Playing Match Maker pt.2
part one here!!!
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Pairing: Sandor Clegane x fem!Reader
Tags: romcom once more, fluff, married life, humor, pregnancy, no plot, dialogue heavy, unnamed reader, not beta read
Summary: Sandor settled into married life, maybe even too much.
Warnings: NONE! (it is kinda low quality tho)
babez who wanted to be tagged: @brianna-merlim @lalalaloopsieeww
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Sandor stabs the meat with a bit too much force. The knife grates against the delicately decorated brass plate.
“I would say the prices of silk have gone up to such prices not even a lady of medium standing can hope to get more than one gown done these days!” Says Lady Melesa Crakehall as she dabs her lips with a towel and then quickly dabs over her overspilling bosom as well, catching any juice that spilled from her lips.
“That is to say, I believe at least one good silk dress is always needed, at any court, and at any occasion that calls for it. But can I truly judge a woman for wearing linen or homespun or some sort of other brocade when the prices have gotten so steep? Surely not, surely not.” She hums, completely and wholly agreeing with herself.
Lady Clegane nods and smiles tight lipped, not saying a word. Lady Crakehall gladly takes that a sign to continue.
“But after all, a woman may be in charge of the family's expenses yet a silk dress is hardly family spending even if it does serve to uphold good manners and good standing,” She says with a nod. “A woman must always make a show of good manners and modesty by refusing frivolous expenses unless they come as gifts. Do you not agree, Lord Clegane?” She asks Sandor who is cutting into the way too well done steak.
“The fuck do I know, I just buy them” He scoffs, but Lady Crakehall seems too taken by her own sputtering to mind his manners.
“Obviously I do no intend to insult you, Lady Clegane, if you own more than the average amount of fine gowns. Not at all, if that is the case I merely envy you” She says and laughs behind her handkerchief, a short and polite giggle that grates Sandor’s nerves. Her breasts fight against the very intricate brown gown she is wearing, one of those cuts that became fashionable in the Reach, with the square bodices and low shoulders.
Sandor preferred banquets where he stood at the back walls and got drunk on cheap wine. No one wanted to drag him into conversation about fabrics then.
“Of course…” Says Lady Clegane, her arms adjusting over her protruding belly. Her dress is silk, a new one, one he got her for her last pregnancy, with the adjustable strings on the front to adapt to the belly. That stuff looks great on his woman, not for the silk or the gold cuffs as much as the knowledge she is carrying his child. Again.
In their years of marriage Lady Clegane has not really gotten accustomed to making polite conversation. She is still dreadful at it, but she is good when it comes to listening to prattling, which Sandor is not good at, at all.
His wife has a great ability to filter out conversations in favor of her own imaginings and reveries. Sandor envies it, he finds it difficult to focus with idiotic blabber going on in the background.
Lady Crakehall keeps talking of this and that. Sandor attempts to allow the noise of the banquet to drown out her nasal little voice, instead he ends up staring at a far away table where some of the Riverland Lords are drinking and laughing loudly. He is so desperate to get away from the clutches of lady Crakehall he almost wishes he would join that bunch of idiots rather than sit here.
The thought is dispersed when he turns. Next to lady Crakehall is her husband, half asleep from the wine, but across her, right next to Sandor, so close he can feel the occasional brush of her silk dress is his lady. And a sight she is. She cleaned up great for today. She looks nice, she looks splendid, she doesn’t look like the wife of a dog.
All dewy skinned, and soft, and lost somewhere else. Like a lady in a song, breathing out sweet thoughts of love as she ignores the mundane chittering of court. Sandor grins to himself before tearing into the steak.
He is not one to refuse good gifts. And it is far too late to refuse this one, he is more than happy to be with her as long as she allows it. Before she wakes up one day and realizes who she was married to.
Sometimes he still fears it, that one day she may see the cut of his scarred profile in the light of an hearth and be scared all of a sudden. Be taken by sobriety, hells maybe even develop some sense, and run from him.
For now, she has been the usual silly girl, loving him, letting herself be loved by him. Lapped at, while balanced in the jowls of the Clegane hound, licked clean, carefully taken apart, naked—
“Do you not think so?” Asks lady Crakehall and Sandor’s eyes flick to her like those of a hound from hell. He doesn’t enjoy being distracted in the middle of good thinking.
“Lady Crakehall asked you if you agree that four silk gowns are more than enough for a lady of good standing” whispers Lady Clegane, her hands on her protruding belly.
