Not even a turn of the moon after Sandor's meal with the Stark children, word came that Aldor Clegane had died in his sleep a week past.

Mikken had told Sandor face to face, grave and apologetic with the missive hanging limp in his fingers. Sandor had said nothing at the time, only nodded his head a few times before looking silently to his feet, trying his best not to cry, but trying to feel something at the same time. His chest felt…sore, like it was physically torn how to react. Aldor was the last member of the Clegane House who would miss him. Elinor didn't know who he was, and his father cared nothing for Sandor, that was plain. Deep down it grieved him terribly to know his grandfather was dead, the man who had saved his life in risking his own.

But men don't cry—not even little boys with snot dried at the edge of their nose—and Sandor tried to buck up bravely, tried to square his scrawny shoulders and meet Mikken's gaze as fiercely as ever.

When he met the older man's face, something in Mikken's dark eyes was soft and compassionate, tender where there had only ever been hardness, and without hearing a word from Sandor, he made the quiet suggestion that Sandor take the day for himself to grieve.

"It's alright to be sad, laddie." He offered Sandor a dry rag when the tiny swell of tears rose in either eye, and was smart enough not to try wiping Sandor's eyes for him. "Grown men have cried over less. Don't let anyone tell you different."

Somehow, Sandor doubted Brandon Stark ever cried over anything, let alone Mikken or Lord Stark himself, but he kept that to himself.

"Go and visit the Starks, maybe, hmm?" Mikken ushered him outside, with a dagger and a heavy cloak to keep him warm. "Brandon might be a pigheaded arse at times, but he knows how to use a dagger well enough. He can show you a thing or two if you ask."

"Ok." But Sandor didn't have any intention of going to find Brandon, or any of the Stark children actually. When he left the forge, his feet carried him down the roads with a mindless familiarity he'd acquired over the past few months of living here. He wandered at first. Up the main road and back again, a long enough walk to make his feet sore. But even then he didn't stop, and with the dagger tucked under his cloak, he started to march into the woods.

Lyanna had told him little about the godswood, although it wasn't for lack of her wanting to tell him. She had even offered to take him there once or twice, an innocent suggestion borne from the love of her faith. It was Sandor who refused, Sandor who never wanted to hear of them. The gods in the south had never been kind to him. Why would he expect these old gods to be any different?

Still he walked, his heart heavy and his eyes clouded with grief. Every time he tried to imagine the face of his grandfather, it grew dimmer and dimmer, and now he feared he'd lose sight of the man entirely. Death wasn't new to him, after all. He understood very well what happened after losing someone you loved. First you would remember the bad and the good, and you would try to hold on to them tight. And then you'd start dreaming about the bad, just the bad, until all you could think of even in the daylight was the bad. And then you'd let go of the bad—because who wants to remember pain and heartache for forever?

And then, when there was no bad and no good, there was nothing left. Much like there was nothing left in his memories of his mother. Pieces, maybe. The fur of her cloak. The warmth of her round belly. The softness of her curled hair. The frailty in her hands. And other than that—nothing.

He didn't want his grandfather to become nothing.

A hound will die for you but never lie to you. He whispered it to himself as he walked, a mantra that carried him deep into the forests and, quite accidently, in the direction of Winterfell's castle.

"A hound will die for you…" Sandor trailed off quite suddenly, standing alone in the thick of the woods, naught but a dagger clutched close to his chest. It was a cold day, winter truly was coming, and not even the heavy fur Mikken had given him could truly keep the chill from his bones.

But it wasn't the cold which stopped him. It wasn't the realization of his loneliness which gave him pause, nor even how defenseless he was in the middle of a very large, very wild woods.

It was the sound of a girl screaming which gave his feet pause.

He thought he'd imagined it at first. High-pitched, ghostly. It was an eerie sound in the middle of the peaceful godswoods. Sandor's feet crept backwards a step or two instinctively, a shaky hand holding the dagger out and upright at the invisible threat.

"H-hello?" he called, and called again. "Hello?!"

At first there was nothing, and he thought (and hoped) that he'd imagined the whole thing. Swearing to himself to never return, Sandor turned on his heel and began to run, when the scream came again, and this time in the form of words.

