Here's a little warning to tell you all that I have made no research regarding the Gates of the Moon's appearance and so, if the description I make of it don't fit the canons, just don't pay no mind to it. It's really not that important in the story.

This fic is complete.

Sansa

It was already dark when they arrived home from shopping at a nearby village. Randa had desired to order a few new dresses for the approaching winter and Alayne had decided to accompany her. The afternoon had been beautiful and Alayne cruelly needed some fresh air; she felt trapped at the Gates of the Moon and had been almost happy to finally get out of its thick walls for a few hours. Her father had reluctantly approved of the outing but on the condition that a guard would follow the two young women closely. The protectiveness of her father was often annoying to Alayne; he never wanted her out of his sight for too long and preferred for his daughter to be inside the castle at all times. As she had always been docile, she didn't complain about the restrictions but she nevertheless suffered from her painfully monotonous entrapment.

Being a prisoner, a caged bird… that was nothing new to the young maiden, history was repeating itself once again. Although the memories of her previous confinement didn't truly belong to Alayne, they were linked to a previous life that she once had. Some parts of that past existence just didn't seem to want to be forgotten no matter how much she had tried her best to put it all behind her.

"Sansa…" Alayne whispered to herself with tears in her eyes. How strange it was to pronounce that forbidden name; sweet and bitter all at once.

Thousands of years ago Sansa, that long lost girl, had been betrothed to a king as gorgeous as the sun, but behind his comely and graceful appearance, the young man had concealed all the ugliness of the world and a heart as rotten as carrion in the summer heat. The sadistic king had cruelly mistreated Sansa, mercilessly killing her father and frequently commanding his Kingsguard to beat the fragile girl bloody. There was never a lack of occasion for the young man to mistreat his betrothed as Sansa had been the sister of Robb of House Stark, the late King in the North who had won every battle that he had fought and had been at war with his sister's intended.

A deep and long sigh emerged from Alayne's lips. Trapped at the top of a tower as she was, Sansa had still been the sister of a king and one of the highest born maidens of the Seven Kingdoms. Alayne, on the other hand, was the bastard daughter of a lesser lord and disregarded by most people for that reason. I shouldn't regret Sansa. She was but a martyr who suffered more than anything else.

Alayne's existence was much more peaceful than Sansa's; she wasn't physically abused and she was extremely thankful for that, but she still couldn't help but think back on that previous life with a slight hint of nostalgia.

How could this be? Sansa had hated the capital, the king, the queen and their court full of hypocrites. She had been relieved to leave that horrible nightmare behind her when she had fled with Petyr Baelish. That man, to whom she was immensely grateful but still strangely uncomfortable with, was now both her saviour and her captor … as well as her father and her suitor. He knew who she was and desired her for all the wrong reasons.

Despite the fact that she was well treated at the Gates of the Moon as Petyr Baelish's bastard daughter, Sansa had not gained any freedom with this new identity. She had to follow a strict routine which never changed from one day to another and as she thought back on the past year of her life, she couldn't distinguish a moon's turn from the previous one, each of them sharing the same constant dullness.

There was no place for regret about her escape from King's Landing in Alayne's mind but the young bastard still had bittersweet feelings once in a while at the idea that she had been something akin to a heroine of one of those stories that she had enjoyed so much through her childhood. Although Sansa's ordeal had been heavy upon her frail shoulders, her life had been worthy of a song - a sad song, but a song nonetheless. The same could never been said of Alayne.

The young woman shut her eyes in despair as she closed the door of her room behind her. How can I regret something as terrible as Sansa's life? Will I ever be happy where I am, or will I always look back at my past days in regret or anticipate the future to come in hope? I should live in the present and forget everything about Sansa once and for all. This way I might be able to move forward and lose some of my melancholy.

Exhaustion from her long day had taken over and Alayne decided to go to sleep at once since her strict routine required her to wake up every day at dawn. While she slipped into her nightgown, she quivered as images of bright green flames flashed in her mind as it so often did at night. Succeeding the fires in her unwelcomed visions, the gloomy shape of a man suddenly manifested in the darkness, sending shudders down her spine. Some parts of Alayne's memory were engraved so deeply in her soul that they just couldn't be exorcized from her thoughts and stalked her as a jealous and possessive ex-lover would.

The air was thick in her chamber and since it was a warm night for the season, Alayne slowly approached the door that led to her small balcony and opened it. She stepped outside for a moment, gazing sadly at the horizon as if she was seeking some unknown and improbable answer to her profound discontentment. After a minute or two, Alayne came back inside of her room and headed for the featherbed. She laid under the blankets and easily fell back into her brooding introspection.

The spectre of the dark man was never far from her thoughts, always looming over her wherever she went. As she closed her eyes, Alayne could almost behold his shadowy figure secretly slipping into Sansa's room in the dark of night before hiding in the freshly flowered girl's bed like a wild dog waiting for his prey's return.

The intruder had been well known to Sansa: he was a fearsome warrior, a giant with a half-burned face and long black hair that made him resemble the Stranger himself. She had often forgotten that this man was as human as she though he was different from anyone else that had ever surrounded her. Rage oozed from his every pore and his stormy grey eyes always appeared to be angry at the world, but the dark man had nonetheless been one of the few people at court who had seemed to notice Sansa's existence and treated her as a human being. Even so, she had never gathered enough courage to look at him for longer than a minute or so. He scared her too much even if she had recognised his help at the time.

On the night of the Battle of the Blackwater, the burned man had stolen into Sansa's chamber like a burglar. He had wished to take her away from the hell that she was in, to keep her safe, he had told her. Sansa had given no answer to the intruder's proposition and avoided his intense gaze, frightened as she had been. Although she had not meant any offence by it, Alayne was well aware that Sansa's lack of reaction had triggered everything that had followed afterward.

