Sansa (and Arya)

Sansa and Arya rode back as fast as they could. In the past few months, the forest had grown so much that the street leading from the castle to the town had disappeared. Maybe the castle was enchanted after all. The thought might have cheered Sansa, but she was too glum to pay attention to the scenery. However, once they were out of the trees and in the open, even she couldn't help noticing that the countryside was crawling with Joffrey's men. Arya made them keep their head down and stick to secondary roads so that the guards wouldn't trouble them.

Sansa didn't see the reason to be so cautious. She was going back to Joffrey, after all. "If I do this, everything will be right again," Sansa insisted, mostly to convince herself.

Arya glared at her sister and shook her head, but she kept her silence.

It was past dawn by the time they arrived home. The Starks lived in a nice mansion on the outskirts of town. Joffrey and his men had taken over it and left their mark everywhere. Sansa's heart hurt at the sight of the ruined flowerbeds, and of the cracked windows, and above all of the prince's banner flying over the door.

Sansa took a minute to fix her skirts (she had changed into a simple riding dress for the journey) and willed her heart to stop beating madly. "Everything will be right again," she told herself, and walked inside.

She found Joffrey in the dining hall, with his feet propped on the table. He seemed surprised to see her, but decided to play the charming host. "Lady Sansa," he said. "I hadn't expected your visit. What a pleasant surprise."

"My prince," Sansa said, bobbing a curtsy. The idea of Joffrey welcoming her into her own home made her skin crawl, but she decided to play along. "So he'll free my parents, and Bran, and baby Rickon," she thought. Arya hadn't followed her inside and Sansa didn't know where her sister was.

"I was most distressed when you left," Joffrey was saying.

Sansa kept her eyes down. "I'm here now, my prince."

That seemed to please Joffrey. "My plan worked, I knew it would," he said. That was a blatant lie, since his plan involved siege engines and a pony, and it was his grandfather Tywin who had put an end to that particular stupid idea. By the way, Tywin had grown tired of hanging around his grandson a couple of weeks earlier and he'd gone back home, leaving Joffrey with an army and a stern injunction to stay away from ponies.

"Now that I'm here, will you release my parents?" Sansa asked. Joffrey didn't even pretend that he hadn't been keeping them prisoner, and gestured for his guards to bring in the Starks.

Lord and Lady Stark had been despairing of seeing their eldest daughter again, because Joffrey had told them that she'd been kidnapped by an evil sorceress with the help of his own sworn shield turned bandit. Sansa hugged Bran and Rickon, and she tried to answer their questions as best as she could.

"They say that the enchantress has dragons," Bran said, "and that she turned the Hound into a giant."

Sansa hesitated, but even after all her character development she wasn't very smart. She totally forgot that Joffrey was still in the room and blurted out, "There was no enchantress."

Joffrey, who had been busy exploring one of his nostrils, sat up. "The enchantress ran away?" he said, smirking. "When?"

"T-there was no enchantress to begin with, my prince," Sansa said. "Only Sandor Clegane."

She was afraid that Joffrey would be angry to learn that his enemy had fled, but the prince only laughed. "I should have known," he said. "You're too stupid and cowardly to escape from an enchantress." The Starks glared at the boy, but they were surrounded by guards and couldn't do anything. Sansa meekly bowed her head. "How did you escape, anyway?" Joffrey asked.

"I didn't. My prince," she hastened to add, as Joffrey frowned. "H-he let me g-go. It's true, I swear." She faltered under the incredulous stare of both the prince and her family. "He's good and kind and patient. If only you'd go and talk to him, you'd know."

Sansa herself would have scarcely believed it if someone had told her, but she'd seen the Hound and talked with him and danced with him in the huge banquet hall. He had been kind to her, and she felt that she had to defend him to repay that kindness.

"He's just a rabid dog," Joffrey said, pulling a face.

"He's not!" Sansa exclaimed. "He's sitting in your seat, and he's a better lord than you were or you'll ever be."

Joffrey paled at those words, then turned red and drew his sword. Sansa backed away from him, hiding behind her parents, but the prince only waved the sword around in an irate gesture. "I'll bring you his head as a wedding present!" he yelled. Then he ordered his guards to keep watch on the Starks and went outside to rally his army.

