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No, Sansa required no masculine support, evidenced well enough in her standing without waiting for a hand to grasp. She was no maid, no helpless damsel. The way she carried herself was entirely different now. Playing well into the role of window or at the very least into that of strong. Such subtleties would serve her well in the North, he imagined, where the sight of a simpering girl would do nothing to inspire confidence in those Lords who had lost so much at the suggestion of a name. Lord Eddard Stark’s visage was nowhere to be found in Sansa: there was no strong jaw or steely eyes. Everything about her was soft, feminine, kind; it was necessary, therefore, for her to to exude tenacity and clout in other ways.

Petyr’s own chair scuffed across the stone as he made to rise. Along the table he walked, a single index finger dragging along the polish surface. “A son,” he echoed. “Many sons, if your Gods are kind.” A smile accompanied the lift and crook of an arm held cordially out to her. “A shame that Lord Hardyng was unable to provide.”

There were no servants nearby to hear, no dining guests to add quip or comment to their conversation. For what reason would he ever utter such a thing to her in private if not to mock? Though the curve of his mouth was no less genial, the gentle touch of his hand no less proper. Petyr had sabotaged any chance of Sansa bearing Falcon heirs, and yet he was ready to thrust her into another marriage so that she might bear another’s. Certainly a bowl of moontea might have proven infinitely easier to provide than the ruse of a freshly riven maid. There stood no other logical reason for Petyr to have preserved her maidenhead other than entertaining the idea that he wanted it for himself. Every touch, every kiss, every wanting look he’d ever given her told her that was true, yet never had he bargained for her in terms which might give him such gains.

“Winterfell awaits Sansa Stark.” Such was the news. Petyr had told her all he intended to of the Northern keep. Civil unrest was to be expected; a flurry of brutish Lords fought and would continue to fight for rights using whatever paltry excuses they could muster. Others still realized the benefits in plying the Stark girl with marriage proposals and promises of fealty. All of which Sansa knew.

The delicate lace hems and underskirts of her gown rustled along the cold stone as they walked – slowly, as she wished. The flaps of Petyr’s doublet brushed against her in easy stride. “You grow weary,” he said, in observation and not question. “Take care, Sansa. Soon there will be no time to think of the snow.” Did she think of it as he did? Flakes decorating her hair like a net of diamonds, her fingers frozen, warmed between his hands. Petyr thought of it, often, of what that exact moment had done to change the course of their journey. How many lives were lost, plots foiled and remade, destinations altered because one man was unable to resist the frost-pinked cheeks of a woman?

“There is still much yet to be read,” he reminded. Indeed, Petyr seemed to be heading not towards Sansa’s room but the Eyrie’s extensive libraries. Once outside he dipped in to retrieve a candle, dipping it into the wall sconce lit just outside until the wick caught and glowed. “Or if you tire of histories there are books you might read for pleasure.” Petyr closed the door behind them. The single light was split off into another, Petyr handing one candle to Sansa. Still the lights were dim in so large a room, casting gaunt shadows to skitter along the walls and shelves, orange slivers dancing over aged tomes and the spines of a thousand thousand books. “More entertaining than the sound of snow, at the very least.” Petyr smiled, wandering to a shelf and pulling out a book. The sound of dry paper echoed through the room as he skimmed through the pages. “Targaryen lineage? Aegon and his sisterwives. Do you imagine he took them both at once?” A quiet smirk flickered over his features, looking down towards unseen script.

"Remarkable,” she concurred, fitting her hand into the proffered crook with gracious nod. “Especially when one considers his prior glut of fortune.” Two bastards before he was even wed; no, Sansa would not have enjoyed the Young Falcon much at all, averse as she was to further humiliation. This arrangement suited her far better: unwed, unburdened, free to dine and converse with Baelish as she saw fit; would that a woman’s worth — and even more, a queen’s — did not hang upon the productivity of her womb.

Though in truth the Stark heir also wondered as to a greater motive behind the convoluted plot surrounding her second marriage, Sansa oft contented herself with assurances of his enduring care for her happiness. Bah! As great a lie as one she ever told. Selfishness surely dictated every move, be it lateral, forwards, or backwards, across the vast checkered board Petyr seemed to play upon. Still he required Sansa Stark, still he required Winterfell, if not by choice than by virtue of where her whims had led them. Her whims. Not his plans. Perhaps some indulgence of a less practical nature yet remained; for one so avaricious as the Lord Baelish, however, to not even attempt insinuating himself into her marriage bed seemed more than strange.

Too much. So many threads to chase it set Sansa’s head to spinning much like a second cup of wine. Better to think on them later, when she was distracted by neither the warmth at her side nor the near-familiar comfort it now offered. What Petyr wanted remained as shadowy to the girl as her own desires, made all the murkier by past deceptions. Did she want to lie with him, claim him as husband before returning northward? The question left only emptiness at her center, a damning ambivalence all other possible suitors garnered as well; though not the worst of all possibilities, it was still a marriage. Why not carry on as they did now, amiably strolling through corridors, bound in wit if not in flesh? The scandal. A young, high-born woman still of child-bearing age, associating so closely with a Lord of Baelish’s profession, of Baelish’s past? No matter her own happiness, Northern nobles would never abide such flagrancy, and it was them she must needs please.

“As she awaits Winterfell.” Her tone did not lack a curt impatience — delayed for a matter Sansa would have preferred go unaddressed, homesickness grew with every passing day. Fingers itched for want of occupation: construction orders, pardons and warrants, distribution of winter stores. Menial tasks, perhaps, yet ones that signaled healing. In saving Winterfell, the people it protected, Sansa sought to save herself.

Breathe in. Breathe out. The boning of her bodice — new, still the black of a widow’s weeds — creaked under her efforts. “And you do not?” she murmured. Ah, snow. Those moments spent building bridges and gargoyles rarely entered into her mind, certainly not with the frequency or duration they did Baelish’s. But the moments that followed. Cold, thin fingers of ice threatening to pull her out an open door; lungs burning with inconsequential pleas; the snap of skirts and the sacrifice of a slipper, alongside her aunt. It was that snow, the kind that might have swallowed up Sansa Stark, heard her final screams before forming a pretty tomb she thought of most, and that choice as well. It seemed to matter so much more than a silly kiss.

Petyr had, after all, taken so many others without consequence.

Reaching the library afforded Sansa some small measure of joy. At least it meant she would not yet have to retire a chambers cold and empty, alone. “Am I to be allowed such leisure?” Laughing softly, watching as he lit and cultivated flame, the girl’s mouth pulled up at one corner. “My lord is more generous than gossip might suggest; mayhaps I have been too hasty in blaming you for my present idleness.” Light banter, an ease of disposition acquired only in privacy: these things uncoiled knots along Sansa’s spine, let her believe, however temporarily, she was still a girl. Admist shadows that jumped and sifted along the walls, looking in equal turns to be grumkins, mammoths, and snarks, she trailed after Petyr, one outstretched finger tracing a line in accumulated dust atop the shelves. “Took them —— ?” Whatever pleasure reading she expected him to unearth, ‘twas nothing of that sort. Sansa, however, recovered swiftly. “'Tis you who have more experience in these matters, so I ask you, my lord: can a man, any man, fail to find himself overwhelmed in the company of two lovers?”

Tully blue took on a deeper tint behind her candle’s flickering yellow-orange; the brow she raised in cheeky riposte caught its light flatteringly.