'Each possesses what the other lacks, two matching pieces of the same mold; one cannot exist without the other, for should they separate they are destroyed.'
"…I'm staying in Braavos. I'm not going back to Westeros."
'And so we wander this earth, each of us possessing one half of a whole soul.'
"Little Bird, I want what is best for you. And I believe that this is best."
'We cannot exist without our counterpart, not truly. And so we wander, through however many lifetimes it takes, until we are complete.'
With a sudden pull, Sansa felt as though she was lifted from her own body, floating as a mist up towards the heavens and watching from above as her corporal form stood there in the darkness below, helpless and wracked with uncontrolled trembling. Although she was cradled somewhere outside of herself, Sansa felt the pain all the same, as if her heart was being ripped apart, fiber by fiber, and she was powerless to stop it.
'Only then can we return to the heavens, united again as one soul, the way we were meant to be.'
"For who? For you? Why are you doing this?"
From somewhere up above, she watched and listened, as if the events unfolding below were happening to someone else, some other poor soul trapped in a body with a breaking heart. But as she heard the heartsong from her own higher consciousness exit the lips belonging to the form below in tremulous mewling sounds, pleading questions to him in desperate demands to understand, Sansa knew it wasn't happening to someone else. Over her own gasping cries and his reticent fumbling over unrehearsed words, the story the Septon had told her was loud in her own ears; the story she had clung to all those lonely nights in Braavos when her heart ached at his absence and defeated tears fell from her eyes as she longed for something she never possessed in the first place.
'…Should they separate they are destroyed.'
Sansa would have given much and more to remain suspended outside of her own body, to drift away towards the endless unknown expanse above and to melt into the most beautiful of stars, a crystal breathed to life and hung in the sky by the hands of divinity. Slowly at first, she felt the tugging, the subtle reminder that soul and body must ultimately unite once more. The slow meandering was short lived and with a suddenness that threatened to steal her breath away, Sansa felt a violent pull on her ethereal form as she began careening back towards the heartache and the reality that the man she had trusted to never leave her, the man who had told her he would never leave her again, was solemnly saying his goodbyes.
With gentle tugs, the Elder Brother protectively took Sansa by both of her arms, his hands softly encircling her forearms as his eyes settled pleadingly on her.
"My Lady, perhaps you should board the ship. A cabin has been prepared for you."
The man had circled around her and he was now standing between her and Sandor. Despite his placement, Sansa scarcely saw the Elder Brother. His form blurred in her vision as she kept her eyes heavy on Sandor; her stare as intent on him as the Elder Brother's was on her.
As strongly as she felt the pull on her astral body, Sansa had felt Sandor being pulled away from her, the intensity of the forces entirely equal yet dreadfully opposite. However, his departure from her had been achingly gradual. Through the crystalline perceptiveness of hindsight, Sansa knew his withdraw commenced before they had even set off for Braavos. With an otherworldly awareness, she had known and even if she hadn't, the nights and days spent alone and wandering the Sept by herself had told her all she needed to know. Yet she had been reluctant to believe that he would leave her, that he would separate the two halves of the whole she had come to believe him and her to be.
With all the naïveté she had possessed as a girl, Sansa clung to the hope that perhaps his icy aloofness and sudden rages could be ridden out like the howling gale of a storm and that she could shutter her heart against its mighty surge. But deep within that shuttered heart, Sansa had indeed known; the truth a nagging beacon of blinding light illuminating the darkness of her self-induced ignorance. And with Sandor standing before her, that damned light, grotesque and encompassing, was burning its way through the darkness and forcing her to see all she had feigned blindness towards. Brightest amongst the glaring orbs of truth was the revelation that, like the Smith, Sandor Clegane had toiled over his future and crafted his own fate; future and fate matching in that they were devastatingly devoid of a place for Sansa. To her, that revelation- its light, its truth-was by far the most glaringly painful and sobering of all.
With a sudden flush of anger erupting within her and steadily pushing through the shroud of anguish, Sansa yanked her arms away from the Elder Brother and paced towards Sandor, her tiny hands circling into tight fists. The Hound had his anger; his brooding, seething fury that had consumed his being in King's Landing. Sansa too had her own anger; manifested in a stream of salty tears against hot cheeks as her chest frantically rose and fell with her gasping of breaths.
"No! I want to hear it from him. Why? Go on, say it."
The first time in her life that time stood still Sansa was standing on the steps of the Sept of Baelor, looking on proudly yet nervously as her father confessed treasons he never truly committed and pronounced Joffrey the true heir and king of the realm. She had scarcely heard the shouts of the crowd that had gathered, for the beating of her own heart was thundering through her ears. Each second felt like a lifetime as she watched and waited for her once golden prince to prove his love to her and spare her father. With each passing moment, time slowed to a halt as her stomach knotted violently within her body.
With her eyes boring through Sandor, Sansa watched as every muscle in his body seemed to tense beneath her stare. Breathless, she waited and watched as the man she thought was the Warrior to her Maiden remained utterly silent. The world itself seemed to fall away and disappear to a silent darkness in the periphery of her vision as she waited, the seconds seeming to crawl by. And as with the tortuous moments leading up to her father's beheading, time seemed to slow to a halt as Sansa felt her stomach once more knot violently within her.
Without a sound, Sandor let his eyes fall away from her and instead focused his stare somewhere off in the distance, gazing mindlessly at some far off point as the burnt corners of his mouth twitched. For many moments, she waited for him to speak, to offer some parting token of reciprocated affection, something to which she could cling in the coming nights of heartache where tears would sweep her to sleep and dreams would haunt her long after she awoke. Sansa watched as his lips parted slightly and heard as he drew a sharp intake of breath, yet still no words came, nothing by the way of explanation for his inexplicable decision. In that moment, Sansa understood. He had nothing to give, nothing to say.
