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WHO: Jaime Lannister + Elena Fisher
WHERE: ZaShack, de Chima's most subpar pizza joint
WHEN: early evening February 8
WHAT: local newcomer learns about pizza. Elena Fisher is on the story. this is just an excuse for a meet cute.
WARNINGS: language at worst probably. hot pizzas.

"And it's a pie?"

The freckled serving boy behind the counter nods, wearily. Yes, it's a pie. Yes, it has a sauce of tomato spread on top of the crust, which is rolled out flat before it is baked. Jaime knows of flat breads, of course, soft thin loaves the size and width of a generous roll of parchment, but this food is not quite that. And they don't call it a pie.

Chess, as it turns out, is closely akin to cyvasse, which is a game Jaime has never had any attraction to, nor any skill at. Why waste time with make believe strategy, and campaigns waged by carved pieces, and overthought movements that translate to very little? He doesn't like chess either, no matter how uncommonly good at it he seems to be. No strategy or refinement to his technique; the brute force of whatever power has been endowed to him is where his skill lies. Fitting. And now, after a long evening spent watching boys push small carved pieces around a board, Jaime is in this strange small building on the recommendation of some overly friendly teacher who had insisted he try pizza. Which puts Jaime here, studying the posted menu with some bemusement, while the hapless serving boy looks on haplessly. And eyeing Jaime's stump with some apprehension, though he's at least trying to be subtle about that.

All boys were more or less hapless once. Jaime was, probably, a little hapless. But he was a Lannister, and never so hopeless as this boy, or any of the others he was made to spend time with today. Perhaps he should take some mercy, but it has been a very long day. Which means that he now uses his stump to point at the menu.

"The onion pie. I've never liked onions. So if this tastes terrible, it ruins nothing for me."

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Getting back into the journalism game was just about as easy in this new world as it was in the one Elena came from. Which was to say...it was a challenge, but for different reasons. As an imPort, everyone wanted to know about her perspective on things, and she could have had her pick of any brainless TV hosting job. Getting into actual news was proving to be harder, but she was getting there, one freelance piece at a time.

She'd been chasing down the latest story in De Chima all day, so focused on getting the interview that she hadn't realized how hungry she was until her stomach let out a loud gurgle and she ducked into the first pizza parlor she saw. At first, she paid no attention to the man in front of her, but then she overheard his remark and saw the frankly mystified look on his face and had to stifle a laugh.

"It's not pie." She grinned as she circled around him. "Not technically. And if you don't like onions, you don't have to have them—pizza comes with all kinds of topping choices."

"Even an apple that grows on a pine. Is that a pine cone, do you think?"

She will not think. She must know--because she certainly spoke with more than enough authority, and is standing at perfect ease in this place, in clothing cut in the style of the country--though whether that makes her a native or a well-established imPort, who can say.

He has adapted the clothing of the region tolerably well, with the long sleeve of his jacket folded over his missing hand. Not knowing the customs of the food will still mark him as some other--but ignorance is best expressed sarcastically, as if not knowing is some great joke. Jaime raised his eyebrows.

"What will you be choosing?"

"It's...no, it's not."

Her lips twitch in a smile. She won't laugh at him, she won't, but she's only human, and the scene is pretty funny.

"I like pepperoni and green peppers a lot," she says. "Depends on your preferences. Do you like to eat a lot of meat, or are you more of a vegetarian?"

"Westerosi, actually. A Lannister of Lannisport. A bit more meat than fish, personally, and none of the braised snake or horse parts eaten elsewhere."

His smile, hooked at the left corner, is a little cool--yes, he knows next to nothing, but he can have a measure of good humor about that ignorance. So long as she doesn't laugh.

"And pepperoni is...?"

Elena had to chuckle. At least he didn't take himself so seriously that he'd go into a huff about not knowing something. She'd had a few bosses like that—yikes.

"It's sliced salami, a sort of sausage," she explained. "It's the most popular topping, but it's not for everyone."

Was she giving a pizza education? Not what she'd planned with her day, but all right.

"Actually, you know what? Let me order something, have lunch with me, and tell me about Lannisport, or something about where you're from. I'm always up for hearing more about imPorts' native worlds."

