Lenna XL
She knew nothing. Less than nothing. For all of her years of study and books and learning, it took all of ten hours for Lenna to realize that, in fact, she knew very little. There was no way that she'd be able to keep herself alive if she didn't have him, not for all of her reading and writing and arguing with Tyrion Lannister. He had sent her to the stream by herself, a lump of tallow soap in her hand that was ten times as coarse as any she had used in her life, her spare clothes bundled against her chest. She had not tested the water first, merely stuck her whole foot in, and she was lucky she was standing on stable ground because the shock of the water's chill was so intense she almost stumbled head first into it, saved only by taking a reeling step back as her flesh flashed frigid and then burned.
If she hadn't been so filthy, she might have marched right back to the camp he'd set without a wash, but she could smell herself and still could feel the scratchy pull of blood on her skin. It wasn't hers, and it disgusted her. It took long moments to acclimate to the water, but she managed it at last, the tallow soap rough on her skin and easily taking off the gore and the grime. When she was finished, she felt pink and fresh, like she'd grown a new skin, and in some sense, she guessed that she had.
The woman that returned to the camp was a humbler one, and became more humble as the minutes creeped by. Once she'd washed herself and returned to the camp to turn the spit, it became clear to her that she had no idea what to do, her fingers burning on the heated stick as she tried to turn it to prevent the birds from charring. Sandor had fled to the creek when she emerged, and she hadn't missed the way his gaze had lingered on her as she walked toward him. She wanted to push him back into the grass and climb astride him, just to see what he would do. She knew what she wanted him to do, had little doubt that he'd do it, too. She giggled to realize that he'd fled to the creek without a change of clothes and turned the birds once more, seizing his clothes and following him into the forest.
She'd found him submerged in the creek with his head fully underwater, watching as he stayed there for a long time, longer than she thought advisable. At last, he flung his head back and shook out his hair, his face clean again. It had almost frightened her to see it blackened with blood and mud and other unmentionable filth. He looked like some kind of monster, perhaps an ogre, the scar shining red beneath the grime, his eyes almost silver in the darkness of his face. Now he was Sandor again, beard scruffy and warm, the curve of his mouth familiar and graceful even from the distance.
"Are you trying to drown yourself?" she called, and his eyes locked on hers, mouth open. "Need these?" She waggled the soap at him and lifted his change of clothes. He stood, taking a step toward her, and she saw the unmistakable sign of his thinking beneath his sodden trousers. She was momentarily distracted seeing him that way, wet and dripping, the trousers and tunic disguising nothing. Her throat became thick and she looked at him through her lashes, feeling twin surges of wickedness and shyness to see the naked want in his face.
She offered him the soap, and he moved to take it. With a smirk, she took a step back and jerked it out of his reach. The half-smile that stretched his face, the mischief in his eye, made her stomach tremble as he lunged for her. She dropped her parcel with a squeal and hightailed it the other direction, telling herself that she needed to tend the birds. Really, she was a little shy about where such playing was heading. It was midday in a wood without a soul for miles.
She made her excuses and fled, smirking to herself as she returned to the doves. She was so distracted, or perhaps just so inexperienced, that her fingers fumbled, the birds tumbling into the campfire. She yelped, leaning forward to try and catch them, reeling back from the heat that licked at her hands, completely unsure of what to do to try and salvage them.
Luckily, Sandor didn't take long in his own bath. He pushed her away as she was reaching toward the birds again, stamping on the edge of her skirt as he did so to snuff out the flame that had caught there without her noticing. She'd stoked a fire before, but there had always been a grate, and Lenna hugged herself as she watched him roll the birds off the campfire with another long stick, tossing them to the grass and saving their supper. Her earlier playfulness was gone, replaced with uncertainty and a fair bit of shame. She was a grown woman, and she couldn't even take care of three doves on a stick, let alone her own hide.
"Sorry," she said miserably.
"'S alright," he replied. "Are you hurt?"
