Petyr/Lysa, 15
15: Drunkenly confessing feelings Lysa comes to him, which is enough of a surprise of itself – normally he will call upon her, just often enough to keep him in the forefront of her mind, a hint, a tease…and if he goes too long for her liking, she will summon him, always with some excuse or another, my husband the King’s Hand has a request for you, Petyr… She enjoys having him at her beckon, preens from the heights to which she has been thrown up; since she was a girl, she has always tried to inflate her own importance, wield her power like a child with a wooden sword - wild and ultimately impotent. She comes to his door with her cheeks flushed, her hair tumbling down, her eyes glassy and her breath smelling of wine as she throws herself into his arms, muffling a half-sob, half-hiccup into his shoulder, loud enough that he has no choice but to bring her inside before she draws attention to them. “I hate him,” she declares, as Petyr closes the door behind her, and she sways in the spot. “Come, my love,” he soothes; the words are like spoilt milk on his tongue, but he has learned to bear their taste. “Whom do you hate?” He presses her into a chair by the fire, and she collapses into a heap of voluminous skirts and tears. “Jon,” she sobs, her voice incredulous as though it should be obvious that her hatred is reserved for her husband – and to Petyr, at least, it is. He knows Lysa has just come from private dinner with the King’s Hand, and he knows the news that she received there, as he has made it his business to know most things. But he stays silent, keeps that to himself, and kneels at her feet – that is how Lysa likes to see him, he knows, supplicant, and he can see the spark of satisfaction even beneath the glaze of drink and tears. “He wants to take my boy away,” she sobs. “My precious boy, my Sweetrobin…he would send him to Dragonstone to die.” “There now,” he says, keeping his voice gentle, soothing, and he takes her hands in his, twisting the rings she has stacked on her fingers, his fingers tracing over the precious gems, the sort of wealth he had only dreamed about as a boy. “Surely you can change his mind, my sweet. Surely he would listen to his wife?” The words have their desired effect; with a wail of despair, Lysa is on her feet again, putting a hand to the stone hearth to steady herself. “He will does, he does not!” she exclaims, and she looks down at him with a trembling lip. “By all the gods, I wish he were dead,” she whispers, and she reaches blindly for his hand again as her eyes flutter closed. “I wish he were dead, and we could take my boy home, and we could be together, the way we always should have been.” She is speaking still, prattling on about their time in Riverrun, oh, do you remember, Petyr, and he strokes her fingers absently while turning her only important words over in his mind, a gift that he tucks away for later, to unwrap and examine. I wish he were dead.
