DISCLAIMER: Nope, still don't own anything.

4.

It was the feather that brought part of it back. Riding north, north, always north – her decision, Sandor's – and yes, first names had been in use these past few days – Sandor's initial thought had been to abandon Westeros altogether, to head for open water, the Free Cities. She too had been warm to the notion, Pentos, Braavos, exotic names of faraway places where it had been proven those who did not want to be found could run and hide and perhaps live. But then Alayne had surfaced, every scrap of information she'd silently gleaned and charmingly combed from Petyr- Littlefinger's lectures and conversations with his numerous 'friends' clamoured for attention in her head and it had been a definite No that she'd uttered.

Sandor had looked at her with something very near to suspicion.

"The Targaryen queen," she'd explained levelly, "She and her brother escaped to Pentos and now she rules Meereen having overthrown the other major slave cities with her army. I don't think she would forget the name Stark," and here she felt her smile turn sad, downturning at the corners Father Father, "or the role my father played in King Robert's Rebellion. I would not be much more safe across the Narrow Sea than here"

Sandor rumbled into his armour.

"Who's to say you're a Stark, girl? You dyed your hair, took a different name, played a bastard and no-one in the Eyrie suspected otherwise. You've done well enough to do the same across-"

"I am Sansa Stark!" she exclaimed louder than originally intended. "Eldest daughter of Lord Eddard Stark and heir to Winterfell. You saw Arya, for a time," here she swallowed delicately, "but not for many months since. My brothers are dead, my parents are dead, as is my Aunt Lysa. Jon is the only family I have left, and The Wall is by far the best place to go if one wishes to vanish from the Seven Kingdoms. Lord Stannis Baratheon is rumoured to have ridden to the Wall with a great army. My father supported his claim to the throne and I do not believe he is a man to forget it. Family, potential friends and anonymity. These are the gifts available to me. So North"

"Roose Bolton is Warden now," Sandor countered, "and that bastard boy of his took Moat Caitlin. Going North is fucking suicide, or had you forgotten who butchered your brother and mother?"

Sansa eyeballed him coldly, letting winter grow behind her eyes.

"I forget nothing," she whispered, "and Roose Bolton least of all, now that Joffrey is dead"

They'd ridden on in silence after that, taking byroads, brambles, copses in their stride, shunning all other human contact in the light of day. Crows flapped ominously at their approach, the largest of them caught hysterical in Sandor's great fist, its neck neatly twisted limp. At dusk they roasted it over a small fire and ate side by side.

The feathers lingered. One had caught in her mantle and she fingered it now between thumb and forefinger, curled up by the dying flames as Sandor resumed his watch as night fell.

She had sewn the feathers painstakingly onto the shoulders of the mourning dress. After Lord Royce's interrogation she had begged leave to descend to the gardens at the foot of the Eyrie and gather her thoughts. With tears fresh on her cheeks and throat flushed she had been all but escorted to the quiet snow-covered sanctuary and left to her own devices, a cautionary guard stationed at a safe distance to watch over her. The ruins of Winterfell had been raized then covered anew with an ermine blanket. She walked slowly, letting her booted feet sink into the soft powder. She crushed the turrets, buried the walls. She walked on; head turned to watch the marks of her progress appear in her wake. Up, high above the courtyards where they kept the ravens under careful watch the faint sound of their cawing was the only other sound disturbing the quiet.

Lady would have been magnificent, prowling the Eyrie's winding paths with alarmingly soft steps, a direwolf to keep her safe, to snap cold teeth those with ill feeling, to worry in iron jaws the throats of all the hateful people who had hurt her. But Lady was gone, substituted for Arya's Nymeria, much like herself, a plaything for a prince who'd outgrown toys, mother for a sickly orphan who couldn't keep his dinner in his stomach, niece or was it prospect for a childless widower, a pawn for every player.

Lady Royce had insisted on helping her sort through her aunt's belongings.

"She was kin to you, but she is dead," the old woman briskly tutted when she had protested at raiding her aunt's wardrobe so soon before the funeral, "she will have no use for these gowns, they are best given to the living, and I doubt very much that Lord Baelish has managed to furnish you with a trousseau befitting your status, what with smuggling you out of King's Landing, Lysa's death, looking after Robin and taking on the matters of the Vale"

She had nodded quietly, though the truth was the reverse. Her cabin on his ship, the one that stole her away had housed a large trunk containing nothing but fine gowns in all manner of silks, velvets and wools. A trousseau for a princess, not a Northern lord's daughter. She'd not known what to say on opening it.

