Thanks to the help of my beta, TopShelfCrazy, here is another chapter of this little story.
A note on the hopefully rather simple plot so far, for the sake of clarity and a summary of circumstances I deem important, especially given the delay between the updates.
Sandor never knows Sansa is in the Vale in this story beforehand. He merely thinks, assumes and hopes she might be. In this story, he goes on a personal quest for her of his own free will, not based on any information, certainty or sending, not having any fixed expectations from her, with the sole aim to see her again, find her and confess his love.
In this chapter he will assume (and be right in some of his assumptions again) how Varys and Cersei discovered Sansa's whereabouts.
Approximately at the same time when Cersei's army led by Ser Robert Strong (Gregor as resurrected by Qyburn) shows up in the Vale, demanding Sansa, Varys sends a letter to LF, containing a proposal for Sansa to marry Aegon, in exchange of Varys/Aegon/dragons' help against Cersei's army. (At that time Sandor has already begun his several days long climb to the Eyrie and a tourney is being organised in the Vale).
LF tries to negotiate in person with Robert Strong/Gregor who kills him instead of talking. Sansa finds Varys' letter in LF's absence followed by his demise, before Nestor Royce sends her and Sweetrobin to the Eyrie. She answers it herself as she sees fit in order to possibly secure Varys' help, but without definitely agreeing to the proposed marriage alliance.
There is also a factual error in chapter thirteen, Yohn Royce and Nestor Royce are not brothers, just distant relatives, two branches of the same family, higher and lesser one. I corrected this so they now treat each other as "cousins" here (which seems to be a possibility in asoiaf for almost any relatives and not just for first cousins)
Warning for extensive mention of leeches (possible gore).
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"He made a queer sound and it took her a moment to realize he was sobbing. 'And the little bird, your pretty sister, I stood there in my white cloak and let them beat her. I took the bloody song, she never gave it. I meant to take her too. I should have. I should have fucked her bloody and ripped her heart out before leaving her for that dwarf.'" Sandor Clegane the Hound, to Arya Stark, ASOIAF
Fourteen
The Gates of the Moon was one of the most miserable castles the Hound had ever seen, squeezed between its high, damp walls and the huge, forested foot of the Giant's Lance. Sandor rode into the main and probably only courtyard next to Robert Arryn; a masked, helmed shield to yet another boy.
His anger was on the rise; scathing and thundering. There was no telling as to what he could do, and it would not be pretty.
Sansa was taken away from him.
He did not know, yet, where the gnats of the Vale had put her. The lack of knowledge hurt as though he were now missing a chunk of flesh from his chest, freshly ripped off by a tremendous force, and not only on his bad leg.
Unexpectedly, after the journey up and down the mountain, that leg became almost as good as the healthy one; the crippled muscle strengthened from forced usage, despite not being whole. A small limp would always be distinguishable in his step. The scar looked as ugly as his face, but he was confident about the use of his limb. He would not fight gallantly when he faced Gregor, but neither would he die on its account.
Tall and saddled, after days of walking, the Hound was a monster that returned. And this time he was going to kill Gregor.
The Royces had made their little lord visit the tourney grounds immediately upon arrival. The boy had to greet every knight who had come to win wings; a place of honour in his personal guard. Cersei's army camped right under the walls of the castle, with the consequence that the brave knights of the Vale were banished further afield.
There, among the pumpkins, the Hound reclaimed his horse. The handsome, green boy ser, called Redfort or something, was thrilled to see good riddance of Stranger, while he still possessed a nose and all of his fingers. A fresh horse bite adorned his forearm.
A display of prowess in arms of the loyal men of the Vale was served for Lord Arryn's amusement, together with the improvised midday meal in the fields. The Winged Knight who was the Hound for once skipped food. Instead, he beat bloody two out of four guards who took Sansa, and who returned to follow Nestor Royce around, knowing full well as he did it that the men were not at fault. Lesser Royce deserved the beating, but, just like with Joffrey, turning his lordship into pulp would not help the matter sitting on his soul, for as much as it might give him joy.
After the interminable visit, in the ugly courtyard of the even uglier castle, the Hound studied everything and everyone with a sole question on his mind.
Sansa, where are you?
He wanted to throw open his inconspicuous, silvery helm and show his frightening face to all. Then he'd laugh at the pitiful lords and their servants and tell them that he, the Hound, and no one else, would challenge Gregor for them and kill him.
At the same time, he harboured another deeply-entrenched wish. He could keep his ugly head down… steal a better sword using the metal stick he had brought down from the Eyrie to intimidate some gnat… Stranger was already back with him… Then, he would find Sansa and take her anywhere. The mayhem of the tourney preparations would provide a distraction. They would be too far for the pursuit to catch up with them before anyone noticed they were gone…
The Stranger did not have to wait to do his will.
But neither of the two was what Sansa wanted, was it?
His love had her own voice, sweet and chirping. He'd always ended up hearing it and at times it rang stronger than his own. Sansa had kept him hidden and safe in his illness, just like she had guarded the secret of his burns in the past.
So Sandor did as Sansa wanted, never leaving the little lord's side, waiting, acting with prudence he hated. It came too close to being a gnat and a craven.
For now.
Robin Arryn would be told sooner or later where the prized prisoner of the crown was to be kept until the end of the bloody tourney.
Then, nothing would stop Sandor from doing something clever on his own. The only place where Sansa was to be confined that night was on his chest.
The castle dimmed in his field of vision. His utmost state of alert declined to what was expected of a guard, never drawing attention to himself. He dismounted and mercilessly left Stranger to the frightened stable hands. Silently, ominously, he followed the Arryn boy.
A window of a memory opened slowly in his mind, in which he woke again with Sansa in his arms. This morning they were naked…
You were not bothered by us staying so, were you, Sansa?
Never touching her cunt, never laying her on her back… he decided to try both on purpose, as he had stubbornly practiced jousting and swordsmanship until reaching perfection of movement, despite his too great body height, which was a disadvantage at times, in complex forms of attack and defence. His vague wish to avoid seeing Sansa stiffening from fear of him gave wondrous results. She responded to him eagerly… caressed his ugly skin with devotion, snuggled against him, pressed herself to him, hummed at every brutish touch of his fingers, used to handling weapons and not women.
