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Who: Oliver Queen and Sansa
Where: a small eatery in town.
When: Today
What: Oliver and Sansa meeting again post full moon.
Rating: TBD
Open? No.

Oliver smiles to himself as he sends a message to Sansa, then heads out toward the eatery he has set up for their meetup. He is nervous, and is dressed casually, but in new clothing, a set that has taken in his new slightly increased size and bulk, and is pleasant in both dark and light greens. He is nervous as he walks, considering that he wants to meet her not just for talking about things, but also for talking about how he feels, and how she feels, and if they are both still interested in getting to know each other better.

It is weird, to him. He has never approached any kind of relationship this way. Usually, it has been either dive in and kiss the girl like Laurel, or flirt like Felicity, or awkwardly avoid it until the other person kissed or flirted or approached him like with Laurel and Sara the second times, or jump right to sex like with Sara the first time. And this is no ordinary thing either. It is not romantic or sexual, but instead a thing of convenience and trust. And friendship building before anything else is considered.

It is both more relaxing and more nervous-making than anything else he has known. So as he approaches the restaurant, he finds himself checking his clothing and hoping this goes well.

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Sansa tried to look at this pragmatically with as little emotions as possible. What she knew was that Oliver was in a similar position as she was, and while opening up didn’t come naturally to her, the more she tried to block people out the more dangerous it was for her with all the side effects that came with having magic.

But ultimately she was willing to try. Oliver wasn’t like the men she had known. He reminded her of a Northman. They didn’t know each other well, but from what this place was doing to them both, she knew he was honest if not as guarded as she was. That alone made her at least open to the possibility of being friends and possibly bonded to him.

So she arrived shortly after he did, wearing a grey dress with winter flowers embroidered down the sides. Her red hair was down save for two braids tucked back to keep the hair out of her face. When she did see him though, she gave a natural smile before approaching him and giving a slight bow.

Oliver wasn't sure how to approach this, but he felt he needed to. It was hard to face being close to someone this way, but he wanted to, he knew, partially. He also felt uncomfortable with it, and he knew Sansa did as well. it felt hasty, but this world left them little choice.

When he spotted her, he smiled a little and gave her a bow in return.

"You look striking this evening, Sansa." His voice was soft, and not meaning to be complimentary, really, but just stating how he saw it.

"Shall we sit?"

He offered her his arm and waved a hand toward a table that was reserved for them. He felt nervous, like he was on a first date, or at prom, and both things made him feel odd, as he had never quite had this experience before.

Used to this level of propriety, Sansa took his offered arm and headed to the table with him. She didn't have the concept of dating, but considering how similar bonding was to marriage and the seriousness of vows being made, it was similar to courting. At least the way both Joffrey and Ramsay had pretended to be young men of honor.

It made her cautious, but she would not compare Oliver to either of them. Instead she would let his actions speak for himself. And so far he had shown to be caring but equally wary of the situation they both found themselves in.

"My thanks. You are kind to say so," she replied back before sitting down at the table itself. Food here was richer than what she was used to, but not in a bad way. It also helped that she worked at Parliament and had the means to not worry about the cost of this place. Being a noble woman of a Great House, she was lucky that such a worry had never entered her thoughts.

"Please. Please tell me you are at least feeling better than the last time we saw one another." He looked better, but it was a slight bias from only knowing humans herself.

He sat opposite her.

"I am just trying to speak honestly."

He smiled a little shyly, and slowly. He was not easy about talking plainly, or honestly, completely. It was... hard for him to open up this much. The island, his father's secrets, Amanda Waller, prison, it had all affected him. And now he was this man. He was Oliver Queen, and he was determined to act with honor, especially toward this brave beautiful woman who was giving of herself, too.

"I'm feeling a lot better. I've been working on meditation techniques, on finding ways to accept the changes being forced on me. I am... better than I was."

"Please do. I highly value honesty for it was not always afforded to me," she told him plainly before sitting comfortably back in the chair. The venue reminded her of an inn that might have been along the King's Road. There wasn't much lighting, but it offered enough privacy for the two of them.

"I am glad to hear it," Sansa said just as the waiter arrived. She ordered a sweet wine for herself, but offered to split a carafe with Oliver if he wished to.

"It seems like things are at least beginning to settle here, but there was not another round of mirror bound this month. I've been studying protection spells more. It's the only way to stave off the sleeplessness." Since she wasn't bonded, it came with moodswings and powerful bursts of magic.

"As do I. Its one of the few things I can control, right now, how honest I am. So I think it is even more precious to me than it was before." He nodded to her.

