Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/7197236.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      F/M
  Fandom:
      A_Song_of_Ice_and_Fire_-_George_R._R._Martin, A_Song_of_Ice_and_Fire_&
      Related_Fandoms, Game_of_Thrones_(TV)
  Relationship:
      Petyr_Baelish/Sansa_Stark
  Character:
      Sansa_Stark, Petyr_Baelish, Robert_"Sweetrobin"_Arryn, Lysa_Tully_Arryn,
      Lothor_Brune, Mya_Stone, Myranda_Royce, Ramsay_Bolton, Roose_Bolton,
      Harrold_Hardyng
  Additional Tags:
      The_Author_Regrets_Nothing, incesty?_if_you_consider_that_he's_kind_of
      her_step-uncle_now, picks_up_in_ASOS/AFOC_area_of_Sansa's_story, diverges
      slightly, Older_Man/Younger_Woman, idk_if_there_will_dub-con_yet, but
      there_will_be_maidenheads, Petyr_is_his_own_warning, and_she_doesn't_want
      to_be_Alayne, starts_in_the_Eyrie, i_mushed_the_show_and_books_into_this
      amalgamation, so_enjoy_lol, book_reader_and_show_watcher_friendly!,
      ridiculous_sexual_tension, Slow_Burn, Well_-_Freeform, slow_for_me
      because_i'm_impatient_as_high_hell
  Stats:
      Published: 2016-06-14 Updated: 2016-06-28 Chapters: 6/? Words: 5954
****** Not My Name ******
by jonstargaryen
Summary
     A swift knock on the door vibrates against her back.
     No voice calls out to her and she smiles, hoping it's Petyr.
     It is.
     (Or how the story plays out if Sansa found the wolf in herself a bit
     earlier)
Notes
     I'm looking for someone to beta this fic! Please PM me and let me
     know if you have ever beta'd before, and I'd prefer if you had some
     pieces of your own that I could look at :)
***** key *****
Chapter Notes
     i've started on rewriting these chapters since i've been feeling off
     about the way they were originally written. this one has had some
     editing as of july.9.2016 including
     -new first paragraph
     -cutting adverbs, clutter words
     -minor sentence reworking
     -removing redundancy
     if you've already read this then you have the general idea down
     already and it's totally not necessary for you to read it again, but
     it should be of a slightly higher caliber than the first version! lol
     i have the worst tendency to push out chapters AS SOON AS they're
     finished so i can't use my future self as an editor. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Petyr had thought she would find the Eyrie a sort of sanctum. That which
remains of her family is here. Here she can be someone else and play pretend as
she was always want to do. But looking at her now... she reflects something
different. She is no longer enchanted by songs or dresses or banquets. She
doesn't even give the courtesy of looking at him. Her hands are tinged blue
gripping the arms of the chair she sits in. The mountain air is brisk and it
bites at fingers, toes, and exposed limbs. Her nose is a light shade of pink.
Her face is all of her mother's, long and fair, but in her eyes that starved
eagerness for life they once shared is lost.
She looks to him after a time. Has he kept her waiting? Even though he knows
the answer he asks her anyway. “Are you well?”
She gives a nod and nothing more. She starts to rise from the chair. Her
manners have utterly escaped her. Petyr has a hint of something that could, in
a different man, be called sympathy.
He nearly says her old name but catches it before it slips. “Alayne, please
sit,” he says, and it's simple but it rolls off his tongue feeling sour. He
knows the face his words will be met with; that resentful one which shows
whenever he issues a command.
She slides back into her seat. If there were any more people in the room she
would certainly appear much happier. He saw the act at dinner the night
before... and at the time he was pleased with her for it. The false smiles, the
contrived, polite laughs, and those sullen-gray eyes. Some nostalgia overtakes
him, one that cannot be placed until it’s thought on, so he thinks on it.
Pictures of mermaids, one in Lysa’s book when they were children. The way she
sits before him she is the very image of one; all beauty, apathy, and grace.
