A/N:
There it is, the last piece I will ever write for this story, very different from the first epilogue.
The idea for this one is older than the original story, it probably could have worked as a standalone, but I liked having a backstory for this.
Hope you enjoy!
Epilogue II: Trystan
Sandor grinned to himself at the sight of the young man walking towards him.
A bit taller than he was, clad in shining mail, dark leather and a splendid grey cloak befitting the lord of Winterfell, with an not unattractive albeit somewhat harsh face he had had the misfortune of inheriting from his sire, Eddard Stark cut an imposing figure.
Or would have, had it not been for the little five year old girl, clad in a bright blue dress, he held on his arm who held all his attention.
Sandor wondered if he'd looked like that back when he had carried his own children around everywhere. Quite probably he'd made even more of an incongruous display what with his ugly face.
Fortunately, neither his children nor his grandchildren had ever minded, had ever been scared or afraid. Once their curiosity was satisfied ("happened during a fight"), they didn't even seem to notice the scars anymore.
"Grandpa!"
The girl all but jumped from her father's arms and barrelled toward him in a swirl of blue skirts and he caught her in his outstretched arms and twirled her around, having her squeak with delight.
How easy it was to please the little ones, he thought with an inward sigh. If only it could always stay that simple.
"Isn't my dress very pretty?" little Catelyn inquired once he was done greeting her in proper grandfatherly fashion.
"It's gorgeous, poppet," he said with all the gravity befitting such a compliment. "You'll be the prettiest girl around."
Catelyn accepted the praise as her due with a gracious nod and a wide smile.
"Has aunt Elenor arrived already?" she asked then. "I'd so like to see the new baby."
Elenor had indeed already arrived a few hours ago. It had become a family tradition to come together to celebrate Sansa's nameday and as always he was thrilled as much as Sansa was to have their ever growing family reunited under their roof.
"Yes, your aunt is upstairs in the solar with your grandmother," he informed her. "They're admiring the little one."
Catelyn beseechingly looked at her father. "Can I go, father?"
Eddard nodded while Sandor motioned to a nearby maid and bid her to take Catelyn to the solar.
"I'm not supposed to say anything, but Bethany has some interesting news, too," Eddard said before Sandor could ask him how things were going.
He lifted his eyebrows at hearing this. At twenty four years of age and married for eight of it, Eddard was three times a father already, the youngest not even out of swaddling clothes.
"You do not have to repopulate the North all by yourself, you know," he said, smiling, while clapping his son on the back in congratulations.
The tips of Eddard's ears coloured a little while he otherwise strove to appear unfazed.
There was joy in the thought that all his married children had made good matches that nonetheless weren't devoid of love. Very early on, when Eddard was still a toddler, Sansa and he had decided they would let their children decide for themselves whom they intended to marry.
Eddard had married a daughter of house Umber, a splendid political choice which was still made from inclination.
"Look who's talking," Eddard grumbled in a voice not unlike Sandor's own.
"Stopped at four," Sandor said, chuckling. And a good thing, too, he thought a bit more darkly to himself, reminded of his youngest.
They changed the subject then, talking a bit about northern politics and all the things the coming of summer held in store for them, when a flash of red caught their attention.
"Isn't that a mop of red hair I am spying there?" Eddard asked, his features lighting up.
Instead of the stern face of the lord of Winterfell, he now wore the face of the boy Eddard, delighted at having spied his younger brother.
"Florian, you ugly good-for-nothing, show yourself!"
His attempt at jumping out at them from behind some corner obviously foiled, Florian sauntered toward them with a wide grin on his face.
Sandor's second son was as much a Tully as any child of his could be. With his head of russet curls, fine features and startlingly blue eyes, he had women sighing over him practically from the cradle. Charming, smart and witty, the boy had been able to talk anyone into doing anything he wanted, including getting his own siblings into all sorts of mischief.
Florian had arrived two days ago, only in the company of a few knights.
"So you're here alone?" Eddard asked after having greeted his brother with a hearty embrace and inquired after the health of Florian's pregnant wife.
Back when Sandor had had news of his first grandchild being on the way, he had thought that with time the secret thrill he felt every time at seeing his family grow and spread like this would diminish. But he still felt a spark of delight at the thought that his second eldest would soon have his second child.