A song, he had wanted a song, she remembered, but which kind of song was he asking for? Sansa had been a naïve girl but Alayne knew better; her friend Randa had taught her a lot about life all through the past year. The bastard girl had now no doubt in her mind that the dark man, the fierce warrior that people called the Hound, had had every intention of raping Sansa on that crucial night.

How could Sansa have been so blind? The Hound had desired her in that fashion for longer than she knew, Alayne had recently realised. His recurring demands for a song had sometimes appeared almost threatening as the man had seemed confident of getting his way. Often, she had felt as if he was following her around the Red Keep like a giant shadow at her back. The anger in his dark grey eyes had terrified Sansa, but as Alayne replayed these distant interactions in her head, she could now discern all the lust that had gleamed in them as well.

The Hound had used his murderous force to save Sansa during the bread riots, cutting relentlessly though the press to get to her. How can a man save a maiden's life but later break into her room to attack her? How can he offer her his help to escape with promises of keeping her safe before putting a dagger against her throat and being willing to rape her?

He hadn't done it though. Sansa had sung the mother's hymn to the Hound and the prayer had stopped him for some mysterious reason. As abruptly as he had appeared, the Hound had left his victim unhurt and untouched. Sansa had never seen him again and only heard distant rumours of his whereabouts.

What if I had kept silent as I thought I would for a moment? The Hound would surely have taken me by force. With such an imposing and strong assailant Sansa would have had no chance; she had felt so powerless with that rabid beast looming over her tiny frame. Without the song, he would have certainly ripped her dress open before impatiently taking her maidenhead in an instinctive, almost animal fashion.

Sweat was beginning to pearl over Alayne's pale skin as troubling images flashed in her head while the queer but intriguing warmth that so often teased her core these days was quickly forming in her loins. She was getting used to the strange sensation as she often felt it of late and was now well aware of the only cure that would release her from the building ache that was creeping over her whole body.

With eyes shut, Alayne lowered her hands on her body, the left one starting to caress her full breasts while the other went down to her thigh and gripped the soft cloth of her nightgown, pulling it over her belly. Her delicate hand slid under her smallclothes and rested on her mound for a moment, her long fingers slowly playing with the hair she found there.

The young girl took a deep breath and closed her eyelids for an instant. When she reopened them, Alayne was no longer in the room. Under the silk sheets, Sansa was alone and at last free of her bastard persona, if only for a short moment. As Sansa, she could fully immerse herself in her secret memories and let her mind wander into the dark without any restraint.

The room was getting warmer, forcing Sansa to push her blankets aside. She shut her eyes again, trying to picture how the Hound's muscled body would have crushed her delicate one under its heavy weight. On their last encounter, he had reeked of blood, wine, sweat, vomit and smoke. His scent had been so overwhelming that she had been rightfully repelled by it, but now as she fondled herself, she was convinced that if she could go back in time, this unusual odour wouldn't bother her while the Hound vigorously stroked her whole body and took her without a trace of mercy.

Her careful fingers caressed her wet entrance for an instant before slowly but firmly starting to rub over the small nub of flesh that was hidden between the two silken lips. Being a maiden, Sansa wasn't certain of how the Hound's manhood would have felt as he thrust his full length inside of her for the first time, but she had no doubt that it would have hurt terribly and that she would have screamed in pain. Maybe the imposing man would have muffled her with one of his huge calloused hands or told her to keep quiet while pressing his dagger against her throat, she mused while feeling a rush of wetness soak her fingers and her underclothes.

"Ooh…" A soft moan came out of her parted lips as the rhythm of her fingers became faster. Is that what the Hound meant by singing? Sansa wondered while hearing her own whimpers.

"I'll have a song from you, whether you will it or not," he had once rasped at her. Sansa could still hear his hoarse voice, harsh as steel scraping on rock echoing in her ears as if he were with her on the featherbed, menacingly whispering those words in her hair.

A year ago, Sansa would have never believed that she would one day desire such a man but now, as she was pleasuring herself, she craved his rough touch and the feel of his brawny body against hers. As he would have taken her, Sansa was certain that after a few minutes of soreness and discomfort, the Hound's swollen manhood would have woken something delectable in her, something that she knew was hidden inside of her. She was feeling it getting closer and as she pictured how her dark and gloomy assailant would have reached his climax and spilled his seed inside of her, she felt her own release violently coming on her. She cried out in ecstasy, forgetting for an instant that she wasn't alone in the castle and that a demure and well-raised maiden of four and ten should never act so wantonly.

After a few seconds of regaining her senses, Sansa reopened her eyes and suddenly felt a rush of shame take over her whole being. A deep blush coloured her entire body at the realisation of what she had just done. Why?! Why does the Hound makes me feel this way? He's a hideous brute who almost raped me! I should be disgusted by him, not the opposite. She felt lost and mortified at the knowledge that she had turned into such a twisted person. Girls her age were supposed to dream of gentle kisses with gorgeous knights as she used to, not be taken at dagger point by the Hound. Tears rolled down her burning cheeks as she wondered how such a drastic change in her tastes had ever occurred. She was abashed and shocked but well aware that her new preferences were most likely there to stay since it was far from the first time that she had had similar thoughts and actions. Even worse, she always felt a pinch in her heart when she thought of the strong possibility that she would never meet this man again. I should forget all about him. He's a terrible man: the mad dog of the Saltpans! I heard all about his crimes and rapes… if it's indeed him who has committed them of course, but why should I doubt it? After all, he did intend on raping me before I stopped him with a song.

She sobbed silently in her bed for some time, shameful and sad at the same time, before falling into an empty half-sleep.