Author's notes: Sorry for the long way. During summer, writing unfortunately always has to take the back seat.

Chapter 13: Intermission – Killing Monsters

Sandor huddled deeper into his cloak as another early morning breeze tried to penetrate the layers of cloth and leather in which he covered himself to keep warm.

Winter had come to Westeros and even here, not more than a week's ride from King's Landing, the nights were freezing cold and the days only marginally better. They had no snow yet, but frost clung white to naked branches, the ground was dusted with a glittering layer of ice and every exhaled breath turned into a foggy cloud before it dispersed into cold air.

People with some sense stayed somewhere near a fire during the night and not very far from it during the day.

Sadly, he couldn't afford alerting his prey to his presence with a fire, so he sat on his uncomfortable perch inside a leafless tree, partly shrouded by early morning mist to wait for his quarry to appear.

Lower in the tree's branches, Sandor could see the silvery white mane of one of his companions.

Grumbling, he thought he should have asked Geralt to cover his head, so his gleaming white hair wouldn't stand out like a beacon. Then again, he trusted him to know what he was doing. Never in his life had he known a better hunter than Geralt.

They had first met when Sandor had stood amidst a pack of rabid dogs, trying to get the upper hand on them. He'd always loved dogs; the few fond memories he had retained from his childhood were from spending time with his grandfather in the kennels, but his months roaming the Reach and the Riverlands had made him wary of any sign that dogs were close by.

One of the many evil outcomes of any war were the dogs left to fend for themselves. Soldiers killed people, slaughtered livestock and burned houses, but they invariably left the dogs alive. Dogs who first turned to feeding on corpses until they forgot the distinction between a dead human and a living one and attacked everything that promised a full belly. Crawling with vermin, diseased and starving, they were a menace that even the few packs of wolves roaming the woods took care to avoid.

Without Geralt, Sandor might well have lost the fight that day.

Once they stood over the remnants of the pack, they had regarded each other warily, sizing each other up, none of them wasting time with bandying meaningless phrases.

Looking back, it probably was one of the things that had made Sandor like the man from the start, that he only spoke if absolutely necessary.

As if on cue, they had both drawn their still bloody swords again, circled each other and then attacked. Not viciously, not to kill, but to test the other's strength and to find his weaknesses.

Geralt, Sandor found out almost immediately, was one of the quickest swordsmen he'd ever had the misfortune to fight against. He wasn't slow himself, but he could hold his own against the man only on account of his longer reach and the strength behind his attacks that the other man knew better than to try to parry.

The sparring had been over after a mere two minutes, both of them having learned what they needed to know.

"Geralt Rivers," the man had introduced himself, earning more of Sandor's approval by not trying to shake hands.

"Ryder Hill," Sandor had replied, so comfortable with his new identity by then, he often forgot even to think if any given situation would allow to use his true name.

The corner of Geralt's mouth had twitched in wry amusement, acknowledging both their bastard status, even if it was a lie in Sandor's case. Then again, you never knew, maybe the white-haired one was a knight in disguise as well. He certainly knew how to wield a sword better than any commoner had a right to - Hells, better than most knights - and he had a sort of distinctiveness to his sharply-cut features that one usually only associated with nobility. He also looked way younger than the colour of his hair suggested.

"I could use a man like you."

Sandor hadn't been able to hide a grin at the man's straightforward approach. Again, the tone of voice didn't quite say "lowborn" and neither did his bearing, even if the accent did.

"So could I," Sandor replied with a smirk. "What are you hunting?"

"Monsters," the man said with a wry tilt to one corner of his mouth. "All the things that the war has turned feral. Don't care much if it's dogs or deserters. You?"

Sandor had shrugged his shoulders, trying to think how much of his true purpose he should reveal.

"A rabid dog."

A silvery eyebrow rose.

"Only one?"

"A big one."

The man seemed to need a minute to mull that over, while Sandor had studied his face. Geralt looked to be in his mid thirties and he had not lied about hunting monsters, because his face surely told a tale of violence, with one remarkable cut down half his face that slashed through the middle of his eyebrow and ran down to his cheek, apparently having missed his eye by a hair's breadth. A dog seemed to have tried to take a bite off Geralt's neck, if the teeth-marks there were anything to go by. And as if the white hair and scarred face wasn't enough to make the man stand out, he had the most extraordinary eyes, a glowing amber that was almost wolf-like in its piercing intensity.

"You can join us, if you'd like to."

Sandor had nodded, even before he knew who exactly "us" were.

His months roaming the lands had taught him that a man alone, no matter how skilled a fighter, needed quite a bit of luck to stay alive. A man had to sleep and wash and piss and if you had no one to cover your back while you did, more often than not someone would take advantage of your lack of watchfulness.

With a jolly fighter like Geralt Rivers, Sandor's life was bound to get much easier.

…

"Us" turned out to be two men. One of them a dwarf, not much taller than the Imp, but with shoulders almost as broad as Sandor's and a mighty red beard that reached almost to his belt. Zoltan Chivray was an almost irritating well of good humour and ribald jokes, but was pretty handy with a crossbow and a menace with the heavy battle axe he carried, which in Sandor's eyes made up for quite a lot of flaws.

Unfortunately, the third man – a bard named Dandelion – was handy only with the lute he always carried with him and a hindrance instead of a help in any fight. Why Geralt insisted he needed to be part of a group of men on the hunt, Sandor had yet to understand.

Dandelion seemed a foppish fool with his flashy clothes and pretty face, but he was smarter than he let on, able to talk himself out of every situation and into any woman's smallclothes. He was also a never ceasing source of any gossip that was to be had and it wasn't long before Dandelion had figured what pieces of news Sandor was most interested in.

He learned of his brother's death at the hands of Oberyn Martell and although he searched his soul long and hard for weeks afterwards, he couldn't find it in himself to feel cheated of his revenge.

Dandelion said he had died screaming. That he had suffered for long days before he finally succumbed to the poison Martell had touched him with before he himself had died under the brutal force of Gregor's fist.

It seemed justice had been done and he was surprised that it didn't bother him at all. Apparently, he had never truly wished to kill Gregor, just wished him dead.

What did bother him was the news he heard from Dandelion that a new Kingsguard had emerged seemingly out of nowhere, only weeks after Gregor's death. A formerly never heard-of knight named Robert Strong, who never talked, never showed his face and – if rumours were to be believed – never ate or slept.

Forced by his own experiences to believe in magic, it was no stretch for Sandor to believe that there had to be magic much darker, much more evil than whatever he had come in contact with and there was no doubt in his mind as to who was inside that white armour.

And there was no doubt who was destined to kill that… whatever it was.

Having come to this decision, he had revealed his true identity to his companions, expecting them to turn from him once they knew his name and his purpose, but they had only nodded.

"Guess you'll need some help," Zoltan just stated and that was that.

...

The branch he was sitting on dug uncomfortably into Sandor's ass as he shifted for the hundredth time, the only outward sign of his nervousness.

He peered into the trees on the other side of the clearing, trying to discern a flash of a red beard or a scrap of the hideous purple waistcoat Dandelion wore these days, but the men had well concealed themselves.

There was no sign yet of the riders they expected, the small contingent of men sent to escort Lord Baelish back from the Vale of Arryn. The state of finances in King's Landing had gone from bad to worse after Tywin Lannister's death and now everyone believed they were in need of a master of coin who could magically fill the kingdom's depleted coffers again.

Age and loss, it seemed, had not served to make Cersei any smarter than she had been before. If only half of the rumours Dandelion had unearthed were true, Cersei was about to ruin by sheer stupidity everything her father had tried to achieve.

Sandor had neither the inclination nor the means to stop her, but he could at least try to stop one of her tools.

Afterwards...

He tried to focus on the task at hand, but with nothing worthwhile to do but wait, his thoughts strayed to where they frequently did when he let them.

Because the news he craved most when asking Dandelion were not those about Cersei or Gregor or Robert Strong. They were those about her, about Sansa.

Every time she was mentioned, he listened with bated breath, a deep ache inside of him like a gaping hole that nothing could fill. Still, he could not get enough of hearing of her, of experiencing that odd pain thinking of her brought to his chest. It made him want to get up and saddle Stranger and ride north until he reached Winterfell, until he could see her again and tell her all the things that had been left unspoken. Offer her all he was and all he had to give.

The temptation had been almost unbearable back when he had stood concealed under a rocky outcropping next to the drawbridge leading to the Frey's towers, hearing her calling his name in a keening voice so full of anguish, he would have thought her in mortal danger had he not seen with his own eyes that she wasn't.

Everything inside him had wanted to follow that voice, to soothe whatever pain she felt, to assure her that he was well and none the worse for all the upheaval her sudden departure had brought, despite it having been a near thing that he was still alive.

He'd known Cersei was out for his blood the minute she heard of Sansa's disappearance. Not that it had anything to do with Sansa, but with the fact that no-one spurned Cersei's advances and lived to tell the tale.

Surprisingly, it was due to the Imp that Sandor still had his head where it belonged. Quite obviously thrilled at the idea of thwarting his sister's unhidden thirst for revenge, the Imp had somehow managed to convince the small council that it would be a terrific idea to send Sandor after the very girl he had supposedly helped in her escape. If he'd not been so glad to have evaded beheading, he would have laughed right then and there.

More good luck – quite probably not luck, but some sort of divine intervention – had made him stumble upon the bunch of fools who called themselves the Brotherhood without Banners, with little Arya Stark right in their midst.

It had given him a pang every night when he heard her recite her little list of people she meant to see dead, to hear that he was on that list as well for obvious reasons and it was probably the first time he was truly glad that people were unable to recognize him. Even the little she-wolf had apparently never bothered to see that there was an actual face under his scars.

Only Sansa ever had, and as she called for him, his whole being burned to run to her. He could've claimed to be someone else and knowing Sansa, she would have let him get away with the lie. He could have offered his services to her brother and be sure to be accepted on grounds of having saved the she-wolf.

He could've been close to her, see that she was protected.

He could have and at that moment he could not have said if there was anything else in his life that he had ever wanted more.

It's the wrong way to go, a tinkling voice had reminded him. You are meant for other tasks.

"She sounds in pain," he had said to no one in particular, because the voice was only in his head.

It's nothing you can help her with. You might see her again, once you complete your trials.

He hadn't understood the part about trials, but he knew well enough he was not yet done in the south, despite how much he wished it. Gregor was still alive and terrorizing the Riverlands and he felt it his responsibility to do what he could to end this, one way or another.

So he had stood in agony until Sansa's cries had subsided, the cold rain washing away any warm wetness that might or might not have leaked from his eyes.

…

As time went on, he had started to chide himself a fool for his fancy, for his constant urge to abandon all he was doing and turn towards Winterfell.

For one thing, there was only white, cold death to be found north of the Neck. Snow as high as a castle wall and bitter cold so unforgiving, that even a fire would not be enough to keep man and beast from freezing to death.

And even if not, the distance between him and Sansa Stark could not only be measured in leagues, it was measured in importance and status and wealth, nothing of which he had to his name.

If her brother had the sense the gods gave a toad, he would never give his sister to a man like him. Hells, he wouldn't either if he was in Robb Stark's place.

But sometimes, in his dreams or in the blessed limbo between wakefulness and sleep, reality had no sway over him and couldn't keep himself from fantasizing, from imagining. She came to him at times during the night, an older version of the Sansa he had known in King's Landing, with knowing smiles and knowing touches, whispering loving words to him, caressing and stroking all the right places, until he woke sweating and panting and painfully hard.

At the beginning, there had been some hope that his obsession with her would fade with time, but the longer it went on the more that hope dwindled. He had held to his hatred for Gregor for more than twenty years, he was not likely to forget Sansa in a fraction of that time.

She had changed him and in some of his darker moods he wasn't sure if she'd changed his life for the better.

After his first two wishes, he had everything he could ever hoped to have. By his own virtue, he had climbed as high as any man of his birth could possible go. He was a fucking Kingsguard and could even be a knight if he wished it. With the face the fairy had given him, he could have had a life thousands would envy him for.

But then he'd thrown all that away in a heartbeat. For her. And the worst thing was, he knew he would do it again.

Not because of her shy kiss and her compassion, not because he wanted the woman he knew she'd become, but because he would have despised himself forever if he hadn't. What good was a handsome face if you couldn't look at yourself in the mirror, too ashamed of the coward you have become? What worth was there to you if you thought yourself worthless?

Saving Sansa had given him a purpose and a sense of self-worth he had never had before, given him the conviction that he was more than an obedient dog, that he held his fate in his own hands, kings and fairies be damned. She had set him free.

Almost, he thought ruefully. Because by now he had resigned himself to the fact that he would never be free of her, regardless of whatever separated them.

The one to confirm this conviction had been Geralt, when one night he decided to share a story Sandor would not have believed had he not known that it was true that sometimes people were granted three wishes.

Geralt, as it turned out, had had his own run-in with a fairy, although he called it a jinn. At hearing that, Sandor was convinced that their meeting had not been as coincidental as he had first thought and as he kept listening, he found himself somewhat relieved that he wasn't the only one who'd fucked up most of the chances the three wishes presented.

Like Sandor, Geralt had wasted his first two wishes as well, not even knowing that he had them. And he, too, had used his last to save a woman he had fallen for.

Even after more than five years, Geralt was no more free of her than Sandor was of Sansa and it was just as sorry a tale as his own, because here they were, both without the women they apparently were forever bound to.

Dandelion, ever the indiscrete one, revealed what Geralt had omitted from his story. That he sometimes went to see the beautiful highborn lady he'd saved and that she always took him to her bed against her better judgement, only to make him feel bad about it afterwards, vowing it would be the last time.

It explained why the man sometimes vanished for a couple of days, only to come back with red-rimmed eyes, a black mood and a thirst for wine only limited by what he could manage to drink before passing out.

If nothing else, those incidents taught Sandor the futility of the ideas he entertained about offering Sansa his services as a retainer; as a guard, a sworn shield or in any other capacity she or her family deemed good enough for him.

He would not condemn both Sansa and himself to this hell of always reaching for something you could not grasp. Having lived half a life before, he knew he could not do it again and he would not ask it of her.

Maybe it was presumptuous to think she felt as bound to him as he did to her, maybe she'd forgotten him already and if so, as much as it hurt, at least it would mean that one of them was free to live a life of happiness at some point.

If anyone deserved it, it was her.

…

A weak winter sun was shyly peeking over the horizon in a bleached yellow glow that denoted its waning power, when Sandor finally heard the rhythmic clopping of horses' hooves.

True to the intelligence they'd been given, a group of twelve riders, riding single file, made its way through the wood. Only two of them were Kingsguard and at the top of the column rode the white-armoured colossus Sandor had been lying in wait for.

Slowly, as not to give away their position by a sound, he lifted his crossbow to his eyes and aimed it at one of the riders behind Robert Strong.

What sounded like a chaffinch shrilled a loud call from a nearby tree and at the signal, three quarrels loosened at once, each hitting its mark.

Before the men even had marshalled their wits to assess the situation, three more bolts tore through plate and mail and flesh, their impact kicking the men off their horses.

Then, with a mighty yell that would have made Sandor laugh out loud in a different situation, Geralt jumped from the branch he'd been sitting on and ran full-speed up to the group of riders.

They were perplexed for a few precious second, staring dim-wittedly at the white-haired attacker who seemingly witlessly ran toward a group of six horsed and heavily armoured men, himself only armed with a two-handed sword.

Their distraction bought Sandor and Zoltan enough time to shoot two more men from their horses until it occurred to the riders that there was more than one attacker. Lifting their shields, they once again turned against Geralt.

Sandor jumped down from the tree, landing with a roll on the soft cushion of moss and dead leaves he had prepared beforehand to soften his fall and did his own version of running against the riders with his sword drawn, his battle-cry a low roar like a bear's, while Zoltan did the same on their other flank, brandishing his mighty axe, yelling as if he was leading an army into battle.

The horses whinnied and sidled around nervously, afraid at the sudden noise and the smell of blood from the eight men lying dead on the ground. Quite a bit of good luck that not all of those horses were battle trained.

Geralt and Zoltan wasted no time and started attacking the remaining three men-at-arms, while Sandor faced the giant in white who was rumoured to have once been his brother.

The monster was wearing a great-helm much like the one Gregor had preferred. No eyes could be seen behind the small slit in the helm's visor, but Sandor felt himself being regarded with the cold interest of someone observing a bug he is about to crush underfoot.

In its arrogance, the thing didn't even do what Sandor had expected. He had been prepared for Strong to try and ride him down.

Instead, the giant dismounted as if he had all the time in the world, while a couple of yards next to him, his men died to rapid-fire slashes of Geralt's sword and the sure aimed swings of Zoltan's battle axe.

When Strong stood only a few feet away, it seemed to Sandor that smoky blackness crawled out of every crevice of his armour and only seconds later, he gagged when his nose was assaulted by a stench so horrible, he understood why the men-at-arms had kept their distance from this thing.

It smelled like rot and decay, like old death and gangrene.

Where the black, crawling smoke hit the grass around Strong's feet, the grass instantly wilted and yellowed and if Sandor had needed any more proof that this thing was a monster in need of being killed for good, he had it seeing this.

Only he had no idea how to kill something that quite obviously was already dead.

With no hurry, the thing drew its sword.

Sandor at once recognized the six and a half foot long, dented and grey monstrosity his brother used to wield one-handed, just as this creature did.

Wit a yell that was as much meant to give himself courage as to irritate his foe, hoping the monster was as susceptible to noise as Gregor had been, Sandor rushed at it, intending to dodge around it at the last moment.

As he had hoped, the thing was even slower than Gregor had been and ducking beneath the arc of the big sword and coming out on the other side wasn't a problem at all.

Putting all his might behind the thrust, Sandor pushed his sword in between two pieces of the white armour, hoping to puncture what in a human being would be a major blood vessel.

He heard something like a roar, sounding like a low, grumbling echo in a deep cave and then the monster turned. Sandor had just enough time to pull his blade back when the thing turned in the slow, lumbering way it had.

The blade of Sandor's sword was blackened by whatever muck there was inside that armour, but nothing else had happened. For a moment, he could've sworn the rumbling echo turned to laughter.

Having trained with Geralt, Sandor had become pretty fast and it should not have been a problem at all to find the weaknesses in the thing's armour, to stab through them and slowly have it bleed to death. But as he had feared, none of his carefully placed thrusts had any effect on the monster.

After what felt like an eternity of dodging and advancing, slashing and stabbing, his strength began to dwindle as well as his hope of besting the monster. In a moment of distraction, he was too late ducking away from a wide arc of his enemy's sword and only managed to parry it with his own blade before it would have cut him in half.

The steel of his weapon was no match for a blow like this and snapped off near the hilt, the metallic sound of breaking metal like the bell that tolled for his funeral.

Again the monster grumbled what sounded like a laugh.

A couple of yards away, Geralt and Zoltan dealt with the rest of the men in Strong's group, making sure that none of those just wounded would come after them. As they usually did, they were stripping them of gold and valuables besides. Even men doing good deeds needed gold to live and it was no use to the dead anyway.

I could use some help here, Sandor thought dejectedly as the monster advanced on him, still in no hurry at all, sure now of its victory.

The big sword swung again and Sandor managed to evade it this time and probably would for another few instances, but without a weapon, this was utterly hopeless. And even if Geralt or Zoltan would at one point think of throwing him a sword, he still had no idea how to kill this.

Still clinging to the useless hilt of his sword, he suddenly noticed motes of gold dancing through the air. But instead of forming a little fairy as he had half expected, the gold made for his sword-hand, swirling and dancing above the blade-less hilt, forming the oscillating, decidedly unsubstantial impression of a sword.

The being across from him seemed transfixed for a moment, observing the spectacle, but soon recovered and came at Sandor again, six foot of deadly metal swinging with a promise of destruction.

Again he danced out of its path, again he ducked around the monster and more out of habit than in any expectation of success, made a motion that would have stabbed his sword in between pieces of armour, if it still had a blade.

Which, surprisingly enough, it seemed to have.

The gold dust, instead of dispersing as one might have expected, went through the soft leather that connected the pieces of white armour and it felt to his hand as if he had truly cut through flesh this time.

The monster froze and then roared, an earth-shaking sound that sent a shiver down Sandor's spine.

Pulling the golden blade back, blackness oozed out of the place he had hit, not like the smoky mist of the thing's stench, but like putrid old blood.

Finally understanding, Sandor smiled.

It was almost too easy after that. His movements turned fluid and weightless as he danced the dance he knew by heart, a dance he had been born for, every slash hitting where it was meant to hit, ducking every stab aimed at him, piercing the thing's armour in a dozen vulnerable places over and over again, until black muck flowed freely from a dozen wounds, staining the earth around them black as if covered with tar.

The thing didn't get any faster, even when faced with destruction. Made with the thought that what was already dead could not be killed, it had no real fighting skills and even the armour seemed rather designed for hiding what was within than for truly protecting it.

Relish flooded Sandor's mind as he saw victory in his grasp, the sweetly familiar joy of killing that made him forget the tiring of his muscles, the pain in his lungs and the racing of his heart.

It wasn't so much a penchant for destruction that prompted the pleasure he felt, but the bliss of feeling alive, of knowing he would live to fight another day, the triumph of once again having come out on top.

Killing truly was the sweetest thing there was.

At last, the thing fell to its knees, splashing into a puddle of black goo that emitted a stench so noxious, the foliage above their heads wilted as the grass had done before. The ground where they had fought looked dead and barren and Sandor wondered if something living would ever grow there again.

With one last effort, he brought his weightless blade in position and put all his strength into a swiping blow right through the monsters neck.

The great, colour-feathered helm came off the thing's shoulders like an empty bucket, rolling a few feet until it came to rest on its side. There was nothing that suggested that a head had been in there, only remnants of black goo.

In front of him, the monster shuddered and the pitched forward, landing on the ground with a clanking rattle, as if someone had dumped an empty suit of armour at Sandor's feet.

Sandor kicked it for good measure and the pieces fell apart, revealing the remains of a rotting corpse, disintegrating into black, stinking decay.

Sandor gagged and took a few hasty steps back.

In his hand, the golden-dusted blade flickered and danced.

After a few moments of stunned silence, he noticed that his companions stood to his side, careful not to step into the rapidly spreading circle of dead earth that formed around the corpse, covering their noses.

Dandelion was the first to speak, pointing towards the golden blade.

"I'll turn this into a song that will still be remembered centuries from now," he said, the gravitas he was probably going for with his speech somewhat damped by the nasal sound of his voice, due to him pinching his nose shut. "I'll make you immortal."

...

"You could've just ignored him," Dandelion said, making a show of pressing a water-drenched cloth against a rapidly swelling eye.

