⊰ neverparted ⊱

Alayne.

Yes, she DID look like an Alayne, but her surname was a little puzzling. Issues of genealogy weren’t important, not when it came to his sister. All that mattered to her was whether someone was intruding on her home or not. 

                          ❝ No. My sister…LUCILLE. She lives here as well. ❞

                                              ❝ All those deaths…because of her. ❞

It was in HASTE that he told her under no circumstances to linger long in the Great Room, which was both a parlor, a living room, and a library all at once. That was HER domain, and those who continued to trespass in it ran the risk of angering her. He didn’t know how long Alayne planned on staying there, but he supposed that telling her his sister’s usual HAUNTS would give her a better chance of staying alive. 

Thomas didn’t know exactly why he was helping her, but it was partly because he was tired of seeing people die with him being POWERLESS to stop it. Once he was done he leaned back, sighing. 

                                              ❝ I apologize. You must think me GLOOMY company. ❞

          Terminology seemed somewhat misapplied — spirits haunted, lurked, lingered, yet never did they live within walls which sheltered those still mortal. Yet would one not cling to those peculiarities of living that, in death, became trivial? Sansa knew that she would, felt it in her very bones, a primal fear whispering on about the terrifying unknown. Perhaps it was no more frightening than being born. Perhaps it was freeing. Still, standing so near to ghostly form made youthful heart pump stronger, her pulse a tympanic beat promising over and over again: I live. I live. I live. 

             “Deaths?”

             No matter how great the manor appeared, dozens of rooms sprawling out in rickety succession across frigid grounds, to have even one cast off limits imparted a sense of entrapment. Through their relocation Petyr had promised her peace, a quiet sanctuary in which to wait out leonine foes; malevolent spirits already crept within the shadows of her dreams, much less the very real, very threatening shadows of her rooms. 

             “You must not have many occasions to converse,” Sansa prompted. Proper tenants had not occupied Allerdale for many years, though the agent through Petyr acquired the property had warned of damage from tramps and other wanderers. With neither friend nor lover at one’s side, surely eternity stretched on in a kind of interminable hell. “Nor do I,” the girl admitted. “My father preferred that I not travel far from home and now…here…” A pale hand swept in indication of the empty room, the house all around it. “There may not be many more acquaintances to make, Sir Thomas.”