"Where are we going?" Arya asks as she rides alongside Viola and Sandor on her very own brown mare, which she had named Craven.
"Away." Sandor grumbles behind her. "That's all you need to know. You're not worth spit to me now, and I don't want to hear your whining. I should have let you run into that bloody castle."
"You should have." Arya mumbles, her voice small and uncertain.
Arya had stopped speaking after she and Sandor returned from their mission. Sandor hadn't told her what had occurred as he jumped from Stranger's back cradling an unconscious Arya, but Viola had hear the commotion, had seen the riderless horses fleeing from the castle, had heard the shouts and screams of dying men. Something terrible had happened.
Days later she had learned that Arya's brother, the King in the North, and their mother, Lady Catelyn Stark, had likely been murdered at what everyone was now calling The Red Wedding. Sandor's mood had been worse than she had ever seen it. He no longer fought with Arya, in fact, he no longer bound her up at night as they slept, no longer kept an eye on her, and seemed to not care whether she even follow them at all. Once the girl had her own horse, which they had found wandering without a rider in a field, they had silently suspected the girl to ride off on her own, but for some reason, she didn't.
"You'd be dead if I had. You ought to thank me. You ought to sing me a pretty little song, the way your sister did."
"Did you hit her with an axe too?"
"I hit you with the flat of the axe, you stupid little bitch. If I'd hit you with the blade there'd still be chunks of your head floating down the Green Fork. Now shut your bloody mouth. If I had any sense I'd give you to the silent sisters. They cut the tongues out of girls who talk too much."
Viola squeezes Sandor's hand, silently begging him to stop talking. The girl was very likely now orphaned, with no place in the world for her to go that would be safe. She and Sandor were all she had, and even though Sandor threatened her harm on a near constant basis, they each knew deep down that he would never intentionally act upon the things that he spewed during his fits of rage. There was no use torturing the girl any further, she had been through enough in her short life, if the tales she had once told over their nightly fire held any truth to them.
There was once a day, not very long ago now, where Viola would have liked to cut each of their tongues out if they had said another word, now, however, entire days would pass without either of them uttering a word. The brief exchange they had just held was the first time she had heard either of their voices in two days. At first, Viola attempted to bridge the silence, to urge either of them to hold a conversation with her, bringing up anything that she could think of that might interest them. At first she tried the weather, warm and mild for this time of year, and thankfully not raining, but received nothing more than a stiff nod from Sandor. Then she offered to teach Arya how to trap, walking her through the process of setting a snare, but the girl wouldn't even turn her head to meet her eye. She had complemented her on how well she was taking care of Craven, but the girl only shrugged. Finally, she asked her to teach her to ride, even making a jape at how frustrated Sandor had gotten with her when she had fallen off of Stranger the one and only time he had attempted to teach her to ride, but Arya only shook her head and lead Craven down to the river to drink.
They saw far more people on the roads now, more so than they had seen prior. Milkmaids leading cows, barefooted children scurrying about, sure-footed squires off delivering messaged. Occasionally entire teams of horses would fly past them, and Sandor would shove Viola's head down as he lowered his own, motion for Arya to do the same.
"Hunting for stray northmen." He would remind them each time they would pass. "Any time you hear hooves, get your head down fast, it's not like to be a friend."
They continued on for a few miles, until Sandor silently decided that it was time to stop for the night. He found a shaded spot, an earthen hollow made of the roots of a fallen oak tree that they would use to shield themselves from the elements, as well as fellow travelers, when an ungodly smell makes Viola heave and nearly lose her stomach over the side of Stranger. Sandor leaps silently from behind her, followed closely by Arya. Viola climbs down slowly as the two of them tie the horses to a tree and disappear along the back side of the fallen oak.
There, huddled in the roots, is a dying man. His shoulder had been smashed in, twisted and gnarled where it met his arm, and the chain mail had been embedded deep into his flesh, the smell that had nearly made her sick, was coming from the man's wound. He smelled like death.
The man had a badge on his breast that showed a pink maiden dancing in a swirl of silk, and he explains to them that he had been a bowman for Ser Marq Piper, but he had lost his bow.