She looked at her reddened fingers. They stung, but they hadn't bubbled into a burn. She shook her head. He let out a sound of relief and her eyes flew to his which were focused intently on her fingers. She head them out to him. "The heat-"
"Don't have to tell me," he smirked, and it was perhaps the first time he'd ever made a joke about his burns. He took her extended hand and bumped it to his mouth in a gesture that was too quick, too casual to be a kiss. It was the same way she might have made Myrcella's fingers feel better after a similar accident, and it made her feel like a child.
She didn't know what to do with her helplessness. It frustrated her already, and she knew she was just beginning to learn the extent of her ignorance. She could quote long passages of verse, but not build a fire. She could recite the lineages of the Targaryen kings but kill a dove. She could read in Myrish, Meereenese, and Braavosi, but she couldn't find north. It embarrassed her, just as her behavior the night before embarrassed her. She had questioned him and nearly cost them the opportunity to escape, and here he was guiding Stranger through underbrush as easily as if her were following a map, building their camp as if it was second-nature.
Perhaps it was, a vestige of the time before, the time that Sandor was so hesitant to talk about, the time before she had met him. He'd been twenty when she'd walked through Cersei Lannister's door in King's Landing for the first time, and it was obvious to her now that he had already lived a lifetime before that initial encounter. She remembered being surprised when she had learned that he was only five years older than she was, always having assumed him to be more seasoned. At the time, she had assumed it was because the burn ravaged so much of his face and the rest of his features were rendered so harsh by the permanent scowl, but now she believed it was because even then he had carried his history around on his back, so different from her own.
The disparity in their origins was not lost on her. When she had come to King's Landing at fifteen, she had been sheltered and beloved of her family. The only daughter of a very wealthy man who doted on her and his lady-wife who expected her to present herself with dignity and circumspection. She'd been a mature and precocious child, but it was a soft kind of wisdom, nothing to his rugged background.
They needn't have been so different. His father was a knight, his brother was a knight, he could have been a knight, too. He grew up on his family's lands, a maester in the household taught him to read and do sums. He hadn't been disadvantaged, just not as wealthy as she was. He'd been on track to following in his father's footsteps when he'd been burned, his brother pressing his face into the brazier. He never spoke of it, but she knew he'd been seven from the one time he had so many years ago. The next part was hazy, but she'd surmised he ran wild after he was recovered enough, finally fleeing when it was but twelve years old to become foot soldier in the Lannister service. By the time she had met him, he'd been a soldier for eight years, almost half of his life, and it was obvious that that existence had lent him a wealth of knowledge that she had previously discounted and on which she now depended.
She catalogued what he'd already done. In the time that she was asleep, and it must have been hours, he had been at work. The site he'd chosen had been transformed in a variety of small ways that would increase their comfort and their chances of surviving the night. The odd outcropping of rock had been turned into a lean-to, brushy branches on either side forming walls that let in the slanting light and sealed in her own heat. She'd woken cozy as a bear, discombobulated and a little stiff, but still rested and warm with his cloak spread over her. Outside the narrow opening, he'd cleared a patch of grass and built a campfire, the construction of which fascinated her, but which she didn't understand. It looked complicated, like a rough croft that had been set alight. Add to this that he'd hunted and killed three fat doves and plucked them, their plump bodies now lying in the grass steaming as he looked at her with his good eyebrow cocked up in amusement and concern.
"You hungry?" he asked, picking up the spit. She nodded with a blush, her mouth watering. She didn't remember the last time she'd eaten. She'd been too nervous before the battle to eat either he breakfast or her lunch, and now she was regretting it. He slid one bird off and passed it to her. It was hot in her hands and she passed it between them to cool it off a bit more. There were bits of grass stuck to it, but she noticed the glint of humor in his eye as he watched her decide what to do with it. She didn't care what he thought, she was ravenous. She took it in both hands and sank her teeth into the breast. She didn't know that she'd ever tasted anything better, the grease running thick down her chin. She swiped it away and licked it from her fingers like ill-bred child.