"HELP ME!" the girl sobbed, the sound echoed pitifully against the tall trees. "SOMEBODY! HELP ME!"

The voice was distressingly familiar, and it was that fact which sent him running—towards the cry this time.

It sounded so far off, a distant cry for help, that Sandor half-thought he'd have to run for days before finding the girl. But in truth she wasn't so far at all, and he stumbled into a clearing with a nightmarish scene unfolding before his very eyes.

There was, at the center of the clearing, a tree. It was a tall tree, the sort with many strong branches splitting off its trunk for a climber to grab onto, the sort of tree an experienced climber could scale in seconds. The thick cover of leaves blotted out the cold sunlight, but offered little protection from the ground, up. And so, finding the victim stranded in its branches was no trouble at all.

Because naturally, clinging onto the uppermost branch and crying out for dear life, was none other than Lyanna Stark.

And circling the base of the trunk, with its front two paw outstretched and ready to start the climb, was the biggest cat he'd ever seen. Not like the mousers his family had kept for keeping rats away—not like that at all. This cat was as big as Sandor, its head deep and heavy, the long tail flicked at the end impatiently, waiting for its prey to give up and collapse to the ground. The body of the beast was a sandy color, unlike any hide he'd seen before, and it took him several moments to realize this was—against all reason—a mountain lion, descended into Winterfell for reasons he couldn't understand.

At any rate, it wasn't his place to understand what a mountain lion was doing outside of a mountain just yet. What he really needed was to find a way to get both himself and Lyanna out of the woods, and to safety.

What he needed was a miracle.

"Sandor!" Lyanna wailed when she spotted him. From the glimpse he'd caught of her, her skirts were in tatters, her hair spilling from its careful style, and her face flushed from running and climbing and crying for help. "Sandor, run! Go get Brandon or my father!"

Even if he'd wanted to, though, Sandor could hardly have found the time to turn around and walk three steps. For Lyanna's plea had unintentionally shifted the focus of the lioness off of herself…

…and onto him.

"RUN!" she screamed, as the cat curled its body in a tight pivot, wheeling about to face him fearlessly. Sandor kept the dagger held upright, and tried to stop his hands and knees from shaking as badly as they were. "SANDOR, NO!" But the lion had already begun to stalk the newest choice in dinner, the powerful shoulder blades slid against one another as it prowled briskly towards him, tail slung straight out behind her, head hung low and mouth opening, as though she would swallow him whole. Gods, she probably could.

There was, in truth, no other option save the one he chose.

It moved so quick, there was hardly any time to read himself. And beyond that, even if he'd been granted the luxury of all day, he still wouldn't be ready to face a famished lion. He was only a boy, only a small child. Gods, it was going to kill him. His grandfather had brought him north and probably died managing it, and he was going to die anyways—

There was a sharp pain across his chest, and the terrible weight of a grown lion collapsing on his shoulders, sending him to the ground. He laid there, motionless, trying to remember how to breathe just to make sure he wasn't dead.

He wasn't dead.

He wasn't dead.

How had he not died?

"SANDOR!" Lyanna was screaming, already on the move down the tree trunk, as able at dismounting as she was at climbing upwards, it would appear. "Oh gods! Sandor!" He laid there, completely useless, as she scrambled towards him and began to pry the weight of the dead lioness off of him. She even helped to wrench his dagger out of the body. "Are you hurt? Are you hurt?"

Sandor just laid there even after the carcass was rolled away, his breath rattling in his chest; he didn't trust himself to speak. If he tried, he'd likely start crying, or vomiting—and he wasn't sure which would be worse. The golden body was now toppled sideways, revealing the freshly-slit jugular, a deep gash that spilt the lifeblood in a matter of seconds. With his head rolled to the side, away from the sight of Lyanna's terrified face, he couldn't tear his gaze away, staring at the body of his first kill. Its wide green eyes were glassy and unseeing, but bore into his own face with a deadly menace he was sure he'd remember for the rest of his life.