"Left Joanna and Brandon at the in-laws on the Rock," Florian said. "I wouldn't have wanted her to make the long journey in her condition and Tyrion was more than glad to have them for a while. Castle had grown empty, he'd said, with all three girls married and Gerion off in King's Landing dabbling in politics."
"Didn't you plan on visiting Riverrun?" Eddard asked.
"I did," Florian said, nodding. "Stayed with uncle Edmure for a spell and then went to see how Lord Blackwater fared at the Twins."
Sandor sighed.
"Still don't know what possessed Daenerys to give the Twins to that sellsword," he grumbled under his breath.
Florian guffawed.
"Lord Blackwater hasn't been a sellsword for twenty-five years, father," Florian said, still snickering, "I am not giving up hope you'll one day stop calling him that.
"Besides, I for one can understand the queen's decision. The man was nothing but loyal to Tyrion and it made sense to give one of the most strategical important keeps in Westeros to someone both her and her hand trusted."
Sandor sighed again, this time theatrically.
"Yes, I know all there is to know about the honour of holding a keep of strategic importance, even if it's the second ruin I have to rebuild."
Eddard lifted his hands.
"Wasn't my idea," he said, "you wanted it."
The fact that in the span of twenty-five years Sandor had been tasked with rebuilding and reorganizing the defence of two destroyed keeps - first Winterfell and now Moat Cailin - was a running joke between them, repeated at every one of their meetings. And while it was true the ruin and the surrounding lands had been given to him by Eddard, it was equally true that it had been his own idea. Both he and Sansa had suggested it to their son, thinking it would be important the keep was in working order and well defended. And who better suited to the task than the two people most loyal to the lord of Winterfell.
While everyone of course knew that, it was still fun to pretend otherwise, especially since the situation that he was bannerman to his own son was in fact very unusual.
Sandor cut a glance at Florian before he said, "It was preferable to what the queen had in mind for me."
"Hey, old man," Florian said, pretending outrage, "do not go and badmouth Clegane Keep, it's a perfectly lovely place."
Sandor scrutinized his son's smiling expression and as he had before when they spoke about Florian's new and Sandor's old home, there was a glitter of hardness in the bright blue of Florian's eyes.
They had never talked about what Florian had found when he first set foot into the place in which Gregor had been holed up for years with his men. What he did know was that Florian had ordered all the walls left standing to be pulled down and had personally put all that remained to the torch.
He'd built a new house and keep on the ashes of the old one.
"I am sure it is now," Sandor said with a smile, giving his son a nod to tell him he knew.
"Dad, grandfather!" a child's voice carried over to them, followed by the slim figure of a seven-year old boy jogging in their direction.
After having enthusiastically greeted his grandfather and uncle, the black-haired boy turned to his sire.
"Father, uncle Tystan is going to spar with one of your men, can we go watch?"
Three pairs of eyes looked at Sandor expectantly. He felt trapped. He hadn't planned to attend the spectacle ever since he'd heard it was supposed to happen. It surely was better this way and Trystan would be even glad about it, most likely.
Things like this usually didn't end well and if there would be another row between him and Trystan, and on her nameday no less, Sansa would be upset.
"All right," he said with a shrug, unable to invent a believable excuse why he could not go.
He could do it, he thought to himself. He was a grown man, lord if his own lands, father and even a bloody grandfather multiple times over, he should be able to behave for a few minutes at least.
Trystan stood already in the training yard, smilingly chatting with Eddard's wife.
He would grow into a handsome man, this son of his, Sandor mused. Girls might not chase after him as they had after Florian, but he would have no trouble finding himself a good wife four years hence when he would turn eighteen.
If only...
Trystan seemed to have sensed Sandor's presence almost the minute he appeared, evidenced by the way his easy smile vanished and was replaced by a serious, brooding expression.
Sansa and Elenor were already there and Sansa's eyed widened a bit with surprise when she saw him.
"Sandor," she said quietly when he stepped to her side and laced his fingers through hers.
