Sandor Clegane is climbing from the Mountains of the Moon to the Eyrie and thinking on his past. He may or may not find Sansa Stark in the end.
A lamentation on the fictional character of Sandor Clegane in various parts.
Reviews, if any, will be greatly appreciated and carefully considered but contrary to my habit of responding to them, will not be replied to.
Everything belongs to GRRM. In this story, this is even more true than in any other of my ASOIAF inspired stories.
Alyssa's Tears
"I'm honest. It's the world that's awful" - Sandor Clegane, The Hound. ASOIAF
One
His bedding caught fire, Father had said.
Father was not such a bad man, but he was a coward where it mattered, more like than not for the love he bore his eldest son and heir.
Love made men weak.
Sandor was six years old. His was the first so-called accident in the family caused by soon-to-be Ser Gregor, his noble brother. It was not to be the last one. He remembered it every morning when he woke; he always felt the brush of twisted skin on the right side of his face on any surface he slept on, be it in a castle or in a sty. He would forget it by the time he pissed, having lived with it now for more than five and twenty years.
Nevertheless, the sensation was still there every morning as a trusted old friend, to bid him a good day.
Or a day as good as a day could be.
The Mountains of the Moon gaped empty of either game or people. Winter had chased the clansmen to their dwellings so he wouldn't have to kill any. He almost regretted it. Although he knew he was foolish to wish for trouble; many gnats could kill him just as well. That leg that almost did for him was never quite the same as before. And he had a long way to climb.
At least he had gotten to play with the wooden knight before Gregor burned him. The maester gave him ointments. As if that could help.
His little sister had no need of ointments when it was her turn to suffer an accident. She was merely at the wrong place at the wrong time. Without getting to play with any of Gregor's toys, she took a long flight from the battlements of their father's keep. Under the walls, her body had laid broken beyond recognition.
Children are known to be curious, Father had said, mopping his tears.
Sandor Clegane didn't follow the road. Soon, he would have to leave Stranger behind and become his own horse, dragging as much food as he could take on his back. He didn't relish that moment. So he best get used to going slow. Speed would not take him to the Eyrie, persistence would. Maybe.
Maybe not.
The Hound had once travelled with King Robert and his loving family to the Eyrie.
He still remembered that there were parts of the landscape after the Gates of the Moon which could only be crossed by mules and finally, on foot. Probably not even the mules were able to go very high in winter.
But a determined man could arrive at almost any place.
After Sandor's little sister it was their father's turn. With Father dead there was no one to invent the details of the accident that killed him, but Sandor had seen enough to draw his own conclusions. One day, father went hunting with Gregor and returned as a dead body flung over one of the horses. A few of the castle folk went with them to hunt, but no one ever said a word. Not that Sandor waited for them to talk.
As soon as the hunting party passed through the gates, Sandor hid in the stables, Gregor marched to their father's solar, every inch of his eight feet a Lord taking possession of his lands. Lord Gregor Clegane. Three black dogs on a yellow field are a sigil of the House Clegane, maester peeped in the Hound's memories, long forgotten and dead just the same.
On the day when Gregor became lord, Sandor stole a young, bad-tempered black mare from the stables and rode straight for Casterly Rock. He never stopped to look back. He was not yet ten years old and all he knew was that he didn't wish to die. Because if he died, how was he going to kill his brother?
Sandor was now riding in the wild, paying utmost attention to where Stranger put his hooves so that they both reach the Bloody Gate in good condition. And he realised that when he had left home, he was probably as young, as afraid and as angry as Sansa's little sister, Arya, when he had chanced upon her in the riverlands. The only difference between Arya and his younger self was that he had been a boy, he had been uglier, and much taller.
Sandor forced his thoughts away from his past to the present. He had enough food until the Gates of the Moon, maybe for a bit longer. There he would have to buy or steal food for the rest of his journey. Steal the food for two, he let his hopes up only for a moment. The Vale was supposed to still have food left in winter.
Father's was not the last accident.
Gregor married twice. He was lord bannerman to Lord Tywin Lannister, the Warden of the West, and smaller lords hurried to offer him their daughters. Gregor picked delicate, beautiful creatures who loved to sew, sing and dance. It must have given him more joy to break them into pieces. The second wife lasted a bit longer than the first one, Sandor remembered. Gregor would have married for a third time if death didn't put an end to that, no doubt.
Sandor chose not to attend any of the weddings.
(The maester's accident occurred somewhere between those of Gregor's two wives. Sandor no longer lived in Clegane Keep so he never knew when or how.)
He didn't know why the road to the Vale made him think of Gregor all over again. The only thing he ever wanted from his brother since his childhood accident was to kill him. Obviously, wishes are never fulfilled in life. Maybe if they both ended up in seven hells they could kill each other over and over again.
Their mother died shortly after giving birth to their sister. Sandor always wondered if that had been an accident as well, but he was just too young to remember.
The mountain road leading to the Vale wound forward below Stranger and his rider. Sandor was riding a bit above the road, following it behind the second or the third line of the trees. He doggedly searched for the paths that Stranger could cross among the tree trunks, shrubs and irregular, sharp stones. He listened for the sound of any enemy. There wasn't anyone. His scars twitched and puckered in unearthly cold.
What if she is not there?
Then, he answered his own question, you will have climbed for nothing.
He urged the Stranger forward.