He lifts his head up to turn those Lannister green eyes on her, genuinely curious about a man he knows little about beyond his Kingsguard career (and even then, he doesn’t honestly understand a great deal about what that entailed... he had people on the Small Council who did that for him).
BRIENNE OF TARTH
She hesitates before answering, obviously thinking hard about her response. She's not a very quick conversationalist, which most people find dull and irritating. Her eyes move from the yard to Tommen's face as she considers it, the way Jaime had behaved when she returned to find him leading the Westerlands in earnest. How sharp and wan he'd become. Quick to lash out at her, like even then she offered a safety where he could loose his true feelings without worry of retribution.
"I don't think I can answer for him. He loved being a knight. I don't feel he regards Lord Paramount as a position to love."
TOMMEN LANNISTER
Tommen nods, as if he understands, but the sad truth is that he doesn’t. He was raised as a prince, told that one day he would marry a suitable lady who would help to ally the throne with some powerful house. He was never supposed to be king. That was Joffrey’s destiny, not his. And he knows next to nothing about knighthood, nor did he realize that the man he believed to be his uncle all his life actually enjoyed the role.
“And I cast him out of the Kingsguard. Mother said I had no choice but to, that he had to be held accountable for decisions he made that made me look unfit to be king... Do you think he thinks poorly of me for it?”
BRIENNE OF TARTH
"No." That one, she doesn't have to think about. Her answer comes out emphatic and sure, and it's one of the few things she doesn't feel awkward about answering so bluntly on Jaime's behalf. She won't put words in his mouth, but she knows how he regards Tommen's "choice" to dismiss him.
"Your father, more than anyone in Westeros, knows what it is to make impossible choices in youth." She moves to stand beside him, and gestures further up the battlement. He'd said he wanted to walk, and she thinks now is probably a good time for some movement. She wonders what Jaime would want her to say to him about this, and blurts out: "And if he did think poorly of you for it, you should tell him to stuff it."
TOMMEN LANNISTER
“Tell him to stuff it?” The young once-king sounds so scandalized by the notion, following in Brienne’s wake and walking with his hands folded behind his back as if he were still donning that crown. “I admit to not knowing much about him as a man, let alone a father, but what I do know is that I don’t think sons are supposed to speak that way to their fathers. Even ones they don’t really know much of.”
He’s silent for a moment, contemplative.
“Brienne... Can I ask you something and trust you to answer me truthfully?”
BRIENNE OF TARTH
They must paint a ridiculous picture, an ex-king walking as if this keep is his, and a woman playing at knight strolling tall at his side with her hand on her sword as if she'd strike down anyone that threatened him. She would, but it still must look ridiculous.
She doesn't answer right away, but after a moment of thought she nods. "I'll answer to the best of my ability. I won't lie to you, Tommen."
TOMMEN LANNISTER
Tommen. She calls him by name instead of a mocking title or something he’s been dubbed with out of courtesy when he knows that he’s nothing now.
It makes him smile.
“My father... Lord Jaime... Is he a good man?”
Kingslayer. Oathbreaker. A man without honor... Tommen was not free from hearing those things. He knows the stories. He knows them well.
BRIENNE OF TARTH
The question affects her enough that her step falters.
Out of everything she expects him to ask, that hadn't even factored. Brienne's brow creases with her consideration, almost as if it pains her to hear. Is he a good man? What makes a man good? What makes one bad? Is she a good woman, and if not, how can she determine who else might be good?
She thinks of how easily Jaime's words had cut her to the bone when they traveled to King's Landing together. The face he'd made when he spoke out to save her honor. Both of them bound to trees, him running his mouth and—the hope on his face, that boyish softness that had come out of nowhere before they led him away and severed his swordhand.
When she comes back to herself, she realizes she'd stopped walking, and swallows hard.
"Jai—your father, he's—" she stammers and feels like his mark is burning her throat, and her feelings must be written all over her face. "He wants to be. He's trying to be, I think. I don't know that you can call any person good or bad."
TOMMEN LANNISTER
If Tommen has noticed the teeth marks on her neck, chances are he believes it to be from some sort of animal, pet or otherwise, and not from a person. Certainly not his own father. That’s a rumor that hasn’t touched his ears, though he wouldn’t blanche at it as others already have, especially with the way Brienne speaks of him.
Of trying. Of wanting to be .
“That’s more than Mother ever did,” Tommen finds himself saying. “I wanted her to be better. To be how I used to see her, before I was king and got to see more than just...” More than just his mother. When he got to see Queen Cersei in all her power hungry, controlling glory. “She didn’t, however. Want to be better.”
BRIENNE OF TARTH
"I'm sorry," she says, because she doesn't know Cersei or the conditions Tommen had been subject to while surrounded by people who should have cared about him more than just for what power he could lend them. "That must have been difficult, to be king and feel powerless."
Her perspective of Cersei is vague, no better than that of the shadow of Stannis that had killed Renly. But the way Jaime and Tommen speak of her, she can't imagine loving the woman is an easy task.
She begins walking again, and the sounds of men training and sparring rings out from the yard below, where handfuls of the various factions of men have gathered to spend the afternoon passing the time together.
"I don't remember my mother," she says, eyes fixed on one of Tormund's boys as he whacks a squire with his spear over and over again. "My father…he was never the same. And I am not an ideal daughter."
At that, she turns a wry smile on Tommen, as if they're sharing a grand secret that not everyone who looks at her knows.
TOMMEN LANNISTER
“I don’t suppose I’m an ideal son, either. A bastard who thought he was legitimate all his life. Who cast his own father away and turned him against him. Neither of us are terribly good at being ideal.”
