It should have frightened her. No matter how often it happened or how familiar it felt, Sansa knew her instincts had dulled, reactions slowed, a sense of trust developing that might prove detrimental to them both should it strengthen. In daylight it rarely mattered: she could see Petyr, Petyr could see her. Every move telegraphed a moment before, restraint’s origins frankly known. It was in the night she trusted too readily, first thoughts when born back to that indigo plain turning to Baelish, not a foe. His hands were large, or else her face was small, clamped palm and squeezing thumb sometimes threatening to suffocate her by accident, the girl growing dizzy before pressure eased, air filling her lungs like water.
That night he took first watch, an arrangement Sansa often tried to reverse; some mornings she would awaken having missed her duty, the man gruffly muttering how he hadn’t seen a need to raise her. Maybe it was just pity, or misguided affection, but in the wasteland through which they trod nothing came without a price. This uncertain, sporadic debt discomfited her, leaving nagging questions as to what he expected in return. Such doubts chased after Petyr’s generosity, a pack of creophagous scavengers.
Except now, jolted awake by a callused hand, only faint stars and a milky filtering of moonlight greeted Sansa. Not morning, not even dawn. Trouble, then. Two days ago they had stumbled upon an abandoned den shallowly dug among a tree’s roots. After crawling inside, his belly sloughing dirt and crumbling leaves when he emerged, Baelish declared it long abandoned, suitable for a few days’ shelter. It offered a narrow view of the surrounding forest when inside, though such limited sight also meant a passing stranger was far less likely to investigate, or even spot their hideaway.
