Swords and Needles

(Set in TV universe, sometime between Brienne's pledge to Sansa and their arrival at Castle Black. Not much romance, just bonding time.)

"How much farther until we reach The Wall?"

Podrick is in the middle of striking at a flintstone when Sansa asks the question. He notices that her voice is deeper than he remembers. It feels like lifetimes since she married his former lord, Tyrion, and the Sansa he remembers was a little girl. But the Sansa who sits huddled on a petrified tree stump cloaked in heavy furs cannot be called a girl anymore; she's seen too much and has hurt too often. We both have, he thinks to himself.

"Well… depending on how fast we ride and if weather conditions permit," Podrick responds, striking the two stones against each other. "I'd say a little over a week. Maybe a week and a half."

Sparks drizzle down from the stones and ignite the branches and pine needles he's gathered into the fire pit. The warmth is not enough to banish the stubborn cold that has sunk into their clothes and bones, but Pod still beckons the Stark girl closer to the fire's light. Brienne has left their campsite momentarily to collect more wood to feed the flames and to catch game for their supper tonight. She's entrusted Sansa's care to Podrick for the time being.

Sansa lifts her hands up to catch some of the heat on her palms while Pod gets up to check on the horses. She watches as the squire opens up a sack of grain and frowns at their dwindling supply. The horses can't last the journey on so little food. At least, with all the snow, there's no shortage of water. Sansa gets closer to the fire as Pod shovels snow into a pan, to be heated over the fire later.

She knows that Lady Brienne and her squire are doing their best, but Sansa cannot help but worry. Old Nan had always called her and her siblings sweet summer children, and although she was a Northman by birthright, winter was a stranger to her.

Her thoughts are interrupted by a low growl, so low that Sansa almost doesn't detect it over the crackling of the flames. But when she turns her head slowly to look behind her, her face goes as white as the forest surrounding them.

"P… Pod… Podrick?" she whispers, her voice trembling.

"Yes, m'lady?" Pod turns to face Sansa, but she, in turn, is facing away from him. When he follows her gaze, his eyes land on the dark figure of a snarling hound approaching from the shadows. He drops the snow pan to the ground and he feels the cold run down his spine.

"Sansa," Pod whispers, not daring to tear his eyes from the dog's. "Don't move. No sudden movements."

His eyes carefully search their campsite. Where did he lay his sword down?

Sansa is starting to scoot herself backwards, and her heavy breaths came out as tufts of hot air. The dog barks, deep and guttural. It bares its teeth, and Sansa forces herself to choke back a cry. A hound must mean that Bolton men can't be far behind. I'm not going back to him, never, Sansa prays. Podrick spots his sword, still sheathed and lying in the snow between Sansa and the snarling animal.

Everything happens in a blur of white, black, and red. The hound sprints toward them, teeth bared and growling. Sansa screams and scuttles away. Podrick leaps between the dog and the Stark girl. He grabs the sword just as the dog bites down hard on his forearm, and he lets out a pained cry. With its teeth sunk into his flesh, the dog pulls at him. He unsheathes his sword and plunges it up and into the dog's hulking mass. Blood stains the snow, a crimson mix of Podrick's and the dog's. When he pulls the sword out and stabs the animal again, it lets go of his arm. It whines and yelps in pain for a few seconds before Pod runs the steel through its body again and shuts it up for good.

Podrick lays back against the snow, his labored breathing turning into vapor in the icy air. Sansa Stark is by his side at the same time that the pain in his arm begins to register. He looks at the dead dog, his sword still sticking out of its body, and then he looks at his left forearm. He's almost afraid to see what the damage is.

"Are you alright?" Sansa asks. Her eyes look as if they'll spill over with tears soon. Podrick sits up and crawls back to lean against the tree stump she was sitting on earlier. The hound's teeth has cut through his shirtsleeve and blood was flowing down his arm. When he brings it up to inspect the wound, it is as bad as he'd expected. The dog's teeth has punctured his flesh and then tore at the skin. His face goes white just from the sight of it.

"Ah, gods," he curses, staring at it. But Sansa is already moving. She picks up the snow pan Pod was handling earlier and then heats the snow over the fire, melts it down to lukewarm water. She grabs a cloth from a bag and then rushes back to apply pressure onto his wound. Podrick lets out a string of curses and takes the cloth from her. He presses it to his arm more gently. Sansa returns with the pan of water.

Carefully, she begins to peel back his sleeve and the full sight of the bite makes her stomach lurch a little bit.

"W-We have to clean the wound," Sansa says. When his sleeve doesn't cooperate with her plans, she grabs it with both fists and tears it open. Pod barely has time to question her when she promises to fix it for him later. Podrick holds still while she pours the water over it. Slowly, the red starts to wash away.

"What in Seven Hells has happened here?"

Pod and Sansa both looks up to see Brienne, her arms full of firewood. Podrick begins to explain everything as Brienne dumps her load down by the fire and then draws Pod's sword out of the dead dog's body. The lady knight fusses over Sansa, then, asking her if she is alright. Then, Brienne catches a glance at her squire's bloodied forearm. The gash is long and deep and looks very painful.

"We have to close this up, Podrick," Brienne said. "As soon as the bleeding goes down, we need to stitch it up."

He's seen her do needlework before.

When they were both staying in King's Landing, he'd often walked in to check on her as per Tyrion's request, and he would sometimes stumble in as she was working on a dress or a handkerchief. Sometimes, when he walked in through the doors of her chambers, just before he delivered his message, he would catch a short glimpse at her face. Her brows would be tense, her blue eyes burned with focus as she lost herself in the repetitive movements involved in needlework. One stitch at a time, one thread at a time, slowly yet surely turning into something beautiful.

And then she would look up and stop.

Now, he has the privilege of looking at her face head-on while she runs her needle through his wound.

Podrick wonders why needlework fits her so well. It can't just be because she is a lady. There is something about it. Something about the back and forth movement, the gentle tug on the thread, the coming together of a needlepoint masterpiece that seems as though Sansa is a mystical being casting a spell whenever there is a needle in her hand. He watches with taut fascination as her expert fingers string the thread through the eye of a curved needle. He holds his breath when she starts to push the point into his flesh, expecting another explosion of hurt. But to his surprise, the experience is rather painless.

Every stitch brings the wound closer to healing. Every push and tug of the needle and thread brings Pod closer to closing the bloody chasm and making his skin whole again. She has a gift for it, he thinks. Just as Lady Brienne has a gift for the sword, Lady Sansa has a gift for a different sort of point. While Brienne excels at cutting and puncturing, Sansa mends and makes.

She cuts the thread when his stitches are done. Podrick forgets to tear his gaze away when she catches his eye, and he blushes as he mutters something that sounds like "thank you." Sansa only nods and instructs him to keep the stitches as clean as he can. When she stands, she starts to put the needle and thread back into the stitching kit Brienne had brought. Pod is busy inspecting his stitches and he doesn't seem to notice when Sansa looks down at her own handiwork and sighs with relief.