“Do you need anything? How are you finding your room?”
“It’s cold.”
“I’ll have more furs sent. And more firewood.”
She gives him another nod.
“She is loud,” she says after a beat, the last word cut off quickly like it
wasn’t meant to come out at all. Her fine jaw sets and she watches him for a
response.
Petyr takes another beat to make sense of it, and she means Lysa. Lysa is loud.
“Yes, that she is,” but it’s not smug, it’s commiserating, and he hopes she
doesn’t catch the tone. “The tower is small and there are little other options
for rooming-”
“Or you can stop her from being loud,” she suggests, so casual and brazen Petyr
almost breaks into laughter. The laughter sits in his chest instead.
He permits himself something lighthearted, or just says it before he can stop
himself, “I think perhaps if I stopped we would still find her yelling. She
does tend to yell when she is angry.”
Her eyes barely flicker, but her head lulls to the other side and the faintest
shadow tugs at the corner of her mouth.
“Are there any other rooms?”
“I’m afraid there is not, sweetling. But I’ll leave you a key to my study,” he
says, suddenly searching among the drawers of his desk for some small box and
elsewhere for a small key. And with the small key he opens up the small box and
pulls out another key.
Before she can stop herself, she is giggling. A key for a key. Petyr is a
strange, careful man.
He smiles for a moment and just with his mouth as always, then returns to his
serious cadence to tell her, “You must be careful with this. You must promise
not to lose it, and to not to get caught coming in… and not to rummage through
my things.”
“Promise,” she says sweetly. He holds her hands together and her hands hold his
key, and her blood feels like it’s changed to honey in the spots where he’s
touched her. It travels up her arms. When she leaves she feels drunk on sugar
as should would be after ten lemon cakes. She knows, she has been before.
                     _______________ o O o_______________
She settles into her bed with the new furs. The quarters in which Lysa insisted
she stay is small. But Sansa has roamed the castle several times over and she
knows of the apartments in the Maiden’s tower which have no resident. Lately it
seems as though Lysa is set on punishing her for something she didn’t do. She
nearly falls into a rage every time Petyr looks her way. Sansa thanks the Gods
from time to time Petyr knows how to speak sweet words.
Moments later she is near fast asleep, but a strange sound shakes her out of
it. A soft whooshing sound or perhaps scratching. Fingers are brushing by on
her door. She props up on her elbows and listens. Footsteps to a beat she
recognizes. She permits herself to smile.
“Hello, Petyr,” she whispers into the air.
                     _______________ o O o_______________
Sansa is woken by a screaming sound as it echoes through the castle, but not
one which rouses thoughts of murder. Lysa screams in the same way she always
does, “Petyr! Oh, Petyr!” and Sansa feels sick. She thinks of the key, the one
hidden in the pocket in front of her ribs. She places a hand over it, ponders
for a moment, then shoves her furs aside. It is late, perhaps past midnight.
Lysa’s screams grow louder when she enters the halls, and she runs from them.
Down the steps, past the sleeping man at the bottom. Her footfall is covered by
the runs which coat the stone floor so she runs faster. She is out of breath by
the time Petyr’s door is closed behind her. She lets the sound of her heart in
her ears calm before she listens and when she does, she can’t hear a thing.
Aunt Lysa’s wailing is now a world away.
She looks around the office. The fire burns low, with warm embers coating the
bottom of the fireplace. She steps towards the leathery, old couch, then stops,
holds her breath, and walks swiftly to Petyr’s desk. Still holding her breath
inside, she steps a toe over the invisible line which marks behind his desk and
exhales greatly with relief as though she expects some trap to be in place. His
chair scoots out with a whine and she plots her bottom in it, cackling while
she pulls herself up to his desk. She places her tiny hands folded and
interlaced on the surface of it and makes some imposing look masked over a
smile at a pretend person in the chair before her. She points accusingly and
whisper-yells at the invisible people, then nearly falls over herself when the
handle on the door begins to turn.
