"A Hound will die for you, but never lie to you."

Sandor to Sansa ACOK

A hush fell in the chamber, with only the crackling of the fire in the hearth and a slight rattle of the shutters to be heard before he began.

"I was born to a landed house in the West. We were not nobles, not like your mother's family; my grandfather had been a kennelmaster in a great castle. One day, during a hunt, the lord of the noble castle was attacked by a lioness. His mount was killed but my grandfather saved his life by sending the dogs after her."

"Is that why you wear a dog sigil, Papa?" Catya interrupted brightly. Her mother gently put a hand on her shoulder to still her from interrupting her father.

"It is," he answered her. "The sigil of our house was three dogs sable on a golden field: gold for autumn when the hunt took place, three for the dogs that died. My grandfather was made a landed knight and given a small keep and lands, Clegane's Keep it was called; I don't know what they call it now but it is not ours anymore."

"A dog is a loyal animal: if he is well-trained and treated kindly, he will defend you and even die for you, as those three did. But some dogs are curs: they act only for themselves and are vicious, killers even, and will turn on you and each other."

"I had a brother," he told them for the first time, forcing the words out, "older than me and hugely big and strong, so that even though our banner flew dogs people called him The Mountain; but he was angry and mean, like a cur. He hurt people: men and women, boys and girls, even animals..." The crackling of the fire seemed very loud and his children were very quiet. He glanced up at them.

"I'm scared of him," young Robb whispered in the silence, huddling down into his robe.

"Everyone was scared of him," Sandor reassured his son gravely.

"Even you?" Ned asked doubtfully. He could not imagine his father being scared of anyone.

"Aye, Ned," he nodded slowly, "even me. It gave him joy to scare people."

He saw the little bird's eyes widen and then drop. He knew then she remembered their words from the roof of the Red Keep, before the Blackwater, when she had tried to thank him for saving her from the rioting mob and he had responded by holding his sword against her throat.

So long as I have this, there's no man on earth I need fear. But he had feared one man, his brother; almost as much as he had come to hate him.

"My brother was a brute; he hated everything, it seemed, and everyone: from servants, to maesters and men-at-arms and even his own family. He frightened everyone with his anger and his strength and his violence, so that they shook when he approached and could not even meet his eyes. He could not abide any noise, not even laughter and play, so that my sister and I would go hide and play in the woods, else he would get angry and hurt us. Eventually everyone in the keep went about silent and serious and our home became a grim and foreboding place that people sought to leave, or they avoided so that we had few visitors or tradesmen or even singers or mummers. Villagers and common folk hid indoors when the Mountain rode out. Even the dogs, the animals of our own house sigil, feared the keep because of his mean temper."

"But…why was he so angry, Papa?"

Sandor looked at his daughter, with her black hair and grey eyes so like a Clegane that she could have come from that same family and that same keep. He knew that he would kill anyone who made his daughter as fearful and tormented as his brother had made him, who would hurt her as Gregor had hurt their sister. He would mercilessly take the head off any man who harmed her: king or commons. He would be a dog for her.

"I do not know, my girl: our mother died when we were small, then my sister died young," he told her gently. "My father and I were sad but maybe he was angry. But that is not reason to frighten others, or harm them, or to make them feel small and weak." Things he had done himself, though later and for his own reasons: chiefly what Gregor had done to him and how it had made the world see him.

Sandor set his mouth grimly as he watched his children struggle to understand the little he was revealing to them. Gregor had in fact beaten, raped and murdered servants, and killed dogs and horses simply because they were there and he was angry. Some villagers and crofters had sent their daughters away, fearful that they would be called to work in the keep, and even promising boys would seek a place in Lannisport or Casterly Rock rather than with their master Clegane.

He would not tell them of his burns, of Gregor holding him to the fiery coals over a purloined toy. He did not want Ned to feel guilty or sad for having fought with his brother. He did not want to give them the same nightmares that had haunted his childhood and even his adult years. They knew their Papa had been burned as a boy but not how; they would needs be older before they could understand such cruelty.

And then there was his sister: no one had ever spoken of what had happened to her, in fact most had never spoken of her again, fearing Gregor's wrath. Despite his brutality and his many crimes, Gregor Clegane had been knighted; it was Sandor who had been shunned. He tasted bile at the memory, even now, and his guts twisted to think Gregor was still being protected; but he reminded himself that it was his children he was shielding now, not his dead monster brother. He continued.

"So when my father died, I could no longer bear living in fear and unhappiness, so I left my home, which had never truly felt like a home, not as it should have." He leaned forward though they were listening to him attentively. "You must understand, there is nothing wrong with leaving and going out into the world: it is natural for young men and even boys to leave and live in other houses and go into service as pages or squires or be wards to other families, " he told them in his raspy voice. "There is much to be learned by going into the world and being with other young boys or girls; we may even have wards here one day to keep you company and learn with you."

"Will you send us away?" Robb questioned piteously, his big Tully-blue eyes pleading.

Sandor looked to his little bird. They had never discussed this possibility, though it had long been a common practice in Westeros to ward out younger sons into service.

