AUTHOR'S NOTES:

-Thank you for all your lovely comments and support. Your reviews make me keep going. I've outlined the majority of the plot now, and I'm looking forward to some scenes coming up!
-I am preparing for final exams next week, and have been turning in big projects and assignments the past two weeks. Also, a dear friend of mine passed away last week, so things have been stressful. Sorry for the slow updates.
-All other story info (content warnings, character age adjustments, etc.) is at the top of Chapter 1. Enjoy!

CHAPTER 10

The wineskin was empty and the girl was sleeping. The glow of dying embers played against the uneven contours of the Hound's face as he watched her, his temples stirring with the idle grinding of his jaw. He sat on large stone by the coals, his elbows on his knees as he rubbed his palms together, trying to decide. The moon was whole in the sky this night, and it bathed the rocks and trees in ghostly gray light. He saw her move, murmuring with discomfort and turning onto her back, and then she was still. Her breath was light and regular, her chest swelling and falling with a rhythm that calmed his tensions, and he went to her.

When he was close, he saw that she had an arm stretched out across the moss by her bedding, fingers curled into it for security, but her head had rolled to one side, lips parted. She was far, far away just now, in the deep of a sleep long awaited, the kind of rest one can only have after enduring horror. He walked around to her left side and wasn't careful, testing to find whether she reacted to the sound. She didn't move when he bent and crouched on the ground, one knee pressed into the cool dampness of the earth. Her other arm was pulled across her belly, the hand cupped against her ribs, and he slid a thumb beneath her palm, dragging the arm away.

He stopped then, watching her eyes swimming beneath her lids, but she didn't shift. Tactful, he loosed two of the buttons at the seam of her vest, paused, glanced at her face, and then released the last. With painstaking care, he parted the wool panels and peeled them away. If she starts, what will you tell her? It didn't matter, he knew. She'd not let him this close when she was awake, not yet, and she had to be looked at. If there was a break, she couldn't ride anymore, and he didn't know what he'd do then. Testing her responsiveness again, he mumbled, "Don't wake," aloud. Then he reached.

He only raised the shirt a little, baring her hip and a bit of stomach, and then he kicked at a limb sitting halfway out of the ashes nearby. It was enough to stir the embers and spark a flame, and he leaned to move the sooty sticks back to the top of the coals. After a moment, a waning little fire was crackling once more, and, coupled with moon glow, the light was better. The girl remained fixed in her slumber, her hand limp in the moss. Slipping his fingers beneath the hem of the shirt, he squinted at the paths of discoloration that ran along her hip bone and up her side, pooling into darker marks here and there beneath the skin. He dragged the fabric up gradually as he followed the trail of bruises, and then the knobby outline of her ribs shone in the flickering light, awash with wide fingers of dark plum and brown and black.

It was a torment to look at, but he kept careful when he set his hand delicately upon her midsection, watching her. Her stomach moved against his palm as she breathed, the skin soft and tepid from the heat of the fire. When his fingertips traced along her ribs, he stayed his breath, barely touching her while he looked for swelling or knots in the bone. Finding nothing significant, he went to pad his thumb at the heart of the bruise, when he pressed too firmly. The girl made a sound, her brows gathering at the sting, and the Hound's hand recoiled. As he stared at her, a moment passed, and then she settled, breathing out long and calm.

It took him an absurd number of seconds to let himself move again, and he slid the fabric back over her stomach, only bothering to secure one of the vest buttons. Then he was slinking away from her, planting himself on a ratty blanket he'd thrown over the mossy earth. He settled on his back, his scar leaning against his arm, and felt himself relax. At worst, they're cracked, maybe not even that, he decided. She'll heal. He shut his eyes and gave himself to the dark, descending gradually into the murky pit of his mind while the fire sputtered out again. Before the cruelty of dreams took him, the last thing he thought of was the savored closeness of her skin, a moment in time hiding in some corner of his subconscious where he kept all fragile things; things that were only allowed to drift into focus when he was just on the edge of sleep.

…

He'd been up for at least an hour before the girl began to stir on her bedding. She made a noise, turned, and settled on her side, her cheek propped up on a pale arm extended across the earth. All but her lips were shrouded by the curtain of hair that had slid over her face, and she'd curled herself up like a cat. The Hound watched her squirm on the fur and then went back to his work, dragging an oiled cloth over the mail shirt draped over his knee. His plate armor sat in pieces by his boot, dented, but clean.

