Game of Thrones: Imagines and one shots. Book three

After the fight - Part 1 - Sandor x Reader

I know that I am messing with things again, but as I always say this is my AU GoT, and in my AU, my, our favourites don't die. So, I hope you will enjoy. 😊

A sudden intake of breath. A violent gasp for much needed air. Her eyes flying open. She was looking up at the sky, it was dark and filled with smoke. Thick black and grey smoke that hung heavily in the ether, bringing with it an awful and all too familiar scent. The scent of death.

It was so much quieter than it had been. Eerily quiet in fact. She wasn't sure whether it was just her. Perhaps the battle, perhaps the yells, the screams, the cries, the war was still going on around her, and her ears just refused to hear it any longer. Perhaps her mind was blocking all of this out. Given what she had seen, what she had been though, she wouldn't be surprised. But, as she slowly became more aware of her surroundings, she began to hear deep guttural groans. Began to hear voices, the shout of names. Began to hear sad lamentations.

She began to try and move, if the battle was still raging, she had to get back to her feet, she had to continue to fight. She had to find him and hope that he was still alive, swinging his sword at the undead army that had come for them. Had to hope that he was growling and swearing at the bastards that wanted to bring with them the long night. She had to hope that he wasn't dead in the dirt, covered in mud and his own blood.

With another intake of air, she pushed herself up onto her elbows. Her eyes growing wide, as she took in the scene. The battle was over. The forces of the Night King were no more. Yet despite the feeling of joy that had washed over at the thought that they had won. That the living had done it, it was quickly replaced by sadness as she saw the devastation. As she saw the bodies that lay around her. As she watched the living slowly make their way through the dead, their eyes looking onto the faces of the corpses that lay lifeless on the ground. It obvious that they were looking for friends, for comrades; for uncles, brothers, fathers and sons that they had stood with. That had got split from them as they tried to survive the day. Tears coming to her eyes, as she watched an older man stop and drop to his knees, pulling into his arms the limp body of a young man, a boy in truth. One that should have been with the children and women, but instead, he was dead on the battlefield. The female warrior not even able to imagine what was going on in the man's mind, as he cradled the boy to his chest.

It wasn't that she hadn't seen things like this before. She had been on more than her fair share of battlefields. She had seen more than her fair share of dead bodies. She had seen them contorted, twisted. She had seen them piled up, rotting and bloated. Seen the crows and ravens that came after a fight, pluck the eyeballs from skulls of men that she had known, that she had fought with. Even opportunistic animals chewing on the spilled out guts that fell from the bellies of those that had been split in two by the swords of the enemy. But despite all this. Despite all her experience, this sight was breaking her heart. The warrior reaching up and brushing the tears from her cheeks. The salty liquid mixing with the blood and mud that caked her skin. The image forcing her to her feet, even though her body did nothing but protest, as she struggled to rise from the ground. Her arm gripping at her side, as a pain shot through her body. The sudden jolt almost sending her back to the floor. The lady steadying herself as best she could, ignoring the ache, ignoring the fact that her knees felt as though they could buckle at any moment. Her sword, that not long before had been used to remove the heads of the White Walkers, now used to assist her to walk. To help her make her way through the dead.

Carefully, she took a step and then another. The injury to her side making it hard to breath, yet she pushed on. She had to find him. Alive or dead she had to find him. The man she loved. She had to find Sandor.

The big man had done his best to tell her that she should be there with the women and children. That if the men outside began to fall, she would be needed to help protect those that didn't not know how to, or could not fight. But she had insisted. She had said that she had fought as many battles as he had. That she had survived up until this point, no matter what the gods had thrown at her. And now, she wasn't about to hide. She wasn't going to abandon all those that she had fought side by side with for most of her life. Wasn't going to let them face this terror alone. She wasn't going to let him face the undead without her right next to him. For if they were going to die, then she wanted them to be together. And if that day was going to be their end, she wanted them to leave this world with a sword in their hand, cursing at the gods as the life left them. But despite all their best efforts to remain with one another, to fight back-to-back, they had become separated. She had been pushed away from her lover in the chaos and movement of men. And now, as she carefully made her way through the deceased, she could do nothing but hope that if she had survived, then Sandor had too. Because if he hadn't, all this, the thought of a better world and finally some peace for them both. Perhaps even a quiet life where they could have a family of their own and forget about all that had gone before, had been for nothing. The warrior just praying that if Sandor had been taken from her, then she might soon follow.