Longing
Being Alayne was tiresome. The Lord Paramount had announced that whilst Harry and Alayne were to be married, Alayne was far too young to bear child, and the marriage was to be stalled until her seventeenth nameday. In the meantime she played her days as a sycophant for Petyr Baelish and the Lords of the Vale, taking upmost care to present herself as a humble, religious, and most of all, grateful bastard. The nights were often occupied by Sweetrobin, who she played step-sister, nursemaid and mother to, when in truth she was his cousin. At the end of her days she would fall into bed and dream.
Oft she would awake to the monotony of being Alayne from terrible nightmares, dreams of her kin, and their fates, or her marriage bed, and what awaited her inside of it. But other mornings she would wake from dreams of her wolf, Lady.
Whilst she enjoyed these dreams, in the sliver of the morning when she could permit herself to not be Alayne, she would feel lost, cold and abandoned. Although she relished running with Lady, something was she couldn't shake the thought that something was intrinsically incorrect. The dreams themselves were idyllic and all too quickly forgotten, but carried an air of wrongness. It was like she was looking through the wrong eyes and all this time Lady was trying to lead her to something, or encourage her to do something important, but she couldn't figure out what it was.
After a particularly frustrating incident that left porridge stuck in her hair, Alayne decided to give in to Myanda Royce's demands to share her bed, motivated by a desire to avoid nightmares and enjoy female company. Most importantly of all, if she was in Randa's bed, Sweetrobin would hardly be able to crawl into her bed and paw at her bosom.
When she entered Randa's boudoir, she found the occupant of the room, all plump bosom and curls of brown. Surprisingly, Mya Stone, Randa's closest confidant was nowhere to be seen. Alayne suspected that Randa had ulterior motives in this new friendship, but none-the-less, enjoyed the spirited woman's company and gossip as a reprieve from her duties.
"Finally, I have the Lord Paramount's dearest daughter. Welcome to my humble chambers." Alayne could hardly call Randa's quarters humble. The stone walls were decorated with pleasant tapestries depicting red blossoming flowers. The motif even continued to the bed. Alayne was surprised that a woman of Randa's maturity still had girlish dolls on her bed.
"I am most glad I have come. I needed someone to cheer me up. Where is Mya?"
"One of the mules is poorly, I suspect Mya will bed down in the stables tonight. She'll probably enjoy their company better than ours, she's half mule herself," she snorted. "What has brought your mood so low Alayne?"
Alayne shrugged "Poor Sweetrobin ails."
"The old illness?" Randa did her best to look concerned for the sickly boy.
"The very same," Alayne nodded, slipping under the covers.
"Your Father places you under a lot of stress. I hope your slumber has not been too affected?"
"I have nightmares often." Alayne admitted, "But I also have frustrating dreams where the things I want to happen will not occur. It feels as if my own dreams conspire against me."
"I know that feeling. As a child I used to get awful night terrors, but worst of all, I couldn't scream, I knew that if I were to scream, all would be right. But I couldn't, not matter how hard I tried. I grew out of those terrible things."
"The frustrating thing is that it's not my nightmares. It is dreams where I want things to happen to me and I can't seem to trigger what I want to occur to me." Alayne pouted too sourly and Randa burst into laughter, leaping to only one conclusion.
"Oh ho ho Alayne, what do you want to happen in your dreams so badly? Let me guess. A rendezvous with a men hmm? Our mutual friend Harry? Or is it another man who you knew in Gulltown? Oh it must be true, your face is as red as a strawberry!"
Alayne shook her head. It was false that her dreams were about men, but she couldn't deny that her face was glowing red.
Randa continued with her teasing, gesticulating wildly with his hands. "In your dreams, does he caress you gently? Does he cup your face, stroke your lips? Or does he just put his hand in dirty places? A stag on the former you septa."
Alayne shrieked and hit her bedfellow with her pillow, her exhaustion forgotten. "The septas would call you a harlot!"
"They would be in the right you know. I am."
Alayne fancied that she could hear barking laughter in her ear, but Alayne could have never met the owner of that harsh laugh.
"And they say bastard's blood runs hot," continued Randa's teasing "Since I'm in a betting mood tonight, I bet you've never been kissed."
"I have been kissed," replied Alayne with icy indignation.
"Our Lord Protector doesn't count."
