hey, little songbird | august 25th | sansa & petyr
Catelyn will try to broker peace.
The wording almost brings tears to her eyes. So many times in her childhood wars of passion and famines of affection with Arya, their mother had been the chief means of bringing about the eventual ceasefire. Their father had generally lacked the wherewithal to effectively engage with two young girls once their tempers were sufficiently raised, but Catelyn had a younger sister and the right touch to silence Arya, dry Sansa’s tears, stitch up torn skirts and repair broken toys. Peace, Ned had called it, dryly and at various intervals.
How stupid she’d been. Growing up believing that the whole drama and pain of war and loss and grief and resolution would only ever be contained in the relationship she shared with her sister. No one had ever hated her the way Arya used to hate her until Robb and her father had given them cause to. She would give anything to trade the present for that past, but perhaps such a thing was never going to be possible. Sansa had always thought herself an utterly competent, spirited person, but without Arya to chafe against she was rapidly forgetting what it felt like to fight for something.
Slowly, she raises her blue gaze again. She isn’t sure she wishes to discuss politics with Petyr Baelish. Does he think she knows something? How much should she know? And how much does he?
“Do you-” she starts, feels the defeat clutch at her heart and pushes on. “Do you know if anyone has seen my sister?”
Sansa tilts her chin slightly, trying to affect her sister’s determination.
“They don’t have to worry about me leaving until I know what happened to her.” She had stayed in London, after all, to fetch Arya. But Lady had tracked Nymeria’s scent through the whole of the Stark London house and discovered nothing.
Sansa can barely remember the last time she saw a sister. Her voice weakens again. Arya is probably dead, she reminds herself. Like how Robert Baratheon is dead and Joffrey is dead. The mob doesn’t discriminate. They’d have killed me too.
The lone wolf dies but the pack survives.
“Maybe they’re deliberately saying nothing,” she adds, commanding herself to be hopeful. “I won’t go anywhere until I know where she is.”
It's not a question he'd expected. He'd assumed the prospect of her own escape would drown out other concerns, other worries; that it wouldn't be until they were watching Welsh hills fly past that Sansa thought to ask about her sister.
"You believe she's still alive," he says, only half a question. It's clear by the lift in Sansa's voice, the way she infuses it with a certainty that facts can't support, that her hope is fragile but tenacious. She won't easily accept otherwise. "The city isn't kind, Sansa. Your sister hasn't gone to any shelter, or sought any police assistance. That may be proof of nothing - but a sixteen year-old girl can't survive long without help. I'll look for her, but I want you to understand that you may be pursuing a corpse."
He takes a drink to allow his warning to settle before he continues. "If the opportunity arises for your escape and your sister hasn't been found - you wish to stay here?"
Catelyn. He'd placed her name between them for a reason. If Sansa thought immediately of her sister, he expects Catelyn is just as desperate for Arya's return. But Cat is practical, Cat understands the dangers her daughters can't. If he can promise Sansa's safe flight, but not Arya's, he knows Catelyn will accept it. Sansa won't have a choice once she hears her mother's voice on the line.