Feeling as though the veil had finally been ripped from her eyes, unbidden tears streamed down Sansa's cheeks. Her lungs burned like wildfire in her chest as the frantic instinct to flee surged through her veins in time with the pounding of her heart. In slow steps, she backed away from Sandor. With a far-off stare, he stood before her; stoic, impassible, and refusing to meet her insistent gaze. Spinning away from him, Sansa's legs began to carry her across the dock towards the waiting ship, one foot swinging in front of the other as she ran with stumbled steps.
From behind her she heard footfalls syncopated with her own, the rhythm matching hers and gaining steadily. For a fleeting instant, she thought it was him coming after her. The thought simultaneously made her heart sing a hymn of false hope and her stomach churn with the promise of vomit.
Hopelessly, she wanted him to come after her, to tell her that he had been wrong and it was just a careless mistake. Yet somewhere within her, she knew that the footsteps quick behind her did not belong to him. A man like Sandor Clegane would never jape like this. He did what he pleased, without apology and utterly aware that no one would ever dare stand in the way of what the fearsome Hound wanted. Foolishly, she had thought that she was what he wanted. All those nights spent alone in Braavos, she had whispered to the stars, her prays reaching the heavens on trembling breaths and bathed in salty tears. 'Let it be me', she had whispered. 'Let me be his match, his missing piece and he mine.' Each night, she would drift on a sea of those fallen tears into sleep blessed by beautiful dreams of them together as they were meant to be; each of their forms coalescing until they were indistinguishable and melded into one and placed amongst the stars above.
But each morning, Sansa would awake alone as her dreams decayed away into a screaming silence and in their void left a dreadful sense of aching. With each passing day she felt him sail further away from her as he seemingly navigated his own future, leaving her adrift and floating aimlessly.
She had suffered without him in King's Landing, dreamed of him in the Eyrie, collided into him in the Vale. He had opened his barricaded heart to her and although it was a tiny sliver of light against the darkness, he had done it all the same. Yet as they reached Braavos, somehow that infinitesimal fissure had closed shut; his heart sealed off from her and his final words cauterizing the slit where the opening had once been.
She felt like a fool, like a pathetic little fool wishing by day and dreaming by night that he could be her match, the missing piece that she had spent lifetimes searching for. Wistfully, she had dreamed for it to be true, just as wistfully as she had dreamed of gallant knights coming to whisk her way from Winterfell and make her their lady love. 'I was a fool then and I'm a fool now,' Sansa thought bitterly to herself as she made her way towards the waiting ship.
Her legs ached with each pounding of her feet against the inclined wooden plank leading up to the deck. When she was certain her throbbing limbs could carry her no further, Sansa reached the top of the plank. As she stepped onto the Braavosi vessel, her legs finally gave out from underneath her, melting to useless lumps of flesh and bone as she collapsed to the deck of the ship.
Sansa gripped her chest as she felt a sharp pain rip through her rib cage where her heart rested beneath her heaving breasts. Truly, it felt as if the Stranger himself was clutching her heart and ripping it from her body. As she choked on each of her sobs, she felt as though her breath was slowly being siphoned from her lips. Desperately, Sansa fought to fill her burning lungs with air until her breaths came hyperventilated and gasping. She suffocated on silent sobs, wanting to wail out her sorrow, but couldn't manage even that. Instead, her cries came silent as she worked for the air her lungs so badly needed.
With her face buried in the palms of her trembling hands, Sansa felt the warmth emanating from her cheeks and the wetness of tears that spilled forth from her eyes. She could feel as the skin beneath her damp cheeks pulsated in time with the frantic beating of her heart. A heart that's broken shouldn't beat. It should remain entombed in silence and stillness.
It seemed a cruel and queer fate; for the Gods above to let her heart continue beating, pulse after pulse, despite the heartache she had endured since leaving Winterfell. And yet the rhythm of her heart remained loud in her own ears; the horrifying beat a war drum portending the near-constant onslaught of sorrow that had besieged her spirit and battered her body. With each pounding of her embattled heart, the waves of pain came relentless and steady, armored with an all-too-familiar sting and wielding an excruciating pressure as she struggled to fill her lungs.
Scampering to her side, Septon Meribald crouched before her, the look of concern carved deep into the subtle folds of his face.
"Breathe, my Lady. Just breathe."
The Septon pulled her shaking hands into his, wrapping them tightly and squeezing as if to infuse her with his strength. She knew he meant well, but it wasn't the Septon's strength she needed in this moment and it certainly wasn't the Septon's strength she longed for. Convulsing in sobs, Sansa pulled her hands free and shrank away from him, sliding herself across the slick wooden planks of the deck beneath her while she choked on her own words in a voice dark with suffering.
"I can't. Please, I can't."
Undaunted, the Septon shifted towards her, yanking her into his arms and pressing the palms of her hands flat against his chest. Slowly, he inhaled a breath, filling his lungs until his chest swelled, and then let go in a steady release through parted lips.
"Do as I do. And breathe."
His eyes deliberately set in on her as he drew in his breaths and released before repeating the cycle again. With a persistent rhythm, the Septon continued his breathing as Sansa felt the steady rise and fall of his chest.
"That's it. Just breathe."
With synchronous rhythm, Sansa matched her breathing to his, pulling in her breaths as his chest rose and releasing as his chest receded away. Rise and fall, rise and fall. Sansa imagined the internal mantra ushering away the pain; the ebb and flow of her breaths like the tides of the ocean toiling away for eternity and witling away at boulders until nothing remained but a million or more grains of sand. With each breath, she shed the burden of her pain, diminishing it by an imperceptible fraction of an amount, but eroding it nonetheless.
The light of the moon above was blotted away by a shadow looming above her, the form casting her in darkness. Sansa lifted her head to find the Elder Brother standing before her, his eyes glazed with a retreating fury that seemed to match the intensity of sorrow in her heart. Squeezing his eyes shut, the Elder Brother sighed deeply, releasing the tension in his body only to don his all-too-familiar cloak of disquiet. Sansa had seen him this way; his hands tightly wrung in front of him, his brow softly furrowed in unrest, and his eyes flooded with a strange sense of empathetic sorrow as if the events unfolding struck a painful chord within him.
