A/N: Just a one shot. Please leave feedback/comments.
Sansa scribbled on a slip of paper and left it on the table, then she made her way out onto her balcony. She looked out upon King's Landing, she wondered if anyone in this retched city was happy. She knew that no one in the Keep was. The Lannisters, powerful and dangerous as they all are, did not seem happy. None of the Guards or servants having to do the Lannister's sometimes terrible biddings seemed happy.
Sansa was a woman now, she had had her first flowering, it was still upon her now. There was a time, and it seemed a lifetime ago, when she would have been happy to have flowered, knowing she would marry a handsome prince and have his children, and be Queen someday. She still had to marry Joffery, but now she hated the idea. She didn't want to have his children, she didn't want him ruining their lives too, making them into monsters just like himself.
The city stank, but Sansa had grown accustomed to it, just as she had grown accustomed to all the other unpleasant and horrible aspects of her life here. She was a prisoner and a slave. Her cage may be gilded, but those luxuries did nothing to sweeten her existence. She pulled a chair that sat on the balcony closer to the railing, right up against it, and she stepped up onto the seat of it. She looked down over the railing at the world below and took a shaky breath.
Her whole body was tense and trembling as she extended her leg, placing her foot on the railing, and then the other one, so that now she stood there, with nothing before her. Her cage was behind her, and the despicable city before her. The warm breeze blew towards her, she missed the refreshing cold of Winterfell. She lifted her arms as if they were wings, and the breeze played with her long flared sleeves, whipping them this way and that.
"Little Dove," and "Little Bird" were her titles, and perhaps it was time she finally slipped the cage and flew. She could know freedom. She leaned into the wind, though maintaining her center of balance. She looked down below her, she would know a few moments of falling, the air rushing about her, a sense of freedom she had never known before, and then, from this height, it should all be over instantaneously.
Her thoughts wondered to her brother Bran. He used to be such a good climber, always scaling the towers of Winterfell, playing on the roofs. But he had fallen, though he did not die, he was instead paralyzed from the waist down. She had not been present when he came to, her father had whisked her and Arya off to King's Landing. She had been so excited about her future when they had started out. Looking back now she wondered how her father was able to tear himself away from Winterfell with a son who, at that point, was at death's door. Robert Baratheon had ordered him away...but if her father had just put him off until Bran was better, or refused him all together, how different life could be right now.
She looked at the sunset before her, the sky was shades of orange and pink, it was glorious to behold. She felt a soft smile curve her lips, standing on the precipice between her imprisonment and freedom she felt happier than she had felt in a long time. If she flew the Lannisters lost their hold on the North, Joffery would loose his favorite person to threaten and abuse. She didn't know what would await her after the fall, but she took solace that it couldn't be any worse than the hell she lived now. Again she closed her eyes and pictured the faces of her loved ones, she pictured them smiling, these were the last thoughts she wanted to have-recollections of better times.
Her skin remembered the feeling of her mother's arms around her, in a loving embrace. She remembered the warmth in her father's eyes when he looked upon her with pride, and her ears burned with the remembering of her sister's laughter as Arya playfully taunted and teased her.
She had hated her sister's teasing, but now how she would give anything for that to be the only bad thing she had to endure. She had now suffered through the deaths of loved ones, and physical and mental abuse beyond imagining. But that too was now over, with happy memories flooding her mind, her smile broadened and she leaned forward onto her toes, like a bird about to lift off and take flight into the blazing remainder of the sunset.
A gruff voice suddenly shattered her happy thoughts as The Hound said, "Your wings are broken little bird, you cannot fly." Her eyes snapped open and she teetered, falling forward against her best efforts she looked down with fear at the world beneath her. Strong hands pulled her from the railing, and she objected, as terrified as she had just been feeling herself about to fall she hated being saved more.
"No! No, please!" She begged, trying to twist free of The Hound's grasp, reaching toward the horizon for release desperately. The Hound put his arms around her, drawing her back against himself. His chin was resting on her shoulder and she felt his breath on the side of her face.
"If you fly into the abyss, they win, little bird." He whispered, his arms encircling her waist tightly. She stared ahead at the vibrant colors of the sunset blurring as her eyes filled with tears. No, they would win if she lived! They would continue abusing her, throwing Robb's failures in her face, and punishing her for his victories. If she didn't die on her own terms, then she would likely be killed by Joffery at some point, and that death would not be mercifully quick, she knew.
"I know it all feels hopeless now. But as long as you draw breath there is hope. At the very least if you must die, do the world a favor and take one of them with you." He advised her, then he abruptly released her, she stumbled forward a step and turned to face him.
"Life here is a war little bird, they may defeat you many times, but do not give them the final victory." The Hound said softly. They stood looking at each other for a moment, and she drew strength from looking at him. He had suffered too, first at his brother's hands as a child, when Gregor had burned his face, and now he was Joffery's Hound. As much as Sandor prided himself on not being a Knight, a mindless slave to the Crown, he was just as much that as the Knights were. He had to do whatever Joffery bid him do. Was he enduring it all in hopes of the chance of revenge on his brother...or Joffery?
Sandor laughed, it was short lived, but it startled Sansa. He grinned, and she was astonished as she realized that he could be a very handsome man, were he not disfigured. He stepped toward her and reached out, she froze, not sure what he was going to do. He reached up to the top of her head and then drew his hand back, showing her a reddish brown feather he had plucked from her hair. She scrunched her brows, she had not noticed any birds nearby.
"Perhaps your wings are strengthening, little bird." He said, his face serious again, he held the feather out to her and she took it, their fingers brushing slightly, which made her breath catch. He was an enigma to her, he was feared by all, including Sansa, but she had seen his softer side. He had several times saved her from doing things that would get her beaten, with just a whispered warning.
He left abruptly and she watched him go, gazing at the door long after he had left. What had made him come to her chambers? Had he sensed what she meant to do somehow? He may be Joffery's Hound, he may be fearsome to others, but he had proven to be her Guardian. She looked down at the little feather in her hand, she ran her thumb over the soft and fluffy fibers, her fingertips still tingling where they had brushed The Hound's calloused hand. For some reason he found her worth protecting and saving, perhaps it was worth living a while longer to find out why...
She entered her chambers again and strode over to the table where she had left her note she had written. It said simply 'Your dove has flown', it was meant to be a slap in the face to the Queen, who always mockingly used that term of false endearment with her. Sansa picked the paper up and crumpled it in her hand before throwing it in the fire. She watched the fire devour the paper, and with it her longing to die.
She was no wolf...she was no dove...her life was nothing but ashes around her, but she suddenly knew that one day she would rise from them, her heart burning brightly with the flames of vengance...as a Phoenix.