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[ When the video feed flickers to life, it bobs for a moment, accompanied by the sound of hissing breath. As it rights itself, Petyr's face comes into view, his features unusually drawn and the expression upon his face unmistakably something close to grief, to panic (and if it is feigned, if it is another lie, then it is one of the greatest that he has told). There's dark red staining his hands, or at least what is visible of them through the comms device. His voice is hushed but urgent, its tone unsteady but still clear enough. ]

My daughter— Alayne Stone has been gravely injured. I fear to move her — I fear for her life. Please, should anyone possess the capability to help—

[ He glances away, now, out of the frame of the screen. Even through the feed, one can see the hollows of his cheeks cast a stronger shadow as he clenches his jaw, the stricken father played to the hilt. (He doesn't have the time to play coy or cautious.) ]

— please hurry.

[ ooc: after this. ]

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[ Her tone is sharp, no-nonsense. ] Can you get to the medbay from where you are?

[ no, no, no, no... ]

What happened?

[ there is nothing kingly in robb's face. the mask is fallen, the mask is shattered (you must be a king always, sansa had said, but not now. not now, now he cannot be anything but himself, a panic-striken boy and he can't...

he was meant to protect her. this was meant to be the place where he could protect her, keep her from harm in ways that he couldn't in westeros where great distances seperated them but he'd failed. he'd failed and gods be good, that was his sister's blood on littlefinger's hands, and robb knows he's shaking but he can't stop.

i should never have let her go alone. ]

Where are you? Tell me where you are.

[ demands. a king can demand and order and robb will do both, speaks as if he expects petyr to bend to his will. and robb is newly crowned and even less experienced in the way of commands, but in this moment it comes to him easily, the snap-crack of royal decree. ]

Edited (oh wait there's more.) 2012-04-27 02:02 (UTC)

[You're lying.

That's what he immediately thinks to say. Alayne Stone, the name leaving an unsettling beat in his chest. It's a reminder that knocks once, patient for an answer. These few days have been hazy, he admits. He has been looking to his affectionate Chuck with fear, stealing every relaxing moment to prepare for hiding. The Pie Maker could not allow himself to lose her again, haunted by the unfortunate events in his life now taking form into demonic beings. Nightmares among nightmares.

—And that's where he made his mistake. His mind slipped from that girl and that boy. Two floating in mystery, but layered in fondness he could not easily forget... and yet he did. His greatest mistake.

The facts were these: Ned was in the middle of folding various fabrics and tucking away valuables when he just happened upon the message. It came as a rush, wiping his memory clean of any intentions he had for the blanket in his arms. He abandoned it and willed his trembling fingers to type a reply:]

hello are you there? is alayne alright is she

[Yet he could not will that final word to take form. The slip of his fingers reminds him to breathe. It's a broken, fragile breath that he struggles to smooth out.

Breathe and take it easy, Pie Maker. She's fine. You can type. You can help. If this man were to see you like this, you're useless.

The moment is extremely brief, as he barely waits long before typing again:]

hello????
tell me where you are????????

[ She wasn't anyone to him, and she certainly wasn't his to take care of -- not with a whole family here, people from her world who know and understand her -- but Tommy feels the failure to do so anyway, like someone's punched him in the chest.

The last thing he said to her was "Sorry." Like a fucking asshole. Like the idiot he obviously is never going to grow out of being. It's hard to get words out through the feelings, all of them circling around and becoming anger because he doesn't know how to feel anything else sometimes. ]

You know who did it?

[ He doesn't even think about it being an accident because he can't heal her, he can't do anything to help her right now. But if someone did this, that is something he can deal with. ]

[Another short moment:]

im ned iam a friend of alayne pleas.e answer me

i can help. please.

[ A fact: Alayne Stone — Sansa Stark — is expendable to him. Her name and her birthright mean nothing here in space, and those of her family who also reside upon the Tranquility only make her a liability. What she could tell him about the ship, he has no doubt some other passenger could. If she dies, that death will come at no personal expense to him. She brings him no coin, no direct benefit; only the burden of a crippled little boy, a watchful older brother, and a couple of direwolves. She is not his daughter, she is not his blood. He has no need for her.

A fact: Petyr Baelish — Littlefinger – is not a man easily given to grief. (An amendment: he is not a man easily given to emotion.) Frustration and exultation, yes, from time to time, but not grief, nor pity. The world is cruel and he has no reason to expect it to be otherwise, or to try to reverse nature through actions of his own. Lives and loyalties are things to be bought and sold. Sentimental attachment is a weakness, and he had had its root cut straight from his chest long ago. He had fought with a Stark over a girl with red hair before and he has yet to forget how the duel ended. He does not love Sansa Stark.

What should be the sum: he should leave her for dead. Let her bleed out upon the floor and move on. This is a weight off of his shoulders, surely. He could say that he never came across her at all, that he hadn't known that she'd been attacked. No one would be the wiser.

The actual sum: he stays.

