A/N: Right, apologies about that. I seem to have developed a strong aversion to writing anything with a clearly defined storyline. Sorry.

SING NOW FOR THE HOPELESS

"And by the way, Monsieur Marius, I believe that I was a little bit in love with you."
Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

When evenfall comes, she thinks this might just be it. A figure at the threshold, and eyes two pieces of flint she's come to know in spite of herself.

She's just chasing shadows, really.

"Where will you go?"

"Someplace that isn't burning."

Put on your sun-bright smile, little princess, your good-wife gown. And if your glass heart should crack, don't let it show, cause, girl, there's a storm coming, and it'll rip the shards from you and scatter them to the four winds.

"You won't hurt me."

"No, little bird, I won't hurt you."

The Hound has lived the world in his skin and bones; he doesn't whisper sweet nothings to her or stuff her full of compliments; doesn't look one bit like the Prince Charming she'd whiled away her Winterfell days crafting dragonsbreath dreams about.

But he's there, you know. When it's cold and fear and emptiness, and the sun lies down under the waves—and it's not all right, she knows that much—but it's a better thing.

A last-through-the-night-and-hope-for-the-sunrise thing.

She wants to say thank-you for being my friend, but has a feeling he doesn't care much for friendship anyway. So she reins back the crushingscorchingblinding pain and tries to forget those times (they're nothing but burned-out flaxen threads, love) when he'd almost held her, because she looked sad and fakestrong and he didn't want to see her breaking.

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He watches her, that girl with the caress of the North and her bleeding soul all scarred and bruised, who aches but does not understand, because she knows (she just does, all right?) that there is always (always like the stars, and the flowers in the spring; always like family) supposed to be a happy ending.

"You're all right, little bird. You're all right."

He leaves her with more fight in her than a direwolf—and it's not the sort of leaving that's meant to hurt; it's not the sort of leaving that's meant to feel as though a dagger's been dug into your chest—twisting, slashing, searing—because she's just a silly little princess with her head full of make-believe fantasies.

(So how come there are now stars missing from the sky?)

And despite everything, he knows that she's going to brave the world this time round (she doesn't really have a choice) and one day the little bird will spread those fire-clad wings, stitched together with words spun of hope, braced with the fleeting glances of long-ago—the shining moments of maybe-someday.

And then perhaps those stars will blink back into the darkness.