lucidbreams

[lucidbreams]

she who swept away the scales / brienne of tarth

brienne x f!oc - lesbian awakening - oneshot - smut

summary: fed up with the riverlands, brienne inadvertently discovers that she's allowed to like women. happy brienne week!

-ˋˏ ༻❁༺ ˎˊ-

The Riverlands were interminable. Brienne thought back to the most heat-blurred days of her childhood, when even Septa Roelle would do little more than sweat through her robes and wave flies away as she supervised her reading. Essos, no more than words and maps on a page, had seemed impossibly dreary. A land of dust, stone, and sand was a horror compared to the fresh greens and blues of Tarth. But now, having travelled the Riverlands for what was beginning to feel like her whole life, Brienne was cursing every dripping branch that grazed her face, and every spray of muddy water the horses sent onto her armour. Even Pod wasn't beyond her reproach, since his inexplicable fall into a particularly wet thicket of grass while attempting to piss. Now he was sat silently on his horse, damp and forlorn. He was probably hungry. He had a habit of shutting up when he hadn't eaten in a while, no doubt to contemplate old memories of roast capons, leeks, and warm bread. That was probably what boys his age did, anyway. 

Nevertheless, the inn that gradually came into view was a welcome sight. It was not quite evening yet, but she was tired of journeying and merely wanted to sleep, and The Shepherd's Staff seemed adequate from the outside, at least. 

"The Shepherd's Staff," said Podrick, unhelpfully. 

"What about it," replied Brienne. 

"We're out of food, and the horses could use some straw, maybe even some oats, ser. My l-"

Brienne cut him off, yielding to the excuse to turn in early for a change. "Excellent idea, Pod. A knight must always take care of his horse."

Pod grinned bashfully, proud of himself. Perhaps I should encourage the lad more.

The inn was fairly busy, with the usual buzz of conversation and clinking tankards in the air, but not as packed as they were used to. Why, they might even be able to have a table all to themselves, and a room that wasn't the draughtiest leftover corner of the hayloft. Brienne considered the thought of stretching her legs under the full length of the table, rather than remaining cramped and constrained on one cheek's worth of bench, and decided that she was happy they'd stopped here. She scanned the room, but nobody seemed to be the owner of the Staff, and so she walked over to the ale counter and stood resolutely, waiting for somebody to show up. 

The lack of activity set her mind wandering, and she soon found herself pondering bowls of stew and roasted birds, and even the comforts of a good feather bed. A tap on the back brought her back to her wits, however, and her sword had nearly found its way out of its sheath by the time she whirled around to face her assailants. 

"Podrick, don't startle me like that!"

Podrick stammered something that fell on uninterested ears as Brienne sized up the woman accompanying him. 

The woman spoke. "Is he yours, then? I found him in the front, standing there all gormless." She was roguishly charming, with a strong jaw and smooth, oak-coloured skin. What had seized Brienne’s attention, though, was the pair of pretty blue-green eyes staring at her. Renly's eyes, she thought. A disarming notion.

"I — yes, he's my squire."

"Is that so?" She glanced at Podrick, her eyebrow twitching. "What's your business here, then, Ser..." 

"Brienne. Of Tarth. We're looking for a place to sleep, and something for our horses too, if you would."

"I would, if you're paying," she said, walking around to the other side of the counter. "Does everyone of Tarth look like you, then?" 

"No," she muttered, throwing an unclear quantity of silver onto the worn wood between them. "Take whatever you require as payment for a room and provisions."

"More's the pity," smiled the woman, her right cheek dimpled as she picked through the coins. "Your squire can stable the horses. I'll see about a room. Call out for the barwench if you need something, though I prefer Elyn." She left two cups of wine on the counter, and vanished into a back room without another word.

More's the pity? What did that mean? Flustered, she took a deep swallow of the wine and made her way to an empty bench in the corner. A musician, armed with a lute, entered the inn singing. It was a song that Brienne didn't know, and she listened despite herself. It was rare for her to encounter a tune she hadn't heard before. From how raucously everyone was singing, though, it was evident that the ditty was well-known to the local smallfolk. 

Oh, run her down 

Oh, chase her home 

Oh, tease her ‘till she laughs

For there's none so fair

Or of such good cheer 

As the maid of The Shepherd's Staff!

The song devolved into loud whoops and cheers as Elyn re-emerged, bearing more drinks. 

