{ Denouement }

Petyr noticed. Petyr noticed everything. He noticed her fine silks and her decorous adornments; he noticed the way she pulled back her hair only halfway; he noticed the delicate layer of powder she’d dusted her skin with. That was not to say he believed such adjustments were made for him. Sansa Stark was a queen, and her dress must needs reflect such at all times. That the neckline of her gown veered ever slightly towards immodest, or that the jeweled slippers on her feet had not yet been worn since his arrival meant little. Of course, Petyr knew better. Where Sansa reached for her cup, Petyr allowed his gaze to follow her hand, watching how her fingers elegantly curled about the silvered stem. It was her smile he next observed, carefully taking in the measure of her lips, the way her shoulders were pulled back. She was masterful at this, at swallowing her countenance and recreating it to best fit her audience. “Winterfell and a son,” Petyr parroted, his own smile edging something close to sardonic. He leaned back into his chair, filling it, one hand laid to rest on the wooden brace. “A tremendous success, Your Grace. No need for modesty, not when among friends.” Is that what they were? Friends? The way she sliced through the meat upon her plate Petyr found strangely hypnotic. The silver was poised, the hold of her fingers firm, the slice of the blade through sinewy boar both aggressive and polished. There was not so much as a slip to her grasp; Petyr recalled a night long ago, one in which her blade had rushed against her own palm in some desperate attempt to ground herself. There was no need for that now. Sansa was grounded, utterly in control. Oh, and so gloriously annoyed by him, his words, his cutting tongue which had no right. Petyr smiled, an unctuous curl to his mouth which surely did nothing to tamp down her irritation. “Forgive me. It was not my intent to offend.” Of course it was. Nothing Petyr said came without due diligence. Even the fact that he spoke it so wantonly before her serving girls was intentional. Petyr let his eyes trail, momentarily, to the shadowed doorway leading towards the kitchens where they no doubt still lingered. “I have no cause to criticize anything you have built here. It is a sound beginning to a lasting legacy. Gods be good.” The smile was sharp before he brought the cup back to his lips and partook again of wine. Little interest the man seemed to have in the spread of food. Sansa knew Petyr loathed it. Every inch of it. The wretched castle which still stood mostly in disrepair. The scattered North barely clinging onto poorly-forged alliances. The emptied coffers and embarrassing finances. Most of all he hated Harrold Hardyng. A marriage which Petyr may have brokered, yes, but certainly not one he had ever intended to last. Long had the boy outgrown his worth. There was a son. An heir. That was enough. That was the only measure of the Young Falcon’s worth. Long spent – and certainly it had taken well and long enough even for that. Was Petyr pleased by Sansa’s progress? No. Not particularly. A progress which had turned its back and openly shunned the Mockingbird for years was no progress to be celebrated. “My intent…” Petyr started, his eyes a bold stare into her own. “My lady, I had thought you always knew much of my intent?” One, bare twitch of an eyebrow. The light of the fire winked in rubied gleam from the bejeweled ring worn on his smallest finger. Lower his voice grew, dry and papery, well below the threshold of eavesdropping servants. “My intent was never for this.”

It was not lost on her how Petyr ignored the food in favor of the drink. She had learned from him how to read a person by the actions they thought nothing of, though there was no need for such analysis here. Reading Petyr was usually a task of some skill, one in which she prided herself, but right now he was being more than open. It unsettled her just a bit to see him this way and she had the distinct impression that she was being toyed with. 

Still she went about the meal at an even pace, hoping that nothing out of place showed in her own behavior. Sharing a table with him once more was an experience that left her more than a bit rattled, her heart throbbing just below her breast, her throat threatening to close up even as she tried to swallow. She had thought about him daily; he had haunted the shadows of her mind. And now he was here, giving her that look of slight disappointment, and it was as if she was a girl in the Vale once more, settling into his lap. 

But she wasn’t and she must keep that in mind--she was a married woman, she was a mother, she was a queen. As Petyr went on, slightly mocking, Sansa regarded him with a serene smile. She let his words wash over him, lingering on the fact that no matter what he was saying it was good to hear his voice once more, to have that anchor once more. 

But when his voice dropped and he issued his sincere feelings, the persona slipping off for just a moment, she froze from the shock. Her knife was raised and it lingered there for a moment, caught in the space between, and for the first time she locked her eyes on his form. 

He looked so unassuming sitting there, the slender man with the gray hair. He regarded her in silence, allowing his words to sink in, watching her as intently as ever. He always, even after all this time, made her feel as if she stood before him stark naked, as if he were looking into her soul. At some point in her life she had found that comforting; at all points she had felt a pull in those eyes. 

The words came to her before she could even think on them, spilling out of her mouth as if they had been pent up for years. “Nor was it mine.” The truth tasted bitter on her tongue but she felt weightless after speaking it. She eased back in her chair, placing the knife beside the plate with an even hand. 

She had dreamed of Winterfell for years, had constructed a future built around the regaining of the house, but once it was in her hands it was hard to admit that it brought her joy. She had pictured the North as it was, full of love and a child’s foolishness, a family that she longed for, but the reality was nothing but shadows and ash. Death lingered in her footsteps here, and the worry that she was unworthy of such a place rested on her shoulders. It kept her awake at night, a nameless guilt, a mocking thing. 

She could not look at him for long. Her hand reached out to grasp her wine, bringing it to her lips, hoping to case that awful truth away. 

{ Denouement }

When first he had met the boy – Sansa’s son – he had been astutely familiar. Petyr Baelish was far from unfriendly, and wore his masks as if they were his skin, so firmly in place and so magnificently fitting that one could run fingers from face to neck without finding the seam. As it were, Little Lord Hardyng had approved at once of the Mockingbird visitor with the amiable smile – the offering of small gifts and trinkets, that helped too. Did it remind Sansa of Petyr’s time spent with Sweetrobin? Another boy who had been besotted with the idea of Lord Baelish, who had been happy to have the man encroach on his territory and share his mother. To grave ends, that path had led, for mother and boy alike. Where would this twisted amble take Sansa? The snow was deep, each step exhausting, and yet she was all too ready to welcome Petyr – just as Lysa had. It was improper, but perhaps infinitely worse: it was foolish. As foolish as a man who had once allowed himself to feel love under the weighted dread of impending loss and a deal too much sweet sleep. Petyr watched Sansa as she held her boy, as she said her dutiful farewells and sent her husband off. Governing over the Eyrie was something that, in truth, ought not be done in absentia, and it was a peculiar dynamic which had arose because of it. Harry spent a great deal of time away from Winterfell, and Baelish quickly discovered he could use that to his favor. Hunts were brief, but all the same it afforded him intimate time spent alone with Winter’s matriarch, and in doing so he had slipped easily back into a place of cool rapport with her. This longer, extended expedition to the Vale would allow Petyr even greater liberties; a situation he intended to take full advantage of. She looked beautiful there, holding that boy that might have been his. Thoughts of a similar nature had run through his head more than once, many years ago, when first he’d laid eyes on a youthful Sansa Stark. She might have been mine, had Catelyn returned his affections. The young Harrold looked much like his father, all sandy blonde hair and angular features. He would no doubt grow up with a sword in one hand and a shield in the other, aiming for knighthood, glory at the tournaments, the bloodshed wrought by his parents a distant memory. Would it make Sansa happy? The idea of her son turning out just like Harry? Looking past her he watched the Lord Hardyng climb astride his mount. The horse’s shoes clopped along newly laid cobbles, carrying him off and away from Winterfell’s castle. It was immeasurable, the amount of pleasure felt uncoiling within his breast. Only a fool would leave such a precious ruby in a stranger’s hands. Only an arrogant fool would leave her in Petyr Baelish’s. Petyr looked Sansa in the eye, a quiet smile hidden in eyes of green. A simple, respectful nod of the head received her invitation favorably. The dining hall was a far less vociferous affair with the Lord Harydng gone; there was far less places at the table, for one. All of Harry’s men had gone with him. And so it was a simpler setting that Petyr arrived to, though it was not evidenced by his wardrobe, which remained as ever sartorially magnificent. Dressed in fine brocade of deep emerald with swirls of gold to match ornately patterned clasps he stepped towards his place. Beside hers, making it perhaps more intimate than she had let on. “Your Grace,” he offered in greeting with a flourishing bow before taking his seat. He noted the wine was already poured. “My my. How quiet it is without your husband’s men and their ribald japing. Perhaps we ought summon your minstrel? Your bards have exceptionally clever limericks. The one with the unfortunate looking eye – have you heard his verse on your wedding night?” With a smirk Petyr scooped up his cup. “What was it?” A thoughtful look crossed the Lord’s face, his mouth pursing. “–her maidenshead bedight’d bed was his greatest pleasured prize?” A smirk. “Scandalous, truly. It reminded me rather fondly of the songs heard in King’s Landing. I remember something similar being sung about Cersei Lannister and her brother.” A sip of wine, to stall the tongue. “Though I suppose that is just so, mm?” Petyr’s eyes were alight with the sort of cleverness he’d once had when speaking to her in similar riddles, of histories and of lessons late at night in his solar, when he would have her on his lap and solicit from her daughterly kisses. “Your marriage has the same sort of spurious imitation that Cersei’s did.” Harrold Hardyng had not even been gone but a handful of hours. Petyr Baelish wasted no time.

There was a part of her that tried to tell herself she was dressing for dinner with an honored guest and that is why she chose the silks she did, the lush blue that complimented her eyes. But Sansa was, among all things, not a fool and the truth of the matter could not keep itself from her mind for long. The dress she chose had a more daring neckline then she had grown accustomed to wearing these days, the necklace about her throat placing a highlight on breasts swollen by motherhood. Her intent would not be voiced but she screamed it with her every action.

She was more then a bit comforted by the fact that Petyr had chosen to dress in the manner he did, as if he were also trying to draw her attention in a silent way, though she knew him well enough to know there was not need for a special occasion to have him garbed in such a way. Still though she felt herself comforted by his presence beside her, as if their forms complemented each other. 

