aviary | OPEN | prompt three

[ They hound Sansa until she begins to cry, and Littlefinger has to admit that he's impressed she lasts so long. He has her sent to the Maiden's Tower and takes care of the rest of the day's inquiries himself, adopting the proper guise of a grieving widower, eventually protesting his own exhaustion and moving to retire. The singer is put away and the Moon Door given a wide berth, and the blanket of night falls over the Eyrie, colored by shock and disquiet.

He makes his way to her quarters once the court has cleared, pausing once he has reached the door, one hand upon the knob as he raises the other to knock gently upon the surface. ]

Alayne?

[ Sansa has yet to take to the name Alayne as readily as she will in months to come. Suffering at the hands of Lysa's madness, witnessing what example is made of her once favored singer, serve as a crucible in which Sansa Stark's heart is melted down and tempered with Petyr Baelish's boldness to forge Alayne Stone's. It makes them complicit, this act they have both served witness to, though it was Petyr's hand that had pushed so coldly and his lies that had lulled Lysa into false security where otherwise she would have raged until Sansa was dead. It makes Sansa fear him but also love him for twice now he had summoned Littlefinger to come to her aid. (Sansa oftentimes wonders if Petyr likes Littlefinger or if he suffers his company as much as the next man; but it is a question she does not humor for long out of fear of discovering its answer.)

When he knocks, she straightens and then moves to standing, hurriedly wiping the tears that still wet her cheeks and smoothing her hair with both hands. ]

Lord Father, [ Sansa says and it is not with Alayne's voice that she speaks but her own. Frightened and afraid and meek — once again, a deer surrounded by lions. ]

[ (Like, perhaps, isn't the right word. As far as Petyr and Littlefinger are concerned, where one ends and the other begins is no longer distinguishable. They are separate entities to a certain degree, yes, but inextricable at the same time. It is because of Littlefinger that Petyr survives, and upon Petyr's base that Littlefinger is built. It isn't a matter of like or dislike — it's simply a matter of staying alive. He's divorced himself from allowing emotion to tamper with things a long time ago.)

He stays where he is when he hears her speak, temple against the door. ]

May I come in?

[ Were she of better humor and if she could be certain he would not hear her, perhaps Sansa would laugh at the question — sad and embittered. It is only out of the veneer of courtesy that he surely asks. By the time morning light once again touches the Vale, Petyr will be Lord Protector of the Eyrie, and so shall hold dominion over all things within these keep walls (Sansa, her chambers and the Maiden's Tower that hold both).

Again she wipes at her cheeks, again she smooths her hair. There is no way to be strong now; all she can hope is that she is pretty in her misery. ]

You may, father; of course.

[ Truth be told, there is no state in which he does not find her pretty (beautiful). It isn't the sort of thing he can help, not when she possesses the best of her mother's features. Relatively distant from the world though he is, the first real wound that one suffers is one that tends to stay open, to never heal, and the one dealt him by Catelyn Tully is one in which the poison has run deep. (It is contradictory in nature, perhaps, that it should make him both more and less human, but this sort of thing is never easy.)

Slowly, the door opens, and Petyr Baelish steps through, turning slightly to close it behind him before he looks at his bastard daughter. Momentarily, he crosses the room, raising a hand to hover just over her cheek before coming to rest just along the line of her jaw. When he speaks, his voice is silk and honey, soft and sweet and meant to comfort. (One day, that sweetness will be replaced by a certain frankness, but for the moment, he can indulge her this much.) ]

Come, come, [ he says, studying her face as his thumb brushes over her cheek. ] There is no use to be had in tears. [ (That said, he does not yet ask her to smile.) ]

[ His words are silk and honey and, oh, how Sansa wishes she were able to swallow it down without question. But once that curtain has been drawn back, once the veneer has been pulled aside to reveal the ugliness that lives in both baseborn and queens alike— there is no further bid for ignorance and even the sweetest lies have their bitterness.

He holds her face and Sansa sobs, new tears rising in her eyes and watering her vision. The man before her now had been the one who had taught her that lies were love and was that what this was? Was this Petyr who looked to comfort her now or Littlefinger hoping to sow seeds. When she thinks on Lady Lysa, on the look that had burned in her eyes and then sputtered under Lord Baelish's affections, Sansa cannot remember if it was Petyr who pushed or Littlefinger. (He did that to save me. The words ring clear.)

Desperately she clasps at his wrist with both hands, almost as if he were a mooring and that the torrent of her own sorrow threatened to wash her out to see. ] It was right for you to send me away! [ she cries, though Sansa knows well enough to keep her voice soft. ] They would have seen the lie in me. They would have known and then— then all would be for nought!

[ Sansa weeps, and Petyr pulls her into his embrace. (He is the sea that threatens to drown her, the inexorable force pulling her under, meaning to stifle, to envelop her completely.) ]

Hush, my sweet, [ he murmurs, the words cushioned in the dull brown of her hair (another lie). ] The lie may still be found, yet. That a lie has been told successfully once does not ensure that it will hold the same weight the next time. [ Not comfort, perhaps, but (ironically enough) the truth. ]

OPEN | prompt three | PAIN

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