dear_mun | on being a new muse in an already crowded brain.

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on being a new muse in an already crowded brain.

What's all this, then? Grow tired of playing with princesses, did you? [ She seems to glean more than her fair share of satisfaction at the prospect, her tone both mocking and singsong, her mouth pursed in both amusement and fake obsequiousness. ] Not that I blame you.

All that worrying about keeping their skirts clean— [ She gives a short sigh, fingers toying with the end of her long braid. ] —it's enough to turn any lord off a fine a meal and go digging for scraps instead.

Not that I'm scraps, of course. [ With a touch of pride: ] This is no common bawdy house and Lord Baelish is no whoremonger; he has an eye for finer things, which means that I'm a busy woman. So whatever it is you're meaning to do — get on with it, will you? Unless you'd rather keep to the Stark girl instead. [ Ros smiles, not nearly kind but not wholly cruel. ] She won't do a very good job keeping your bed warm at night, but—

She is quite pretty, if you enjoy that sort of thing. [ Her shoulder lifts dismissively. ] A lid for every pot.

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A lid for every pot, indeed, [ Littlefinger repeats, half in agreement and half in mild reproach (there's no need to be dismissive; after all, they make their living serving every niche and need — not, of course, that the Stark girl puts any coin his pocket by so direct a route). ]

It seems you may have found another pot.

My lord. [ She smiles because his agreement has been half offered and because his reproach is mild. She smiles because he'd told her to be happy and that's what Ros will be — not a loss to be mitigated, but an asset, a jewel. ]

A girl needs to keep her prospects flush. These are trying times— [ Lucky for them, trying times are good for business. As are prosperous times. As are most times. ] —what, with the war and all.

May it never end, [ he says, and this declaration is much less clear. Whether he speaks in jest or in all seriousness, who can say? They thrive, rain or shine, and she knows better than most that there is nothing the Lord Baelish can say that can be taken at face value. ]

[ Who can say, indeed? She will never be high-born or learned or perhaps even free, but Ros' worth is measured in her ability to see a man and know what it is that he wants and then provide it (always with a smile and gusty sigh). Littlefinger, however, is not so easily read — or perhaps whatever passages she had one gleaned from him have done nothing but prove false or elusive. ]

They say there's a king in every corner, [ she hums. Once she would have added: I've always wanted a king. But through Lord Tyrion's good graces, she has had one and now— gods be good, never again. ]

A king in every corner, and behind every king, a queen.

[ He can't quite help a smile (or rather, he can, but there's no fun in that), shaking his head in feigned disbelief. That, at least, he lets her see. Her worth is measured in her ability to see a man and know what it is that he wants – and he has made sure that worth is great indeed — but he has yet to offer her any advice when it comes to taking his measure. ]

I suspect they will outlast their male counterparts.

Lord Baelish.

[ Her smile cloys, as heavy as the perfume daubed at her throat and wrists and breasts. ]

Yes, that's right Lord Baelish. There's a man who knows the worth of a thing when he sees it.

[ Theon's jaw shifts, eyes low and not on her, though he's watching her breasts in the corner of his eye, ever himself. ]

And I don't, is that the way of it?

[ Oh, Theon Greyjoy, don't you know? She much prefers that impish smile of yours to any dour-faced Iron Islands nonsense you claim to have coursing through your veins. ]

That depends, you serious boy. [ Her lips, now rouged with sweet and expensive tinctures, spread to reveal her teeth. She peels back the collar of her robe to reveal an inch or skin — then two, then three — before tucking it away again. ] Tell a girl what she's worth, won't you?

I could give you so much more than Little Prick.

[ He catches her under the chin, bowstring-calloused fingers rough on the delicate skin of her cheek. One thumb smears the paint at her lower lip, deliberately. He's not sure he likes her like this, all dolled up, looking like a whore. ]

Lady Stark doesn't wear much in the way of jewellery, but there're pretty things in Winterfell, and gold besides.

[ He's paid the iron price. They're his by rights. ]

[ She'd been had by more than a hoard of Northerners, and she'd tumbled and tussled her way down the length of the Kingsroad to pay for her passage to capitol. And now that she's in Littlefinger's employ, she has a new host of men to see to and ploy for gifts (lords and lordlings, rich men and merchants, a far cry from Winterfell's snow-chilled rabble).

And yet, despite all this, Ros still recalls the touch of Theon Greyjoy's greedy, bow-worked hands on her face and her ass and her tits. The sudden sentimentality of the thought surprises a throaty laugh out of her and she grins despite the mar of her make-up, goading him further with her smile. ]

Is that why you've come all this way, Theon Greyjoy? Have you come to make a lady out of me?

