Disclaimer: I don't own ASoIaF/GoT.

Omg, I'm alive! Shocker, I know. I was really busy studying for my college entrance exams but they very helpfully decided to cancel them last week (that's half sarcastic, half not. On one hand, who enjoys exams? On the other, I'm home schooled and the department WILL NOT explain what'll happen with the grades for home schoolers with is seriously annoying and freaking me out.) At any rate, back now.

But I kinda lost my inspiration for my ASoIaF/GoT stories, and I've gotten into this show, Arrow. However, I'm determined to continue them, so hopefully it won't be disappointing. This update might be a bit ugh, but I hope it's okay and once I've gotten back into writing this fandom the updates will smooth out.

Read, enjoy and review, and above all, everyone stay safe and sane during this disaster!

(Oh, and a note about this verse. It was the Lannisters who killed Jon Arryn, while Baelish and Lysa killed Elbert.)

Chapter Twenty-Six

Alanna I

Alanna scurried through the halls, her skirts swishing around her ankles. She held a pile of freshly cleaned sheets in her arms, providing a convenient (and only-partially false) excuse for why she was lurking about.

"Oh, Petyr," she heard Lady Lysa giggling. "Oh, I love you so."

Quickly, Alanna looked around. Once she was certain that the hall was empty save for herself, she ducked behind a tapestry, slipping into a hidden compartment. Once inside, the Northron spy put down the sheets and opened the spyhole to peer in at the room in which Lady Arryn and Lord Baelish were taking tea. At least, Alanna hoped that was what they were doing. The mad Lady Regent of the Vale had no sense of propriety or privacy. Alanna had seen far more than she had ever wished to see of both halves of the couple. But Lady Lysa was especially talkative when lying with her lover, so Alanna put up with it for the sake of the valuable information she was able to learn.

Anything for the Winterlands, and to gain justice for Magnara Lyanna and her sweet babes, not to mention everybody else mercilessly slaughtered in the Sack.

"Do you love me too?" Lady Lysa pouted like a child at Baelish. He put on a smile, one that sent shivers of disgust down Alanna's spine but that made Lady Arryn beam wider.

"You know I do, my sweet," he replied in a coo.

Alanna resisted the urge to gag in disgust, watching as Lady Arryn's expression suddenly darkened.

"No, I want to hear you say it!" she exclaimed, sounding like a spoilt child denied a favoured toy.

"I love you, Lysa," Littlefinger lied. It was obviously a lie, but a well-spoken one. Had it not been for the fact that Alanna was trained to pick up on such things, and that everybody in the Eyrie knew that Baelish was just using the mad Lady Arryn for power over little Lord Robar, she might've been fooled as well.

"I don't believe you," Lady Lysa sniffed angrily, her emotions having changed like the swing of a pendulum. "If you love me, then why have you not wed me yet?"

"I simply wish to secure your position first," Littlefinger insisted. "I do not want these Lords Declarant to succeed in stealing your son's position because they falsely claim that I am manipulating you to control him."

"Oh, you are so good and kind, Petyr!" the madwoman's feelings changed yet again, and she began to weep loudly, leaning in so as to bury her face in his shoulder and cry into the crook of his neck. It allowed Alanna a direct line of sight to the image of the Mockingbird rolling his eyes and sneering briefly as he wrapped her in an embrace and cooed sweet nothings in her ear.

Eventually, they separated, and Baelish cupped her face.

"Lysa, my love," he began. Alanna straightened. That was how he usually addressed her right before getting her to do something for him. Despite her insanity, Alanna did pity the woman. She had suffered a dozen losses in childbed, and her husband had always been more interested in his mistress and bastards than Lysa and her sick young son (whose paternity many questioned, especially after Lord Elbert's sudden death, followed by the revelation that, as many had suspected, Lady Arryn was involved with Lord Baelish. For all they claimed it had only begun after Lord Elbert's death, not a person in the Eyrie genuinely believed that.) "There is something that you must do for me. It will let us secure Sweetrobin's place as Lord Paramount of the Vale."

"What, Petyr?" the woman asked him, expression and face adoring. "What must I do? I trust you, I know that you will never lead me wrong. You will protect my son's inheritance from those nasty thieves, will you not?"

"I will, my love," he assured her. "Did I not ensure that he would be ruler, that your horrible husband would be removed from his place at your side?"

Alanna felt her eyes widen in amazement. She had suspected, of course. Most had. It was so unlikely, Lord Elbert's death. He had never been a heavy drinker, and he had grown up in the Eyrie. Even the toddlers who grew up in the fortress knew to be careful around the Moon Door. That the Lord of the Vale had gotten so drunk in the hour between him leaving the feast and being seen falling to his death to forget the caution ingrained in him from childhood was suspect, to say the least. More people had wondered if it was his wife and her lover or his cousin who had done the deed than whether or not it was a genuine accident.

