meme | #002 -- absolute obedience ( do you do you want to )

[the]

the ABSOLUTE OBEDIENCE MEME 1. Post with your character. 2. That character is compelled to follow the orders of anyone who replies. 3. Any orders. 4. Any orders. Meme Strategy: There's nothing in the rules about whether or not your character knows s/he must obey - as well, the other character might not know that s/he must be obeyed. Play it however you like. Don't like the orders you got? Not willing to have your character follow them, even if you've had a good time up to this point? Talk to the other player, use OOC notes or PMs, try and work it out. Got some stuff you'd never want to play out? Consider making a preferences post and linking to it when you reply here. Wanna give orders that people would love to follow? Give em context. Make it a story. Is this about revenge? Working out some personal issues? Too dumb to realize that the other guy has to do whatever your guy says?

meme from memebells@lj.

Comments

[ferrous]

[ Truly, the titles mean nothing to Sansa. But then, very little does these days. He had been the one who taught her, after all, how to live lean, how to hold on tightly to nothing. There was naught in this world that she should not be able to shed at a moment's notice and though she aspired to the picture her once-father had painted in her mind's eye, Sansa knew that she was still needlessly attached to some things.

(Not many. Truly, almost none at all. But still, some things.

One thing.

This thing.)

Her lashes flutter when he speaks the words. You know that, he says and she almost breathes back: do I? Instead, she stills the batterings of her heart, so much like a bird with clipped wings looking to beat down the bars of its own cage. ]

Convince me, Petyr, [ Sansa says quietly. ] Beguile me, even though you have nothing but truth to wield against me.

[usurp]

Let the scar I bear serve as proof, then.

[ Petyr's jaw sets itself as he continues to stare up at Sansa, something akin to defiance sparkling in his eyes.

The truth: he has too little truth upon which to build any argument, at least in this case. Robbed of the capability to lie, his silver tongue turns to lead. For once, it is to his disadvantage that he has no proof to be leveled against him. There is no one in the Seven Kingdoms, he thinks, who would could vouch for him in this matter — the only one who could have is dead, and he knows, he knows, that she had never quite understood the full extent of it all. ]

[ferrous]

[ She bristles at his defiance, bristles but also grows flush with wanting (perhaps jealousy, perhaps pride). Would she ever be so bold were it her on her knees and forced to submit to such a yoke? Sansa would like to think no, but even now Petyr Baelish slight form manages to cast a long, uninterrupted shadow across her. All that she has done has been done in the Stark name, but it was the mockingbird that gave her strength and showed her the true measure of her wolf's blood.

Sansa steps closer, her shirts whispering around Petyr's knees, her hand coming to grasp him by the chin as if she has intentions of chastising him openly. But no such thing falls from her lips, just an audible breath, inhaled as if under some great strain. ]

Show me your proof. [ He has never bore a scar for her, she thinks. Sansa doubts he ever will, now. The knowledge makes her voice grow stern and angry. ] And if it not move me, I will demand forfeit of your case.

[usurp]

As you wish.

[ There's something curious in Petyr's expression as he removes the mockingbird pin from his collar, as if he could not decide between continued defiance and concession to shame. He keeps her gaze, even as he shrugs off the heaviest of his robes and, bit by bit, the very top of that scar — the place where Brandon's blade left his flesh — becomes visible. Soon enough, the whole of it can be seen, an ugly thing running from navel to collarbone, the most obvious vestige of that little boy from the Fingers. ]

There, meager as it is, [ he says, in as measured a tone as he can. ]

[ferrous]

[ Sansa watches cooly, her expression unmoved and held at a distance though her cheeks continue to burn in defiance of her most basic commands. What power she holds over him would mean nothing were he to know how readily her heart quickens as he abandons the sigil of his name, her stomach churns with some secret seethe as the light catches that stretch of glossed skin.

Carefully, she extends a hand and with the very tips of her fingers, touches the open collar of his shirt, the bare expanse of his throat, the very tips of his collarbones. It's a fleeting sort of contact, as if these things were little more than petals strewn on the wind.

Evenly, Sansa tells him: ]

Rise.

[usurp]

[ She commands him to rise, and so he does, the folds of his clothing whispering quietly against each other as they shift. (He doesn't bother putting the pin back in its place; instead, his hands remain at his sides.) ]

Is my case forfeit, then? [ he asks her, his gaze more intent than ever. With each breath that he draws, that marred skin rises and falls, as if it were a seam keeping everything within that slim chest from coming bursting out. ]

[ferrous]

[ She does not answer, not with word or deed not flutter of lash. Her hand again reaches of that open collar, that flayed seam of fabric and the indelible mark that it makes no effort now to hide. From navel to collarbone and so Sansa sees it was no exaggeration. It makes her heart ache to see — again those twin suns of jealousy and pride heating her skin. Her fingertips follow it from one end to the other, her hand slipping down between them, brazen and unyielding. ]

And if it were? [ she asks, her voice betraying nothing in the suggestion. ] Would you struggle in the hopes of procuring some leniency, in an attempt to stay my hand? Or would you yield?

[usurp]

I would fight you until the end, [ Petyr sighs, hesitating only an instant in his answer.

He doesn't bother elaborating, but everything is writ clear upon his features: This is all that I have, he says. I earned this for love of another, and this is all that I have to show for how much I loved her. Do not doubt my ability to love. And for the longest time, it was by that scar that he had formed any definition of love at all. ]

[ferrous]

[ She wonders if he would struggle or if he would lay his head down upon the block if it were her mother instead that stood before him, whose fingers touched that fine dead skin and longed so very much for it to be hers. But no, Sansa thinks, her mother would never; she was incapable of it, consumed with love for her lord father, her real one, the lone wolf.

