#his face when she calls him “ser jaime” for the first time and not kingslayer I can'tttttt

[norringtondeservestheworld]

Jaime and Brienne separate for the first time

Game of Thrones 3x07 "The Bear and the Maiden Fair"

[dtyfp2]

Shame

The Great War

The new king, Robert Baratheon spared Ser Barristan Selmy’s life. He even let him retain his title, Lord Commander of the Kings Guard, granted of course, Ser Barristan bent his knee.

Robert even let Jaime Lannister, Kingslayer, live as well, though he supposes that was at the behest of his queen, Jaime’s own twin sister.

Ser Barristan didn’t know why he was still alive. He should have died with Rhaegar on the trident, he should have died protecting Elia, Rhaenys, and little Aegon, he should be dead. The rest of the Kingsguard, save for Jaime, died. Now, as he looks upon their replacements, he can’t help but be repulsed. In what world does Ser Arthur Dayne be replaced by the likes of Meryn Trant?

Despite his title, Robert doesn’t treat him as Lord Commander. He doesn’t let him inside small council meetings, though Barristan can understand that, the king is wise to be weary of his allegiance, especially considering there are many who still call him usurper. Robert doesn’t even trust his lord commanded to protect himself, choosing to have Jaime stationed outside his quarters, while he takes his meals, even while he takes walks.

Just as Ser Barristan begins to consider leaving the brotherhood, the only way he knows how, the new Queen gives birth to the first non-Targaryen princess the Seven Kingdoms have seen in nearly 300 years. She was named Helen, she was born with dark black hair like her fathers, her mothers complexion, and strangely enough-the most beautiful pair of purple eyes. Both Baratheon and Lannister sides have Targaryen ancestors, so it was explainable, but Helen became the first non-Targaryen to bear such eyes.

Her birth was like a ray of hope. Barristan can’t think of another way to explain it. She was hope, the hope of a new generation after the greatest rebellion in memory. Kingslanding celebrated for 10 days and 10 nights, gifts came from every corner of Westeros.

When Robert commands Ser Barristan to stand watch over the new princess, he is insulted. He is the greatest knight on his kingsguard, the most experienced, and they should have him spend his time watching over a baby? Even then, Ser Barristan feels watched. As he silently takes his post, he ignores the glances from the maids. Spies sent by Varys, no doubt. Did they think him capable of murdering a babe? They did not trust him. He knows, but he doesn’t say anything, he solemnly preforms his duty, he honours his white cloak and what it stands for.

Queen Cersei refused to let anyone else feed her. Cersei fed the child at her own breast, despite the fact she had the very best nursemaids available to her. But despite the care, the babe was weak. Ser Barristan was sure of it, why else would Maester Pycelle be coming at all hours of night and day?

One night, in the dead of night, as Ser Barristan stews at the humiliation of being relegated to a…a babysitter, the child begins to cry.

No maids come, the queen doesn’t come having been exhausted the past few nights, and there are no nursemaids. The child cries and cries until Ser Barristan’s ears ring. Surely whatever the Maester has done was working, sick children didn’t shriek like this.

After a moments hesitation, Ser Barristan enters the room once it’s clear no one is coming. Inside, the crying is louder. He carefully approached the cradle, peering over the edge. The little princess is swaddled tightly, her tiny face so red with tears that Ser Barristan can’t help but feel a pang of worry.

Barristan doesn’t know what to do. He has never been left with a child like this, he has never once been expected to preform childcare. He has no idea what to do, but he raises his hand and gently lays it on Helen’s stomach, gently shushing her as he does his best to comfort the princess.

When the princess opens her purple eyes, looking deep into his own, she stops crying. Perhaps the dark is playing tricks on him, but he thinks she even smiles.

“There there, princess Helen. You’re alright. What are you crying for?” Barristan asks rhetorically. He was petting her like he would a dog when a terrible thought comes to mind…was her diaper full? He glances outside, hoping to catch a nursemaid walking by, but nobody comes. He removes his hand to go fetch someone, but no sooner does his hand move-the princess begins to cry again.

Like a frazzled boy, he basically trips over his own feet getting back. Despite every alarm going off in his head, he gingerly picks up the young princess. He recalls how his own mother once held his baby cousin and does his best to replicate. Then he decides sitting is better, at least if he drops her while sitting she will end up on his lap-not splattered on the floor.

So, Ser Barristan the bold, the greatest knight in the Seven Kingdoms, fits himself into a tiny rocking chair holding Westero’s great hope. He takes a sniff and doesn’t smell anything. He knows enough to know that a smelly diaper would be obvious. He gently rocks back and forth, reminding himself every so often to support her head. She is so small, Ser Barristan thinks he could hold her in the palm of his hand.

When Helen begins fussing, he instinctively sticks the tip of his finger into her mouth for her to suckle. He remembers how Princess Elia had done the same for Rhaenys and Aegon.

The little princess and the brave knight spend the next hour or two together like that. With the bold knight gently rocking back and forth, shushing any noise the sleeping princess makes. As he looks down at her, he realizes how stupid he has been. He believed watching over the Princess was a humiliation, a demotion. But now he felt great honour at being tasked with such a blessing. She was the Princess, heir to her father, a gentle babe who needed his gentle touch-the touch no other on the Kingsguard had.

Princess Helen would do a great many things, Ser Barristan decides. She would become the great Princess the realm has ever seen, she would be good, she would be kind, and she would surely be loved as she has already won him over with just one mere look.

It is in the early hours of dawn that the King and Queen come to check on their babe. They’re surprised to see their Lord Commander inside, let alone rocking their babe.

“She was crying, your graces, poor thing would stop until I picked her up,” Ser Barristan says apologetically as Cersei comes to pick up her child from the man she scarcely trusted. Helen fusses when she’s moved, but doesn’t cry.

He stands as the child is taken from him, facing the king as Cersei goes to place Helen back in her cradle.

“She is strong, my King, her crying might’ve taken my hearing if I hadn’t come in,” Ser Barristan smiles as he glances over Robert’s should’ve to the crib. Robert, to his credit, looks pleased at his assessment.

“She is strong like her father,” Robert agrees. Robert glances back and can’t help but smile. The lack of maids was done on purpose. Robert gambled with Helen’s life that night, to see what Barristan would do. Would he be a loyal or treacherous against him when left alone? Would he protect or murder his only heir? A child that he’s made obvious he loves.

Cersei didn’t get a wink of sleep all night, so afraid of what he might do. Nor did Robert to be honest, but he was glad at the outcome. This was a big step towards their…reconciliation of sorts.

“I will let you rest today, Lord Commander, as I’m sure you’ve had a long knight. But tomorrow, would you stand guard outside my door when the Bravossi ambassador arrives?” Robert asks.

Ser Barristan wants to say yes, this is, after all, what he’s been expecting for months. But…

“Who will watch over the princess in my absence, your grace?” Barristan asks.

“I will assign Ser Jaime, I’m sure he won’t let anything happen to his niece,” Robert shrugs, carefully watching for Barristan’s reaction. He can tell that Barristan wants to say yes, it is, after all, what he’s been expecting for months, but something stops him. He couldn’t directly deny the king, but gods, did he want to.

“…Or if it is all the same, you can watch over my daughter. The Bravossi ambassador will be bringing some companions, from what I hear, and I should have my Helen guarded at all times while they are here,” Robert suggests.

“If it is all the same, your grace…I will stand guard over the princess then,” Barristan agrees, rather quickly.

“All right, it is settled then. I shall entrust you with my daughter’s safety, I am in your debt, Ser Barristan.”

[waitingforwinterwinds]

A Clash of Kings - 07 CATELYN I (pages 97-110)

Cat deals with some heavy feels as Robb sends his Terms and Conditions to Cersei, then reunites with her uncle Brynden to plot some strategy in the face of concerning news.

-

The ancient crown of the Kings of Winter ad been lost three centuries ago, yielded up to Aegon the Conqueror when Torrhen Stark knelt in submission. What Aegon had done with it no man could say but Lord Holster's smith had done his work well, and Robb's crown looked much as the other was said to have looked in the tales told of the Stark kings of old; an open circlet of hammered bronze incised with the runes of the First Men, surmounted by nine black iron spikes wrought in the shape of longswords. Of gold and silver and gemstones, it had none; bronze and iron were the metals of winter, dark and strong to fight against the cold.

*gasp* Lore and jewellery! I love it.

Although from a "the Starks were there for the original Long Night" perspective, (and I believe it remains true across books and show: obsidian kills the Others) I think it would have been really cool if at least one of the swords on the crown was made from obsidian. Or the blades of them.

Living men had gone south, and cold bones would return. Ned had the truth of it, she thought. His place was at Winterfell, he said as much, but would I hear him? No. Go, I told him, you must be Robert's Hand,for the good of our House, for the sake of our children... my doing, mine, and no other...

Oh Cat. The guilt is eating her alive. But you know, Cersei and Joffrey and Littlefinger all had not-insignificant roles in what happened. She made a bad call with Tyrion, sure, but the initial call to appease the king was a good one. Stop hogging the blame, it's not all on you!

Even if Cat had said "no, don't go," Ned probably still would have ended up in the south. Robert was his friend who needed him, and his king who commanded him. It was more than likely going to happen no matter what.

"Third, my father's greatsword Ice will be delivered to my hand, here at Riverrun."

mmmm, yeah, I'll count it, cause I'm thirsty. Valyrian steel weapon ⚔️ = 🥛

I want my sisters back I want my father's remains back I want my family heirloom back I want my people back I want our land back

They aren't bad demands. Unfortunately Cersei lost a Stark Sister, and she's very greedy, and actually quite stingy. (especially since you won't be giving her brother-lover back.)

"Your lords made you their king." "And can unmake me just as easy." ... "I might have been able to trade the Kingslayer for father, but..." "...but not for the girls?" Her voice was icy quiet. "Girls are not important enough, are they?" ... That was unworthy of me, she told herself. Gods be good, what is become of me?He is doing his best, trying so hard, I know it, I see it, and yet... I have lost my Ned, the rock my life was built on, I could not bear to lose the girls as well...

brb, being disgusted with the northern lords. Cause, when they talk about "the girls aren't equal value of the Kingslayer" what they mean is, The Northern Lords, don't think it's a fair trade, two girls for a valuable political hostage most of them have a huge beef with. But Ned? They'd be fine if it was Ned, he's for sure equal value to the Kingslayer. Even if Robb was truly willing to make the trade, Jaime for the girls, the Northern Lords would pull their support so fast.

Autumn had come, the Conclave had declared, but the gods had not seen fit to tell the winds and woods as yet. For that Catelyn was duly grateful. Autumn was always a fearful time, with the spectre of winter looming ahead. Even the wise man never knew whether his next harvest would be his last.

Ah, okay, so they can't guesstimate how long autumn will last.

She sighed. "I wish I had their faith. Crimson is a Lannister color." "That thing's not crimson," Ser Brynden said. "Nor Tully red, the mud red of the river. That's blood up there, child, smeared across the sky." "Our blood or theirs?" "Was there ever a war where only one side bled?" Her uncle gave a shake of the head.

At last. Ser Brynden with The Most Correct interpretation of the comet.

"but your father's bannermen make a sadder tale. Robb should never have let them go. They've scattered like quail, each man trying to protect his own, and it's folly, Cat, folly. -"

Divided they fall. Like dominoes. like... oh wow they are legit getting the snot beat out of them, and by snot I mean blood they are being slaughtered left, right, and center.

"Harrenhal." Every child of the Trident knew the tales told of Harrenhal, the vast fortress that King Harren the Black had raised beside the waters of the Gods Eye three hundred years past, when the Seven Kingdoms had been seven kingdoms, and the riverlands were ruled by the ironmen from the islands. In his pride, Harren had desired the highest hall and the tallest towers in all Westeros. Forty years if had taken, rising like a great shadow on the shored of the lake while Harren's armies plundered his neighbors for stone, lumber, gold, and workers. Thousands of captives died in his quarries, chained to his sledges, or laboring on his five colossal towers. Men froze by winter and sweltered in summer. Weirwoods that had stood three thousand years were cut down for beams and rafters. Harren had beggared the riverlands and the Iron Islands alike to ornament his dream. And when at last Harrenhal stood complete, on the very day King Harren took up residence, Aegon the conqueror had come ashore at King's Landing.

On today's episode of Grand Designs Westeros, we visit a place that answers the questions "what if Neuschwanstein Castle but evil?" and "what if Neuschwanstein Castle but we don't pioneer new building techniques that are used even in modern day construction" and "how to make my castle as cursed as possible?" The hella cursed, kinda melted Harrenhal.

"Another nephew?" The Lannisters of Casterly Rock were a damnably large and fertile house. "Cousin," Ser Brynden corrected. "Brother to Lord Tywin's late wife, so twice related. An old man, and a bit of a dullard, but he has a son, Ser Daven, who is more formidable."

Oh, so incest actually runs in the Lannister family. Like the Targaryens. And Tywin's problem with Cersei and Jaime was... what? The lack of political enhancement they provided the Lannister Legacy if married to one another, and the whole, 'it's treason now actually' thing? Or is he a "first cousins but no closer/this many degrees of separation make it not incest" kinda guy?

"Unless he must leave Harrenhal," she said, "to face some other threat." Her uncle looked at her thoughtfully. "Lord Renly." "King Renly." If she would ask help from the man, she would need to grant him the style he had claimed for himself. "Perhaps." The Blackfish smiled a dangerous smile. "He'll want something, though." "He'll want what kings always want," she said. "Homage."

Catelyn knows what's up. I'm excited to see her flex her political and diplomatic muscles. Shhh, we're ignoring how this ends for now. "For a moment I was so excited by Catelyn preparing to Get Stuff Done, that I forgot we lived in a world..."

[jackoshadows]

The thing about Jonsa is that it’s so superficial? For Jonsa shippers it’s all about attraction and lust because there’s no emotional connection at all between these two characters in the books and the only thing they can use is that Jon/<insert male character>  would be attracted to Sansa because she’s a blue-eyed, auburn haired beauty. 

That’s why Jon calling Sansa ‘radiant’ gets overhyped, when right in the same paragraph Jon spends more time describing Jaime’s looks. Was Jon falling in love with the Lannister twins as well?

How can you read this and think that Jon was attracted to Sansa?

His lord father had come first, escorting the queen. She was as beautiful as men said.

Prince Joffrey had his sister’s hair and his mother’s deep green eyes. A thick tangle of blond curls dripped down past his golden choker and high velvet collar. Sansa looked radiant as she walked beside him, but Jon did not like Joffrey’s pouty lips or the bored, disdainful way he looked at Winterfell’s Great Hall.

He was more interested in the pair that came behind him: the queen’s brothers, the Lannisters of Casterly Rock. The Lion and the Imp; there was no mistaking which was which. Ser Jaime Lannister was twin to Queen Cersei; tall and golden, with flashing green eyes and a smile that cut like a knife. He wore crimson silk, high black boots, a black satin cloak. On the breast of his tunic, the lion of his House was embroidered in gold thread, roaring its defiance. They called him the Lion of Lannister to his face and whispered “Kingslayer” behind his back. Jon found it hard to look away from him. This is what a king should look like, he thought to himself as the man passed. - Jon, AGoT

After describing Joffrey and Sansa, right there in the text it says that Jon was ‘more interested’ in Jaime and Tyrion and that he couldn’t look away from Jaime! This is also AGoT bratty, naive Jon Snow btw, a far cry from ADwD Jon Snow.

And considering how Jonsa/Sansa stans read Arya as being ugly because Sansa thinks Arya is ugly, they would no doubt think of Ygritte in the same way because Sansa would most definitely think of Ygritte as being deficient in looks and be part of the coterie that snubs her in a Lord’s court.

At a lord’s court the girl would never have been considered anything but common, he knew. She had a round peasant face, a pug nose, and slightly crooked teeth, and her eyes were too far apart. - Jon, ADwD

Sansa could never understand how two sisters, born only two years apart, could be so different. It would have been easier if Arya had been a bastard, like their half brother Jon. She even looked like Jon, with the long face and brown hair of the Starks, and nothing of their lady mother in her face or her coloring. And Jon’s mother had been common, or so people whispered.  - Sansa, AGOT  

According to Jon, Ygritte is short, skinny with crooked teeth and eyes too far apart. And yet somehow, Ygritte reminds Jon of Sansa, whose most important characteristic is that she is beautiful according to her stans? The fact that they turn Jon into this shallow caricature when book Jon is falling in love with imperfection?

