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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[discrowned]

[ you are a dead man, petyr baelish had told him and robb's expression had twisted in a bitter smile. baelish could have saved his words. robb knew he was dead. he'd died in walder frey's hall, when his men had been slaughtered and his lady mother's throat slit and his direwolf beheaded. the memories are colored red, all blood and pain. afterwards they'd thrown him to the side and sent ravens and he'd laid still as they delivered him into the jaws of the lions.

cersei had promised him a torturously slow death in a sweet tone.

it was expected. what wasn't expected was what came before it, when she'd ordered him dragged through the streets. crowds had come by the thousands to see the young wolf muzzled and chained, bleeding through his bandages and stumbling into the dust and dirt of the road. they'd called him traitor and worse, and robb was glad his lord father was dead, so he would not have to see his son brought so low.

he'd not expected deliverance, but it had come for him anyway and now the thought of it tightened around his throat like a noose he could never cut. robb stark was no lannister, but he paid his debts. petyr baelish had snatched him from between the lion's jaws and now robb had no choice but to roll over and show his belly, swear obedience and fealty. it was the honorable thing to do, when someone saves your life.

the scars he bears from that day are reminders, reminders of his failure and his losses. they are reminders of the reason why he no longer sleeps, only sits awake, silence crushing down upon him--no matter how hard he listens, he shall never hear grey wind's howl again--until he grows so tired his head drops onto his chest and he snatches a few hours of dreamless sleep before jolting away again.

we must make you unrecognizable, petyr baelish had told him, and robb had sighed. he did not need to be told what was to come, though he dreaded it with every passing moment. he sits waiting, tugging on his curls. he'd not done that since he was a boy, too young to know how easily the best laid plans of men could go astray.

tully curls. his lady mother had loved them, twisted her fingers through them before tipping robb's face up for inspection and deeming him clean enough to sit at the high table by his lord father. theon greyjoy had pulled on them more than one, when they were tumbling along the stable floor, careless as puppies, only concerned with besting the other. and now they would be gone, and he a stranger, even to himself.

but robb stark was a dead man, and it was fitting that even this died with him. all that would be left were auburn curls, swept into a fire and burned to ash, as if they had never been at all. ]

[weirwood]

[ How much is the dignity of an honorable man worth? How much gold, how much influence? How much blood?

It is a question that Sansa Stark is quite familiar with, even moreso now that she is a Lannister. She herself has had her own dignity auctioned off to the highest bid of convenience and treachery like a commodity. She had been tainted goods, of course, being the daughter of a traitor and the sister of a usurper; but even then the final cost had been terribly high: her maidenhead (or the promise of it), along with her womb, her bloodline, and the promise of the North. All of these dealings had made her a wife and then, having watched as Joffrey Baratheon cough and spit and wheeze out his last breaths, had made her a bastard in turn. To some it would have been the final insult, the greatest sacrifice, the very edge of reason. What was to become of her and her brother if they were stripped of everything — even their name Stark, even their Tully hair?

When Sansa had learned that her red locks would lose their color and that her brother would be scarred and shorn to hide his identity she'd wept into her hands for hours without end, tucked tightly beneath Robb's arm, clutched hard to the laces of his vest. Is it too much, lord brother? she'd moaned and looked up at him with her tear-streaked face. Would father find this cost too dear?

The answer had been no, of course; Lord Eddard himself had laid his throat and the honor of his name down upon the block so that his children may live. That made their lives precious, more precious than gold or gilt even though they were wretched, and it was their duty as children of the North to honor their dead father's last wishes in full.

That is how they find themselves here, in an inn of no meaningful repute or infamy, a pair of shears in Sansa's trembling hand and a basin of water held in Robb's arms. These had been the conditions that Sansa herself had pleaded with Littlefinger, and he had listened with a passive sort of smile on his face. By rights they all knew she was in no position to ask for terms, but the little bird's tears have been known to move the coldest stone.

Carefully, hesitantly, she touches her brother's shoulder. There are tears already in her eyes, her own hair drawn back and still bright red but not for long; the dye is already acquired. ]

You musn't hate me, [ she says. Sansa knows she will be loathe to forgive the hands that wash her Tully red down the river. ] I would not be able to bear it if you did.

[discrowned]

I could never hate you, Sansa.

