansa's hand and helped her to her feet, insisting that they should return before the fading twilight left them. She turned back to the massive grave. It had nearly been covered again with snow and if she hadn't seen it uncovered, she would not have known it was there. Much as the man buried kindness was he himself buried.

"What… What did he say of me, Brother?"

"You were the manifestation of his longing and regret. He wished he had done something more to prevent you pain and anguish. He wished he had not terrified you so when he left King's Landing and that he kept you from betrothal to Joffrey and Tyrion."

She shook her head. "I was only scared for a moment, until I realized how frightened he was at the time. I think fire was the only thing in the world he feared, and on that night the entire world was ablaze, hellish and green. He'd been in the thick of the fighting, riding onto ships while the bay itself was burning. I… I don't know how he did it for so long. I heard later that he denounced the king and fled."

"And that was just before he went to you?"

She nodded. "He came to my chambers. "

"I suppose he sought what comfort he thought he could get," he interjected wryly.

"That could be, but if it was a woman he wanted, there were whores aplenty and available to the men who battled." She hesitated. Though he did kiss me before he left, with only the impressions of cruel lips and a cloak to remember him by.

Brienne gasped. Had she spoken her thoughts aloud? She wasn't sure and couldn't confirm it. Elder Brother shrugged after a fashion. "You can pay for pleasures of the flesh, but not for acceptance, for someone to look you in the face and see what you are, not what the mirror would say. Perhaps that was what he sought from you that night."

They walked slowly down the hill in the fading daylight toward the bonfires and huts on the island. Sansa's steps were ponderous with thought as they wended back.

"He had a sister, you know."

"No," she spoke softly. "I didn't know. What happened to her?"

"Same as happened to the rest of his family. Gregor happened. I suppose their father was unable, or unwilling, to protect her. And Sandor too young, a recently motherless child himself. He had no true family for much of his life, poor fellow…"

They avoided the spikes and pitfalls and walked by the Hermit Hole. The Mountain's crimes against men were well known, but that he'd been the one to torment and kill his parents and sibling was only speculation. Not even Littlefinger had known the truth of Sandor's burns when Alayne had queried him of it one day. It seemed that the Hound divulged rather much to the Elder Brother as he died, some things Sandor only shared with her on the condition that she not share it on penalty of death.

Elder Brother begged a moment and slipped into his cave. When he rejoined them, he carried a stone jug. A flagon.

"I was saving this for a special occasion. Never suspected that I would find others with whom I could celebrate that man's life. Sour red… Save for the gods' graces, sometimes it's all a man needs."

"Or a woman," Sansa supplied automatically.

Brienne was scandalized by her lady's behavior, but recovered quickly, blushing and trying to find a place for her eyes to land. The Elder Brother, as usual, seemed unfazed, after a sort moment of reflection, and he nodded to them with a smile. "Or a woman," he concurred. "I mean to share and I hope that you will stay and share with us for some time."

Packed snow made its peculiar crunch as they continued along it to the halls. "To be perfectly forthright Brother, I had hoped to stop for some few days, resupply, and bolster our numbers before moving south."

He stopped suddenly.

"To what end, my lady?"

"To survive in a warmer, better clime, and garner enough of a force to take back Winterfell, maybe more, by the Dragon Queen's leave, hopefully. To gain some measure of what is mine by birth, by gods' given rights."

"I had thought you would have seen how well the world runs on its knees, my lady. The gods give no rights, but a brain, a soul and a body to all of us. It is up to each of us to do right with them. Was it the gods who gave the right to Aerys to burn innocents? Was it the gods who decided that Robert should spend kings landing into starvation? Did the gods see to having the lands torn apart by war to see men vie for sitting on a tormenting chair for the privilege to torment at will?

"Men invent these rights. Men ignore these rights as it suits them. Why should not the best fit to lead, lead? People will always need leaders, but kingdoms are ruled by tyrants, and are bloody more often than not."

Brienne cut in. "My lady would be better than any of them."

"I'm inclined to agree with you, Maid of Tarth, though the good rulers die just as the rest, oft with their legacies tarnished, line severed and disgraced. If the purpose of lords and kings is to protect their people, help them flourish, then they all fail after a fashion. People flourish in spite of their lords, not because of them, with few exceptions." Sansa reflected on this and thought of her father whose honor and kindness had done nothing to improve the lands even when he was Hand, thought of how Littlefinger used the institutions of the kingdom to cause chaos and gain power. She thought of how Sandor subverted the institutions and gave power to his merit instead of his office.

The Hound had no claims, lands, titles, or incomes, and yet he held a position at court. He was the only non-knighted kingsguard and a battle commander based only on his prowess. He even seemed to insist on giving her choices; something even her family did not often do. His every step in life seemed a little rebellion against king and kingdom, slowly winning battles against old traditions and prejudices. Would he have won the war, with time, with help? She could never know.

Sansa sighed. Maybe the Elder Brother was right. They opened a door into a small office next to the main hall and seated themselves at the elder brother's behest. He produced three modest chalices and poured wine into them halfway to the brim, before raising his cup.

"May the passing of the Hound teach us to not overlook any man, despite appearances, and to acknowledge that all need and deserve our respect and care as men, lest they become beasts and monsters."

