It was a position most lewd that she offered him, turning upon her belly and looking at him from beneath auburn-tinted lashes. No longer a
girl, no longer an innocent, and yet still possessed of every fresh grace one would expect to see from one who did not know any better.
Oh, but Sansa knew.
Petyr
had no doubt that every movement of his wife’s was, at times, carefully
choreographed in ways meant to goad him one way or another. How
hopeless he was, just a man, a foolish creature, every caution openly ignored in favor of the delight that was her. What lessons he had learned as a boy, carved open and dying, were forgotten. Would it be so terrible to die like this?
Petyr possessed now his prize, fought for not with tooth and nail, but
of traits entirely different. Wits, deceptions, manipulations. His game.
Not so terribly different than a game of riddles,
truly, and Petyr knew he would never lose in a game comprised of those,
either, as much as Sansa would endeavor to believe she might stand a
chance. A keen strategist would toss scraps of varying size to his
opponent, enough to keep her engaged; even in war, a wholly defeated
enemy was not likely to make mistakes of the ego. Sansa was not so
simple-minded, and he had no designs to stretch their encounter on until
dusk besides. His little howling wolf would simply have to be slain.
Then skinned.
“Do
you?” he murmured, attention focused on the flush of color highlighting
her cheeks. Nothing thrilled him half so much as painting his lady red.
Paired with an averted gaze and the Lord felt a welcome tensing of his
abdomen. Were she to have been watching, she might have noticed the way
his pupils expanded.
“Then show me,” he whispered, he taunted.
“It is the moon you speak of.” So confident he was in his answer that
he did not even wait for a reaction before plodding on to his own
riddle. “As for mine: deep, deep, deep do they go, spreading as they
venture. No need for air, some as fine as hair.” The same arm which
Sansa’s fingers lightly caressed extended just enough to card a set of
fingers down through her auburn tumble. So confident he stood a second
time in his ability to stump his blushing bride, that little time
stood between deliverance of the riddle, and affirmation of victory. “I
believe you will owe me twice.” Was it not the perfect opportunity to show him?
Only rarely did Sansa’s gestures, motions, words all choreograph in deliberate seduction. She sought to learn, however, noting every flex of hand, each measured breath, the way black swallowed or surrendered to green within the Mockingbird’s gaze. A maid untouched before their vows, still young enough to mold, whilst still commanding a curiosity of spirit in their flirtations. Sansa knew of her influence, though not all the nuances in how she might wield it to greater satisfaction.
But each day she advanced a little more.
And where once visions of pretty new gowns and slippers hung heavily in her mind, the girl now conceded to herself that a simpler pleasure still might be gained — in victory or defeat. For other lessons, ones of fear and invisibility and platitudes, faded when Sansa lay abed with her husband, replaced instead with a hunger to demonstrate not only how much she had learned, but also how much more knowledge she hoped to accrue.
Anticipation dissipated to hear such a swift resolution to what Sansa believed a clever puzzle. Her frustration, however, would make the Lady only more appealing: soft lines which pulled porcelain features into a frowning mask, storm-clouded gaze eyeing Baelish as if he cheated in some way, plucking the answers from her thoughts. Pride only deepened Sansa’s dismay further. ‘Twas only proper that one achieve defeat or victory with grace, rather than the quiet gloating which so animated her lover presently. Slowly, Tully eyes trailed downward to where he coveted ruby tresses; Sansa might have scoffed, tossed him aside with impudence.
I follow your lessons, she had told him. Show me, he implored. When the girl looked up, a smile lit those blue rings besieged by annoyance only moments ago.
Oh, but she knew the answer: roots. This little game seemed to test a different sort of wit, though, one that demanded Sansa listen to more than simply the wordplay Petyr spouted. For a moment Sansa appeared to consider the question. “Worms?” Before he ever spoke in kind, the Lord’s expression betrayed all she might wish to know. “Oh my. Twice, was it?"Again Sansa rose to a stand, again she removed a slipper, the last remaining. "A gesture of goodwill,” she promised, consigning it to some darkened corner. Then her fingers set to work upon gown’s laces, not once looking away from her reclined husband. After a few moments of fumbling the dress sagged loose then, with a considerate wiggle, fell to the floor with a slithering of silk.
