Feathers and Flames

The Grave Digger

The stony gravel and dirt scraped along the length of his shovel creating a sort of rhythmic pattern to his endless digging. For every grave he dug, a face came to his mind- not the face of the man he would bury, but the face of a man he'd slain. It was wartime and the number of graves needing to be dug was endless. So, it seemed, was the list of men he'd killed back when he'd been nothing but a hate filled dog that lived for slaying. He couldn't even remember all the faces.

The Hound had known death, reveled in it. Even his destrier was called Stranger, the bringer of death- which was true considering just who rode that horse. Now Sandor himself was seeped in death, but not in the sweet moment of the kill when he watched blood and life slip from his enemy. Sandor was now in charge of housing those who were already dead. These were men he'd had no part in killing, men who were simply gone. They were cold bodies bereft of breath and blood both, men who would no longer hug their children or make love to their wives. The Hound had always been too keen to see the worst in people. When looking upon a dead body, the Hound would have thought with a grimace that it was one less man to bother the whores.

But that changed the day the bodies started washing up from the Saltpans. Men, women and children alike floated to the Quiet Isle. In the blind rage of the fight the Hound had never known the difference between those he cut down. In the still cold of death, Sandor was forced to look at the dead faces of the children and the women who didn't have the arms or strength to protect themselves. He was forced to look at the men who were not raised for fighting as he had been. The Hound might have called them useless, but Sandor had to recognize that these were the traders who saw wine and food come into Westeros, the smiths who made the weapons he would wield, the farmers who grew the food he would eat. How had the Hound thought them useless? The answer was simple; the Hound didn't think, he obeyed. And in the moments between orders, in the moments where thoughts might try to creep up on him, the Hound made sure to be drunk out of his wits.

But he wasn't the Hound anymore. The Elder Brother had found him at the moment of his death and had not let him die. The Hound was meant to die. Not only was he wounded, but he had no reason left to live. There were no orders left to obey; he had no master; the man he lived to kill was gone. Sandor had accepted this, but the Elder Brother, held him when he was feverish, and tended the wounds that no maester by right would have had the ability to heal. After binding up the wounds, the Elder Brother ripped the Hound right out of Sandor.

Maybe it was only because he was sick with fever at the time, but Sandor had seen it, a snarling black creature that tried to bite and kill the Elder Brother the moment it had burst forth from Sandor's chest. On a good day, it would have succeeded, but on this day it was too wounded to fight properly. That hadn't stopped the creature from trying, but the Elder Brother didn't attack the creature openly or even defend himself. He simply sat by Sandor's side praying and singing those damn hymns while the beast paced back and forth biting and striking, sinking his teeth into the man's arms and snapping at the man's throat. Sandor watched the snarling black beast attempt to savage the old man until, the Elder Brother began singing a different hymn that caught Sandor's attention. It was the Mother's Song- a tune that had been burned into Sandor's soul as surely as his brother's hatred had been burned onto his face. The great black beast whimpered and retreated licking it's wounds while Sandor lay prone and closed his fever-wild eyes as the song washed over him and put him at peace. But it wasn't the low baritone of the Elder Brother's voice that Sandor heard but the soft chirping of a sweet little bird.

When Sandor woke up, the Elder Brother had his head bent in prayer, but his robes were torn and there were angry red gashes on his arms and face. Sandor tried to sit up and look for any sign of the creature that was responsible, but it was gone. "It's dead," the Elder Brother had informed him, "Buried right there beneath it's helm. You, Sandor Clegane, are free- free to be your own master and make your own choices. If you would reclaim your life, come with me to the Quiet Isle and let yourself heal from what that vile creature has done to you. On the Isle, you can figure out what it means to be Sandor Clegane."

There was nowhere else to go anyhow, so he got up and followed the Elder Brother to the island. First they went to a place called the Hermit Hole where he told the Brother the worst of his sins and what had happened to him since deserting. In the end his face was wrapped in wool, and he was fitted with the robes of a novice and given the task of digging graves while he atoned for all the death he had caused.

