Sansa sat herself down on some soft damp moss. She spread her skirt underneath her bottom as neatly as she could, but the moisture from the ground soaked through anyway. She tried to ignore the uncomfortable feeling. She reached into her backpack and pulled out a book.
It wasn't a storybook, not necessarily. It was historical, about Greek mythology. She and her sister used to read over that book in particular. There was something to be admired about the gods and goddesses. Artemis was always Arya's favorite, while Sansa went back and forth between Aphrodite and Athena.
Sansa felt herself leaning more towards Athena each day. While Aphrodite was beautiful and strong, like Sansa always wanted to be, Athena was… like her mom. Strong and beautiful and intelligent and eloquent and…
Sansa closed the book and shoved it back into her backpack. She leaned against her knees, tracing her fingers on the runs in her hose. She was surprised Sandor hadn't said something about her clothes yet, but she supposed they would find new clothes soon enough and she would be expected to leave her old ones behind.
She liked her skirt, though. It was good for running. The weather was getting colder too, so she wished she could keep her sweater. She wouldn't mind losing the hose and getting a new pair of shoes, though. She only wore the hose because her legs felt so prickly. She hadn't shaved in ages. She missed the feeling of her legs when they were soft and freshly shaved.
She glanced over at Sandor, who was cleaning and repairing his various weapons. He needed a shave too. She could see where he was starting on a beard on the good side of his face. The scarred side had a few hairs poking through near his lips and the bottoms of his jaw, but not very many at all.
"You're taking a good look now, aren't you?" He growled at her all of the sudden. Her muscles jerked in surprise and she looked away. "You're afraid to look at me the rest of the time. It's easier to look when I'm not looking back, isn't it? When I might not know."
"I'm sorry, mister," She started.
"Don't call me that. And you're not sorry for anything, not one bit." He put down the gun he had been cleaning and strode over to her, yanking her to her feet. "You're afraid of me, aren't you?" She couldn't look at him. She couldn't, but he grabbed her jaw with his fingers and made her look.
"You're afraid of me." It wasn't a question anymore.
"I'm sorry." She suppressed a shuddering breath. "I'm sorry."
"How do you think it happened?"
"What?"
"How do you think I got burned?" He chuckled. "Some heroic battle? Maybe I'm a war veteran and someone threw acid on me, or half my face got blown off in an explosion. No, not that. Not for you. I'd have to be a villain in those tales. Maybe I was attacking someone innocent and they burned me to defend themselves. Maybe I was playing with fire back when I was a teenage brat like you, thinking I knew everything about the world."
"I don't," She was gaping at him. "I never… I don't…."
"I'll tell you how it happened." He jerked her chin upward, forcing her to look directly into that side of his face. "Had some distant relative that wanted something from my father. He decided to play nice, so he bought my older brother and me some toys. My brother Gregor was a lot older and a lot bigger than me. I was only a kid, younger than your sister was; six maybe, only just old enough to not be called a baby anymore."
"Gregor didn't care anything about his toy, so I took it. I knew there'd be hell to pay if he found out. I knew it, but I was a kid. So one day he caught me with his toy, the toy he never wanted. There was a fireplace in the room. The embers were only just burning when he shoved my face down into it. It took every man in the house to get him off of me. When my father brought me to the Emergency Room, he told them I hadtripped and fell into the fireplace."
He laughed, quiet and bitter. "I had three surgeries before they gave up trying to put my face back together." He was quiet for a moment. "Well, nothing to say to that? I bet you didn't even listen to me. You just want to get out of my grip and kick those pretty legs and fly away from me, don't you, little bird?"
"What ever happened to your brother?" She couldn't help but ask.
"Nothing." Sandor shrugged. "I guess he's out there somewhere. Maybe he got bit and infected, and he's one of those monsters now."
It took all of her courage to say it. "He sounds like he was already a monster."
He let go of her face and took a step back. Her hands were sweating, so she gripped the side of her sweater. "Don't tell anyone that story. Don't write it in a diary, if you even keep one, don't confess it to a priest on your death bed, whatever. Don't tell anyone. If you do, I'll let one of those fuckers out there get to you."
She nodded quickly and he strode away, grabbing up his guns and putting his back towards her. "We're in the Kingswood. I haven't seen one of the infected out here yet. I imagine most of them have been eaten by wildlife, but we need to keep an eye out anyway."
"Okay."
"We'll keep going until we reach the end of the wood, and then we'll see what's out there."
She couldn't force down the question that burned in her mind. "Where are we going? Where do you plan for us to end up?"
"Not sure." He shook his head. "Cities aren't safe, too many monsters. Woods aren't safe, too many wild animals. We'll just have to see."
His answer left a bitter taste in her mouth. "I hate not knowing."
"Yeah, well, you're gonna have to deal with it." He snapped back at her.
She pulled her backpack on, and he stuffed his belongings back into his satchel, and they walked for a while longer. The foliage of the forest was thick and the air too. She could taste the earthy humidity of it, even through the chill in the air. It was nice, better than the city.
The city was all ashes and ruin. Their safe places smelled of alcohol or bleach or something equally unpleasant. She remembered once how they had to hide in a small closet from sharks when she started her period. She didn't want to admit that sort of information to Sandor, but she had to do it because that was the only way he could keep them safe. So he locked them both in the closet. She didn't sleep that night through the noises. Their labored breaths and smacking lips, and she could almost hear them drooling over the scent of blood.
It had been like that every night until she stopped. She figured that soon they would go hungry enough that she wouldn't even have it anymore, but that hadn't happened yet. Maybe it never would. That would be a pleasant surprise.
They walked and walked until pink and orange peeked through the canopy of the forest. There were no good places to hide or sleep, so they had to make their own. They had a few nicely sized tarps to use. Sandor had her help him as they climbed into a sturdy looking tree and secured a tarp from one tree trunk to another closer one, like a giant hammock. They tied another tarp over that one to shield from rain.
Sansa didn't really like sleeping like that with him. In the city, they could stay as far away from each other as possible, but on the tarp like that, they were forced to sleep back-to-back. Part of her felt more secure knowing he was right there, but another part felt uncomfortable to sleep so close to him.
Still, she never said anything. She didn't want to complain about it. It wasn't like either of them could do anything about it. So that night she lay with her back against his while he slept. She had a hard time falling asleep. She always had nightmares, and was afraid for the images to return. But eventually she did fall asleep, and the nightmares came as they always did.
