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It was late afternoon as Sansa sat in the great hall sewing and watching her boys play. Robb and Jon were building a fortress of blocks all around the far end of the room, having grand discussions of how it should be done and how impenetrable it would be if it were a real wall. She smiled to herself at how important it seemed to boys of nearly six years old.
Sandor came in, tired from a day spent training men in the yard and seeing to the grounds. He came over to Sansa, laying his hand on her shoulder and smiling down at her before he sank into the chair next to her. “How goes it? They giving you any trouble?”
“Of course not. Just building madly as they always do on chilly days when I keep them in.”
“Where’s the little one?”
“With Nurse. He wanted to watch the squirrels that keep darting around in the tree near his window.”
Sandor smiled indulgently. Little Rickon was fascinated with animals of all sorts.
Sansa shifted in her chair, trying to make herself more comfortable.
“Is that one giving you pain?”
Glancing down at her rounded belly, she shook her head. “Just the usual – pressing on my back.”
He reached over and rubbed her back for her. Smiling at him gratefully, she enjoyed his ministrations, then she settled back into the chair.
They sat for some time watching the boys building their wall, Sandor calling advice from time to time.
The door opened and Rickon burst in, followed by the nurse. Rickon had been born early and had been on the move every since. The boy stomped across the solar floor, his arms spread wide. “I’m a monster!” He’d enjoyed this role every since they’d all played Monsters and Maidens together.
Sansa and Sandor exchanged smiles at their youngest son’s youthful enthusiasm and watched as he stomped all over the room, pretending to be a monster, play-threatening the nurse, who had sat down to tend to some mending and now feigned terror to his satisfaction. Then he headed over to where the older boys were building. Sansa realized what was about to happen, and hurriedly called out, “Rickon, no!” But it was too late.
Rickon plowed right through the side of his brothers’ fortress, still roaring and pounding his chest. The walls caved in, knocking the majority of the older boys’ work down with a tremendous clattering as the blocks scattered about the play area.
Robb and Jon protested loudly, and furious, they pounced on Rickon, bringing him to the ground, where they began to pummel him. Rickon squealed in reaction.
Sansa struggled to her feet, calling out, “Boys, stop it! You’ll hurt him!”
The nurse, had also risen to stop them.
But Sandor was already there. “Enough!” he bellowed, and grabbing each of the twins by the backs of their tunics, he lifted them off their brother and set them down, none too gently, some distance away. Glaring at them, he rumbled, “Never do that again – do you hear me?” His face was red with rage, and the twins nodded, trembling.
Meanwhile, little Rickon had set up a howl as he lay there among the ruins of the fort. Sansa hurried to him, and making a little path through the blocks, she carefully knelt and gathered her three-year-old to her. “There, there, now, it’s all right. Don’t cry.”
Sandor looked down at them all, then shaking his head, turned on his heel and stormed out.
Sansa’s eyes followed Sandor and she longed to go after him, knowing that he must feel awful about losing his temper, but Rickon was still howling in her arms, and Robb and Jon looked so woeful, that she decided that they needed her more.
Rickon wailed, “Papa yell at me!”
“No, sweetling, not at you. At your brothers.” Sansa gazed up at the bigger boys, who were standing near her with hangdog expressions on their faces.
Jon, ever the first to apologize when there was a row, spoke up. “He’s angry at us. We shouldn’t have been pounding on Rickon.”
“Indeed you should not have.” Sansa tried to keep her voice even. She longed to comfort them all, but knew the older boys needed discipline.
“But he always does that – knocking down all our hard work.” Robb, always strong on justice, said this.
Sansa felt Rickon squirming. “Yes, I know. But he is smaller than you and he’s still learning to mind his manners. And you are bigger and should understand him better. Be patient with him. Don’t forget, you liked knocking down the blocks when you were smaller.”
They nodded solemnly. Jon, so deeply sensitive of people’s moods even at his young age, spoke quietly. “Does Papa hate us now?”
“Hate you? Of course not! He loves you – all of you. He just doesn’t want you to fight each other – he wants you to be good to each other.”
Little Rickon sniffled, “Papa mad at me.”
“No, my love, he isn’t. But the boys were – you mustn’t knock down their fortresses.”
“But I was a monster! Dat what monsters do!”
“Yes, but the boys weren’t playing monsters. You must ask them – when they are ready to play that, then you can knock it down. Until then, ask them if you can help build.”
He nodded with big eyes, tears clearing.
She looked over to the twins. “And you must let him help you build. And when you are all done building, then you can play monsters.” She looked again to Rickon, who was quiet now, then back to Robb and Jon. “I’m sure the boys will let you knock down the bricks then, won’t you?”
The bigger boys looked at each other, then back to their mother and nodded. “It would be fun to play at protecting the keep,” said Robb.
“Yes, but without hurting the monster,” Sansa said.
The boys nodded. Then Jon asked cautiously, “What about Papa?”
“When he comes back, you will talk to him – apologize. He may be stern for a bit, but then he will hug you, and all will be well again.”
They looked a little doubtful, but nodded again in seeing their mother’s sincere look.
“Now go and pick up all the blocks and put them away. Perhaps you can count as you go and see who can put the most bricks in the bin. Then Nurse will tell you a story.” She glanced at the nurse, who nodded with a smile. All three boys cheered up a bit and hurried to start clearing away the rubble.
~~
With the clearing of the blocks well under way, Sansa stole out of the keep to look for Sandor. She found him attacking a huge log at the chopping block. There looked to be enough wood scattered about to last an entire winter, for he hadn’t stopped to make piles, just kept kicking away any blocks that fell in his direction. Sansa kept her distance until Sandor noticed her watching.
