A.N: I own nothing. All rights to G.R.R.M.
Chapter 1 - Alayne
Breath coiled into little wisps and whorls in the cold air of the room.
Winter is coming.
Her thoughts were with Sansa Stark's memories. The stolid, stoic words of House Stark.
But Alayne Stone was the by-blow of Petyr Baelish. Not a trueborn daughter of a noble house. Petyr Baelish was a man who had risen up from a penniless beginning to great wealth. His fortune came from a gift for multiplying one golden dragon into ten. He had gotten his natural daughter on some southron maid and gone on his way, only discovering he had a child after her mother's death many years after. Alayne Stone was gently bred by the Faith.
She was brought to the stony, sheep shit covered land of the Fingers where the Baelish family made their seat. There her father married the great Lady of the Vale, Lysa Arryn. A doughy, frizzled woman with soft hands and a shapeless body gone to fat. Alayne had dutifully followed her father into his new role as the doting husband. There they came to rest upon the high keep of the Eyrie.
Now winter had come. Lady Lysa was dead. Alayne's father was Lord Paramount of the Trident along with his title of Lord Protector of the Vale. Until his stepson Robert came of age, he reigned over the Vale.
"Now you pay your pillow tax, sweeting. Let us hear of these delicious fantasies or bygone trysts," purred Myranda, a widowed daughter of Lord Nestor Royce. The other girl stretched catlike beside Alayne in their big bed they shared in the keep. Her father served as High Steward of the Vale as well as the castellan here the Gates of the Moon. The wintering hold of the Arryn's lay at the base of the great mountain and marked the start of a winding journey to the peak where the Eyrie sat.
This was their only option for a home during the icy tempers of the mountains. If they had remained at the Eyrie, no passage to the Vale below would be possible until the spring. No supplies, no way out. Cannibalism wasn't a courteous act by most standards, so the household made the decent for a well supplied wintering.
Alayne could feel a blush warming her cold cheeks. The fire in the hearth had been banked before bed. Any warmth from the heated stones slid between the featherbed and the bed slats had leached out earlier into their freezing toes. Lady Myranda – or her preferred address of Randa in private – made for a good companion to help keep her warm on these nights. She was a buxom girl of some older years, not quite out of youth's bloom. Alayne was barely in the cusp of womanhood, newly flowered and still growing.
"One…indiscretion," Alayne muttered into her pillow. Randa crowed in delight.
"Don't tell the feathers, you silly goose. Tell me!" The other girl tugged insistently at her bare shoulder. They slept down to their skins beneath the sheets. A loud, drawn-out sigh came from Randa's other side.
"Will you two shut it or must I climb over and cuff both your ears?" growled Mya Stone. As tough and lean as her customary leathers, she seemed less threatening naked to Alayne. But the chopped, uneven mop of coal black hair made up for her lack of mannish gear.
"Please, Mya. Don't interject with your stories. Ser Lothor's latest advances can wait until next evenfall," Randa shot her other bed companion a wicked grin. Mya lightly thumped the cheeky widow on the teat. Randa returned the blow in kind and burrowed back under the furs.
Outside of this room they obeyed the courtly hierarchy. Bastards came second to the sons and daughters born on the right side of the blanket. Inside their shared bed, they were young women trading secrets and speaking their minds into the cold air. Not to mention the fact that Mya and Randa were reared together here.
The cold nudge from Randa's toes brought out the halting tale of the indiscretion from Alayne. It was the singer Marillion who had first fumbled at her dress and tried to pry her thighs apart with sweet words and wet kisses. A threatening word from Littlefinger's man had sent him skittering off to find a more willing partner in the revelries that followed the nuptials of Lady Lysa and Lord Petyr.
"…and that is the end of it," she finished for the other two. She was sure Mya did not give a fig for girlish tales of lust and love, but the other bastard stirred beneath her furs to prop herself up and get a look at Alayne from over the coverlet.
"No others? No kisses?" asked the other Stone.
"None to speak of," answered Alayne. Sansa Stark had other kisses, but not Alayne.
Sansa Stark's thighs glued themselves together at the sight of her lord husband's stunted legs and thickened member. A clumsy, chaste kiss was all that held true in that arranged folly.
But Sansa Stark had been kissed in the burning light of green wildfire with rough lips. If Alayne closed her eyes tight enough, the light of green would seep into her vision and she could feel the rasp and scratch of a beard. Even tighter and the underlying slickness of burned flesh would slide like a phantom over her cheek.
