(no subject)

It was quiet out on the boardwalk. Sansa liked that about it, just as she liked the chill that had begun to permeate the air — nothing even close to winter yet, but a sign that it would, in fact, be on its way. Around here, it stood to reason, the four seasons they experienced coming and changing almost like clockwork, but in the heat of summer, especially when it lingered, it was easy for someone like her to wonder if maybe it would stay that way. Winters back in Westeros, especially in the North, could last for years and years; summers were much the same. She knew it wasn't like that here, had been told as much many times, but it was a difficult thing to take to heart. Either way, this change of seasons was a welcome one. She was, no matter how well she had pretended to be on several occasions, a girl from the North at heart. In the cold and damp was where she was most at home. It was in her blood.

That, and she liked the parts of the city that weren't the city, where the buildings gave way to more open space. Living out in, and then near, the countryside accomplished that as well, but there was something calming about being near the water, all the more so now that summer had ended and there were far fewer people out. It meant she could take a seat on one of the benches facing the shore in peace, Lady curled up by her feet, watching the rhythmic rolling of the waves for she wasn't sure how long, imagining as she did what might be on the other side of it, or that home might not be so far away after all. She could rarely convince herself, but it was a nice idea.

There were few enough people around that, at the sound of footsteps nearby, she looked up, then smiled, small and polite but distinctly warm. "Dr. Fell," she said. "I wasn't expecting to see you out here."