Over the years, he'd hear her say his name a million times. Breathless and in the throws of passion, screaming it in pain when she gave birth, shouting it as a call for help when she was in danger or needed him to chase away a rodent running through their chambers. Scolding him or praising him or just sighing it the way she just did to let him know she appreciated him being at her side.
Still after all this time, he felt he would never get enough of it.
She turned her head to look at him, an earnest plea in her eyes.
"Please," her eyes seemed to say. "Please not today."
He squeezed her hand a bit and gave a slight nod.
The two combatants got ready for the fight.
Trystan had chosen a two-handed greatsword, naturally, and his opponent a one handed-sword and a heavy oaken shield.
"Legs not so wide apart," Sandor criticised his son's stance in his head. "You'll need to keep your balance. Don't grip the sword so tight, you'll lose all feeling in your hands."
Sadly, none of his sons was even close to being a gifted swordsman, Trystan being no exception.
They were halfway decent as their role and place in life required, but not exceptional as one might have expected of sons of Sandor Clegane. Not a one of them had a liking for swordplay, jousting or any of those highly valued knightly pursuits. They were no killers, his sons.
They had taken part in a number of tournaments, not quite embarrassing themselves or their sire, but not winning anything either. Quite probably, they were glad that now as heads of their own houses, they weren't expected to prove themselves in that way anymore.
Eddard much preferred the making of swords to wielding them, a development Sandor squarely blamed on that blacksmith his sister-in-law had married, who now called himself Lord Baratheon.
The finest steel to be found these days either came from Winterfell or out of the Stormlands and not one meeting with his eldest went by without him boring Sandor to tears recounting in great detail all the improvements he'd made to Winterfell's forge.
Florian - on the other hand - had been able to read at age four and hadn't been seen without a book ever since. At age six he'd taken to following the maester around everywhere, driving him to distraction with an endless barrage of questions.
Had it not been for the fortunate fact that young Joanna Lannister had suddenly turned from an somewhat ugly duckling - whose braids Florian used to pull - into an astoundingly beautiful swan, Florian would probably be studying at the Citadel right now.
And Trystan... Trystan just loved the land and all that lived and grew on it.
He was forever to be found in some barn or stable, or chatting with peasants or farmers. More often than not he had to be plucked from behind a plough to attend his lessons with the maester or the master-at-arms.
He was more proficient with a scythe than he ever would be with a sword and there was not a wounded or sick creature around that couldn't count on Trystan to take care of it.
At one point Sandor had to consent to give him use of part of the stables for tending to all the wounded animals he kept finding or which were brought to him once word had got around that the boy had a knack for healing ailing livestock.
Which made it all the more surprising that sometimes over a year ago, the boy had professed interest in becoming a capable swordsman and to Sandor's even greater surprise kept at it with diligence and fervour.
"He does it only to please you," Sansa had repeatedly told him; one of the sentences that lately prefaced every one of their disagreements about his treatment of his youngest.
As the fight he currently watched progressed, Trystan predictably had some trouble even hitting his opponent with the iron grip he had on the large weapon, the other man nimbly dancing out of his way every time a slash or stab of the heavy training sword threatening to strike true.
It went on for a while, during which Sandor masterfully held on to his urge to shout advice and criticism.
Then again, it wasn't necessary to do so, since his other two sons and even his grandson more than made up for his silence.
After some time, Trystan's true advantage - his endless endurance and immense strength - started to play a part. His opponent started to flag, his movements a bit heavier, not so ready to perform nice manoeuvres to evade a blow.
He had just sidestepped one crushing blow, when Sandor saw something spark in Trystan's eye.
Time slowed.
Ice ran through Sandor's veins and he watched in helpless horror as Trystan suddenly changed the grip on his weapon, holding the six foot long piece of steel - a weapon most men wouldn't even be able to hold in two hands - in one hand, bracing the haft against his lower arm while swinging it in a mighty arch above his head.
The other man looked up to see his doom coming down on him and lifted his shield, but Sandor's gut told him it would be no use.
The heavy weapon, swung with inhuman and merciless strength, would come down to split the shield, leaving death and blood in its wake.
The sound of steel hitting splintering wood tore through him and Sandor opened his mouth for a silent scream.