He agreed to split the carafe with her, ordering more water as well, and then sat back. He kept his eyes mostly on her, but they moved about too, watching the room, noting people's movements. Old habits would never die for him, in this area. It was his nature to keep an eye out for whatever was around him.

"I'm glad they are." he leaned forward. "Doers the sleeplessness plague you always?" He had been experiencing more of it lately, but had thought it mostly a recurrence of his old insomnia, due to the lack of control.

Her focus was on him, on trying to read him. Sansa could tell he was someone that analyzed everything, and she didn’t blame him. When the waiter returned with the ice water, she took her glass.

“I use my magic a lot, so most days it is not too bad. Most of the effects will not start to appear for another month, but I do not wish to waste time,” she admitted. Her answer was rather straightforward. It was easier to talk about the effects of this place than just about anything else.

“Sleeplessness is the least of my worries.”

Oliver nodded, listening to her, smiling ruefully. Time was never an ally, sadly. And he knew it from the way it had been both here and back home. He wanted to just move forward, even as he wanted to take time. And Sansa... he wanted to give her the time she deserved. She deserved better than this. His compassion had been aroused by her, and she made him smile, many times.

"What do you most worry on?"

He sipped his water as he considered her, eyes on her eyes, mostly. He tried not to notice the rest of her, most of the time. She was a lot younger than him, he thought, and it felt odd to think on anything else.

"That I am doing the most that I can while I'm here. For those like us that are mirrorbound, for those that need a voice here," she answered him before taking the carafe that the waiter brings with him. She ordered a roast dinner with some vegetables, something that seemed more familiar to her.

"I worry for my people back home, my family. I hope the North still stands in my absence." She hadn't known what was happening while she was brought here. The Dead were coming, and she was in the middle of preparing for war before stepping through the mirror.

There was a lot she constantly worried about, but she was a lady, and not many people would know about it. Sansa knew how to face tough times.

Oliver asked for a potato soup, something he had grown up loving. He nodded to her, listening. Her words were smart, and they rang a bell of similarity he felt to his soul. She was quite a person, and he felt like he could truly empathize with her.

"Your worries show your character, strength, and heart. You are a good person, Sansa. And I hope you will someday get back to your people. I think they are lucky to have you."

He worried about his people back home, too, and he worried that he would lose himself here, both in the people he knew here, and in the change, and in the feelings he could develop. He tried not to do so, and yet... friends like Justine, and people like Sansa who inspired him, made him wonder if he could hold out.

"I work here, and try to help as I can, but I find I see you and the work you do and sometimes feel like I am slacking." His eyes and his words were both earnest, as he tried to communicate his admiration.

“I am the eldest daughter of a Great House. My name is an old one, my family from the First Men who came to our lands. I grew up with honor and duty. ‘Winter is coning’ are our words, and it means we must always be prepared,” she told him, giving him some of her history and where she came from. She was nobility, but her actions came from a deep seeded duty.

“Where I am from, it is what you do. You provide for the people who swear themselves to you. I may not have any bannermen here, but I want to show that we are all strong and capable. Mayhaps Parliament will then listen to our plight.”

That was her motivation for everything she did, to some day go back. She took a long drink of the wine before sitting back. “I think if you want to do more, you should. This place is not always safe.”

Oliver nodded,listening to her, and he smiled as he did, a faint thing as ideas fell into place. She was inspiring, and she was smart, and she reminded him a little of both Helena and of his sister, Thea.

"My family, the Queens, were meant to be protectors as well, but my parents chose another path, until almost the end. It was left to my generation to change that, and to protector our city, and our land, from what had been done to it."

He spread his hands and nodded. "I chose to work outside a corrupt system, to put together a group who would make right what had been made wrong. Almost seven years of time it took, but in the end, we did it, and the city and the people are better now."

At her advice, he was already nodding.

"Now I just have to figure out what to do. I know I want to help the people of this city, too."

“Mayhaps do something similar here then,” she replied after listening to him talk about his home. He sounded like a knight, like the stories of them at least. The only kind knight she had known was Ser Loras. “A team of those who wish to protect the city, to keep the cwyld from coming in. In the south the king had a group of men, trained to not only protect him, but the city as well. We call the Gold Cloaks.”

She was not a fan of them currently since they obeyed Cersei Lannister, a woman who wanted her dead. But she could understand and appreciate the point of the Gold Cloaks.

Oliver nodded, thinking. He has done that, and if he could draw on that experience...

