A/N: Apparently I was wrong about my schoolwork. I do apologize for scarin' y'all. NEXT WEEK, THOUGH. Maybe. Just don't worry about me if I miss an update or two, 'kay?

SANDOR

Bloody buggering hells. She told you to stay, dog. He barrelled out into the cold to retrieve his horse and other belongings from the inn, wanting nothing more than to hurry back into her arms. He could still feel her silky hair beneath his fingers, the heat of her breath on his face. Make this quick.

He packed what little he had, looking scornfully at his carpenters' tools. The carpenter to the Queen ought to have better tools than these, he thought. Not even my bloody tools are good enough for her.

Stranger looked as though he was expecting him when Sandor arrived in the stables laden with his possessions to saddle the horse. "We have a new home, boy," he said, lobbing the saddle blankets up onto the destrier's back and smoothing them out. The horse snorted, maybe an affirmation; Sandor liked to have thought so.

The black horse and rider crashed through the snow back to the castle, finding an empty stall in the stables and angry glares from every man about the courtyard. Sandor scowled and spat at his feet, glaring back and hoisting his bag over his shoulder, making his way to the little old forge the Little Bird had bestowed upon him, and the quarters adjacent. The place was dank, stained from centuries of smoke, the ceilings uncomfortably low, but it seemed to keep warmth inside, at least, and there was plenty of space for building. The quarters also were comfortable enough, but Sandor could not help his awareness of just how far they were from hers. He peered out the little leaded window, his view obscured by the too-thick and bubbled glass, at the castle looming above, and wondered which of the windows he could see, if any, were hers. You should be in there, dog, guarding her while she sleeps and eats, he thought angrily, clenching his fists again. But this is what she would have of you.

Her wish is my command, he had said to the knight. He scowled to himself. Never thought she would wish you to be a bloody carpenter, did you dog? But she had been insistent. His pride had been hurt that the Little Bird thought it her place to protect him, but whatever shred of rationality he had knew she had a point.

"You said it yourself, Your Grace," he had spat, "You will not watch me walk away again. My place is by your side, not down here in some buggering old forge building tables and chairs..." but she had put a finger to his lips then, slipped her hand over his cheek, and quieted him.

"If I gave you a sword and put you in a room full of knights from the Vale, each with a sword of his own, how long do you think it will take for those swords to be drawn?" she asked sweetly. Her eyes were on his, her hand on his cheek. He could not resist her then. And she was right in her thinking, after all. "Sandor, they drew just at the sight of you—I will not put you in harm's way like that." She sounded so afraid for him. He wanted to scowl, to laugh—as if any buggering knight could threaten him—but she was holding him. How could he scowl when she was holding him?

She had held him earlier, too. When she first caught sight of him, after all her bloody knights had left them. She had run to him, just like he had always wanted her to, and he caught her, so soft, so little, sweet-smelling, all gathered up in his arms. She clutched at him fiercely, digging her fingernails into his shoulders, cleaving to him like he had cleaved to her memory all those agonizing years. It had all been over too soon. If she had not let go until summer came again, it would have been over too soon.

He dropped his bag in his chambers—he was satisfactorily moved in, he judged—and ventured into the castle to find her, to hear what she would have him do now. She had gathered an audience of her knights in the great hall, so he wandered in the corridor around it. He found a door just without the hall and waited beside it, listening to the music of her voice carry through the castle. He listened harder when he heard his name. "...there is the door. Your horses are in the stables without. See yourselves out and live as cowards, you will get no sympathy from me," and he listened as her angry footsteps made his way.

She floated by him, unaware, until he caught her slender wrist in his fingers, pulling her to him. She came willingly.

"I could take them, Your Grace," he meant to say reassuringly. It came out in a growl. "You need make no empty threats to protect me. I can do that myself." Her wide blue eyes were trained on his, unabashed, (unafraid!) and would have held her there and stared at her forever, interlacing his fingers with hers, sliding a hand around her waist...

But the blond whelp was addressing him, "Unhand her, you dog!" and laying his fingers on the hilt of his sword, all bravado. Sandor was almost tempted to see if the boy knew how to wield it, but would not subject his Queen to such a display. He was her husband, however unworthy; she must have had some affection for him.

Don't delude yourself, dog. She loves him. Wives love their husbands. But the Little Bird was squawking at her whelp, and Sandor had to repress the sneer that bubbled up from within him. She turned her attention back to him and he found he could not look away from her, even holding up the Little Bird's wrist, pointedly releasing it from his grasp, to taunt the ignorant boy who saw him as a threat to her safety.