The small smile he gives her seems to say that he’s glad he isn’t alone in that.
BRIENNE OF TARTH
Her smile broadens, glad to have been able to make a jape that landed and that Tommen could add to. It's something she doesn't usually get to do with people, who judge her on sight or based on her reputation.
She leads him toward another set of steps downward, and she wishes she didn't have duties to attend to so that she could learn more about Jaime's son. But there will be time on the road, she's sure, where she can speak with him and maybe even encourage him to speak with some of the Wildlings—or at least observe that they aren't barbarians bent on lopping off his head.
"I have another proposal, if you're willing. If you can refrain from slipping your guards again tonight, I'll argue for you to ride a horse for the journey rather than inside the covered wagon we procured for you from a local onion farmer."
It's very smelly and not at all comfortable.
TOMMEN LANNISTER
“I think I can agree to that,” he says with the air of someone who has been dodging his guards for some time now. (He absolutely has and they’ve been none the wiser. Likely don’t even think someone as ‘simple’ as he isn’t capable of it.)
Riding in the sunlight and fresh air, even if he’ll probably still have to keep his head covered and won’t get to hold Ser Pounce while perched on a saddle, it’s better than being encompassed by the smell of onions.
BRIENNE OF TARTH
She gives Tommen one last dutiful nod before leaving him to go and change before attending the meeting her father means to hold before they depart for Winterfell in the morning. Her clothes are fine, tailored by the careful hand of her lady in what she could cobble together in Tarth colors. Her doeskin boots are buttery soft, and she fears they're too nice to wear as they all tromp through the hills, but they're warm and that's all the convincing she needs.
When she arrives in the offices, a handful of lords and knights from the Stormlands are gathered in small clusters, exchanging gossip and rumors about the Dothraki barbarians and Unsullied freaks. Daenerys' promises to be merciful to those who bend the knee willingly and unrelenting to any who refuse her. Smallfolk of King's Landing afraid to flee, but many still escaping to head North and join the rumored fight for the living.
They cluck like hens, trading hearsay and speculation which makes them sound like old women to Brienne's ears.
Her father beckons her to sit with him and all told, she counts far more men than she'd expected him to bring seated at the long table. The bluejays of Ser Colen, Penrose quills, Horpe's moths, and more. How he managed to arrange them all so quickly, she can only imagine. How he seems to be keeping all of the Stormlanders from killing each other, she doesn't want to. No wonder he's barely paying attention to Tommen, with his hands full of blustering lords and arrogant knights.
Before they can even begin, it happens.
"I hear they call her the Kingslayer's Whore," Horpe rasps, not even deigning to address Brienne herself, but turning his grey eyes to Selwyn. "Why is she here?"
Her father lifts his chin, and she knows she's going to remove that knife from her side. He's waiting for her to speak, to defend herself. She can't. She can't lie, she won't disrespect Jaime that way. What will she say? She's not a whore? Women who defend themselves that way only solidify the claim.
Selwyn thinks he's doing the right thing, letting the doubt surface. Rot dies in the sunlight, he'd say when she was a girl. Not: you aren't ugly. Not: you aren't a freak.
"I am sworn to Lady Sansa Stark of Winterfell," she counters. She holds no claim on Tarth, and she's here on Sansa's request. It's not enough, and she feels her father's eyes on her, fresh doubt clouding them. She hasn't said she's not Jaime's whore.
"Brienne," he says in that eerily calm and yet commanding tone. The one that makes men think twice about lying to him, or insulting her to his face. She bites her lip, and makes the choice.
"The Lord Paramount of the Westerlands has named me his Chief Mistress," she says, and she barely gets the words out before the table erupts in a flurry of anger. She doesn't hear any of it, because she feels her father's disappointment in her. Her cheeks flame red, heat searing her ears and tears filling her eyes as if she's still a girl who's never left her little island. When she meets his eyes, she feels like a stranger to him.
She can't argue. Her actions have weakened the respect her father has among these men, and he doesn't need to tell her she's unwelcome here now. Brienne hunches her shoulders, and ducks her chin, and she leaves like she's ashamed of herself.
For the first time, she's glad Jaime isn't here.
JAIME LANNISTER
“You sure you didn’t marry her?”
Jaime drops his spoon dramatically into the porridge they’re feasting on in the Great Hall. It splatters, managing to somehow avoid peppering his own garments, but gets all over Addam, leaving wet streaks against his arm.
“Give it a rest, Bronn. I know you seem to think I wed her in secret in the Godswood or snuck off to some nearby, rundown sept, but I didn’t. Why in the Seven Hells would I marry her and then keep it a secret when I haven’t been keeping bedding her a secret?”
Bronn shrugs as Addam dabs at his arm with a cloth. “Just seemed like it was more than just taking a mistress. Most men don’t keep mistresses around that they happen to be mad about as mistresses when there isn’t already a wife in the way.”
Addam shoots Bronn a warning look, shakes his head, but Jaime is already annoyed and flouncing from dinner with his food left abandoned, and half-eaten. Bronn shrugs and returns to his meal as Addam sighs.
21 -- DONE
TOMMEN LANNISTER
BRIENNE OF TARTH
TOMMEN LANNISTER
BRIENNE OF TARTH
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BRIENNE OF TARTH
TOMMEN LANNISTER
BRIENNE OF TARTH
TOMMEN LANNISTER
BRIENNE OF TARTH
TOMMEN LANNISTER
BRIENNE OF TARTH
TOMMEN LANNISTER
BRIENNE OF TARTH
JAIME LANNISTER