[ She asks for nothing, not by name or notion, only takes what is given to her. Whether it be a kind word or a bowl of soup or another blanket (whether it be silence or company or please, Sansa, speak). It is not within her rights to ask for things, for she is dead and the dead have no desires. Only she is not dead; only she breathes and wakes and wishes to sleep again (wishes for comfort and embrace and more silence). It is a truth so unnatural that it drives Alayne to scrub at her skin with both palm and nails, as if expecting it to peel back from her bones like so much dry bark. She does not know what she expects to find underneath — maggoty worms or rose-red flesh or perhaps someone else, someone who is neither Sansa nor Alayne. A new person, better than the last.
What is dead may never die. Those are the words of the Drowned God. But if that were true, why doesn't she feel feel stronger, why has she not risen harder. Why instead is she full of fear, so much in fact that it drives her to fits of both apathy and hysteria, each alternating the other in wide waxing turns and punctuated by long-suffered silences.
Only at length does she become aware that it is Petyr that sits at the foot of her bed. Not Robb or Bran (no one else is given access). Carefully, she shifts, that hand on her belly still rubbing absently, the other used to hold her cloak closed around her shoulders.
Father, she should say, for Petyr Baelish is Alayne Stone's father and her lord protector. But there is part of her that is no longer Alayne (no, Alayne was torn open by the end of Magento's blade, ripped apart to reveal Sansa underneath, Sansa who is over and done and yet is here now, breathing half of Alayne's breath and giving voice to half of her words).
Father, she should say. Soft and trembling, Alayne says instead: ]
—Petyr.
[ The last words she ever spoke in her previous life had been to Petyr Baelish. Now, in this new life, her first words would be his as well. ]
( ACTION )
What is dead may never die. Those are the words of the Drowned God. But if that were true, why doesn't she feel feel stronger, why has she not risen harder. Why instead is she full of fear, so much in fact that it drives her to fits of both apathy and hysteria, each alternating the other in wide waxing turns and punctuated by long-suffered silences.
Only at length does she become aware that it is Petyr that sits at the foot of her bed. Not Robb or Bran (no one else is given access). Carefully, she shifts, that hand on her belly still rubbing absently, the other used to hold her cloak closed around her shoulders.
Father, she should say, for Petyr Baelish is Alayne Stone's father and her lord protector. But there is part of her that is no longer Alayne (no, Alayne was torn open by the end of Magento's blade, ripped apart to reveal Sansa underneath, Sansa who is over and done and yet is here now, breathing half of Alayne's breath and giving voice to half of her words).
Father, she should say. Soft and trembling, Alayne says instead: ]
—Petyr.
[ The last words she ever spoke in her previous life had been to Petyr Baelish. Now, in this new life, her first words would be his as well. ]