It was her first time at the docks near the Red Keep. The day was warm and breezy with just a few clouds floating above and the salt spray of the ocean biting Sansa's cheeks. She wished she could kick off her shoes and feel the warm sand beneath her toes, just one feeling of freedom in her miserable caged life. The rose colored cloth that draped her body was growing warm and her dark auburn hair was sucking the sun's rays towards her face where she was beginning to perspire. She said not a word to King Joffrey who stood a few steps in front of her, watching as his sister, Princess Myrcella, was shipped off to Dorne to either keep her safe or to broker an alliance with House Martell. Sansa couldn't be sure from all the rumors floating around court. The High Septon was saying words of prayer for the Princess' safety but Sansa barely heard them. She was focusing on the open sea and wished that she was the one being shipped off to Dorne rather than stay with the Lannisters. Incense from the Septon's burner filled her nostrils as she inhaled deeply, reveling in this one peaceful moment the world had allowed her to have. She was vaguely aware of Sandor's presence behind her, standing closer to her than should be proper but the lack of space on the rocky beach called for closer quarters. She was grateful that he was there should anything happen. It gave her a reason for a small smile to creep into the corners of her lips.
The boat that took Myrcella away was growing smaller and smaller and she was vaguely aware of words being exchanged between the Queen and her brother the Imp. As she turned her head to listen, she was distracted by Prince Tommen, a tiny thing with a gentle heart, weeping into his septa's skirts. Joffrey seemed to have noticed as well.
"He sounds like a kitten mewling for his mother." He scoffed, arms crossed and his nose scrunching. "Princes don't cry."
Sansa stared at him incredulously and under her breath said, "I saw you cry." Sandor chuckled behind her.
Joffrey heard. "Did you say something, my lady?" His arms came down and she quickly thought of a lie.
"My little brother cried when I left Winterfell." It was the truth. Rickon was only five when she left and he didn't understand why half of his family was leaving him. At the time she didn't cherish family like Rickon did. She was happy to have left her home and now she regretted that decision more than ever.
"So?" Joffrey asked, seemingly tired of Sansa's existence.
"It seems a normal thing." She bantered back.
"Is your little brother a prince?"
Yes, she wanted to say, now that my brother is King of the North. But that would've meant another severe beating. "No."
"Not really relevant, then, is it?" Sansa wanted to slap that arrogant look off his face. He turned on his heel and began to walk back towards the city walls. Ser Meryn followed, giving the girl a hateful look. "Come, dog." The Hound's breath hitched in his chest. Once Joffrey and Meryn were up the stairs, Sandor raised his lips in a growl at the King before dragging his feet to follow.
Fucking little prick, he thought, following close behind. He had heard everything between the two and was shocked that the girl dared speak to him that way with Meryn so close. But the proximity of the Queen and the rest of court was likely what kept the boy king in check.
Once back inside the walls of King's Landing, crowds of peasants had gathered with a small path leading back to the Keep cleared for the royal procession. Grumbles could be heard, but whether from their mouths or their stomachs he wasn't sure. The majority of them looked like skin stretched across bones with hollowed eyes for how starved they were. He had heard that the war was causing the largest food shortage Westeros had ever known. Most of the farms belonged to the Riverlands which had taken side with the Stark boy, and the Tyrell's were siding with Renly Baratheon, meaning the farms in the Reach were also out. This meant less food for the people of King's Landing, and far less than there should be since the nobility took more than fifty percent. This was obvious in the fat the septon carried on his belly.
As the procession snaked through the city, jeers and shouts could be heard, insults hurled from every which way. Sandor was acutely aware of the tension rising in the crowd. He glanced back to see that the little bird and her handmaidens were only a few steps behind him with the Kingsguard surrounding them. This was not ideal, he would rather be guarding her personally, but with five soldiers around her, he felt she would be safe enough.
