#sansaery

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“It’s like you’re a flower,” Sansa muses. “Like, as long as I water you, talk to you and make sure you get enough daylight, you’ll stay alive, you won’t wither, but you won’t grow either or blossom. Sort of like a orchid, I think. I once had one for seven years. I bought it in Last Hearth, on that little flower shop on the main road, the one where the owner looks like that, what’s her name, the girl who was in those spy movies.”

Margaery’s smile grows a little broader looking up at her, softly and lightly. She looks so, so pretty, lying there, her hair fanned out beneath her, eyes heavy, her top slightly ridden up exposing the tan skin of her stomach.

“I can’t believe how tan you’ve gotten in just a couple of days here,” Sansa goes on, her eyes trained on fingertips skimming Margaery’s skin just above the waistband of her jeans. “I figured it would be sort of like drinking. When you’re used to it, it takes you longer to get drunk. I basically never drink, so it takes me one beer to be tipsy, and I…”

She trails off, when her eyes catch a man with a brightly coloured cape passing them by, the colour and different perspective, stunning her momentarily. For the longest time there it felt like it was just them. She takes in the scene. The park buzzes with people and Sansa could spend hours just sitting here watching them, letting all the new impressions, stun her. It’s all so lively and yet it feels so very peaceful.

All those worries and urgent matters she woke up to this morning have shifted to the far, far end of her brain. This morning, when Margaery said it’d be too hot today to bother with any sightseeing, they’d set out for, it had left her aggravated.

That’s a notion she could no longer grasp if she tried.

She wonders if that’s just the mood, the relaxation surrounding her having her in it’s grasp, or if it is the two drags she dared from the joint they passed around. She didn’t really feel different, after. Her throat felt scratchy, her lungs are still burning a little from the small coughing fit, that had Arianne sneer at her, to take it easy.

Arianne. That’s another thing that aggravated her. From the moment Margaery introduced them. The way she’d looked her up and down, complimented her bone structure. Like she’s some sort of show horse. Now that sense of intimidation has evaporated. Instead, she finds herself giggling at the idea of Arianne prying her lips apart to check her teeth and gums.

Her legs would probably go as her most passable feature in the horse comparison. Straight, long, toned, healthy joints. And her feet. She flexes her toes in grass that’s warm from the sun. Everything here is warm from the sun and it’s not even noon yet.

Highgarden has been a revelation.

The travel here already was. All the towns and cities they passed on the way. Highgarden is her declared favourite though. King’s Landing had been the greatest letdown, loud, smelly and crowded, so, so very hectic. She’d sat on the passenger seat watching the city pass them by and had the settling notion that she made a mistake. That she wasn’t cut out for this kind of life.

Then they’d taken the exit to the Rose Road and already within the first few kilometres it had been like entering a completely new world. They arrived in Highgarden late at night, most she’s seen of the city she’s seen in the dark and yet she can’t wait for the day when she gets to show it to the kids.

This right here, this scene in a park, the spontaneous concert setting up, people sitting and lying in the grass, riding roller skates, the occasional wave of the sweet, dank scent in the air in between.

And those colours. Clothes. Buildings. Greeneries. The Mander. Everything seems so much brighter here, every colour so much richer. Even the Stop sign in the distance look livelier than the ones up North.

“Why do you think that is?” she wonders out loud, her eyes drawn to it. “All that sun here should bleach the colours. Maybe because the lack of rain and snow has something to do with it. We are closers to the sea though.” Meeting Margaery’s eyes the same dizziness takes her over once more, and Margaery’s broad smile sparks the same on her face. “Wait what were we talking about?”

Margaery lips open and close, and she giggles. “I have no idea.”

Sansa giggles too, and can’t believe she’s been lucky enough to be here. That she is spending a Sunday sitting in the sun, on the other end of the country. That she actually made it here. A year late, a fucking exhausting year, but she did. She’s here. They’re here. Not for good, not quite yet, but making a first step towards the for good part.

She plays with the hem of Margaery’s shirt, the softness of her stomach brushing over the side of her wrist in the motion and she wonders for a moment if she ever consciously had that sensation. There’s no part of Margaery she hasn’t touched, kissed, licked, tasted, but if those particular patches of skin ever touched like this, she can’t say. She continues the motion for a second, fascinated by the sensation, that tingles all the way up her arm.

It sparks a curiosity for more. New ways to touch her and to be touched by her.

She presses the inside of her wrist just below Margaery’s belly button. Her skin feels almost hot like that, incredibly soft too, she notes the slight rise and fall, the tightening and relaxing of abdominal muscles.

“It’s like testing baby formula for the right temperature,” she muses and laughs when a frown trenches Margaery’s forehead. “The skin here,” she says, “it’s more sensitive. That’s how you test if it’s too hot.”

“Elbow,” Margaery mutters. “You do that with your elbow.”

“Wait really,” says a voice to Sansa’s left, she momentarily can’t place. “How does that work?”

It’s an effort both physical and of willpower to take her eyes off Margaery. This sight of Loras, so similar to Margaery is momentarily more than her hazy brain can comprehend. That made her like him from the very start. Well, that and his spontaneous declaration that he got it, understood now what made his sister endure a Northern Winter.

It wasn’t him who spoke though, but the pretty blonde next to him. Her bright blonde hair shines almost silverly in the light. Her smile soft when she looks at Sansa. “Isn’t that hole on the bottle too tight to jam your elbow in there?”

The image has Sansa giggle. She likes Dany. Dany is easy and friendly. Greeted her with a hug and cheek kisses like they’d known each other for years.

“You just put a few drops on there with the dummy on.”

Dany nods, her gaze trailing out to the Mander. “Seems messy.”

“Not at all. You just lick it off.”

Loras shields his eyes against the sun looking at her. “Physically impossible.”

“It’s not.”

“Yes, it is,” Loras insists. “The arm isn't long enough, plus your shoulder's in the way. Unless you're some sort of contortionist, it's impossible to lick your own elbow.”

Sansa blinks. “Why would you lick your elbow?”

A groan tears through the momentary confused silence. “Guys,” Arianne grumbles, blinking an eye open. “All these crossed wires are killing my buzz.” She drapes an arm over her eyes and Sansa can’t help but think that it looks entirely physically possible to lick your own elbow. “Let’s just go back to Sansa’s stoned chatter. That was kind of endearing.”

Sansa tilts her head studying her. “I think that’s the nicest thing you said to me since I met you.”

“That’s the weed,” Arianne says through a lazy smile. “Don’t get used to it.”

“Is that sort of like with drinking? Drunken man's words are sober man's thoughts?” She lets the words hang there dissecting that proverb in her mind and wonders if anything she said was more honest than she’d normally be. No, she concludes for herself. “I think it’s the thoughts that are different when you’re intoxicated. Your mind is more open to thinking differently, to seeing different angles. It’s like… I’ve seen Margaery’s hair a hundred times, it just never occurred to me before how much it looks like flower rakes, when it always has.”