"A mere token of my affections, sweetling. You deserve some spoiling, after everything that has passed"

Had he spoiled her, after all? Sansa bit her lip, heard the fire crackle and spit into darkness. Petyr had loomed large in her thoughts for longer than she herself could believe. First friend, then confidante, teacher, mentor then something else entirely, a queer half-space that bridged parent and lover, though no more than kisses had passed between them. She learnt quickly to tell one man from the other, and there was more than simply Petyr and Littlefinger to contend with. Old Nan had said once that the Gods were ever-present, if not visible, tangible, always on the edge of your awareness and if you tried hard enough –

The Maiden and the Mockingbird, Sansa mused. I was always a bird of some sort.

Sandor shifted. She knew without looking his hand would stray to the side of his neck, pawing the horrid scar that only something with teeth could have inflicted. It was long since healed, treated and cleanly sewn by someone who obviously knew what he or she were doing, but the twisted, lumpy mass like a knot in a Heart Tree still made her throat tight.

Lady hadn't minded Sandor, she blinked, the feather between her thumb and forefinger. I'd forgotten that. She used to look up at him quietly whenever he spoke to me. I used to think she was the only part of me that wasn't afraid of anything.

In the end she'd chosen four. A sober green with trailing sleeves, a dark blue that reminded her of something her mother had once worn, rich grey wool trimmed in black lace, useful now that the snows were falling. Then she'd seen the black.

"I have nothing to wear in mourning," she'd murmured. Lady Royce nodded approvingly.

"Then take the black, my dear"

Jon, Sansa thought. Jon took the black. He may be the only family I have left.

She took it.

It would need some work, they all would. Her aunt had been of a similar height but slender, bony even. Sansa scrutinized the bodice thoughtfully. She would have to take the stitching out, perhaps work in an extra panel under each arm to accommodate her bosom. The neckline would have to be cut a little less tightly about the throat. The sleeves were quite plain. Small, tight cuffs. The more she looked at the dress the more it transformed before her. A shorter hem to allow for riding and scaling the Eyrie's perilous steps would be best. The grosgrain ribbon at the back, too girlish for a woman of her aunt's age and too frivolous for her own maturing tastes would have to go. But with no ornament whatsoever it ran the risk of being drab.

"What on earth-"

Lady Royce curled her lip in open disgust at the garment she'd pulled from the back. A looming, long mass of feathers poured like oil from her wrinkled hand.

"My word, it must have belonged to Lord Arryn. A mantle from his younger days, the sort of thing one would pin over mail and armour. Goodness, I hadn't thought she would have kept anything like this"

Sansa took the cloak from the elderly woman. The weight was impressive, the feathers still soft. Raven? She wondered. Or falcon, as would befit the Arryn household? Crow?

I shall fly then, if a bird I must be.

She decided against wearing it for the funeral. In her trousseau, the one Petyr gifted her, was a heavy gabardine in mourning black with bell sleeves and a slight length to the train. That was the more suitable choice. Under a long cloak no-one would notice the difference. But the black she had taken for herself –

She excused herself from their visitors and took to her room with scissors, needle and thread. The silence was comforting, the stony walls of her room reassuring in their strength. It might have been a prison but for the side table and trinkets to furnish it into a room instead of a cell.

Lord Tyrion. Sansa furrowed her brow at the thought of the diminutive man who was her husband in name if not in reality. They will think he poisoned Joffrey and helped me escape. Perhaps they've imprisoned him already, or put him on trial immediately. I've abandoned him. And he did so try his best to be kind and gentle. But he's clever, girl-Sansa whined inside her, he'll think of something. What am I to think of?

She ripped the hem of the cloak between curled fists. I am to think of what everyone wants, she resolved through bitten lips, and what I want most of all. Scissors shaped the mass of silk-backed feather into cohesive shapes, her fingers angling the blades carefully so as not to destroy the plumage painstakingly sewn into it.

Sewing eased her mind. Every stitch became a wolf tooth in Joffrey's belly, a nail across Cersei's face. She forgot to breathe at times, resolve and focus stilling her body and honing her mind. A dagger in Roose Bolton's ribs. A spearhead in Walder Frey's skull. Her trembling ceased, her stitches precise, neat, strong. She thought of the trunk beneath the bed she sat on, the lavish folds of Lord Baelish's generosity. She saw again Joffrey's face, red and purple and black, already a corpse before he hit the floor.