Sandor had felt as if he was a buggering harpist, given a precious instrument to play. In the end, pleasuring himself against her body, far away from her folds, did not feel like a shame, unlike any of his occasional, thwarted desires concerning beautiful highborn ladies in the distant past, without Sansa in his life. She embraced him and kissed him as he stroked himself. He felt as if he was the most ordinary man in the world, whole and handsome, whose wife had her blood on her, so he had to wait a day or two before taking her…
Except that he was not Sansa's husband; he would never be. It was all an illusion.
But it tasted of truth…
The Hound shook his head, returning fully to the awfulness of the world.
Lords Royce and Lady Waynwood led Robin Arryn to the castle's solar. No one paid any attention to the knight following him. The highborns rarely saw their servants; they were like the headsman's block, fetched and sent away at need.
Just like Sansa claimed, the cousins Royce were as different as the sun and the moon. Nestor was obsequious where Yohn was proud. Two maesters stood there as well, one for each of the two kinsmen, facing each other as a knight and a quintain. Chains of equal length hung around their necks.
Robin watched them all as a frightened hawk, not daring open his mouth, despite being their lord. The Hound stood behind his chair, at the side and not at the centre of the table where a lord should sit by rights.
A young, handsome bugger, with a double sigil on his ugly shield, red and white diamonds for some shitty house of the Vale and the moon and falcon of the Arryns, sat opposite to the little lord, next to the Lady Waynwood, puffed up like a royal peacock. Nestor Royce's daughter, a buxom and not so young lady, who had cheered loudly for the men during the exhibition of strength earlier that day, sat next to the peacock. By the looks of it, she would be happy to either fuck him or marry him, in any order.
Sandor could tell that the little falcon did not like the pretentious bugger with the wrongly coloured cyvasse board on his chest, competing with the great sigil of the Arryns. Sweetrobin, as Sansa would call his lordship, gave the peacock a look Joff would bestow on a petitioner before having him drowned in a barrel of ale for his special pleasure.
Come on boy, the Hound thought impatiently. Ask for Sansa. You too are in love with your pretty cousin. But the Arryn child just stared forward and kept quiet, shaking imperceptibly.
The Royces began disagreeing before the evening meal arrived.
"Ser Robert Strong shall join us shortly and share our table," Nestor told Yohn. "I shall avail myself of this opportunity to inform him that Lady Sansa Stark is securely in the dungeons-"
Dungeons? The Hound clenched his hands with growing desire for murder and did nothing, listening.
"Are you mad?" Yohn said, not pleased in the least. "Don't you have a bedchamber you can lock?"
"She ran from King's Landing-"
"Because Littlefinger must have arranged for it. Don't be blind, Nestor. There is more to this appearance of the queen's army than we think. The kingdoms may go to war again. And my maester tells me that the Lady Sansa has sent out a raven yesterday. What will you do when another army comes calling on our door, one that she called to herself, if she is really a traitor to the crown? She must have supporters in the North! Last thing we heard, the Boltons were losing it."
"Lord Baelish claimed," the peacock decided to speak up, "that his daughter's brain is as big as a bird's. She probably can't write a letter."
"Do I need to remind you that Lord Baelish's belief in his superior wits is what got him killed? Chopped into pieces I hear?" Lord Royce thundered. "Nestor, if delivering the Lady Sansa to the queen is what you intend to do as lord of this castle, I strongly suggest you do it immediately, and insist that the queen's party leaves, rather than to offend the lady and the North further by the hospitality of your dungeons. Let her supporters follow her South, not knock on our door!"
"Would that I could," Nestor sighed wearily. "Alas, Ser Robert Strong is fasting and praying. He sits with us for every evening meal, but he doesn't eat or speak. He will not leave before competing in the tourney since he was informed there was one. It is the will of the Seven, his servant says, the one who speaks for him. This man wants to leave instantly with Lady Sansa, eager to please the queen, but Ser Robert, he… he listens to the gods in everything. He… he is obsessed by the sacred customs of chivalry as no knight before him had ever been… And I understood from spying on his troops that if the brave ser is thwarted, he will order his army to slaughter us all, and slay half of his own men in anger if they don't do for us fast enough."
"And he has the numbers for that," Bronze Yohn said darkly. "So we continue with the mummery you call the tourney and hope he leaves. For all we know the gods can tell him any time to have us all killed."
This last part sounded every bit like the Gregor Sandor knew. Fasting and praying, however, and the horseshit about the gods and the chivalry… Just like the Hound, Gregor never bothered to sweeten his actions for the weak he butchered, nor did he keep a pet to speak for him. He could grunt his orders all by himself.
What did Cersei do to you, brother? Cut your head off and sewed another one on your oxen shoulders? Of someone like the Elder Brother, to make you a more noble royal killer? It did seem a tad like the Cersei Sandor knew to attempt something extremely ungodly if it could be done and suited her purposes.
"Maester Colemon," Robert Arryn suddenly called out, petulantly. "I need to be leeched for bad blood! Now! I feel a seizure coming… I will die..." The boy cried copiously and trembled violently.
Sandor was… sad. In barely a few days, he had learned to expect better from the child. The lords and the ladies present bowed obsequiously to their sickly lordling, with looks of harsh contempt for his condition engraved on their faces. Sandor followed his lordship to one of the adjacent rooms, and remained at the door. The maester trod in and closed himself with the Arryn boy.
Waiting, Sandor remembered the snow white tent with the snow white blazon of the Kingsgard. He had passed by it on the tourney grounds, when approaching the Gates of the Moon. Sandor had no doubt that Gregor's cloak and armour were now as brilliantly white as his heart was black.
Lies, lies, lies… Lies are all there is.
He wished he still had his soot black armour for the occasion of striking his brother down. It would be fitting.
The Stranger would come for Gregor very soon.
It was stupid to expect any help from the boy...
Surprisingly, Robin Arryn opened the door after only a few moments of absence. He still trembled, but… differently... Determined in his ailment, with restless, mad hands, Sweetrobin exited the room where he had been leeched despite the violent protestations of the maester.
