#handmaiden reader

The necklace he once gifted you glitters past your collarbones. Silver chain and the pendant as silver as autumn moonlight. The one he’d given you years ago. Etched with a dog on the pendant. Nothing expensive or special. Yet he felt all hitched and breathless when he saw you’d kept it.

All this shitting war and death and moving halfway across the fucking seven kingdoms to find each other - you’d kept that one tiny thing stowed in your pocket. That and the dagger with the stranger carved on it. But he knew you’d use that. Saw it tonight. He saw the flash of it before you’d buried it in a white walkers neck.

He sinks back into the now.

Your flaming hair twisted off your face in artful braids. Silken and drying with oils in the candle light. Your smile still blinded him. Cheeks warm from drink. Clutching Tormund’s arm as he span loud tale of the bravery and ferocity of the ‘Red Bitch.’ during battle.

He’d seen you cleave two walkers heads clean off in one blow. Watched you fall from the castle wall into piles of snapping, snarling dead, and still rise to fight some more.

Sansa makes her words plain to the obstinate Hound.

“I’d start living for her, and not your need for vengeance. If fighting the dead has taught you nothing, then it never will.”

“She seems a far better use of your time.” Sansa urged diplomatically. Coming to a stand and taking her goblet. Staying poised like the true lady she’d grown into.

She leaves. But not before giving him a clever grin that he couldn’t work out the origin of. “Heed my advice.” She warns. Before she takes her skirts and slips into the crowd. Easy as a wave rejoining the sea. Clever bird.

First that red witches warning of a desolating fall wrapped in fire not being his end.

beware, she said, for his destiny lay with the woman with the blood of the bear and wolf, and now the little bird chirping warnings at him.

Bloody women.

You break away from Tormunds wildness, and turn your eyes to where he sat. Cloaked in misery.

Even with a flagon of wine afore him. And the refusal of two very brave whores who’d tried to perch on his knee. Even staying true to his onerous nature, with the costly victory of defeating the biggest army of the dead sat sniping at his heels.

Your smile doesn’t dull. It never does when you see him. You move through the crowds to come to where he sits, grouching and drinking.

He watches as Sansa bids you a greeting as you meet in the cramped space of the aisle. Being jostled by drunken revelries, elbows and stumbling bodies. “Lady Clegane.” She nods.

You take the nickname with a pinch of salt. As far as you’re concerned, you’re a warrior. Still, technically, a ladies maid. Below everything else you’ve had to grow to become.

‘Lady’ doesn’t seem to come into it. But you don’t show your apprehension of such a title. It was better than the ‘Hounds Bitch.’ Though that name and its tethered reputation was always lurking around the corner. Still slid easily off the tongues of fools.

So you smile as you come to join her. “Lady Stark.” A polite incline of your head. And an artful curtsey. Your time at court taught you some things that clung on.

“Do see if you can cheer him. I fear his mood remains glum as ever.” She tells.

“I shall try my best. Mi’lady. Though I don’t believe I have strength enough at present to rival such a large task.” You jape.

She nods. “I feel you do. You quell that fathomless rage in him.”

She has stunned you there.

“I’m very touched by your faith.” You answer with a kind glance.

She appraised you warmly. Smile like sweet roses and cream. Her look was one of all knowledge and warmth. A truly regal flick of those icy cats eyes take your face. She leans in nearer.

“And, if I may be so bold, my most heartfelt congratulations.” She nods. Her eyes crease at the sides with the force of her smile at the news.

Her love and affection for Sandor lay evident in her reaction. But you see there is some there for you to grasp onto aswell. Her love for the ruined kings dog, that somehow became the truest version of the Knights she dreamt of, as an airy headed girl. He was crude. And rough. But he never lied to her.

You swallow. Dip your head again. “You are most kind. Lady Stark.”

“I want to assure you, the North will remember its debt to you both. And honour it accordingly. Should you ever need it fulfilled. Come directly to me.”

You nod your head. Heartened.

“Best of luck.” She smiles, eyes narrowing with mirth, before she turns. Ever poised. And slides away with her cup to hand. Copper hair a striking arrow down her dark clad back. Your tongue feels like chalk in your mouth.

You move to rejoin him. Sitting opposite Sandor, as he reaches over to pour more wine in his goblet. Adjusting your skirts as you climb on the bench. He offers you some you refuse.

He see’s once again the toll of your injuries. Warm orange glow in candles light. Lays bare the ruination; The black eye. The deep cut on your cheekbone. Scratches and bruises on your neck. Still lovely, even shining through all the battle marks. He’s sure his own figure is equally as tainted with scratches, ashes and blood.

You’re limping from your storied fall off the battlement. A bandage around your wrist from a vicious bite. You’re still in pain and you’ll drown it with wine cause you’re so fucking happy and so fucking scared that you’re somehow still alive. That you’ve stared death in the blue eyes, cheated it, and spat in it’s fucking face to come out the other side.

You want to seize your life now. You’ve seen too much death and ruin. And darkness. A new chapter can reign forth. It feels like you’re sitting at the edge of the world this eve. Every path ripe for taking.

You twisted back, looking after where Sansa had departed. Crowds swallowing her up. You turn back to him.

“She likes you.” You remark.

Sitting down properly, gently, in ode to your pains, to watch him drink and brood.

You know he was equally as fond of her and Arya. Whose absence was a mystery. But not entirely a surprise. Like your lover, she shunned crowds and any semblance of glory. She was probably sharpening her needle somewhere. Sticking to shadow. An eerie half reflection of him, almost. Lone little wolf took after the lone hound.

“Little bird’s a fine lady now.” He grunted.

You saw her loyalty to her house. How she rose off the back of her pain. Flourished into a firm yet fair ruler. Surrounded by true northmen.

You know a little of what that’s like.

To your mind, Sansa had never belonged trapped into subservience to some blonde cunt of a boy king. You recognised the icy lineage in her bones.

She belonged to Winterfell. It’s black and grey turrets, it’s black and grey grizzled soldiers. Swirls of snow and deep rooted stoicism. It’s sturdy thick stones and even sturdier people. That was where she needed to be.

“That little bird will be Queen of the North before long.” You surmise. “… and she pledged to me we would be well within in her favours.”

You tilt your head at him. The clever way you do. The jut of your chin that spoke of your intelligence. The things you observe and piece together. You were no fool. One of the first things that struck him. Right after your beauty did.

He scoffs. “What fucking favours, Red?”

“For your trying to save her.”

“Didn’t shagging work did it.” He scorned.

“But you tried.” You held out.

Sipping a little wine. Not much. Just taking away the taste of blood and ash.

“I don’t need favours.” He supplies.

Then he’s shifting on the bench. Uncertain. Looking suddenly small for a man so huge. Eyes flick to find yours. Unsure.

“I just need you.”

His hand tentatively finds yours on the tabletop. In flickering candlelight, in a drying pool of spilt ale. He joins fingers with yours. You want to wince at the grip that burns like fire. Knuckles beaten and raw from the fight.

His words hit you like a falling tonne of bricks. Unexpected. They chafe at something inside you that won’t settle.

You knew what he wanted. What he’s always wanted. To fuck off this cold place. Ride back to the capital this very night, and put a sword through Gregor’s murdering neck. That’s all he’s ever known to want.

He wants something that will doubtless kill him. How wretched that is. One thing he needs will see him tucked into a cold grave.

You can’t love a dead man. You’d done it before. It nearly ruined you.

You couldn’t have this conversation before, facing the army of the dead. It was too fraught. If one of you didn’t make it. Tongues stilled on the words. If. You didn’t want to linger on that idea.

But now here you both sit. Scarred. Scared. Clinging onto life. A fork coming up in your roads. It’s bitter and it will break you.

“I can see the tear in you. The need you have to leave here and finally fucking kill him.” You tell. Carefully. Watching him with set back caution.

He once told you, warned you, that you would never be safe as a couple, unless Gregor was six feet deep. Any connection you had was dangerous. Any children you’d have- they were incentive for his brother to find, to seek them out and… he couldn’t even finish the grisly thought.

For all he knew, the mountain could come and pluck your head from your shoulders at any time if he wanted. Make Sandor watch your death. Just to needle him. Everything Sandor loved was snatched away. By death, fire, or otherwise.

“I want to kill that cunt. Really. I do.”

You swallow. Desolation clogs the back of your throat. You don’t want to say the wretched words but they crawl off your tongue nonetheless.

“Then I’ll lose you.” You whisper.

No one survived the mountain.

“I can’t do that. Sandor. Please don’t ask that of me. I can’t love a ghost again. I can’t.” You shake your head. Shut your eyes. Tears drop over over cheeks.

It hurts. A fresh wound bound to fester. That he’d see and survive all this, to then turn on his heel to walk into a shit city he didn’t want to die in. And perish, just to sate his need for revenge.

Your greatest fear made flesh. Given a voice and a name. Cuts you deeper than any sword would dare. Flayed you to the bone and soaked you in Driftmark salt; your recovery? unlikely.

You sit there and look at him with tears brewing in your eyes. Stony expression taking your face.

“You want to do it. I know you do. You can’t lie. Clegane. Not to me.”

You want to leave me, your heart cries.

“You’re not hearing me.” He gripes.

“For the longest time, Aye, I’ve wanted him dead. For what he did to me. To others. For what he is. But that’s changed….”

You look at him like you don’t believe him.

“Started to change after I met you.” He announced. Quietly. Not taking his eyes off the table between you. It started slowly. Gently. And then all at once it climbed around his every notice like weeds. And those vines clung on tight.

“You’ve undone it all.”

You frown. Sniff back your grief. Tame the tingle of tears at the back of your tongue. Then he says something that cracks the whole sky open for you.

“Some other cunt can die killing him. It’s not going to be me.”

“It’s all you’ve ever wanted.” You state. Dumbfounded.

He makes sure your eyes are locked on his. He needs you to be looking at him when he said this;

“Not anymore.” He awards.

You let the words twist and hang between you like a gallows rope.

He sipped his wine. Gets more drunk.

Doesn’t really know what to say. How to say. He drowns himself in wine and hopes he’ll find his bravery at the bottom of the next cup. And the next.

He looks entirely lost. His life’s purpose all twisted up and skewed. It may aswell be laying dead and scattered to dust in the snow outside. Like all the dusty bones and decay of the dead.

“Don’t know what I’ll do now the fight is over… maybe killing him is the only useful thing I ever had to do.” He admits.

Gritting his teeth around the words. Stating that he felt useless. Big hands made to kill. Sharpened to hurt. And now all the killing is done. He would admit that to none but you. Knows you wouldn’t abuse his weaknesses.

You nod. Watching him.

Slide both hands around his. Elbows on the table. Barely cover his thick fingers. But you hold him fierce all the same. Your thumbs stroke his knuckles. He watches a contemplative look cross your face. He’s never seen you look so serious.

“Then I’ll tell you what you’re going to do.” You begin.

“You’re going to leave here, with me, maybe tomorrow. Maybe the day after. When we’ve healed. We’ll travel to White Harbour. We will pay a small kings ransom for a passage and a cabin, on a ship bound for Braavos. And go and stay with my cousin, Tallin, and his wife Yves, in the villa on their vineyard.”

He eyes you carefully. Eyes glitter with candlelight gold. He would really like that.

“Away from swords and fighting and all the horrible fucking death we’ve choked on the past few years. The friends we’ve had to mourn and bury….” He sees tears shake your eyes.

“We will go somewhere where there are endless blue skies… And wine. And we can lounge in the sun. And not have to answer to anyone. And we can, just, drink, eat, and fuck…”

You shake your head and sigh. Voice heavy with emotion. You bite your bottom lip. Very much dreading what you need to say next. Tears spill down your cheeks. They sparkle in the half-light.

He looks apprehensive of you. There’s something you’re not saying. He knows when your tongue falls silent. When you snap your wilful jaw shut in fear.

“Because frankly, Sandor, I need all the peace and quiet I can get…. Before I have to give birth to your babe.” You say.

He lowers his wine goblet.

You could’ve knocked him down with a feather. Eyes wide and fearful, like you were suddenly a pillar of flame to him. Count this the only time you’d ever see the Hound stunned.

“What?” He drawls.

You hold his eyes. Fear trembles your ribs. You felt it before battle. Sinking spine deep and chilling. Hands shivering cold. Fear curling round every nerve like a venom spitting serpent. And you feel it now-

You see it in his eyes.

“The Maester told me. When he was seeing to my wounds. Reckons I’m around two moons gone, now.”

His mind is whirling back through the weeks leading up here. The fact you were sore headed and snappy some mornings. Tender one minute. Rampant for a fuck the next. Off your food and off any large skin of wine he offered.

Catching you feeling nauseas a lot more. Though you tried to hide it eating small bits of dry bread, or ginger cake, and taking nothing but water. Thinking it was the shit crab stew, the burnt salted oily fish, or the blackened bread making you ill.

You were sick into the snow before the battle too. Face clenched. Expression suddenly green and gaunt. You tried to hide it but he saw. Darted off to puke into a corner with your hand spread on a nearby barrel. It all slots into place.

He watches you sit there. Looking more scared than you were facing down the endless waves of dead, small and shrunken in your seat. Nerves twisted up all mean.

He rises from his seat. Leaves the wine where it is. Rounds the table and towers before you. Hand on the wood like he was steadying himself. Unable to take this sitting down.

“For true?” He asks you. Eyes so intent on you. You feel like they’re stripping your skin. His voice as soft as clouds.

You nod. “For true.”

Uncaring for those carrying on the revelry in swathes around him.

He drops to one knee and two massive hands are suddenly cradling your neck. Holding you so tight his hands tremble. Tears sparkle, swipe again down your cheeks.

“You went through that shit war with my babe in your belly, and you never fucking thought to tell me?” His voice trembles loud with both anger and gut deep fear.

You clutch his wrists where he held you. Wet your lips. “I didn’t know for certain til tonight.” Your eyes brim with burning tears.

“You’re not angry?” You seek. Your stomach on the precipice of sinking. You both knew full well he was not one for children. You wondered how he’d be about his own.

“Fucking livid you went through that, and kept it from me. I could bloody skin you.” He growled. A threat.

“Angry that it’s happening.” You checked. Unsure. Eyes wide with that fear again.

He snorts a derisive sound at you. Reaches over. Silly maid. Splays his large hand right over your belly where you sat.

“No. Red…” He muttered softly. Soft as silk. You’d rarely heard him that soft.

“It’s not anger I’m feeling right now.”

You leaned in. “Good.”

Pressed his forehead to yours. You smooth your hand up his twisted cheek. Thick whiskers under your palm. Take a second to sink out of this loud raucous room and just feel the space you’re sharing with him. It feels intimate.

He pulls back. Looking to where his hand stayed covering your warm golden belly. Feeling the rise and fall of your breath. His thumb rubs over the fabric of your dress.

The incredible news of his babe resting just there under his palm.

Enough to cut a man at the knees, that was.

You’d once asked him why he wasn’t married. He’d given a blunt answer that no one could bear the fucking sight of him.

You’d seemed suprised as he was a second son of a knighted house. Yet he lived lower than his station as a royal sworn sword.

Asked him how come he’d not been married off to some beautiful lady. Comfortably installed in some comfortable castle tower somewhere, with a fleet of servants. Wearing fine threads. Going on hunts, spending his days drinking wine to his black hearted content.

Unbeknownst to you, since you met, he’d started to carve out a little path in his head of what he might have wanted, instead of seeing to putting his brothers head on a spike.

Maybe…. Just maybe..

A castle tower would suit him. Like the Keep he’d once called home. Only better. One where bleached ghosts of old pain didn’t wander the thick walls. No.

This fictional place wouldn’t have a terrible shadow of a mountain looming over it. It would be a safe warm space. Where fire didn’t threaten. Not a place where servants and dogs were constantly kicked and kept cowering in dread.

This would be a haven. A place to hang his cloak and sword up at the end of the day. Green fields and trees for miles around it. Meadows with soft thrashing grasses. Land to farm. Open air and skies. Not the reek and filth of a shit city.

A home he could always belong too. The same feather bed to lay his head. With roaring log fires to chase the chill away. The smell of a hen roasting, and baked soft bread, and home churned butter, greeting him at the door each night. Maybe a couple of sleepy, big, lumbering hounds to stretch out before the fire.

Now that fantasy included seeing you, his Lady Clegane, sat fireside in a comfortably furnished room. In a fine wool dress, no less. Hair in a pretty braid, stroked with fire from the hearth. That gentle lulled pull of a smile you give him when you’re calm, and monstrously happy.

Perhaps you’re watching over a small babe, toddling around on the floor and playing on a rug that’s flecked with dog hairs near the slumbering hounds. A small wooden knight toy fisted joyfully in their pudgy hand.

Maybe there’s another sizeable swell of a bump under your dress. Your hand rubbing soothingly over it. Chiding him with playful ire curling off your tongue, saying he’d gotten you pregnant with another Clegane brute, when the babe kicks and wriggles all sudden at your belly.

He imagines his hand joining yours to feel that kick. An innocent little push up into his palm. Like a fish wriggling on a line. A tug of new life flourishing.

How he’d growl at it. Offended.

“Don’t hurt your mother.” He’d warn lowly to said bump.

“They take after you. My love. All elbows and fury.” You cheek.

He imagines the stocky, lumpy weight of a babe in his arms. Young flesh. Hair like wisps of wet silk against his lips. Dropping his nose to the crown of their head, to place a grizzled kiss there. Able to smell warm milk, lilacs, and white jasmine soap.

How that pudgy hand - that isn’t waving around a wooden knight toy - would come patting to his scarred cheek like a newborn starfish. Uncurling to seek new plains.

How they’d babble and grin at him. Eyes round and full of sheer love. Not shrinking in tears.

They’d see their father. A warrior. Protector. Not a scarred wretched monster. Or a grizzled old hound. He could hang up that title, and his sword, the same way he’d hang his cloak at the peg by the door when he came home, with night chasing at his heels.

That quiet-docile image has nestled deep in his chest, pushed into the muscle of his heart with all the ferocity of a stern arrowhead.

No matter how much he tried to tug it out. It stayed. It grew. Splintered. Swelled. Now it felt like it split his heart in half like a cracked rock. He can’t put it aside any longer.

I just need you. That was no lie to cross his lips.

Your Hound will never lie to you.

He swallows. Eyes finding yours once more.

“Just my fucking luck I fall for a goddamn wildling bastard with red hair. Seven knows what that babe will be like. Fucking feral I bet.” He grins.

You laugh. It sounds so foreign. It burst out of you like a split vein.

You realised you haven’t laughed proper in months. The movement feels rusty against your teeth and mouth.

“You’re no angel yourself. Clegane. This child’s first word is probably going to end up being ‘cunt’. Plus I hate to think of the dreadful table manners they’re going to learn off you.”

You slide your hand down his arm to his shoulder. One of your brows arches. Acidly.

“Besides. With your damn heft? It’ll be a miracle if I can yet survive the little fucker coming out of me.”

He chuckles. “You’ve survived much worse than that. Red.”

