"Will you not accompany me?" His lady asks. She doesn't wait for a response, merely walks away in a manner entirely un-ignorable. Her hips sway left to right and he is doomed to follow her. Were it up to him, he'd chase her to the edge of the realm to bring her home again.

He follows at a distance, as if the space between them tells her that he is not her plaything. She doesn't own him now. She never has. He prides himself on being an honest creature, so he knows this pageantry is all horse shit. It's an act. A fucking song.

Sandor Clegane is a one-way man and Sansa Stark is it.

He finds her in the godswood. She kneels by the pool her father would clean his sword by and he feels the ancient faces of the trees staring.

Bugger that. They're eons old and can't see shit. They're fucking trees.

He removes his cloak to wrap it about her as he has a hundred times.

"I love you," she sighs, her fingers twining with his. He's not old yet. Not too dull or too predictable. She'll tire of him one day, he thinks. She's married twice now. He knows he'll not be next, but he'll burn alive a second time before someone else is. The entire seven kingdoms would go to war again this Winter for Sansa Stark, but she's his little bird.

"Do you, now?" He teases her. He dares to spread his hands over her hips, all-seeing trees be damned.

"You know I do," she says, serious as her late father. Not a soul could ever doubt her nature as a true lady of the North. A true Stark.

She's older, sharper, and colder than the girl he left behind in King's Landing. When this part of Sansa emerges, he wants to fuck her into the fallen red leaves and have done with it. He wants to lie back in the snow and watch her take whatever pleasure she can from him. He also wants the naïve girl, the one with a pretty little head full of songs and true knights. He mostly wants her—what she will give. What he can get.

Sansa Stark is a lot of things to a lot of people, but she's his little bird.

He pulls off his gloves and strokes her high cheekbones with his massive thumbs. "Aye," he doesn't argue. "That I do."

"And you love me," she tells him, already knowing his response.

"All your smallfolk do." He teases her. Sandor forever dances around the words. For a man who once prided himself on his honesty, it seems to be the one thing he has difficulty admitting. He doesn't want to seem weak. For her, he is and he almost resents her for it.

"What of my household?" She asks, her hands splaying over his chest. Her icy blue eyes lock with his and Sandor Clegane is hopeless.

"We serve you well, my lady." He tells her.

"In my chambers?" She presses.

"Might be your handmaidens do." He parries.

She frowns at the smirk on his face. "What of my men-at-arms?"

"Unwavering in their duty to her ladyship," he says, patting her bottom and drawing her closer.

"My sworn shield?" Sansa asks, her hands locked behind his neck.

"Might be around here somewhere." He answers, his nose nudging hers. "You smell good," he admits because she does.

"Flattery doesn't become you," she smiles against his lips before slipping out of his arms.

"There is little and less that does become me, little bird."

She pulls his cloak tighter about her shoulders and smiles to herself. "Love does," she tells him. He's not so sure about that.

Sansa moves to stand under the ancient tree and touches her fingers to the red sap weeping from the eyes carved into the bark. Sandor can't help but come to stand beside her, always in his lady's shadow like some kind of damn dog. He watches the thick sap coat her fingers, helpless when she puts the sticky liquid on her lips.

When he kisses her under the weirwood, she smiles against his mouth. The sap makes their lips sticky and sweet and in a rare, unguarded moment, Sansa Stark laughs.

He's married her a hundred times under this tree. Sandor Clegane hopes to live to marry her another hundred.