'Forget not what I have told you…all that I have told you.' Sansa remembered his ominous words to Sandor before they had set off from the Quiet Isle. She also remembered the way an unspoken understanding had passed between the two men. When she had inquired about the exchange, Sandor had withdrawn into himself, rasping out a biting response which was more reminiscent of Joffrey's Hound than she had cared to admit at the time.
Pushing against the deck and wriggling away from Septon Meribald, Sansa rose to her feet and with small steps came to stand before the Elder Brother. She surmised that the Elder Brother had protested Sandor's decision to part ways with her yet she felt the sting of betrayal all the same. She felt like a fool, as though every soul in the world knew but her. Try as she might, Sansa could not stifle the acrimony that tinged her words.
"You knew. On the Quiet Isle, you knew. And he knew. He had this planned even before we left for Braavos."
Once more the Elder Brother closed his eyes, seemingly blinding himself to Sansa standing before him as she sought out the truth with eager eyes. Biting his lip, the man solemnly nodded his head before opening his eyes again. This time his gaze settled on Sansa, the pain of his confession settling in the creases at the corners of his eyes as he contemplated her with something akin to regret.
Sansa felt a tugging of curiosity, a hungry need to know the words that had passed between the Elder Brother and Sandor. However, the thought of that knowledge made her stomach burn and her breaths thin to trembling gasps. Her heart could handle only so much truth and she had a lifetime to know the truth in its entirety. For now, there was only one question she truly needed to know the answer to, no matter how it might shatter the shards of her breaking heart.
"In the Sept before the eyes of the Gods, he said I was the only thing he ever wanted to keep. Why then? Why?"
This time Sansa's words came pleading while tears hung in her eyes, blurring her vision as the Elder Brother shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. For many moments, the man searched for his words; his mouth opening before closing once more and his eyes flickering with a yearning need to divulge all the truths she sensed he was sheltering. When he finally spoke, his voice quaked with uncertainty and remorse, regretfully speaking someone else's peace.
"He spoke the truth. He confessed the same truth to me. You are the only thing he ever truly wanted, his need for you eclipsing the hatred that had fueled his being for so long. You ask why. Fear. Fear that he might lose you, fear he might do wrong by you, fear he might never be what he thinks you deserve. He wanted everything for you; the world, the moon, the sun, the stars, the very heavens above. He wants to be the one to give that to you, but fears he can't. He wanted to give you a chance at happiness."
As the Elder Brother finished, Sansa felt her lips quivering, moist with tears that had spilled from her eyes and over her cheeks. It was all she had wanted to hear and more, but the words had formed on the wrong lips. She wanted to hear it, needed to hear it from him, for Sandor to confess those truths to her. Perhaps he thought he might spare her some pain by withholding or perhaps he was craven, unable to yield his pride in the last moments he would spend with her. Sansa lifted her hand to her cheek, swiping away tears as they fell and resolving herself to remain composed.
"You say he wanted everything for me yet he took from me the only thing I wanted. Him. If our fate was truly one…"
Then he has destroyed my fate as well as his.
Sansa halted the unspoken words at her lips, afraid that her breaths might manifest them to life and although they had already been fulfilled, the pain of speaking them aloud was too much for her to bear. But the Elder Brother had understood nonetheless, reading between the lines and offering what little he could by way of reassurance.
"Free will is as much a part of our existence as fate, Lady Sansa. Our fate is the destination in our journey, but free will is the path we take to get there. Many paths lead to the same destination although some are better paved than others."
Huffing his breaths, Septon Meribald shuffled forward and approached hesitantly as he shifted his stare between the Elder Brother and Sansa, obviously wrought to interrupt.
"My Lady, the captain would like to set sail to the wind. However, if it is your wish to wait, just in case…"
As Septon Meribald's voice trailed off, Sansa let her eyes fall away towards the darkness of night that blanketed the Free City. Settled between the meandering streets of the city, a thick fog billowed throughout the harbor and wrapped the merchant shops in an ethereal mist. From the fog, Sansa's eyes were met with the dull radiance from orbs of light, signs that the city was beginning to emerge from its slumber and dawn would soon be approaching. Soon the moon would dance from the sky so that that sun might pirouette to its own peak and the harbor would bustle with its usual activity. The night had been stigmatized with unknowable heart ache yet the sun would rise once more and life would continue on unaware of all that had been suffered beneath the twilight heavens. Time might erase the hurt, but Sandor had left her all the same, abandoned her once more to set off on his own.
Somewhere in the darkness she knew he was there. It was as though she could feel him. Perhaps she had always felt him; an otherworldly understanding of when he was near and an inexplicable aching when he was not. Sansa knew little of where he was going and less of why he was going, but she knew he was still close. Close enough that I know he's out there. And that he feels me too.
The Elder Brother shifted next to Sansa, his eyes searching the darkness so that he might see what Sansa was so wistfully contemplating with a solemn serenity beginning to envelope her. With a mournful smile pulling at the corners of her lips, Sansa knew the Elder Brother would never see what she saw in the darkness beyond the ship. With slow steps, Sansa approached the side of the ship, her hands folding softly against the course wooden banister. With her eyes still settled on the harbor, Sansa spoke her words as much to the darkness that shrouded half of her soul as she did to Septon Meribald.
"No. I don't believe it will be necessary to wait."
Sansa pushed herself from the rail, turning away from the darkness for now and for eternity until they might meet again in another lifetime. Biting her lip to stave off the onslaught of tears she felt burgeoning within her, Sansa lifted her stare to the Elder Brother and Septon Meribald, both contemplating her with wonderment and somber understanding.
"He chose his fate. And now I choose mine."
