It was utterly silent where she stood. She was illuminated by the moonlight above, and it fell in shafts across the hushed courtyard. The night was heavy, muggy, and she was uncomfortable in the heat. She wished she could take off her clothes, to peel back the thin gown she had chosen to wear tonight. It was the lightest she owned, but in this heat it was still difficult to bear the fabric against her sweating, sticky skin. She had emerged from inside in the hope of cooling down from the moist heat of human bodies and warm fire; the smell of sweat still remained in her nostrils. Yet the night air of the courtyard offered her little comfort; she was still as hot as ever. She closed her eyes, and held her fingers to her temples; a familiar ache pounded there. The heat of the night had brought of the beginnings of a headache.
The shadows in the corners seemed deeper than usual. It was from one of these shadows a sudden form reared, detaching itself from the darkness and taking shape in the pale moonlight. Huge and impossibly broad, a few strides was all he needed to reach her. She started as he approached, taking a few steps back as he bared down on her.
His voice never changed; it was ever the throaty rasp it always was.
"Hot, little bird? And in pain too. I'm in pain myself. I need wine. The piss they've given us in there doesn't count." He stared at her, black hair brushed over the burns of his skull. "Don't look at me like that, girl, what do you expect me to say?"
"They've given us their hospitality," she murmured. "That ought to count for our gratitude."
He snorted. "I need wine. I'd rather that to food and a bed to sleep in." He looked tired, wary, his black brows furrowed over the dark hollows of his eyes. "I'm half mad when I'm drunk and half mad when I'm not, damn me. Now fly away little bird, I've drink to be had." He watched her narrowly. "Unless you want people to see us together, standing alone in this courtyard." He laughed at her, his huge frame shaking as his bark rumbled through his broad chest. "Mayhaps they'll think we've a romantic tryst, a pretty bird and a dog, won't you like that? You always liked romance."
She opened her mouth furiously. Why must he always make me feel guilty for things I never said? Truth be told, she was frightened of him, and usually too wary of him to contradict the harsh things he said. But tonight her patience was wearing thin; she was tired, her head was throbbing, and besides this man had always been too quick to judge her own thoughts. He has no idea. He cut her off before she had even began.
"They'll sing about us, little bird. Wouldn't you like that? You'll get your song, just as you wanted. You'll get your fucking song." He paused, and stared down at her with a face shrouded in darkness.
"They'll sing "The Hound and his Bitch", now wouldn't that make for a pretty jape?" He threw his head back and laughed into the night, his voice harsh and cracked and his teeth glinting in the moonlight. "Mayhaps they'll sing it in your honour at court. Wouldn't you like that, little bird, sweet Jonquil?"
Her courage had died in her throat. She stared up at him. She was tall, tall for her age and sex, but the Hound exceeded her height by several hundred leagues. His height and breadth alone were enough to cow her, let alone the harsh truths he was voicing or the way the tense rigidity of his neck muscles screamed danger.
He seemed displeased by her silence. He took a step closer, and another. He was everywhere. Her senses were full of him, he was all she could see, all she could smell and when his huge hands snaked out to grab her wrists, he was all she could touch. Gasping, she pulled against his iron grip, but it was all for naught; snapping such delicate wrists would be almost too easy a task for him. And so she remained in his hard grasp, and surrendered herself to his invasion of all that she knew, all she could feel in that very moment.
He loomed above her, his breathing harsh and heavy. He was a big man, anyone could see that; his height was formidable, and was doubled by the vast expanse of his chest and shoulders. But there was an agility about him, of speed that few could match. It was there in the corded hard muscle of his arms and legs, in his surprisingly light step. He was danger in every sense, and Sansa had never been more aware of that as she trembled in his unrelenting grip. Danger he was, a murderer and as brutal as they came. But he was also a man, all man. And as Sansa looked up into his scarred face with her hands against his hot flesh, her flushed cheeks betrayed her acute knowledge of that truth.
Neither of them could deny that truth.
