Read. Enjoy. Review. (The reading and enjoying are for you ... the reviews are for me!)
I own Lenora Baratheon, nothing more.

My name is Chloe Jane and Lyanna Mormont is my hero. (That's not a hint ... she does not show up in this chapter. It's just an observation.)

Chapter Twenty-Five: Wild Like a Wolf

Robb

The Gods had sent the Stark children their direwolves. Lenora had told him that once. He had scoffed at her and told her that he was sure that the Gods had nothing to do with it. But she had shaken her head and smiled at him, as if she thought he was an idiot. She was convinced that Grey Wind was a gift, from the Old Gods, her new ones did not deal with direwolves, and he was not going to change her mind on the matter.

And on the night of the battle of Oxcross Robb had to admit that he was starting to believe her. Stafford Lannister was massing a new Lannister force at Oxcross, just a few days' ride from Lannisport. He was training them, the force, while large, had very few trained soldiers from what his spies had told him. Stafford must have felt that he was safe in the Westerlands, Lannister lands, because he did not even bother to set up sentries. It was the man's first mistake.

There were so many castles at the border to the Westerlands that Ser Stafford must have assumed that he would hear word from the residents if Robb's host moved on them. That was his second mistake. Though, Robb was sure that even the Lannisters were not aware of the path his army took through the woods surrounding Oxcross. The path was so narrow that his men had to ride in a single file line. Whoever had made it, had long forgotten it.

The path that Grey Wind found for him.

Lenora had smiled as they moved through the woods, quietly at night. In whispers Robb had explained how Grey Wind had led him to this path. Her smile widened as she turned to look at him, "I told you," she whispered back to him. "He was a gift from your Gods."

When they arrived just outside of Oxcross he had expected a fight from her. He had expected her to once again ask him to let her join the fight. But she had surprised him. She pressed a kiss against his cheek and moved to kneel beside Grey Wind, whispering something in the giant wolf's ear before she stood and moved toward where the Silent Sisters were setting up their supplies. He had told her that she was not allowed to fight, but that he would allow her to help the Silent Sisters and she was not going argue with him.

He was glad that she didn't ask again, thankful even. He might have said yes. He didn't want her out of his sight. He didn't want to leave her side. Ever since she had told him that she loved him, he had not been able to get enough of her. He was sure that she would be safe with the Silent Sisters, but he knew that she would be safe at his side.

He took a deep breath as his cavalry began to assemble, he needed to get her out of his mind. He would be no good to his men if he fought distracted. But Gods, was it hard to get her out of his head.

He and his uncle, the Blackfish, had worked out a plan for this battle on the road. They would attack at night. It was the turn of the moon, the darkest night of the month and storming. The Lannister men would never see them coming. He sent a small group of men ahead of his host to sneak into the Lannister camp after dark and cut the lines of the horses. They weren't to set the horses free, or take any of them, that would make the Lannister men suspicious. They were just to cut the lines and then meet Robb's army back just past the edges of the camp.

Stafford Lannister had amassed this force so quickly, most of the men were not soldiers. They were men with no family names, no houses or sigils. Even if Robb's men were seen moving around the camp the Lannister men would not know they weren't Lannisters themselves. This technique would not work with Tywin's forces, they were too well trained. But it would be successful here.

Robb and his cavalry waited, quiet and still on the outer edges of the camp, just beyond a line of trees. And when the men he had sent to deal with the horses returned, Robb looked down at Grey Wind who stood beside his horse and nodded.

The wolf should not have known what to do. If the direwolf were any other creature he would not have done just as Robb wanted him to do. But, as he had done many times before it seemed as if he were able to read Robb's mind. One of the men even whispered that the wolf nodded to Robb before it took off, silently moving through the trees and into the camp.

Robb couldn't see him anymore, but he could imagine him. He could imagine the giant, grey wolf moving silently past the soldiers. He would be stealthy, no man would hear him or see him. But they might feel him. They might feel his yellow eyes on them, turn just a second too late and swear that someone or something was watching them.

Then men would not see his wolf, but the horses would. They would be able to smell him. And they would become nervous. A nervous horse that is tied up to its post is dangerous enough. But a nervous horse who is untethered, well, he was counting on them to destroy the Lannister camp.

He could hear the horses now, whinnying and stamping their feet. Within minutes the sound of nervous horses became the sound of terrified horses. They cried and they screamed and they began to run.

