⠀
most people don't know how to starve.
𝒐𝒓... in which, in the genesis of ash
and dust, six contenders play the game
of thrones, && realise that everything's
at stake.
[ female!oc 𝒙 tyrion lannister ]
[ female!oc 𝒙 daario naharis...
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LETO . . .
The King's council chambers held more secrets than any place in the Seven Kingdoms, and still it was modest compared to what was held in the name of Baelish. They were of the smallest of houses: their land no more than a few acres, only a dozen families under their hold, but their trade lay not with fields, crops or gold. Theirs was a different talent, and they would not find their glory by playing according to the rules.
Leto's father was a quiet man. Cunning and determined, his steps shadowed and light as the feathers of his mockingbirds. Another man might not have heard him come in at all, but there was a tell in his presence: something that could not be explained any further than a feeling of being watched. "Lovely at this hour, isn't it?" asked Petyr Baelish, drinking in the first rays of sun through the arched windows. "When half the castle still sleeps."
Littlefinger, they'd named him. They had always underestimated his influence.
"Will I need witnesses?" asked Leto, halfheartedly. His tone was light, his back was to his father, his fingers toying with the edges of the wooden council table. He could feel Petyr's gaze at the base of his neck, like the stalking eyes of a hawk.
Littlefinger laughed. "I always love our little chats."
"They do seem to be for a reason."
Careful, calculated steps, but bold and self-assured. It was telling of his father's character. "Funny," said Petyr, in that way of his that suggested Leto was right. Carvings of Valyrian sphinxes echoed his father's voice, and his steps resounded off the high, stone walls. He said everything and nothing at all in a single sentence: "I saw you with the eunuch the other day."
Leto went still, recounted his steps, found his mistake in the form of a servant girl he'd passed. Then he turned to face his father, and smiled, the way cats did. "How strange. I strictly recall your trip to the Vale. Business, was it? Or pleasure?" His father's expression soured. Leto continued on: "Lord Varys wished to see you," he shrugged simply. "I was the closest he got."
"How very fortunate," noted Littlefinger.
Leto weighed his head to the side. "For whom?"
"You tell me," came his father's response. "You chatted for quite a while."
The chamber was richly furnished: Myrish carpets, silvered torches... Leto was dressed in navy and silver, with no crest or any sign of his father's famed bird, his hair ensnared with coal. Petyr was in a black velvet doublet with grey sleeves. On mornings like these, with the sun still below the tree-tops and the winds low, it was easy to forget there was anyone more important than them in the whole Seven Kingdoms. "He's an interesting man," Leto proposed politely, though not without a sharpness to his tone, laced with poison charm.