Suddenly, a woman busted through the guards and planted herself in front of Joffrey. The King tried to back away and have the guards remove her but Sansa, the sweet little thing that she is, ran forward to hear the woman. In her arms was a dead baby, skinny and pale and covered in flies. Through heavy breaths and missing teeth the woman explained that the child died from lack of food, as they all were. Why wasn't the king feeding his people when he feasted in the Red Keep? Sansa whispered something to Joffrey who jeered at the girl but pulled a silver coin out of his pocket and threw it at the woman. The coin bounced off the dead baby and rolled into the crowd who began to fight over it. The woman screamed bastard at the King then turned her attention to the fair-haired Queen a few paces back. Brother-fucker, she called her. The Queen lost all color in her face and Joffrey grew flustered with rage. But soon the whole crowd was shouting bastard and brother-fucker and even a few choice words for Sansa herself. Ser Meryn tried to yell over the throng to keep moving, but the entire host of nobility was scared and shrinking towards one another. As Joffrey was screaming towards the Kingsguard, a cow pie flew from somewhere up in a window and slapped him across the face. As soon as it hit him, swords were drawn and questions flew out of every soldier's mouth. The boy was livid.
"I want the man who threw that! Find that man and bring him to me!" Joffrey screeched, spears and swords already sticking through bellies. Sandor kept his hand on Joffrey's shoulder to steer him away from the edges. Men were started to beat down on those in armor, grabbing rocks and slamming them into helms. "Just kill them! Kill them all!" Though the soldiers were heavily armed, they were severely outnumbered and the commoners attacked. Sandor roughly grabbed the boy by the scruff of his neck with one hand, sword in the other and started to drag the king through the streets towards the Red Keep. The Kingsguard was forging a path through the chaos leaving a trail of dead peasants, dismembered limbs and a few knights scattered in their path.
"What are you doing? I want these people executed!"
"They want the same for you!" Sandor snarled back at him, barreling through the mob, his sword swinging towards the crowd, catching a boy on his cheek. The four other guards in front of him were making good work of the walking meat bags in front. Behind him, over the yells and panicked screaming of women was the bloodcurdling crying of the High Septon being torn to pieces by the commoners. They would eat tonight. He passed off the King to Ser Boros Blount, a member of the Kingsguard and turned to find Sansa but was greeted by three men all charging at him. He quickly beheaded the first, gutted the second then cleaved the third in two, barely exerting any energy. He searched and headed back to the gate, assuming that she had already been lead to safety.
Meanwhile Sansa was running frantically through the crowd, trying to find her way to the gate that meant safety. Her dress was ripping and catching on her shoes and her hair was dangling in her face, sticking to her sweat covered brow as tears streamed down her face. The Kingsguard had abandoned her once the fighting broke out to protect the King and Queen Regent. She was on her own. There was a large sandstone wall to her right and she decided that it was her best chance of getting through the fray. All she would have to do was follow it until she found the gate then she'd be safe. Around her she saw men dying with their flesh being ripped from their bodies to serve as food to the starving commoners. Bile rose in her throat and she heaved onto a man who lay coughing blood at her feet. She wiped her mouth with the back of her sleeve, searching the horde for guards or anyone she recognized who could save her. She had lost her handmaidens a while ago and shuddered to think what was being done to them now. With her fingers trailing the warm stone of the wall, she ran, her chest burning for air. When she looked up, a man stepped in front of her, hate smoldering in his eyes. She cried out and turned, more men surrounding her on every side. A sob choked her and she whipped her head to the side, seeing a small opening in the wall and ran, her feet carrying her as fast as she could. Ladies did not run.
Once inside the gate, Sandor looked around. Women were weeping, the Queen was rocking Prince Tommen in her arms and the Imp was having a row with his nephew, who sat there screaming about the traitors on the other side of that gate.
