Pillow Tax

Myranda Royce untied the ribbon that held back her hair and dropping it on a nearby table, pulled back the blankets on her side of the bed, talking excitedly the whole while.

"…And he did the most intriguing thing with his tongue. I don't know if I've ever had such a kiss!" she chuckled and brought her hand to her lips. "Very nice. I'll have to see what else he is capable of doing with that."

She snuggled into the blankets and turned with a wicked smile to Sansa who was already abed, listening to Myranda's exploits with flushed cheeks. She had grown used to Myranda's evening conversation topics, but she still was not able to prevent her blushes. Myranda's chatter was fascinating. It was almost like having a sister again, though the only similarity Sansa had been able to find between Arya and Myranda was the fact that they were both bold enough to say exactly what was on their minds. The most important benefit of sharing Myranda's bed was the fact that she felt safer here than in her own chambers, knowing neither Sweet Robin nor Petyr would come to her here. Despite being Alayne all day, at night, she could almost believe she was Sansa again, gossiping with Jeyne or the Tyrell girls.

"A pillow tax is owed, Alayne, my dear," Myranda leaned closer. "You have shared my bed for several weeks and it has been too long since you paid your due. And quite honestly, your confession that The Bear and the Maiden Fair makes you feel naughty was not terribly stimulating. Dear me! Look at you blush about a story of a kiss! Have you ever even been kissed, you precious innocent?"

Sansa hesistated, considering her reply. Petyr's kisses tasted of mint. When he put his mouth on hers, his mouth was sharp and cold, masking his breath, almost clean. Almost. It took her breath away, but not in the way kisses were supposed to do. Petyr was Alayne's father. Surely those did not count. Even if the press of his lips lasted a little too long to be paternal.

Tyrion's kiss had been a whisper, a quick peck hardly felt through her tears. It was Arbor Gold. One of those sweet, cloying lies he wanted her to believe, that he wanted both of them to believe. No. A kiss to seal a forced marriage, and the lies she spoke as she repeated her vows. That didn't count. And Myranda would not be interested in a dry graze of lips.

Sansa pushed thoughts of Tyrion and his lustful gaze out of her head. Perhaps Myranda would be satisfied with a lie, a story of what she wished to do. Sansa had once dreamed of Joffrey's kiss. Her heart fluttering, she had imagined his full red lips gently brushing her own. Golden and shining, his kiss was going to make her his Queen. Afterwards, after her father's execution, she would have sooner kissed Septa Mordane's rotting cheek than come near to him. That wouldn't do.

Sansa was taking too long to respond and Myranda huffed out a breath. "For goodness sake, Alayne! It's not like I asked you if you ever let anyone at your cunt. You can't be that much of a child!"

As usual, Myranda's forthright language shocked Sansa, but she forced herself to smile.

"No, I'm not. I mean, yes, I have been kissed," she began slowly, flustered by the expectant sparkle in Myranda's brown eyes.

"Some green squire grab you behind the kitchens and slobber on your cheek?" the older girl giggled. "Squeezed your bosom and ran off blushing?"

Sansa hesistated, "No, it wasn't a boy." Seeing Myranda's eyes widen and her mouth drop open in shock, she hastily amended, "No, it was a boy, not—not like you and the serving maid-a man. A grown man. So tall." The Hound was no stripling youth playing at kisses.

"Ooooh, Alayne! You may have something that will make sharing my bed with you worthwhile! Who was he?"

"He was a warrior," Sansa spoke slowly, taking care not to speak rashly and reveal too much, "very fierce and strong." So strong, his shoulders broad and muscled. She quickly sketched out what she hoped was a believable story. A sell sword, new to Gulltown. They met in the marketplace. Sometimes they would talk.

"Mmm, go on," sighed Myranda, willing to settle for this tame account. After all, poor Alayne could not begin to compete with her love affairs. "Handsome?" She hugged her pillow close.

"No, not at all," Sansa said, "he was—not beautiful" How to explain without giving it away. "He was frightening, his eyes could be so forbidding. Like gray steel. Angry, but…"

"But his love for you tamed him," Myranda interrupted.

