The Wolf and the Tiger. (Cantarella and Sylvan Varain): ASOIAF AU.

[Sylvan Varain]

“You sure you aren’t scared?” Her husband asks, voice perfectly innocent even as his violet eyes make him look even more like a demon than usual. Anybody that wasn’t insane that saw the dancing lights of his eyes peering at them through the cold mist would’ve scurried off to a mountain somewhere - except Arya wasn’t the most sane of women, and she knew that this man was the least dangerous person she’d ever met. He looks particularly small now, shivering in his nakedness on a chair besides the fire that he’d started too quickly in the room they’d been given for the night. She rarely saw him weave his magic, and it seemed he was only ever willing for stupid things like this.

If he’d ever consider doing something useful with it, maybe he’d be in the top thousandth of dangerous people she knew. Maybe.

Beneath his carefree and mocking smile she can tell he’s miserable, his tattoos looking like they might run off his body any minute with how hard the rain had caught them. They’d went south together to escape the unwelcoming weather of her homeland, but it seemed to follow them like ticks. A well-timed crack of thunder makes her friend jump in his chair, his dark cheeks turning a rosy shade of red just to hallmark his embarrassment.

 

[Cantarella]

Were Sylvan a lesser man, Arya would have rounded on him, haughtily proclaiming she feared nothing. But Sylvan was no ordinary man, from his tattoos to his Valyrian-amethyst eyes. He was her husband, he had fathered no fewer than two children on her, as evidenced by the fractional widening of her hips, the swelling of her modest bosom. Instead, she turned a circle that to some would seem languorous. To nearly all who crossed the wolf princess, she was calculated, a stalking she-wolf readying herself to tear the throat from her prey. But around Sylvan, Arya was always at ease.

Even now.

"Of course not." She stated, her tone unwavering. She knelt before the seated Sylvan, taking in his nudity. He's pretty, as though wrought of mahogany, a stark contrast to the, well, Stark. "Why would I be? Have you ever known me to back down from anything?" It's a serious question under the guise of playfulness. She's stripped to her drenched smallclothes, her utilitarian black and white skins cast off and lying to dry on the rug before the fire.

The shiver is contagious; it spreads to Arya, and goosebumps rise on her sallow skin. She rubs her arms with her hands, draws nearer to her husband as though to absorb some of the heat from his skin.

 

[Sylvan Varain]

It's a carefully laid question designed to end with him laying flat out on the floor seeing as, and he doubt she'd forgotten this fact, her fear of marriage had been what had brought them together in the first place. The evidence of it was no doubt causing havoc in one of the rooms next to them, Saria's penchant for silence no matter what trouble she got herself into was legendary, and was more than enough proof that the child belonged to the woman beneath him. His beauty is cultivated, carefully tended to with most of his waking hours spent manicuring himself with some odd-smelling oil or root he'd purchased somewhere. Hers was natural, just like the way she stood and walked, like one of the trees in the Weirwoods. Willowy and powerful.

There's still too much chill in his bones for him to be too interested in her kneeling before him, but he's at least half-alive and can enjoy the sight of a near-naked, wet woman sat next to him. Her musculature is more impressive than most knights he'd seen, flexing occasionally to throw rainwater off herself... and made even more impossible not to notice once he takes in the tattoos carved across her skin in faithful tracings of his own.

"No. But your ancestors will roll in their graves if they heard you froze to death while parading around in the south, and you'd hate that."

If Theon Stark appeared to her as a spirit to chastise her, she might make him wish for a second death.

He pats his thigh. "C'mere. And mind my being a fucking cripple, if it doesn't inconvenience you." Sat down, it's easy to spot his old injury, his leg looking like it was ready to rupture again at the slightest touch. It hadn't -- yet.

 

[Cantarella]

Had Sylvan been anyone else, she'd think his penchant for prettiness and adornment as foppish, a waste of coin in every way possible. But he's her Sylvan, her husband. Just as the child in the other room was theirs, but was so much like her mother in her youth, just with darker skin than Arya's. Skulking about in the shadow of the storm outside, heavy raindrops from black clouds pregnant with precipitation beating upon the roof of their shelter masking her footsteps.