Memories of his grandfather would fade with the easing of time, but this—this horrible, terrible experience—would last eternity within the confines of his mind. The picture of the dead lioness, with her bloodied neck and unseeing eyes, her tremendous weight and her massive paws.

His first kill.

"Gods!" Lyanna kicked at the lioness, tears streaming down her face. "What a wretched creature!" she sobbed, and with blood-soaked hands, she dropped to her knees, practically in Sandor's lap, and held him tight. Her fingers raked through his tangled hair, her neck pressed against the rough scars of his face. She cradled him like a child as she herself wept. "Are you ok? I was so scared! Gods, I was so scared. What were you thinking? You could have died! Oh gods, are you ok?"

"My…my chest..." He reached up with numb hands and wiggled his hands between their squashed bodies, feeling for where her paws had struck him down. Sure enough, four thin lines had torn through his shirt, torn through the skin as though it was nothing but dried parchment. Angry droplets of blood trickled from the wounds and into his tunic, staining it irreparably, he was sure.

Tears filled his eyes, as he stared down at the marks he bore now, the marks he'd bear his whole life, surely.

More scars.

"It's ok," Lyanna whispered, gingerly touching her fingers to the skin around it, touching his shoulder through his clothes. "I don't think it's deep. Gods." She shook her head, tears staining her face, and laughed once weakly, wiping a bloody hand over her face. "I don't know if you were lucky to survive it, or unlucky to have stumbled into my mess!" And then she began weeping once more, weeping and apologizing.

And suddenly the scars he'd have didn't matter anymore. How could they matter, when he'd acquired them for the sake of her safety? For the sake of Lyanna Stark's life?

"I-it was my d-duty…" he said unsteadily, and was hushed quickly by Rickard's headstrong daughter.

"Shh…shh…" Lyanna pulled away, and held his face in her hands for a long time. Sandor felt incapable of focusing on more than one thing at a time. The blue flecks of sea in her Valyrian-steel eyes. The long bolt of blood strewn from forehead to jawbone. The muddy chin from when she'd fallen down trying to run away. And all the while, her hands held him steady.

"Gods, you're shaking." She gripped him by his shoulders, kept him solid and upright on his knees, and glanced around them where they sat in the mud. His heart was no longer racing by now, and this time when he looked at his kill, the blood from the jugular had slowed, the eyelids drooped low. Not quite closed, but better at least.

"Alright." Lyanna wiped her runny nose on her sleeve without letting go of his arms. "Alright. Let's get you back to the castle." She looked at him uncertainly. "Let's get you back to my home. Can you stand?"

And together, they pulled him onto shaky legs, the unsteady limbs of a newborn colt, and Lyanna kept him carefully turned away from the carcass going cold in the ground. "This way to the castle," she whispered, and began guiding him east, with a careful arm drawn around his shoulders, her other hand pressing the wadded-up front of his tunic into his wound to slow the bleeding. And though he was light-headed, even Sandor could tell he'd survive the ordeal. The blood was already slowing, congealing and clotting. Maybe he wouldn't even need stitches.

"M-Mikken," he choked out, staggering on both feet, even though he knew nothing was broken, and his legs worked just fine. Lyanna didn't question his trembling though; he could've sworn she herself shook every now and then, even as they got closer and closer to Winterfell's towers.

"I'll have someone send word to him." She glanced at Sandor, still shorter than herself, but not by much. "We'll get you patched up and into some new clothes. Are you cold?" She rubbed the arm around his shoulders, chafed it against his cloak. "I'll have the maids draw you a bath. Maybe some hot broth." She pulled him along with her hands, a gentle, coaxing touch he was helpless to do anything but obey. "You look to be Ben's size. You can wear something from him."

You don't have to, he wanted to say, but the words stuck in his throat. Winterfell was in sight now, and there were a few guards up ahead, pacing and looking very worried indeed. Sandor stared at them blankly, feeling quite out of sorts all of the sudden.

"Help!" Lyanna waved at them, beckoning them urgently. "Guards! Heeeeelp!"

She didn't have to ask twice. They ran full-tilt at the pair of them, four men almost as big as Mikken. Gods, were all the men in the north so huge? Back in Clegane Keep, Sandor's family stature had been something unusual, unordinary. Here, it felt very commonplace.