"Alayne, your face is turning pink. How is it that some girls get the lucky end of the bargain? I look like a fat cheeked apple whenever a blush creeps into my cheeks," Randa complained good-naturedly.
"Leaver her be, Randa. And for the last time shut it." Mya said it with a firm air of finality,
"Marillion was a fair enough lover. Most bards are," commented Randa to Alayne later on. They had lost Mya to a deep sleep, her soft snores filling the room.
Alayne said nothing, turning herself over onto her side before bidding Randa a goodnight. The young widow meant well, but the so-called pillow tax was brewing up memories best left with the vanished Sansa Stark.
Randa huffed, put out from being denied her wicked pillow tax and ensuing morsels of equally wicked stories.
"Who would think this would be my winter? Wedged between two shut mouthed bastards. One a blushing virgin and the other a by-blow of a king!"
Sansa Stark had never much liked riding. It mussed her long hair into impossible tangles and drove her to wear roughspun breeches and tunics instead of her pretty gowns.
Alayne Stone lived for it. Sansa Stark had worn silks and soft velvets, but Alayne dressed to fit her station – simple and unobtrusive. Toughened old boots a size too big fit onto her feet – it was always a bother to find good boots. The courser she'd borrowed from the stables was sound enough to bear a more inexperienced rider. A big blood bay, she carried Alayne with an easy grace through the lowlands of the Vale.
Alayne supposed it was the freedom that appealed so much to her. Out here, she was free to think aloud and drop all her guises to simply be. She said as much to the mare as her shod hooves crunched through the thick layer of frosted snow covering the trail. It was oft used by those that frequented the keep, but brooked enough privacy for her needs with its shady sentinel pines flanking the path.
The largest issue was with her father having not an inkling of these daily rides she'd taken up since their arrival at the Gates of the Moon. Alayne feared that he would forbid these daily jaunts out on the trail for the sake of her safety. Or fear more that the secrets she kept might slip easily out just as they went in if she were to be caught and spirited away.
It also gave her a break from the increasing attentions of a sickly little lordling. Robert Arryn, her Sweetrobin, was firmly rooted in his own rooms at the Gates of the Moon. No one would let him even near a window for fear of him catching a chill – anything harsher than a sniffle was a danger to his already fragile state of health.
Alayne did love the boy she had taken under her wing as she might a brother or a child born of her own flesh, but her patience was growing short with his expanding demands. Here she had a harder time barring the door when two other girls shared the same room. At the Eyrie, it was easier to simply order his door locked after dusk to keep him in his room. Now he was back at his old habit. Sneaking from the many exits in his chambers to their door, finally reaching his goal by clambering in with Alayne.
She wouldn't mind so much if the little boy didn't root around for a teat. Once he actually managed to get a mouth clamped around one distended nub, suckling hard until Alayne jolted awake. That had raised some uncomfortable questions from Randa when the other two had woken at her yelp of surprise, but Mya kept tightlipped about the matter. Her years on the mountain no doubt gave her a fair share of servant's gossip to listen at.
"Sweetrobin," she'd coaxed, petting his downy head, "You must sleep enough for the both of us in your own bed so I can rest, or else I won't be able to keep my eyes open for our next story. Come back to your rooms with me." With that she had shrugged on a dressing robe, taking him in hand.
"No!" he'd snapped at her with red-rimmed eyes, sniffling with tears. His hair had grown past his collar – no one could get near him with shears since his mother's death.
It was a known fact that Lysa Arryn had nursed her son well past infancy and into boyhood, claiming that her milk soothed his delicate constitution and gave him strength. No one could slight her for wanting to keep her child alive after so many stillborns and miscarriages. Little protest was raised even when it came time to foster the boy out to help him grow into his role away from his mother. Lysa had refused any offer. But what her domineering control of her son's life left was a dependent, weakened shell of a boy.
Not fit to lord over a garden plot, thought Alayne sadly. It was the hard truth. But it was unlikely that Robert would come into his inheritance at this rate – Maester Colemon had confided in her father that the boy might not even live to see spring. His shaking fits were coming every day at irregular intervals. Just the other day Robert had opened up his cheek and gone down in a jerking heap near a table corner. Not even Sweetsleep doses were keeping the fits at bay.