There had been something lacking with his absence, truthfully, though she knew she should not think on that for long, despite the fact that she sought him out to correct it. 

When Petyr settled himself into dinner she felt her stomach clench, a hand reaching out to grip her goblet to steady herself. They were alone, save for the servants that hovered about, closer then they had been in years. Petyr seemed enlivened, his tongue quick and slightly crude, hinting. She regarded him with a calm demeanor despite this, somewhat happy just to have his voice in her ear. 

When he spoke of her marriage, however, her gaze narrowed to him. The only audience they had were the servants, whose mouths were already full of lies and truths about her and Harry, yet to have it spoken so by an outsider gave her pause. And to have Petyr be to one doing it, throwing it at her like this, was not something she appreciated. 

She took a sip of her wine to compose herself before turning to him, a smile on her lips. “Not one of your best matches then, would you say? I know you pride yourself on such things, and yet you seem to feel this one has failed.” She made eye contact with the serving girl, nodded her head sharply to send her away, where she knew the girl would listen from the shadows. 

“I do think it has been a success, if I can be so bold to speak. Winterfell and a son, what more could be asked for?” She moved to cut her meat, the weight of the knife feeling good in her hand. “Was this not your intent, my Lord?” 

She knew the stiffness of the title would not be missed by him, denied herself the pleasure of seeing the look on his face to take a bite of her meat with a causal movement. The roast boar was succulent. It was a kill of her husband’s or one of his men, but she appreciated it nonetheless. 

“Have I not pleased you with my progress?” Here perhaps she gave too much away but she felt a rush of confused emotions overtake her and her mouth did not know how quite to react. She looked at him then, however, and could he see the girl she was in her face? The needy thing that she had sought to kill?

{ Denouement }

A knit of Petyr’s brows was all Sansa needed to see to know he suffered bewilderment. She knew? Of Harrold’s treachery? And she did nothing? There was a slow blink as the Lord Baelish stood, beholding his queen with a few step’s distance between them, discerning whether or not she was to be believed. So much had changed in the years, and there was no reason to think that Sansa Stark had not found further footing. How easy it was for a woman to manipulate a man if only she knew how properly to wield the natural tools given to her. Emotion was a ready way for a woman to hold a man captive. Cheap, but ready. Listening to her admission that she had built for herself naught but a snake den, Petyr understood entirely. The seat of a monarch would always be tenuous at best; though the North and its traditions hailed loyalty and fealty above most, Sansa was still a Queen. Never had a woman ruled over the North; it would be easy to see how Harrold would find an amenable reception where Sansa may not. Northerners valued strength, honor, vitality. Harrold, allegedly, possessed all of those things. Sansa was a mother. A queen, yes, but soft, beautiful, appearing as delicate as the flakes of snow drifting down in languid repose. It was Harrold who had won the North; it was Harrold whose army had driven out the Boltons and their wickedness; it was Harrold who had planted an heir in the last Stark’s womb. Sansa provided only a name. Only a legacy of staunch Northern memories which wailed and scratched at their stone tombs. All of this Petyr had anticipated happening. All such inevitabilities Petyr had prepared for. Men were predictable. War was predictable. The aftermath, even more so. Greed and desperation turned men into lesser things, capable of the worst. In a land sown with blood and bones, only those willing to succeed at the cost of others would. Only the Vale and its excess of goods had kept the North from falling into a terrible famine, and that was entirely Petyr Baelish’s contribution. Had he not spent so much time cleverly filling the Eyrie’s granaries, preparing for the outcomes which had happened, then Sansa would have inherited little more than wide tracts of land haunted by starving retches. The corpses of children would have been lain to rest on Winterfell’s stoop, the cries of the smallfolk demanding blood for blood. Was Petyr Baelish on Sansa’s side? “Always, my Queen.” To a table Petyr set his cup, only half-emptied. “I will stay as long as is required.” His hands moved together before him, fingers forming a delicate tent. There was a space of silence then, where he waited, perhaps with some amount of arrogant expectancy for her to offer him a title. A position, something formal which granted him the sort of powers he’d hinted at. When none came, Petyr realized her hands were tied. No, it would be rash of her to offer him a secure place in the North. “Is that your desire, Your Grace?” An indulgent smile. “A friend?” With a chuckle, light and not pithy, he took another step forward. “I am certain you have more friends here than you are aware of. All the same, I am remarkably good at performing…friendly duties.” He came to rest beside her; she was as tall as him now. No, taller. “What is it you should most like to know?” For of all the friends Sansa claimed to lack in the North, Petyr had no such problems. How his birds loved to sing. And so it began.

It was not something that pleased Harrold, but she was long past caring for his feelings in that way. 

Besides, he had the Vale waiting for him, whores and mistresses ready, perhaps another bastard to meet. He had never allowed himself to linger in the cold of the North for long and Lord Baelish’s presence--while it seemed to give him some pause--only served to make the Eyrie more appealing. Early in their marriage he may have cared for rumors, but what use was it now? He had his heir, he had his lady and household, and what was Baelish? And the North was alive, mouths not silent for long. Duties and gossip would keep Sansa in line, surely. 

She saw him off with her son in her arms, the mirror image of his father in everything but temperament. The boy clung to her with a sweetness that almost broke her, for it was an innocence that did not seem to fit in this world. He buried himself in her and stared at his father with indifferent eyes as he kissed her goodbye, as he turned his back on her with a wave of his hand, the smirk that she had seen far too many times etched on his face. 

It was cold, it was nothing, but still it was preferable to what their marriage had been in the past. She could feel Petyr behind her, staring her down, and could not help but remember what he had born witness to, the pity that she had seen in his eyes. It sickened her, these memories, what the jealous rages had done to her until she had done her duty, until she had unsexed herself with motherhood, what she had allowed. She did not think of them often; Petyr’s presence in her life was unwelcome in that regard. 

She watched Harrold go, her eyes holding him, as if he would not leave if she looked away. She felt a sense of ease come across her, as if she had been holding her breath for far too long. Their marriage was a stasis, full of mistrust, a murmur’s play to be endured until they could go no further. Away she could forget him, could resume what she was, could construct a life outside his pressure. 

She found herself wondering if he would return from this trip and if that would matter. 

When he finally retreated into nothing she turned to look Petyr in the eye. She had never before stood before him like this, son in her arms, and there was something awkward in that. Still she did not allow herself to be brought down, still she held herself straight as a sword. His presence had an undeniable effect on her, as if she was determined he find no flaw in the woman she had become. 

The conversation they had before had been playing over and over in her mind, the subject of friendship and what that could mean, what it would mean to have an ally. How foolish it seemed, to need this outsider to make her feel secure in her home but her home was still in ruins and did not fit as it once had. 

“Perhaps you would like to dine alone with me tonight, Lord Baelish?” The prospect seemed sweet in her mouth and she felt a soft flush rise across her skin, the effect unsettling her just a bit. Stupid girl. 

{ Denouement }

Perhaps it was that the rare glimpse of his truth and vulnerability served as a fine contrast, or perhaps he’d realized his mistake. When Sansa voiced her apology, ever as casual as his revelation, and continued on as though he’d not let slip a great secret, Petyr demurred. Was this the sort of wife she was? The sort of leader she was? One who looked the other way entirely at her husband’s indiscretions – be it whores or matters of the realm? If Harry were destroying Petyr Baelish’s letters, then what else was he doing behind Sansa’s back? What other letters was he intercepting and disposing of that might have some ill effects on her? Did Sansa not believe him? The thought crossed his mind, a mere shimmer of consideration. Petyr Baelish, out of anyone else, would undoubtedly have the greatest reason to lie, and about that especially. She wouldn’t be unwise to doubt him. She wouldn’t be unwise, either, to remain where she was and do as she did – exactly as she had done. Over-exaggerated reactions were for irate Lords and foreign dignitaries, cud for them to chew on when important matters were under consideration. Baelish required no place holders or theatrics. Further still was the notion that Sansa was aware of Harry’s meddling, and this option Petyr had not considered at all. For if that was the case then it meant he truly had gone unanswered for all of those many years – that she had ignored him entirely. A notion more bruising to the heart than he should like to admit. “That, Your Grace, is what I meant to tell you.” Baelish bypassed entirely her question on reminiscing, as if that at all mattered now. Sansa knew how he felt; she’d always known how he felt. If she had some desire for him to put on a pageantry and spill his unguarded affections for her, Petyr could think of more entertaining ways in which to prostrate himself. Petyr spoke not of those days at all, to anyone – to whom would he speak of them, and of what would he tell? That he had undone himself for a red-headed girl, a woman, and risked it all a second time, to the same tragic ends as the first? That was hardly a story worth telling at all. “That your husband, the King Consort, has deliberately interfered with matters of your crown by destroying messages meant for you.” Petyr’s letters of veiled longing mattered not – it was the idea that Harry could and would cross such a clear line. “I have doubts it is Lord Hardyng at all, of course, but more likely one or several of his underlings, which brings to light a matter most concerning. How many men and women in this castle are you able to trust?” A toxic question, since the only reasonable answer would be no one, but it was worth voicing all the same. “Or would you have me believe you’ve known of this treachery?” That was a powerful word: treachery. Its connotations carried with it generations of mass beheadings, of public executions. She’d once watched her own father die on a stage after being accused of treason. Is that why Petyr had come? To arrange for Harrold’s execution? “I have traveled a great distance, Your Grace, and if you wish for me to…drink wine with you and talk of the past, I will do as you ask. I had hoped, however, that I might be able to serve you in a capacity far greater.” There was that look in his eye, that ambitious glint of green, and she would know it well. How many times had she watched him scheme and weave and think of greater things? It would be impossible to know whether any of it was a ruse, of course, and that was the beauty of Petyr Baelish. Truths and lies were indiscernible from one another, flowing seamlessly from one part to the next – but had he not once told her that the best lies had a bit of truth to them? Even if he were lying about Harry – and he well could be; it would not be a far stretch to want to cover himself after she’d expressed displeasure with him not writing her – then there was likely some honesty to it. “My prerogative is to serve you, Sansa.” Sansa. How familiar. How bold, how presumptive, how improper. Yet it was spoken with a purpose, to be sure; Petyr Baelish did not make foolish slips of title or tongue. Not anymore. “Tell me,” he stepped forward once, nearer to her, testing the elasticity of the space between them, keeping his eyes keenly focused on her. “–how best may I endeavor to do so?”

