Warning for Baelish talking to Sansa – because in canon it always gave me emotional creeps even when he didn't kiss her.

Also gore, violence, minor character death

Thank you for reading, following and reviewing!

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Chapter 7

A Mantle of Crystal Blue

Where the demons of winter strike hard at night

Alayne/Sansa

"You would think they love you, sweetling," said Littlefinger, "because they clapped to you, repeating silly words to a man you've never met."

But I have met him, father, thought Alayne, trying hard to forget that her name was Sansa, Sansa Stark. It was the only way she was going to endure an endless night in Petyr's company.

"For all you know, he may be a murderer and a thief who took refuge with the Seven. I would reckon that it doesn't take any courage to butcher a few dead men when what you've been doing every day is digging graves. And those in the mob watching the play only want to flop you on your back, have their way with you, and then sell you to Cersei if she survives the trial. And knowing her she might."

Do you want to flop me on my back too? thought Sansa with growing certainty that Petyr could also deliver her to the Queen Cersei in King's Landing if his other plans failed.

"Remember what happened to Lord Eddard Stark. All hailed him when he became the Hand of the king and then they all cheered even louder when the king asked for his head."

Sansa bit her lip not to remember. She wanted to blink away her tears, but they still ran down her face in silence.

"And I, I will make you the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. Never forget that. For the love that I bore your late mother"

A loud sob escaped from Sansa's throat, and Petyr's lips thinned in twisted amusement.

"What is it, Alayne? Oh, I forget what a gentle soul you are," he said in a worried voice, cupping her face with his hand. She felt the sickening smell of mint too close to her cheeks sticky from crying.

A gruff voice of a fat peasant interrupted the silence, and Sansa was grateful. He was a leader, of sorts, in the Pennytree village holdfast, turned into a war shelter for all of its people.

"Isn't she your daughter m'lord?" said the sturdy man. "Them brothers out there told us. Asked us to keep'n eye on her 'n' all."

"Seven heavens, we were just talking."

"So talk you to a wench, m'lord, not a daughter, with them hands," added the man poking his nose almost between them. He remained standing there as if he had nothing better to do until Petyr finally released her.

When Littlefinger and Sansa were alone again, she tried to voice her thoughts, meekly: "Father, you said no one did anything for love."

"Aegon VI Targaryen will do all we want him to do for your love when he takes King's Landing and finds a key to the North waiting for him on a silver platter. Or better said served by me on his platter, with a direwolf on her maiden cloak. I will not let Varys win this game because he must have helped protect Rhaegar's heir from being killed by the Mountain. It will take Aegon at least two weeks from Storm's End to the capital, and I hear that the old griffin, Jon Conington, is with him. That one will surely heed to my wiser words because he's a hopeless fool in the game of thrones. We have to make haste to join them."

"You taught me that the game is very simple," said Sansa. "In it you live or you die. If this... if Lord Conington is still alive, maybe he is not such a fool."

"That could be," said Baelish, quietly considering her words.

"And you, sweet thing," he continued with his eyes full of visions of great things to come, "if you want to live, you will do exactly as I say. I hear that the boy, Aegon, was trained by a septa so it shouldn't be too difficult for you. Perchance it pleases you to read the same songs. He might make stitches for all I care, for as long as he marries you, once he is proclaimed king."

"Somehow I doubt if, father. He is a Targaryen. Their words are fire and blood. His grandfather was the Mad King. His father kidnapped a maid and raped her, starting a war!"

"There have been dragons with a kind heart. Aegon is one of them. Like you, Sansa, are a harmless little wolf," Petyr replied forgetting that she had to be Alayne.

"Who's Sansa, m'lord?" asked the overlord of peasants, from the gates of the holdfast, leading back in a group of people, battered and bloodied, but still alive, at that very moment.

"No one," Sansa said in one voice with Littlefinger, thinking how there wasn't much difference between having to marry Harold Hardying or Aegon VI Targaryen, or anyone else for that matter. Their lips would not be cruel, nor uneven behind the mask. They would be wormy, like Joffrey's, she was certain. She arched her neck towards the gates to look at the group that came in, but she could not see the Hound, the Elder Brother, or the singer.

