I Could Keep You Safe | Leanor Clegane | ASOIAF/GOT Fanfiction

Leanor

Leanor was born to Ser Willem Clegane and his wife Lady Alys. She was the only daughter in the family, two years younger than her brother Sandor and seven years younger than Gregor.

Though the Cleganes lived in the big towerhouse that dominated the village, Leanor never felt like she was much more highborn than many of the smallfolk villagers, whose children she played with most days. Her grandfather had been a simple kennel master at Casterly Rock, after all, and her grandmother had just been a serving maid who'd taken his fancy. They had only been rewarded with land and titles after her grandfather saved Lord Tytos Lannister from that mountain lion, at the cost of his own leg.

Nonetheless, now her family were landed knights she was granted the title of Lady. No matter how much she enjoyed playing with the children in the village, coming back covered in dirt and grass stains with scabby knees and bruised elbows, there was always a septa there to scold her when she returned and scrub her clean again. Her brothers trained in the yard with their father and a master-at-arms, and her mother had several servants to cook and clean for her.

That was perhaps a good thing. Lady Alys was a slender woman and had been greatly weakened after birthing three huge babies. She often grew too sick to even stand, let alone take care of the household. It shouldn't have been a shock - but was horrible nonetheless - when her mother passed away when she was four years old, and her world grew a whole lot darker.

For as long as she could remember, Leanor knew to stay away from her brother Gregor. He was the shadow over her whole life; the village children ran away when they saw him, as he was known to be free with his fists, a cruel bully they could do nothing against no matter how many complaints their parents made to Ser Willem. Even the dogs wouldn't go anywhere near him, expecting a vicious, unwarranted kick.

Whenever Leanor knew she had caught his attention, a dull sense of dread overcame her. Most of the time he would just swing at her, either laughing when she fell and cried out, or cursing if she dodged and quickly ran away (something she got increasingly good at doing). He could scarcely be bothered to ever chase her, she was simply something convenient to lash out at.

But she was terrified of her brother, and she knew Sandor was too; he just showed it by being angry and lashing out himself. Not at her, though. Never at her.

Where Sandor fought back, Leanor learned to melt into the shadows, to pass unnoticed without attracting any attention. Out of sight, out of mind. And when she couldn't avoid being noticed, she made herself as unobtrusive, polite and mild-mannered as possible, so as not to raise his ire.

That wasn't just for Gregor, either. Though her father was nowhere near as bad, he was still an impatient man with a quick temper, who could berate her harshly if she stepped out of line and was also rather quick to cuff her round the head. She wasn't particularly bothered by any of this - compared to her brother, he was nothing - but it was tiresome nonetheless and if she could avoid it, she would.

Sandor wasn't as good at staying unnoticed, however. She heard the screams even as she played in the street and rushed back home, to see Gregor being wrestled onto the floor by three of their guardsmen as Sandor, aged seven, was carried away. There was a sick smell of burning meat in the air. Her horrified septa quickly ushered her away from the scene, but she found out later that the smell had been her brother's face, after Gregor had held him down on the brazier for playing with some stupid toy.

She had cried the first time she saw Sandor's burns, red and raw and oozing as they were, his ear gone, his eye socket mangled. Then she saw how upset her tears made him and didn't cry again. The burns looked better with every day, anyway, going from angry red and black and yellow to simply red and twisted. Though he may look like a horror, he was still her brother underneath the wounds.