He said it lovingly. In odes to the past you eventually beared to him. Like you’d cracked open your ribs with your own hands like a pair of doors, to bare your most painful truths to him. Hands bloodied. Coming back full. Secrets clutched in your palms like pearls dragged from the blackwater deep.

Your hideous marriage. The death of your husband not by your hand. The bounty placed on you that kept you running all over the seven. You’d hated baring yourself to another. But you deemed him worthy of your burden.

You stroke your thumb against his good cheek. He draws you right in. Clasps a hand around your back. Puts his face in your shoulder. Breathes in the unfamiliar array of you.

The smell of woodsmoke and crackling ember ash still clung to your hair. The tallow candles, and wet flagstone mildew scent of these halls takes to your skin like a second nature. Slipped over you like an old cloak. Ice and snow accompany it. His true north maiden. Through and through.

When you pull apart. You skid away tears with the palm of your hand. Just in time to see a stout inebriated figure, swaying, at the foot of the table you both occupied.

It was Lord Tyrion. Very in his cups and all moony-soft eyes that spoke of liquors influence. No doubt the fumes of it sunk heavy on his breath. Drunk eyes gazing with love hearts at the pair of you. An expression of awe.

“I understand I am to offer congratulations. Lord and Lady Hound.” He slurred. He stumbles closer to the table.

“You are due a pup I hear. Though for your sake. Lady. I hope not a litter.” He japes cleverly. Swaying. His wine sloshes over his cup rim.

“Watch it. Imp.” Sandor barks. Staying knelt. His hand on your belly like a brand. Fierce growling protection.

The shield of his body to you and the babe. The ever present growl in the back of his throat that climbed out in a hair raising level, and told everyone to back the fuck off-

“Time has not dulled the fury of your bark so I see.” He snips back.

You smile sweetly at the drunken man. You were glad to see there was one golden cloaked Lannister who didn’t bear you both ill will. Though Tyrion had unyolked himself from their company in favour of another, you knew very well, ties could run deep if they were rooted in blood.

You do have a feeling Tyrion actually admired your Hound for taking his choice to throw off the vicious boy Prince. As he so wished to do. It only took some poison from clever Olenna Tyrell to help see that gold inbred disaster to a coffin.

“We thank you. My Lord. For your well wishes.” You counter.

“I don’t.” Sandor scowls. Eyes narrowing.

If Tyrion heard him, he made no show of it. His smirk grew. Eyes twinkled. As mischievous as his poor nickname suggested.

He points at you. Sloshes the drink even more in his cup. Some of it spills on the floor. He looks at the floor and back to his clumsy hand like someone else was to blame for the offence.

“I always did like you. Lady Clegane.” He hiccups. “Even when you were a mere slip of a maid tending to my cups. The flame haired beauty to temper the foul beast. And I consider the child should have atleast one non-hideous parent.”

Sandor gruffs. Twisting to the Lord. Addressing his impertinence. Big body starting to pack with rage.

You palm his huge shoulder. Holding it. Getting him to stay still. Stay down. And lose the urge to leap up and fight. Your touch spoke leagues. ‘Down my love. He doesn’t mean harm.’

“Don’t be so ferocious. We are celebrating!” He opened the span of his arms. All joy and candour on his face. Twirling around. His smile was wide and boyish under that thick beard.

“I feel I should also mention, before you scurry away to have your numerous pups, that the North, and our Queen, should like to repay you, most generously, for your service. I hear there’s a holding not a half days ride from here that should suit. Comes with a living. Some decent land. You’d be rich ten times over.”

You are heartened by the offer. More so to hear it come from a Lannister. Then again, they do always pay their debts either in blood or gold.

You’re glad to hear it’s the latter. You did wonder if they harboured hatred for Joffreys Hound tucking tail and running. But then again, he wasn’t the one who slipped poison in his cup at his wedding. Joffrey died just fine off the back of his own twisted nastiness.

You look to Sandor. Who turns back over his shoulder to catch your gaze. You raise your brows at him. ‘Well?’

You leave the choice to him.

What’ll it be, dog?

He turns back to address Tyrion.

“We are shortly bound for Braavos. Imp.” He snarls succinct.

You clear your throat.

Slap his wrist for good measure. ‘Manners, dog.’

He clears his throat. Reconsiders.

“Uh…. I’m taking her somewhere warm for a few months. For the babes sake. But, we would be delighted to consider the gracious offer.” Every nice and courtly word sounded like it had to be clunkily pulled out of him. Like pulling shrapnel, or teeth.

When he looks to you for confirmation. You look a little proud. Link your fingers in his.

Tyrion nodded. Swayed on his feet again. “That is good to know. Dog. I shall deliver your request. When I am sober.”

“When will that be?” You cheek. Your eyes glow golden amber with sass. Beauty to be sure. The way a knife is beautiful.

The rumours about you are well true. You are a woman men could cut their teeth on. There’s no meeting you nicely. Perhaps that’s how you’d won over the younger Clegane. His hound-like nature recognised the same scant roughness mirrored in you.

Your eyes are pretty as a sharp diamond when they land on him. Twice as cutting laying next to striking auburn hair.

A man could commit such brutal savageries for those eyes-

Though maybe that was the drink doing his thinking.

He does know one salient thing; that you’re utterly made for each other.

He wobbles. Contemplates for a second. “After I spew from the battlements. Probably.”

He stepped off. Walked unevenly away to the back of the room to fetch another drink. But he paused and whirled back.

“It’s not a ruse is it? You really do love this man?” He asked.

You nod at the little lord. Smile tipping wide. “Unfortunately, yes.”

You explain further. “Your Hound, and my Sandor, Lord Tyrion, are not the same man. They are miles apart.”

Tyrion nods. Looked more like he was swaying on his feet. Unsteady.

“However did you get so lucky to have her, you old dog?” He asks. Awed.

His scowl and grunt, made Tyrion smirk as he finally took the hint of Sandors growls and staggered away.

You smile. Rub his hand in yours. Which quickly found its way back to your middle. He rose to a stand shortly after.

“Come on. I think you, and you….”

He looks down and jabs his finger at your middle in gesture

“…Need some goddamned rest away from the drunk fools.”

“You’re drunk too. Don’t be picky.” You point out.

“Can’t nag me just yet. Maid.” He ribs.

“Can I not? I’ve certainly earned the right. Saved your sorry neck a few times tonight. Not to mention carrying your heir.”

“Seven help me. That babes going to come out breathing fire, sure enough. Snarling like a fucking dire-wolf, too.” He warns.

“Then it’ll feel right at home with you.” You tease.

He gazes down at your middle.

“Feral fucking pup.” He decides.

You bat at his arm. But you smile as you do it. He draws you close. Tucks your arm to his to aid you.

You nod and creak to your feet. You feel as if could you could sleep for a millennia. Rest your aching muscles. And no doubt rest will be your saviour in the coming months, much needed to survive your most laborious toil yet. A Clegane babe. Seven have mercy.

“What have I got myself in for-“ you remark dryly as you ease up.

He reaches down and holds your elbow. Helps you stand. Gets his hands on you to help and touch however he can. Splays one big hand between your shoulder blades. It spans nearly the whole width of your back.

“You don’t have to be a mother hen just yet.” You pat the middle of his big chest firmly. “I’m not that ailing.”

A curl of a smile comes forth. Makes his eyes flicker with the candles light. Dancing brown and gold.

“I know that. Just thought that dress would look much better off, than on. Best see how it looks on our floor.” He charms all brusque.

Laughter makes your cheeks warm. “Cheeky git.” You thump his side as he leads you through the hall. Hand on your elbow. Unflinching. Unmoving.

For once in his life, he finds he didn’t drift off to sleep thinking of hate or revenge. The iron spray of blood across his face and sticking to the roof of his mouth.

Even in his sleep that night. His hand never left your belly or hip. Drawn to your shared babe like the North Star. Arm curling you both close.

Little bird was right. Turns out he did have some learning still to be done. And plenty more to come besides that.

~

You’ve known Princess Rhaenyra for years, being one of her handmaidens since you were just a mer tween. Your mother was one of her mothers maidens and when you were real young, you and Rhaenyra would play together in the gardens as your mothers watched. 

You were from a low house, not having place in court,  but it never bothered you. Until Alicent Hightower started whispering in Rhaenyra’s ear about how being seen with you was a travesty, a mockery of the courts hierarchy. Of course, that didn’t stop Rhaenyra from wanting you around, but she was a princess, the heir to the thrown, which means she does need to look at such things with a firm eye. So her plan was to make you one of her maidens. No one could say anything about your friendship or how much time you spent with each other if you were one of her maidens. 

You didn’t have a problem with this either. You knew you would eventually be a handmaiden for one of the lady’s of court, and you were glad it was for someone you viewed as a friend, rather than someone like Lady Alicent, who probably would have made your life a living hell, more so than she already did. 

You were glad you were able to still be friends with Rhaenyra, to be there for her when her mother died, when Lady Alicent wormed her way into the kings bed, wedding him and becoming Rhaenyras good mother and effectively ruining their friendship forever. 

Rhaenyra cried on your shoulder for days, talking of the betrayal she felt, the sadness, the grief of losing someone she thought of as a sister. You tried to comfort her as best as you could. The entire situation was bizarre to you, how someone like Alicent, who you thought was a real friend to Rhaenyra, regardless of how she treated you, could actually do something like that, but regardless, the situation made you and Rhaenyra a whole lot closer. She made you promise you would never betray her, confiding in you that she felt you were the only person she could trust in this kingdom, and you vowed to never break that promise. 

“And then he says he wishes for me to start courting soon, to announce in the next few moons who I wish to marry!” Rhaenyra retells of the meeting she had with her father earlier that morning. 

You send her a glance through the mirror as you continue to brush her hair, “Nyra, you knew you would always have to marry, this should not come as a surprise.”

“It’s not.” She scoffs, turning around in her chair to face you head on, making you drop the brush to your side. Her eyes are angry, but the pout on her pink lips shows she is also feeling dejected, “I just wish he did not force me to spend time with a magnitude of Lords I will never choose.”

You raise a brow at her as she continues to pout of her duties, you feel for her, you do. Although you come from a low house, and it does have some disadvantages, it also comes with some advantages, like getting to marry outside of political advancement, “Are there any Lords you would choose?” Already knowing the answer, your friend is not shy about her distaste of the courts high men. 

Rhaenyra snorts, very un-lady like, but you don’t reprimand her.  It’s only the two of you in her chambers and you enjoy how carefree she is in moments like this. You know the stress she is under, the weight of the realms on her shoulders. You feel special, knowing you get to see her so casually, easygoing, that she can feel that way in your presence. 

“I don’t want a Lord.” She stands, going over to her large bed and throwing herself down, looking up to her ceiling as she huffs, “I am to be a queen, why would I waste my days being some wife to a lowly Lord.” 

Her words bring a chuckle to your lips, “I doubt whatever Lord you marry will be lowly.” 

She sits up, looking to where you’re still standing by her vanity chair. Her soft silver locks you just brushed meticulously down her back, now stick up in a few places, “Who says I will marry a Lord?” “A common man then? What ever will the court say?” You question her, only really in jest, setting the brush down and organizing her vanity back to order. 

Rhaenyra doesn't answer you, choosing instead to watch as you place everything precisely. You've always taken to making sure everything is structured correctly, her wardrobe, vanity, baths. Taking to being in charge of everything here so she can just relax, be at ease in her quarters. You are her greatest companion and the person she feels is most loyal to her. She also feels most loyal to you, how you care for her, show her nothing but fondness and warmth. Rhaenyra calls your name, waiting until you look over to her to speak, patting the space next to her on her bed, “Come sit with me, you work far too much.” “I’m supposed to work, Nyra.” You roll your eyes, but walk over to her bed and sit next to her like she asks, “It’s why I’m here.” 

“No,” She draws out, an over exaggerated pout on her lips, “You’re here to keep me company.” She flops her head down in your lap as you laugh, “And run your hands through my hair.” “The hair I just brushed?” You tease, but your hands are already combing through her locks, the softness of the silver strands is light through your fingers, and you can smell the jasmine from her bath oils. 

Rhaenyra smiles up at you, eyes bright with admiration, “Well it is your job, is it not?” “You are a brat.” You pull one of her strands of hair, making her hiss out. She pops up fast, making you jump back with a yelp, only for her to pounce on top of you, the smirk of a dragon on her lips as she stares down at you, “Now who's being a brat? Do you know the penalty for pulling a princesses hair?” “Are you going to put my head on a spike?” You fake fear. 

“Your head is far too pretty for a spike.” She puts more of her body weight onto you, affectively laying on you, clothed chest to clothed chest. 

You try to move out from under her, flustered by her brave comment. It’s not the first compliment she's given you, she doesn't shy away from giving you kind words such as the ones she just said, but that doesn't stop you from being flustered each time you hear them, “Rhaenyra let me up.” You tell her, trying to push her off of you, but your efforts are in vain, as she grabs your wrists and slides them up the bed above your head, “What’s wrong? Don’t like being underneath me?” Her words make you heat up, trying to pull your wrists free but that makes the silver haired girl above you tighten her grip, her nails slightly digging into your skin, you huff when you're unsuccessful, “Rhaenyra, let go, if someone walks in—“

“Are you trying to tell the princess what to do?” She tsks at you, dropping her face to your neck where you feel her warm breath, goosebumps appearing on your skin, “Perhaps you should be punished.” “Rhae—“ You try again, your voice a stutter of nerves, affectively turing to a gasp as you feel her plump lips come in contact with your throat. You feel the twitch of them as a smirk threatens to reaper, even if you cant see her face. A small whimper releases past your own lips when you feel her teeth nibble lightly on the tenderness of your neck. 

She places small kisses up towards your jaw, pulling back to look in your eyes, her face one of teasing, but her gaze one of lust and desire, so abundant in her stare it sends a wave of anxiety through you, “That sound was almost as pretty as you. Are you sure you wish for me to stop?” 

“Nyra please.”

“How do you expect me to stop when you beg so nicely?” She mocks you, placing delicate kisses on your cheeks. 

“This is unfitting,” You say, but your voice is one of waver, you don’t have much fight left in you, not when her lips feel so good upon your skin, “Your reputation would be tarnished if someone were to walk in, as would mine, no matter how low it already is. What Lords would marry you with the rumors that would start?” 

Rhaenyra pulls back, her lilac eyes narrowed at you in an intense glare, “I already told you, I don’t wish to marry a Lord.” 

“This is serious Rhaenyra!”

“I am not joking.” Her tone turning forceful and hard. You've heard her speak this way before, during court when someone says something she disagrees with, when she comes back and rants of her meetings with her father. Her temper can become as dangerous as the beast she rides, but it’s never been directed to you, not until now that is, “I am not going to marry some Lord, some man, that I will never love. I refuse. I will not be some brood mare to give him offspring.” 

Her face becomes assertive, powerful, she’s so full of confidence in next words she speaks that chills arise on your skin for a whole new reason, “I will have a wife of my own, one of my own choosing. One who will take care of everything around me as I take care of the realm. What good will a man do me, as I am queen? I need a woman, a wife, by my side as I rule.” 

You imagine this is how she looks during her meeting at grand court, meetings you do not attend as only a select few high members are allowed. Her confidence is admirable, something one stands in awe of, though, you imagine she’s not called the realms delight for nothing, people are constantly standing in awe of her. 

She lets go of your wrists to cradle your face in her hands, your heart beating faster as she caresses your cheeks with her thumbs, “A wife that I will take care of, just as she has taken care of me all these years.” “Nyra.”

Its just a whisper, because truly, you don’t know what to say. What can you say to all of this? It’s not that you don’t reciprocate her feelings to some extent, you've always felt your fondness for her was more than a fondness for a friend, but you never lingered on the thought, there was no reason to, nothing would ever come from it. Even when you would notice the soft touches she would give you, the longing looks, or the sweet words, you never thought too much into it. 

You feel absolutely stupid now for not letting yourself linger on those thoughts. 

“Will you let me take care of you?” She questions, looking into your eyes so sincerely that it would take your breath away if she hadn't already done that by just merely existing. 

“I—I don’t know…” She’s patient with you, something you are entirely grateful for as she nods at your words, “You don’t know if you want me to take care of you? Or if you want me?” “I want you.” Your voice still low, but filled with so much revelation that it brings a bright smile to her face as she pushes some of your hair back with one hand, petting you softly, “I just— I don’t know ho— I’ve never…” She just continues to smile down at you, eyes full of the same tenderness as her touches, “Can I teach you then?” 

The nod you give is all she needs to connect her lips with yours, her velvet lips dominating your tentative ones is a dance of desire and passion. You grab her hips with your hands, needing something to ground you in this whirl of emotions, your nerves fluttering away as she pulls back, a gleaming smile on her face, bigger than you had ever seen before. 

“Seems you don’t need my teachings after all.” She teases, laughing as you swat at her arm, embarrassed by her teasing, but also relieved by it, the soft ordinary of her banter making it feel as though its just another day by her side. She sighs softly as the both of you gaze at one another, “My heart has craved to do that for years.” You frown at the melancholy in her voice, the sadness that lingers in the joy, the yearning for not moving in this direction before now, “Then why have you waited?” 

“I did not know if you desired me in the same way.” Her words utterly confuse you, “Who wouldn't desire you?” 

“Then why have you not taken any action toward that affection?” She questions. 

Your earlier words are repeated, “I don’t know how, Nyra. I’ve never been with a man, let alone another woman. I wouldn't even know where to begin.”

“I can show you.” She tells you earnestly, with such grave sincerity all of your quarrels are driven away before they can truly take root in your mind, “All you have to do is ask, and I will show you the world,ñuha jorrāelagon.” 

You've spent enough time with her over the years that, although you still can’t speak it fluently, you know enough Valyrian to understand her words, my love. They strike some sort of chord in you, driving away any lingering nerves, leaving only lust and devotion in its place. 

“Then show me how to please you, my queen.”

Your words have the same effect on her as her words had on you, if the growl she let out is anything to go by, smashing her lips on yours in a much more ferocious pace. Your hands make home again on her hips, uncertain of what exactly to do with them, as hers, much like the confidence she has in her words, have no problem mapping your body out over there clothes. 

“I wish to feel you without confinement, dōna riña.”  Sweet girl. The moniker is a new one, but one that sends warmth to your heart as her hands continues to roam. 

She whines as you pull away from her, earning a bite to your lower lip as she concedes, a warning really, “You must teach me first, I wish to please you.” “But I can teach you as I please you.” She kisses down your neck, sucking lightly on your exposed collar bone. You softly grab her face, forcing her to look at you, “Please Nyra.”

And damn you, you know she wont say no. She can almost never deny you, but especially when your begging is so sweet. She pulls herself away from you, with much resentment, standing at the foot of the bed, and starts to remove her dress, turning around for you sit up and undue the laces in the back. 

The heavy fabric drops to the floor, leaving her bare to you. You’ve helped her in her baths before, but those have never felt as intimate as this. 

