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The laughter and raucous shrieks could be heard from behind the closed doors of Lady Myranda’s chambers. Petyr Baelish stood idly by the door, having paused to listen, and he shared a glance with the guard posted down by the end of the hall. Shrieks and giggles and cries for mercy could be heard through the bolted wood. The sounds of delighted young girls, how many of them you couldn’t tell, but it sounded quite the lively affair.
The guard just mentioned had been the one to come to the Lord Protectors chambers at this late time of night to dutifully report that his daughter had been seen sneaking out of her bed, whisked away by several mysteriously cloaked figures, who probably thought themselves a great deal more sly than they really were. They were also spied visiting the kitchens, pinching a pitcher of wine, and a plate of honeycomb and biscuits. Laughing and whispering the entire time in soft girlish voices.
Needless to say, he was in no great state of fear over these supposed kidnappers.
He did not knock, but rather invited himself in, pushing open the door to find the room in disarray. Soft goose feathers littered the floor, the beds, the chairs. A blanket of them beneath his feet, as well as the ones currently flying through the air. Two girls rushed past him in chase, each brandishing their own wilted looking pillows, making mad swipes at each other. A Longthorpe girl, and the other, he recognised as a Lynderly. Another four girls were engaged in an interesting kind of joust. Mya Stone’s face was flushed as she piggybacked a blonde girl he did not recognise, brandishing a pillow in her hands as she faced off two Royce’s, Myranda’s cousins, as they circled around each other laughing madly as they did battle against the other, decidedly trying to knock one another off.
The girls were Myranda's little gaggle, flocked together here at the gates of the moon, bonded by the fact that they were all highborn, all pretty, and all as enabling as each other when it came to mischief. His sweet daughter Alayne naturally found herself invited into the fold.
Lastly, his eyes settled towards the two figures jumping up and down on the four poster bed, the Lady Myranda herself and Alayne. Sansa. clad only in their night dresses as they too thrashed at each other, sending more feathers flying into the air with every blow.
Her hair had come haphazardly out of the plait she usually wore to bed, and her night dress had slipped down over one bare shoulder, the hem of which had been tied in a knot around her knees. He stared at the white of her bare legs and could only guess this was so she would not trip as she bounced herself up and down, looking enchantingly disheveled.
He could see there was an empty wine pitcher on the side table, and empty goblets too.
He would have watched longer, but even without making a sound, he was quickly noticed. Eleyna Longthorpe paused mid run to let her friend bump embarrassingly into her from behind. Mya Stone saw him properly and dropped her friend to the floor with a cry of indignation, before she too noticed him. The pause in laughter was like a ripple effect, and it not take a moment for the shrieks and laughter to softly die entirely before him.
As Sansa spun obliviously around to finally face his direction, the shock of him saw her drop her pillow, eyes wide and her smile paused.
“Father…” she said, face blushing red. Caught.
“Oh no, look who’s here to spoil our fun.” Myranda spoke over her, with not a trace of guilt or shame on her features.
“Fun? It looked like a scene of war,” Petyr dramatised, gesturing to the feathers “With a high rate of pillow casualties, it appears…”
Sansa was still silent, and the girls who knew him less so laughed in a more nervous manner, as they sensed he was not truly mad, while Myranda held her hands on her hips.
“Yes, and a great war it was. A war a bard could write songs about!”
“The war of the Ninepillow queens, shall we say?” Petyr jested, addressing Myranda, while only having eyes for Sansa, who was entirely avoiding his gaze as she tugged her askew night gown back into as respectable a state as she could manage. Not that he hadn't seen a tantalising amount of bare skin already.
“Yes, exactly!” Myranda laughed “Come, you pick a side Lord Baelish, join us in our war! You can be my ally.”
He raised his eyebrows at her, and had he not been a lone man in a private chamber of half dressed young ladies, he would have enjoyed flirting back as he usually did. Hell, if he was not trying to get into her father and the Vales good graces, he would have gladly joined in the fray amongst them. A pity he was smart enough to know better.
There was one half dressed lady he could still steal away though.
