Author's notes: Dear readers, this is the end, finally! What started out as a holiday dribble, a curious attempt to write slightly differently in up-to-moment short spurts, something I envisaged to be over in a few weeks, took a life of its own… And here we are, holiday long past and almost forgotten, this fic grown into a 60,000 word monster sweeping the whole life and history of an ugly, snarling dog and a beautiful, strong-willed maiden.

I have enjoyed the ride and I hope so have you – I have especially relished the interactions with you, having many hilarious, inspiring and outright humble moments with your comments. Thousand thanks to you all and million hugs!

Summary: On the shoulder of the growling dog perches a little bird, its beak fearlessly turned towards the bare teeth in the hound's wide-open mouth. On the feet of the big beast lies a cylinder, its right paw resting on it.

Lord Sandor Clegane, the First Warden of the Far-North, is buried in the little island in the shadow of the turret first built to honour the visit of a long past Targaryen Queen. His widow commissions a bronze sculpture of a fierce hound on his grave. The dog is a big black monster, with half its face marked with deep burn scars. The sculptor who fashions the statue wants to go easy on the face and smooth out references to his famous visage, but Lady Sansa Clegane of House Stark insists he depicts them in all their rawness and nobody goes against her will.

On the shoulder of the growling dog perches a little bird, its beak fearlessly turned towards the bare teeth in the hound's wide-open mouth. On the feet of the big beast lies a cylinder, its right paw resting on it. After the funeral ceremony Lady Sansa turns a piece of parchment into a roll and pushes it inside the cylinder, after which the smith from Clegane's Burrow seals it with red-hot iron to melt it in a way that ensures it can never be opened again. Nobody knows what is in that piece of parchment and Lady Sansa doesn't tell.

Ten years later Lady Sansa herself is buried under the statue of the hound and the little bird, in the space that was reserved for her at the time when the first grave was dug and memorial built over it.

Their sons and daughters, and their sons and daughters, and all the descendants of the brave maid and the angry man establish themselves all over the North, Westeros and even across the Narrow Sea. They are kings and queens, adventurers, brothers and sisters of the Faith, warriors and healers. As times go by and marriages between the two strands of their houses take place, the names Stark and Clegane become so tightly bound with each other that people eventually forget that it was not always so: later generations believe that the Starks and Cleganes were always thus bound to each other with close ties of alliance.

The tomb becomes an important part of the new Far-North. In years to come people visit the burial site of the founders of that thriving semi-autonomic region to pay their respects to them. Enthusiastic lovers lay single flowers on the feet of the tiny bird, climbing on the shoulders of the hound, and couples hopeful for a babe of their own rub the paws of the vicious dog so that they shine permanently a gleaming coppery colour. It is told that this act alone is responsible for many happy families, just as happy as was the family of Lord and Lady Clegane.

Much, much later some youths, hell-bent on wanting to scandalise their elders, break the cylinder loose from under the paw of the statue only to be soon caught by the authorities. The most curious of them suggest that now that the cylinder is in their hands, maybe they should have a peak to see what's inside it? With some misgivings the rest of the group are talked over and so it is that the cylinder is beaten open after resting intact in the hound's paws for a good part of two centuries.

When the oldest of the team finally reaches inside it with trembling fingers, feels them touching something and carefully pulls the contents away, all they see is pieces of old frayed paper crumbling into dust in front of their eyes.

What words the parchment contained was never found out.

THE END