A sort of sausage is giving Jaime some pause. Either it's a sausage or it isn't. Her offer strikes him as sincere, without a tint of charity to it. Does he much feel like company?

Well, he doesn't not feel like company. And he is here to eat.

"Really. How--" A pause. "Well-mannered? Curious? I'm not sure what to mark you as. How many of these conversations have you fallen asleep over?"

"Nosy is another word for it." She gave him a wry smile. "And not too many—everyone's got something interesting in their past, even if it seems normal and boring to them."

Maybe not to most people, but she was a reporter. It was her job to be interested in people, in their lives. She sussed out stories.

"Grab us a table while I order?"

"Now you're just being generous."

With other people's stories. Not with Jaime. Although she is being mildly generous. He's feeling less certain of subjecting himself to nosiness just in exchange for food, and he's not concerned with politeness in the lest--which means he could walk straight out the door if he so chose.

Instead he goes and sits at one of the small Formica tables. The napkin dispenser in the center of the table beams his reflection back at him. Jaime avoids it and watches the woman instead--casually, though he's paying attention to how she orders.

Ordering a pizza with half-and-half toppings was normal enough, but she went the extra mile and ordered a pizza with toppings in quarters—pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms and supreme.

"It'll be by in a few minutes," she says as she takes a seat across from him. "There's probably something on it you'll like." Or he wouldn't like any of it and just wasn't a pizza person. "So. Have you been ported in long?"

She doesn't actually have a pencil and notepad out, but she probably gives the impression of it all the same.

Without the benefit of newspapers as a reference, Jaime has no name by which to call the strict and focused attention his luncheon partner is suddenly paying him--beyond, of course, interest. As the heir presumptive of House Lannister, and all the titles and gold and influence therein, Jaime had known attention. As a squire, he had earned attention. As a knight, and a member of the Kingsguard, he had commanded attention--and then as the Kingslayer, he had commanded a different sort of attention, dubious and awed and disdainful by turns.

None of those examples quite feel like this one, but are still enough that he takes a second of pause to consider her, as if trying to suss out her true intentions. Lunch and conversation, maybe. Likely not.

"Still quite recent, I'm afraid." He smiles anyways. "How obvious would you say that is?"

"Pretty obvious," she acknowledges. "Something about the slightly lost look in your eyes just says 'help me, this place is crazy and I have no idea what I'm doing.' Or something like that."

Hopefully he doesn't take that as an insult. It's not meant to be.

"Don't feel bad, it was the same for me. I'd be more worried if someone took being here completely in stride."

"Ah," he says, seriously, "that would be the fault of pizza pies."

As if he isn't otherwise out of his element.

"So you aren't from a country like this one? You've done a good job of learning how to behave as if you are. I thought of wallowing a little longer, perhaps getting quite drunk. But now you've set a standard."

Elena laughs. "Thanks, but don't give me too much credit," she says. "I'm not from around here, but I am from the United States—just in a different timeline. This is a few years in the future for me, and starting a few decades ago, the history is slightly different. But I'm pretty sure that still gives me a leg up on a lot of people."

And even then she's felt like getting quite drunk a time or two. She won't judge him.

"And here I was, feeling slightly less out of place."

The United States, Jaime has learned, is structured a little as the Seven Kingdoms are. Territories, united under a single rule. An elected ruler, yes, but he enjoys as little peace as any king, enjoys fewer entitlements and benefits, and rules in greater uncertainty. At least a king can take some comfort in the guarantee of his power.

"Is it the history that left you so bereft when you first arrived, or the simple fact that you were taken against your will to--" He looks around ZaShack, as if Elena might have woken to find herself here, and not in the well-scrubbed building where it seems everyone first finds themselves. "--Whatever this place is called. Another world."

Beyond his comprehension, certainly.

A pizza parlor might be a more pleasant arrival space than the sterile environment of the porter, but it wouldn't be nearly as informative.

"Actually, it was the fact that I was bleeding from grenade wounds at the time," she says, arching one eyebrow. "But that wasn't because I arrived here, so I suppose I would have been pretty bereft regardless. And it's not something most other imPorts would experience."

