"Will do."

Alis peers at Zak from where he's sitting and blinks a couple of times. He... kind of expected him to say something inappropriate, there.

"So, while the conversation is lovely I am not sure it has been the most conducive to the goal of satisfying milady's curiosity about yours truly?"

"... Really? I thought that it's been quite conductive to that goal, actually. Though I suppose I don't know your song preferences or your food tastes that I don't ruthlessly bribe from the Riverrun gossip network."

"Is that so? So now I'm curious about milady's read of me."

"Oh? Well, all right." She pauses to get her thoughts in order, a small smile playing on her lips.

"You like and care about people, on a sincere personal level, not in a 'what can they get you' sense. You want them to flourish and succeed. While you don't precisely want to hurt them, you will if it's... for the overall purpose. You're insightful on a personal level, you picked out some of my complicated cultural grievances and played to them nicely without any trouble at all, which is not to be clear an accusation of dishonesty or manipulation, just a thing you recognized and then went on to show me. You're... mmm, I want to say easily bored, or perhaps delighted by novelty, you're ecstatic every time I deviate from the standard social scripts engraved into our culture." Her mouth twitches. "You were sort of frustrated that I fell back on the standard patient feminine pitch instead of bluntly telling you what I wanted you to do. Every time I give you a project you leap at the chance. You value honesty. Your men love you, your tactics have turned this rebellion into a full and proper war that can get even my careful and paranoid father to back it. Uh, this is less about you specifically, but, you're probably aware that father's double marriage plot was actually after you for Lysa instead of Lord Arryn? And I don't actually think you'd be good for each other at all. At all."

Somewhere in the middle of that Alis adopted a half enamoured, half put out expression at his wife.

Fucking mind readers.

Zakary, though, looks pretty amused. "I do not think so, either. Though, ah, I am not sure... that Lord Arryn will be better."

"Not... as such, no. I was against the match."

But by her expression she has absolutely come up with a solution. That solution? Negotiation between the two of them for Lysa to outsource a father, because no seriously one cannot look at Jon Arryn's record and think the man isn't infertile.

"Anyway," she says, moving along before the other resident mind reader in the room can call attention to her wanting to advocate for her little sister to cuckold her husband, "I also get the impression that you find the..." she waves vaguely. "... this part of lordship fulfilling. The war part. Complicatedly fulfilling, mind. Because I think you're fully aware that war basically only causes suffering, and you hate that, because you still just like people, and yet." She gives a sympathetic smile and an awkward shrug, then refills her teacup so she has something to sip. "Sorry, that might have been a bit too much. Or wildly off base. Probably rude, either way."

He laughs once more and uses this moment to pop another soakberry tart into his mouth. "Lord Arryn went through long, painstaking efforts to ensure that I knew for a fact that dying gloriously in battle tends to not be that glorious at all, and just ends with me dead, and that furthermore most people who try to be heroes of the realm end up dead with zero glory. And the important thing to know about me is that he did have to do that, to get it through to me. So no, milady, you are not off-base at all."

Okay the enamoured part is gone and now he's just sullen.

How. How is she getting that much from this little.

(He knows how, and it still makes him mad.)

“But definitely at least a little bit rude,” she says wryly, then glances at her husband. Oh dear, he’s pouting. This is adorable, but he should stop.

“Hey,” she says, taking his hand, “you’re doing great. I mean that.”

"I'm just watching, I'm not doing anything," he says, grumpily.

"Note for the future, that is the face he makes when he is grudgingly impressed with you and also, ah... How do I put this delicately... Oh, I don't have to, he's blushing, I was right."

"The gods take you, Zakary."

But yep, he is blushing alright.

She laughs, then schools herself to something a bit more ladylike on reflex.

“That does put some things into perspective now, thank you.”

"Lord Stark finds competence very admirable and, separately, attractive. You will note that he is in love with two people who are, and milady shall excuse my speaking so highly and brazenly of myself, socially perceptive and intelligent and altruistic and most of all effective. Lord Stark, to put it plainly, has a type, so if milady wishes to have an effect on him she should want to play it up. Be herself very much and very loudly, one could say."

“Duly noted,” she says, amused. “Thank you for your wise counsel, my lord.”

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh.

"I hate both of you," he says, leaning forward to rest on his hands and hide his face in them.

“I’m sure, darling.” Pat pat, poor pouty husband.

"Poor Lord Stark, relentlessly assaulted by the people who love him and not even in the ways he wants to be."

Alisander makes a noise like a dying animal.

That earns another unladylike guffaw from Anavett, who then covers her mouth with her hand to prevent other such sounds escaping her lips.

“….. My Lord Husband was right, you are terrible,” she snorts through her fingers, turning pink.

Zakary does not contradict her, and instead just grabs another tart.