“I’m afraid I am not a man suited for battle, especially for one as fierce as this. Why, against you girls, I am sure I would be vanquished in an instant.”
Myranda looked quite fond of the idea still, with that look in her eye, so he stepped to Sansa’s side and offered his hand.
“Come, Alayne. It is late, and I’m sure you’ve had enough fun for one night.”
“Yes, father.” She said, dutifully taking his hand and stepping off the bed with his guidance. Quite a lot of his guidance actually, as she stumbled slightly and leant on his arm.
He escorted her from the room amid pleas and whines from the other girls, which were silenced by his offers to alert their own fathers to their doings. They graciously let him leave with her after that.
As he led Sansa down the hall, back to their own chambers, she mumbled quietly.
“Are you cross with me, father?”
He breathed in and paused as if to think “I shouldn’t think I am….why, do I have a reason to be? How much wine did those wicked girls ply you with? Where you the one with the idea to steal it?”
“No! …well, I was with them, but I only stood watch in the hall. Mya was the one to take it! And I only had….maybe….two of three cups I should think? Only half full.”
“But what of the state of that room? All those ruined pillows. How much of that was your doing?”
“That was all Myranda’s idea! And they are her pillows, and she said nothing when they were being ruined, so it is only her fault.”
They reached the private apartments the Royce’s had bestowed upon them, as they were not so far away, making sure to still be quiet in the receiving chamber, as little lord Robin slept soundly behind closed doors.
As soon as he allowed her to head to her own room, he heard her trip in the dark, a muffled sound of her bumping into something.
“I would say two or three cups is enough to be your undoing, sweetling,” he said, not unkindly, as he again took her arm and helped her to her bed.
“I am not undone…” she mumbled, as he dropped her unceremoniously onto the mattress where she let out a little noise, but rolled herself into it, appreciating enough.
“To think if you were a girl I had actually raised,” Petyr wondered out loud, drawing around the curtains on the four poster “Would you misbehave in such a way? Running around the castle with your girls past midnight, getting drunk and beating each other with pillows as you jump on the furniture…..or would you perhaps be worse?”
It was then, mid muttering, Petyr Baelish felt a pillow hit the back of his head.
He spun around in bemusement to see Sansa stifle a laugh as she ducked down into the crumpled sheets, her blue eyes shining with un-hidden amusement, and just a bit of daring.
She was staring, waiting for his response, and he was not quite sure what one to give her.
“Oh…so that’s how you wish to play this?” he said, skimming his hand around the edge of the bed, as she watched him like a hawk, looking much more like prey.
In one swift moment he lunged towards the pillows underneath her, where she shrieked and made a dive to stay on top of them, pinning them down with her body even as he had a grip on one. He darted his other hand out, tickling at her ribs, all along her sides, making her shriek and writhe beneath him as he tried to free it from her.
When he had yanked one away in time to claim it for himself, he stepped away from the bed, brandishing it like a weapon, whereas Sansa rolled herself up onto her knees, scrambling to sit up as she was breathless and giggling. Her hair was even more tousled now, and from the way she leant forward the front of her nightgown hung low enough for him to look down and glance-
In that moment of distraction, he was belted with another pillow.
“Where did you learn to aim, girl.” He said as he swung out and hit her side on with a soft thwap, which she tried to hold her hands up to.
“Three brothers and an Arya,” she laughed, grabbing the last of the pillows not strewn on the floor to defend herself with as Petyr continued to belt her with soft blows. She got a few hits of her own in too, though her fits of laughter and drunken state left her at a disadvantage.
As the game went on, at the point that Petyr found himself breathless and smiling so stupidly, feeling half a boy again as play-fought with this beautifully tousled girl, in her room… her bed….
He breathed hard and settled down, his own blows ceasing until Sansa sensed he was not playing so much anymore, where eventually her giggles quietened too.
“You win,” he submitted to her with a smile, drawing back from the bed.
Sansa beamed, looking triumphant, as if it really were just an innocent game. That she hadn’t just been on the brink of being pushed down onto the bed and ravished by a man who had only just managed to compose himself.