Rhaenyra smirks as she pushes you back onto the bed, crawling over you slowly, your eyes taking in all of her. She's like a hunter stalking her prey, and you finally understand why people say Targaryens look like their dragons. She is fierce, and strong, and entirely magnificent. Just as her dragon is. 

“Do you enjoy what you see?” She raises a brow at your staring. You can only nod, prompting her to take one of your hands in her own, bringing it to the middle of her chest, right above her heartbeat, “You can touch me, you know. It’s only fair, since my heart beats for you.” 

“Show me.” You speak with such desperation to satisfy her properly that she takes pity on you, moving your hand to her breast, her voice dropping to honeyed charm, words filling you with ease, “You do not need to fret, for I am already fulfilled by you, anything more is added delight.” This time you're the one to bring your lips together, your kiss one of gratitude and joy. You roll over till she's underneath you, pulling away when the both of you can go no longer without air. Chests heaving with breaths. 

She places one more fleeting kiss to your lips before grabbing your hand again, “Ready?” “Yes.” You nod, watching as she delicately moves your hand down her stomach to her most sensitive spot, “Touch me there. Right there.” She instructs you, helping you press down on her sensitive core, moving your fingers in soft circles. 

As your pace steadily increases, Rhaenyra lets go of your hand, allowing you to continue on your own, her eagerness present by the wetness growing. 

“You’re doing so good.” She moans, bringing your eyes from her core to her face. She’s watching you possessively, “Taking such good care of me.” 

You move forward in order to kiss her lips, making sure to keep your circular moments as you do. 

“Do you wish to learn more?” She questions. “Teach me all of it.” You beg. You want to know everything, every way to bring her happiness, to have her quivering underneath you in ecstasy. 

“Where your fingers are,” She gestures to your movements, “Use your mouth.” 

You move to position yourself between her spread legs, glancing up at her face. Her reassuring smile brings you courage as you swipe your tongue through her folds. The moan it draws from her is heavenly, and you want nothing more than to listen to it again, driving you to lick her again. 

And again. 

And again. 

You don’t need any instruction when you take her clit into your mouth, sucking on it benevolently. Your rewarded by her loud moan, and the tight grip she has on your hair, pushing her hips up into your face more as her back arches. 

“My sweet girl.” She moans, “Always taking care of me. Doing so well for me.” You continue to lick and suck as she moves her hips along, enjoying the slight pull she does to your hair and moaning into her, “I’m going to come, my love.” You don’t let up as her high takes over, choosing to keep your pace as she goes through it. You’re rewarded for it as she lets go of your hair, grabbing your face to pull you up towards her. She looks absolutely blissful, and you don’t think you've ever seen her as beautiful as you do right now. 

“You did so good, dōna riña.” She caress your face, kissing you sweetly. You pull back, smirking down at her, “I think you’re the sweet one.” 

She laughs at you before her eyes turn wicked, turning over so she's above you, “Ivestragī īlva find hen qilōni iksis tolī dōna ñuha aderī naejot sagon ābrazȳrys.”

You were a step up from a kitchen wench in a soiled russet dress near worn to rags, that was true enough. But you’re not sure the leers from hungry filthy guards, the occasional cup of watered down wine, and long hot hours of work are worth the meagre station.

But you’ve never really known anything else.

A harsh bellow of your name roused you to attention. It bowled its way to you from the doorway to the kitchen’s. Shattering off the stone in its displeasure.

Standing and stretching out your legs was a welcome relief. Taking your hands from the cloudy water and drying them on a rag. You leave your fellow maid, Alssa, with your workload.

You trudge inside. The heat sticking your thin dress to your back. Hair coated in long strings to your neck. You huff, holding your skirts, and trudging down the uneven steps, sloping drunk with age and gravity, to the bustling, noisy kitchens.

The wall of heat is suffocating when you walk in. It’s a dank cellar with no windows and no natural light. The corners crawl with dirt and rodents. The air fugged with heat and spice. Continuous chopping fills the air.

Candles shake light on numerous surfaces. Some glimmer with blood and entrails from animals being plucked or carved. Some where bread is being rolled. A huge stove where iron pots are stirred over tongues of flame.

Cook is waiting on you. Darria. A permanently cross, elder woman, with meaty arms, numerous chins and jowls, and a grey scowl that could curdle milk. Salt and pepper hair scooped back to sag like old ribbons off her craggy face. Concealed in a linen cap.

“Raela is sick. I’m short a girl. You’re the most presentable. You’ll do.” She snips at you.

“Do for what?” You ask. A simple enough request. But none of the ladies here are quite used to the boldness of your tongue. Time in royal service hasn’t blunted the razor edge of your courage just yet.

“Hells teeth girl.” She curses. Slapping a cloth down on a surface. Fingers caked in dried blood and cooking burns scarred in old rosy flesh up her arms. “To take a tray to a lords room.”

Wafting her cloth in the direction of said tray. Upon sat a flagon of Dornish wine. A goblet. A plate piled high with roast chicken, bread and cheeses.

“Which Lord?” You ask with careful derision.

“The Hound.” She declared. Unfeeling.

She reroutes her attention to wiping down the surface near to her. Ridding it of slimy black blood and chicken guts. Slopping it into a basket on the floor. The red seeping into the cracks of her skin and knuckles.

You sigh. Swallow your dry throat. Because you can’t exactly refuse.

No matter how much stories of his ferocity turn your fellow maiden girls stomachs. You’ve heard tale how he’s cleaved men in half with that sword of his. With no more effort than cutting through a cooked ham. A fierce swing of his huge arms.

He was impossible to miss at court. A towering plinth of armour by the spoilt boy princes side. All growl and bark. A nasty bite too. Lurching along in big strides like a leashed stray in clanking armour.

Always he was armed to the canines. Swords. Daggers. Eyes stormy cynical and hunting for blood. A scowl that could chill hell - made more severe by the twisted flesh of his half burned face. Covered only slightly by an unruly mane of dark waves.

And you were apparently late to deliver his supper. Starving dogs only made them crueler.

You’ve no choice in it. You keep promising yourself you won’t walk into danger; so careful to creep silent in the shadows to avoid it. Yet here you are; apparently welcome to drop food into its lap.

“Of course.” You come for the tray and hoist it into your hands. The edge digging into your middle.

“Step lively.” She barks at you. “Wouldn’t do to keep the big brute waiting. Lest he knock the pretty teeth out your head.” She threatens.

“Excellent.” You remark archly. Under your breath.

If she heard your sniping comment, she doesn’t show it. Too busy you suppose. Feeding near 200 people was a trial on its own right. As she reminded you all so often.

You make for the steps and begin the climb from out the warm twisted bowels of the keep. Air becomes clearer. More civilised. Threaded with roses rather than dirt and sweat. You see gardens and gilded rooms. Climbing flowers reaching round yellow stone columns. Footsteps echoing off tile and courtyard. There’s pattering fountains and pleasant oasis gardens to stroll in.

You pass a group of guards posed outside a door. A royal bedchamber. You feel their glistening eyes wander and climb over you. Like you were juicy quivering prey waiting to be devoured. Some of them call after you. Their words harsh and lewd. You don’t pay them any mind. Let the words roll off your back like beaded water.

Another thing about this cursed keep. You too had to guard your steps. Tread soft as velvet. Keep a shining dagger from a smith in Volantis concealed in your skirts. You never dare invite attention in this poisonous snake den.

You travel along corridors and wind up more stairs. Eventually coming to the hounds lair. Or kennel, as Joffrey often calls it.

Fetch my dog from his kennel.

You get a whiff of the strong deep red wine as you shift the tray and knock upon the door with your elbow. A growl from within tells you to come.

He’s at table when you enter. Blocking out half the light from the window.

Sat curled on a chair at the round table in his room. The chair he occupied pulled back far from the hearth. Almost turned with his back to it. Like he didn’t want to acknowledge it.

Really for one of his station, his room is sparse. Monklike even. Really he’s lucky they didn’t just put straw down for him. Throw him a hambone and keep him chained til they have use of him.

His rooms boasted hardly any decoration. No saffron curtains, and ornaments. No frills or statues like the rest of the knights or golden lannisters rooms you’ve seen. Those lions certainly lived for their fucking gold.

He has one very wide chunky wooden bed. All solid sturdy oak. Thickly carved with a white linen canopy curtain messily tied at all four post corners. Cushions sagging, and covers messed and mushed in the middle.

One trunk at the end of it. Worn. A faint insignia painted on its top. Gold background with three running black dogs.

A chair nudged between the shaded windows. Light spotted in patterns through the wooden shutters. Casting a shaft, one that danced with dust mites onto the floor like spilled cream.

“Took your fucking time. Where’d you go for those shagging chickens girl? Essos?” He growls.

“My apologies ser. We were short a maid.” You apologise. You won’t turn meek. You’ve learnt to keep your back to the door. Be snappy. Be polite and then turn your heel and flee.

He grunts. Inconsequential.

You cross the room and set the tray on the table. Out of habit you take the flagon and pour the wine into the goblet.

Then you discover the reason why every word he says, comes dragged through a vile growl. Why there’s sweat beading on his forehead. How he seems to curl into himself like a wounded animal. Teeth ready to bare and snap.

He’s injured.

His shirt is half pulled off his shoulder, fingertips left blood smears in the linen, he’s trying with fumbling too-big fingers to mend a jagged wound to his shoulder. Lacerated at the edges. Not a clean sword wound. It looked more like a bite. You could see indents of teeth where they’ve made their home deep in his trapezius.

You put the flagon down. He snatches hungrily for the goblet. Blood coming in slow thick rivulets down his shoulder. He wipes at it with woven cloth.

He grunts in pain again. A low simmer of a growl coming under his breath.

That’s when you let your eyes and mouth stray; just enough. Just when you were busy being careful.

“That will fester if you stitch it up without washing it.” You warn.

“Don’t bother, maid.” He snarls. Hiding his pain behind a shield of anger, and then a wall of aggression. He was more shielded than a fortress. Wine sunk its heavy spices onto his breath

You take a step towards him. “I’ve tended wounds before, Ser-“ you begin to explain.

The chair scrapes the floor like a dying wail when he stands abruptly. Strange for a man of his size to move so quiet as he did.

His whole body engulfs your attention. Designed to intimidate. Wide shoulders. Huge chest. He couldn’t half move quick - sharp. Ruthless as a hot knife through butter - when he needed too. In his case you’re sure it was life or death; the matter of being quick on his feet.

“I don’t care if you’ve fucked the shagging maester before. I don’t need help.” He spells out plainly. Grunting every word harsh. They fall like rocks from his mouth. With crushing intent.

His shadow fell over you. Big as a damn grizzly bear. Made you think of the tales spun to you as a child, of when they used to pit bears against lions in the arena for sport. Big. Lumbering. Ferocious temper and teeth to match. Carpeted in dark fur. Get on the wrong side of them they’d maul you to shreds.

That seems to apply to him too.

You couldn’t fail to notice he was as hairy as one. His shirt had fallen even wider from his shoulders. Over his sternum now. The wide neck draping down over his shoulder. Nearly down to his pectoral.

His chest was carpeted in dark hair. Every muscle was crude and rounded. He was so widely built, you couldn’t take your eyes away.

“I need wine.” He snatched the flagon and poured more into his cup. Nearly sloshed it over the edge.

“Having a belly full of wine won’t help you stitch it.” You point at his shoulder. Voice laced with derision.

He gave you a look that was all thunder and cut glass. His hair shading his ruined eye. “Works fine for me.”

“I’ve seen bigger bastards than you, succumb to wounds smaller than that.” You warn.

He twisted his face into a sneer. Lip curled. Showed his blunt teeth. The ruined side of his face twitched and pulled with it. He sinks back into the chair. It’s hard to know what groans more. The wood or him.

“Aye?” He challenges.

“I’m big fucker. Tougher to kill.” He assures you. Grunting as he tries to mop away more blood.

“I can’t imagine the prince would be pleased to lose his loyal hound to infection.” You intone darkly. He glares.

“Shall I send for maester Pycelle?” You offer.

“Fucking doddery cunt.” He growls. You take it as a ‘no.’ He continues trying to stab at his shoulder with a curved needle and slowly reddening thread.

You turn. Taking his onerous mood and the lull in the speech as your queue to leave. He didn’t exactly strike you as one who waved or dismissed servants at his leisure. He was high-born but he didn’t act it.

His voice stops you when you hand touched the door.

“Not seen you here before, little maid.” He snarls the name at you like it’s filth. He grits his jaw around the words.

You step back. Face him across the room.

“I joined not sennight ago. Ser. Whilst the King was away in Winterfell.”

He grunted again. You come to realise that’s how he answers most questions.

“What kind of maid knows how to sew bloody wounds and pretty dresses?” He seeks. Dark look blazing your way. Searching into places you’d rather he didn’t dig.

A true hound with a bone to pick.

“One who hasn’t spent all her life in a wretched slum in flea bottom, living on scraps.” You answer snappily.

“And where has the little maid spent her life?” He asks.

You frown. Tilting your head. He barks at you. Tried to intimidate you. Bites your head off at every word. And now he’s asking after your life before this keep. The duality set your head spinning.

“The North. Living on scraps.” You tell.

“Where?”

“The cold bit.” You jest. Eyes narrowed.

“Your accent isn’t northern.” He points out.

“No. I’ve worked for many houses since I left the north.”

The slightest curl of his lip tells you he almost found that comical. He almost had a reaction. Almost let a huff of amusement crash through his chest and out his nose.

“You stitched up lots of men then. Big northern fuckers too.” He stated.

“Aye. And even spitting fury at their worst, they were still more polite than you.”

He laughed. It sounded like stones and grit grinding against each other. An underused noise, you feel.

“We can have this very illuminating conversation or I can leave now and let you bleed and fester to death. Pass me the fucking needle.” You open your hand.

He has the brass balls to look mildly impressed that you, a handmaiden, is daring to raise your voice at him. It makes a healthy change from stares, grimaces, and wailing children who cry at his very monstrous appearance. From people scurrying away from his glares.

“Stubborn wench. Aren’t you. You gonna call me to heel girl?” He challenges.

“Someone has to. Dealing with mullish bastards like you. Hound. I’m not from the south. I wasn’t raised with pretty manners and a silver spoon like every lady you bow before.” You tell him acidly.

“Yet you got yourself here without those pretty manners.” He snipes.

“I’m a good liar.”

“You’ll need that to survive here.” He warns darkly. Makes your stomach drop to hear it.

“Needle. Dog.” You command.

He sneers. “Least you didn’t call me, Ser.”

The needle glints in the candelit as he hands it over. It looked a ridiculous implement in his huge fingers. Like something doll sized. You take it gently. Hand brushing against his. Back of his knuckles wearing the same coarse hair as his body.

“You’re not a ser? You’re of the kings guard.” You explain. Coming to his side. Approaching carefully lest he bites off your head again. You tuck some of is hair out the way.

“Not a ser. Didn’t want to take the oath. I’ve seen what knighted ser’s do to small folk like you.” He snaps bitterly. You don’t dive into that one. You knew that well enough yourself.

You shift hair off his neck. Soaked thick with blood. It still followed a wave.

“You’ve soap? A basin?” You ask. He jutts his chin across the room where it sat next to a bowl and a smeared cracked mirrror. A small cake of misshapen soap in a wood bowl sat to the side.

You cross to it and lather a fresh cloth in some water with the soap. It’s the simplest. Barely any scent. No decoration or gild to anything. It was clear he preferred living without it.

He does a double take at your back. Eyes gliding over your shoulder blades. A twisted scar knots and tugs across the smooth skin. One he recognised but nowhere near as ugly as his. Your pain wasn’t born by fire. The flesh looked like it had been torn into. By dagger or tooth. It wasn’t clean or delivered by the sword. Great pulls across the flesh, now knitted back together, skin catching almost silver and new in the half light. You had survived tougher things.

You bring the jug back. Set it on the table near him. Pour some into the small soap bowl. Begin to wash and mop at the wound. Water trickling down that large chest. Darkening his breeches and his blood smeared shirt.

You feel him tense. The muscles in his shoulders ruck up. He turns his head away.

“I won’t hurt you.” You reassure. Voice softer than dove feathers.

“Are you soft in the head girl? Look at my face. Think I haven’t been hurt before.” He barks. Teeth gnashing.

You continue mopping blood. He winces, grunts at the sting of the soap.

Seeing in silence. You continue mopping blood out the way to see what you’d be stitching. Cleaning as best you could as you went.

He drinks his wine. Rolls the taste in his mouth as he considers you. You’d stepped awfully close to him. Soft hands working at his neck to cleanse. Taking away the rotten ruined flesh. One thing he couldn’t get over; the scent of you that now seemed like it filled the damn room.

The salt of clean sweat. Soap. Sunny yellow jasmine. The softness of your body draping under that ridiculous pink dress. Braids tied around your neck. Gathering over your tits. It clung to your hips and legs. Certainly a pretty sight.

Your hair is what fascinated him the most. Fell in soft waves over your back. Redder than cinnamon. Fell past your shoulders. Twined with the scent of those yellow petals like the damn rest of you. He wondered if he were to take those locks in his hands, how smooth they’d be. How full of scent they’d be if he put his nose to the crown of your head. Silk and perfume. All things good.

How could he dare touch something soft and kind for once in his life. His big scarred hands had only ever touched, with the intention of bringing back blood. Only knew how to touch with knives and swords.

Grizzled old dogs like him shouldn’t sniff after pretty maids like you.

“You got a name, little maid.” He turns his head. Gaze seeking for hours.

You meet it.

“Aye.”

You give him your name. That tugs a laugh out him. Like pulling something hewn to a rock.

“That’s a northern cunt name if ever I heard one.”

You scoff. “Do you talk to all the handmaidens like this? Call them cunts…”

“Usually. On a good day.”

“Bet they love that” you remark dryly. Everything you’d come to know about southern bred ladies. Like the rest of your fellow handmaids here.

They were all very docile and easily flustered. Weak as doe deer in the presence of any sort of rough behaviour. Life in service scared some of them. Exposure to men and nobility and their true violence.

Some girls came to this keep green as grass to the ways of the world. You came to it knowing full well. You held no faith in stories of knights and fair maidens anymore. You pitied those who did.

“Run a mile usually. Cower out of here crying. Clutching their pretty little skirts for dear life.”

You contemplate him a long while. Squeezing water out the rag before repeating your bathing of the wound. Watching that big body slumped in his chair. Hair curling like a curtain over his damaged eye. He was big. He took up all the air in the room the way lightning steals ozone.

It’s his face that interests you more. The rough whickery beard across his jaw and bearing only his pink lips. Over the thick black brow that had been burned away. The drooping eyelid where his eye gazes out with nothing but contempt. This broken man who never disrobes himself for anyone.

“You’re not half as frightening as you think you are.” You admit quietly. Starting to thread the needle.

He huffs. Disbelieving.

“Cross swords with me you’ll soon find out.”

That makes you smile. He doesn’t know why but he cherishes that a little. Making a pretty maid smile. He tucks that somewhere in his big chest. Some secret pocket somewhere only he knew of.