His heart thundering, he ripped his hand from Sansa's, barely noticing her gripping his tunic on his upper arm and ran towards Trystan's fallen opponent.
"Have you lost your mind?" he hollered at his son, terror and rage finally letting him find his voice again.
Trystan looked dumbstruck.
Sandor turned to the other man to find him looking equally unintelligent.
The shield had indeed cracked and splintered, but the man - while seeming somewhat dazed and rattled - was otherwise unharmed.
"Next time," Sandor barked at his son, suddenly feeling a bit dizzy, "choose an opponent your size."
When he turned to go, he noticed that everyone was staring in equal horror as he had just felt, only they were staring at him.
He turned back for a moment and then faced his family again.
True, there hadn't been the carnage he'd seen in his mind's eye, but had they not seen into what Trystan had turned?
Why did they look at him as if suddenly he was the monster?
The first one to move was his wife.
Giving a high-pitched sob and pressing a hand against her mouth, she turned and ran towards the keep.
Sandor's blood cooled at the sight of it.
He had overreacted.
Again. As always.
He moved to go after her but was held back by a strong grip on his arm which he couldn't easily shake off.
"What is wrong with you?" Eddard growled at him with barely leashed fury. "Can't you see how much mother suffers if you are this way? What is it about Trystan that turns you into this... this lunatic?"
This was the sort of sermon he didn't need to hear from his son.
"Have a care what you say," he barked back, forcefully ripping his arm out of his son's grip. "You might be my liege and lord of Winterfell, but under this roof, you're still my son and you owe me respect."
Without another glance he stomped on, eager to reach Sansa. To apologize. To explain. Again.
In the doorway to the keep, his daughter stood.
Poised and elegant, her shiny black hair coiled on the top of head like a crown, making the tall young woman look regal and stern like a queen. Like her mother.
"You have to stop doing this, father," she said, sadness colouring her tone. "You cannot keep hurting them both, I will not allow it."
"You do not know what you're talking about, Elenor," he said, impatience mounting, but not about to shove his daughter bodily out of the way. "This isn't for you to meddle."
Elenor stood her ground for a moment longer but then stepped aside.
When he went past her, she put a gentle hand on his arm, a silent bid for him to stop.
"What did we do so wrong, father," she asked quietly, the sadness in her tone nearly breaking his heart, "that you have to punish Trystan for it?"
He turned to her and gingerly touched her cheek for a second.
"This hasn't anything to do with you," he assured her. "If you don't believe anything else, please believe that."
He was barely up the stairs, when bright blue eyes stared at him reproachfully.
Of course, he'd have to run the gauntlet of all his enraged children before he reached his wife.
"I've heard enough," he said through gritted teeth when Florian opened his mouth.
"I don't believe that's true," Florian said, the steel in is voice as cutting and imperious as Eddard's could be. "Do you not know that Trystan started to practice day and night to be a good swordsman because neither of your other sons and your daughter could manage to be a worthy successor to the most feared warrior of Westeros? Did you know that we all think that something we did or failed to do made you treat Trystan as if nothing he does will ever be good enough?"
"This has nothing..."
Florian sneered.
"Oh yes, I know, it has nothing to do with us, I've heard that before, father. Then what is it about? Whom does it concern because Trystan doesn't know either and trust me he sure as hell would like to know!"
Sandor shook his head, getting tired of being yelled at.
"I've to talk to your mother, just get out of my way."
"Oh by all means do," Florian said, stepping out of his way and giving him a mocking bow. "She's right in there, crying her eyes out."
…
When he stepped into the chamber they'd shared for the last eight years, walked by the bed they had spent countless passionate nights in, he saw her standing at the window, back to him, shoulders shaking with silent sobs.
"Sansa, I..."
She spun around, cutting him off with a hand raised.
"No, Sandor," she said, her voice clogged with tears, but brooking no interruption nonetheless. "You do not get to say you're sorry. You do not get to apologize and explain."
He fell silent.
"I know each and every word you're about to say and I am sick and tired of them," she continued while walking up to him, putting her hands flat on his chest. "And I know," she said, her eyes boring into his. "I know and I saw. I saw the same thing you did.
