"Hello, Sandor," Bran greeted monotonously.
Sandor entered the boy's bedchamber anxiously, pulling up a chair beside him. Bran was sitting beside the window, staring out into the yard below as still as a weirwood tree. His bed was unslept in and Sandor wondered if this alleged Three-Eyed Raven ever found rest. Despite it being first light, the crippled boy seemed indifferent by Sandor's early arrival, as he did with everything else.
"I need you to help me," Sandor pleaded. "I had a dream."
"That Sansa died?" Bran asked plainly, turning his head towards Sandor. He gave the boy a staggered look and slowly nodded his head.
He will know. He knows everything.
"I cannot help you, Sandor," Bran uttered.
"How not?" Sandor asked incredulously. "I thought you could see things that haven't happened yet."
"It would be impossible to explain to a man what I can see," he turned his head back towards the window. "I do not know everything. Not yet."
"Sansa said you told her I would come back to her...that she would have my child, a daughter," Sandor sighed, the image from his dream haunting him.
My daughter. Pale. Lifeless.
"I told Sansa she would be a wonderful mother. Any man who knows her knows this to be true. I told her you would come back because I could see you travel to and from the Wall, knowing the Others could not pass. I told her she would have your child because I saw it, somehow," he paused.
"Have my child? Have? And what then, she bloody dies?" Sandor grimaced at the thought, clenching his fists into his lap.
"I saw Sansa and a child, nothing more. It would be impossible to explain to a man what I can see," Bran repeated. A moment of silence passed between the two. Sandor did not know whether to feel relieved that Bran had not seen a vision of his sister's death or fearful that not even this Three-Eyed Raven could help him. "Jon and Daenerys will ride north of the Wall today," Bran mentioned in a whisper. Sandor wanted to clout the boy on the head for changing the subject, but mention of the Wall triggered another memory from his dream.
She had blue eyes, burning like ice.
"Why did they wait?" Sandor asked.
"The dragon, Viserion, was injured. The other two would not fly without him," Bran explained.
"Injured? How the fuck does a dragon become injured?" Sandor asked, dreading the response.
Do not say it. Do not fucking say it.
"The Others," he whispered. The door to the bedchamber flew open with Jon Snow standing in its entrance.
"Bran, are you all right?" Jon asked, staring at Sandor suspiciously.
"Hello, Jon. Yes, I am all right," the boy answered stoically.
"I hear you're leaving." Sandor stood up and walked towards the bastard.
"We should have left yesterday, but when you and the others arrived, Sansa begged me to stay for her wedding," Jon explained uncomfortably. The two sized each other up despite their cordial behavior in the godswood last night.
Traveled to the Wall for this bastard and he still does not trust me.
"What happened to your queen's beast?" Sandor asked.
"The dragons went past the Wall while hunting and Viserion's wing was struck with a blade of...ice," Jon looked towards Bran and brooded. "Bran saw it but he has confirmed that the Others have not moved past the Wall. Daenerys' dragons are ready now; we will ride, burn as much of the dead as we can to the ground, and return to Winterfell. Should any remain, we will continue to make rounds until they are destroyed. If they cannot make passage through the Wall, we might escape having to battle at Winterfell entirely," Jon explained with feigned confidence.
That can't be true. If the dead cunts are killed by Jon and his queen today, why the fuck did Beric and Thoros see me fighting at Winterfell?
"When this war is finished," Jon continued, " you will lead the Northmen to King's Landing for the next war," Jon informed him. Sandor chuckled scornfully, enraged at the bastard giving him orders.
"I believe that is up for me to decide, not for you to demand," Sandor corrected him. "I am the Lord of Winterfell."
Jon had to lift his head to face Sandor as he towered over him, giving him a mistrustful glare. "I have promised Daenerys our forces in her war if she assists us in ours," he raised his voice. "Sansa would never dishonor House Stark by failing to repay that debt. Remember, you may now be their Lord, but these men fight for her , not you. News of your marriage has already resulted in demands for an annulment and the day has just bloody begun," Jon sighed and attempted to regain composure. "But some have come around," he eyed Sandor cautiously. "Do not make me rue the day I let you marry my sister. The threat still remains, if you ever harm her in any way, I will take you into that yard myself and cut your head off."
Sandor grinned sardonically and pushed past the boy, nearly knocking him over. "Good luck today, Snow."
"Brother!" Thoros shouted as he approached them in the practice yard. "Or should I say, my Lord," he laughed and took a swig of his wine.
"You should say, 'let me take a look in one of my bloody fires and see if my fancy fucking Lord of Light has any grim news to bear me'," Sandor rasped.
