Whispers and Dreams


Some nights are made for torture, or reflection, or the savoring of loneliness.

- Poppy Z. Brite


She is silent but the door never is. The creak echoes, reverberating off the arches of the empty sept. She has oiled the hinges but the soft shriek of protesting metal will not be stilled. Just as the blackness of night is always darker, unforgivingly black here no matter how silver the moonlight may paint the Eyrie on a clear night like this.

White and grey like it has been kissed by snow, like -

Her braid swings across her back as she shoves the memory away with the door. Do the hinges truly scream or is it the sound of her twisting heart?

Alayne Stone has not been to those northern walls. Her heart does not ache and twist in her chest. She feels no pain. Grey and white mean nothing to her.

I feel no pain. I feel no pain.

Her lips repeat the mantra soundlessly. The wood door is hard and cold against her back as she leans against it, staring into the thick darkness barely held at bay by her pathetic guttering candle. She is alone here in the night, free of the bustle her days have become.

"Alayne Stone was raised in a motherhouse. She has never been north." Unseen arches catch the whisper, throwing her magnified words back at her in ugly refrain. The candle flickers with every echo.

She is never alone during the day. Between Sweetrobin's constant calls, her Father's lessons, and Randa's gossip her days are full. During the day it is enough.

Here in the thick blackness something is rotting but alive, calling out to her. Another life she can strangle down when the sun is bright and the glittering bustle of life distracts her.

At night Sansa Stark is never alone, not even in her mind.

Belief and repetition. Believe your words and repeat them. A good lie will remain like the refrain to one of your songs Sweetling, a chorus remembered even when the rest of the song is forgotten...

No lips utter Petyr Baelish's hissing whisper, but she feels the hot rush of minty breath caressing the shell of her ear. It is a lesson he repeats often, blue eyes flickering with disappointment. It should be comforting to have her Father's advice and guidance.

It should be.

Her breath mists the air in a small cloud, and she irrationally wonders if it is her soul slipping slowly away into the cold with every breath. If Sansa Stark is escaping into ice and Winter.

Perhaps the pain will go with it.

A sacrifice she could gladly make.

Her blue eyes are closed but she sees a beautiful golden haired boy smirking at her twisting heart, white hands slipping across her chest in an icy caress.

Please let it be the wind.

Her eyes are seldom closed long.

Her slippered feet are swift and silent, the only sound the eerie howl of the wind sweeping through the Vale. The walls are made for songs to the Seven, and they catch even the faint voice of the wind. Randa does not question her desire to be alone with her gods at night. Alayne was meant to be a septa, and she has precious little time during the day for devotion.

Randa would not expect to find her here.

The shrine she stands before has no other visitors. No intricate windows to leave colorful splashes of light on the floor during the day like the Maiden's shrine, no fragrant incense like the Mother's. The single tallow candle she lights on the high altar illuminates only dirty metal and a single low bench.

She has prayed in every shrine. In the Maiden's brightly colored light, in the Mother's heavy incense. She has lit candles on every altar and woken every night screaming anyway.

He is the only one she prays to now.

You have them all - my family, my friends, Lady. Take good care of them Ser.

If she keeps her eyes low, the size almost right. If she does not see the plain helmet, the dull grey armor is the right color.

Sansa Stark is not quite surprised the Stranger seems to answer in the Hound's rasping tones.

Fuck your Sers.

When she prays to the Stranger she wakes moaning instead of screaming, the rasp of the Hound's laugh still echoing in her ears.

Every night she lights a candle on his high altar.


A/N: Haven't decided if this is a one-shot or not yet. Maybe there will be more.