"But that's no excuse, not after all this time. You have to find a way to deal with this. You owe that to me."
He lifted his cautiously, not quite knowing if he was allowed to touch her.
When he did, when he placed his hand on her cheek, she leaned into his palm for a moment, closing her eyes while another couple of tears slid out of their corner.
"I want to, Sansa," he said, despair at his own helplessness tearing at him. "Please believe that. If only I'd know how."
She opened her eyes again.
"Talk to him," she said. "Apologize to him, not me. Explain to him, not me. Tell him... everything."
He flinched.
"I don't know if I can," he said.
She took a step back, a world of sadness and heartbreak in her eyes.
"You have to," she said quietly. "Because if you don't, it would kill me to have to chose between my son and my husband."
…
Finding Trystan was not complicated. When troubled, he usually went to the paddock, sitting atop the fence and watching the horses.
Besides, Trystan was just not the right size to hide, never really had been.
At age twelve, he'd already been taller than most men, even taller than Sandor. Now, at fourteen, not quite done growing as it seemed, he was rapidly approaching eight foot.
Sandor slowly walked up to him, still not knowing what to say, how to start.
He didn't mind apologizing. For one thing because yes, he'd wronged Trystan and was not loathe to admit it.
For another, if a quarter of a century of marriage taught a man one thing, then it was how to apologize. For the bigger sins, like being a grumbling boar sometimes as well as for the smaller ones like leaving muddy footprints on a freshly scrubbed floor.
Trystan didn't acknowledge or greet him when he arrived and leaned against the fence, looking into the direction his son did, watching the beautiful black stallion whose sire had been Stranger.
"I am sorry for yelling at you," Sandor said without preamble. "Situation looked way more dangerous to me than it was."
Trystan rolled his massive shoulders but remained obstinately mute, an expression on his face that Sandor knew well enough. Dealing with children at the cups of adulthood had not been easy in all three previous cases, with Trystan, things were so much more complicated.
"Maybe I should explain...," Sandor started but then Trystan looked at him.
Hurt and anger came off him in waves.
"It's because I look like him, isn't it?" he said, the question more of an accusation. "Like your brother."
It took a while for Sandor to catch his breath. The question had hit him like a blow to the gut.
"How do you..."
Trystan snorted.
"I know you think me stupid, but how could you think I wouldn't find out?" he spat.
"I don't think you stupid," Sandor protested. "I just..."
Trystan cut him off with an impatient gesture.
"Two years ago, when uncle Tyrion came to visit, I was so happy to see him, I ran towards him while he was still dismounting his horse," Trystan said, pain lacing his voice. "He turned when he heard me approaching, but when he saw me, he flinched. His eyes..." Trystan paused and swallowed. "His eyes were so full of fear I stopped dead in my tracks."
Sandor swallowed as well. He knew his son well enough, knew that the gentle heart that beat inside his chest would have been broken at causing fear in anyone, least of all the "uncle" whom he adored.
"Then he laughed and told me to come and give him a hug. 'You gave me a quite a turn', he'd said. 'For a moment there I thought Gregor Clegane was charging towards me.'"
Sandor cursed quietly to himself. He counted Tyrion among the very few friends he had, but right now he'd gladly throttle him.
"Took me a while to understand," his son went on. "I first asked mother, but she would always try to change the subject. Then I pestered the maester and after a while I found out all there is to know about your brother."
'Not all,' Sandor thought, balling his hands to fists.
"But I am not this man, father," Trystan continued, a pleading note to his voice that nearly undid him. "How could you think that? How can you hate me for something I cannot help?"
"I do not hate you, Trystan," he said, his voice as broken as he felt. How could he, indeed. How could he let it come to the point where one of the children Sansa had given him thought he hated him. How could he have let Gregor wreck something so precious from out of his grave. "You're as dear to me as your siblings. If anything... if anything even more so."
Trystan snorted mutinously.
"Your mother had a hard time giving birth to Elenor," Sandor said, suddenly desperate to make Trystan understand. "The maester told us she would likely not bear another child again. We thought we were reconciled to having only three children, but when four years later your mother found herself pregnant again, we realized how much we had truly wished for another child. We both wept when we learned of it."