And any parent knew that silence from a child was suspicious.

But that was a matter for later. Arya, unbreakable Northern Arya, was kneeling before the Pentosi in the chair before her, one sallow hand on his knee, just above the old injury. Her dark eyes were locked on his amethyst ones, unblinking, lips parted. A look etched upon her features that Sylvan would understand as want, subtle as it was wont to be on the woman's face. But hearing him speak, she rolls those eyes and scoffs.

"The dead are dead, Sylvan. They don't know or care for much of anything. You're right though- I have no taste for dying myself."

She drags herself up like a puppet on its strings, one smooth motion that she never lost, even in those years that she was heavy with child herself, heavy as the clouds outside spilling rain in a continuous torrent upon them, as though out of spite. She crawls into his lap like a loyal bitch, her chilled skin seeking the warmth of his own, heated by the fire. She does so with another scoff, but is indeed careful of the old wound.

 

[Sylvan Varain]

"Don't let your father catch you saying things like that," he starts, shifting in his seat to make room for her, the settling weight of her body unmistakable. ". . . else he'll think I'm the one putting thoughts like that in you, and if he kills me, I will haunt you."

Now she's properly settled in, legs hanging off side, bum resting on his uninjured thigh with her legs tumbling over the other. A pleasant spike runs from where her skin touches him down below all the way up to his neck, bringing unfamiliar life to the layers of weak muscle and bone. Her hands were perfectly steady and always brought some relief when she kneaded it, but this was a different kind of pressure. 'Intimate' was a word that crossed his mind. Watching her rise with that effortless grace of hers was always a sight, but seeing her draped across him managed to make the hellish sight outside worth it. Half-naked, wet, shivering, water dripping from her short strands of hair; body worming itself together, legs pressed tight. Sylvan tries not to notice all of it, but fails.

Warmth from the hearth was a welcome improvement, but his palms bring a new, immediate relief once one comes to rest on her lower legs just above her feet, slowly moving up towards her knee in a cheerful joyride. Impossible to see is the telltale heat from his hands, having used it to give the fire life, and now turned towards her bare skin. Like a smooth, warm stone creeping up her leg, the cold that had claimed her is gone in an instant wherever he moves. He decides to let the odd scars he finds lead him, the nearly invisible lines from moving through bushes and shallow cuts over the years. Before long, she notices the hand on her spine, starting at the base and tracing it upwards, the thumbs of each hand moving in slow, methodical circles, working his magical fire deep into her skin, being carefully thorough of banishing each bit of the misery outside from her body.

He says nothing further, instead only allowing himself to appreciate the view of her powerful legs stretched out before him and the feel of them beneath his hand as he works to make her feel better.

 

[Cantarella]

An arrogant, unladylike snort was the reply meant for the Pentosi, even as the horse-faced woman settled into his lap as though it were an ebon-throne carved for her and her alone. "Have to believe in ghosts first." She sneered, though the sneer itself was toothless. "Ghosts can't haunt those who don't believe in them."

Sylvan's lap is a familiarity that she finds comfort in, and in settling against the warmth of his body in the cold of the storm, she lets out a long, contented sigh. Each shift of her weight upon him was perfectly balanced, nary a wobble and perfectly poised. It was as though she were a dancer, but that had been the old ruse, hadn't it? And what was combat but a folie a deux, a duet on one's feet?

Each knead of her weary flesh draws a groan from her as Sylvan's skilled hands worried out every crick and creak and knot in her well-muscled body, and in response to the hand on her spine, she tilted her head this way and that, popping each vertebra in a line down her straight, perfectly-formed back. Another sigh followed, one wrought of pure relief, both at the warmth of Sylvan's body against hers, and that of the relief of having her sore body treated so kindly.

Her eyes, umber-brown, opened now, and she cocked her head, and she could see how he had admired her body. She liked that; after all, how many had called her ugly, boyish, horse-faced? The latter had never been a lie, but she could appreciate being admired in this way, each squeeze of his hands reinforcing his love for the Stark girl.

