Chapter Text
She was lying on her back and in the throes of kissing the Stranger when a whisper woke her up from sleep.
“Wake up, Sansa,” said a familiar voice; it reminded her of home. “Wake up.”
The gasp she took stung, as if it were the first time her lungs had ever stretched to be filled with air. Her eyes opened a second after, blinking half a hundred times before the figure who stood above was no longer a blur.
“Robb?” Sansa’s throat was parched, and her voice hoarse from sleep. When she licked her lips, they tasted of salt. “What is it?”
Her eldest brother knelt down on the floor. Upon rolling over onto her side, she discovered that Robb’s eyes were more red than they were blue, and glistened in the light coming from the hearth. Sansa had only ever seen him cry once - the day Sandor Clegane returned her to him.
The Hound had risked his life to free her from the clutches of Joffrey Baratheon and Cersei Lannister. Had she stayed in King's Landing, she might very well be dead. That had been Cersei’s plan all along in the event that Stannis won the Battle of the Blackwater, which he did. So, with the assistance of Ser Ilyn Payne, Cersei had stripped Stannis Baratheon of the pleasure of killing her himself.
But that was a year ago. A full year had come and gone spent watching her brother carry out his duties as King in the North with a stern, stolid expression. And yet, there he was, kneeling before her, his auburn hair disheveled and eyes brimming with tears.
Every terrible thing she could conjure up came to the forefront of her mind. After the horrors she had witnessed in King’s Landing, her mind could conjure up quite a lot, the worst of which involved her family.
Sansa shot up from the bed, aghast. “Oh gods, is it Mother? Arya?”
Robb averted his eyes at once. When Sansa looked down, she discovered that her breasts were bare. All of her was. Goosebumps rose over her exposed skin. Sansa grabbed the furs that rested in her lap and pulled them up to her chin. That was when she saw it - her nightgown resting uselessly at the foot of her bed.
She had no explanation for that. None at all.
“No,” Robb finally answered, lifting his eyes once she was decent. “I received a raven shortly after you retired for the night. Mother and Arya are well and should arrive in two day’s time.”
Sansa leaned against the headboard, keeping the blanket snug against her breast. “Thank the gods,” she sighed. “Well, what is it, then?”
“Your betrothed,” said Robb. His voice was firm, just like a king’s should be, but there was just enough grief in his tone to make him sound as young as his eight-and-ten years. “Theon is dead.”
The clouds were grey and wispy, drifting like barges in the jet-black sky.
“You heard His Grace, clean up this mess,” she heard Sandor Clegane rasp. His voice had a way of echoing off the castle's granite walls, especially in the dead of the night. When she and Robb turned the corner of the Great Keep and approached the East Gate, she saw him standing with his hands on his hips, his face twisted with contempt.
“Wait!” Robb called out, waving one hand while leading her across the yard with the other. “Leave him. My sister wishes to see.”
The Hound’s head snapped up; he stared at her the way he should have been staring at the mangled corpse lying at his feet, visibly bewildered.
Once they approached, he and two other guardsmen said in unison, “Your Grace". However, Sandor Clegane was the only one who followed it up with, “My princess.”
It always felt strange to be called a princess, but Robb was a king. Sansa smiled up at him, then immediately looked away once she remembered the gravity of the situation. Somehow, for just an instant, she had forgotten.
“No sign of Grey Wind?” asked Robb.
The Hound’s grey eyes were slow to leave her face, like the clouds drifting above. “The Hunter’s Gate is open, but the beast is still out hunting with his brothers. They’re howling, though.”
It was not a lie. Not a second had passed before a trio of howls could be heard far off in the distance. Sansa shivered, suddenly aware of the cold that nipped at her face, and wrapped her cloak tightly around her shoulders.
“Quickly Sansa,” the king urged her. "Say a prayer, if you wish. If what Jon says is true, we will need to burn him."
Her eyes fell and surveyed the gruesome sight.
According to Robb's recount a moment ago, Theon had fallen from the crenelated battlements of the inner wall while in a drunken stupor. Or so he assumed - there had been no eye witnesses. He fell one hundred feet and landed on his side, his skull now caved in where it had hit the ground and sat in a pool of blood. His limbs resembled that of a rag doll, all twisted and bent in the most grotesque of ways.