Beasts and monsters… Perhaps more attention could have brought Joffrey or Ramsey Snow to heel or prevented the Mountain from going rabid, but she wasn't sure.

Brienne made the sign of the seven with her free hand, the other raised in honor. Sansa made the sign with the hand holding the cup and managed not to spill any of the wine. It disturbed her, how the smell of sour red sent strange sensations through her tummy, and sometimes even lower. She shuddered at the first touch of wine to her lips.

The first cups sluiced like the snows in a sudden warm spring's squall, quickly and silently from on high.

The Lady of Tarth found the courage to sate her curiosities floating somewhere in the middle of her third cup.

"I would wish to know, my lady, why you would honor this… man… in such a way. With kind words and fine wine. It still sounds as though you were tormented when he was around. Couldn't he have done much more to protect you, to have so earned your favor?"

"Brienne…" Sansa began.

"He would have agreed, at that. He wanted to do more, he said," interjected Elder Brother. "But sometimes it is a better, more difficult thing to live for something than to die for it. In his guilt, I'm not sure how much he could accept it, but had he done much more, I imagine he'd have been killed sooner, and your lady too."

Sansa nodded wordlessly. He could have cut through them all, died a hero, if only to me. Then life would have been a dream and song, with a tragic, nightmarish end. An epic poem to end at a distich. Instead, it's blank verse after the seventh line…

"We're celebrating this way, Brienne, because he would have appreciated it. Sandor Clegane would have drunk himself into a stupor if he were as lost and directionless as I feel now. I finally feel safe enough to lose my wits in my grief, and some of my sorrow is for a man who protected me, taught me, and gave me freedom to speak my own words and choose my own actions when no one else ever did. You can look back and judge that he ought to have been a shining knight, full of kindness and gallantry, and heroic sacrifice, but in real life that just makes for a dead hero and a dead maiden."

She finishes her cup and eagerly accepts more. "You protect me now, but he is why I survive."

On her broad and open face, Brienne's eyebrows rose. "Forgive me, my lady. I – I just did not understand."

"No," Sansa sighs kindly. "Few do, my friend." She smiles at the two of them, watery and more genuine than she has made in a long while given the way the muscles on her face quaver and protest. "Few do."

"For the nonce, drifting and feeling lost are normal and fine, as you are in the company of friends and the gods, Lady Sansa, but do not let yourself remain lost. Allowing himself to be lost is what killed the Hound. He didn't realize he could go on without a master and let wine master him. I would not believe he would have been injured so in a fight otherwise."

She shook her floating head and felt her stomach roil, but did not stop drinking. Brienne left to the common hall to get food for them to soak up the wine in their bellies. Sansa swayed in her chair, unfocused. When she looked up at the Elder Brother he was idly spinning his goblet and looking at her with piercing eyes and a gentle grimace. She traced the rim of the cup with her finger and looked as though she was about to ask of the holy man. Instead she crumpled.

"Why didn't I go with him? Why didn't I go with him?" She repeated the question, watery and sharp as broken ice.

"Does the lady now think that giving the dog a little bird to follow would have helped keep him from getting lost, when he couldn't even stay grounded to lead a wolf pup who needed him?"

"That was unkind."

The Elder Brother shrugged. "What better way to remember the man than to admonish your wishful thinking as he would have. I can't believe that he treated even you with sweet words or that you truly believe the singsong you utter."

"No. He didn't." She smiled under red eyes. "He was with my sister when he was injured?"

"Aye," he drank. "So he told me. It was the inn at the crossroads, I think. Some of his brother's men were there and he indulged in too much wine and too little food. One blade struck him in the leg and it took infection on the road as they had no way or time to close it. He fell from his horse with fever not far from here, and remained when your sister refused him the gift of mercy. She was not there when I came to deny him in turn."

"I wonder where she is; if she's alive…"

"I couldn't say my lady, but she had her own horse. She could have gone anywhere."

He emptied the flagon to the dregs into her cup, sediment poured into her mouth and sentiment out. Elder Brother busied himself stoking the fireplace while Sansa swayed in her seat, staring at the monk under half lidded eyes.

"You remind me of him, you know."

Elder Brother laughed. "Were that to have come from anyone else, I might have taken offence. I suppose you mean old soldiers carry ourselves the same way and have no patience for trivial things. Or perhaps you meant I'm without pretense. "

"Yes. And you are honest and shrewder than you appear." His smile fell ever so slightly.

"Well, my lady, you ought to remind yourself of him as well."

She wasn't quite sure what to make of that statement. It somehow didn't seem to hold the same meaning as her remark had.

"He had a way of… cutting away… the extraneous elements of life and livelihoods, words and supposed wisdom. One could hear the sure strike against the hypocrisy of the lords and ladies, the kingdom itself, even in the death blows of his last words."

Sansa giggled. "You get poetic when you're drunk."

The three are the three that died, there in the yellow of the autumn grass. She shook her head. The wine was strong and good. It was also gone, and would leave her hurting on the morrow, she knew.

"I try my hand at writing them sometimes. I like to blandish myself that maybe someday one or two could become songs. Would you sing for the congregation? I'm sure that they would love to hear a voice as well trained as yours. Maybe, if you should stay long enough, I might eventually summon the courage to ask you to sing one of my poems."

