A/N: Written for the tumblr SanSan Secret Valentine fic exchange. My prompt was: "Sansa riding into battle and watching Sandor fight/the fighting gets too nearby, and Sandor, as head of her Queensguard has to lead the charge to protect her." And the word limit was 2k, and you all know how I like to get on... I hope everything comes across as I wanted it to! And if you're waiting for Chapter Eight of The Maiden in the Tower, you can look for it sometime tomorrow night. Hope everyone spent VDay with someone they love!
Unbeta'd, due to the nature of the fic exchange.
TW: References to canon sexual abuse.
Snow flickered down from the mottled grey sky, whisking over the cold waters of the Neck and coating the armor of Northern soldiers, washing away the blood on their swords and slickening down, and then freezing, in their hair.
"And yet Aegon still believes he can conquer the North in winter," Sansa whispered. "We will hold the Neck, and here they will freeze." She paused, hands resting lightly on the ledge of the window peering out over the marshes of Moat Cailin.
She had made Gatehouse Tower her seat for this campaign, while Dany secured her lands in the South and Jon and the dragons vanquished the Others in the far north. Snow and ice-rain filtered in through the unglassed window, but she did not turn away. Only raised her voice. "No Stark will kneel to a Targaryen. We have learned our lesson. We have brokered peace with the true Targaryen queen. The Mother of Dragons is on our side, and this pretender has little to his name." She sighed. "It is time to finish this, and go home."
She had her maids dress her in mail this morning, as the sun rose on the frost-driven day. She was no commander, had not made her queenship out of blood and war, but had been forced to make war all the same. Sansa Stark, first of her name, had rallied the Vale and the Riverlands and the North out of chaos with her words and her name, and with the lands topped with snow and that other evil, had not had to bloody the landscape too much to usurp the Boltons and punish the Freys. No, all she had to do was march North, with her two hundred thousand men behind her.
The door opened behind her.
"Your grace?" The voice was the rasp of metal on stone.
She didn't turn around. "Sandor."
"The banners are waiting for you, your grace."
She rubbed at her brow, where the crown weighed heavily on her forehead, blemishing her skin. "Are—do you still intend to ride with the vanguard? I told you, that if you wished, you could command the left flank."
"I do not know the terrain as well as Lord Reed, your grace. You were right to trust his men to command."
She nodded, fingers restless inside her rabbit-lined gloves. Her hand came to rest uneasily on the sword strapped around her waist, and she laughed. It was short, and nervous. "And remember, if you capture Aegon, he must be brought to me alive. He goes to Dany. It is one of her terms. And if we win, he is to brought south by a contingent from the Vale and the Riverlands, who will then swear to her. And then…"
"You will have your kingdom in truth, your grace."
"And then I will send men to every corner of this world to find Arya, and Bran, and Rickon. And then I will rebuild Winterfell. And then you will take Deepwood Motte as I have been threatening you with for going on a year."
It was his turn to laugh. "And you will never rest, your grace. Work yourself to the bone and until you are dead."
She smiled. "Quite unlike Robert." She paused. He whored and hunted until he was dead. She would have spoken it aloud, too. To him, if it weren't this morning. "And do not think that by not responding that I will not make you a Northern lord."
"You should forget a Southron brute like me."
She hummed, and it took an almost teasing tone; she turned at last. "And how do you find your new armor, my lord?"
He huffed. "You know how I found it. You were there when it was fitted."
She tittered, circling him, the heel of her palm still resting on the hilt of her ceremonial sword. "Of course I was there, you're the captain of my Queensguard. I couldn't stand to have you look foolish. Armor like this is worth it's weight in gold."
"Is that for me or for you, your grace?"
She ignored him, reaching up to trace the middle of his chestplate, where there was a raised plate of metal carved into a wolf's head with a crown. She smiled up at him through heavily-lidded eyes. They spent their days together on this long journey home. They laughed, and bickered, and strategized, and on more than one occasion he had held her as she wept. He had been the first man to swear his sword to her—and yet he wanted no reward than to remain by her side, forever shirking her offer of Deepwood Motte, or any of the other abandoned ennobled keeps in the North.
What did he want from her? She knew what all of the other men (and women, she amended, thinking on the Mormonts) were fighting for… but not him.
He looked down at her with the queerest expression on his face, and she withdrew her gloved hand, clearing her throat. "Will you at least wear my favor?"
Sandor blanched. "Give it to one of your Commanders, one of your Lords."
Sansa frowned, tentatively stroking over the silver gossamer ribbon tied loosely in her auburn wave, retreating from him. "Do you not want it?"
There was a look between them, before Sandor's gaze skittered away from hers. Sansa sighed, once again clasping the sword. She smiled, but it was tight and false. "Come. I have a speech to make and a battle to win."
She led him out of the tower, a knot of uncertain origin building in her belly.