With that Sansa began towards the cabin that had been prepared for her, placing one foot in front of the other and resolving herself not to turn around. She knew if she turned back she might crumble. Instead, she retreated from all she had come to want, defeated and broken hearted. All she had to do was get to her cabin and then she could let herself unravel, but for now she needed the strength to walk away. And so she pulled in deep breaths, futilely quelling the urge to fall headlong into the agony and desperately exerting all effort she could to keep herself composed until she reached the privacy of the cabin.
From behind her, she heard the ship crew scurrying about, each man busying himself with a predetermined task. Sansa distracted herself as she imagined what their tasks might be; pulling up the plank connecting deck to dock, untying the ropes from the dock cleats, adjusting sails for the favor of the winds. As she felt the ship beneath her feet lurch forward with a pull, she knew the vessel was no longer bound to the harbor and was beginning its journey out to sea.
Reaching the door to the cabin, Sansa lifted her eyes to the heavens above and prayed on tremulous breaths that perhaps she too could be unbound from the pain she had come to know as her journey began towards an unknown future, one she had not chosen for herself.
"Fucking Seven hells!"
Sucking in his breath through clenched teeth, Sandor gripped the leg that had been wounded at the Inn of the Crossroads. He had ridden through half of the Vale and back to the Quiet Isle before setting out to Dyre Den and across the Narrow Sea to Braavos. In all that time, his leg hadn't given him trouble. True enough, in the mornings he was afflicted with a sore stiffness that eventually worked its way out by the time he had dressed and broken his fast. Although he walked with a slight limp, his leg had seemed to heal quite well, surpassing the Elder Brother's original prognosis.
Now of all times, his leg seemed to stiffen with each pounding footfall as he raced towards the dock. With sharp throngs of pain shooting up his limb, Sandor cursed under his breath. He would sacrifice his bloody leg if it meant he could reach the vessel in time. The thought of losing Sansa to his own stubborn blindness and a lame leg infuriated him beyond the stretch of his own imagination.
The ship had begun to pull away from the harbor as a young Braavosi man unfastened the last rope from a dock cleat, liberating the ship from the harbor. Sandor's vision blurred with a flurry of anger and his breaths quickened with panic. With all his might, he urged his legs forward, cursing each and every one of the Gods, the old and the new, as his injured leg began to scream its protest with blinding pain. When he finally stumbled onto the dock, the Braavosi dock hand darted forward, arms flailing as he spouted out angry words in his foreign tongue. Unable to respond and beyond that unwilling to acknowledge the dock hand, Sandor pushed past the young man in faltering steps. Regardless of the fact they did not share a common language, the man had to either be blind or stupid not to understand the irritation that flickered behind Sandor's eyes as his hand instinctively curled around the pommel of his sword.
Out of the corner of his eye, Sandor saw the unfastened rope trailing through the black waters of the bay; the freed end slithering like a snake through the water and the other end terminating somewhere on the ship. The rope was his only chance at making it onboard the vessel which was easing its way from the harbor. Having followed Sandor's frantic eyes, the dock hand lurched forward towards Sandor, blocking his vision of the rope and shouting out a slew of Braavosi words a mile a minute while pointing back towards the harbor.
With a few limping strides, Sandor flew towards the man, drawing back a clenched fist before cutting through the air with a driving force that landed square in the man's face. The man brought his trembling hands up to the ruin of his nose, his eyes widening to the size of saucers as the blood oozed forth onto his hands. Sandor stood ready with clenched fists, daring the man to stand in his way once more. Understanding Sandor's intentions without a word, the man turned from him whilst muttering what had to expletives under his breath.
As the Braavosi man slipped off into the night, Sandor dove into the water of the harbor and frantically searched out the end of the rope, which had disappeared somewhere within the inky depths of the bay. Sandor loathed running, but he truly hated swimming. With his large frame and the bulkiness of his heavily muscled body, Sandor was more likely to sink like a rock than swim. It was a risk he was willing to take as his arms spliced through the water, pushing his form forward while his eyes eagerly searched out the rope.
Giving in to his frustration, Sandor thrashed about the water, gulping in the saltiness with each inhaled breath. He wanted to rage, to release his anger in a frenzy of fists and screams. Instead, he lifted his eyes to the sky above, ready to curse the divinity it supposedly contained. As the clouds passed above him, giving way to a milky expanse of stars, Sandor found that he was instead overcome with a sense of calm. For many moments, he remained still, letting the rippling of the water around him steady to a gradual halt.
When he returned his gaze towards the ship setting off before him, he spotted a subtle shifting of the water and the rope cutting through as quietly and easily as a sword cuts through flesh. Filled with a renewed vigor and determination, Sandor propelled himself through the water towards the rope, willing with everything he had for his eyes to remain steadfast upon it.
Feeling the fatigue settling into his body, Sandor gasped out his breaths as he reached towards the rope. With an iron tight grip, he set one hand in front of the other, guiding himself along the expanse of the rope until he managed to become flush with the side of ship. Pressed against the side of the ship and hanging on precariously to a rope that very well might snap under his weight, Sandor lifted his eyes up, gauging the vertical rise towards the deck of the ship. While it was a small vessel, a trade ship meant to travel a circuit between Braavos, Gulltown, and perhaps Pentos, the ascent was daunting nonetheless, especially as his leg throbbed with pain.
Extending his arms above him, he gripped the rope as he pulled his knees high to his chest. Inhaling a deep breath, Sandor pinched the rope between his feet. Standing up, he reached up for the rope once more, repeating the process in methodical motions as he inched his way up. With each cycle of his motions, Sandor felt his injured leg becoming numb and trembling with weakness. Reluctantly, his eyes searched above him as he panted out his breaths with rasping groans. He was only half way up the side of the ship and his leg was threatening to release its hold on the rope.
