I recognize you're a hideous thing inside

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

CHARACTERS: Alayne Stone, No-Name Jeyne
LOCATION: Alayne's room
WARNINGS: sad Stark feelings :c run :C
SUMMARY: After letting Jon know she's here but Arya's dead.
NOTES:--


She'd called him a bastard. He hated her. Ghost was angry. He didn't understand.

That was the worst of it; he didn't understand. She still wanted to scream, and rage, to rage at him for being so stupid as to not see, to not see how he'd get himself killed if he stays so honorable, like Robb did, like Bran and Rickon, even if they're all here, alive, now.

He didn't understand.

But Alayne did.

It was night, and most of the sounds of others had been drowned out by the time she pulled herself toward the engine room, where she could listen to whatever made the ship run and pretend to feel that power thrum through her skin. She couldn't take strength form foreign machinery, but she could tell herself she did. She dragged herself away from the hole she'd intended to sleep in, and headed for the passenger compartments. Alayne understood that honor and truth could kill you, even if, maybe, she didn't understand that killing could keep you alive too. Her weapons were all words, and Arya's words had failed.

Comments

[wont]

Alayne was used to visitors, though most came to her during the day. Daytime aboard the Tranquility seemed a very arbitrary thing, given how there were no windows, no sun to rise and fall in the sky, and no rooster's crow to herald the morn. But a pattern had been established long before Alayne's own arrival, and so the passengers adopted to it and kept it as their own. And by the pattern's estimation, it was very late. She felt weary and now that she was alone, Alayne felt she was able to let her shoulder's droop. It was difficult work, keeping secrets, and though she'd been graced with the ability to sing and sing well, it was tiring business that held no promise of relief. So long as Sansa's siblings remained, so long as her father was aboard the ship, there would be twin points that pulled on Alayne's heart, each set at separate poles of a great compass at the very center of her being. And it was her task to navigate between one and the other, trading one face for another, erasing and rewriting the name upon her heart from day to day to day.

In that way, she was truly her sister's sister — Arya who was no longer Arya, Sansa who was no longer Sansa, each the sweet shadow of a dead girl who loved the other more than they'd ever managed to love their sisters.

At this time of night the ship was quiet, save for the hum of distant motors, that constant thrum that never stopped and buzzed always in the back of Alayne's mind, even when held by the deepest throes of sleep. The corridor outside Alayne's bedroom door still and without movement but then Lady, who'd been dozing at the foot of Alayne's bed as she sewed, pricked her ears and turned towards the doorway as if expecting something. Her first reaction was to think it Petyr, for often her father would visit her throughout the day. His trips at night, however, were much different and what happened behind those closed doors was not meant for anyone to know. (More secrets, more whispers, more weights hung around Alayne's shoulders and throat to tug her down, more boldness and bravery —between you and I, Sansa.— lining her skirts and lifting her up.)

In expectation, she stood and smoothed the shoulders of her dress. Atop his gilded cage, Castle flapped his white wings, unsettling and then settling again.

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

She had not cried, because she was not a baby, and if she'd found dampness on her eyelashes later, she would deny it like she denied Arya. It was that that she focused on as she walked, not the way she dragged her feet, not the way Jon had made her so uncertain that she couldn't be sure she was in the right. What if she had told the truth? What if Yoren had been wrong, what if the kindly man and the Hound had been wrong, what if all her choices and decisions had been wrong?

Would she have been reunited with her mother and brother, before the Red Wedding? Would she have died with them?

Yes, she thinks, But I would have been with them first. Earlier, what if she had allowed that stable boy to take her to the queen? He wouldn't have killed her, she thinks, maybe, he was very stupid, but she would have been a prisoner. A prisoner with Sansa. What if she had left Gendry and Hotpie to get their stupid selves captured, could she have made it to the Wall? That was the question that chased itself in her head, made her frown and screw up her face in frustration. No one was a round to see, so what did it matter, what did it matter if she was trapped here and she would never get back to Braavos, never complete her training, never shove Needle through Cersei's throat, what, what, what.

There was Alayne's room ahead of her, and Arya stopped to stare at it, scraping the toe of her shoe against the floor. Turning back now would be stupid; she still had no answers. So she lifted her hand, hesitated, the man who fears losing is already lost, and knocked.