"You did," Lysa giggled, as if the memory of killing her husband was a fond one. "You gave me that special powder to weaken him, and then I pushed him out the Moon Door." She fell into a fit of giggles, her insanity so obvious even a blind man would be able to detect it.

"Very true, my darling," Petyr confirmed with a tone full of fake fondness. He reached out and tucked some hair behind her ear. "Now, we must eliminate Artys Arryn. Only then will Robar's position be safe."

"How?" Lysa asked, eyes wide and oddly childlike.

"I will frame him for an attempted coup," Petyr explained. "Then, we will have him put on trial, during which 'evidence' will be discovered that will show he is responsible for hiring a Faceless Man to murder Lord Elbert. He will be executed, and then we can at last wed, my dearest."

Alanna clenched her fists, lip curling in disgust. These southrons had no honour. She would have to send a message warning Sir Artys, as well as alerting the Magnar to what the Lady of the Vale and her despicable lover were plotting. While chaos in the Vale was of help to her Magnar's plans to gain justice for those murdered in the Sack (among which were Alanna's brother and pregnant goodsister. Her elder brother, Cregard, had been a guard who had gone south with the two young Magnars, where he had met a baker's daughter who worshipped the Old Gods of the Forest. Alanna had already been recruited into the Ice Eyes by then, having shown an aptitude for certain skills, such as puzzles, in the discreet tests performed by the schools, but she had still been close to her only living family. Cregard had been ten years her elder, and had raised her after their parents' death in an illness epidemic when she was a mere four namedays.), longterm instability, as would no doubt be caused by Lady Lysa ruling too much longer (or worse, Lord Baelish gaining outright and full control of the eastern kingdom) was undesirable.

She waited a few moments more, but it was soon clear enough that nothing more important would be discussed when the door was flung open and Little Lord Sweetrobin came running in. Not even for Lord Baelish would Lady Arryn risk her precious boy being distressed by 'adult' discussions. Even if she nurtured a disturbing fondness for tossing men out of the Moon Door in the child. The sooner the boy was removed from his mad mother, the better.

Alanna grimaced slightly at the child as she slipped away. She pitied the poor boy, in all honesty. Lord Elbert had been relieved to have a living male heir on the lad's birth, but he was too busy running the Vale on his uncle's behalf to pay much attention to the child when he was too young to be taught to rule or fight (which his health had always been too weak for, anyway.). Mad Lady Lysa had (foolishly) been given sole control over the initial years and 'education' of the boy, like most mothers were, and she had coddled him something fierce.

As a Winterlander, who had grown up in a culture where everyone, male or female, was raised to be either a physical or mental fighter (or, ideally, both), the way the Lady of the Eyrie spoilt and shielded her son disgusted Alanna. The lad was not in the best of health, true, but that was no excuse for anything. What he needed was a good paddling, and to be taught to actually care for himself.

Starting with being weaned from his mad mother.

ASoVASoVASoV

She met her counterpart in Ser Artys' retinue (at least, the one she knew of. There could be others. Part of the reason the Ice Eyes were never found was because even they only knew at most two or maybe three others' identities, and usually those 'identities' were in fact aliases, just to be safe) in the usual spot, having sent a message via her bonded warg companion, a small field mouse Alanna had named Gale.

Her counterpart was one of Ser Artys' guardsmen, a trusted one at that. The next-in-line to the Eyrie was oblivious to the fact that the man he called a dear friend was in fact a spy for the Lord of Winterfell, and that was the way it would remain. Like Alanna, Artos Woolfield was devoted to their lieges, and would die before betraying them.

"Alanna, you are as beautiful as ever," Artos smirked, dragging his gaze over her. Of course, he truly had no true interest in her. His tastes laid more towards his manservant, Jonos Borrell from the Sisters. This was merely their excuse to meet and exchange information with one another.

Artos himself claimed to be a distant Royce cousin (which was not untrue, but he had no right to the name, especially as he was related through a female cousin of the family's head back during the First Blackfyre Rebellion), to disguise his Winterlander heritage, just as Alanna went by Stone.

She giggled coquettishly, batting her long eyelashes and leaning forward to show off the tips of her breasts, upon which his gaze (and many others, Alanna had excellent breasts and she'd been trained in how to make them useful) lingered. "'ello, Artos," she greeted him breathily, putting on the fake low-class Vale accent without even thinking about it anymore. "I wonder if you'd join me upstairs? I 'aven't much time 'fore I must be 'eadin' back. The Lady's in a right state nowadays, e'er since 'er 'usband's death."