Lately, though, he was noticing some other things. When she grinned, the crooked teeth didn’t seem to matter - Jon, ASoS

Ygritte had been pretty in her own way, with her red hair kissed by fire, but it was her smile that made her face come alive. - Jon, ADwD

The girl smiled in a way that reminded Jon so much of his little sister that it almost broke his heart. - Jon, ADwD

And even in terms of physical attraction, Jon compares his love interests with Arya.  Jonsas doing mental gymnastics about how Jon is attracted to Ygritte because of her hair/eye color which is apparently like Sansa’s and meanwhile in the text, Jon is comparing Ygritte’s physicality and personality to Arya!

She looked plump as she crouched there, but most of that was layers of fur and wool and leather. Underneath all that she could be as skinny as Arya. - Jon, ACok

She wasn’t wed and her weapon of choice was a short curved bow of horn and weirwood, but “spearwife” fit her all the same. She reminded him a little of his sister Arya, though Arya was younger and probably skinnier. It was hard to tell how plump or thin Ygritte might be, with all the furs and skins she wore. - Jon, ASoS

I never meant to steal you,” he said. “I never knew you were a girl until my knife was at your throat.” If you kill a man, and never mean t’, he’s just as dead,” Ygritte said stubbornly. Jon had never met anyone so stubborn, except maybe for his little sister Arya. - Jon, ASoS

Even the author just straight out says this:

 “It's a  reference to a certain physical type, and a certain indication of what  Jon finds admirable. It's like someone who reminds you of, you know...  Other people might be put off by this, you know, hair that looks like  small rodents have been living in there. It doesn't put him off because  he is used to that."

So Jon has a type and that type is someone who reminds him in all ways of Arya -who is the complete opposite of Sansa! Jon/Dany can happen because of all the parallels and similarities between Arya and Dany. But Sansa and Arya are foils - even the text refers to them to be as different as the sun and moon.

What about emotionally? Jon refers to his heart when thinking of Arya or mentioning her.

'What do you know of my heart, priestess? What do you know of my sister?'  - Jon, ADwD

The girl smiled in a way that reminded Jon so much of his little sister that it almost broke his heart. - Jon, ADwD

His thoughts kept returning to Arya. There is no way I can help her. I put all kin aside when I said my words. If one of my men told me his sister was in peril, I would tell him that was no concern of his. Once a man had said the words his blood was black. Black as a bastard’s heart. He’d had Mikken make a sword for Arya once, a bravo’s blade, made small to fit her hand. Needle. He wondered if she still had it.

Jon thinks that Arya’s home is wherever he is, not even Winterfell!

Bring her home, Mance. I saved your son from Melisandre, and now I am about to save four thousand of your free folk. You owe me this one little girl. - Jon, ADwD

Jonsas keep on going about how Jon wants some sweet lady as his wife (🤣🤣🤣) because he called his horse sweet lady that one time and therefore loves Sansa and will marry her. I think they are mistaking Robb for Jon. They should have shipped RobbSa instead!

Robb about taking Jeyne as his wife:

He looked her in the eyes, proud and miserable all at once. “It was the only honorable thing to do. She’s gentle and sweet, Mother, she will make me a good wife.” - Catelyn, ASoS

Jon about the offer to take Val as his wife:

When one man-at-arms grew careless in her presence she had snatched his dagger from its sheath and stabbed him in the neck. Another inch to the left and he might have died. Lonely and lovely and lethal, Jon Snow reflected, and I might have had her. - Jon, ADwD

So what kind of personality in a wife does Jon like? Who are the women he admires?

Val stood on the platform as still as if she had been carved of salt. She will not weep nor look away. Jon wondered what Ygritte would have done in her place. The women are the strong ones. - Jon, ADwD

“I will take any boy above the age of twelve who knows how to hold a spear or string a bow. I will take your old men, your wounded, and your cripples, even those who can no longer fight. There are other tasks they may be able to perform. Fletching arrows, milking goats, gathering fire-wood, mucking out our stables … the work is endless. And yes, I will take your women too. I have no need of blushing maidens looking to be protected, but I will take as many spearwives as will come.” “And girls?” a girl asked. She looked as young as Arya had, the last time Jon had seen her. - Jon, ADwD

She looks lonely, Jon thought. Lonely, and lovely. Ygritte had been pretty in her own way, with her red hair kissed by fire, but it was her smile that made her face come alive. Val did not need to smile; she would have turned men’s heads in any court in the wide world. All the same, the wildling princess was not beloved of her gaolers. She scorned them all as “kneelers,” and had thrice attempted to escape. When one man-at-arms grew careless in her presence she had snatched his dagger from its sheath and stabbed him in the neck. Another inch to the left and he might have died. Lonely and lovely and lethal, Jon Snow reflected, and I might have had her. Her, and Winterfell, and my lord father’s name. Instead he had chosen a black cloak and a wall of ice. Instead he had chosen honor. A bastard’s sort of honor. - Jon, ADwD

------

Val looked the part and rode as if she had been born on horseback. A warrior princess, he decided, not some willowy creature who sits up in a tower, brushing her hair and waiting for some knight to rescue her. - Jon, ADwD

So Arya is Jon’s home and heart. The girls Jon loves, admires and is attracted towards are similar to Arya in terms of personality and physicality.

So even in terms of shallow, superficial shipping for looks and beauty there’s nothing there. Dig deeper and there’s nothing there in terms of emotion and heartfelt love either.

Folks be shipping Sansa with a guy who has, in canon, indicated disdain for girls like her, has no emotional attachment towards her, is physically attracted to the types that are the exact opposite of Sansa and who has not shown the slightest bit of concern for her situation and status these 5 books.

All because they dislike the character’s canon relationships, narrative themes and actual plot in the books and think that because Sansa is beautiful and lady like she deserves stereotypical Disney endings and stories while at the same time engaged in tearing down the series’ lead female characters Arya and Daenerys as being too damaged and violent and therefore not getting happy endings because GRRM is subverting tropes.....

[bellarkeselection]

Lannister Intentions

Request from ReaderCrazy2 on Wattpad. Jaime does everything he can to make an innocent reader his. Y/n Stark knows he's the bad guy.

Jaime Lannister is dropped down at my feet as I stand by mother my twin brother Robb standing on my other side. The lion has mud in his blonde hair and a cut across his face with blood. "Lady Stark, I'd offer you my sword but I've seemed to have lost it." He voiced in laboured breathless eyeing me up and down with a smirk. Mother warned me of this man, Kingslayer she calls him. That he's a bad man that pushed Bran from the tower. I don't know who to believe. Ever since I was born I've been more innocent than Sansa was when she first met Prince Joffrey. I convinced father to let me stay in Winterfell not needing to see Kings Landing.

"Have you grown fond of me, my lady. This is in fact the second time we've encountered one another?" Stepping into his cell he joked while chained to a post. Tugging my cloak tightly around me I stand by the door so I'm far away from him. "No I don't Ser Lannister." He tilts his head to the side his green eyes staring into mine. "Does your mother know her innocent girl is inside my cell. That she wants me to share her bed." I feel my cheeks turn bright red at the thought. I've never kissed a man so the very thought of sleeping with the enemy is something entirely different.

The first time I saw him I fell for his charming looks. He sure has a bigger ego than any Lord I know in Winterfell. But I can see something behind the wall he has built, something that excites me. My mother would scold me if she knew. Though the next he tries to seduce me is when I'm a prisoner in the Red Keep. My dress ripped where I'm almost bear done by Cersei's guards. "Funny how the rolls are reversed, Kingslayer." I mumbled as he stands inside my cell bringing some light into the room with a lit torch in his left hand. His right hand gone now a golden hand in its place.

"My lady, I could maybe help you escape your fate. If you trust me-" I cut him off throwing a rock at him making him take a few steps backwards. "Stop calling me My lady, you know my name. I'll never trust you - not after all the things you've done to my family. You're a bad man, Jaime Lannister!" He hangs the torch on the hook bending down on a knee to be my level. His left hand cupped my face turning it so we're looking at one another. "Y/n, I want you it's true. I want you as my own, no one else's. But I also don't you're head on a spike by my sister."

His green eyes searched mine for an answer but their as cold as a direwolf. "I'd break you out of here and go on the run for the rest of my life. I'd cut down anyone who tried to harm you. I'd even become Lord of Casterly Rock like my father wants. Break another vow, whatever I have to. So long as I'd get to kiss you, make love to you, and get to call you mine." He starts to get up but I clutch his tunic without realizing it. I can feel my mother's voice in the back of my mind he's the enemy she'd say. But in my innocent eyes every man who treats a woman unfairly is a bad guy. Jaime bends down on his knee once again softly whispering. "What is it, Y/n?"

"Kiss me." He parts his lips taken back by those words. Lifting my hands to rest on his shoulders I stare deeply into the Lannister green. His left hand coming back to rest against my cheek. "If this is to be my last night in this world. At least let me have my first kiss to be with you. No one else is like you, Jaime. Let me keep my innocence with you." Jaime leans forward gently pressing his lips to mine which is a strange thing to the eldest lion. Being so used to having to quick in his affections. "You needn't hold back, Jaime. Give me everything." I breathe out breaking the kiss for a moment.

He wasted no more time being slow instead he crashes his lips down to mine. My arms wrapped around his neck deepening the kiss. Even though I don't have very good experience I manage to follow his actions. His left hand tilted my chin up as he's still taller than me being on his knees. My fingers get tangled in his short blonde locks until we break for air. "I should've opened my heart to you sooner, Jaime Lannister." I smiled but it turned into a smirk when he leans down giving me one last passionate kiss. "Let's not regret anything my innocent wolf. I swear I'll not let my sister take you from me, Y/n Stark." I tugged him into another kiss by his tunic one more time until he closed the prison door. Maybe the old and new Gods will let me live.

Comment and reblog 🤗

[astradrifting]

 AGOT - Jon I (Chapter 5)

There were times—not many, but a few—when Jon Snow was glad he was a bastard. As he filled his wine cup once more from a passing flagon, it struck him that this might be one of them.

I don’t know why D&D decided Jon could never lie, when literally the first line in his POV is a lie. He’s so good at it he can even lie to himself!

****

A singer was playing the high harp and reciting a ballad, but down at this end of the hall his voice could scarcely be heard above the roar of the fire, the clangor of pewter plates and cups, and the low mutter of a hundred drunken conversations.

A singer with a high harp and a ballad seems like a vague Rhaegar allusion. That Jon can’t actually hear him makes me happy in a very petty way.

****

His lord father had come first, escorting the queen. She was as beautiful as men said. A jeweled tiara gleamed amidst her long golden hair, its emeralds a perfect match for the green of her eyes. His father helped her up the steps to the dais and led her to her seat, but the queen never so much as looked at him. Even at fourteen, Jon could see through her smile.

I think this part is actually Jon being indignant on Ned’s behalf that Cersei was rude to him, by not looking at him when he escorts her, not that she never looked at Jon. Also, there’s those observation skills. He’s never been taken in by a pretty smile.

****

After them came the children. Little Rickon first, managing the long walk with all the dignity a three-year-old could muster. Jon had to urge him on when he stopped to visit.

Adorable!!!

****

Jon noticed the shy looks she gave Robb as they passed between the tables and the timid way she smiled at him. He decided she was insipid. Robb didn’t even have the sense to realize how stupid she was; he was grinning like a fool.

Jon’s a mean drunk I guess 💀

****

Sansa, two years older, drew the crown prince, Joffrey Baratheon. He was twelve, younger than Jon or Robb, but taller than either, to Jon’s vast dismay. Prince Joffrey had his sister’s hair and his mother’s deep green eyes. A thick tangle of blond curls dripped down past his golden choker and high velvet collar. Sansa looked radiant as she walked beside him, but Jon did not like Joffrey’s pouty lips or the bored, disdainful way he looked at Winterfell’s Great Hall.

Joffrey according to Jon: 👁👄👁

But Sansa looked radiant 🥰

****

He was more interested in the pair that came behind him: the queen’s brothers, the Lannisters of Casterly Rock. The Lion and the Imp; there was no mistaking which was which. Ser Jaime Lannister was twin to Queen Cersei; tall and golden, with flashing green eyes and a smile that cut like a knife. He wore crimson silk, high black boots, a black satin cloak. On the breast of his tunic, the lion of his House was embroidered in gold thread, roaring its defiance. They called him the Lion of Lannister to his face and whispered “Kingslayer” behind his back. Jon found it hard to look away from him.

This is what a king should look like, he thought to himself as the man passed.

Giving me big ‘muscled like a maiden’s fantasy’ vibes there, Jon.

Also, curiously enough Jaime’s introduced wearing black and red, Targaryen colours. Maybe a nod to the incest storyline, possibly leftover foreshadowing from when Jaime was going to become king, as per the outline.

Otherwise this means that, like everybody else in this story, Jaime is a secret Targaryen. He and Cersei can join the ranks of Jon, Tyrion, Varys, Mance Rayder and while we’re at it… *spins a wheel of names* Meera too.

****

His brothers and sisters had not been permitted to bring their wolves to the banquet, but there were more curs than Jon could count at this end of the hall, and no one had said a word about his pup. He told himself he was fortunate in that too.

His eyes stung. Jon rubbed at them savagely, cursing the smoke.

Jon spends half this chapter on the verge of tears, my angsty little lad.

****

Jon looked up happily as his uncle Ben put a hand on his head and ruffled his hair much as Jon had ruffled the wolf’s.

They actually call him Ben and ‘uncle Ben’ a few times in the series, which I honestly think might be a Spider-Man allusion. Surrogate father figure Uncle Ben’s early disappearance/death kicking off the plot… There’s also a saying that nobody stays dead in comics except for Uncle Ben - considering all the other resurrections in the books, metaphorical and literal, yet GRRM says that Benjen isn’t Coldhands, it might be the same for this Uncle Ben too.

****

Jon swelled with pride. “Robb is a stronger lance than I am, but I’m the better sword, and Hullen says I sit a horse as well as anyone in the castle.”

"[Garlan] is a great knight," Ser Loras replied. "A better sword than me, in truth, though I'm the better lance." (ASOS, Sansa I)

Love a Jon-Garlan parallel! Also thinking about Garlan being the older brother made me realise - in the story everyone thinks that Jon is younger than Robb, but timeline-wise, he has to be older, because Robb was conceived in the two weeks before Ned left to fight at the Trident, and Rhaegar must have at least already been in the capital by then to rally the loyalists, so Jon was conceived weeks, if not months earlier. Which means that Ned has definitely lied about when Jon’s birthday is.

Jon being the product of a ‘youthful indiscretion’ before he was married is less of a stain on Ned’s honour than him betraying his marriage bed but I imagine Catelyn’s fears about Jon usurping her children might have had more basis if he was known to be the eldest, so maybe that’s why Ned lied about how old he is.

****

“Daeron Targaryen was only fourteen when he conquered Dorne,” Jon said. The Young Dragon was one of his heroes. 

"A conquest that lasted a summer," his uncle pointed out. "Your Boy King lost ten thousand men taking the place, and another fifty trying to hold it. Someone should have told him that war isn't a game." He took another sip of wine. "Also," he said, wiping his mouth, "Daeron Targaryen was only eighteen when he died. Or have you forgotten that part?"

Jon is unfortunately, a jock. And a bit of an idiot. 

There’s something about Jon’s hero dying at 18, Waymar dying at 18 just a few chapters ago... Jon has them all beat by dying at 17.

****

"You are a boy of fourteen," Benjen said. "Not a man, not yet. Until you have known a woman, you cannot understand what you would be giving up."

"I don't care about that!" Jon said hotly.

"You might, if you knew what it meant," Benjen said. "If you knew what the oath would cost you, you might be less eager to pay the price, son."

Jon felt anger rise inside him. "I'm not your son!"

Benjen Stark stood up. “More’s the pity.”

Establishing Benjen as a somewhat contentious father figure to Jon - even more fuel for my brand new Uncle Ben ‘theory’.

****

The wolf pup padded closer and nuzzled at Jon's face, but he kept a wary eye on Tyrion Lannister, and when the dwarf reached out to pet him, he drew back and bared his fangs in a silent snarl. 

"Shy, isn't he?" Lannister observed.

"Sit, Ghost," Jon commanded. "That's it. Keep still." He looked up at the dwarf. "You can touch him now. He won't move until I tell him to. I've been training him."

Possibly he and Sansa are the only ones who properly trained their direwolves, considering how the rest of them will end up behaving.

****

“If I wasn’t here, he’d tear out your throat,” Jon said. It wasn’t actually true yet, but it would be.

Pffffft! Edgy edgy edge-lord 💀

Though I also always feel like issuing casual threats to Tyrion Lannister so I can’t really blame him.

****

Standing, he was taller than the dwarf. It made him feel strange.