It was her own turn to admire him, she decided then. Not with the sort of brashness that she had been known for, but in offering Sylvan touch of her own, though it was a little clumsy, her hands callused and rough. She knew not to touch his crippled leg; that would be asking for pain from her husband, pain she did not want to inflict. Instead, she massaged his hands first, right at the knuckles and the softer flesh at the webbing of his fingers, where they would have been sore from offering tribute to her in the form of touch.

All while she did this, her eyes locked on to his from over her shoulder.

 

[Sylvan Varain]

A pair of thin lips pressed themselves against the bridge of her nose, the man's eyes playing a game of distraction to delay the moment she'd realize her deft movements and sounds were having an effect on him. Sharing the same breaths of air with her, he speaks, "I'm glad to know," pouting, one hand clenches in too deep as her bum rolls over him, ". . . That you won't believe in me after I'm dead. Touching, Stark." Seeing his mate enjoy herself brings a certain impossible glow to him that she doesn't see often, not too far from pride. Loving pride, if there was such a thing.

Familiar or not as she was with throwing her weight on him to be used as a chair, it doesn't make the experience any less bizarre to him. It's strange enough that she listens to him at all, much less fall onto him and let his hands work her over and drag noises from her that would lead to their deaths if ever discovered. By now the way her muscles spread and shivered beneath him had become a second nature, an extension of his own, easily manipulated and easy to guide and force the tension out of it like poison from a wound. Most people knew better than to call him faetouched by now, but the way his palms rotate and rock across her body tells another story entirely.

Not just because of the talented way they work her. He's also, much more literally, touching her with magic, which really should have been cheating if it wouldn't mean his hands depart her body and leave her cold.

"You're vocal tonight," he teases, watching her claim the hand on her leg as her own, those digits of hers, used to rapping a blade against dummies and people, now turned to work on him. It's unpracticed, but his wife has always been a quick learner, and she naturally knows just how much pressure to apply with that strength of hers.

Loud or not, it's his cock that's pressing up against her, as familiar to her as the first time she'd been properly introduced to it.

As if to punctuate that thought, his fingers still working her back make a detour, sliding left, following a set of scars that they both know all too well and ones that he only ever brings up to annoy her. "Not as vocal as back then," he finishes, punctuating what they were both thinking; the first time he'd fucked her and saved her from a wife to some Lord whose name she'd forgotten, but had left her with a set of scars from the tree he'd taken her against, nearly having rubbed the skin off from how 'thorough' he'd been. She'd gotten loud enough that they'd nearly been discovered only for the pair of houseguards to pass the howling off as the Weirwood trees.

Thinking back on the day makes his cock stiffen against her, making him hiss and make a pleased noise of his own as Arya's fingers find a spot that makes him coo.

 

[Cantarella]

Another roll of those umber eyes of hers, despite the pants and groans of release emanating from the Stark girl's thin lips. Cruel lips, some would say, passionless, but those were comments made of her that from people who didn't know just what she was capable of. Or, from people who knew a different side of her that Sylvan did. True, Arya could be a bitch, a feral she-wolf, but she was also capable of such passion, such ferocity.

"Oh, hush up, husband, the dead are dead and we both know it. Gone and of little consequence beyond a legacy, be it for good or ill." He had rightfully distracted her in that moment, but even still, a sly smile crept to those lips. "Although... what kind of legacy do you wish to leave?" She asked him, slowly, sure she quite already knew the answer to that. She was certain he wanted to carve one out that was as divisive as that of Rhaegar Targaryen, some believing the man to have been unto a god, others, nary more than a rapist and a kidnapper. But the one thing most everyone could agree upon was that if the man was anything, he was extraordinary. The stuff of legends even if he never sat the throne.