Frowning thoughtfully, she responded. "While I'm certain your works are lovely, Elder Brother, and I thank you for your flattering invitation to sing, I find it hard to summon the… sincerity… one should have when singing songs. I find I don't have the innocence or duplicity required of me anymore."

His eyes, which had been lost in the fire, flicked over to her and stared intently, before returning to the blaze.

"Mayhaps you can find the sincerity to sing the hymns for worship in the morn."

"Might be. Could be I will."

"Good."

Brienne walked in with a servant behind, both carrying trays full of food. The fare was simple and hot and very, very welcome to those used to the meager offerings to be found on the road. They ate in the silence of new understandings hard won, and new questions of import where before questions had no place.

Eating took some of the edge off their drunkenness, but did not take it away. Sansa hoped she would not have wine sickness. They had much water brought in, sharp and cold snowmelt that was pure and refreshing with their food. The energy with which Sansa had awoken waned severely with the food, wine, and emotion and she felt very, very tired again. She should not have been surprised at the fact, for when the door to the outside opened, full night was on display, with all its cold and darkness.

A heavily bundled brother bowed to those present and bent to the Elder Brother's ear. The senior monk nodded, then wiped his mouth with cloth and remarked at the hour.

"I do hope to see you both at the sept in the morning. The last of our party has arrived from the expedition to the west and I must needs see them. Good night, my ladies. May the gods ease the burden of your grief and turn it into happiness and purpose, lady Sansa."

"Thank you Brother. Good night."

They walked out through the interior door that led to the sept. Inside, Sansa took a long candle and used it to light the votives of the Stranger, Warrior, and after some hesitation, the Mother and Maiden too. Then she genuflected with Brienne at her side and prayed in silence that she would continue to hear and heed the words of guidance given by gods and men departed.

Ever a solid presence beside her, Brienne held her arm and led them through the main doors to without, where the day's accumulation of fresh snow was on full display in the flickering torchlight, glowing spheres of orange and ocher, obscured by still more falling flakes. Sansa bid that they walk along by the kennels first and then to the stables, shuffling by other's tracks heading the opposite direction.

She decided to step inside them to avoid the cold and wet of the snow and watched as her shield stepped into the filling tracks into which her feet - freakishly large and wrapped double in the cold - fit with room to spare on all sides. Brienne had scarcely slid open the stable door, when Sansa was knocked hard to the packed earth floor, shielded by her lady knight from a whickering beast above them. She rubbed her hip painfully once she stood, staring all the while at a monstrous courser which must have been ridden by one of the men in the outriding party.

All the adjacent horses pushed to the ends of their pens, endeavoring to be as far as possible from the temperamental fiend, still snapping and shaking its head. It was half shadowed in the lamplight. Eventually it turned, proud and powerful, from the women and lay down.

"Driftwood must like you," a monk said as he approached. The ladies startled. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to frighten you, but usually if someone gets that close to that fearsome thing they come away bloody."

"Driftwood…?" queried Brienne. "How could I have mistaken the other…? He's still alive?"

"Aye. Horses can live as long as you or I if well taken care of. I reckon this one's too stubborn to die anyhow."

"No one's been foolish enough to try to geld him again, I hope."

He laughed and shook his head. "He takes to no one well enough, and as he is said to have only obeyed or even tolerated his former master, all the rest of us are happy to leave him alone." The brother stretched and yawned. "Well, please excuse me, but it is time that I get some rest. Good night m'ladies."

"Good night, brother." They frowned thoughtfully. It was too late to even try to make sense of what had been said.

With that exchange and one last wary look at the now snoring Driftwood, they slipped off into the night again to their quarters. Unceremoniously as ever, Brienne barred the door, and they both fell into their pallets fully clothed and fell asleep at the same instant.

---

Sansa awoke to the tolling of bells and birdsong and a scattering of sunlight. Though her head and hip ached, she thought that she had never experienced such a beautiful morning. Brienne had already roused and gone to the yard, given the sounds of clattering arms in the air. Combed through her hair quickly and dressed in a clean set of clothes.

Brienne came to her as she opened the doors to the outside, shrugging her shoulders, breathing heavily, and otherwise carrying herself gingerly. Her lady's curious glance garnered an equally curious answer. "The one they call Big Brother is the master-at-arms and he came back last night. I wanted to try him."

"And?" Sansa prompted.

"Well… He is big, my lady. Extraordinarily so. And very, very fast."

"You've faced many large and fast men before."

"Not large and fast, and not ones better than me."

The blonde warrior blushed. Sansa couldn't remember the last time she'd been beaten in any setting, and was certain that her pride must sting. Sansa knew Brienne had won a melee in Renly's camp, defeating Ser Loras and had stood toe-to-toe with Jamie Lannister before he lost his sword hand. In chains and weak, it was true, so the lady knight protested, but it was a feat few could boast regardless. The Royces' and Corbrays' men had wilted under Brienne's training yard assaults, fuming and furious afterward. It was a strange thing indeed to see the tables turned.

"I've already broken my fast with the men at the yard, but I will accompany you to the morning meal if you wish it, my lady."