He’s got a weird preoccupation with comparing his height to Lannister men in this chapter. My headcanon for the books is that Jon’s quite tall by ADWD but evidently he’s tiny in AGOT if he feels strange being tall next to a dwarf.

****

final thoughts:

Believe it or not, I didn’t actually have Jonsa in mind with my new Uncle Ben theory, but I did just remember that brown haired Peter Parker’s main love interest is red-haired MJ :P

[suresha]

:｡･:*:･ﾟ’★,｡･:*:･ﾟ’☆  ||  @multiversemadnesss​  (  Jaime  and  Daenerys )

          Leaving  Meereen  had  been  the  first  of  many  mistakes  made  by  the  former  queen.  Or  perhaps  mistakes  were  made  long  before  Meereen.  She's  had  nearly  a  month  to  sit  and  contemplate  what  went  wrong  but  no  scenario  was  more  to  blame  than  another.  Fact  is,  Daenerys  had  been  way  over  her  head;  far  too  trusting  in  a  world  where  everyone  was  constantly  making  moves.  She  could  almost  hear  the  voice  of  Viserys  at  night  screaming  at  her  while  she  fretfully  slept.

          ❝Pathetic  sister.  And  you  dare  call  yourself  a  dragon?❞

          Dragon.  Some  dragon.  She  allowed  one  of  her  children  to  become  the  property  of  the  White  Walkers.  With  their  defeat,  so  went  Viserion  leaving  only  Rhaegal  and  Drogon  behind.  And  speaking  of  Drogon...  If  not  for  him,  her  fiercest  of  beasts,  she  might  not  be  alive  today.  Sometimes  she  wondered  if  she  were  better  off  dead.  At  the  very  least,  she  could  have  reunited  with  her  sons.

          But  what's  done  is  done.  The  Red  Woman  she  met  some  time  after  settling  in  Meereen  claimed  she  received  a  vision.  She  was  waiting  alongside  Barristan  and  the  few  Unsullied  left  behind  in  the  city  when  Drogon  dropped  her  body  of  within  the  old  fighting  pit.  They  brought  her  back  to  life  within  a  city  that  seemed  to  be  doing  well  enough  despite  high  tensions  outside  of  it.  Each  day,  Ser  Barristan  greeted  her,  urging  her  to  take  her  position  as  queen  of  this  city.  After  hearing  what  went  down  in  Westeros,   he  dared  not  encourage  her  to  go  back  ---  not  when  it  seemed  all  was  decided  now.  Bran  Stark  was  no  Daenerys  Targaryen,  and  in  the  old  knight's  mind,  he  could  never  be  what  she  could  have  been  if  not  for  betrayal.  Nevertheless,  the  old  knight  refused  to  serve  another  who  sat  upon  that  wretched  chair.  Dany  was  his  queen  from  now  until  death  whether  she  wanted  him  to  be  or  not.

          Days  in  Meereen  were  rather  uneventful.  Dany  spent  much  of  her  time  alone  in  her  quarters.  She  would  eat  enough  to  please  Barristan.  Otherwise,  she  preferred  to  be  alone.  Sometimes  she  would  spend  that  time  crying  like  the  little girl  she  never  got  to  be.  Other  times,  she  would  ponder  where  to  go  from  here.  With  only  a  forth  of  her  army,  do  she  dare  leave  and  settle  some  place  else,  or  make  Meereen  her  permanent  home?  After  all,  Dany  never  had  home  so  any  place  could  become  home  if  she  willed  it.

          ❝My  queen,  it's  urgent.❞

          Ser  Barristan  stood  just  outside  her  quarters,  too  polite  to  merely  barge  inside  in  Dany  wasn't  decent.  The  young  queen  was  curled  up  upon  the  bed  but  slowly  gathered  herself  to  walk  across  the  room.  Dressed  only  in  a  long,  plain  pale  pink  dress,  she  pulled  open  the  door.

          ❝Ser?  Is  something  wrong?❞

          Ser  Barristan  stood  aside  to  reveal  two  of  her  unsullied  chained  to  a  man  who  looked  vaguely  familiar.  Post  death,  many  faces  seemed  to  blur  together  within  Dany's  grief.  She  looked  to  Barristan,  clearly  confused  until  the  old  knight  filled  in  the  gap.

          ❝This  here  is  the  man  you  know  as  Kingslayer,  but  I  knew  him  once  upon  a  time  as  Ser  Jaime  Lannister.  Normally  I  wouldn't  insist  that  you  two  meet,  but  he  has  stories  about  the  aftermath  of  the  mess  in  King's  Landing.  He's  not  looking  for  trouble  and  oddly  enough,  I  trust  him.  Not  completely,  but  he's  unarmed.  I  don't  see  why  he  would wish  to  kill  you  again  when  everyone  still  believes  you  to  be  dead  anyway.❞

          Dany  stared  between  the  two  men  curiously.  In  truth,  she  didn't  care  at  all  about  Jaime,  King's  Landing  or  anything  anymore.  She  just  wished  to  be  left  alone  but...  the  old  man  had  never  done  anything  to  steer  her  astray  and  so  she  nodded,  stepping  aside  to  let  Jaime  enter.  Her  long,  white  hair  wasn't  as  tidy  as  it  used  to  be.  It  looked  unkempt  ---  as  if  she  had  just  woken  from  a  nap.  But  why  bother  looking  regal?  Why  bother  with  any  of  it  anymore  when  she  was  nothing  more  than  the  Mad  King's  daughter  now?  Nothing  mattered  anymore.

          ❝So  what  brings  you  all  the  way  down  here?  I  was  told  before  being  stabbed  in  the  chest  that  the  lot  of  you  had  fled  or  was  dead.  You  look  very  much  alive  to  me.❞

[everydayescapeartist]

JB Fic Exchange Recs - Canon Oneshots

Okay, another few oneshots from the @jaime-brienne-fic-exchange but more of the canon variety.  Again, just a sampling of some I enjoyed...there are so many good ones!

let me crawl inside your veins - this is a continuation of ADWD showing Brienne and Jaime's journey to Pennytree/LSH and the thoughts, conversations, and MORE that happen along the way (read: first time in the wilderness, and hot yes).  The Brienne POV in this is wonderful and this is just beautifully done and it completely tugs at your heartstrings.  Ugh, I just love these two, okay??!!

Excerpt 1: Jaime had once given an unprompted lesson on lying during his time as her prisoner. You have to believe it, he’d said. If you believe what you say, so will the poor fool who hears it.

“My lord, you gave me a quest.”

That much was true, at least.

“The girl,” he said, understanding lighting up his face. “Have you found her?” He was hopeful, his smile nearly proud.

Believe what you say.

Believe what you say.

Believe what you say.

“I have.”

Please don’t believe me.

“Where is she?” Excerpt 2: “Patience, my lady,” he said.

“I’ve been waiting for you a long time, ser.” dream deep heavy sleeper (dream light heavy heart) - Quiet Isle time (and defying of the Isle's rules), including bed-sharing, hurt/comfort/healing, watching the one you love while they sleep, declarations, and sweetness.

Excerpt: For a moment, Jaime looked mildly chastised. It was such an unfamiliar expression to see on his face that she was almost disconcerted by it. Then he raised his chin, green eyes flashing, and it was gone again.

“So they would prefer you to be left alone in the height of your fever, wracked with pain and plagued by nightmares, calling for me so loudly I could hear you all the way over in the men’s cells? That does not seem especially kind to me.”

Brienne faltered, all her righteous anger gone in an instant. “I called for you?”

She remembered her fever dreams when they had first brought her to Stoneheart, how she’d cried out for Jaime to save her. The one-eyed man had called her the Kingslayer’s whore, and when she’d asked why, he’d said if I had a silver stag for every time you said his name, I’d be as rich as your friends the Lannisters. It had been embarrassing enough in front of the Brotherhood. The thought of Jaime hearing it was mortifying. She wanted to curl up and hide, like an insect under a stone that had been overturned.

But Jaime did not laugh, as she had half-expected him to. Instead his face was grave. “Aye, and the sound haunts me. I never should have sent you on that thrice-damned foolish quest.” Companion - This is a beautiful piece that explores Jaime and Brienne’s growing relationship through scenes involving food and drink.  Pears, oranges, and meat, oh my!  My description doesn’t do it justice -- it’s just so smart and so lovely!

Excerpt 1:

She finishes her meat, lifts the bowl with the remaining broth to her lips. A jerk on the rope around her middle makes her spill the liquid down the inside of her plate and, oh, she is going to drown him in the next stream.

Excerpt 2:

She turns to leave, grabbing the wine flagon as she goes.

“I was drinking that!” he protests.

“Notice how you said ‘was’ there?”

Excerpt 3:

A plate of unshucked oysters is the height of comedy. If Lord Selwyn ever stops fantasising about his violent death from behind a wine goblet, they’ll get along like ham and maggots. The way Brienne’s knuckles whiten around her goblet tells him she does not share his wry admiration of the starter course at Evenfall.

“This is how it’s going to be, is it?” she asks. delicate in every way but one - This is a great scene of Jaime asking Brienne to spar with him before she leaves King’s Landing and that subsequent spar.

Excerpt:

“No matter. You’re still the man you were before.”

He raised his stump at her. “I am very much not.”

“Do you not still serve to protect the King? To preserve the good of the people?”

Jaime didn’t answer, but he didn’t need to. They both knew the truth of it well enough.

Second Hand News - This is a touching missing scene of Jaime bearing the burden of sharing the news of the Red Wedding and the death of Lady Catelyn with Brienne before they reach King’s Landing.  There’s protectiveness, wound concern, bed sharing, and honesty.  Oh, my heart!

Excerpt:

Jaime took in a breath and let it out carefully. He dropped the saddlebag onto the bed and then he sat, too. “I know that you have no reason to trust me,” he said. “But it is not… It is not nothing to me, what we have gone through together these last few weeks. You looked out for me when I could not look after myself.”

[eschercaine]

Light and Darkness in Equal Parts

Chapter 6

After an eventful breakfast with her good sisters, Celia stumbled upon Ser Jaime.

“Lady Celia,” he bowed.

They called him the Lion of Lannister to his face and whispered Kingslayer behind his back. Celia found it hard to look away from him.

“Ser Jaime,” Celia curtsied. “Um, no. Should I say Lord Lannister?”

The man laughs. “That’s my father. Jaime is fine, Lady Celia. We’re already acquainted.”

“Of course.”

Celia still remembers. When her friend Lyarra teases her when she blushes the first time she met him. When Jaime invited her to a dance, he gazed down at her for a moment with an expression that made her heart flutter.

Her father, upon seeing the closeness between them, told her that she could marry the Young Lion if she wants to, but his plans were impeded by King Aerys.

• • • • • • • •

i, ii, iii, iv, v

[janiedean]

hey, can you talk about this: why is it that even after jaime saves brienne from rape & jumps into a bearpit for her, brienne still expects the worst from him and thinks he wants her to kill sansa? can b ever fully trust and love jaime? will brienne ever accept that jaime loves her and is capable of good or will she always expect evil from him/ be insecure + expect him to pull a ronnet? i think this will cause problems for them if they ever get together. do you think it would be a deal-breaker?

tldr: no because the moment you read her affc povs you see she’s way past her initial distrust and actually that scene is... the turning point? like you don’t know that because you don’t have her pov, but anyway I think I’ll just break it down and be done with it since I had wanted to for a while - regardless, premise: you can see exactly how far she goes with trusting him/changing her mind about him by seeing her dialogue choices in asos before, as in, she calls him ser for the first time after he saves her from being raped and when they’re in the bath she snaps at him the moment he goads her about renly and she’s naked in front of a man and she feels most likely guilty for the loss of his hand, and the moment he faints she catches him and she volunteers to dress him/clean him up after, like... you don’t do that if you don’t want to and if you don’t care about the person some regardless. ANYWAY SO let me just find the whole scene.

SOOOO, counting that he’s doing this just after he basically broke up with cersei...

The wench looked as ugly and awkward as ever, he decided when Tyrell left them. Someone had dressed her in woman’s clothes again, but this dress fit much better than that hideous pink rag the goat had made her wear. “Blue is a good color on you, my lady,” Jaime observed. “It goes well with your eyes.” She does have astonishing eyes.

Brienne glanced down at herself, flustered. “Septa Donyse padded out the bodice, to give it that shape. She said you sent her to me.” She lingered by the door, as if she meant to flee at any second. “You look . . .”

“Different?” He managed a half-smile. “More meat on the ribs and fewer lice in my hair, that’s all. The stump’s the same. Close the door and come here.” She did as he bid her. “The white cloak . . .”

“. . . is new, but I’m sure I’ll soil it soon enough.”

“That wasn’t . . . I was about to say that it becomes you.”

right, so, when this entire scene starts you have the worst flirting that ever existed but like basically that’s pretty much what it is - they haven’t seen each other in a while right, and first he goes like UH UGLY AND AWKWARD, then in the span of three lines he decides that the dress looks nice on her and it fits her, and when he opens his mouth he calls her my lady and compliments her on her appearance and her eyes and then thinks SHE HAS ASTONISHING EYES which like... jaime you were thinking she was ugly three lines ago where is the truth, the truth is that he’s hella attracted to her, he’s not admitting it to himself but he can’t help saying it and so hey hello brienne, you just showed up in my room where I summoned you after having you freed and I’m telling you you’re hot!! when you never heard it before from a guy ever!!!

brienne at that point is FLUSTERED and feels like pointing out the bodice is padded as if he hasn’t seen her naked, and she’s obviously afraid af because she’s standing near the door, and then she goes like ‘you look...’ while most likely STARING at him like OH MY GOD HAVEN’T SEEN HIM IN WEEKS LOOK AT HIM jesus, and then he starts going off with the self-deprecating humor telling her to get over here, she does, she starts again with the white cloak, he goes all defensive self-deprecating again (I’ll soil it soon enough, presuming that she still thinks that of him)... and then she goes like I was about to say it becomes you, which means I’m telling you A WHITE CLOAK FITS YOU AND IS BECOMING ON YOU, which given the significancy of the white cloak/kg/the fact that he confessed her he believed in his vow/knighthood when he was fifteen in the bath... she’s telling him being honorable becomes him, which sorry but does not to me qualify as ‘expecting the worse of him’. now:

She came closer, hesitant. “Jaime, did you mean what you told Ser Loras? About . . . about King Renly, and the shadow?”

Jaime shrugged. “I would have killed Renly myself if we’d met in battle, what do I care who cut his throat?”

“You said I had honor . . .”

“I’m the bloody Kingslayer, remember? When I say you have honor, that’s like a whore vouchsafing your maidenhood.” He leaned back and looked up at her. 

problem is: he is on the self-deprecative spiral wanting to distance himself, which I have a feeling is because he’s a) upset because of cersei from before b) not exactly processing his feelings re being into her, so everything she is saying he’s shutting her down, which makes her hesitant - first he shrugs away having gotten her out of prison and talking for her to loras when if you read that part you know he cares about getting her out, she’s all like oh YOU SAID I HAD HONOR!!! **, and he immediately shuts that down too with the it’s worth nothing if I do, so basically she’s there all ‘!!! ** !!!’ and he’s back to shutting her out, which... considering how brienne is would make her lose a lot of courage here, right? right. also: SHE CALLED HIM JAIME in the beginning, which means... she feels like they’re on a familiar enough level that she can use his name without the ser before and she’s not calling him kingslayer. like. she’s absolutely expecting the best here.

“Steelshanks is on his way back north, to deliver Arya Stark to Roose Bolton.”

“You gave her to him?” she cried, dismayed. “You swore an oath to Lady Catelyn . . .”

“With a sword at my throat, but never mind. Lady Catelyn’s dead. I could not give her back her daughters even if I had them. And the girl my father sent with Steelshanks was not Arya Stark.”

“Not Arya Stark?”

“You heard me. My lord father found some skinny northern girl more or less the same age with more or less the same coloring. He dressed her up in white and grey, gave her a silver wolf to pin her cloak, and sent her off to wed Bolton’s bastard.” He lifted his stump to point at her. “I wanted to tell you that before you went galloping off to rescue her and got yourself killed for no good purpose. You’re not half bad with a sword, but you’re not good enough to take on two hundred men by yourself.”

now, for the chapter where grrm knows that words mean things: the definition of dismayed is : experiencing or showing feelings of alarmed concern or dismay : upset, worried, or agitated because of some unwelcome situation or occurrence, which means that the moment jaime goes like ‘oh and I gave arya to roose bolton’ she is UPSET at hearing that... because she didn’t expect that? she changed her mind, she thinks he’s honorable, he saved her from being raped, he’s complimenting her, she’s trying to compliment him, she thinks they have an understanding, he told her all of that...... and now he’s telling her he gave arya back to the boltons? when she thought he cared about their oath and he freed her? like what the fuck jaime? obviouly she’s upset, but because she already expected better and he’s a disaster emotionally stunted person who just moved on from 17yo of emotional maturity and he can’t have that conversation without going in self-defense. he points out he can’t do that but anyway then tells her it’s not arya.. because he didn’t want brienne to go after her ie he cared about her well-being and now he throws in a compliment too (you’re not half bad with a sword) and she’s most likely like wtf, also he gestures at her with the stump which cersei refused to interact with before and brienne doesn’t even flinch at that, but never mind let’s go on.