Alayne stilled in fear, scared that Randa or another had witnessed what occurred in the privacy of the Lord Paramount's solar, but Randa continued in a silly singsong voice. "A kiss on the lips, a lover's kiss."
Alyane knew then she was referring to the dutiful pecks she would place on Petyr's cheek in the private eye.
"Well I have been kissed. Once. Like that." Alayne spluttered.
"Pray tell my dear" Randa's eyes glinted, and Alayne knew she must proceed with caution, but also flinched and blushed, glancing around the curtains of the featherbed, anywhere but her acquaintances predatory eyes.
"It was just a rushed kiss," she whispered. "But he was a man, much older than I. I was only on the cusp of womanhood. He was tall. Strong. Not handsome at all. He was a man unused to kindness, both in others and in himself. He scared everyone, and I was scared of him too. But he stole it. The kiss I mean. He pressed his lips to mine and opened his slightly. There was a touch of wetness then he nipped my bottom lip. Not ungently. I knew he would never hurt me" She met her bedmate's eyes. "I still don't know what to make of it. It makes me feel funny."
"That sounds absolutely horrid" Randa wrinkled her upturned nose. "He shouldn't have bothered, you shouldn't even count it."
Alayne thought of the other kisses she had endured and wished that she could just not count those kisses either.
"I liked it though." Sansa insisted, clasping her hands together as she said it, her face burning.
"Seven heavens above, you might yet become as bad as I!" Randa chuckled "Do you touch yourself thinking of it?"
"T-touch myself?"
"Touch yourself, frig yourself, have a good old wank?"
"I have to preserve my maidenhead," Alayne knew that her virtue must not be compromised in anyway, so important it was to Petyr's plans.
"Don't you know how a woman takes her pleasure?" Randa laughed. "Such an innocent, your channel is not where you make your pleasure you silly goose."
Alayne said nothing in response.
"I bet your septahouse in Gulltown didn't teach you this," Randa sniggered as she threw back the coverlet. "Come on Bastard, I'll teach you your own anatomy, sit at my feet."
Alayne obliged her and Randa hitched up her nightclothes to around her hips, exposing short plump legs with a thin smattering of dark hairs. She wasn't wearing any smallclothes, and when her legs parted, a thatch of curls dimmer than those on her head was revealed. Silently Alayne panicked. If Randa willed her to reciprocate, she would reveal that on her womanhood, she was still another girl.
Neverless, oblivious to Alayne's perturbation or mistaking it for religious horror, Randa shifted up on her pillows and let the legs fall to either side. Her nether lips could be seen beneath the overhang of hair, two little dark pink wrinkled lips defiantly jutting out of her seam.
She shifted on her pillows again to sit more upright, taking a hand and extending two fingers in a 'v' shape. She engaged those fingers in parting her lips. "Do you see this junction here bastard? The cleft betwixt my folds?" Her fingers pressed gently and the folds of flesh exposed a tiny hooded sphere of flesh. "This is your own intimate pearl, where you must touch yourself in order to find release." Alayne did not voice the fact that the sphere of flesh was a poor imitation of a pearl.
"What does a release feel like?" Alayne blurted.
"Like your muff is hiccupping. It's a pleasant enough sensation. Sometimes the sensation travels to your toes, down through your legs. When you think of your old man's kiss, your pearl will stiffen and your lips fill with blood too, so they feel heavier and thicker. Your tummy may feel funny. You'll get all moist and wet. That'll be your channel preparing itself for a cock. You see my entrance there?"
Alayne nodded.
"Your entrance will have a veil, but mine doesn't anymore. Good riddance! When you lose your maidenhead to dearest Harry, your veil will be punctured by his cock. There may be some blood, but allow him to kiss and fondle you and your body will allow him access, to receive him without pain. You might even take pleasure in your deflowering."
She thought of Tyrion then. She found it unlikely that she could have ever found pleasure in her own wedding bed.
But how could I ever have such carnal knowledge of Tyrion Lannister? I've only ever heard tales of his deformities.
Randa pulled the bed covers back around her and Alayne subserviently snuggled down into the featherbed, exhaustion returning to her. "If you breath word of this to Mya, I'll take vengeance, Bastard," Randa teased. "When you sleep tonight, do you know exactly what you're going to start? Hrm?" She had that soft teasing voice on again, that kind of sickly sweet voice best suited to patronisation.