When they reached the pair of them, all men began asking questions at once.

"Lady Lyanna! What happened?"

"Are you hurt?"

"Did this boy do something to you?"

"What happened?"

Sandor only stared up at them as Lyanna spoke. It was as though he had forgotten the Common Tongue; their words felt slurred and their speech incoherent. Talk properly, he growled at them, but all that came out was a gurgling noise. And—oh no—the color at the outside of his vision was going dark, like a black smoke closing in on him. His breathing grew erratic and scared. Blind? Was he going blind?

"He's shocked, I think. The claws got him deep." Lyanna allowed Sandor to be passed into the arms of the biggest of the guards, a man with dark hair and a crooked nose. He hefted Sandor up like he was a tyke once more, and only with minimal difficulty. Sandor couldn't remember the last time someone had carried him. He couldn't recall anyone having the strength to carry him comfortably, actually.

The guard turned to one of the younger men, someone likely just trained recently. "Run ahead and tell Lord Stark of what happened. Be sure to tell him the Lady is well, and get a room ready for the boy. And fetch the Maester, to check his wounds." Sandor's head rolled against the man's shoulder, and though he couldn't see his face, he could feel the laughter, weak and strained as it was. "Oh, lad. You picked a fine time to go for a stroll!"

"He saved my life!" Lyanna paced alongside them frantically, holding the elbow of the guard carrying her young friend. A friend? Sandor thought to himself. Are we friends, Lyanna?

He thought might like that. Maybe. He didn't think he'd ever had one before, even before the incident.

"I'm sure your father will see him rewarded in kind." They were inside the castle now, and judging by the quick pace the guard set, they'd be in a room in no time. Sure enough, the guard he'd sent ahead was there to greet them and guide them to a room. Sandor thought he heard Lord Stark's voice in the background, scolding Lyanna and yet, welcoming her at the same time. Embracing her. Benjen was there, too, and Brandon.

A lion? Brandon asked incredulously. There hasn't been any lions here in—in—I can't even recall!

Yes, well. Go and fetch the dead animal, will you, Bran? Rickard ordered sternly. And be sure Walys sends that raven to Mikken. It's late. The man's likely to worry soon.

Brandon's footsteps lead away from the small crowd then, back the way they came. Sandor's eyes felt so heavy, felt so sore, as though he'd kept them open for too long.

"Here we go, lad." And then there was a warm, soft mattress under him, the warmth of thick furs and plump pillows. "Relax, now. You're safe."

His vision was coming back slowly. The words which had sounded garbled were clear again, and he recognized all the faces surrounding him as…kind. Good.

"Mikken?" he asked, and it was Lord Stark who answered him with a tired grin, standing at the foot of his bed with an arm around his daughter's shoulders.

"He'll be here shortly, I've no doubt. Lyonel, get Sandor out of his shirt. Benjen, take your sister to her room please." Sandor sat there obediently as the man who'd carried him began to cut away at the fabric of his tunic, his cloak long since discarded. The scraps dropped to the bed, and were swept away in the hands of a maid who'd bustled in the room without Sandor's recollection.

The men leaned in closer to him to get a better look. A few frowned pityingly, a fact which infuriated the boy beyond all reason, but Lyonel and Rickard nodded in relief. "It's not deep. Likely won't scar much, even."

Maester Walys arrived very soon after, with bandages and hot water in tow. Someone—the maid, Sandor thought—lit incense in the corner of the room, all lights dimmed but for the ones the Maester needed to use to examine Sandor's chest. "Lay back now, Sandor. That's a good lad… Relax now."

Relax. Relax? He couldn't do it. He could barely lay down comfortably. All his bones grew rigid, and it took him a few minutes to realize why.

The incense. The smell, the grey, curling wisp of smoke twirling through the room. Ordinarily it might have done its duty in calming Sandor, but in this case it did everything but.

Because he knew that smell. He'd been here before, lying in bed with a Maester leaning over him, the incense burning while his grandfather held his hand tight, the only comfort he ever got after the incident.