Petyr peeks in, then opens and closes the door with haste. Sansa rises ready to
apologize incessantly and see herself to bed, but he gestures for her to sit
once more with a smirk.
“Please, my lady. Don’t take leave on account of me. What work are you tending
to now? Seeing to the death of the next Lannister?” he gasps, “Or planning your
own rebellion?”
She stifles a smile, sitting again, taking on some grandiose posture and a
Southron accent, “No, it’s the Freys I am after.” Petyr gasps again, taking a
seat opposite her. “I am sending a letter to my great-grandmother’s third
husband’s… bastard daughter’s wet nurse,” she stumbles through, holding back
laughter, “and she will attend their next nameday celebration for sixteen of
their sons, and there she will slit every one of their throats and drain their
blood into the Trident!” she claims dramatically, making slicing motions at the
air. Petyr claps.
“A truly brilliant plan. I couldn’t have forged a better one myself, my lady.”
A pause. It gives Sansa a chance to really look at him. His doublet is open
down to the middle of his chest. Something has taken the usually immaculate
nature of his hair and roused it, and it’s a mess now. He had shaved his beard
since they took up residence in the Eyrie. She realizes she’s staring. He just
looks a stranger is all. Younger even.
“My lady wife hated the beard,” he says, and Sansa looks away. He thumbs the
patch on his chin where the hair used to be the longest. “I didn’t, certainly,
and I’ll be growing it back as soon as I find the chance.”
Sansa begins to squirm in her seat. The situation has become too intimate, and
she feels choked. “Did you forget something, Lord Petyr?”
“I used that excuse upon leaving the bedchamber, but no, sweetling. I wanted to
see if you had taken advantage of my offer,” he pauses, “She was absurdly loud
tonight. She must think the louder she screams for a child the more likely she
will be to fall with one.”
Sansa just picks at the wood ridges at the edge of the desk. “She doesn’t seem
to scream much for just a child,” she mumbles.
Jealousy, Petyr thinks. It would make his jaw drop if he wasn’t a man of such
impassivity. He hasn’t been paying close attention to her as of late, and her
behavior seemed to fit her circumstances fair enough. But this… he wonders if
she’ll know she gave herself away with one sentence.
“Would the Lady Alayne have me not bed my wife?” he indulges, testing her.
She flushes, and some deep frustration takes her. “Perhaps you should cover her
face with a pillow so the rest of the Eyrie can sleep a full night,” she snaps
and sits back in his chair with crossed arms. Her nose is twisted up into a
pout and Petyr wants to squeeze her.
He stands and walks slowly around the desk, grabbing her hand when he’s beside
her and lifting her from her seat. When she stands she’s nearly as tall as him.
He remembers meeting her some years ago when she was a head and a half shorter
and suddenly she’s almost a woman grown. He places a hand on her waist,
watching her chest rise and fall and rise and fall with her lungs. The other
hand meets her side, then he wraps around her and pulls her into an embrace.
She freezes for a moment, arms out, wraps them around his middle, exhales on
his skin and watches the goosebumps surface. He holds her there, looking at the
spill of ash brown hair down her back, hoping to mediate some of the hostility
she’s recently been aiming towards him. Though he’d be a liar if he said he
didn’t want to touch her. He draws tiny shapes on her back with his finger and
holds her head to him. He knows he must feel stiff, this isn’t territory he
usually treads, but it’s purely to comfort her. She’s grown jealous, so he must
tend to her, he decides.
When she pulls away she looks puzzled, eyebrows stitched together above her
nose, blue eyes looking up at him. He places a kiss to her forehead and bids
her goodnight.
***** castle *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Her cheeks are a bright shade of red and snow covers her brown hair like she’s
been out here for hours. She fleshes out a window with her small finger and a
deep focus. He weaves another roof out of twigs for her white Winterfell.
“Nothing would please me more than to help,” he told her when she asked.