A slow smile built on his face as he imagined the idea here. Yes. That is definitely a thing that could be. He had made mistakes, but he had learned from them, too. And he knew people, sometimes.

"A team. A group united by that goal."

He smiled to her, then, his eyes taking on a life and ideas flowing in his head. "I was right. Your people are lucky to have you."

Her smile was small, but she found herself glancing down at her glass of wine right as the food arrived. She did not take compliments so well, but her response was genuine. The light from the fire they started flicked over them as she began to cut her food.

“I only mean to help here. If I can,” she told him. It was for an ulterior motive, but not a malicious one. She stood by her principles. She knew others were already starting to do things here, to take advantage of the situation or to help improve their own circumstances. Sansa just knew politics well enough and how people worked.

That small smile made him smile a little too, and he started in on his food feeling a little more directed and a little more centered. He had a plan, and he hoped it would work.

And maybe even give him a chance to make things better, for others and himself.

"I hope you can, and I will do all I can to do the same, and to help you, if I can."

He watched her as he ate a little, thinking, then nodded. "Do you like green?"

"You can protect the people, and I will make sure we are heard," she said with a more natural smile now, feeling a little more resolved herself. It was good to build allies here as hard as it was to trust anyone. Oliver at least felt similar to her. He wasn't doing this for notoriety or personal gain.

"It was House Tyrell's colors. Now there are none left after Queen Cersei had the place they were staying in blown up." That was the rumors. She felt for her friend, Lady Margaery who had shown her a kindness when no one else had.

"Stark colors are grey and white. But I do not dislike the color green. It is not a color Northmen see a lot of."

"That sounds like a good plan. This sort of thing works best with teams, and people who each have something they are good at. And a passion for the job." There is a soft almost chuckle.

"I've made mistakes, and I hope I can use what I've learned to help those here." He nods, as he looks to her.

He winces at he hears that. "Green has always been my color, since I was, in a way, reborn." He rubs his face, the ever so soft, and nearly invisible fur there making him itch occasionally. But he still thinks of that motion when he feels like he has ideas that need coaxing out.

Then he smiles just a little a shy smile, as he glances up at her. "Grey and white are good colors as well."

“We have all made mistakes,” she replied lightly, eyes flickering up from her meal to look back at him. She would always blame herself for her father’s death. It was a harsh lesson to learn even as young as she was at the time. She thought she knew who she could trust.

His terminology was not something he understood and cocked her head as she chewed lightly on another bite of meat. When she finished she asked, “How is one reborn?”

Unless Oliver somehow followed the Drowned God which she did not think was possible.

He nods, catching her look. And some small part of him noting how the light catches her eyes. He shoves that thought away and focuses on how they talk. That look, he thinks, tells him she feels the weight of mistakes, too. One more way they are similar.

He hesitates, but then nods. "When I was... about ten years younger than I am now, I was a lot more foolish, a lot more arrogant. I did a lot of things without thinking how they would affect others, and hurt a number of people. And then, when on a cruise on a boat with my father, the ship was wrecked in a storm, and I was lost, alone, on an island, for most of five years. The island, and all I went through there, changed me, cut away a lot of who I had been, and made me a different man."

One hand dips below the table and put of his ever present bag comes the hood. Green fabric, cleaned and pressed many times, but still strong. It was a green hood and mantle, the top of his normal outfit, and he held it almost reverently.

"This was a gift from a mentor there, who taught me to be my own man, but more, to be a fighter, and one who always did his best to defend those who needed it, before all else." He nods to her and the puts the hood away again.

"In a way, the Oliver Queen who I had been died when the boat was sunk, and a new one was born."

Her attention was completely on him, the way he talked when he told her some of the more personal parts of his life. His demeanor was hard, but open. She could tell he was being honest with her in sharing this. Her eyes looked down at the hood, and she's reminded of the tales of mysterious knights who seemingly save the day.

"You are a brave man, Oliver. We have not yet been here long, but I would thing this city would need you just as much. "If there is anything you need from me to get this done, please let me know."

It was hard to comment on what he had gone through, but it was clear she felt for him. She was just a rich girl who thought she knew everything before Joffrey took her father's head. Everything had changed her, too.

"I hope I can, and I hope I am as brave as you think I am. I do not always feel it." But he would try. He felt like he was on a coarse to do something good now.

He felt better, and he smiled at her a little more surely.

"You inspire me, with your bravery and your honor. Thank you, Sansa."

He found himself reaching out for one of her hands, then stopping. "Ah, I do not mean to be presumptuous."

His cheeks were a little pink.

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