Chapter Text
Sandor threw the shovel down into the dirt and fell to his knees. His hands had gone numb an hour ago. The cramping of his overworked muscles was difficult to push through after weeks of the same movement over and over again – although, once he went numb, the action became mechanic. He looked at his shaking hands, blisters upon blisters and blood and dirt covering the pale and delicate skin of what had once been his strong and brutal hands. Sandor laughed out loud, not caring how mad he sounded. There was no one around who would care. No one around who hasn’t done the same.
When’s the last time I had a bloody blister? Callouses built up over two decades of fighting, gone in just a couple of years.
He wouldn’t be surprised if he would start to crack up now. Now that winter was officially over. Now that the snow was gone. The sun had slowly worked its way back between the grey mass that had become the sky. The warmth had arrived first and had set to melting the snow that had buried them all for ten years. Ten years for the snow and ice to fall, pile on, build up around them and over them. They’d been forced to make tunnels to get between the different buildings. They lived like bloody ants in the ground for near a decade and it only took one month for every trace of the white shell around them to melt away.
Living like that was not as hard as Sandor imagined it would be. Once people couldn’t access the Quiet Isle, to beg the brothers for help, it was easy to ration the abundance of crops they were able to grow and prepare for years of storage. Easier still when brothers started to die.
They hadn’t given the illness a name and they had no way of preventing it. It took hold of the joints in the body, locking toes, fingers, wrists into place. It spread slowly then to the elbows, shoulders, knees and hips, until the man was left paralyzed. It only affected a few at a time and took several weeks until it finally killed them. It was a slow death - uncomfortable and maddening to be sure - but not completely painful. It was as if the winter itself invaded their bones and set to freezing them one by one. Once the jaw locked, it was only another day until the heart stopped. At least they didn’t have to starve to death, he always thought.
Through all of this, Sandor had still never found peace with the gods whom which he lived so closely. He never felt even remotely comfortable in the sept, all of the brothers turning into statues themselves as they silently prayed for hours on end. More often than not, Sandor would kneel at the feet of the Stranger just to be alone. But as the years went on more and more brothers would join him in sullen silence. Even though Elder Brother had somehow gotten him to the sept every day, Sandor never had anything to pray for. He’d thought of her early on, but he could never find the right words in his mind. He’d found himself a few times on his knees in front of the mother, the maiden, but still the words wouldn’t come. He’d wait and wait, until his knees went numb, until his leg felt like it was breaking all over again, until he hated his foolish self for even trying.
As for the illness, Sandor had simply refused to succumb to it - to become weak. There was not enough food to keep up his weight as he had done his whole life, but he would not lose his strength. He worked his body every day, whether it was rearranging sacks of grain or potatoes in storage or simply training his body in the confines of his own room, he had been able to find a different kind of strength in this new world. He had become lean, but not brittle.
Sandor was one of the lucky few. There were only about a third of them left now after the disease. The rest, he had worked to put in the ground himself. The dead had begun to thaw before the ground though. An idea was put forth that the bodies should be burned. Sandor adamantly refused. They would not waste precious firewood for it either. So Sandor buried them all. It took him weeks with how slow and weak his body was. But he worked all day and into the night, until he was finally finished. Brothers old and young. Brothers whom he never spoke to, never interacted with. Brothers who he had worked with, even laughed with at times. But there was only one man he ever considered a friend. And there he was, buried in the cold ground beneath him.
Sandor wiped the blood on his robe and sat back on his heels to look at his work. Elder Brother was the only one that kept him sane when it felt like the walls themselves were closing in night after night. He was the only one who knew Sandor inside and out. He knew of the things, the people in his past life that Sandor didn’t even let himself think of anymore. He had been the strength of the whole isle, personally taking care of every dying man until their last breath. When he finally fell to it himself, Sandor didn’t want to believe it. Elder Brother didn’t seem surprised though – he knew it was only a matter of time. Sandor himself saw to his care, much to the man’s protestations. Elder Brother died in the night. Sandor took care in wrapping his body in a clean cloth, the way he’d done dozens of times before. In the morning he hefted his friend’s rigid body over his shoulders and carried him to the frozen storeroom where they kept the bodies.
It wasn’t until he closed the door behind him that he noticed the water dripping down the icicle on the roof. Sandor couldn’t help but wonder if things would be different, if the ice began to melt just a few weeks earlier. If the warmth that had come might have helped Elder brother heal. But he couldn’t let himself think of that anymore. He didn’t want to think of any of it.
“Done.” He sniffed and wiped his nose on his sleeve. “I’m done.” He heard his own weak voice rasp. Done with the Quite Isle. Done with this shit country. Done with this shit life.
Sandor limped his way down the hill and headed toward the river that used to be the marsh. He knelt by the cold water and washed his hands clean. He had been able to avoid his reflection over the years, but since the melt, it almost seemed to be following him everywhere. He didn’t back away soon enough after splashing his face with water and once again he found himself looking into the eyes that had once belonged to the Hound.
He didn’t try to hide his scars anymore. Anyone at the Quiet Isle had gotten used to it long ago. There was no one left to scare. The scars alone were his only recognizable feature. The man beneath them was a stranger. He was ghostly pale, like everyone else. No sunlight for ten years tended to do that to a man. His face had always been gaunt, but it was almost hollow now, too thin. He could tell from the hair that had been cut over the years that he was beginning to grey. He could see lack of color more prominently now, peppering through his lank strands, surrounding his hair line, what was left of it. He felt like laughing again, but he swallowed it back with a gulp when he saw his eyes.
There was no hatred there. No rage. But that had been taken away from him long ago. All that was left was a hollow sort of emptiness – a foggy grey haze. So the snow swallowed up the Hound and this pathetic excuse for a man was all there is left to spit out.