Alayne couldn't quite answer with the truth, so she decided to answer with silence, clutching one of Randa's childhood dolls to her chest and fake sleep until it became truth.
She ran with Lady through a field of grass, the colour of autumn yellow. The air was still with the scent of summer, her hair on fire with light. She had never been a good runner like a little girl she had once known, who could run like a beast possessed when the whim took her. Now and then, the silks of her summer dresses tripped her up, but each time she managed to regain her balance before she toppled over. Eventually even Lady became frustrated and with a snarl, tore the bottom of her dress off, baring Sansa to her knees.
"Oh Lady, you naughty girl!" she shrieked, but her heart was not in it. It was much easier to run without tripping up without it. Throwing proprietary to the wind, she ripped her hairpins out to let her hair down, permitting her tresses to stream out behind her, unbrushed. She kicked her silly silk slippers off and began to run with speed and bare feet. Lady howled in jubilation, and in response she screamed and whooped, jumping and twirling the ruined silk of her dress around and around, acting quite the wildling.
She took far more delight than a lady should in ruining her attire. They were a gift from Cersei after all. If only I could tear Cersei up so easily.
Then in the distance she spied a small hillock, a tree perched on the very top. She ran towards it, enjoying the muscle burn of her thighs and the feel of the earth beneath her feet. Lady zoomed around her, sprinting loops and barking her encouragement. Running up the hill proved very difficult, but she made it without stopping, and plopped herself down between the giant roots of the tree.
Lady laid by her side, and she stroked her for such a long time Lady has stopped panting. Lady was only a fraction of the size she should be, still puppy-fat with large, loving amber eyes. She kissed her on her nose and then buried her own nose into Lady's crown. She took breaths there, inhaling Lady's sweet beastly scent, and then, with trepidation, reached out and bridges.
She enters Lady, and she tastes death.
She feels the chill of steel through her neck and the cruel reduction of old age, the blaze of fire and the purge of plague. At the same time a childbed fever burns her up from the inside, loin first. A dagger lunges into her tummy and digs upwards, stirring up her guts as the same dagger slashes open her throat. She's raped a million times to a million deaths by a million men. She tries to breath, but her throat closes and her desperate screams turn into wheezes. The rains of Castamere screech as arrows thud into her chest.
She dies thirsty.
She dies hungry.
She dies shitting.
She feels the swell of a thousand sorrows and hurls herself off ledges and cliffs, battlements and precipices. She spends months sowing stones into her gowns, and throws herself into rivers, lakes and seas. Her last breath bubbles before her own eyes and floats to a surface she'll never see again.
Her sinuses swarm with maggots, her abdomen bloats with stinking gas. Her eyes are taken by crows, and her flesh reserved for vultures. Insects lay their eggs in the flesh that was once her pretty teats and her body swarms with unwelcome life. The scavengers find her, bears and foxes worry at her bloated limbs. Her bones are scattered and picked dry.
Winter comes.
Bastard born Alayne is thwarted, and Sansa Stark reigns.
Winter is a time for wolves.
She awoke to a sickmaid cooling her brow with a wet cloth, under the instruction of maester Colemon. Littlefinger was called for at once. Whilst waiting for her faux father, she sipped a little bit of thin beef consume and made sense of what had occurred whilst she was dreaming. They had not moved her from the room, and had set up sickbed in Randa's own featherbed upon discovering her in the morning. The sheets had been changed and Randa's personal effects removed from the room. She is told how her body had gone as stiff as a board, and that Randa's doll had been wrenched from her arms by three maids. Her fever had been blatant, and in her sleep she had been spooned tonics for strength, and leached. She has been confined for nine days.
Randa burst into the room first, fussing over her and even sobbing a little. Sansa was touched by such a display of genuine relief and said a few kind words, even jesting that Randa's gossip was far too powerful for a maid like her.
From Randa she learns both Mya and Randa had visited her in the sickbed and prayed for her in the sept. Harry had avoided the sickbed, but had made a show of praying for her. Sweetrobin had been extremely troubled by her absence, and blamed his naughtiness with the porridge for her illness.
Littlefinger by all accounts has very distressed by the thought of losing his pretty daughter. Randa gossiped that Littlefinger had presented himself at breakfasts with bags under his eyes and was prone to spending far more time alone in his solar than ever before.