The door to his room swung open suddenly, and light from the hall streamed inwards along with three familiar faces. Lyanna went scurrying to her father's arms at once, crying once more and downright screaming hysteria. Benjen was helping Brandon carry something in the room, and Brandon was crowing look at the size of this beast! Father, you must look at this! Don't worry, Sandor, I'll see you get the pelt.

There, in Brandon and Benjen's arms, was the lioness.

Sandor stared at the body in horror. It was so ugly now, the fur was stained red, the head rolled about loose on its shoulders. It looked like it might detach altogether, so deep was the knife wound Sandor had dealt her. Lyanna was shrieking at Brandon obscenities, calling him a fool for bringing it directly to Sandor so soon after, and Rickard looked furious in general, irate with everyone it felt like.

The incense was burning in the corner of the room, and the remnants of blood still dripped in a soft pitter-patter to the floor, and Lyanna was screaming, and Rickard was shouting at Brandon to take that damn thing away, and…and…

And suddenly the whole world went black.


"Sandor?"

"…"

"Sandor?"

"…hmm…"

"Sandor? Are you awake?"

Opening his eyes felt like lifting Mikken's largest anvil, and he wasn't rewarded when he managed to succeed. Bright lights burned his vision, and he was spared only by the silhouette of two shadowy shapes blotting out most of the daylight. With two hands, he covered his face and groaned loudly.

"My head…" he mumbled, rolling onto his side away from the window. "Ouch…"

"Hey. Do you want some water? It'll make you feel better." Lyanna was already reaching over for the goblet, topped with cold water no doubt.

"Don't try and make yourself sound smarter," Benjen scoffed at her from across his bed. "You only know that because Maester Walys told us to give him water!" They each had a chair pulled to his bedside, Lyanna mending a shirt—her brothers', Sandor suspected—while Benjen flipped carefully through the pages of what seemed to be a very large, very old book. They'd each abandoned their tasks when he showed signs of movement, though, and now lay discarded on their laps.

Meanwhile, Sandor was trying to understand how he wound up in what looked to be one of the nicer guest rooms in Winterfell. With a hand still covering his eyes from the sun, protecting his aching head, he muttered, "What happened?"

Both siblings dropped their bickering at once, and Lyanna bent closer to him with concern. "You don't remember? It was about a day and a half ago. You passed out…been asleep ever since."

"Yeah." Benjen looked uncertainly at his sister, then at Sandor himself. "Mikken's been really worried for you. He's been in the castle since you got here. Father only just convinced him to go lay down."

"Really?" Sandor started to push himself upright, and cried out in surprise when his chest throbbed unexpectedly.

At once, Lyanna and Benjen leapt into action, pressing him back to the bed by his shoulders. "Careful!" Lyanna said, eyeing the bandage around his chest worriedly. "Walys says you still have much healing to do before threat of infection's passed."

"Infection?" Sandor frowned at them both. "What happened to me?"

"Well…" Benjen sucked in a deep breath. "You…sorta saved my sister's life, Sandor. Don't you remember?"

"I was out for a walk in the woods." Lyanna's face went whiter with every word she spoke. "You…must have wandered into the woods while you were…" she trailed, the look on her face very urgent, almost pleading with him for…for something.

"While I what?"

"Sandor." Benjen's face grew solemn, and Lyanna's hand reached out to settle gingerly atop his own. "Your grandfather. He…died."

"I'm so sorry," Lyanna added quickly but sincerely, tears filling her eyes as the memories and sorrow seemed to fill Sandor.

Mikken bringing him into the forge. Mikken holding the letter. Mikken telling him…telling him…

Sandor curled away from them, suddenly angry that they were here. Here to see him looking weak, looking like a—like a—

Well. Like a child.