“One.”
Under her shift intrepid fingers crept, higher, higher, until at last they hooked atop one stocking and dragged it down. Wool joined silk beside Petyr on the bed with another flick of Sansa’s wrist.
The way Petyr’s eyes flashed with something decidedly different than disappointment when the word ‘whip’ passed his wife’s lips was
indicative of how little he cared she had given the correct response.
Were she to know any better (and surely she did), no doubt Sansa must have realized he hoped
she would have the right answer. As much as Petyr would delight in
seeing his wife nude and sprawled upon the furs, there was a much
greater satisfaction to be had in dual states of undress. With a
practiced grace the Lord rose from his state of repose upon the bed to a
stand. On the bed, left behind, was the scrap of silk meant to be
concealing Sansa’s modesty.
“I
find my wit often falters in the face of such beauty,” he flattered
wisely, fingers working down the ornate golden clasps holding his
charcoal-colored brocade in place. The doublet was a fine specimen,
laced throughout with aurulent threading patterned together to form
decadent swirls that only sometimes caught the firelight in an exercise
of rare subtlety. As each clasp opened, the brightly-colored
cloth-of-gold serving as his tunic became ever more visible. All the
while, as the Lord undressed, he stared at his Lady, a muted hunger only
barely concealed by quiet smile.
“I trust this will serve.” With
a shrug of his shoulders the doublet rolled off of his back like water,
caught at his arms and carefully pulled off to be folded over the back
of a chair. Regally, Petyr smoothed out any unsightly folds down the
sleeves of golden silk. “In one swoop I have shed more than slipper and
smallclothes combined.” Pleased, he returned to his place on the bed.
“My generosity truly knows no bounds. My lady should, perhaps, take note.” The pale, ribboned scrap of silk
was retrieved and once more palmed as the man leaned into the furs,
almost luxuriating in them the way a feline might.
“Riddle me.”
“As it should,” she quipped with false pretension, smiling despite her better judgement. Sansa strove to play a more nuanced game, one perhaps not leading to so predictable a destination; the light in her husband’s eyes, however, and the roguish slant to his smile betrayed desires much more base. ‘Twas then she agreed by no more than an appreciative eye, roaming from shoulder to ankle as the Lord disrobed, to an altogether playful endeavor. Stretching across variegated pelts, she lay nearly upon her stomach as Petyr set himself to rights.
Even when he made to return Sansa did not retreat, instead lingering within what had before been neutral space between them. “Amply.” This particular state of undress rarely failed in sending a rush of heat to her belly, and did not that eve. Maids or other attendants might see her husband bare for the act of bathing, the maester if poor health demanded it; yet in the chaos found between dress and its opposite lay all the minuscule intimacies of marriage. Only Sansa knew the particular style of knot running down his tunic; only Sansa could untangle the intricate lacing along his breech’s front; only Sansa had felt the difference between ring’d fingers and bare flesh running across her ribs.
A finger of her own ran appreciatively over golden fabric which rippled and flowed atop the man’s form as if still half-molten. “I remain, as ever, attentive to your lessons.” Most especially those concerning observation, consideration, action. Petyr’s expression when the riddle lay solved…did he wish to whip her? How unthinkable. How titillating. Unbidden, blood flushed Sansa’s cheeks, smearing a wanton stain across pale flesh. Though undoubtedly the man had already seen her tell, the girl still cast her eyes aside with modesty unfeigned.
“Round she is, yet flat as a board. Altar of the Lupine Lords. Jewel on black velvet, pearl in the sea. Unchanged but e'er changing, eternally.”
Baelish had heard them all, every riddle, every story, every song and tale. It was almost unfair, really, to have challenged the girl to a
game of wits in just that particular manner. Far too much time he had
spent with his nose between sheets of parchment or with an ear inside of
a tavern, soaking up new mind-puzzlers whilst at the same time
absorbing a city’s latest gossip or rumor. Sansa had not spent much time
in such bawdy locales. Naturally. And Baelish doubted quite severely
that the Lord Eddard Stark was one to ever pose particularly abstract
riddles – half-witted as he’d tragically been.