Sansa knew better, that it was distress from the thought of a plot being thwarted by an unanticipated threat, of a lack of control. It was small consolation that the thought of losing her as a pawn was enough for Littlefinger to lose sleep.
When he came to visit her, he clung to her fingers with a sort of clinging desperation, like a drowning sailor clinging to shipwreck. In the view of the maids he kissed her forehead, but when he dismissed them to converse in private, he kissed her full on the mouth. He had kissed her long on the mouth before but never had he pushed her lips apart and forced his tongue to lick along her clenched teeth.
How sweet it would be to open those teeth to chomp down on that lecherous tongue. But she endured the flood of mint that entered her mouth, weak hands flying to Littlefinger's shoulders.
"My Lord," she weakly murmured, feeling faint and cursing her weakness. "I need to recuperate."
She met his eyes then and sung a pretty song. "You must not catch my illness Petyr. I'm relying on you." She forced a silly weak smile onto her face until she thought that she looked as if she were glowing with happiness. "I'm happy to see you," she lied.
His eyes lit up and he stroked her hair as if he were stroking a kitten. "I've been neglecting you. Has the care of Sweetrobin been too strenuous?"
She shook her head from side to side. "I am capable of what you judge me capable." She forced her hands to reach out hers and grasp his. "These things are out of our control. Do not allow this blame to fall upon yourself." She steeled herself and lifted one of his hands, ghosting a kiss over his knuckles. "I know what is at stake. I am safe here. I know who I have to thank for that."
I am only as safe here you will me to be. But you are not noble enough to save me from yourself.
She continued, gazing deeply into his green eyes before continuing to turn her head into the pillow. "I must look appalling."
Better he think me vain, he certainly is.
"I do not wish you to see me like this."
Better he think me attracted to him.
"Return to your work, to our survival. Let me return to recovery. I will recover stronger for you, and your duties."
Better he think me striving for him, to see me as a willing accomplice.
"That you will," he murmurs into her cheek, kissing her cheek for a moment too long before he leaves her room.
She made sure to convalesce for more than a sennight, to allow her to chastise Littlefinger for visiting her, bidding him to work for her survival with a teasing smile.
But after her convalescence came to an end and she returned to her duties she came to realise that this encouragement was a misstep on her part. Although, judging by his lust upon her awakening, her additional mummery was unlikely to have encouraged him to the excess the thought of losing her had. Neverless, Alayne was called to her Father's solar more oft than she had ever before.
His attentions had intensified and more often than not, she found herself perched on his lap. His hands would cling like weed, reaching both upward to cup her teats and downward to trace her mound through her skirts. His kisses became wet and wetter. It became harder to protest against him, to stall.
He began to give her beautiful dresses, women's dresses, under the pretence of entrancing Harry. She knew better. Often the dresses would be far too low cut, or the fabric too sheer. Some of the dresses had exotic slits up the side to display the wearer's legs, or would be so tight the cleft of her buttocks could be seen through the skirt.
She resisted, installing modesty panelling when the dress exposed too much bosom. When the fit of the skirt was scandalously tight, she would slit the front and install layering of petticoats to flare the shape of the dress. Much the same with the dresses with slits, where she installed skirts that flash with colour where her legs should be. She had less use for the sheer dresses, but employed them for layering in the cold winter weather, shifts and camisoles to be used under modest dresses.
When Littlefinger finally does ask her why she alters his gifts so, palming her left breast through a bodice so thick she can hardly feel his small hands, she softly murmurs that it was her mother's winter style, and that she thought that would please him the best.
He makes a soft, slimy noise of contentment and Sansa has to restrain herself from retching.
As the winter deepened with his ardour, she begins to swaddle herself in fabrics, to resist both his advances and the penetrating cold. But instead of feeling safe in her swaddling layers, she is now a present to be unwrapped, a knot of rich fabrics. With every barrier, his anticipation is heightened. He is a man who enjoys these games.
In the day she wears Alayne like a glove. But in the quiet of the night, she discards Alayne like a dragonfly discarding its cocoon. Littlefinger plays and positions her like a porcelain doll, but she fancies herself the steel of a dagger. Her true Father told her that playing with knives was dangerous folly.
She begins a habit of scheming in the hour of the wolf. Thus, the assembled cast of Littlefinger's troupe at the gates of the moon.
