aviary | OPEN | prompt two

prompt two | L O V E

And what you can never know from the beginning is how hard or how long you'll love something; how even when it is gone the love will chase you down, loping like dark flame through your blood.

—

Some lies are love.

—

Love blurs your vision; but after it recedes, you can see more clearly than ever. It's like the tide going out, revealing whatever's been thrown away and sunk: broken bottles, old gloves, rusting pop cans, nibbled fishbodies, bones. This is the kind of thing you see if you sit in the darkness with open eyes, not knowing the future. The ruin you've made.

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You are better than lies. What did they teach you in the southron court?

[If Jon knew the extent of her lessons, he would have more than words for Petyr Baelish]

[ Alayne lowers her eyes, exposed in her shame because, as much as she would like Jon Snow's words to be truth, how can they be? That she lives and Sansa Stark's name dies is proof enough that she is no better than the rest. Even Eddard Stark — the noblest and most honorable of them all — had purged himself upon the steps of the Great Sept for the sake of hope and mercy.

No man will go untouched, Alayne thinks and despite the shame that flushes her cheeks, feels stronger for it. ]

They taught me the value of truth, and how little it is worth once it's held like a blade 'gainst one's throat.

[Lord Commander Snow has more authority than just Jon, and it shows in how he draws himself up]

And what is the lie you're telling today, Sansa?

[ Once Sansa Stark would have drawn herself up proudly as well, would have puffed herself up with her noble blood and tipped her chin highly so as to look down her nose. But even so, there would have been no true authority behind the posture, only the bluster of a silly little girl, made proud and stupid by the stories she'd been fed.

Alayne Stone is not proud nor stupid. She may be bold, or hope to be, but it is better for people to think her small and insignificant, or else draw unwanted attention. So she does not straighten, but nor does she falter. The lie has set deep in her heart and so there is not so much as a waver when she finally speaks. ]

Sansa Stark is gone. You mustn't speak of her any longer.

[That's not the answer he expected, nor one he seeks. Instead it's one that scares him, that offends him - the tossing away of a name he wanted, once-upon-a-time.]

And who do I speak to, then.

[ Alayne has long since abandoned things like pride and offense but, in leaving these things behind, has gained some leverage over her own fear — as middling as the gain may be. Though her hair is brown, her lashes remain pale and tipped at the very ends with Tully red. She looks at the Lord Commander through them then curtseys in a modest way. ]

Alayne Stone, Lord Commander. Daughter of Lord Protector of the Vale, Petyr Baelish. And natural born.

[ A bastard. ]

[Jon is stunned. This is so offensive, so deeply wrong, he can just control his breathing. It is as though he's been slapped]

Is this how you love, then? Love by forgetting what they've done for you, how they died for you? Is this how you love Robb and Father and the Lady Stark?

[He wants to slap her, shake her.]

This is your game? Your lie? By giving away what you had?

[ Alayne Stone is a bastard, born to a merchant's daughter and given over to the Faith. Not like Sansa, who is of the North. Sansa Stark, daughter of Winterfell, who has a direwolf sleeping in her veins. In her heart of hearts, she tells herself that is Alayne, that the lie is complete. But every lie, even the deepest held, has a flaw, a fracture, somewhere.

And the flaw to Alayne Stone is that she loves the Starks, every single one of them, even if she is no longer counted among them. ]

They died so that Sansa may live. And Alayne lives so that the North may rise again. [ Her words tremble with both shame and determination, with every pain suffered and guilt harbored. The honorable die and the shameful live. Another lesson the South has taught her. ] When I am wed to Harry the Heir, Alayne will die and Sansa will be a Stark once more.

[ More of Petyr Baelish's words filling Alayne Stone's mouth (and if these are lies, she is wholly convinced of them). ] And she will do what her brother and her mother could not and she will do it with the only weapons given her. She will rally the Vale and deliver it to the North.

[ Alayne shudders, her whole body wracked with a single sob. ] The North will remember, but it will make no difference. Because they'll all still be dead.

I see someone loves you well, if lies are love.

[There's deep silence, like a betrayal.]

[ Alayne has already betrayed her name, her blood and her Tully fire but stripping herself bare and casting Sansa into the pit. That she betrays Jon Snow with her words is but a middling wound in comparison, but still she weeps and despises her weepiness even has the tears roll hotly down her cheeks. ]

History makes corpses out of honorable men. [ More lessons, but these words are not Lord Baelish's for once. No these are things that Alayne has learned on her own. ] The Starks will never have justice. Not as Lord Eddard thought it.

They must have vengeance instead.

[He yells, finally, because he is angry, and horrified, and so upset she's crying]

You have no right to claim justice for the Starks!

[His voice dips, drops into a place that is chilly and cold, like the wall. A voice that is not Jon Snow, but the Lord Commander, a voice that is Northern and harsh and terrible]

That is what it means to be baseborn, Stone.

[ Her face cringes when he raises his voice and though Sansa Stark has suffered all sorts of indignities, has been visited by all manner of hardship and pain, there is nothing so terrible as having Jon Snow yell at her. (Jon Snow. Lord Commander. Sansa Stark's only brother, though basely born.) It feels terrible, just as terrible as the fear and anger and grief she'd felt grip her heart when Joffrey had brought her to the wall and she'd seen what remained of her noble father's head and their servants and Septa Mordane.

The tear do not stop. No, if anything they grow worse, so much so that her whole body shakes and her breath comes in terrible gulping sobs. But, despite this, Alayne does not buckle, does not drop to the floor in piteous repose. Sansa knew what it was to suffer on her knees and beg a man for mercy. And she would not do it now, not even to her own blood. ]

When all is done— [ Her voice is small and shaken but somewhere deep beneath those tremors, there is ice as well. ] —I will be Sansa Stark again. [ The only Stark. The lone bearer of that once great name. ]

And you will still be married to the Wall.

[ It had never been his place; now, even with so few of them left, it never would be. ]

[He does not touch her, because if he touches her, he will hurt her. He is not a man who hurts gentleborn women, and she is his sister still, even if she disowns him like this]

Do you think that is an insult?

OPEN | prompt two | LOVE

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