Releasing his feet, Sandor hung from the rope and swung himself forward, allowing his feet to catch his weight against the side of the ship. Sandor tried to pull himself up on the rope, allowing his legs to guide his way up the side of the ship. His boots slipped against the slick planks of wood, offering nothing by the way of friction so that he might pull himself up with brute force.
The muscles of his arms burned as he clung to the rope, knowing full well that if he released his hold he would fall headlong into the waters below, breaking bones and losing his Little Bird to the night and the Narrow Sea. With that thought fueling his resolve, Sandor once more pinched the rope between his feet and began the slow ascent once more.
Each push of his legs on the rope was becoming more painful than the last. His labored grunts had given way to agonizing screams through gritted teeth. Looking up once more, the railing of the ship was almost in reach; one or two more pulls of the rope would bring him to the edge of the ship. Sandor squeezed his eyes shut and gulped in the salty air before once again setting into the excruciating task at hand. With a slew of curses, Sandor pulled himself towards the railing of the ship. Extending a trembling hand, his fingers wrapped around a thick wooden baluster of the ship railing as he exerted his last amount of energy to pull himself up and swing his legs over the side of the ship.
With his vision a blur of pain, Sandor collapsed to the deck, his breaths heaving from his chest as his body was wracked with trembling. Despite the almost miraculous way it had healed, Sandor knew without a doubt he had reinjured his leg. Truly, he may now be lame in one leg, just as the Elder Brother had originally predicted. Sandor found he could care little and less of his damned leg. Turning to his side, he pushed himself up and stumbled forward as his legs refused to hold his weight. As he clung to the railing of the ship, Sandor brought his gaze up to a handful of stunned faces peering at him through the darkness of night. Desperately, he searched for her face, for her perfectly beautiful face, but all he saw was the weathered faces of Braavosi sailors; olive colored skin lined with age and chapped with the relentless lashing of the salty ocean air, all looking on with something between bewilderment and panic.
With his sword hanging at his side and his saturated tresses plastered against the side of his grotesquely burned face, Sandor imagined he must look like the Stranger himself, coming to usher in a dance of steely death. Leaning his full weight against the rail of the ship, Sandor felt himself reeling as his vision remained an opaque blur of pain and his stomach churned with a belly half full of salt water. Off in the distance, Sandor heard the adamant pounding of boots against wood and the shouts of a Braavosi man who was angrily making his way towards Sandor. 'The fucking Captain,' he grunted to himself. Sandor despised the cockiness of knights and loathed the arrogance of lords. To him, captains of ships possessed both cockiness and arrogance enough to put knights and lords alike to shame.
From the periphery of his hazy vision, Sandor saw the Elder Brother hurriedly making his way towards the Captain, assuaging the man with broken Braavosi words interjected with pleas in the Common Tongue. Seemingly mollified for the time being, the Captain shot a derisive glare towards Sandor, his eyes bulging with agitation as his lips sealed together in an angry scowl.
Regaining his full vision, Sandor watched as the Elder Brother paced towards him with a look of utter astonishment painting his face and his head shaking in disbelief. Grasping him by the forearms, the Elder Brother pushed his weight against Sandor, helping him to regain his feet as he pushed himself from the railing of the ship to stand on wobbly legs. With his mouth agape, the Elder Brother searched Sandor's face, looking as though he was seeing a ghost.
"How…how did you?"
Agitated and fatigued from his physical exertion, Sandor pushed past the Elder Brother, stumbling towards the thick cylinder of wood that made up the foremast and leaning his weight against it. In a frenzy, Sandor's eyes swept across the deck, seeking out the only thing he wanted and needed in this moment amongst the fog that blanketed the deck of the ship.
"Where is she?"
Sandor's voice rasped from his lips, an exhausted sigh as he struggled to catch his breath. With Septon Meribald falling in at the Elder Brother's side, the pair of men exchanged bewildered stares, both shaking their heads and fumbling over their words with brows knitted in confusion. With his agitation steadily growing, Sandor heard the words bellow from his chest as he staggered forward, peering around the mast as he frantically searched for Sansa.
"Where the fuck is she?"
Turning back towards the Elder Brother and Septon Meribald, Sandor found the two men were staring off towards the main deck of the ship that extended behind him. Hesitantly meeting his demanding stare, the Elder Brother declined his head towards the main deck, motioning towards something behind him.
He knew that she was there. He could almost feel her presence. Somehow he had always been able to feel her. Even in King's Landing, he would roam the Red Keep on his nights off; shitfaced drunk yet somehow able to find her as he followed the indescribable feeling which always led him to her.
Letting their eyes fall away, the Elder Brother and Septon Meribald retreated wordlessly towards the forecastle of the ship, but not before each gave Sandor a solemn parting stare. He understood what he saw gleaming behind their eyes. Don't fuck this up. Not again, don't fuck it up. He could almost hear them saying it, each in their own way; the Elder Brother intimating the pain he himself had been through at the loss of the woman he loved and the Septon mumbling on about intertwining fates and hearts that beat as one.
Through trembling breaths, Sandor slowly spun on his heel as he shifted his weight from one leg to the other, both of which were now howling in pain. But the pain did not matter to him and he found it hardly seemed to faze him as he turned to face the divine being that stood behind him.
While she was no more than four paces from him, the distance might as well have been leagues for all he was concerned. If she wasn't wrapped in his arms where she belonged, Sansa might as well have been a world away. She still wore the silver silken dress that Septon Harmon gifted her, although the fabric was creased and crumpled about the skirt, a symbol of sorts that betrayed the difficulties of the evening. In the pale light of the moon with a vaporous fog gathering about her ankles, Sansa looked every bit of the celestial being that he had come to her acknowledge her as; his Little Bird swathed in Lunar light and possessing all the solemn serenity and ethereal splendor of the Orb of Night itself.