Sweetrobin first. Her greatest ally. A child possessing eight namedays. Prone to fits, and medicated with sweetsleep mixed into milk. Easy to manipulate with tall tales of valour and courage, just as she was. He seeks a mother and only finds Alayne. No true power.
Lothor Brune. A knight owning much to Littlefinger, including his elevation in social status, and most-like gold. He takes a fancy in Mya Stone. If she were to encourage Mya to consider Lothor, could she steal the burly knight? Or is Lothor owned by Littlefinger through-and-through? He is a gamble that she is unlike to win despite his amiability.
Corbrey is riskier. Petyr has promises, boys and gold to offer. There is only one thing that she thinks that a man like him could be tempted by. There is a breed of second son that can be motivated by the possessions of the elder. But she is unable to legitimately make that offer, here the scales are tilted in Littlefinger's favour.
Lady Waynewood is a mystery. She seeks to make alliance with Littlefinger through the marriage of her ward. Alayne is bastard born, but is also the inheritor of the Riverlands if legitimised. Does she seek to expand Harry's estate? Or is she motivated by the fact that Littlefinger must provide an undisclosed dowry for Alayne? It must take quite an amount to overlook Alayne's low status. Unreliable.
Considering the roster of Royces, Randa is a good and jolly friend, but has little power over her Lord Father. Nestor Royce has proved himself incalculable, but could be swayed by a good marriage to Randa. Again. Unreliable. Their distant cousin Yohn supported Robb in the war. However, that war is lost now, the King in the North long dead, his bones scattered. In addition, she is a woman, and he an older man, set in his ways. Would he obey her order, or would she find herself in yet another cage? If he does possess the forces to incapacitate Littlefinger in a coup, could he turn on her? She observes him most closely to ascertain if he could be an ally.
But for all her analysis, her weaving and planning oft feels for naught. She understands the theoretical concept of playerhood, but lacks the opening, the weak thread to be picked at. There are miserable plays that she kicks herself for missing, damning her passivity.
One night, she bumps into Yohn Royce unattended and makes smalltalk. She very nearly began to disclose who she really was, heart fluttering like a bat.
Didn't name you for your capacity to fly. Doubt even you'd be pretty after a fall from the moondoor rasps in her ear.
She makes her excuses and leaves for her chambers. Slowly and carefully, she closed her door, barring it from the inside. She lit three candles around her chambers, then bathed her face. She let her hair down then brushed one hundred times. She applied a soft citrus lavender oil to her roots, and examined for tell-tale auburn hairs.
She stood up.
Then she flung herself face-first onto her bed and screamed into her pillow. The pillow absorbed her cries into sad little muffled noises. She wept a little until she ceased. This was common routine, and often made her feel a little better about her circumstances when in fact she hadn't done anything to change her fate.
She puffed out her cheeks and looked up to her headboard, too angry to sleep.
And then her hand was pressed to the junction of her legs.
Had she landed in this position? She hadn't placed her hand there on purpose. Still. Her hand was splayed palm down, the knuckle of her third finger pressed to the very beginning of her seam.
Septa Mordane had once stuffily informed her not to touch herself there, lest her virtue be compromised. But Septa Mordane was long dead and Randa had informed her that a woman's seat of pleasure wouldn't affect the physical reality of her maidenhead.
She had always presumed that the pleasure of being bedded would be inside her, accessible only with the aid of her husband. The fact that the seat of her pleasure laid on her exterior, and that she had not known it all this time was a surprise.
Harry and Lady Waynewood wanted her maidenhead true, but pleasuring herself needn't cause her maidenhood's rupture. She considered for a moment that Harry may dislike her entering the marriage bed with such carnal knowledge, but she doubted Harry would kick up a fuss. He had obviously figured out how to achieve such a release whilst fathering his bastards.
In contempt of them all, she rolled her hips against her hand and that central finger. There was something there, some spark of feeling, but it was dull. She had swaddled herself in too many skirts.
She checked to make sure that she had indeed barred the door, then proceeded to pull up her skirts and cast off her small clothes, lying back down in the same position. She could feel the pelt of her womanhood against her hand.
It was almost perverse, the knowledge that down there, she was definitely still auburn Sansa Stark. She repeated the motion of her hips once, twice, three times until she felt the start of something.
She turned around and checked the door and room again, aware that if anyone were to come in, they would see her pale white bottom bobbing up and down. It would be very hard to explain my way out of that.
