Summary: Suddenly Sansa felt exasperated at her own actions. Why was she just lying there, subject to his whims? I never make my own choices. Never have and never will.

Sansa

I wanted to face the real Hound. Well, this is it, Sansa thought as she lay on her back and felt his hard lips on her skin. She wondered what would happen if she screamed; would the guards hear her and come running? She didn't want to think about what the Hound would do then; would he take his revenge on her before the men got to him? He was chained and eventually he was going to be subdued - he was only one man after all, no matter how big and strong. Then what? Would they kill him straight away or only after Timett had been called in to interrogate him?

Feeling his weight on her and the way his lips and teeth grazed her skin, Sansa thought how odd it was that this man, so strong and overwhelmingly in control, was going to be dead soon. Life would leave his powerful limbs and the light in his eyes would fade away. The Hound of her memories would be truly dead then, never coming back to haunt her.

Except this was not him. Not her Hound. Or maybe he was, she couldn't be sure anymore. A chivalrous knight – certainly not. A man who always told the truth – yes.

Sansa felt her skirts being lifted and a hand sliding up her thigh. She took a deep breath; it was like in her feverish dreams and yet so different. She knew she should do something; resist, scream, push him away. Yet she did none of those things. She lay still, feeling strangely detached from the whole situation.

Then he shook her, so hard that her teeth rattled. She stared at him uncomprehendingly.

"Did they? Tell me, girl!"

Did they what? Then she realised; he wanted to know if she had been subjected to…carnal desires. He looked concerned, his eyes narrowing in the same way her father's used to, when he had worried that something bad had happened to his precious daughter. Fatherly concerns…the thought was so ridiculous that she almost laughed a nervous little laugh, but at the last moment she swallowed it and answered his questions. He seemed to settle at that – but then he asked her about that.

Sansa wanted to deny it, hating the idea of the Hound knowing that she could do such an unladylike thing – but her face gave her away. Instead of what she expected - him laughing at her scornfully - his behaviour changed and his touches became more intense. He ripped her smallclothes and hissed into her ear things that no man should say to a woman.

For a while she felt as if she was observing them both from above; a pale girl resting motionless under a beast of a man. Just then his fingers touched her secret spot and she was brought back to her own body faster than a heartbeat. She couldn't help it: she responded, her hips jerking involuntarily and she knew that it hadn't gone unnoticed. Shame coloured her cheeks but she dismissed it quickly enough. What they were doing – all of it – was not of this world. It was not real. It was just a chance encounter between two people who had known each other in one lifetime, and who would never see each other again after this. This time tomorrow he is going to be dead.

Then the beast withdrew his hand and Sansa heard his breath coming out in loud gasps as he rested his bearded jaw against her head. She felt him curling his hand into a fist and clenching it forcefully, still between her legs. Without him saying so, Sansa realised that he would not go through with his threats – just as he hadn't on the night of the Blackwater. Instead of consoling her as it should have, it left her frustrated.

Suddenly Sansa felt exasperated at her own actions. Why was she just lying there, subject to his whims? I never make my own choices. Never have and never will. The thought struck her hard. Whatever happened next, whether she continued to the North or returned to the Vale, there would be others making her choices for her. Her maiden's gift was not hers to give away as she wanted, instead being coaxed from her under the guise of an enforced marriage or a bodily threat, taken from her by brute force or becoming a commodity in a business transaction. No! I will not yield to that! She felt she had to do something, anything. This was her chance to make a decision all by herself and see it through.

Sansa didn't realise that she had said the words out loud until the Hound stared at her in disbelief and challenged her. She didn't have to stop and consider, staring him in the eye and repeating, "Do it." I command. This is my choice. I have lost my maidenhood to you many times before in my dreams. Sansa felt it was finally time to do it for real and crush those foolish maidenly fantasies. Rather him than a nameless man who meant nothing to her.

She could see suspicion in his eyes, warring with his lust. In the end the lust won and he descended on her with renewed vigour. His touch was heated and rough, but as his fingers invaded her womanhood Sansa couldn't help responding. That he did it at her insistence gave her a fleeting sensation of power, a feeling that she was not the one subjected to…this thing, but that she was the one in control. Having gained that control, she now wanted to return it to him and yield to his touch.