The press of his hardening cock upon her causes that little grin to widen all the more. "Clearly, you want part of that legacy to start with me, eh, husband dear?" The last two words were not spoken biliously, but rather, the singsong tone of someone who meant it, a little hoarse, a little breathy. She reaches down and hooks her fingers around his girth as it presses to her, just for a moment before she returns the favor by kneading his shoulders, gaining more confidence in paying tribute rather than inflicting pain. It's a foreign concept to the she-wolf, but in mimicry, she found her rhythm, releasing knots around his shoulder blades sans the magic he pulsed into her aching muscles. It was a poor imitation, all said, but she was merely buttering him up. Eventually, she moved her off hand to lazily rub Sylvan's cock, up and down, while her other hand kneaded into his sinews and flesh, her lips pressing where her hands had been a moment before.

Her voice is low, and only for him as his fingers brushed past her scars, a low chuckle bubbling up in her chest. Her own fingers venture there, the sensitivity of the marred flesh causing gooseflesh to rise anew along her arms, hair standing on end. "Such a sweet pain that was," she admits, with a fondness that she shared only with him. "A sweetness that... maybe... we could recreate this night?" There's an upward inflection to her tone suggesting it to be an inquiry, almost as though she were asking permission, but they both knew permission was not necessary.

It was a given.

 

[Sylvan Varain]

Romance wasn't the first thing people thought of when they looked at his sturdy little wife, and they were right as far as her thoughts on philosophy and theology were concerned. If she were half the woman she was now Catelyn might crawl right into one of the crypts at Winterfell and die once they heard what their daughter was saying, and for her husband. . . well, it wasn't exactly inspiring. His thoughts on what awaited them in the afterlife were best kept to himself and the woman sat in his lap; she never exactly condemned him for the whispers he shared into the flames, but he could feel the judgement, the ire.

Sylvan didn't mind too much. If he wanted a woman who would kowtow to him and play along to his every whim, he would've let Ned find a woman for him. Instead, Lord Stark had starkly disagreed with his choice, and his strategy. Hers, really. It'd taken months for the man to even talk to the Pentosi.

It's hard to think about Arya's father when her fingers are wrapped around his prick though, especially when she's laying the groundwork for at least fifty innuendos regarding him fucking her pregnant again even as they were both still wet and shivering and miserable. She didn't seem to mind. And he loved fucking his wife, especially when it involved her permission to do as a proper husband was big and seed her.

There wasn't a single thing in all of Westeros that enraptured him more than that growing in her tummy and the way her tits and hips changed. For all the years she'd spent attacking ladies for spreading their legs and turning into broodmares, she hadn't done a good job of keeping to it. They'd already sired more children than any of her siblings, and she was eager to produce another.

"Fuck, Stark," he chuckles, trying to play off just how well she'd bedazzled him. How was it that a hand meant for killing like hers knew just how to handle his prick? Her palm is still wet, but the bizarre texture of her well-used hand makes it a strange, not altogether unpleasant sensation that's new for him. New is always good. His violet eyes flash, just like they always did when he was aroused, giving away how she'd all but won this game of theirs. "If that's what you want, I'll give it to you."

The hand on her back shifts, pressing up her breastband and letting both her tits fall into place, wet and small and perfect in his practiced hands, reaching both of them around her body to cup them, thumbs setting a circular, soft motion around her nipples while the rest of his dusky fingers curled, putting pressure on the sensitive titflesh offered to them, pressing his warmth straight onto her most needing parts.

". . . Still have to warm you up though, don't I? Promised you that much -- I promise I'll leave a legacy in your belly soon though, love."

 

[Cantarella]

Arya was a hypocrite. She knew it, he knew it, but neither of them would ever pin that on her in words. Here she was, practically begging to be impregnated this miserable, rainy night, and she had always scorned those women who had wanted the same: to be used as an incubator for whatever grew in their bellies as a result of spreading their legs, damn the pain and danger of birth. But at the moment, she didn't care. She felt such a sweet heat in her loins, moisture beading on her lips as a result. The chill that had seized her before long forgotten, she leaned into the warmth of her husband's hands kneading her tits.

A soft moan escaped from her throat, husky and wanting, not unlike a bitch in heat. Gripping his chin, she angled his mouth toward her tits, so he could run his tongue along those taupe nubs, nipples already erect at the slightest of touches upon them.