It's a foolish move, in immediate retrospect, although he doesn't leave himself the time to consider the thought. He could easily be blamed, he supposes, but the network has already been alerted and her blood is already on his hands. To leave now would be more suspect than to stay. So he stays, with her head cradled in his lap, one hand gently stroking her hair, the other forming a shell over the wound in her stomach, holding a torn strip of cloth there (dark grey, taken from his sleeve) in a futile attempt to staunch the flow of blood. Lady sits by him, as quiet as her master, and for a moment, there is simply quiet. His slender frame seems even smaller now, his spine bent and his head bowed as he wonders that he had not had a contingency plan for something like this.

(A lie. He had had a contingency plan. That plan had been to leave.)

When the news had reached him of Catelyn's death, he had not cried nor grieved. Perhaps it had been easier, then, being removed from the actual event, with a myriad of other things to tend to. But here, upon the Tranquility (what a name) he has nothing else. (The irony of it does not escape him. He's right back where he had started.) His gaze flickers as he looks down at her, that near-negligible movement the only thing to give away the fact that he stays not for some ulterior motive or personal gain, but simply for her.

It is a pity, perhaps, that none are there to see it. ]

Alayne, [ he murmurs, hesitant to try to rouse her but unwilling to simply watch her slip away. ] Sansa.

[ His mouth draws itself into a thin line as he shakes his head, the faintest glimmer of teeth visible just before he speaks. ] She bleeds too much for me to think it safe.

[ It's almost laughable. (He's just a boy.) But still, still, the mask stays in place, and Littlefinger is quick to respond, his face still wan when the feed flickers back to life. ]

The passengers' quarters, [ he answers, with a duck of his head. ] Her room.

[ A beat. ]

I'm afraid I do not know what happened.

[ She dreams the she is in Winterfell, not the ruined shell of a once-great house but Winterfell as she remembers it — as Sansa Stark lived it — a memory, not a dream. Her father is there, as is her lady mother, and her siblings from Robb to Rickon and all inbetween: Arya and Bran and even the bastard Jon Snow. Jory and Septa Mordane and the direwolves, Lady among them. The snow is falling and and they're all laughing and against the white blue of a world dressed in ice, Winterfell's windows burn yellow and gold with the promise of heart-warming fires.

Happily she turns, as if partaking in some swirling dance. She turns and turns and so her skirts turn with her and Winterfell blurs around her dizzingly with the sound of wind and the howling of wolves and the flapping of wings. When Alayne stops again, she finds the court empty and silent around her, Winterfell's stone no longer polished and gleaming but melted down to ruin as if touched by the first flames of dragon fire.

(Alayne, someone says at a distance, and Alayne thinks yes, I am listening.

Sansa, someone then says instead, and Sansa thinks, yes, I am here.)

Only then does Alayne remember that she isn't dreaming, she's dying and the bloated feeling in her belly is simply pain in disguise. ]

I was— I was dreaming— [ she murmurs and attempts to open her eyes — her lips sluggish and stuck one to the other, her lashes encrusted with dried tears. Alayne recognizes the voice that calls her and almost smiles, but the muscles of her face ache and her jaw feels bruised by the effort. ] —father.

[ It's a moment before Petyr has the time to type out a response.

(A funny thing, he thinks, that she could inspire such love. Enviable, even, were he prone to the sentiment.) ]

We are in her room.
She is bleeding out.
Please hurry.

[ Tommy is met with a wry smile, though even that expression doesn't last very long. (There isn't room enough to find humor here.) ]

I do not. But I promise you, had I a name to give, I would give it gladly.

It's not safe anyway. [ And it looks—bad. Something was severed, certainly, judging by the amount of red. She doesn't mention that—there's a lot of blood on his hands, coating his fingers like paint; he probably already knows the extent of the damage—and the amount of time it would take to get to restorative medical equipment would probably take too long. The nanites can only work at such a pace, and Alayne might be dead before they have a chance to do their job. ]

I can't get there in time. [ Not even if she ran. Downside to a ship this colossal; minutes turn into hours when you most need them to be seconds. ] Has anyone contacted you who's close to you? Who can bring something?

[ No name means Tommy's useless. Stuck sitting there, gripping the fabric of his jumpsuit in his hands because he can't do anything else. He stares ahead, almost not looking at the camera at all, but through it instead. ]

If you find out, tell me. [ He doesn't want to bully a grieving parent, but he doesn't know how to make his tone gentle either. ]

[ Her lips move and while his heart does not leap, it is not disappointment that makes itself known in the ache pervading his chest. As she opens her eyes, he smiles, doing his best to look certain, to look sure. (Everything will be alright. I'm here, now. And to some degree, perhaps, who will look after me if you are gone? A gentle goading to temper what he knows to be the inevitable.) He can play this part, he tells himself. He won't have to for much longer. ]

What were you dreaming of? [ he asks, brushing back her hair from her face, his eyes still searching her face. It is better to keep her awake, he thinks, even as the rest of him protests. No, he is not versed in the way of the sword, but he is not a fool. He knows what will kill and what will not, and he knows that she is no longer meant for this world. Whether she has four minutes left or five, what difference does it make? By all rights he should have left her asleep, or asked who it was that had left the ugly red marks about her neck, opened her stomach to leave a scar that rings uncomfortably close to his own.

