The Spider's Arms

[Lilith Royce]

"Methinks that their taste in puppy dogs is lacking. I was sad to see Daena go off with the worm, she seemed so much more interesting a person when she wasn't in his orbit. She suddenly started giggling when around him. I wonder whether she is taking marigold potion to numb the pain. It is known to give a case of the giggles when over used."

She yawned and then gave a big evil grin. "I am infinitely curious as to why you have spent so long avoiding marriage since you have the basic requirements down pat, but it is also late."

She dropped a handkerchief on the table, in the corner were embroidered three beetles in front of the towers of lannisport.

[Bunny-Rabbit]

Picking up the handkerchief from the table, he smiles, "The Worm has that affect on people, when you are in his presence you just feel the need to laugh at him." Piers shrugs.

Standing he offers his hand to Lilith, "The One requirement of marriage I never excelled at was the One requirement."

[Lilith Royce]

"Aaaah," she said as she took his hand.

[Lilith Royce]

Lilith was at the Spider's Arms a few nights later. This time she was not just drinking to relax after a long day's work. She was drinking to get drunk, very drunk. She would have liked to achieve a good "giddy like a bridesmaid with too much champagne" drunk or a cheerful "I'm drinking with my mates after a hard day's labor" buzz but she knew these were beyond her. She would settle for stone blind plastered.

But it wasn't coming.

But after two bottles of Arbor's finest she was beginning to develop a bad-tempered, bleary-eyed clarity. That was something.

[Bunny-Rabbit]

A little late lord Piers enters the inn, with s skip in his step. He spots Lilith immediately and walks over. Taking a long sniff as he nears her, he sits down asking, "Anything wrong?"

[Lilith Royce]

"Hullo, my love," those words hung there in the air, not something that had been said before. But tonight was a night for plain speaking and she felt remarkably lucid for some one surrounded by empty alcohol bottles.

He looked like life itself, almost throbbing with warmth. He was the one thing that made life worth living and yet what she had to walk away from. "I am living with 50,000 souls clawing at me. I walk through life like a zombie, nothing seems alive except you and yet I cannot doom you to these souls as well."

[Bunny-Rabbit]

For a moment Piers looked at the door, and started to rise, but instead he removed his cloak, and settled down. Reaching out he grabbed her hands in his, "I have been concerned for weeks about this. Why do you blame yourself? What act by you caused their deaths? I do not understand."

Moving closer to her, he licked his lips nervously, "My dear there is a boy named Floren who is eight years old. He is happy today, because his father Yorrel is still alive, because of you. You saved countless lives. How can I make you understand?"

Piers focused only on her eyes.

[Lilith Royce]

She pulled one hand free and gently stroked his cheek. "You have a knack for saying what I cannot," she said softly, "thank you."

She paused. "I am proud of my work at the Rock, prouder of it than anything else I've ever done in my rather shallow and frivolous life. I grew up with some of the men I saved, known them as a young boys, flirtateous young men, proud fathers. I know that I did what I had to do. What is tearing me apart is talking to Maerys in a ballroom, is kneeling passively by Aegon as I repeat his words. My accomplishment was stealing lives away from their reign of death. I need to steal some more away from their maws. I need to succor the 50,000 relics of those who were lying there on the battle field, to comfort the wives, feed the children and provide solace for grieving mothers and fathers."

His eyes were deep clear pools of blue, she just longed to swim in them. "I feel like I am living in a state where I feel everything, every vibration, every breath. I have lived so long on the surface of life, never expecting to feel..." A tear trickled down her cheek. "For the first time in my life I am alive, I am in love, and I am in mortal fear for my soul and my sanity. The world is perfect when I in your arms, when I feel you hard between my thighs, yet you are mortal, we cannot capture ourselves in stone, entwined forever. You need to love, to breed, to serve others besides me. And outside your arms, the demons scream and I need to acknowledge them."

[Bunny-Rabbit]

For several minutes Piers stares into her eyes, his mouthing chewing slowly at nothing. "You need to do something. And I will not go with you. I want to scream at you to stay, that you are wrong and foolish and over-proud. Yet I will not sacrifice my life for yours, so I how can I ask the same." His eyes crinkled in irony.

Piers smiles, "What am I to do. My life has been a feast of sweet little ducklings, succulent ham, and juicy plums. Now that I have found a dish, that I crave a little more each day. A fare so sweet, and tart at the same time, that I want to gorge on that delicacy at every meal. So satisfying that it has turned the memory of all the others into a foul ash. Now that, is to be taken away."

"When do you leave?" Piers smile softens, and he cups a cheek with his right hand.

[Lilith Royce]

"Not tonight, not tonight, my love," she whispered, "But soon."

She took a breath, "I will resign tomorrow, and start my preparations for leaving."

And then she added in the softest of whispers, "In the meantime, my beloved, let us feast upon each other's warmth and wetness, lock our limbs as if they were stone and pretend that there is no dawn."

[Bunny-Rabbit]

Rising Piers did not release Lilith's hand, he makes for the stairs. "My dear it is not my limbs that feel made of stone. But I am hungry, very, very hungry."