If you want to build a new home, she thought calmly. The taste of Petyr's kiss still lingered. The cool stone of her room grew warm.

Sansa rolled over, turning away from Sandor's bulk. She pressed the feather to her dry lips. I can taste him even now, she realized, wide-eyed, and I closed my eyes to his kiss before I pushed him away.

It had not been unpleasant. Shocking, yes, in its occurrence, in what it might herald, but not unpleasant. Petyr's mouth had been warm on hers, his slender lips moving so minutely over and between hers she still doubted how much of a lie the 'peck on the cheek' she had christened it truly was. But it had not been a peck between uncle and niece. Petyr was not her blood. It had not been a kiss to gift a substitute daughter with. Sansa surveyed the scraps of cloth in her lap and those laid out on the bed beside her.

What do I have to work with?

I am beautiful. A blush threatened her cheeks to think it so brazenly, but there it was. Cersei had called her a beauty. Ser Dontos, poor drunken Ser Dontos had in rare sobriety done the same. And Petyr, who had loved her mother for years in vain and never loved another, had pronounced her as more beautiful even than her.

And Sandor Clegane said you looked like spring.

She shook her head, colour rising.

I am highborn. High value, Sansa determined, selecting the fabric to work into the bodice. I have a name and a title that both mean something to a lot of people. I am valuable.

I am a girl. Woman, she corrected herself, a woman flowered. But still a girl, and liable to be looked down on because of that. Funny, she smiled sadly through her stitches, that girlhood should be to my advantage. I had thought it was only men who could fight their own battles. But Lord and Lady Royce saw her tears, her clutched handkerchief and believed her lies, saw truth in the doting, grateful look she'd thrown Petyr and not the lush bravado of a girl trying her hand for the first time with everything to lose.

The look in Petyr's eyes had been astounding. She had been glad for Lady Royce's petite form to cling to as without it she had been certain her legs would have collapsed beneath her. His eyes, grey-green, so jovial, amiable, charming as they had been in King's Landing, were darkened and serious, intent upon her as though seeking out her lies for himself and secreting them away for later use. It was a look that challenged and sought out and knew.

She split the bodice from the shoulders at the seams and set to work. She cut it lower, as low as she dared and picked up her needle and thread once more. She did not look up when he came in through the door, silent as a confessional.

"If you're pretending to sleep, you're not trying hard enough"

Sansa turned over, the horse blanket twisting around her as she moved.

"I wasn't pretending. I don't pretend with you"

In the darkness she imagined the muscle in his cheek twitching. Sandor's bulk shifted in his seat.

"You did the other day. Put that Stone girl's voice on, told me to my face"

Sansa pushed herself up onto her elbows.

"You really don't like Alayne, do you"

She could just make out his massive shoulders shrugging dismissively.

"She's kept me alive," Sansa told him seriously, "taught me valuable lessons. She's been my only shield, my only weapon, my direwolf - "

"You had a bloody wolf girl, don't be calling some dark-haired bastard your wolf"

"They took my wolf, the day you killed the butcher's boy, Arya's playmate-"

"You're your own bloody wolf girl!"

Sansa pressed her lips together. Sandor's voice came rushing out of the night, harsh and seething, a snarl made from human words. A vacuum followed it. The night crept back in through fragments. A breeze rattling the grass. A distant owl.

"I thought I was a bird," she said quietly.

"You were," came a grudgingly muted reply, "you are. Seven hells, girl. I don't know what you are"

"You know what I want"

"Do I?"

"I know what you want"

She could tell he had risen. The tiny shiver of mail gave him away.

"Don't play this game with me, girl"

"I have a name"

Sweetling. Darling Alayne. Sweet girl. My niece has a compassionate heart and a kind soul. Oh yes, such a beautiful, soft girl. You murdered my aunt and I sang your

praises. You poisoned Sweetrobin and I wept on your shoulder. You mourned my mother and I opened my mouth for yours, all the warm tender heat of you. His coffin was no bigger than the trunk your silken gold to me was. We should have buried him in that, and I could have worn the bluebell chiffon as we lowered him into the earth. That would have been honest. That would have been real. I still think now the last time you kissed me it was for myself and not a woman butchered at a wedding, your hands in my hair. Gentle. Wanting. Always wanting.

