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Intrusive Beginnings

Sandor

Water hit Sandor's face like a club with a hundred needles driven through it, the icy coldness of it stabbing at his skin, poking at his eyes and bringing him awake with a jolt. He brought up a hand only to block the second assault of water coming from the open cell door, not that it did him too much good.

"Wakie wakie ya ugly son of a bitch, the Lady wants you to wash." Came an unfamiliar voice from beyond the bars of his cell, from the same direction the water had also come from.

Sandor lunged in the direction of the voice, frustrated to only catch bars in his hands and nothing more. The guard kicked the bars where Sandor was, making some rude looking northern gesture he was unfamiliar with. His body was only just now waking up from the near black out like sleep he had been so rudely awaken from. Sandor's head was pounding, the pressure so great behind his eyes that he felt as if they would burst from his head. He ached all over from his travels the last few days, from falling off his old swayback mare, from stumbling around in the cold...from sleeping on the floor of this cell.

'Winterfell.'

He remembered now where he was, and with that the previous night's events slowly came back to him. He'd been down on his luck these last months, gambled away his armor and what little possessions he had left, trying as hard as he could to drink away his pain. What had started with turning craven at the Battle of the Blackwater had progressed into a defeat by Brienne of Tarth, then to him giving up on the Warrior all together.

'Bugger the Warrior to the Seven Hells where he fucking belongs.'

Sandor had given up on his old life after he had survived in the Vale. That meant getting rid of all the vestiges of that life, his horse, his sword, everything. He was nothing now, just a peasant with a price on his head, a feral dog looking for scraps to pilfer from the nearest village or camp.

'Sansa.'

He sat back against the cold stone wall and put both his hands on his head, then felt the place on his cheek where she had struck him. It was bruised, still tender from the impact of her angry slaps. He had done everything in his power to forget her, to push her from his mind, but somehow she always crept back in. It wasn't uncommon for him to see her smile in a barmaid's face, hear her voice from a peasant girl passing him on the road, feel her caresses when he neared the end of a bottle. Her rejection the night he had offered to take her back to the North had burned him more than Gregor ever had. Cut him deeper than Brienne's Valyrian steel Lannister gold sword ever had in the Vale.

He wouldn't let it happen again.

"Are you ugly and stupid dog? The Lady says you're to wash, so wash!" Came the same guard's voice from beyond the bars. There was a vitrol in his tone, anger in his words.

There was a bucket on the floor of the cell, a sponge and a bar of soap floating at the top. No towel of course, just a cotton tunic, leather jerkin and some leather pants to go with it. All of the sudden his eyes searched the floor of the dark cell, finding Sansa's cloak pooled on the floor where she had dropped it for him. She'd been right on one thing, it was cold, cold enough that the clothes offered to him wouldn't be enough to even keep him warm down here.

"You gonna stare at me like a piece of meat boy? Or are ya gonna turn that cunt ass of yours around and give a man some privacy?" Sandor's insinuation was clear, the anger on the young guard's face boiling to the surface as he spat and turned around.

"Bloody northerners." Sandor mumbled, gingerly pushing himself off from the ground and making his way toward the bucket.

The stench wafting from his clothes as he removed them was one of the worst smells he could think of. It was like horseshit mixed with human vomit that had been dragged through a pig's pen. Naked, Sandor crouched by the bucket and took the soap and sponge in hand.

"Fuck the bloody North and it's bloody cold water." He said as he put his head in the bucket, lathering his hair with soap.

He wasn't sure how long it had been since he had washed, but judging by the state of his clothing and the intensity of his hangover, he'd probably been on a booze binge for a couple of days. How he had made it to the one place he had been trying to avoid was beyond him.

Sandor inhaled deeply as he continued to wash himself in the ice cold water of the bucket in front of him. He had begun to shake both from the cold water and air, and from sobering up. His headache had barely gone away when he felt the need for another drink, knowing it would only deaden the pain he had in his heart, not take it away.

'What in the Seven Hells does she want from me?' he wondered, frustrated and angry as he doused himself one last time in the bucket, passing the sponge along his more intimate areas.

He was shivering by the time he made his way to the new set of clothes hanging on a peg for him. The fit him well enough, which wasn't often the case given his size. The guard had moved away now, leaving him alone in his cell, sitting again on the cold floor and staring at the cloak Sansa had given him. It looked warm, with fur on the inside and wool on the outside. It was as if it were reaching out to him, doing its best to rouse him from his stubbornness. But instead he sat there, his arms wrapped around his knees, shivering. There was no way in the Seven Hells he was ready to give in to Sansa Stark or her fucking inviting warm cloak.