“Ho, Elyn! Harrik the Hale has something to ask you,” said a red-nosed, sun-weathered man. 

“Still after a wife, Harrik?” Elyn looked bemused, and ignored his outstretched hand as she unloaded the flagons onto the table. “You shatter the hearts of the girls who chase you through the Seven Kingdoms.”

Harrik winked at her. “Oh, but it's a woman I seek, Elyn!”

She rolled her eyes as he broke into another song — one Brienne knew this time, though she was preoccupied, for Podrick Payne had returned from the stables bearing all their worldly possessions. 

Elyn caught sight of him at the same time, and shouted for someone named Rosel to take over dealing with the customers, before ushering him upstairs. Brienne stalked her way through the tables and followed them. She had finished all the wine — a mistake on an empty stomach — and nearly knocked her head on the lintel as she climbed the stairs. Staying alert was paramount, but this evening it felt like less of a priority than the insistent pulse within her breeches. 

“Two rooms then, Ser Tarth? It'll cost you.”

“It's just Tarth,” said Brienne. “I mean, Brienne. And I'll only need one. Podrick will take the truckle.”

“Done,” said Elyn. “You can have this back, then, since you won't take two.” She reached into the front of her dress and pulled out a silver coin, and half a handful of breast with it, too.

The coin was warm in Brienne’s hand, from Elyn’s body or from the sudden, full-body rush of heat Brienne was feeling. It was as though all the blood in her veins had suddenly decided to make its presence known. “Keep it, to pay for whatever food and drink we take,” she said, levelly as possible. 

“Then you'd best put it back where it was, Tarth,” replied Elyn, gesturing to the tight gap wherein she'd retrieved the coin.

It occurred to Brienne, in that moment, that she loved this girl's wit and eyes in a way that was almost sickeningly different to whatever she had felt to Renly. Travelling singers spoke of love as a chaste, gallant thing for heroes and maidens who were pure of heart. And what purer reason to love, than deep and mutual respect? Everyone had assumed her love for Renly after their dance, so confidently that she herself had accepted it as fact. But she had never once looked at him with a desire to even see what lay under his armour, let alone touch. This Elyn, on the other hand, had sent her thoughts galloping in many directions, and none of them chivalrous. 

“Podrick, squire,” said Elyn, “Go downstairs and tell Rosel that the lavender room is bought for the night, and that you'll be needing dinner.”

Podrick rushed out of the room like a boy starving. You'd think I never fed him, Brienne thought fleetingly. 

“Your coin,” she said, holding it out. 

“You're no fun,” retorted Elyn, brushing a stray spiral of curls from her eyes. She grabbed the silver and tossed it. “Dash the coin.”

It had landed on the bed, and Brienne picked it up and handed it back to her host, who poked her in the chest; a gesture so surprising that she found herself sitting on the mattress in disbelief. Puzzled, she looked at Elyn and made to stand up. 

“No — don't. We're of a height now, and I see that your eyes are brilliant like an evening sky.”

“Thank you,” she replied, though her stomach was coiling the way it had with those knights, back in Highgarden. 

“Aren't you sweating in all that mail?” Elyn was unbuttoning the bodice of her dress and loosening the scarf that served as her makeshift partlet. “I know I am.”

Brienne didn't know where to look. She was sweating, and it wasn't on account of the weather. She was damp all over. But there was no need to remove her cloak and mail, even if it was beginning to feel as constricting as a girdle under Elyn’s gaze. The road here had been quiet, and there was little sign of those they were tracking, or the destruction they left in their wake, but they needed to be ready to leave at any moment. One could never be too sure. “I’ve a knight’s training. Sweat is of little concern to me.”

She took a step closer, nudging her knees further apart. “Nor to me. But what does concern you, Tarth? There’s confusion in your pretty eyes. I’m not after your coin,” she said laughingly.

“It’s… improper. I must find my squire, it’s late,” she replied, tripping over the words. Mere minutes had passed since Podrick had left in search of his supper, and the sky was only just beginning to fill with sunset shades of orange.  

“Well, have it your way.” Elyn smoothed out the rumples on the faded purple coverlet where Brienne had sat. “A shame. A woman like you rarely comes through our doors.”

Downstairs, Brienne found Pod eating, a look of pure contentment on his face. She racked her brains for something to say. “Did you feed and water the horses?”