Sansa shook her head. "It is not necessary, Brienne. Go bathe and relax, or do whatever you wish. I will eat with our people and attend the matins with you."

Brienne nodded and bowed, moving quickly to their hut. Sansa turned and walked up the wooden steps to the center of the isle, which had been cleared of snow sometime in the night. She found some of the men at arms from her group on the way to the hall and entered with them, conversing about the island and how well they found themselves liking it, the work, and comforts it afforded, which seemed to be absent everywhere else in the world.

They passed the Elder Brother and she smiled at him when he asked if they ought to shutter the windows to keep out the light with a wink. Seating herself between a minor lord of the vale and a drifting woman they'd met at Gulltown, she ate the cut oats with dried apple and honey and goat's milk.

She studied the room again. It looked different in the morning light, without the sconces lit; it still glowed with the colors of the glass windows and was quite bright in the center where she sat. At another table, opposite the Elder Brother on the far edge of the room, was the other chair at the head of the table, occupied this time.

Maybe the morning had muted the raucousness of the refugees, but the other tables were far quieter this time around, and there were no slavering looks sent her way when she removed her hood and blanket. The few children she'd brought with her had quickly mingled with the young refugees on the isle and ran around happily after eating. Excepting the children, the hall was quiet, filled with the sounds of shuffling feet, simple conversation around the day to come and the sun, returned after so long absent. Many seemed to have thought it dead.

The general mood of her people told her that they wanted to stay here, at least until the spring. Some even told her as much in as many words. To them, she would nod and sigh, acceding to the wisdom of the notion, but privately lamenting that the place most full of life in her long travels made her think the most about death.

Elder Brother and the man who was sitting opposite him quietly exited the hall and entered the sept. Sansa waited with her people to help clear the dishes and food before assembling with the rest of the monks shambling away in silence. She stole herself away to kneel next to Brienne in the benches once she spotted her in the sept. Her shield nodded to her and her head smelled of soap infused with honeysuckle.

At the Elder Brother's example, the congregation rose and made the sign of the seven, an undulating sea of din and brown with the colored flotsam of the refugees and Sansa's group. It was a disorienting feeling, being in a service again. The group was welcomed as newcomers to the isle. The dangling question of their permanency was the one prompt to which Sansa did not respond. A septon continued with homily without pause and soon all rose again to sing the hymns of the seven.

Faces turned in her direction when her voice, one of the few feminine ones, rang high and clear above the others, beseeching endurance from the Smith and guidance from the Crone. A chill wind blew just before she turned to see the doors to the outside click softly shut, blotting out the sunlight in the windowless sept, and her singing faltered.

Gentle Mother, font of mercy

Her tongue swelled and it became a challenge to push the lyrics around it.

Save our sons from war we pray

She couldn't sing to the Mother. She, Who saved the wrong sons from war, Who tamed the wrong fury, and soothed no one's wrath. All her brothers were dead and father and mother too, with friends and good people gone just the same. Nearly everyone left lived for vengeance, and in anger or sorrow. Or both.

Incense stung her eyes. She missed the next several lines as the eyes came back to her, perplexed and sad. She suffocated in the stuffy air. She had to get out.

"Don't follow me. I need some fresh air," she whispered to Brienne.

She nearly ran to the doors and pushed them open, scrambling for purchase on the icy ground, and pounding down the hill to the sea by the Ruby Ford and to the woodland on the other side, haunting lyrics chasing her. Collapsing to her knees and panting, she pulls her riding blanket tightly around herself blinks at the harsh effects of scant sunlight on the snow.

As her breathing slows and pulse slows she becomes aware of her surroundings. She can hear the roar of the ocean somewhere beyond the ice, faint and steady ahead. Behind her the chorus of human voices had ended, or disappeared with distance, but birds were trilling in the trees above. Cardinals. She hadn't seen or heard them since being in Winterfell, a lifetime ago. Sansa calmed.

Then she noticed the man in the snow not far away. He hadn't seemed to notice her unruly flight and Brienne hadn't followed. Being saved that embarrassment was something for which she was grateful.

Still wrapped tightly, she picked herself up and trudged over to him, sitting a few feet away. He wore the same garb as the brothers of the isle and sat on his knees facing the sea with bowed head. He never gave any indication that he noticed her presence apart from the slight turning of his head toward her when she sat, revealing the scarf of the few remaining silent brothers. Evidently they only wore the scarves on the days they took confessions, according to the Elder Brother. He claimed that removing the ability of the confessed to talk removes the fear of judgment or loss of confidence from the confessor, and prompts them to talk more, and makes both parties reflect on the confessions with greater poignancy.

Perhaps he was right, in some way at least, for she felt very talkative at the sight of the covered face.

"You don't mind; do you brother?"

He did not respond.

"I prefer to have company when I'm alone."

She sighed heavily. Her breath did not fog so much as it used to.

"I follow the Seven, but sometimes I find it easier to worship the divine when I'm in nature. I think it must be seeing all the splendor of it, its creation unspoiled by human hands and always so perfect, no matter how it changes." She took a riding blanket off her shoulders and draped it over the ground before sitting down on it again. "I think it must be getting warmer. The snow is melting. A little." She smiled and looked at the trees and the birds.