"We've had vicious kings and we've had idiot kings, but I don't know if we've ever been cursed with a vicious idiot boy king." Tyrion waved his hands around for emphasis, completely undone by the starved common folk outside. Cersei and he had tried to warn the boy king about the food shortages, but the boy did not seem to care and now the problem had literally hit him in the face.
"You-you can't! You are talking to a king!" Tyrions hand flew and slapped the king right where the remnants of cow shit still clung to the boy's face. For such a small man he had mighty strength in his arm.
"And now I've struck a king! Did my hand fall from my wrist?" He walked away, knowing full well his nephew was not stupid enough to demand his head. The Imp looked to the Hound and around the small hallway before questioning the nearest guard. "Where's the Stark girl?"
"Let them have her!" That gave Sandor his answer. Now he knew that Sansa wasn't inside the gate curled into a corner somewhere hidden behind the skirts of her handmaidens. She was out there with the crowd who demanded blood and would find it in the newly flowered Stark girl. Before Joffrey could give him a command, he flung the gate door open, nearly pulling it from its hinges and stormed off into the crowd, hacking any man who came within ten feet of him into pieces. In his rage he even managed to cut down two women and a small boy crying for its mother. Perhaps this was better for them instead of the rape and slow death they were sure to suffer at the hands of these deranged and starved men.
As his sword sprayed blood around him, he paused to stare as three men darted down an alleyway. On instinct alone he followed them. No man would run from this sort of fight, especially with others trailing after him. They were hunting something and he had a sickening feeling deep in his gut at what that thing was. As he neared the entrance he could hear Sansa crying and screaming and then a sharp smack, tiny at first, and then one louder that came at the hands of a man on a woman's flesh. Sandor's blood boiled and he brusquely strode into the room where three men had the girl pinned down and another one on top of her pulling his cock out of his pants and asking her if she had ever been fucked. The lady's clothes were ripped exposing her feminine parts and one breast hung out of her tightly laced smallclothes. Sandor barely had time to blush before he took the man on top by the throat and gutted him, the man's entrails piling onto the floor. As a child would a rag doll, the Hound tossed the man aside before slicing the back of the second man who barely had time to let go of Sansa's leg. The third, a pale man with grey stubble on his chin had the audacity to try and run past Sandor. It didn't take much to put his arm in the way and slide his blade across the man's throat. He slid the body off his armor and sheathed his sword before staring down at the pale girl on the floor. She quickly tried to cover herself up, stifling a sob. On her forehead was a nasty gash he could only imagine was inflicted by the loud crack of a man's hand he had heard earlier.
"It's alright now, little bird." Sandor's hand gently grabbed hers as he lifted her to her feet. He gave her the chance to brush herself off before he picked her up and threw her over his shoulder. The close proximity of her rear end to his face did not go unnoticed but this was neither the time nor the place. Outside the little alcove and back into the skirmish were the sights and sounds of women being raped and men killing and being killed. The stench of sweat, sex and blood hung heavy in the air. It was sure to penetrate the sweetly scented halls of the Red Keep before nightfall. The gods would not want the nobility to forget their sins. The Hound barely had to fight his way back to the gate. Most of the men were too busy in their conquests to take notice of the man with what they deemed his own prize heading back to the gate.
Once inside, Sandor found a clear spot on the floor to sit her down. Tyrion was immediately upon them as well as two handmaidens who had made it out of the crowd alive and well.
"Are you hurt, my lady?" The Imp fretted, looking between the Hound and the bird, waiting for an explanation that would never come.
"The little bird is bleeding. Someone take her back to her cage. See to that cut." The Hound choked out, trying his damndest not to let his emotions for the girl show in front of the lions and their pets. The two handmaidens gently brought the bird to her feet and escorted her back to her chambers. With one last look back towards her savior, Sansa limped across the courtyard into the stairwell and disappeared.
"Well done, Clegane." Tyrion stated, keeping a few steps between them. He eyed the man warily, one of the few who still feared the Clegane brothers despite their service to his family.