“You got six” he points out, looking at his wife as her eyebrows shoot up. She goes pink and fans herself a bit with the delicate lace fan she bought for the occasion.
He has a fancy wife even if it doesn’t seem like it. It was clear from the start she can be a bit vain, and care too much for pressed flowers and lace and bullshite of the sort. Sandor gets paid well, and what doesn’t go to the children goes to make his wife pretty. And gods know she is a glad recipient.
“Six?! Oh by the gods, six silk dresses with two children and one on the way” says the woman “I do envy you, my lady” she adds. Then breaks into another fit of laughter that is somewhere between too controlled and too loud. Sandor grunts into his steak.
“I well— since we live in Riverrun many expenses are not on ours—“
“Not real proper to sniff around other houses’ monetary decisions, is it now Lady Crakehall?” He grunts and a silence cuts a straight line between them. The woman shakes her head quickly, her face rising in color.
“Of course! Of course! How rude of me, I apologize” she mumbles.
Sandor goes back to stabbing the meat.
A small tug comes at the back of his left sleeve and he turns to catch a pair of huge eyes peeping in his direction. The pair of eyes, hidden under a few stray hair as thin as velvet thread, are poking out of the collar of a tiny blue dress.
“What do you want?” Says Sandor, mouth half full already.
Elaine shuffles forwards a few steps and tries to raise to her tip toes to peek at whatever he has on his plate, eyeing the buttered baked potato steaming next to the meat. She points it with a tiny finger and looks at him imploringly, like some starving puppy.
Sandor grunts, he gives a look around the table and catches Lady Crakehall in the middle of another of her long sessions of chatter, and Lady Clegane nodding along uselessly. He pities her but decides he can’t do anything to save her now.
He leans down and brings his daughter up to his knee, catching her about her waist with two big hands. He adjusts her so she may sit close enough to the table not to make a mess of herself and drags the plate closer. Elaine immediately starts bouncing at the prospect of baked potatoes.
“Don’t burn your tongue off.” he warns, cutting into the potato with a fork and feeding it to Elaine’s mouth. She nods, not eager at the prospect of scorching her mouth and not tasting the stolen morsels in full. She opens her mouth and takes forkfull after forkfull. “Thank chu” She spits out, he cleans her mouth with a napkin when her words force crumbs of potatoes to escape her mouth.
Sandor’s face is painted in a frown of exasperation that is more for show than anything else. He is no soft man, he doesn’t coddle, he doesn’t sing little songs or make an ass of himself by coating his words in a buttering of sweet nonsense. But no one can accuse him of being a mean father either.
It took long to snip the roots away, to distance himself from the shadow that the Clegane tower-house still shed over him, to leave behind the fear of nursing the soul of his father and his brother under his ribs.
He hasn’t crossed the border south of the Riverlands since getting married, he barely reads Tywin’s letters anymore, he doesn’t keep up with gossip that comes too close to mentioning Gregor. Most days he doesn’t think about them, until someone looks at the right side of his face, that is.
He may still be a mean Hound, but he is doing his best not to be a Clegane any longer.
Many may make fun of him, maybe even think he has gone mad or too soft for a woman, but if the law of man allowed it he would have preferred his children not to carry his name, he would have liked it to memorize another family’s words and be done with thinking of the snarling hounds and the yellow and black sigil for the rest of his life.
Sometimes he wishes all of his daughters to be female so that he won’t have a chance to continue the family line.
No matter how much his Lady tries to convince him: there is rot in his blood, and it is difficult to wash away. Sometimes it seems his great grandfather cut hearts out of the dogs and sewed it into his children, to make sure they would grow mean and big and with blood on their teeth.
Elaine chews on the baked potato, being very careful to hang tight on his sleeve. He taught her to do that when she was still young and used to go floppy when she was fed. Teaching children sometimes is close to training dogs, he can’t voice that sentiment with Lady Clegane because she is sure to have his head, but he secretly still thinks it.
“You’ll eat us out of our home–” he grumbles when Elaine leans forwards and opens her mouth for even more food. He feeds it to her with no qualms, but does cock an eyebrow when she eyes the steak.
“You’ll break your teeth on that one I tell you” he says and she blinks in confusion. “Why?” Is all she asks before Sandor’s attention is diverted.
“Well let us hope the next one is a boy!” Says Lady Crakehall, clapping, with her eyes on Lady Clegane’s pregnant stomach. His wife smiles and turns bashful under the attention.
