He had feared fire, but not the fire of her hair.
Sandor last left her while the raging glow of wildfire burned the Blackwater down. Everybody called him the Hound, but that night he ran like the cowardly pup he felt like. He looked into the sea and he saw fire, and he looked into the fire and he saw Gregor. Gregor, the child who had first made him face the fire; Gregor, the Mountain, the fierce knight. He saw Gregor, and he saw his little bird-
Her beautifully innocent flowing flames of hair. But those were the wrong flames… Those were all strong green, and her fire was red, red as rage, red as passion.
But if she was fire, why didn't he feel the burn?
They were close, too close, her child porcelain skin almost touching the scars on his face. There was a time Sansa could not look into those bruises. That times were not completely gone, he could see; whether that made him feel happier or sadder, he could not decide.
Her bright blue eyes looked blunt, and as she closed them slowly, Sandor realized he could get almost anything. He was the scary Hound in a bloody cloak who broke in her maiden chambers, the enormous monster that child feared so much. He could get a kiss. He could rape her right there, and no one in the whole burning King's Landing would give a damn about it.
But it was not what he wanted. He could get her, he could have her… But the little bird would never get out of her cage. She would never give him anything willfully, nothing but out of fear. There was a knife aligned to her pale throat, and Sandor could not understand how on seven hells that knife could belong to him.
I'll get a song from you, he thought. But when the words came out of his mouth, they did sound rather harsh, mean, painful. Like fire.
Sing to me. Sing me a song, why don't you?
And she sang.
She sang with her eyes, her bright eyes full of innocence. She sang with her silly courtesies, the manners that had saved her life in that nest of rats that was the Red Keep. She was a young girl who sang songs of long lost heroes, knights and princesses, kings and queens and fair maidens. And she sang with fire. She was a daughter of the North, a child of the Wolves of Winter, but to Sandor she was made of flames.
And as she gave him the song of the Mother, he could not help but wonder what she was singing for. Did she pray for his soul; or did she pray to be saved from him?
He could never save her, be the heroic knight she deserved and wanted, and he could never be saved.
And then, Sandor Clegane cried.
She touched his wet cheek, both tears and blood drops flowing free, not caring about the horrifying scars for the first time. Instead, it almost looked like mercy. Like… pity.
And pity was too much.
Leaving her alone to the snakes of the Red Keep was too much, and he did it anyway.
The Hound stood and walked away, his once pure white cloak sullied with bloodstains left behind. She'll set fire to it, he guessed. She would be happier this way.
He did not stay long enough to see her cover herself on it, wishing just the same as he did - that somehow, in a perfect world where life was a song and knights were brave as heroes, Sandor Clegane would have taken her and saved her.
But life was not a song, and the Blackwater Bay burned bright. And burned the wrong colors.
