CLOSED | au | USURPERS of the VALE

[weirwood]

usurpers of the vale | A U as high as honor. family duty honor. winter is coming. the north forgets. move or be moved. SANSA STARK IS MISSING ROBB STARK IS DEAD PETYR BAELISH IS MERCIFUL

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[weirwood]

[ The road to the Fingers is long and tedious, the way made wet and churning with mud by a dogged downpour of rain. It follows them for a good part of a week. For days on end, the sun hides, blotted out by the thick pall of stormclouds overhead; and at night the wind howls, crying the names of the dead against the windowpane, filling the curtains with blustery ghosts that keep Sansa awake at night and brimmed with tears.

But even though their progress is hounded and miserable, Sansa makes every effort to be lovely when she presents herself in the mornings to her brother (soon to be a stranger) and Lord Baelish (soon to be her father). It is what is expected of her, what she knows how to offer, her only strength (if it can be called strength at all). A lady's armor is her courtesy and though the Lannisters are leagues behind them, Sansa cannot think of a time she has needed it as much. To those who have eyes and who have kept her counsel, there is no question that Sansa still stuffers. But she has learned how to suffer with loveliness, which is as good a repayal for her life debt as she can muster.

At the end of the sixth day the rain stops.

Come walk with me, sweetling, Littlefinger tells her and, of course, Sansa does not say no. He had risked everything — even his own head — to save her from the Lannisters' clutches and rescue her brother from the Red Keep's crushing jaws. And all out of love for their dead mother, out of loyalty to a long-gone childhood. It gives Sansa pause as she dips her head low and curtseys.

Come walk with me, sweetling, Littlefinger tells her and Sansa's reply is gracious. ]

It would please me greatly, my lord.

[ (Her brother lives. The North remembers. Sansa knows she will never be able to say no. Not now, nor ever again.)


—


When she returns not an hour later, her cheeks are flush (they will think it the wind) and her gaze is low and avoidant. She sits with her Littlefinger, now Petyr (her father) and then excuses herself when it comes time for him to look to his letters. Quickly she dips, her bow perfunctory, and then she is gone — gone back to the modest room that has been provided at the inn, gone to hide until she is needed again.

Gone to find Robb. ]

[discrowned]

[ robb learns quickly, what it is to be a bastard. he learns that he is a shameful thing, something that people look at with a mixture of pity and revulsion. he learns that he is to grow used to being brought low, to being cut from conversations and secreted away as if the very sight of him is something mortifying for peter baelish. for his lord father, although robb cannot apply that title to littlefinger without hot rage crackling along his skin.

( he is not my lord father. my lord father was eddard of house stark, and i shall never forsake him, except that robb would and must. )

he learns that he must lie, and lie well. peter baelish takes the truth away from robb stark, and his honor is in shreds and tatters, ripping a bit more with every passing day. robb is not a born liar, but he learns to be, with all the dedication he had once turned towards swordplay and memorization. he cannot sing the way littlefinger can, but he learns his notes and how to spit them back in harmony, enough so that most are fooled.

and he learns that he can no longer sleep. his sister is seperated from him, as is to be expected. and robb sits up night after night by the fire, thinking of all his failures. it is better than sleep, for in sleep all he hears are his lady mother's screams and all he sees is the blood staining the floor of the twins.

there are footsteps outside the door, and robb looks up, turns towards the entrant. sometimes it is littlefinger, come to offer new notes for robb's songs. sometimes it is the innkeeper, come to ask favors that are more orders than anything else. and sometimes, sometimes it is sansa, and those are the only times that are anything but miserable.

and sansa is the one who comes through the door, and so robb can smile his sad smile and be himself again, not the bastard boy littlefinger is slowly molding him into. ]

You're flushed. Were you out walking?