It was beyond difficult to measure the passing of time it a dungeon. Could it be done by counting drips of some water falling to the floor, or perhaps the amounts of times the guards come to bring you food? Sandor mulled this over as he sat in the dark bowles of Winterfell's dungeons, cold, angry and waiting. The clinking of a Maester's chains were what would rouse him from his banal musings. Sandor did his best not to shake, not to show how cold he was as a very old man stepped forward, toward the cell doors. He was a tall man, with blue eyes and a thick salt and pepper beard worn in the northern fashion. There were two guards on either side of him, waiting for his word.

"Am I right to find myself in the presence of Sandor Clegane?" the old man asked, in a kindly manner as if oblivious to the spartan conditions in which Sandor found himself in.

"Who's asking?" Sandor answered, his head still pounding from the alcohol.

"Ah yes. My name is Maester Leeds, I've been sent by Lady Stark to...uh...examine you." It was the way the old man said 'examine' that put Sandor's instincts on high alert. Something wasn't right but he couldn't exactly be sure what it was.

"Well tell Lady Stark," Sandor's voice spat out her name as if it were a bad taste, "that if she wants to examine me. She can fucking do it herself."

At this the eccentric old man laughed, "Oh dear, I do believe you've misunderstood. She wants me to examine you medically. But we can't do it here, no...far to dark. Come, follow me."

There was a time in Sandor's life where he would have just told all of them to go fuck themselves, but this was not one of them. Even if he had, at one time, defeated five men at the same time whilst unarmed, he was not going to tempt fate today. No matter how much he had begged the Stranger to take him, he would not lose a fight to some skinny necked jailers or an old Maester for that matter. So, begrudgingly, Sandor stood up, giving himself a second to steady his head, then followed the men out of the dungeon.

'She has no right to do this.' The Hound thought to himself as he made his way up the dungeon staircase, through the main yard of Winterfell and up some stairs again to a lonely tower at the east end of the castle.

The Maester's rooms were very different to what he had seen in King's Landing. There were books and drawings...things of all kinds scattered across the vast room of Maester Leeds. But there was very little, if any, touch of luxury there. The rooms were comfortable and he wanted for nothing, but they were not as extravagant as what Sandor had seen in the South.

Sandor stood in one of the few open places on the floor that was not covered by parchment looking at the bookshelf toward a jug filled with some creature he had never seen before, wondering what was going to happen. There were two soldiers in the room standing sentinel at the door also seemed unnerved by what was going to happen next. Anticipation was thick in the air as the old Maester went to an even older dusty book and opened up its yellow pages. Maester Leeds leaned over the pages, running a finger down from top to bottom, searching for something.

Suddenly the old man looked up and toward Sandor, annoyed, "Well come on lad, you'll need to get out of your clothes if we're going to do this properly."

"Bugger that." Sandor answered, "You can examine me fine like this."

There was no way in the Seven Hells that Sandor was going to give that old coot what he wanted, much less Sansa. 'What the fuck does she want from me?'

The Maester kept his finger on the page and slowly looked up again, "Oh dear, My Lady won't like that very much. I suggest you make this easier on all of us and strip down. You can put all your clothing there on the desk."

"I don't think you heard me. I said 'fuck you'." Sandor was angry now, raising to his full height, no shackles or bars to contain his rage. "And fuck your Lady too."

Sandor turned on his heel to leave, when the two soldiers at the door lunged toward him. He dodged one of them but only to have the other grab him by the arm and start to pull him toward the floor. Sandor took the soldier holding him by the throat and threw him across the room, breaking a table, its contents spilling across the floor. The racket had alarmed others, for three additional men entered the room. The Hound had seen worse odds before, he threw his large fist toward the closest face he could find, watching blood come from the man's broken nose upon impact.

It wasn't completely a fair fight and in that Sandor knew somehow this battle would end in futility. Somebody threw a rope around his neck and pulled it tight, choking him down to the floor. Two other soldiers grabbed his flailing legs, another punched him in the face.

"Now don't hurt him." Sandor could hear the Maester yelling over all the commotion in the room. "Yes that's right bring him to the examination table."

He was being dragged across the floor to a wooden table with restraints on it. 'Oh fucking fuck me!' Was all that went through his head as the five men heaved him onto the table, doing their best to keep his arms and legs under control.

"Now remove all his clothing and strap him down lads." The Maester's voice was still calm but full of authority as the men did as he asked.