"A northman, it was." The man sobs, his voice pained and shallow as he tries to catch his breath between words. "His badge was a bloody man, and he saw mine and made a jape, red man and pink maiden, maybe they should get together. I drank to his Lord Bolton, he drank to Ser Marq, and we drank together to Lord Edmure and Lady Roslin and the King in the North. And then he killed me."
The man closes his eyes and swallows harshly, wincing and jerking slightly as he does, and when he moves, puss flows from the wound on his shoulder, making Viola actually vomit. Sandor pushes her roughly behind a tree to finish her business as the stranger begins to beg Sandor for wine.
"If I'd had any wine, I'd have drunk it myself. I can give you water, and the gift of mercy."
"You're Joffrey's dog." The man says matter-of-factly.
"My own dog now. Do you want the water?"
"Aye." The man pants. "And the mercy. Please."
Viola finished vomiting and rests her head upon the tree, doing her best to drown out the sounds of the man gasping and sputtering. Arya passes her, carrying Sandor's helm, and then reappears a few moments later, sloshing water out of the eye holes on her way back from the small pond they had passed a short distance back. Viola puts her hands over her ears to keep from hearing the man choke on water as Arya attempts to help him drink.
"Good." The man rasps, weakly. "I wish it was wine, though. I wanted wine."
"Me too." Sandor says gently, but Viola can hear the sound of him removing his dagger from his belt, the sound of metal scraping metal, and finally, one last gasping breath from the dying man. "That's where the heart is, girl. That's how you kill a man."
"Will we bury him?"
"Why? He don't care, and we've got no spade. Leave him for the wolves and wild dogs. Your brothers and mine. First we rob him, though."
Viola staggers from around the tree to find Sandor digging in the man's pack and pulling out a coin purse with a few coppers inside. He stuffs them in her old pouch that he still had hanging from his belt. Next he pulls out a dagger, he eyes it a moment, twisting it in the sunlight, and flips it towards Arya, who catches it by the hilt and slips it into her own belt. He removes the mans boots, holds them next to his feet, then tosses them to the girl as well. She does the same, determines that they are too large for her, and offers them to Viola with raised brow. Viola shakes her head; she would rather go without than have that stench, which had no doubt seeped in to the leather of even the mans boots, follow her around. The man had a kettle helm, which Arya picks up tenderly, and places it on her own head. The visor falls below her nose, forcing her to tilt her head back to see. She looked as though she were a child playing in her father's armor.
"He must have had a horse as well, or he wouldn't have got away." Sandor says, craning his head around to look. "But it's bloody well gone, I'd say. No telling how long he's been here."
"I don't want to stay here." Viola says timidly as Sandor locks eyes with her.
"Aye." He gives her a knowing nod. "We'll keep on. Find another spot."
They get back on their horses and continue, but never do stop for the night. They keep riding into the darkness, until they find themselves in the shadows of the mountains, the moon and stars bright above them, lighting their way onward.
"Where are we going?" Arya asks again.
"You have an aunt in the Eyrie. Might be she'll want to ransom your scrawny arse, though the gods know why. Once we find the high road, we can follow it all the way to the Bloody Gate."
"We should go back." Arya declares after a moment of silence. "We should go back to the Twins and get my mother. She can't be dead. We have to help her."
"I thought your sister was the one with a head full of songs. Frey might have kept your mother alive to ransom, that's true. But there's no way in seven hells I'm going to pluck her out of his castle all by my bloody self."
"Not by yourself. I'd come too. So would she." Arya jerks her head towards Viola, her eyes pleading.
"That will scare the piss out of the old man." Sandor laughs and wraps his arms tighter around Viola's waist, as though just the mere though of her stepping foot inside of the tower were enough to protect her.
"You're just afraid to die!"
"Death don't scare me. Only fire. Now be quiet, or I'll cut your tongue out myself and save the silent sisters the bother. It's the Vale for us."
"Sandor." Viola whispers quietly so that Arya cannot hear her. "She's just a little girl. Quit trying to frighten her."
Sandor grumbles in her ear, but ultimately quiets and continues on through the night silently, his arms never loosening around her waist.