She felt stuck, as though she were pinned in place like some delicate specimen, while at the same time she felt nothing but shame at this emotion. She knew what Harrold had done, of course she knew, but at this moment she felt she was being forced to look into a mirror at the worst part of herself, face the ugly truth head-on. The reason for this was clear to her--having Petyr stand here and give voice to her fears made them real, made them something she knew she needed to face. And she would not back down. It was a promise she had made to herself long enough and it was something that, at any rate, she would be unable to do in his presence. 

Was this, then, the reason she had called for him? The deeper reason, beyond any bodily need? Had she needed him to stab her with this truth, to force her to fight back?

Sansa tightened her grip on her goblet; if it were crystal it might shatter. “I know.” Her voice was low but not out of weakness, for one never knew what could be heard here. “And I have none I can trust.” The words felt strange in her mouth though she had wanted to say them for so long. They felt like a betrayal though she knew in her heart they were true. Men were loyal to her name, loyal to Winterfell, loyal to her son. They were loyal to her in the abstract, as this figure of the North. They knew nothing of her or her desires, would gladly cast her aside as soon as they could. They were moths to a flame, seeking male power wherever they could, satisfied with this light flickering that came from a woman. None of them were hers. 

This outsider standing before her, edging into her space, was a different story altogether. He was far more dangerous than any of them combined, and yet she stood alone with him in this room, stood alone and did not wish to leave. 

“Perhaps I mistook how badly I would need someone on my side--if you are indeed on my side.” Best to add that caveat, best to not assume. She did nothing to close the distance between them, however, allowing him his stare. There was something about being in his space after so long torn apart that she would not give up lightly. “Will you stay here for a time, by my side?” It was not really begging but the need for help was clear in her voice. She was conscious of not appearing weak though, her shoulders set back, her spine rigid, her bearing that of a Queen. She spoke of no intimacy, nothing that would let him know she needed more, nothing that would bridge that small space between them. 

“Harrold has so many friends here, at my home. I do believe I am owed at least one, wouldn’t you agree?”

{ Denouement }

Strangely, Petyr did not know how she felt. What he knew of her came only in outward glances from Northern birds flitting about her keep. Those birds knew not who their Queen was on the inside, only her outward motions, only her practiced courtesies. The same courtesies she gave him know. It gave him pride, this utter lack of exhibition, this complete mastery of her own emotions and countenance. Not that he would have expected anything less. What he’d fail to teach her she’d learned on her own. A queen above all must needs learn quickly if she is not to be overrun by grousing lords and overzealous smallfolk. One needed a mask, and a perfect one, if they were ever to succeed in navigating the political waters which forever churned at the feet of a monarchy. Even Sansa, so far removed from the South and all its festering intrigue, was not immune to the games of man and his crown. “Thank you,” he answered, his head a gracious bow. “Her grace is most generous.” Ignoring, of course, the small fact that it was she who had summoned him. What possibly did she expect him to do? Take root in the muck and mud of Winterfell’s village? Hardly. “How long…should I expect that to be?” The question was probing, and far from subtle. The cup pinched between fingers rotated, its encrusted rubies and beveled edges catching the firelight, glinting like rogue wolf eyes. “I am here to do your bidding, Your Grace, I only need send word to my stewards in King’s Landing.” Once Petyr had dared to believe Sansa Stark would name him her Hand; he’d believed this so fervently that when the invite to join her in the North never came he had, for a time, lashed his ravenmaster so thoroughly by tongue that the poor man had cowered in Baelish’s presence for months after. There was a part of him which still believed, even after all of this time, that she would extend him the honor. The seat sat empty, after all. The Northern Queen’s small council was woefully barren. He wondered if that was her choice or if it was some insistence of Harry’s. Petyr’s brows furrowed, his features etched with a sort of confusion that seemed more genuine than not. That he allowed her to witness said confusion was perhaps the most confounding bit of all, or perhaps it simply spoke to the level of bewilderment he felt. Taxing? Her presence? “I daresay I prefer the presence of my Queen alone.” The confusion was replaced swiftly by a smile; it easily reached his eyes. Mockery came easy to the Lord Baelish. At least that much had not changed. But was it too personal? There was no audience there to laugh at his jesting, no birds to gather their whispers. It was only man and woman, who had once – more than once – been intimately familiar as simply that. Petyr never had been particularly candid with his emotions. Surely she did not expect him to surrender them to her now. “I do think of it often.” Did she find his admission shocking? Unsavory? Too honest? “Among other days.” There he looked at her. Stared, if it must be said. Until he caught her eye; until the green of his met the blue of hers and she was forced to confront it. Him. Confront him. That look of his lingered overlong, broken only by the need to blink, and by the draw of her gilded cup to his mouth for another sampling of wine. “You would know this quite well, I imagine, if your husband had not busied himself with intercepting my letters.” It was said so casually, in a tone utterly benign of concern or tenacity, that the gravity of the situation, of his look, nearly eclipsed it entirely.

It was a day of extraordinary things and the sight of Petyr with disbelief etched on his face was only the latest in a long line of many, but it stood out in her mind with a sort of clarity that lifted it above all others. It was not often she was able to unsettle him so and to be faced with it now, after so much time apart, left her more than a bit stunned. She studied him, attempting to look disinterested, her heart pounding and her bodice swelling with the struggle. 

She wondered if Petyr felt it as well, the disconnect that came with him expressing such an honest emotion. She felt something shift in the air between them, a crack in the facades they had constructed, and the recognition of this tear clenched her stomach even as she craved it, even as she dug her nails into the conversation. 

Petyr tone was dark, the accents he made on words causing a physical reaction in her that she felt could only be half-planned. He seemed far less guarded in this moment then he had in others previous; he seemed to be speaking from some part of himself that had been left to starve for years. Sansa found herself, once she was able to regain her mental footing, diverting her gaze in an effort to keep herself in check, to keep the situation afloat. 

She feared that the years apart had weakened her skills, that being faced when him in solitude had left her unprepared to defend herself. And the effect of Petyr’s words seemed to support that belief, for she found her skin pricking with the unsaid, found that the flush would not leave her cheeks. 

She was casting her eyes about the room, unfocused, when he spoke of other days. Her movements froze then and surely he could see--there would be no hiding it when her eyes hit his, the familiar shared gaze something that had haunted her dreams here in the North. She could remember the taste of him better than she could remember her dinner the night before. Sometimes in the early mornings she found herself still lost to him, the shadows of dreams still clawing at her, and it was only through a well-practiced control that she was able to keep this ghostly want hidden from her husband. 

Her lips parted, the beginning of a reply she was unsure of on her mouth (and when was the last time she had ever found herself in that position?) when he spoke of her husband’s betrayal. The confusion, the shame and desire, found themselves filtered through anger, an emotion she was able to put to some use, an emotion she had honed. 

“I suppose I should apologize for letting his deception slip me by.” There was truth to that; she was furious at herself. At the same time there was something freeing in this discovery, almost as though it granted her a form of absolution. 

She indulged once more in the wine, reflected on how curious it was that a drink could grant strength. The words were in her mouth, begging to be voiced, his eyes imploring some sort of connection. And did she ever deny him?

“Did you speak with fondness, of those days? I would have thought the break we had would have tainted it all.” She wanted to move closer to him but something kept her firmly planted, her position locked as if she was about to fight a duel. Her curiosity, however, pushed her mind on. “May I ask what it was you wanted to tell me?”

{ Denouement }

Sansa turned to face him, and Petyr felt himself grow still. She was a wolf, wasn’t she? A predator, through and through, coaxed from the ill state of domesticity by his very hand and taught to be ferocious again. Would a wild creature – truly wild – ever feel any measure of tangible loyalty towards its handler? Those blue eyes, not yellow or orange, peering outward from her den, they reminded him very much of her mother, in the same way Catelyn had changed over the years. Only now Baelish was not so blind as to ignore it. A hand extended to take the proffered wine. “A hunt.” Petyr smiled. “How gallant.” There was a pause, pregnant, and his smile narrowed into something of a wicked, wanton smirk. “Boar?” The wine swirled elegantly in silvered cup, Petyr’s gaze dropping to behold its rich color, undoubtedly in a pitiful attempt to conceal his mirth over his own impish tongue. “I have heard he habits often in the Vale. It appears the Falcon appreciates your Northern climes as much as the ravens.” What else had Petyr heard? Oh, yes, he knew of the whores, and from that he might have inferred that the marriage faltered or grew less happy. He’d heard of how slowly the repairs of Winterfell had progressed, and of the ebb and flow of the Northern houses as they grew unsettled in the wake of news from beyond the wall. He’d heard, too, of the lack of finances, and of the suffering which always surged when gold and silver grew thin. All such things Baelish might have helped with – had she but asked. Never would he offer. For she knew, as he knew, that he would always see her come to him, that he would always see her beg. The green of his eyes caught the light of the fire as he looked up, just in time to see her tip her cup back to her lips and partake of the wine. Scandalous, that image was, the sight of her imbibing. Oh, what mires they’d waded into under the influence of fermented grain and berry. Did she think of it as he did? No, certainly not. Woman, and especially ladies of Sansa’s ilk, had not the mind for such seedy lingerings as Baelish did. He thought of it. Of her. Often. “Company?” The word drawled with a tinge of amusement, Petyr’s brows raising in succession with it. “Whatever you consider appropriate, your grace.” She’d given too much away with that. So much so that the following words no longer mattered. Teachings? Ends? Corrections? Nonsense. All of it. A ruse. A pretty one, but poor all the same. “Then I look forward to seeing all things you see fit to reveal. Teachings among them.” Lifting his cup, he held it aloft in an affectation of a toast before he brought it to his mouth and drank, keeping his eyes on his auburn queen. The wine was tart and bitter with an undercurrent of sweetness. Dornish, he thought, and immediately approved. “However, I must ask…of what end do you speak of?” Petyr knew. It made the tone of his inquiry ever more insufferable. “You cannot possibly mean that you regret sending me away bruised and unmended?” The smirk returned, and he gave a cursory, if not playful, glance to the place on his shoulder which, beneath layers of well-bought brocade surely rested a nest of scarred and mottled flesh wrought by an arrow most untimely. “Or failing to utilize my considerable skill in regards to taxes and investments?” That sounded more like a chastisement, though still smarmy in nature. Still unctuous. “Or something else, perhaps?” Did he do it to highlight her mistakes? To mock the very nature that she might laud over him teachings poorly learned? No. Certainly he would not be so bold. It was a ruse the same as hers, desperate and wanting.