"I will do what I must to keep you safe. I do not care if it is not appreciated. I will not gamble with your life for the sake of your pride." She spoke softly, her eyes hot and sharp in his. They were gone too soon. She spun away and stepped dutifully into the arms of her little protector, wrenching her closer as he glared at Sandor finally before turning and ushering her away.

"I came up for my first assignment, Your Grace," he said lazily, knowing she would respond, pulling her back just when the whelp thought he had her. He could hear his sigh from the other end of the corridor, and let himself have a little triumphant smile.

But it was the whelp who addressed him. "Her Grace does not sleep well in the bed we share presently. Perhaps your first assignment should be to build us a new one."

A bed to share? That's low, Sandor thought, a coldness leaking into his stomach from his heart. He looked at the Little Bird, blushing but looking at him straight. He asked her, and choked on the question, "Is that what you would have of me, Your Grace?"

After a moment, she nodded.

"As you wish," he rasped, bowing to her, and removed himself from the corridor as quickly as he could.

Bugger that whelp, Sandor thought, build you a bed to fuck my Little Bird in, you insolent little shit?! Little Bird isn't sleeping well. Whose fault is that, whelp?...Impotent little shit, more like...He chuckled darkly. The more Sandor thought about it, the more spitefully he liked the idea. It would be Sandor's bed the Little Bird got into every night, Sandor's bed that would give her a place to feel safe and warm and peaceful, Sandor's bed that cradled her even when her little boy husband was finished with her. He liked the idea very much. If it were only his bed in truth! As close as you are like to get, dog. Count yourself lucky. She will think of you every night as she lays herself down in it—that should be enough for the likes of you. What a gift the whelp had given him!

Sandor threw himself into the planning of the thing with gusto. It would be a grand four-poster bed with a high headboard, splendidly carved as befit a Queen. He remembered the twining knot work he had decorated the altar with back on the Quiet Isle and refashioned it so that it was made up of hounds and wolves entwined, snickering to himself all the while. They would decorate the posts, he decided; for the headboard he planned a pattern made out of florid vines and little birds, and the footboard, more wolves and hounds. He figured out the dimensions of the thing and began mock-ups of the various patterns on scrap pieces of firewood; he would find the wood to construct the thing on the morrow, pouring his whole being into its creation. If the Little Bird isn't sleeping well, we had best remedy that. He was grinning. I could remedy that alright...

Check yourself, dog, he growled at himself. He had nearly lost control once already, after the Little Bird unwrapped her arms from his neck when they were alone in the throne room. Taking her hand was just the beginning of all he had wanted in that moment, all he was compelled to do. Claiming her lips would have come next—married or not, she was his Little Bird—but she had pulled away, ever a dutiful little thing. He could not help his discouragement, but she did not seem disgusted. If anything, she too had been reluctant to pull away. If he had gotten her the figurine in that moment, and she had reacted just as sweetly as she later did, he would have kissed her then. He knew it. But then her bloody husband had come in before could give it to her and wrecked it all, brought the moment back to reality, where he was a wanted, lowborn scoundrel and she the most magnificent of Queens.

Her husband. If anything wounded Sandor's pride, it was her husband. Sandor would have hardly believed it if the lad had claimed to weigh ten stone, and was of a height with his Queen wife. Everything about him was slight, Sandor noticed, his voice a whimpering high tenor, his hair a limp straw yellow. And yet the Little Bird had accepted his cloak as protection, depended on it, and indeed, had won herself the North with it. Without him. It could not have been as difficult as I thought, then...

Meeting the whelp had made him cross, and in his anger he forgot himself, until the Little Bird started to cry. All the heat in his veins left him then like smoke dissipating into the air, and oh, how he wanted to hold her in that moment. But it would have been wrong—he was just a wanted, lowborn scoundrel, after all. And she was the most magnificent of Queens.

And so he did as he was bid, and built her a bed.

Once he got the pieces together for the framework, he worked night and day until the thing was finished, working the patterns from the wood with a chisel she brought to him herself.

"I hope you plan on doing some more carving, someday," she had said shyly as his fingers closed around her hand, gripping the handle of the little tool. He took it from her and set it aside, keeping his hand on hers.

"If it pleases you, my Queen."

She had looked up at him then, with a little smile. "It does. I keep the hound you made me at my dressing-table, so he can keep watch over me while I am in my chambers."

"Not as good as the real thing, Your Grace, I promise you that," he said boldly, thinking about petting her hair or placing a kiss on top of her head.

But then she slipped her fingers from beneath his and she turned shy again. "I really must be getting back to my duties, Sandor. But I wanted to see you."

She paused in the doorway and let him have her eyes one last time. "I wanted to see you too, Your Grace," he repeated, unable to think of anything else to say.