Both Stark children had enough sense not to mention his sudden withdrawal from them, although Lyanna didn't manage to stifle her affronted huff in time, before Benjen could glare at her and cut her off. The pair of them mouthed words over Sandor's head, words likely about Sandor himself, but he couldn't be bothered to care at the time. His grandfather was dead. The man who had raised him for seven years was gone, dead in a house that didn't care for him, likely hadn't cared for him in years. Sandor thought of his father, tried to remember if Aldor and his son were ever close, and came up with nothing. His memories of life at Clegane Keep were few and far between anymore. Winter Town and its people had eclipsed his old home from his mind. Now all that appeared in his recollections was the face of his brother, filled with hatred and malice, and the bright red brazier seconds before he'd been tossed face-first onto it.

Of his grandfather, he remembered the old man sitting at his bed after the incident, the cane for his missing leg propped on the wall. He remembered Aldor reading to him to pass the time, the young pup he'd left in Sandor's arms one night to hold onto. He remembered saying goodbye to him in Winterfell, watching him limp away, knowing all too well it would be the last he ever saw of the man.

Of his father, he remembered nothing.

"There was a lion." Sandor heard himself speaking, as though through the mouth of a stranger. Lyanna and Benjen looked down at him uneasily. "There was a lion. I… I killed her."

"She was going to kill you," said Lyanna softly, laying the tunic she was working over onto his bed so she could take his hand once more. He blue eyes were a soft hue in the sunlight. "Our father says it's a wonder you weren't killed, or seriously wounded."

"Yeah. Maester Walys says it won't scar at all." Benjen tried smiling hopefully at the younger boy. "That's good, right?"

But Sandor felt like he hadn't heard anything they said.

"I…I killed it. Slit her throat." His mouth was quite dry suddenly, and he reached out for the goblet of water, downing it in several gulps. With shaking hands, he wiped his mouth, caught the dribble of water that had trickled onto his chest, and sighed the most wearisome, heartbroken sigh any child had ever made. "She was just an animal. And I killed her."

"Don't feel sorry about it." Benjen shook his head incredulously. "She would've eaten you and Lyanna for breakfast!"

"Benjen!"

His ears went pink at the tips. "Well, it's true."

"Can't you see it bothers Sandor? Gods!" she scowled at him. "You're so stupid sometimes."

"Am not!" cried Benjen, folding his arms angrily. "What's to be bothered about then? It's just a dumb animal!"

"It wasn't a dumb animal!" Sandor glared up at the boy, the scars on his face twisted with his anger now. He wondered dimly what had happened to his cowl, the one his grandfather had forced him to wear everywhere. "She was just hungry! She was hungry and I killed her and—and—and I'm not sorry! I'm not sorry at all!" He wiped his tears with a furious swipe, glaring up at them. "I'm a killer. I killed an animal. And I'm not sorry at all! I'm not sorry a little bit! I'm as bad as Gregor!"

Silence filled the room after his outburst, and Sandor spent the time cursing himself for speaking at all. He should have kept quiet. He should have never opened his mouth.

He should've stayed in the south, where they didn't ask questions, and they didn't care, and they left him to live and die and struggle on his own. At least then he could have been with his grandfather when he…when it… He would've been there. And he would be able to protect Elinor and make sure nothing bad happened to her, and he could've learnt the sword instead working in Mikken's burning, fiery forge with heat piping from everywhere.

He should have let the lion kill him. Better to be dead than be like Gregor.

"Sandor?"

Breathing through his nose, he almost didn't hear Lyanna's tentative voice, but he felt her hand squeeze gently over his own, felt the heat from her palm ensnaring his.

"Who's Gregor?"

Sandor's mind went blank.

Don't tell them. Don't tell them. Don'ttellthem—

But he was so angry. And hurt. And he'd suffered so much for doing nothing wrong, when his brother was alive killing things and hurting people, and he was rewarded for it. Rewarded for being evil.

Sandor hated him. Hated his brother with every bone in his body.

So when he started talking, he didn't stop until the air had run out in his lungs.

"Gregor's my older brother and he's the reason I left. He's bigger than me—bigger than anyone his age, bigger than most kids five or six years older than him, too—and he's…he's…he's the one who burned my face. I was playing with his toy and I didn't want to keep it, I only meant to look at it for a while—he didn't even want it!—and then he caught me and he held me over the fire and I screamed and begged and it took two men to pull him off, but by then it was too late and I'm ugly now. And Gregor's a killer and I'm the one who's scarred and punished, and I can't even tell anyone because it would tarnish my family's name. That's what my own father said to me! He said…he said… Gregor's reputation was more important than me nearly dying."