I have wanted.

She clawed herself out of her thoughts. Sandor was talking.

"You and your sister. Prodding every wound, salting every cut. She wanted me angry, forgetful, open to stick her fancy little Needle into my belly. Wouldn't even kill me, not even when I fucking begged. And you, what are you fucking well up to? Clinging onto me like I'm your sworn shield and you're bloody Jonquil with weeds in your hair, sewing my cuts, your fingers at my mouth, touching me, always bloody touching me-"

"I missed you, Sandor"

The ground shook as he stomped over to her. She stood quickly, a ready palm to the cool grass to lever herself up.

"Don't," his breath rumbling, the thunderstorm she always imagined rolling in his eyes stirring in his throat, "if I see the fucking sign of a lie on your face-"

"You can't see my face" Sansa smiled victoriously in the dark, his hot breath puffing over her forehead. I am bastard-brave now, she challenged, carriage erect, head high. Alayne taught me much.

"I see you. I've always bloody seen you, girl"

His great fists clenched in her cloak. I know.

She closed her eyes and on tiptoes pressed her lips to his. His mouth was soft, just as it had felt to her fingertips, softer than she suspected her own lips were to the touch, the fire having burnt all harshness away. She reached upwards, hazarding where to loop her arms around his neck. The night cloaked them. His mouth opened to curse? Protest? Welcome? And she stole in before he could push her out. Let me stay.

Her left hand found purchase on his neck; straggling waves dry to her palms. Her right grazed the join of shoulder and neck, finesse gone in the press of his mouth, the hot weight of a tongue yet hiding behind teeth. Is it wrong to think he tastes of bonfires and the first snow? Her fingers brushed the scar, the horrible smoothness of each soft protrusion and her closed eyelids filled with tears.

I am Sansa. I am Sansa. I am alright now.

When she pulled back, the need for air all at once too pressing to ignore it was he that gasped. Her fingers wound themselves into his hair with a will all their own, weaving curls in his lank mane. When he spoke, raw and ragged against her mouth it was the prayer she had not realized was her own.

"Sansa"

Tears flowed strong and unbidden, streaming down her cheeks. She bent her head to his massive chest and her quiet sobs seemed to release him from the stasis her kiss had imposed. Arms encircled her shoulders, brusquely, as though irritated. His mouth told otherwise, pressed to her hair, breathing as heavily as man who has sparred without respite. She read the silence of her name on the lips mouthing against her crown.

"Don't die for me" Insistent, fists at his shoulders, "don't ever die for me. Father, Septa Mordane, Ser Dontos, Aunt Lysa, Sweetrobin they all died because of me don't you dare, Sandor don't you dare die for me I don't need a Hound I have no need for a Hound to die for me-"

Arms crushed her into silence, grappling with her as if she had been struggling to escape. She cried gratefully into his chest, months of forcibly imposed self-control and performance finally given an outlet. Jostled between his biceps and the press of his body through mail she was shaken through a storm, the pieces of herself shuffled and realigned. She imagined the dark of Alayne's hair dislodged from her own auburn in shreds, moulting feathers that came apart as they floated downwards.

Lady tossing her proud neck to the rain-kissed sky, howling at carrion, staring down grown men. The gasp in her throat the first time she beheld him, towering and fierce, a great sword like a column of grey fire in one mighty fist, the script of flame covering half his face. The next time after so long, a dull cowl falling to show the same inscription and her own disbelieving silence. The feel of his hand as she darted forward in that dim corridor to clasp it in both her own. So he is not dead.

She pressed kisses to his chin, jaw, anywhere she could stretch to reach with her mouth. Sandor lifted her up off the ground, toes suspended in air only to swing her weight in both arms and lever her to the ground, his head turning this way and that, both away from and into her affection.

She curled up under the blanket once more, his large hands awkwardly arranging the folds in the blackness. The moon emerged above, coating him in clean silver. He dropped the corners hesitantly about her shoulders, jerking minutely as if scorched by tiny flames and she smiled in teary fragments to think of him as dainty.

"Sleep, girl. Sleep. Just - sleep"

She nestled under the blanket's weight and felt along the bent grass with hot fingers.

She'd lost her feather.

She slept.