“Yes, ser. My lady.” 

“Good,” she said. “Eat up. I should, too.”

“The woman, Rosel, had offered me some for you. But I—” Podrick reddened. 

“You what? Speak, squire,” she said tersely. 

“I thought — I thought, ser, that you’d be a little longer seeing to the room. My lady.”

“It has been seen to.” She left in search of more of whatever stew Podrick was inhaling, but found herself thinking that perhaps she should have taken a little longer seeing about the room after all. She’d never considered that she might be charmed by her own sex, the way Renly had been. And who could blame her, when Elyn’s brown cheek was dimpled so, and her breasts were soft and spilling from her clothes? She decided that she had been hasty, and regretted it.

Night had well and truly fallen, and Harrik the Hale had ceased his lusty singing. There’d been no trouble, except a minor drunken brawl that Rosel and a solid-looking youth had quickly put an end to. Brienne had concluded by now that she could have foregone her mail for the night, and experienced a little more in that room than panicked confusion. The more she thought about it, the more annoyed she became with herself, and the pent-up frustration was seeping out of her. Still, there was nothing to be done now. Podrick was yawning in the corner, and it would probably be best if she retired too. There was nothing else to do.

“Podrick, you can go to sleep. I’ll check on the horses.” 

He mumbled a sleepy goodnight as he left. She stood up and headed to the stables, stretching in the muggy night air. The sky had cleared, and a practically full moon cast a pale glow on the green of the Riverlands. Her father had once told her that the gods were in the stars, watching over all. But there hadn’t been any clouds the night Renly died, and since then she’d foregone many nights of sleep wondering whether they watched to protect, or merely observe.

The horses were asleep, alive, and secured. Velvety in the gleam of the lantern she’d brought. All was well. 

“Do they speak to you?”

“What?” Brienne felt a hot blush race across her upper body. She turned, lamp raised, to see Elyn outlined in its glow just a step away.  

“I am sorry. It was merely a jest.” She reached out and placed her hand on Brienne’s arm. “Will you not follow your squire to bed?”

“Yes,” she responded, making her way to the door. 

Elyn followed. “Am I no more than an upturned face to you, Tarth?”

“Most I meet are upturned faces, if they deign to look at me at all.”

“I always longed to see things from a different height. Perhaps that of a low-flying sparrow,” she mused. 

“Have you ever ridden a horse?”

“Not for many years. My father was a knight, and he once visited us here when I was a girl. He sat me on his mare and led me along the lane. I was so scared that I paid little attention to the view.”

“They say Hightower is the tallest building in Westeros, so great that one can see the Wall from its peak.”

“Have you seen it?”

“Not yet.”

“Well then,” Elyn sighed, “whatever are we to do?”

It was at this point that Brienne took leave of her senses and picked her up, aligning their faces in the light of the lantern, the inn, the stars, and the moon. 

She kissed her. Clumsily, to be sure, but it felt as she imagined the Baratheon host must have, in the brief moment before they exploded into green flame. 

“I didn’t expect that,” said Elyn, “but I’m glad we’re of a mind,” she clarified before Brienne could apologise and place her back on the ground. She bent her head forward, her free hand tracing the collar of her jerkin toward the line of her jaw. “You never did take any of this off,” she whispered. 

“I could,” Brienne suggested despite herself, ducking back into the stables, towards an empty stall at the back. She pulled at the fastenings with practiced hands, stripping it all away until only her neatly mended undershirt remained. 

Elyn watched from the floor, leaning against straw heaped in the corner of the stall. “And mine.” 

Brienne complied, unlacing her kirtle to expose the rapid rise and fall of her chest. Unsure what to do, she leaned in to kiss her again as Elyn guided her hand inside her dress. Her finger found the edge of her nipple, stiffening as she gently circled it. She kept going, increasingly aware of her own wetness as the girl’s breath grew faintly ragged. 

“Come,” she said, pulling the unmailed knight towards her by the waist of her unadorned breeches. Their legs intertwined, bunching Elyn’s skirts around her thighs. “Touch me. Please,” she whispered. 

“Elyn, I’ve never…”

“I’ll help you.” She eased her hand along the inside of her legs and to the point at which they met. Brienne held her breath as her fingers felt a tangle of hair, and the wet gap of Elyn’s cunt between. She worked softly at the part she knew to be the most sensitive, rewarded by the feeling of her pushing back against her hands, searching for more. 