He smiled and ripped into his own, leaving a neat pile of bones by his boots. He waited for her to finish and offered her the second bird. She shook her head, oddly touched that he would do so, but he was obviously relieved and polished it off more quickly than she thought possible.
"An apple?" she suggested. He drew one out of the saddlebag and handed it to her. An idea came to her, a memory, and she grabbed the spit and forced it through the fruit, holding it over the fire. "We used to do this at home, for Yule," she explained. He nodded, a lopsided smile twisting his mouth.
"Aye, we did, too."
The skin of the apple split and crisped and she blew on it when it was done, the juices bubbling. She held it out to him.
He put his big hand over hers on the spit and took a bite, his eyes not leaving hers.
""S good," he said, taking another bite. Lenna felt strangely hot, her breath shallow. They sat for a while passing it back and forth between them. When it was gone, he threw the core and the chicken bones into the fire and they sat. She was startlingly aware of how alone they were, the woods an empty, vast darkness around them, not a sound beyond the lazy chirping of late summer crickets.
"Where are we going?" she asked, leaning against his arm. It went immediately around her waist and she leaned into his side, his warmth on one side of her, the chill of the evening on the other. It was a delicious contrast.
"White Harbor."
"Why?" She was genuinely curious. It made sense, of course. She had not doubt that they would receive a warm welcome in the New Castle. However, White Castle was a thousand miles north, and the route was riddled with possible snares as Lannister and Stark forces would still be fighting.
"Because it is your home," he said plainly.
"We could go to yours, the Westerlands." As much as she wanted to go home, it made little sense to traipse through a war-zone. There were Lannister forces and Robb Stark between their position and White Harbor even if they did go by ship. He still had a keep and lands in the west. She'd found it on a map, hidden in the rocky foothills south of Casterly Rock.
"I have no home," he replied flatly. "They'll find me in the Westerlands, find you. I'm not exactly someone who can hide. I won't like what they'd do to me, or to you. We cannot go there. Besides, White Harbor is where you should be. I should have left you there, or taken you back long ago."
"We had no idea-" she protested, having thought the same so many times. If only she had stayed after that last fateful visit, if only she had done what he'd wanted her to do and refused to board the ship. As much as she rued it, she was fiercely glad she hadn't. She'd been in love with him then, as she was now, and she wasn't sure she could have borne the separation, even though she could not speak of or acknowledge it at the time. She wasn't sure even now when it was that it had happened, when her feelings of friendship had ripened into something more serious. It had taken her so long long to admit it was love. She wondered how their lives might have been different if she had put her hand over his that night on the ramparts as she had wanted to, if she'd had the courage. She wondered if they would have stayed in the New Castle, together. "We couldn't have known."
"We did," he replied stiffly, his eyes unforgiving. "We did know, and we stupidly thought we could outsmart it. We didn't."
He rose from his spot by the fire and retrieved his sword. He had not put his plate back on, staying in the tunic and trousers. She was glad of it, still dreading his transformation from Sandor to Hound when the plate when on. Now, as he took the sword in his hand it was as if he had taken on an extension of himself, the muscle of his shoulders and arm working beneath the fabric of the tunic, the tendons of his hands tight as he gripped the hilt. She remembered how he had sliced and hacked unseen the night before, and she wondered where the man ended and the weapon began. He looked at the blade for a long time and came back toward her. Something about the grave set of his shoulders made her rise, an unknown tremble spiking through her belly. Trepidation.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"What I should have done long ago," he replied. He laid the blade on the ground before her feet, following it as he went to his knees. She wanted for him to rise desperately, she didn't want him kneeling to her. His hands were limp by his sides as he looked up, and his eyes met hers with stony seriousness. His voice was thick when it was torn from his throat, like it was being hauled from his guts with great effort. "I am your liege man. I will shield your back and keep your counsel and give my life for yours, if need be." He swallowed visibly, tension tightening his cheek as he made himself speak the next. "I swear it by the old gods and the new."