Men's shouts joined the din, trying to control the horses, trying to save their tents, trying to figure out what had caused the horses to run. And both above and below, all that noise he could hear Grey Wind's growl as the wolf moved through the camp, attacking man and horse alike.

Robb tightened his grip on his reigns and turned, nodding toward his men. He smiled grimly at their cries of King in the North as they charged forward into the camp.

Robb rode at the front of the host, something he had learned from his father. If he wanted to inspire his men then he needed to go to where the fighting was thickest. Every time. They rode through the tents, following men as they scurried for their weapons, hacking at them from their horses as the men screamed for help, for mercy, for their mothers.

The wolf and the terrified horses had made quick work of the camp. The men fled. Some were torn apart by Grey Wind, some were trampled by horses. Many were cut down with swords. But to call Oxcross a battle seemed a lie to him. Not that he would voice that thought in front of his men. They had been itching for a fight since Riverrun. They needed Oxcross to be a battle.

But these weren't soldiers, most of them weren't even men, but boys. Robb did not need to send his cavalry in to fight the Lannister force, he could have left it all to Grey Wind, in truth. The wolf would have finished the fight in just as much time.

As it was, the fight was done by sunrise. He attacked during the hour of the wolf and within just a few hours it was over. The men were dirty, though most of it seemed to be mud from the wet field rather than from blood. He had not seen Lenora since the beginning of the battle. As soon as the remaining Lannister men had surrendered the Silent Sisters moved onto the field. She would be with them. He meant to find her now. He was walking through the camp when Roose Bolton approached him. "Five Lannisters dead for every one of ours," the older man bragged.

Around them Robb's Northmen were stripping the corpses, taking whatever they could: boots, clothes, gold. Lady Mormont had already rounded up whatever livestock she could find and had begun to drive them towards the Riverlands to make up for the cattle the River Lords had lost with the Lannister raids. Whatever Lannister men had survived without capture had begun a quick retreat, falling back to Lannisport. Robb's army would follow them soon, but first they had to deal with this mess.

And it was a mess.

He reached up and wiped at his forehead, his hand coming away bloody. A gash at his hairline that he hadn't noticed until now. He shook his head, briefly thinking of Lenora and how badly she had wanted to join his men in battle. She was good with a sword, Jaime Lannister had trained her well. But her uncle had never told her the truth of a battle. He wondered where she was in the field, he wondered what she thought of his adventure now.

"But even with that," Roose continued. "We will have nowhere to keep all the prisoners you took. We should sell back the highborns, ransom them. And then we should question and kill the rest."

Robb shook his head, "I will not execute prisoners, My Lord," he told him. This was not the first time that he and Roose Bolton had had this conversation. He doubted that it would be the last.

"Question them first," Roose instructed. "Perhaps some of the officers were privy to Lord Tywin's plans." Robb scoffed at that, turning his head to Roose and raising his eyebrows. Lord Tywin was smarter than that. If any of the men at Oxcross knew his plans it would have been the ones that successfully managed to flee. The ones that were now on their way back to Lannisport. Not the ones that Robb had captured. Roose smiled at him as if he could read the young king's mind and nodded. "In my family we say: a naked man has few secrets, a flayed man has none."

Robb's intake of breath was sharp, "I am well aware of your family's views on flaying men, Lord Bolton," he told the older man, his eyes darting to one of Bolton' banners that still stood on the edge of the camp, the red man on a black field. "But my father outlawed flaying in the North."

"We're not in the North, Your Grace," Bolton told him, as if that made a difference.

Robb stopped walking, he glanced around him, waiting for Roose to come back to him, his eyes lighted on the snowflakes that were dancing in the air, lazily making their way down to the ground to melt in the blood and the mud of the battle. "They say I brought the North with me when I marched south," he told his bannerman once Roose had turned back to him. "So whether we are north of Moat Cailin or not, my Northmen will not torture or execute prisoners."

Roose sighed, "The high road is very pretty," he told him, slow and low as if he were talking to a child. Robb's jaw clenched. "But you will have a hard time marching your army down it."

"The Lannisters hold prisoners of their own," Robb reminded him. "I would not give them anymore reason to hurt my sisters."