“I just wash the linens. Pour wine. And empty the chamber pots. Remember?” You sass.

“That why you got a dagger in your dress, girl.”

Your spine prickles. A hot fluttering through you. Especially when one big paw of his lurches out and a finger taps to the side of your thigh. Straight onto the hilt of the dagger. He taps it. Sends a shock rippling right through you.

You shift on the spot. Annoyed. Caught out. Clever dog.

He winces when you pierce his flesh with the needle.

“I’ve seen worse than you bearing down on me Clegane. Dealt with worse.”

Flashes you the full scarred side of his face. He leered like he should terrify you. A sick smile on his mouth that usually worked in deterring others. “Doubt it.”

“Takes more than the sight of a burn to send me running. If you’re looking to scare me, you’ll be waiting a long wait. I know scaring people gives you joy.”

You concentrate on the stitches you’re making. Pulling the skin taut. Making sure it comes together. Surprised he didn’t have a squire to help him. Then again, if he didn’t want a title, you doubt they’d offer him a squire for this kind of work.

“Killing gives me more joy.” He insists.

“You must enjoy your orders then. The ones that come screeching out that princelings spoiled mouth...”

“Some of them.” He admits. “But never say that where the walls could have ears.” He warns.

You nod. You know full well what a royal court is. It’s backstabbing snakes and spies and disloyalty disguised as cooperation at every turn. There are those in this castle who would turn on you for very little coin at all. Rife with venom.

People who liked to deal in snide whispers and ill intent. You kept well away. Head down. Did your duties. Cursed the lot of them. Fuck the lot of them.

You finish looping thread into his wound. His hand finally unclenched from a huge fist on the table. Relaxing if only a little. The way a rock relaxed from the onslaught of rain. Barely.

“There…” You say. Finishing with a knot to hold the stitches well and true.

“Try and wash it with soap and keep it dry if you can. Seven help you it should heal clean.”

He peers around and once more makes a guttural grunt. Your work was neat. Small stitches that spoke of a practised hand. You wash your hands in the bowl and take the bloodied rags away. Dispose of the ichor stained water. You leave his needle and thread the soap bowl. Knowing he’d need it again.

“Anything else, my lord?” You ask.

“Don’t fucking call me that.”

“Certainly.” You fire back. Gathering yourself to move the used utensils and cloths into your arms. You made to leave across the room. Light treads creaking across the floorboards.

He chews his teeth around the words lodged in his throat. They finally birth past his tongue.

“How’d you get that scar. On your back?” He asks. Voice grisly.

Hand on the door. You give him your clever answer before you step through. Your smile is cleverly devastating when you explain.

“Mauled by a hound.”

You shut the door to his sneering expression. You think you almost hear laughter before the door shuts into place.

-

Some moons later, you trudged back to your room. Fully intending to climb into bed for a handful of hours of sleep if no one caught your attentions. The kitchen thankfully was dark and empty. The silence laying thick in the keep from outside and within told you that even the rats in the kitchen had gone to sleep too.

You rubbed your eyes. Sluiced in sweat that you’d have to rise early and wash off. Bathe yourself in perfumes and present yourself prettily for your service tomorrow. Run soap and oils through your hair. Make sure your dress was spotless.

You were to be helping see to the Imp on the morrow. You’d need your wits about you. You’d been warned he was dastardly when he had a mind to be.

You weaved through the labyrinthiam corridors where the maids slept. Straw down on the floor. Rats clinging to the edge of the halls. You come to your door and the wood whines like a howling gale when you open it.

You were lucky to have the tiny fucking rat trap they called a room to yourself. The maid whose meagre straw bedded pallet stood a hairs width from yours, had wanted to room with another.

You didn’t give two shits. Meant you got some peace and space to breathe when you retired to bed in the small hours. Just when the pink of dawn washed into your room in rosy lilac hues.

You sunk into the sagging itchy mattress. Only made bearable by thin linen sheets and a semi decent bolster pillow.

The candle on the tiny washstand flickered, melting into a puddle of wonky wax, dripping against the wood. The light cast in flickering tongues up the mouldy mustard walls.

All your earthly belongings heaped in a trunk under your bed. Your very few dresses hung for dear life on hook in the corner. You hung dried flowers - lavender and jasmine - up to bleach in the sun, in the small spit of a window. Barely enough to shift light into the room that felt more like a cell than living quarters.

You hide your earnings in a leather pouch in the wall behind your bed. You know full well maids or little birds come snooping when you’re not there. You sleep with your dagger under your pillow. The lock on your door broken and old. Unserviceable if someone decided to bust their way in.

You lay back in your bed and untie your leather slippers. Your feet raw and throbbing. You sigh with ease. Shoulders straining against the bed.

You’re toeing the line of sleep and consciousness when comes a scuffle at your door. Instantly your hand sinks under your pillow. Snatches for your dagger. Warm in your hand. Deadly.

“Whose there?” You call out. Voice a terrible strain in the silence. It hums. It burns for more.

No answer comes. Just the clank of heavy steps back down the halls. Then you’re left with the silence punctuated by the squeaks of rats outside. Their little nimble tickling footsteps. And the roar of torches that barely light the way.

You open your door. Peering down. Catching the corner of a dirty white cloak and the back of a dark wavy head as it disappears round the corner with a shift of armour.

You look to your feet. There sits a small whetstone. With a sprig of yellow jasmine flowers tied in a clumsy ribbon. Merry yellow and green.

You smile as you turn the stone in your hand. The flowers you lift up to savour their sickly scent.

His way of thanking you. Making sure you always had tools to sharpen your dagger. This was his way of giving you the best safety he could. Perhaps the only way he knew.

He really wasn’t the fearsome grizzled old dog they made him out to be.

~

You huff. Dumping dirty blankets on the basket to be taken away and laundered. Give her a chilly side eye.

“If he courted me I’d still be as I am now. You daft twit.” You huffed. Stripping a plump pillow of its casings. “…A fucking handmaiden.”

“If.” She scoffs. Unbelieving.

“Aye. If.” You retort.

“There’s no reason to believe he wants to court me.” You speak miserably. Folding old linens into neat piles. Speaking as you worked. It made just a small warm simmering spark of hope in your stomach, die a cold death. It was for the better.

You liked the Hound. Made no secret of it. Your gratitude and warmth to him was obvious.

But you couldn’t dare indulge in more.

Just because you were the first Handmaid he didn’t send fleeing from his chambers in tears at his nasty bark, doesn’t mean you should hope to find anything in that.

You’d hoped before. You couldn’t take yourself through that again. The pain of it was worse than a knife to the heart. You can’t do that to yourself. Not again.

“We’re small folk, in case you’ve forgotten. Alssa. Not lords or ladies. We don’t get the luxury of being courted.” You tell as you crossed to open the patterned shutters. Letting some light in to this rotten golden place.

“We do our jobs. We work hard and keep our eyes down. Try not to get molested. Try not to lose our heads.” You gave her your succinct rules for working in service.

One that’s kept you alive and with your hands and dignity intact, to work for some of the grandest houses across the seven kingdoms. Royalty. Merchants. Minor houses. You’d worked in them all.

“I saw you both that night of the Tourney. At the back of that turnip cart. You all bloodied and tumbled. He looked ready to spit fire he was so livid. Like wanted to scoop you up into his arms and cradle you safe to his chest, forevermore.” She chirps away.

You lob a pillow at her head with a growl. She laughed, bright with joy, and stumbled back, caught it before it met the floor.

“Put your gossip away and help.” You demand. Crossing to tidy some platters on the far side off the room. Large platters littered with crusts of stale bread, the rinds of hard cheeses. Plucked grape vines and empty stained red goblets.

These were Lord Tyrion’s rooms you’d been tasked to clean. You were mildly lucky there were no plump lounging whores, dozing in the bed when you called to enter. Alssa wouldn’t know where to look with her innocent eyes.

You found the rooms - thankfully - empty save for last nights dinner plates on the side. Used wine cups. And mussed sheets. Nothing too scandalous.

You actually did like Lord Tyrion. He was a cunning man. Not to be taken for an empty headed noble. He was always kind to the maidens who tended his rooms. He liked prettiness, certainly. But not vanity or empty beauty.

But he also admired the certain glimmers of a stubborn personality. Sharp eyes. Smart tongues. He took a liking to you instantly. Adored the girls with looks about them that spoke of cynicism or wit.

More than once when serving you’d had to hide your smile when the Lord Imp made a clever comment that sliced right through the morons he had to deal with. A stout head on him.

Could be worse. You could end up serving Ser Meryn. A nastier cunt never drew breath.

He’d knocked the breath clean out of you last week for being five minutes late with his supper tray. The cook was ready to send up a small waif of a serving girl - no more than ten.

You called her back. Gave her your job of sweeping the floors. Gladly took her place. Took the punch. The blue black ribs you had was worth it. You couldn’t see another child beaten like that.

You wince as you re-stuff the pillows with fresh linens. Moving was tricky at the moment but you tried not to show your pain.

You also had the audacity to think that Alssa has finished dissecting your burgeoning situation with the princes sworn shield.

“I’ve seen the way he looks at you when you’re not watching, you know.” She preened. Voice all high and girly. Singing the words at you like a little bird.

Perisistant. Annoying. Pecking away at you all day about this.

You turn away from her and close your eyes. Just for a second. You’d seen it too. Felt his gaze upon your skin like warm metal. You banish those thoughts with a sigh.

“Last night at dinner when we served, his eyes followed you around the room. All night. He couldn’t take his eyes off you if forced. I think you’ve captured him.”

Paranoia flashed through you in a dizzying wave.

“Hush your damn mouth.” You chided. A fiery frown shot her way.

You twisted to look where the door was ajar. You could almost fear her whispers would slither out, slide along the stones like woodsmoke. You walked to it and pressed it closed. You didn’t want every gutter snipe from here to the sept to know your business.

They’d find unfriendly ears to latch too. Her whispers. Sliding to the notice of a waiting corrupt guard. One of Varys’ little birds. One of the Lannister’s. Or worse. One of little fingers whores. You don’t know which is worse.

“There’s no one listening.” She assured you. Far too candidly.

“Everywhere has eyes and ears in this palace.” You reprimand her darkly. “You need to learn that now. Watch yourself. And don’t trust anyone.” You warn.

“What do you think will happen? Whose going to overhear us?”

You give her a dark look. “This isn’t the fucking place to parade out things you care about. Or to form attachments.” You tell her dryly, wisely so.

“Listen to me. Alssa. If the Hound was to court anyone, he wouldn’t look to a low born handmaiden with no family name, and no money. He would be matched to a great lady, from a fine house, of the Lannisters choosing. It would be a match to sew harmony. For an alliance. That’s never going to be the likes of me.” You tell her seriously.

Perhaps you tell yourself too.

“Whatever looks he gives me, please believe me, they are far fetched. I realise that now.” You inform her. “Mere- mild interest cause I once stitched a wound, and showed him kindness. Nothing more.”

She has the gall to look slightly cowed by the news. She nods. Folds some cloth in her hands.

When she speaks again, it’s so gentle, you cannot help but listen. She opens her mouth, flounders, but manages to find her words.

“Maybe if it’s his own choice?”

You laugh. It sounds like a resigned sigh. She really is a doe eyed optimist.

“Aye. Maybe so. But I’m not holding my breath. Alright? Can we lay the matter to bed?”

She nods in response. Blonde hair waving around her long neck.

“Now. Stop calling me Lady Hound. And help me with this cursed sheet. O’ Queen of wagging tongues.” You ordered with a smile. Kneeling on the feather mattress to stuff it into the corners.

If she was supposed to be scared of your grousing and commands, she bloody well didn’t show it.

She grinned. Leaning in to assist you. You would lose hope. That doesn’t mean she would.

You hit her with a pillow again. She blows a loose feather to stick in your hair. You laugh as you pluck it out.

You both had the bed remade and dressed prettily with satin covers and cushions. All nice and neat. You gather the linens.

She takes the empty goblets and plates back down to the kitchens. You’d see to it that the wine flagons would be refilled. Dornish and Arbor gold. Tyrion was also fond of his sweet treats. You’d bring back some plum cakes, candied almonds, honey fingers and dried dates. Left on the side to be devoured at his leisure.

You were back out into the darkened hallways of the keep. Walking among the slanted shade, where patches of bright sun chased it into the corners. Patterns fell in golden stars across the tiles from the shaped shutters. Bounced around the stone arches. Another warm day blessing over the capital. Sun drenched and airless.

You’re descending the stairs to the kitchens when there comes a shout for your attention. “Girl.”

You’ll never say how much you despise that nickname. You and Alssa both turn around and you plaster on a less than enthused smile.

You, peering over the basket of linens. And her, struggling to stop the platters from sliding about everywhere. A guard appears before you.

“The Queen has asked for wine. In her chambers. Quick about it.” Spits his sour command.

“Yes. Ser. I’ll come directly.” You beam. You glare daggers into his back as he’s marching away.

Alssa’s tongue shrivels in her mouth. She fidgets. Uneasy. “She won’t like that we kept her waiting this long.” She worried.

“Then she needs more servant girls to dance on her demanding whims.” You groan. Shoving the door to the stairs open. You nod her along first.

“Come along. Quick about it. I’ll bring the wine back up. You start on the laundry….and then tend to Tyrion’s sweets.” You offer.

Knowing full well Alssa never fairs well in front of the Queen. Her acidic whims make your friends tongue curl stupidly into her head.

You dump your things. Grab the wine and make haste back up the stairs with a tray full. Padding in the shade and thankful for the way it cools the sweat running down your brow.

Trying to stop the glasses from wobbling into each other. You put your hair up with a pretty ribbon earlier. But now you fear you look frazzled and run ragged. Atleast the revealing nature of your dress allowed the cool air to kiss your skin along these halls.

The thin peach fabrics that you hated the colour of, flowed around your legs. Belt cinching your waist in bright gold. The back of it billowed out from your shoulders as you walked. Footsteps slapping fast across the tiles to come to the Queens room.

Your heart falls when you see the pair of guards on shift outside her rooms.

Tullen and Landar.

Tullen was harmless. All brawn and no brains. Barely knew how to hold a sword. Probably didn’t know how to strap his armour on without aid.

But Landar beside him was a sneering pig of a man. Chauvinistic and thinking himself as golden handsome as the Lannisters he serves. Wheaten hair. Green eyes that you saw nothing but poison ivy in.

He’d gotten several a handmaid pregnant, so you’d heard. Abandoned them when he grew bored. Onto the next set of legs he could pry open with flirts and charm. The head maid, Kalla, had to ply the poor dears with moon tea. One was so far gone, now she worked in a third rate five penny brothel on the poor end of silk street, with her wailing babe in tow.

He leered when he saw you coming. Face split into a huge slimy grin.

The day you started he’d made himself known. Slyly dipping in front of you as you climbed the stairs to serve dinner. Arm blocking your path on the stair.

Asked if the hair on your head was as fierce red as the curls on your cunt. Asked you to let him see. You smiled and leaned in like butter wouldn’t melt.

You swiftly gave him a black eye for his troubles.

It was only just healing to yellow now. He had cursed you every name under the sun. You walked away grinning. He told everyone it happened during training.

“There she is. The red Keeps own red goddess.” He smarms. Tullen sniggers laughter. It wasn’t even funny.

You roll your eyes. Tiredly bite words at him. “Just open the fucking door before I kick you in the balls. Landar.” You stand and hold your tray. Not having the energy for this.

“You should take a look at my balls darling. You might be impressed.” He sneered. Sauntering close to you. Having the audacity to wink.

“I’d rather piss broken glass. Open the door before I have to explain to the Queen her wine is late because her prick guard got a half inch hard on.”

He opens the door with a chuckle. Remarkably doing as you bid.

“You just can’t face the fact I get you wet. That it?” He teases all husky. Tullen snorts laughter like an old boar.

“Believe me, any maiden hearing you speak, goes dry as sand.” You flirt nastily. Voice traced in venom.

Shoulder your way in past him. Biting back your ire as he leans across and pinches your ass as you cross the threshold. Made your teeth grit.

With your arms full, you can’t whirl around and slap him. Mores the pity. He closes the door with a chuckle.

You cross the rooms and make yourself invisible as you spot the queen sat at the table. You cross to her and lay the tray down.

“Took your time, girl.” She speaks. Voice low and disappointed.

Hair a golden curtain down her back. Famous Lannister gold. Her dress was the colour of a smoke tree you’d once seen in the wood. Dark vicious purple. As dark red as the wine she loves so much. A huge collar of gold jewels around her neck. You’d been warned of Cersei. How she would toy and torment. Prickly with most if she desired to be. She played games. The way predator plays with the mangled bodies of their prey. For sheer fun.

“Beg pardon. Your grace. I came as quick as I could.” You offer. Wondering if she’ll lash you to bits with her tongue for your insolence.

She waved you off. Your voice an irritation. Looked entirely bored of you already.

Holding out her hand expectedly. You placed the full glass in. She sips it quick. Eyes you up and down like a new challenge as she holds it out to be refilled.

“I don’t recall your face. You must be new.”

You nod as you pour slowly. Careful not to drip any. “I am. Your grace. I joined only a few weeks ago. When you and the king were up in the north.”

“Tell me your name.” She asked. And you gave it. You didn’t miss the slight twitch at the side of her pursed mouth.

“A northern name.” She commented dryly. As if it left a bad taste in her mouth that wine couldn’t mask.

“How is it you came to Kings Landing…”

“I’ve worked all over the seven. Your grace. I worked for the Starks when I was but a child. Then I was sent to Dorne to work for the Martells. I left there to work for some houses in Volantis. In Pentos for the Brenyls. And then for the Rogares in Braavos. And now, here.”

“Quite the traveller.” She said. You weren’t sure if it was a compliment or not.

“Well. You are certainly a damn sight prettier than any of the plump and dour faced northern maids I’ve had the misfortune to see these past few weeks. Even with that ungainly scar on your lip. How came you by such a thing?”

You wet your lips. Your tongue feeling over the thin white line that started at the middle of your cheek and ended at your top lip. A barely visible line now. It’s crinkled into your smile. Worked its way into your skin.

“A…disagreement. Your grace. With one of the free folk from beyond the wall. A clansman’s daughter took exception to something I had said. And she came for me with a bone handled dagger.”

Cersei looked positively hungry. Mouth curled to a smile. Now you have her intrigued. All it took was bloodlust.

“You’ve been beyond the wall….” She stated. Acting like you’d cut her throat any moment. “You’re not a filthy fucking wildling, are you?”

“No. Your grace.” You lied a little.

“Your accent isn’t northern either. Did you grow bored of its dull tones? Quite right it is a hideous dialect. So harsh on the ears” She seeks.

You smile. Shouldering every expression far far back. You’d reveal nothing to this viper save what she asked. Let her poison drain away elsewhere.

“What happened?” She asked. Holding her glass up yet again to be filled. “To the girl you had a disagreement with?”

“It was eventually settled by the Chieftan. Your grace. She nearly took my eyes. Not before I took her hand clean off.”