"I hate him," Robin whispered to the Hound. "I want to make him fly…. Lock him in! This room has a bolt on the outside. I can't… I'm shaking too much…"
Little lord began his return to the solar. Despite trembling like a leaf, he left a dazed dog behind. Sandor took care of the door as he was bid, and caught up with the boy in three long leaps.
Back amongst his bannermen, Robert Arryn walked straight to the head of the table, to the empty lord's chair between the Royces. He did not sit. Standing, he was almost at the height with Bronze Yohn who was sunken in his chair. The merry conversation over supper immediately stopped.
"If it please you, my lords," Robin whispered and had all their attention despite the quietness of his speech. "I shall now fetch my cousin, the Lady Sansa, and present our sincere pardons to her for the tremendous... misarrangement of her accommodation in this castle. The Winged Knight shall accompany me to ensure my safety, so that she cannot harm me if she is a traitor as you claim, nor run away from the Vale."
"Should you not rest after your ordeal on the mountain, my lord?" Nestor Royce wondered in a fatherly voice.
Sweetrobin turned to leave. "Later, my lords," he uttered weakly, waving to Sandor to accompany him, as seriously as he could with his age and sickness.
Sandor trotted obediently after the frail boy whose bearing was as if he were Joff at the height of his power, amazed at all changes in his demeanour.
You will yet become a man, won't you? the Hound thought, oddly proud. It doesn't come easy, I can tell you.
When they were back in the ugly courtyard, Sandor whispered to the boy through the helm. "Have you ever been to the dungeons here?"
"No," the boy replied, continuing to walk straight, with his head held high. "But I guess we'll find them if we look long enough. How many sky cells can there be in this small castle? "
"There is no sky here," the Hound noted pensively. "We should look to the ground, or in a cellar if there is one. Just look as if you know where you are going, boy. Someone of your lord bannermen will soon feel obliged to catch you and take you back to your cage or, much better, show you the way in order to flatter you."
"Thank you," the boy said, "I feel stronger with you behind my back and from listening to your counsel."
The undeserved compliment struck the Hound. He had followed the boy around and talked to him because of Sansa, and not for the boy's sake.
Mostly, but not entirely.
Sandor was concerned for the boy. That alone made it more difficult to speak to him. At least he would not help make Sweetrobin a monster as he may have done with Joff in his careless years.
When the man and the boy entered the ground level of the castle, before they could search for the cellars, the two-headed animal called lords Royce was predictably one step behind them.
"Surely it is not required-" Nestor said.
"My lord," Yohn interrupted, "I shall bring the Lady Sansa, you can go and rest now."
Lord Arryn continued waddling on wobbly legs, with his head stiff and high. His long hair shone in the light of the torches. All of a sudden it looked as pretty as Sansa's to the Hound.
That's it boy. Don't give in. Keep walking.
"Show me the way!" the boy commanded, never stopping.
Moments later, they came to the end of a low, damp corridor, facing a locked, heavy, oaken door. Robin Arryn convulsed. He grabbed his sky-blue clad chest, as if in great pain. The Hound regretted he could not hug him to stop the attack in present company.
It ends here, he thought miserably, they will carry him back to the maester now or bid me do it. He eyed the lock. He might be able to break it if he found a smith's hammer.
The smith. The fatherly man who robbed the Hound on his way to the Eyrie spoke of the smith in the Gates of the Moon. He said the man had blades. I must needs find a better sword…
Unbelievably, the boy stilled the seizure on his own. "Where is the turnkey?" he asked placidly, pale and calm. "Our supper, Lady Waynwood, cousin Harry and by now the brave Ser Robert are surely waiting for us. It is not polite to leave them alone much longer."
The boy was right. It was never prudent to try Gregor's patience. Old hatred stirred in the Hound's soul, deep and black.
Nestor gaped like an ugly fish. Yohn snorted, stormed away and returned with a poxy gaoler, who immediately opened the cell. Inside, Sansa was chained to the wall so that she could not sit nor stand properly, as a common murderer or raper. Yohn Royce swallowed, having the decency to be embarrassed. The Hound's heart stomped miserably. His suffering was so great that he could not even think of killing anyone. Not right away.
"I didn't quite order this-" Nestor tried saying. "The men must have misunderstood-"
His cousin shut him up with a look that could kill.
Sandor snatched the keys from the turnkey, pushing Nestor roughly to the side as he did so. He had shown quite enough of prudence for the day. It didn't take him long to find the right key. He did his best to avoid staring at Sansa directly as he freed her, in case she… in case she felt indecent. At least she was dressed now, unlike that terrible time when Joffrey almost made her fully naked… Her silky skin was cold and clammy, her blue eyes big and shocked. She was stiff, pointedly so. She did not talk.
The Hound felt dull resentment flooding his guts. The welts on her wrists were tiny and they could have been much worse, but to Sandor they seemed like open, bleeding wounds. His pain at seeing them was as strong as if someone had made deep gashes in his own hands with a rusty blade, poisoning his blood.
She had been chained for a day. It would not be much for a man, but Sansa was a lady. What did she know about it? He expected her to collapse into his arms, but she never did. He was both proud and disappointed by it.
"Cousin Sansa," Lord Arryn said in his thin voice and with his best courtesies, "please, forgive me. I came as soon as I found out. I am sorry for not demanding to know instantly where my bannermen have made you stay. It was an omission that shames me."
Sansa straightened slowly, giving the Hound a very small nod of acknowledgment, before smiling timidly at Sweetrobin and taking her cousin's offered arm.
"Thank you, my lord," she told the boy with poise.
"You shall be provided with the accommodations befitting your station, my lady," Yohn Royce hurried to distinguish himself by insipidness, "until your transfer to the crown can be arranged. This was a sorrowful mistake."
Sansa nodded graciously and the Hound's innards churned… After that first recognition of his presence, she didn't see him anymore. Their time on the mountain was over… She would no longer share his bed.
Would you, Sansa?
To Nestor, Bronze Yohn remarked, "My late wife would murder you for not offering a bath to the lady."
"An opportunity to make myself presentable so as not to shame my cousin would be most welcome," Sansa parroted eerily. Her eyes still lacked expression, and she seemed to be holding onto the little lord not to fall.