The waist-length cascade of her auburn hair rippled softly with the wind as loose strands clung to the tears that saturated her cheeks. Even in the darkness, her eyes shone a radiant blue although they were flooded with anguish and he surmised they glistened with fresh tears. Sandor could see that her cheeks burned red and her eyes were strained and puffy from crying. Not since the days after her father's beheading had he seen her like this, a somber shell of the vibrant and wistfully sweet creature he had known her to be.
Without prompt, his legs began towards her, melting away the space between them until he stood before her. Desperately, he searched her face, eagerly letting his eyes settle over her in a silent plea for her warmth. With an eerie silence, Sansa's far-off gaze remained straight ahead of her, as if she was willing herself to peer through him, to not see him standing before her. As he lifted his shaking hands to her cheeks and brushed away the strands of hair that adhered there, Sansa squeezed her eyes shut and bit her bottom lip to quell its trembling.
Since he had found her in the Vale, Sandor could count on two hands the number of times Sansa Stark had almost brought him to his knees. Their first night together he had mocked her for crumbling under his stare, his touch. Yet it was him that had crumbled beneath her stare, the way she regarded him with so much tenderness and trust when he had done nothing to deserve it. With just a look, a sweet quivering of her lips or the way she blushed softly or the breathy, sing-song words that passed her lips, kind and gentle words meant for his ears, Sansa Stark had almost brought him to his knees; almost because he had always fought it, too proud, too stubborn, and too stupid to realize all she was to him.
But in this moment, Sandor surrendered to the numbness he felt spreading through his throbbing legs as Sansa manifested from the salty mist which filled the evening darkness. He sunk to his knees, letting himself crumble before her. Desperately, he reached for her, encircling his arms around her waist and burying his face in her stomach, needing to be near her and to have her in his arms. With deep inhales, he breathed her in before exhaling his breaths, breaths which formed into the exhaling of her name.
Sandor had never prayed to the Gods, the old or the new, but he had seen others pray in Septs. Always, they sunk to their knees and pleaded to their God of choice; men before battle desperately praying to the Warrior, women sending their sons or husbands to war seeking favor with the Mother, nobles and low-born peasants alike pleading with the Gods above. All of them lifted their hands to the heavens, speaking the name of their chosen God and whispering in thin voices for an answer to their prayers.
Sandor felt like a sinner and in truth he was. And for the first time in his life, he prayed. But Sansa was his God and it was to her that he prayed, sunk to his knees in veneration and breathing out her name as he clung to her, desperate for her to answer his pleas.
For many moments she stood where she was, unmoving and staring straight ahead, her body rigid in his arms and her breaths coming slow and methodical from her lips. She did not tremble at his touch nor did she let out a tiny gasp as his fingertips squeezed her gently. Her cheeks were not flushed with a sweet, timid blush nor were her eyes shyly considering him with gentle affection and unwavering trust. She had turned to ice in his arms, stoic as stone with a sudden coldness where an encompassing warmth had once been.
And then he felt her take two tiny steps backwards, moving herself away from him and breaking apart his arms which were encircled around her waist. He thought she meant to turn away from him; to walk away and leave him on his knees in front of her, fraught with desperation for her sweet smiles, for her gentle eyes, and most of all for her forgiveness.
Sandor hung his head, unwilling to watch her walk away lest it destroy him although he imagined he deserved it. And then he felt as Sansa placed a tiny hand softly on his shoulder. Still collapsed on his knees, he let his eyes drift up her form until he met her stare. She had once looked at him with impossible adoration and unfaltering trust, looks that stole the breath from his lungs and made him feel like putty in her hands. In this moment, Sandor found that he was afraid to look her in the eyes, scared at what he might find there. Would she regard him as others had his entire life? Would she look at him as if he were a dog, scarcely human? Or would she look through him, as if he were invisible to her?
Despite fearing the worse, he looked anyway. With her hand still resting on his shoulder, what he found in her eyes sent a panging ache through his body which settled heavily in his heart. Sorrow. She's hurting. I've hurt her.
Once his eyes met hers, Sandor found that he couldn't peel them away and instead kept his stare intently on her, his breaths coming heavy and heaving as he watched and waited. As the moon broke through the clouds, Sandor saw the glittering of tears hanging in her eyes. Silently and with a serenity beginning to envelope her, she let her hand fall from his shoulder and rest at her side before taking two more tiny steps away from him.
Frenzied and feeling as though the world was crumbling to pieces around him, Sandor reached out for her, his arms desperately seeking to bridge the space between them, but falling hopelessly short as she kept taking steady steps backwards and away from him, the hurt still gleaming behind the tears in her eyes. Sandor let himself fall forward, reaching so far that he ended up on hands and knees.
"Sansa. Little Bird." His voice scarcely sounded his own; the rasp was familiar, but the trembling as her name left his lips was wholly unrecognizable.
As his voice reached her ears, she closed her eyes, releasing the tears that had been precariously hanging to fall down her cheeks and over her quivering lips. Opening her eyes and shaking her head slowly, Sansa turned away from him and retreated into the darkness, not turning back and her steps quick and resolute.
Sandor sank further on his knees, doubling over and cradling his head in the palms of his hands.
The first time he had lost her, he had stumbled into her bed chamber as the sky was painted in green and orange. He was broken and reeling and never expected her to come with him, to escape the city as it burned. As he retreated from a furious Tyrion and baffled Joffrey, Sandor had already decided he would leave the city that night. He knew Sansa wouldn't be in her chamber; she would be holed up with Cersei and the other hens in Maegor's. Yet he went to her chambers anyway, desperately needing one more moment with her, even if she wasn't truly there. And so that moment came as he crawled into her bed, filling his lungs with the scent of her that lingered on the pillows and bed linens, it was his last moment with her; his last chance to breathe her in, to surround himself with the one thing that had ever moved him, shook him to his core, and opened his eyes. And for the first time in as long as he remembered, he had tasted the saltiness of tears as they mingled with the blood of dead men that had begun to dry on his face. He was a broken man.
