SHE LAID ON his chest with one of his arms draped across her back. He ran a finger down her cheek, following a new scar that wasn't there when he last saw her. "Didn't think I'd see your face again." Anya leaned into his touch with little reserve and this time he did not take his hand away.
"I couldn't stay away forever," she uttered, knowing it was true. She could have stayed at the Wall longer, could have stayed with Erac Cleaber or Hyle Hunt longer but that was not where her heart yearned to be. It was here she wished to be. Next to Sandor Clegane.
His lips twisted into a smile, she found it delightful to finally see him smile. "Roses," he began without preamble. Her brows furrowed but then she understood. "You always smell like fucking roses. You've got plenty of thorns too." They both laughed. Anya bit her lip to stifle the swell of emotions that would come as tears. She kissed his chin and then his lips and laid her head on his chest. It was the closest she had felt to being at home and ease since leaving Winterfell.
Dawn had come and gone. The early morning was upon them and soon someone would surely be sent to the cottage where they lay with tangled limbs. It would be frightfully embarrassing if one of the silent brothers were to see them in such a state of undress. "And this one?" She found another scar, barely visible beneath the hair on his chest. It was shaped like a waxing crescent moon and oddly pink compared to the color of his skin.
"First tournament," he muttered, still half caught in the haze that sleep had left.
The next scar was on the underside of his arm. "What about this one?" Her fingers danced over the jagged mark, but unlike some, it was smooth and almost blended into his skin.
"During the sack of King's Landing." She remembered Ned telling her about the sack of the capital by Tywin Lannister. Jaime earned the title kingslayer. Robert Baratheon ascended to the throne while the bloodied corpses of Aegon, Rhaenys, and Elia had not even grown cold.
Sandor laid his hand over the scar on her hip. It was a short curved line that began at the point of her hip and extended downward for two inches. "Theon fell into a river during a winter hunt. I went after him but got caught up on a rock before I could get out." She remembered the cold water and how it stabbed like a thousand knives. By the time they had reached Winterfell both she and Theon had been frozen stiff. Jon and Robb had found the way ice crystals formed in her hair particularly amusing.
"And these?" His thumbs brushed over her nipples and the small brown scars that ran vertically through each of them. Her skin turned to gooseflesh. Anya held his hands against her breasts and closed her eyes, recounting how they came to be.
"I nursed Jon when he was a babe. The maester had to make an incision before any milk would come." He sat up and pulled her flush against him. Anya threaded her fingers through his hair and reveled in his strength and warmth. He pressed his face into the valley of her breasts and for a moment she swore she could feel his tender kisses. "Sandor," she gasped when he pushed her down on him. Wordlessly, he rocked her hips and she bit down on her bottom lip. "We should get dress -ah!"
Midday had just come when Anya and Sandor joined the brothers of the isle in the main sept. Brother Ray and Meribald had begun a travelers prayer while others readied baskets of bread, cheese, and salted meat. Anya watched and allowed the two septons to finish their prayer before inquiring where it was they were going. Ray told her that they would be leaving in the morn for a small village in the Riverlands, to help rebuild a sept that had been put to the torch during the war.
"I'm coming as well," she said. Perhaps Meribald had opened his mouth to object to her company but with the dark glare Sandor gave the holy man, he said nothing against it. Brother Ray wore a kindly smile. "Of course. Could always use more hands."
She knew that chopping and hauling trees would be left for the men. She could manage to help for a short while before her scarred shoulder would go stiff, but despite that, the Whent girl still felt the need to prove she could be of use. "I can help the women prepare meals and set up camp."
Ray nodded. "It'll be appreciated."
Food stores had been packed for the road, as had tents. Hammers and axes were being loaded into one of the wagons. There were four in total, three filled with supplies and the last filled with those that wished to help. Anya and Sandor had managed a seat in the wain that carried the tools. After having crossed the muddy tidal flats, he began to sharpen the axes with a small whetstone. By midday, it was as if all the axes had just come from the blacksmith's anvil.
Anya had packed her sword into the cart beneath a basket of cedar pegs and nails before the brothers could stop her, but now the sun caught the golden hilt and glimmered like a hidden treasure. "Where'd you get that fancy sword?" Sandor asked, and she relented to handing him the sword and sheath, not caring what the holy men would say.
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you." She smiled as he pulled the blade out, it looked small in his hand and fragile with its delicately crafted hilt. "I found it in the trunk of a tree." Anya still wasn't quite used to the way the light caught the ripples on the steel and made it seem as if they were moving like water or the wind.
"Targaryen blade," Sandor mused. It was the rubies and golden dragons molded into the cross guard that gave away the sword's heritage. "Dark Sister," she told him and sounded proud that somehow the ancient sword of Visenya Targaryen had come into her possession if by fate or accident.
He placed the tip of the blade in the sheath and pressed the rest in with a smooth motion. "Fitting," he remarked as he handed the sword back to Anya.
By sundown, they had arrived in the small village and were greeted with a warm meal of meat stew and brown bread, simple but filling. The village, if it could even be called one, was a cluster of wooden huts with thatch roofing that leaked during storms and wouldn't be able to keep out the cruel winds of winter. Most of the people were refugees from the war, or so Ray told her. Their possessions had been burned by the Lannisters or the Freys, maybe even the Starks by mischance.
