2 Chapter 2

Feeling a little devious, Gregor crept up on his little brother and shouted "Boo!"

Sandor jumped in alarm and turned around. Gregor could not help but chuckle at the expression on his brother's face.

As for Sandor, he looked horrified. But not because his brother had snuck up on him.

He dropped the toy knight, backed away, and told him uneasily "Gregor, I… I was just borrowing it. I was going to take it, I swear! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

Gregor held up his hand, knelt next to his brother, and told him in assurance "It's alright, Sandor. I'm not mad you took the toy. I don't really care about that stupid thing. If you want it, it is yours."

"Really?" Sandor asked, looking both relieved and joyful.

"Of course," Gregor stated. He picked the toy knight up and handed it out to the younger Clegane boy.

As Sandor received it in his hands, his older brother stated "But Sandor, next time, I would prefer it if you ask me first."

"I will," Sandor insisted, "I promise I won't ever take anything that doesn't belong to me."

"Oh, you don't have to promise that much," Gregor debated with a smirk, "Just don't take anything that belongs to a friend or family member. Or anything you couldn't get away with taking. Only take that which no one would miss."

Sandor looked confused. "Are you asking me to steal, Gregor?"

"No, I am not telling you to be a thief," Gregor simplified, "It's a hostile world we live in, little brother. One might call it 'survival of the fittest.' We're from a small House. We have the means to seize power, but we need the strength to hold onto it."

"How do we do that?" Sandor asked in interest.

"It will not be easy," Gregor contended, "There are few people we can call our friends. There are even fewer we can trust. Anyone – I mean, anyone – could turn against us at any time. We must choose our allies and our goals with care. Otherwise, we will fall."

Sandor absorbed his brothers' words. He looked off to the side and muttered "You're… you're scaring me, Gregor. Do you mean we'll never be safe? Everyone might be an enemy?"

"Not everyone," Gregor proclaimed.

He knelt down, turned his brother's eyes towards his own, and told him "Even if every other person in the world turns against you, I never will. No matter how bad things get, you can count on me to stay by your side. I'll be there for you, Sandor."

That seemed to put the younger boy's mind at ease. He smiled at his brother and stepped forward to embrace him.

Gregor happily returned the gesture. He was very pleased with himself.

He had gotten Sandor to learn the truth about the harshness of reality, and he had learned that lesson without suffering a deformation.

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A few days later, Gregor's mother informed him, Sandor, and their father that she was with child again. Initially, Gregor was surprised.

Then he remembered; in the first book, there was a chapter that mentioned that the Clegane brothers had a sister. So this must have been her.

From what Gregor recalled, the sister had died under 'mysterious' circumstances. Just as his father had died turning a hunt 'accident.'

Come to think of it, a number of servants and residents of Clegane's Keep vanished 'suspiciously' during the original Gregor's tenure.

He was not about to let those rumors take root. As long as he was around, even the dogs in the Keep would all remain accounted for.

While Gregor's greatest strengths involved a sword and a suit of armor, he had not spent all of his childhood in the training yard.

Often, he took private lessons with Maester Velix. He had a bit of an innate desire to learn anything that could be useful.

Perhaps that was a trait that had lingered from his previous life. The original Gregor Clegane certainly never gave much thought to education, after all.

Velix was relatively young for a maester, but he was full of wisdom and eagerness to teach his young charge.

Gregor already knew that his house had been created when his grandfather Alyver – the kennelmaster of Casterly Rock – saved Lord Tytos Lannister from a lioness.

Three of his grandfather's dogs had died fighting alongside their master; those were the same three dogs in the Clegane family's sigil.

House Clegane was not run by a lord. It had attained knightly status, but not masterly or lordly.

Basically, it was a house of landed knights. All the 'milords' Gregor and his father received were mere courtesies.

Clegane's Keep was not very large or alluring. It had already been in a sorry state when Ser Alyver and his wife had settled into it.

So far, the Keep had not fared much better under the command of Gregor's father, Ser Tarrence. If anything, it had gotten even more unpleasant to look at.

Gregor hoped that whenever he became the lord of the Keep, he would be able to refurbish it or make it look less foreboding.

He had proposed the idea to his father, but Ser Tarrence seemed to care very little for the building's cleanliness or appearance.

At the very least, Ser Tarrence had a better marriage than his own father. Ser Alyver's wife, Lady Tessia, was not a lady by birth.

She had been one of the kitchen wenches of Casterly Rock who simply had the fortune to be wed to Lord Tytos' one-time savior.

As for Ser Tarrence, his wife – Lady Daliah – was born a Lydden of Deep Den. She was the youngest daughter of Lord Lewys Lydden.

That was something of a special privilege for House Clegane. It was not often that lords of noble houses married their children into newly-formed knightly houses.

Strangely enough, even though that had been an arranged marriage, there was now more love between Ser Tarrence and Lady Daliah than there had ever been between Ser Alyver and Lady Tessia.