On the way back to the solar, the Hound sank deep into the pit of his black mood. His love did not walk with him but with the bloody boy. It was not enough to tell himself this was what she ought to do. Just as she would have to marry one day, after he saved her from Gregor. Maybe she would sleep in his bed until then, but she would never be only his.
Would you, Sansa?
Since the night before, a burning thought was born in Sandor's calloused mind. New and fresh, it grew stronger, devouring the air in his lungs. It accompanied his habitual anger, but was not diminished by it.
If Sansa accepted Sandor's touch… if she was tempted to feel his body and touch him back… If she found joy with him in ways no other woman had done… in her own way… it should surely be possible for her to find pleasure if they… if he bedded her? If she wanted caresses and kisses with him, why would she not want that part? Women did want to lay with men at times, even the Hound had seen sufficient proof of that... If laying down frightened her, there were other possibilities. He could be behind her. She wouldn't even have to look at him. His cock stirred to action at the thought.
Though… opposite to how she had acted in the past, Sansa now didn't seem to mind his face at all.
There had to be a way to make bedding good for her. It was just that Sandor did not know how to achieve this important victory. The realisation was exacerbating, maddening. His usual approach to women did not work. His head swam with vague notions.
Stay close. See. Touch. Let her touch you.
Love her.
Because Sansa wanted to… hear about his love. How it was, what it did to him. And he talked when he was too ill to stay quiet.
He almost sighed like a craven when the door of the solar opened with a clang.
Gregor was waiting for them, fully armoured in white, standing; as tall as Sandor remembered him.
Nestor Royce bowed ceremoniously, Bronze Yohn inclined his head mildly, treading on the limit between a greeting and a curtsy.
Robin waddled to the lord's place with palpable fear in his strange gait, leading Sansa, giving her a second place on his right hand side, letting the Royces take a seat immediately to the left and to the right of him.
"Welcome to the Vale, Ser Robert," Lord Arryn peeped, "I regret being absent so I was not able to greet you sooner."
Another man answered in Gregor's place, with a long grey cloak and the face of a corpse.
"I am Lord Qyburn," he said, "I thank you on behalf of great Ser Robert."
If that man was lord, then Sandor was king. And Ser Robert was Gregor, there was no doubt. A Gregor who did not talk, or showed his face or killed anyone.
Yet.
The Stranger was always waiting.
"We want the custody of the lady," Qyburn continued impolitely, "Have her brought to Ser Robert's tent."
"Lord Arryn shall decide," Nestor Royce said meanly, probably hoping Gregor would murder the boy for him if his command was countered. Bronze Yohn nodded, serious as a tomb.
"We have many men under your walls," Qyburn reminded. "More than the knights of the Vale who have answered the call for the tourney. And many of ours have fought hard to win spurs while many of yours are newly knighted squires." Here he looked at the peacock, who smiled to everyone, with lack of comprehension for the slight on his face. Yohn Royce went purple from it, but did not say a word.
Gregor definitely had more men. Sandor counted them when visiting the tourney grounds in the morning. But with Bronze Yohn calling for reinforcements, the numbers were to become more equal. Then, anything might happen. The Hound tried to remember exactly how far Runestone was on the maps and if the new men were going to make it to the Gates of the Moon before the end of the jousting folly.
Robin Arryn stood up to look taller. Shaking like a leaf in cold autumn wind, he held his head higher than ever.
As high as honour, the Hound thought unwittingly.
The boy unbuttoned his doublet, unlaced his tunic, and bared his scrawny chest. His ribs came into view, tiny and visible under thin skin and blue veins. Over his heart and lungs there was a clumsily shaped seven-pointed star… drawn in leeches predating on the boy's body.
He had walked with that. The Hound began to admire the boy. He would be able to do the same, but it was not something he was keen on trying.
Lady Waynwood fainted noisily in her chair, finding it too much for her old age, no doubt.
"Good ser," the boy told Ser Robert in a breaking, lordly voice, sounding every bit like an enchanted hero from Sansa's tale about the real Winged Knight. "You demand a maiden be placed under your protection, but you haven't yet done any brave deed to justify your claim."
"Not a maiden," Qyburn, said, "Sansa Lannister is a woman wedded and bedded."
"Just like brave Ser Robert was advised by the Seven to take part in this tourney, they have whispered to me in secret that the Lady Sansa Stark is a maiden still. And she has already accepted the protection of the Winged Knight by graciously taking him into her service, when she and I were in deadly peril on top of Giant's Lance and he saved our lives. Brave Ser Robert needs to win the tourney should he wish to take over the task of protecting the innocence of her ladyship. The gods will reward their champion…"
"The Queen Regent-" Qyburn began.
"Our gracious queen would never go against the sacred precepts of chivalry, and much less against the will of the gods," the leeched boy said with indignation, scratching one of the seven points of the star on his chest, to better show the mad affection to the Seven his ancestors the Andals were famous for. A leech slid to the ground; drunk, sated.
"The Winged Knight will only hand over his charge to a knight who can best him with honour," his leeched lordship proclaimed. "So that he can rest assured that the lady receives a better protector when his duty to her is done. On the contrary, if he is champion, he will take the lady to the capital himself so that the accusations against her can be examined by the Faith."
The Hound wanted to laugh at the sheer stupidity of the sacred precepts of chivalry and Faith as presented by the boy. Gregor, however, stood attentively in his armour, listening; a completely incredible reaction for the brother Sandor knew.
When Robin was done talking, Gregor grabbed Qyburn harshly by one arm and dragged him over the floor towards the exit. He stormed off as if he was a wild stallion, and Qyburn a prisoner tied to its tail for execution.
"Ser Robert accepts the challenge," Qyburn whined as his body swept the ground.
"Where is your tourney master, Nestor?" Bronze Yohn asked tiredly when Qyburn and Gregor were gone. "We have to see that the draw is such that this-" he tossed Sandor a particularly nasty, suspicious look, "-Winged Knight only meets Ser Robert in the last tilt. This will give us two days of preparation for war instead of one."
"What war?" Nestor dared ask.