The taste of the wine was accompanied by a rush of blood throughout her frame, the warmth spreading across pale skin in an even and quick manner. She could blame on the wine, and there would be some truth to that, but she knew well enough that was not the sole cause. She had felt inklings of it before she had even poured and it increased with each carefully chosen word between them. It was his presence that was the catalyst, her mind alive in a way that she had almost forgotten, her limbs singing with the pleasure that came from this renewed state. She wondered if he would see it, knew she could never admit such a thing to him without his ego taking a strangle-hold on the two of them. 

It was painful and yet it was sweet. Something so long forgotten that she did not even miss it until it came rushing back, a physical memory that left her wondering how she had ever done without it. She had not realized what his company had meant until it was gone, had not accounted for the tear she would feel at being separated. The pain had not been as extreme as it could have been, for she had killed it with duty and planning, cut away expectations and thoughts of what might have been until it was no more.  She had succeeded and now here was the source of it, standing an arm’s length from her, smiling at her in that wicked way. The scent of him could barely be hidden by the wine and she found herself locked in a sensory memory of something illicit, something she should be forgetting. 

And yet she did not move from him, not even when his questions were pointed barbs. She smiled at her, the expression cut from the cloth of courtesy, something she knew he would take pride in even as it was aimed against him. “I merely think we did not part of the best of terms. Though of course your queen thanks you for the sacrifice.” Here her eyes rested on his shoulder, his own expression drawing hers in. She remembered the taste of blood in the air, the iron in her throat. She remembered the look in his eyes with the arrow protruding from him and the way her gut had turned. And it was that that drew her away, the memory pushing her from him lest her body be overwhelmed. 

Sansa found herself pacing instead, taking in the whole of the room. It was not as opulent as she would like, and she felt the two of them somewhat out of place within these walls. She wondered how he felt being here, if there was something she needed to be ashamed about. 

“We will of course be able to put you up for as long as you wish to stay with us. For as long as you can tolerate the North, that is.” She tried to keep her voice light, tried to push the shock of that day out of her mind. She could still feel him behind her, his stare on her back. He would always be shadowing her, that day had not destroyed them in body, and for some reason that gave her comfort.

“I do hope you don’t find the presence of your Queen alone too taxing?” The words were light but the intent behind them something else, though she would of course never admit that to herself. She turned to look at him then, eyes locked on his expression, trying to determine just what shape his need took.

“I assume you do not think often of that day,” Her expression here was calculated to ensure she did not reveal the lie of that statement. She knew enough of him to know that the day was something they both clung to, but that neither would ever admit to such a thing. The statement, then, was meant to see just how long they would continue to hunt around the edges of each other, to see who would reveal themselves first. 

{ Denouement }

Baelish had before penned her a letter at hearing the pronouncement of her first-born. It had been long, rambling, mawkish in its proclamation of ardor and well-wishes. Though it had been, naturally, written with the fierce and ugly undercurrent of jealousy, the likes of which turned the placid green seas into dangerous tidals of unseen riptide and whirlpools. Once, long ago, a boy had dared to dream of the sort of children Catelyn Stark might have given him; older and pragmatic the selfsame Petyr Baelish had lingering designs of the same – with a decidedly different Stark woman in mind. Those thoughts had been less fantastical, less whimsical, more rooted in mature want and practicality – but no less foolish in inception. Had she choked his chimeric fancies with tansy, the very same as a would-be mistake? Yes. Undoubtedly so. Petyr respected her all the more for it. “Need there be a reason?” he parroted, one slow brow rising in troubled question. “I should hope there would be a reason to summon a man and his cadre five hundred leagues northward in the dead of the long winter.” It had by no means been an easy voyage to make; Petyr had left behind his holdings, his businesses, his social endeavors, all to heed the beckoning summons of a Queen he still claimed to pledge fealty to, despite serving her in no tangible way beyond that of the spoken word. “You are of course wont to do as you wish, Your Grace. I come when my queen calls. Though I might question the merit of it.” The slyness of his own mirrored smile seemed somehow more grim. Was her intent to simply play with him? Years spent holed away with her Young Falcon had rendered her lonely and filled with regret? Petyr had given her everything she’d asked for, just as he’d once promised, spoken quiet in the low light of the fire near to her ear, pledging his devotion, avowing to restore to her the very things which forced her into such reliance of him in the first place. Though he did not say, he most certainly agreed: a meeting was long overdue. As she passed beside him his gaze slanted downward, watching the lush and fine fabrics of her skirts barely graze the edges of supple doeskin. It remained lowered, a quiet smile resting on his face as she inquired after wine. It had always used to be Petyr who’d offered the splash of berry and tang to his young charge; so often she had refused him, or accepting only to sip demurely or barely coat her lips with the claret gleam in a ruse to make it seem as though his gift had been accepted. A bare tilt of his head was all the confirmation that she would require to know that her offer was welcome. Fleetingly, he wondered if she intended to poison him. A chuckle, clipped and well-controlled, filled the space between them at her inquiry. It was clear she was wounded at the notion that he had not reached out to her, perhaps in the same way he had been. For three years the recompense of her legacy had been enough. For three years she had not deigned to contact the Mockingbird Lord for any reason at all, be it business or cordiality, or even to ask after his health. Such silence had no doubt been calculated; Baelish had understood what it meant. It meant that her desire to distance herself from him held a much more personal bent than that of a jilted lover or stubborn matron. Sansa had only herself to prove. He wondered, briefly, if she’d proven it. “I did write.” To admit the frequency with which pen had fallen unanswered to paper at the knowledge that she never sought to do the same would be a folly. So too would an admission of sending only the barest of correspondence, for a new Queen would warrant at least so much as that. “I fear Southern fledglings may falter and perish to the harshness of your Northern climes, Your Grace. There is little one can do to prepare them for such a tremendous chill.” Baelish had offered not just one, but now two entirely reasonable excuses to cover her husband’s treachery. For what cause? “You must believe I would not see you beg on my behalf.” Oh, but that was not true at all, was it? Not even a little bit. The look that Petyr gave her from across the room was as self-satisfied in its deception as she was in her own. “Will I have the honor of meeting with our Lord Hardyng?” It was abrupt, almost curt, as insulting in its dismissiveness as it was in the notion that he should have any desire to speak with the man who had done much to embitter the man who stood across from her. There were reasons, of course.

Readying the wine she could not see his face and Sansa was almost ashamed at herself that she had set up that condition. She should, after all that had passed between them, be able to hold his gaze, to look him right in the eye, to feel the pressure of his attention and not wither under it. Time, it seemed, had done away with that defense. 

As it was she preferred this break from their contact, this chance to prepare herself. Her skirts had brushed against him and though no skin had been touched she had felt the burn, almost as if she had been marked by him. She poured the wine, watching her hands carefully to see if there was a shutter, focusing on his words. 

He joked about dead birds but the tone behind his words was anything but jovial. Sansa froze for a second, the implication of what he said settling into her mind, creating connections that she had long suspected existed but had never been able to prove. The breath she drew then was a deep one and she held it in, closing her eyes for a moment in order to center her focus. 

She thought of all those letters, passing through hands that were not her own, and what they could have said. Of course she trusted Petyr never to reveal anything in writing, for it was in his nature to put her in a position where she would have to guess at the truth by inference, but still the idea sickened her. All those words that she could have had at hand, a small piece of him that she had been denied. Would his letters have retained his scent, traveling all that way? Would there be anything she found in them that would make her blush? Would she be the person she was now if she had had that contact, would she have waited so long to invite him? Would she always allow others to limit her so? 

With these questions on her mind she turned to face him, her expression neutral. At his question she offered him a small smile, one that would be easy for him to read into. 

“He’s on a hunt.” Such a silly thing at a time like this, when game was so scarce. A remnant of happier days, the mark of a man trying to cling on to something as he slipped. “Though I suppose you will have the, as you say, honor of speaking to him, at least for a time. He leaves for the Vale in a manner of days.” A trip planned long in advance; ever since his heir was born the Lord had manifested a painful need to spend as much time exercising his duties as Lord Protector as possible. At first she had put up some minimal resistance to the idea, and now she could only muster the faintest of pleas when she showed him off. 

If he knew Petyr were to actually make good on her request to join her he would not have planned such a trip, of that Sansa was sure. He had his ladies of the Vale and seemed to appreciate her silence on the matter, but to have his Lady Wife in the company of Lord Baelish in his absence? That was surely not a thought that pleased him, and she had to wonder if he had received the reply or if he had simply not placed any truth in it. At the moment plans were firmly set and to cancel them now would be a painful loss the likes of which even Harry would not risk. 

It was of no matter. It suited her purpose. 

She handed Petyr his drink then, allowing their fingers to touch for only the briefest of moments. She drank first, her sip a hearty one, the wine pleasing on her tongue. 

“Perhaps I invited you simply for the company. You do not object to that, do you Lord Baelish?” She looked at him then through her lashes, leaning forward slightly. “Or perhaps I wanted you to see what your teaching has done. Maybe I merely wished to correct an end that has been on my mind?” Sansa rose one eyebrow, her lips slightly parted in anticipation. 

