Chapter Text
you the garden and the grave
Ada Limón
Littlefinger sat across from Sansa. He breathed slow and thorough, shoulders dropping as he sighed and leaned his forearms onto the booth table. Sansa leaned backwards in tandem, letting herself sink into the newly upholstered cushions. A lazy lantern swung betwixt and above the two of them, breathing life into the lazy diner, especially at such an hour as the owl’s.
“Lady Stark,” Baelish whispered.
“I’m no nobility, Baelish,” Sansa stubbornly said, “do not address me as such.”
Baelish did not move. His eyes sparkled when he looked upon Sansa, and it unsettled her every time. “Aren’t you, though? Rings across from Sea Dragon Point to Karhold to Widow’s Watch call you that.”
Sansa acted as if she did not know that and nodded. “Then do as you please.” She shrugged. Baelish raised an eyebrow.
A few moments of silence passed in which Petyr Baelish gazed over Sansa’s visible figure, and Sansa did not look away from his eyes. At long last, Sansa prodded, “Are you intending to tell me why you called to meet past the hour of the eel? I like to keep a schedule, even with no regular day job.”
Baelish licked his lips, eyes dancing down to the ashen table that separated them. He drummed his fingers over the wood, until he seemed to relent, groan, and rub over the stubble sprouting from his chin. Sansa hadn’t seen Baelish this way in a long while.
“Yes, well, I believe you will have one soon,” Baelish attempted to slight, though Sansa was smarter. “If you take this job.”
“What job?” Sansa found herself asking rather carefully.
“The job that I have asked to meet to discuss with you.” Baelish laid out flat, as if it was obvious, “The lord Baratheon has asked something of specifically our best member, Dove.” He squinted as he prepared his words.
Sansa found herself nearly speechless. The Lord Baratheon? It had not been said “your grace” nor “his grace,” so she had reason to believe it was not the king Robert. “Lord Baratheon?” She pried, “In Storm’s End or Dragonstone?”
Baelish grinned, “Dragonstone.” He kept his voice low, as to not alert unknowing citizens. “He means for you to take a hit—something you have not done in a long while. Will you be alright?”
Sansa rolled her eyes. “You do not have to baby me, Baelish. I am nearly four and twenty, and this will be far from my first.” She explained matter-of-factly. Baelish had always been a strange man; since Sansa’s mother Catelyn Stark and her aunt Lysa had passed, he had taken more of a liking to her, even bringing her into the dark market when he believed she was of age. This had exponentially increased her already abundant wealth, and she even found herself donating to charity, as if it wasn’t blood money which she was giving back.
Baelish looked back to her and took in her words. “So you will take it? Without knowing your target?” He asked incredulously.
“Well you do not usually give me that sort of information off the bat,” Sansa retorted, “though I suppose whoever is bad enough that begs Stannis Baratheon’s attention deserves mine time as well.” She found herself speaking without thinking much. Sansa always thought cautiously about the consequences of any case that she took beforehand, though she did not hesitate to accept this one.
A moment of silence passed between them, as Baelish smiled a cunning sort of smile and told Sansa that he would have the file on her coffee table before she returned to her flat in Runestone.
“And so it begins,” Petyr Baelish looked deeply into Sansa’s hard blue eyes.
Sansa left cash on the table for Gilly, the serving girl that was usually paid off by the Grand Northern Conspiracy’s meeting members. Baelish held power over her personally, Sansa was sure.
⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙ ‧͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ˚₊⋆. ᨒ↟ 𖠰𖥧˚
She was not necessarily surprised upon reading the extent of the job, flipping through papers with printed maps and landing on a laminated faux ID card. Rather, Sansa was stressed out. She squinted.
Elayne Stone, the card read, Two and twenty. The picture shown beside the various legal scrawlings was an old headshot that a family friend had done for her when she begged to try going to a bar with him before she was of age. At six and ten, Sansa had looked the same as she had at three and twenty, save for small differences, like the way she did her makeup and how long her hair was. When Littlefinger had first brought up the issue of a fake ID, the old driver’s license flashed through her mind, alongside who had taken it. Remembering now, Sansa did not yet let go of her resentment. Her home had been stolen from her, and now…
Nevermind that, she scolded herself. Sansa flipped back to the second page, which detailed that the Lord of Dragonstone wished for the Lord of Storm’s End gone, and he wished it to be done discreetly.
Sansa fell back onto her couch as her stomach sank slowly to her pelvis. Her gaze drifted to a hanging picture on her wall. All around it were family photographs from years before, where Sansa was eleven, and her parents were still alive.
The picture in question was from Sansa’s high school years, where she strung her arm around a tall boy with golden curls and a shining smile, and a shorter girl with long brunette tresses and emerald eyes; the Tyrell siblings. She hadn’t spoken to either of them since Winterfell was ripped out from beneath her in a traitorous act of desperate defiance.
Sansa sighed deeply. Of all people, Renly Baratheon? The lord Stannis was too sheepish to outright kinslay it seemed, so he delved into the dirty underground scene and, by pure coincidence, found Littlefinger.
Sansa only wished that Renly Baratheon had not gone through with his betrothal. That would complicate a lot of things for Sansa’s first job in so long.