It was an easy enough task even with his bad leg. Truthfully, he didn't mind the leg. It was one more reminder of the difference between Sandor and the Hound. With his face covered and his now shuffling gait he felt almost a different man, a man who dug graves and thought about the dead and how he'd almost become one of them. Maybe he should have become one of them, but that wolf-bitch Arya had made it clear: he didn't deserve the mercy of a quick death. The Hound might be gone, but Sandor remained to account for those sins. And the first task, according to the Elder Brother, was digging graves and facing death. Something told Sandor that there was a lot of atoning left to do.

The shovel scraped into the ground, marking the start of the third grave. It was then that he noticed the raven. When the creature had gotten there Sandor couldn't say, but it seemed content to sit there watching him with its knowing eyes. Lowering his eyebrows to scowl, Sandor cast his eyes back to his grave digging, He had no love of ravens; damn things had a habit of finding him in his worst moments and demanding the impossible.

At first, Sandor ignored the bird. He told himself that it was just a bird and that its presence meant nothing to him. But when he had finished the third grave and begun on the fourth, the bird was still there cocking its head and fixing him with its shrewd eyes. Sandor's jaw clenched tightly in frustration, but Sandor went about his grave digging just the same. All through the fourth grave those black eyes bore into him while he kept his own gray eyes trained decidedly on the dirt he was shoveling.

When he climbed out of the fourth grave to begin the fifth, the bird was still there looking at him with those damned accusing black eyes. By now he had realized that this bird was not here on a whim; the damned thing had business with him, come to demand more impossible things. He had a good idea what, too.

Ravens decided to bother him in King's Landing as well, coming up with their critical eyes and telling him to help the little bird. But the damned ravens should have gone to someone else. He was sick to death of birds in general. Either the ravens were mad or just plain stupid to keep asking him. Sandor couldn't rightly save someone who was frightened of him!

Almost as if it could read his thoughts, the raven twisted his head astutely as if challenging the point. The damned bird was right of course. It was his fault she was frightened of him. He remembered the first time he'd laid eyes on her, so pretty and proper with her courtesies and sweet little words. She was such a beautifully naive child with her head full of songs and she was going to willing give herself to that monster of a prince. He hated her for it and for the empty words she tried to feed him.

Had she been any other girl with a shred of licentiousness or wickedness it wouldn't have mattered, but Sansa Stark believed that all men were good and honorable. She'd even wasted her prim politeness on Joffrey's dog. The Hound hated every pretty little word that spewed from her pretty little lips and somewhere underneath it all Sandor hated himself for not being a man who could delight in her sweet little voice. He'd tried to warn her before it was too late, tried to make her see that not everything was good and noble in the world. His own face was proof enough of that. But as pretty as Sansa's words were, the Hound's words were gruff and relentless. She frustrated him and he wanted to shake her and wake her up from this stupid dream world of hers. In the end he'd only frightened her. But even when he'd frightened her terribly, she still acted like there was something good in him after all. She'd refused to believe he was just a dog, and he'd hated her for that too. It had made him doubt as well and a man like him couldn't afford doubt.

The Hound hated her, just like he'd hated everyone else. Hatred was all he knew, all he was capable of. But no amount of hatred could keep Sansa Stark from getting underneath the Hound's skin. She had persisted in treating him like a person and he'd persisted frightening her even if he only wanted to open her eyes.

On the day Joffrey ordered her hit for the first time, her eyes had glazed over with hatred and desperation and the Hound realized she meant to push the King off the parapet and possibly kill herself in the process. The Hound didn't truly know how to give compassion, but he understood her desperate rage well enough. It was simple then for Sandor to move forward and stop her by pressing a handkerchief to her bloody lip. He saw the confusion in her eyes in that moment, but it was no matter. He wouldn't let the hate consume her the way it had him. Gregor's treatment had turned him into the hateful creature called the Hound; he'd make sure Sansa stayed herself a sweet little bird.