Lenna was flabbergasted. The formality of the words, ancient ones she knew well, spilling from his lips made her feel vaguely faint. Not the vows you want, she thought, but she made herself look back at him. It felt as if the whole forest had gone silent in anticipation. He looked steadily back at her, his nervousness only evident in the tightness around his good eye. He was waiting. Waiting for her to accept him.
She cleared her throat and fought against the rising lump in her throat. She was not going to cry. She drew herself up to her full height, feeling the wind stir her hair as she gathered her own courage.
"And I vow that you shall always have a place at my hearth and meat and mead at my table, and pledge to ask no service of your that might bring you to dishonor," she said, glad that she could remember the proper response at such a moment. It wasn't the oath she wanted from him. He was hers now, truthfully, he'd always been hers, but she was his, too. There was no room in this vow for her to tell him that, for him to do anything but swear loyalty to her. She wished to find a way to show him it was returned in kind, but there was none. "I swear it by the old gods and the new."
He nodded once, acquiescing to the ancient agreement, and when she bid him do so, he stood, his blade in hand, and turned away to put it back in its scabbard. She didn't want to be his lady, not like this, not this formal arrangement of warrior and noble, and Lenna stopped him with a hand on his elbow. He slowly faced her, his expression like granite. She searched his face, raising her other hand to rest on the scars and he turned his cheek into her palm before leaning down to her.
His mouth on hers felt like a bond, a strange and powerful one. Lenna wished for the briefest moment that she was of the North, that her family worshipped the old gods, for certainly such an exchange before them would have been just as irrevocable as a ribbon and words before a Septon, even if nothing had ever been said about love. From a man like him, it was implicit in such a vow as he swore himself to her protection. He'd sworn himself to her before, called to the carpet before a queen and a court. Here, Sandor Clegane had gone to his knees of his own choice and said the words that would weave their fates together in one way though she wanted it to be another.
He pulled away reluctantly, kicking dirt over the coals to cool them.
"You need sleep," he said lowly, brushing a thumb over the purple shadows under her eyes. She smiled and caught his hand, brushing his thumb with her lips. She laid herself down in the leaves, her cloak beneath her, and opened her arms when he came to her and laid down at her side, hands and mouth seeking for hers in the darkness.
Sandor XL
Sworn shield. He wanted more than to be her sworn shield, but for now he'd take it. He didn't know why it hadn't occurred to him before. Probably because he was technically Cersei's sworn shield before, though he had taken no vows. Sandor Clegane was never one for promises, and few had ever been extracted from him. The moment he'd vowed to protect her, however, when she was but nineteen, something in his very makeup had shifted. Now, alone with her in the woods, the only barrier between her and the wild, it made sense to put himself on his knees before her and offer his body up to her service.
It was the only thing he had, his body. His strength and his sinew and his courage. They had failed him in King's Landing, not having a proper application, but here- here, he was quite positive that he could serve her until the last breath left his body or the last drop of blood seeped from his veins. It was the least he could do, even if the whole time all he could think about was black dogs chasing each other across her yellow-cloaked shoulders.
They were bound North. He was bound to think on Wyman Manderly's strange promise of anything, knowing exactly what he'd ask for if the opportunity presented itself. He knew he shouldn't even think it, not even knowing it was what she wanted. She'd told him she wanted that with him, to be his wife and to bear his children. It didn't seem real, but somehow it had seemed possible on his knees there in the dirt in front of her. He had thought of it so often, going to his knees before her, he'd done it soe many times in his mind, that actually doing it felt like he'd been stripped entirely bare, his whole skin flayed as he waited for her to answer him.
