SANDOR

It was all his fault. The whole fucking lot of it.

He hadn't even looked down at her as they raced through the woods, keeping to the old hunting trail he knew was long abandoned, keeping away from people and questions. But he had really been keeping away from his own questions. What the fuck had he just done?! Running and hiding in her rooms because the flames were coming for him?! Stealing the King's bride-to-be away in the night?!

Those flames were still coming for him. He could feel their heat on his back. So he pushed Stranger harder and faster than ever before, as though he could outrun the flames and his fears. And if he didn't look at her, didn't acknowledge what he had done, if he just kept going through the night and then on through the day… maybe he could outrun what he had done.

Then she fell so suddenly his arm was unprepared and she slipped from Stranger's back.

For a moment he was certain she was dead, that it had all been for nothing. But when he knelt next to her on the forest floor he had seen her struggling to breath. Touching her arm he'd recoiled from the fire burning in her. The flames had come for her instead.

When had he last even given her something to drink? Her eyes opened and searched his face, resting on his fucking burns. Was she really so scared of him that she had been afraid to ask even for a drop of water?! If she was scared it was his own fucking fault. He turned away and spat, sickened and furious with himself.

"Seven fucking hells!"

He fetched the waterskin and then tried to stop her from making herself sick on it as she drained it.

His dark eyes roamed over her body. Was this fever the sign of a pox? Were there any marks? Would he have to undress her to find out? Or had she hurt herself when she fell? She said not, but when he tried to get her to stand, to get back to Stranger, she had fainted against him again.

She barely weighed a thing as he lifted her. Those months of torture in Kings Landing had robbed her of her appetite that was clear. Damn and curse those fucking Lannisters! She'd barely been more than a slip of a girl when he'd first seen her, but now she was a ghost of herself. How much had she given up of herself just to survive their torments? Enough of that. He had gotten her away. Now he had to find somewhere she could rest in a real bed and be taken care of. The kind of care he knew he couldn't give her. Hadn't he already shown that by not even giving her water to drink?!

But he'd chosen this path because it avoided all the main roads out of Kings Landing, and because it was abandoned. Not only by the men and womenfolk who used to make coin out of Robert's extended hunting trips, but also by the animals themselves. It used to be one of the fat kings favourite paths – there'd also been a few local wenches along the way as well of course – but a few years back all the game had moved to other parts of the great forest.

Well, they couldn't go back. He'd have to get her back on to Stranger and hope that they would come across a woodsman with a capable wife eventually.

The sun was setting when he saw the figure further up the path. For a moment he thought it was a trick of the light, or a shadow cast by a tree that looked like a man. But no, he stayed there even when the exhausted Hound closed and reopened his eyes. A small man, robed and with scruffy hair bothering his eyes. The seven pointed star on his chest was a good sign at least, he thought grudgingly, a Gods' man might know something about poxes and medicines. At least more than he did.

He pulled Stranger to a halt by the man, who opened his hands wide to show that he wasn't armed. As if that would matter if the Hound cared to fight the little shit…

"She needs aid" the Hound barked down at him.

The Septon looked at the pale maid in his arms. Suddenly Sandor felt protective of his charge, not wanting this small man to even look at her. But he pushed that thought away. Let him look, let him help.

"I heard your horse coming my Lord… my Sept is just beyond those trees. I have a bed, medicines… I will do what I can for your lady."

He'd spun a lie in his head in case they'd run into help. When he told it though, it stank of untruth.

"We were ambushed. On the way to her wedding. Honor guard dead, apart from me."

The Septon just nodded and clasped his hands together. "Thank the Seven you were coming this way…" He gestured for the Hound to follow him off of the path. Stranger shied suddenly, but the Hound dug his heels in and made him follow.

The little man led them to what the Hound thought was a derelict building so ill-kept it was. Swinging himself down from Stranger's back he carried Sansa after the Septon as he led them into the stone Sept and towards a small Septon's cell in the back. The Sept was dark inside, and the Hound was sure the rafters were full of bats, but the room Heyrick took them to was clean and would do. He gently lay Sansa down on the rough cot as the Septon busied himself with jars on the nearby table.

"I'll need to undress her. If you would…?" He gestured to the door, prompting Sandor to leave.

"No fucking chance" he growled and rested his hand on the broad dagger at his waist.

"I assure you my vows…"

"I know all about men's vows. I'll stay."

The Septon nodded and turned to Sansa, starting to untie her stays.

The Hound shifted uncomfortably. He'd seen her beaten by Ser Meryn, he'd seen her stripped, but he couldn't look now. He rested his eyes somewhere above the bed, trying to keep the Septon in the corner of his eye. The man seemed to go about his work seriously and Sandor only looked again when Heyrick coughed slightly.

Sansa was just in her shift, her pale limbs on display, but the Septon covered them quickly with a rough spun blanket, watching the Hound's face all the while.

"She is whole. The fever could have been brought about by her… traumatic experience. For a high born lady such an ambush would have been terrifying. There are bruises from a fall, and older bruises that are still healing. But there is no sign of pox". He gestured towards the table. "I have herbs that will still the fever. With rest and food she will be well again."