Brienne shook her head. “When Lord Bolton learns that your father paid him with false coin . . .”

“Oh, he knows. Lannisters lie, remember? It makes no matter, this girl serves his purpose just as well. Who is going to say that she isn’t Arya Stark? Everyone the girl was close to is dead except for her sister, who has disappeared.”

“Why would you tell me all this, if it’s true? You are betraying your father’s secrets.”

The Hand’s secrets, he thought. I no longer have a father. “I pay my debts like every good little lion. I did promise Lady Stark her daughters . . . and one of them is still alive. My brother may know where she is, but if so he isn’t saying. Cersei is convinced that Sansa helped him murder Joffrey.”

“The wench’s mouth got stubborn. “I will not believe that gentle girl a poisoner. Lady Catelyn said that she had a loving heart. It was your brother. There was a trial, Ser Loras said.”

as stated: she shakes her head, which is a thing you do... when you’ve just been given conflicting information, which he just did because he just told her HEY MY FATHER JUST BASICALLY LIED TO HIS ALLY, but poor girl is not a political shrewd mind because a moment later he explains her that they both knew and so on, and at that point brienne is understandably like WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU TELLING ME THIS IT’S TREASON, which it technically is.... and then he remembers tywin disowned him and they argued so ‘I no longer have a father’, but he doesn’t tell brienne that, goes back to self-defensive, goes like ‘well I’m a good lion and I pay my debts’ and then only mentions what his brother and sister think, counting that brienne doesn’t know tyrion and know what he does about cersei... that might make her think that he’s taking their side, and now she is getting defensive pointing out it couldn’t be sansa and so on, but like... he basically has given her conflicted reactions, now she’s back on the defensive... as she generally is unless it’s with someone she trusts.

“Two trials, actually. Words and swords both failed him. A bloody mess. Did you watch from your window?”

“My cell faces the sea. I heard the shouting, though.”

“Prince Oberyn of Dorne is dead, Ser Gregor Clegane lies dying, and Tyrion stands condemned before the eyes of gods and men. They’re keeping him in a black cell till they kill him.”

Brienne looked at him. “You do not believe he did it.”

Jaime gave her a hard smile. “See, wench? We know each other too well. Tyrion’s wanted to be me since he took his first step, but he’d never follow me in kingslaying. Sansa Stark killed Joffrey. My brother’s kept silent to protect her. He gets these fits of gallantry from time to time. The last one cost him a nose. This time it will mean his head.”

now they discuss the trials blah blah blah, and brienne figures out he doesn’t believe tyrion did it just from the tone/the way he says it - because the facts are kind of straight, so it must be the tone of voice, and then what does he says as he gives her a *hard smile*? that they know each other too well. and then he goes and says a bunch of stuff that’s not true (sansa killed joffrey, tyrion kept silent), goading her again...

“No,” Brienne said. “It was not my lady’s daughter. It could not have been her.”

“There’s the stubborn stupid wench that I remember.”

“She reddened. “My name is . . .”

“Brienne of Tarth.” Jaime sighed. “I have a gift for you.” He reached down under the Lord Commander’s chair and brought it out, wrapped in folds of crimson velvet.

Brienne approached as if the bundle was like to bite her, reached out a huge freckled hand, and flipped back a fold of cloth. Rubies glimmered in the light. She picked the treasure up gingerly, curled her fingers around the leather grip, and slowly slid the sword free of its scabbard. Blood and black the ripples shone. A finger of reflected light ran red along the edge. “Is this Valyrian steel? I have never seen such colors.”

“Nor I. There was a time that I would have given my right hand to wield a sword like that. Now it appears I have, so the blade is wasted on me. Take it.” Before she could think to refuse, he went on. “A sword so fine must bear a name. It would please me if you would call this one Oathkeeper. One more thing. The blade comes with a price.”

... at which brienne absolutely falls for it and protests but then he goes like ‘oh there you are’, so he was most likely either testing her or pushing her to say it again/assure himself of what he was doing, but for her... it’d be even more confusing. she blushes when he calls her wench, and then when he says he has a gift she’s scared af until she sees what it is, and when she asks what it is first he does the self-deprecation thing again, then says he wants it named oathkeeper, so far so good... and then says it comes with a price, which makes it sound like she has to do something in return to have it, and how would that sound to her after this entire conversation when he hasn’t told her that he’s cut off ties with anyone but tyrion and he’s been basically hostile/sarcastic/has rebuked all her compliments?

Her face darkened. “I told you, I will never serve . . .”

“. . . such foul creatures as us. Yes, I recall. Hear me out, Brienne. Both of us swore oaths concerning Sansa Stark. Cersei means to see that the girl is found and killed, wherever she has gone to ground . . .”

Brienne’s homely face twisted in fury. “If you believe that I would harm my lady’s daughter for a sword, you—”

“Just listen,” he snapped, angered by her assumption. “I want you to find Sansa first, and get her somewhere safe. How else are the two of us going to make good our stupid vows to your precious dead Lady Catelyn?”

The wench blinked. “I . . . I thought . . .”

now here’s the point but like... she assumes he wanted her to do what cersei wanted when he hasn’t given her any other hint he might want to do otherwise throughout the exchange and basically never told her anything straight and she had come in all excited and wanting to compliment him and presuming the best, and then he gets angry because she assumed wrong... but what was she going to assume? then again: asos!jaime handles a lot of his interactions like an angry teenager because again he started moving on from it during this book and he has no idea of how to deal with her or that that kinda attitude would confuse the shit out of her and make her assume wrong things when she wasn’t assuming them to begin with, and when she immediately realizes he just wanted to keep the oath she goes back to OH, like... she was presuming they’d withhold it from the beginning when she mentioned it along with arya, so it’s her now knowing she was right and go like OH FUCK I FUCKED UP, but like... jaime baby ily but just tell her from the get go right? nah, I guess. buuut let’s go on.

“I know what you thought.” Suddenly Jaime was sick of the sight of her. She bleats like a bloody sheep. “When Ned Stark died, his greatsword was given to the King’s Justice,” he told her. “But my father felt that such a fine blade was wasted on a mere headsman. He gave Ser Ilyn a new sword, and had Ice melted down and reforged. There was enough metal for two new blades. You’re holding one. So you’ll be defending Ned Stark’s daughter with Ned Stark’s own steel, if that makes any difference to you.”

“Ser, I . . . I owe you an apolo . . .”

He cut her off. “Take the bloody sword and go, before I change my mind. There’s a bay mare in the stables, as homely as you are but somewhat better trained. Chase after Steelshanks, search for Sansa, or ride home to your isle of sapphires, it’s naught to me. I don’t want to look at you anymore.”

“Jaime . . .”

“Kingslayer,” he reminded her. “Best use that sword to clean the wax out of your ears, wench. We’re done.”

Stubbornly, she persisted. “Joffrey was your . . .”

now not that I don’t think that jaime wasn’t pushing her also in... outright denial of not wanting her to go, but: now he’s angry at her (when he technically got her angry when he could have not) and wants her to go and he’s telling her again in the sarcasticselfdefense tone and she immediately - immediately - tries to apologize, he shuts her off, doesn’t tell her that the mare is not homely at all, and tells her it’s naught to him when it’s all to him since she knows what his honor means to him, she goes from ‘ser’ (honorific) to ‘jaime’ (personal) and he goes back to ‘nah I’m the kingslayer see that’s all I’ll ever be leave’, except that... she doesn’t leave and she persists, stubbornly, because she actually wants to know, and presses asking about joffrey since she knows he was his father and is most likely still WTFFFFF HE’S BETRAYING HIS FAMILY...

“My king. Leave it at that.”

“You say Sansa killed him. Why protect her?”

Because Joff was no more to me than a squirt of seed in Cersei’s cunt. And because he deserved to die. “I have made kings and unmade them. Sansa Stark is my last chance for honor.” Jaime smiled thinly. “Besides, kingslayers should band together. Are you ever going to go?”

Her big hand wrapped tight around Oathkeeper. “I will. And I will find the girl and keep her safe. For her lady mother’s sake. And for yours.” She bowed stiffly, whirled, and went.

she expects him to say his son? he say ‘his king’ and LEAVE IT AT THAT, giving the idea he doesn’t care, and at that point she goes like okay so why would you protect the person you said killed him, fair question right, which I think on her side was... wanting to see what he’d reply because she’s realizing he won’t answer straight right, and exactly he thinks ‘joffrey deserved it and was nothing to me’ but doesn’t tell her that, he tells her that he made kings and unmade them, fair, and then that sansa is his last chance at honor, and smiles thinly (not hard like before), which suggests he’s visually being sincere, and it’s an answer brienne would get... and then he reminds her that he’s called a kingslayer and she is called one and neither of them actually were in the wrong but they both have bad fame for it and they should band together and pledge their oath, and... brienne gets it because she stops asking questions, takes the sword and goes, but instead of falling for his bait or be angry about being called a kingslayer, she says she’ll fulfill their oath and find sansa for catelyn’s sake and for his sake too, pointing out she’s swearing a vow to him too before she leaves after bowing, which basically seals it...

which means that she walked in with a good impression of him, he challenged it, then she realized it wasn’t wrong and he just was shit as communicating and she’s not... expecting the worse anymore? anytime she thinks of him in affc is as the honorable man who saved her and she swore a vow to and she wishes would be with her on her quest, not as someone she doesn’t trust. so, to go with your questions:

1) brienne still expects the worst from him and thinks he wants her to kill sansa?

as stated from the above: she doesn’t :)

2) can b ever fully trust and love jaime?

she was about to die for him at the end of affc, I think she already does X°D

3) will brienne ever accept that jaime loves her and is capable of good or will she always expect evil from him/ be insecure + expect him to pull a ronnet?

she’s already... not? I mean, accepting he loves her might be a problem because she doesn’t conceive he would as it is and it’d take a while for her to not be insecure, but that he’s capable of good she already does, and she’s way past expecting him to pull a ronnet XD she doesn’t even compare them once like... I don’t see how this would be a thing X°DD

4) i think this will cause problems for them if they ever get together. do you think it would be a deal-breaker?

I don’t because like... okay her being insecure might eventually but honestly she wanted to die for him anon and she was convinced of his good intentions the moment she walked into the room and then he threw her in for a loop and she came out of that even more convinced soooooo no I really don’t think it would XD

[dreadwulf]

after every plan had failed and there was nothing more to tell

(pt. 1 is here)

It seems she will live after all.

Her body is stubborn. For all the damage done to it, it clings robustly to life. It does not require any desire on her part to live, it just goes on doing it. Her wounds close and bones mend, and day by day there is less pain than before. 

Even after days without food, she does not simply fade away. She lingers, she feels, she sees. There is not much to see in her darkened tent where she is staked to the ground, but she sees things anyway. She thinks of the white beaches of Tarth and the waves breaking on the shore, and they are as real to her as her hand before her face. She can hear the roaring of the surf and smell the salt in the air. Remember, her mind is telling her. Tarth is still there. You can see it again. 

In time she is hungry. It does not rouse her right away, but grows slowly and steadily until it seems to consume her entire being, slowly tormenting her awake until she eats the food they have brought her simply to be rid of the feeling. 

Again her body has made her choices for her, and she will have to go along with it. After that, she eats whatever’s offered her, even if a bit sullenly. It makes her feel more herself, and she will need her strength if she is going to go on being alive.

Then they bring her heart back to her. 

Two soldiers, heavy-handed, not knowing what riches they carry, lift the flap of her tent. They call out to her and when Brienne looks up she sees in silhouette a small figure, a boy, held between them.

“Pod!” The name escapes her lips like a bark of pain. Pod is dead. It cannot be. This is a cruel trick.

“My lady ser!” The boy squirms in the guards’ grasp, kicking at the air. They jerk him this way and that and finally release him; the boy hits the ground running and rushes straight for Brienne.

Podrick falls on her weeping so she can barely make out what he is saying. “My lady Ser, after that night I thought you were surely dead. When I learned the Lannisters had you I came to help.”

Over them the soldiers frown. “He was trying to rescue you. He managed to injure two of us. Not very badly - he isn’t much with a blade.”

Brienne holds him at arm’s length and looks him over, trembling. “You are unhurt? How is this possible?”

The boy hiccups, tears and snot running down his face. “I was playing dead, my lady. When the fighting started I took a blow to the head and fell down, but it seemed sensible to stay there. I saw milord Jaime hit you with his dagger and you went down too. I laid still amongst the bodies until the shouting stopped and the soldiers rode away. Next morning I looked and looked for you and you weren’t anywhere. I thought you must have burnt up, with the Dread Lady.” 

He sniffles and looks utterly miserable. Brienne wipes at his face with her sleeve. 

“I am well, Pod,” she lies. “What about Ser Hyle?”

He shakes his head no. She does not inquire further.

“The Brotherhood is gone. The soldiers killed many of them and the rest scattered. The Red Priest ran off into the woods. I was too scared to go very far at first and then I couldn’t find where they had gone, but I saw Lannister banners at Pennytree and I followed them back here. I’m sorry Ser, I meant to rescue you but I failed.”

She holds onto the lad tightly. “Thank you,” she tells him over and over. At least he tried. 

The guards shift restlessly as they embrace, until at last they seem to lose patience. “You will come now and join the other boys, squire. There are several lads your age we are keeping in this camp, and you will sleep with them.”

A fierceness that Brienne does not recognize rises up suddenly within her. “You keep children as prisoners? Have you no honor? Let the boy go. He is no danger to you.”

They are unmoved. “We’ll take good care of him. Come on now.”

“Please, at least allow him to stay with me!” she pleads with them. Here, she can protect him, even if she cannot set him free.

Too many hands grab at him, drag him up and away from her. “He will stay with the others. Come now.”

Brienne snarls at them like an angry mongrel, but she cannot prevent the soldiers taking Pod away. Not while she is chained to the ground, and weakened by injury. 

She recovers herself in earnest after that. Podrick needs her; she must be strong, alert. If indeed she is given the opportunity to leave, or even if she is not, she must escape.  Wherever Pod and these other children are imprisoned, she will free them. They will return to the road, find somewhere safe to ride out the winter. 

The next morning they march. Well, Brienne does not march - she rides in a wagon with the army provisions, her hands bound. Around her the Lannister army is on the move, men on foot and horseback with arms and provisions, moving slowly but steadily from morning to night. It is a monotonous journey but the ride is almost pleasant -- the chilly air and dim sunshine are refreshing after so long in a darkened tent, and they return her strength to her rapidly. She still winces at every jolt, the wagon bumping over the snowy terrain reminding her of every wound she carries. But it is less and less, and day by day she is stronger.

This will heal, he had said.

When Brienne has strength enough, she might leap from the wagon and make a run for it. But she does not know where they are keeping Podrick, and so she will wait. She does not know what she is waiting for, but she will know the moment when it arrives.

When you escape the villainous Kingslayer in the Riverlands you can safely journey North, or wherever decent people go now.

Jaime Lannister rides at the front of the army on his destrier Glory, a magnificent grey stallion dressed in the crimson of his house.  His golden hair shimmers with flakes of snow when she catches sight of him, and his mien is grim and serious. He does not look upon her. 

Perhaps he means her to take the initiative, and get herself out of his sight. Part of her wants to do it, to run away and away and never come back. Another part of her simply wants him to look on her again, just once more. Let her tell him again how she had agonized over her choice, so that he might despise her just a little bit less. One ounce of forgiveness, and she will ask for nothing more in all her life.

Jaime does not come back to her. While they are stopped at the end of each day Brienne stares at the tent flap well into the night but he does not appear. Only her meals come to her, and she finishes them. She stands, cautiously, so much as her chains will allow, and moves her body experimentally, testing her limits. 

She must be strong for Pod. 

After several days of marching, when the sun is dipping in the sky and they stop to make camp, Brienne is left behind in the wagon to contemplate the sunset until they have put up her tent and prepared her shackles. But this time the guards who have staked her into the ground each night and left her, they instead bring her to the Commander’s tent and bid her stand between them, her hands bound together. 