Sansa laughed at this absurdity, "No, I think I made him angry! I was so stupid, and naïve. He had no patience. But he could be gentle. And his actions were kind, if not his words. I think…" Sansa considered a moment, "He looked after me. Kept me from harm."

"Pbbt. How much harm could you come to in a Mother's home or a market in Gulltown?" Myranda interrupted rudely, but she was intrigued. Her eyes were fixed on Sansa's face.

"I went into town alone, sometimes," Sansa defended her story, searching her mind for a plausible lie to help her tell the truth. "Men do not always treat even the high born ladies with respect. For a bastard girl, well, they are even worse." She swallowed at the memory of grasping hands and the stink of garlic. "He saved me from men who…who meant to hurt me, you know." Myranda furrowed her brow and nodded knowingly.

"Dreadful…" she murmured and reached out a comforting hand. She stroked Sansa's shoulder gently before grasping her hand, "And your warrior saved you and you kissed him in payment for his chivalry!"

"No." Sansa said quietly, reflecting. "I should have. I think he would have liked that, but I was frightened."

She looked at Myranda, beseeching her for understanding. "He saved me. But he killed them, he cut off a man's arm. There was so much blood. I—It wasn't like in a song." Sansa's ran her palm over the coverlet, remembering the rough scratch of his white cloak against her cheek and the hard planes of his chest when she clutched him tightly, sitting behind him on her courser, her body flush against his back and hips, galloping to safety. She had not registered the sensation at the time—sick fear and adrenaline causing her to hold tight, but her body had its memory. Her legs spread wide and close to his body, clinging for dear life, the rhythm of the horse's gait beneath them.

"Soon after. He had to leave. There was war coming, he had to go." Sansa was vague, thinking again of his terror of the wildfire. "He crept into my bedroom and grabbed me. He wanted to run away with me, but I was frightened. Who knows what would have happened?"

After living with Myranda, Sansa had a much better idea of what could have happened if she had run off into the night with the Hound. Would he have kissed her again? Her heart sped up at the thought. Thrown her in the grass, and lifted her skirts, stolen her maidenhead under the stars. No. Not steal. He could have taken it. He was much stronger and larger than Marillion, and Sansa had not been able to keep the singer off of her. If not for Lothor Brune, Marillion would have taken what the mob had almost had. She could not have fought the Hound if he had decided to have her.

"Goodness, he sounds like he was half-wildling!" Mryanda prompted.

Sansa shook her head, "No, but he had the look of the North about him." In her memory, she could see the scars that ruined his plain face, gray-eyed and black haired. He could have been a Northman. He looked like belonged to Winterfell much more than he ever belonged in the Red Keep.

Myranda's fingers clutching her arm impatiently told her to continue.

"His kiss was cruel and his mouth was hot," Sansa spoke in a whisper, hardly daring to say aloud what had been in her thoughts for so long. "He tasted like sour wine and salt."

"Did he use his tongue?" Myranda asked, eager and squirming with these new details.

Did he use his tongue? Sansa tried to sort out her memories.

"I don't think so? Not exactly," she paused, "but I could taste him. And smell him, sweat and steel" and vomit and blood, so much hot, coppery blood. Blood on his face, blood on her hand, blood between her legs. The night was bathed in green fire and red blood. She took a shuddering breath. She tried to remember details that would satisfy the eager young woman curled next to her

When the Hound pressed his burned mouth to hers, he tasted of soot and wine and a bright taste of iron. Sour and tart like lemon. No, not like lemon. Why did she think that? It was the Dornish sour he preferred. His "true wine" coating his tongue, touching her lips.

"He pushed me to the bed and lay on top of me," the words came slowly. "He was so big and his armor pinched." She swallowed. He had pressed her into her featherbed, balancing part of his weight on an elbow so he could hold the dagger to her throat, but one long leg lay heavily on her, forcing her legs apart slightly. His armor had been cold, but she burned at the memory.

"Oh, don't stop!" Myranda ordered. "What happened! Did he rip your bodice? Lift your skirt?"

