The first time Sansa noticed Brienne was after class during a swim practice. She didn't normally attend King's Landing University swim practice. She was not, by design, a swimmer. She had grown up in the great north, where swimming was difficult at best and deadly in some circumstances. Unless you had an indoor pool, or were interested in doing a polar bear swim, swimming was only possible for a month or so out of the year. While her sister Arya was the daring one in the family, who often engaged in winter swims, much to the dismay of their mother, Sansa had never taken up that practice. Sansa preferred to spend her time in the science lab on campus rather than participating in sports. However, on this particular day, she had agreed to pick up her roommate Yara from practice for a drive back to their apartment since Yara's motorcycle was out of commission.

Sansa got out of class early and after swinging by the university coffee shop for her favorite pumpkin spice latte, she grabbed her Shakespeare text and decided to sit in the bleachers and try to get a little reading done. If there was one thing Sansa hated, it was poetry. She found poetry boring and difficult to understand, especially Shakespeare's sonnets. However, she was required to complete at least one upper level literature class for her major and Shakespeare was the only class that didn't conflict with her psychology scheduled. "What was so special about Shakespeare anyway?" she wondered to herself.

Sansa settled into the bleacher, pulled out her text and took a long relaxing sip of her latte. She figured maybe if she could sneak a half an hour in of studying, she would have more time later to work on her experiment proposal for her psychology capstone project. She began to read reading Sonnet 18, "Shall I compare the to a summer's day…" and couldn't help but roll her eyes. Having grown up in the north, with barely a wisp of summer, Sansa would much prefer a lovely winter day to summer. Nothing was more magical than the sound of silence as snowflakes gently fell, tickling your tongue. Except maybe a pumpkin spice latte. A movement from the edge of her vision made her stop. A woman was gracefully completing her laps in the far lane of the pool. She noticed her long limbs and they elegantly slipped from the water to return, propelling her body forward. The woman appeared to be muscular and blonde.

She noticed her roommate Yara cheering the swimming woman on from the end of the lane. She continued to watch as her arms glided out of the water and slithered below. She was entranced. She had never seen such elegance in the water. Who was this woman? She'd spent countless hours watching Yara over the last year swim and had never seen this handsome creature. How had she not noticed her before? Where had she come from?

Sansa having long ago deserted her textbook, slipped the book back into her backpack. The refined whirling of the woman in the water beneath her enthralled her. She stared on with an embarrassing level of absorption. The woman came to the end of her laps and pulled herself up onto the side of the pool. Yara was clapping the woman on the back congratulating her on her quick time. Sansa stood and began her descent to the pool. Seeing her, Yara called out to her.

"Sansa, come meet my friend Brienne!"

Sansa walked toward the women, slightly flushed.

"Sansa, meet Brienne, our new anchor for the team! With Brienne on our side, we are going to beat the swimsuits off of Southern Rose Uni this year! Brienne, this is my ever elegant, often cheeky roommate Sansa."

Brienne extended her and toward Sansa "It's lovely to meet you." She stated with a polite smile.

Sansa turned an even deeper shade of red. She looked up at Brienne. She must be at least two inches over six feet. Sansa was tall by anyone's standards, but Brienne was nearly a head taller. Her height just seemed to accentuate her presence. "It's…um…great to meet you too! I can't wait to see you swim again!"

Yara let out a chuckle at Sansa's obvious discomfort. She wasn't used to seeing her normally calm and collected friend be brought to such humiliation. "Sansa, you never want to come to our meets and always bitch about the humidity's effects to your hair." Yara couldn't help incite more awkwardness on her friend's part.

Sansa looked away bashfully while Brienne stared her on. "Well, maybe with a winning anchor, the meets won't be so bad!" Brienne smiled softly before telling Yara "she's got a good point Greyjoy." She redirected her attention to Sansa "It was nice meeting you. I hope to see you around campus. See you tomorrow Kracken." She gave a small wink, causing Sansa to further blush, and trotted off toward the locker rooms.

Yara gaped at Sansa. "You know I've roomed with you for two years and in all of that time I've never seen you peep at one man the way you ogled that giant of a woman. I'm beginning to think that all of you Starks are spaghetti. When you get hot and wet you bend all over the place. Speaking of you bendable Starks, how is Arya these days? Did I ever tell you about that time that she and I…"

Sansa grunted and stopped Yara "I do NOT want to hear about whatever you and my sister did last Christmas when you visited us in Winterfell."

"I'm just saying, it gets awfully cold in Winterfell during the winter, if I needed to release the Kracken for a little body warmth…" Yara began with a chortle.

Sansa interrupted. "I'm done! Let's go now Greyjoy. Seriously, do you think about sex all of the time? I wasn't ogling Brienne! I was just impressed with her swimming. She moved so elegantly in the water."

"Impressed is one way of putting it. She's actually one of the best swimmers in the country. We were really lucky to get her here." Yara said as they climbed into Sansa's car to head home. "She's spent the last few years in the Army. She's spent some time at the battlefront. You know that can change a person. Not sure what happened, but I think she lost someone close to her. When it was time to re-enlist, she decided it was time for a break, started looking for a university and somehow we lucked out and she landed here. You know, if you're interested I could get her digits for you." Yara wiggled her eyebrows in Sansa's direction.

Sansa laughed. "I think I've got my hands full with this Shakespeare class this semester. If I don't pull up my grades, I'm never going to pass. I don't have time to even think about dating. Besides I'm straight."

"Straight like spaghetti! Okay, I get it. But seriously though, after Joffrey, you deserve some happiness. And though I'm surprised at your obvious attraction to Brienne, she's a good woman. Plus she's not really my type, the gallant knight? No, I'm more interested in the saucy tavern wench. Oh I love this song!" Yara turned up the radio and began to sing alone as Sansa joined in. Sansa was glad to have the loud music pounding in her head to get her mind off of Shakespeare, and the handsome woman