As she retreated away, he felt as though he had lost her once more. And once more he felt a salty wetness against his cheek. Whether it was the saltiness from the ocean air condensing on his cheeks or the saltiness of tears, he knew not, but he reckoned it was the latter.
Sandor remained sunken to his knees, pleading to his Goddess of the Night and wishing that he could go to her; that he could pull her into his arms and hold her there until she understood everything she was to him. She had peeled herself away from him and relinquished him to the darkness. If he needed to and he surmised he might, Sandor would spend the rest of his days proving all he felt for her. After what felt like an eternity, Sandor pushed himself to his feet and limped his way towards the rail of the ship.
Gazing off to the expanse in front of him, Sandor saw that the night was beginning a slow withdraw from the sky as the eastern horizon permeated a gradient of blues and violets. With soft steps, the Elder Brother fell in at his right side, resting his hands gently against the rail of the ship. After Sansa had fled to the waiting vessel, the Elder Brother had shed his usual tranquility and instead had swathed himself in a thick layer of rage, a consuming anger that Sandor had never known to associate with the man. Sandor had not known and hadn't truly spent time perseverating on how the Elder Brother might respond as he miraculously careened towards the deck of the ship, soaked in salt water and panting out his breaths in labored groans. Standing next to him, the Elder Brother remained quiet, staring far off into the distance until turning to Sandor, his voice gently prodding.
"If you need rest, or wine, there-"
Adamantly shaking his head with a stubborn tenacity, Sandor gripped the rail of the ship, effortlessly wrapping his fingers around the wooden banister.
"No. No more wine, no more whores, no more. I'm done with it all. Seven bloody hells, it's what got me into this mess. That and my own fucking stupidity."
For the first time in as long as Sandor could remember, the Elder Brother lifted his hopeful eyes to Sandor with the slightest of smiles pulling subtly at the corners of his mouth. No longer did the man consider Sandor with pained admonition and desperate pleading. Instead, something akin to pride shone through his weary eyes. Many silent moments passed between the men before Sandor spoke once more, staring off towards the rippling black waters lopping softly against the side of the ship.
"When I was a boy of five, my father took me to Lannisport for a tourney that was being held in honor of the young Targaryen prince, a boy of twelve at the time. I had never been to a tourney before and my father thought it might be a bit of a reprieve from Gregor's temper, which had been flaring worse than usual.
Although he was of an age with most squires, the Dragon prince unmounted Gerion and Tygett Lannister along with about a dozen of Tywin Lannister's finest jousters. Mesmerized, I watched as Rhaegar unhorsed each of his opponents with as much grace as ferocity. He was everything I imagined a true knight to be; poised, courageous, and the pure embodiment of knighthood. When he was named champion, nobles and commoners alike cheered his name and sought his favor. I looked on silent and fascinated and wishing with everything I had that one day I could be like Rhaegar Targaryen, a true knight and a champion.
For the next two years, I held onto this dream, kept it as far away from my brother Gregor as I could lest he destroy it. When I played outside, sometimes I would take my baby sister and pretend she was some highborn Lady in distress. With a wooden sword, I would stave off foes wishing to capture my sister; trees, bushes, stones. None could withstand me, the self-proclaimed true knight, Ser Sandor Clegane. And I dreamed of one day crowning my own Queen of Love and Beauty, a beautiful maiden that would blush at my words, give sweet smiles meant only for me, and even sing songs of lovers, Florian and Jonquil perhaps. The perfect lady for a true knight.
Those dreams melted away the night Gregor caught me playing with his toy knight and dragged me screaming to the brazier. Four years later, Gregor was knighted by Rhaegar Targaryen himself. Imagine my horror. My brother, the monster, a knight made by the very man I had admired and aspired to be. If only Rhaegar had known that Gregor would eventually rape and murder his wife with the blood and brains of Rhaegar's son still on my brother's hands."
With the bitter memories filling his head and settling like lead in his center, Sandor shook his head as his jaw clenched tightly in remembrance. Placating to Sandor's rising disquiet, the Elder Brother shifted his pensive gaze towards Sandor.
"Rhaegar Targaryen forsake his birthright and ultimately lost his life, all for his Queen of Love and Beauty. A Stark girl if my memory serves me."
"Aye. Seven Kingdoms and his lifesblood. A small price to pay for a Stark girl. I've fought alongside more knights than I can count; watched them butcher innocent people, rape and pillage. And then my brothers of the Kingsguard. I watched them beat Sansa bloody. I failed her then. I abandoned her in King's Landing. And now this. I don't have Seven Kingdoms to give her, but I'd give her everything I do have. My lifesblood, if she wanted it."
Sandor felt the familiar stirring of guilt rise within him more fiercely than he had ever felt it before. As his rage bubbled up within him, he realized how truly blind he had been. Stupidly, utterly, horribly blind and it had almost cost him everything.
"You learned at a young age the sham that is knighthood. And you tried to make her see. To be a true knight, one need not take the vows; those are nothing more than words in the wind."
Turning his head over his right shoulder, the Elder Brother stared off towards Sansa's cabin before beginning once more.
"If I dare say so, you are more a true knight than any anointed knight I've met. And to Lady Sansa, your Queen of Love and Beauty, that is all that matters. Be the man she deserves, be the man she needs. If you can give her that, you will have given her everything she truly wants. You."
Sandor knew that now. He had known it before yet had blinded himself to it, disbelieving that Sansa Stark could ever truly feel for him all that he felt for her. With a flush of vigor, Sandor stood tall on his aching legs, his grip still iron tight to the wooden banister of the ship railing.
"I won't leave her again. I can't." With his passion relenting slightly, Sandor turned to the Elder Brother, reluctantly holding the man's stare as he whispered a rasp of a confession. "I'm afraid of failing her yet again."
