A Holiday by Decree

~~ Day 5 ~~

When Tyrion awoke a few hours later, after the sun had come up, he sat up in bed quickly.

Had he invented the whole thing?

Then he spotted his items, all neatly arranged around the room, as Sansa had helped put them the night before, as well as a few drops of wax accidentally left from her candle on the dresser.

Good gods, the whole thing had happened! he thought headily.

Sansa had come to his room.

She had told him that she had been thinking about him.

They had agreed to court.

Excitement vibrated in every ounce of Tyrion's short form.

I have never properly courted a woman. What could possibly go wrong? Tyrion thought facetiously, as he laid back on his pillows trying to judge the hour of the morning by the height of the sun.

A member of the staff had been in at dawn to discover from his incoherent mumbling that he would not be leaving; another had clearly returned to open his windows and the veranda, as it seemed to be another sweltering day in the heat of the sun.

Sure that he could not possibly sleep another wink now that his mind was properly going, he got up and rooted through a drawer for a particular set of garments: a thick linen shirt and matching pants cuffed just above the knee, in a pattern of wide, navy and cream colored vertical bars.

He had had the set tailored for himself in Meereen to use in the saunas that were popular there but ended up never having the time. When he had packed for the trip, the linen material had called to him as an excellent candidate to be swimwear if the occasion called for it; he certainly had not owned anything else resembling swimwear since his youth in Casterly Rock. He donned the set and skipped combing his bed- and humidity-battered curls. After all, a swim seemed to be just what he needed to combat such heat, already so formidable at this early hour.

With a folded linen bathing cloth over one arm, Tyrion made his way through the manor, out to the terraced patio area. Having noticed no staff waiting for him nor Sansa yet out in the dining area, he proceeded down to the lanai by the pool. The lanterns, low table, pillows and throws that had been present a couple nights prior were no longer in sight, but lounge furniture made of some kind of steam bent wooden stalks had replaced them. Tyrion put his towel down on a lounge.

Under the bright morning sun and perfectly blue and white clouded sky, the deep pool water glistened a cool, inviting aquamarine.

In a single motion, a remnant from years spent in the water as much as possible as a boy, Tyrion strode to the pool's edge and smoothly dove forward into the water.