She couldn’t say how long this had gone on for when Elyn mustered up enough breath to speak a full sentence again. “Don’t tease me anymore, Tarth. Put them in me.”

She cringed. “Tarth is my father. Don’t call me that.”

“Brienne. I’m sorry,” she breathed. “But I need them, and kiss me too, while you’re at it.”

Hesitantly, she slid a finger into Elyn, and then another. She cried her name like nobody had before. Brienne bent and kissed her. She was aching, hot for her and the way she was using her whole body to fuck herself on her fingers. But she had no relief of her own until Elyn’s knee suddenly wedged itself between her legs, startling her into moaning directly into the girl’s mouth. 

“Yes?”

Brienne nodded, lost in a haze of pleasure. 

Elyn continued to grind into Brienne’s palm, dictating the speed as she pleased. Before long, she felt her flex around her fingers, so tight that she could hardly move them as her body shook beneath her. 

When she stopped moving, breathless, she smiled up at Brienne. “You’re good, you know.”

“I didn’t hurt you?”

“No.” Elyn sat up and gave her a look that made her weak. Before she had the chance to form a thought, the girl had spun her onto her back and planted herself on Brienne’s hips, winding her hand under her shirt, mapping the muscles beneath. Her mouth was all over her chest, leaving smudged red blooms as she went. They kissed again, mingling spit and sweat and the fire of nascent want. 

Brienne’s body was stuttering under Elyn’s touch, and only continued as she finally slipped past the lacing of her breeches and entered her. She felt as though the sun was rising within her, teased up into the sky of her body by the girl above her. It didn’t feel like this when she did it herself, and she feared the pastime was forever ruined now. 

“You’re as wet as the Trident,” Elyn purred. She brought her fingertips to her mouth and sucked them brazenly. The lantern was burning ever lower, but Vrienne could make out the wanton look on her face. “But you taste like the ocean.” 

“Thank you,” said Brienne, though somewhat puzzled. 

“No need to thank me, green one.” She began to fumble at the laces of her breeches. 

“Let me.” Brienne unravelled the complex knot she always tied for safety, and pulled it all away, ignoring the pinpricks of the hay on her exposed skin. Soon enough, Elyn had resumed her attentions, her lips exploring her body, pale in the thin streaks of moonlight. She kissed her way down the trail of fine blond hair that bisected her stomach, and when she reached the end and took Brienne under her tongue, she choked on her breath. It was as though she was being shaped into something new. “Please don’t stop,” she gasped. Elyn did not stop fucking her with her mouth, each swirl of her tongue sending sparks through Brienne’s core. Her hand gripped Elyn’s head, and they moved as one until suddenly she was half falling, half flying off a cliff edge. Her whole body ached vaguely as she came down from the rush. 

Afterwards, when she had kissed the sour-salt off Elyn’s lips and cheeks, they lay curled up in the hay together, talking in the last flutters of the lamplight. 

“I’d like to see the tower you spoke of. See the world from such a height.”

“I could take you, after my oath is fulfilled.”

“Your oath?”

“I’m looking for a maiden of three and ten, with auburn hair, and accompanied by a fool.”

“I’ve not seen her. But I wish you well.”

“Do you like it here, Elyn?”

Elyn paused. “Well enough. But I would like to visit Dorne. They say everyone loves freely there, and a woman can make her own way in the world.”

“It is true, from what I have heard at court.”

“Well,” Elyn sighed, “in all likelihood I will die in this village just as I was born here.”

Brienne considered a life in the Dornish sun with her, unknown and happy in each other’s company. She was wont to burn in the sun, but that did not matter so much. Nothing the Riverlands had to offer compared, and she began to feel that she should make it her mission to return to The Shepherd’s Staff after this turmoil was over. “Perhaps I could take you there.”

Elyn squeezed her hand. “Tell me about your home,” she said, and Brienne obliged, the flimsy stable walls vanishing as she rambled about all the details of the island that nobody else had cared to ask before. 

They set off early the next morning, the grey sky impossibly close and dreary as she rode further and further away from the inn. The night could easily have been a dream, so impossible did the moonlit fantasies feel under the stark clouded sun. No star was in the daylight sky, but Brienne found herself praying that the Seven were watching anyway, watching in protection.