The monk reached into his sleeve and extracted a handful of something, which he threw out in a wide arc in front of them. Some of it was close enough to see. Seed. Some kind of seed, to which the birds in the trees immediately left their perches to peck. Sansa laughed, delighted, which sent some of the creatures to flight, but not for long. They came back and remained, eating and singing, close enough to touch.

Sansa was rapt in her attentions to the birds until the brother tugged lightly on her blanket. He rolled the coarse but finely-woven wool between thumb and forefinger. She kept watching the birds, but answered an unasked question.

"This used to be a cloak. Worn by a kingsguard, no less. He gave it to me after he left his post, and me, as the Blackwater burned." She took off her hood. "He gave this one to me as well, when the king had me stripped in front of the court. Both are better symbols of protection and love than the one my husband gave me," Sansa snorts. "So I suppose that is why I keep them. To feel protected and powerful, like he was." And loved, she left unsaid.

He dropped the cloak and his hand fell heavily into the snow beside her.

"I'm trying not to think about him, but I doubt it will do much good with his cloaks around me at all times." Laughing, she goes on, "I don't think I'll give them up though. There are things, people, worth remembering, even if they make us sad and regretful. I probably wouldn't learn much if I didn't think about unpleasantness. I used to love the romantic songs. I used to think my life would be one, but I was a silly little empty-headed bird back then who couldn't see the truth of the world. I've been trying to be like him – to smell out falsehoods and to be strong and smart enough to protect myself. It's helped.

"I am strong and I remember his words and gifts to keep me strong and safe, but…

"I miss him."

She confessed more, she realized, in those three words than she had the rest of her life. Suddenly, she started weeping because she'd so few times been strong enough to confess to anyone, even herself, and because the strength she took from the Hound's relics had left her. She tried to lift her eyes to the sea, but the brightness overwhelmed, so they settled to her side on the brother's handprint, tear-blurred smear that it was.

"I'm sorry," she blubbered. "I never really grieved for him, or much for my family until I got here. I've tried to appreciate them, to take them with me, but… I keep thinking that I see them, him especially, and it breaks my heart every time. Now I've finally given myself to the fact that he's gone, that I won't ever see or hear him ever again.

"That's why I grieve now. I've let go of the hope to amend for my mistakes. ...Well, there's always the seven heavens…"

Her tears fell and blinked away and hand print the size of a bear's paw resolved itself in front of her. She raises her eyes to the silent brother and realizes for the first time how massive is the presence beside her, rivaling that of… But no, she wouldn't let her mind go to those lengths, never again.

Instead she mocked her thoughts and tortured herself in a different way amidst the sounds of nature.

"Did you ever listen to the little birds sing in King's Landing, Ser?"

She imagined that he twitched his head to that question.

"There was one that sang the pretty songs some septa taught her almost a decade ago."

She refused to let the world be torn asunder again, when the monk looked at her and she imagined the slate colored eyes were full of familiar anger.

Though she thought she'd cried her eyes dry, the gods' cruelty in this mummer's farce didn't end, where half the actors played Sandor Clegane or dead family, and an all too familiar sting crept into her blue eyes as she found her mouth twitch, fighting against what her mind invented in front of them: a finger the breadth and length of a dagger's sheath peeled off a scarf which hid angry red and black fissures and a hint of jawbone and a nub for an ear; sitting on powerful haunches until he stood, unfolding an enormous body in a process that seemed not to end; the twitch that preceded a laugh like a hearth fire settling – warm and comforting, with the sound of wood on stone.

None of these things did he do.

He stared out to sea with an unshared, inscrutable expression, eyes glittering in the sun.

Feeling stupid and powerless for letting her head lead her heart so far into impossibility and being unable to prevent it anymore, she laughed, loudly and without mirth. She stood quickly, tried to wrap her second old cloak around her, but found it held fast. The silent brother had the wool bunched in a giant fist, but his gaze remained fixed on the Narrow Sea.

"You're right. I can't just run every time I feel sad," she sat down again and wrapped herself up against the damp chill of the ocean breeze. "I don't run away from things that scare me anymore." A smirk found its way to her face then. "Except for being alone or losing those I do still have. Brienne is a good person, a friend, and a fine shield. I've grown close to the people we've found on the road and I know there's no real reason to despair, but my friend… Well, he was the Hound, Sandor Clegane. Everyone knew of him and you brothers seem to know more of him than most.

"Everyone in Westeros knows who he was. The most fearsome warrior in the seven kingdoms. I watched him knock the Kingslayer into the dirt several times. Everyone was afraid of him, even Ser Jaime. I think he wanted people to be afraid, so that they would not get close enough to him to see his pain and fear and loneliness. Even his monster of a brother was frightened of him, I think, because he was the only man who could withstand, and maybe match, his strength.

"Not only was he fearsome, but brave. My father used to tell me that a man can only be brave when he's afraid. Well, the Hound was terrified of fire: you could see why looking on his burned face, but at the Blackwater battle, he led sorties for hours on end as the city took to the flame and the very river was blazing. He even charged aboard a burning ship on his horse. When the Imp tried to get him to plunge into the fire yet again, with his men and horses more than half gone, he denounced his liege lords, his king, whom he guarded his entire life, and the brotherhood of the kingsguard, to whom he'd sworn no vows.