The look on Roose's face told him that as far as his bannerman was concerned, Robb was putting too much importance on the lives of his sisters. Perhaps Roose Bolton was not the only one who thought so. But the girls were innocent and Robb was not going to put them in danger just to make his bannermen happy. He was about to tell Lord Bolton that when a wounded soldier caught his attention. A Lannister man.

The man was laying on the ground, his pants were stained with his own mess, his stomach torn open. He was sure that it was Grey Wind's work. It wasn't the man or the injury that caught his attention. It was what he was saying. The man moved as quickly as he was able to cover his stomach with his arm, he tried to sit up, but he fell. "Lannister! Casterly Rock!" the soldier yelled out.

Robb turned his head, his eyes wildly scanning the horizon, looking to see if Lannister reinforcements, almost hoping there would be. His blood was still up, the same went for his men.

But there were no Lannister reinforcements, just Lenora moving through the dead and the dying, helping where she could. She was beautiful, his wife. Her dark hair was braided, hanging down her back in one thick braid. A few strands around her face had escaped the braid and the wind blew them across her forehead. Her dress was ruined, covered in mud and blood, his lips turned up at the corners, if she was going to continue working with the Silent Sisters she was going to have to find an apron and sleeves to protect her from the soldiers' blood. It could bring disease and that was the last thing he wanted for her.

He heard Bolton scoff beside him and he turned away from Lenora and the soldier, just briefly, raising his eyebrows to his bannerman, silently asking him what he found so laughable. "Even the common foot soldiers claim her for their own," Bolton murmured, his light blue eyes narrowing as he watched Lenora. "Whatever you say about her being a Baratheon. The Lannister men will rally behind her if given the chance."

Robb turned back to look at Lenora. She had knelt beside the Lannister man. "Hello," she greeted the man, almost kindly though no smile graced her lips. "Do you mind if I have a look at you?" she gestured toward the man's stomach.

The man shook his head, quickly wrapping his other hand around his stomach as well. "No, My Lady," he told her, begging her. "It is too gruesome. A lady should never have to see something like this."

Lenora shook her head, her hands reaching for the man's arms. Her grasp looked gentle, but it must have been strong because slowly she started to pull the man's arms away from his wounded stomach. "I expect that I will see much worse before the end of this war, Ser," she told him.

The man shook his head again. "I am no Ser," he told her. "I am no knight. But you, you are my princess. I cannot ask you to do this."

Roose spoke up from behind Robb, "Surely there are some of our men who could use your attention, Your Grace."

For the first time Lenora looked up from the man in front of her. Her grey eyes barely landed on Robb before they moved to Roose. "Your men are not my men, Lord Bolton."

-.-.-.-.-

Lenora

She should not have said that. She knew it the moment the words escaped her lips, but she was just so angry with him. He had been bragging since the fighting ended of how few Northmen had died in the battle. She had heard him when she was tending to one of his men. This man needed her, had called out to her. There was no doubt in her mind from the amount of blood that was now staining the soldier's sleeves that he would die. She would not let him die alone.

She turned back to the man in front of her and took a deep breath, forcing the muscles of her face to relax so that he wouldn't think she was angry with him. "You're speaking nonsense," she told him, finally managing to peel his arms away from his stomach. Once she was able to pull his arms away from him she took a deep, shuddering breath. She had not been ready for the sight that greeted her. She felt tears start to fill her eyes and she quickly blinked them away. She needed to be strong. This man in front of her needed her to be strong.

He was covered with his own shit and piss. It looked like Grey Wind had attacked him and when the wolf sunk his teeth into the man's stomach his bowels had released. She had heard this could happen, but she had never seen it. Not even from the wildlings that had attacked her and Bran. She took another deep breath, through her mouth so that she wouldn't be able to smell the mess and focused her eyes on his stomach.

She could see inside of it. The wolf had torn through the man's skin and intestines. The skin was jagged, there was so much blood, and even while breathing in and out through her mouth she could smell the bile from his stomach, the food that had been digesting and rotting inside of him. He was going to die, she knew that, she was honestly surprised that he was still alive to talk to her now.

"Tell me," she commanded. "How you recognized me." She was sure that speaking would not do the man any good. But it might take his mind off of the pain, distract him. That was all she could really do for him, after all. She could sew up the skin at his stomach, but that would not fix the organs underneath. She could give him milk of the poppy, but he would die regardless and she would need the milk later for a soldier who would live. As much as it hurt to think it, trying to ease his pain would be a waste of her resources.