Despite the gore, she knelt down. She had seen worse in King’s Landing - far worse. She saw worse in her dreams every night.
“Oh, Theon,” she whispered. Sansa reached out and brushed away the black hair that had fallen in front of his face. She could smell it from here, not the blood, but the beer. A fatal accident, she thought. One that could have been avoided had you not been so stupid, cocky, and vain.
She never had affection for Theon Greyjoy. At least, not affection of that sort. When Robb had told her the two were betrothed, despite her and their mother’s wishes, Sansa had slapped him so hard she cut his lip. Theon was like a brother to her. How was she supposed to wed her brother? It disgusted her to think about it, even then. She would have slapped Robb twice that day had Sandor Clegane not caught her wrist and stopped her.
She shook off the memory; it did not matter any longer. Her betrothed was dead, his face cold as ice and turning blue.
“I’m sorry, Theon,” Sansa whispered, though she did not know what she was apologizing for. Perhaps she was hoping he would forgive her for turning down all of his unwanted advances. Or perhaps she was only apologizing for the overwhelming sense of relief she felt - she no longer needed to wed him. It was a terrible thought, as cruel as it was unwelcome, so she said it again. “Theon, I’m...sorry.”
When she stood up on two weak knees, a single tear fell down her cheek. The Hound stood just beside her and wiped it away with one thick finger.
Sansa shivered again.
“Take my sister inside, Clegane,” the King in the North commanded. His eyes were fixed on the brother who did not share the same blood. “She has seen enough.”
Sandor bowed his head curtly and said, “At once, Your Grace.”
As Robb was giving a second command to the two nearby guards, Sansa felt stuck in place. Limbs as lifeless as Theon’s, she took another glance at the puddle of blood. The clouds above continued to drift and unveiled the moon, its reflection almost beautiful in the pool of deep red. It felt strange to find something ethereal about that moment. Sansa wondered how long she would have stood there and stared at the blood had Sandor Clegane not placed a heavy hand on her shoulder and turned her body around.
A gentle nudge helped her find her feet, and then Sansa returned to the Great Keep without another tear being shed.
“Your name day will be a dull affair now, little bird,” Sandor said softly inside the balmy corridor, breaking the tense silence that lingered between them. “Unless your brother finds someone else for you to wed in a week’s time.”
“I never wanted to wed Theon,” she blurted out, suddenly feeling desperate to make that known.
“But you would have had the lad not taken a dive from the battlements,” Sandor pointed out with a note of amusement in his tone. “Kraken must have mistaken the snow for water.”
“What a terrible thing to say,” Sansa reproached him with a sidelong glance. Once she would have been too meek to utter such a thing to Sandor Clegane, but not any longer. She had known him for two years now and found herself responsible for nipping his cynical quips in the bud. “Theon was like a brother to me.”
He laughed at that. “You were not like a sister to him. If you heard half the things he said about you, you would have pushed him yourself.”
“Pushed?” Sansa came to a sudden halt. “Are you implying that Theon was pushed?”
That stopped him in his tracks.
The Hound turned around to face her. “Pushed, fell, who gives a shit, he’s dead.” All at once, he grabbed her by the arm and pulled her in close until her breasts were flush against his torso. “And you’re better off.”
Sansa looked up at him and suddenly remembered her dream, though, some of the details had been lost. She could, however, recall how it felt when the Stranger pressed his lips to hers, how they moved, how they tasted, how oddly they were shaped…
She traced Sandor Clegane’s lips with her eyes. The left side of them was missing, stolen away by fire. Sansa found herself wondering if his lips might feel like those that ravished her in her dream should she lift up onto her toes and kiss him.
The opportunity to satisfy that reckless curiosity was lost.
The Hound released her arm and pushed her forward, not ungently. “Back to your bedchamber, little bird. First light is hours away. Best sleep while you can.”
As Sansa ambled down the corridor, she could feel herself becoming wet between the thighs, a wetness that was not her moon blood. For every step that she took, her heart pounded in her chest five times. Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump. There was a question that she wanted to ask, but the words were lodged in her throat, leaving her unable to do anything besides step, count her rapid heartbeats, and ponder the thought.
How am I supposed to sleep, she wondered, when it was you who killed him?