Her smile grew very wide. Obscenely so. She looked delighted.

“You don’t sound very regretful to have maimed a girl.” She said with a gaze locked to yours that unnerved you.

You smile back. Polite. Cold.

 “I’d do it again if occasion called for it. Your grace.”

She hummed.

“Maybe you are a savage.” She decided. Looking you up and down.

“That’s the best thing a woman in your low position can be, I suppose. Here you’ll get lots of… unwanted attention from the guards and knights and the like.” She warned with glee.

“Though I imagine if you’ve been around savages such as wildlings and north men. I trust you can keep yourself out of trouble and being raped well enough.”

You swallow.

“I can. Your grace. I’ve survived many less civilised households.”

“I wouldn’t call this place civilised.” She says before a gulp of wine.

She takes a moment to consider you. Tasting the grapes in her mouth. Tilting her head at your attire.

You had a pleasing figure, strong. Built of hard work and an even harder life. Hair as red as cinnamon or spice.

You were brutally pretty. In the way something precious hewn from rough northern rock is pretty. Tough stock she imagines. Your father must have been a big brute. And your mother must have been slight and pretty. To give you a good mixture of the two. She imagined that’s where your flaming locks came from.

“You may survive this place yet. So long as no one tries to hold your lovely red hair in one hand and slit your pretty throat with the other.” She beams.

You don’t say anything. At first, you cling to silence.

You can’t tell if she’s treading the line of idolising you, patronising you, or scaring you. Possibly all three at once. As was her way.

“I believe it a woman’s duty. To be able to defend herself at all times. Your grace.” You tell her slowly.

“A noble thought. My dear. Let’s hope you keep your head long enough to treasure it.” She clucks.

Her smile seems sour. She sips her wine before she speaks again. In no rush. A queen cannot be rushed.

“Do you know. I heard the most hilarious story from Lord Baelish…. At the Kings Tourney. Apparantly there was an, unfortunate, incident at the feast. Three of our guards were found among the tents dead. One had a snapped neck. One a dagger sized hole in his throat. And the other had his gut torn open. Isn’t that just so incredibly funny...”

You meet her eyes. They look almost black in the light as she savours the flip of fear in your own.

“Lord Baelish also informed told me they tried to harm that plain little blonde thing that you’re close too. And that someone noble must have kindly intervened… to save the girl from being fucked bloody into the dirt by all three of them.” She prattled on. “Poor thing.”

Each word struck more horror into you. She knows.

She was testing you.

“My sons sworn shield, the Hound, assures me that the issue was purely harmless. Some brawl over a roast chicken… or some wine…. Stupid men being stupid cunts. Very interesting.” She rapped her fingers on the table.

You stay frozen in place. Holding the wine flagon.

“Are you a maiden, sweetness?” She asks out of nowhere.

You’re too stunned to answer. Your mouth flounders on an answer. She talks over you.

“You want my advice… choose a man. A big brute of one. Seduce him. Make him want no other. Make him beg on his hands and knees for you. So cuntstruck he can barely speak. Part your pretty thighs and let him take you rough. Break you in hard. It’s far better than having it taken from you by a man you don’t want. You can avoid disappointment that way.” She tells.

You don’t want to divulge but it seems you have no choice. She’s staring at you so intensely. Picking the secrets out of you like birds take snails from their safe shells. Like the way her son sits around all day, doing naught but torturing poor animals and picking the wings off flies.

“I was broken in…. rough, a long time ago. Your grace.”

You fight a shudder that rolls up from your belly. Threatens acid bile at the back of your throat. You can hear the creak of the wooden canopy bed as it shifted. The gale howling with lashing snow at the window. Your tears falling molten hot on linen bedding. The blood between your thighs and the burning pain-

She seemed pleased with your answer.

“Pretty face like that. I’m not suprised. Though that is good. That will save you further pain when it doubtless happens again.” She accepted. Sipping more red.

“Nothing men like more than taking a rare beauty and making her succumb. Making her theirs. That’s the thing about beauty, they want to keep it for themselves. A big strapping northerner was it? Lucky he didn’t split you in half. Precious.” She condescends.

You nod. Try and keep your composure. You don’t know how you do.

He had taken you. But it was everything he’d done to have you, to get you. That was where the pain truly lay.

“Yes. Your grace.”

“Oh listen to me. Now, I have gone on. Haven’t I.. refill my wine. And stay awhile won’t you….I may need more when my odious brother arrives.”

You nod. Do as instructed. You pour her wine and then wait to the side of the room as ordered.

The doors shift and whine open not long after, as Lord Tyrion arrived. Accompanied by as usual by the ever lyrical and flighty Bronn. He greeted the Queen sunnily. If only to see how it made her lips tighten again.

“I see you have wine and… oh, incredibly pretty company.” Tyrion turned his eyes to you as he strolled past. Shooting you his clever charming wink.

Bronn nodded in weathered recognition at you too. Keeping his thumbs slung on his belt. He was a decent enough solider. Loyal to the bone. So long as the coin followed in the right direction.

He helps himself to a seat at the table. You move to pour wine for him and his sister. Bronn stays on the far side of the room. Arms across his front. Assessing silently. The drapes fluttering in the wind crashed into his leather boots.

“I see you’ve met our new handmaiden.” Tyrion remarks to his sister, as you pour her cup and then turn to fill his.

She sneers. “I have. Pretty is she not? You must warn your guards and men to keep their hands to themselves. Seems she has quite the reputation for cutting them off.”

She eyes you. You see joy in her expression. She liked toying with the little things below her station. Pick pick picking at things like the red keep starlings.

You flush. Embarrassment staining you. You retreat to stand at the side of the room when the wine is done being poured. You bite back your expressions as much as possible.

Tyrion lets out an impressed laugh. Bronn smiles at you. “I know she comes from a cold northern climate. This is no news to my ears.”

If Cersei saw the scars to your back when she turned, it was just another thing she chose to ignore about you. Clearly she was moving on to skewering her next victim.

“Can we get on with the business at hand rather than prattle on about a low-born maiden.” She requests.

You fade into the wall as they talk. Only coming forward when wine drained to empty in their cups. The door whines again and your heart leaps into high alert at the sight of Joffrey striding his way into the room-

That meant-

Your eyes cast across to the door as the frame was amply filled by a very familiar wide figure. He had to stoop to avoid catching his head on the doorcase.

You kept your head high. Even though the mere nearness of him made you want to catch his eye.

It was like trying to ignore the ocean, even as it fills your lungs and drags you under.

He followed his prince into this room. Staying stood at the far side like you. Like a marble column. Or some stout furniture. That’s what you small folk were reduced to when the nobles and royalty needed to talk. You were resigned to the fringes of the room.

He daren’t glance your way. You don’t look his. The connection between you burned and throbbed. A crumbling bridge you can’t step foot on.

If you look it will be obvious. They have sharp eyes here too. They will know.

Yet. You can’t help but conceal a small smile at the memory of your lips on his.

He was a clunky and awkward kisser. That made you endeared to him all the more. Kissed like he never had before. A bump of lips. The hit of his teeth before he relaxed to it.

Like he was a cursed saint, touching his mouth to something holy for the first time in his life. The shocking divine revelation that, bleed like a lightning bolt through him, that for once, his ugly bark and his even uglier fucking face, hadn’t scared someone in getting close.

Who are you trying to fool, ugly old dog.

She’s too pretty for the likes of you-

Cersei called your name again. “Wine.” She barked. Held out her cup. You moved obediently to fill it.

This gave the Hound all the permission he needed to run his unworthy eyes all over you as you moved forwards. The cut of your back beyond that coral dress. Flare of your hips. The arch of your arms.

The long coppery sway of your hair. You’d wrestled it up today. Unruly, same as you. You’d swept into a ribbon that barely contained it. Some stuck with sweat to the back of your neck. Making the waves dark.

He lets his eyes roam your silky skinned shoulders. The juxtaposition of deformed skin, knotted with tugging scars and then theres the graceful fluid arch of your spine.

He wonders how his hand would fit the span of your waist.

He nestles his eyes in slope of your neck. The side of your jaw. That made a man yearn to link his arms around that waist of yours. Rest his scruffy chin down on the curve. Follow the slope of your neck with his lips alone. Map out what made you sigh. Keen. Arch. If he playfully bit the corner of your jawbone and left a love-bite, how you’d chide him and praise him in equal measure.

Hear the beautiful sultry whisper of your mouth making the shape of his name. The first thing that’s ever made his name seem holy. Sandor.

Not Hound. Not Dog.

Not something collared. A snapped command to call a canine to heel. To bite. Maim. To kill.

For some reason that sight of your back again, made his whole mid-section heat to see it. The way your neck glistened with sweat. Inching its way down your back. He tore his eyes away before he did anymore damage.

Before any more damage was done to him, more like.

He never knew something so pretty could be so devastating.

Sword. Steel. Armour. Those were things he knew could devastate. Could cleave limbs. Could hack a man to bits.

He was beginning to understand how a woman could be doubly as devastating.

You came back to your post. Stood off to the side. He looked down. If he concentrated hard enough, yellow jasmine ebbed along on the shift of air after you. It was like torture. To be so close and so far.

You listened to Joffrey squeal when he didn’t get his way. His mothers attempts at soothing and placating his wishes. Tyrion’s sly underhanded comments. All in all it made for a lively gathering. Watching the sun slant across the room as it crawled across the sky into late afternoon.

“I say. Dog.” Comes Joffrey’s shrill exclaim.

He stands to attention a little straighter. Scowl comes through a tad heavier.

“They’ve hired a new maid. I see. A new toy. A bone for you to play with.”

You looked across to The Prince. The jug slipped a little. Your palms were sweaty. You keep your tongue tamed. It would give him so much delight to see it cut out for a cross word against him. He’d slain men for less.

Sandor treads softly. Cause this is a trap. He’s sure of it. He shifts a little in his place. Says nothing.

You despise how they rib him. Make him the brunt of their ugly jokes. No wonder he snaps and snarls. He’d have to grow skin an inch thick for all the slurry and nastiness they hurl his way. It wasn’t a wonder his temper flared so.

“You must watch her, Hound. I fear the girl has survived something even worse than you. And lived to tell the tale. It’s a most sordid story.” Tyrion remarks.

You mood deflates. He’d gotten the story out of you the other night. After he was in his cups.

“Oh?” Cersei asks as she holds her wine glass aloft. You move across and fill it. You’d be needing another flagon soon. Most of one she’d drunk herself.

“Our lady here has quite the run in with a beast. Judging by the state of her back. Quite a shocking sight. Marring something so beautiful.” Tyrion explained.

“How came you by the scars again? Lady? Do delight us. I do tire of small council natterings.”

You wet your lips. Try and keep your face neutral.

“I grew up near Winterfell. Your grace. My- my father had left us when I was very small. With my mother expecting, and two brothers. We survived on very little. And with winter on the way, I…”

“Go on.” Joffrey screeched. Impatient.

“I ended up poaching a deer from the Wolfswood. The local lord caught me and uh… had me set upon by his hunting hounds.”

Joffrey laughed. It was the bitterest sound you’d ever heard.

“They tore open my back. I was brought before the steward of the north to face charges. But he took mercy on me instead. Gave me and my mother employment in the castle kitchens. He considered it better to put us to work than to have me hanged and see a family starved.”

“What a weak man. I’d have had your pretty red bitch head mounted on my wall for such a crime.” Joffrey leered.

Sanders jaw grit. Tight. He’s surprised he didn’t snap something. His hand shifted on his pommel. The noise of his gauntlets made a crunch.

“Indeed your grace. It was very wrong of me to do so. Though I paid for my crime. But to my defense, it was either that, or watch my mother, heavy with child, and my two younger siblings, starve to death.” You told him.

“Noble.” Cersei spoke the word slowly at you. Heady with meaning.

When you went to the side to fetch more wine. Joffrey commanded you to stop. And turn so he could see this scar.

When you didn’t move fast enough, he pulled your dress. Shoved it to one side at the back so he could see. Yanked you towards him with the strength of it.

“Careful darling.” Cersei frowned. “We must be gentle with our pretty things.”

You steeled yourself. Feeling this rabid Prince gawk at the ruined skin of your back. The rough red troughs and dips that made the ugly constellation of tooth and claw that had torn at you. You could still see the indented bite marks. You’d had it sealed with flame to stop infection. Damn nearly killed you it hurt so much. You’d passed out from the pain.

Now you were fucking entertainment. You did as he bid. Eyes kept low as you turned. Showed him the worst scars of you; the mottled uneven skin of your back.

“Very distressing. How ugly.” Joffrey spat in glee. The words studded you like arrowheads. You felt shame sweep over you. Hot and searing from the inside out.

You dared look up. Because the way your throat got thick with emotion was too much to bear. You set your eyes on the far wall.

Where the Hound stood.

His gaze caught yours. Something in his eyes read as pity. Anger too. Hard as axe blades. Twice as sharp. Swirling and sudden on your behalf.

Of these fucking rabid royals making you as much a joke as him. Parading you around like some dinner party piece they could bring out for show.

He saw steely determination in your eyes. You would not flinch. You would not shed one tear.

There’s a good little maid. Don’t give in to them.

You’re not ugly. The ugliness lies with those golden cunts. Not you.

He sent you a nod. A jerk of his chin that bolstered more than you could say. You lowered your eyes.

“If you please, your grace. The flagons are near empty.” You stated.

“Go…” Cersei dismissed. You nodded. They were done with prodding at you.

“Red bitch.” Joffrey called after you.

Head down. You passed by the hound. Flickered his eyes to you briefly. Watching you cross to leave. Sweet heady Jasmine filled his nose as passed by. He savoured the sweetness. Each little round yellow petal of it.

His eyes roamed to the doors when he heard that blonde cunt guard outside speak to you. How he’d leered and turned your way. That made him grimace a frown.

“I didn’t mean you to make an exhibition of the girl.” Tyrion chided his nephew.

Joffrey looked irritated by that. “Why should I care about a wenches feelings?”

Tyrion turned his eyes to Cersei. Who seemed mildly content with it all.

“A good handmaiden doesn’t deserve being dragged through mud, for your amusement. She is your subject.”

The Queens eyes narrowed. “Sore spot? Fucked her, have you brother?” She asks.

Tyrions jaw grit.

Sandor squeezed his sword hilt so tight. His fingers shook. He knew the Imp liked girls such as you. Dear god it better not be true. Please no. He couldn’t take it.

“I have not.”

His chest released under his armour. A full deep breath. A relief.

“I know you like fat assed redheads. Fiery nature. Nice tits too.” She dug.

He eyes her for a moment. “And we all know your type. Dear sister.” He tilted his head at her.

She went silent at that. Looked as if he’d struck her. Sandor tried not to crook a smile. Her face was ten kinds of acidic.

“Are we done here?” She asks.

“Try not to make fools of your staff. Lord knows the crown has enough enemies. You could use a friendly girl or two about the place. Or was it her youth and beauty that set your teeth on edge….” He asked as he slid from his seat, cockily, to leave the room.

Cersei just glared.

Tyrion took his leave with a sunny goodbye. Bronn followed. Always eyeing Sandor like he couldn’t quite believe anyone could be that tall. They left.

The Hound found himself rather fond of the Imp. For once.

~

It was late into a hot summer night and you were exhausted. After your interrogation with the Queen, and Joffrey, you’d gone to hide in the kitchens awhile. Sent another girl back up with the wine. You felt like you had to go put sharp wolf teeth in, to face down the Queen once again.

Many duties fell to you of an evening. You were sent to serve wine and plates spilling over with fresh fruits or platters of stuffed wild goose at dinner. Pouring ale or wine and working your way along the feast tables.

Elbow deep in suds, scrubbing plates when you were sent back below stairs. Taking up sweet cakes and treats for the next course. You also had to run trays to rooms for those who couldn’t make it downstairs to the hall. Lucky fucks.

You must’ve run miles around that castle serving food. You’d be fortunate if you got a spare crumb or a cup of weak ale at the end of this long night.

Just your luck you got stuck delivering food to Maester Pycelle - who was a doddery pain in the ass when it came to how he liked his chicken cooked.

First it was too dry. Then too salty. And now he picked at the tray in front of you asking you ten questions about how the potatoes were cooked. Cream or butter. Onions or shallots. Were the turnips mashed or sliced.

You just about kept your tongue tamed to answer him sweetly. You’d fetched wine and the syrup-soaked plum pudding he liked. At fucking last, he seemed pleased. But still instructed you to change his sheets as he dined.

You despised the feeling of his eyes weighing on you as you bent over to untuck the sheets. Took out the pillows. Fluffed the sagging feather mattress as you were taught. Dripping sweat with an armful of laundry, you took your leave. He was curled in like a dried winter leaf, over his food. Chewing loudly and slurping wine as you left.

You stood outside his door a moment. Catching your breath. The dirty sheets you heaped in an empty basket on the landing and began to lug it down the turret stairs. Your sandals slapping with each step. The dark way barely lit by the bronze sconces high on the walls. Bleeding yellow wax down the stone.

The stone wall is clammy cold when you put your hand to it. Helping you balance as you rounded the spiral, coming to the landing where the night wind poured through the window arches, tumbling leaves into the hall.

You look up and nearly jump out clean your skin to see the archway beyond is filled by a wide male body.

You reel back, clutching the sheets to your chest. Back against the spiral wall.

When you see it’s the Hound, you instantly relax.

“Seven fucking hells.” You curse. Putting one hand across your heaving chest. Sweat kissing your hand.

He winced like he was sorry.

Flicked his eyes down for a second, sheepish, bad dog, before looking back up at you. Hair obscuring the ruined twisted side of his face.

“Didn’t mean to scare you.” He uttered lowly. The shivering candlelight from around you danced across the hard planes of his face. Made his eyes glitter gold. Stroked across his strong dark beard.

It’s stuns you. In that moment. How handsome he looked.

“For a big man, you don’t half move quiet.” You tell him with a grin. Trying to catch your breath. Aching raw hands and tired arms holding the basket.

He considered you for a long second before he spoke. Chewing over the words. “I didn’t see you at dinner.”

You parse that into context.

He was concerned about you. How you’d been a gap in his day where usually you filled routine.

“Someone had to run dinner trays to half the lazy bastards in this castle.” You told him, a flick of mirth on your mouth.

He stepped closer. A shift of his armour. Metal scraping metal as he came nearer. He still smelt like plain white soap and armour polish.

“You were brave today. Letting them corner you like that.” He told.

You knew him well enough to know he rarely barked words he didn’t mean. No lie crosses his tongue. You want honesty? He’ll give it straight as an arrow.

“I’ve been cornered before. by worse. Their empty threats don’t scare me.” You tell him with a shake of your head.

“Not much scares you. Does it?” He asks with something that’s nearly a grin on his lips.

He steps in so close, he rests his hand on the stone wall beside you.

His gauntlets are off. You come to comprehend just how huge his hands are. Even without them. Spread out on the wall next to you. Tanned skin. Knotted with scars on his knuckles. Dusted with hair that’s as dark as his head.