“Only the gods can tell” she says softly, folding a napkin in two and smoothing it straight. His lady was never fond of attention, if it doesn’t come from him that is, she likes that kind, no matter how coy she plays it. She looks around awkwardly, wishing Lady Crakehall would stop inquiring after the pregnancy.
The distraction comes in a flurry of bell sleeves and satin cuffs.A round of giggling is heard accompanying young Lady Mottoon when she appears by the table holding their youngest, Aenor, in her arms. She is smiling so brightly one may think she was gifted a jewel.
“My lady, this is the most delightful baby I ever was handed” she smiles, behind her peeks another girl who seems about her age, maybe a Frey, darker in features, just as happy. She also smiles, eyes on the child as she squirms in the arms holding her.
“Yes! So quiet and good! She makes noises like a kitten” says the Frey girl. Sandor has long given up trying to memorize all of his wife’s unending list of cousins and relatives, but he guesses these are some cousins on her brother in law’s side.
“Ah! A kitten?” AsksLady Clegane, somewhere between amused and actually surprised. She gets the baby back from the girls, even if the two keep cooing and wiggling fingers in Aenor’s face.
“Yes” they let out in a choir. Sandor goes back to feeding Elaine, too much noise from the table for his tastes. Elaine can be chatty, but not when food is around.
If back years ago one were to tell him that he would retire from guarding Cersei and her kids to have some of his own, in the Riverlands, sitting down at banquets and being swarmed by chatter and gossip, how could he have ever believed them?
That is not to say people particularly enjoy looking at his face, or dealing with his less than amiable personality, but he has long stopped being a dog. What he is, he is not sure however. He used to think all lords were the same, yet things are less cruel here, as if people remember they are mortal, unlike the lions and the golden stags of the south.
“Can I?” Elaine points to his flagon of red.
“Hells no girl, you need be at least seven to try it” he scoffs. She relents quite easily.
“How long till I am seven?” She attempts then and he mumbles under his teeth, takes a bite of his steak and shrugs, like some great stallion chasing off flies.
“Four years, do you know how long four years are? No, you haven’t even lived them.” he says and Elaine seems to mull it over.
“How many years am I?” She asks and Sandor goes back to chewing, throwing the food back with some red wine and coughing into his elbow.
“You know that,” he points out, poking a finger at her neck, she cranes her head to stop the motion and squirms in his lap. She smiles but then starts thinking, so hard she ignores the next forkfull of potato he attempts to feed her.
“I’m three.” she says, holding up two fingers.
“Good enough,” he mumbles and focuses on his food once again. The women keep chattering and cooing after Aenor who is chewing on a rag and barely noticing the attention being showered on her.
She looks much like her mom, so it is only fair.
The two young girls rush away the moment they get a peek of some other of their cousins passing by and lady Crakehall remains the only one filling the table with chatter. Her husband makes a noise, almost waking from his drunk stupor before closing his eyes again and going back to snoring on the table.
Sandor grimaces.
“When I had my first boy… Oh well, it cannot be expressed! I do not think there are many blessings for a family as sweet as a son. Yes, a legacy that is” Says Lady Crakehall. Lady Clegane nods softly, then she busies herself brushing the thin clump of hair on Aenor’s head back into place.
“I think any healthy baby is a good blessing from the gods” She says, candid and true and as usual speaking her mind too much and too loud. Lady Crakehall nods slowly and she dabs her mouth then her chest from the meat juices.
“Well… A son I would say weighs double what a daughter weighs” She says. Sandor gives a glance to his wife’s gravid belly and then looks towards the children’s table in the far corner of the banquet hall.
The boys wrestle on the floor with the dogs, pulling at each other's tunics and playing knights. The girls sit, in long lines, with dolls and capes and flowers to braid into their hair. He wonders if they already know they hold half the importance as their brothers, or if they still hold on to the hope that being fine ladies will save them from the scorn of their fathers.
Sandor looks down at Elaine where she is attempting her best at falling off of his lap.
How much does a child half-burned weigh on the heart of a father? How much do easy lies weigh on a parent’s conscience?
Many times Sandor asked himself this, if the back of his father’s throat burned when he told everyone Sandor’s bedding caught on fire, if he felt the rumble of the hells under his boots and prayed hard that night. When you are a child it is easy to imagine your parents feeling bad for what they did to you, when you are an adult not so much.