He smiled at the sweet memory.
"And even though you were a bit of an oversized newborn, the birthing went without any complications and we were ecstatic at having been given such a strong, healthy boy."
Now it was Trystan who smiled a little.
"And you were such a sweet, adorable child. A real sunshine, smiling at everyone, rarely fussy, easy to amuse and even easier to calm down when upset. Your siblings adored you, despite not having been thrilled when they learned we were to have you.
"When you grew older, you went on being the most sweet-tempered boy, so gentle and caring you could never even hurt a fly. You brought the first injured cat home when you were six years old and wouldn't leave its side until it was well again. Maester Onwin had just started to get over Florian's inquisitiveness and now had to content with you, wanting to learn all and everything there was to know about healing hurt and sick animals."
Sandor laughed quietly to himself when he recalled the discussions he had had with the beleaguered man.
"If ever there was a family needing two or more maesters," the young man had said exasperatedly, but not unkindly, "it is yours."
"At age eight, I started to see the similarities," he went on, growing serious again. "You grew with alarming speed, to an extend where even your skin could barely keep up with it. The headaches..."
"Maester Onwin dealt with them," Trystan interrupted.
"Thank the gods he did," Sandor said and then forced himself to continue. "Your... my... Gregor had similar headaches starting when he was about nine or ten years. Maybe they drove him to become the monster he was, I don't know."
He pondered for a while the good fortune that the maester had thought to put Trystan on a regime of daily exercises and a diet that helped Trystan's rapidly growing body to deal with it's changes without him falling prey to the same debilitating headaches Gregor had had.
"When you turned ten, there was no denying that the gods had given you the face and body of the worst monster in the history of humankind."
Over the last two years, he'd often went back and forth between thinking this a punishment or a particularly cruel jest of fate - or the gods - at his expense. Gregor was dead and buried. Sandor would've been content to forget about him for the rest of his life. Pretend he never even existed.
But no, he'd had to look at his face every day.
When Trystan was twelve, the same age Gregor had been when he burned him, things had really started to grow bad between him and his son. Even though he knew very well that the similarities started and ended with looks, he found himself flinching whenever he was unexpectedly faced with his son. Started to make a wide berth around every fire again, although over the years his fear of it had noticeably diminished.
He hated himself for his weakness, hated himself for not being the father Trystan deserved, but in his helplessness, often lashed out at him.
But how to explain that? How to expose his most primal fear, his most debilitating weakness to his own child?
When he was little, Trystan had often been heard bragging about his father's prowess as a warrior, about how he had never lost any tournament, how he had fought bravely alongside the queen. How he was the strongest and most fearsome man who ever lived.
How to tell him that beneath all that there was still a frightened boy who retched at the smell of burning flesh and woke in the middle of the night drenched in sweat at the notion his brother might still be alive?
"But you said yourself I was... am different," Trystan said quietly.
Sandor heaved a deep breath. He would not get out of this without telling him the whole awful story.
"I've never really told you where I got those scars," he said, gesturing to the ruined part of his face.
Trystan nodded. "I've always wondered what sort of fight would cause such extensive burns."
Of course, Sandor thought, if anyone would wonder about that, it would be his son who knew so much about wounds and injuries.
"Your mother and I decided we'd spare our children the nightmares the true story might cause and I am still not sure you should know either."
"I've a feeling I need to know," Trystan said quietly, sounding much older than his fourteen namedays. "Your brother did this, then?"
Sandor nodded, looking unseeingly into the distance, his mind going back more than forty years to a memory that still hadn't lost its hurtful edge.
"I'd played with a toy that was his. He held my face to a brazier until people managed to pull him off me," he said. "I was six years old."
He turned when he heard smothered sobs next to him and to his alarm found his son pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes, his broad shoulders shaking.
He put a comforting hand on Trystan's arm.
"It was a long time ago," he said helplessly.
Trystan shook his head vehemently and before Sandor knew what was going on had jumped from his perch and enveloped him in a bear hug, bowing down to rest his forehead on Sandor's shoulder.
As always, the boy's hair smelled of dewy grass and healing herbs, something he had almost forgotten in the years he had kept his distance from his son.