She couldn't help but wonder at how Petyr's appetites had been growing day by day since he first took her from the capital. Next thing he was going to plan to proclaim himself the King of the Seven Kingdoms. Petyr Baelish, First of His Name.

Her imprisonment in the Vale abruptly came to an end when Petyr received reliable tidings that a new Targaryen pretender was marching on King's Landing, with the Golden Company in tow, the signs of the Blackfyre rebellion high on their banners, only to better hide a fact that they were harbouring Rhaegar's only son and heir. So Littlefinger hurried south to occupy his rightful position, a master of coin to any king, loyal to none but himself.

For the time being, Petyr was still the Lord Paramount of the Trident, at least in name, and Sansa remembered how his vast lands dawned covered with a thick white cloak of snow when they had woken up that morning and started to ride.

She stopped listening to Petyr who kept on talking, and she prayed for all her companions outside, the good and the evil, to last the night. Somehow she felt much safer on the road where they could get killed at any moment, than she had ever felt in the past years since her father's death . At least, on the road, she could die, but so could the others. Anyone can die. For some reason, that thought calmed her down and gave her force to wait for the outcome of the battle.

Sandor

Instead of heading immediately south when they left Raventree, they followed the Widow's Wash east because that was where the army went, under the leadership of Ser Jaime Lannister, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard. Or so Lord Blackwood told them. He rode with them, saying that his old bones could use the warmth of the end of the summer in King's Landing if they ever reached it on time. On time meant before the Long Night, which everybody agreed was coming and Sandor was searching his mind for the scarce teachings he received in the West on the matters of winter and the dangers it brought.

When they arrived to Pennytree, the night was falling. The buggering peasants were closed in a holdfast made of hard stone and they wouldn't let anyone in or out. He was in a mood to run his sword through all of them, one by one, or maybe in pairs.

The village was full of corpses of men and their horses. They lay everywhere from the stony keep to the oak-tree covered with pennies which gave the place its name. Half of the army led by the Kingslayer must have died there, defeated by a larger enemy host.

The Hound walked next to Mance who turned the bodies with his feet. The lines of worry were etched deeper and deeper in his forehead.

"It smells of snow again, brother, and we have no time to burn them all," he said to the burned monk playing Rhaegar. "It'll snow again tonight and they will come to life. And where so many wights are, the walkers are never far behind."

"Horseshit," snorted the Hound. "The white walkers have not been seen for ten thousand years."

"Not here. But in the north they awoke from their sleep already in the time of my youth. That is when your black crows started deserting the Night's Watch. They saw what was out there, and for many not even the threat of beheading would keep them on the Wall. The Long Night is coming! Could be some of them walkers have followed me south. It is said that they cannot find a path by themselves."

"Say that you're right, and I don't say that you are, what are you fighting the snarks with?"

"Fire and the light of the sun scares them away, for now," said Mance, staring at the Hound, "and dragonglass, a black stone you call obsidian south of the Wall, is said to be mortal to them. It's very rare in our days. Valyrian steel may also kill them but the only such sword in my land has not yet been measured against them."

"Where is your land?" asked the Hound.

"Where's yours?" Mance parried his query. "Come, brother, we have to force the peasants to give us shelter behind those walls. Soon there will be too many wights swarming around for us to fight off."

Two hours later it was pitch dark and Sandor was still outside, barricaded with Mance, Elder Brother, Blackwood, and all the surviving knights and monks, in the largest and most solid house in the village, waiting. They could not start the fire around the place where they would make their stand as Mance wanted because there was no dry wood and the bloody peasants wouldn't give them any. At least they had sense to let in the little bird, the squire, and unfortunately also Baelish because they pitied him for the loss of an arm. The Elder Brother managed to convince the bastard in charge, a fat man red of face, to keep an eye on the lady and that had to be enough.