His more combative cousin patted Nestor's wide shoulder with a huge fist gauntleted in bronze. Yohn Royce had white hair, but he still stood as tall as the Hound. Though not as broad, and two times as old, Sandor thought, falling to the habit of measuring himself against every possible opponent.
He always had to be strong enough. There had never been anything else for him. No one would protect him.
Wait...
Sansa did.
First the secret of his scars and now of his person, ostracised for what he did in life and much more for what he didn't, but everyone thought he did.
Sansa did not believe it…
How could he not love her?
"Watch and see," Bronze Yohn warned Nestor sharply, "this will come to swords between us and them, no matter how the idiocy of the tourney goes. I don't need the Seven to tell me that."
"Perhaps…" Sansa spoke and all eyes were on her, with those of the young peacock roaming over her chest. "Then perhaps you should seek advice from the old gods instead, Lord Royce. "
"Is this a threat, my lady? Or an offer of an alliance with the North? You should speak plainly to this old man," Bronze Yohn pleaded, not understanding.
"I have merely remembered my Father's gods, my lord, on this day when I was briefly made to share his destiny," Sansa said flatly. "He was a descendant of the First Men as you are, and he waited for his death at the hands of the royal justice in the dungeon under the Red Keep as I was bid do today. Make of my words what you will. I am very weary now, of all conversation. May I be excused and given an opportunity to rest for the remainder of the evening? Or I fear succumbing to exhaustion before the tourney even begins. Who will you then send to the Queen Regent?"
Sansa's words worked miracles on the noble lords and ladies from the Vale; each with different design concerning her person, if Sandor was any judge of the looks they gave her. She was awarded a spacious chamber with a window on the first floor of the castle, and Sandor a smaller room adjacent to it as her guard.
Robin Arryn accompanied them to the door in person. "It's not as awful as it looks," he said with pride, removing fat leeches from his chest, growing more confident with every worm that fell victim to his tiny fingers.
Sansa made a face which said it was every bit as displeasing as it appeared. She walked alone between the Hound and her cousin, a bit slower than usual.
Bronze Yohn's maester ran after them with a jar, collecting the precious animals. Two guards followed at prudent distance - it didn't take long for the talk of the fierceness of the Winged Knight to take root in the castle. Their cowardice pleased the Hound.
"You were so brave, my lord," Sansa told Sweetrobin at the door of her new cage, when he was fully free of leeches. She bent and kissed the top of his head.
"I was, wasn't I?" the boy beamed. "My ancestors cut the Seven-Pointed Star into their chests to glorify the Seven, but I was afraid of doing that. I faint when I see blood."
"You'll see your share of it, boy," the Hound rumbled uselessly. "Best get used to it."
The boy paled. "The gods have protected me," he said, dead serious, "and Father used to say men will believe in anything if you speak about it long enough and with conviction.
"Ser," he nodded to Sandor, as a son might to his father. "Cousin," he smiled at Sansa. "I bid you goodnight."
Then he waved to the maester and the guards to follow him, and left in his sidling, uncertain step.
The bath was already in Sansa's chamber, scalding, smoking. Sandor immediately confined himself next door, pondering Gregor's strange, knightly behaviour, and the mounting necessity to see the smith, get a long tourney lance and a good sword. He tried stubbornly not to think of the milk-coloured lady's body, soaked in hot water. He was almost successful in it when a small knock came from the door between their two rooms.
Sansa was done bathing faster than he would have ever expected.
"Come in," he said as indifferently as he could, seated on a too-small bed, wondering why in seven hells she had to knock when she had seen all of him by now.
Maybe not all, he realised, belatedly.
She had always pointedly avoided seeing his cock, even when she sought its touch with her folds, while she had entirely forsaken her old habit of skilfully not looking at his face. In short, Sansa acted exactly the opposite to what he was used to from women who wanted to bed him.
He wondered if this was maidenly modesty or profound fear. He didn't know which of the two possibilities frightened him more. Had the dwarf bedded Sansa, Sandor would hate it with all his heart, but it would still make it easier for him to do the same… To try and do better than other men… This way… this way… the prospect of causing her pain terrified him; formed a hurdle he could not cross.
Sansa was now a vision in a clean, dark blue gown, with wet waves of soft brown hair hanging over her shoulders. She sat next to him and looked in front, not at him, lost in her own troubles. The expression in her bright blue eyes was still lifeless, the false one he never wanted; her mask for the court.
Don't wear it in here, please. The ridiculous plea never left his lips though. He was a man. He would not beg...
"I had thought that maybe…" she stuttered. "The servants had brought a change of men's clothing as well…"
"I stink, I know," Sandor said curtly, acknowledging the truth. "I'll take care of it."
He scampered to the larger room and slammed the door behind him from pure habit of doing so. He wondered if that also frightened her.
The water was still warm. He removed his armour and undressed swiftly. Naked, he noticed Sansa's dirty brown gown, forgotten on the side, waiting for the servants to take it away. Unreasonably, he felt a need to smell the bodice, just once. Unexpectedly, he found it full of paper. He didn't really open the letter. He did not... It fell open on its own…. From Varys to Baelish… From the Spider to Littlefinger. A marriage offer for Sansa… To a Targaryen prince no less.
Sansa sent a raven, Bronze Yohn had said… She must have said yes… what else… Why wouldn't she?
This letter most likely explained why Cersei's men were here. Either Baelish wrote to Varys, bargaining with Sansa for his personal gain, or Varys found out about Littlefinger's false daughter by a little bird of his own. The Spider had spies in all Seven Kingdoms. After, Varys must have first sold the information to Cersei and then used it to force Baelish into accepting his proposal for Sansa in exchange for help…
Sansa must have written back and accepted to marry this prince… She carried the letter between her teats, hidden as a lover's favour…
The Hound's mood, grim since the morning, blackened further. He would return the letter to Sansa and mock her cruelly. He was leaving. She could wait for this Aegon to kill Gregor for her. With dragonfire no less…
Possessed by cold ire, he began to jam the cursed paper. But, as he did so, another sheet was revealed under it, filled with many lines of perfectly shaped letters, curling slightly upwards.