"We will never send you away if you do not want to go," she spoke soothingly to him. "But mayhaps you will want to go someday: my father was a ward in the Eyrie; and your uncle Jon left to join the Nights Watch at four-and-ten." He had left the same day she had left Winterfell for King's Landing, she remembered now, and she had wanted to leave so very badly. "But your Papa had to leave his family home," she continued, "else he would not have been safe."

"Where did you go, Papa?" Ned asked him now. "Did you become a squire?" He looked excited to hear more.

Sandor scoffed derisively at himself. "I went to join the lions."

"Not the lions who killed the dogs?" Catya asked warily.

"The very same," he rasped.

…..

"The house of the lions were lords of the Westerlands so every promising lad sought service with them. I was well-trained in arms, and tall and strong for my age, and so I offered my sword and was taken in and made a squire to one of their knights. Their castle was not gloomy or silent, but a place where people spoke and even laughed, and even the dogs went without fear. Because they were not mean and angry I thought them to be good and noble, and I was grateful to be in their service, as was right for a lad with no home to return to."

"Rebellion and war meant that the banners were called, and I soon served my knight in battle, and I fought alongside him, killing my first man at twelve. I was very good with arms and brave even, or so men said: but in truth I had lived with fear for so long that in the end, battle did not seem so very different, just louder."

"The lions praised me for my skills and bravery, and so I became devoted to them; I let their praise take the place of my old fear and so I would do anything they asked, unquestioningly and obediently. I was their most loyal dog."

Ned smiled at him, flushed with pride in his father. "That's good…to be loyal, isn't that right, Papa?"

Sandor's mouth twitched, and he paused to consider how best to explain to his son.

"Yes, Ned: loyalty is a good quality in a man. But because of my brother, I did not know what was good; I only knew fear so that I thought if I was not fearful then things were right. I even became feared myself, and I liked it: it made me feel strong and safe. It was more important to me to be feared than to be good: if people were afraid of me then I didn't even need to be brave, just fierce. I became a fearsome hound."

"I want to be brave," Robb piped up hopefully, but then his little face fell; "but sometimes I'm afraid."

"That's the only time a man can be brave."

They all turned suddenly to the open door of the bedchamber where Rickon leaned in the doorframe with his arms crossed over his chest. He was a young man now with his mother's Tully colouring: the same blue eyes and auburn hair as his sister Sansa and the little boys, Ned and Robb; though Rickon resisted haircuts and his hair usually fell past his shoulders in waves and curls. Sansa smiled wistfully to see him grown tall and strong, of an age now with their brother Robb when he had been…

"Uncle!" The children clamored at him now. Rickon may have been lord of Winterfell, but he would still play with them in the yard or the solar when he wasn't training with Sandor and the rest of the garrison or sitting next to Sansa in the great hall as she advised him in his duties as Lord Stark.

"Our father used to say that," Sansa said softly, referring to Rickon's comment about bravery.

"So does my brother here," he gripped Sandor's shoulder affectionately. "Tells me not to be reckless or foolish, that rushing headlong isn't bravery; sometimes it's plain stupid. But standing your ground and facing your foes: that's brave. But even brave men die," he added seriously, looking to his nephews.

Catya sniffled now, made unsure by talk of fear and dying. "Did you kill brave men, Papa?"

Sandor lifted his head and looked her straight in the eyes, so like his own, and told her the truth. "I did, in battle: brave men and weak, scared men too. That's what war is: knights, soldiers, men-at-arms are for killing."

"My father killed men in battle as well," Sansa told them now.

Gods, Sandor loved her for that: for making his ferocity sound like duty. It had been, most times: he had done his duty but he had often enjoyed it, the power it gave him and the release of some of his endless rage. He'd killed more than just fighting men; he had killed women and children when they'd sacked King's Landing and later Pyke, and others like the boy who ran away in fear as he rode him down, but he would not tell them that. He'd been no different than most men but at least he never spoke the vows of a knight, never lied about what he was. Mayhaps that was not as bad; at least that is what he had always told himself. He did not want to seem so bad, not in the eyes of his own children; he wanted so much to be good for them. And here the little bird was comparing him to her honorable father.

He gazed at her in gratitude; she was so beautiful in her deep green gown, wrapped in a lavender shawl, with her fiery auburn hair falling over one shoulder and her graceful hands folded in her lap. It always seemed impossible that he could love her more, and yet he always did.

"As did our brother Robb, the king in the North," she continued quietly.

"The king in the North," Rickon echoed solemnly, nodding to himself.

"…and your uncle Jon, for the Nightswatch. Sometimes, it is a man's duty to fight, to kill and even die. That is why your Papa will train you with real swords one day, and mayhaps you will fight alongside him." Sansa tried to sound brave herself now, but the thought of her precious boys in battle made her even more fearful than she had been when Sandor had ridden out from Winterfell to fight the last of the Boltons and Freys in the North, and then the Others. She thought of her own mother then, who had watched her eldest son Robb ride off to battle, and her breath caught in her throat, a strangled sob. She was glad they were distracted by Rickon, who was jesting about training at arms with the boys, saying they would both beat him bloody, and she forced herself to smile again. Sansa could still hide her true feelings, when need be.