Sandor nodded before taking the only chair in the room, and setting it outside the door.

"Do your work Septon. I'll be sitting right here."

Just before Heyrick brought Sansa out into the light from the darkness of the Sept, Sandor had moved quickly to Stranger's side, fussing with bags and straps that were already set and had been for a while. If he could just focus on the task at hand, as he had done during their race through the forest, he could forget for a moment the amount of shit they were in.

But when the thin pale girl had wobbled, faint from hunger, he knew he'd have start dealing with the bigger problems they faced. So he'd reluctantly agreed to stay another night, to let Sansa eat and rest further.

He'd hoped for some decent grub, but the bowl the Septon placed in front of him was just a watery, thin vegetable stew. He could barely eat it, wishing for a decent slab of meat he could tear into. The girl had eaten well at least, and she'd even managed to divert the little shit's attention from the glaring lies the Hound had told him. She'd learnt a lot from that wretched court in Kings Landing, she'd learnt about a lady's armour and weapons, he could see that now.

After she had gone a bed, Sandor was left with the little man. Heyrick gibbered and ran his mouth about this and that. Sandor grunted occasionally as though he was listening, but eventually he thought about slitting the chattering fool's throat to silence him.

"-And of course King Robert's hunting parties used to come through here-"

Now the Gods-botherer was repeating himself! Sandor reached for the wine skin he'd brought with him from the Keep. The one that he'd kept topping himself up with so he wouldn't lose his drunken courage he'd had when he'd stolen the Little Bird from the cunt King. The one he'd kept drinking from when all the while he gave the Little Bird no water at all… He tossed the skin to one side abruptly, furious with himself all over again.

The Septon misunderstood the action. "Here, ser, I have a fine wine brothers of mine make if yours is finished. I have a small supply for special guests." Heyrick held up a wineskin of his own, and smiled broadly. The man smiled too bloody much, what was he so fucking happy about anyway? Being the Septon of some no where, derelict Sept?

"No… I've had enough"

"You must try it, it's really very good. And that's not false boasting".

The silence was deafening as the Septon continued to hold his arm out, his smile still plastered on his face. Finally, the Hound took the wine skin.

"That's it. Drink deep. I have more inside."

Sandor held the wineskin to his lips, but didn't let it pass them. Something smelt wrong about the wine as soon as it came near his face. There was a coppery smell he didn't recognise.

Tonight he'd have to watch the tiny Septon.

Seven Gods curse him, he hated being in the right sometimes.

Charging back up the tunnel, with the girl over his shoulder, he heaved himself up the steps and back into the nave of the Sept. In a second he had put her down, grabbed the stone slab and shoved it back into place. Sansa gestured at the altar stone and he got that on top of it moments after something beat itself against the slab. Whatever had been down there was angry now. They had to leave. She was fretting… she knew about the Septon's poison. No time to have a long tongue wag about that now. Time to get out of this cursed place.

But as soon as they were back out in the moonlit clearing in front of the Sept he knew something was wrong. It started in his spine as a tickle. Then sparks ran up and down his back. Then the sparks caught… and fire raged across his body.

He knew he was scaring her, but he was back there again. Back in the small room, surrounded by Maesters forcing fluids into his mouth as his face carried on burning.

But now it was his entire body.

She tried to bring him back to here and now, but the urge to run from the pain was greater and he roared in frustration as his feet found themselves underneath him again and he crashed through the undergrowth and into the dark woods. He wasn't sure how long he ran for, leaving her pale face back there behind him as the flames stayed with him. Fire in his blood, his bones, covering his skin.

His bare skin, clothes ripped off and left behind.

And then all he could do was stand and open his arms wide as the change came.

Afterwards he would be able to put into some rough words what the change was like. But not now, not while it was happening to him.

Once it was done, the forest returned to silence.

He panted, his tongue lolling out of his mouth. That was what brought him back to his mind, or what remained of it. The strangeness of a tongue that lolled out of his mouth. The oddness of soil between claws. The sharpness of his teeth. The sharpness of his hunger.

The Septon. That evil language he'd spewed at them before he'd died. What had he done to him?

He stood now on four legs, his sides still heaving from the run and the change. Sandor had grown up around dogs, and not just the ones on his sigil. He knew what he was now, a hunting dog. A mastiff probably given how large he was. His muscles rippled under his short tan coloured hair. His pads were large and ended in sharp claws. His muzzle… some of it was dark, but the other side-

The fucking Gods take him! The other side was as scarred and burnt as his face, he could feel how the skin was tight and pulled there. That Septon had a sense of humour at least. Even as a dog, he was still the Hound.

What could he do now? Return to Sansa? Like this?!

At the thought of the girl he knew where she was. In this form he could smell… everything. The breeze brought him scents from all around, as well as the trail he had left behind him when he'd crashed through the woods, his skin touching branches and leaves and marking them. It brought her scent to him too: the soap that still clung to her skin even when she was days away from the perfumes of court.

And that smell was getting stronger. Closer. The stupid bloody girl was looking for him!