[wont]

The knock came and Alayne smiled without thinking, a bubbling nervousness filling her as it always did just before her father came to visit. In private, he was always kind to her — much kinder than he ever was where other people could see. A necessity really, a practicality and not an unkindness. They both knew how their closeness made Robb bristle, how it inspired something fierce and feral inside him, something proprietary that wished to lash out and cry mine. Such things made Alayne anxious and sick with worry and so she did all she could to hide those feelings away when in Robb's company, for fear it would anger him or make him force Petyr away. But in her heart of hearts, she did care for Petyr, perhaps more fervently and fierce-heartedly than she should.

But how could she not, he'd saved her, hadn't he — not once, but again and again. He'd held her in the last moments of her life as she'd bled onto his hand and had been there in the moments after, when that life had magically been regiven. He'd stolen her from King's Landing, but for her own good, and when he stripped away Sansa's name, he'd given her a knew one — one that helped her be brave. He'd been her father — however unfatherly — when all of her family was lost and uprooted, or dead and given to the frozen earth.

Holding all of these thoughts in her heart, Alayne hurried to the door and quickly opened it. She was about to greet him, to dip a bow and claim, 'father', but no — the silhouette that filled the doorway was not that of Lord Petyr Baelish. This one was small and bald-headed, the fuzz of her scalp catching the light, making it seem as though there was halo set about her head. The sight shocked Alayne into silence. The girl with no name had never come here before and, in truth, Alayne had expected that she never would.

"You—" was all she managed. Not Jeyne, not girl. (And certainly not Arya.)

Her smile all but vanished.

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

Arya saw, and thought she made another mistake. Alayne had thought she would be someone else, which meant she might expect someone else, which meant someone else could come along. Which meant she should leave.

She should never have come.

Her weight shifted, and she pulled grey eyes away from Alayne's face, away from dark dye that hid the hair of someone who used to be their mother, a mother who hated their brother, a brother who hated her, a brother who didn't understand, not as Alayne would, not as she had to. Didn't she? Wouldn't she?

Arya was preparing to run, to leave as if she'd never been there, to lie if Alayne asked why she'd come. She'd say she'd never been there at all, what does a woman mean? But she'd run from Jon, too, and she felt as if she'd done quite enough running for the day. Her weight shifted again, and she stepped into Alayne's room, just over the threshold, because manners are things she only bothers with when she must, and she doesn't think she must with Alayne. She invades a woman's space, knows Alayne might push her off, because that is what Arya would do, but she does it anyway, and leans forward until her forehead can rest against Alayne's chest. She hates asking for help; she has no idea at all how to ask for comfort.

[wont]

Her first thought was what if Petyr should come but quickly after came a blushing shame for Alayne knew her answer (it had been there all along). If Petyr came, she would have no choice but to send him away. (He would understand, wouldn't he. He would understand, surely. Secrets become less so the more men know of them and this was a secret meant only for lost sisters. Not fathers nor brothers nor kings.)

Alayne was about to step aside and refix her smile, offer a word of welcome to the girl as it was the courteous thing to do even to a stranger. But then the girl stepped forward and did something very strange. Something that neither the stranger who was no one nor Arya who came before had ever done to Alayne, nor to Sansa. Never once, in all their young years. She stepped forward and touched her forward to Alayne's chest as if wishing for an embrace that had yet to make manifest. Terrible, really, how unexpectedly it came and how Alayne felt panic first before moving to shut the door behind her, closing the rest of the world off from the two of them, hiding them and keeping them safe. Embracing someone came easily to Alayne for despite the tempering of her heart to steel it, she still had the desire to trust and to love. Embracing the girl, however, came less easily and for that she felt a pang of guilt resonate inside her like a terrible gong.

Carefully, she draped her arms about the girl's shoulders. They were broader than she could remember and the girl was taller, though still smaller than Alayne. Her hands splayed themselves across the girl's back and she embraced her, properly, for the first time since she could remember. (And in realizing that, it broke her heart.)