His other hand takes the basket of dirty laundry and casts it to the side. Dropped at your feet.

You swallow. Peering back up at him.

“Not very good at being scared. Far better at being armed. And angry. Like you.” You explain calmly. He’d expect no less from a northern lass.

He lets out a slow breath. You can smell red wine on him. Red wine and salt from roasted meat.

“You kissed me.” He remarked softly.

So softly you could barely hear him over the whistling breeze that flowed in the halls around you. Could only make out his deep voice for the snap and burn of the candles.

He could barely wrap his mind around it. Even now, seeing you again like this, he still couldn’t fathom it.

“Aye. I did.” You answer back. No shame. Forthright. Eyes blazing at him in the half light.

No retracting the fact. You owned to it.

“What’s a nice girl like you doing, kissing an ugly old dog like me?” He seeks.

Your heart falls gently in your chest. Sinks down like stone in the ocean. Delves somewhere deep and turgid and cold.

He thinks you’ve been sent to seduce or beguile him by some unseen hand.

He thinks you kissing him was a plot.

You try something. Hold to that bravery he spoke of.

You reach up and gently use your thumb to brush away the hair that he let cover one side of his cheekbone. You unveil his ruined scars.

Let your eyes run all over his face. You feel him tense when you lay your soft palm to his cheek and jaw. The skin was smooth, yet ridged and bumped. Not unpleasant to the touch. And you look at that side of him without fear. Without judgement.

He tensed. Jaw tight. Like he expects you to shrink away. Retract your hand. To run away screaming.

That’s what every other fucker does. Why not you?

“You’re not ugly to me.” You explain. “And I kissed you cause I fucking wanted too.”

He sneers. “That’s not what proper ladies are supposed to want. Not from this.” He gestured to his ruined burned face with one thick finger. “Not from the likes of me.” He growls.

“I look like a proper lady to you?” You raise one red brow.

He took a deep breath. His eyes turned to hungry pits. He’s not shy about dragging his eyes to your chest, your lips. Meets your eyes again.

You see pure want in the turn of his smile. The naked nature in his eyes turned black. Lust.

“Aye. Red. You sure as hell do look like a damn lady to me. Got half those idiot guards downstairs gagging and drooling to stick their cocks in you.”

“I don’t want them.” You state clearly.

You want him?

“You’re a fucking mad bitch. You know that.”

His breath comes heavier now.

He steps in so you’re nearly chest to chest. Thankfully the high step you were on, brings you nearly level to his height.

“Sandor?” You ask. Placing your hand on the front of his gorget.

He grunts in recognition. Eyes stuck on your lips. His thumb comes up and brushed the pad of your chin. Hard rough calluses against such silk. It shouldn’t be so.

“I want to kiss you again.” You breathe.

His response is his huge paw of a hand, capturing the side of your hip. He nearly yanks you off that stair, bringing you into him. Your flesh moulding soft and tender under his brute hands.

He didn’t let you have the choice this time. He pushed his mouth to yours, and kisses you so hard, the wall and his hand was the only thing keeping you upright.

Your hand slips up over his shoulder. Folding over the back of his neck as you deepen the kiss. Chase the fiery hunger in his lips. He was impatient. Kissed like he fought, towered over all and took what he wanted.

When you feel the pull of his teeth on your bottom lip, that heady velvet taste of tannic red wine in your mouth, you smile into this kiss, which makes him break it.

You don’t take your arm off him. He doesn’t take his off you. You try to catch your breath. His forehead nearly pressed to yours. His thumb sliding under your chin to cup his jaw. Rough fingers finding your jawbone.

He steps back and wets his lips. Trying to fight like you hadn’t just reached in and plucked his damn soul out through that kiss.

He drew you in again. Your back arched hands slipping up to tangle in his hair. Stupidly soft black mane through your fingers.

“The fuck you doing to me… hmm?” He grunts. His fingers finally delve into a section of your hair down by your neck. Running red and sleek through his fingers. Your pulse leaps when he touched you. You feel drunk. Dazed.

“Trying to focus on protecting that boy Prince and all I can think of is you. Your damn red hair. That yellow Jasmine soap. The way you fucking smile back at me. Follows me round like my own damn shadow.” He curses. Like he wants to tear your gizzards out for making him so unfocused.

“Like a song I can’t get out my head. Rain tapping on the roof. Driving me half fucking mad. You are dangerous. Woman.”

Your grin blinds him. “My apologies.”

You stretch on your tiptoes to kiss him again. Maybe to soothe the ache. He growls into it. Like the ornery old dog he is.

You sigh happily when you feel him kiss you back again. You sweep your tongue to his lower lip. He all but crushed you into the wall to squeeze you close for more. Hand on your hip seizing onto more of you. Squeezing the side of where your hip meets your ass. Made you gasp, arching your body to his plate armour. It was a crying shame he couldn’t feel your tits through this soft dress.

Footsteps on the far end of the hall make you break away. He watches your eyes flush wide in panic. He steps back from you and spins to see who it is. Cloak sweeping to the back of his legs. Crashing into his armour.

You bend for your basket. Heave it back into your arms. Pray your lips weren’t too kiss-bruised. They feel it. Bright red.

“Dog.” You bobbed a nod at him. Corners of your smile stuck in his eyes. He couldn’t tear his eyes away if his life depends on it.

He leered at you. Darkly. He knew your game.

Don’t give them an inch.

“Maid.” He greeted. Gruff. Short. Cutting to unfriendly ears.

You go your separate ways.

You off with the soiled washing. He down the halls. You smile mildly at the fellow handmaiden you pass along the way. Her arms laden with a tray. Taliya. You think her name is. Raven haired. Always friendly and quiet as a mouse.

She bids you good evening. Soft like the coo of a dove. You smile back. Friendly. Nothing more.

When she turns past you and down another hall, you dare turn over your shoulder.

Still he stands, that giant figure hulking in the shadows. Safe, far away from any flame. As he likes it.

Eyes glazed with honey gold candle light as he watched you walk away. A small smile decorating the corner of his mouth at the sway of your hips and ass, in that damned flowy dress. Before he ducked out of sight and down the spiral stairs.

Off to go splash cold, very cold, water in his face. Try and calm himself. A long walk around the keep should do. Though he well knows there’ll be no getting rid of your influence. Not for all the tits on silk street. You were danger and liability all wrapped in guise, and he wanted you.

Gods be damned it didn’t make sense.

You smiled all the way back down to the kitchens. Dirty laundry and duties be damned.

~

It was the colour of cut open pomegranates. Or spilled Lannisport wine. Gold stitching. Worn with your gold belt cinched around your waist. Showing your station of course. You don’t dare forget it. It’s gauzy and the back of the halter trails behind you when you move. Leaving jasmine settling in its wake.

You’ve put your silver pendant on again. The one bearing the stranger. You will endure many things from this keep, but brandishing yourself in gold seems a step too far. You’ll keep your silver and wear it gladly. An ode for your cold, beloved north.

You walk along the tables and pour when a cup is raised in your direction. A very polite summons compared to the shout of ‘maid’ or the snapping of fingers.

The worst was when noblemen’s eyes roamed up and down your figure as you poured. When they grinned like jackals at the pinch of your waist, the fat of your plump ass, the roundness of your cleavage.

They commented on the fierceness of your hair. Molten copper. The lewdness of the river of red that ran down your back. Kissed by fire. And nothing drew men in faster than the offered warmth of a flame.

Some dared curl their arm around you as you stood and poured. Patted your thigh. Reduced you to a working whore with a pat of a hand.

Tried to grope you as they chewed, open mouthed, on their food and drank their fill. You’d seen better manners in a hog pen.

You won’t be coerced into a lap with an easy curl of an arm. Won’t be petted politely on a man’s knee, and let yourself be told to behave like a pretty little slip of a girl.

You weren’t the target. Not like other ladies. No. You were the piercing arrow.

Luckily, no such attentions come sleazing your way tonight. Though you do glare sharply at a man who open handed slaps the ass of your fellow handmaiden, Raela, across from you.

She flinched away. Scurried off. Eyes down. Embarrassed as they roared laughter. The man’s wife shot him enough daggers to trust him not to do it again.

You didn’t trust him not to repeat the offence.

Sandor watched your sharp eyes flay the man - even from across the room.

You won’t forget that indignity.

The north remembers.

He can’t take you off his eyes. Couldn’t be done.

He can’t look past the way your face stiffens. Cold northern rock. The twin discs of them sparkle in the dim. Like swords and silk. Brimmed with a hardness that he recognised was unique to you.

When that same scum commands you for more wine, with a snap of portly fingers, you cross to him, silky as a flower swaying on the wind.

You smile. Pour dutifully. You flirt for fucks sake. That blinding, blooming flash of your smile. Fucker falls for it.

Gods help him.

You do make sure to spill a little on his lap. Just to watch his displeasure. It’s not much, it’s not a dagger rammed in his neck for touching what isn’t his. But it soothes you.

He boots from his seat and shakes off wine drips. Curses you. “Can’t you pour. You silly, bitch.”

“Beg pardon my lord.” You soothe sweetly to his ragged treatment. Staining his golden tunic. Shaking wine off his arm. Red spots falling to the tiles. Not the kind of red you’d like to see fall, sadly.

His silent and bored wife rolls her eyes. She looks like she’d given up talking long ago.

He sits back down with a boar-like grunt.

Moments like that, make your fingers itch, impatient for the familiar hilt of your dagger. As if reaching for an old friend.

It appears you weren’t the only one;

When you glanced back up the head table, you couldn’t help your eyes wandering straight to Sandor;

Who now had his hand curled around his sword hilt. Eyes goring into the head of the man who’d just insulted you. He’d stepped forwards by an inch too. Protective.

You catch his eye. When you’re in the shadows again. Too far away to make out his expression. But the gleam in them. You know that.

Maybe that’s because it’s private. Maybe that gleam is only for you.

It definitely is.

That gleam spoke loudly of your shared secret.

You smile at him. He scowls back. But his eyes softened. Not by much. Enough for you to recognise.

You were stood, in waiting to be beckoned again as a cup bearer, when you weren’t fetching new dishes. You were free to let your eyes roam the hall. To turn your face to where the high table soaked up light like the sun.

Naturally, your eyes do roam to where the King and Queen dine. Cersei eats with a pursed unpleasant mouth as her King slouched. Belches, gulps, shouts with raining spittle for more wine, and as much fatty roast as they can pile on his plate. Rips the meat off the bone with jagged teeth like you’ve seen wildlings do.

Myrcella and Tommen eat like little sparrows. Children both. Demure. Milk cheeked. Baby teeth. Too innocent for this filthy court.

Joffrey stabs at his bloody meat like an executioner. Scowling around the place as usual. Liking the blood that’s seeping down all over his plate from cold meat. His usual state of poison, piss, and vinegar.

Your eyes go beyond that prick Prince. To him again.

Where you stand to the side, it gives you a grand vantage. No one else would call your position that. But you would. You’re lucky. It affords you license to run your eyes across the stoic and massive beast of a figure.

He combs the crowds ahead of him. Hunting for any danger that might still arise. Those whiskey dark, sad eyes hunt shadow and light both, on duty for any glimmer of unrest.

He must’ve relaxed. You know how he slings his hang over the hilt of his sword if he’s expecting trouble. A test to those with the balls who would dare try and take on the hound. The bunching of those huge stacked shoulders before unrest brews. It’s like he’s sniffed the air and found it wanting. Can taste danger. Found it ready to simmer with danger.

One gauntlet hand rests on his belt. The other loosely back by his side.

Every time you come back up from the kitchens with a plate in your hand, his eyes met you at the doorway like he’d missed you. It’s thrilling.

You want to get him alone again. Get your hands all over him. Strip down those pieces of armour and feel the chest you know is built like a barrel. Frankly, his armour was offensive in that it didn’t add much to his bulk. It rudely hid it.

You’re dying, mouth dry with it, to feel the musculature of his bare chest under your palms. Matted with that thick dark hair you spied the first time you saw him. It damn near crawled up his neck to meet his beard. His gorget hid it from your sight.

He’s built like a brute beast and you can’t deny the appeal of it any longer. They poke and prod and call him ugly. You know how mistaken they all are.

You’d seen the way he sits and looks when he’s alone. When he thinks no one can see. Sadness tinged him. He hid it well with wine and silence. He snarks, snarls, pushes people away. Acts as if it’s to protect them, when maybe, it’s the other way round.

Men like him, you’ve found, have bigger softer hearts in their chests than they let on.

When there’s no anger to him. No battle to fight. No throat to cut or skulls to crush. The brute hate empties out of him. The fractured pieces of a strong warrior stood in post too long, is all that’s left behind.

You’d been captured by Sandor Clegane. Possibly from the instance of your first sight of him. Try and deny it as you might. To push it down or away for both your safety. To tuck your affection away so it can’t be found out, used against you.

It was becoming evident your eyes could take to no other. Wanted no other. It’s been so long since you wanted anyone.

And he wanted you right back. Fuck. Safety be damned to hell. It was maddening.

More calls for wine take you off with your flagon. Snap your attention from your thoughts. When your jug runs dry you edge along the shadows of the hall. Walking along to the kitchen stair.

At the shadow bathed mouth of the doorway, a guard with a lecherous shining smile awaits you.

You slow your steps and brace back when you see who’s just come on shift. Standing guard to the doors to the lower bowels of the kitchens. Landar.

Who smirks when he slots himself right in your way. Bedecked in red and gold like the Lannister cunt lion he believes himself to be.

Acting like he was birthed in this castle, to Tywin Lannister himself. Brought squealing into the world between a Queen’s thighs. Promised a princes life. When in reality he came from nothing. One squalling child among several, clinging to his mother’s teat, sprung from in a piss and dung soaked cobbled street, in a decrepit slum in the Hook.

Ale sits stout and foul on his breath. He hooks an arm to yours. Reels you tight in. You keep your spine steel rigid.

“There she is. You look awfully fetching tonight. Red bitch in red.” He drawled lowly. Blue eyes trailing up and down you.

Your eyes narrow to ice. Packed tight with it. Hating that the nickname Joffrey stained you with, was sticking around. Like a flea stuck in ink.

“Haven’t you got a five penny whore to go disappoint.” You snap. Jerking your arm back.

His grip tightens. So deep you already know it will come to nightshade bruises.

He grits his jaw. Smells the perfume you put on earlier. Mingling with the clean scent of sweat as to your labours. Pretty kissable flesh. Salt and jasmine. He likes that you’re a punchy bitch. Someone to cut his teeth on. Difficult and stubborn as a storm.

He acts as if you haven’t spoken. Like he’s taken your tongue with hot pincers.

“So pretty. I don’t half wonder if you’ve put this dress on for some big oaf to tear off you and fuck you in….” He wonders. Eyes tracing over your pendant. And as he was such a rat of a man, they traced your tits after too.

“You wouldn’t be lucky enough to know.” You snapped. You twist and take your arm back off him.

“I like your fire well enough. No point in a girl who lays there and takes it easy.” He smiles. It’s every kind of slimy and insulting.

“I’ll take your tongue out if you dare touch me again.” You crowd him close to the wall. Square your proud shoulders. Level the jut of your chin.

You watch him. You watch every tick and twitch of his face and body.

Your silence should unnerve him. But he’s too stupid and arrogant for that.

He snatches your flagon off you whilst you’re stood seething for a defence. Tipped the dregs in it to his lips. Some red trickled over his gold beard. Down his chin. He wets his lips with it. The sight makes you feel ill.

“Ladies everywhere would curse you to all the gods for taking my tongue from their cunts.” He explains. Flickering his wine stained tongue at you with filthy intent. Chucking your flagon to clatter to the floor.

You’ve had enough.

You catch your ankle behind his. Jerk your leg back and unbalance him on the step. Shove forwards with your elbow braced over his chest plate. Shoving him to the wall. Uncaring if you cracked his head on the uneven stones.

You snatch his own dirk out his belt. Hold it dangerously close to his crotch. Let the knifes tip kiss his laces.

His eyes widen with the way you caught his drunken stupid self, off guard. It wasn’t hard. You knew your way around the gaps in armour. Neck. Knees. Under arms. Soft spots which give when pushed or stabbed. Even when the rest of the body is covered in steel plating.

“Come near me, or any Handmaiden again. I’ll turn you into a fucking eunuch and feed your pathetic cock and balls to the Kings hunting hounds. Understood?” You seethe.

He snarls at you. Trying to think of something clever to say.

You weren’t some meek southern woman. Your hands had known fighting. You’d taken blows. Delivered some. If they try to crush you down, they will be disappointed that you won’t just curl up and give in.

“Icy north bitch.” He snarls.

You smile.

“Don’t forget it. I’ve killed men twice your size with no more than a blunt dinner knife. Now fuck off.” You bite.

You push him away. Let him stumble down the stairs until he finds his balance. His knife you crudely chuck back to him. Clatters against his chest. He cups it to his front, and glares. Disappears off down the stairs in a clank of armour. You hope he stays away for good.

You tread the halls until some of the guests begin to drift away. Cersei takes the young royals to their bed. The king stays to drink and slur, and stuff his face, alongside his favourite trusted courtiers.

Joffrey grows bored. Not enough things to maim. He shrills at his guard dog as he descends, stalks away with the Hounds shadow covering his back.

His eyes scan for you just once more. Flickering across to meet yours. One last look. Before he must bay to heel. A leashed hound forced to obey.

You watch him file out. Cloak swinging off his shoulders with the sway of his steps. Huge longsword gleaming candlelight at his back. The creak of the doors as they opened, and shudder closed.

Your heart sinks a little. Nothing worth looking at now.

You soldier on in your duties as guests stay to dance and dine. Drunken revelry behind to seep across the crowds - following the kings example no doubt. The bards play. Dancing starts.

You head down the stairs once more.

More ale. More wine.

More of the plum pies and be quick about it, girl.

More lamb, wench.

The smell of roasted meats, duck fat scalded potatoes and stewing spices cloaked heavy the air when you walked back into the kitchens, it practically sung your name. It smelled so divine. A rich and insulting pull on your currently empty belly.

Hunger curdled deep at your stomach with the sharp charm of a knife. Appetite long denied in favour as usual of a night on your already aching feet.

But you knew the punishment if you dared pick off royal plates. Darria would thrash you til she broke the skin.

Your lunch had been hours previous. A dry heel of brown bread and a small bowl of thin stew with scrappy game meat, and some brown onions. You’d eaten it in seconds, in a hurry between scampering around the castle running errands. Emptying chamber pots. Fetching food. Pouring wine.

You came down for more lamb. As requested. Watching the kitchen maid afore you, begin to layer it on the huge gold platter.

You watched cook slap the back of a reaching kitchen urchins hand with a wooden spoon. Going for the lemon cakes. A rap to the knuckles to leave a reminder. Not a mark. She wasn’t that cruel.

“You.” Darria barked. Your name fell like an artless command from her cross lips. “Put that platter down. And wash your hands.”

