Chapter Text
“Just come on, Brienne. It’ll be fun!” said Sansa tugging on Brienne’s sleeve, steering her towards the Halloween surplus store. “You haven’t been to a party with us in ages!”
“But, it’s a costume party!” protested Brienne. “Halloween’s has never really been my thing. I usually sit at home with my porch lights turned off, while I pig out on candy, and hope no one TPs my yard.”
“Right,” said Margaery with a smirk. “But you’ve never been to one one of Renly’s Halloween parties. He always goes all out and basically turns his mansion of a house into a haunted house. You won’t want to miss it!”
“I’m completely content with missing,” argued Brienne “I wouldn’t even know what to wear!”
“Well, we’re just about to remedy that little problem,” said Sansa as she gave Brienne a final push through the store’s automatic doors.
Brienne blinked in the sprawling darkened warehouse of a store, suddenly overwhelmed with everything Halloween. Strobe lights were blinking brightly causing a eerie flickering effect, the air was murky with puffs of fog rolling out of a fog machine, and an electronic skeleton prop cackled at her as she took a step forward, causing her to nearly jump out of her skin.
“Seven hells!” she muttered as she recovered from her adrenaline rush.
“Relax!” said Margaery. “I hope you won’t be this jumpy at the party.”
“I don’t like surprises,” said Brienne seriously. Margaery just laughed and pushed her towards the costume racks.
“What exactly are we looking for?” asked Brienne hesitantly as Sansa and Brienne ransacked the displays, piling costume after costume into her outstretched arms.
“We don’t know yet. But I’m sure we’ll know it when we see it,” laughed Sansa. Brienne didn’t like the sound of that.
When Brienne could carry no more, Margaery and Sansa steered her towards the dressing room, pulled back the curtain for her, and shoved her inside.
“Start trying them on!” shouted Margary through the curtain. “We’ll see what else we can find in the meantime!”
“No, really!” Brienne shouted back, “This is more than enough. No more!” she pleaded, but she could already hear Sansa and Margaery giggling as they retreated back to the sales floor.
Brienne sighed and turned her attention to the pile of costumes sitting on the floor. She glanced at the models on the front of each package, each one looking gorgeous and confident in whatever ridiculous thing they were wearing. That wasn’t her at all. Not with tall, freckled, lanky body.
She shuffled the packages around to get a better look. Sexy nurse. Sexy cheerleader. Sexy witch. Why did they have to be sexy . She’d feel much more comfortable in costume that hid her entire body. But she figured she should try something on before Sansa and Margaery and returned with anything worse. She settled on the sexy pirate costume. At least she could have a sword. That would be cool.
She slipped the costume over her ungainly body, already uncomfortable with how revealing it seemed, and picked up the foam sword that went along with it. She was just turning to look at herself in the mirror when the curtain to the dressing room was pulled back in one swift motion, startling her. She whirled around and ridiculously pointed her foam sword at the intruder. She came face to face with a gorgeous golden haired man with laughing green eyes, and a smile that cut like a knife.
“Whoa, easy there,” said the smirking man, raising his hands up in mock surrender. “Didn’t realize this room was taken.” She could feel his eyes traveling up and down her body, taking in her sexy pirate costume. “Relax…wench,” he said before turning on his his heels and stalking off.
Brienne lowered her sword, still reeling with embarrassment when she heard giggling coming from the other direction. There stood Margaery and Sansa, arms full of several more costume options. They had seen the whole exchange. But they just looked at each other and then back at her. “I think,” said Sansa, “That you’ve already found your costume.”