Chapter Text
Here, when I say I never want to be without you,
somewhere else I am saying
I never want to be without you again. And when I touch you
in each of the places we meet,
in all of the lives we are, it’s with hands that are dying
and resurrected.
When I don’t touch you it’s a mistake in any life,
in each place and forever.
The Hound was dead.
"Dead?" She echoed, the word drifting from her lips softer than a flake of snow. It was falling quickly outside the window that silhouetted Petyr's head. His chin tipped slightly, his hands steepled against his chest.
"Yes," he confirmed, a smile of such sick and secret delight fighting to worm its way across his face despite the sobriety of his words. His schooled his features, his expression slipping into cool reserve.
"I'm sure you've heard the stories of late," he continued, more measured. He set his quill aside, but not before twisting it back and forth between his fingers so quickly it blurred.
She looked aside, her face paling. She had.
"Poor creature," she sighed at last as Petyr picked up his silver blotter, and applied it to the page before him. He glanced up, his lips twitching beneath his neat beard as he rocked it carefully over the words.
"Death is hardly what that beast deserved," he smiled. "But one less frightening tale for my little girl's ears is enough to be grateful for. I would have no doubt they are part of what affects your sleep so."
Her hands were balled in her lap, and she forced them to untangle. Her head bobbed.
"Surely you are right," she agreed, her eyes lowering demurely to her slippered feet before flicking up again. They dissolved into idle chatter. Before long he was busy, and she rose and came to his side, gently kissing his cheek. She felt the wrinkles of his skin as he dimpled at the touch of her lips, and he turned his head and their mouths touched chastely.
"I think often how lucky I am, as your father," he whispered, so close she was tasting his breath. "That I do not have to worry over such madness. You are far above it, safe and sound. You will never have to think about the Hound ever again."
"It is a great comfort," she heard herself say and it pleased him so much he kissed her again, and then let her go.
He was right: she slept well that night after the evening's pleasantries. They played parlor games, and Myranda took up singing when she was drunk, and teased her until she joined, perched on her father's knee. Even Sweetrobin was compliant, taking his bed-time stories with good humor, and a promise to remain in his bed. He was asleep before she withdrew, and she had kissed his face and sung to him softly in reward. He was so dear to look at when he slept.
On her way back to her own chambers she stopped only once, drifting into a small alcove. There was a bench there, set into the stone wall, and when she climbed up and knelt upon it, she could wrench open the window - it was a narrow thing, and used for ventilation, and so she had to angle herself oddly to shove her face out. She did not gag anymore, and hardly thought about it as her stomach lurched against her ribs. Her shoulder bit awkwardly into the corner of the sill. She withdrew her fingers quickly from the slickness of her throat as she felt the first heave, then the second. Then she spat, watching the last dregs of her lovely dinner and dessert fly down over the side of the mountain, into the formless haze below.
She closed her eyes for a moment, letting the wind tickle her flushed face, and cradled the profound emptiness inside of her. The relief was more potent than any wine.
For just a moment, barely a flash, she allowed herself to be proud. Had she not already known of the business with the Hound, perhaps her performance would not have been so impressive. Alayne's consolation was true, too: she would never have to consider the Hound again, or the nightmarish realities of his evil deeds in the Saltpans. He was vanquished, like any good monster ought to be.
She knelt there, cradling her head on her arm, letting the muscles of her gut settle and sooth themselves. The snow eddied and flurried before her when she cracked her eyes open and she wondered what it would be like to be borne upon it, and swept away. She watched until she sighed, working her tongue about her sour mouth as she drew back to close the window with a squeal of the metal. She climbed down and straightened herself up, and padded down the hall to her rooms, where she could dress down and wash such tastes away.
There were no memories to pore over, no tears, or words, or wishes, to drape like wreaths on the ones she had loved. No desolation, no final, unmitigable grief, like she had known when she accepted the impossible fact that Sandor Clegane fell (and oh the murderous betrayal, the inconsolable pain of the rumors - such horrors in the servants' drivel that reached her ears) and the last light in all the world snuffed out, and the reality of her loneliness was so complete it consumed her until she was nothing. Then, she'd felt each slow agonizing turn of the wheel of despair that crushed her into atoms; it was worse than dust, worse than ashes. She had ceased, it seemed, to be.
Alayne possessed no such recollections or affections. Alayne was calm, and clean, and satisfied when she slid into her bed. There was no raving, no wailing into her pillow, or biting its corners. No screaming so silently, and with such strain, leaving those ugly little pinpricks about her eyes and across her cheeks.
The Hound was dead, and though Alayne Stone drew breath, and lived each daily struggle, within that secret crypt was Sansa Stark. She'd laid that man to rest in the stony tomb where she attended to all of the ones who were gone, and then she sealed it behind her.
Yes, Alayne's heart hung in her breast and rang the hollow toll of a bell with each beat.
It was such a merry, pleasant, chime.