(Perhaps that's why he stays, he reasons. He knows what it is like bleed out, how it feels to be there one moment and gone the next. But Brandon Stark's work, it would seem, had not been quite as efficient. And he had had a choice in the matter. He had chosen to fight, chosen to risk death. He doubts the same applies to her. He had made sure that it wouldn't, made sure that she would never be struck down for the same reason as he had.

And yet, and yet.) ]

[Godric does not know Petyr, but he knows Alayne. They have spoken little, but he finds her polite, charming, and altogether pleasant. He will mourn her if she dies. However, for Godric, the most expedient way of ensuring Alayne's survival is very probably not the wisest or kindest. Nor is it something he gives away easily. Healing blood has its consequences, and Alayne would likely not care for it. It's a last resort only.]

[So he's going to stalk this transmission, to make sure help gets there in time and he doesn't have to intervene. (He doesn't yet know it, but it's really too bad he's about to be horribly distracted.)]

Edited 2012-04-27 03:16 (UTC)

[ There is a seam in her father's mask — a hairline crack that divides truth and lie, divides Petyr and Littlefinger, divides cruelty and kindness. Even now, with death clouding the edges of her vision she can see it, clear as day, and Alayne wonders if that is because he allows it or because he has more important things to mind. Still, she does not let her attention linger on it; instead, it wanders idly like a butterfly floating upon a short, gusty breeze. Here and there it alights with the fluttering of her lashes, with the shivering of her body. There is a chill now, blazing slowly through her, setting her veins alight with icy fire (winter is coming, those are the Stark words and here, now, in this place, Alayne would see them through to their bitter end).

A hand lifts in the space between them, ruddy stains on long delicate fingers which then slip through the air, unable to connect with the edges of his smile. Instead, she is left to bat loosely at nothing at all, her voice distant and sad (but not yet broken). ]

I dreamt— I dreamt—

[ Alayne's focus wanes and waxes, her lips feels strange when she speaks. ] —I dreamt I no longer had— to be brave.

[ it was not so very long ago that robb stark left his tent and shattered his sword upon the solid trunk of a tree, screaming out his grief and his loss, the famed stark stoicism shattered and gone. robb stark has ever worn too much of himself on his sleeve, emotions too close to the surface for anyone's good. but his sister, his sister, it is only for her sake that he does not lose control of himself again. ]

I'm coming.

[ his voice is ice and stone, the harshest of winters. do not lose her, ser it says, keep her alive, it says.

perhaps he will never mount joffrey's head upon a pike, but here he could find whoever had dared harm sansa and make them regret it, punish them as he'd meant to punish joffrey for what he'd done. and when he found them, they would regret ever laying a hand on robb stark's family. ]

There's - [ a beat, a doublecheck (absently, he runs a hand over his face, leaving red streaks in its wake) ] — there is a man on his way. A friend of hers, who has said he can help. I do not know what he intends to do, but — I hope for the best.

[ An exhale, and then a short nod. That'll have to do. She opens her mouth to speak, but the words don't leave her immediately; for a moment, there's a hard edge to her features, but then it's gone, replaced by a small (and somewhat sympathetic) frown. ] All right. That's good.

I hope your daughter— survives.

[Bran's breath is caught in his throat, and he cannot at first reply.

Summer has been restless today, and here is why. He should have trusted. He should have trusted, but--

There had been too much good, surely. They were allotted too much good: to have Robb and Bran and Sansa, no matter what name she wore, and Summer, and Lady, long lost--and that was too much good.

He must go. He cannot help, but he must go. She will be all right. If there are wheeled chairs, if there are legs that let cripples walk, and magic and ships that fly in the sky, there will be something to save his sister, and it's then that Summer begins to howl, and Bran shuts his eyes and bends over his useless legs, gathering his strength.

When he replies, his face is drawn and pale and Summer has fallen quiet in voice, at last, though he paces.]

Where is she?

Have you found help? I can transport her instantly to the medbay, but I am no healer.

[ She raises a hand and he catches it, his fingers curling tightly about hers. I'm sorry, sweetling, he wants to say. That will only ever be a dream. But he holds his tongue. (He has never been unnecessarily cruel.) ]

Keep that dream, then, [ is what he says instead, the look that settles in his eyes somehow heavy, like a weight sinking through a pool of water. ] Help is on its way. 'Til then, I shall be brave in your stead. [ He has no place in her dream — not that he has any way of knowing it; not that he would be surprised of it, he does not give love and does not expect to earn it — but he says the words anyway. A dying girl need not shoulder that burden. (Because he does not follow the common path does not mean he does not know what it is.) ]

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