His voice was harsh. "Answer me, girl." His breath was hot and heavy against her hair. The night was warm, so warm, and Sansa felt the beginnings of a sweaty sheen form against her brow.
She took a deep shuddering breath, and forced herself to look directly into those dark eyes of his.
"No, ser. I would not like to hear such a song."
His face flickered. "Why not, girl? Where's that little bird gone, the one who used to chirp about love songs and knights and chivalry?" His tone darkened. "Where's that little bird gone, girl? Did some fucking ser show you that there is no chivalry in this world, as he used you and made you his and his alone?" His arms were tense cords, his fingers gripping her flesh cruelly. "Now, tell me. Where is that little bird?"
She looked at him flatly, her eyes reflecting her insides, empty and cold where all fire had left her over time. Time had been the real killer. Time had imprisoned her within her suffering. Years she had endured, not days or weeks or months. Time had chiselled a new bird out of the old.
"That little bird has died and gone, ser. I am no such little girl any longer." The dead monotone of her voice startled them both. She had indeed died, and returned reborn in the ashes of her girlish folly, of her sweet naivety and easy trust.
She had died long ago.
His hands left her wrists, and fell to his sides. His voice was strange, half strangled and painful. "You may no longer be that same little bird, but I am still no ser." He took another step towards her; they were closer than ever and she could feel the heat radiating from his body through her thin gown. "You would do well to remember that, little bird. You may say you are not the little girl you were, but I'm the same dog I've always been. A dog who never took any vows. So spare me your courtesies, girl. Calling me ser won't stop me from doing what I want, taking what I want. And might be what I want is you." He laughed as she took a terrified step away from him, and quick as lightning his hand flashed out once more to restrain her. "I'm big enough, strong enough, quick enough and brutal enough to take what I want." His face was terrifying in the half-light, twisted and ruined, but his eyes were quiet. "But I'm not my brother. Whatever I am, I'm not him. I'll take lives, yes, but I won't take you, little bird. I'll not hurt you."
She gazed up at him with unwavering eyes, eyes that had once refused the gaze of his ruined face. "You won't hurt me?" She breathed.
He stared down at her over his hooked nose, a strange solemnity replacing the anger of old. "No, little bird," he croaked. "I will not hurt you."
"You never did hurt me," she whispered. "All those times during King's Landing, you were trying to warn me, trying to protect me. I thought you were being horrid for the sake of being horrid. But you were there for me, always there. My protector. F- forgive me, ser." She blanched as the word slipped out through force of habit. She dared not look at his face, at his reaction. "Forgive me... S-Sandor." It was the first time her lips had ever formed his name aloud, and it rang curiously between them, like a bell.
His face was unreadable, dark in the night. Something brewed under those heavy brow of his, something that left him without words; he opened his mouth but no noise was made. Finally he managed to reply. "Spare me, girl. There's no need for forgiveness." He stared down at the ground. "If anything, I could've given you more. I stood there and let them beat you like a fucking coward." His voice cut like a winter wind. "I was no protector. I let them bugger us both, but now I'm my own dog." He looked down at her again, and his eyes had regained their old fire. "No one will hurt you girl, not when I'm around. I owe you that at least."
She could smell him, heady in the warm night. He smelled of horses and sweat. He smelled of wine and sorrow, of summer rain. Her own delicately perfumed skin was drowned by his overwhelming scent; everything about him overwhelmed her, from his vast body to the rough bark of his speech. But she hardly recognised his voice when he next opened his mouth.
"Say my name again, little bird. Say my name."
She looked at him, startled; partly from what he had said and partly from the way he had said it.
Never had she thought him capable of speaking without a mocking, angry edge to every word that came pouring out of his hard mouth. Never had she thought him capable of taming his harsh voice into something almost gentle.