She'd hesitated and he felt like he might perish, but when his eyes searched her face desperately he saw that her lack of response was a result of emotion, not reticence, and when she had promised him a place at her hearth, he wanted to shout. He wanted to wrap her up in his arms and crush her to him to hear that response, that guarantee of a future from her. It made him breathless, even if it was as a mercenary, a man-at-arms that would give his life for hers. He couldn't think of a more concrete way to show her how much she meant to him than to put himself between her and any danger, to shield her body with his. He'd been a bodyguard for years, but it never felt so intimate. Perhaps he knew the body he was guarding too well.
Attempts to remain calm, to remain grave, quickly failed when she stopped him as he tried to resheath his sword. A dam broke when her fingers touched his arm. His nerves were already raw, and he tried valiantly to suppress the impulse to drag her against him, the strip the woolen gown from her and lay her down in the grass in what remained of the soft glow of firelight. In an instant, he was already imagining it: the soft glow rippling across her ribs and belly, the night air making her nipples harden as she gasped for him.
"You need sleep," he said instead, his large hand cupping her face, tracing the purple shadows beneath her eyes. She smiled at him, covering his hand with her own, and she led him into the little lean-to he'd made to shelter them, to shelter her. If he'd been on his own, he'd have bedded down right there in the grass by the fireside, but not her. He wanted to make sure she was someplace warm, protected.
She lay back on her bed of leaves and he went to his knees again to stretch out next to her. When she turned to him with her arms open, he felt his resolve crumble. She wrapped herself around him as well as she could. She was so much smaller, even if she was as tall as most men.
In the darkness, it felt like he was learning her anew. He'd been hungry for her since she'd taunted him at the stream, but his earlier playfulness had changed into something much more solemn, almost reverent, his hands roaming over the curves and planes of her body, the hills of her ribs, the valley of her thighs. It was slow, unhurried, so completely at leisure that it made him want to weep. There was no one there to hurry them, no risk of discovery. They were quite alone in these words, save the wild things, and they would stay away from the glow of the fire.
He watched her gleaming in the dim light as she peeled the gown off herself, her fingers sure at the fastenings, no trembling as she undid the ties and shed it like a snakeskin. The light was wan, but it was enough for him to observe her by, and his mouth went dry again at the sight. He didn't know that he'd ever get used to her laying herself bare for him like that, all soft, pale flesh, smiling lips and gentle hands.
He'd told her earlier that he had no home, but when he finally sank into her it felt like she was it. He figured that was true. Wherever she was, that was his home now, whether it was in King's Landing, on that bloody ship, in White Harbor, or here in the wilds. She gave way under him without any resistance, her ankles and heels running up and down his legs as he held himself above her. The ground beneath them was rocky, stones burrowing against his bones, but he didn't care. He only cared about the soft, restrained sounds she was making, the way she was biting her lips to keep from crying out, the heat of her around him as he tried to show her that he meant it, that he was hers in every way he could think of.
Her neck arched, tendons standing out as she neared her peak, and one of his hands made its way between them to help her over the edge, to fling her over the precipice. Her face contorted and she bared her teeth, and he barely managed to pull away to spend himself on her belly in a great, shuddering release, holding himself still above her for a moment as his own spend cooled on her skin and his heart thundered in his chest as his eyes remained rooted to her flushed face and darkened eyes.
He collapsed to one side to avoid crushing her with his weight, and to his gratification she snuggled into him, drawing his cloak over the both of them. He wished they could sleep that way, like naked wildlings deep in the wood, but he knew they'd have to dress. It wouldn't do to be surprised in that vulnerable state, but he wanted to draw it out as long as he could, to feel her against him sleepy and sated.
"What will we do when we reach White Harbor?" she asked, her arm wrapped around his chest. He took a deep breath, focusing on the darkness above them.
"I don't know," he replied honestly. He hadn't gotten that far in his planning, and truthfully, the eventuality terrified him. "Whatever your father wants me to do."
"If he told you to leave?"
"I can't," he said, smirking at the possibility they both knew wouldn't happen. She was using it to flirt with him, and that always thrilled him. "I'm sworn to you."