The mare faltered over a rutted patch of frozen mud along the path, bringing Alayne back to the present. Lords and ladies were arriving this night to be feasted – Corbrays, Redforts, Waynwoods, Lynderlys and Royces. Most noticeable absent from the list was one Yohn Royce, Lord of Runestone and a relation of the High Steward and Randa. Bronze Yohn refused to sit a table with Lord Baelish.
Her father judged Yohn to be a threat, but he waved off the hostility exhibited by the knight as a load of hot air. More important things were on his mind, Alayne figured.
Aroooooooooh-ooo!
The horn call came from further down the path at the road proper, signaling the return of her father from Gulltown. He had waved off her questions and claimed that he was going off for more business. Also hinting at greasing the wheels with Lady Waynwood concerning her ward, Lord Baelish had left his natural daughter with more than a few questions lingering in her mind.
Alayne put her heels to the courser's flanks, easing them into a steady trot towards the walls of the keep and out from the tree line. Her daily peace was at an end.
Life isn't a song.
That much held true to the young maid. Life was full of unpleasant surprises.
She dabbed at her tears with the dagged sleeve of her plain brown gown, but ten replaced the one that was wiped away. A clatter of metal startled her.
After a few furtive minutes of glancing around to find no sign of any soul in the empty hall, she sunk back into the alcove and sniffled. Her belly ached; her head hurt twice as fierce, and when she breathed her mouth felt cottony.
He had seemed the most genteel sort on the surface – she had always known it was a farce to hide what lurked beneath. What she didn't expect was the usual fatherly gesture turning into something more…unwelcome.
Petyr Baelish had courted her mother. Or at least attempted. Some great tragedy had played out when her grandfather had declared Brandon Stark betrothed to her mother. Petyr Baelish was packed off to Gulltown soon after.
He had remarked with frequency on how much she took after her mother.
"Alayne?" said a voice from the end of the hall. Drawing herself to her usual straight-backed posture, Alayne stepped from the alcove and out into the light. Mya Stone stood at the other end.
Mya Stone had the bright blue eyes of the Baratheon line. Renly and King Robert both had borne them in life, but now only Robert's bastards carried his looks on past his death. Renly didn't prove as lucky. Mya was rumored to be the first and oldest surviving child of King Robert.
Queen Cersei had seen to the more recent creations before King Robert's death and those that followed. The Stone girl had escaped notice – safely ensconced in the Vale under the protection of Jon Arryn, Cersei could have never touched her.
"Do you need me for something, Mya?" Alayne always remembered her courtesies.
Mya slunk closer with her rangy, long body. She reminded Alayne most of those dark shadowcats you would see winding their ways through the sentinels on the mountains – all whipcord muscle over lean bones.
The other Stone girl padded close enough to glance the tears on her cheeks, Alayne guessed. Next she knew, a silent question was bubbling up between them. Mya cast her eyes this way and that, as if to see the one to blame for Alayne's tears.
"Lifting your skirts for a serving boy? Or is one lifting them for you?" Mya probed, her eyes narrowing in curiosity. It didn't seem accusatory. Alayne still felt sweat pop out on her brow as the fear bubbled up.
"No. Just…worry for Lord Robert."
"So you're still playing your great mummer's farce, eh?" The Vale girl cracked a great grin.
Alayne was strong, she reminded herself. Alayne could not fold under pressure. "Farce?"
"The one where you play the doting, dutiful daughter to Littlefinger. Praying no one will take notice of how you look, or the bottles of dye you try to hide. Things that spur the maids to titter on about. The farce where you play Alayne Stone and hide your Stark blood."
Alayne fancied that she looked like the Tully trout right about now, closing and opening her mouth with not a sound coming out. She squirmed further back into her safe corner, feeling about for the small eating dagger she kept on her belt. Her fingers clenched around the rough horn handle, squeezing for assurance.
She wouldn't be taken back to Cersei.
She wouldn't rot in the black cells like Tyrion had.
She wouldn't be a head on a pike to rot like Septa Mordane.
Or father.
Mya noticed her movements, but instead of going for her own wicked looking knife she held up her hands. "No harm to you, lady."
For the first time in months, Sansa Stark exhaled. A thousand floodgates opened in her mind and the false identity she had shrouded herself in was scrubbed from it.
"I helped your mother up the mountain when she came with the Imp. I never forget a face I help up to the Eyrie." Mya put it bluntly, fixing her with those unblinking eyes. "You take after her strongly, even with your hair like this. I see a good bit of Lady Lysa in you too, before she got fat as a hen."