Now, this part is supposed to be from Sansa's POV, but Sansa is going to spend the next few hours sobbing in a locked room and that's not very interesting at all. Since the fourth wall already came crashing down, let's switch to Arya's POV now.

Arya had just escaped from Joffrey's guards and wasn't just going to waltz back in just because her stupid sister wanted to. After escorting Sansa back home, she hid in the rosebushes and listened to Joffrey and Sansa's conversation from an open window.

She allowed herself a smug smile when Joffrey imprisoned Sansa, and resolved to tell her "told you so" at the next possible occasion. Then she waited in the bushes, silent as a polecat and quiet as a deer and whatever other similitude she fancied to use, while Joffrey addressed his soldiers.

Joffrey made a long-winded speech about how awesome he was, and how Sandor Clegane had taken away his castle with trickery and sorcery, and how he was going to take back the castle now, and how awesome he was.

"Let's take back my castle!" he screamed, thrusting his sword in the air. The soldiers cheered. "Some of you may die, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make." The soldiers cheered again, because somehow only truly stupid men were willing to follow Joffrey in battle. "Let's storm the castle and raze it to the ground!" Then Joffrey remembered that it was his castle and amended it to, "Let's storm the castle without razing it to the ground."

Finally, the knights and pike men and foot soldiers formed a column and marched off towards the forest.

Arya crawled out of the rosebush and plucked a few thorns from her clothes. She chewed her lip and thought about what to do. Joffrey had taken most of his soldiers with him, and only two dozen men remained to guard the house. Even so, freeing her family on her own would be an impossible task. Arya didn't like Sandor Clegane at all, but he seemed as attached to her sister as she was to him.

She hurried back to where she'd left her mare and, for the third time that day, rode back to the castle. The knights and the army had left before her, but they were riding slow warhorses that were ill-suited to the muddy, slippery floor of the forest. Arya's mare knew the road well and was able to slip ahead of the column. (The horse was also getting tired of all this back and forth, but thankfully didn't speak.)

The sun was setting behind the trees when Arya finally crossed the drawbridge to the castle. She immediately ordered to raise the bridge and lower the portcullis, and went looking for Sandor.

"He's locked himself in his rooms and refuses to let anyone in," a valet told her.

"If he doesn't let me in, I'm going to kick down the door," Arya said.

He didn't let her in.

She kicked the door, but it was made of solid oak and she only hurt her foot.

"Let me in, you stupid!" Arya yelled, massaging her foot. "Joffrey and his men are marching on the castle!"

Nobody replied for the longest time. Arya was about to give up when she heard footsteps on the other side of the door. "I don't care about Joffrey," Sandor said.

"He's coming to kill you," Arya warned him.

"I don't care," Sandor said again. Arya was about to mention heads and spikes, but Sandor said, "Joffrey can take back the castle and the smallfolk. I never wanted to be a lord."

"But he's got Sansa!" Arya exclaimed.

When Sandor didn't reply, Arya went to look for the castle guards. They were mostly green boys that Sandor was still training, but when Arya explained the situation they swore to defend the castle. Joffrey had always been a jerk and a tyrant. Now that his people had got rid of him, they weren't eager to have him back.

Under Arya's command, the men climbed the castle walls and waited for Joffrey armed with bows and arrows and rocks to throw down on the assailants. The prince had expected to find the castle empty save for Sandor. In his haste, he had forgotten to question Sansa and didn't know that the castle was well-defended. When the arrows and stones started raining down from the battlements, even the most stupid soldiers started to realize that Joffrey didn't really know what he was doing.

Fortunately for him, and unfortunately for everyone else, some of his lords weren't stupid and knew how to storm a castle. While Joffrey hid behind a tree and yelled at everyone, they ordered the soldiers to bring ladders and battering rams. Soon enough, the walls were breached and the battle moved to the courtyard and then to the castle.

(Okay, so maybe it wasn't "soon". Maybe it took several hours, maybe a day or two. Battles are long and tedious and our protagonists aren't here, so while all those unnamed characters hack and slash at each other and Arya stabs them with the pointy end, let's go back to Sandor.)