"Well then," he replied, downing the remainder of his ale and rising, extending a hand to her. "Best take advantage of the time we have, while we have it, shan't we?"

She giggled again, clutching his arm and letting him guide her up to the room. The minute the door closed, they separated and dropped their masks, serious airs replacing their light-hearted flirtations.

"Well?" Artos demanded. "What is so urgent? We spoke only a few days past."

"I have confirmation," Alanna began. "As we suspected, Lady Lysa is the one who murdered her husband, on Baelish's order. And now they plot to frame Ser Artys for it, and have him executed."

"Thus leaving them free to seize full control of the Vale," Artos completed, grimacing. "The Lords will have no other option but to pledge their full support to Lord Robar and his mother if Artys is dead. Lady Ysilla has shown no sign of pregnancy yet. It has been a mere moon's turn, but all the same. The quicker she is with the child, the better."

"Aye, I have something to help with that, at least," Alanna informed him, reaching into her satchel and pulling out a small vial, filled with green powder, passing it to her friend. "Ensure that this is put into Lady Ysilla's dinner wine for a week straight, preferably the week of the full moon. I spoke with Greenseer Roland, and he assures me that that will be the best time for it. So long as she lays with her husband that week, she is nigh-on guaranteed to get with child, so long as she is not barren, and that he has no difficulties conceiving a child either."

"Well, there is no concerns about them laying with one another, at least," Artos snorted, accepting the vial and stowing it in his cloak pocket. "I'll see she gets it. You're certain it shall work?"

"Yes, yes, I'm certain," Alanna nodded. "'Tis what any Winterlander midwife assigns to couples struggling to conceive. But what shall we do regarding Littlefinger's plans?"

Artos rubbed at his beard, frowning in thought. "I am unsure," he admitted. "But the Magnar has made it clear that Ser Artys is to be the next Lord of the Vale, so obviously we cannot allow him to die."

"Well," Alanna said thoughtfully. "I cannot say that I can think of anybody who would mourn for the deaths of Lady Arryn and Lord Baelish, can you? And if, afterwards while their rooms are being cleared out, letters are found. Ones that prove that they have been lovers since before her marriage to Lord Elbert, their plans to kill him, and that cast doubt on Sweetrobin's paternity..."

She trailed off. They could not kill a child, of course. But he was young enough that, if he were removed from his mother's poisonous influence and given as a ward to somebody who would be able to raise him properly, things would improve for the child. He could eventually become a septon or a maester, mayhaps.

"A good plan," Artos acknowledged, scratching his chin in thought. "She is mad enough that nobody would think they might have been planted, and 'tis not as though any of it is a lie. We know for sure that she had a babe off of Baelish before Lord Tully shoved moontea down her throat, and 'twould be easy to picture her keeping those letters out of arrogance or stupidity. The deaths and revelation would keep the Vale in chaos a bit longer, and Ser Artys would be too busy stabilizing the kingdom to risk going to war on the Usurper's behalf. You can do it without raising any suspicions?"

"Of course," Alanna sniffed. "I'll slip some poison into the dinner. Enough people will be ill to avoid anyone believing it to be more than some bad food, and I can take a few other problems, such as Ser Ben Coldwater out as well."

Ser Ben had a despicable fondness for young maidens, the younger the better, but was well admired due to his handsome demeanour and skill at hiding said fondness. She would happily eliminate him. Best of all, he and his family were all supporters of Artys, not Lysa, so nobody would suspect a plot.

"Then the plan is set," Artos nodded. "When will you do it?"

"Next week," Alanna replied. "I need a few days to gather the ingredients I need, and prepare enough poison. But there is to be a small feast next week due to Lady Lysa's desire to brighten the mood. Apparently we are all distressing her son with our gloomy moods. I shall do it then."

"Well, I am certain that the death of his mother shall cheer the lad's mood considerably," Artos replied with dry sarcasm as he rose and they began adjusting their clothes and hair to make it appear as though they had been together. "I know it would for me, were that mad hag my mother."

"Mine also," Alanna agreed with a grimace.

A part of her pitied the woman. The trauma of her father forcing her to abort her unborn babe far too late in the pregnancy, thus damaging the woman's womb and leading to a succession of miscarriages that destroyed her mind, was a pain that Alanna would wish on no one. (Well, maybe on Cersei Lannister. There was little grief that the Winterlanders didn't wish Cersei would suffer through.)

But she was a Tully, one of those who had betrayed the Targaryens for no reason other than their own selfishness, and cruel beyond belief. She had broken her wedding vows. Made to the Seven or the True Gods, it made no difference. Breaking a vow made before the gods warranted punishment, and so it would be.

More importantly than anything else, it would strengthen the North's cause, and that was what Alanna lived for.

The good of the North, and all within it.