But hey, never say never.

Just then, the waiter approaches, steaming pizza pie in hand. Nice—the service is quick here, she'll have to make a note to come back.

Grenade is not a word that Jaime knows, but he has no trouble with wounds. More than familiar. At least when he'd arrived, he'd done so in relative health. Missing a hand, but the worst of that maiming had been tended by Qyburn, cleanly stitched and ministered.

"There's hardly anything so disorienting as waking up wounded and in a place you don't recognize." It's something like sympathy. As the serving boy approaches with the food, Jaime sits back to make space for it.

"Large," he notes, dryly. "You didn't tell me I was sitting down to a feast."

Elena laughs. "Tell me about it."

Something like sympathy is good enough. She wasn't particularly interested in sympathy anyway; she's far more concerned with the delicious-looking pizza, and she grins as she starts the lesson.

"You can get smaller pizzas, but you'd be surprised how much two people can put away," she says. "But even then, leftovers are fine. The true test of good pizza is whether you want it cold for breakfast the next morning."

The smell of the pizza leaves Jaime in a brief moment of confused nausea. Then the smells realign themselves, and his senses learn to read what's been put before him as good.

He thinks good,anyways. Difficult to tell from smell alone. A glance at the table some feet away gives him an understanding of what comes next. The man there is peeling pieces off of the try before him and eating with his hands. Then again, his pie is thinner, with much less to it. He would do better to watch Elena.

"And do you often find yourself eating pizza for breakfast?"

Jaime's tone carries a hint of mockery to it. Teasing, really. Even without the proper knowledge of just how sad cold pizza for breakfast can be, he manages to make the suggestion sound quaint, cute, like something he would never do.

Elena just grins, no offense taken. "Sometimes! Especially after a night out in college when I had a little too much to drink."

But if he doesn't know about pizza, he wouldn't know about college, so best to stick with one topic for now.

"Okay, I picked four of the most common toppings—pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms and supreme." She pointed at each one in turn. "Start with whichever you want, but I recommend giving them all a try."

Meat-lovers would have been good too, but it's more of a 102-level experience.

She's right: no clue what she could mean by college. The blank look he gives her confirms that. A city rife with taverns would be the most likely, given what she's said of it. A pity she doesn't say where it's located. Tyrion might like to pay it a visit.

He studies each of his options as she presents them. "Is 'supreme' a title?" What could pizza possible do to earn a title? Amused despite himself, he passes over the mysterious supreme and chooses a piece she's noted as sausage. At least it's familiar. The pizza is hot in his hand, but he lifts it to his mouth and takes a cautious bite which is, as it turns out, also hot.

And thus does Jaime Lannister experience the first burn to the roof of his mouth from too-hot pizza.

"Seven hells," he says, as he recoils. "Gods, it's hot. What have they done to the cheese?"

"Oh, shoot. Sorry about that—I should have warned you that it sometimes arrives too hot."

She cringes, trying to look properly apologetic, but there's nothing to be done—his mouth will be sore later. Elena just hopes he likes the pizza enough to make that worth it.

"It's because they melted it," she says. "This place has a brick oven, so it looks like they gave it to us fresh. Give it a minute or two and it should be okay,"

"Cheese baked hot enough to be used as torture." The soft underbelly of the pizza is uncomfortably warm, too. Jaime sets it down, carefully, on the rough paper napkin. "After everyone's assured me of how very civilized this country is."

And meant it as a virtue, too, while simultaneously casting a fair bit of shade on Westeros. He prods at the roof of his mouth with his tongue as he waits for the pizza to cool.

"If you want to try torture, you'd need a pizza with anchovies on it," Elena says, stifling a laugh. "Or so I'm told. Funny, I don't know anyone who's actually tried them."

Carefully, she picked out a slice of supreme for herself and blew on it before taking a small bite off the end. It was still hot, but cool enough for her.

"This is one of my favorite kinds," she says. "I really like fresh garlic and spinach, too, but that might be a little much for you. The breath lingers."

"What in Seven Hells is an anchovy??"