Sansa kept her mouth shut, too wary to agree or dissent with the bastard. Mya thrust out her chin in a stubborn gesture, fixing her with a hard stare. What came next from her weather-cracked lips was a miracle.
"We're getting out of here. You and I come from the two men that brought down a kingdom. I figure that blood will tell and we can make as great a pair this realm has ever seen since our sires. Littlefinger is playing you like the high fucking harp and you're too meek to step out of his plots and take charge of your own fate. Fight for it. Know your true friends. Not your false ones that seek to take every scrap of Stark stoicism and make you into something you're bloody well not."
Sansa could only stare as wide-eyed as a sheep from the Fingers, her mouth hinged open. All speech had fled her as the older girl pressed down on her with her words. Mya's chest heaved, the flinty blue of her eyes meeting the guileless blue of Sansa Stark.
"Now I ask you, the last true Stark of Winterfell, are you going to take this lying like a bitch in the dirt or are you going to fight?"
Sansa drew herself up after a minute spent in dumb silence, fisting a hand in Mya's jerkin to pull the taller girl closer. They were almost of a height. Their eyes met evenly.
"Show me the way."
Mya cracked a self-satisfied grin and grabbed at her wrist without much further ado, yanking her roughly off into a winding series of corridors and yards.
Mya had her strip down to her skin, redressing her in the thick silk leggings and under-tunic to keep the warmth in before doubling that over with a healthy layer of wool smallclothes. Over that stuffy mess was the roughspun tunic and breeches, then the heavy cloak and too-big boots.
"You'll need it where we're going," Mya had answered decisively after a perturbed look from Sansa.
"Is she ready?" asked a voice through the door, a crack revealing the telltale sliver of fine wool. Randa wedged herself through the door, shutting it firmly behind after Lord Nestor came in after.
Father and daughter regarded her with a critical eye, the man finally breaking away to move over to the table. On it rested an oilcloth bulky with a strange bundle. He handed it off to Mya with not a word spoken.
The rest followed in a blur. Sansa recalled faces in the dark hallway the Royces and the Stone girl led her down, and the bite of winter creeping up under her skirts as she mounted up on her courser with Mya. A shaggy little garron was tied off to the lip of the saddle, arrayed in the strangest sort of shoes Sansa had only seen tacked up on walls as relics.
A wicker weave of leather and wood fanned out beneath each sturdy leg, creating a slow but sure gait over the powdery white dusting the courtyard.
They were used northwards only in the deepest of snows, helping beasts travel easier over dense snow packs and ice. But she was a child of summer. Winter had come and brought back all the relics of the harsh season.
Tense minutes passed as Randa and Lord Nestor tightened, cinched and clapped the last bits of leather onto their mounts. Then another minute spent in agonizing stillness before Randa signaled to the other end of the yard.
Out came Ser Yohn from the shadows of the eaves along with others, as big as life and solemn as grave keepers. They made a quiet huddle around the mounted pair, exchanging a few brief words with Lord Nestor before turning their faces up to Sansa and Mya.
Ser Yohn touched at her knee and then placed his hand on Mya's leg – the gesture seemed almost like a benediction.
"Sell the horse off midway. Walk the rest of the way to the port. Stay off of the main roads; do not meet the eyes of any passerby. Use false names at every turn, even when you get underway on the other side. Do not fail." The last bit was fairly intoned like a prayer, the older man stepping away to make room for their mounts to make for the gate.
There were no goodbyes. Randa gave her and Mya a cheeky wink before disappearing into the anteroom they had come from along with her father. The rest dispersed, hurrying back to wherever they might be missed by the ever vigilant eyes of Lord Petyr.
As soon as they were out of sight of the cheery glow of the inhabited keep, Sansa shook at Mya's shoulder.
"Where?" she asked quietly, too afraid of the muffled sound that had come with the thick blanketing of snow over everything. She flinched as the single word hummed in the air, ricocheting off of every laden branch and hidden rock.
"Going to see the queen," Mya muttered from beneath her scarves.
Sansa had a moment of panic, envisioning the pale beauty of Cersei watching on as Ser Ilyn took off her head before the Great Sept. Mya must have guessed her panic, for she clamped a leathery grip over Sansa's rigid leg.
"The other queen, Stark."