She is filthy, her hair caked with dirt, and her own blood is dried on her clothing, on her skin. Amongst the finery of the Lord Commander’s tent, where everything is clean and polished and fine, she feels even more unkempt and ungainly. She stands between her guards and slumps, her chin nearly resting on her collarbone. 

The Lord Commander takes no note of her, seemingly. His armor is gleaming, his crimson cloak spotless at the edge of her vision. He stands behind a fine desk that they have seemingly carried across the Riverlands for him. All around him is crimson and gold, the ghastly colors of House Lannister. In the torchlight the billowing walls look bloody and foreboding. 

He scrawls orders and hands them to men who run eagerly out of the room. He takes messages from other men who come running in. Something is happening of great import, she gathers, and it must have to do with where they are headed to. She hears fleet and Golden Company, and references to someone called Aegon. Named for the dead prince? There is an invasion, it seems, by some other forces who march under the Targaryen banner. Brienne hadn’t thought there were any Targaryens left. Regardless, someone is marching on King’s Landing, and the Lannister forces are racing back to the capital to aid in its defense. 

After a time of quiet conference with his men, Lord Lannister raises his voice just loud enough for her to hear. 

“We camp at Maidenpool tomorrow, and then to King’s Landing. Set camp just south of the hills, a good distance from the hamlet - there are Tully supporters sheltering there, and we should not court skirmishes at this time. We will have battles enough ahead of us when we reach the capital.”

Brienne listens carefully. Tully supporters. Might she reach them there, and travel with them North? If she tells them she has escaped from the Lannister camp, will they believe her? She does not know what news has traveled of the Brotherhood’s demise, whether she is denounced a traitor or praised an ally of that grim fellowship. The Brotherhood had hung her, but would anyone still living know that?

Again Jaime’s voice cuts into her whirling thoughts. “The Riverlands are riled after we dispersed the Brotherhood, but we left few survivors to tell the tale and none would know what precisely occurred. We should not antagonize them, but I do not expect any trouble.”

Though he does not look at her, she knows for certain this last is aimed precisely at her. He may stand surrounded by his men, and speaks to them, the words are meant for her ears.

Brienne’s eyes widen. He has summoned her here to seemingly no purpose other than to overhear this information. Why is he doing this? 

His eyes flickering to her capture this reaction, and as quickly shut it down. With a dismissive gesture he addresses the guards at her elbows. “Take the oathbreaker back to her cell. I can’t stand to look on her a moment longer.”

Tomorrow, she thinks again. Tomorrow I must escape. And then Jaime will march on and I will never see him again.

“My lord,” she speaks up as her guards take her by the arm, “don’t you wish to interrogate me? There is much that I can tell you.”

Let me explain. I’ll tell you everything. Only give me a chance. 

He dismisses her with a wave of his hand. “I know all I need to.”

“At least free the boy,” she suddenly pleads, and at her plaintive tone her captors slow and stop. “He has raised no arms against you.”

Jaime hands a new missive over, and several of his lieutenants rush from the tent. 

Desperately, she raises her voice. “Please, Ser. He had no part in my actions. He was a prisoner of the Brotherhood just as you were. He is a cousin to your Ser Illyn, is he not? His name is Podrick Payne.”

“I know,” the Lord Commander responds, finally, without looking up from his missive. “I know very well who I have taken into this camp. Ser Illyn has little use for a squire and less for a child, so he is staying with the other boys. I spoke to the lad myself and he seems in good health.”

He interrogated poor Podrick? Brienne is incensed. Her hands form fists at her sides, at least partly in frustration that even now he will not look at her, and she draws herself up straight and tall.

“You would imprison and question a child? How many children have you taken from their homes, that they have their own jailers?”

Several unpleasant expressions pass across his face in succession. The last is harder, and angrier. The letter falls to his desk forgotten, as Jaime comes around his desk and approaches her in sharp strides.

“The boy,” he tells her firmly, stopping just before her, “is comfortable. We had a perfectly pleasant conversation, no tortures involved. You can ask him of it yourself.” 

He holds her gaze firmly now, his green eyes steely and sharp. Though she wants to falter, she stands her ground. Looks right back, and does not blink.

“Did he tell you what happened with the Brotherhood?” 

“He tells me you were forced to betray me to save his life.” 

For the first time, Brienne feels a spark of hope. Surely he must believe Podrick’s tale, he is only a boy, and too frightened to lie. “Then you believe us?”

His smile is cutting. “I’ve decided that your actions were more in stupidity than malice, yes.”

“Stupidity, Ser?” She gapes at him, shocked. “I had no other choice!”

“You might have asked me for help.”

Brienne is thunderstruck by the simplicity of the idea, which she had so quickly dismissed at the time. 

“Ask you to willingly make yourself a hostage? To save two people you had never met? I had assumed you would say no.”

His eye twitches subtly, almost invisibly. His voice sounds dispassionate, but he is not. 

“Did it not occur to you there were other solutions? I have an army, we might have simply invaded their camp.”

She falters. It sounds so reasonable now. “They would have killed Pod and Ser Hyle the second they saw your soldiers.”

“And you wouldn’t risk them.”

“No.”

“But you could risk me.” He lands on the last word like a blow, and there, there it is, the hurt. His face tightens, and he swallows. The wound her betrayal opened bleeds still, though he covers it well.

There’s no way to respond to his accusation, because obviously she could take that risk. She did. She hadn’t thought of it that way because she had no intention of letting any harm come to him. She had some idea that if she played along, followed their rules, honor would show her the way to get them all clear of it alive. She would have risked any kind of harm to herself to make that happen.

Maybe it was stupidity, after all.

She bites her lip hard, and then tries to explain. “They told me there were spies in your camp, loyal to the Brotherhood, and if I tried to warn you they would kill us all.”

He scoffs, stepping back from her. “What would they need you for then? Why not have these ‘spies’ murder me themselves? There is no sense to your story.”

She hangs her head again, has to look away. “I know it makes little sense, Ser. I think they meant only to be as cruel as possible. They wanted to take you alive, for their sport.”

Jaime laughs. “I gathered that. I saw enough of their sport before my men came to my rescue.”

He had. The Brotherhood had put him in stocks, kicked him, spat on him. And Lady Stark had-- but it wasn’t really Lady Stark. It was a monster. 

His cruel smile tightens; he is remembering the same scene, she knows it. How it must have looked from his position. How nightmarish. And her the cause of it, leading him blithely to his doom.

Accusingly, he goes on. “If Ser Ilyn hadn’t followed us your Brotherhood would have roasted me on a spit. Or worse.”

As earnestly as she can, she tells him: “I would never have allowed that.”

“Forgive me if I don’t find that especially comforting,” he snaps. “I don’t fault you for trading a Kingslayer’s life for that of an innocent child. But you cannot expect me to trust in you after that. Not ever again.”

“But you can,” Brienne says breathlessly. “I swear to you that you can.”

“Swear it on what? Your honor?”

She flinches. 

Brienne takes a deep breath, fighting to keep her voice from quavering like a child’s. “You march to battle at the capital, I heard you say. Return the sword to me and I will aid you.”

Jaime takes no time to consider her offer. 

“No. I will find another to wield Oathkeeper. You are not worthy of it.”

Her vision blurs. She closes her eyes over the tears but it can’t stop them trickling down her face. The best she can do is stay silent and not break out sobbing, though the sobs are there, caught in her chest like an animal in a trap. 

“Take her back over the hillside,” she hears Jaime say, and she allows the guards to lead her away.

********************************************

The hillside is not a convenient way back to her shackles. It requires that she be led outside the camp and a little way up an incline, so that she can see against the setting sun the entirety of the camp spread out before her, and to the other side a grassy valley dusted with a layer of snow.

She sees them over the rise now, through the tears still shimmering in her eyes. A small crowd of boys running together freely over the valley, playing some sort of game. Sliding in the snow, crashing into one another purposefully. Their laughter and shouting reaches her on the wind, and she thinks she can hear Pod’s amongst them, where he races towards their shared goal. 

These boys don’t look like prisoners. They look more like wards of the camp, and well cared-for. They aren’t locked up anywhere. They look happy.

“Call them back for supper,” one of her jailers says to the other, “and take this one back to the holding tent.”

***********************************************************

Brienne lies on her back in the holding tent and her tears dry on her face.

She had it wrong about the children, clearly. And he wanted her to know it. It seems it bothered Jaime that she would think so little of him. Her opinion of him still matters at least this much.

He cannot entirely hate her, if that is so.

But Oathkeeper… she opens and closes her hand at her side and she can still feel the place where the lion’s head pressed against her palm, feel the weight of it in her muscles, the perfect balance of it as the blade cut through the air. Her magic sword. She will never hold such a blade again.

He is right; she is not worthy of a valyrian sword. What has she ever done but fail? Fail repeatedly and worse, and become ever more ragged and battered in the process. She has been a poor knight; she has broken all her oaths and lost her honor.

Maybe Pod would be better off here. With boys his own age, safe and well fed and out of danger. 

She might believe that, except that they are marching into some kind of battle at King’s Landing. Surely the Crown forces, added to House Lannister banners, can handle any sort of attack with ease, but the thought of Podrick squiring for some stranger fills her with frustration and worry.

Podrick came to help her; she has to be worthy of that. She will have to find her way back to honor, and bring Pod with her. Perhaps someday, with great striving, she will accomplish something deserving of the faith that has been placed in her, and in so doing earn it back. 

Maybe then Jaime will forgive her.

************************************************

The boys are dumping snow over each other when she sees them next, in the morning, when she has been allowed to relieve herself outside. Two smaller ones had filled a bucket with snow and overturned it on an older boy when he stopped to fix his boot. Then they had all shrieked and run, gathering snow midstride and forming hurried snowballs to fling at one another. She stops to look at them, fixing her trousers between the guards perpetually at her elbow. 

She hears laughter, so familiar it makes her ache. 

Brienne turns to look for him, could not have stopped herself turning to him if she had tried. She finds Jaime standing not far away. He looks like he has just risen from his bed, not yet fully dressed in his commander’s gear. His golden hair is slightly wet and in disarray, as though he has just splashed water across his face. He must have been passing by and, like her, stopped to watch their antics. 

When he notices her his laughter dies. For a moment he just looks at her, and she looks at him.

Then he gestures after the shouting boys. 

“Noble sons of the Riverlands. They’re intended to be hostages, but I have more or less forgotten to imprison them, and they have more or less forgotten to escape. I suppose we will have to leave them behind soon, when we march to King’s Landing. I think the men will miss their adventures, when they are gone.” 

She speaks up quickly. “I mistook you Ser. My apologies.”

He nods shortly, and visibly relaxes.

“My squire has neglected me,” Jaime says, gesturing to his disheveled state. He sounds far better humored than the day prior. “He has been running about with the boys, supposedly monitoring your young Podrick. Well, I won’t begrudge Peck a few more months of playing in the snow. One can’t do it forever, and he will be of age soon, and I’ll have to knight him. No more snowballs after that.”

He stops himself. Turns his head away. It seems he must remind himself to be angry with her, and not to fall back into the kind of easy rapport they once had. 

Before her guards can react, she breaks out into a run - painful and listing, ungraceful  - the twenty feet to reach his side and grasps Jaime by the arm so that he will turn his face back to her. She has to see his face. Today they will reach Maidenpool. 

He lifts his hand to the guards, to keep them at bay, and glares at her challengingly. His beloved face, beautiful and cruel, turns back to her. 

Her heart pounds in her ears, drowning out all else. She must try again. What can she do? What can she possibly say to make up for what she has done? 

It pains him, though not so much as it pains her. This double-edged blade they are both gripping onto, when perhaps they should let it go. 

“Why are you doing this?” she asks in a low voice, so that no one can overhear. “I know you have not forgiven me. Would you really help me now? You would release me to your enemies, where I could do any amount of damage to you?”

Jaime laughs. It is a mirthless laugh, one she has heard him give many times before she understood how much it concealed behind it. 

“I don’t know why. I suppose…” he trails off. His green eyes appear uncertain, and then he is slipping out of her grasp. “I suppose I’m a great golden fool.”

Before she can reply, he turns and disappears into his tent.

***********************************************************

The ride to Maidenpool is uneventful, and she dozes through much of it as she rocks back and forth in the provisions wagon. As they reach the edges of the Riverlands the rood becomes smoother, and in contrast the snow falls heavier. The horizon turns white, and a terrible quiet falls over the countryside. 

She wakes with a jolt when they begin to unpack the wagon. Dazed, she climbs out from the back, sees in the distance the smoke and movement of the hamlet in the fading afternoon light, and shivers in the icy breeze.

Maidenpool. Where Tully sympathizers might receive her. Jaime told her she would escape, and this is where she will do it. Perhaps in the night, when everyone is asleep. Perhaps right now, while they are unpacking the wagon. She stands and stares at a puff of smoke lazily lifting into and merging with the cloudy sky.

“You stink,” today’s guard tells her, when he grabs her by the arm. She could throw him to the ground if she wanted, but she does not.

In her tent she sits and thinks, and watches the tent flap all night long.

In the morning they bypass the breakfast cookfire and the ditch where the soldiers have done their business. “We’re taking you to bathe in the brook while the others strike camp.”

You must want me to freeze to death, she thinks. No stream would be bearable in this cold. 

But she does not think on it much at all as she walks between their armored shoulders, their blonde heads bobbing several inches below hers. She only walks, and watches her breath cloud the air. Inside she is quiet and blank as untouched snow. 

Behind a stand of trees, her companions prod her forwards. They will remain here. She is to keep walking. 

There before her, through the trees, is the brook. Unfrozen as yet, though no doubt as cold as ice, and babbling merrily. 

Waiting beside it is Jaime, in his fine commander’s armor, and nearby him nibbling at a spare patch of grass stands a pretty chestnut mare.

For a moment she cannot move. 

Of course he kept his word. He had not even really given it, but somehow she had never doubted him. 

She walks to him like a sleepwalker, slowly. He does not hear her at first, over the sound of water. Not until she is close enough that she could easily overpower him, if she had wanted to. They are alone here together, and she is at his back, and he is unguarded. Relaxed, unconcerned. It is in a way an accusation, and an admission.

“This is where you escape,” he tells her, turning.

Here? Now? But Jaime is riding straight to King’s Landing to defend it, and she will have no more plausible opportunities to run away. 

“I cannot leave without Pod,” she protests, and he smiles.

“I know.” Jaime gestures behind her, into the trees.

When Podrick appears through the trees, he is breathless with laughter, his cheeks ruddy, and she almost doesn’t recognize the quiet, downcast boy who had followed her from King’s Landing. Beside him is an older boy, taller and skinnier, with just the beginnings of a beard. He grabs Pod around the shoulders affectionately and rubs his head, mussing his hair in all directions. They look more like brothers than a chaperone and a captive.

Her heart grows even heavier, seeing that.

“It was the worst thing I have ever done,” she says suddenly, very aware of Jaime standing at her side. “Lying to you. I hated it, and I hated myself for doing it. If there had been any other way --”

“You did the right thing,” he says, solemn, still watching Podrick and Peck. “The right thing is often the worst thing, I can tell you that better than anyone.”

She wonders then what he is thinking - is this why he is helping her now? Is he comparing her to his younger self, her soiled reputation like his own? But then, who is her Aerys Targaryen? 

“Peck,” Jaime says to the older boy. “Did you bring it?”

“Of course, Ser.” The older boy takes something out from under his arm. “The boys were quite impressed with it, like you said. I had to fight to keep them from running off with it themselves, once we snuck it out of the armory.” 

“Good work.” Jaime takes the linen-wrapped item from his squire. “I assume you took the opportunity to try it out yourself?”

The skinny lad looks abashed, and Jaime claps him on the shoulder. “Of course you did.”

Podrick, grinning, ambles to Brienne’s side and squeezes her arm. He looks like he’s had a fine time. “Ready to go?” he asks her.

Still, she hesitates. “But I -- I don’t have --”

“You do.” Jaime hands her the wrapped bundle. “This is how you got away. Your squire snuck away from his games and attacked Peck here, and he found you bathing in the brook. Or something like that, I’ll work out the details.”

She knows the weight of it immediately. Oathkeeper. He’s giving it back to her. “But you said --”

He cuts her off. “You won’t get far in the Riverlands without a blade.”

“Not this blade.” She tries to meet his eyes. “I cannot wield this sword and call it Oathkeeper when I betrayed you with it.”

He keeps his grass-green eyes on their hands, where he pushes the sword at her. “You can. You swore me no oath, so no oaths were broken.”

I could swear new oaths, she thinks. I could swear them to you. I would fight with you in King’s Landing, I would fight for your son. For you.