Something clenched in Alayne's chest then, something protective and feral, and for a moment Alayne was no longer a Stone but a Stark of the North with a heart born of winter. Who was it? she thought to say, for she knew the girl would not come here unless there was need of it. What did they do? How did they hurt you?

But Alayne asked none of that, only held the girl and said: "You're always welcome here." And in her heart she thought: Your secrets are my secrets. I will protect them with my life.

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

Always. That was a good word, a nice word. Better than the nevers that had haunted her conversation with Jon. Never would Arya come back, never would she be revived, never would she speak again.

She did not return the hug that Alayne gave her - and she could not recall the last time this had happened, not even when she reached for Arya's memories. They were hazy, tinged with summer snows, and snowball fights, of snow dumped down the back of a Tully-haired girl's dress. But there are no embraces that she can recall, none like this.

You hugged Jon when he gave you Needle, hugged him because he understood and gave you what you needed.

Now it was Alayne who understood, and it was her Arya looked to to find what she needed (though she wasn't sure what that was yet). Awkwardly, her arms came up, clutching at the back of Alayne's dress, then holding tight, and her arms were protective in nature, even if she had nothing to protect Alayne from. She was no tail, but this was no pack, because they were no wolves.

I am, a voice whispered. I'm the night wolf.

When she speaks, it's without looking up, and without the Braavosi accent - though she clings to the style. "A girl spoke with a Lord Commander." And now a girl doubts.

[wont]

Alayne realized, perhaps too late, that this was a dangerous game they now played. The girl held her with arms unfamiliar (embracing) but spoke to Alayne with Arya Stark's voice. That Northern slant, not Braavosi, not a lie she pinned upon herself like a bit of dressing or a ribbon to catch the eye. It stopped the breath in Alayne's lungs for she did not know whose voice would reply, if it would be Alayne that spoke or Sansa instead. (Sansa is a mask. But the words did not take, she did not feel convinced; she felt Sansa, rising. Alayne is the name that will keep everyone safe. Alayne can protect the girl. Not Sansa. Silly girl.)

With a careful hand she touched lightly the strong curve of the girl's skull. The short hairs there, still growing in from where it had been shaved, tickled Alayne's palm if she brushed too delicately and so the hand fell down instead, to the nape of the girl's neck. A settling, rooted point of contact. A reassurance. You are what you are. Remember.

She thought to ask if Jon Snow had been cruel, if he had grown angry with the girl or perhaps even grabbed at her to shake some sense in her. Jon was not Robb, that much was known, and where Robb had grown soft at at Alayne's insistence, Jon had grown frustrated and thought her near to mad. What then would he have done to the girl with Arya's face, a painful reminder of what had been lost when the Lannisters seized the Tower of the Hand and the Stark girls were searched for high and low. Nothing kind, Alayne decided and felt pity for the first time for the girl in her arms. Quickly, she reassured her:

"He does not understand."

And how could he? Jon had never been taken captive by the Lannisters, had never been forced to flee the city and shave his head or dye his hair. He had been born broad-shouldered and with strength enough to wield a sword. And he had been born a boy.

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

She knows how easy it is to slip a knife in someone's back, how easy ot is to drag its edge across their throat if you get close enough, if you trust them enough, and she remembers Dareon, remembers how he made himself a deserter who meant to marry a whore, and how she'd let him think she was no danger, so it had been no difficulty to kill him from behind.

She did not think Alayne would ever mean to kill her. She was not certain Alayne could kill. But these were the thoughts that now came to mind when people came close.

Arya did not pull away, only stared at the threads of Alayne's dress, directly in front of her nose. It was easier that way, to see part of her, but not really see her, because the things she wanted to ask were dangerous things, things she wasn't certain she should be giving voice to at all. "He doesn't," she agreed, and that hurt to say. Jon, Jon did not understand her. It might have been funny, but she could find no humor in it: Jon had lost his insight into her, and Sansa-who-as-no-longer-Sansa had gained it.

Arya Horseface would have scoffed and maybe laughed, if bitterly, had someone told her she would one day go to her sister before her brother. Arya Underfoot would have rolled her eyes. No-name Jeyne did nothing but lean, and hug, and, very quietly - as if speaking the words might ruin their truce, ruin all of it - speak. "Is he right?"