Sylvan really was magical. She cared not how he achieved this, that was his own business as matters of faith ought to be and not foisted upon the unsuspecting, but it was working. Every touch, every pull and suck upon her tits drew the breath from her lungs as surely as a siphon.

"Hells, Sylvan," she hissed between clenched teeth. She tilted his face up, cheeks still pressed betwixt her modest cleavage, her dark eyes locked on his violet ones in a way that screamed "fuck me". "I think that you could probably drench me in Wildfire right now and I would thank you for the privilege." Her fingers coil the rest of the way around his length and she worked it in her callused hands, up, down, agonizingly, sweetly slow, riling him up as best as he could.

"In fact, I think I'll let you have my ass tonight. My treat for how you spoil me absolutely rotten."

 

[Sylvan Varain]

'Fuck me,' his wife's eyes commanded. He was not the knight that Sansa dreamed of, but he hadn't failed a single quest given to him by the princess he served. So far, each of the errands she'd sent him on had involved plowing her against trees and subsequently tending to her needs as his child flowered in her belly, but he knew better than to deny the royal tomboy anything she demanded of him.

Like her tits.

This quest he took at like the lecher they both knew he was and that she indulged; one hand emptied themselves of her breast and was quickly replaced by the even warmer fixture of his mouth, a tool Arya had found was his most talented and often overused asset. Sylvan rarely ever had his mouth shut, and as pleasant as his singsong voice may have been, Arya desperately needed a way to shush him at times. This, as it turned out, was an excellent way to do just that.

Whatever cold had plagued her vanished in the blink of an eye as his tongue rested against her hardened tip, his pretty violet eyes flashing as he presses his mouth flush against her body, sucking in the taut, flat skin of her chest between his lips and bites. For the masochistic Northerner, it was difficult for her man to ever be able to truly bring any harm to her, but this would have been an easy way to do just that. Thankfully, the fay-touched man knew just how to bridge that gap between pleasure and pain, and, much like the firm grip she had on his cock, knew how to roll the pebble of a teat between his teeth for the perfect level of friction, teasing and tickling it with the tip of his tongue before rewarding her patience with the flat end of his tongue. His lips formed a fine seal around her, sucking and lavishing it in a way she found much too familiar.

More than once Sylvan had enjoyed the same meals provided to their daughter that Arya's swollen breasts offered, as idiotic and childish as it made him look, feasting right off the same breast that their babe did. Thankfully, it wasn't nearly the stupidest thing that stirred their loins that they'd engaged in before, so he could enjoy himself in peace much like he was now.

One hand braces itself against the muscular woman's back, further feeding the teat into his mouth even as his cock throbs in his wife's dangerous hand, letting him feel every odd imperfection on her palm in the most intimate way he can imagine.

He sighs, feeling her taste fill his mouth; the taste of her skin, marbly and strong, and the rainwater that had soaked through her breastband. He's eager to wipe it off her, and shows it by moving to her opposite breast, offering it the same reverence that he'd shown the rest of her body -- though, not as much as when he'd knelt between her legs, perhaps. It was close.

The thought of his mouth on his wife's cunt nearly makes him cum in her hand, but he's thankfully saved when his wife feels his approaching orgasm and stops it, which makes him hiss and glare at her -- but only for a moment before his eyes go wide.

Again, he almost cums at the thought of her ass clamping down on him, fucking away the last bit of virginity that the princess had kept from him, every 'tight assed Stark' joke he'd ever thought to himself nearly leaving his mouth if it wasn't occupied by the breast in his mouth. Sylvan lets go of it with an audible pop and a string of saliva connecting him that he doesn't bother wiping off.

"Didn't bring any oil, Stark," is what he finally decides on, forcing his tit-drunk brain to focus at least somewhat on her safety and comfort. ". . . You sure I'm not too big for you?"