[ She's always so sassy, and it infuriates him even as it make him want her even worse. ]

I don't think there's a man alive who could manage that.

[ One day, he swears. One day he'll make those kohl-limned eyes open wide with surprise, the surprise that wasn't there when he stuck his cock in her, or the first time he kissed her on the mouth, or when he told her he'd miss her. She'd maybe gasp a little, like she does when he pleases her well, and it'd be him that managed to pull something sincere out of her, all for him. ]

But you could play at it, if it please you. Not all of Sansa Stark's wardrobe was taken South, and little and less of the Lady's. I could have every maid and manservant in the keep bowing and begging your pardon, if you wanted it.

[ She's always so sassy because the world gave her cause — gave her nothing save a mouth of straight teeth and a head of red hair and tits better than all of the other girls in the winter village. What else was she to make of herself? Born so low and yet with gifts so fine. When she laughs, she laughs as much at him and his cock — overeager as ever — as she does herself. In certain slants of light, Ros is prideful as a queen, but what did she have to be prideful about? She's a whore (but even whores have power, meager and momentary as it is). ]

I've seen Sansa Stark, the girl's barely a twig, [ Ros says, her voice sounding a note of displeasure, her mouth threatening to frown in his grasp even though her teeth remained bared. ] And it wouldn't please me to be poured into her dresses, no. The stays would scream, nevermind the seams.

[ Disinterested, she tries to turn her face away and when that doesn't work, Ros rolls her eyes instead, shifting her gaze elsewhere and from Theon. ] I thought you had an eye for women— [ She doesn't say 'ladies', not as she makes a crass grab for his cock and is given new reason to smile. ] —not little girls.

[ She's trying to look away from him — to dismiss him. Fuck that. He presses himself up against her lush body, letting her feel that he's hard, and that she's his, she is, if only for the time he has means to pay for. ]

I've an eye for you.

[ His grip on her jaw softens as he trails the tip of his nose lightly, so lightly, over her fine cheekbone, all done with rouge to emphasize it. ]

Whatever you're wearing. I'd just take it off you either way.

[ And it he sounds dark and hungry and manful, that ancient reaver blood quick in his veins, by his next words he's returned to petulant. ]

Come on, Ros. Don't you miss the North?

[ He had. Even with Robb, on the march, he'd missed it. In Pyke, listless with frustration in the rooms of his childhood, he'd made himself sick missing it. ]

I, of course, know very little of such things. [ Though, as always with Varys, there is a sense that the word "little" in his vocabulary does not mean quite the same thing as it does for others. ] But it seems difficult to picture a pot on which only a single lid could fit.

[ She's to be mindful of Varys, but being in Littlefinger's employ (more than a scullion, elevated above common whore) means that Ros is to be mindful of everyone. See to their needs, make sure their cups are filled only to be re-drained, and always always listen. ]

Familiar with pots, are you, my lord? Now there's a surprise.

Yes, isn't it? [ Varys says with a small smile that seems to say, And isn't strange the things people will find surprising? Why, sometimes, they aren't surprising at all. ] And yet, here we are. Of course, it can also be said that everyone, regardless of culinary inclination, needs to know their way around pots and pans should they find themselves required to spend time in the kitchens.

What do you mean, Stark girl?

[ Now here's a strong Northern boy whose wick never saw a proper dip. His constant companion, the boy Greyjoy, had partaken a share great enough for the both of them but Robb Stark— ]

My, my, [ she says, cheeky and breathless. ] How you've grown, milord.

[ grown from the heir of winterfell into the king of the north, the young wolf who rode south to war and watched his kingdom fall to ash and ruin. oh, it had been a very long time since the days when he trailed along behind theon greyjoy to places of ill repute but... ]

Aye, I've grown.

[ bitterness in his tone. ]

And I wish to know which of my sisters you speak of.

[ The young wolf has become king, the kraken has swum west and Ros has found herself knee-deep in lords, the likes of which she'd never known while still playing at being a two-bit tumble in Winterfell. Of the three of them, she is not sure which of them — if any — has turned the biggest profit. ]

A pretty thing — all silks and lace.

What was her name?

[ silks and lace. not sansa, no, not sansa, not my sisters... ]

Sansa, milord, [ Ros says after a long pause, her eyebrow perched with morbid curiosity. The girl that shares the writer's mind no longer calls herself that, no longer has the Stark red to her hair, but she keeps that in reserve. (Let it never be said that she is kind, but never let it be said she is cruel either.) ] She's grown as well.