"What is it?" Beric interrupted, sheathing his sword after he bested a Winterfell lad in the yard.
"A dream," Sandor sighed. His demeanor slowly transitioning from irate to desperate. "I saw Sansa, she was…" He could not bear to finish the thought.
"The Lord of Light shows us what he wants us to know," Beric explained, Thoros nodding in agreement. "We are not all-knowing. We do not know why we have seen you or Sansa in the flames, but it would appear that you have a bigger part to play in what is to come."
"Did you not tell me that same shite when we headed to Winterfell?" Sandor said gruffly.
"I tell you because you seem to forget," he defended. "I looked in the flames this morning, as I do every morning and every night, and I have not seen anything of Sansa, neither has Thoros. If we caught a glimpse of her safety being threatened, we would not keep that from you," Beric assured him.
"My lady," Thoros greeted with a friendly smile. Sandor turned around and spotted his wife approaching them in the yard, her face still and her eyes full of irritability.
Gods, she is even more beautiful when she is shooting daggers at me with her eyes.
"My lady," Beric said warmly.
"Hello Thoros, Lord Beric," she greeted them kindly. Sansa shifted her glance to look at Sandor. She was without a doubt upset at him for rushing out of their bedchambers earlier that morning after he woke from the terrifying dream and running to discuss it with her brother.
I can't tell the little bird why I had to leave. I will not cause her to stress over this bloody dream.
"Jon and Daenerys are leaving," she said. "We will see them off." She gave Thoros and Beric a half-smile before turning, walking towards the entrance without another word. Sandor noticed that her temper had become much more volatile since becoming with child.
Aye, that's my seed in there, filling her with a fiery temper much like the one of the man who put it there.
Sandor would have laughed at her short-temper had it not been for the dream on his mind. He followed behind her, out the gates of Winterfell to watch as Jon, Daenerys and her three dragons took off to go beyond the Wall.
Just as the sun set in the West, the riders returned, but with only two dragons.
"You are leaving," he muttered to Sansa after their private meeting with the Dragon Queen and Jon Snow. Sandor left the solar with a fast pace and departed out into the yard, making way towards the Great Hall to present the news to the other lords and men in Winterfell.
"Excuse me?" Sansa pulled on his arm to stop him.
"You heard me, little bird. You need to leave. I want Arya with you and no less than fifty men to escort you out of Winterfell. And I want you to take that wolf of Jon's." When he turned back towards the Great Hall, Sansa did not follow. He looked over his shoulder and saw her with her arms crossed, waiting for him to return to her.
Gods, this little bird and her bloody temper.
"I am the Lady of Winterfell, and I will not abandon Winterfell on the brink of war!" She raised her voice, grabbing the attention of those nearby in the yard. Sandor grabbed her shoulders gently and leaned into her, speaking in a whisper.
"You must leave. You heard what your Three-Eyed Crow of a brother said. Those dead cunts are going to raise that dragon's corpse and use it as a tool to get past the Wall. I will not have you here, pregnant with my child, to be attacked by dead men with a dead fucking dragon."
I can't have her near, not after that gods forsaken dream.
"So you will have me go where exactly? South where there awaits yet another army?" she fought back.
She does not understand, she doesn't know what I saw last night. Her face pale and her eyes blue, burning like ice.
"The Riverlands...I do not know, just away from here. That is the end of this discussion, little bird." He released her shoulders from his grasp when he thought he might lose his temper from her resistance.
Does she not realize that sending her away is more painful for me than it is for her? She doesn't know why I must do it. She can't know why.
"How dare you think that you can order me to-"
"You are my bloody wife and you will do as I tell you!" he shouted. The yard grew eerily quiet, followed by the sounds of whispers coming from those who witnessed his lashing out.
Sandor had never felt so disgusted with himself as he did in that moment. Remorse overwhelmed him once Sansa's demeanor transitioned from angry to humiliated, wounded by his words. Though her face was still, crafty at manipulating her emotions publicly, he could see the pain in her eyes.
This is why none of the Northerners wanted her to marry me. No one wanted her to be disrespected, abused by a man who they can only see as the savage Hound. And here I am, proving them right.
"Sansa," he said softly, taking her hands into his. She pulled away and turned in the opposite direction towards the main tower. Sandor sighed, despising himself for taking his stress out on her. None of this was her fault and he hated how he could not tell her why he was acting like this, anxious and scared.
Fire and the fear of losing her, the only two things that have ever scared me shitless.
Sandor wiped his face with his hand, feeling like the worst shit alive, and turned once more towards the Great Hall. Looking down on him from the ramparts stood Jon Snow, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword, fuming with anger.