The Hound's form hovered on top of her, his head above hers so that her eyes were level with his throat. She could hear him hissing quietly, but whether they were curses or something else she couldn't say. His dark beard, dense on his good cheek and hardly existent on the burned one, grew thick on both sides of his neck. Giving in to a sudden impulse, Sansa lifted her head and pressed her mouth into short curls, just where the beard met with the hair of his chest. It was the same spot she had eyed only a short time ago, thinking how much he looked like a wild beast, caged and dangerous.

He tasted salty, his bristles felt wiry and coarse, and she opened her mouth wider. It was not a kiss, but not a bite either. Her tongue slid against his skin and knotted strands of hair. Then he moved, changed his position and fumbled with his breeches.

Sansa knew what was coming and she tried to prepare herself, tensing her whole body. The first thrust hurt, feeling nothing like his fingers had. Gods! Sansa felt like she was being cleaved in half, her flesh torn – and then he withdrew and she felt whole again. Then he entered her anew and she couldn't help retracting involuntarily. She hadn't known what to do with her hands and had ended up holding onto him, her fingers splayed across his forearms. They were too thick to wrap fully around, but she could feel how he too was taut as a bowstring, the muscles in his arms trembling from his efforts.

She fully expected him to push deeper and harder, like she had seen the stable boy doing. From what she had gathered from the proceedings below her and Myranda, the boy had shoved into the girl in one hard motion, none of this cautious advancing…

Then she felt his hand between them, but instead of it assaulting her already torn flesh, he seemed to grab his manhood with it. At first Sansa didn't realise what he was doing, but as his movements became rhythmic, in tune with the motions of his hips, she understood.

By then her flesh had stretched and started to better accommodate the strange intrusion and she could relax, adjust to his tempo and accept more of him. It felt strange; so different to what she had imagined. Her nub received friction both from his moving manhood and his thumb, and although it wasn't as steady and intense as when she did it, its unpredictability kept her on her toes. Every now and then she felt a jolt that seemed to traverse all through her body, up her spine to finally burst behind her eyes.

Then he let out a low growl, almost a whine, and after one more push that went deeper than the others Sansa felt him pulling away completely, his hips yanking against her and then warm wetness spreading on her belly. That is…his seed? Is this it, then?

Her legs hurt, the press of his heavy hipbones against her thighs and the scrape of cold, hard chains made her realise how sore she was. Her core was throbbing, still stinging from the invasion. Yet it hadn't all been completely unpleasant; there had been times when she had been aware of how close to pleasure the pain had been; when it had felt almost good…

The Hound was still breathing hard, completely exhausted and listless against her. Sansa thought it odd. How was it possible that such a strong man, who could wrestle with an aurochs and have a good chance of winning, could be so undone by her? The keening noises he had let out during their coupling, his strained face and tightly shut eyes had all been signs of someone losing a battle, giving in to something that was bigger than them. At that moment Sansa thought of him for the first time as a fellow human being, someone as vulnerable as she was.

The Hound's head rested on her shoulder, his forehead in the curve between her collarbone and shoulder. By instinct she lifted her hand and let it hover above his head. Something drew her to touch him, but how could she? He would only shake his head, make her drop her hand, snarl something nasty at her and look at her with those hard grey eyes… He had taken what he wanted and he had no use for her anymore.

Yet her fingers moved without her instruction to do so and brushed his hair, the back of his head, past his good ear. Then she controlled herself and forced her arm to fall down.

Eventually he got up. His harsh words chased away the moment of clarity and stillness she had just experienced, and when he wiped her legs with her skirt she knew it was time for her to leave. He was done with her. And I am done with you.

Sansa hardly listened to what the Hound said, but instead she looked at the way his lips moved, at his sneer, at the corners of his eyes and how they wrinkled and how his nostrils flared when he reminded her that he had, in fact, just raped her. She wanted to memorise his face now that she had finally had the courage to look at it openly and without fear. Despite recognising that this was the last time she would see him – knowing that she couldn't go to his execution – she chose not to say words of farewell. What had just transpired between them had been an accidental meeting. In truth their paths had diverged already long time ago.

She turned and left the tent and didn't look back.