The Hound took a few steps towards then stopped in his tracks at the Imp's words. As nonchalantly as he could, he turned his head over his shoulder.
"I didn't do it for you."
They all later found out that two members of the Kingsguard had died in the battle as well as nine members of the City Watch and forty others were wounded. Lollys Stokeworth, daughter of Lady Tanda Stokeworth, was raped by countless men and found naked and wandering by the City Watch after the crowds had cleared. Tyrek Lannister, Tyrion's cousin, had gone missing and no one could find his body. And they had all seen or heard the High Septon getting torn to pieces. Tyrion said that starving men take a dim view of priests too fat to walk. No one bothered to count up the dead peasants. Joffrey's ego wouldn't allow it.
Sansa spent the rest of the day holed up in her chambers curled up on her bed. She had dismissed her handmaidens long ago once they had reached her room. She needed to be alone for a while. Whenever she closed her eyes, she could still see the hate in their eyes as the men held her down; she could smell the stench of blood and sweat that dripped off of them. Their grimy hands had left bruises on her wrists and ankles. No matter how much powder or perfume she used, their smell still lingered on her long after she'd stripped of her tattered dress and bathed in scalding hot water to wash away the filth.
Sandor spent his time much the same, sitting on a wooden chair cradling a bottle of wine in the nook of his arm, empty flasks and jugs scattered across the floor, some broken and smashed against walls. It was killing him to not go see her immediately, to make sure she was ok, she wasn't deflowered, that he hadn't gotten there too late. But with the guards roaming and the palace abuzz from the commotion, it was better he stay out of sight and out of mind. He sent his squire, a boy of no more than ten and two years whose name he never cared to remember, out to fetch one of her handmaidens. It had been the foreign girl, a dark haired beauty named Shae who came to him, smart mouthed and hot tempered. He took her by the neck and slammed her against the wall, demanding to know why Lady Stark had been abandoned to fend for herself. Coolly and with a hint of disdain, the girl informed him that she had stayed behind in the castle to clean the Lady's chambers.
"The others four had gone with her and only two returned. It's the guards you should be questioning, not me." She answered, silently drawing a thin knife from her calf and placing against his throat. Unfazed, he dropped the girl and walked back to his table, fisting the flask and gulping its entirety in two swigs. He dismissed the girl and sat back in his chair.
The sun crawled along the sky in a sickeningly slow pace. The birds continued to sing their songs and workers in the courtyard seemed unaware that today was not a day of peace and beauty. It was hours before the moon showed its face to the sky and a few more before he dared step foot outside his chamber to seek out the company of Lady Stark.
He met Ser Boros in the hallway containing Lady Sansa who seemed to be keeping guard.
"What are you doing in this part of the castle? Looking to take the girl for yourself, Clegane?" The man japed, slapping him on the shoulder as he let out a raucous laugh. Sandor forced a smirk to his lips.
"No, I'm here to relieve you. Go get some sleep." He lied, gently pushing the man from his spot and taking his place next to Sansa's door. Boros looked at him questioningly but shrugged it off, thanking him as he hauled his feet down the stairs at the end of the corridor.
He let a few minutes pass before gently knocking on the door. A small voice called from inside and he pushed the door open. Only one candle lit the room, sending shadows into corners but shining radiantly off of her red hair. He truly smiled at her beauty. She was sitting in a padded chair in the corner with her prayer book between her hands. As she did every visit, she invited him to sit across from her. For once, he obliged her and plopped down, the wood groaning beneath his weight.
"Are you alright, little bird?" He asked, concern marking his brow. The cut on her forehead was still raw and fresh, bloody bandages littering her nightstand. She sighed in response, biting her lip as tears welled in her eyes. She flew out of her chair and straight at him, her arms wrapping around his neck tightly. It took him by surprise and at first, he merely gawked at her, his arms splayed to the side, unsure how to react. But as she wept into his shoulder, he held her, one arm around her lower back, the other on her shoulder, rubbing it gently.