"He hated vows. Thought them the traditions of fools and hypocrites, walls of ideals never met for the righteous to hide behind when questioned or attacked."

The monk shifted, moved so that he could get his knees out from underneath him, and sat.

"No offence to you and the vows you've taken brother."

His head moved from side to side slowly and his body shook with levity, anger, sorrow? She couldn't tell. No, he was cold, in sturdy but too thin clothing, and the sea air had bite. In fact, she started to shiver herself at the breeze and the wet cloak wrapped around her.

"We… We buried him yesterday. That's why I keep talking about him, even though he died long ago. He's also the reason that I can see my sins, that I live to confess them, and he's the source of much of my regret. He'd probably admonish my saying so for the building of castles in the sky - the past's sky, no less – it is, but… I really wish I had told him yes, I would flee the capitol with him. I wish I had said something other than thank you to show my appreciation for him. I should have told him that he didn't need to be ugly: he wasn't ugly to me, and that it pleased me to see him close, see a man, with his own thoughts and desires, and an ability to love, however disused and unrefined it was…"

Body shaking on exhale, Sansa looked back to the Quiet Isle as the congregation poured out of the sept into the blustery day full of work and promise. The bells tolled and the monks went to their daily tasks. The cardinals and sparrows had finished the seed in front of her and lingered, hopping to and fro, hoping to dine further on the largesse of their benefactor. Next to her, the silent brother removed his scarf from around his face, exposing a full head of long raven hair which whipped in the wind until he fastened the scarf around his neck and replaced his cowl.

"Done taking confession, brother? It's probably time to take on a different task for the day."

He nodded.

"Well… Thank you for listening to me. My heart feels lighter for not having to hold my feelings secret any longer."

The silent brother rose in her periphery, quiet and massive he stretched before the rising sun. Sansa stared past him to the churning sea, shaking, and was only vaguely aware of the rustle of fabric as he dropped his robes over her – gown and bodice ripped and sobbing on the court floor…

She stood, protest on her tongue when a hand on her shoulder led her unwillingly to a road, standing next to a wheelhouse and Lady… "It's too cold to forego this, brother. I'll be fine, really. You ne-"

His hand fell to his side as she turned and stared up at him, features illuminated in the strange but welcome daylight. A pair of light grey eyes stared back under a large, clear brow, squinting down at her, perched with crow's feet on a big hooked nose. He kneeled and produced a handkerchief with which he lightly daubed at the tears she hadn't realized still fell from her eyes and she was on the parapets amongst the disembodied heads of her father and septa as he cleaned the blood from her lip with a tenderness surprising for such a big man…

When the wind blew, his black hair whipped behind him, revealing a network of pale scar tissue and fissures, flickering with uncontrolled movements and making a hint of jaw glint and wink. Her lip trembled, throat tightened painfully to an opening that would hardly allow a pin to pass through, and she shook head stumbling backwards from her mind's projections.

"Do I still frighten you so, girl?" She thought she heard him rasp. Then, "Look at me. Look at me!"

Her eyes locked tightly shut. She hugged her knees. She whispered, "No…"or tried to, but still the phantom did not relent and she sobbed hoarse and voiceless hoping to be soon left alone in her madness.

"Please, just leave me Ser," she spoke once she was able, though she couldn't say why, and saw that the hulking presence was still near.

"…Fuck your Sers, and your courtesies," he said, flatly, and began to walk away.

"Wait."

The brother stopped and she stood again, shakily taking a few steps to stand in front of him. He stood, impassive, as she reached for the right side of his face and she cupped the remnants of a burned cheek and a wetness that was not blood. She gasped, grasped for words, and then grasped for him, clutching his tunic as if doing so could bring the dead back to life.

"Tell me…" She looked up at him blearily after long moments holding tightly to a ghost. "Tell me I don't now invent familiar touches as well as sights and voices," Sansa implored, and then whispered, "Have you forgotten me?"

It was a wary face that looked down at her. It studied the hands fisted tightly in his tunic and the way she'd pressed her body almost flush with his. When they landed, bemused, on her face, he said, "A thousand times and more, Little Bird, but it seems you won't stay that way."

The words tumbled out sharp and broken, pushed ungently through a throat unused to handling them. An unnamed elation took hold of her spirit even while her body sunk and she reached around him and held him like the anchor he was, as though being made whole again was breaking her.

"A dog can smell a lie –"

"- You're no dog."

He sighed. "Why would you say those things? Did you recognize me?"

"I see you everywhere… but I did not know it was you to whom I confessed." She craned her head to look up into his face. "Why didn't you say anything as I sat here ululating over a man I've been hoping to see ever since you left King's Landing?"

He shrugged. "I swore an oath to be silent so long as I wear the scarf." An oath? "That man you described – he did not exist, will never exist, most like." Sandor Clegane sighed so heavily, Sansa thought he would push the clouds across the Narrow Sea.

But she shook her head adamantly. "No. No, he's always existed and you'll not convince me otherwise." She reached to caress his face and he flinched away, frowning. "What's the matter?"

"Are you here, truly? Whole and hale?"

"Yes, Sandor. I'm here." She rubbed down his arms, feeling the statuesque musculature that hadn't been diminished by time and the fierceness she'd missed so much. Why won't he confirm for himself? Why doesn't he touch me?