They kneel beside one another, smoothing the sides of the Broken Tower when she
grabs a chunk of snow from the side and throws it full into Petyr’s face. He
gasps, snow melting down beneath his collar. “That was unchivalrously done, my
lady.”
“As was bringing me here, when you swore to take me home,” she says, and he
feels the tone as soon as she starts speaking. The attitude is not unusual of
her still, but it never ceases to surprise him how cold she can sound. He feels
his face fall serious.
“Yes, I played you false in that… and one other thing as well.”
Her voice becomes soft and her pretty eyes blink at him, “What other thing?”
“I told you that nothing could please me more than to help you with your
castle. I fear that was a lie as well. Something else would please me more.” He
steps toward her. Her lips are chapped in the cold air, swollen and bright pink
as her cheeks. “This.”
He grabs her chin and pulls it towards him, planting a kiss. Not the ones he
has to ask for, not the ones placed on cheeks or a forehead, but one on her
lips. She whimpers into him but he just pulls her in closer, lacing his fingers
in her hair and placing the others along her back. She seems to melt against
him and returns the pressure, and he can tell she’s unsure. They part, and she
looks at him through her eyelashes.
“What are you doing?” she whispers, incredulous. Her head rests in his hand;
her fingers desperately clutch his cloak.
“Kissing a snow maid.”
Chapter End Notes
     the dialogue is taken from the books, but i love this scene so much i
     had to alter it to fit the story. longer chapters tonight probably! :
     )
***** knock *****
Petyr leaves her standing in the godswood, lips warm, belly on fire. Her bones
are cold but her cheeks are burning. Her snow Winterfell lays in ruins where
Robert stomped and smashed it. Tears threaten to fall but a smile shows anyway
when she thinks of the kiss. She can feel his hand pulling on her back when she
closes her eyes.
People in the hall give her funny looks. She must look mad smiling at nothing.
She feels dizzy. Gretchel offers to follow her to her chambers, but she says a
simple, "No, thank you."
A hard exhale escapes her throat when her back meets the other side of her
door. She needs more. She wants to see him. She resolves to sneak to his office
after dinner and after Robert and Lady Lysa go to sleep. Something like bravery
jerks at her heart and she feels more awake than she can ever remember being.
Even if he isn't in his office, she'll wait til morning-
A swift knock on the door vibrates her back.
No voice calls out to her, and she smiles, hoping it's Petyr.
It is. He slips in through her door without a noise, grabbing a peak into the
hall before closing the door quietly.
"Lord Petyr, if someone sees you come to my room-"
"They'll think I've come to speak with my daughter, and take no issue with it,"
he says smugly, barely a whisper.
Sansa nods. She's being stupid. Her minds feels like heavy foam in her skull.
"I have come to apologize," his mouth says, but his eyes tell a different
story. "For the... kiss." The clarification is unnecessary, but then again so
is the smirk that comes with it.
Sansa can do little else but shake her head. She tries to swallow but it
catches in her throat so she just keeps shaking her head. She wants to cover
her chest which so obviously gives away her nervous breathing. His hand spreads
over her shoulder and pushes down, and only then she realizes how tense she had
become. She resumes her normal posture, shoulders back, chin up.
A rush spreads over her skin and takes goose bumps with it. She rushes forward,
grabs Petyr's face in her hands, and squeezes her eyes shut. This time she pays
attention to his lips and they way they touch hers. She doesn't think about
Aunt Lysa. She doesn't think about anything.
His hand takes it's place on her back, firm and unyielding. She swears, if only
for a moment, he pulls on the ribbon laced up her dress, then retracts his hand
like he's touched something hot.
He kisses her and kisses her again and she tries her best to match him. When he
pulls away he's breathing slowly, audibly, looking at her like she's surprised
him. A look so unnatural for a man like him.
Except there aren't any men like him, but, well.
