Sansa

As soon as she stepped out of the castle, Sansa realized that this wasn't such a good idea after all. It was dark and cold and unpleasant, and she was instantly reminded of all the reasons why she had sought shelter in the castle to begin with. Sansa wanted nothing better than to go back and curl in front of the fire, but the Hound had looked so scary!

Sansa wrapped her arms tighter around herself. She had been right in not trusting him. His outburst proved without any doubt that he was a dangerous man. Who knew what he had done to get such a hideous scarred face? It was better for her to have nothing to do with the likes of him.

It started snowing again. The snow piled on the ground and on the trees. Sansa thought it would have looked very pretty in the morning, but right now it just felt damp and cold whenever she stepped into a mound of fresh snow. Her shoes were soaked through and probably already ruined, if they hadn't been already from her earlier walk. Never mind that, her feet were going numb.

However, returning to the castle was out of question. Mainly because she was already lost and couldn't find her way in the snowstorm, but Sansa told herself that she wouldn't have wanted to go back even if she had known where to go. Even if Sandor allowed her to return, there was no way she could have slept under the same roof as him.

Sansa kept telling herself that it was quite fortunate that she had left the castle when she had, because all sorts of rumors could have cropped up about her and Sandor. She wasn't sure of what kind of rumors exactly, because Sex Ed in Westeros was mostly synonymous with whores, which isn't exactly an appropriate subject to discuss with a young girl of gentle birth. But she was sure that they were very bad rumors and she was glad there wouldn't be any rumors about her.

Unless she ended up dying in the snow. Then, people would end up talking about her, and how she'd gone and died in the snow, and how her dress was completely ruined. That would have been awful too, so Sansa resolved not to die.

She hadn't been walking for a long time when she heard the wolves. Usually, when a young and defenseless girl is lost in the woods and she hears the howling of wolves, it means that she's about to be attacked and her valiant prince will swoop in to save her in the nick of time, showing his bravery and conquering the fair maiden's heart. Or something like that. However, in this story, the wolf saves the girl from the evil prince, so Sansa sighed with relief.

"Lady!" she called, even though she could barely hear her own voice over the howling of the wind. "Lady, where are you? I'm so glad you're okay, you had me scared..."

Sansa couldn't see anything between the trees but snow and darkness, but she immediately rushed towards her wolf. She was terrified that Lady might not hear her, that she would walk away and be lost forever.

Luckily she found Lady very soon. Even more luckily, since wolves can talk, she finally understood what Lady was saying in between her howls. Unluckily, what Lady was saying was: "Run, Sansa, he's coming for you!"

Sansa froze as she heard those words, but it was too late. Prince Joffrey and his men jumped on the path in front of her and quickly surrounded her.

"Hah," Joffrey sneered. "Did you really think you could escape from me? Your rabid wolf is my prisoner, and now you are my prisoner too. Maybe I should keep you in chains too," he added, pointing to the back of his party, where two burly knights were holding the ends of the chains restraining Sansa's direwolf.

"Lady hasn't got rabies, don't hurt her!" Sansa replied, to no avail. "Please!"

However, just as Joffrey reached down from his horse to grab Sansa's arm, Sandor ran out of the trees, with his sword raised. "Let go of the girl," he screamed.

Joffrey yelped and immediately withdrew his hand to avoid having his arm cut off. "My knights, to me!" he yelled. "Protect your prince!"

The knights had already given a lot of thoughts to the pros and cons of serving Joffrey. Namely, getting an unspecified amount of gold versus risking their neck battling witches with large boobs, being savaged by angry wolves and generally following Joffrey's orders. However, not being very smart, they were still thinking that serving Joffrey was the life-affirming choice here. Their loss.

So the knights charged on Sandor like a bunch of knights who were angry, cold, tired, hungry, have had a very bad day and would just like to get this over with quickly so they could go home. A dozen knights following the orders of an evil prince, charging a single man protecting a hapless maiden. The conclusion was clear.

If this story was in any way, shape or form realistic, Sandor would have been slaughtered and Joffrey would have ridden back to his place with Sansa and done very bad things to her. Luckily this story isn't, and the Law of Conservation of Ninjutsu is fully in effect. Sandor faced all of Joffrey's knights and fended them off easily, while Joffrey grew progressively annoyed, concerned, and finally very, very scared as he realized in exactly how much trouble he was.

As Sandor dispatched the last knight still standing, Joffrey's horse proved itself to be smarter than the knights by throwing its rider from the saddle. Joffrey landed in a pile on the muddy ground and watched in horror as his horse galloped away.

Joffrey scrambled to his feet and grabbed Sansa's arm. "If you want her," he yelled to Sandor, "you'll have to pass over my dead body!"

Sandor looked down at him. "Seriously?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "Because that can be easily arranged. I've seen toddlers who look more threatening than you. Let go of the girl."

Enraged, Joffrey draw a dagger from his belt. "Then nobody will have her," he said, raising his arm. Sansa's eyes went wide and she screamed, trying to free herself from Joffrey's grip, but that only served to make the prince more furious. He brought the dagger down in a swooping arc.

Sandor lunged forward but he was too far to stop Joffrey. However Lady managed to free herself from her captors and jumped forward, shielding Sansa with her body.

"No!" Sansa cried as the dagger hit Lady in the chest. Lady slumped to the ground and the dagger, stuck in the wound, slid from Joffrey's hand. (Okay, so I said there would be no deaths, but it was a lie. Sometimes Disney movies have dramatic deaths, and they're always tearjerkers. I don't know Lady's death is going to be a tearjerker like Mufasa's, but at any rate Sansa didn't take it well.)

"Lady," Sansa sobbed, crouching down on the frozen ground to hug the limp form of her direwolf. Then she turned to Joffrey, who was weaponless and knightless and covered in mud and looked nothing at all like a fairytale prince. "Why did you that? Lady was good, why would you want to kill her? Why would you want to kill me?"

She jumped, startled, when Sandor tugged her to her feet. "Hurry, little bird, it won't be long before the knights come around," he said. "We need to leave."

Sansa barely heard his words. She watched in a daze as Sandor lifted Lady's body and hauled it on the back of his horse, then she grabbed the hand that he was holding out to her. Sansa climbed on the saddle in front of Sandor and they rode away from the clearing without turning back until the wind covered Joffrey's screams of rage.

Author's note: The finished story will have 10-12 chapters. I was going to post a chapter a day but there doesn't seem to be much interest... unsurprising, since the story is really silly. Anyway, I'll probably post the next chapter in a couple of days or so.