Sansa shook her head. No. He could have. She could not have stopped him. She thought he intended to kill her, not ravish her. Perhaps he did. Maybe it would have been a kindness considering what followed—Tyrion, and Joffrey, and Petyr and his kisses…She had considered it herself after hearing of her mother and Robb's deaths. It still sometimes went through Sansa's head, though not Alayne's. Never in hers.

"No, he wanted…he said he wanted song," she blushed at the word, and Myranda leered. I'll have a song from you one day, whether you will it or no, she could hear his rasp and her color rose still higher.

"I bet he did! What did you do?"

"I sang. A little hymn." Gentle mother, font of mercy, help our daughters, save our sons.

"A hymn! Oh, Alayne, you really are a cold little septa aren't you! At least tell me you let him under your clothes a bit." Myranda looked disgusted. Sansa felt something akin to chagrin—sorry to disappoint her friend, surely.

"No. Besides I had my…my moonblood," Sansa confessed in a shamed little whisper. Myranda nodded but her expression clearly showed that she thought that was a minor obstacle.

"After I sang, he kissed me." She stopped again. Or did she kiss him? She had brought her hand to his rough scarred cheek and felt the wetness. The wetness of his tears. The wetness of his mouth. The wet blood on his face. The wet between her thighs. She had been scared for him. For herself, certainly, but also for him.

"He left me his cloak," she whispered in the flickering candlelight, Myranda's head on the pillow next to hers. He had ripped it from his shoulders after rising from the bed, off of her. He didn't give it, exactly, but she took it for her own. Was it still in King's Landing, under her summer silks? Not likely. Sansa got a wry amusement at the thought of the maids unpacking her trunk and finding a filthy kingsguard cloak among her best summer dresses. Well, they all thought she was half crazy anyway. Maybe she was. It made no matter.

"Oh! How romantic," Myranda sighed. "Not as spicy as I like my tales, but terribly romantic."

"Is it?" Sansa asked, genuinely surprised. The fire was in her mind's eye, and his body shaking with tears and fear and rage, pressing her down into the bed. Did romance come with a blade to your throat? With time now to consider, she supposed some of the bards thought so. I'll steal a sweet kiss with the point of my blade, heigh-ho, heigh-ho.

"He steals a kiss and leaves his cloak. Ah, that's a song, you goose, a better song than you gave him, poor man!" Myranda looked at her critically, "Were you in love with him?"

"Oh, no," Sansa clutched the blanket to her chest, "No! How could I be? He protected me, he gave me good counsel—I appreciate his kindness, but no…of course not."

What was love? She had thought she loved Joffrey with all her heart. What could be less lovable than a scarred, snarling Hound with his teeth bared. For some reason, she thought of Lady growling at Ilyn Payne.

"I love my father and cousin. What do I know of romance," Alayne declared. "I could not have loved him." But Alayne was a bastard. Alayne could love a sell sword. Sansa could not, or should not, love a man from a minor house with no titles, no lands.

"Hmm." Myranda listened to her stammer a moment before waving her hand dismissively. "No, if I loved every man I've ever kissed…well, that would be silly. But, ah! A big brute like that in love with you is a nice story. If you'd given him your maidenhead, it would have been even better, but good enough for this evening." Myranda's eyes were beginning to droop.

"In love with me?" Sansa repeated the phrase and turned to her back and stared sightlessly at the canopy over Myranda's bed. I'll make her my love and we'll rest in the shade, heigh-ho, heigh-ho.

Myranda yawned and blew out the candle. "Of course he was." Her voice was close and sleepy in the dark. "If he'd just wanted your maidenhead, he'd have fucked you into your bed. That poor, ugly fellow was in love." She giggled softly, "Alayne Stone, such a temptress."

"He wasn't ugly," Sansa replied, but within a few moments Myranda's breathing came slow and even. Sansa closed her eyes, a pricking sensation behind her lids, and wondered, yet again, what had become of Sandor Clegane.

Sleep would not come quickly tonight, and as she lay in the dark, she considered Littlefinger's words to her back in King's Landing. Perhaps Petyr had lied to her so long ago when he told her life was not a song. It would not be the first time he lied. It would not be the last. Perhaps life was just a bit like a song, after all. Let us know a better day, Sansa thought, Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho.