A note from the author.

This is it, the conclusion. It's over!

I started this story on January 2012. This started out as a response to a prompt in the comment fic meme on the sansaxsandor Livejournal community and slowly morphed into a 60K word story about Sansa and Sandor at the end of the series, an epilogue after the close of "A Dream of Spring" with all the remaining wolves returning to Winterfell. I gave them their happy ending by chapter 16 in "The Northman's Daughter." But I decided to continue writing in this universe by detailing the events of "The Northman's Daughter" though Sandor's POV. That sequel is called "Every Dog Has Its Day." 1.25 years after I started, its finally done. Hope you enjoyed the last chapter where I plied on the lovey-dovey stuff rather thickly. Not that Sandor has any complaints!

Thank you for all your support and comments. I'd like to thank DeathbyMonkees, Angie38, mikitake for their generous comments. And of course to my friends on LJ, caroh99 and weshallyflyaway.

This was my first fanfiction and I'm both relieved and saddened that I'm finally done with it.

Credit for the cover art goes to Emmanation.

Please. Not that. Anything but that. Pity. Bloody hell. Not pity.

Her eyes searched him over, up and down, then affixing on his face with an intensity that made his mouth twitch. She studied him in a way that made him inwardly cringe at what she must be seeing.

No one dies from love, you will endure, Sansa's words out of Shireen's mouth. He had been furious when he heard that pile of dogshit. Shireen's glance instinctually dropped from his face to his fists. Sandor knew the trajectory of that motion well, had seen over and over in the faces of whores and camp followers in King's Landing and Lannisport and all the shitholes in between. Get the fuck out, he heard himself barking, full of iron contempt. She scrambled like a spooked deer. He grabbed an empty wine jug and aimed it the closing door, immensely satisfied to hear the sound of both the door closing shut as well the shattering of the clay.

A wave of sickness washed over him. He sat down on his bed, feeling queerly fragile, breathing hard, trembling as he fought to to gain full control of his wits. A wild moan swelled the chamber, the sound of some animal pain that couldn't be roped and lead to meaning. Bloody hell. Seven bloody hells. I'm going to go out of my mind. His mouth twisted to a sour grimace thinking of that brainsick cow, Lysa Arryn. The perpetual ache of loss and loneliness deforming her until it became a part of the faint sourness of her soul. He stared up at ceiling, pulling his eyelids wide open, a trick that prevented the water from falling out. Then anger rose, killing the despair. Shireen. He thought of Shireen. Ugly bitch. He would grow to bloody loathe Shireen if he didn't hate her already, as one hates the witnesses of one's own humiliation and defeat.

The last time he had seen Sansa was when she had sneaked into his room to steal his tunic. He had been glad to give it to her, he hated it, as he hated the mirror, the bed, the tables, every item in his room that silently stood watch over that bawl-baby and fucking loser, day after day. They had robbed him of wine, making the oblivion of sleep near impossible. He had spent the last few weeks in a half-dead state, summoning some semblance of manhood during the day, while spending his nights wandering around the castle grounds trying to escape the misery that dogged him.

He had always loved walking at night no matter what castle he found himself lodged. Staggering as he walked, his eyes burning, his skin prickly with heat, full of precarious, drunken, good cheer. Winterfell was especially improved by darkness. By day it was creeping moss and grey granite stone, a smoking squatter against the blue sky. But at night it looked like a jewel, lit with lanterns whose light would shudder against the darkness. How often over the years had he found himself standing below Sansa's chambers in the Great Keep. Sometimes he could see her, a provocative, girlish shadow against the light through the curtains. He made a point to avoid the grounds of the Great Keep now. Sober, he would wander everywhere else. But the sky was drunk, hiccuping starlight, clouds swaying desultorily past the moon. They made him mistrust his vision, as every chamber in Winterfell became Sansa's bedchamber and against the chamber's curtains was the shadow of a man who would never be him.

"How long do we have together?" he rasped, staring at her with a stricken expression. Her loveliness hurt. He thought of losing her. Again. Of a future where this moment, where any private intimacy, was impossible.

"All night long," she said, misunderstanding him completely. Sandor grunted then pursed his lips, not wanting to say anything that would hurt the girl. If she was thickheaded at times and her judgments not always perceptive or profound, well, she was only human. If he wanted to recapture her affections, rudeness was not the way to go about it.

Her lovely visage frowned deeply into his, then smoothed itself into blankness. He tried to smiled at her, though he felt miserable. There had been a time when Sansa would have leaped into his arms the moment he had crossed the threshold. She would pounce on him like a happy puppy, wrapping her legs around him as he held her by her arse, the impact of her body forcing him backward against the closed door. Her kisses were just as violent, ferociously grateful and eager, making him jerk his head back until it clunked against the hard oak of the door. Her kisses had improved little since their first night together. Brutal fading into fierce. Lips bruisingly pressed against his, her tongue sucking greedily at his mouth as if she could live off the air in his lungs.

Oh how he adored her just for that.

But tonight, Sansa made no movement to broach the distance between them, a lack of initiative that filled him with belly-churning worry.

They sat down to dinner. She had the cook prepare all his favorites. It was his name day today and Grenn and a few other people had wished him well. His courtesies haltered at no more than a silent nod. Since receiving her invitation, he concentrated on getting drunk on bravado. All day he had been telling himself that Sansa was a castle and he the one determined man fit to seize her. There was such an agitation locked up in himself, a feeling so intense that he could hardly speak even when he heard the common voices talking to him.

He lacked appetite and neither of them ate much, moving around their food in silence. When they finally did speak, due to his strained and fumbling attempts, they held safely to the conversational surface.

"Hmm, this honeyed chicken tastes differently today than what I've had before."

"We have a new cook in training. Pate will leave with Arya to King's Landing," she answered.

"That's a pity, he made the best pies."

Sansa nodded, agreeing, "He had a great singing voice too, he'd often sing in the kitchens. We are all going to miss him. But his loyalty is with Arya, and King's Landing was the place of his birth. He sold his mother's pies in the streets of the city as a boy. Arya means to give him a special place of honor as cook to the Younger Queen. I think Arya's a little worried of Aegon's appetite for rich Pentoshi food. Lord Davos told her there is a Pentoshi man who sits on the Small Council who fatter than the North's own late Lord Manderly, who had been so fat he could not sit on a horse."

Sansa giggled, "I remembered Arya's fury at having to sit next to the fat one as she called him, poor Tommen Baratheon, when King Robert visited Winterfell. Aegon will not be allowed to age with anything less than grace."

Sandor laughed picturing the furious Arya sitting next to an old and warty Aegon, so fat that he wheezed over his wine, his breath making bubbles on the surface.

His fingers furtively pinched his side. thinking of the time he quarreled with that rich merchant dressed in velvet. He had drawn his dagger and thrust it up to the hilt of of merchant's belly but it was so thick with protective fat that the knife point hadn't even pierced the man's bowels.

Sandor's fingers found nothing to reproach himself with, the skin over the musculature that corrugated his abdomen was taut. The thought of himself as a pot-bellied old man, bragging about the tourneys he won while palming a handy wench made him want to spit in disgust. Never, he swore. Sandor straightened, flexing his thick biceps. He had something to be proud of there and she should know it.

He caught Sansa cocking a brow and throwing him a teasing smile from behind her cup of wine. Poor insecure ape, he thought, half wanting to laugh at his miserable vanity. Unexpectedly, she leaned over and rubbed his muscular biceps. He caught her hand before she withdrew it, turning it over, palm up. It lay there like a not-quite-tame animal, ready at any moment to spring away.

His hooked nose crashed into her open palm like some blundering meteor and his burned lips planted a lumpish wet kiss on the soft skin. He pulled back and watched. Waiting. Hoping.

She half parted her pink lips, her eyes closing shut as a blush bloomed on her face, creeping down her neck, and across her shoulders until it disappeared into the low bodice of her gown.

It caused him to break out into a lopsided grin.

"There are rumors that you've kept yourself away in your rooms because you're heartbroken over Aegon choosing Arya over you. They say you weep bitter tears because your sister has lead your intended astray. If Aegon chose Arya over Sansa, then his brain is addled. But there's no accounting for the tastes of some men. They'd rather have maggoty cheese than fresh curds, or so I told Grenn."

"Arya is very beautiful, you cannot deny it," Sansa said with some heat.

"I'm speaking of the her character, not her countenance," he threw back. Fucking Arya. Wolf-bitch was the unmovable object of a great, baffling affection. That maggotty little cunt relished giving him trouble. Accosting him when she found him alone, gripping his arm while spouting a bunch of nonsense. It made him laugh when it didn't make him furious.

Daenaerys told me that the Ghiscari raise their finest birds of prey on the flesh of dogs. Perhaps I should change Lady Vengeance's feed? Chicken being expensive while mean-tempered, ugly dogs grow fat from the scraps they are fed under the table.

Hot Pie can't find a wife here no matter how tasty his tarts are. What's your recipe, Sandor? I think I've figured it out: eight parts cruel comments to two parts not ungentle words equals one stupid girl tipping backward for your ugly, old arse...

He felt a moment's pity for Aegon, cunt-struck with a girl whose demeanor was either bugger you or love me. Some fools and their itch for wild, misunderstood things, he thought with an inward shake of his head.

He leaned closer to perfect womanhood. The little bird, lovely and bright, gracious and good-intentioned. "Besides, you cannot deny you like it when I'm rude and obnoxious. Else why do you laugh so hard when I tell you the story of how I slew Lord Beric?"

He waited for her to say something. In a sweep of long, heavy lashes, she turned her eyes downwards for a moment. Her lips twisted into a little smile, secretive and not-quite-so-wholesome. Then she turned towards him and grinned, one very long and luminous look of admiration and pleasure.

"I wish I could warg into you Sandor. Or else I wish I could grow as small as a seed, a tiny mustard seed, and you would swallow me and carry me in your body, safe and warm from all harm," she said breathlessly as if she was talking about one of those damned heroes from the stories, rather than him, her old, mean-tempered Dog.

"Little Bird," he murmured, pulling her in for a deep kiss, "your protection is all of my ambition. I want no other reward." He settled deeply into his chair, instantly more contented.

He should make a move. He was going to. She wanted him to, that honey-eyed look unmistakable. She was itching for it. Yet he sat there, reluctant, folding his hands behind his neck. Once anticipation was something he wanted to outrun, now it was his favorite part.

They finished eating their meal. They talked as they use to, aimlessly, conspiratorially, laughing together and then falling into silence. A full half hour past filled with jokes made and replied to, affectionate twaddle given and received.

And then she came towards him, sitting on his lap, her arms entwining behind his neck. He touched her hair with its light and dark shadows, then buried his nose it in. She smelled, as she always did, of white flowers and citrus and powder, pristine woman-things. The candles lent her skin such a golden charm. He kissed her and hugged her, with the kisses and hugs of a boy, clean and guileless. They fell quiet. It was so good to just hold her just like this, the difficulties of existence put aside for just a moment. It waspleasant, things men craved but wouldn't admit to. Like the comfort of a hot brick wrapped in linen that he would put at the end of his bed to keep his feet warm on frigid Northern nights.

His belly was full and the bedwarmer...Sansa, the sweetest consolation he had ever known, was sitting on his lap. Just ahead, in the immediate future, the open door to her bedchamber lay waiting. If he could stop time, stop life, he would stop it here.

Time flew. The breathless moment held in amber suspension for an interminable period.

And then the girl broke it with her petition. "Let me lie with you," Sansa whispered in his good ear.

Gods bless, he thought, smirking from ear to the hole where the other ear should have been.

His hands slid down, tightening on her waist. He lifted her up and carried her to the edge of her bed. They undressed each other, his fingers fumbling over the intricate, damn near impossible to decipher lacing of female garments until at last only a silk ribbon held her shift to her bare breasts. It lay sparkling like a jewel. His twitchy forefingers caught the ends of the loop and pulled the bow free as if he was unwrapping a nameday gift. The shift fell with no resistance, descending to pool at the bottom of her feet. She was naked, except for her grey hose and garters. He pulled her to him. "Lady, lay you down," he rasped in imitation of their first night together.

She yielded, so easy to control, falling onto her bed. She smiled radiantly at him, another gift, the smile like a bow across her face. She stretched out like a kitten in the sun, her back arching, her throat exposed, her hair fanning across the white sheets of the featherbed.

Excitement flooded him, the draining weight of his scrotum seemingly gathering every last drop of his blood towards his cock. He followed her, laying over her. She eyed his bobbing prick, cooing the kind of lascivious noise that she thought he wanted to hear, then licking his finger suggestively.

He held her in check, exerting a subtle pressure on her upper arms. He kissed her. Gently. Over and over. Sansa began to giggle, kicking lightly, gluttonously eager to finish what he wanted to prolong. He moved lower, to the good parts, the ones he didn't have. Her bared breasts were round, lush, flowering with its pink tips, lifting and falling with her uneven breath. "I've often wondered what color these would be … they are exactly like I've imagined. A red rose peeping through white. Strawberries drowned in cream... " His lips opened and he drew his tongue across the plump nub, first one then the other.

Sansa burst out laughing, "Oh what smooth gallantries ... But didn't Shireen instruct you to compliment a lady on her hair, her lips, her eyes?"

"How can a man get to those things if his eyes never leave these?" He cradled the underswell of her teats with both palms, pushing them up and thumbing the nipples until they were as hard as pebbles.

His left hand stayed there, covering her breast without fondling her, feeling the thump-thump of her heart. His right hand moved towards the shelter of her thighs. The curls down there touched him, sliding between his fingers, erotic and teasing. He grunted in excitement, shoving two fingers inside of her. She was hot, soft, abundantly wet and tight, almost as tight as if she was still a maid. Oh, it had been too long.

He furrowed his brow. A wave of gloominess of surprising violence came over him. What the hell was wrong with him? He was too sober. I'm going to lick Lady Sansa's gorgeous titties, ugly-arse me. He should be cackling and patting himself on the back. He leered at her, but his head was achy, his tongue felt too numb to watch his words. "The only thing that would make them more beautiful is if they were full of milk."

When she spoke again, her voice was quiet, "I dreamed that I bore your children...," but her hands gripped his hair painfully, as if they were shaking with what she held back.

"A boy who resembled my brother Robb and a daughter who had your eyes..."

He pulled her hands away from his hair, and she moved to straddle him, sitting astride him as she would a horse. She looked into him. She had the most beautiful eyes. The color he thought was pretty, but it was the expression, the expression that he loved the most. Sweet and grave, warm and gentle, rarer than any unicorn or dragon could be rare.

That look wasn't there now. Her expression was ghostly, fathomless. Peering out of the windows of her eyes were the Kings of Winter, as cold and pitiless as the gods that judge the dead.

"When I lay dying under that tree by the bank of the Trident, my last thoughts were of you, how I stood there in my white cloak and let them beat you."

He shouldn't have let those things happen to her. He should have done something and instead he did shit. Dumb noises began to come out of his throat, raspy whimpers that would have shamed Rickon, let alone a grown man.

Sansa leaned down to rub his arms. He heard his voice keep babbling, muttering fiercely on and on...

"I laid there for a day before the Elder Brother found me. I lived through the agony of my pain fantasizing that you were my lady... that I was returning from a long journey and at the end of my wanderings there was you and a bed and a fire. I think that's why the Gods spared me. The Gods made me live for you, I think that they raised me from death for your personal use. If there is Seven Hells and I am to burn for my sins, I pray that the Gods will let me keep the memory of you. Of us."

His voice drifted into silence as she continued to rub his arms as if he was an agitated horse. Her quiet consideration mortified him, made him feel like some demon rising from the pits in the Seven Hells, imploring the pure-hearted maiden to save him. He sank deeper into featherbed, his hands held against his head. The aliveness of the memory of their first night together blazing like wildfire in his skull …

His skull was resting on her belly, his nostrils flaring, smelling the scent of her. She was so soft and clean that he felt a tiny twinge of reluctance to move from that spot. He had spent himself already, but his cock was as hard and as hot as a wine jug, left out, untouched, in the angry Dornish sun for hours and hours. He inched his head lower, the forefingers of his hands parting the skin, exposing her to him in a way that was both lewd and vulnerable. The light hair that tufted over her cunt shined alluringly in the candlelight, copper and chestnut and a thousand subtler tints.

His slowly pushed a finger in, stretching the veil, the tissues inside of her subtly caressing him. Oh as soft as a maiden's kiss. You're so pretty, he declared, laughing incredulously at the significance of what she was giving him. He bent his neck downwards, his tongue painting broad strokes upward, then licking the skin around the place where it began to fold. He had not known how to do this, but had often imagined it, craving for it until she filled him up to exploding. He pushed his tongue again and again into her, using his tongue in the same way he wanted to push his cock inside of her. The taste was unlike anything he had encountered before. Not unpleasant. Salty, fresh, like the damp air near the Sunset Sea.

Sansa had lain there, beneath his wet mouth. He peeked up at her, but all he could see was her arching back, her brownish-pink nipples, the smooth line of her throat like a night-blooming lily. Her face was hidden from his view but he felt the rosy warmth of the blush that was on it. She shivered convulsively but was otherwise quiet. While he had been noisy, filling the air of her bedchamber with his grunts and the wet kissy sounds of cuntlapping.

Let me lie with you, Sandor, she said after a while.

It had been difficult pushing into her, she had been as tight as a fist, her eyes wide open, the dark pupils growing big as she choked back her panic. He knew that he was hurting her, she had shrank down into her featherbed, instinctively avoiding his penetrating thrusts. He tried to console her, kissing her gently, calling her his little bird, but the consolation became passionate, his kisses harder and hungrier, his thrusts deeper and more forceful. Sansa ... I can't help myself ...I can't stop. She had caressed his back, whispering I like it, I like it, I like it in a pained, shaky voice. It took a few rocking motions but at last he felt her cunt surrounding him all along his shaft, their pelvis bumping together. They had both let out an explosive breath, the rigid tension of the moment finally easing. He had moved slowly, in long, sliding, withdrawals then gentle thrusts . He kissed her lips, licked her jawline, her neck, palmed her teats.

But she seemed bewildered by the whole experience, at first quiet, unhelpful and unmoving, staring into his eyes while hardly blinking. Then she was caressing his arse and moaning as the rigidity began to flow out of her. Her moans were too exaggerated, making him inwardly recoil. He wanted to cover up her mouth with his palm, she sounded like a whore.

The moans hardly cooled his blood though, not when her cunt was embracing him so ardently, grabbing him, slippery, wet. Sliding then pulling him back. When he spilled himself on her belly, he thought that he would expire from bliss on that very spot.

He used a cloth to wipe off his mess from her belly, it was light reddish, his seed mixing with her blood. When he looked up at her, she was watching him, propping herself up on her elbows. Her expression had retained that look of bewilderedness, her eyes a little dazed.

But the smile that broke out had been happy, sincere, she seemed to be so sincerely happy that it was him and none other. That smile was was a pair of shackles, making his knees go weak. He dabbed a clean portion of cloth with his spit to wipe off the red streaks that marked those perfect female curves, that perfect female skin. He reckoned that had been the one that had been invaded and made to bleed. She had seeped into his blood and from there she would exert her absolute rule over him . My lady love, he rasped as wiped her clean, his mocking voice masking his shy surrender.

The candles had died out but she lit some more, in order to see his face, or so she claimed. He held her afterwards, stroking the exquisite skin of her naked back. He kissed and re-kissed her, bleating out words that he could hardly fathom coming out of his jaw. She giggled and kissed and petted him, bussing his knuckles as if he was her lord while chirping in that pretty voice about how marvelous and brave and strong he was. She addled his brains with her dizzy prattle.

Am I marvelous in bed? Did you like it? he asked, his damn curiosity getting the better of him. He loathed it when she performed for him, scrambling for a pleasing answer.

Her response came within a heartbeat.

No.

But I could.

He slept, deeply, contentedly, in a way he never slept before, not as a man, certainly not as a child. He lay in that velvet darkness until she woke him. When he opened his eyes, she hung over him, her tousled auburn hair tickling his neck. She was caressing his burned lip, pulling it down with the weight of her thumb, then smiling sheepishly when he playfully bit into it. She was dressed in a bedgown, her collarbone just peeking out from the smocking. He pulled her close to sniff her. A provocative fragrance he had never smelled before, the luscious scent of sweet sleepy girl underneath soft, clean, white, linen. She was quiet in his embrace for a moment, then she kissed his forehead and whispered, the maids will be here within the hour.

He flung back the blankets and noticed there was a bruise on the indentation where his waist met his hip bones. It was the size of a girl's mouth.

He grinned at her, his hands sliding up her thigh. He was itching to bed her again, to flaunt that cunt to sunlight. But she swatted his busy hands away as detachedly as a mare swats away flies with her tail.

He began to wonder if she slept at all, her eyes had been bright and alert. There was no sluggishness to her voice. Or to her movements. She helped him dress, no easy task, he had been surly and had thrown his hulking weight around. Each item of clothing that was put on made his skin crawl, it was like putting on filthy, lice-ridden rags after a warm bath.

As he was about to slink out of her bedchamber, she stopped him, one hand pulling at the sleeves of his tunic. I love you, Sandor, she said solemnly. She reached on her tiptoes, her chin tilted, her mouth pursing, for a kiss.

A confusion of emotion rotated inside of him. Relief and frustration, pleasure and grief, love and rage, and a tangle of other things that he could not put a name to.

He reached down and kissed her cheeks, dryly, mannerly, as if she was an honored guest. A lady of regal distance whose benefaction he should not presume to encroach too heavily upon.

He reached up, grabbing her into his arms, when he heard her dry moaning. She sounded like some dying animal reaching for its last ounce of strength. He tried to kiss her, but she would not have it, burying her face in his chest. He could hardly understand what she was saying, the words coming out in squeaky gasps. "b-b-beg-begging the Old Gods -Help me, send … sweet friend ...champion. Leaves … brushed my cheeks. I - I think - the Gods … heard my prayers … sent you to me."

He held her, rocking her back and forth, his fingers rubbing her back with the same motions he used when she was achy during her moonblood as she mumbled inconsolable.

She pushed herself away fiercely. "Sing me a song," she demanded, "sing to me that I'm your forest lass."

She was always asking for that one. That song seemed wrong now. It was about love and its lightness. He thought of a different tune, one that he had played to her long ago when the only claim he had on her was that of her sworn shield. She had heard the song from his lips on that morning they had spent hawking in the wolfswood with Shireen. He had only recently recovered from his combat wounds. It felt bloody marvelous to be outside of Winterfell, free from his cripple's bed. The air was crisp and cold, the sharp and fresh scent of wet pine needles tickling his nostrils. Shireen, bless her, had left them momentarily to chase after her peregrine. They sat astride their horses, watching as Shireen's figure disappeared into the distance. Then he looked down at Sansa and found that she was watching him.

She was so pretty that day, a single human miracle upon the eye. Snowflakes gathered lightly on her eyelashes - she blinked to dissolve them - her long lashes fluttering, as thick as the wings of a bird from the Summer Isles. Something stirred, crawled, came to life inside him.

They could hear birdsong in the forest but there were no other noises other than the cold puffs of their breathing. He broke the strained silence with a bird call, replicating the twit of the snowy owl. In the distance, far above their heads in dark branches, they heard an answering twoo, the territorial call of the male owl. Sansa laughed, charming little clouds of girlish giggles condensing in the cold morning air. That laugh, it put bad thoughts in his head. He was possessed with the absurd desire to pull her down from her horse and tickle her. Until she laughed herself to tears, until she screamed.

Sansa pulled her horse closer, as if she could read his mind, understanding what he wanted, and wanting it too. She smiled at him, rather coyly, rather encouragingly. He placed his hand on her upper arm to steady her. Just the upper arm, though his thumb nail brushed against her bosomy comeliness. Then her mouth dropped open a little and from her slightly chapped lips, came the words, Do you know any others?

His mouth twitched. He made a few more calls. The common blackbird, rich and fruity. The storm cock, so loud that it could shout down the howl of a small gale. The purring of puffins, noisy, waddling birds that would nest in the honeycomb cliffs of Casterly Rock. Sansa guffawed at the last one, though there was little levity in her eyes. She looked at him with a fixed, unnerving stare. His hand remained on her arm, for balance, though he began to rub his thumb nail in the place where her breast met her armpit. Light strokes, soft but possessive.

Listen to this one, little bird. He made another call, a low whistle. The melody of a song that he secretly ached to join in, but knew he would only croak. She leaned closer towards him, a flush of heat blossomed on her face, then crept down her nape into the demure high-neck collar of her riding dress. The whistle went on and on, alive with a lonely purity as it reverberated through the branches of the oak and evergreen trees. He watched with undisguised fascination her blush became violently rubescent, as if her lungs were burning.What bird are you calling? she said finally, her face wrinkling, gripping his arm hard.

My Lady Wife. He had a terrible voice, croaking that could curdle milk. But Sansa, his Sansa, was laughing and crying, crying and laughing, the two emotions existing so close together that he couldn't tell which was one was about to well up next. The song seemingly drawing out doubt and fear from her in a surge, breaching those high castle walls, washing them away in an endless stream of tears that spilled from her eyes. She pulled him into her tightly, kissing the nape of his neck, calling him her lord husband in a voice that so soft and true it turned his limbs to water.

They plighted their troth that night, holding hands as they sat on her weirwood tree bed. No septons, no cloaks, and no formalities. A private faith for a private love. A part of him thought it was pure shit, dreams spun as delicate as glass, words spoken as if they could live on them as meat and bread. But how fervent was her sincerity, she seemed to think the whole make-believe was real. He had been just as thickheaded, taking a flower from a vase, picking off stem of blue rosebuds and placing it behind her ear. A virgin's blossoms to adorn his bride. She used the ribbon of her shift to bind their hands to one another as they spoke their vows made to those nameless, nonexistent, gods of the trees. He pledged to her his flesh and heart and soul and all his worldly goods.

Which consisted of a horse and a suit of armor. Yet grinned triumphantly when he entered her to seal their union. She stayed crying. Crying and then more ugly crying. It incited his twisted sense of humor. He had always known that his wedding night would be spent lying on top of some crying, puffy-eyed girl. But her arms were clean and tender, her moans unfeigned, her cunt pulsing, little kisses all along his shaft. His weepy wife dying the little death in voluptuous agony.

The other ceremony, the one in front of witnesses, took place three months after Arya had left with Daenerys and Aegon. It would have been stupid to do otherwise. She was the sister of kings, and was to have been the bride of kings. She might as well have fallen in love with a begging brother in undyed brown robes or a money-grubbing merchant, or a shitstained swineherd, as with a man of his humble and obscure house. He should have felt some remote contempt for the pretense, but didn't. The prospect of Sansa's name attached to impropriety, to looks and whispers, tormented him. So he waited, standing with a stony stare at his bride's side as the days marched by in slow time.

The weather was miserable the day of their wedding. Grey and wet and so cold he could see his own breath curl in the air as he spoke his vows standing on the sodden ground. Of course, the weeks prior had been marvelous, the miracle of spring coming to Winterfell at last. The birds sang, the softer rain fell, the abundant jonquil lifted their yellow heads. Then just his buggering luck. Their wedding approached and the sun disappeared for days, like some absent-minded old fart, too busy with some other world to bother with this one.

He had wanted to marry in the candlelit sept, in front of the Seven. The morning light shining through the windows, spreading colored radiance over those blue eyes, those auburn tresses and that face that was too lovely for any woman on earth. Sansa had agreed readily enough, was she ever agreeable in all things since that night. He did not pursue the matter to its end though, yielding his wish to her welfare. Their marriage would cause offense enough. Her brother invited none of his bannermen. Spent his evenings drinking the world's best wine down as if it was piss, mournfully staring at the dregs in his golden cup, as grim as the carved face of an Old God.

So they said their vows again under the giant hearttree, their wet robes clinging to their skins, in front of the tree-worshiping commons. Not one face in ten had been glad. His own face must have been frightful looking, the cold rain slipping off his thick brows and dewing on his eyelashes, his mouth twitching anxiously. He could hardly fathom that this fantastical moment had come to pass. He placed his cloak around her, brusquely kissing her cheek. He said his words as if declaring a threat: One flesh, One heart, One soul, now and forever and cursed be the one who comes between us, half expecting the Seven Hells to crack open from the black pool and rise up between them. All his pathetic fucking hopes for the future collapsing into smoke and ruin.

Then Sansa cupped his cheek. She looked at him, those eyes, absolute sweetness and absolute gravity, the candlelight of a sept seemingly swimming in them. He had never seen her so happy, elated, her vulnerability near beyond bearing. She looked at him as dog looks at its master, bred for devotion, her love bordering on servile adoration. It made him laugh, he barked a odd chortle, a laugh close to a grateful sob, unable to control himself. He blinked several times, as if removing mental tears.

Behind her, he caught sight of King Brandon's face, serenely appalled. He grinned at his brother. He had Sansa and compared to that gift, all the gold in Casterly Rock was as dust, the affections of strangers nothing, lint from his belly button.

"Are you going to bring that everywhere?" Sansa teased. They were taking an after supper stroll, in the godswoods. Here where she was protected by high walls and hundreds of men, he had no need to openly carry Black Dog in a long scabbard.

The scabbard was black lacquer, the lower length of the sheath banded by golden openwork of blades of grass, inlaid with three dogs made out of dragonglass. It's beautiful, he had said quietly when King Brandon bestowed it upon him during the wedding feast. Sansa had told him that her father's greatsword Ice could not be reforged from the Lannister longswords. It was if magic was a vein that had been mined out. The spells used to work Valryian steel no longer had any power. While Longclaw had been given to the Lady of Bear Island, Sandor had presumed Widow's Wail and Oathkeeper would be always remain in the possession of the Kings of Winter.

He was the grandson of a kennelmaster, only in Sandor's wildest fantasies did he ever imagine...

As a boy, he had squired for Gerion Lannister, a brave fool, lost to the tides. Gerion had sailed on a quest to find the lost ancestral Lannister sword Brightroar and was never seen again. That this piece of Ice should go to him and his mongrel heirs was a princely generosity Sandor had not expected. No doubt Sansa's machinations had something to do with it. I don't deserve this, he had said, pulling the longsword from its sheath, admiring the red and black ripples of the blade. His hands tightened possessively around the golden hilt with its pommel in the shape of snarling dog's head. But I'm going to relish every moment of owning it.

Those words were true of things as well. King Brandon made a wry face and Sandor heard his wolf growl a warning in the background. That mangy animal hated him, baring its teeth whenever he was in its presence. A lifetime ago, Sandor had offered to kill the direwolf because its mournful howling was disturbing Joffrey's sleep. Summer seemingly knewand held a grudge and whether its emotions fed Brandon's or Brandon's fed it, Sandor could not say. Anger had risen deep in Sandor's blood, but he said his thank yous with all the scrapping subservience he could muster.

Her family would have nothing to reproach him for, he was going to make sure her life was exactly as it should be. Nothing was ever going to hurt her or frighten her or really make her cry. He wanted everything to be perfect for Sansa. He wanted to be perfect for her, which gave every moment a pinch of dread.

"Are you happy Sansa? Are you content?"

"Oh, I don't know where one ends and the other begins!" she said, her hand clutching his tightly.

"Do you remember the first time you spoke to me? On the Kingsroad? The Starks use direwolves for wet nurses, you said with your drawn sword in your hand. I think you meant to frighten me a little. So much has happened, all that struggle and strife and striving compressed into a few short years. I cannot claim to be any cleverer, but I must be wiser by now. Would you know yourself if you saw yourself coming across the road as you were then? Would I? I doubt it. But something, something essential has to remain. Do you remember that time you told me my father -"

"Speak louder," Sandor said, "Arya can barely hear you in King's Landing." She was prattling on and on and he was too ashamed to hear what could have follow next. She had been a bruisable, fatherless child.

Do you remember the dance he did when his head came off his shoulders? "I should have never said those things to you," he mumbled. "What would Eddard Stark say if he knew you'd end up with Joffrey's Dog? That the mighty Stark line, eight thousand years old, fouled by the butcher - "

"The Stark line was fouled before you ever came along. Haven't I sung to you The Blue Rose of Winterfell? All the living Starks are descended from the female line, from the bastard son of that savage, Bael the Bard, and the daughter of a Lord of Winterfell."

"As to that other nonsense...my father gave as much credit to a man's end as well as his beginning," she said, a little coldly. The little bird had disappeared and the Lady was grumbling, "Such heavy thoughts, Brother Sandor."

Her hands tightened on his biceps, then she gave him a push. The motion made her stumble and he grabbed her waist to steady her. He gave her a reproving look which made her dissolve into giggles. "You're going to be sorry to fatigue me with your gravity."

His fingers moved from her waist to over her stomach. Sansa was only a little pregnant, the womb was up, the tiniest little bump raising up out of her pelvis. You potent old dog, you, Grenn had said, thumping him on the back with thwacks hard enough to sting. With a beginning like this, you'll be knee deep in big, ugly, children in no time.

Arya will name her boy Jon after Jon Connington and our brother. If we have a son, could we name him Robb? Jon and Robb. Cousins as close as brothers. She had looked at him a little anxiously, turning her head on the pillow. He curled a lock of her hair around his finger and said she could name their son anything she wished, even Florian, if it pleased her. A litany of names followed: Robb, Catelyn, Eddard, Nan, Brandon, Joanna … She expected to bear a child every two years, as her mother had done. He listened and chewed the inside of his cheek. In the dark recesses of Sandor's brain, he heard the ceaseless bawling of babies, the sniffling of the runny noses of stumbling brats waiting to be born. He slept notably well that night.

"Will you love me as well tomorrow as you did last night? I'm going to get so fat that I'll waddle instead of walk. Will you still want me when I'm old and have whiskers underneath my chin and all my teeth fall out?" she said affectedly modest, hand on her belly, where his child was inside of her.

Always fishing for compliments when she had enough beauty to illuminate the crypts of Winterfell.

He turned to embrace her, peering at the velvet curve of her upturned face. The pregnancy gave her more color, the faint pink of her cheeks, the luster of her hair, unbraided, unbound in the Northern style. Her arms reach up to cup the left side of his face, where the flesh was burned and as hard as leather. She reached on her tiptoes, her chin tilted, her mouth pursing, for a kiss.

He pinched the area underneath her upper arm, where the skin was toned and youth-soft smooth. "Before I die, I'm going to spurt all over your fat, warty, crone's arm," he said soberly.

It was not the compliment she had hoped for. Sansa wrinkled her face at him, twisting as he held her tight in his grasp. "Let me go. Let go!"

He couldn't discern exactly she said next - awful, Sandor, disgusting, you something - his laughter drowning out her feeble cries.

He squeezed her even harder, remembering the day before the battle of Blackwater. The city had been smoky with fire, and he felt his death nearer than ever before. He had been following her, his little bird, his true lady, who made the fear and boredom a little more bearable. He had been haunted by the premonition of his death, his mind plagued by the dark terror of dying on his knees engulfed by a flood of flames. He seen her stumble on the turnpike stairs and reached out to steady her. Let me go, she cried. Instead he pulled her up against him, into him. How good it had felt to hold her. What will you do when he crosses?, she had said. Fight. Kill. Die, maybe.

To just hold her. Even when she was twisting in his embrace like a fish on a hook. Her body was so velvety, pressing along his in secret paths and curves."There's nothing awful about that. We'll still be married! To each other, no less!" he rasped in her ear.

"You're nasty," she whined like a scandalized septa.

He gripped her elbows and firmly pushed her forward, away from him. She turned and ran off, all affronted maidenly indignation.

She didn't run away very far after she realized that he wasn't going to chase after her. Let her wait for him for a change. He had been waiting on her, waiting for her, for what seemed like a lifetime.

He fell behind her, his pace slow. He wanted just to watch her walk, to see her as a stranger might see her. A soldier with only a sword and a horse, wandering in from the cold in search of shelter. What a heavenly vision was the Lady of Winterfell, the neat straight line of her back curving into that pert, round, arse. And the face, as pretty as a prayer book, the eyes as bright as the quiet stars, surreptitiously peeking over her shoulder to see how far was the distance between them.

The Lady started singing, a song meant to break the soldier's heart into bloom.

The northman's daughter was as fair as the sun,

and her kisses were warmer than spring...

In his loneliness, he sings too, but only in his head where his cindered voice doesn't sound so bad. He loses the words and notes along the way but he stays with her, sure of the refrain.

Brothers, oh brothers, my days are here done,

from the northman's bite my blood runs like red water

But what does it matter, for all men must die,

and I've tasted the northman's daughter!

The Lady of Winterfell stopped walking suddenly and turns around. His lady wife, bright and unblemished, with a smile that made up for all the solitary days.

"Come here," Sansa said. "Walk beside me. Take my hand."

His long stride longer than ever, Sandor Clegane did as he was told.

THE END