“I disagree–” Says Lady Clegane, Sandor shuffles a foot under the table to press against her leg. He looks at her then at lady Crakehall. He doesn’t need his wife falling into another endless discussion over a banquet table. Lady Cleagne never takes on these conversations with anger or displeasure but her interlocutors always do, believing she is trying to question their morality and stance. In truth she is just too fond of speaking her own.
“I believe your son has gotten a-hold of a slingshot,” says Sandor and Lady Crakehall turns red and whips her head towards the back of the hall to find her son attempting to throw baked goods at girls with said homemade slingshot.
“Francis! Oh gods forgive me, forgive me!” she sputters standing quickly to rush to her son, skirts gathered high. Her husband makes a noise that sounds like the gurgling of an old carcass and rolls a bit in his drunk sleep.
Sandor’s wife turns to him and blinks, then smiles.
“I was not– Doing anything bad.” She says, adjusting her hold on Aenor so the baby may not slip down further. The child coos and goes back to gnawing on the cloth.
“I know that.” he huffs, he smiles and shakes his head, despite himself. She is too endearing.
“But you would have riled her up” one of his knuckles rubs on Elaine’s side, making her giggle and squirm away from the touch, her hand attempting to grasp at the copper redberry jam cup near his plate.
“Not on purpose” Says she, not to be difficult, but because she believes it. Then she turns sheepish.
“I do not understand this aversion, if the gods see it fit we have up to five daughters then it is not our right to complain about it. ‘Tis their plan it needs be accepted.” She says. Sandor smiles.
“Aye” He agrees. “Gods saw it fit to give us to foolish girls,” He hums “I thank them everyday for it,”
“Do not be mean” She chastises. “They are bright children, and of good disposition.”
“That was not the gods’ doing, they just favored you” He says. His hand goes to cover hers where she is holding Aenor, where her knuckles are soft with the goat milk lotion and they smell endearingly of honey and flowers. In his mind’s eye these hands are picking flowers off the side of country trails and sewing together socks the size of one of his fingers.
“I am no king, I do not need a boy to carry my crown.” He says, pats the hand and polishes his plate with a piece of brown bread, carefully moving the jam away from Elaine’s grasp.
“Besides they will have no issue marrying if they are anything like their mother” He says and that gets him a good kick under the table. No matter how pregnant she surely is quick. Sandor is smitten enough to like that too.
—-------
“Careful” Whines Lady Clegane as sandor hauls Aenor up higher holding her upside down by her ankles.
“She loves it, I tell you” He answers. Elaine looks at her sister being lifted up in pure wonder, clutching a toy horse to her chest and standing in her nightgown by his feet. He cocks an eyebrow at her but Elaine barely responds, she just looks up in fascination.
“She doesn’t know what is best for her, she is one” comments his wife. Sandor shrugs and turns her around, the child giggles and kicks her feet fast.
“She will grow to think you boring” He complains and puts the child back into the crib. Aenor’s eyes follow him closely, still clapping in delight at the game.
“I would prefer that to endangering them.” Complains Lady Clegane, slipping lower against the headboard of their bed, her legs drawn up as much as possible with her belly in the way. Sandor rolls his eyes, he sits heavily on his side of the feather mattress and lowers himself next to her with a deep grunt.
He has not drunk as much as he could have stomached, but the weight of wine is nice and comfortable at the pit of his stomach. It warms up the muscles of his legs until they hurt when he flexes them.
Elaine climbs laboriously the oak frame of the bed to crawl towards them.
“You are too worried woman,” He says and turns to her, biting at her ear so that she may get even more annoyed with him. She scoffs and looks away, mostly to hide a smile.
“I am worried just enough.” She answers, it is a whisper, she turns to him with that serious face like everything she is saying is words of the gods. He smiles, teeth baring like a dog’s.
When he dives in to nip at her neck she squirms away and lets out a long noise of complaint, but there is no escape, he bites and bites at her neck until she is fighting against him between fits of giggles and slaps at his great back.
“You are vile! I am pregnant–” She complains. He laughs against her ear and goes to push the scarred side of his face against the back of her neck, to feel the softness of the skin where he barely feels in the first place.
“I am vile, you know that, that’s what you married” He whispers into her hair and she whines again, but she is smiling, barely concealed by her mass of curls and strands of wayward hair. He dives back in, this time skimming her ribs with his fingers and squeezing. She calls him a brute and a dog between cries and laughter. He tugs at her hair with his teeth.
“Stop! Stop it!” Comes from the foot of the bed. They both turn, faces pinched in surprise to find Elaine standing there, clutching a stuffed animal and holding her hands out to them in a placating manner.