The vigil was long and Sandor had time to think, just what he was trying to avoid since he escorted the little bird to her room the night before. She peeped her good night and he was left like a pup out of its kennel, unsure about what had just happened between them or if anything had happened at all.

She's believing her songs, that's what happened, Sandor thought. She would kiss anyone because a buggering bard imagined it so, with her head full of great ladies and brave knights that have no place in a world run by killers and whores.

Why did you do it first, then? He did not know. Why not have what others already took? he told himself remembering she was wedded and bedded long time ago. Then again, whores kissed differently and if he didn't know any better he would say that she had never kissed a man of her own volition. Maybe the Imp would skip that part, he thought, amused and equal part ashamed of his thoughts.

The attack came upon them swift and brutal.

A dead horse broke in through a window, killing a knight and brother Norbert in one stroke. The Hound jumped aside and helped cut it into pieces. More wights came at every opening and they did a good job cutting them down. Someone else died screaming behind him and the Hound was grateful for having no armour as it would only slow him down. It was the same like fighting Gregor, his brother, the Mountain. The Hound knew his considerable strength was not enough because those creatures were probably all stronger than him and he had to rely on speed and well calculated strokes. One had to admit, in a second between killing two corpses over and over again, that the singer held his ground admirably as well.

The creatures of winter held monks in great esteem, they were hunting them before the others. Several knights managed to hide in the dark corners of the house under the furniture and remain relatively unmolested. Sandor understood he was one of the main targets and he enjoyed it. His blood was up since the last reading of the stupid show. It's better to play at swords than to think of what will never be mine, not willingly. And I wouldn't want to have it any other way.

An infernal dead horse ridden by the corpse of Ser Ilyn Payne broke into their shelter and swept the Elder Brother with him. Before he knew it, Sandor ran outside, panting, not heeding the singer's cries to stay in: going out meant certain death. For a moment he didn't see a thing, it was too dark. He blinked a few times and looked for a trail. The horse from seven hells and its rider dragged the Elder Brother out of the village and Sandor followed closely behind. In the woods he soon lost all trace of the late king's justice and his steed.

You're not his sworn shield, he told himself. You don't have to do this. But the Elder Brother nursed him to health where no one else would and Sandor kept searching for him in the darkness.

He stumbled forward looking for any sign of movement when it began to snow again. The woods shone with the eerie moonlight, and even the Hound would have been glad for a sight of fire in a distance rather than the white wasteland until the eye could see. Those wolves would come handy now, he thought, they knew for certain how to handle a grumkin.

The thing attacked him faster than lightning. All he could do was avoid it and all his speed was nearly not enough. It tried to pull the limbs out of his body but Sandor ducked and stayed in one piece for a time. His greatsword made no effect at the creature whatsoever, he could have caressed it instead and it would've been the same. Deadly grip got his bad leg and he thought he would meet his end.

"Dragonglass, a black stone, obsidian as you call it south of the wall, is said to be mortal to them," he remembered and in a sudden stroke of brightness he wrenched open the pouch with his honing stone, reaching for the black one he had found on the ground where the first grumkin they'd seen had been defeated. He whirled it towards the middle of the creature pulling his leg backward and was rewarded with a blessed relief. His leg went limp and free and the air around him became saturated by irregular blue crystals, drawing changeable patterns in the marvel of freshly frozen ice.

This is how the Lannister army must have felt in the Whispering Wood, he thought remembering the first great victory of the Young Wolf. The North is upon as and we are not prepared to face it.

Only then he noticed the Elder Brother sprawled on the ground under the eaves of the forest. Time for me to save you from dying under a tree, brother, he thought.

The Hound bent over his friend to check if he was breathing when he felt a cold hand tear a chunk of flesh from his left shoulder as if he had been a wild boar the creature wanted for dinner. He cried out in pain. The sound made the Elder Brother's narrow dark eyes shoot open and Sandor saw a hiltless dagger that had been on Baelish's throat plunge into the darkness behind him. Then his body betrayed him, red blood oozed from his shoulder, and he sensed the arrival of oblivion. He stared at the freezing air of the night, quietly covering his huge scarred body with a thin mantle of blue crystals, not from this world, or the next.