The man smiled, his lips bloody now, but her distraction was working, "I've seen you," he told her. "Many times in Lannisport. My father worked with the gold from the mines at Casterly Rock, my mother sold silk and dresses at the market. You stopped by her stall many times, whenever you visited Casterly Rock."

Lenora smiled at the man and nodded. She didn't remember him, she didn't remember stopping by his mother's stall. But she wanted him to think she did. "I loved that market," she told him. "There is always so much activity, so much noise, and the smell of the ocean," she closed her eyes as if she were imagining it. "I used to spend hours there. My uncle got angry at me so many times for missing supper because I was too busy eating fish kebabs at the market."

The man nodded, as if he could imagine it too. "Do you remember your fifteenth nameday?" he asked her.

She smiled, "I went to Casterly Rock to visit my grandfather. He gave me a necklace -"

"Aye," the man told her with a nod. "A ruby carved to look like a rose on a gold chain. A Lannister rose."

Lenora nodded, "He told me it was because I was the most beautiful flower to have ever bloomed at the Rock."

The man chuckled, "That's what he told my father when he asked for it."

"Your father made it?" Lenora asked him, surprised.

The man nodded. "He has never been more proud of anything he ever made," he told her.

"And you were going to learn his craft?" she asked him without thinking, bringing up the life that he would never live now.

The man smiled, "I never wanted to," he told her. "I wanted to be a knight." Lenora raised her eyebrows at that. He chuckled, groaning at the effort. "Any son of Lannisport grew up watching Jaime Lannister in the public tourneys. I was put to bed on many nights to stories of your uncle and his knightly doings. I wanted to be just like him."

Lenora pursed her lips, thinking about just how honorable and knightly her uncle really was. She wondered if this man who had grown up idolizing her uncle had heard about him and the Queen. "Well," she told him, trying to force a smile onto her lips. "You might just get to meet him. He is one of King Robb's prisoners as well. Perhaps you will get to share a cell with him."

The man chuckled at her, blood gurgling in his throat. "My Lady," he told her, leveling her with a pointed look. "Tell me, and tell me true, you do not really believe that I will leave this battlefield alive."

Lenora sighed, "Apparently I am not as good at distraction as I thought I was," she told him.

The man shook his head, "No, My Lady, you are a welcome distraction. You have been a great help."

Lenora smiled ruefully, "I wish I could be more help," she told him.

"You still can," the man told her. His eyes darted from side to side, as if looking for something, "I lost my sword when the wolf attacked," he told her. "Otherwise I would have done it myself."

He meant that he wanted to kill himself, it was obvious. He hadn't been able to do that and now he was asking for her help. Lenora sat back on her heels for a moment, watching the man, he would die with or without her help, and soon. But it would be painful. "They don't allow me a sword," she told him. "Not unsupervised."

"There are other ways to kill a man," the soldier told her, his voice quiet. He studied her, realizing just how uncomfortable she was with the prospect. "I will help you," he told her. Lenora nodded. He studied her before he nodded to. "It won't be easy," he told her.

"My uncle Jaime told me that it should never be easy to kill a man," she told him. "I think that rule still applies, even if the man asks you to do it."

The man nodded, "Right," he told her. "You're going to put one hand at the base of my head, the other in my mouth. Then, with all your might twist my head to the side."

"Will that do it?" Lenora asked, she was sure that it would be difficult, but it sounded so easy.

The man grimaced as he shrugged his shoulders, "If it doesn't kill me it will at least paralyze me. Then, alive or dead, I won't feel any pain."

Lenora watched him for a moment, "Aren't you afraid?" she asked him, her voice little more than a whisper.

"I faced down a direwolf, My Lady," he told her, trying to make a joke of it, probably for her benefit more than his. "And lived, if only just barely, to tell about it. Nothing scares me now."

She nodded and slowly started to move, her right hand slid under the base of the man's head, cupping it like one would cradle a baby's head and she slipped the three longest fingers of her left hand into the man's mouth, creating a hook with them at his jaw.

Counting was probably the worst thing she could do for the man. She wanted to offer him comfort somehow, but she didn't know what to give him. She was about to ask him if he wanted her to pray with him when the man started humming around her fingers. She recognized the tune and lowered her head toward his, her lips near his ear so only he would hear her singing along with him.

"A coat of gold, a coat of red
A lion still has claws.
And mine are long and sharp, my Lord,
As long and sharp as yours."