His voice was strange, needy; a plea. She looked into his face, and saw his need reflected in his eyes. With the emotion in his eyes came a change over his face; the gauntness of his lines, the hollows of his cheeks became far less pronounced as their customary mask of quiet fury softened into vulnerability. It was becoming, almost comely, and Sansa found herself admiring his high cheekbones, the coarse smattering of stubble along his hard jawline, the dark grey of his eyes. He scared her, it was true, but there was something intoxicating in that fear, some strange ingredient that drew Sansa to this strapping, intimidating man again and again. Something bound them together, and each offered the vital keys the other lacked. Sandor Clegane, as boorish and brutal a man as he was, could not find it in his heart of stone to hurt Sansa Stark. She gave him something, something no other woman had ever given him.
"Sandor." She stared at him. "Sandor Clegane."
His mouth twitched; his eyes danced queerly. "You have no idea how pleasant a change that makes from hearing "Dog", girl. Especially when said by so pretty a mouth." His hands still curled around her wrists, but softer now, no longer the steel manacles which had unsettled her so. They formed loose bracelets around her thin arms, callused and hard from years of wielding a sword. His touch was electrifying, and she made no move to pull herself out of his grasp.
"It's a good, noble name, my lord. It's a great shame that it isn't used as it should." She was growing more bold in his presence now; she sensed unprobed depth behind his hard pretence and like a moth drawn to flame, she was eager to win his confidence.
His eyes were hard flint once again. He seemed to be growing, filling the air around her. "Why call me my lord when I'm no more a bloody lord than I am a ser?" His irritation unsettled her. He shook her ever so slightly, and her head trembled on her shoulders. His voice sliced through her, "Call me Hound, or fucking dog if it please you more, girl. Whatever befits my station." And he turned from her suddenly, his hands leaving her wrists as he span into the darkness of the night, and squinted up into the waning moon above them.
Her heart hammered in her throat. He was such an unpredictable creature; never had she seen him react like this. Hard words and physical intimidation were indicators of Sandor Clegane's displeasure, not a retreat into the night without so much as a warning. She looked at his broad back, the light reflecting off his steel armour, the dark curtain of his hair.
"Come back," she croaked at his back. "Come back, Sandor." She stole up behind him, and wordlessly he turned to face her.
"Little bird," he rasped. "I wasn't leaving. I simply wanted to howl at the moon like any dog would do. Any dog in torment. Or perhaps you would know more about howling at the moon, wolf girl? Perhaps you ought to teach me, wolf to hound."
She stared wordlessly at him. They were close again, almost touching. But the threat of a storm was still there. She kept silent, wondering what would break it.
"Might be I like you using my name, little bird. Gods know I hardly hear it myself. It warms my heart, if I still have one, to hear you say it." He leant ever closer to her, the tips of his black hair brushing her face. "It's almost as if you're not afraid of me."
She swallowed her fear. "I'm not afraid of you."
He met her response immediately, his dark eyes boring into hers. "Then why does your heart beat so hard when I'm close to you? Why do you flinch," He snapped his teeth, a hair's breadth away from her ear, "with every move I make?" His face was closer than ever now, and she was rooted to the spot, sweating and trembling but so entranced, a man, he was all man, his face was a ruin, a sweet ruin, and he was so close to her, so very very close...
His voice vibrated in her ears, made her shiver. "Admit it, girl. You fear the ground I tread. Mayhaps you've soiled your smallclothes already." His ragged lip curled as she grimaced at his coarseness. "Forgive me girl, did I speak out of turn? You ought to teach me a lesson, as I said earlier. Go on. Teach my place."
"I'm not afraid of you." She said the words again. This man is not a monster, not truly.A bizarre recklessness seized her as she looked at his face, his scarred face, and momentarily saw the rawness inside.
"You're afraid of me." Were those truly her words? Was she asking to be killed? But she had walked too far to turn back. She plunged ahead, her words tumbling out of her mouth like shedding leaves, pouring out the half-thoughts she had accumulated over several years of seeing the mask of this man in occasionally slip. "You're afraid of me, you're afraid I find you ugly, you're afraid your scar frightens me, you're afraid of showing me who you are. You're afraid and I'm not." In truth she was terrified, having realised halfway through her outburst how truly stupid she had been in telling this bitter, violent creature her own half-dreamed thoughts.