Sandor examined his bloodied knuckles, feeling a bit guilty for having his friends dragged into this, but not really for knocking out the teeth of the bugger who had dared called Sansa a witch and a whore.

He'd heard them before, the stories.

How Sansa had first sold her maidenhead to him of all people and then flew out of the Red Keep either as a bird, a bat or on a broomstick. Tales varied here.

Unanimous, however, was the widespread conviction that she and her brother had turned to wolves at the Frey's and slaughtered them during the Red Wedding and done the same with the Boltons occupying Winterfell.

The called her the "Witch of the North", the "Wolf Witch" and other names even less flattering.

From what he'd gathered over time, tales were unanimous about the fact that Sansa and her family, probably truly by some miracle, were back at Winterfell, the great keep none the worse for all it had endured, an island amidst snow and ice and death-bringing cold, stocked with enough resources to last a couple of years of winter.

Sandor stood, restless as always when thinking of her, wanting to just go north while knowing death would find him much sooner than he would find Winterfell. But since it was night and he was tired and felt drained, he went to his bedroll instead, huddling under the furs and pretended to sleep.

Beside the fire, his comrades would probably brood silently for a while longer and nurse the scrapes they had sustained in their latest tavern brawl. Luckily, it wasn't always him who started it, so there was no need to feel too guilty about it. Call Zoltan some name for being short, doubt Dandelion's musical talent or say something derogatory about the Lady of Vengerberg and you had a fight on your hands just as surely as if you repeated any slurs about Sansa Stark.

With her name his last conscious thought, he fell asleep.

…

Hands were on him, soft and warm, stroking his chest, his arms, his shoulders.

"Wake up, love," a gentle voice asked him, "I've need of you."

He knew the voice, knew the woman behind it, beautiful, sensual and so enamoured of him he never forgot that this was a dream. Maybe he ought not to indulge in this every time such a dream came to him, maybe this was what tightened his bond to her every time he gave in to her sweetness and her pleas.

She smiled when he opened his eyes, a radiant, open smile with not a hint of falseness.

"I've missed you," she said, with twinge of sadness to her voice but the unshakable will in her eyes not to spoil their time with regrets. "I miss you every day and every night."

"I miss you, too."

An exchange between lovers who had a right to closeness, were unburdened by fear of rejection, secure in their love for each other.

Was this merely wishful thinking, his sleep-fogged mind making up what he wished for? Or was it a tantalizing hint at some possible future, made more believable by how the woman who smiled at him seemed older than the girl he had known her to be. No, he wouldn't delude himself like that, not even in dreams. Especially not there.

"I've heard you slew the Black Evil," she stated, not quite a question.

"Had some help," he said, trying for some modesty, "but yes."

Her white silken shift shimmered golden for a moment, then vanished, leaving only naked skin, flawless, soft and so terribly inviting. Her hair cascaded down, invisible hands having removed whatever held it before, the silken strands cascading over his naked chest like streams of fire.

"Here's your reward then, my hero," she whispered and leaned over him, her lips skimming against his, cool and soft.

His body reacted, as always, violently and directly, arousal shooting through him like wildfire as he grabbed the back of her head, drew her to him for a kiss, relishing her naked skin against his chest, the soft cushiony feeling of her breasts, the firm flesh of her thighs as she straddled him.

"Sandor," she breathed as he gave both of them a moment to draw breath and her fingers found his face, lovingly tracing his brow, his nose... his scars.

He howled, grabbing for the ruined skin that should be smooth and hale, shocked to his core, pained and utterly humiliated.

With a smile, she sank down on him, taking him inside; wetness and warmth, soft tightness that was a caress and a demand.

She moved and his head swam, lust and embarrassment warring inside him while her eyes were fixed on his, widened with arousal, cerulean and deep and so full of understanding, he couldn't have turned his shame away from her no matter how much he wanted to.

"I love you."

…

He jerked awake so violently, he landed face down in the damp, rotting leaves next to his bedroll, almost shouting with the shock of it.