"I do not hate you, Trystan," he murmured while putting his arms around him. "I just cannot seem to stop being afraid of you, afraid you might one day just... turn," he continued his quiet confession, made somehow easier by their closeness. "I know it's stupid and illogical and I so wish I could just... stop. But I do not know how."
If you hug a child, Sansa had once told him, you wait until the child lets go of you, you're never the first to break the contact.
And so he didn't and stood for long moment holding this weeping, young giant in his arms, his own heart almost overflowing with the love he had for his son.
Eventually, Trystan awkwardly ended their embrace and stepped back, wiping at his eyes.
"How did you...," the boy started, visibly struggling for words. "How did you go on? How can one survive that and become the man you are?"
Sandor smiled at the subtle praise in his son's words. Praise he surely didn't deserve, not from Trystan of all people.
"I don't remember much of the first weeks after," he told him. "Only a haze of fever and pain and thirst. But at some point, anger and hatred found me and... gave me the will to live, if just to seek revenge. To become a man everyone feared and no one would dare to cross."
Pride was in Trystan's voice when he said, "You became what you set out to be, they were all afraid of you."
"All but Gregor," Sandor amended. "And it was him I lived to kill. I was a creature made of blood and steel, filled with monstrous black rage. I hated everyone around me and most of all myself. I only wanted to kill Gregor or die trying and I am sure I would have managed one or the other at some point."
"What changed?"
Sandor closed his eyes for a moment as he let the wave of happiness roll through him that still engulfed him when he thought of his wife.
"Your mother came into my life," he said and with a motion that had turned instinctual over the decades, curled his hand over the stone that he wore openly ever since they had fled King's Landing. He'd not once taken it off. "She put a hand on my ugly face and sang for me. She listened to me and made me laugh. She kissed me and loved me and whatever was left of my heart and soul I gave to her keeping and she's taken good care of it ever since."
Trystan leaned against the fence next to him, staring into the distance. His eyes were rimmed red, but he looked much more at ease now.
Maybe he should've have told him all that a long time ago.
But with children, one never knew when the right time was for one thing or the other.
Eddard had learned to walk when he wasn't even a year old. Florian had taken more than half a year longer. Then again, he could read at four while Eddard spent months arguing how a lord of Winterfell had his own maesters and scribes and thus no need of learning the dreadfully boring skill at all.
"Have you ever thought of forgiving him?" Trystan suddenly asked.
"Forgiving him?" Sandor asked with an embarrassing high pitch to his voice, hoping he might have heard him wrong. "Aside from what he did to me, he killed my sister and quite probably my father, too."
Trystan looked at him with grey eyes full of a wisdom a boy his age had no business having. Sometimes it made him think the gods did have a hand in making him.
"I didn't mean absolving him from his many crimes, I meant letting go of whatever it is you feel for him. He cannot hurt you or anyone you love anymore. As you said yourself, all of that was a long time ago."
Sandor stood dumbstruck, his mind only slowly processing the enormity of what his son was suggesting.
"I think," Trystan said again, sounding sad again, "things with us will never be right as long as your brother is still a festering wound in your soul."
He would see it like that, Sandor thought with fatherly pride. As a wound, something that needed to be healed.
And maybe he was right, too. Maybe he had been living with an old, untreated injury for years, pretending it didn't exist until he payed the price for his ignorance.
Sandor closed his eyes, willing himself to think back to a dream - a fantasy - he had carefully constructed and nurtured ever since the day he'd been burned.
He saw himself, sword in hand, his brother's blood dripping from his sword as Gregor knelt in the mud before him, defeated.
For years, he'd never quite figured out what he'd say to Gregor before he would swing his sword for the killing blow. There had been a thousand variations, but nothing that seemed profound enough to serve. In that fantasy, he had never struck that final blow, not for as long as Gregor lived. After he had learned of his death, Sandor had seen no point in revisiting it.
He'd shoved it to the back of his mind, but he'd never forgotten about it.
He put the point of his sword to Gregor's throat.
Then he let his arm sink to his side again.
"I forgive you," he said, trying out the words. To his surprise, he meant them.
Gregor had lived to barely over thirty years, died in agony, childless and unmourned. While he, Sandor, had a beautiful wife and an ever growing family who loved him. His son had rebuilt the keep Gregor had brought to ruin and nowadays the name Clegane didn't inspire terror and fear anymore.
Sandor had triumphed over his brother in so many ways, he could afford to be magnanimous.
Gregor looked dumbfounded.
"Why?" he asked.
"Because it's time you stop having power over me."
Then Sandor lifted his sword once again.
"This is not for vengeance, but for justice."
…
He opened his eyes to find Trystan peering at him with concern furling his brow.
"Are you alright?" he asked, "You looked as if you were far away."
Sandor smiled and patted his son's arm.
"I am alright," he assured him. "I think, thanks to you, I finally am alright."
With a sudden lightness in his heart, he looked over the field again to where the young stallion was still galloping in youthful exuberance.
It felt the right moment to focus on the present again.
"So, the beauty over there," he began. "Jennings tells me you suggested breeding him with the Dothraki horses the queen had brought over from Essos."
Trystan nodded, apparently just as eager to finally change the topic as Sandor was.
"Yes, I would love to see their endurance and speed mixed with this one's strength."
"They'll lose out on muscle," Sandor said. "Those Dothraki steeds can barely carry a grown man, let alone one in full armour."
Trystan chuckled at that.
"They're not as bad as all that," he said. "Besides I think the age of armoured knights is over anyway. Nowadays, a knight in full plate is a sitting duck for anyone with a crossbow. Even Eddard admits that no plate any smith can produce can withstand a modern crossbow bolt."
"True," Sandor conceded, thinking back almost wistfully to all the years through which he had worn full plate armour, had grown accustomed to its crushing weight, to the awkwardness of walking and riding in it. Apparently, according to his offspring, he had been part of an archaic breed.
"I guess future warfare will rely more and more on ranged weapons," Trystan elaborated, "and it will become more important how fast a horse is and not how heavy a man it can carry on its back."
Sandor nodded.
"So will you let me do this?" his son enquired, not bothering to hide his obvious enthusiasm for the project.
"There is no one who knows beasts better than you do, son," Sandor said, "besides, all of this will one day be yours anyway, so by all means, please try."
Trystan smiled his thanks and let his gaze roam over the fields and marshes in front of them.
"I am glad that I will never have to leave this," he said quietly. "I don't know if I could bear it. I want to have my family here, my wife and children..."
Sandor raised his eyebrow.
"Already thinking about that?"
Trystan coloured a somewhat unbecoming shade of pink.
"When the Lady of Tarth visited a few weeks ago...," he started but was interrupted by Sandor's groan of realization.
"The second daughter, right?" he asked and then laughed. "So you're telling me I will be connected to Lannisters through two of my sons?"
Of course, that would not strictly be true, since even the Kingslayer called himself Jaime of Tarth after he had been permanently and irrevocably exiled to Tarth by the queen.
Trystan gave him a lopsided grin and a shrug.
"No idea if she'd even have me."
"She'd be daft not to," Sandor said. Then he shook his head again, still amused. "If I remember, the lass is as tall as her mother, you might well be the only man living who can kiss her without having to get up on his toes."
"I had to stoop a little," Trystan said, honest to a fault, colouring even more.
Sandor gave a melodramatic sigh.
It was true that he had unwittingly witnessed way more intimate moments between his children and their spouses (or future spouses, as was the case at the time) than he would ever have cared to, but the thought that Trystan, through all the trouble he had given him, had found a bit of joy and happiness with a girl he liked was a happy one.
"Well, at least she's got the looks from her father's side," Sandor quipped.
"Well, thank the gods for that," Trystan snorted with barely concealed mirth.
They both allowed themselves a guilty chuckle at the unkind comment, well aware they would both hasten to defend the woman they deeply respected against anyone who spoke ill of her.
"I guess we should get back," Sandor said then, watching the sun sink towards the horizon. "Mother will wonder if we have finally managed to kill one another."
Trystan's face fell at his careless remark.
"I was mad at you for a long time," he said earnestly. "But I would never hurt you."
"I know, Trystan," Sandor said softly, finally with deeply felt conviction. "I know."
...