Sandor was growling at his foes, using what strength he had left to gain the upper hand. A wild animal fighting for freedom against immense odds. The rope around his neck was pulled tight, cutting off some air flow as the guards wrestled him down to the examination table. One pulled a leather strap down tight around his waist, stradling Sandor in order to apply the right amount of strength to tie him down. The idiot who let his left arm go to pull his shirt over his head, got a fist right in the face, sending him stumbling a few steps back. This only landed Sandor a tighter noose around his neck and a punch to his own face as his tunic was stripped from him, his arms held down and tied to the table at his sides. Sandor was losing the will to struggle now, his eyes bulging from his head due to lack of oxygen, before he let out one final roar as the men removed his pants and small clothes, leaving him exposed and naked in the cold room.

"Gag him and take that rope from around his neck. Lady Sansa was very clear he was not to be harmed." Came the voice of the old Maester, more authoritative than his earlier more friendly demeanor.

A leather strap was quickly tied around Sandor's mouth, in between his upper and lower jaws so he couldn't shut it all the way. He was heaving hard, his blood pressure through the roof as the elderly man tested each of his bonds, running a finger between Sandor's skin and the straps.

"You did well. Now leave us be lads, I'll call when we're finished." The soldiers were bloodied and bruised, but left in a hurry, not wanting to stand around in shame for too much longer. The Hound had come a little too close to winning that altercation for anyone's comfort.

Sandor turned his head toward the Maester, who had made his way back to his desk, took the old book and brought it closer to the examination table where Sandor now was.

"Now, where was I? Ah yes, of course…" Sandor could see he was scanning the pages for something, a finger running down the left hand side of each page as his eyes flicked over the words.

'I'm gonna kill her. First the Maester, then her. Stripping me down naked, who the fuck does she think she is?' Were the only things Sandor could think about as he watched the old man, anger bubbling to the surface of his naked body.

"Oh there it is, Clegane." The old man's finger stopped on a page and he looked up at Sandor, then back to the page. "Your mother is Mirbel and your father Eusteus, correct?"

All the Maester got in response was a glare.

"I'll take that as a yes." The northern man smiled knowingly at Sandor, making him question what was still to come.

He read aloud, "The family Clegane. A minor house of the Westerlands, known for the roles as kennel masters, hunters, warriors and….for their great loyalty." The old man stopped a moment to ponder something, then continued. "Oldest brother Gregor, deceased. Younger sister Daphne, deceased."

The Maester was talking as if he was having a conversation with himself, to the exclusion of the male subject before him.

"Males of the line tend to be large and muscular, dark hair, grey eyes, chest hair." The Maester walked around his desk, to some measurement tongs and began to very scientifically measure the size of Sandor's muscles, starting with the biceps, moving to the shoulders and progressively down his body. You didn't have to be a bloody Maester to confirm the rest of what he had just said. The old man took some notes.

Sandor could only grunt and fume in disapproval.

"Now now lad, I know you don't like it." The Maester was busy writing down his measurements, not really looking Sandor in the face as he spoke to him, "But you have to understand, we must know if you are healthy and in perfect working order."

There was something in the man's tone that Sandor didn't like. 'What the fuck is going on here?'

A couple of things were noted in the book before the old man read out loud again, "Known for their fiery temperament, tactical intelligence and…" he trailed off just before a huge grin came to his face.

Maester Leeds looked at Sandor then down between his legs, with a grin spreading from ear to ear. "Yes well, my Lady will be very pleased." He seemed to clear his throat rather oddly, as he made some more notations in the book.

At this Sandor began to struggle again. There was no need for this level of intrusion, by anyone on his body.

"Oh don't worry you big baby, I'll make this quick and relatively painless." The Maester took a rather sharp long tool from his desk, inspected it closely and then put it in some kind of clear liquid.

When the Maester went for his cock, Sandor began to thrash as much as he could, 'Fuck this! Not my cock old man!'

"You're only going to make this worse if you struggle." He old man was frustrated now, scratching his beard irritated. "A little pain then you get a chance to just...uh relax."

That made Sandor fight more against his restraints in the hope he would loosen one enough to get an arm or a leg free. He had no such luck.

Using his teeth to pop the cork off of a vile, Maester Leeds swished its contents around dumped it in Sandor's mouth. With the strap, Sandor couldn't spit it out, he felt its thick liquid run down this throat, pissing him off even more.

"Lady Stark would not be very happy if I damaged your most...valuable weapon so to say. And for that you have to stop moving." He could see that Sandor was still trying to fight the liquid's effects. "It's my own mixture of milk of the poppy, just enough to put you to sleep."

Sandor pondered his words, but only a few moments before the darkness took him, 'What the fuck does Sansa want with my bloody cock?'