Sansa tries not to smile. She lays her head on the skin where his neck meets
his shoulder. He lets her stay for a second before leaving a trail of kisses
from her jaw to her forehead.
"I have to go, sweetling," he whispers so lightly in her ear she shivers. And
then he's gone.
And her chest aches even more now. Before she can even turn around another
knock raps at her door.
"Lady Lysa requires you in the High Hall," the visitor says, and she knows it's
Marillion the seedy singer.
Sansa does not bother questioning him, doesn't even bother listening. He tells
her of some song he is writing of a bastard girl so beautiful she bewitches the
hearts of men, but she can't think to answer. Her mind looms elsewhere.
***** door *****
Petyr's mouth plays tricks with the air when he speaks. The words that come out
are quick, poignant, pertinent, poetic, but his mouth barely seems to move at
all. Lysa grips Sansa's hair and collar tight with her pudgy fingers, and she
looks at Petyr like she's in love.
Her aunt's powdered face is to close for comfort, and her sour breath fans
across Sansa's cheeks with every heavy, anxious breath, and every word that she
exclaims. Aunt Lysa's fingers are twitching against her own grip as though
she's ready at any moment to throw Sansa out the moon door and rush into her
husband's waiting arms.
But Petyr whispers his sweet words and Lysa seems hypnotized and more mad than
ever.
Sansa looks at Petyr but he doesn't look back at her. Part of her heel hangs
out over the mountain but it seems as though she's been forgotten.
"Let her go, Lysa," he coaxes gently, and she tugs Sansa harder out of the
door. Sansa screams and flails for a grip but can't find one; only Lysa's
fingers keep the wind from sucking her into the valley below.
"Come here, my wife," he whispers, "I've only ever loved one woman."
"Only one," she repeats, sobbing and laughing all at once. She shoves Sansa to
the ground like a dropped cloak and waits for Petyr. He approaches her so
gently and lovingly Sansa feels a fire light in her belly. She knows in her
heart it's pretend, but how can he pretend to love a woman so foul?
"Only Cat," he says, voice suddenly so different it could have come from a
different man. With a light touch he places his hands on Aunt Lysa's shoulders
and shoves. In shy of a second, she's gone.
Sansa clutches a marble column and tries to steady her breathing. A morbid fear
sets in. The singer Marillion panics at the end of the hall.
Suddenly Petyr is holding her under the arms, pulling her up and asking,
"You're not hurt, are you?"
She can do nothing but shake her head. Together they walk to the door at the
end of the hall. There he lets in his guards and says, "The singer has killed
my lady wife," all the while gripping Sansa to him to keep her from fainting.
***** bath *****
Petyr rises early as he usually does. The castle is quiet save for the chirping
of the mountain's birds. Everything is coated in the dull grey light of the
early morning. An old guard drowses before the steps at the end of the hall.
A muffled noise stops him upon passing Sansa's room. The wooden door is too
thick to allow eavesdropping. Tentatively, he grips the knob and turns it.
Metal clicks loudly with it's age; the hinges on the door need oiling.
Though she is awake, she does not look at him when he slips through the door.
Her eyes are staring past him at last night's bath. The water must be cold now,
though it's still filled with lavender, cinnamon and milk. The flowers float
gingerly across the surface. The only sound for miles it seems is the sudden,
stuttered inhale Sansa makes and tries not to. She's been crying for so long
that she can't help it.
Petyr doesn't often make mistakes, if ever, but the immediate circumstances
make him wonder if he has created a mess. An instinct tells him to leave the
room and not speak of it again. A little space by her looks decidedly more
appealing.
He sets a hand on the side of her waist- something that gives a shaken feeling
to his stomach- and she's warm against his palm. She closes her eyes and
shudders again.
"I don't want to do this anymore," she says weakly, "Please, we must leave."
For a while he does not know whether to comfort her or give her the truth. "We
must stay. If we leave, we will garner all of the castle's suspicion. We must
stay until Marillion is considered guilty of what happened to your aunt. Then
we shall leave," an empty promise, and he knows she does not believe him, "I
will take you home."