That at least he seemed to be able to do and he got her to understand that if she gave them the songs they wanted to hear that she'd be spared at least some of the beatings. It was a lesson that Sandor had learned himself when he was just a child. Sansa had learned faster than young Sandor. My father was a traitor. My mother and brother are traitors. I am loyal to my beloved Joffrey, Still, every time he heard her utter those sweet little chirps it cut him a little deeper, cracking straight through his thick armor and piercing the Hound to even reach Sandor underneath.

By the night of the Blackwater, his armor had become so cracked that he looked out at the Bay with Sandor's own eyes and was actually afraid, as afraid as he'd been on that night years ago when Gregor found him with the wooden knight. The Hound was afraid of nothing, not even death. He'd faced battles with flames before even if they were natural flames. Nothing was natural about the Blackwater Battle, especially not the flames and definitely not the Hound. Something about letting in that Stark girl in brought Sandor to the surface and he looked at those unnatural flames and he'd known terror. He saw his death out there- a horrible twisted agony of fire licking at his skin while it melted away from his bones and cooked him in his own armor. It put into sharp relief everything he was and what he was doing. There was no point to him fighting this battle to become one of a thousand burning men for a king he hated and a city he cared nothing about. So he left.

And like the bloody fucking ravens always told him, he tried to help the little bird.

But when he went to take Sansa away, she was still frightened of him. She didn't know, couldn't know then, the difference between Sandor and the Hound. He couldn't blame her; he'd gotten so drunk himself that night he could scarcely tell the difference between the two. She'd made sure she finished cracking his armor that night though when he drunkenly pressed his dagger to her pretty white throat and told her to sing that fucking song. He expected her to sing of Florian. The Hound would have enjoyed the irony of it-her singing of something he could never be, but she sang instead the Mother's Song. Her gentle voice moved through him not to cut down the Hound like Florian's song would have, but to reach out to Sandor underneath. For a moment he was a child, younger and more frightened than she was herself. In the next moment he realized that he was a grown man with his dagger at the throat of the only person he could stand in this fucking hellhole. His dagger dropped then and her hand found its way to his cheek. No matter how much he frightened her, she always treated him like a person. She saw him then, he knew. She felt his hot tears streaming over a bloodied cheek and looked not at the Hound, but at Sandor. And being exposed like that was more terrifying than even the wildfire.

He'd fled then, but not before tearing off his white cloak. Even now he still wondered why. Was it to show that he wouldn't protect anyone if he couldn't protect her? Was he throwing away some part of him that he hated-the part that served Joffrey with no question? Was it a promise to come back for her once he could be the sort of man who could protect a woman? Was it because he had nothing else to leave her to remember him by? Was it because of those ravens who'd nagged him to help her? He didn't rightly know, but it had seemed important to his wine-addled mind at the time.

When he left King's Landing, he drank. He was aimless with nowhere to go. He tried to be the Hound still, but if there was any proof that he wasn't it was when he was declared innocent by the Brotherhood without Banners. The Hound could never have been proved innocent. By some folly the lost, drunken creature was innocent. He wasn't the Hound, but he wasn't Sandor either, not yet. Not until the bloody fucking Elder Brother ripped the Hound from his body and told him to find something else to live for. Still, he wondered if the Brother would have been able to pull the Hound out at all if it hadn't been for the damage Sansa Stark had done to that rough exterior.

Is that why the raven had come for him? Did it think he owed her something for this second chance? He owed it to her to take her out of King's Landing, but he couldn't. He owed it to her to keep her safe, but he left her for the Imp! Bugger the Imp and bugger the ravens too!

The raven had come to judge him for a failure of his past life that he was trying to forget. A life so full of hatred that he had even hated the one person he truly gave a damn about. The bird still stood there silently watching as Sandor finished the eighth grave. He could tell somehow that this raven knew his secret too. It knew that he didn't hate Sansa Stark at all. That he wanted to hold her and protect her and keep her safe, but he had failed even in that.

Eight graves he had dug for the eight bodies that washed up on the Isle over night. Eight graves and he was done, but the damned bird wasn't done with him. He was so annoyed, but he didn't rage. Rage was something that belonged to the Hound not to Sandor. So instead Sandor threw his shovel to the ground petulantly and turned to make certain none of the other Brothers were close enough to hear him. He was supposed to be in a stage of silent contrition after all.