{ Denouement }

anicelybandiedword

Sansa had to take the briefest of moments to collect herself, now that she found herself meeting his eyes. Had she ever thought to see him again? Had she ever imagined she would be in the same room with him, with the same thick air between the two of them? She could almost smell him at this distance, that lingering tinge of mint, and it brought back deeply hidden memories of brief encounters, shady meetings, too-long touches. His quip about the ravens was barely noticed, for she had gone through so many fantasies of what he would say at this moment that it seemed she already knew his words, his tone. Standing here she felt impossibly young for a moment, returning to a prior construct, wounded and and needy, before she remembered who she was now. 

The woman she was caught the way his mouth twitched at the mention of her child and oh, what was that? The possibility of jealousy was very real but even the current version of Sansa found she could not deal with that for long, could not linger over that thought without feeling unraveled in the way Petyr always made her feel. Anger, then, and disappointment were what she focused on, emotions with which she had grown all too comfortable. 

His next words demanded response, the presentation of the letter marking it. Sansa narrowed her gaze to that point, her arms tight at her sides as she pressed her hands together, like a child at a lesson, like a man at a speech. “Need there be a reason?” Her own smile, she hoped, had some of his old characteristic slyness. Perhaps he would recognize that and feel drawn to her once more, forgive her for any mistake and take her too his side again, ease the unbearable pleasure in her chest. It was too much to ask for, she knew; this dance was what he demeaned. 

“I feel the time was right for a meeting. Surely you agree, or you would not have come.” The idea of stating her true intent was impossible, for at this moment she had no clear plan beyond the assertion of herself. She needed Petyr to be her audience for that, but she could never say as much to him. 

She moved then, snapping like an arrow to the side-table. It was mostly so she could pass him, so her skirts could graze his leg, so she could feel that sharp and illicit thrill she had missed so much. 

“Wine?” She held up a goblet as she began to pour herself a not-bad vintage, saved for just such an occasion. Such rich wine would not be welcomed in the starved North, but she felt this meeting demanded it. In a way, they demeaned it. 

“I thank you for the compliments. But I must express some anger, Lord Baelish, for you never wrote me.” She tried to keep her voice light but she could not look at him, merely present her tightly-coiled shoulders to his gaze. “Did I not warrant communication unless I begged it?”

{ Denouement }

Unanswered letters. Unanswered letters. For years, they haunted him, in slumber’s grasp and waking hours alike. A thousand little birds flew to the Mockingbird’s roost, each of them bringing with them news of a fiery-haired queen, but never from a fiery-haired queen. The news brought him no pleasure. Petyr wrote Sansa, often enough to be considered consistent, yet never did he receive a reply. He thought her inordinately cruel. It ate at him, churning his gut, driving him at times to drink to excess. It was not until some great months later that he was informed of the treachery of one Harrold Hardyng, his menacing meddling so thorough that any and all letters bearing the Mockingbird insignia were immediately consigned to the fire, and never brought before their intended hostess. The Lord stopped writing her after such news, frustrated by the Young Falcon’s intensity of control, yet disappointingly unsurprised. Harrenhal proved ill-suited for hosting a Lord who boasted a household most modest. It was left to stand and rot, serving only as a beacon for his high lordship and little else. A castellan was installed – one of Petyr’s trusted men – and no more thought was given to it. The Riverlands would take years to recover, and reparations of Harrenhal would bleed them dry with taxes; the Faith had already implemented steep tithes. Lord Baelish would have earned no favor by taking up residence in the cursed once-keep of Harren the Black. And so it was that King’s Landing once again became home to one Petyr Baelish. With the lions deposed of power, and the Tyrells claiming a strong foothold under a Rose Queen – well, Petyr had something rather fiercely in common with Olenna, did he not? His crime of absconding away with Joffrey’s killer and protecting her had been forgiven in the face of old debts. Besides, the realm was tired of war. The Kings, in their endless quest for power, had bled the realm dry; it was the Queens who had survived it, usurped their efforts and gone on to claim the tattered shreds of what had once been a prosperous Westeros. The Long Night took many lives. Commoners starved and perished by the thousands. Wheat and grain became more valuable than gold. The Lord Baelish did very well. His efforts in the Eyrie had served him immensely, granting three-fold, four-fold, ten-fold returns on his investments. Where he spared life more favor was granted. Crimes were easy to forgive when his granaries were bursting and noble tables were emptied of sustenance. Once he might have thought to share this wealth with another, a different queen, but it was the South who embraced the lord which the North had forsaken. In that, Petyr Baelish’s sorrow fermented into bitterness. There would always be schemes and plots and goals both lofty and low, but never again would he have the opportunity he’d had with her. With Sansa. And so when it was that her letter found him, some months after she’d sent it, he stared for a long while at the scrollwork. Immediately he’d known who it was from, for no one else in Winterfell would dare use her sigil, nor did anyone write their script in the exact dainty manner that Sansa Stark did. In the privacy of his solar the wax seal was broken, the missive unfolded. A call northward. Though not for loyalty or arms or aid in any manner. In all of its formality, its cold chill as all written correspondence was wont to impart – Sansa wished to see him. Leaning back into his chair, fingering his little beard in thought, Petyr considered the invitation for a long while. A reply letter was not drafted until nearly a fortnight later. Upon raven’s wing it was sent from his personal rookery, but he knew the missive was unlikely to reach her. As it was, it never did. As with all letters sent from Petyr Baelish, it was apprehended and destroyed well before reaching the hands of the Northern matriarch. Petyr departed King’s Landing with a sizable coterie. In the snow which never seemed to abate it took nearly two and a half months before Winterfell was within a day’s journey. The Lord took some pleasure in the sight of it: still a wretched keep in disrepair, looking much the same as Harrenhal did. Natural, of course; the North was poor, and Harrold’s coffers had never been deep or substantial. Sansa Stark had come with no dowry to speak of, unless one counted Winterfell, and whatever claim her family had on old debts or rightful inheritance had, by the time she ascended the throne, long faded away. War was expensive, and repairing a castle in the dead of winter could be ruinous to many households. Imposing heavy taxes on those who had given their blood to support you was counterproductive; at least Hardyng was not so foolish as to have done that. These were the thoughts that filled his mind as his party encroached upon Winterfell’s walls. Perhaps he thought of these things, these meaningless matters, because to think of anything else would be to go mad. Enough hours had been spent toiling over the image of the girl he had lost and left to the snow, the girl who had cast him aside just as he’d always taught her to do. He wondered how she would look, how she would receive him, and most of all – why she had called for him at all. Many things must have changed for her to request his presence, and Petyr Baelish would be learned of each and every one. Over cobbled stones the footfalls of horses clopped; smallfolk peered from snow-thatched dens and a few intrepid children came rushing alongside the cavalcade with arms outstretched, hoping for stars or sweets. None recognized the Lord Baelish in his dark cloak lined by tufts of rarest shadowcat, nor the glinting silver mockingbird nestled at his throat. There were no banners drawn, no horns to signify his arrival. It was not until they reached the innards of Winterfell that they were acknowledged and stopped. Petyr’s horse snorted great plumes of mist through velvet nostrils, its head a petulant toss in the face of Winterfell’s armed guard. Oh, they recognized him then, didn’t they? Their murmurs said so, a whispered confirmation back and forth that the man atop the horse was one Lord Baelish. Ah, yes! Carted away some years back with an arrow in his chest. They all remembered, even if they had tried their best to forget. “Good Sers,” Baelish spoke, his voice smooth and unfettered by the chilled air. “I would have audience with Her Grace.” And with a flourish the letter she had written him so many long months before was produced and held aloft, pinched between gloved fingers.

It was a flicker in the distance that caught her eye. 

Dark figures on a hill, dots really this far removed. On most days Sansa would have taken their movement with only the dullest interest. Some smallfolk perhaps, laborers--it was certainly not an enemy. But ever since she had sent that letter off with its raven her nerves had been alight, her stomach twisted in knots. The smallest thing was liable to bring her attention to a narrow focus; she simply could find no rest. 

And so she kept those figures in the corner of her vision. She was in her own rooms, busy at her needlework while her husband hunted, the very model of the proper queen. Her son, the namesake and image of her absent mate, tottered at her feet with wooden blocks; his nurse dozed in a corner. Truly a scene worthy of a painting. 

Sansa marked the figure’s passage into town silently, noting how many stitches she did as they completed their journey to her gates. They wore no banners, which made the sight of them far more interesting, which caused a peculiar and deep-felt tightening in her chest. When they finally disappeared from her sight, close now to Winterfell, she let out a noticeable breath. 

Her counts reached passed 100 before someone came knocking at her door, startling the nurse from her sleep and snapping Sansa to action. Her work was laid aside with great care but inside her heart was racing, the anticipation nearly choking her. There was something dreadful and wonderful in all this, she could feel it in her very bones. She had seen enough by now to be able to tell. 

The servant at the door looked just as startled as her, and quite apprehensive too, Before the girl even spoke Sansa could feel the beginnings of a slow smile appearing on her lips. 

“Your Grace.” The introduction was given with a short and sharp curtsy and a bidden lip. “Lord Baelish has come. He has a letter of invite. We have placed him in the solar for now.” She fidgeted a bit with her skirt. “We were not expecting company.”

“Neither was I. I received no reply.” Was there bitterness at all in her voice? If there was it was hard to tell through the cracked way she spoke; if asked she would blame it on the dry air. Rising she leaned down to run her fingers through her boy’s golden locks, planting a kiss on his head before passing him off to the care of the nurse. 

“I suppose I should have let you know such an invitation was given.” A misstep on her part, but she had sent that letter off with held breath. To speak of such a thing would be to shatter it. Sansa smoothed down her skirts and dismissed the servants, then appraised herself in the glass. Had she changed much at all in the years since he had seen her? Any alteration had been so slowly formed that it was hard to tell, but if anyone could see a difference in her appearance it would be Petyr. Perhaps she was sharper now, her skin a paler hue, her eyes wider--it certainly seemed that way to her, now as she cross-examined her image. The bloody bed had given her one healthy boy and done no harm to her figure. She wondered if the first thing he said to her would be praise. 

