Sandor

As it turned out, there was someone listening to Sansa's song. The fact that the castle wasn't completely empty might come as no surprise since I've already mentioned the Hound, and anyway he's in the title, but Sansa didn't have the benefit of knowing the title of her story. And even if she had known, she wouldn't have thought much of it. She hardly remembered the name of Joffrey's sworn shield, who wasn't even a proper knight.

When Sandor heard the first snatches of song echoing through the corridors, Sandor's first thought was that perhaps the evil enchantress had returned. He grabbed the sword and carefully made his way towards the mysterious singer, stopping just outside of the hall's double doors. Before barging in, he wanted to see what was going on.

Sandor remembered Sansa very well and recognized her at first glance. He had always thought that she was a very pretty girl, and also a very stupid one, not very different from the dozens of empty-headed girls who showed up at the castle every week hoping to marry Prince Joffrey.

He had no idea why Sansa would be here, and reflected that perhaps she had come to meet with Joffrey without knowing that the brat and everyone else had left the castle. She looked just like the kind of stupid girl who would hang around in an empty hall, waiting for Joffrey and singing nonsense and rending flower petals.

"What are you doing here?" Sandor demanded, stepping into the room, and immediately cursed himself for being a fool. Not only he'd interrupted the song, which was quite possibly the only nice thing that had happened all day, his sudden appearance had startled Sansa.

The girl jumped to her feet with a small gasp, looking around nervously. "I'm Sansa Stark," she said in a small voice.

"I know that, little bird," Sandor said in his best reassuring voice. Judging from the way Sansa started looking for escape routes, he hadn't sounded reassuring at all. "Why are you in the castle, though?" he asked. "Your prince isn't here. He ran away and won't be coming back any time soon."

She didn't look very surprised by that news, as far as Sandor could tell. (He was still hovering next to the entrance, not wanting to scare her into actually running away.) "Yes, I know that," she said. "He told me he had a confrontation with an evil sorceress."

Sandor doubted that hiding behind the throne counted as a confrontation, but Sansa's words weren't hesitant anymore, so he let her talk.

"I met the prince in the woods next to my family's manor," Sansa explained. "But then there was an incident... My wolf ran away," she added after barely a pause. "Yes, that's what happened, Lady ran away. I went looking for her, but I didn't find her, and it got dark so very quickly. I didn't know where to go, so when I saw the castle I decided to come in. That's all right though, because I'm your prince's future wife, isn't it, ser?"

He shrugged at those words, surprised that anyone would want to marry Prince Joffrey without being forced into it. Then he realized that he was standing away from the light cast by the fire and she probably couldn't see him very well, so he said out loud, "I'm no ser."

She pouted a little, as if trying to remember who Sandor might be. "I don't recognize you," she said. "Could you step closer?"

"You wouldn't like that," he said, letting out a harsh laughter that made the girl wince.

"I'd like to know who I am talking to," she said, though she made no move to approach Sandor herself. "Please, will you step into the light?"

Sandor shrugged again, then decided that since the girl insisted he might as well show himself. He stepped into the circle of light, and Sansa gave out a soft cry as she saw the terrible burns on his face. Sandor couldn't blame her. Earlier, when he had seen his own reflection for the first time, he had smashed the mirror in a fit of fury. He had never been handsome, but now he was positively hideous.

"Sandor Clegane?" she asked after what seemed like an eternity.

He nodded curtly. It pained him to see Sansa turn away her face in fear, as if Sandor was some kind of monster about to attack her. "Now you've seen me," he snarled, stopping right in front of the girl and crossing his arms. "Are you happy?"

Sansa had gone pale. "Maybe it's better if I go back," she said. "Joffrey must be worried about me."

Sandor wasn't precisely thrilled at the thought that anyone in their right mind would go back to that whiny, spoiled, arrogant princeling rather than look him in the face. But, quite aside from the hurt feelings, it was night and there was a cold wind howling outside the castle walls. It would be unreasonable for Sansa to go outside before dawn.

"You're not leaving in the middle of the night," he said. "You'd just freeze to death."

He thought that maybe he could find her a cape or something to put over her silly frilly dress, since she looked a tad pale, and was startled when she started sobbing.

Sandor was wary of women crying. They made him uncomfortable and he didn't know how to handle it, so he usually walked away very quickly at any sign of tears. Which in turn meant he really had no idea of what to do now. "What's wrong?" he asked after a whole minute of sobs had gone by. He had some vague notion about hugs cheering up people and hoped they weren't required, especially since when he tried to approach Sansa she shuffled further away from him.

"Please, just let me go," Sansa wailed. "I've done nothing wrong, don't hurt me, please."

"I'm not going to hurt you," Sandor replied, and then he realized that he meant it. He'd done some very bad things in his life, but he drew the line at assaulting scared, sobbing girls who wandered into empty castles and sang nursery rhymes and liked stupid princes because they didn't know any better.

(So it was a very specific line. But you had to draw some lines somewhere. Unless you were Gregor, but that was a touchy subject for Sandor so we won't go there either. Anyway, Sandor figured his karma was already bad enough, and with all the random fairytale-like events that had been happening lately, he didn't want to chance it.)

"It's for your own safety," Sandor insisted, in what he hoped was a reasonable voice. "I'm not going to keep you prisoner or anything..."

Sansa gave a particularly high-pitched wail.

"Look, I am Joffrey's sworn shield," Sandor tried again. In all fairness, he wasn't sure he still was, but he would have said anything to make Sansa stop crying. "So, er, I'll protect you. You can trust me."

This speech did very little to reassure Sansa. "But you're not a knight," she said between sobs. "How can I trust what you say? I wish my Joffrey was here, he would protect me."

Sandor snorted. "Yes, he's brave like that," he said, remembering how quickly Joffrey had left him behind when he thought his royal arse was in danger. "Did he bravely offer to escort you into the forest?" He was unable to hold back a smirk when he saw her flinching at his words. "I'm sure his royal snottiness is sitting somewhere nice and warm and doesn't give a crap that you could be catching your death..."

"Don't talk about him like that," Sansa wailed. "He's brave and noble and..."

"Seriously?" Sandor asked. "You've met Joffrey, you know he's the worst prince ever. Do you think just because he's a prince he's automatically better than all other men?"

"Yes!" Sansa exclaimed.

In the face of such blatant stupidity, Sandor's short supply of temper ran out. "Fine!" he growled. He made an angry motion. "Go, run off to your precious little prince if you want!"

She cried out at this sudden outburst, tripping over her feet in her haste to back away. Then she hitched up her skirt and ran from the room as quickly as she could.

Sandor watched Sansa leave. "And don't you come back!" he yelled after her.