"Don't you do it," he warned the dark creature in a dangerous low rasp muffled by the wool that was wrapped around his face. "I know you are thinking it. But don't you say it! Don't call her name and demand my help! I tried, but I can't fucking save her!" The bird merely looked at him with a sort of piqued curiosity, as if to suggest there was more he could be doing than digging graves.

"I can't help her!" Sandor insisted. "She doesn't even want myhelp." His voice got quieter as his eyes turned downcast as he whispered the last part of the problem, "And I wouldn't even know where to look." Then he fixed his eyes back up on the large black bird. "So don't you do it! Don't come to me and demand my help when you sit there and do nothing. Don't you say her name!"

And as if the raven were only waiting for confirmation that Sansa was on his mind, it cocked it's head to the side and opened its sharp beak to utter the two words Sandor really didn't want to hear. "Little bird."

With a hushed sound that was more an exasperated cry than the growl he wanted it to be, Sandor turned and went back to the home of the Brothers. He had enough problems without adding the judgmental fucking ravens to the list.

Bran

With raven's eyes he watched the man who should be saving his sister walk away from him unheeded. Disappointment filled him. Bran thought he would show up as a raven and the man would immediately know why he was there and follow him to the Vale. They would find Sansa together. He knew Sansa didn't go with the man before but if Bran could let her know that he was the one leading them together, her beloved little brother, surely she would listen and follow this man to safety. She'd even have Winterfell back before the worst of winter set in.

Of course it wasn't that easy. After watching the man tensely digging graves for the better part of the day, Bran realized this task might be too much for him. He had power, but little stamina and less idea of how to wield it. His mentor had a thousand eyes and one. At best Bran had eight. The Three-Eyed Crow could be in hundreds of creatures at once, but Bran could only be in three. It was hard for him to remain so split for very long, though. All of Bran was in the raven today, as he knew it might take some time.

Once a creature accepted him and he was able to slip into it's skin, Bran could find that creature again anywhere it went. But it was different when doing it for the first time. He would have to follow a path along one of the Weirwoods until he found the proper creature. This morning his adventure had started in a nearby Godswood and involved a long flight to the island. I'll need you again, he told the bird. Can you wait for me here? I will come to you again soon!

He hoped the bird would stay near the Isle since he'd need to come back and try again. As the isle was devoted to the Seven, there was no Godswood for him to seek there. It hadn't taken too long to find Sandor Clegane. Since the woods were awash with stories. Interestingly enough, he'd learned some interesting information from Arya's wolf Nymeria. Bran couldn't slip into that wolf because she was still so connected with Arya, but Summer had a connection with all of his siblings and could understand bits and pieces of what they were going through. It was in Summer's skin that he felt Nymeria's anger over the Dog. It had been easy after that.

Bran had naively thought that finding Clegane would be the hard part of his task. He had remembered the Hound from the visit to Winterfell, and even if Bran's memory of that time was slightly fuzzy, he knew the Hound was a man of action. The man he saw on the Isle of the Brothers was not the same man he'd seen in Winterfell or in King's Landing. He was still rough and bigger than most men, but there was something different about him too. Birds sensed things differently than humans, so sometimes it was hard for Bran to rightly make sense of it. It would come with practice, his mentor had said. But that didn't help him get the Hound moving.

It made Bran so angry! They needed to help his sister and this man wouldn't go. The desire to simply slip into the Hound's skin and save Sansa himself had been immense, but Bran knew this man wouldn't have accepted him the way Hodor begrudgingly did. The encounter would likely mean death for one or both of them. Bran didn't much wish to taste his first death so soon, and if the Hound died, there was no one left to save his sister.

When Bran was back in the cave rubbing his long shaggy hair out of his tired eyes, Leaf had prodded around and told him to be patient. Sagely, she whispered, "Men who rush off to meet death, find it!" Eventually Bran understood that a thoughtful, guarded Hound was better than the reckless, drunken one he'd encountered back at King's Landing.