"Why did you do it?" she looks at him for his answer, and her eyes are swollen,
red and wet with tears. She looks pained.
"She would have hurt you. If not then, another time."
"And you want to be Lord Protector of the Eyrie?" she asks accusingly, eyes
squinting in study, mouth pulled up in disgust.
"And I want to be Lord Protector of the Eyrie."
She looks at him for a long pause. All the while he maintains composure but his
heart still pounds in his chest, slow and strong.
"What else do you want? The Iron Throne?"
"Among other things," he says simply. None too thrilled with her questioning,
he rises from his place on her bed. The look on her face grips his heart and
stills his lungs, but he still turns and leaves the room while her quiet
weeping sounds behind him.
***** jealous *****
After that night Sansa does as she is told and only looks at Petyr if manners
and normalcy depend on it. Shared dinners make her stomach turn, and every
night she dreads the doorknob turning, Petyr Baelish slipping in and tying her
insides in knots the way he does.
He never calls on her though, not even to his office for their provisional
meetings where he'd test her wits and beam at her when she would discover
something clever. Petyr arranges for her things to be moved to the bedchambers
in the Maiden Tower. They're far away from Petyr's office and out of the way to
his own apartments. Sansa wonders if that's a reason why.
He leaves for a trip across the Vale without saying goodbye to her.
But it's no matter to her and she's sure of that. Robert keeps her company, she
keeps up her needlework and counts every stone on her wall. The castle feels
remarkably empty without him, but it's a feeling she tries to embrace.
Sansa puts on warm clothing and giant fur gloves to brace the cold for the
descent down the mountain.
Lothor Brune, one of Petyr's guardsmen, informs Sansa that Myranda Royce would
be coming up the mountain with the mule girl Mya Stone. Sansa keeps her face
from twisting up in annoyance. She recalls Petyr warning her of Lady Myranda's
big mouth.
Robert makes Sansa take the bucket down from the castle with him. The winches
stutter at first then lower them smoothly to the mountain below. Robert pinches
her skin so hard he leaves dark purple bruises, and most of the ride down he
keeps his face firmly between her breasts.
“You’re so brave my Sweetrobin,” she coos to him but he only squeezes tighter.
The plump and buxom Lady Myranda waits for them at the castle Sky. "You must be
the Lord Protector's daughter. I had heard you were beautiful, and now I see
that is true."
"It is kind of you to say so." Sansa feels stiff.
"Kind?" The girl laughs and her eyes roll, "How boring that would be. I aspire
to be wicked. You must tell me all your secrets on the way down. May I call you
Alayne?"
Sansa gazes at the ground for a moment and then finally says, "Of course, my
lady."
They ride practically abreast and not by Sansa's choice. Myranda's mouth moves
at unprecedented speeds. She discusses matters of Mya Stone and how she is not
a maid, how she has had an affair with Lothor, how she is the bastard daughter
of the late Robert Baratheon. Myranda seems to have a compendium of everyone's
most intimate details. Sansa is sure to keep a closed mouth. She nods politely,
enough that Myranda won't notice she isn't listening.
"Does your father plan to wed again?" Myranda asks, seeming taken aback when
Sansa perks up and listens.
"Why?" Sansa snaps at her, realizing soon after how rude the tone had been but
not bothering to fix it.
"Well, well, I am just wondering. He needs a pretty girl to wash away his grief
for him. I'm sure he could take his pick out of any of the girls in the Vale.
Who better a suitor than our own Lord Protector?" she teases, pushing her
breasts together and flipping her long, brunette hair over her shoulder. She
stops then, face going serious with thought, "But what a horrible name,
Littlefinger. It's not too little, is it?"
"No, it's not at all," Sansa says without skipping a beat. For a moment Myranda
looks beside herself, but it quickly fades. Of course Sansa does not know such
things, but the Royce girl and her questions about Petyr were irking her.