Seven Hells!

His lungs worked overtime as if he'd been running for miles and his overall misery wasn't helped by having rolled onto his hard-on.

He bit back another violent curse, not wanting to wake the other two men peacefully snoring next to the dying fire.

If he judged the darkness correctly, Zoltan should be on watch and would probably be up on some tree-stump, smoking a pipe.

Sandor quietly got to his feet.

Another damn night forcing him to wander deep into the woods to take care of the problem his dream had left him with.

Having been a soldier most of his life with privacy being non-existent, he'd learned to do this as quietly as possible, but still preferred to bring as much distance between him and the others when he did, partly because there was no accounting for what might accidentally slip over his lips when he was right in the midst of reliving the last of his dreams.

He grabbed his cock, squeezed, pulled, bit back a groan as he remembered the feeling of her draped over his chests, her hair whispering and smelling of lemons, her hips undulating, her cunt... oh, Hells yes, her cunt!

Sometimes he drew it out, tried to milk the memory of the dream for what it was worth, but now, he hastened, too close already, fists pumping furiously, balls drawn so tight against his body as to hurt and a nameless fear at the back of his mind that bade him to hurry.

Scars!

The memory of this part of his dreams crashed into him at the same moment as his release.

A sob, pitiful in its whining tone, tore from him as seed spurted from his cock, the intensity of release almost knocking him off his feet. Trembling and swaying on his feet, he made a grab for his face, half-expecting to find maimed skin.

Why? Why would that dream suddenly turn cruel?

…

It took him a while to get a grip, to consign that dream to where dreams belonged. To oblivion. It had just been a dream after all. Nothing special, not the first time he dreamt of having his scars back and certainly not the first time he dreamt of fucking Sansa, perverted as it may be.

It was high time he tried to see her, to get those dreams out of his head, if nothing else.

With newfound determination, he turned to head back to camp, but suddenly had problems finding his bearings. Which direction had he come from? Around him, darkness was absolute. No softly glowing remnants of a campfire, no trampled path that had led him here.

Thankfully, he had thought to bring his sword and now slowly drew it from its scabbard.

Around him, the pitch-black was subtly lighted by a soft glow emanating from the golden blade. Sandor had grown used to it over the last couple of days, although he was sure he still didn't know half of what that sword could do.

He'd found out that the blade turned to a something approaching the quality of Valyrian steel when he fought against normal steel blades and lit up with something looking like fire when he went against beasts and dogs. He'd almost dropped it the first time that happened, much to his embarrassment and the other men's amusement.

The glow around the sword suddenly flared up, lighting the trees around him and sure enough, moments later his own personal fairy perched above him on a twig.

"You know you can't go to her just yet."

She wasn't even trying to turn that into a question.

"I killed the monster," he said, hating the petulant tone in which he did.

"With the Gods' help," the fairy gave back. "But yes you did and they are grateful. They have the magic, but for this, a sword was needed as well. You are their champion now, but you are still not done with your trials."

Sandor ground his teeth. That thing about being free? A delusion, quite obviously.

"What do I have to do?" he spat.

The fairy sighed.

"Contrary to what you might believe, I am not here to make your life miserable. If you pass your next two trials, you will be a hero and the world will be at your feet. You'll be a man the Lord of Winterfell will proudly call his brother-in-law if that is what you wish."

A man worthy of Sansa Stark's hand in marriage. The thought was too tempting to resist. Besides, if this was the Gods' will, who was he to gainsay them. And with the way north barred by snow and ice anyway, he had time on his hands as well.

"So, those trials...," he prompted.

"You already fought the foul shadow of your brother, and it is for you to fight Winter itself and all the frozen evil it brings with it from beyond the Wall. But to do that, you first have to triumph over your strongest foe."

"Who would that be?"

As if on an unspoken signal, the sword in his hand hissed and spew flames, once again prompting Sandor to drop it.

The fairy smiled.

"Yourself."

...

tbc