As she got to the end of the stanza she took a deep breath, closed her eyes and twisted his head quickly, with as much force as she could muster. It hurt, and it was harder than she would have imagined. The noise was terrifying. She sat still for a moment, before she slowly turned the man's face back to its original position. His eyes were still open and for a second she thought that he was still alive, but he had stopped humming. She glanced to his chest, it no longer rose and fell.

He was dead.

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, taking a final moment to herself before she looked up. Roose Bolton had walked away, but Robb was still standing there, watching her. She reached her hand out and gently shut the man's eyes before she stood up and wiped her blood covered hands on her skirt before she walked over to Robb. "That man died on your orders," she told him, her voice like a knife. "The least you could have done was stepped up and done it yourself."

...

She didn't see him for the rest of the day and it was probably best that she didn't. He came to her that night after supper though. She expected him to want to fight her, she expected him to yell at her. But when he came in his shoulders were relaxed, slumped even. And those blue eyes of his were soft and gentle. "Are you going to yell at me, Nora?" he asked her as he moved further into the tent and threw himself into one of the seats in front of the fire. "Are you going to fight me?"

Lenora stared at him and took a deep breath, "Would that make you feel better?" she asked him, crossing her arms over her chest as she studied him.

He chuckled, "I don't know, to tell you true," he told her as he shook his head. "I would deserve it. But I'm tired, Nora, Gods know I'm tired."

"Tired of what?" she asked him.

"Of fighting with you. Of you changing your mind about where your heart is."

"Where my heart is?" Lenora asked him.

Robb nodded, "You tell me that you don't love me, that you can't love me. And then two weeks later you throw yourself on me. We were happy, at least I thought so. You found out that you were with child, my child, and you were happy. And then you lost it and for weeks you wouldn't let me touch you. And then I finally got you back, you told me you loved me and I fear I'm going to lose you over this."

She watched him for a moment before she uncrossed her arms and moved closer to him, "You won't lose me," she told him, kneeling in front of his chair. "At least not over this," she amended, her lips turning up at the corners when his eyes lifted quickly to her face. "I just needed," she paused, trying to find what she needed. "I needed space," she told him. "And time."

Robb reached out one of his hands for her, he slipped it underneath her chin and tilted her face up to look at him. "The battle wasn't what you thought it would be?" he asked her.

She snorted, "Battle?" she asked, almost taunting. "Is that what you called it?"

"What would you call it?" he asked her.

"A slaughter." She sighed, "Those weren't soldiers. They weren't knights. Most of them had never held a sword or a spear, or a bow until my Uncle Stafford dropped one in their hands. The one you watched me with this morning, he was the son of a goldsmith, a boy who grew up in Lannisport, dreaming of being a knight. Nothing more than that."

"They killed my father," Robb argued, his voice a growl that rivaled his wolf's.

She laughed, bitter and cold, "That man?" she asked him. "That son of a goldsmith who can still remember the necklace that his father made me for my fifteenth nameday?" She shook her head, "No. My mother killed your father. My brother killed your father. Ser Ilyn Payne killed your father. But that man," she turned her head away from Robb, looking out toward where the battlefield was. "The only crime that man committed was being born in Lannisport. Of being born in a place that was under my grandfather's control."

"He fought for them," Robb countered.

"And if he had been born in Wintertown he would have fought for you."

Robb sighed, "What do you want me to say?" he asked her.

"Nothing," Lenora told him, shaking her head and standing up from where she knelt on the ground. "I don't want you to say anything. I just want to know that his death won't be in vain. That none of theirs will be."

"They won't," Robb told her, his voice was full of conviction, but his eyes were uncertain.

"Truly?" Lenora asked him, raising her eyebrows. "And what will you do when you finally make it to King's Landing? Once you get your sister, maybe both of them? What will you do next?"

"Behead Joffrey," Robb told her, not even apologizing for the threat against her brother.

"And will you sit on the Iron Throne?" Lenora asked him. "Will you be the one who rule the Seven Kingdoms, who brings peace to the realm?"

Robb shook his head. "After this war is over we will go home, to Winterfell. We will rule the North and the Trident from there."

"What about the other five Kingdoms?" Lenora asked him. "Who will rule them?"

"I don't give a shit."

Lenora nodded, "Then they will all die in vain."

"Let them split up then," Robb told her. "Let the Seven Kingdoms be their own kingdoms again. With their own rulers."