A long silence followed. She dared not look at him; she fully expected a blow. She tensed, anticipating a leather clad fist flying towards her face. When none came, the silence lengthened, stretched, waned and then waxed; beads of sweat trickled down the back of her neck. And still she waited, her head bent to the ground as she wondered what possible hell she had unleashed.
His voice was one of the dead; broken, cracked and as harsh as ember. Never had she heard so much resignation in a few simple words.
"Aye, you have the right of it, little bird."
Her head snapped up in shock. His disarming self-deprecation was disturbing. She felt a wild impulse to protect him. She wanted him to be brave, strong, the Sandor she knew. "I – ser – Sandor-"
A finger against her lips silenced her. "Hush, bird." A strange fire had leapt up behind those dark eyes of his. Some unexplainable intensity had caught his ruined features and twisted them into a mask of ill-suppressed emotion. The rawness of his very self disturbed her, discomfited her, reminded her of dead knights and despoiled maidens and of her rotted, headless father. Everything of worth broke, vanished as easily as dawn mist under high summer sunlight. Strength was never a component in immortality.
Sandor Clegane's fragility unnerved her, and suddenly the disturbing light in his eyes held more depth than she ever knew. The feverish rage that ever plagued his eyes and darkened his face were keys to his torment, and held more secrets than his rough way of speaking and brutal manner than she thought possible.
"Sandor." He continued to stare down at her with that burning gaze, his eyes steady and clear and for once without the mist of drink clouding their grey orbs. His mouth twitched, trembled. She lay a warm hand against his neck without thinking; he never wavered and closed his eyes at his her touch. His flesh was an open flame, hot and feverish and she felt a thrill run through her as she felt the coarseness of his stubble against her palm. What was she doing? She found she did not care. There was something intoxicating about this moment, in the taming of the Hound. Her stomach tripped as she moved her hand up slowly up to his ruined cheek, drinking in his masculinity, the hollow curve of his face, the hard jut of his jaw... he was like sweet wine to her, more was never enough.
"Sandor," she tried again. "I'm a woman now, a woman grown, not some silly little girl. And I know no such things matter. Sandor?"
This man was fragile. She could see that, the way he looked at her, stared at her. His soul, a badly frayed embroidery of bitterness and blood, of hatred and hostility, was held together by a few thin threads, of hot nights filled with purchased embraces and of vomiting cheap wine down dark alleyways. Such were the sources of comfort in Sandor Clegane's rayless life.
Such comforts never offered the solace he needed to protect himself from his own darkness. His constant, relentless tide of hatred washed away any trace of innocence or gentleness that had clung to his soul after half his face had melted into the brazier, after hot coals had filled his warm wet mouth, after he had inhaled hot ash and felt it scorch the inside of his throat. After he had entered Hell as a boy and returned, his scarred face marking his descent, as a man.
Only in that strange place of limbo, between wakefulness and sleep did he savour half-dreamed snatches of warm female flesh against his, of tousled morning hair and a loving smile for his face alone. Only then did Sandor Clegane allow himself to yearn for the luxuries any other man yearned for. Only then did he allow himself to be the man he could have been, the man with a face and not half of one.
He suddenly allowed himself that luxury. He gripped her sides with hard, lean hands, burning through her gown, her skin, her flesh, melting into her body and making her shiver, sending delicious shudders down her spine.
"I said I would never hurt you, girl. I mean what I said." His voice was rough, and teeming with some unspoken emotion that distorted his speech and made him fall over his own words. There was high colour in his usually bloodless face; his dark eyes hard upon her. "But gods, I want you, little bird. You have no idea. You say you're a woman now." His eyes raked down her body, lingering on the lacing of her bodice. "The world runs on the backs of warriors and between the legs of women, girl, didn't your lord father teach you that? You're no woman until some man fucks you. Maybe a ser will be your first, little bird, how will you like that?"