—
"This thing about your mother…" Sandor begins one morning after they had broken their fast in silence, nibbling on the small remnants of a single sausage and a small corner of moldy cheese split three ways.
"It doesn't matter." Arya mutters as she stands and wipes her hands on her breeches. "I know she's dead. I saw her in a dream."
Sandor stares at her a moment, his face showing no hint of emotion, but his grey eyes are sad and knowing. He nods his head at the girl, then stands with a groan as his knees pop, and offers Viola his hand to stand. He helps her back on Stranger's back, and waits patiently while Arya mounts Craven.
After three days of climbing the hills, they stumble upon a small village surrounded by sentinels and tall pines. Sandor pulls Stranger to a halt and holds his hand out for Arya to follow suit, he brings Stranger around to stand closely to Craven, and leans down to whisper to both Viola and Arya.
"We need food, and a roof over our heads. They're not like to know what happened at the Twins, and with any luck they won't know me."
The sentinels, much to Viola's surprise, allow them to pass through with no fuss, and the moment the villagers lay eyes on Sandor's large arms and wide shoulders, were more than eager to offer them shelter, food, and even a bit of coin if they stayed on to help them build a palisade around their homes.
"If there's wine as well, I'll do it." Sandor grumbles as he shakes the hand of one of the village elders.
They are given straw beds in a drafty, dilapidated cottage, but Viola didn't mind in the slightest. Each day, as Sandor cuts wood, heaves logs, and climbs scaffolding, she mends clothing, harvests fall crops, cooks stew, bakes bread, and feeds the fires beneath large cauldrons of urine being used for softening wool cloth for waulking. The elder village women were all stationed around tables in the sun, singing and toiling large piecing of the newly woven cloth. At first, she had tried to stay far away from this labor, but was very quickly dragged in, to at the very least help keep the fires beneath the cauldrons from going out. She had lucked out, and wasn't saturated in hot piss, instead she kept the ovens filled with fresh bread, and the soup pots filled for the men as they made their way back to the village square each afternoon after a days labor.
The women, while kind and welcoming towards her, stared openly at her scared face, and whispered to one another about how it could have happened while they thought her to be out of earshot. No one, unless very brave, dared look at Sandor's face. They did the same as the folks of Kingslanding when forced to speak to him; they picked a spot slightly above his shoulder to look at, or down at their feet when addressing him. The one or two younger men who dared it, did not hold his gaze for long.
Arya had herself an admirer, which she complained about endlessly. The village elder's daughter, near the same age, and completely obsessed with Arya, who would often be hiding in the kitchens with Viola to keep away from the girl, followed her around as though she were a lost puppy. Finally, having enough of the girl under her foot, Viola banished her from the kitchens if she wasn't going to help her at all, or do the waulking and needlework with the other women, and so the girl took to spending most of her days exploring the nearby forest.
Sandor is drunk every afternoon when he stumbles into their bed chamber, spills his seed on her belly after lying with her, then sleeps like the dead, snoring loudly and trapping her in his arms as he sleeps. Arya comes in quietly some time after Sandor falls asleep, and mumbles to herself a few moments before her snores join his and echo throughout the small room.
Each morning, Sandor sits in a chair before a large window, morning sunlight streaming in behind him, and tilts his head back to allow Viola to shave his neck with a straight razor. He had attempted himself the first days there, but knicked himself and began to curse and rage each time as blood ran down his neck. Viola had offered, and to her surprise, he had accepted. She used to shave Father this same way each morning, and not once had she ever cut him. After she finishes, Sandor pulls her against him, resting his head on her stomach a moment, then looks in to her eyes as he kisses each of her hands gently. Arya rolls her eyes and huffs at this each time she sees it, before fleeing from the cottage and slamming the door. It was almost as though she couldn't stand the idea, or the sight, of Viola liking Sandor back. She didn't care, however. Sandor belonged to her, and she belonged to him.
"Might be we should stay here awhile." Sandor tells them as they sup one night after they had been in the village a fortnight. "We'd never reach the Eyrie, and the Freys will still be hunting survivors in the riverlands. Sounds like they need swords here, with these clansmen raiding. We can rest up, maybe find a way to get a letter to your aunt."