He read it avidly, believing himself fully ready for another blow of truth that would harden his necessary resolve to leave. He didn't want to kill Sansa nor the prince she had chosen. He told her he wouldn't do it. He could not stay and test the strength of his promise.
Unbelievably, what he read next sounded very pretty, but he didn't recognise any of the platitudes repeated ceaselessly at court… Yes, those words were beautiful… but not empty... They meant something. He committed them to memory as he would a detailed command of his former masters. Surreptitiously, they began reciting themselves in his head, in Sansa's sweet voice.
You challenged the wind and the mountain;
You braved the mist and the fury of water.
Yet I ran from you into the past,
I hid in the valley of my losses,
frozen in ice, chained in a dungeon;
a bastard, a servant, a noble slave
I could not love you.
I could not stay.
Golden and soft, the autumn is at the end,
The day is dwindling into a long night.
I shall not run now, no, I shall wait.
So wake up, do not leave me,
Put your arms around me,
Tell me what love is,
Let me remember,
Let me forget.
It was a song alright. There was no doubt about that. And it wasn't about Florian and Jonquil. It was about him. Surely no one else was fool enough to brave the waterfall for her.
Sansa wrote him a bloody poem. Reading it felt like exquisite sin, a sting on his conscience, a reminder he still had it. Once more, he took a song from her against her will, for she had clearly hidden it from his sight. And what a song it was… It stirred that cruel weakness in him he called love, for not having any other name for it. Love in him responded to her expressions, bathed in them, became cleansed by them, treasured them.
Most unusually, he wanted to burst into words of his own and return the favour, but all mentions he found easily inside himself were those of hatred. For Gregor, for this Targaryen prince Varys was offering. He had no pretty phrases to give her, true or false. Carefully, he placed both papers back into the dirty bodice, trying to ignore them. He washed and changed rapidly, not thinking of her body, but of her song… When he was done, it was his turn to knock on the door between the chambers.
Sansa opened it, flustered, with her hair half-combed.
"You forgot some letters in your gown," he handed her the bodice, feigning indifference to its contents. "Are they from your Northern allies Bronze Yohn is so afraid of?" he lied carefully.
"No," she said, looking into his eyes, not lying to him, but not admitting the truth either.
"Thank you for bringing my letters back," she added and avidly plucked both from among her dirty feathers, sticking them into her clean bodice; arranging the poem closer to her freshly perfumed skin, sighing prettily as she did so. Sandor felt well and truly delusional. Does this mean that you would rather have me and not the prince? Can't you just tell me that?
I am yours, Sansa.
You do understand that now.
Don't you?
He was not a moment too soon in bringing back her precious possessions; three wide-eyed, curious servants burst into the larger room after the perfunctory knocking. In a moment, the bath and all dirty garments were gone. He had to snarl at them from a dark corner or they would have taken his armour too, and he had no other.
"A tourney," Sansa said quietly, sitting once more on the small bed, "I almost can't believe it." Tapping the coverlet next to her with a small, delicate hand, she invited him to retake that place.
Sandor sank next to Sansa; very, very close. Their sides touched.
Put your arms around me…
Sneakily, he wrapped his sword arm around her shoulders. Sansa reacted by relaxing and letting her pretty wet head drop sideways until it rested between his shoulder and chest.
"How does it feel?" she whispered, looking up, searching for something in his eyes. "Having to face your brother. You thought him dead."
"Well he isn't. Dead, I mean," the Hound growled quietly in their embrace.
"No," Sansa had to agree, pressing her cheek harder in his fresh tunic, nuzzling him with her skin. She had a scent of spring. He wondered what he smelled of, to her.
"For the first time ever they will be arranging the draw so that we do fight each other in the end," he said bitterly. "I suspect that Tywin must have been paying the tourney masters so that we would never face each other. So that I would never get the chance to kill my brother unless he gave it to me. And he never did."
It was just like Sansa to change conversation at hand when it was not a pretty one. "Will you put your sword between us?" she wondered.
It was what true knights did, Sandor remembered, to preserve the honour of the ladies they protected. And usually they did not press the blade on their lady's throat on any occasion, much less twice, as he had done.
"I'll never put any sword of mine near you," he vowed, but his words, and not hers, sounded like a false platitude for a change.
"Won't you?" She voiced her concern. Or… hope? But for what?
"I don't know," he whispered hoarsely. He had been thinking about his other sword in relation to her for years. Today was no exception.
And he did think of killing her, there was no way of going around that truth, as soon as he read that some twat of a prince wanted to marry her.
Who wouldn't want to marry her?
Reading the bloody letter, he discovered he merely fooled himself into thinking he did not care for having a wife and some land to call his own. He only imagined he'd be happy if Sansa would have him as her husband's guard, her lover in exchange for his protection…
He wanted to marry Sansa.
The stubborn thought shocked him.
Yet it was no less true...
"I thought I would have to stay in the dungeon like my father," Sansa suddenly confided in him. There was light again and a bit of… mischief in her eyes. "I thought I was prepared for it, but I wasn't. I didn't realise Sweetrobin and you would help me-"
"You wanted clever. Clever does not mean we leave you to rot." Sandor said from his heart. "I was a craven before, with you. Not any more."
Sansa gave him a very enlightened look and began caressing his chest, a bird's touch, a lover's touch.
Is that the way of it? Is this what we are now? Lovers?
"I had also not realised," she announced with growing contentment in her voice, "that I have frightened Bronze Yohn so thoroughly… He added the rumours from the North to the lies I served him about Cersei wanting to kill Robin… It feels… odd… that my words can have such power."
"This is just a prettier dungeon, little bird," Sandor gestured at the set of rooms she was given, and finally at his chest, at them together. "You have not achieved much."
"I know," she exhaled and looked up to him, bright-eyed and trusting, almost lovingly. "But I shall be happy with the beauty there is in here. There is so little in the world."
"All beauty there is, it's right here," he blurted, meaning it, surprising himself. He kissed the damp crown of her head, hugged her slender frame with both arms.
Put your arms around me...
"Would you… comb my hair?" she asked surreptitiously, wriggling out of his embrace, handing him a brush that must have come with the soap and the fresh clothing.