They sat like that for what seemed like hours. Eventually her tears subsided and she meekly sat on the edge of his knee but she still clung to him like a hurt child to its parent. He leaned in and sniffed, smelling lilacs and lemons in her hair. This is what the heaven must smell like, he thought, taking one hand and running it through her auburn tresses.
After a while, she sat back, his hands still placed around her back, and stared into his eyes without speaking. He dared not break her stare and lost himself in her blue eyes. She blinked and looked down at her hands which were now clasped in her lap and fiddled with her thumbs. Something was troubling her.
"What is it, little bird?" he reached down and took both her hands in one of his, rubbing his thumb over the back of her right hand.
"He hated me, the man who hit me. I saw it in his eyes – hated me." Sansa could still see the hollow black eyes of him. "He never met me before, but he wanted to hurt me." Her eyes met his once again, darting back and forth between his good side and his burnt side. "Why? Why would a stranger-?"
"You are everything he will never have. Your horse eats better than his children." Sandor held her cheeks between his hands, forcing her to stare straight at him. She needed to understand the ways of the world. Not everything was a song filled with gallant knights and beautiful maidens. There were people who would always want to hurt her, kill her, who would envy her just because she was born into the right house and they weren't. "It doesn't matter now. He's dead."
Sansa had a hard time processing this thought. Ever since she was a small girl, life at Winterfell had played out exactly like a song. Her mother and father loved each other and their children very much. Knights, some handsome and some not, married women whom they loved and had children of their own. Her brothers were becoming strong men who would fight battles and win glory and she was to become the perfect image of what a lady should be, elegant, refined, courteous… And even though she was still all these things, living in the capitol had taught her that most of the world did not adhere to these songs. The new king had killed her father, her mother and eldest brother were fighting a war against her captor, her sister assumed dead, and her youngest brothers alone in Winterfell. This was not how the songs went.
She buried her head once again into his neck, breathing in the smell of men; sweat, leather, blood, horses, and wine. It was not a sweet smell like her perfumes but it was comforting. It reminded her of her father.
"Lady Stark, you should get some rest." He gently nudged her so she broke from her lull against him and stood, blushing at their contact. In her moment of weakness she had done something quite improper but she could hardly find room to blame herself.
"Thank you, Sandor." His eyes went wide as he stared at her. This was the first time she dared call him by his given name. The last person to call him that had been his sweet sister before she disappeared. She leaned over and kissed him on his good cheek before turning and sitting back in her chair. It took him a few seconds to calm his racing heart before getting up and heading to the door.
"Clegane?" She called meekly, clutching the book to her chest. He turned on a dime to face her.
"Yes, my lady?"
"Could you… could you keep watch? Just in case?" Her eyes betrayed her fear at the men returning for her though they were long dead and most likely sitting in the bellies of dogs and crows. Though it was a silly fear, he indulged her, a smile crackling through his burnt cheek.
"Of course, my lady." She smiled at him before settling down in her chair and humming to herself. He closed the door behind him and laughed a coarse laugh. It seems the little bird was more scared of rats than dogs.
He spent the entire night standing beside her door and long after the sun rose over the horizon. Throughout the night, he could hear small cries muffled by a pillow and every time, he would crack the door open to make sure she was unhurt. When light began to pierce the darkened sky, he heard a louder scream. His foot pushed the door open while his hands went to his sword. She was tossing and turning in her sleep, the sheets tangled around her legs and her hair cascading over the edge of her bed. His shoulders relaxed and he let go of the hilt, instead walking over to her and rubbing her back. This soothed her enough that she quieted. Tears were running down her face and he wiped them gently away with his thumb before pulling the sheets back over her body. When the foreign maid came, she found him leaning against the wall, his eyes drooping but remained vigilant. She glared at him and told him he could leave, that the king would want him back. As he left, he mumbled under his breath, "I didn't do it for him."