"How?"

Sansa was confused. "You stayed with me, preserved me, when the world threatened to end or change me, you were there to stop it. What about you? Elder Brother tells me that you were with my sister, grievously wounded, before she left and you died after he came upon you, but obviously that wasn't true."

"Some part of me died, at least, when I couldn't get your little sister to kill me. You Stark girls never would do what I wanted you to, except live…" Briefly, Sansa wondered at what he meant by that, and then whether Arya still lived. "Elder Brother took me here, healed me, and gave me a place to be and reason to live when I had none. Thought I had none. He even made the burns a little better."

Looking into his eyes, lighter and kinder, and far, far more bewildered than she ever remembered them, Sansa realized how unreal it must be for him to be seeing her. As much or more as it was for her to see him. She started to run her fingers through his hair and he abruptly backed away.

"Why do you separate from me, after I've yearned to be near you all this time?" She frowned.

"I mistrust the affections of people, beautiful women most of all."

Frowning and flushing at once, she responded, "I am not Cersei, Sandor. You would know if I was not being genuine."

"I've not been in the company of dishonest people in a long while. Might be I can't smell a lie anymore, seeing as I'm no dog. Some rumors said that you had been hiding out with Baelish for some years, posing as his daughter," he spat.

"Yes. He took me from the capitol after Joffrey was killed. So, the Elder Brother told you I was here?"

"Aye." Sandor looked away. "Last night."

"Why didn't you come to me?"

He sniffed. "Didn't think it wise."

"You didn't think I'd want to see you?"

Snorting, he responded, "Why should you? My face is where maidens' smiles come to die. Not even the Elder Brother could heal that."

"Stop trying to push me away, Sandor," she snapped. "It will not work anymore. I will only leave you if you will it, but not because you might think it best for me. I will choose. You will choose. I have learned how to discern a good man from bad, thanks to you, so quit trying to teach me that lesson."

His mouth was twitching furiously, his eyes burning, bouncing back and forth between hers.

"Why did you confess those things to me? Did you know it was me?" he demanded.

"Of course not. Everyone's been telling me that you've been dead for years."

"Then you do not toy with me with your words? Words are wind and the breeze feels too warm too be real."

"Never. I know you mocked me much in the past, for good reason." He started shaking his head, tears were clinging futilely to his eyelids. "But I would never jest about what I feel or lie to you. I owe you far too much for that. I owe you my life and…"

He buckled to his knees, nearly taking her with him to the ground. Sandor Clegane wept, great, shaking sobs. Sansa flew to his side.

"What's wrong?" She pawed frantically at his tunic and rubbed his back and arms.

"Everything. Everything is wrong. I do not believe this is real. That you've come back after so long gone. Whole and healthy and intelligent and beautiful… That you harbor affection for an old cur who failed you, failed your sister, failed my sister, failed everyone in my life. And you say you owe me?" He took in a great breath, one that stole all the air around her. "I did not finish telling how I survived, Little Bird."

"How?" she whispered, cradling his head.

"A song and a prayer. Selflessly given, shamelessly taken. You saved me."

"It was hard," he says after a moment, "Not knowing what happened to you."

"But it was important to you that if I was to do something, to come with you, to sing to you, that it be my choice. That is why you didn't take me."

"Aye. And that is why I've been trying to bury the shame of taking the song from you for these past years. It still crawls out of the earth like those damned wights."

"You didn't take it." She grasps his hand, holds it to her chest. "I gave it. Please, embrace me," she pleaded, but he tore away, nearly casting her into the snows as he ripped his arm from her grasp.

"Don't lie. I took it."

As he seethed, she took a moment to collect herself, then spoke. "Do you remember the tourney for my father?" He nodded. "After the first day, Joffrey ordered you to escort me to my chambers and you told me about your face, promising to kill me if I bared your secret to anyone." Before her, Sandor seemed to sink into himself as she continued. "Then you put a sword to my neck when I came to thank you for saving me during the riot. Finally, you pinned me to my bed after the Blackwater battle with another blade to my throat. Do you know what I thought and did after those times?"

He looked at her then.

"The second day of the tournament I cheered for you as you unhorsed Ser Jamie and was completely amazed when you saved Ser Loras, fighting a monster whom no one else dared to face. Not the kingsguard, not Barristan the Bold, only you, and not to kill him as you claimed the night before. You had the perfect opportunity; you could have lopped off his head without fear of reprisal, or gone to the Tyrell's service after saving Loras. I didn't quite understand then, but I already knew that you were like the knights in my old songs, protecting people for no gain, showing well-hidden honor, while still warning me against such men. But I wanted you to win that day even though you said you'd kill me the night before if I told your secret, because I knew, even then, that you'd never hurt me, and I could tell you wished to be a friend to me, while trying to make me afraid so that I wouldn't trust you, or want to get close. Neither really worked at first.

"When you came back for me by the docks, you had set up the future disappointments I had when every would-be rescuer was not you. Tyrion, Dontos, Petyr, Lothor… Every man came up lacking, even otherwise strong, handsome, rich, or powerful, because they all lacked something you had, something that gave away your goodness from the very start.

