Strangers In Strange Lands
Twentieth Day of the Eighth Month 293 AC
If you had asked Sandor Clegane before this day what he thought about festivals, he would have shrugged and told you that he didn't bother with them and couldn't care less. Now though? Now he would have told you to fuck off with this shit. The streets were full to the brim with people and everyone was shouting. Either someone trying to talk with someone else over the din, or some loudmouth market crier harking whatever. Despite being a good head taller then anyone without bull heads or stone skin in this place, there was still constantly someone bumping into him, especially kids. And the whole place
reeked.
Not like Kings Landing, but as if he had landed face first in the spice rack of Casterly Rocks kitchens with a dash of whatever Cersei rubbed under her nose this day to not smell the piss wafting over from Fleabottom. He could have really done with the smell of some good old piss right now. That one burned in your throat if you took too deep a breath of it, but at least he didn't get a fucking headache from it. Every damn city he had been in his days reeked of piss, so why couldn't this place try to be normal at least
once?
He couldn't even get something proper to eat. The inn he stayed at had only all this weird Essosi stuff he was thoroughly sick of by now and Leto had told him that he wouldn't get anything else. Not that there was no one making a decent stew in this city, it was just that every pampered lordling and merchant was trying 'those exotic Westerosi dishes'. They were waiting from noon till sun-down before shabby taverns at the harbor for a thin soup with half a piece of meat in it. To Sandor, anyone proclaiming a blood sausage with some pickled cabbage a 'delicacy' was either touched in the head or had it too far up his own ass. So it was either going hungry or trying honey glazed parrot or whatever Essosi deemed 'normal' food and thus didn't bother with and so staying hungry it was.
Again he glanced over to his companion on this doomed expedition. In his opinion, and he was quite good at reading the amount of pissed someone could be, she was yet again slightly more so then the last time he looked. And it was
her idea to do this. Or actually, it was the Dragons idea, with his grand talk about paths and looking for them. She probably just felt obligated to go along with it. Not that Sandor held that against her, but this day would have been a lot better if she had just been on her way after helping him fix his armor and pointing him towards a smith to get a new blade. That he could appreciate.
Her idea to 'enjoy the festival like people are supposed to do' wasn't. Because apparently, she had just as much of an idea how to do this as he did. He should be sitting in the quite of his room to think or, better yet, get drunk on some cheap swill, instead of having a contest with her who could look more annoyed while shoving someone out of the way who stepped on their feet. So far, he was leading by a good margin. Scars worked better then pretty faces for this, even though she could give you a look that would have even the old creep Ilyn take a step back.
So far, the only thing this whole thing brought him was some time to think about her. Where in the seven hells had the Dragon dug up a woman like her? She didn't look like a bear with tits like some of the womenfolk from the North allegedly did. More like someone who would find work in a whorehouse actually, though anyone who would offer
her a few silver for a night would probably piss blood for the next week. And she didn't fight like some magisters former bed warmer either. Sandor could respect these Legion people. They were tough and gave just as good as they got, but even they called it quits once they had more of their blood on the sand then in their bodies. He couldn't shake the feeling that a lot about this place would make more sense to him if he figured out what her deal was, but that didn't mean he was any closer to doing so.
Thankfully, they had drifted away from the busier streets again, giving Sandor some more room to walk. Again she glanced back to him, like she had done a few times by now, drew in a breath and then... said nothing and turned away. A few times, he had done the same with her. Did they both really suck this much at being people? Maybe that was why the Dragon had suggested he should go out of his room sometimes without heading towards disemboweling someone or getting the same done to himself. Didn't change that he felt even more the Hound then Sandor right now then when he was running errands for Cersei. Being good at being a Hound wasn't the same as knowing that you were bad at being a man and that knowledge
stung.
He glanced around again, unsure how to break off this farce. Should he just walk away? Maybe say something?
Fuck it. And so he just stopped walking, silently hoping that Leto wouldn't notice so that he could just go back to his fucking room and wait there for the fucking fight in the fucking arena. Just to be on the safe side, her turned over to the group of kids sitting at the tables in the alley they were in. The last thing he needed right now was having to explain the woman why he wanted to ditch her. Just as he did so, he heard his name spoken.
Clegane. Of all the times that he was recognized in the streets, it
had to be now. Though when he looked over them, silently swearing up a storm, none of them were actually looking at him. Then one of the boys said it again,
Clegane, and he was pointing at one of those steel toys he had seen a few times today.