It strikes her that there is nearly nothing she would not do for him, if he only asked. In that moment she knows herself better than perhaps she ever has, knows that all she has ever wanted was for someone to rely on her, to have complete faith in her. Jaime had that once, and now it is gone. He will not ask.

“Thank you,” she whispers. How do you thank someone for your life, and for being in it, even if only briefly? Words seem insufficient.

She wanted it to be him. She wanted to restore him to honor and to have his admiration for it, wanted that as much as she had ever wanted Renly’s regard. More, if she is honest.

If he says something, she tells herself. If he says anything, even one word, I will stay. I will pledge him my sword, and fight for him.

But Jaime says nothing more. Not to her. He and his squire help Pod to mount the chestnut mare, and he is advising the boy to keep working on his swordplay, if his rescue attempt was any indication he is going to need a lot more practice.

Brienne straps Oathkeeper to the fine leather saddle and watches Jaime for any sign. But he’s not even looking at her. If he’s not looking at Pod or Peck he’s looking up at the treetops, at the sky. Anywhere but her. 

It seems there is nothing left for either of them to say. 

So she mounts the chestnut horse with Podrick and rides away.

[ddagent]

A Year in Review - Writers Version

Rules: pick your favourite sentence from a work you posted / wrote during a month of 2020! if you didn’t write anything in any particular month, don’t worry! tell us what you were doing or use it as free space for runner-up sentences. after that, tag 8 people or more to do the meme!

I know I am hideously late but I’m battling this sinus infection and only just now catching up. I was tagged by the amazing @aviss, and I am tagging anyone who wishes to do it! <3

January: Head, Hand, Heart (Chapter 15)

Brienne kissed Jaime in the spot where they had first met, where they had first embraced. Where they would stand as Queen and Prince Consort to preside over the kingdoms. Where they would present their first child to the Court. Where Jaime would tell their three children for the umpteenth time how he thought their mother the Maiden when she entered this very room. Brienne kissed Jaime in that spot until they both decided to return to their bedchambers and satisfy their hunger. They left the ghosts behind them as they went and began their new life together.

The Lion and the Beauty. Oathkeeper and Stormbreaker. The Golden Prince and the Warrior Queen.

February: I Can’t Get No Satisfaction 

“How gallant of you. Let us see how long it lasts before all you think about is your want; your need to touch your clit, fill that cunt of yours.” His teeth toyed with his bottom lip. Brienne loosened her grip. “You think I want to fuck you? I have no desire to bed anyone other than my sister, but I equally have no desire to walk all the way to the capital with my cock stiff and my balls blue. I am merely suggesting, my Lady, that we give each other a helping hand to take the edge off.”

“I won’t untie you.”

“There are other ways I can touch you, my Lady. You can straddle my face; let my tongue give you the orgasm you so desperately need.”

March: Sugar

Jaime’s forehead furrowed, and those beautiful lips fell into a frown. “Can you give us a minute?” he said to the waitress and, after she took her leave, leant across to Brienne once again. “You’re not used to asking for the things you want, are you?”

She bristled at his tone. “And I bet you never have to ask; they’re just given to you.”

He grinned. “Most of the time. I was lucky enough to be born into a family with more wealth than I can ever spend. My sister’s bought vineyards; my brother a boat or three. I’d like to buy your time and your company.”

“Why me?”

April: Table for One

As she completed the last table of appetisers, Podrick returned. He was smiling. “Table fourteen said to give his compliments to the chef.”

Brienne frowned. “He hasn’t even eaten it yet.”

“He said if you cook steak as well as your scallops, he’s in for a good meal.” Podrick closed the distance between them, so the rest of the kitchen couldn’t hear what else he had to say. “He also said that if he’s lucky enough to get a third course, he’d like the chef to bring it out herself.”

“Oh.” Her cheeks flushed. “I see.”

May: Chariot

Jaime pulled his car up in front of the Tarth Limited building; the blue-tinted windows shining in the King’s Landing sun. “We’re here.”

“Thank you,” said one of his passengers; a tall, striking woman with the bluest eyes Jaime had ever seen. Her companion, a shorter, plain-looking man whose face Jaime wouldn’t be able to pick out of a line-up, said nothing. “Have a good day.”

The woman went to open the rear door, only to find the handle stuck. Not wanting yet another comment about kidnapping passengers and holding them in his back seat, Jaime flung himself out of the driver’s side and opened Widow’s back door. While some (his mother, for example) found calling his car Widow’s Wail macabre, Jaime found it suited the faulty door, rusted exhaust, and the tendency for the radio to splutter to life at the oddest moments.

“Sorry about the door,” he offered, allowing the young woman to make her escape. “Have a–have a good day.”

June: Pride

Cat grinned, and Jaime just sat, watching his daughter smile his smile. She had her mother’s eyes and nose; both of their desire to wave around a stick at other people carrying sticks. But that smile was all him. She grinned at her lion cub, who had her mistress’ eyes, and Jaime knew the exact moment his daughter settled on the perfect name.

“Sapphire,” she said; the cub sneezing in response. “Saffie for short.”

“I love it. And your mother will love it, too.” He stroked his daughter’s head, earning a content smile from his child and a bop of the head from the newest addition to the family. “Now, will my little lions finally go to bed?”

July: Sparkline

“Nineteen Reasons why Hand Jaime Lannister is the sexiest politician in Westeros,” Brienne teased as Jaime entered her office. The Sparkline article was open in her browser; a topless photograph found on his brother’s social media reason number one. “And then there’s the one about your beard.”

Jaime ran a hand over his face as he slumped into his familiar seat beside Brienne’s desk. “Ah, yes. I saw that article.”

“They suggested you should call it Ovary Killer.” A clear riff on Oathkeeper, the ancient Valyrian sword that hung in the Queen’s office. It’s sister blade hung in his own. He’d like to take it to his laptop most days. Over her screen, Brienne caught Jaime’s eye and grinned. “The press is rather fond of you.”

“As they are of you, Your Grace. You and…Renly.”

August: Score

“Touché, Ms Tarth,” Jaime said; his smile fixed in place as he chatted with her. “Manager of the Evenstar and so desperate to meet me that you did a job one of your staff could have easily done.”

Brienne snorted. “I don’t believe in hiding in my office, Mister Lannister, especially during a busy weekend. Believe me, the highlight of my day will be watching you lose, not seeing you in a small towel.”

“Oh, so you did see me in that towel?” Jaime Lannister teased his bottom lip with his teeth, and her traitorous stomach somersaulted. “I should thank you again, Ms Tarth. My lucky gloves were in my room; without that key, who knows how many of your goals I would have nearly let in.”

“I don’t think your hands are nearly as good as you think they are.”

September: Mixed Doubles

The half-penny dropped, and Jaime had the sudden urge to throw himself in front of a fire-breathing dragon. Anything other than face this realisation. As Jason re-joined Brienne and Melara in the living room, Jaime gripped the kitchen island and tried not to scream. “Oh, Gods!”

“Now, Jaime, this isn’t something to get worked up about,” his father declared; a wry smile forming on his features. “In actuality, it’s rather amusing.”

“We’re not even on the same continent as amusing! Tyrion told me to wait a day.” Jaime turned sharply towards his brother. “Wait a day, you said. Ask her then if you think it’s right, you said. Well during that day, Brienne fell for the direct-to-DVD version of me!”

Tyrion held out his hands; trying to placate his brother. “Jaime, I know you’re angry—”

“—angry; I’m not angry. I just want to hit you, wait a day, and take you to the maester then!”

October: N/A

[I didn’t write anything in October. Not even headcanons :( ]

November: Not Marriage Material

“Is she presentable?”

From behind the handmaiden, a choked snort of derision echoed out into the hallway. Jaime, Lord of Casterly Rock, just smiled. The handmaiden, short of stature but sweet of face, merely nodded and allowed him entry. Her gaze lingered on his crimson tunic and golden curls before the girl took her leave; no doubt to return to the kitchens and wax poetic about the Golden Lion. Jaime took a moment to bask in the admiration before he entered his oldest friend’s chambers.

Brienne was sat in front of the looking glass, staring unhappily at her reflection. Jaime crossed the room and pressed his lips to her freckled cheek. “Lady Evenstar.”

“My Lord.” Brienne sighed as he perched himself atop the dresser. “Who is it today?”

December: A Sevenmas Carol

“I don’t deserve this.”

“Did I deserve my end, Kingslayer? Did my husband and sons? Does your sister, after all she’s done, deserve to die in your arms like lovers from a song?” Lady Stark blinked away a tear. “Life is not given to the deserving. It is not a case of what you deserve. What do you want, Ser Jaime?”

He did not even have to think. “Her.”

[scoundrels-in-love]

I want to be with you to where the sea sleeps (However the waves, I’ll hold on)

Jaime discovers that the difference between loving Brienne quietly and loving her with a future unfolding ahead of them is separated by a difference the width of the Straits of Tarth. Now, with their return to Winterfell imminent, he has to find the words that will bridge it.

Also on AO3. Part of the Tomorrow (with you) series.

Jaime discovered that the difference between loving Brienne quietly and loving her with a future unfolding ahead of them was separated by a difference the width of the Straits of Tarth. Not wide enough to be uncrossable, but very disorientating when one suddenly found themselves in the middle of the Shipbreaker bay with little but oars and sense of direction to get them the rest of the way.

It was not that he hadn't thought of pressing sweet, lingering kisses to her lips, her cheeks, her hands at every opportune moment. Of loving her with open sincerity that felt as foreign as his own right hand of flesh and blood would have felt now, but just as welcome.  Of wedding her and watching the eventual sunset of his life glow brighter for the way the sea of her reflected the light.

He had, so much that the want and the dreams had all blurred together and he could not tell which had come first any longer. But he had never thought much of how to proceed from one scene to another, other than carried by the whim of his imagining mind.

So now that Jaime had to face these questions, he felt rather at a loss.

A sennight had passed since the Festival of Mother, a night when bonfires and music, and wine (but no regret) had swept Brienne toward him and him into her arms.

They had not spoken of the whats and hows, a discomforting echo of secrecy prickling at Jaime, but she did not protest when he'd hold her hand and entwine their fingers or greet her with a kiss in the morning. So if she had intended to keep it secret, she had put in the least amount of effort he had ever seen her using.

Even Selwyn Tarth, who had welcomed him simply and fairly, before warming to his presence gradually and then all at once, had taken notice and spoken to him - well before the night bonfires and wine had lit courage or desire in Brienne's heart to kiss him.

"The day you arrived and she showed you around Evenfall Hall, I thought - I know my daughter still, as grown as she may be now, but I did not know she could smile like that. Or looked at the way you do," her father had said and Jaime had bristled on Brienne's behalf, half swallowing a sharp comment because she loved her father, and equally wanting to say it all the more exactly because of that.

"Consider me chastised," the older man had chuckled, taking notice of the shift in his expression, before growing somber and clasping a large hand on Jaime's shoulder. There were few people who could make Jaime feel small but not insignificant (like his own father had made a habit of), but it seemed to be a shared Tarth trait.

"I have made my share of grave mistakes, and many of them regarding her, and though Kingslayer would not have been my first choice of her husband then… a man that makes her happy, I will gladly take for my godson now, Ser Jaime." Selwyn had used the title before, but it was deliberate now in a way that pressed in Jaime's ribcage with an odd sort of warmth. Back then, there had been a tinge of bitterness, too, for for all of the encouraging words, Brienne's heart had seemed as far as the moon it outshone.

But now?

Now the chance to call her wife felt as close as the brisk, seasalt whispering breeze he could feel upon his face. He had come to the lighthouse to take in the sight as well as to seek some answers, as if he could scry them upon the horizon.

It was not that he doubted his feelings, or even Brienne's. He had confessed to loving her that very first night, but much like the gods, she hadn't said anything in return. Not with her words, though her kisses and hands that held him together and afloat at once sang sweetly. But there had been clouds of disbelief in her eyes, rising with the sun next morning, and they remained there still.

He wasn't good with his words, not when they weren't said in retaliation to a strike that hadn't always come, or passionate pleas - but even those had fallen on deaf ears. Whenever he thought of how to ask, it came out too mild or overwhelming in a way Brienne might not even believe.

But he could convince her, if not with words then with time poured into courting her, as a lady and knight both. He just needed to make sure she knew it was what he intended. And that her unspoken love wasn’t just for simplicity their unconventional union would offer - a man that’d respect her and trust her and one she could do the same for in return, a sizzle of friendship and echoes of the golden man he had once been. He knew it was not, yet thoughts and knowledge were not always the same.

In similar vein, part of him loathed to think of the long trip to Winterfell, in separate rooms and separate lives still, of touching no more than her hand in the North or stealing kisses like he was sixteen and not a man with decades of bittersweet secrecy beneath his skin. That part of him said: ask her, clumsily if you must, but ask her and she may be stunned enough, caught up in Tarth's golden sun enough, to say yes. Marry her, before she changes her mind or comes to her senses, and sees you for the one handed wreck that carries too many graves with him.

But marriage held no man or woman in the feelings it was borne of, neither love nor hatred though the latter often proved to be more enduring. He had seen far too many women trapped in marriages and he had failed to protect them all, from Rhaella and Elia, to his own once-sweet sister, to ever ask Brienne to bind herself to him without the certainty of lifetime in her heart.

And it always came down to words, but how does one say 'you have born an ocean in me and I wish to grow old by its' side, treasuring you every day'?

The sea below threw itself against the cliffs as if in sympathy or perhaps a fortune.

Midday approached and so did steps on the lighthouse's stairs. He thought it might be the keeper, but soon they grew familiar and then a blonde head emerged.

Brienne came to lean against the stone edge next to him, silent but equal parts comforting and unsettling in her presence, the way he had to divide his attention between imagining the taste of seaspray on her lips and remembering that he was allowed to discover it now, if only he solved his conundrum first.

"We should start preparing for departure in a month's time," she spoke, subdued somehow, but he couldn't read her eyes very well when they were fixed on the horizon.

And with that, the clock that had already been whispering at the back of Jaime's mind began its song in earnest.

"As you wish, my lady," he nodded, watching her hands, pale and tender against the dark stone, curl just so, a far cry from the anger and hurt the title used to invoke. He wanted to hold them, warm and shielded from wind and seaspray upon it.

Her voice is just a touch weary: "Jaime, I am no lady, you know that. It has not changed since we last spoke of it."

Which had been sometime during their journey here, he thought, when he had insisted she took the last room remaining at an inn. As always, he had argued that since swearing himself to her, she could only be free of the title and his service (even if it was to protect her back from hurting) by dismissing him. He had fallen asleep next to her on the narrow bed that night because she had yet to yield a fight.

Jaime didn't wish her to, not even now. The title had not been a weapon for a long time, but a way for secret wishes to be spoken out loud and Brienne deserved to know that, instead of the teasing she always seemed to find in it instead.

"It is true it has not changed since then - because my meaning has been the same for years now." He again briefly lamented that he could not entwine their fingers atop the rock ledge, for her hands were too far to grasp in anything but desperate reach. (But was that not the nature of this conversation?)

She was looking at him now and he thought there was only a hint of skittishness in her eyes. If he didn't want it to fester endlessly, he had to speak now.

"Brienne, this… isn't a passing flight of fancy to me. Gods know I am incapable of such a thing. If we are to head back to Winterfell, I do not wish to go as your mere swornsword, though that alone is more than I deserve. I love you and it has not been a secret to anyone but you for a long time now."

She inhaled softly, eyes wide, and it was not the first time he said it, but every time felt new and branding still, like it was raising gently from his bones to press warm marks into his skin from beneath, and perhaps not just to him. But Jaime would brand himself a thousand times as hers and still find joy and warmth in it, he knew that as surely as that the sea would forever worship the shore.

He wanted to tell her that, to give her the wedding oaths here if she'd not have them otherwise yet, to give her that before he showed his heart with actions, too, but before he could, Brienne stepped closer and like the moon, she pulled the tide between them to her - and him with it.

"Let's get married, Jaime." Her voice was quiet, but not out of hesitation. She had thought of this, Jaime realized, and later, he'd ask for how long, but right now he marveled in its existence. It was neither demand nor plea and for that alone, he felt swept away by it, toward her, as her hands came to hold his - and the stump.

"Before we leave because I do not wish to wait for years till we return and I'd rather marry here, in my home. We have waited long enough and to spend more time pretending we have not seems wasteful." She was practical even when her heart was spoken softly, and he couldn't love her more for it. But there was flush to her face and a brightness in her eyes that told him of joy tempered by worry.

“You know, I did intend to court you properly before proposing,” he told her, buoyant and like he could float off on this cresting feeling of happiness, finding anchor only in entwining fingers with hers.