That was demonstrated quite well by how Alyver and Tessia only had one child, yet Tarrence and Daliah had two, soon to be three.

Lady Daliah's third pregnancy went by without incident. Maester Velix tended to her every need, and her husband and sons were very mindful of her well-being.

Throughout the nine months leading up to his sister's birth, Gregor was fearful that Lady Daliah might die in childbirth.

Neither the books nor the show ever specified how Gregor and Sandor's mother died, and the miracle of birth was not without risk.

Gregor had actually come to love Daliah as much as he loved his mother from his previous life.

His worries turned out to be unfounded. In fact, this time, the birthing process for was much more straightforward than Gregor's or Sandor's had been.

As before, Maester Velix oversaw the procedure. Ryna, sadly, had perished during the last winter. The role of midwife went to Gregor and Sandor's wet nurse, Bernice.

After two hours of labor, Ellyn Clegane came into the world. She was rather small, compared to the sizes her brothers had been.

But she was by no means frail or weak. Maester Velix declared that she would grow up to be strong. Her parents and her brothers were elated by that news.

Gregor had a fairly decent family in this world. However, he knew that he would not be able to stay within them in Clegane's Keep forever.

It would have been naïve and foolish to have assumed so. Also, if he never went anywhere, his new life would be full of nothing but wasted opportunity.

He spent the first dozen years of his life contemplating what he would do when he left the Keep and saw more of the world.

So far, he did not even know if this universe followed the events of the books, the show, or if it was a combination of both.

As a precaution, he made plans for all three. Of course, things rarely ever went according to plan in any of the franchise's worlds.

Luckily, he got around this by having a backup plan to almost any possible scenario.

On his thirteenth name day, Gregor decided he had spent enough time planning.

It was time for him to get out and start making a name for himself. After all, if he was to get anywhere, he had to have a reputation.

A month after he turned thirteen, Gregor rode to Casterly Rock and offered his sword to Tywin Lannister.

He had forecasted that his first encounter with Lord Tywin would not be a pleasant one. It was not. Tywin was every bit as cold, calculating, and wary as he had been in any medium.

He was less than receptive of Gregor, despite knowing that his grandfather had rescued his lord father.

Or maybe that was why he was so unwelcoming. Lord Tytos' eldest son had held little affection for him, after all

Still, had he not stood a whole foot higher than Lord Tywin, and had he not been aware of Lord Tywin's ultimate fate, Gregor probably would have been intimidated by their first meeting.

But he was careful not to let his apprehension show. That would have been seen as weakness, and the last thing he needed was to be seen as weak.

Tywin Lannister was impressed by Gregor's prowess, swordsmanship, and resilience.

However, he was never one to render a judgment from appearance alone. So Lord Tywin gave Gregor an assignment to prove his usefulness.

A couple days earlier, three of the Rock's servants had stolen a hundred golden dragons from the vault's treasury and killed two of the guards in their escape from the city.

Gregor's job was to go after the thieves and bring back the gold.

Gregor left Casterly Rock with a promise that he would return. Less than twenty-four hours later, he did.

He presented Lord Tywin with two chests. The first one held all one hundred golden dragons. The other one contained the heads of the three thieves.

Those were the first men Gregor had killed in this universe. But they were not the first ones he had ever killed.

He had been forced to use his firearm on several occasions in his previous life. Killing brought him no personal pleasure in either of his lives.

But at least in this world, whenever he killed someone, he would not have to fill out an excessive amount of paperwork to explain why.

At any rate, Tywin Lannister was satisfied with Gregor's performance.

He granted him the right to function as a keeper of his peace, and he tasked him with maintaining order in the Westerlands.

The next four years of Gregor's life witnessed a fair amount of excitement.

Many times, Lord Tywin Lannister called on him to bring renegade criminals to justice. Every time, Gregor delivered.

It did not take long for his name to be recognized beyond the Westerlands.

He had successfully developed a reputation.

It was not stained as heavily with blood as the original Gregor Clegane's, but it was still fearsome.

Gregor was ruthless in his dispensing of the King's justice. Thieves lost their hands. Rapists lost their cocks. Murderers lost their heads.

He did not allow any guilty party to sway him. Anytime a crime was committed in the Westerlands, the perpetrator was punished severely and harshly.

Oftentimes, Gregor saw to the chastisement personally. He made it quite clear that no breaches of law would be tolerated.

Gregor did, however, have standards. For instance, he went out of his way to ensure that all innocent parties were left unmolested.

He would not have guiltless blood be spilt on his account. He also gave every criminal he captured alive the option to take the black. Anyone who accepted that option was sent unharmed to the Wall.

When he worked for the CIA, regulations required him to give a suspect the chance to yield.

In this world, offering mercy was viewed as a weakness. Instead, the suspect had to voluntarily surrender, or his life was forfeit.