He felt ridiculous. Occasionally he had to brush Stranger. It can't be that different. Besides, he supposed Sansa would call for maids if he did not do as she bid him, and he... he… he found immense joy in being alone with her.
"Why not?" he said, taking the brush from her hands with the same expression he used when accepting the white cloak of the Kingsguard. He still had no lands as back then, but he might have a woman.
"I've always wanted to touch it," he murmured, freeing her pretty locks from knots and tangles. The softness of it was incredible. They were interrupted once, by a light supper being brought for his lady. The noise in the corridor came just in time for Sandor to take a place in the shadows, at the door, more suitable for a guard, and for her to scurry to the larger room.
He should have gone and found the smith that day, but he didn't, unwilling to leave her side.
I hid myself from you… she wrote in her poem. She also said she was waiting now...
How can I find you? What should I do?
A small flagon of wine was served with the food, golden and too sweet smelling.
"Lies and Arbor Gold," Sansa said wistfully. "I used to like wines from the Arbor."
"Too sugary for me," he grumbled, wondering what she meant.
Sansa poured him a cup and he took it all the same, gulping it down, ashamed of the slurp he made on account of his burned mouth. He would drink poison if she gave it to him. Between them, they rapidly cleaned the platter. He could eat and drink more, having forgotten to do so during the day.
But, more than anything, he wanted to look at Sansa with that faint warmth bubbling inside him, caused by very little wine, as a consequence of a long period of sobriety on the Quiet Isle; both forced upon him and consciously chosen, after the disaster at the inn. He had fought Gregor's men drinking on an empty stomach and he nearly lost his life.
Sansa's wine, unlike his, lasted forever in her glass. Between ladylike sips, she hummed a melody under her voice. She looked at him all the time, and he returned the favour, relaxing. The anger was fully gone from him by the time Sansa's goblet was empty.
They kept drinking each other with their eyes in pleasant silence.
Put your arms around me… The poem kept haunting him.
The sky was very dark blue when Sandor succumbed to Sansa's beauty. Against his convictions, he pleaded with her.
"Let me touch you," he gasped with need bursting through his mouth like dragonfire. He pawed her breasts through her gown with huge hands, avoiding the poem and the letter in her bodice.
"Let me feel you," he begged for more. On a whim, he kissed her eyes. They snapped closed, but her hands instantly captured his face on both sides. Her lips searched longingly for his.
Have you been waiting for this too?
Their lips met, lost and found each other. The kiss was fresh, delicious, tasting as their first one and not one of the many.
"Wear yellow for the tourney, will you?" he asked obsessively against her lips.
"Why yellow?" she wondered in the softest voice he had ever heard in her. "I… I thought of green, as in King's Landing… You had a green cloak on the second day, when you saved Ser Loras. It was beautiful… I mean, it fitted you."
"You remember that?" he marvelled. "I put it on because of you… It reminded me of your green dress from the first day, when I… when I told you about myself… after the feast. I… I would want to see you in yellow," he begged on. "This once."
Her lips nibbled on his, undeterred, devoid of mercy, not giving him an answer.
"Are we not… good together like this? Don't you want more? Don't you need more?" There. He dared ask when kissing was no longer enough for him. She would stiffen now. He waited. She stilled.
"More?" she wondered. "You mean… I wish I knew, Sandor. At times I feel like I do and then I know I don't," she sounded… unhappy again. "You said it yourself once. Everything frightens me."
"That might be so," he noted. "But I've seen you conquer your fears. When… when you wanted to push Joffrey."
"You knew!" she exclaimed, "I didn't think anyone noticed."
"You are neither weak nor stupid," he showered her with words that just came. They would not match her poem but they were something. "You make me forget myself; what I am, what I was. You, and not the Seven, make me want to become someone I am not. Someone I don't recognise. Someone better."
"Do you like that man?"
"I like you," he snarled.
"It was prettier up there," Sansa breathed out, glancing through the window, at the dark shape of the mountain. Sun shone over the Giant's Lance on the day when they found each other, and the weather on the foot of the mountain was sickeningly grey and cloudy by contrast.
"I couldn't believe when I saw you and Robin coming to that dungeon," she jumped from the weather to the memory of her most recent ordeal. "I thought you would just leave me, as my family had to, having better things to do-"
"Like I did before, when I let them beat you," the Hound said eerily, blaming himself; his voice a ghostlike hum in the dim light. The day was all but gone. The prisoner of the crown was given no candles, and the fire was already dying out in the hearth. The moon was high, full and pale, casting a silver gleam into their world.
"No, Sansa," Sandor shook his mane, almost dry after a bath now. "I might have failed in freeing you today. But I couldn't have done without attempting it… Be happy I didn't kidnap you," he teased her, "and not for not wanting it."
"Why didn't you?" she was challenging him now.
"Because you said we should try and stay. I'm trying."
He pulled the laces of her gown loose, unwrapping her with care he would never have for anything or anyone else. She let him do, let his fingers probe the revealed skin. Occasionally, he followed his hands with a kiss. Her nipples were the only stiff part of her when she was naked as on her name day.
"Trying something else now… Come," he asked, pulling her gently onto his lap so that her back was turned towards him. His fingers roamed over her breasts and belly. Gently, but decisively, he pushed one hand down her stomach, between her thighs, and spread her folds open with his finger.
She jerked, but did not freeze. "Gods," she mouthed, boneless.
So far, so good.
His heart beat madly.
He moved his finger up and down her cleft as she did to herself when she wanted to feel his cock with her bottom lips; very, very careful not to dip it into her damp sweetness. He lingered on the surface, probing, finding a more sensitive place near her opening. He drew some moisture from below and brought it there. In response, Sansa let her head fall back on his shoulder and sighed into a kiss he felt obliged to give her at that moment; a very wet one. She found his free hand and put it on her breast, rocked her hips helplessly against his finger and... abandoned their kiss.
"Is this what men always do to women?" she wondered in a deep, warm voice.
"I don't think so," he said, "Men mostly just fuck women. Or kill them. Or both."
He imagined how good it would be if he was sheathed inside her and his balls began to hurt.
"It's even better if… if I touch myself with your… manhood."
"By all means, do it," he said, laying down, freeing himself. "I'm yours."