 

[Cantarella]

The nip of teeth and the lapping of a tongue accustomed to wagging, no matter where it was placed, caused a shock of pleasure to jolt through Arya. Tremors coursed up her spine as though she'd been struck by lightning and a current ran through her, her spine a lightning rod. She shuddered, goosebumps rising on her flesh at the coaxing as it had been when she was in the elements, though this was of a much more welcome sort. The callused fingers of her left hand snaked along his scalp, her short, broken nails scrabbled down the back of his neck and his upper back, and her breath came in ragged, shaky little pants. She felt flushed and her digits tingled; she was well and surely cozy now, what with the fire at her back and a warm mouth claiming her breast. The cold and the wet of the world beyond their refuge was well forgotten now, save for the steady pounding of heavy raindrops pummeling the stone roof.

More importantly, her grip increased on his cock, and she increased the tempo with which she stroked it. The grip of her palm and fingers was a sweet agony with the friction and pressure it provided, an almost desperate grasp as she nearly came just from having her tits sucked. And from the pulse in his prick, the way it tensed and twitched in her palm, Arya was certain Sylvan was enjoying himself as well.

The thought of it briefly flitted across her mind, and she nearly laughs at the absurdity of the pretty man with his pretty violet eyes near going off in her hand just from sucking at her teats while she fondled him. But by the same token, she was getting wet just from the same fondling. She ought to have at least a tint of shame at it, of being no better than those noble ladies she scorned for hiking up their skirts to be fucked against palace walls or in lavish chambers, but she felt only the sweet ache of his teeth on her nipple, the glossiness of his tongue, the way it cupped her so kindly. She was a warrior; her hands were meant to hold a blade, not a cock, but here she was, enjoying every bit of that same thing she turned her nose up at. She was a hypocrite in the worst sort of way, the memory of being fucked in the weirwood grove an altogether pleasant one that stirred her loins even further, being watched by all those ancient eyes, surrounded by those all-seeing faces, their crimson leaves the blanket on which she lie outstretched.

The cessation of the stimulation was almost welcome, for she could have come unraveled just at that delightful ache and wetness on her teat. Though the man himself was less than pleased when she let go of his throbbing prick. The hiss almost makes her laugh all over again. What was he going to do about it, spank her for her insolence? That would have just made her even hornier.

Although the lack of oil ought to give her pause, the wolf princess merely offers a toothy grin, a masochistic smile.

"Since when have I ever backed down from a challenge, Sylvan?"

And she's right. That bitch, that she-wolf, she was fucking right.

 

[Sylvan Varain]

"Cooking."

All at once the mood is shattered by the idiot half-beneath her, whose lips really ought to have been continuing their work on her breast but instead are now inches away from it, the vacuum of stimulus haunting her body as he came off with a pop that made Sylvan's own skin migrate. A string of spit connected the two still, which made quite a sight for the grey-eyed killer, able to look down and see the foreign boy and his matty, wet hair looking up at her with an infuriating amount of coyness.

Then again, most of any anger she might've felt could've just been from the near-orgasm he'd just set her up for -- an eye for an eye then, since, as pleasing as it was to feel her unmanicured claws digging their way into his hair was, it wasn't half as much as he needed to get off. The blood that had made the perilous journey south through his cold body had all but wasted their time, and he seemed content to give the same treatment to her increasingly cold, lonely breast.

His chin rested on the spot between her breasts, letting his outlander eyes wander to the ceiling in 'serious' contemplation of the question she'd posed to him. He was the patient sort unlike a certain Northerner, and could deny himself - ahem - the pleasure of his wife's perfect body until the Others came if it meant the chance to rib her. Including the delay of him stuffing his prick inside the warrior's rear.

"Knitting."

Carefully annunciating both words with the edge of a particularly dull and bored Pentosi accent, he hums, letting her stew on his lap while his hands suddenly filled themselves with her ass, palming them with just enough confidence and subtly that it comes as a brief, shocking tease when a finger dips dangerously close to her slit before retreating, continuing to dilly daddle with his mindless groping of her ass.

At least she knew the lying runt of a Pentosi for a fact appreciated that one part of her body.