He laughed weakly before he passed out because his last conscious thought was for how much he had wanted to kiss Sansa Stark the night of the battle on the Blackwater Bay, when he ran to her rooms to hide, offered to save her on an impulse and then threatened to kill her instead. And she sang him a song and cupped his burns with her hand. He wouldn't have done anything else, just kissed her, as the knights from the stories were wont to do with their ladies. His desire to do so had been so strong that he could almost remember a kiss he had never given. So he left to die somewhere else before he could taint her innocence.

xxxxxx

"Will he live?" a gentle voice asked from far away.

"He will, my lady, it will just take some time," was a humble response of his brother, the elder one.

The Hound blinked, but she was gone and he faced the rough features of the singer next to a familiar monk's cowl.

"Stranger take me" he cursed, recalling something important, "show me that dagger of yours, brother."

A hiltless weapon was put in his left arm, weak from the loss of blood. He turned it towards the only source of light in a dank dark room, a high window which let in a few rays of shy morning sun through the thick iron bars. The weapon revealed dark green and purple ripples in steel where the light shone through the blade.

"You, singer," he spoke with difficulty. "You can place Valyrian steel on your list of weapons that do work against snarks. And you, Elder Brother, you were one big stealing and not only whoring bastard before the Faith addled your brains. There is no other way a simple soldier of House Tarly would have had his hands on such a dagger. There's only a dozen Valyrian blades left in Westeros. Not even the old lion of Lannister was able to buy one for the Kingslayer with all the gold of Casterly Rock."

"I was a hedge knight," said the Elder Brother, "but you're probably right. I'm sorry that I don't remember where I exactly stole it to give Mance an idea for his next scene."

"I'll live this time, right?" the Hound asked and he saw that he would in the eyes of the two men. Since when are people fussing over me as if I were Lolys Stokeworth, he thought and then realized he had heard the word scene.

And Sandor Clegane understood he was going to continue reading his role in the bloody play for as long as he lived, because if the singer devised some more kissing, or any other such things, there was no way the Hound would allow anybody of their present company, or anyone at all, to read to his little bird with his life and body intact.

Mance

Jon's sister and the Elder Brother were about to read the next scene. It was a bit later in the morning and they were still in the Pennytree holdfast, in a ground floor room where the Brother Gravedigger slept, injured, his left shoulder covered with bandages and freshly smelling leaves.

The snow was melting immediately with the arrival of the sun, and plants could be found under it, which was all good for it meant that the Long Night was not quite there yet. Only a handful of monks, not more than twenty knights, Corbray and Blackwood survived the night's battle. Mance was grim and wondered about who could replace brother Norbert in the role of Brandon Stark, but no one came into mind.

It's a long way to King's Landing, he thought. We're bound to meet more people.

Sansa

"Shall we start?" Sansa asked of the Elder Brother.

"Aye," he said.

"What did father tell you?" she asked.

"He said you were walking on the battlements at night, more than usually. And in Raventree your septa saw you flushed late in the evening. You told her you went training but no one trained that night."

"And?" Sansa asked as impatiently as she felt, glancing sideways at the Hound, pleading silently that he would wake up. The reassurances of others that he was going to be fine were simply not enough. The image of Robert Baratheon killed by a boar would not leave her mind. And whatever attacked Sandor Clegane, had been even stronger.

"They think you took a lover," read the Elder Brother, and she had to react. "Me, little brother? I'm not like our older brother!"

"I know", the Elder Brother retorted, tiredly.

"Splendid," interrupted Mance. "You should keep that exhausted voice for when we go on stage. It will go well with the second son."

"I know that you're not him," the man of the Faith said seriously, looking at Sansa. "And I'm not him either. If I was betrothed to a woman as beautiful as he had the honour to receive, I would never look upon another; I swear it by the old gods for all time that has yet to come."

"So I would disgust you if I took a single lover, yet you condone that our brother took as many mistresses as he desired?" Sansa continued, admiring the boldness of the unknown woman's words. "Some of them from the noble houses, if we are to believe the stories."