"You always gave me a choice, even when you pretended not to. That's why I gave you the song in the green of the night. You didn't take it, but I was scared, scared because something frightened you, who faced hell's own flames, treason to the face of the king, and the loss of everything for which you'd worked half your life to obtain, for the chance, chance, of protecting a stupid girl, who couldn't look her savior in the face and say 'yes,' because she thought you were afraid of being caught and captured, or killed.

"But I realized not long after… You were afraid for me, not you. You were afraid I would agree and come with you, imagining you to be a true knight from the songs, or that I'd say no, and leave both of us bereft of the only true companionship we had in that awful place. Either way, it looked like I wouldn't learn at least one important lesson: trust the man who scared me so that I would mistrust those who sought to comfort me, treat with me, or flatter me, before I could really be hurt, before I lost all ability to choose what would happen in my life.

"You see… Even though you tried to scare me, and did, many times, you talked to me about real things, provided guidance I wasn't always prepared to understand, and you always treated me like I was not a claim, lands, or assets. To you I was always a person, and you couldn't hide that, when you always offered me choices, no matter how couched they were in coarse words or promised violence." She took a breath. "I knew after you left that I would if not regret that I did not go with you, that I would miss you, and your protection, so I got out of bed and huddled on the floor under your cloak, the second one you gave me, and I kept it in a cedar chest under my summer silks.

"I would take it out sometimes, when I would start to despair, or when I needed strength to see my way through."

Sandor was silent for some time longer. He didn't move away when she moved in closer to caress him again. "I'm not sure how you knew all that Little Bird, nor even though you know it, how I should deserve the favor of someone as good as you."

She smiled. "You do at least admit that you do deserve it?"

"If you say so, then I'll agree."

"I do." He smiled back, not as disfigured as he used to. "Put your arms around me now, Sandor, or do I not deserve your favor?"

He snorted, but reached out to her shoulders, his hands, normally so sure and strong, trembled. "You always had my favor, but my affections are harder to stomach, and I doubt you've done anything so bad as to deserve them."

"If I want them, and you wish to give them to make me happy, then I deserve them."

At that, his arms, long enough to wrap around her double and strong enough to crush her bones to powder, encased her completely, making her warmer than she had felt in a very long time, and absurdly safe in a killer's embrace. He lifted her off the ground with no more effort than she takes to lift a fork. With a forearm around her lower back and a hand splayed across the breadth of her shoulders , up under her hair to her neck, he placed her head on his shoulder next to the unburned side of his face, where she remained suspended from the world, for time untold.

"What will you do now, Sansa?" The heat from his breath pooled somewhere in her tummy and she pulled away to look at him.

"I've been traveling to each town I can, trying to get enough of a force to retake Winterfell, once winter recedes…"

"What about now?" he prompts.

"I don't know…" She looks away, to the birds flying free of their nests. "Do you still believe that steel and strong arms make this world?"

"Aye."

"Will you help me make it?"

He let her down, finally, gently. "No. I'll have no part in it."

Sansa's eyes, wide, shot to his. She'd assumed he'd do anything for her, especially the one thing he'd always loved.

"Little Bird, I'm happier than I thought I'd ever be to see you again and know that I helped preserve some goodness in the world, but the world is shit being made by brutes like me. Even destroying it, or taking it over with the best intentions, will remake it just as badly."

She swallowed her disappointment as he continued.

"Sometimes it is enough to not be changed by the world."

Big blue eyes fixed on grey.

"Will you help build a new one with me? Here?"

"Aye." He smiled broadly. "Nothing would make me a happier man."

She laughed and pulled on his neck to hug him again. He obliged. "I'm still learning, but I'm not a stupid girl anymore."

"Everyone should be allowed to be young and stupid and to have a change to become old and wise. Anyone who says they are done learning isn't wise and never will be, like Pycelle, the old cunt."

He let go, but she held his neck and he stayed bent because of it. "You've certainly changed though," she laughs. "Vows? Pacifism? Meditation and confession?" Sandor scowled at her, mildly.

"Not changed. Changed back. Gregor burned away most of my faith in men and gods, but a little bird rekindled it. Just because men break vows, doesn't mean they mean nothing. A man can make it mean what he wishes. A man can be a true knight, even when the foundation of knighthood is a pox. You made me realize that."

"Would my true knight kiss me?"

"Kiss you?"

"Like you did before you left."

His brows knit. "I never kissed you. I'm sure I'd have remembered, drunken dog though I was. Anyway, you always reminded me of my sister."

She tried, really tried, not to appear crestfallen, but she was sure she failed.

"Mother always used to call her 'little bird,' and she sang sweet songs and believed in me," he finished wistfully. "So did you. And so I love you."

Sansa thought she could overcome her disappointment at not finally having the lover she'd often dreamed about since she seemed to find family and the love of a man she missed so long. She had never been happier.

"As I you, Big Brother," her voice cracked.

He led her with a giant hand gently guiding her by the shoulder. All the way back to the isle her mouth kept twitching and she wiped away at the wetness which kept appearing on her cheeks to drown the stinging heralds at her eyes.

---

Author's note again: Though I don't necessarily subscribe to it, I found this read/interpretation of their feelings to be an interesting one. I hope you did too and welcome any dialogue (civil, of course).