                     _______________ o O o_______________
The fire crackles loudly while the wood breaks and repositions itself. Petyr
had told several of his guardsmen to send his daughter to him upon her arrival.
If he told it true, the hedge knights who share his company are growing more
tiresome by the minute. In some recessed pit deep inside he longs to see her,
but he barely lets himself even think so.
When she enters, all the men stand to look at her. She crosses the room, all
womanly grace in the way she walks, places her arms around Petyr's shoulders
and kisses him lightly on the cheek. Petyr then realizes how much he had missed
her. Her hair smells of vanilla beans as it always does. Her cheeks are wind
burnt, her eyes aglow like ice in morning sun. She does not dance but she moves
as dancers do. If she were his daughter he would have trouble believing it. She
looks as if she sprung from the sea or fell from the sky and the best and worst
part of all, she has no idea.
"Alayne, my sweetling," he says and he smiles. "I was just telling these men of
my dutiful daughter."
The youngest of the knights, still standing and barely able to rip his gaze
from her, says, "Dutiful and beautiful."
"Aye," the short, fat one agrees, "though you seem to have left that part out."
Sansa blushes sweetly for them. Petyr pulls her in closer under his arm.
"I would save that detail too around louts like us," one jokes, and the others
laugh in agreement.
"Louts? Why I took you all for gallant knights," Sansa says, giggling.
"Knights they are," Petyr tells her, dropping his hand to her back, "though
their gallantry has yet to be demonstrated. Let me present Ser Byron, Ser
Morgarth, and Ser Shadrich. And this is my natural and very clever daughter,
Alayne. Now gentlemen, I must speak with her if you will be so good to excuse
us."
Ser Byron, the young one with the long blonde hair, is sure to kiss her hand
before leaving. She is still smiling after the door is shut behind him.
"How was your trip down the mountain?" he asks politely, "Cold I imagine."
"Yes, it was cold. Our Sweetrobin nearly fell from his shaking fits dozens of
times."
"Thank the gods he did not, then," Petyr says. The conversation feels peculiar
for them.
"You did not bid me farewell before you left."
"I did not. I thought you would prefer that considering our... falling out so
soon before."
There was no argument that night. No harsh words were exchanged at all. But
something unspoken transpired and both of them avoided one another afterward.
Both found something amiss and even if it was false both found it eating at
their conscience. She knew exactly what he was referring to.
She sits still, looking at him in a way her nerves would never have allowed
just months ago. "I'm awfully tired, father, I must be off to bed now," she
proclaims, already out of her chair and walking towards the door. There is
something theatric about her voice. She's satirizing him.
"Alayne," his tone is calm.
She stops for an instant but does not turn to look at him.
"That's not my name," she says quietly, and continues for the door.
"I have a gift for you," Petyr says before her hand turns the knob. She stops
and he can't help but smile. She's prone to curiosity. A pup turning her ears
at every sound.
"Come here," he says, patting the space on his lap and spreading his arms wide.
Sansa is the wolf, but Petyr is the one who looks hungry, like he's trapping
prey.
Sansa walks slowly, as slow as she can just to spite him.
She is very suddenly overcome with sadness upon sitting in his lap. She is
eager for those moments where he was tender, and she wonders if he's left that
man across the Vale or if those moments were just dreams.
His hand wraps around her back and grips hard on her ribs.
"What is it?" she asks quietly, then remembers she must be a wolf and resolves
to be one. Or try to.
"A marriage contract."
"But I am already married."
"Tyrion Lannister wed Ned Stark's daughter, not mine. Besides, Cersei will do
as she will and you will be a widow soon. And you never consummated the
marriage, no?" Sansa shakes her head at that, "Right, then. It's no worry."
Sansa does not speak for a while and Petyr waits.
"To whom?"