For now, Bran would have to watch them both and decide on a better strategy. Bran didn't realize how exhausted he was until he laid down to listened to one of Meera's tales The next thing he knew, Leaf was waking him and telling him it was time to go to back to the Weirwoods. He hadn't heard one word that Meera had said.

In order to find something useful, tonight he would watch his sister's prayers. As he sat down with his bowl of Weirwood seed paste, thinking about answering prayers a strange notion came to him.

In a meek voice he looked to his mentor and wide-eyed asked, "Are we gods?"

The rustle of the leaves and the old man's chest suggested either mirth or mockery, Bran wasn't quite certain. "Look at me, Bran. I am dying and will be dead eventually. One day a long time from now, you will grow old and die too. Gods do not die. We are simply emissaries of those who granted us this power. We are the eyes in the forest and the whispers in the wind. In our own manner, we protectors of the old ways. Your mother followed the, Seven." Bran nodded even though the old man hadn't meant it as a question. "We might be more like to the Septons in her faith, listening to people's prayers and doing what is in our mortal power to help. Do you understand the difference, Bran?"

Bran nodded with a pensive expression and a look at his own useless legs. Some things were beyond their power, "We can only listen and try to help, but we can't just fix things like Gods can. We help people to help themselves."

The rustle of leaves accompanied his mentor's nod. "There are sometimes when it is easy to help, and sometimes when it is hard. There are some people who will pray, but who do not listen for their answer. For everyone who you might help, there is another who still suffers. There are some people you will try to help and who you will not be able to save. There are some people you will not want to help that you must save anyhow. Gods do not know failure, but you will and it will be overwhelming at first. You must learn to accept the bad with the good."

Bran's head swam with the implications and he suddenly felt unsteady. If what the three-eyed crow said was true then what did it all mean? "What's the point then?" he asked with all the belligerence his ten years allowed.

He couldn't see the other's face from where he sat next to the man, but he could feel the knowing smirk radiating from him. It occurred to Bran then that this man had had the same thought long time ago. "Because, Bran, sometimes when you save one person, they in turn will save thousands."

Letting this information sink in he suddenly felt responsible for a great deal. The Three-eyed Crow had told him that he lived on to teach Bran how to wield his powers, but one day Bran would sit here on his own making decisions that impacted thousands of thousands. Suddenly Bran felt very small and very shaken. "What if I can't do it?" he asked not liking the quiver in his own voice.

"Sometimes," the man replied with simple honesty, "You won't."

Something began to creep up into his throat and he struggled to keep it down. "But what about Sansa!" he blurted out.

"That remains to be seen. But it gives you great incentive to learn and try. You can save her, if you are strong." The leaves rustled again and Bran knew that his mentor had slipped into his trees and the conversation was over.

With grim determination, Bran accepted the Weirwood seed past from Leaf wondering as the initially bitter taste twisted in his mouth and became a succulent feast of too many flavors to pin down just one. He'd be back in King's Landing tonight, he knew. Sansa would tell him what he needed to know.

Author's Note: Hey guys! Thank you for the positive response to the first chapter! I am happy that other people are interested in seeing the story unfold from Bran's perspective. Sandor and Sansa will get POVs too, but there will be a lot of Bran. I know this chapter kind of went back to the past (or reflections of it), but now that is out of the way, we can get onto the meat of the story. I felt I had to address a few things before we could move on. :)

A note on Sandor's "healing" read into it what you will and only what you will. We have learned that the Brothers on the Quiet Isle can heal things that even maester's can't. Sandor's wounds were bad enough that Arya though him as good as dead. We are only getting Sandor's fevered point of view on the incident. The Elder Brother knows the truth of the matter, but he isn't telling. I will say this... in this story at least he doesn't have the powers of a Red Priest so there is no "revival." He relied on his skills and his prayers to do his healing. I don't intend the Elder to use "magic" or anything of the like. Hope that clears some stuff up.

In the next chapter we can look forward to Sansa. (And of course more Bran) :)