Viola liked this plan. They had all three put on weight, were warm, their clothing mended, and the drafty cottage was starting to feel like a true home to her. Perhaps they need not leave at all. They could send a raven to the Eyrie, bring Arya to her aunt, and send a second to Masha, instructing her to send Father. They could build a life here, perhaps father could reinforce their tiny cottage, even build his own next to theirs. There were plenty of widowed women here, young enough for him to take for bride, should he like. They could all be happy, and put the war, as well as the notion of sailing to the Free Cities behind them. Her and Sandor could finally think of having those babes running under foot, and perhaps some chickens and goats.
That is until another fortnight passes, and the village elder knocks upon their door as Sandor dresses for the day. The palisade had been complete the day before, and Sandor had intended to go into the forest to chop firewood for the coming winter. When Arya opens the door, Viola catches sight of the old mans solemn face and drooping eyes, and knows without a doubt what he is going to say to them.
"Come winter, we will be hard pressed to feed our own." The man explains with a sigh. "And you…a man like you brings blood with him."
"So you do know who I am." Sandor's mouth tightens and he clenches his fists at his side.
"Aye. We don't get travelers here, that's so, but we go to market, and to fairs. We know about King Joffrey's dog."
"When these Stone Crows come calling, you might be glad to have a dog."
"Might be." The man hesitates, then gathers up his courage. "But they say you lost your belly for fighting at the Blackwater. They say—"
"I know what they say." Sandor says sharply. "Pay me, and we'll be gone."
They gather their belonging and leave quickly, Sandor with a pouch full of coppers, a skin of ale, and a very old, but new to him sword. Viola's heart sinks as they exit the gates, and put the small village far behind him. It had been yet another stupid dream.
"We'll make for Riverrun." Sandor finally breaks the silence as they camp for the night. "Maybe the Blackfish wants to buy himself a she-wolf."
"He doesn't know me. He won't even know I'm really me. He won't give you any ransom. He'll probably just hang you."
"He's free to try." Sandor spits over his shoulder and drinks from his skin of ale.
"I know where we could go." Arya says finally. "We could go to the Wall."
"The little wolf bitch wants to join the Night's Watch, does she?"
"My brother's on the Wall."
"The Wall's a thousand leagues from here. We'd need to fight through the bloody Freys just to reach the Neck. There's lizard lions in those swamps that eat wolves every day for breakfast. And if we did reach the north with our skins intact, there's Ironborn in half the castles, and thousands of bloody buggering Northmen as well."
"Are you scared of them?" Arya asks with a raised brow and a smirk. "Have you lost your belly for fighting?"
"There's nothing wrong with my belly, but I don't give a rat's arse for you or your brother. I have a brother too."
Viola leaves the two of them bickering with one another, and lies down in the bedroll her and Sandor shared. It was freshly laundered from their time spent in the village, and no longer smelled of horse, sweat, and muck. Her heart gives a little tug remembering the way she had felt being there in the village, but shoves it down as Sandor climbs in behind her with a sigh and wraps her in his arms.
"You liked it there." He whispers as he buries his face in her neck. "You could have stayed, you know."
"I go where you go." Viola reminds him as she laces her fingers with his.
"Wasn't so sure anymore. You don't talk much. You were happy there; happier than I've ever seen you. Was nice to see. I'm sorry we couldn't stay because of me."
"It wasn't your fault."
"Aye. It was."
"No, it was their fault. You did good work for them, could have kept on doing good work for them. It's their own fault they couldn't trust you after what all you did for them. People like that aren't worth being around."
"You're worth being around." Sandor whispers against her neck before kissing her from ear to collarbone.
"As are you. You're worth more than that damned village, and every person in it as well."
Sandor chuckles softly and loosens his hold on her as she turns towards him and rests her head in the crook of his arm and kisses him on the lips. He kisses her back, then sighs deeply and rests his chin on the top of her head.
"You're worth all of this." He tells her gently. "Every piece of bloody gold Dondarrion and his bloody outlaws took from me, the miles, the fighting. You're worth every moment of it. As soon as we get the girl somewhere safe, you and me are going to set up home somewhere, anywhere. No more camping under the stars, no more going hungry, no more bloody lice. I give you my word, my little fox."