He was struggling to stem his bitterness, she could see that, but to no avail. What he wanted was usually out of his reach; his invariable response was to hide his desire with tides of hard truths and a resignation to the consequences of his affliction; so much so he frequently forgot he harboured the same desires as other men. His whoring quenched his carnal desires, but never did he allow himself to pursue a particular woman.
His breathing was ragged, his hands hard against her hips. "You may like it, girl, but I won't. In the dark it doesn't matter who's on top of you. In the dark it's all the same. I could be anyone you wanted, I could be the Knight of fucking Flowers if need be. But I'd be a man. A real man." His hands travelled up and down her sides, one coming to rest on her collar bone. "You need a man, little bird. You can't fly away on your own. I'd be with you, night and day. Keeping you safe, even with this." He hissed, taking his hand away so he could jab at his ruined face.
He's so hateful, so vulnerable, he needs someone. He thinks I need him, but he needs someone as much as I need him to keep me safe. Her world had shrunk to the hot hand on her hip, and the dark intensity of his stare. Warmth stirred in the pit of her stomach. He's so tall, so fierce, she thought, but I like it. I like him.
Her hand reached out to lower his own away from the devastation of his face. He gripped her hand so fiercely it pained her; but she didn't think he even noticed her small bones crushing under his hold. "I won't hurt you, little bird, I promise. But I told you once a dog can sniff out lies. It can also sniff out truths. And the truth is, you want me as much as I want you. Don't even try and prove me wrong, I know the right of it." He was so bold. And so right, she thought. He scares me, but I like it. It was the thrill of his being close to her, the thrill of risking herself to try and tame him. And tame him she must; too many nights had seen her lie awake in bed, too charged to sleep, visions of Sandor Clegane's fierce masculinity refusing to leave her mind's eye. She wanted him to herself.
Her hand wound itself in his black hair, and he pulled her closer to him, a harsh movement that sent her heart skipping in her chest. Her breast was against his own, and she trembled as she braced a hand against his hard chest.
"Aye, girl. I've seen the way you look at me. You drive me half wild. Don't look at me with those shocked eyes, girl, you know what I mean. If you're a woman, then show me that you are. Otherwise I'll protect you as I did when you were a girl. Your life, your choice. I have no life, you may as well choose what would would be best for me." He laughed harshly, echoing in the night. "Mayhaps I would be better to crawl into some hole and die. That way you could marry the ser you wanted and I could rest, assured that in death I could not possible be any uglier than I was in life." A sudden change came over him, and his bitterness melted into that dark intensity that so entranced her. "Fuck your life, little bird. Fuck mine. You could leave here now, and I would keep you safe. We could try and scrape some sort of happiness for ourselves. Let anyone try and hurt us, I'll rip their heads from their shoulders. Come with me, little bird. Come with me."
His steady gaze was hot steel, and she wavered in its power. He was so big, so tall... unbridled. Yet she had the power to bridle him, to make him hers and hers alone.
He was growing impatient, shifting his weight from one foot to another and twitching his ruined mouth. His sweet ruined mouth. His face no longer disturbed her. He was simply Sandor to her now. Sandor.
"Out with it girl, don't keep me waiting. I want to know whether I can have you, keep you for myself." He shook her slightly, but not ungently. "Pretty little thing. Gods, girl, answer me. Drop your damned armour for once, damn you. Tell me what you want."
She looked at him, slow and steady, drank in his massive bulk, the heat rising from his skin, the way he looked at her with his brooding stare, glowing in the night. She looked at a man who had never left her thoughts for years and years and years. She looked at a man who wasn't good, wasn't bad, but a strong, heady compound of the two. She looked at a man who needed her, and it was him she needed. It was him she'd always needed.
She took a deep breath, and took off her armour for the first time in her life.
"Take me with you," she breathed, and suddenly the warm, humid night was theirs and theirs alone.