[ she's watching, and so the mask can't slip. he is a king and he must remain so, cannot let the strings fall and be a wolf pup consumed with worry for the lost member of his pack. ]

My sister is not a lid.

No, of course not, [ she says lightly, her voice like the suggestion of spring (one of the few useful things all those long years in the winter village had taught her). ] She's a pot, milord.

[ Ros lifts a hand, trailing it through the air suggestively in his direction. ] Would it please my lord to be shown the difference?

[ and robb's gaze skitters away, something like embarassment lurking beneath the stone of his expression. ]

No, it would not.

[ for theon had ever been the one to disappear into backrooms, while robb stark remained at the table with his tankard and perhaps a girl in his lap, but no more was ever dared. ]

I know that difference well enough.

And piss in all of them, underneath the gold.

Whatever else be said of Littlefinger, let it be noted that he teaches his whores how to work their mouths well.

[ The corners of her lips tighten in an attempt to keep from grinning too broadly. She gleans a certain amount of satisfaction from cynicism, from seeing it in other people (the higher the lord, the better). She gleans even more satisfaction from praise — whether it be for her manners, her body, or its uses. ]

They say a whore without proper use of her tongue is a good as a bow without a string, milord.

And did that saying leave the tongues of singers before or after they unlaced their breeches?

[ She laughs, breathlessly. ]

The son of a merchant, Lord Hand. Reciting words his father taught him. He barely had a hair on his chin.

There are no more Starks.

[ Oh, look. A dour little boy. Ros doesn't bother to keep the exasperation from her face when she speaks, her singsong tinged with condescension. ]

Aren't there? I'd stopped paying attention.

You used to serve them. [A dour, bitter, revenge-obsessed little boy at that. Arya doesn't really know the details of how Ros served them, but she was in the winter village. That makes her a traitor.]

[ If Arya were to call Ros a traitor, she'd no doubt laugh. A traitor is guilty of a betrayal and there is no one that Ros has pledged fealty to. What worth did her faith have anyway? What lord would find a whore's loyalty valuable? Certainly not the Starks. They'd all been too honorable to bed her, anyway. ]

I don't recall the clink of their any coppers on my table. Perhaps you're thinking of another other whore. [ The cynicism in her voice grows deeper and darker but, in turns, more mirthful as well. ] I understand it can be quite confusing. After a while, we whores all start to look the same.

[She doesn't much like being laughed at; Ros'll never convince her that morality and honor isn't black and white (with maybe one shade of gray, and that belongs to the Hound).]

You have red hair. There was only one redheaded whore in the winter town.

[ Nobody much likes being laughed at, no. Except for that handful of men that do— but that's a different story for a different time, isn't it? Ros, in time, had learned how to deal with it. Maybe one day this little boy would, too. ]

I never served a Stark, [ she says with a saccharine loftiness. A Greyjoy, yes, more often than anyone else in the winter village — but Theon had been no Stark. (If only Theon had realized that.) ]

You lived on their land! You lived under their law! [Were she to sit and think about it, she'd know this doesn't make sense; living in Winterfell doesn't make anyone loyal (thanks for making that clear, Theon). But she's angry, and Ros is as good a target as any.]

( courtesy. it's an important thing, to act like a lady even under the greatest duress. yet these aren't things that ladies talk about - "bed warming" and "bawdy houses". no, these things are decidedly out of the realm of sansa's definition of a proper lady.

I am no princess, she thinks. if her mother's gods, if the Seven were good, sansa would never hold that title for her own. there is hope, at least. hope in the form of margaery tyrell. but she says none of that, decidedly wiping her face of any emotion other than a strict sense of disapproval. )

Excuse me. I am not a pot, or a lid.

An eye for the finer things. That's one way to put it.

[Bran stares at this woman, with much scrutiny at that.]

I've seen you before. Are you from Winterfell?

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on being a new muse in an already crowded brain.

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hello dearling

s-scream a wild amber appears

AMBER used FEELINGS

alksjdf CRIT FOR +5 DAMAGE

NO WAIT IT'S ONLY A CRITICAL THREAT LET ME ROLL AGAIN

GM OVERRULES NO REROLLS. COUNTERATTACK USING SENTIMENT.

world's latest tag :(

i want all your theon/ros feels THIS IS ACCEPTABLE aklsdf

i have so many tho. i cannot fit them all in convenient transportation.

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