"Sister, you could never disgust me. I am but worried for you. For I know how stubborn you can be when something comes close to your heart."

"As stubborn as you, little brother," she said, finishing a short scene they were rehearsing, before moving further east and then south.

The smell of burning flesh came in through the window. The villagers piled all the corpses and carcasses to a giant pyre in front of the house where the men had made their fortress the night before. Sansa could not see it, but on top of the pyre lay the lifeless body of Ser Ilyn Payne. The count of the dead was high but it could have been higher if the Warrior did not guide the hands of the two servants of the Faith to defeat the monsters leading the corpses, or so the smallfolk whispered.

Sansa looked for a handkerchief to protect her nose from the odour, when a grieving sound made its way from the bed. The Hound tossed and turned between the blankets as if he were laid down to rest in fire, and not on the softest cottons the peasants could provide her with, when she asked. To please the lady, their fat leader had said.

"No, brother," the Hound pleaded, quietly. "Please, no."

She walked to him and took his hand.

Mance

Mance wondered why the lady did that. It was the first time he saw his Lyanna showing unhidden interest for the fellow playing Rhaegar outside of their readings.

"He has high fever," she said.

"It is no matter, my lady," the Elder Brother reassured her. "It will not burn him. I will go out and make sure that there is place on the wagon for him. We have to go. If we find the second part of the host of Ser Jaime Lannister still alive, they might protect us tonight."

Sansa mutely nodded and kept holding a large hand. Mance wanted to leave as well when a deep growl came from the lungs of the burned monk. It was obvious he spoke in fever, unaware of what he was saying.

"Sansa," he called. "Don't leave me."

"Is your name Sansa, my lady?" Mance dared asking.

"Sansa!" a low voice did not hesitate to admit defeat. "I love you with all my heart..."

Blue eyes looked at the King-beyond-the-Wall so hard they would have stabbed him if they could. Mance could not tell if she was upset because he heard her real name or for overhearing the maundering of the ugly monk, which could have cast a shadow on her honour if his ramblings were known.

He felt the pressure of the Valyrian steel on his naked throat before she replied.

"Yes. And don't tell anyone what you have just heard, not even to the Brother Gravedigger when he wakes up."

"Or what, you will kill me?" he snorted, admiring Jon's sister, Sansa. It is a good name, he concluded, proud and beautiful.

She threw away the dagger the Elder Brother had forgotten and her big blue eyes swelled with tears. "Pardon me, my lord, I have not slept. I am not myself. And if Brother Gravedigger hears this, he would stop reading with us. It is not fitting for a man belonging to the Seven. And he may not mean it when he has all his wits back."

"I am no lord," said Mance, not understanding why that reply made Sansa burst into unstoppable tears, and bury her face in her shaking hands.

So he held her while she cried, as a true father, or an older brother would, and told her the truth.

"I swear a vow on my friendship and loyalty to your brother, Jon Snow, by the grace of the old gods still the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, to whom I owe my life, that I will keep both your secret and his," he finished, pointing at the sleeping Rhaegar, wondering what his real name was.

I will find out some day, Mance thought later, when he finally stepped out in the bright sunshine of the new day, and readied himself to ride further south, one step closer to fulfilling his sending.

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Author's note: On age in SanSan as a comment to my reviewer

ASOIAF starts when she is 11 and he is 14 or 15 years older (counted by the fact he was 12 when Tywin sacked King's Landing, when he killed his first man, and Sansa was born approximately two years after that, assuming Catelyn is pregnant with Robb at the time of the sack). To say that Sansa should be nearing 18, while Sandor is nearing his thirties is simply an author's statement, left in a story, without denying the fact that there is an age difference between them, that even if people seem to age and mature faster in canonic Westeros, (since their POVs seem way more emotionally developed than the age of 11 already from the beginning of the story) I don't want to have, in a gimmick of mine, written for fun while we wait for the canon to continue, anything indicating that I actually approve of children having relationships because I just don't.