[ for this is not sansa's doing. sansa had not decreed his curls shorn nor his face scarred, and the bitterness is assigned to petyr baelish, thought robb does not ever put words to it.

not too short, he wants to plead. not too close to my scalp, for the memory of our lady mother if not for me. but he does not need to say these things, for sansa must know, and kings do not beg. even fallen, dethroned and disgraced kings. robb stark will never be the begger king, that he swore to himself when the irons fell from his wrist and he straightened up to consider the terms set before him.

his knuckles are white where they clutch the bowl, thumbs dipping just below the surface of the water within. he closes his eyes, and does not think of his lady mother, thrown into a river, the way she'd screamed for mercy for her son. this moment is no better, no less painful, but it is a different kind of pain than that.

the air in his lungs had been bought at a dear price. robb stark does not forget that. ]

Do your work, dearest sister. We both know my hair will grow back.

[ the auburn curls of robb stark, always much spoken of and admired in winterfell, growing like ivy and thoroughly unmanageable. it is a false hope, to think that he would ever be allowed to keep them once they'd grown back but it is the only comfort he has to offer. their helplessness does not escape him, but he has no way to rectify it here, powerless and hunted and collared more thoroughly than he'd ever thought he'd be. ]

[weirwood]

[ She does not ask after their mother's final moments just as she does not allow questions of their dead father's. There are some truths that are too difficult to share, however important or meaningful or necessary. One parent dies so that their eldest son and heir might live, the other dies so as to save the sun and moon that are their differing daughters. In the end, Lord Eddard had gone quietly and with resignation — an acceptance of faith and what was needed to be done. Sansa imagines in her most horrible of dreams that her mother had been anything but quiet; that she raged hot and bright, full of that Tully fire, the love that fueled her every action in the hopes of keeping her children safe.

Had she called upon the Seven? Had she sworn a curse on Frey's head? Had she called to her son before the blade found its mark to remind him of winter and honor, that it was up to him now for these things to live on?

The North remembers, or at least that is how the saying goes. But Sansa Stark, how she longs to forget. Vengeance is not hers and never will be, as weak as she is, as small. So the reminder serves nothing but to deliver more pain, like a splinter of glass caught beneath her skin that she has no hope of pulling clean. ]

If I'd never asked— [ she whispers, biting back her tears, wishing not to sob. ] If I'd never once asked to marry that horrible boy— If I hadn't begged father—

[ It's too much for such a little bird, the burden of guilt, the weight of blame. How many hands had looked to move the Starks since Robert Baratheon's arrival in Winterfell long ago? And yet, fault found a way to take root in the soft earth of Sansa heart and bloom, blood red and unrelenting. The hand on Robb's shoulder tightens. ] You must promise that you forgive me. I didn't know. You believe me, don't you?

[ These are words she's said a dozen times already. Again and again, forgive me, Robb, forgive me. But no matter how much grace he visits upon her, how much forgiveness or love, Sansa's hands do not wash clean. ]

[discrowned]

[ robb had only ever asked once. our father, sansa, tell me of our father, the words whispered and frayed with grief. secondhand tales had reached the king in the north, of course, but those were one thing. sansa was a different matter. sansa would have told it truely, robb had hoped, without the gilt and trappings of flattery that so many of his messengers had dressed their tales in. but she did not speak of their father, nor ask of their mother, and it is robb alone who bears his questions in stubborn silence.

it is the duty of the eldest. if sansa wishes to forget, then it is robb's duty to remember. the lord eddard stark had told robb of this, long ago, before robb's boyhood had died an agonizing death, crushed under the weight of the iron crown. his lord father had taken robb to the weirwood and spoken frankly of the responsibilities that awaited him, and robb's back had straightened and he'd sworn to make his father proud.

years later, and all robb has left is his sister. he will do right by sansa. he will do his duty and bear these burdens as best he can. he will not fail in this, as he has in all other tasks put to him. and when he has the lannisters three at his sword point, he will take their heads and mount them on pikes upon the utmost turrets of winterfeel. a warning, for all who dare take against his family. ]

I do. You could not have known what trecherous creatures the Lannisters were. You were but a girl.

[ if robb had not married jeyne westerling ( the very name rips him apart from the inside, his lady wife, where is she now? does she hold his son in her womb, or had he failed in that business as well? ) then his mother would be alive and he still in possession of an army, of noble men who had sworn themselves to his cause. there would have still been a chance for him to set things right and retrieve his sisters.

gently, he covers sansa's hand with his own. outside of this room, this will never be allowed him. he will be the lowest of the low, a servant, whatever petyr baelish makes of him, and he will not speak with his sister, nor touch her hand to offer comfort, nor flash a bright smile her way as he had so often done. he will play his role, for in doing so he keeps her safe.

how can he refuse? ]

I should be the one begging forgiveness, Sansa, not you.

[ but there was no redemption or deliverance for robb, so he did not ask it. he had destroyed everything by making a boy's mistake, and there were days when he wished petyr baelish would finally pull the noose around his neck tight and put an end to this tragic comedy, the play of the young wolf who had once been king. ]

[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?