On the occasion that he wasn't wine-sick, he was at his calmest in the early mornings, when the light was pale and clean, and the mist still clung to the trees. It was then that he went about his lonely routines, seeing to Stranger and eating a little and tending his gear in the murky quiet. Sleep had a tendency to dull the ire at his core, and the few hours after dawn let him be the simplest part of himself, yawning and carrying out his habits before the demons caught up with him.

Now, the quiet was receding and the world was waking up, the little pile of girl rousing along with it. She sat up without a sound, her legs curled beneath her and her eyes gazing about, unfocused and blinking. Her long hair was riled up in copper wisps around her cheeks, mussed by slumber, and her brow furrowed as she rubbed her palm against an eye. Then her body seemed to remember its pain, and she grimaced at it while she crawled to her feet. She was hugging herself against the chill of dawn and dew, looking at him.

He looked back. Wordless, she shuffled through the ferns to retrieve the waterskin that sat on the ground near his armor. She pulled the stopper and sniffed at it to be sure it wasn't wine, and then took a sip, swished it through her mouth, swallowed it. Turning, she let the skin slip from her fingers and wandered off, disappearing behind the two hulking boulders at the foot of the forest hill. He could hear her scuffling up the slope as he finished his polishing, and he lifted the mail to look at it, shaking it out. Good enough. He knew he ought to put it back on once they were moving again, but it was nice to have the weight off.

Though the Lannisters cared little for the bird, they would likely be in pursuit for a while, at least until Joffrey grew lazy and distracted and dismissed her as dead. Surely, they'd found her dress in the dungeons by now, and even with a slayed brother of the Kingsguard on the stairs, the possibility that she'd gotten away wouldn't seem likely. No, Joffrey would assume that Boros struck down the marauder whose neck the Hound had snapped, and that whoever killed Boros would have killed the Stark girl too, once he had dragged her off and had his way. That was the nature of a siege. Cersei, though, she was the stubborn one. Whether she would insist on a thorough search of the surrounding lands, the Hound wasn't certain. He'd covered their first fire and picked up the slipper the bird had left by the well, but Cersei didn't always act on evidence. She had a madness to her.

When the girl came back to the glade, she was tucking her shirt back into the hunter's trousers and adjusting the vest. Her hands still had traces of the cell smudged across her fingers and beneath her nails, her face was dirty, and her feet were brown and gray with mud and ash. She noticed, and looked repulsed as she stretched her slender digits out before her.

"There's a spring," the Hound told her, gazing up at her through the dark section of hair hanging over the wreckage of his left eye. "Up where you were. It feeds out of a rock face, up the hill."

Her eyes got a little bigger at that, and she turned her head to gaze up the incline. "I didn't hear any water, but then I wasn't looking."

When she looked back at him, he was already up and striding past her. "I'll show you. I've been here before, I remember it."

It had been years, though, since he'd accompanied Joffrey on the only hunt Robert had bothered to include the young prince in. This was the farthest they had gone then, and with thirsty dogs and tired men, the spring had been a welcome sight. Now, he was only half-certain he knew which side of the hill it was on. The girl kept up with him, though. She stumbled some, and huffed at the branches that tickled her face, but she stayed right on his heels as he climbed the slope. The stone outcrop wasn't far up at all. Looking back, he could still see the two huge rocks that marked their camp below.

"Don't break your neck." He went first, keeping close to the rock face as he moved along the ledge. It was wide enough to accommodate two horses abreast, but he warned her all the same.

The spring was still there, a clear stream soaking a long dark tear down the face of the rock, and it slipped off to become a tiny waterfall beneath the lip of the outcrop. Well, it was more of a dribble, really, spattering into a bucket-sized hollow at their feet before streaming off down the cliff.

He cupped his hand beneath the trickle and leaned down to drink it from his palm. Never in King's Landing had he tasted water so sweet. Mountain water. He splashed another palm-full against his face and straightened to regard the little bird as he wiped the droplets away with his sleeve. She wasn't chirping at him, as she once had, but was observing closely, looking at the clean water with hunger. "Don't be too long," he stated roughly. Then he was rounding the corner of the cliff and heading back down the hill so she could scrub the dungeons off of her.

And the men. The thought unhinged him momentarily, a flood of anguish that swept his resolve away in its wake.