Sandor looked between the two Stark children, panting and crying tears of rage. His face was flushed and his palms sweaty, even as he dug his fingers into the sheets.

"Well? Tell me how sorry you are then. Tell me how sad and pathetic my life is!" Sandor screamed at them, "TELL ME!"

But they did no such thing. Benjen looked like he would be ill—ill or start crying himself—and Lyanna's face had gone still as stone, though he thought he saw her hands trembling. The need to apologize was there inside of Sandor, deep down, but the fury he'd unleashed was months' worth of anger. No—years' worth. And now that they knew—now that someone knew—it felt too good to be sorry for yelling, even at Lyanna and Benjen.

And then Lyanna frowned at her lap, and he felt like the worst scum imaginable.

Before he could say sorry, before he could tell them both to forget it and never mention it to Mikken or their father or Brandon, the daughter of Rickard began to talk. And when Lyanna began speaking, it was such a tone he'd never heard her use before, a sort of calm, perfunctory voice that not only demanded his attention, but his respect as well. So he shut his mouth, and waited.

"When I was ten, I snuck into a trial in my father's court. I wore Ben's breeches and a hood so they wouldn't know it was me." Sandor glanced at Benjen, who was staring hard at his sister, an incomprehensive frown on his face that suggested he had no idea where she was going with this. "I sat in the back with the other staff and pretended to have a cold to keep them far enough away so that they couldn't ask questions. I know it was poorly of me to sneak in, but I really wanted to know what was happening at the time, and no one would tell me. And…well…" She swallowed nervously, averted her gaze as she fiddled with the hem of her sleeves. "My mother had just died, you see. I suppose one could say I wasn't keen on obeying rules at the time, even when I knew deep down it was for my own good.

"Talk spread of a man from Winter Town coming on trial for crimes he committed. Horrible crimes. Terrible, nasty things. But whenever I asked what it was he did, no one wanted to tell me. I found out later that my father had forbidden them all from speaking, he thought I was too young to understand. So I snuck in when he thought I was in my lessons, and watched the trial unfold.

"I don't remember the man's name. Or what his profession was even. But he was young—Brandon's age, thereabouts. And he was married to a crofter's daughter. According to several witnesses, he…he was caught sinning with another woman—a servant from our house—and his wife found out. And she didn't like it at all, so she confronted him. Told him he was a villain. Told him she'd leave him and their house and start again somewhere else. And the man was so angry…he stabbed her nine times. But the Maester examined the body, and he said…he said the lady was damaged. Said that there were bruises where there shouldn't be, and fingerprints on her neck." Lyanna's hand ghosted over the skin of her own neck, recreating the motion of this man's hands strangling his wife.

"My father was so angry. He said only cowards abuse women, and that he wished there was a way to do the same justice to the man as he'd done to his own wife. He sentenced him to death, and the man was taken outside to the courtyard where he was…beheaded," she whispered the word as though someone might be outside listening to them speak, listening to her confess her spying from over three years passed.

"I remember thinking to myself, that man is a monster. And he was." She met Sandor's gaze fiercely now, unafraid and strong. So very strong. "He deserved to die for what he'd done. He was a coward, and a murderer and a villain. I'm glad my father took his head. I'm glad. But you know, all I could think of when I was standing there in Benjen's clothes, was how handsome that man was. How beautiful he looked, even in his dirty clothes and muddy hands. All the maids called him handsome, they called it a real shame someone so beautiful could be so hateful." Lyanna's eyes went hard as steel. "He was beautiful and he was a monster, Sandor. An absolute beast. And you…" She leaned forward, and very lightly traced her fingers over the mottled outline of his cheek. "You're scarred, maybe." Her hand fell to his bandaged chest, to the spot above his racing heart. "But there's goodness inside. And that's what's important. Not your skin. Not your beauty. But your heart, and your compassion.

"Sandor." She folded her hands in her lap, seated upright and proper once more. "I think you are better than you know."