She took a long breath. "I'd have you swear yourself again. In the Sept."
He thought he'd stopped breathing, eyes unseeing as he stared upwards. "Aye."
All you can fucking say is 'aye' and the woman is practically offering herself to you?
She went quiet after, and he wondered if he'd mucked it all up. He couldn't think that far ahead, couldn't bear the possibility that once he thought it it may not come to pass. He'd had the vision in his eyes that afternoon as he knelt on the ground with his sword at her feet, all of himself on offer. He'd knelt and all he'd thought of was another vow he could make to her, a cloak slung around her shoulders, a ribbon tied around their hands. It occurred to him then that what she had just done was almost as vulnerable as him going to his knees there in the wilderness, not so very different at all. Ladies didn't offer themselves to men, not like that. It was a job for their fathers or their brothers, or it was the man's task to offer himself to her, not the other way around. Lenna Manderly had more or less just proffered herself to him, and all he had said was fucking 'aye.'
"Whatever you want of me," he choked, willing the words. "I'll do whatever you ask."
"Because you are sworn to me?" she asked, her voice flinty. He wished he could see her eyes at the same time he didn't. He feared to find hurt there. He hadn't meant to cause any.
"Because I love you," he replied. "Because I want you."
He didn't recall ever saying it and knowing he had said it. He knew it had poured out of him at other times, times when his brain wasn't getting in the way and it just spilled from his lips like water. But he'd never said it like that, stark and sharp in the air between them. It was easier in the darkness.
"Then it will be so," she said softly.
"Your father-"
"Will be grateful to you, Sandor. He will not deny me. He will not deny us."
He almost smiled, but his face had gone flinty as it often did when he was warding off particular feeling. His heart was beating strongly beneath his breast, beneath her head, and his fingers drawing through her shorn hair, the curls twining around his fingers.
"Then let's get you home as soon as possible," he said, dropping his mouth to the top of her head.
They made good time, travelling overland for six days toward Maidenpool. The closer they got, the more wary Sandor became. Despite picking their way through the forest, he began to spy signs of men earlier than he wished to, once even diverting Lenna's face as they passed the hanged bodies of local farmers dangling from the trees. They slept in one of them's croft that night, though Sandor hoped for her sake she didn't realize why it was abandoned. He grew impatient to make it to the port and board a ship that would take them swiftly away.
Maidenpool came in sight on the seventh day since they ran from King's Landing. The pink walls of the harbor glowed in the afternoon light, and he decided that they shouldn't enter the gates until after nightfall. He was too recognizable should someone look into his hood, but darkness would aid them.
Something wasn't right, and he knew it as soon as he entered the town that evening after sunset. It was swarming with Lannister guards, and it took five minutes within earshot of a tavern to know why.
"...almost beat the King, don't you know, but it was Lord Tyrion that saved the city…"
"...Stannis Baratheon's fleet destroyed, sent him back to Dragonstone with his tail tucked between his legs…"
"...did you hear that awful story about the queen's lady? Betrothed to the Mountain, then carried off by the Hound, poor lady…"
It was one thing to hear news of Stannis Baratheon's defeat. If Joffrey was still the king, that complicated things. To hear that they were being discussed, well, that just fucked everything up.
"We have to leave," he said lowly, just loud enough for Lenna to hear him. There would be no ship to White Harbor. He couldn't risk staying in the city long enough for them to set sail. It would take one person who'd seen him before, or her before, and they'd be thoroughly fucked. She looked up at him in surprise.
"Why?"
There wasn't time to explain. There never was. This time, though, she didn't protest when he growled and mounted Stranger, pulling her up in front of him. It took all of his self-control not to spur the horse into a gallop until after they had passed through the gates and were back in the forests.
Against his better judgement, he returned to the croft where they had spent the previous night. It was late when they arrived, but it was thankfully deserted. No one had been there since they'd left that afternoon, though he hesitated to light a fire in the hearth.
