Great Sept of Baelor

Politburo Barry (since you are Clegane)

While he was in the city, Martyn Lannister came to the Great Sept of Baelor. He gazed at the weapons that were being disposed by Baratheon's loyal soldiers. The Faith Militant was dismantled and a number of persons likely had already left or joined the Faith. He came to see his older brother and hoped that he could convince him to come home. It was an encounter that should not really happen. Lancel should have been the Lord of Casterly Rock, but he gave up his noble rights to pursue the Seven.

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Brother, why can't you return home?

Martyn's voice was heard from one of the open doors as he was able to speak with Lancel.

We need to be reunited as a family! Father would want that.

The young Lannister says as he looks at his older sibling. Lancel turns and shakes his head.

I have given myself to the Father and the Mother, Martyn. I wish to remain and become a Septon. It would cause trouble if I left and returned.

Those words sunk in deep causing Martyn to sigh deeply. He was right. By law, Lancel, if he returned, should be Lord Paramount. If he left the Faith and returned to a nobleman's life, even if he didn't seek the seat, others may take advantage to do so. The West needed peace and Lancel understood that. Martyn couldn't force his brother to leave, but he could say this.

Then... at least begin your education, as a Septon, in Lannisport. Be ordained and manage the Sept there. Mother and Janei would want that. And, at least, I can come and see you. Maybe, one day, you can be my person Septon and my confessor. I just hope I don't sin.

Martyn smiles as Lancel returns with his own smile. He nods his head.

I do miss home, little brother. If that is your command, I will do so, Lord Lannister.

Martyn shakes his head.

This is not a command by your liege, but by your brother.

The two laugh together. But before he departs, Lancel says something that astonishes his brother.

Martyn, there is someone here that maybe you can bring home. The Hound, Sandor Clegane. He joined us some time before the siege. Fought against Baratheon's men as they invaded and has no purpose again. He is a changed man, I heard him speak before the High Septon. Maybe you can bring him back to the West and raise him as a new knight, a new Clegane.

Martyn nods his head and thanks his brother before leaving the room to seek Sandor.

Sandor awaits Lord Lannister in the dingy barracks of the Poor Fellows, not the more luxurious quarters of the Warrior's Sons or even the austere but clean halls of the Great Sept. Few remained there nowadays, most of the Poor Fellows having gone home already, but some like Sandor were still milling about for lack of purpose or packing. For his part, Lord Lannister is given directions to Sandor's quarters by one of those few ex-Poor Fellows still stuck in the place, though it wasn't hard to find him - the vast majority of the barracks' living quarters were already empty.

"Door's unlocked." The Hound rasped when he heard footsteps approach. Not only was it unlocked, but it was ajar: as Lannister approached he could clearly see that Clegane was still wearing his Poor Fellow garment, a simple white shirt with the red seven-pointed star on it. Another man had exited just now, another rangy dirt-poor peasant with all that he owned in a bag on his back, leaving Clegane all alone. He was crouching next to what used to be a now-completely-empty bunk with his back turned to the door, apparently packing the last of his things into a simple burlap sack.

"These times are full of surprises." Sandor simply grunted as he heaved himself up to his full height. He turned to inspect the man who spoke to him, a golden-haired youngling who seemed a poor copy of Lancel (who himself looked like a poor copy of Jaime). Another Lannister, no doubt. At least his eyes did not seem to be full of the malice that filled Joffrey's.

"Lancel's brother, are you? S'pose that makes you the new Lord of Casterly Rock then, unless he didn't take up new holy vows." Which Sandor doubted. He had seen little and interacted less with the Warrior's Sons, Lancel included, which suited the briefly-Poor Fellow just fine. But from what he had seen, Lancel Lannister's fervor had been genuine, as was his distaste for his hereditary lordship. "Well, he told you the truth of it. I was a Poor Fellow for a couple months before Stannis defeated the Dragon and made the High Septon disband his entire army. Now I'm out of a job again." The siege had ended so rapidly after the gates fell that the Faith Militant didn't even get to fight, depriving the Hound of the rush of battle and a chance at martyrdom.