By the time he'd gotten back to the fire, his stomach was ice, and he had to guzzle a few heavy sips from his second skin of wine to quell the loathing that had rekindled at his center. Like a biting animal, it riled and then recoiled, shrinking away into a quiet, gnawing sort of disgust that he could control. To busy himself, he set about packing up the girl's bedding and covering their ashes, and he did this with alarming speed.

When she came back, Stranger was packed and the Hound was sitting on the ground against one of the boulders, His chin was on his chest with his eyes half closed and his long legs stretched out on the ground. The bird looked almost herself as she shuffled near him. Despite the purpling bruises at her nose and brow bone, her face was clean, and her hands too, and she'd plaited her damp hair into a long braid at her back, tied into a knot at the bottom. She had redressed when she wasn't completely dry; moisture had soaked through her sleeves and pant legs in places, but her boots were on and she was ready to go.

Pulling himself to his feet, the Hound went up the hill again, taking his turn at the spring. It was agonizingly cold; he was shivering by the time he'd gotten most of the sweat and blood off. He refilled their waterskins, washed out his cast iron pot and clay cup, and then returned to the camp to find the girl crouching over the soil, poking at mushrooms with a stick. The skin of her throat was still goose-pimpled from the icy water, and she looked brisk and alert for the first time since he'd taken her from the castle. When she saw him, she went obediently to the horse so he could help her saddle.

They were riding well away from the glade when he asked her, off-handed and brief, "Feel better?"

She only nodded beneath his chin, clean and rested and healthier for it. She was not alright, she was not at ease, but he would carry her across the world and she would keep living.

…

They rode away the day. Every so often, she would say some small, nervous thing, a comment on the loveliness of the old trees, how they reminded her of her home. Sometimes she would ask for a bit of food or water, or to be let down from the horse so she could relieve herself or stretch her legs. He granted her needs with minimal civility and spoke sparingly, his mind on where they were going. If the bird had been willing when he came to her room at the Keep, he would have gone through her things and packed better for her.

If she had been senseless, maybe. If she had been mad.

It hadn't gone as he'd wanted, though. Thus, a mount and clothes and personal effects were all things she lacked, and if he meant to get her North, he'd have to remedy that. He also wasn't keen on riding hard for Winterfell yet, not just days after the both of them disappeared from King's Landing. A mad dash north smelled like folly, so he had decided to stay south of Blackwater Rush for a time, and to ride southwest to the tiny trading town of Tumbleton, nestled by the north-most tip of the Mander river. He could find a horse there, maybe hear some talk, find out if some reward had been offered for a highborn girl.

You'll have to cover up that fucking hair.

It was beautiful against the dull gray of her vest, braided and clean and shining like copper coins when they passed beneath a patch of sunlight peeking through the canopy.

The sky grew golden, then blush, then a deepening blue, and again, they made camp for the night. Dusk was on them, and the Hound left her with a crackling fire while he went to forage and hunt in the waning light. He was a better trapper than a bowman, but he did well enough to bring down a pheasant when it startled from its sleep and tried to take flight.

The girl looked forlorn when he was gutting it with his dagger, cutting out the best of the meat and not bothering to pluck. His bad side facing her, he met her pity with insolence as he pulled out one of its beautiful tail feathers and handed it to her, fingers covered in gore. He saw her nose twitch at the macabre offering, but she took it and looked away. In his bloodied grip, the feather had been a gruesome thing, a symbol of slain innocence, predator and prey; but in her hands, it was something very different, something pretty and unspoiled. She ran it between her fingers and twirled it in her lap as she stared into the fire.

When night fell onto the wood in earnest, their fire had died to cinders and the bones of their dinner baked in the powdery coals. Stars blanketed the black sky in the millions, fighting to share the heavens with the glow of the moon. There was no wind, and even the crickets only chirped every now and again. The forest was gripped in some strange, dense quiet that seemed unsettled whenever some creature could be heard disturbing a leaf or a branch.

Yet the girl didn't sleep. She was on her bed roll with her back to him, on the other side of the fire, but the way she breathed and moved her head at every infrequent little noise told him she was awake. She was listening to the night, her shoulders hunched and frozen. She almost looked like a child laying there, waiting for some beast to leap from the shadows.

"Still awake." He was tired, and his voice was gravelly as it carried across the dark.

She scuffled beneath her blanket and turned her shoulders, rolling her head over and just looking at him.

"What is it?" he asked her flatly. He reached up to wipe the back of his hand across his eyes.

When he looked at her next, she was peering across the space with her nose buried in the fur. "It's nothing. I'm sorry." She glanced away, her eyes on the trees, and then started to turn over again.