Lenora pursed her lips, "And how many years will it be before one King gets greedy and decides to take over another King's land?" She laughed, "All you have to do is read the history books, Westeros is full of greedy men fighting to take what doesn't belong to them."

"It won't be my problem," Robb told her.

"Then they will die in vain."

"Seven Hells, Nora," Robb growled at her. "What would you have me do? Stop fighting now? Go home to Winterfell now? Leave my sister in King's Landing forever?"

Lenora shook her head, "Then they will die in vain."

"Nora," Robb groaned.

"You don't want the throne," she told him. "You never did. But that is what this is now - a battle for the Iron Throne. Anyone worth sitting on it should not want it, so you will be better for the realm than the last few kinds combined. This is the only way all this death, all this destruction, all this waste is not in vain."

She sighed and looked away from him, blinking back some tears. "Uncle Jaime knew what war was like. He has been to war, he has fought and killed men. And he never told me how horrible it was. He never told me."

Robb was quiet for a moment, watching her, "My father knew about war," he told her. "He told me his stories. He warned me. But even with all that I was still not prepared for it. Your uncle never told you the truth of war because he hoped that you would never live to see it. You were strong today, stronger than you should ever need to be. And I'm sorry for that."

Lenora smiled at him. "When I was younger my mother used to tell me stories. The love stories about Maidens and their knights. Girls who were pure and sweet and who were rewarded for that with the love of a knight, an honorable man who would protect her for the rest of her days." She chuckled and shook her head. "Those stories were always so boring. All I wanted was adventure. But now I've got it and all I want is to go home."

Robb smiled at her, reaching out for her hand. Once she had slipped her hand into his grasp he pulled her toward him, into his lap. He wrapped his arms around her. "One of my sisters loved those stories," he told her. "The other one hated them. She found the others, the fairytales about the dangerous girls. Girls who were in control, girls who knew exactly what they were doing. Girls who were wild and brave. Girls who were worthy of their songs." He pressed a kiss, hard, against her temple. "You will always be one of those women, Love. Always."

She smiled at him, "And you'll keep me wild?" she asked him. "Even when all I want to do is go home?"

"Aye," Robb told her with a nod and another kiss to her temple. "I'll keep you wild. Wild like a wolf."

Lenora smiled at him and threw her head back, howling playfully.

Her smile grew wider when Robb threw his own head back and added a howl of his own.

-.-.-.-.-

The Hound

The boy King sent him after the little bird. It didn't surprise him. He had always been Joffrey's dog, of course he would fetch the girl for him. The redheaded Stark girl wasn't too much to handle, if he was telling it true he almost cared for the girl. She reminded him, a bit, of the little Princess, the one they left behind in Winterfell.

Little Bird was a poor man's imitation of Princess Lenora, but she was an imitation all the same.

Sandor Clegane had guarded Joffrey Baratheon since he was old enough to walk, nearly eleven years, the first time he had met the Little Princess she was not long past her seventh name day. A little terror with wild dark hair and bright silver eyes. The first day he met her she was running through the halls of the Red Keep, dragging her sword behind her, squealing in delight at the noise the metal made against the stone. She was heading straight for her little brother's nursery. He had caught her, right around the middle and scooped her up into the air, quickly putting an end to her mad dash for her brother. "Where are you off to, little one?" he had growled at her.

Her answer was to hit him across the back with the flat side of her sword. "Put me down!" she had commanded, her voice was a child's voice but her tone carried force behind it. She was a princess, she was used to getting her way.

"I asked you a question," he had pointed out, still not putting her down.

"And I don't have to answer," the small child had told him.

"You'll dull the point of your sword treating it like that," he told her as he set her back on the ground. She tried to run past him, but with one quick step to the side he was blocking her path. She tried to run around him the other way and Sandor stepped in that direction, blocking her again. "Surely your uncle Kingslayer taught you that."

She kicked him in the shins for that one. He chuckled, he supposed he deserved it and what damage could a little girl do? She huffed out a sigh, angry that her kick had done nothing to him. And then, as if remembering who she was she stood up a little straighter and squared her shoulders, "It doesn't matter what happens to this sword," she told him. "I go to give it to my brother. Uncle Jaime is making me a new one. This is for Joff. He's a baby, it should be dull."

"And is the little prince going to fight with that?" Sandor asked her, nodding to the sword. "It's as long as he is."