When he looked closely at this one in particular though, every other thought ground to a halt. Before he knew it, he had crossed the distance to the table and picked up the figure to see it better. Still though, he couldn't quite believe his eyes. In his hand he held his seven times damned
brother. There was no mistaking it, even without his name written out clearly on the base of the toy. A huge man, his features clear and crisp as if he stood before the real one, and even turned into the same frothing mask of rage and hatred that he sometimes saw in the darker nights. He held a huge sword in the right hand, ready to strike at someone, the three dogs of their house proudly displayed on his chest. An arms-men in Clegane livery knelt before him, his head firmly gripped in Gregors huge, meaty hand. The look of terror on the mans face made it quite clear that his head would burst like a melon any moment. Fuck. If you added a crying woman bleeding from her loins slung over his brothers shoulder, you would have had it all.
"Hey! I'm talking to you!" The words jarred him from his thoughts and he was dimly aware that they weren't the first ones addressed at him. Some slip of a girl, not even ten name-days from how tiny she was, stood right before him, arms folded before her chest and glowering up at him. Now that she had his attention, she wen't back to speaking at a normal volume, yet her stare didn't lessen in the slightest. "You can't just take a figure from someone."
Sandor looked around himself, seeing the eyes of the whole gaggle of children now firmly on him, waiting for him to do or say something. When he turned his head slightly, he was glad to see that the other people walking the street hadn't stopped to stare too, though Leto did. That she had a hand hanging loosely next to her blade was not reassuring though. "I was just looking at it."
In the tense silence that followed, one of the boys spoke up. "Aren't you that knight from the arena? The one whose sword broke?" A girl spoke next. "Didn't the announcer lady call you Clegane?" And with this the dam had broken and children did what children did best. Being loud and annoying. "Yeah! And he had those three thingies on his armor too!" "Those are dogs you idiot!" "They look nothing like dogs. This is a dog." With this he held up another of those small toys, looking some kind of strange dog Sandor dimly recalled seeing in the streets once, but before the argument could go any further, the girl right before him leveled her glare at the boy who already was read to give his retort on the matter of his houses coat of arms. That shut the boy up, never-mind that he was old enough to have a small beard and looked built like a smiths apprentice. So the small girl was apparently in charge here.
He had no idea why he spoke instead of just dropping the toy off and going. "Yes. Those are dogs. That's the banner of house Clegane. I'm Sandor and this here is my brother Gregor. Or the Mountain as they call him."
Odder yet was the reaction of the kids, which was far from the gushing over tourney wins he had expected and instead more confusion. "But that's a giant. You are a man, how can you be brothers with a giant?" "That's not a giant. That's a knight. One of the evil ones." "And why is the knight so big? That's some kind of monster. It kills his own people! Knights don't kill their own people!" With this a blond girl, a distinct Westerosi drift in the trader talk she spoke, lifted
another figure of Gregor, pointing at the hapless arms-men. "He kinda looks like this one actually. Just with less arms. Maybe he lost a few?" Again a toy was held aloft, this time of some kind of shark-man-thing with five arms. Try as he might, Sandor couldn't keep in the snort when he saw the face of the thing and there was indeed an uncanny resemblance to his brother. "Why can't he be an evil human monster knight? The cultists look all weird too..."
As he saw the tables descend into squabbling, Sandor was just glad to be rid of the attention, though two sets of eyes were still on him. The girl with the stare that could pierce plate and the boy right before him. The one whose Gregor Clegane figure he was still holding. "Could I please have that back? I would like to play."
Sandor gave the figure one last look. Here he was, his brother in all his terrible glory, reduced to a toy for children. They wouldn't be laughing if they ever saw the original. Though with that thought, a few words came back to him unbidden. '
If he had been so foolish as to come here he would have likely suffered a very unfortunate accident
long before he took a step into the arena. Or got himself an appointment with the hangman within a day all on his own.' Or maybe they would. They would probably cheer quite loud if they saw the 'monster' dangling from a rope. At last, he placed the figure back on the table where he thought he had taken him from, though the boy immediately shuffled it a few fingers widths to the left for some reason. "Sorry. I didn't want to interrupt your game." And the strange part was, he actually meant it.
He was already turning on his heel when the boy turned back around to face him. "Is he really your brother?" He turned his head back and gave the boy a curt nod, not really thinking about that he presented him not much more then scars on his face to see. "You don't really look like him, that's why I'm asking. He looks all mean and angry and you... just look kinda sad..."
Why Sandor walked away so fast after these words, he didn't know. What he did know though was that all of this, not this walk with Leto, but coming to this damn island in the first place, had been a huge mistake.
AN: This came entirely out of nowhere and demanded to be written.