She held that possibility in her head as she wound her way down the corridors to him. 

She found him in the solar, as she had been told, and it was like no time had passed at all. More silver threaded through his hair but for all intents and purposes he was the same, he was Petyr, and he was here. 

Sansa searched for something to say, her mouth frozen into a thin smile. Inside she was torn apart, by what she could not name. How she wanted to feel him, to smell him, to have him pressed against her! How she wanted to have his ear and to have her explain to her the exact way to plot her movements. How she wanted to have Highgarden again, and have him tell her such bare and painful truths about his need for her. All of these things could not be voiced, could not be acknowledged despite the way they clawed at her throat. 

“My Lord. You did not send us word of your arrival.” Her voice was as mannered and as even as could be, one hand clenched at her side.  

{ Denouement }

Sansa’s voice, though it could cut glass with its ruthless, elegant cruelty, was comforting, because it was her voice. Of course, once upon a time, it had been a sweet, slightly lower sound, always on the verge of laughter, and suddenly, as she raised her chin with the sort of regal grace one cannot be taught, it softened again; it sounded just like it once had. That, perhaps even more than her proximity, was his undoing. Or, perhaps, it simply opened the lid to the oubliette of dark, ugly, sad things that had remained tossed between them, aimed at him, but much like his body was marred with the protective surface of thick scar tissue, undoubtedly so was his heart. Maybe, she was the only one alive who could hurt him because she was one of the only ones who ever had. “Gloves, my dear.” A smirk. It was not up to Petyr Baelish. Not anymore. The North would roar out their preference, scream and bellow about tradition. Perhaps the honor would pass to Hardyng. It was not a woman’s place to wield sword or axe, after all, and Sansa was no fighter. Petyr had always taught her – keep your hands clean. Dirty work was best left for others. And what of Ser Hewson? What of Lysa? So many secrets between them, bodies stacked, lives shuffled aside in favor of gain in the game. Not all tasks could see completion without a personal touch, and certainly Sansa knew that intimately now. It was her turn to shuffle Petyr aside, to move him off the board. No one else save her could cast him aside. And she did so with a kiss. Did she know what she was toying with? He had thought she was aware of the line in the sand, much like the ones he’d oft triumphed in wearing away, the ones she made him fight to cross every - single - time? Sansa’s lips were soft, at first, before turning more urgent, pressing, her mouth opening. Petyr drank of her, a man parched of her essence. A sound came from his throat, clipped but full of longing. Whatever it was she’d done to him with that one motion, his head pushed up against her, seeking the endless thing she kept locked away within her breast, tiny wings beating frantically against that gilded cage. She pulled away, and the intensity in his gaze – that furrow of brow and downturn at the corners of his mouth – was palpable and just as real as if it had come from a man who knew not the game of masks. Slowly, almost with trepidation as if he were uncertain where to begin, an arm lifted from beneath the cushion of furs piled atop him. There was blood, dried and flaking away, covering skin from fingers to elbow, and it seemed somehow ironic. Petyr laid fingers in her hair. Those fingers utterly accustomed to silk and fripperies, the very same which had once worked so diligently to coax every fiber of her free from the shelled cocoon woven by a broken girl. The fingers which had etched and molded her into what she now was. Knuckles tightened, released, tightened again in the relaxed strands. Petyr watched, and said nothing, his eyes falling to the radiant sheen of rubied red that he had always seemed to covet. It was soft in his grasp; he imagined it smelled of rain-soaked flowers or whipped honey, but the only scent he could grasp was that of coppery iron, and perhaps that was just so. Fitting, for two creatures who some might name bloodied monsters – if only they knew. One would trek North, be crowned royalty and named a Queen; the other would be carted away, and no doubt that was his greatest gift to her, to have taken away every loathing and suspicion any might have had. Petyr Baelish served as a beacon for the unsavory deeds both had committed. It was Sansa Stark who would reap the benefits. It could not have been unintentional for a man as clever as Petyr Baelish was. The contrast of the dried blood on his hand, muddied crimson and a duller brown, to the coppery auburn of her fire-lit hair was something pleasing to his analytical mind, but more than that was the sheer bewilderment he held in understanding for the first time what it was to want to touch someone for more than personal gain. This revelation would show as a darkening near the iris of his eyes, and then his hand slowly fell away. “I look forward to hearing of your every exploit, Sansa.” The way he said her name was uncharacteristic, almost impossibly tender, utterly sentimental in a way she had never known him to be. Perhaps in that moment he more closely resembled the idealistic, romantic, whimsical boy a Northerner had once brutally struck down. A creature Sansa had never met. “I hope you appreciate how difficult it is to–” The words were cut off, a rustling outside of the tent signifying that a patrol had passed by, boots catching in the muck of mud and slushed snow. The tip of Petyr’s tongue darted out to swipe his lips; he could still taste her there. Whatever sentiments he’d been prepared to confess had died, and perhaps with them, all hopes of fundamental reconciliation. The kiss, however, Petyr would long savor, until it was a faded and eroded thing his memory could scarcely grasp.

The sound of boots outside, leather on the slick mud that seemed to be the essence of camp, broke something inside the tent, inside Sansa herself. Her attention had been locked by the sensation of Petyr’s fingers in her hair, the longing she felt in him, the ache in his words. Her heart was a twisted thing, choking her until the pain she felt was real, and was this love? This was nothing like a song, so she would have to assume so. It was far from pleasant, but yet still, paradoxically, she clung to it, exulted in it. The hurt she felt was deeper than any physical wound she had received. 

The memory of a knife slicing through her palm flashed through her mind. Such a pain would be sweet at this moment. 

Her head turned to the opening of the tent, her breath caught as if anyone might hear. She then turned back to Petyr but she pulled away as she did so, for there was no staying after this. The break that happened was, she sensed, unrepairable. She would either say her goodbyes or drown in him, and already her lungs ached for air. 

“I wish you a speedy recovery, my Lord.” She rose as she spoke, her hands trembling. She clasped them in front of her, afraid that he would see, afraid that he would reprimand. 

Hood up, her world grew darker still. But in the shadows she could still see his gaze, than dark green stare that pierced her to the core. She saw need there, desire, something thick and horrible. It haunted her on her solitary walk back. 

Had she suspected that would be the last she would see of him, she might have lingered longer. 

---

He was sent away the next morning, to recover in a place better suited to him. She was well aware that she had sent him away for good, that the self-imposed distance she felt between the two of them had led her to push him from her life, and that there was no promise of return. 

How foolish of them both. 

Sansa kept to her tent over the coming weeks, complaining of fear and weakness. She kept abreast of Lord Baelish’s movements with clandestine questions, asked far enough apart to not rouse suspicion. She heard of his recovery just as she heard of her husband’s victories, and faked her enthusiasm that only one would return. 

When she saw Harrold again he stunk of blood, but she had grown used to the scent. 

Songs were sung, banners rose. Winterfell inched itself back from the ashes. Sansa breathed in the cold winter air and braced herself for all that was to come, for what she was to undertake alone. 

As Winterfell was reconstructed so was she. She guarded herself with her courtesies as always but there was a sharpened edge to it. The would-be assassin was never found, despite Harrold’s screams and curses, and the prospect of more always lingered in the air. Rumors of conspiracy were dealt with swiftly, and Sansa weathered it all with a resolve that won the hearts of the North. Ice was was, and heat, a symbol of what once was and what could be again. 

She still gathered her information about him, as calmly as she could. She wrote him dozens of letters that all turned to ask in her hands. 

She bled out one child and Harrold distanced himself from her. He had not struck her since they took Winterfell, more confident now that Baelish was gone, and their marriage settled into a sort of benign, frigid state. Despite this she soon found herself on the path to motherhood once more, and held her breath until she took to the birthing bed. That must have worked, for she was presented with a healthy boy that Harrold snapped up in an instant, naming him after himself and speaking with pride to all that would listen. 

It did not matter to her. Looking at the child she felt that what Cersei Lannister had told her years ago must be true, for she loved the boy more than she ever thought possible, no matter who his father was. 

After that, their marriage grew into a cordial sort of arrangement. Harrold had his whores, his bastards and his hunting, but he never shamed her with any of them. Sansa grew more and more adapt at the running of things, of keeping her fingers into ever matter, in teaching her son how to experience the world. 

Three years passed like this. In that time, she was well aware of the change she had undergone, of her new position, of the way that Harrold was becoming a pleasant noose. 

And one morning she decided to write to him. It was the most alive she had felt in years. 

{ Denouement }

Absently, Petyr thought of how it took an arrow to the chest to spur Sansa’s affection. Her touch. Against his skin her hands felt warm, and no doubt she would have felt the contrast of cold chill in his cheeks, upon a sweat-slicked brow. Older now, an injury such as one sustained by the Lord Baelish might easily be the end of him. He no longer had the benefit of youth, the elasticity and surge of a body unfettered by life. Fever would come, as would infection. Would his death be heralded as heroic? Would he be remembered as the man who saved the Northern Queen from an arrow most villainous? No. Baelish was not so foolish, and it was this he resented most of all. Not that her touch was birthed by timely charity, or indeed for any of the reasons she sat beside him at all – it was the thought that it would all be for naught which gnawed at him, striking a pain in his gut ever as potent as the wound in his chest. Petyr’s smirk withered away, leaving behind the familiar impassivity of a mask readjusted. Just as she ignored his ribald jesting, he ignored her offer to assist. Sansa Stark was no chambermaid. She did not fetch warm rags or cups of water. Not even for him. Especially not for him. “Have they captured the rogue?” In his slumber Petyr remembered nothing of the day; his mind had instead been filled with visions of red-headed girls, the rippling streams of Riverrun, unanswered letters… Perhaps that was wherefrom the greatest of Petyr’s sorrows stemmed. Not the rejection – rejection was a simple matter. It was a sharp blow to be sure, but one that could be weathered and left behind. It was the ambiguity of matters which so ailed him. The wondering, the longing, the ever-present possibility for more. And there was a possibility; Sansa would not be sitting beside him mopping his brow if that were not the case. Petyr loved her, he realized. It was selfish and twisted and unutterably ugly, substantiated only at the moment of consummate misfortune, but it was love all the same. Or else it was crude sentimentality, brought on by nothing more than a tremendous loss of blood. Did his skin seem pale, too pale, in the wan light of a guttering candle? “I suppose not, or else the man’s screams would no doubt have woken me.” There was a dryness to Petyr’s words, something smoky and faded. “Or is that not the way of Sansa Stark?” Gray-green eyes lingered on her face; the slant to his mouth was sardonic. “Kindness above cruelty? Not particularly keen on swinging many swords yourself?” It veered wry. How striking she would look, passing a sentence, blood in her hair and on her hands. “Northern honor. How droll.” Petyr would see none of it, he understood. There would be no traveling northward with her, no leaving her to the seat of her rule. He would not get to stand by and watch as a crown was placed upon her head. No coronation. No honors. “They intend to transport me to Torrhen’s Square.” That much he had overheard before the drugged sleep had drawn him in. “Best you say your farewells now while no one is looking.” There was a grim finality to it. The secrecy. The practicum of apathy. The very real potential that they might never again see one another after the sun’s break on the morrow. 