Brienne looked soothed at his admission, though it was a faint shade of how much he had wanted to marry her, wanted it still. That his want far outweighed what he could give her, now that he was titleless and more gray than golden in more than shade of his hair.

“But all things considered, I doubt I could top the courting gifts I’ve already given you, so perhaps this is for the best,”  Jaime laughed now instead.

She attempted to scoff, but her lips could not be contained in a frown and spilled into a smile almost immediately: “I don’t need them, Jaime, but if you have given me any, they escape my memory.” “That is surprising, considering you wear one around your waist most days.” She had not today, or most of the days they had spent on Tarth, having also exchanged her blue armor for a brighter blue tunic with rich embroidery and earthly toned breeches that Sansa had gifted her before their departure. There had been visible discomfort about her at the start, like she did not know how to exist without this shell anymore. But gradually, it had eased away, leaving Jaime to marvel at how well peace suited her, too.

“Surely, not back then?” Brienne asked, disbelief apparent, and he could only laugh at the way they had both lost each other and themselves in this smoke and mirror game they had created, just to protect their hearts.

“Even then, Brienne,” Jaime reassured her softly and watched her jaw go briefly slack, before she bit down on her lip, overcome. To give her a chance to think on it, he did what he always did: ran his mouth.

“And you gave me quite the favor in return, bringing back my honor.” He had meant to say it as a soft jape at the expense of himself, but it came out warm and heavy all at once, like a bundle of truth wrapped in warm furs, spilling at their feet. Because she had, had brought him the second most precious gift in the world, outshone only by her heart.

At that, she shook her head fiercely, the frown he had already predicted as soon the words left his mouth, settling on her face. “No, Jaime. I did no such thing.”

“You said it yourself - you would do it for Catelyn and for me. I never forgot it, it haunted me in some ways. Like a light that I couldn’t follow, nor ignore. I tried. At Riverrun. And the Dragonpit. But you were too bright.” Someday, he would tell her for how long she’d been both the sea and the lighthouse and even the storm to him, crashing in on his cage and beckoning to the rocky coast, welcoming even in its sharpness as it offered a chance to live again.

“If every man could be inspired into doing the right thing with a few words, the world would be a far better place than it is, Jaime. You were and are a good person, you have made bad choices and good ones, but you only claim the bad ones as your own.” Brienne spoke with conviction and he heard a bell toll in her words, but he could not think of it now when this hadn’t been meant to be about him.

(Later, when he would lay awake at night and spin her light through his fingers like a thread of sunlight, he would examine the sound and try to let the truth of it in his heart of hearts, every night a little more.)

They had spoken of this before, though never quite as plainly, and his heart swelled with bittersweet ache. The way she’d always believe in his goodness while disregarding her own importance was never changing and spoke too loudly of her believed worth. On the road, she had mentioned that Sansa had said thank you to her, for being a good person at the right place and the right time, and he had seen how the acknowledgement had lit her up, though he knew she must have downplayed it.

He wanted her to take pride in her good heart, realize it for the treasure it was to those she shared it with, instead of finding a way to reflect it back at him. "Even so, without you, I would not have remembered that there was a way to make them. That there is still honor and love left in me and for me."

Her fingers tightened around his, dug in the soft cover over his stump, but not enough to hurt him. She was capable of it, in more ways than she knew, but she always treaded around even these underwater rocks and he wanted to kiss thank yous for that into her skin every day.

"I do know you are not a lighthouse that needs a keeper, Brienne, But if you do wish someone to be by your side, to tend to your needs and guard your light when you are weary, if that can be me… it would be my true happiness and my honor," his voice grew choked at the end, because even that wasn’t enough to express what it’d mean to him. What being next to her already was.

She leaned down just so, her forehead pressing against his, and her smile was a sunrise, slow and unstoppable.

"I would have no other, Jaime."

His hand trembled as he cupped her jaw, before tiptoeing to kiss her, sweetly and deeply. He hadn't known how much he needed it, to be chosen as the only one, no buts and no ifs, to be treasured in this simplest way he had never known. It was more than any I love you Cersei had ever whispered to him, it was commitment that no matter what life threw or offered to her, her hand would always find his. He wasn't the unconventional but easy choice, he was loved and he would be chosen again and again, through battlefields they had waded through and the ones still ahead. There was no criteria he was going to be weighed against daily, no mine until this one line.

He had known that and yet, her words rebuilt castles in him that had never been finished or fallen to sieges of pain and shame and rejection years ago.

When they parted, breathless, Brienne rested her forehead against his again and there was a glimmer of tears in her eyes, like the joy in her was too much to be contained, and he thought of a room in Winterfell, a lifetime and so many ways of loving ago. Thought of all the things he could do to recreate this feeling again and again for her. For his bride. His wife.

Her hand untangled itself from his curls on his nape and cradled his face. Jaime stroked his thumb over her knuckles, soothing little movements as the uncertain seas in them turned to ponds of insecurity and fears, hidden from sight and inconsequential to their current happiness. Eventually, he thought, they would become overgrown enough to be almost completely forgotten, not aching in their depth on most days.

Then, her smile gave way to soft laughter, eyes warm and full with affection he could drown in, but knew he’d learn to swim instead: “But I did already propose, Jaime. No need to do it twice.”

“I think you will agree that it is only fair if I have my chance, too.” He gave her his most obnoxious grin in return.

And if she had any opposition to ‘my lady’  this time, it was stolen from her lips between their kisses by the wind and swept away toward the horizon.

[jackoshadows]

The case for JonSa and why it will happen in the books.

This post looks at all the foreshadowing, text and hints in the books to make the case that GRRM is heading towards a Jon Snow x Satin Flowers or JonSa ship/endgame in the books.

Now it’s very likely that this relationship would have been the endgame in the show as well considering Jon ended up single and exiled to the NW and extrapolating this to the books would mean that he would have met up with Satin Flowers. It’s possible that Emilia Clarke disapproved of this because it disrupted the Jon/Dany ship and she convinced D&D to not write in the character of Satin Flowers.

Now before we start, remember that the Night’s Watch brothers can take no wives. But there is no clause in there that says that they cannot take husbands.

So let’s take a look at Jon and Satin and the love story between the lord commander and his steward.

First, we have had no confirmation one way or other of Jon’s sexuality. Cersei is written as being bi-curious and so is Dany. So Jon could be as well.  We get the hints right off the bat in the first AGoT Jon chapter when he is unimpressed by Cersei while at the same time being quite taken by Jaime.

This was his description of Cersei:

She was as beautiful as men said. A jeweled tiara gleamed amidst her long golden hair, its emeralds a perfect match for the green of her eyes.

This was his description of Jaime:

Ser Jaime Lannister was twin to Queen Cersei; tall and golden, with flashing green eyes and a smile that cut like a knife. He wore crimson silk, high black boots, a black satin cloak. On the breast of his tunic, the lion of his House was embroidered in gold thread, roaring its defiance. They called him the Lion of Lannister to his face and whispered “Kingslayer” behind his back. Jon found it hard to look away from him. This is what a king should look like, he thought to himself as the man passed.

Out of the two, it’s clear who he is more enamored with...

This then leads into Jon’s strong canon crush on Satin and attraction to him. Every time Jon mentions Satin, he always makes it a point to comment on Satin’s appearance, smell, beauty and youth. That can only mean one thing.

“It was the priestess we were laughing at,” said Satin, a lithe and pretty youth.

It shall not end until my death.” … He could smell the sweet scent Satin combed into his beard

Satin’s voice was sweet as song.

The word ‘sweet’ appearing in Jon Snow chapters is strong foreshadowing for his romance with characters where the word ‘sweet’ appears in their chapters as well. Why you may ask? Because fandom decrees it so. And ‘sweet’ makes an appearance several times with Satin.

Jon also thinks that Satin’s voice is like a sweet song. This connects to his father being a bard who sang pretty songs. This is foreshadowing Jon falling for Satin like Lyanna falling for Rhaegar.

What’s in a name?

Jon Snow has a strong association with flowers. The blue roses that his mother loved is often mentioned. Remember this from Eddard:

“I bring her flowers when I can,” he said. “Lyanna was... fond of flowers.”

And what’s Satin’s last name? That’s right, Flowers! The foreshadowing here could not be any stronger. GRRM is basically shouting it right to our faces – and anyone who cannot read this truth are just fools at this point.

The connection with flowers combined with Jon using the word ‘sweet’ to describe Satin’s smell and voice indicates that Dany’s vision in the house of undying about  – ‘A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness’ is about Jon and Satin’s love for each other at the wall. The blue flower growing from the wall is Satin Flowers and that sweet smell is the sweet scent of Satin that Jon often mentions.

Here is Jon’s feelings for Satin peeking through once again…

The boy claimed to be eighteen, older than Jon, but he was green as summer grass for all that. Satin, they called him, even in the wool and mail and boiled leather of the Night’s Watch; the name he’d gotten in the brothel where he’d been born and raised. He was pretty as a girl with his dark eyes, soft skin, and raven’s ringlets. Half a year at Castle Black had toughened up his hands, however, and Noye said he was passable with a crossbow. Whether he had the courage to face what was coming, though

Jon is often thinking of how pretty Satin is and his description of Satin here borders on the sensuous. By the way, how does Jon know about Satin’s soft hands? Hmm? Has he mayhaps held them at some point? There’s things that GRRM is hinting at here.

Here is Satin busy warding off attacks and in the midst of all this, Jon is still captivated by his appearance:

“Satin was loosing quarrels at the wildlings on the steps, then ducking down behind a merlon to cock the crossbow. He may be pretty, but he’s quick.”

Notice the choice of words that GRRM uses here? ‘Cock the crossbow’? Crude, but GRRM is an expert at using words to connect characters and tell us something.

When his top men at the Watch object to Satin being appointed as Jon’s Steward, Jon’s ardent love for Satin makes him object vociferously.

Septon Cellador spoke up. “This boy Satin. It’s said you mean to make him your steward and squire, in Tollett’s place. My lord, the boy’s a whore … a … dare I say … a painted catamite from the brothels of Old-town.”

And you are a drunk. “What he was in Oldtown is none of our concern. He’s quick to learn and very clever. The other recruits started out despising him, but he won them over and made friends of them all. He’s fearless in a fight and can even read and write after a fashion. He should be capable of fetching me my meals and saddling my horse, don’t you think?”

“Most like,” said Bowen Marsh, stony-faced, “but the men do not like it. Traditionally the lord commander’s squires are lads of good birth being groomed for command. Does my lord believe the men of the Night’s Watch would ever follow a whore into battle?”

Jon’s temper flashed. “They have followed worse. Whatever Satin may have done in Oldtown, he is our brother now, and he will be my squire.”

Look at how angry Jon gets at Satin being insulted by these fellows. Compare his reaction here to when Stannis dissed Sansa as Lady Lannister and vowed that she would never get Winterfell. He could not care less there. But here? He gets emotional and defends Satin’s right to that position. This is not about doing the right thing, oh no. This is all about Jon’s romantic feelings and love for Satin.

Here is Jon once again itching to jump to Satin’s defense in case, Selyse’ knight dared speak wrongly about him:

“Satin, show Her Grace to her place,” said Jon.

Ser Malegorn stepped forward. “I will escort Her Grace to the feast. We shall not require your … steward.” The way the man drew out the last word told Jon that he had been considering saying something else. Boy? Pet? Whore?

And while Jon is openly appreciating Satin’s ‘grace’ we can clearly see his jealousy and protectiveness over Satin peeking through:

Satin was all grace, dancing with three serving girls in turn but never presuming to approach a highborn lady. Jon judged that wise. He did not like the way some of the queen’s knights were looking at the steward, particularly Ser Patrek of King’s Mountain. That one wants to shed a bit of blood, he thought. He is looking for some provocation.”

He is already so possessive of Satin, that he dislikes the queen’s knights even looking at him.

In conclusion I think there is some pretty strong foreshadowing for this relationship and we could see it moving forward at full speed in the next book after Jon is resurrected and Satin is going to be around to help. If we align Jon Snow’s show and book ending, then he ends up at the wall or beyond and is no ruler, leader or king. The reason he ends up single could be because Satin Flowers was not present on the show. But looking at all the strong foreshadowing in the books for these two, there’s no way this is not happening in the books. All the foreshadowing is right there.

[the-scooby-gang]

Changing the game Chapter 1

The crossover that came to me at 5 in the morning.

Leave a comment. Tell me what you guys think of this plot bunny.

Summary: Petyr Baelish is dead i killed him and now Shaggy Rogers inhabites his body.

Word count: 3015

Catelyn I

The Royal entourage made its way across the gates of the castle like a river of gold and silver and polished steel. Above their heads, standards of gold and crimson of the Houses Baratheon and Lannister flew high above the columns of anointed knights. Wandering knights, sworn soldiers, and vassals followed not too far behind.

Catelyn recognized many faces. Sandor Clegane, by far one of the  tallest men in attendance, was the first to capture her eyes thanks to the ruin that was the right side of his face. The tall golden boy by his side must have to be the Crown Prince, following the giant that was his father, the King Robert Baratheon, that was right in the front of the columns flanked by two white knights. An equally tall and golden man, adorned in golden armor with the helm in the form of a roaring lion followed close by, the white cloak of the King’s Guard bellowing against the cold wind.

The Kingslayer, thought Cat, giving a more thoughtful look to the twin of Her Majesty. Giving a side glance towards her Lord husband, Cat sent a silent prayer to the seven gods, asking that Ned’s dislike of the queen’s family would not bring any animosity while the royal family was under her roof.

Turning her eyes once again towards the gates, Cat could not contain the happy smile that came to her lips. Petyr Baelish, her brother in all but blood, was entering the gates just behind Ser Jaime, a polite smile in his face. He had changed little; his hair was grayer in the temples them when she last saw him, an earring made of gold with a teardrop-shaped emerald lay dangling from his left ear, but besides that, his frame was still small and lanky, with his observing green-grey eyes and his always easy smile.

When his eyes found hers, his already polite smile turned into something more genuine. He dismounted his stead, just as the king was doing the same and followed on the large shadow of Robert Baratheon, to await his time to greet the Lord and Lady of Winterfell.

On his right, the dog Scoobert Doo stayed loyal and vigilant over his master, like he had done as he was riding through the gates, and just like in the day Petyr found him in the forest near Riverrun and claimed the dog as his own. Cat never saw a dog as big as Doo and believed she never would. Petyr called him “A Great Dane” and said that he would probably grow to surpass even Uncle Brynden in high if he stood in his hind legs. When Edmure, not more them a babe at the time, asked how could he possibly know that, a smile that Catelyn would come to know well graced Petyr’s face.

“I saw it in a dream, Eddy,” he said with far more wisdom in his voice than any boy of ten had any right to have. Then, he messed her brother’s red hair with his free hand while the other held the puppy with the care one would expect someone to cradle a newborn baby.

That would be the answer to many of the things that he just seemed to know. Petyr and his dreams were one of the greatest talks of the realm sometimes. The Master of Coin was known to go to sleep when faced with a particularly difficult conundrum and come back to the land of the awaken with a solution on the tip of his fingers. Sometimes, if the ambient was calm enough, he just needed to close his eyes to be momentarily taken to whatever plane of reality his answers lied.

She remembers asking him once what exactly he saw when in one of his trances.

“It depends on what I have to ask,” he said with the utmost sincerity. Sometimes Cat asked herself if he was capable of lying “If I need some deep knowledge about how something works I may ask The Wise Lady, with her kind eyes, dressed in reds and oranges like the morning sun. If I need to think strategically, in combat or in holding court, The Lovely Warrior will have a ready answer…”

In here he made a pause as his face had assumed a look of longing, of warning. He looked at his feet and Catelyn could swear that his face was as bright and red as the sunsets that she and her sister saw atop the towers of Riverrun “if my need is to create, be it a stronghold, a weapon, a speech or, be made of rope or words, a trap, The Blue-eyed Lord is the one I seek.”

After a small pause, Petyr smiled, looked at the sky, and said with a soft voice, as if he was remembering something long gone. Happy memories of a life already liven “But they don’t have fixed roles most of the time. Both the Warrior and the Lord can be just as wise as the Lady, as can the Lady and the Lord be as cunning and resourceful as the Warrior, and the Warrior and the Lady can just as easily create wonders as the Lord can.”

That was the answer he always gave when asked. Cat and half of her household believed that Petyr was being blessed by the gods. The Wise Lady was clearly the Crone, giving him advice. The Warrior was in the name, giving him strength.

The only one no one was quite sure of was The Blue-eyed Lord.

