Chapter Text
Sansa tugged her well-loved blue jumper over her new dress. The feel of the satin was luxurious, the ethereal pattern of goldfish and swans made her feel beautiful, and the name of the dress was truly magical: Love Potion. Perhaps it’d help her find true love today. She took in a deep breath, hoping that the glow she’d acquired after her workout session at her new gym would also help beckon her Florian to her.
She was smiling when she pressed the green exit button and waited for the door to slide open. It was only when the sirens assaulted her ears that she’d realised that here, at her new gym, the green button was not for exit; it was the fire alarm.
Oh no… She should stay and apologise. It was only proper. But there was someone swearing up a storm behind her, and oh gods, how was she going to come back to this gym ever again if all the staff were to know? Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods… Before she knew it, she’d legged it out of the gym and made it across the road, round a corner, and… and… she’d sort it all out tomorrow. Find a new gym. Keep paying the direct debit for this one for a year, because she owed them that much.
It was such a shame, because this had been the only gym walkable from her flat that had a non-motorised treadmill and a rope trainer. And a lovely golden hand design for its logo. And, well, a sauna and a Jacuzzi. All right, all right, she’d signed up for the sauna and Jacuzzi. Maybe she could still go back? She could disguise herself. Dye her hair brown, perhaps?
She rounded another corner, and a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye made her look back. That was when she saw… it.
It was wearing a dark grey top, but its trousers, boots and trademark leather jacket were all black. While its hair was longer than it should have been, what made it unmistakeably it was the trace of red that snaked down the left side of its face that couldn’t quite be disguised by its black sunglasses. And, of course, it was too large to be human.
‘Sansa Stark?’ it said in a voice much like a growl.
Oh gods… Why did it know her name? And why was it running towards her at top speed?
She launched into her own top speed, which was sadly nowhere near its top speed, as she’d been quite eager to do a full thirty minutes of cardio on her first day at the new gym, and she was now wearing strappy heels. These were her favourite heels when she was sitting down.
Luckily, the buzz of the main road came into view. She’d never been so glad to see those orange flames painted on the sides of a dragon cab. One was waiting near the crossroads now, and she threw herself into the passenger seat.
‘Wait!’ it called.
‘Please drive,’ she said to the cabbie.
‘Where to?’
Well… her own flat was literally down the road. He’d kick her out if she gave him her address. So she named her favourite bistro near the Dragonpit instead and hoped that it wouldn’t jump onto the dragon cab and punch through the windscreen before she reached safety.
She looked through the back window, watching it fade into nothing but a dot. Thankfully it didn’t seem to have its motorbike to hand. She let out a sigh of relief.
In a way, it was a good sign, because unlike the woman in the film, Sansa Stark was an unusual name; she was in fact the only Sansa Stark in the world. That meant two things: no others have had to die in vain, and she’d one day find love and have at least one child. Would she meet the father soon? Her very own Florian?
Which reminded her… She pulled out her phone and checked for the bids on her bBay of the life-sized inflatable Foolish, for as much as she loved Florian’s half-horse, half-marshmallow sidekick, she’d been gifted with two, and her flat was now exploding with Florian and Jonquil collectables, so much so that there’d been nowhere to store her new electric high harp. With under an hour before the listing would end, dunskendale_hollard’s initial bid had been eclipsed by a new bid from justahound. Sansa smiled. She’d worried over offering the listing as collection only, as even when deflated, Foolish would cost a fortune to post. But no, there were two people willing to offer her precious Foolish a new home! Perhaps if they were true Florian and Jonquil fans, she could throw in a few posters and colouring books for free.
By the time she’d wolfed down a house salad at the bistro, her good mood had returned, so she drew out her headphones and notebook and ordered a slice of lemon cake and a cup of fresh mint tea. The violin intro invoked sadness and regret, and when the beat kicked in, there was strength and resolve too, so she drew on her memories with Joffrey and tested out the words. You’re a waste of time, she tried, and crossed it out. You had my cake and you ate it, she wrote as the lemon cake disappeared into her mouth, then crossed that out. My skin has gone from porcelain, to ivory, to steel, she tried for a third time. Oh, nothing felt right without characters to play, but she had to make this work; the next few songs could bring her career to new heights. They had to. Twenties was too young to peak.
A ping from her phone disturbed the chorus. justahound had placed the winning bid and had transferred the payment straight away. A++, good buyer! she tapped out, making the buyer’s number of feedbacks a grand old total of two. The other was a review for buying a… slave? Was that even legal? Slavery had been abolished for centuries in Essos and… oh, it was a slave cylinder, whatever that was. She sent the buyer a quick message with her number to arrange pick-up.
Dusk was finally falling, and she shivered as the evening air clung to her bare legs. An hour had gone by, and there’d been no trace of the cyborg, so it must be safe enough to go home. In fact, she must have misunderstood the whole situation. Oh, how Arya would laugh if she was to ever found out that forcing Sansa watch a film like that would lead to such a stupid misunderstanding. After all, fiction and real life were two very different things. The mirage that she saw couldn’t actually have been that large and that… solid. And it must have said something like… Centre Park… instead of Sansa Stark. There was no Centre Park anywhere close by. Poor guy. He must have been terribly lost.
Her feet still suffered from the sprint session in these heels, so she waved down a dragon cab again and allowed it to sweep her through these now-familiar streets of King’s Landing. More often than not nowadays, she’d been thinking of the city as a pit of pollution and petty crime, but now, everything looked magical, painted pink by the setting sun. As magical as it had all looked when she’d first arrived here from Winterfell, bright-eyed and dreaming of Joffrey.
She sighed as she reached the entrance to her building. Even a dress like Love Potion wasn’t enough to gift her the romantic chance encounter she so desperately craved.
‘Sansa Stark?’ there was a rasp from an arm’s length away. It definitely didn’t say Centre Parks, and it was even larger than she’d remembered, standing close enough for her to breathe in the smell of leather from its jacket.
She fumbled for the entrance pass and dropped it on the floor. There was only one thing to it…
‘Wait!’ it rasped. ‘Why are you running away?’
‘Why are you after me?’ she said, struggling for breath.
‘You dropped your driving licence at the gym. I’m only trying to return the damned thing,’ said the cyborg from the future, which couldn’t really be a cyborg from the future, because why would anyone send a cyborg from the future to return her driving licence?
She turned and looked at him. Really looked. Yes, he was a very large man, and there were twisted red marks on the left side of his face, but thankfully they did not offer a glimpse to the metal underneath, but were simply scars. Now that it was evening, he no longer wore his sunglasses, and there was no trace of the machine-red glow behind his slate-grey eyes. What really cinched the deal on his human nature was the missing ear. And there, outstretched in his hands, was her driving license with her all-too-familiar unflattering mugshot. She must have dropped it in the rush to leave.
Sansa squeezed his hands as she took the driving licence from him, smiling in relief to find that though they were hard and callused, they were also warm and human. She threw her arms around him and crushed him to her, feeling only the hardness of muscles instead of metal.
‘Thank you so much!’ she said, and flushed red when she realised that he must have seen her set off the fire alarm at the gym. ‘I… uh… it was an accident.’
He didn’t reply, but neither did he leave. In fact, he was staring at her as if she was a cyborg.
She’d better tell him that she was heading back, because another moment in these heels would probably lead to her feet needing amputation, although they did make her legs look ever so long.
But what came out was, ‘Can I buy you a drink? As a token of thanks?’
Because she was a good girl, and always remembered her manners.