"Why did we have to leave?" she asked, once they were inside and the door was barred, Stranger tethered to a tree outside.
"Didn't you see all the Lannister men?" he asked, pulling off his cloak.
"Surely-" she started, disbelief and some measure of placating in her voice.
"Lenna," he said as patiently as he could, "I'm a hard man to miss. Did you hear what they were saying?" She shook her head. "Stannis didn't win, Lenna. Joffrey is still king of the Seven Kingdoms."
She sat down heavily on the bed where they had lain together the night before, her astride his hips on the straw mattress.
"If Stannis didn't win, then-"
"I'm a traitor, and they're looking for you."
She slowly turned her face to his, fear rearranging her features into the old mask. "Did you hear them say so?"
"Aye," he replied. If it was making the rounds of the alehouses, there would be eyes eager to see him for the coin it could bring him. "Fuck. Lenna, they were saying you were betrothed to my brother."
He could do nothing as she paled, as she took in what such talk meant. It had been announced, the smallfolk even knew, and he hated to think what that meant. If she was valuable to Cersei as he believed she was, he would not put it past the queen to sic his brother on them in an attempt to recover her, using his own depraved hatred of Sandor to fuel his work.
"What do we do?"
He closed his eyes and grunted. "We keep going, but not through Maidenpool. It's too risky to be seen. Story circulating about you, there's bound to be a price on my head. Best head upriver toward Harrenhal. We'll pass north of it."
"But Harrenhal is where your brother is."
As if he hadn't fucking already thought of that. Of course he knew that was where his monstrous brother was.
"Aye, and Tywin Lannister, too," he replied testily. He pinched the bridge of his nose. "It's the only option. We cannot turn back south, they are probably watching the roads there. We cannot find a ship to Essos. We cannot find a ship anywhere."
"Essos? You said-"
"I am your shield," he said violently, slamming his fist down on the little wooden table where he'd laid out the saddlebags. The pain that cracked through his hand made him wince and gasp, but it gave a focus to his rage. "I must keep you safe. I'll do it wherever I can, White Harbor, Essos, Braavos, I don't care. But for now, home is best for you. We'll keep moving. Hard to find us if we move. I just wish we hadn't lost today."
She nodded, starting a bit when he abruptly ripped open the saddlebags. He rifled around for a few moments before he found what he was looking for, drawing it out of his pack and holding it up in a moonbeam. The light played across it like liquid, the edge of the blade winking at him. He held it out to her, offering her the hilt.
"Take it," he said slowly. He'd grabbed it in his hurry to flee in King's Landing without much thought. Now he knew its purpose.
"I don't want it," she said, her voice small and almost childlike. Her eyes were huge and luminous in the moonlight.
He crossed to her and pressed it into her palm, wrapping her fingers around the grip. "Doesn't matter. It's yours now, and you'll learn how to use it."
She flexed her wrist, testing the weight of the dagger in her hand. Her wrist faltered, the delicate tendons strained. When she looked up at him, the steeliness that had been chased away returned. The last few days had felt like a song, a man-at-arms out for a ride with his lady in his lap, the birds singing and the sun shining, and he was a damn fool for thinking it would stay that way. There would be nothing song-like about their flight now, not with Lannister lions on their heels and his brother just two days of riding distant.
A/N: I cannot remember the last time I wrote a chapter this short...forgive me! Hope everyone has had a good week. My continued thanks for all of the wonderful reviews and messages. I love hearing from you all, especially this week. It has been...difficult, and I have looked forward to spending a few minutes here or there with our friends as we speed them North. Just a warning- I am going to start deviating from canon a bit more, especially where the timeline is concerned. People may pop up (or not) and things might happen in shorter or longer intervals than might seem usual. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, the timeline is atrocious and convoluted, and I'm honestly not sure when anything happens. Bear with me! I'm doing the best I can! Oh, and forgive typos! This one was piecemeal and they always pop up when I've been writing over a series of days. About a week before the next installment. Love!