He gave Sansa a sheepish look and she smiled at him, touched at how much like one of his sons he seemed just then. “The boys could build at least three more fortresses with all this.”
Sandor grunted a half-hearted chuckle, amused, but clearly still disgusted with himself. “How are they? They must all be afraid of me now.” He set the ax down with a thud.
“No, you startled them, that’s all. They are very contrite.”
“You can’t tell me that the little one wasn’t terrified.”
“He’s fine now. They all are. They are worried that you are angry at them.”
He sighed. “I wanted to stop them being monsters and became one myself.”
“Sandor, you are not a monster and neither are they. They are just boys.”
“But they were pummeling him – we can’t have that. He’s too small – he was wailing.”
“Yes, and we stopped them. They know that what they did was wrong.”
He shook his head as if uncertain.
“Sandor, they were just being boys. Normal boys. My brothers fought from time to time – there was certainly plenty of pummeling at Winterfell.”
“And your father tolerated that?”
“No, he stopped them – railed at them, made them apologize. And a little while later they’d have forgotten all about the fight and were playing madly again.”
Sandor still looked doubtful.
“My love, I know you did not have a normal brother. But you should have seen our boys. They were very sorry and they know they did wrong – all of them. Was your brother ever sorry for anything he did?”
Sandor scoffed, “The only thing Gregor was ever sorry for was missing a chance to kill something.”
“There, you see the great difference between him and our boys.”
“Maybe. But they are still young. How do we know they won’t become more brutish when they are older?”
“I doubt that very much. Especially because we will be raising them. We won’t tolerate it. You won’t tolerate it. And…” Sansa hesitated, but forged on, “…you will tell them what Gregor did to you.”
Sandor shook his head. “No, they are too young. They are only the age I was when I got these.” He swept his palm over his scarred face, pulling his hand away and staring down at it as if the scars had come off on it. “They don’t need to know about such a horror.”
“Not yet, but when they are older. They already ask. It is right that they should know. Then they will understand why you were so fierce today. Why you are so insistent on fair play and justice.”
Sandor dipped his head, perhaps accepting this. “But I don’t know how to speak to them now. They will be afraid of me.”
“No, they won’t. Just go in like usual and let them apologize, and you can do the same – for being so fierce, not for disciplining them. Just tell them calmly that you don’t want them to fight each other. I already told them, but it will better coming from you.”
He nodded slowly, then his face softened and he shook his head. “You have your hands full with so many boys.” He looked down, and she knew she was including himself. He put his hand on her belly. “Let's hope this new one is a sweet, quiet girl like her mother – to civilize these rough boys.”
Sansa laughed. “She could just as likely take after Arya and join right in with them! With my luck she’d be even rowdier than the boys!”
Sandor chuckled.
She embraced him and kissed his cheek, and he held her tight.
“How did I come to deserve you?” he asked.
“You know the answer to that – we are good for each other.” She kissed him again, then slipped away. “Come in when you are ready. The boys will be fine, I promise.”
~~
Sandor waited a while longer, tasking himself with stacking the wood before coming back in. The woodcutter would be surprised to see his work done for him for the next week or so.
He washed at the trough outside before coming into the hall. Nervously, he glanced about to see what the boys were doing. They were sitting quietly in the corner listening to the nurse reading to them, though they looked over at Sandor when they heard him. The bigger boys were looking remorseful; the little one was cowering behind the nurse.
Sandor winced inwardly, then glanced at Sansa, who smiled gently at him and nodded to his big chair near her by the hearth.
Sighing, he went to sit in it, took a breath, and called the boys to him.
They came slowly and deliberately, as if they’d made up their minds to be brave. The older two led, with little Rickon trailing behind, clearly dreading that Papa might still be angry at them.
Sansa watched as the boys arrived in front of Sandor, standing at attention like little soldiers. It made her heart ache to see them. So small, and yet so grown up.
Jon began. “Father, we are sorry for pounding on Rickon like that. It was wrong.” He looked up at Sandor, his big grey eyes somber and serious.
“I’m sorry too, Father.” Robb, clearly not wanting to be outdone by his brother, chimed in.
Rickon, who had been hanging back a little, peeked around from behind Jon and whispered, “Sowwy, Papa.”
Sandor stared at them for a moment, longing to simply scoop them up in a bear hug, but held himself back. He looked at the twins sternly. “Then you know you are too big to pile on your brother like that – and there’s two of you, twice his size!”
Jon and Robb nodded solemnly and stood staring for a moment.
Then Sandor turned to Rickon. “And you. You will ASK before you play monster, yes?”
Sansa watched as her little boy nodded with wide eyes. Then Sandor sat back in his big chair with his arms folded and looked them all over for some time. Then, all of a sudden, he slapped his knees and rumbled, “Right, then, get on up here,” and the three came scrambling madly to climb up and be hugged by their bear of a father. They shouted happily, and Sansa’s heart swelled with love for all of them.
It was little Rickon who missed her first. “Mama not here. Mama get hugs too.”
Sandor glanced over at Sansa and grinned before turning to Rickon with a mock stern look. “Well, then, you little monster, go help her up. And you two, make room for her.”
The big boys scooted over as Rickon hopped down and ran to offer his mother a hand as she rose.
Settled on Sandor’s knee, Sansa offered a hand to Rickon, who scrambled up next to her. Sandor wrapped his arms around them all and the Starks were one as a family.
The baby kicked and Sansa laughed. “Even the new one wants a hug from Papa!”
~~