Nobody is there, and she doesn't stop. She uses her knees to lift her bottom up higher and flips over her hand so that her fingers can scramble for the pearl Randa told her about. The first few moments of searching do not bear fruit, but she enjoys the friction. Finally growing frustrated with half-senses she pushed her other hand down to part her lips and finds the elusive pearl.
The first touch makes her body quiver and her hands spasm. She loses her place and has to fumble to find her nub again. Before she does so, she reaches down further and caresses the entrance to her opening, the place where a man would find his own alien pleasure, within her.
For a moment she thinks of Tyrion's ugly purple manhood.
No. I will not think of that here. I will not.
Then she thinks of how likely she elicits the same response in Littlefinger when she allows him to fondle her over clothes. He never raised as much as his little finger during her captivity in the red keep, but she knows his little finger definitely raises for her now in the gates of the moon.
That too. Begone.
This is her bedchamber, and this is her featherbed. Here she can dream her wolf dreams and fantasise and fetishize the fantasy of a man loving her for who she is. No claim. No beauty maybe. Certainly not her likeness to another. Her frustration mounted and her temper flared and she touched herself with incensed abandon.
She smells the smoke and salt on the air. She thinks about the pressure a large man has and could exert on her body. She smells him, his clean smells of leather, lye soap and earnest sweat. Her fingers cramp. She remembers the stenches of battle and booze and vomit. Her fingers manipulate harder. The pressure of a dagger is imagined at her neck, and then, tracing downwards, betwixt the valleys of her breasts. She recalls a prayer for mercy. And then there is a wetness that is not blood.
There is a wetness.
Her fingers work as fast as she can make them. She finds that terror can subside and collapse, and at the foundations, hidden, other sensations can be found.
She recalls a kiss and she is furious, her fingers cruel but not enough to pull her into the wanton pulsings Margery's cousins tittered about and Myanda described so crudely.
With a moan she pulls her dress up over her head and sits up naked, kneeling as if she were at prayer, but splaying her legs open. She finds a substitute for her fingers in her pillow, dragging herself up and down the cushion.
The friction is delicious but not enough as she had anticipated until she rearranged herself, lining the rough cording of the edging of the pillow against her bud. She slid back and forth, one hand holding the pillow in position, the other palming her breast with a hand too small. The sensation she had laboured to build was growing into something bigger, a coil tightening in the bowl of her tummy, causing her body to sweat and her breath to come in little laboured pants.
She yearns for the second son of house Clegane.
Then she cracks into light and opens to the blindness. She forgets to breath. She forgets everything.
The cages shatters around her.
Of all the deaths she has known, this is the sweetest.
She returns to Alayne in the morn, but instead of attending Sweetrobin, Littlefinger calls her to observe how he welcomes orders of the faith to the keep.
She orders the servants to make preparations for this order, to give these men a watered down pale ale and steaming hot peasant pottage. She orders that every man be allowed a starchy pastry filled with fried onion and potato, but very little meat. When these arrangements are met, she glides into the candlelit hall and beside her faux father. She looks demurely at the waxed oak floor as Littlefinger describes her upbringing in a septahouse, her devotion to the seven, but more importantly, his pride to host the order for fair work.
She looks up and sees around fifteen men, ranging from small to large and young to old. All look healthy to work and pleased by the fire, promises of food and work. She welcomes them with a modest little smile and asks after their journey.
All through she can feel Petyr's stare in her back, like a performer tumbling on a tightrope, never falling.
"Is this all of you?" she asks.
"There is but one more of us, he is putting the horses to stable. He has taken a vow of silence and wears his hood and facial wrappings. But do not mind him. He is a gravedigger, fit for manual labour, strong as an ox," replies the representative member of the order, the only one who speaks.
She hears a soft shuffling nose behind her, and turns. There is a buzzing swell in her breast, for her breath falls short, and she turns around to see the limping brother entering the hall. Noises faltered and fell away from her, as if a pair of bear fur ear-muffs had been clamped over her ears.
She knows him before she sees his face, knows that when the hood is castoff and the scarf discarded, the face underneath will be dark, strong and stern, his nose hooked, and his brow heavy. He would be long past youth, but far from great age.
When his eyes meet hers, his steel gaze is harsh, but never cruel.
He knows her.