Once more, the Elder Brother's mouth curled into a slight smile, understanding that Sandor Clegane, one of the most feared men in the Seven Kingdoms, had admitted his own fear. Sighing deeply, the Elder Brother crossed his arms about his chest and let his eyes retreat to the fading darkness in the sky above.
"I once befriended a Maester during my travels in the Riverlands. He was a solemn sort of man and had lived a life full of sorrow. He never told me as much, but one can always tell. Sorrow settles behind the eyes for all the world to see. This Maester seldom spoke, but when he did speak, the room fell silent and listened as if his words were formed from the breath of the Gods themselves.
One day while in this Maester's company, we made the acquaintance of a local bard who traveled from tavern to tavern. Listless, the singing man told us how he had spent many days and nights trying to compose a song to sing in the taverns. You see, he had grown tired of singing the bawdy tunes the tavern folk loved so dearly. His soul craved poetry, something resplendent in its elegance and prose. And so he posed the most curious of questions to the Maester and me. The man asked 'What do you believe to be the most poetic thing in all the world and the heavens above?'
I knew my answer immediately. Why, I thought we all knew the answer. The love of a beautiful woman, of course! The bard quickly agreed, but the Maester fell silent, his eyes misting over with something I could not comprehend, not then at least. For many moments, we waited for the Maester to answer the question.
And when he did answer, he turned to us, the singer and myself, and with all the austerity and sadness gleaming behind his eyes, the Maester answered with this: the most poetic thing in all the world was not the love of a beautiful woman, but the death of a beautiful woman.
Horrified, the singer was speechless. You can imagine what a feat that is, to render a bard speechless. I myself was deeply disturbed by this answer. But once more, as the Maester continued, it seemed as if the earth itself fell silent to listen to his words.
The Maester never knew his mother, she died when he was an infant. But he knew the legacy she left behind. She was a beautiful woman, charming and beloved by all who had known her. But he had never known her, you see. He never felt the warmth of her embrace no more than he ever bathed in the light of her spirit. He came into the care of a woman who was a dear friend of his mother. She raised him as her own with a gentle tenderness and he came to regard her as a second mother. She too was beautiful, her kindness radiated from within.
When he was four-and-ten, the Maester aspired to be a knight and went to squire for a noble knight. Not long after he came into the service of this knight, a raven came, terrible news clutched between its claws. His second mother had fallen ill and passed away in her sleep. The Maester was heartbroken, beside himself in grief.
Many years later, the wound of his heart had healed and the Maester met the daughter of a miller. Her beauty was beyond compare, he said. The sun itself was a mere candle to the beaming splendor of this woman. Deeply he fell in love with her; an all consuming love which he was astounded she eagerly reciprocated. They married and lived a quiet existence. Ten turns of the moon after their wedding, his wife was swollen with their first child. From the beginning, her labor was difficult; the midwife was deeply concerned at the amount of blood loss. The child had passed before birth, entering the spirit world while still in her mother's womb. As for the Maester's wife, she entered the arms of the Gods not long after. After burying his dead, the Maester traveled to Old Town and offered himself as a novice to the Citadel.
As I listened to this Maester recant all the sadness he had known in his lifetime, I realized: it's not the death of a beautiful woman that is poetic, it is the tragedy. With a solemn pride in myself, I turned to the Maester and declared, 'It is the tragedy that is so poetic.'
Each of these women he had loved and each had been beautiful. The Stranger came for these women, kissed them with death and wrapped them in his icy embrace. He had lost his loves to death. One might say that this is the greatest tragedy the human heart can know. But the Maester did not believe this to be true and neither do I. Not anymore.
Love withers. Love becomes tainted by lust, greed, pride, and most of all, by fear. To lose love to death is no tragedy. The far greater tragedy is to let love wither away, let it slip through our fingers like grains of sand because we are too proud, too greedy, too lustful, too fearful. To let love decay away, that is the tragedy because we have cheated ourselves from the opportunity to know love in its purest form. The Maester knew that even though to death he had lost the women he loved, he was blessed for having known love in its truest form, unsullied by the shortcomings of a fearful heart.
In love and in life, fear is our undoing. It unravels us in a slow and steady pull until we are nothing."
Letting his eyes retreat from the sky, the Elder Brother turned towards Sandor, willing his parting words to be heard.
"Afraid or not, be the man she needs. You owe it to her, but you also owe it to yourself, Clegane."
With that, the Elder Brother left Sandor alone in his thoughts, his mind reeling and his heart pounding within his chest. Sandor had fought in battles since he was twelve; beginning with Robert's Rebellion and ending with the Battle of the Blackwater. Save from fire, he feared nothing and knew he could cut through any opponent that dared enter a melee with him. Despite this, Sansa Stark, soft-spoken and harmless, had brought him to his knees and in as long as he could remember, he was terrified.
She had given him everything he had ever dreamed of; blushed at his words and his touch, offered sweet smiles he sensed were meant only for him, and she even sang for him. Although it was not the Song of Lovers, she had sung a song of mercy, a song to calm his rage and soothe his broken soul.
Sandor knew it was now his turn to give her everything she had ever dreamed of; to defend those who cannot defend themselves, to be brave and gallant and just, to act with honor and valor.
And most of all, to be a true knight if only in action and not in name. Despite his fear, he would try to be her true knight and he would succeed because failure meant losing her. And it was the fear of losing her which terrified him the most.
A/N: Many, many, MANY apologies for taking so very long to update. Life got super hectic REAL fast.
A special thank you to wonder woman, Underthenorthernlights for all of her encouragement and for helping me through a serious case of writer's block. Thank you!
The Maester's story is an adaption, or rather a musing, of a quote from Edgar Allan Poe's "The Philosophy of Composition," in which he states that the death of a beautiful woman is the most poetic topic in the world. Although Mr. Poe does not elaborate on it, a common theme in his works is the loss of love to death, which he himself experienced quite often in his lifetime.
Thank you for all who follow, favorite, and review this story and have patiently awaited an update!