You twisted round and looked back at her. Hands on the table bench where the maid filled your platter, heaped and piled once again with thick cut, roasted lamb chops. Juices and blood seeping into the base of the dish.

“Why?” You asked. If you were being swept away from service upstairs, that either meant something good or something awful- your money was on the latter for this place.

“Quit your fussing. You’ve been asked for...” she snaps. Intemperate. As she quickly arranged slices of fruit over a plate of jointed chicken thighs and breasts.

She turned to the side and then came back with a tray heaped with roast chicken, steaming warm bread, some cheeses, butter and sliced cold ham. A flagon of dark wine. You meet her eyes. Nearly crumpling under the weight of the heavy tray of food. This must have been two jointed chickens in all.

“This can’t be for one person?” You check. This was three days’ worth of food to you.

“Didn’t realise you gave orders now… Highness.” Cook snarked at you.

“Lots of roast chicken and wine. On his orders. And send that northern redhead up with it.”

“The Hound?” You crooked a brow.

She sighed like she wanted to slap you silly.

“Best go feed the damn old dog. Don’t stand around here. I don’t need you cluttering up the place.” She smarted at you. Wiping her hands on a cloth. Shooing you away. Wiping the sweat off her head with the back of her hand.

Alssa was stood behind you in the doorway. Clutching a platter piled high with partridges. Her mouth gaped wide open.

She began to smile. A huge grin. “Told you so. I knew it.”

“Shut it.” You warned. Lethal. Eyes turned steel.

You didn’t want her exultation spewed around this kitchen like fresh gossip for the little birds to pluck at like crumbs, come the morrow.

“Out. Before I thrash both your bony arses for wasting my time” Darria sneers at you. Punching the life out of some dough on her scarred table.

“Get a move on. Girl. Lest he beat you bloody for being slow.” She snaps.

The look in her eyes is like she hopes he will - if only to teach you a lesson.

“Unlikely.” Alssa chimes in. Her tone sultry.

You give her a glare that could wither a dead man. “Begone.”

Alssa practically skips back up the stairs. Mouthing a soft ‘Milady’ and a curtsey at you as she went. Platter in her hands wobbling dangerously.

You followed. Opening the doors with your back. Heaving open the heavy wood. By the time you’d climbed the stairs and weaved through the endless maze of fucking dim lit halls.

Your elbows were weary with the amount of boned meat and wine you carried. Iron goblet and carafe didn’t make it any the lighter.

By the time you came to his door, your shoulder joints nearly shook with the strained effort.

You scuffle a knock on the door with your foot. A soft kick.

A bark comes at once. “Come.”

You push open with your back, twisting into the room. The heavy door whines like an old maester on its hinges. Your throat goes dry, stomach a flurry of excitement as you cross the threshold. Coming into his rooms.

The yellow walls, bare of any decoration, shimmer with the waving candles that shake with the disturbance of your opening the door. It’s cool and calm up here compared to the packed, busy, strangling heat of the kitchens you came from. You can feel the sweat cooling now on your brow.

He has the window shutters pulled open. Scant moonlight floods in. Casting the white bed in a shaft of watery silver.

You see he had a huge metal tub stood a ways from the hearth. Naturally his disinclination of fire has his furniture clustered to the other side of the room.

Water within the tub still barely swirling steam. Telling you he’d bathed after he finished his post. The scent of that bland soap you know well lingers in the warm air. Aswell as rosemary oil. Green and verdant.

You walk across to the table. Knowing the route by now.

He treats you like a human being and not an object for service. The cooks and maids downstairs don’t know why you linger. They think you’re at the mercy of his temper; his wrath.

How wrong they all are-

You finally see the huge shape of him. Where he’d usually be. Sat at table. A single thick candle flickers on its brass stand. Throwing jagged shapes of shadow across the grain of the wood.

Usually polishing a dagger or some piece of armour. He was used to maintaining his armour alone. Cleaning alone. In everything he does, he’s used to being a solitary animal. Kept at the edge of all things. The lone hound.

Your eyes do linger on him.

He’d bathed of course. And redressed in a simple pair of brown breeches and a cotton tunic. Combating the stifling heat of the keep. Your eyes snatch to the gap in his shirt that exposed his chest. Right down to his sternum.

He lays aside the dagger he was cleaning. Bunching the cloth and setting it on the table out of the way.

“Red.” He greeted. His usual gruff baritone. A flicker of warmth dashed to it.

“Hound.” You smiled back.

You redirect your gaze as you place the heavy dinner tray before him. Savoury smell of chicken roasted with lemon making your stomach clench.

It’s then you see the twist and turn of his hands catch the candle light, you see his knuckles are raw. Burst, bruised, weeping open like split red grapes.

You think nothing of reaching over and gently clasping his hand. Others would sooner die than reach for this man. You did it without a shred of consequence.

You reached out for him and you didn’t give two damns about it.

Your face falls as you raise it his hand up nearer the light. You’re amazed he lets you. Fingers swallowed under his huge ones.

“What poor creature did that boy have you maim this time?” You seek. Your thumb gently swipes over his second index knuckle as you look down at the mangled damage.

As ever, he grunts, reaches for his wine. Crossing over with his other hand.

“Don’t fret your pretty head about it maid. I’m fine.”

“And the person whose face you no doubt caved in?” You sought. Where you stood close, a section of your hair fell forwards over your shoulder. His eyes followed its path for a second.

He flicks you up a dark look. All sarcasm and drowning brown eyes.

“They’re a bit less than fine.”

He adjusted himself back in the chair that creaked like old bones. Settling back with his legs spread out in front of him.

“Is there anyone left in this keep he won’t mutilate…” You snap lowly.

Angry at the way things were.

That little golden cunt played with people like they were his little wooden dolls. Lop off a leg here. Cut out a tongue. Put out their eyes as if it were some macabre game to delight his sick childish senses. He was malice made skin, that boy.

Maybe your angrier still that Sandor gets used as his instrument. His tool of torture. If there’s blood to be spilled, the hound will step up and obey.

You wonder what kind of toll that takes on a man. To keep his own opinions and autonomy tamed back behind his teeth. To always have to grit said teeth and do as he’s bid. To stand in silence whilst his Prince rips his way through flesh of his subjects for fun.

One day, you’re sure, there’s an order that will come that he will refuse. And then what’s to become of him…

“I can tend those cuts for you.” You state. Stepping closer. Skirts brushing to his knees now.

“At this rate they’d better give me a nurses pay for all the mopping up of you I do.”

“Hounds nurse doesn’t sound half as frightening as the red bitch.” He leers. Teeth flashing a grin.

“Don’t you start with that shite.” You rib him.

He smiles wider at that. Leering like a skulls bare sneer. He likes a lady that can bite back.

“Where’s the soap so I can patch you up again.” you go to move for his jug and basin. He catches your arm gently.

He deflects attention as he dives for his food. Now he had a good half cup of wine in his belly, he felt the sting of his hand, lessen.

“Stop grousing about me. Red. Sit.” He commands. Pushing you round the other side of the table.

The tone he used was to command his Kingsmen and give orders. His foot reaches out and kicks the chair opposite to make his point. Clattering of wood scraping the floor.

You turn and look at the chair.

Your body weeps at the thought of sitting down and resting your sore feet. You cast an eye longingly at his mountain of dinner. His split hands. His relaxed demeanour. The wine. The soft candlelight blazing over his face and chest. So many things compelling you to fucking stay.

“I can hear your stomach growling from over here. For fucks sake, sit. Eat.”

You hesitate. Whom was nursing whom, here?

“Cook will crucify me alive if I don’t get back to the kitchens.”

He gives you a look.

“Yeah? She a stout woman that cook? Cause she’d have to have balls of steel to come all the way up here, and go through me first.”

He grunts, chewing around a bite of chicken. Tearing off bread to mop up the juices with. “Sit.”

You do so with a smile.

The dinner tray is shoved between you. You eat gingerly. Picking your way through the bread, the chicken.

He pours you some of the wine into a wooden cup. Nudges it at you.

You eat in partial silence to the tune of the fire snapping and cracking away.

He eyes you curiously as you both dine. Like he wants to say something. But the words keep dissolving on the tip of his tongue. He sees how you chew quickly. Wet your mouth with wine. Take big bites. Like you’re afraid it’ll be snatched off you.

“What do they even feed your lot. Below stairs…” He asks. He dreads to know.

“Scraps your lot don’t want.” You tell. Ripping a bit of soft bread off the damn half loaf he’d been given.

You swallow more wine. “Little more than bones and offal some nights. They water down our wine too.”

“Cunts.” He scoffed.

What a crime. To water down wine so it doesn’t linger nicely on the tongues of servants. Those who deserved less. He made sure to pour even more in your glass. Liking how it made you smile. Giving you the good stuff.

“And not forgetting the bowls of brown.” You answer, grimly.

He turned his nose up. Wrinkled his face all distasteful. “No better than fucking dog food.”

“I’m sure the hounds eat better than we do. Mouldy bread. Brown stew. Old fruit. I’m told the kennel master feeds legs of rare Riverrun venison to the kings dogs.”

His smile curls at one side again. You were whip smart. Perceptive. Certainly fucking beautiful. So beautiful he could hardly stand it.

You could read. Write. You carried yourself like your whole life had been one long fight. You kept yourself armed. You were punchy and certainly not stupid. You could be some handsome merchants wife in Braavos. Marry some second son Lord and have a far better life than this bowing, scraping and filling cups.

“What are you doing…Serving prick lords and ladies in this fucking rotten place.” He asks.

It’s more of a musing than a statement. He barked it at you all the same.

You tilt your head. Your smile turns secretive. Eyes glow with candles dancing in them.

“Lady has to make a living somehow.” You told him. Clutching your cards close to your chest.

“Could ask the same thing of you.” You nodded back at him. Slowly chewing your bread. Another morsel held in your hand.

He’d tease the real answer out of you one of these days. He’s sure of it.

When you put the bread in your mouth. You playfully toyed your fingertip around the rim of your wine cup. He had to stop his cheeks heating from watching the delicate sway of your hands.

You reflect on his position here.

“You’re a second son of a knighted house. Clegane. How come you’re not married to some lovely lady. In some comfortable castle tower somewhere, with a fleet of servants. Wearing fine threads. Going on hunts, spend your days drinking wine to your hearts content…” You seek.

“They tried to wed me off when I was younger. No one could bear to be bound in holy matrimony to this fucking face.” He grunts.

Though the soft edge to his voice told you that the thought still carried deep stinging wounds. That insult had not been forgotten. He’d kept hold of it.

“More fool them.” You say proudly.

He grunted like he didn’t believe you.

So you drink your wine. And then you prove it.

You stand slowly, so slow it makes his heart race. You come to stand between his knees where he sits. He leans back until the chair hits his spine.

Looking up at you like he was nervous or guilty of something. His eyes watch you with a hint of panic. Like you still might flee if he growls too much. Or snaps his teeth in a bite when tested.

“I think you’re handsome. And I hate the fact that all these southern stuck up cunts can’t see that.” You say.

Your hands come up and frame his neck. Pressing to the rough woven linen of his shirt. Fingertips kiss to his chest. Feeling the black dusting of hair that absolutely covers him. His skin is like warm firm sand stone to the touch. You move some locks of dark wavy hair off his face.

Meet his gaze and let him see there was one person in Westeros that didn’t flinch from him.

He was breathing hard. Like he can’t believe a maid was touching him. You wonder who the last lady to touch him was.

“You are soft in the fucking head. Red.” He growls. Admonishing.

“For you. Aye.” You delight in telling him. A smile climbing across your lips.

You take his whiskered rough chin back in your hand. Hold it as you lean in and place a gentle kiss on his mouth. Taste on your tongue was velvet red wine and wheaten bread.

He sits there still as a statue. Letting the kiss grow more intense. You’ll have to coax him gently.

He lets you tower over him and deepen the kiss. It’s a full minute before he hesitantly raises his arms up to encircle you.

You bite his lip. Pleased. When you feel those huge hot hands smooth over your back. Up your shoulders. Feeling the bumps and ridges of your own scar. Like you were two skewed broken shards of the same mirror.

“You look… fucking nice. Tonight. Your dress.” He settles on. “Suits you…” He pants choppy, trying to catch his breath. Skimming his hand up your back again.

Your smile is so genuine is steals a little of his breath away.

“Thank you. They like us looking presentable. I’m glad it pleases, my lord.” Voice breathy. Lips red bruised, kiss stung. You lean in and seal your mouth over his again.

So lovely. His northern beauty.

You break away. He addresses your impertinence.

“Not a lord you cheeky fuck.” He snarls. His voice is much affected too. Same as yours. Husky and wanting more.

You cup his hand behind your back, and smirk as you encourage it higher. Letting his big fingers settle on the fastenings of your dress. You coax his fingertips to the halter braids. Let him unravel them.

His eyes nearly blow wide as brown dinner saucers when you let his hand pull down, taking your dress with it. Folding it over your chest.

Followed in quick succession by your golden belt. Clanking to the floor. Leaving you standing in your shift and your fucking sandals. Those also get shoved down your hips. You kick out your shoes. Get yourself bare for him. Stark naked.

He’d been flicking glances at you all night. Now. You let him feast his eyes.

He didn’t know where to rest his eyes. The fullness of your tits. Neck. Hips. The soft round of your thighs. So soft. All of you is. And his ruined eyes get to see something this delicate and lovely.

One part of your body meets with his dissatisfaction;

The black-blue spread of a nasty bruise to the right side of your ribs. It’s about the span of a fist. His brow crashes down in a frown.

He reaches over and covers it. His callused rough palm hotter than a stovetop. Covered half your belly with its span. He knows that wasn’t a natural injury.

“Who?” He barked out. Teeth set on their killer edge. Eyes slice to yours.

You place your two fingers over his moody lips to stop him talking. He glares. Eyes glitter black like beetles wings.

“Doesn’t matter.” You urge softly. Shake your head. Your hair falls so nicely over your shoulders. Almost clasping the tops of your tits.

You wanted his anger to melt away. You didn’t want it here. Not now. Not now you had him all to yourself. Hopefully you could coax him to shed his clothes too.

You slip your hand under his tunic. Feel the musculature of him. Crush yourself tighter to his chest.

“When I’m done with you. I want that name.” He seethes.

You smile. Pressing a kiss gladly to his moody lips. Never forget he’s a dog with a bone to pick. That’s his job.

But for now-

He stands up so fast it makes your head spin. His hands are around you. Your weight and height is of no consequence to him. He plucks you off the ground like you’re a feather pillow.

You nearly yelp. He growls. Slings your arms around his neck. Cups your plump arse in his hands. Lifts you across to the bed. Caged to his body. Hefts you onto the feather mattress like you were a sack of flour.

He had no qualms about taking off his shirt. If you hadn’t run from his ugly face. He doubted you’d run from the bare thickness of his brute body. That wasn’t the scary part of him after all.

You look hungry when he shifts his tunic off his shoulders. Sit up and run your hands down his chest. Huge spreads of muscles layered in a healthy amount of weight. He’s so big everywhere it made you ache. You hoped you felt his presence on you, or in you, for days to come.

“Can I touch you proper?” He asks. Settling you in the middle of sheets that smell like soap, sweat and the oil he must use on his hair. Notes of rosemary, salt, soap.

“You need to ask?” You clarify with a smile. You were naked and draped in the middle of his bed.

“I’m no raper. Red. I ask a woman before I take her.” He sighs. Caressing your soft breast under his hand. Feeling the nipple pucker to his hand.

You guide his hand to your flesh. Let him cup your tits. Cup between your legs. Let him do whatever the hell he wants-

“This woman came willingly, happily, to your bed.” You tease.

Hair fanned out behind you like some red sultry goddess.

Touch me, Hound.

That’s just the thing. I’ll never want to stop touching you, Red.

“Aye.” He grunted. Smiling again.

“I think she’s a mad rare bitch this one. Think I’m getting myself in trouble here.” He jokes.

“Careful. My father was a wildling, you know.” You tell him. Grin growing.

“Fucking knew it.” He huffed out laughter.

The way you held a blade wasn’t southern. He was damn sure it wasn’t entirely northern either. Now he knew the truth. You were cut from the cloth of free folk. Fucking beyond the wall savages.

“No cunt out there could be madder than a fucking wildling.”

You pinch his thick side for his cheek. Barely made a dent. All muscle and brawn. “Careful. Dog.”

He liked when you called him your dog. Everyone else could rot in hell for it. For you? He’d come to heel gladly.

You pull him close by the back of the neck. Fingers tangled in his hair. Settle your mouth over his again. Share a wet kiss that rapidly evolved into tongues and teeth. Your leg wraps for his side. His hand plunges down your thigh. Squeezes the flesh of your hip where it’s curled.

Your fingers claw into his meaty back. Feeling he was just as carpeted with hair at his back, much like his chest - a truly dark delicious beast all over.

When his thick hand delves between your thighs, you moan boldly into his mouth. His big fingers caught your clit just right. Swirled and pressed with the right amount of friction.

You hadn’t been touched in months. Not since well before you’d left Braavos. And even that had been a more rough tumble than anything comparable to this.

“Like that? Did you, Red?” He asks. Peering down at you. Smug.

Watched your face like a clever hawk as he did it again.

Braced up over you. Watched your mouth gape and your hand dive to cover the large back of his. Slipping against your wet pussy. Feeling you twitch and writhe to his hand.

He shuffled down below you in the sheets. Came away from your side. Hefted your left leg onto his back. Hungrily eyed the thatch of curls covering your cunt.

Before you could even gasp his mouth was upon you. “Sandor…” you whined.

Captured and searched the taut berry of your clit in his lips. The texture of his shorn beard tickled and scratched. He curled his fingers deep in you still. Two this time. He went deep. He wasn’t exactly good at being gentle.

The sweet unexpected combination made you cry out. You can’t recall the last time a man had knelt for you- gone down on you with the sole purpose of your pleasure. And you’d had plenty of lovers in your time.

Your back arches as he digs deeper. Fingers thick, filling you so well. Stretching for that spot inside to crook against. The one that when he dragged a touch against it, made you curl up.

Thighs clamping around his neck. The onslaught of his wet beard tickling your thighs as he worked you over. Licking and lapping your cunt like he was a man born to do it.

Your eyes flicked back in your head as his rhythm grew in intensity. The flick of his tongue on your clit. The wedge of his fingers pushing your pussy wide. Scraping against places that made you shake.

“Sandor- fuck“ You choke on moans. Head back. Your small hands rooted in his hair so hard it was a nice edge of pain.

He liked that. Liked hearing his given name.

He grunts. Pleased to hear his given name cross your lips in ecstasy. The room is lost to the sounds of your gasps, his wet grunts, the smack of his slick wet mouth feasting happily, messily on your cunt.

He tore away. Breath ragged. Mouth drooling with you. Dragged a breath in.

“You taste fucking sweet.” He supplied. Better than fine wine. You met his eyes. He still looked half starved. Eyes like dark whiskey pits that swallowed you up.