He didn't have to feign sleep or immobility and she never asked him if she could close her eyes. She climbed over him avidly and found her place on him, kissing him, straddling him, arranging his hands where she wanted them on her body with both natural ease and need.
"As that first time," she said and her voice broke in the middle of the phrase. Although the courtesy of please, my lord was missing, she sounded as if it was she who was begging now, wanting this badly. He had to answer that call; he had no choice not to.
For him, it was sweet torture. She draped him with her body and rubbed herself on his cock. He could not find his ultimate pleasure. He could not let go of his tension. Almost sober, awake, healthy, rested, somewhat used to the marvel of her body after a few days of sharing a bed, Sandor understood too soon where he should push to end up deep inside, past caring. It was painful not to do it every time she came down on him just at the right angle.
She was unrestrained in pleasuring herself as she knew how, but her movement was not fast nor continuous enough to give him the friction he needed.
Sandor decided to pass the time she required for herself by tasting her body and exploring her limits. He sucked hard on her nipples and stroke her curves firmly. He kissed her as brazenly as he had always wanted, though not as deeply, avoiding any action resembling too much what he wanted badly; the full possession of her body. Spreading her little arse, he felt her back opening and squeezed her buttocks back roughly, pinching them. Finally he bit her in the hollow between her neck and shoulder, knowing he would leave a mark.
He found that... as long as he didn't take her, there were no limits… she seemed to long for any touch he gave her, sighing prettily, moving his hands here and there on a whim, or visiting his face with her hands and mouth.
This realisation almost made him a green boy again, coming against his will. He stilled his hands on the small of her back and realised he had closed his eyes while touching her… from wanting to feel.
He opened them now.
Sansa's eyes were wide open and warm above him. The courtly mask was erased as if it had never existed. She rose high above him and came down on him in a steady pace of her own. Her full, rounded breasts swung up and down with her body. She approached that angle where they would couple if she continued, almost offering the entrance to her cunt, and moved away, making him gasp sharply. This time, her breath hitched in return.
They both halted brusquely, staring at each other as two conspirators. Redness spread over Sansa's cheeks, visible in pale moonlight streaming in through the window.
She discovered it… She knew now just as he did when they were at the point of no return. She lowered her face close to his and kissed him, rubbing herself very insistently on his member, hissing slightly every time they almost joined properly.
"Love me," he demanded out of nowhere, "love me please."
This was what he wanted, possession was only a means to it. He was not sure he would ever have it. She could not love him, she'd said so in her poem.
Yet he would swear it was this request and not his manly body that had sent her over the edge. Her features spread in a shockingly peaceful expression which was not a smile, but pure bliss. Her lips parted. Her eyes shone like pearls, or unnaturally blue embers of a special kind of fire. Reserve left her, as if she had never been a captive traitor's daughter, nor a child of ice from the cold North. He had never received such look from a woman, smouldering and caring. Her body trembled and sweated and he expected her to fall into the routine of making him stop, maybe bite him, from feeling too much in the throes of her pleasure.
Instead, she calmed and her pretty lips stretched further, forming a delicate grin. She tilted her face to one side and slowly lowered herself on his cock. Her perfect face tensed, glowing less, but she didn't stiffen in her body, nor lose the light in her eyes. She kept gazing at him openly, warmer than ever. Sandor could not take his eyes off her, nor wrap his mind around anything any more, taken by his own sudden pleasure and shock when she descended all the way.
"Is this…?" she asked with unconcealed effort. "Are we…?"
"Yes," he answered in an unnaturally high voice for him, barely capable of a reply. The tightness and the heat of her was incredible, numbing his guilt about hurting her.
"Gods… You look… you look… your eyes... so different… This is…" She sounded as he felt; lost.
He pulled her up and back down on him, showing his need, unable to stay still. She gasped, very sharply. Her body still trembled, filled with him and with her pain, and maybe with the remnant of her pleasure, he did not know.
"It is also a sword," she murmured weakly, staring briefly at the place where they were joined. Soon, her gaze drifted up again. To his buggering face...
"Your eyes," she repeated lovingly. "They are different."
In the haze of his mounting joy, Sandor had the distinct impression that Sansa drowned her pain by looking into his eyes.
"As you want it," she breathed out. "But never on my back."
He gripped her hips selfishly, took control of her movement, added his own. She was light as a feather to him. He had no need to lay her down to do as he pleased.
"I won't be long, I promise you," he murmured back. He wouldn't last in any position, he knew. Not with her, not the first time.
He should have pulled out but he didn't. He just held her gaze and showed her what it was when a man took a woman.
"There," he said when they were done and Sansa rested safely in his arms.
Have I found you in your hiding place? How much have I hurt you?
"Was this what you meant? When you asked if I needed more?" she asked in her convoluted way, but her face remained flushed and her look vivid, exposed.
"This and more," he blurted.
They were only at the beginning. And if his arms were strong enough, their end would not come any time soon.
"Same here," she said warmly, kissing the top of one of his shoulders. "This and more. I don't know what all."
"Same here, little bird," he had to agree and chase some very indecent fleeting images from his head.
A lady would never allow such.
Would she?
"Sandor?" she asked in a very muffled voice.
"Aye," he grumbled back, sleepy as a newborn babe.
"What if your brother and Lord Qyburn find out that you are not protecting my maidenly virtue from yourself?"
"I suppose Sweetrobin will have to suffer more visions of the Faith covered with leeches," the Hound said cruelly, back to himself after the wonder he was given.
He realised she was still wide awake when he drifted into sleep, wondered if he would merit another poem after this and what it might say.
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Much, much later that night, in the hour of the nightingale, just before dawn, he woke.
Sansa slept peacefully.
Unable to catch sleep again, Sandor began to stroke her hair and the curve of her back.
Contrary to his expectations, he never had to do anything entirely on his own to make Sansa his.
They did it together.
He began thinking of defeating gnats in the tourney and running a flaming sword through Gregor's face.
Finally, he wondered where the little lord slept, all alone, and if he cried in his bed, calling for his mother or for Sansa. And despite that it was so much better not to have him in bed together with Sansa, Sandor…
He owed him one.
Odd guilt blossomed in his chest.
He missed the boy.