The effect of his words, detached and odd as they were, was not something she had expected. In truth Sansa did not quite know what she expected when she entered the tent, only that her feet compelled her to his side. She had needed to see the wound sustained in her presence, she had needed to examine the source of the blood that lingered under nails, in her senses. Now, with him, his questions about the day’s events seemed utterly queer, for was that what he really wished to discuss with her? He spoke of Northern justice in a tone that suggested nothing had happened between them, and was that all it was? 

She had not thought so at the time, but she had not felt that intense longing from him since their trek North. Perhaps she had been been mistaken. A stupid young girl, wrapped up in the prospect of a story of a different sort, one of illicit need and hidden desires, one with a tragic but intense ending. Reality had denied her the grandness that that story promised and here they were, parting without climax. She had known she would have to leave his side sooner or later, that nothing in their story promised a future, but she still expected more than this. The words that passed between them were stilted things, with none of the fire of Highgarden present. Was this all there would be, ignored requests for kindness and cutting smiles. 

“Shall I have the blood on my own hands?” She asked with as much humor as she could, though the question itself was very real in her mind. In her heart she knew it was right that she see justice through to the end, that the Northernmen would never respect if she did not, but the idea was distasteful. It was not the blood that bothered her or the cruelty, but the proximity. It was not through such acts that real power was achieved. 

Petyr’s talk of leaving entered her mind as a droning noise. She already knew that was to happen--it had been the topic of their conversation before the day’s events had done away with any sense of sanity--but now that there was such a cold finality to it all. She was struck by the very real idea that she might never see him outside of this tent again, that his constant presence in her life would end here. She would be adrift, forced to make her own way in the world, and was that not what they wanted? What they planned?

Sansa realized then that no, no it wasn’t. She had never conceived of a future without him. The idea of it shredded her heart. 

How he would mock her. 

“I had heard.” A simple response to such a mannered statement. Had she expected Petyr to make a show of grief, had she expected him to miss her? In the moments they were together, against a wall and after a bath, she had thought he could not do without her. She had felt it in his hands, in his mouth, in the ragged nature of his being. She had heard him whisper things that she knew she was never to bring up again, she had shared more with him than she expected any woman had. And now he did not fight, now he left her with jokes and cold remarks. 

Maybe it was a desire to relieve that need that moved her to act then, or perhaps it was the fact that this was, for all intents and purposes, the end. Or perhaps it was merely the fact that the day had rattled her mind and that she needed something solid to hold onto that caused her to act boldly, that made her do something she was sure to regret. 

She took up his offer to say his goodbyes by leaning in and covering her mouth was his, until she tasted the bitter milk of the poppy, until she almost choked on the flavor of him. How familiar, how horrible. 

{ Denouement }

Petyr was led into the maester’s tent, though the maester had long since departed to Winterfell with Harrold Hardyng and the majority of the Vale’s forces so as to tend the masses of wounded left behind in the wake of war. Who remained with Sansa Stark and her retinue was naught more than a maester’s apprentice, a skittish lad in thick robes and a wide-set nose he breathed too loudly from. He took one look at the arrow pitched right through Baelish’s chest and sucked in a lung full of air so large that his face flushed red with it. Then there was a deluge of clinking glass as phials were sorted through, and a waft of heady fragrances as sachets of herbs were tossed aside into untidy piles. The larger problem, of course, was that the offender was still at large, leaving no trace of footprints in the fresh-fallen snow and slicks of wet mud which led some to murmur under their breaths that it had been a vengeful spirit come to finish what the Boltons had been unable to. A team of men astride horses went out into the wood, searching the piney groves for the traitorous archer, but no villain was found, and they returned to camp empty handed. Sansa, understandably, was corralled into her tent and surrounded by heavy guard. They assured her they would let no harm come to her, though a raven bearing worried sentiments was immediately dispatched to Winterfell’s ruins in the hopes of quickly alerting Hardyng. Their fastest rider, too, followed the road to the keep in the event the raven became waylaid. The arrow’s fletching was thin and fine, its craftsmanship undeniable. Bolton, some surmised. Lannister, said others. There were many who might wish to slay the auburn queen before she found her Northern throne, and they would not be shy in their malcontent. The shaft of the arrow snapped with a sharp report, the bloodied feathers falling to the ground. It was not until the arrow was slid through his body and out of his back, however, that Petyr Baelish made a sound. It was low, guttural, like the sound a man might make as he prepares to retch. It was a tearing, the likes of which he’d felt once before, long ago, as a boy who knew no better than to fight for the woman he loved. It was no different now, he supposed, although in maturity his shield had been, at best, accidental. A misstep and nothing more. And was that not the truth of all things which revolved around Sansa Stark? Pain radiated throughout Petyr’s shoulder, his chest, his heart beating faster than it ought. At once there was a flow of red, swiftly flushed with a concoction of water and herbs. Then the wound was tightly packed, neither sewn nor branded shut. The biggest risk was infection, the maester’s apprentice grimly stated. The best course of action would be to transport Baelish to Torrhen’s Square, where a more able maester and wider arsenal of medicine could be found. All such matters were discussed, candidly, as the Mockingbird Lord lay abed, a trickle of milk of the poppy still bitter on his tongue, coaxing him into unconsciousness. A similar memory was relived a second time, of troubling fever and an all-over ache, a feeling like death, and the face of a girl surrounded by a halo of red hair leaning over him. Cat, he thought. But Cat was dead, of course, her throat slit, her body thrown in the river to rot. It was Sansa he saw, though he realized it too late, his eyes rolling white as a drugged sleep enveloped him. It was not until night fell that he awoke. He knew it was night, for the air was crisp and cold, and there was no light to illuminate the tent surrounding him. Atop him were layers of heavy fur, his doublet and tunic having long been cut away. He could see his breath, its furling mist as it left his mouth each time he exhaled. Seated in a chair beside his bed was – someone. To turn his head and look seemed an impossibility; a slant of his gaze was all he could muster. Though he still could not see who it was, not entirely, he could see her hands, her well-rounded nails, her long, slender fingers, the feminine rings of deep-set pearl and sapphire adorning them. Immediately he knew who it was that kept him company. “Have you come to grant me your favor, my lady?” A wry tilt morphed dried lips. How gallant of him, as foolish as any green knight. Such was the tragedy of Baelish’s scars, birthed not from heroism or bravery, but of imprudence and preposterous happenstance. “Will you tie it ‘round my lance?” It would, perhaps, be discordant of him not to exercise vulgarity. 

It was in a daze that she was brought back to her own tent, and this daze was something her protectors clearly sought to prolong, for as soon as she arrived they began to push on her various awful and bitter herbs that would dull her senses and place her in a deep sleep. Sansa refused them all, politely of course, for she wanted nothing more than to have her wits about her, sharp and ready for action, once the rush of the arrow and the blood dissipated. 

This all took some time. She passed it by making jokes to her ladies and offering praise to her guards. She played simple games with the ladies in the tent, trying with her ease to keep them calm, lowering the anxiety that in moments like this always threatened to tear them apart. She pushed some of them away, gently of course, insisting that they go back to their own matters and their own tents. She slowly dismantled her retainers, the group surrounding her fading as darkness crept in. 

When night was truly on them she made the motions that she was going to sleep. The guard on her door was still thick but clearly drowsy, and bored by the lack of action. It seemed obvious to her that her would-be assassin had long since left the camp, perhaps to stalk them in the woods outside, and surely the men at her door knew that as well. From the enclosed and empty confines of her tent Sansa listened to them outside, heard the sleep in their voices. It took time, but soon enough they seemed still. 

She scratched a note letting them know she had gone to see to Baelish, unable to sleep until she knew of his condition, then donned a heavy black cloak and made her way through the mud. 

Sansa could see her breath, curling in the Northern air. The slick of her footsteps seemed impossibly loud in the quiet of a late-night camp and the smell that greeted her one of dying fires, the ends of things. There was something in her act of walking that straightened her back; perhaps she had merely been clustered inside for too long, waited for too long. 

That she needed to see him was never a question for her. 

His own tent sat still and unguarded, and she could not help but note the position most of her followers granted him. It was with a frown that this was observed, a resolution that things must change. 

Still though, it suited her purpose now. She let herself in without a word. 

Even in the dark she could see him, entombed in furs. Closer to him she could make out the bandage, nearly covering the old wound on his chest, and her mind flashed to an image of what this one would look like when paired with the other. She reached out, almost to touch it with reverence, but managed to hold herself back. 

Instead she took a seat and began her vigil. She was still and unmoving until he stirred, his eyes opening and settling, focusing on her. 

His words were vulgar and just what she would expect from him in health; there was no telling how much it pleased her to hear them. She said nothing to them though, instead reaching out with a trembling hand to cup his face, brushing some cold, sweet-logged hair from his forehead, before dropping down to pull his furs up closer. 