I will never be loved. The thought occurs to Sansa now and it is terrible in the finality of its pronouncement. Never as much as that. Never as much as Catelyn Stark loved Lord Eddard or as Petyr Littlefinger once loved a girl born of the Riverlands.

(There is part of her that knows this is a good thing, knows that Catelyn and Eddard are dead and, perhaps soon, Petyr will be too. But that does not make the taste of knowing any less bitter. Does not make her feel any less untouched by the things she wants most of all.)

Only now do her last flutter, if only to hide the wetness of her eyes. ]

I know it to be true, [ she says. ]

[usurp]

[ (Had he the same heart to give, part of him wonders if he would ever give it again. It's useless to wonder, of course; he has only ever had one heart and only ever will, and it had bled out and changed shape upon the banks of the Trident. What remains is a miserable thing, but a heart nonetheless, and one that has already been given whether he realizes it or not.)

His gaze tracks her for one last moment before he abruptly looks away, as if in apology for his insolence before, and as if he had been caught seeing something he ought not to have. He simply nods, then, in silent thanks or deference, one or the other. ]

[ferrous]

[ She looks at him, even as he looks away, even as her vision momentarily swims with sentiment Sansa knows she cannot have. With her eyes she touches the bridge of his nose, the curve of his brow, his pointed beard, that patch of silver; and whether she knows or is unaware, her gaze holds something more tender and wounded than anything ever wrung or wrought by Petyr Baelish's ever-clean hands. ]

Look at me, [ Sansa says, both miserable and proud, her chin lifting though in defiance of him or herself, it is unclear. ] And tell me whether you are proud or piteous of all that you have done here.

[ To me. The queen that you made. ]

[usurp]

[ When Petyr looks at Sansa once more, her fingers fluttering over his face, his mouth opens to speak, but for once, no sound comes out (met by that gaze, he is stricken down again). He swallows, then, lips pulling into a thin line as he surveys her, the look in his eyes akin to that of the swordsmith who knows he has made the weapon that will kill him (and akin to the look that a lowborn boy had once held only for a girl with that same red hair). ]

Proud, [ he says, at length.

Proud, my daughter, my queen, my love. Piteous creatures though we may be, you will outlast them all. Myself included. (It's telling, perhaps, that he thinks of things in these terms, but he knows no other way.) ]

[ferrous]

Proud, [ Sansa repeats, the word something of anathema on her lips. Still, despite the strange taste it gives, there is something else there as well in her gaze, a hungriness that is not sated but at least kept a while longer at bay. Neither of them hold on to illusion any longer, for the truth is plain; he keeps his head for as long as she wills it. Once her grace is gone it will be lopped from his head and her grace will remain so long as she loves him (and she does, gods above she does; there is no one left to love; all the others are dead).

Proud he had said and so Sansa flushes anew — feeling both humbled and preening, both victorious and shamed. Gathering now his hands into hers, her look softens, grows pleading and young. Slowly, carefully, she lowers herself now to kneel before him, her face turned upwards as if in search of absolution.

Her small hands squeeze hold of his tightly. How often does a queen kneel before her counsel? How often would Sansa yield to a man? (Never.) And yet, here she was, the Iron Queen herself. Daughter and sovereign, loved and unloved. ]

Allow me this one weakness, lord father. Forgive me if I am not iron, through and through.

[usurp]

[ For an instant, Petyr seems nothing short of stunned, but that expression makes a quick retreat, beaten back as his grip upon her hands tightens. ]

If you would forgive me for the same fault, [ he murmurs, as he urges her back to her feet with a gentle tug. ] For I have never been what I meant for you to be.

[ Once upon a time, he would have paid the world for this, and gloated, too, but as he stares at his once-daughter, now, he feels nothing but a deep sort of regret (and, tucked away, the pain that comes of love). Once upon a time, he would have protected her, protected her by giving her his armor, but in doing so, he sees what he has done — he has done her the same hurt that he intended to keep her from to begin with.

But there is no use in once upon a time, so he does what he can. ]

Forgive me, [ he says, and the waver in his voice tells her that he is apologizing not just for this flaw but for a myriad of other crimes. ] Please.

[ferrous]

[ She does not know the true extent of his crimes, though Sansa has grown familiar enough with Littlefinger's ways to hazard a guess. Even then, her least generous of suspicions would not so much as approach the farthest depths of his depravity; the one crime that can never be forgiven, irregardless of how much love and resentment and shed blood bind the two of them together. Before Petyr Baelish was her father, Sansa had another father a well; a father who sacrificed his life and his honor so that she may live.

From time to time Sansa wonders what Ned Stark would think of the Iron Queen, if perhaps he would rethink his decision had he known what treachery it would give birth to. No doubt, in the moments before his death, he had imagined a better life for her and her siblings, one lived in eventual honor and dignity. And instead, look what as become of them — scattered, dead and mad; the devil's dam and the assassin's knife and the forest's feral madness.

No longer kneeling, Sansa stares at her once-guardian, now-advisor and never-once lover. If he is proud of her, then she most certainly pities him, though he spares him that suffering by keeping the sentiment from her veiled eyes. ]

Sincerity does not suit you, Petyr Baelish, [ she says at length and then touches the side of his face one last time before drawing away, her skirts swishing past him. ] I relinquish you from your obedience now. Act once again in accordance to your own will, and not mine.