Jaime makes a note of the regardless, as he carefully picks up the slice of the pizza pie once more and mimics Elena's action, blowing across the top of if to cool it off. The roof of his mouth is still tender, but the smell of the pizza is growing more enticing by the moment, reminding Jaime of how hungry he actually is. That's why he came to this shop in the first place, to find something to eat.

Bravely, he takes a second bite. This one he actually manages, and though the topping presses down against his sore mouth, he soldiers on. Chews, swallows, considers.

"Not bad. I see why you take the risk."

It's kind of an extreme reaction to the idea of a pizza topping, but Elena supposes some modern folk would feel the same way about anchovies.

"Right?" She grins, thoroughly cheered by his reaction. So it's not immediate pizza love—for someone who's never heard of it before? This is close enough. It counts as a win.

"There are a lot of varieties. Aside from toppings, there are different crust styles, different cooking styles," she says. "Which is a great excuse for trying more of it, to see what you like. And it's a way to make new friends, too."

"Pizza is a way to make friends? With who--the baker? Any man will befriend you if you line his pockets."

He knows what she truly means. Jaime, inclined to think in terms of allies and not friends, smiles at his slice of pizza. A peculiar luxury of this country is how casual and instant personal connections seem to be. Jaime has Cersei, and Tyrion, and needs few others to round out people that he gives two shits about.

Still. That was in Westeros. In this country of America, his power is small, his options are fewer, and allies are good to have. That's what has aligned his interests with the likes of Littlefinger. The question is, is Elena worth allying with? And, second question, will Jaime be any good at making friends?

Experience suggests no. But he could likely do worse than Elena. And the pizza is good. He takes another bite, a little less carefully. Already the cheese lacks some of its burning heat.

"I've already marked anchovies from my list, whatever they are. Garlic, and spinach--I could stand those."

"Good. I'm glad you're willing to give them a shot."

No one should be unable to enjoy pizza, whatever time and place they come from. It's just sad.

"And I was talking about me, actually," she says after another mouthful of cheesy goodness. "Sure, we've only just met. But I like to be optimistic."

He could still be a jerk, sure, despite his obvious good judgment in trusting her about food. But if he is, he hides it well. And honestly, she could use some more friends here too. Get her out of her head a little when she worries too much about the grenade back home.

Could be a jerk. That's a very charitable assumption that will likely prove ultimately true.

In this present moment, Jaime smiles. "A pity," he says, as he picks up his pizza again. "And here I was looking forward to befriending the baker. I don't suppose you know how to bake it, do you?"

He takes another bite as he waits for her response.

Elena's just that sort of person. She's not naive, she can't be after all she's seen and done, but she's also willing to believe the best of people until proven otherwise.

"Actually, I do." She raises an eyebrow and takes another bite. "It's not that hard. Get some dough, cheese, tomato sauce and toppings, and boom. But come on, don't tell me it doesn't taste better when someone makes it for you. Besides, the baker is a professional."

"The extent of my skill at cooking is roast meat. Perhaps a sort of stew at best. You'll forgive me for being unduly impressed that you consider this to be not that hard."

Boom indeed. After a moment of consideration, Jaime selects a piece with different toppings, the one Elena named pepperoni. He takes a careful bite, but the cheese by now has cooled a little. The flavor is interesting--but appealing, too.

She recognizes that look. It's a pepperoni-appreciation look.

"See? It's good, isn't it?" She grins. "And even if it would be hard at first, you could learn it pretty fast. It's not like pizza takes mixing ingredients or sauteeing or anything. Or you could just order out again—that's even easier."

"I get the feeling that I will be ordering out for much of my time here. It's that or hire a cook. Are there cooks for hire?"

Like as of not. Then again, as long as a wage is offered, surely there will be someone willing to do the work? Jaime takes another bite, considering the flavor of the pepperoni.

"It is good. Spicy, but not terribly. I see why you chose this one."

"Yes, actually," she says, grinning. "If you can afford it. Which pretty much means if you're rich."

Or with food as a very high priority, she supposes. Neither applies to her, so she keeps eating her pizza. It's good, she'll come here again.

"Tasty, not bland and great for soaking up alcohol," she says. "Before or during hangovers, as long as it's not too greasy."

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