“I’m glad to find you this well.” Her voice seemed odd in this place, unfamiliar. She waited until the words died before she spoke again. “Can I see to anything for you, my Lord?”

{ Denouement }

Harrenhal. Once it had been a place which inspired the Mockingbird Lord’s eyes to flash with hunger. With ambition. Now, mere mention of the cursed keep drew Petyr’s mouth in a thin line. Petyr had never planned on going there with the intent of making it his stead. It was ruinous, broken, shattered under a dozen bloody sieges, the most recent being that of a well-armed Lannister army. Further still, its ownership hung in tenuous balance. Harrenhal and the Riverlands may pledge fealty to a Northern queen, though its land and people were at very real risk of falling to the influence and proximity of King’s Landing. Perhaps Sansa did not care. It was Winterfell that she’d always wanted; the rest of it had been incidental. In that same vein, Petyr had never wanted Harrenhal as a fortress; it was necessary to claim only to elevate his status, to qualify him for a marriage to a Lady on high. Lysa. Sansa. She must know by now that it had always been her he’d intended to have, though he had never spoken of it, never alluded to it beyond the longing in silvery eyes and the possessive way his fingers pressed into her skin. Hearing the twig’s brittle snap Petyr looked back to her, a deferential incline to his head. “Harrenhal will no doubt provide an interesting challenge.” The lie, the finality of it, tasted bitter. As bitter as the false smile she offered him, like dimpled sweetbrier berries, too lush, too red, too sweet. It was a smile he’d seen used on others a thousand times in her flawless bid to charm and sway. Even knowing it was naught more than a ruse she employed, he could find no fault in the girl in whose face a virginal youth suggested the tender innocence and surprise of a spring rose, while the droop of her figure, at once delicate and self-reliant, arrested the fancy with a sense of its violent thorny spray. Baelish realized then that she had more sheer, quiet vitality than any woman he had ever seen. The returning smile he offered was of that selfsame, sticky sweet and mirthless variety. How well they wore their masks. Their courtesies. He watched as that smile shifted and evolved, changing from that of expectation to one of revelation. Petyr was inclined, nearly, to reach out, to cup her elbow, to guide her closer to him. Stopped, the motion was, by her next set of words. Words which saw his own smile evolve into a flash of something sad. He had once conceded to her that he would desire sons from no other woman. It seemed she mocked him. His intent. His very being. For how else might he be reminded that all of his schemes and efforts were set to amount to nothing now that she was released of his influence? Petyr looked away. Petyr said nothing. A slow, solemn nod punctuated the silence. It stretched on like the trailing wisps of cold wind which fluttered their cloaks and rustled their hair. “I must confess, my lady…” Turning to her, Petyr offered up a gloved hand to his winter flower, ready to escort her back down the ridge to the encampment. “You will make–” But the words were interrupted. A cry erupted from below, one of the camp’s sentries bellowing out with great urgency, warning all who might hear: “KNAVES!” And in the simple motion of a man who had turned and shifted only just barely, the arrow that was meant for Sansa Stark’s back missed her by the slightest sliver of an inch and flew instead into the chest of Petyr Baelish. Straight through, they would later say, though there would be no need – the frightful sight of a bloodied tip protruding from the thick black cloak adorning him was well and quite enough. At once there was a flurry of alert cries, of clanking swords, of Vale soldiers springing to furious attention. A force broke off, charging into the hills from whence the fiendish arrow had flown, whilst others swiftly climbed the hill to forcefully whisk their lady and future queen away to safety. Petyr fell to his knees, a hand braced on the ground, his blood red on the snow.

The acts fell in such a rapid, confused orgy of pain and expectation that it almost had a physical manifestation. Sansa would swear, for moments after, that it was she who had been pierced through, that the bloodied tip of the arrow protruded from her breast, that the pounding in her head was due to a loss of blood. It certainly seemed as if the attack had taken the wind from her, and the world itself, for everything was a dull and constant hum, the voices of the crowd below blending into something indistinct and awful. And she herself no longer seemed in control of her own actions, as if the shooting of the arrow had released her from any higher thought of why it was she did things. She could feel others approaching, the vibrations of their boots ringing through her, but she did not go to them. Her legs appeared to have been taken from her and suddenly she was cold, very cold, as she dropped to the ground beside him. There was red on her cloak, on her palms. She stared down at it and thought of nothing more than how Petyr would scold. 

She was dragged to her feet then--by who she did not know, though she was careful to thank them all the same--and bundled and taken away. The cloak they threw over her was heavy and blotted out the world, save for the sharp smell of Petyr’s blood, his blood, and the crunch underneath. She kept trying to turn back to see him--she could no longer feel his eyes on her, that constant and dark gaze--and got nothing in return. She thought she asked for him, but her throat was so dry, the act of speaking so painful. 

When they got to the end of the hill she stopped, threw back the cloak, and retched into the snow. She seemed to yell at herself from outside her own head for really, what kind of lady, what kind of queen, did such a thing?

In the confusion it did not seem to matter much. She saw him being brought down, his head low, the blood dark on his doublet. Such a lovely garment it was; so awful to see it ruined so. 

Her tongue was thick in her mouth, fouled by her sick. She pushed her handlers aside and strode toward him, despite the fact that they were rushing him off, eager to save this man their queen valued for some inexplicable reason. 

Sansa reached out, her hand trembling, and the blood was so very bright on her pale skin. She must have touched him, must have pressed against the wound, but when she did not know. 

She heard something that might have been her name, a sharp sound that pierced her just as neatly as any arrow. 

Her lady-in-waiting was there, fingers reaching out to see if she was injured, trying to guide her away from the mess. With all that was happening Sansa could likely be forgiven for brushing her off with a cool air, for letting her know she was fine and that was that, for forcing her way onto the path that led to the maester’s tent.

She had seen the look in his eyes when the arrow took him. When she closed her own eyes that was all that greeted her. 

{ Denouement }

anicelybandiedword

She watched his face with the rapt attention of a hawk, her gaze so narrowly-focused on him that she was able to mark every shift of his skin, every loss of joy. Petyr settled into something neutral and her heart cooled at the look of it; she had not thought what it would be like to see that from him, what it would mean to not have him wrapped up in her being. They had been so close, she had convinced herself of that, but the days when she had tasted his skin, had lingered over his body, seemed long gone now. Winterfell appeared to have more life in it than whatever there was between them. 

Sansa regarded him quietly, across the cold and the space between them. Sounds of life could be heard on the edges, not intruding into the strain that was them. As far as she was concerned they might as well be the only two people in the world. 

There might have been a time when she would have regarded that as a positive. 

She broke the quiet with a sharp nod. “I trust you are anxious to claim Harrenhal, my lord.” The smile she gave him was sweet and unfamiliar, a plaster mask across her lips. 

Her foot snapped a twig as she moved toward him, the crunch underneath cracking in her ears. It seemed so strange to have him here, in this bare and sullen land. He did not belong to the cold, he did not belong to the grays--she always pictured him in shelter, wrapped in silks of artificial hues, lit by nothing natural. Out here she needed to pause to take all of him in, as if she was meeting a new man. 

Of course that was nonsense. No one knew her as well as Petyr and, despite whatever he would say, she suspected the reverse was just as true. 

The smile she gave then was more unaffected. Is that why we hurt each other so?

“I suspect you will need to take a new wife soon, produce some heirs. You do want your legacy to mean something, do you not?” Sansa grasped her hands in front of her, the fine leather of her gloves something tactical she could cling to as everything in her body ached. 

{ Denouement }

anicelybandiedword

The mist, the smoke from the smoldering wreckage, gave the whole scene a dreamy quality that Sansa found as fitting as she did unsettling. It was as if it would all shatter in an instant, the whole of the structure nothing more that ash, just waiting for a strong breeze to send it all to the earth. Perhaps that was where it belonged, lost to time and songs, nothing more than a fleeting ghost from a long-forgotten age. 

She could not hold on to that belief for long. The sight of it nearly stung her eyes, her heart was clenched in her chest. She grasped at the illusion, held it down, that tether to a deceased time. 

The crunch behind her seemed to rattle the scene somewhat, and Sansa childishly held her breath. She knew the footfall, prepared herself for the image of him before he entered her field of vision. In the gray surroundings he shown silver, his mouth honest but the gleam in his eyes almost impossible to process. That sly look appeared to be a fixed point. 

The gulf between them seemed to widen which each passing day, until Petyr seemed to fit in with the shadows that were her surroundings. He had gotten her here, and Harrold had gone to finish the deed, but neither of them saw Winterfell for what it was. Neither of them would support her forever, nor would they nurture the roots that tied her to this land. They would give and she would take, and transform, and harden. She could thank Petyr, almost, for showing her that.

Still though, across the vastness that separated them, she could not help but feel something. A twinge, a longing, the desire to prove and to claw--it manifested itself in a fluttering of her fingers at her side, the ache to touch and to share killed in its infancy. She bit her cheek inside her mouth, knowing he would be proud of her for that, for that denial. 

She let his voice die on the wind before she answered, not looking at him. “It’s mine.” A simple declaration, and before he might have chastised her for not explaining things, for the lack of a plan, but so much had altered in the past months that she no longer felt a kinship to that girl. She was newly born, laying claim on a home that had not been hers. The Winterfell that would come of this would be altered too, formed to fit her needs, grown up around the hollow thing she had become. 

It was cold, it was clean. The ash, the blackness, would shift to grays and whites. It would hurt, it would blind, and she would savor it. 

Sansa held it in her gaze for as long as she could, ticking away the seconds to the beat of her heart, before the whole of it grew too much to bear. She turned then, regarded him through strands of wind-blown hair, ignored the implication that she was going to him for support. She had his support, he had told her so the last time they spoke. She did not need to beg and plead for more. That was not the woman she would be, in Winterfell. 

“How long will you stay?” A question spoken without a hint of emotion across her face, she was certain of that. A question with an answer she knew, but she needed to hear it. She could not settle herself into this home with the pull of him still holding her in place.