--
Winter was over, and with it, the war. The isle had received the raven from King’s Landing shortly after the white one from the citadel had arrived. Queen Daenerys Targaryen was in her rightful place on the iron throne. And on either side were Aegon and Jon Targaryen. Lost sons of her late brother Rhaegar, if this Queen was to be believed. For Sandor, it was all too much to take in. He had no interest in whether these three saviors were true Targaryens. All that mattered was that Queen Daenerys had brought with her the light that stamped out the darkness looming over the Wall. But the wall was no more, thanks to her dragons, and since the army of undead creatures was gone it seemed as though there were no plans to rebuild.
What went on in the rest of the Seven Kingdoms was of little consequence to Sandor. He didn’t care where he was going, so long as it was east and across the narrow sea. Someplace warm. He decided that wherever the next ship was sailing to, that’s where he could go. He was convinced he would find work easily enough, as a guard for some wealthy merchant or another. It made no matter. He would have enough time to think about it on the ship.
The closest port was Saltpans, but of course that was out of the question. Even if the little port was still up and running somehow, he wouldn’t come within a mile of it. He was sure that even ten years and a brutal winter wouldn’t let the people of the port town forget what ‘The Hound’ had done to them.
The idea of going south was quickly stashed away. Sandor didn’t like the thought of those unnatural fire breathing beasts flying anywhere over him to destroy the ominous foe beyond the Wall and he had no intention of stepping a foot in their direction. He could practically feel the heat of them just looking southward.
So off to the North it would be. There was another time – in another life - that he had thought of going far into the North. He’d offered to bring a girl. But it would do no good to think on past regrets - if even he could call it a regret. He didn’t know what he felt regretful about, the way he had asked her or the fact that she denied him. It turned out rejecting his offer was probably the smartest thing that girl had ever done. It was no use thinking on things that didn’t matter now. Doing so had brought him nothing but pain and turmoil over the years and the only one he could bring himself to discuss it with was buried under the earth by Sandor’s very own hands. Don’t dig up old memories when no good will come of it. White Harbor had to be up and running. If not, he would find out on his way. He made his decision quickly and he had no intention of waiting around any longer to think on it.
Elder Brother had told him where he had kept his own coin before he died. Sandor vehemently refused him, but the Elder Brother was insistent. He wanted Sandor to have what little he had to give in the world. It felt strange going into his hermit hole and to find the small sack where he said it would be. It felt even worse to open up the bag that wasn’t his. He found the coppers and few silver coins inside. It wasn’t much, but it should at least get him across the narrow sea.
He tucked into the supply of old clothes that were kept on the isle and found a simple woolen tunic and a worn-out doublet that would have been ill fitting in his former body. All Sandor had in terms of weaponry was a mere dagger fastened securely at his hip. Better than nothing. With that, he made his way to his only true friend left on the isle.
How he managed to keep Stranger alive during the Winter was beyond his comprehension. Other horses fell fast around him, but Stranger seemed to hold on well enough. Perhaps it was because there were no other horses to feel after a while, but even what was left still needed to be rationed. Sandor ran his hand over Stranger’s ribs and put thanks in knowing how much worse off the beast could have been. “We’ll put you right again, don’t you worry.” As soon as the snows had melted, Sandor had Stranger out and walking through the muddy grounds. He would take him out every day, but never tried the saddle on him until now. Thankfully, Stranger didn’t even take notice of it. As much weight as he lost, Sandor still wasn’t ready to try and mount him yet, but he knew he would need to at some point in their travels with his bum leg and all.
It only took him a day to prepare and to say goodbye to the men he had seen too bloody much of for a lifetime. They were kind and he cared for them, but after Elder Brother, he couldn’t bring himself to care enough about anything. Just one more night under the roof he had stared at for too long and too often. He was almost giddy with the thought of putting it all behind him.
--
Sandor made sure to keep clear of Saltpans and the Inn at the Crossroads as he made his way North. He walked by Stranger’s side for as long as his leg would let him before giving himself a break and riding his stallion for a few hours at a time. Stranger seemed to enjoy it, getting his full of fresh new grass every day, having some purpose being alive in the world again. Sandor waited for the day he could say the same of himself.
Sandor passed more people on the road than he thought he would have. He would pass a lone stranger such as himself or a pair or small group a few times a day. The world was nothing like it was before the war. He was glad to have his dagger, but none of the skinny and pale strangers posed a threat. Most of them were headed south and he couldn’t blame them. The days were warm enough in the light of the sun, but the nights were cold as anything – not that he would have complained.
The first night he slept outside in the grass with the clear open sky above him was the strangest feeling. It almost felt like too much at once, staring up into the open black expanse of nothing. His heart raced and he sucked in breath so deeply that he started seeing white spots next to those of the stars in the sky. It felt like his heart was going to beat right out of his chest but he felt this way before – too many times.
After a month of not being able to see the sky under the snow, Sandor almost lost his mind in a closed-in panic. Elder Brother was there to get him through it, though. He had found him in his room with a broken chair and his pallet turned over. Elder Brother made him breathe deep and slow until he somehow got a grasp on his panic and rage.
In the open cold of the night air, Sandor gathered up his breath again and slowed his frantic heart. Being out in the open, having the night sky as a ceiling instead of an iced over tunnel of snow was the greatest feeling. He felt like he could truly breathe again.
The second night he got a better grip on himself and laid there in the silence, wrapped up against the cold in his cloak. He bent his arms behind his head and just let himself breathe easily. He filled up his lungs until his chest widened, until it felt like he would burst, before releasing his breath in a huff of air. For the first time in a decade he felt the foreign feeling of a true smile slip onto his face. A smile born out of a pure…happiness, for what he would later come to recognize as the first time since before he got his scars.