The Prompt: Well, damn it, now someone needs to write a Tywin x Sansa fic where they destroy toasters, preferably in a canon compliant setting. I don't know if they would destroy each other's toasters, or destroy toasters together. I leave that up to a more creative mind than myself…
Where they came from was unknown.
His first inclination was to believe Tyrion scattered the mysterious boxes about the Red Keep in an effort to delay the wedding. But as the number of boxes increased and the fact that they were growing hotter, some even smoking, Tywin Lannister knew this plot was nothing devised by the Imp.
The bride refused to leave her chambers, the boxes seemed to have gathered thickest outside her doors, and with the mutterings of sorcery and curses, no one was willing to go get her.
The old lion thought as much about mysticism as he did about humour - not at all - and was left to wade through the slotted cubes, and hysterical lords and ladies, to retrieve the girl on his own. Sword drawn, Lord Tywin stepped lightly between the small things; none made a move or noise to warrant alert. Each seemed different from the next - seemingly crafted of every known metal, of every colour. Some with two slots on the top, some with four, a few here and there with a windowed door, and each and every one with a pronged tail - it was all confusing.
It was all infuriating.
Reaching his destination, Lord Tywin knocked to summon the stubborn child.
"Unlatch the door, my lady."
He had no patience. The order he gave was offered strictly for the sake of decorum; the door would be hacked apart if she did not comply, and quickly. It was after only a moment of silence he hefted his blade to swing, but it was the soft thunk of the latch that stayed his hand. Tywin narrowed his glare at the pale face and wide blue eyes that greeted him through the crack of space between the door and its jamb.
The Great Lion leaned down to the unwitting bride, speaking with an agitation that lent to indignation, "Remove yourself from this room, my lady," his inflection was not a sneer, but it was close, "You have duties that need attending."
Sansa blinked, daunted by the man sent to rescue her, and utterly bewildered by what duties he was referring to. However, her courtesy would never allow her to voice reluctance let alone defiance against the Hand of the King. However, as she opened the door wider to leave, both lord and lady froze in shock and dread - the metal boxes started to hum. It was a low sound at first, hardly something that would cause a panic, but as more and more became possessed as such, the old lion acted purely out of instinct.
Pushing the girl into her room, away from the corridor, he leaned to favour his strength side and arced his blade. With a backhanded blow, the gold-hue blur of castle-forged steel met the foreign metal that stood a hand higher than his ankle. Sparks erupted from that deadly caress like a smith striking away slag, and with a hollow clatter and the vindicating pitch of something breaking, the box met its end against the opposing wall. Whatever satisfaction he felt in defending a maiden behind a nondescript door from a tiny whining demon, the Great Lion quickly discarded. What had been a moderate din was becoming a distressing harmony. It was ominous; the cacophony wrenching higher by degrees as the heat surrounding him in the passageway matched the ascent. Tywin had to move, had to retreat before he burned, but the boxes sent from whichever of the seven hells, if not all, seemed to breed more of them into the gaps that once held his footfalls.
It was as the heat and the sound rose to madness that Tywin felt himself choke. This wasn't the assault he expected, what with the searing air and deafening racket, and for a second time he felt his air restricted. Only, this time, his head was yanked back in a vicious pull as well. With it, his balance tilted and forced him to twist bodily into the momentum - into the direction of his attacker.
And there she was - the brute force of nothing - tugging his heavy crimson cloak with the might of any tourney champion. Lady Sansa hauled him through the doorway and nearly clean off his feet - the noble lions clamping his cloak in place were the very things threatening to kill him.
Oh, how Tywin hated irony. But there was no time for idle considerations or reprimands, there was only time to follow her pull, him to turn mid-flight and watch the girl's eyes widen to an impossible size. For in that very moment she knew the man was not to stay rooted, she would be caught in that same inertia.
Sansa's eyes clamped tight then. So tight she saw spots in the darkness and her hands flew outward of their own volition - an intuitive preservation response - scrambling for purchase on whatever they happened to make contact.
The clatter of Lord Tywin's sword ushered the impact of two bodies on the unforgiving floor of the chambers. The jarring fall triggered points of pain in Sansa's shoulders and backside, but the back of her head felt almost cradled - she was sure of her assumption when the cradle moved and shielded her face.
In the moments it took for Lord Tywin and Lady Sansa to topple, the insidious boxes struck their crescendo.
The two of them held on, white knuckled, clinging and tense, cringing and breathing ragged at what would be their end.
However, their demise was not chimed in on a chorus of ringing fury. The demise of said lord and lady was not chimed in at all - not even in the slightest. It was more the sound of scraping a cup a short distance over the surface of a table, and multiplying it indefinitely. Truthfully, the noise was hardly more than annoying. The louder sounds came from the terrorized occupants of Lady Sansa's chambers - all hoarse exhales, tiny whimpers, and the subtle damage-assessing shifts of limbs.
Tywin had one hand covering his vulnerable nape, and the other flexed over the as much of Lady Sansa's head and face as possible. They laid haphazardly sprawled, the Hand of the King caging the traitor's daughter under the same cloak she nearly killed him with, but the only pain the old lion could clearly recognize was an insistent stinging that had nothing to do with witchcraft.
"Retract your claws, girl." His words were rumbled in the serious way he was known for but did not hold any amount of anger.
Sansa had managed to avoid grabbing hold of or ruining a single scrap of fabric the Lord of Casterly Rock wore - instead she dug her nails into the only flesh he made available. Straightening her fingers from their cramped position, Sansa gasped at the angry red lines she had gouged into the neck and jaw of the frightening man who sought to be her saviour…
Save her.
But from what?
Her face scrunched up and her demeanour angled from embarrassment to trepidation, then further on to a noble girl's version of agitation. But it was as one side of her lip curled up and she sniffed the air, much like the wolf of her sigil, snarling in an outright dither, that Tywin fought and failed to curtail the amused twitch of his mouth.
"Toast," she growled.
...
..
.