It was a half smile she gave him then, but he took it. Took it into his breast as she shut the door against the cold behind her, gathered it up with all the other little smiles she had given him over the years, so many since Winterfell, he thought, and fed himself with them. She is my peace, he had told the Elder Brother. Isn't that the truth...

He dipped the tool into the wood then, scooping out anything that was not meant for her, sanding it and shaping it, blowing the sawdust from the thing so closely he might have kissed it. With every sweep of the tool he thought of her, sometimes savouring the memories he already had of her, sometimes indulging in memories he wished he had. He wished he knew what her smiling little lips felt like, on his cheek, or his neck, or under his own. He wished he knew what her hands felt like knotted in his hair, or flat against his chest, or...

Check yourself, dog! And he carved furiously; you will not be the one sharing this bed with her. Wishing it were so will gain you nothing. Stop pretending.

And furiously he carved.

When the decorations were finished and he had admired his work for long enough, he carefully broke down the bed and carried it into the castle. Upon finding her chambers he disassembled the bed she had been sharing with the whelp and erected his own in its place. He bribed a washerwoman to find him silks to drape from the posts, and when he was finished it was a lovely thing indeed he had built. Fit for the Queen. The whelp might have commissioned it for his wife, but Sandor had built the bed for his Little Bird.

He could not help himself—he imagined what it would be like to lay her in it, wrapped up in satins and silks, the bed puffed up with soft feathers and more pillows than any girl could ever want. He imagined what her red hair would look like spilling out over clean white linens, the radiant ivory of her skin unable to hide the flush in it, the blue of her eyes the same colour as the moonlight that might be spilling in from the window. He imagined the grip of her fingers on his arms and shoulders as he lowered her down, her breath on his face as he bent to kiss her forehead, her happy sigh as he tucked in the furs and quilts around her. He would not imagine...not now, anyway. He would wait for darkness and privacy. It was still light yet.

"Her Grace requests entrance, m'lord," the maid at the door was saying. Sandor nodded and uncrossed his arms.

"Tell her to close her eyes."

The maid disappeared and a moment later the Little Bird tiptoed into the chamber, her eyes closed and a smile on her face.

"Can I look now, Sandor?" She might have been giggling. It was a beautiful sound.

"Not yet, Little Bird," he said, using her nickname again for the first time since the throne room. She did not correct him, but her smile got a little bit bigger. His heart sang. "No peeking, now!"

He took her elbow in his left hand and let the fingertips of his right rest between her shoulder blades. Gingerly he guided her across the room, letting her giggle and beg as often as she liked, until he stood her at the foot of the bed, turned her the way he wanted her to see, and folded his own palms over her eyes.

"Alright, Little Bird, open your eyes," he rasped, his heart racing. She reached up to move his hands as he lifted them away from her face, keeping her grip on them even after she had gasped, gushing over the thing, using words like lovely and brilliant and stunning and perfect. She let him go for a moment to run her fingers along the patterns in the footboard for a moment before spinning and leaping up to embrace him, and he caught her fast around her waist, something in his chest threatening to burst as he held her to him, her feet off the ground and her breath on his neck.

She leaned back after a long moment, but he did not put her down. She did not seem to want him to, though, as she brushed a piece of hair away from the burned side of his face, looking down at him so boldly and smiling still. "Are those wolves I saw in the patterns?"

"They are, Your Grace. And little birds too."

She beamed, but her face fell for a moment before she asked, "what about hounds?"

Sandor smiled so big he thought his face would break. "Aye, Little Bird. Hounds too."

"Are they with the wolves or the birds?"

"Both." He turned so she could look on it again without putting her down, and reached out to point out his designs on one of the posts. "The little birds have the hounds to protect them, see? And the hounds," he slipped his arm back around her again, "have the wolves to protect them."

"I thought hounds could protect themselves," she whispered, petting his hair. She's petting you, lucky dog. Savour this.

He sighed happily, laying his head on her shoulder. "Usually they can, Your Grace. But sometimes they need a wolf to guard their backs."

"Any kind of wolf in particular?" She asked. She was playing with a lock of his hair now, and looking straight into his eyes. She is flirting with me. Seven save me, she is flirting with me.

"Direwolves are preferable, my lady," and that was it. He had to kiss her. He pulled his head off her shoulder and moved a hand from her waist to cradle the back of her head, but before he could pull her to him a pair of footsteps echoed in the corridor without.

"That will be Harry. You had better put me down before he comes in," she said, still stroking his hair.

"And if I refuse?" he rasped, ducking his head back against her shoulder.

"Do not put me in that position, Sandor," she whispered sadly, her hand stilling. His heart sank, and he lifted her gently to the ground.

And just like that, the moment was gone; he was just a wanted, lowborn scoundrel again. And she, the most magnificent of Queens.