These Scars We Wear

Obligatory disclaimer: Not mine and never will be. All credit goes to GRRM. I'm just playing with his toys while he's not looking. I promise to return them in as good a shape as I found them.

He opens his eyes to cold droplets falling upon fevered skin. The pain is enormous, larger than any he has ever known. He tips his head and opens his mouth, desperate for something to quench the unending thirst, his tongue seeking the raindrops - a leaden gray sky's offering. He has forgotten the flagon of water lying by his right hand; the one the she-wolf dropped there before she left him.

He is dying. And it is no better a death than he deserves.

As eyelids begin to flutter, the darkness pulling him close once more, Sandor Clegane watches as autumn leaves of gold and yellow and deepest red dance in the wind. He lifts a hand, meaning to capture one as it falls, a red one. It is the exact shade of her hair and he wants to grasp and hold one last time. Not to her, that will never be possible now, but only to her memory, contained there in a single leaf.

He closes his fingers too slowly, though, and it escapes, caught by a sudden updraft of air that circles round the high limbs of the tree he rests against. He watches as it shoots away, swirling and dancing.

"Aye," he rasps. "There you go. Fly away, little bird."

He draws in a sob and closes his eyes.

"Mercy. Please … mercy."

….