It was on the outer edge of the forest where the sept was to be built and it was there that the tents had been pitched. To honor the Seven, unwed men and women did not share a tent, that left Anya lying next to one of the village's newest occupants. Lyra from High Heart, a herbal witch as some called her.
Anya rolled over and used a blanket to block out the sound of her snoring tentmate, only it didn't work in the slightest. She groaned and crawled out of the canvas tent, stumbling in the night.
Sandor cracked one of his eyes open to see the shadow her delicate figure. "You're not supposed to be here," he mumbled as she slipped through the flaps of his tent and tossed down her blanket.
"Never did like following rules," Anya whispered in turn and he smirked. "Lyra is snoring like a fucking hog," she added.
She spread out her blanket the best she could in the small and dark space and laid next to him with a content sigh. Anya was nearly asleep when she felt Sandor's arm slip around her shoulders and pull her into his side. Damn the Seven, she thought, loving someone and being with them isn't sinful.
The sept was little more than a pile of chopped trees by the time lunch was prepared and dished out on the seventh day. Anya was the last to prepare her bowl. Most of the men and women were bunched together in groups with lively conversations, but Sandor was not among them. Several groups motioned for her to join them, but she politely declined and went to the lone figure who sat on a rock, his back turned to everyone else.
"They're afraid of you," Anya said as she sat next to him.
"I'm used to it," he replied. She frowned, thinking it was the saddest thing she had ever heard someone say. The silence that fell over them was almost serene and welcomed among the chaos of falling trees and hammers ringing on wooden pegs.
Sighing, Anya passed him the remaining half of her chicken and rose with his empty bowl. She laid her hand on his shoulder for half a second and squeezed. He almost reached for her but stopped himself when another figure was approaching. "She loves you," Ray laughed when Anya was back with the other women. Sandor huffed in response and tore another piece of meat of the small wing. "And unless my eyes have been plucked out, you love her too."
He couldn't deny it. He wouldn't deny it. It was true. Why else would he want to be in her presence or see her laugh and smile? He would've taken her across the Narrow Sea after the Blackwater. He would've even taken the little she-wolf, Arya. Sandor did his best to give Ray a dangerous look, but the septon knew better. "Shut it old man." Ray handed him a mug of ale and left laughing like nothing was wrong in the world.
"Anya! Take this to Sandor." The old septon pressed a water-filled wineskin into her hand with uneasy urgency. She looked around and laid down the small knife she had been using to peel potatoes and carrots. "Something's wrong," she stated, unmoving, "What's happening? Tell me." But the septon shook his head.
"Go. Run to him," said Ray, his tone serious and urgent. "Damn your fucking stubbornness, girl. Go to Sandor, now!" She ran as he had told her to do. The first of the screams had rung out in the air before she had even reached the tree line. Sparing a moment's glance back she saw the massacre begin. The people she had spent the past month with were being cut down like defenseless animals. They had been unarmed asides from the handful of axes and hammers that were being used to build the sept. Against swords and arrows, nothing could be done.
It was the Brotherhood Without Banners. They had come naught even two days past, asking about stocks and weapons. Ray had been leading a sermon when three of them interrupted. Sandor had stood rigid when he recognized them, Anya tried to hide her face. For the first time since everything had gone to shit in King's Landing, both she and he had found something good, doing good. Now it was being taken away.
Tears pricked at her eyes and finally came the first time she fell over a small stump. Several times Anya tripped over her own feet, roots, and stumps. She could still hear the screams. A branch caught her roughspun tunic, pulling threads loose, and scratched her arms and cheek. The screams were louder now and more numerous. She swore she heard her name being called out as well. "Anya!" She ran harder towards the sound of her name, not caring about the briars that bit into her legs and arms or the low hanging branches that scratched her face. "Anya!"
They near collided. Sandor took her into his arms for the briefest of moments, so quickly it had not even been a true embrace. "They came back," she huffed between breaths, "the Brotherhood. They came back." He ran his thumb down her bloodied cheek and moved past her, running back to the camp. She followed him, stopping at the edge of the forest where she had hidden Dark Sister.
The field was littered with bodies. Men and women alike, some almost still at an age to pass as children. Arrows had been embedded in some of the corpses, others had limbs hacked off. Why do the good and innocent have to die? The tents had been torched, but the skeletal sept had been spared. As Anya drew closer, she saw the shape of a body that was hanging from the steeple. A cry escaped her throat when she saw it was Ray.
"Go back to the isle," he told her, not taking his gaze off the brother who had been strung up. Anya remained rooted at his side. "I'm not leaving," she told him with an iron resolve, drawing sword from sheath. Sandor turned and took up an axe.
Sorry it took so long to update! I was on vacation then ended up sick. Hope you enjoy and don't forget to vote and comment! (Have you guys seen King Arthur: Legend of the Sword? I'm tossing around ideas for a story if anyone would be interested in reading one about Charlie Hunnam's portrayal as Arthur.)