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]

[ 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.