"There were many suitors, sweetling. So many have heard of your beauty," it's
flattery. Sansa hardly hears it. "You have two choices but I am already sure of
which one you'll pick. There is Harrold Hardyng, a strapping squire who I'm
sure Myranda Royce shared words with you about," she had, and she said that
Harry had two bastard children with different women, "He is also the
presumptive heir of the Eyrie should your sickly cousin fall to his illnesses.
He will think he is marrying my bastard daughter, but on your wedding day
you'll wear grey and white and the direwolf sigil. Everyone will see your
auburn hair and know you as Sansa Stark. You would be Lady of the Vale." Petyr
looks to her for a reaction, so she nods sheepishly. She can smell the wine on
his breath.
"Who is the other?"
"Roose Bolton's bastard boy. He would marry you as Sansa Stark and you would be
home again," Petyr doesn't try to dress this offer in any way as he did Harrold
Hardyng. Sansa takes note of this.
"But the Boltons have taken Winterfell," she says, suddenly horribly angry. She
stands from his lap but he keeps his grip on her hands. "What would you have me
do?" she asks, not for council but just to see. She's still furious, nearly
seeing red.
"I would have you marry Harry the Heir, but I know you wish to be home."
"I'm not your true daughter, you know," she says, ripping out of his grip, "It
seems sometimes that you forget."
"I don't forget, sweetling, believe me on that."
"And where will you go? I presume you wouldn't follow me to Winterfell?"
"No, I would not. I have business here as Lord Protector while our Sweetrobin
lives. Harry can be a beguiling one, but he is very gallant I'm told. And
handsome too. You would be the envy of every maiden in the Vale."
He stands and closes in on her, undoing her crossed arms and setting his hands
on her hips. His touch weakens her anger and she curses herself for it.
“You have several days to decide yet. Harry will be attending us here and you
will be able to meet him before making your choice.” His face is close to hers
but she can’t look him in the eyes. He traces her jaw with his fingers and she
exhales.
“And what of Roose Bolton’s bastard? Can I meet him as well?”
“Winterfell is so far and you must make a timely decision-“
“And what if I don’t want to marry either?”
“I won’t make you. But you have a chance now to avenge your family, do you
understand that? You can assume control of the Vale and all of it’s men. You
would gain a foothold in the Seven Kingdoms. You are the cousin to our Robert
and half a Tully, and these men would fight for you.”
Sansa swallows. She knows he is coaxing her for his own wishes but his point is
valid. But she doesn’t wish to marry at all, not ever.
“You have days yet to decide,” he says again, and then he takes her face into
his hands and kisses her.
He pushes her down to the low table and gets on his knees before her, then
kisses her all over her neck and chest. He’s languid and loose in his
movements. Sansa reminds herself that he could be drunk. If flowers would bloom
in every spot his lips touched, she’d have a garden across her chest. He cups
her breast over her dress and she sighs.
He goes back to her mouth and kisses her intensely, like he loves her. She
tries to see them from outside herself, and she imagines them to be much more
lovely than when he would kiss Lysa, with her powdered cheeks, sallow skin, and
wheezing breath. The thought leaves her and she instead follows his hands,
which tug on her skirts and her skin and her hair.
She’s not nervous. She’s proud of that and she just wants him terribly. She
wants to kiss him forever.
With one quick, rough movement he pushes her back onto the table and flips her
skirts up. He places both of his hands on her inner thighs and spreads her
legs, and suddenly she is very nervous. She clutches her skirts, breathes in
and holds it.
He stops, gazing down at her hips and her open legs and the smallclothes which
cover her. Sansa watches him closely. The hunger and drunkenness leaves his
eyes, and he sits before her breathing in and out still staring at her legs and
the place between. His careful ringed fingers reach her skirts and pull them
back down over her. He takes her hands in his own like they are but delicate
lace and pulls her up again.
He is completely sober when he says, “I won’t have you on a table.” He moves
back to his desk looking utterly not himself.
Sansa feels very much like crying. Instead she gathers her skirts, smoothes her
bodice, and leaves the room without a word.
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