“Have you turned into a Septon, girl?” He barks after a moment of surprise. She is but a little ivory statue with her huge nightgown and her hands poking out of the large sleeves like two round pieces of candy.
“You can’t do that to mom–” She says, her tone a whine more than a command, before she is dragged to her mother. His wife grabs her by the waist and hauls her to lay at her side, a smile on her face where Sandor is frowning. As soon as Elaine is placed at her mom’s flank she goes back to being meek as a kitten, all her righteous sentiments forgotten, nose pressed to mom, the soft smell of home deep in her lungs.
“Your father was playing, my dear,” says Lady Clegane, brushing her hair off of her forehead with a soft finger. She smooths the pad of her finger over the bridge of Elaine’s nose and then traces the slope of her cheeks, her eyebrows, her chin, which she pinches between her knuckles.
“Mmmmmmh” Hums Elaine, content and settled as soon as she can feel the smell of her mother and the velvety feel of her skin on hers. Sandor laughs.
“The easiest creature to bribe in all of Westeros.” He comments, tone neutral, he lays back down, staring at the wooden beams of the ceiling, his arms folded behind his head. His chest rumbles, shaken by a grunt when he feels his woman roll closer to him, gathering the covers to cushion her pregnant stomach on the side and holding her Elaine close to her back.
Once both the girls are asleep he dares slip his arm around his wife so that his knuckles may run up and down her arm softly, skimming the skin over her nightgown.
“Did you mean what you said?” She asks softly, her mouth to his ribs. “About caring not for sons? Or were you doing that to placate me?” Her eyes are so soft and tender on him he thinks if he looks enough he may just see the heavens opening up in the glassy reflection the candles shed on them.
“Aye, I meant it” He mumbles. “You think I ever cared? For silly things such as my name being carried onwards?”
“I do not know what you care for sometimes.” she says “You say you are so jaded with the ways of society and men, yet you never cheat, never run, never neglect us, never are unjust to my family and friends”
“I am obedient” he says, but they both know it is not just that anymore.
“I think you are not as much of a cynic as you used to say”.
“I have been a cynic, a real one, a mean bastard, since my head was pulled up from the fire.” He dares a glance at Elaine to make sure she is sleeping. The child’s eyes are closed softly, she breathes in small puffs of air with her cheek smushing to her mother’s back.
“But that doesn’t mean I care not for what is mine. I gave you vows, and when I do I respect them” He says. He is no coward, no coven bastard who enjoys batting at women to feel a king in his house, who turns families into grey phantoms that haunt mansions and castles.
“I think it will be a son–” She says “It is important to have a son… even if we do not believe it” She adds, her lips are now touching his body, speaking the words into his tunic, warming it with sweet breaths.
“I won’t be betting money with your brother over the sex once again” He says and grunts. She frowns.
“Don’t bet money with him at all, he needs no more reasons to worry father” She complains, he tugs at her hair a bit. He smiles and his chest rumbles with laughter he doesn't vocalize.
“Sandor!” She complains but she is quick to quiet down when he kisses her lips.
“Hush” Is all he says, his hand goes back to grazing her skin, then he moves it over so he can caress Elaine’s head just barely. “He is a man grown”
For a long moment Sandor tries to think back on his childhood, on his mother, his father, his brother. He tries to remember memories of being held to his mother’s chest, he digs, even if he does not enjoy digging out carcasses of that sort, but finds nothing.
There must have been a point in which she had held him, and maybe he slept a couple of times with his forehead to her back in his parents bed. Gregor was always bigger, he took more space, he demanded more, more food, more clothing, more attention, more praise.
There must have been a moment of quiet or two, however, because he remembers the feeling of being rid of them after the burn. He remembers his mother turning her face the other way, he remembers aching for a glance, hating when they were given and disgust was all he could see on them, he remembers the gaping hole in his chest as if something part of his routine had been torn out. He was made a man so quick, barely had a taste of childhood, he knew not what it meant.
Back then the wound was fresh and he must have looked as if he had crawled out of hell, dragging his face on the scorching paths towards earth, coming up for air only for the purpose of dragging everyone one back down with him. And as things go, that is what he became as soon as he could wield a stick and ride a pony.
The mirrors at his height were covered with white sheets to allow him ignorance. Only when the scars matted and took on a better looking color he was allowed to stare at his reflection, then came the long hair, the combover, the glares, his first kill behind the barn with Gregor. Sometimes in the night he would poke at his scars until it burned and then cry himself to sleep. He was nine, maybe ten.