"He'll grow into it," Lenora told him as she walked around him again, this time he let her, falling in line behind her. She turned to look at him, her silver eyes darting over his face. "Come here," she commanded.

"I am here, Little Princess," he told her, chuckling at the little thing who thought she could command him.

"Down here," Lenora told him, leaving no room for argument.

Sandor had sighed, but listened, kneeling beside her so that his face was level with hers. He knew what was coming, she was a child, she didn't know that it would be impolite to ask. She would ask anyway. What he did not expect, what he did not see coming, was when she reached her tiny, child's hand up to his face and ran her fingers over the scars. "Your face is strange," she told him, not a question.

"Aye," he told her with a nod.

She tilted her head to the side, studying the unburnt side of his face. "What happened to it?" she asked him.

"I was burnt," he told her. "When I was a child."

"When you were small like me?"

He shook his head, "I don't know if I was ever small like you, Little Princess," he told her.

"Was it an accident?" she asked him.

He shook his head, "My brother did it," he told her, surprising himself with how candid he was being with the little girl.

"Your brother?" she asked, stepping back from him in shock, her hand dropping from his cheek. Sandor nodded. The young Princess stared at him for a moment longer, her eyebrows furrowed, before she nodded and turned away from him to continue her walk to the nursery. "You had a cruel brother," she told him. "My brother will never be that cruel."

Now, eleven years later, Sandor was waiting for Little Bird to finish dressing so that she could meet Joffrey in the throne room. He did not know what the boy King had planned for the Stark girl, but he had a feeling it would be cruel. The little Princess had been wrong her brother, she was older than him and had in many ways been safe from his cruelty but even she had seen it when he was a child. Her brother was every bit as cruel as Gregor.

And he had power.

Little Bird was more polite than Lenora. She was better behaved than Lenora. She was weaker than Lenora. She could not take care of herself. The little Princess would have protected her if she were still in King's Landing. But she wasn't. And Little Bird was alone, singing her pathetic songs to unfriendly ears.

Author's Note:
Hello friends! Happy Sunday. I have been up since six am because I couldn't breath out of my nose and it made sleep miserable. So it's 9:30 am and I've had about three cups of coffee, and you guys get an update!
I hope that you enjoyed this chapter! (I did!)
I'm going to go ahead and thank you in advance for all the lovely reviews I hope you will leave in that handy box down there!
And as always, the BIGGEST thanks go to those who reviewed on the last chapter:

ZabuzasGirl: Thank you!

Raging Raven: It had been a while, and I missed writing sword play so it was time. I'm glad you enjoyed it!

FanaticShipper: Hello new review friend! Welcome! Thank you so much for your review. It made my day. You are so sweet. And it's unfortunate that you wait for an update every day and I now know it, because we are on the eve of my bi-weekly sabbatical. I hope I left you a good chapter to wait on and just know ... I will be back on Monday!

Guest friend: No promises on killing Robb or not. You will just have to wait and see.

Arianna Le Fay: I'm glad that was your favorite chapter. It was definitely up there in my list of favorites too. Which is weird because most of my favorite chapters feature Jaime and that one definitely did not. I hope you liked this chapter as well. As for the Boltons ... yes, Lenora is not as stupid as Sansa. (That's all you're going to get from me on that :p).

RHatch89: I specifically do not read stories that are the same genre as what I am writing because I don't want any bleed into my story, you I hope this story isn't like the other one you are reading. As for your hope ... all I can say is that I have an outline for this story, one that I wrote out before I wrote the first chapter. It's magical. I love it. And unless I'm struck by something particularly awesome or my characters just write the chapter for me (which has happened) ... I try not to change it.
I'm not going to tell you what is in my outline, but I will tell you this ... whatever happens at the Red Wedding. If you bear with me, it will be pretty awesome. (If I do say so myself.) Not Lyanna Mormont awesome, but awesome.

HPuni101: I'm glad you enjoyed it. Roose Bolton makes everybody nervous. Which is I love writing about him. He's pretty spectacular. So as you might know, my writing is ahead of what I post. So this chapter has a lot to do with Roose, but what I'm writing today mentions Ramsey. And I'm really excited for when he comes into play.
Probably a bit too excited.
I might be a psychopath ... or it might be all the cold medicine.

Okay guys, that's all I've got for now!
Chloe Jane.