Petyr took great delight in watching Sansa’s features twist into that of aghast objection. Never had he claimed to be a fair man,
in any case. When she rose from the pile of lush furs in a huff and a
puff, he followed her only with his eyes, and an irritatingly smug
smile. If she meant to stalk off in a puerile fit of unsportsmanlike
choler, Petyr would only lord it over her later and tease her
mercilessly. Such was victory enough for him. When her hand, however,
tucked between her legs to hoist up bulky winter silk, Petyr’s smile
stalled; a decorous arch of a brow took its place.
Only a quiet
sigh of approval met the sight of wool stockings and the sculpted calves
they protected; at once Petyr believed her to be working her thumb
around the laced and frilled edges of one and working it down. So sure
he was of her sacrifice that when the white lump of fabric was tossed
inelegantly in his face, he did not even turn his gaze to behold it,
tucking the article between his fingers and offering his bride a smile
most pleased, clearly far more impressed in her latest choice than he
had been with a slipper most contemptible.
It wasn’t until finger
and thumb pinched together over the fabric that he noted the slippery
material of the cloth, far smoother than her stockings ever were. And
such a warmth to it; though Sansa was known to run hot.
Slanting his gaze to the scrap of silk, the realization that it was not,
in fact, a stocking and instead something decidedly more immodest,
Baelish could not help the purring laugh that escaped him. “Awfully
salacious of you,” he at once berated and praised. A mischief sparked in
eyes of green. “Best you not tell my wife I am spending the afternoon
with so unvirtuous a maid; I believe she would be rather displeased.”
“As
for your riddle…” In quiet contemplation the Lord rolled her
smallclothes between the calipers of two fingers. “A leathery snake,
with a stinging bite.” In his hand he stretched out the silk, running a
long, slow line down the strip of fabric that would directly nestle
against her sex using the wide flat of his thumb. Petyr looked Sansa
in the eye, leering. “I’ll stay coiled up, unless I must fight.”
Sansa knew she did not entirely lack leverage; cleverer and more tenacious than many of his peers, Petyr still remained a man. Glimpses of flesh, suggestions of lascivious intent could distract her fickle Mockingbird if only for a moment. Alone such heavy-handed displays would win no games of wit; they might, however, provide greater amusement than any she would find in simple loss alone. The Lord had the right of things — ladies learned little in the way of riddles, Sansa’s paltry store coming from what a wilder younger sister overheard, or else the murmurings of chambermaids. Neither source, unfortunately, would prove particularly challenging to her partner.
“No more than my husband,” she quipped, settling back into abandoned pose. “‘Twould aggrieve him to know I am so unjustly targeted by these fictitious rules.” Oh yes, suspicion became conviction, Sansa well-assured that swift developing — or degenerating — guidelines existed only within the bounds of unstimulated mind. Yet the Lady abided by them all the same, stubbornly convinced that they might still turn in her favor.
Could he truly find the offering of silken underthings so arousing? He, who spent evenings with his nose and mouth buried between her legs? Mirrored chuckle of amusement left the girl, Tully eyes following an oscillating thumb in its journey. Though she saw the trap well before it sprung, the lewd glimmer and wink in celadon depths, Sansa walked into its maw unflinchingly.
And so the game continued; a little sport, between friends, could do no harm.
“Have you already exhausted all your wit, my love?” Oh, but such an easy one. “Or do you merely believe me incapable of more trying fare?” One missed riddle did not a failure make. Rather than blurt out her triumphant answer Sansa waited, gloating smile learnt from tutor lounging opposite winding across a face relaxed by victory. She laughed, the soft chiming of bells to herald her accomplishment. “A whip is what you speak of.” Nor was it the first time mention of such a toy crossed Lord Baelish’s tongue; though riddled lines spoke to weaponry, undoubtedly did the man’s mind wander to uses far more intimate in nature.
“I believe 'tis you who must now surrender one of your sartorial prizes, Petyr.” Reaching out, Sansa fingered the cuff of his doublet. “And I too require something more appealing than your boot.”
should an exclusive partner go inactive for 1+ month, then i will become tentatively open to interactions with duplicates. when/if they return then exclusivity may resume.