Elaine’s face is a round, smooth thing, when pinched it gives and dimples peek out at each of her expressions. When he passes his fingers over her cheeks the skin is velvety with fine peachfuzz, it goes pink when she likes the attention or when she gets bashful about it.
Sandor wishes the world was made of looking mirrors so she may come close to knowing what a sight she makes.
“Do not go there” Whispers his wife from below, he turns his head enough to look at her. She knows where he is, somewhere deep in his brain where the walls are stone, slick with oil that feels much like blood. It smells of sulfur there. She smells of orchid and tea.
“I care not for boys and girls… I care not for anything” He says “I used to think cruelty was the way to read the world, woman, but now that I have them I don’t want them to know cruelty at all.” He explains. It is freeing to admit it. For once he wants to be anything but mean.
His lady’s eyes drop to his shoulders, she places her chin there, one of his hands strokes her belly where it pokes his side.
“They won’t have to fear” She promises him. Her hand covers his over her dress, she squeezes it.
“I know” He says, there is much more he would want to say but he simply lays a kiss on her forehead. It is unrealistic, but it does not matter. It was unrealistic for him to be this content, if not happy, four years ago or so, yet here he is.
—----------
“When they come out they are proper ugly” Huffs sandor looking down into the bassinet where Emmon is sleeping.
“Sandor!” Chides Lady Clegane where she is being helped into the tub to be cleaned after labour.
“Am I wrong now?”
“Stop being mean.” she says, but it holds no weight, like many other things they say. Truth is Emmon came out nice and plump, big, male. A Clegane boy if Sandor ever saw one. He goes to rub a finger over the pink wrinkly skin of his arm and the child squirms, squeezing his eyes shut.
The servant girls help Lady Clegane get cleaned best they can before she implores them to let her do it on her own. Elaine rushes from her mother’s side next to the copper bathtub to Sandor.
“Can I see the baby?” She asks. Sandor turns to her and lifts his one eyebrow, fondly exasperated. “Aenor should see too!” She adds then going to drag her little sister next to her. Sandor rolls his eyes but goes to lift one girl at a time to peer into the bassinet.
“Oh wow!” Says Elaine, legs kicking underneath her, Aenor has a similar reaction babbling this and that, some words in there too, but not much he can comprehend. “He is tiny, father” Says Elaine, hopping about and trying to peer into the bassinet again. Sandor laughs.
“Yeah- Yeah, very exciting” He says, patting the girls’ heads before joining his wife’s side by the steaming water.
Lady Clegane looks tired, but there is a happy flush on her face. “I told you it would be a son,” She says. He smiles and leans back into the chair until the leather seat squeaks.
“Aye, you are some sort of witch, I’ll tell ye” He mumbles, then runs his finger through the long tresses of wet hair.
“Was it as they told you, much better than seeing a girl pop out?” He jests and she shakes her head fondly at him. Her cheeks have gotten to that nice color he likes, and the sweat and steam from the tub turned them shiny like two crystal globes, she looks so beautiful Sandor doubts he is alive at all. Animals like him should not stand so close to ladies like these.
“I was just glad it went quicker than the first time” She smiles, rubbing soap into her arms, and working it down her beautiful legs until she gets to rubbing it into her heels.
“Aye, he was about falling out of ye.” Hums sandor, Aenor and Emmon went one quicker than the other, it is a blessing truly, he would rather not relive the maddening 14 hours of labour she endured when Elaine was born. He has seen a lot of things in his life, but trying to tend to a birthing woman may just be the closest he has been to feeling properly threatened. At some point he did believe she would have bitten his face off. He was lucky he was made to leave during the actual birth, he would have made things worse by worrying.
He doesn’t like his woman in pain.
A beat passes, the air between them smells of vanilla, the distant tang of sweat, the soft jasmine of her hair oil. Lady Clegane brushes the oil through her hair, braids it into a thick braid and lets it fall back into the water. After enough time she goes back to her hair, undoes it, rinses the oils and brushes the strands before squeezing them dry.
“You did good, you did very good” Says Sandor, he leans towards her until his face is close to hers. She tilts her head and smiles.
He looks at Elaine pulling her little sister about to ‘help her walk’ as she says.
“You always did good” He says, his mouth presses to her forehead and he rubs his knuckles on her shoulder.
Her own lips make contact with his skin, he feels the smile when it splits her face. It is the closest Sandor has been to heaven in his life.dnpr