"I am the Queen, your sovereign lady. I am the North and I am winter, and yet Aegon still believes he can conquer the North in winter…"
He didn't notice her until it was almost too late. Bugger, had she ridden into the battle? Fuck, he thought,No, it had ridden in towards her. Aegon's men had moved almost to the retaining walls of the Gatehouse Tower, desperately trying to outflank Reed's—
"Shit."
Umber's men had made a grab at Aegon, and the pretender was bound over a saddle as they made for the tower.
His breathing rapid and heavy, his gaze wildly turned back to Sansa, who busily helping her maids on their horses, setting all others before her to go. Only two of her guard remained, good fighters of course, but nothing against a company of men. His heart pounded in his chest, thrumming loudly against his chest plate, where her hand had lingered and seven buggering hells he had wanted to—
It was not his queen that he led the charge for, as the Golden Company closed in after their liege… and his.
His limbs were alight with the rage of battle, his heels stinging as he spurred Stranger faster towards her.Fuckfuckfuck. She didn't flinch, at all, sending her people off to safety, her skirts clenched in one hand as she waded through the mud and the snow. The only thing betraying her fear was the frantic gusts of mist from her lips, the high color on her pale cheeks.
He had found her, nigh on a year ago, playing Littlefinger's pretty little bastard daughter, unready to walk to the altar to marry Harry the Heir. He found her in the struggle, one night, Littlefinger's hands wrapped around her wrists, hissing instructions to her in the shadows, lowering his lips to hers as she tried to squirm away…
He was not a good man, before. No matter how much he had wanted to help her, he wasn't a good man. He couldn't have helped her.
He would gladly spend the rest of his life repaying that failure, after his years spent with the Elder Brother, relearning to walk and how to be a man, the kind of man who could and would stand by Sansa Stark's side. He would not fail her, as he had done so many years ago. In another battle, long ago. He would not desert her now. Never again, when she was the one who ripped the Hound from him in the first place.
The little bird who slayed the snarling Hound.
Time slowed. And quickened. And shimmered and was too fast and not fast enough and fucking hells he just needed to reach her.
He was roaring, something, the cold creeping under his skin as he watched fear blossom on her features at last ("Hold the line! Hold the fucking line!") and he dug his heels into Stranger's flank and closer, was closer to her, but they were closer too, to her, with their swords and blood-splattered armor and they would kill her, or take her, if they got to her. His throat was hoarse, his sword high as he charged, swinging at every man draped in red and black and gold in his way.
I'll kill them all.
He rode past the retaining walls, his men behind him, mounting the defense and clattering into battle once more and he watched her and her guards try and flee back into the tower, but at last she looked—she tripped, falling to her knees into a snowdrift, and he heard her cry out. Aegon's forces raged closer, and one guard fell, a sword through his chest and she screamed, lurching as if to go and comfort him, before her survival instinct kicked in and she scrambled to her feet.
Closer, buggering hells, almost there, almost there, almostthere, and—he pulls her up onto Stranger, wrapping one strong arm around her waist as he directed the courser through the heavy snows, the reins wound around his hand. They rode farther out, away from the combat to the encampment where the wounded men lay and the elderly and women waited for the battle to finish.
As they entered the camp, Stranger slowing to a trot, Sandor realized she was shaking.
"Little bird," he murmured, easing his arm out from around her, dismounting his horse. She looked down at him, the expression on her face almost confused, but strangely tender. When she raised her arms out to him, he lifted her down onto the ground. She swayed on her feet for a moment, eyes fixed on his face—it made him feel naked, almost. But not naked, more… vulnerable.
"Your grace," he said, looking away.
She giggled. His head reared up, eyes wide. Was she laughing at him?
On of her hands was at her hair, as were her eyes—she tugged at the silvery ribbon, which was barely holding onto her thick curls. Removing it from its post, she smiled wearily at him.
"I was almost afraid I'd have to use my sword," she said, voice low and almost humored. Pausing, she reached out to him. "Give me your hand."
What?
"What?"
She giggled again, and seven hells if he didn't… hair wild, crown askew, dress wet and muddied and face flushed with color, eyes… seven buggering hells, her eyes.
"Give me your hand," she repeated, sterner, but breathlessly. Hesitantly, he raised his hand, and she wrapped her fingers around his gauntlet. Stepping closer, she raised her eyes to his face again.
"I'm sorry," he blurted.
She shook her head at him. "Would you take my favor now? That you have saved my life in the midst of battle?" Tilting her head, Sansa went to tie the favor at his wrist, but stopped. When she spoke again, her voice was soft, almost affectionate and it was strange and wondrous and how could she ever speak to him, like this? "You have repaid your debt, Sandor Clegane. You have kept me safe."
It took him a moment to realize that now he was the one to shake, under her tremulous smile and slender fingers.
(The weight of the silver ribbon, after all, was worth more than his armor's worth in gold.)
Reviews are very much appreciated, but so is the fact that you read all the way to the end. Happy Valentine's Day!