aviary | CLOSED | prompt eight

[ Alayne often wishes there were a way to help Petyr seem less tired. She knows, of course, it's a matter of concern on his part — that he spends hours, sometimes entire nights, doing nothing but remaining wakeful and attentive by her side while she sleeps. If she is taken with pains, it is he who fetches the doctors; if she wakes in the night with terrors, it is Petyr who holds her and soothes away those bad dreams. Sleeplessness is met with a story or a song and restless longing is met with a kiss and a touch and, if he is bold and she is persistent, the most careful making of love.

For each bout of discontent, for each malady, there is a bevy of remedies (some untested, some true) and Petyr &mash; to his credit — seems acquainted with many, though Alayne often wonders what previous circumstance would win him such familiarities with a woman with child.

Lightly, her fingers trace the lines of his face, fingertips pressing along the corners of his mouth to smooth away that tiredness. ] You don't think me foolish? To want such a thing and to wish it for the child?

[ Once, he would have called her foolish. But now, as he lies by her side, the word is the last to come to mind. Slowly, he lets his eyes close, shoulders rising and falling in a quiet sigh. ]

No, never, [ he murmurs, knowing that the exhaustion that colors his features is but one of many ways in which his age shows. ] With our wits combined I should think it an easy task. Or, if not that, at least not out of our reach. [ Besides, he would not once in a thousand years wish upon their child the sort of troubles that had plagued the parents. And what good would their suffering have been if they could not keep it from the baby? As if to say so, he shifts to push himself to lie properly next to her, the bridge of his nose pressing to her cheek as he wraps an arm about her. (Still, their circumstances amaze him. They have borne their share of woes in the process, but the point remains. Just months ago, had he thought this kind of bliss possible?) ]

And I would never think you a fool.

[ He lies by her side and Alayne turns towards him gingerly to meet him, her body seeming small against his even though time as proven her to be longer in both leg and torso. Her mouth presses soft kisses to the lids of his eyes, to his cheeks and chin, the effort making her breathless and flush, a damp fever threatening to sheen her face and neck. ]

You're being too generous, I was a fool once.

[ She had been many things once upon a time: foolish, innocent, blind. Once she'd been a daughter of the North and though winter still sings through Alayne's veins, the wolves no longer count her among their own. Now she is a Baelish or will be soon; vows, once spoken, cannot be unspoken and she'd swore in the eyes of her familial blood that she would not be broken from Petyr, not at any cost.

She puffs out a shallow exhale. Her whole body trembles in his arms; it'd be best that she rest but Alayne is filled with a restless anxious feeling, like she fears this happiness will somehow be shortlived (the baby stillborn or some other way afflicted, herself ill or dying, Petyr once again alone). ]

You changed me. [ Alayne kisses him again, lingeringly. ] You made me strong. You helped make this happiness possible.

[ Once loneliness had meant nothing to him, but now, the prospect — as much as he may try to ignore it — sets its claws into his heart and threatens to tear it apart. (He's told her, more than once before, that he would die without her. The passage of time has not made it any less true. With a child, perhaps the pain would ease, but it is a path down which he has never before traveled, another endeavor in which he knows he needs the guidance of her hand.)

Whatever fears or doubts plague his heart, he sets aside for the moment. He had promised to be brave, and as often and as well as he had lied to the world before, he refuses to do the same to her. ]

I was nothing before you, [ he hums, and it is a testament to the love that he bears for her that he says so without the least hesitation, that there is not the faintest note of insincerity in his voice. ]

And I will not hear otherwise. Rest, beloved. I will still be here when you wake.

[ Once she would have asked will you — the voice of girlish self-consciousness, of lingering doubt. For a long time, Alayne had known nothing but uncertainty, both in herself and in her guardian and their ultimate fate together. But both she and Petyr have been put to the fire, and instead of burn they have made a new amalgam. Brighter than silver, more sure than steel, as beautiful and as precious as gem-studded gold. The crucible of their love served as the most steady forge and even though Alayne's health waxes and wanes, her heart is now steadfast and true. The girl made woman by way of an unexpected child, the very last of her doubts casted off as she becomes a mockingbird through and through.

Her eyes crease sleepily as she smiles up at Petyr, a hand carding his hair. ] I fear sleep, my love. Fear what it will take from me. [ Hours, more preciously spent awake than dozing, half-caught between the waking world and a fever dream. Sometimes, when she dozes, she hears the ghosts of Winterfell and with them in chorus, whispers their unborn child. It is a dreadful vision, more terrible than the worst tortures she ever suffered as Sansa Stark. She never tells Petyr, though she suspects that he knows, given how she cries out in her sleep at night.

Her smile thins and her eyes flutter shut as if bid to sleep against her best wishes. ] I would rather stay here, and look upon your face. [ Demonstrably, she opens her eyes again. They smile, even though her mouth does not. ] Look upon the utter lack of nothingness to you.

[ At that, he huffs out a breath, halfway between a quiet oh and a laugh, the resulting smile lingering on his features. ]

I cannot beat back demons that I cannot see, but I will do my best. Sleep, or there will be nothing left of you in waking. [ And fitful though her dreams might sometimes be, proper sleep would do her a little good.

Could he fight the worst of her dreams, there is no question as to if he would, armed with nothing but his bare fists if it was demanded of him. That fervent spark flickers in his eyes, its edges given softness by the adoration that wells there, too, in the grey-green that, for the moment, seems not lively, but bright in the way of the embers of a flame. He is old (old beyond his years, as she is), and though it becomes all too apparent upon occasion (when exhaustion catches up to him and the lines on his face seem sharper than ever), there is still youth in his love for her. ]

Dream of me, [ he tells her, nose wrinkling for an instant. ] Better equipped to fight the worst of your fevers. Perhaps it may come to pass.

CLOSED | prompt eight | RUIN

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