Rasping a sigh, he sat up and scratched at his ribs before standing and taking his blanket with him. He caught her staring straight up at him as he spread it out on the soil a few feet away from her. "I only sleep hard when I'm drunk, bird," he grunted, smirking in the gloom, lowering himself back to the ground. "If someone comes, I'll be up well before you. You can shut your eyes."

"I'm not afraid," she lied. "I didn't mean to keep you awake."

"Then sleep," he rumbled at her, impatient. The ground wasn't as soft here, and he shifted irritably on his back until he gave up and closed his eyes.

His arm was draped over his eyelids and his muscles were beginning to loosen when he heard her exhale. Then she moved, and he picked his arm up to find her sitting upright. For a long moment, he watched her in the moonlight. Her loose hair spilled down in waves, and her hands grasped her elbows. She was thinking, gazing off at nothing at all. Now, he could see it. She was remembering, and that was a mistake.

"Stop."

Startled, she turned her head, and he assumed she was looking at him, though it was too dark to tell. "Stop what?" She sounded so meek, frightfully small. For whatever reason, she added, "I'm sorry."

"Stop your sorrys," he rasped. "And stop thinking of the dungeons." Oddly, he was glad of the night just now, glad she couldn't see his burns clearly. "You'll only dream of it if you do."

"I have." She reached up, pulled her hair around one shoulder, and shivered. Then he saw the outline of her cheekbone as she angled her face down at him, and the despair in her voice sent a chill along his arms, making the hair bristle. "I don't want to sleep again."

He couldn't bear it suddenly, the weight in his chest. Something came tumbling down there, and he felt the ice in his stomach again as he stared upward. There was a rawness to his voice when he asked it of her, something he shouldn't have, didn't have the right to, but he asked her anyway. "I know it's your hole to mend. I know I shouldn't ask, but I am. In the cell, your dress was gone." The chill of night made her breath mist in the air, and he could see her exhale as she began to cave, her face falling to stare at the dead campfire. He sat up. "Look at me." She did, and he thought she might start crying again but when she didn't, he asked it. "Did they?"

Why ask her this? Done is done. You can't help her.

For a while, she said nothing, just gazing up at him for moments long and uneasy.

She doesn't understand.

Then, "Oh." She looked away, and for an instant, he wanted to grab her, make her answer him, but he remained still, his eyes burning holes in the dark. He saw her shake her head, and his shoulders let go. The weight fled, and he felt like he was falling into the very earth at the relief of it. "No," she said. "They beat me, but not that. I felt certain it was going to happen." She plummeted into the memory, her words hurried. "Ser Meryn was right over me, but he didn't. He couldn't. He said so himself. Then he just—"

The Hound flared, and she saw it. His eyes must have been wild. "Meryn?" He was flummoxed, and the poison was burrowing its way back into his gut as she stared at him. "You said nothing of Meryn."

"What?"

"That cunt was there?"

She was gaping, stumbling over her words. "I…yes. But I didn't… I thought you killed him."

"I killed two."

"Oh. I didn't know the third man, I…"

The Hound spat a curse, and then he was looking away from her, his molars gnawing. Nothing was said for what must have been several minutes. He was seething in it, boiling in the vast depth of his ire. By the time he fell back out of it, he saw her in a different way, and she was crying.

He reached. "No," he grunted. His hand heavy on her shoulder, he pressed her, making her lie back down. "Don't cry." The words were quiet and steady, and she did as she was bid. "Close your eyes, go on."

Wiping her nose on her arm, she whispered. "I'm sorry. I should have said—"

"It's not to do with you. Go to sleep."

She pulled the fur up to her chin. "But you're so cross. I don't understand. Meryn fled before you came. You didn't know about him."

"Aye." He watched her and saw her shrinking under his look. "He did. And he lived. Go to sleep, I said." He spat in the dirt and got to his feet, stooping to get his wineskin from a saddlebag on the ground.

Then she seemed to understand. "Why does that make you so angry? If he hadn't left, I might not have been spared the…the..."

"He should have been there." the Hound hissed, riling. "Waiting for my steel. Waiting to piss himself while I gutted him against the wall."

When her voice finally emerged again, it was a whisper. "I heard you kill the other two. I heard it," she said, at once both frightened and demanding. "You loved it. You loved making them die."

"Oh yes, bird. I loved making those shits die." He stepped closer to her, and he could feel her watching him from her bed. "I love making them all die. Again and again."