Taking a moment to feel the drag of his lips against you. To hear and feel the squelch of your wetness that came oozing out from round his fingers. You shuddered. Called out for god, or maybe several.

“None of your gods to be found here, Red.”

You’re clutching wildly at the sheets now. Bunching them in his hands. He liked that he’ll sleep in them tonight, slaked in the scent of jasmine and your sweat and slick.

“Gonna make me cum.” You sigh. Voice dragged through a warning. He smiles. That was very obviously the point of his hauling you to his bed.

He captured your eyes in his. “Do it. Cum for me.” He ordered. Succinct. To the point. He didn’t mince his words and he didn’t show mercy.

He ate you like a dying man allowed one last drink. And he chose to take it between your thighs. Your spine was burning. Simmering pleasure building low in your belly, told you how close you were getting. Rushing towards a finish.

You whine when he doubles down hard. Increasing his efforts. Flicks his eyes up your writhing body. Reaches up to cup one breast in his hand as he made you cum gasping around his fingers. Cunt twitching and pulsing like mad. Tongue working your clit relentless.

He drags you bodily though every second of the throbbing aftershocks of it. Doesn’t ease til your thighs practically snap off his neck.

Your breathy whines like music and golden wine to his ears. Hearing them reverberate around his bedchamber like sweet sweet birdsong. He almost hoped some fucking guards on duty walking past, heard your cries.

Let them hear good the hound can bed a woman.

Not that anyone here would believe it. They all think he couldn’t get a wench to save his life - even with coin.

You sit up and grasp onto his back. Trying to pull him up. “Fucking come here.” You gasp.

Dragging his still moist beard and mouth to meet yours. You delve your tongue into his mouth. His big hand cups the back of your neck. Able to grasp the whole nape of it in one hand. It makes you dizzy to feel it. How big he is compared to you-

You know now that applies to other places-

You slip your hand to the laces of his breeches. By the time you’d ripped them open, he was halfway hard.

You smile against his lips. Wrapping your hand around him. Curling and cupping around him. His hips jerk when you stroke him. Wetting your hand with the amount of precum leaking from him.

You urge him to lay down. Your hand holding onto his cock. Pulling him down over you. He presses you to his cushions. Hair swirled around you. He hopes his pillows smell like jasmine later.

He ruts his hips to you. Aching for the magic of your kind hands. Panting into your neck with the way you stroke him. Hand barely able to fit around the girth. Liking the way he melted into you.

It was his turn to grip the sheets in a fist. Sighing your name. Not calling you Red or Maid. Not here. This was sacred.

You roll your hips to him as he moves against you. Grunting. Squeezing his eyes closed. Burying his face in your neck. Biting. Kissing. Moaning loud when you squeezed your hand tighter around him. Your other clutched his back. Digging your nails in as you made him come undone.

It had been so long since someone touched him. He had to try hard not to finish early in your hand like some wet behind the ears whelp.

“Fucking good…. With your hands. Bloody hell.” He groaned. Breath coming shorter and shorter the closer he got.

He pulled back. Hips flinching as he came in a heavy huffing grunt. Unable to help it. Spilling at your thigh in thick ropes onto the sheets. Breath muggy at your ear. How he didn’t spill when he first set his tongue to your cunt he didn’t know.

“Seven hells.” He snarled. But all fight in his voice had been leeched away. No wonder. You’d taken his damn brains out.

You lay together. Clasped in a heap. Touching. Littering kisses on skin. Admiring the bare flesh you’d exposed to each other.

“Where did you learn how to pleasure a woman like that?” You ask when you caught your breath. High of your orgasm still rolling through you like passing thunder.

You thought all southern men just mounted their women and fucked fierce til they blew their load. No romantic notions. No taking the time to learn a woman’s pleasure. You were glad for once to have been proven wrong.

He rolled to thump himself down onto his back. Head shuffled on the pillow next to yours. Big body Crashing out. Making the bed sag so much, you rolled to his side as a consequence.

“Paid good coin to the one whore who didn’t run from me when I was a lad. She was, more mature, very instructive. Taught me how to please my lovers, proper. Showed me how good it is to get a woman properly wet before you fuck her.” He explained.

You twist to look at him. Breasts sticking together with sweat. You pet the shaggy hair away from his eyes. Sticking to his sweat wicked skin. Cup his face in your hands.

“What’s her name. I’ll send her all the coin I have in thanks.” You remark. Chest heaving. Sweat glimmering on your tits.

He smiled. A rare smile. Leaned in and damn near crushed you into the bed to kiss you again. To devastate you with a mouth that still tasted like you.

You hate when you have to leave the bed.

Leave his touches. Kisses. When all you wanted to do, was have the liberty to stay in this bed, drink wine, and fuck him blind all night long.

You gather your shoes. He helps you pick up your discarded shift. Leans in and kisses your shoulder, scooped your sex mussed hair aside, as his big clumsy fingers helped re-tie your dress. You cinch your belt around your waist again. Looking with sadness at the door you’d have to walk through.

He stands behind you. Hands sunk low to grip your hips.

“You’ll come back, again?” He asks. Says it all hopeful. Voice severe. Like you’ll dare refuse.

You smile. Cross his hands with yours. “Try and stop me. Hound.”

He grunts. Drops a kiss your shoulder again. But those big paws of his, slip around. He squeezes your ass for the audacity.

“You don’t come back to me tomorrow night. Red. I’ll have to come down to those kitchens and get you, myself.”

You smile. He drags you back into the bracket of his body. Presses a kiss to the copper crown of your head.

And then you have to leave. Dragging your hands from him like you had to rip away your own skin.

Even though every bone in you aches to stay. You go.

~

Your dagger - newly sharpened - kept its usual place strapped to your thigh. It added a buoyancy to your step. Whenever you passed clusters of guards whose gazes lingered too long - as they often did. It gave you the steel backbone to glare back. Invite them to dare try something- you know who’d come off more bloody in that fight.

You’d been relieved of your duties for the afternoon. Almost everyone had. There was no one left in the keep to serve. Servant and noble alike flocked to the field to watch the courageous clash of armour and sword.

You stood off the road as carriages and caravans flocked down carrying plump lords and ladies much too grand to walk in the dirt. Trampling over dry grass to get to the same destination as the rest.

If they weren’t at war, this contemptuous court had to find some way to watch blood spill into the dirt. Even if it was their own kind. They’d cheer and roar whoever it was split heads or limbs off another.

Not very noble, to your mind.

You walk in step with Alssa. Who just locked her elbow with yours. Lake blue dress with a sage green shawl stitched with white flowers looped about her back. Camomile flower of her perfume catching your nose every now and again. Gentle lyrical stirring of petals on a warm breeze.

She had everything going for her you feared you lacked. Where you were seen as sharp, blunt and with eyes too piercing clever for their own good, she was deemed perfection.

Sweet, blonde and chirpy. She reminded you of a blue bird. Always trilling away, in her soft voice, her eyes as blue as any pure cornflower.

She was barely one and twenty. Came from the tumbled low buildings of River Row. This station in life meant a lot to her. It had raised her in her families eyes. A mere fisherman and washer woman’s daughter. But you could tell she still clung to the apron strings of home where she could. Innumerable siblings she was always crowing about. Blonder than the heart of the sun, all of them.

You had rolled your eyes when you passed a Lorathi Bard, strumming a lyre. He had fallen to his knees and produced a long stemmed purple flower from behind his back to grace her with. Dribbling on and on about her smile. She giggled at the drippy nonsense. You’d tugged her along out the path of such idiocy.

“He was handsome. Such a beautiful voice.” She said weakly. Turning over her shoulder hoping to still catch sight of him.

The notes of his instrument still plucked and sparkled in the sunny air behind them. Voice like butter as he sang. Tempting but wholly false.

“I bet he’s given a bloom to every maiden with a pretty smile who so much as breathes in his direction, Alssa.”

“It’s kind affection.” She defended. Jutting out her chin like a wilful child.

“It’s cheap flattery. Nothing more.” You promised her. “Men are fickle cunts who promise the moon. Give you stars and jewels. Quick to vanish once your legs are closed and the deed is done.”

“Must you be so sour tongued.” She ribbed. Shocked. “What kind of affection must you have enjoyed? To judge of it so coarsely?” She demanded. Her bony wrist slinging against your side.

You don’t know why. But a flash of a memory comes to you as if a Blackwater wave.

You think of needles and thread. Scent of clean masculine soap and red iron. And the hardened meaty shoulder that bunched under your touch. Carpeted with dark hair. You think of eyes so brown they could be made of oak. Quiet tender healing. The bark of a grizzled old dog. Cut you to the core.

Of course, your answer could have been far more brutal. Nastier impulses of men come bounding to your mind; a chapter of your life long since closed.

White bridal skirts worn to tatters, soaked heavy with black northern dirt and blood, tangling around your calves. Feet near bare in worn shoes. Numb from bitter snow. A bruise laying thick-heavy around your neck like a choking purple serpent. The feel of tan leather belt cinching tighter around your windpipe. Strangling. Choking.

You shake the thought away. In private moments, it all came back to you. Memories of that night that still seared like a fresh candle burn. But you tried with all your might to push it away. It never went. But it got easier to pretend. Time and distance grew around the exposed nerve memory like a root.

Recent events of your own had wrapped around the nastiness. Brought about something kinder.

Whenever you passed him in the halls. The familiar soap tangling with the scent of armour polish and metal. Or spilled red Dornish wine. You happened to catch the corner of his ruined face for only a second in naked candlelight as you were serving dinner to the Queen the other night. Eye dissecting you from under that inky curtain of wavy hair. Eyes churned to copper. Wondering why he couldn’t make you out.

You’d smiled at him. For fucks sake.

He recognised you as much as he’d dared. A glance that lingered a fraction too long. A curt nod of his chin. Dropping his eyes down and up again. You could almost hear that gravelly grunt of his; Little maid.

You’d catch the hem of his cloak sweeping away in the corner of your eyes when you enter hallways or rooms. As he was duty bound to follow about after the snivelling little prince. Hounds orders came from a shrill brat mouth and usually involving the cleaving or killing of innocent things. Joffrey’s favour to him toyed between gratitude and abuse. As he shook the wings of his Princedom, and tested his terrible violent delights.

You don’t tell Alssa how your sourness is a guard. It’s kept you alive. Being the way you are. Acid stares and a turning a marble cold shoulder sometimes was your best weapon.

“I just know. Be wary.” You finish for her. The inflection on your tone clear. Don’t be a fool.

That was the worst thing she could be here: a tender hearted little fool.

You’d cloaked your heart in steel long ago. Welded the cracks shut. Not even knives could penetrate. But a dog could.

Somehow, lord knows, even with your hard and grouchy northern mettle, Alssa had clutched onto your elbow with warmth, and spoken firmly of kinship to you, from the day you began service. Sweet melds well with sour.

“If you say so.” She mocks. Not unlinking arms with you even for a minute.

Your stomach feels empty after the long walk. You would be lucky later if you could find a passing vendor selling skewers of spicy marinated meat, candied nuts or hot cups of mead wine to purchase. They had to feed everyone here, keep them entertained. The moneyed and the paupers.

Your purse hung delicately from the braided leather belt at your waist. A few coins clinked within that you’d be happy to part with for some wine that wasn’t watered down. Maybe when it began to cool into evening. There was bound to be a feast after the tourney.

You come to where the road opens out in a wide maw to the grassy grounds. Studded with many huge cloth tents. Surrounded by sentinels of tall trees that crash in the wind.

The reek of verdant horse dung and smoke from smithy’s fires cloaked heavily. It made the spoiled plump lords and ladies noses scrunch as they stepped out their fine carriages. That in turn made you smirk.

You find yourself jostling in the crowds. Way down from the kings stand. Nobles crowd like flies to get the best view. You get what sparse space is leftover. Eyes seeking for any view of the tourney field.

You managed to struggle to the front of the crowds down the far end. Winding between merchants and less rich folk to find your spot. You pulled Alssa to your side who was being far too polite to some ill-tempered man in front of you. You silenced his tutting with a glare that could make skin crawl.

She stood on tiptoes, trying to glimpse the knight over the pounding of horse shoes on the dirt. The splintering of broken lances and shouts rose high above you both.

“Will you give anyone your favour?” She cheekily hip checked you.

You stared back. Unimpressed. Wry smile painted on your lips. You fight the urge to roll your eyes.

“Wenches like us don’t give favours. That right is reserved for highborn ladies.” You nodded in the direction of the stall seats near the king. A far cry from gutter rats like yourself.

Where finely groomed lords and ladies sit stifling, sweating in their heavy silks and brocades. Batting away pesky bugs and calling for cold Arbor gold wine. Broaches and jewellery glittering in the sun like golden mayfly bugs.

Look at it finery too long child, it’ll blind you.

You traced your eyes over the sweet auburn haired child sat next to Lord Stark. Clutching a red rose. Bright as blood and catching in the sun. Ser Loras had given it to her. Her resulting smile was as blinding as the noon day sun. Your heart sunk to think of that innocent child trapped here in this pit of vipers.

That thought seemed more potent when you saw Lord Baelish lean forward and slither a whisper into Sansa’s ear. Some men just cloaked themselves in the guile of venom. And you knew too well what men like that would do in a court like this. They’d sneer, and plot, and rejoice on the bones of those less fortunate and clever than themselves.

You’d heard whispers around the palace about the appointment of the kings new hand. You did recognise his dour countenance at once. A stranger to southern heat and strangling mannerisms. He was a stout northerner. A type you knew well.

Your mother had served in the kitchens of Winterfell under his stewardship as a maid. You’d worked them yourself as a small child. Scrubbing turnips and potatoes, or plucking chickens, shelling peas. Running to fetch spices from the market for the cook. But that was long ago. Back then his lordship was in its infancy. His marriage new and loveless. You’d heard only good things about the Starks since then.

Couldn’t fathom why they were here. In this rotten capital.

You rolled your eyes over the King. Sprawled fat and scowling in his chair with his goblet to hand. Sweet Myrcella and Tommen afore him. Joffrey lounging to his right. The Queen had taken one look at the lists and departed. Her face like she’s chewed sour lemons. You were assured that was normal for her.

Naturally, your curious eyes roamed a little further. Behind the boy Prince, to the towering man in armour behind him. Scowling with equal viciousness and boredom at the thronging crowds around him. Staring straight ahead at the knights who passed. Jaw tense at the sight of his kin on his terrible black stallion.

He truly did cut a fine figure. You couldn’t deny that fact. Strong. Broad. Proud.

Even with half his face melted, you still considered him the most gruffly handsome man you’d laid eyes on. If he had sprung from northern soil, you wouldn’t be surprised. He had that bearing about him. Broader than a grizzly.

Girls up north would beat each other to the death, for a chance to snare that warrior of a man as a husband. A big braw man to help father their young. Build a cottage. Farm the land. Giving him a warm hearth and bed to come home too. You flush with the mere thought of it;

So lost in your gazing, you don’t register when those eyes flick to yours. Feeling the weight of your stare upon him. You meet it. And you aim a gentle smile his way. He swallows and averts his gaze.

You smirk, winsome, at the idea that you’ve distracted the dog from his duties.

A sudden massive crack of wood took your notice. The swelling roar of the crowd accompanied it. You snapped your gaze down the field to see Ser Gregor falling off his horse and taking most of the jousting fence with him. Falling like a stone chucked in a pond. That terribly dark armour hitting the dirt. The dreadful whinnying of his horse as they fell.

You caught the way Sandors face dropped. Mouth a grim line.

Gregor chucked his helmet to the dirt and bellowed for his squire to bring a sword. All the heat sucked out of the sun. Your belly plummeted to your feet. You spied the muscle in the Hounds jaw tense. As if he was chewing gristle.

You recall the horror that hurst forth from the crowds when The Mountain unleashed his sword and struck it almost cleanly through his stallions neck. The dreadful wail of its dying cry. The way he charged like a bull and knocked Ser Loras to the ground.

Alssa clutched your hand so tight the skin stung. You’d be surprised if she hadn’t drawn blood.

Loras flopped around like a scaled fish in his silver armour. Ser Gregor advanced on him. Swinging his sword like he wanted to cleave him in two. Brutal swings. All rage coming from that boars blood stained face. Teeth grit. Eyes spewing black poison.

You heard a dreadful bark rise from the din.

“Leave him be!” Over the clamour of the shock, you watched Sandor charge forwards. Putting himself between his brother and the grounded Ser Loras.

He raced forwards and raised his sword to block the swing. Shoving him back a few paces. A snarl pulling through his lips. Fangs bared. The mountain gave him a cold look back.

You lurched forwards like an unleashed stray when they began to clash swords in combat. The prince rose to his feet and looked towards his father.

King Robert watched with a haughty glare as the Clegane brothers locked themselves in fierce combat. The shriek and clash of steel parrying between them. Brutal swings that made your stomach clench each time the steel swung for Sandor.

He stood and bellowed for them to stop the madness. No sooner than the command left his lips, did Sandor break away and instantly take to a knee. Stabbing his sword in the dirt. Hands atop it.

Your heart crushed to the back of your mouth when you saw how close Gregor’s sword came. Whistling an arc just an inch shy of his head.

The hound bowed his head. Subservient. Called to heel. Obeyed his king.

Gregor threw his red sword down. Storming off the field. Lest no one dare get in his way. Leaving death and destruction in his wake.

At a harsh look from Robert, the Hound clambered, sheepish, back to his full height. Sword down by his side.

Loras had risen out of the dirt like a pretty sleek white dove. Picked his way over to his grizzled protector.

“I owe you my life, Ser.” He stammered. Awed. Thankful the Hound had been the only thing keeping Ser Gregor’s sword sticking through his neck.

“I’m no ser.” He spat with derision.

Loras, undettered by his grumblings. Reached for his left arm and raised it high in the air. The crowd erupted in cheer. Clapping to his name.

As far as they were concerned, in their eyes, he was a Knight in that moment. Cloaked in nobility and no longer the hardened heel of all the dog jokes they thrust his way.

It put colour in your cheeks to see how much he squirmed under the amount of attention on him. Cheeks crimson. Hair covering half his scars. Eyes cast to the floor. Where a dead stallions blood inched and grew towards his feet. Flies crept closer to stick to the gore. Still people cheered.

You stick your fingers in your mouth and let out an ear splitting whistle to go along with the cheers. Alssa laughed giddily alongside you. Clapping eagerly for the young lord.

He twisted back with a concerned look on his face. Looking for the source of the noise. And he found you at the other end of it; smiling that damn smile again. Being so obvious with your flattery.

He turned his back to the applause and retook his post. Behind Joffrey. Keeping him safe as always.

He gingerly cast a look your way once more. You were still clapping. Smile brighter than the sun. Hair shining like a damn coppery halo around your face. Like a damn fucking angel, he thought.

He averted his gaze once more to the wooden boards below his feet. Lest he hope for things he shouldn’t. Lest he let himself become attached. And he knows what happens to things he values, they are snatched away and burned.

You knew everyone was cheering for that flowery Tyrell knight. You cheered for the Hound, and for the Hound alone.

~