Some said it was The Father, giving him the means to work his justice. Some supposed that The Smith was the most likely since the weapons and plans that came to Petyr in the dead of the night were above anything anyone was ever seen. A small group thought it was The Maiden in disguise, solemnly because Petyr was the most flustered when speaking of them.

Cat would laugh every time that particular hypothesis was broth up. She knew Petyr better them she knew herself, and she was not blind to his long glances to any blond knight that trained at the yard every morning when they were growing up. It was always blond men. These were the favored ones in her brother’s eyes: Blond, blue eyed, with deep knowledge about one expecific thing and, as Petyr once told her one summer night, “Good of heart, dumb of ass”.

She never laught so loudly as she did that night. 

“Your Grace. Winterfell is yours” she heard her husband say, lying on his knees like the rest of her household.

“You grow fat.” Said a bumming voice.

The sound of the King’s remark of her husband’s weight pulled her right back into the present. She turned her head just in time to see Ned go back on his feet, look with disbelief to Robert’s own protuberant belly them back at him with a clearly “And you are one to talk?” look.

The king burst out laughing. Clapping him in his shoulders, Robert turned to her next. Everyone had followed in Ned’s steps and rising to their feet.

“Cat!” roared the Baratheon.

Robert enveloped her in his arms as if she was a long-lost sister and kissed both her cheeks, making her once again lose her brother from sight.

By that time, the others were dismounting, and stable boys ran to collect their horses. The Queen, Cersei Lannister, walked in with her youngest children. The caravan in which they had traveled, a huge two-story carriage made of greased oak and gilded metal, pulled by forty horses with heavy traction, was too wide to pass through the castle gate. Ned knelt in the snow to kiss the queen's ring, while Robert hugged her.

Many stable boys, knights, and servents that have come with the entourage stayed a wide berth away from Scoobert, the sheer size of the dog enough to scare any men. Catelyn wanted to laugh and she could see by Petyr’s face, so did he. Unless you tried to stab Petyr or her or any of their family, Scooby was as threatening as a pillow and just as cuddly.

The servants of Winterfell were already used to the Great Dane from the many visits that Petyr made over the years, the dog aways by his side. She could already see both Bran and Arya dreaming of mounting the dog as if he was a steed, and she had no doubt that Rickon would be introduced to the unofficial tradition.

She remembers when this rite of passage was born, many years ago, when Robb was newly born and the rebellion was coming to an end. Petyr was as always with Scoob by his side, like the gods intended.

When Ned was explaining that the boy that he was bringing with him, a babe that he had named Jon, one of Brandon’s bastards, was going to be living with them, Petyr and the baby Robb were playing with Scoob. The babe was carefully laid over the back of the dog, green-gray eyes focused like an eagle on the redhead of his nephew with ready hands for the chance that they had to move quickly to grab a falling babe.

Robb giggled happily, without a single care in the world. Jon soon followed him on his furry mount. That afternoon was full of the giggles of babes and the soft trot of Scooby paws against pillows.

Ever since then, all the Stark children would have their first ride, not in a pony as it was common, but on the might back of Scoobert Doo.

 Petyr and Ned had just come back from the war, Petyr under Lord Arryn banner and Ned as the new Lord of Winterfell. Petyr may not have the body expected of a knight, but what he didn’t have in muscle he compensated with speed. Ned would tell her how Petyr was in the field,  looking  like he was dancing in mid his enemies, with the sword that he long ago had made per his instructions cutting through armor and flesh like it was cutting the air while Scoobert shredded the arms of anyone that got to close off his master.

She told her husband the story of that blade. The blacksmith of Riverrun recognized the design as one of the blades of Yi-Ti and Ser Desmond Grell, the master-at-arms asked the then boy of eight were he found such a thing.

“I saw it in a dream, Ser Desmond” answered Petyr “An old warrior was training me. He told me to climb the earth, walk on air, pass through the fire, and brave my way through the water. When I did it,  a Green Dragon gave me a sword just like this one” them he pointed to the newly made blade, one he called katana and later on would name Loyalty. “The Dragon told me that I would never fight like a knight. I will always be too small and light for that. He told me ‘Fight like the wind, like the flowing waters of the rivers. Fight like a samurai”

Ser Desmond had no idea what a Samurai was, but he would find out that to know was not necessary. The boy, like almost anything in his life apparently, was learning his routines in dreams. He was only necessary to fix his stances, give him targets, and look after him and anyone that was going to be his opponent for the day.

Cat shook herself out of her memories. This was not the place or time for her attention to be so dispersed. With a small sigh of relief, she noticed that the king was still going down the line of her children. At the moment he was complimenting Bran’s muscles, telling him that he would make a fine knight.

When the king finished with his inspection and spirited her husband away to the crypts to the Queen’s displeasure, Petyr finally approached her and her children.

“Uncle Shaggy!” screamed Arya, throwing herself in his open arms.

The nickname was born years ago when Catelyn, Lysa, Edmure, and Petyr went riding by the river, looking for a perfect place for an afternoon picnic. Petyr rode like he was born to do so and his hair by the end of the day was so messy that Edmure started calling him “Shaggy Hair” and later on only “Shaggy”. Petyr seemed to love it and it had indeed fitted him like a second skin.

Somehow that particular nickname seemed more personal them any nickname that Edmure had ever given him. In public, Eddy called him “Littlefinger”, since it was the first name he had ever given him and so was the one everyone knew. But when it was just them, between close doors and the seclusion of the sacred forest, the name “Shaggy” was the one to fall from his lips.

Robb had been the first one to call him that. Followed by Jon, Arya, Bran, even Ned could be caught from time to time calling him by the name. Sansa, on the other hand, rarely called him anything that was not “Uncle Petyr”, “Uncle” and “Lord Baelish”. Petyr used to bribe Sansa with lemon cakes when she was younger to call him by his family nickname, but now at thirteen the bribes rarely work like they used to. Sansa was worried about what would be proper to call a member of the Small Council and found it  demeaning for a man in such a position.

She remembers the look Shaggy gave her after Sansa told him this, the day he had come to Winterfell to celebrate her oldest daughter name day. She also remembers how she lost her composure and snorted like a fool when she saw the incredulous expression in his face.

“But look at that! The Hurricane of Winterfell has grown once more” He held Arya as if she weighed nothing. The years of running around carrying a hundred and seventy-five pounds of dog in his arms as if it was a babe had given him great strength. “ At this rate, you will be taller than me in no time”

Arya blushed. Shaggy was by far her favorite uncle and she always shined under his compliments.

Scooby was already licking Bran’s face, not after having sent the boy straight up to the ground. Bran laughed happily and without care. Rickon was looking at the dog in awe and Jon, Robb, and Theon Greyjoy, the protege of Winterfell, burst with laughter.

“Scooby, stop it. He’s going to get all dirty” said Catelyn, but she could not take the small smile of her face.

Scoob followed her orders. Robb helped Bran to get up and cleaned the dirt that covered his back. Shaggy put Arya back on the ground, kissed Sansa’s hand with a small bow with the proper “My Lady” and then turned to Cat, a mischievous smile on his face.

Without warning, Shaggy hugged her, held her out of the ground, and spun her around laughing like a mad man. His laughter as always was infectious and, caring little for the onlookers (something she would severely chastise herself and Shaggy later when she had recovered her wits) she laughed with him.

He put her back on the ground and kissed both her cheeks.

“Big sister, you’re  as radiant as ever,” he said looking her over “I hope that Lord Eddard remains treating you well?” his voice jested, but she saw that his eyes were deadly serious.

Shaggy was loyal to a fault, and since the day he came to live with her family he internalized her house words as if they were his own, just like they had come to see him as one of their own. Family, Duty, Honor. The family was above all else in his eyes, be it blood or chosen family. If her answer had been anything but positive, she knew that Ned would find himself with the angry entity that was Shaggy in a protective fury.

“My Lord husband remains the best thing that the gods could have blessed me,” said Cat with sincerity.

Shaggy smiled and took her by the arm and together they started to walk towards the great hall, her children not too far behind petting Scooby-Doo with love and little Rickon perched on his back.

“If you say so, my lady. But always remember, if you need me in any shape or form I’m just one raven away.” here his voice turned into a whisper “Gods know I would take any excuse to leave that nest of vipers”

They both giggle like they were children again and walked through the immense doors of the keep.

Petyr’s father, before he died, said once that in the way to Riverrun Petyr had fallen asleep one  night and awaked the next morning completely different. He said he was sweeter, more gentle, and caring. He believed that his son’s dreams started that night and that it has changed him.

If that was so, Catelyn sang many  blessings to that day. She would never know how their life would have gone had Shaggy never started dreaming, but she knew what this life had given her.

It has given her a brother.  An eccentric and beloved brother.

“Come along, my dear. We have many things to discuss” he said still in whispers “About propositions that are going to be made and marrieges that, if we play our cards right, will never come to be.”

Her smile soured. She knew what proposition he was talking about. Since the death of Jon Arryn and the letter from Lysa, she had been on edge with the uncoming visity from the king,  bringing the Lannisters to her home. Regarding marriege, she had know about the possibility of Robert wanting to join their houses, but the look on Shaggy’s face told her a deeper rabbit hole that she was not seeing.

Giving him a calculated smile that was easily reciprocated, arm in arm, they entered the hall. 

[astradrifting]

While Tyland seems to mirror Tyrion, the latter has already experienced all that in the book, hasn't he? Serving the wrong regime, being hated by the people, being badly disfigured etc. But now he's bringing an enemy with dragons to Westeros. Isn't that far beyond Tyland? I keep thinking the Lannister in the service of a rotten regime and for the wrong reasons (Cersei) might be Jamie. He too is disfigured. Is there a parallel for him in DoD?

(referencing this post)

Well, Tyland was sent across the Narrow Sea to Pentos to get sellswords for the Greens but failed, so maybe Tyrion bringing Dany across is meant to be him succeeding where Tyland failed. But you’re right, the foreshadowing events have already happened for Tyrion and it seems repetitive for his story to progress in exactly that way again. The show seemed to indicate that this was his endgame, but I could see D&D giving him this ‘happy ending’ purely because he’s their favourite, maybe swapping his ending with another character’s to facilitate it. The removal of the Tysha reveal so completely stagnated Tyrion’s character arc, which might be why D&D seemed to have no idea what to do with him post s4 aside from get him sucked into the Dany-cult.

There’s definitely meant to be a link between Ser Criston Cole and Jaime, though more of a mirror reflection than parallels. Cole was known as the Kingmaker, for his crucial role in playing Aegon II and Rhaenyra against each other at the start of the Dance, and was later made Aegon’s Hand. He was once Rhaenyra’s loyal sworn sword, until one of them spurned the other before her wedding to Laenor Velaryon. Either he asked her to run away with him to the Free Cities and she rejected him, or she tried to seduce him (for a second time) in the White Sword Tower and he rejected her. Either way, they clearly had a falling out, after which Rhaenyra turned to Ser Harwin Strong and Cole became a supporter of the Greens and Queen Alicent’s new sworn sword. This is similar to Jaime turning away from Cersei for her infidelity, though he doesn’t go so far as supporting the younger brother that will kill her and keeping her from the throne just yet.

Cole’s death is clearly a reference to the Red Wedding - at the Red Wedding, Robb was hit by three crossbow bolts, before Roose Bolton killed him while saying “Jaime Lannister sends his regards.” Criston Cole died at the Butcher’s Ball, a battle in the riverlands near the God’s Eye, killed by three arrows. The man in charge of the archers, and one of the men who killed him, was called Red Robb Rivers. His head was later put upon a spear and marched to another battle. But considering this is already a reversal of Robb’s exact fate in the books, I don’t know if Cole’s death is meant to provide foreshadowing for Jaime’s ending. He seems to be more of Jaime’s foil than a true parallel - Cole appeared to truly hate Rhaenyra in the end and worked to destroy everything she had, but I think Jaime is going to find it harder to give up on Cersei no matter what he says.

Some of Tyland and Tyrion’s parallels could actually apply to Jaime too, in some ways mapping closer to Jaime:

- Tyland was the younger twin of Lord Jason Lannister, as Jaime is Cersei’s younger twin.

- both were tortured and disfigured by the opposite side in war.

- Tyland’s policies benefitted lords, but made him hated by the smallfolk - similarly, Jaime’s slaying of Aerys actually benefitted the nobility, since it was they that Aerys tended to target, but has made him reviled by the smallfolk as the Kingslayer.

- Tyland advised Aegon II to kill his nephew Aegon the Younger instead of just gelding him or sending him to the Wall, because he would always be a threat to his reign. Tyrion has never threatened Bran (yet, at least), but Jaime has already tried to kill him, and later said that he should be killed, ostensibly for mercy but really because Bran was a threat to his and Cersei’s secret.

I’m still more inclined to think that Jaime and Cersei’s endings are linked in some way. But there’s also a lot of possible foreshadowing for Jaime being Hand within the books - @fedonciadale wrote a meta about Jaime possibly becoming Hand before s8. He also spends much of Feast riding around the Riverlands trying to clean up the war, during which he dreams of becoming known as Goldenhand the Just, instead of the Kingslayer. Of course, right now it’s incomprehensible why exactly either Bran or his council of regents would choose to make Jaime his Hand, aside from possibly appeasing supporters of the old Lannister regime, but Tyrion becoming Hand is pretty baffling too. I’d think that either of them would be especially insulting to both Sansa personally and the Martells, but if both the North and Dorne go independent at the end they probably wouldn’t have a say in who becomes Hand in the remaining kingdoms.

I don’t know why it would happen politically, but I could see why it might happen thematically. It might be a bitter, full circle of sorts for Jaime to end up loyally serving a king he’s already wronged.

In Jaime’s last AFFC chapter, he makes plans to eventually return to KL, but not for Cersei. He intends to separate Cersei from Tommen and find him a new small council, considering a slew of lords who could become the new Hand (even Baelish, bizarrely enough), but conspiciously not including himself, even though he’s already planning political manouevres and there have been previous Lord Commanders of the Kingsguard who have served as the Hand e.g. Ser Ryam Redwyne, and Ser Criston Cole during the Dance. He even wants to tell Tommen that he’s his father.

And he had done his own part here at Riverrun without actually ever taking up arms against the Starks or Tullys. Once he found the Blackfish, he would be free to return to King's Landing, where he belonged. My place is with my king. With my son. Would Tommen want to know that? The truth could cost the boy his throne. Would you sooner have a father or a chair, lad? Jaime wished he knew the answer. 

(AFFC, Jaime VII)

He seems to want a second chance, with Tommen after years of not truly acknowledging him as his son, and as a knight of the Kingsguard. The last king he truly served, he ended up stabbing in front of the Iron Throne. Robert barely even counts, because Jaime never had any real loyalty to him. Now he has grand plans to guide Tommen as king that will ultimately be disrupted, first by Lady Stoneheart, then likely by Aegon coming out of the woodwork and taking the crown from either Cersei or Tommen. If Jaime survives to the end of the series, he might end up serving a final king.

Bran and Tommen have often been linked to each other and contrasted throughout the series. They’re the same age, both second sons, and Sansa thinks explicitly that Tommen reminds her of Bran in ACOK. At the very beginning of AGOT, they have a sparring match, in which Bran knocks Tommen down:

There was a shout from the courtyard below. Prince Tommen was rolling in the dust, trying to get up and failing. All the padding made him look like a turtle on its back. Bran was standing over him with upraised wooden sword, ready to whack him again once he regained his feet.

(AGOT, Arya I)

There’s a more oblique link made when the Lannisters are discussing Bran’s fall:

“[...] There is nothing Lord Eddard can do for the boy in any case."

"He could end his torment," Jaime said. "I would, if it were my son. It would be a mercy."

"I advise against putting that suggestion to Lord Eddard, sweet brother," Tyrion said. "He would not take it kindly."

(AGOT, Tyrion I)

In AFFC/ADWD, Jon bitterly remembers the spar between Bran and Tommen:

"At Winterfell, Tommen fought my brother Bran with wooden swords," Jon said, remembering. "He wore so much padding he looked like a stuffed goose. Bran knocked him to the ground." He went to the window and threw the shutters open. The air outside was cold and bracing, though the sky was a dull grey. "Yet Bran's dead, and pudgy pink-faced Tommen is sitting on the Iron Throne, with a crown nestled amongst his golden curls."

(ADWD, Jon II)

Except Bran isn’t dead, and it’s Tommen’s prospects that aren’t looking good. By the end of the series, their positions will likely have reversed entirely from Jon’s statement - Bran will be the boy with a crown in his curly hair, while Tommen might be the one tragically killed in his home.

There would be something bitter and darkly ironic in it, if the boy-king Jaime gets a second chance with isn’t the son he desperately wants to know, but the boy he threw out of a window.