"As to what I'm doing next..." For such a huge brute of a man, Sandor looked quite thoughtful in this moment, though his burns looked no less ghastly. "Thought I'd hit the road again. Help the needy I come across, if I can, like I was supposed to. Be best if they're being pestered by bandits that need killing." Attempt at redemption aside, the Hound was still at his core a man of violence, who had trained with the sword and lance for so long - and then spent so many years putting that training to use - that his skill at arms was his greatest and perhaps only real talent in this world. Of course, it'd be best for his recently enlightened conscience if he could exercise that skill righteously.

"Why d'you ask?" Clegane had brains enough to guess, but wanted to hear what the new Lord of Casterly Rock pitch his offer first. He crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow at Lannister, awaiting his reply.

Sandor scrutinized the young lord when he made his pitch, arms folded across his broad chest. Work for the Lannisters again? That would bring him back to square one. Then again, he was out of options. Few others would employ the Hound, a figure feared and loathed in equal measure, and with the High Sparrow's wings clipped via the disbandment of the Faith Militant, he had no future with the Faith except as a septon. Which he knew well he would not be suited for, not without embarrassing the Seven. He could go hunt bandits in the Riverlands or the Stormlands until one of them got lucky and killed him, but the cynical Clegane knew better than to think that any one man could change the world all on his lonesome, no matter how strong and ferocious. Perhaps he could do more good in service to the lions, after all, despite his disgraceful exit from his earlier service at the Blackwater.

"Can you now, Lord Lannister? Can you really?" Sandor finally began, looking into the shorter Lannister's eyes. "Fine then. I'll bend the knee and swear an oath to you as soon as we get out of here. But," He raised an index finger, "Understand that the Hound of old's dead and buried." He didn't sound angry or bitter, just tired, and his tone was blunt and matter-of-fact but not particularly hostile. The man who hacked Mycah the butcher's boy to death at the orders of that little shit Joffrey and his bitch mother was indeed dead, mortally injured by his brother's thugs at the Crossroads Inn and finally laid to rest on the Quiet Isle. Gods or no, Sandor had lost any desire to kill people simply because his boss told him to, or because his blood was up and he felt like it. If he was going to be taking more lives, no matter whether he wore the Faith's colors or Lannister ones, those lives had damn well better belong to people who actually deserved to die for a change.

"If you're expecting me to be exactly the same sort of servant to you as I was to your uncle Tywin, you might as well tell me right now so we can go our separate ways. I'll cut my own head off before I kill a lowborn brat for looking at you wrong, or go on a rampage like some demon from one of the Seven Hells as Gregor would've at the drop of a pin. At least, against defenseless smallfolk and people who don't deserve it." For all his burns and bite scars, this Hound clearly still had an independent streak, born from his one-man mutiny at the Blackwater and enhanced further by his travels in the Riverlands and his connection to the Faith. If Martyn wanted a purely, mindlessly obedient dog like the man Joffrey and Tywin had commanded, he'd have to look elsewhere.

"Me - a true knight, eh?" Clegane smirked wryly, even as he shook his head. He didn't take knightly vows for Joffrey's Kingsguard, nor to join the ranks of the Warrior's Sons, so he was hardly going to do so for Martyn. But even if he had no intention of becoming a knight in name, if his new liege was genuine and resolute in his belief to not only live up to the chivalric ideal but also have his other knights do the same for once, well. Sandor could agree with that, at least. "I doubt it, not in name anyway. But I've lived long enough as a dog. Maybe it's time I try being something else." Even if that 'something else' was being a knight in spirit, a true one, the same kind he had once mocked the little bird from the North for believing in.

"Alright, Lord Lannister. I'll trust your word." No easy admission, that. Trust was hard to come by for most after the War of the Five Kings, and even less so than usual for Clegane. "I'll do what I can to help you rebuild the Westerlands, not as it was, but as what it ought to be." An even harder admission. The Hound of old would never have been willing to take his chances and actually work to improve the crapsack of a world they lived in, being far too jaded to even try. This new Clegane, though, seemed quite earnest in wanting to leave Westeros - or at least the Westerlands - a better place than he found it. "Let's get out of here, then I'll bend the knee and swear the oaths."