The Westerosi would give them both hell for making a show of retrieving moon tea, especially together in an odd display of solidarity none of them would understand. Even with her having (unknowingly) taken up the mantle of Official Mistress to the Lord Paramount of the Westerlands, it was still unheard of for the lord a mistress was bedding to see to getting the moon tea for her, let alone going with her.
But Jaime does just this, meeting the young Wildling girl’s gaze with levelheaded, calm confidence, lingering near the doorway letting her take the lead in this. These are people she knows, that she has spent time amongst while learning their ways. She understands their culture and he does not, and while he isn’t always the most mindful head of state around, he is mindful enough of his position to know that insulting the Free Folk would be potentially disastrous for the country he now leads.
He listens. It’s not necessarily pleasant to hear, and it feels as if he’s been let into a secret femine world that men are usually kept out of. Like the doors to a birthing chamber thrown open so he can have a peek inside at the proceedings. He’s filled with knowledge he didn’t possess before and a newfound sense of appreciation for the things women went through in order to prevent themselves from getting with child.
It makes him regret that moment of senselessness when he spilled within her, yet all the more sure in his decision to accompany her. He needed to hear all this, he needed to know. (More men should know, perhaps then they would exercise a modicum of responsibility on their end instead of leaving it entirely up to the woman.)
She breezes by him and Jaime gives the girl a quick bow (he doesn’t know if they do, it seemed impolite not to), and dashes after his lover.
“Brienne, slow down!”
BRIENNE OF TARTH
Brienne swallows down a lot of urges in the moment: fleeing and hiding primary among them. She breathes and forces herself to slow down, turning to watch Jaime from the corner of her eye and then proceeding to walk again at a less hurried pace once he's reached her. She doesn't mind their distance too particularly, but she doesn't take his arm either.
The herbs, she's been told, are some relative of tansy. She'd stuffed them into her pouch and stuffed that beneath her outer cloak, and though the pouch is small she's too aware of it to not feel it pressing against her abdomen. Scorn is on her mind, but not that of their people. Not even that of the Seven, who she prays to daily and asks for help in times of need. It's different, on the island, where culture piles on top of culture and the people are too stubborn to let go entirely of the old. There's relief in the fact that here she isn't outwardly judged in the same way she judges herself inwardly, but it's not enough.
Another breath, in and out, and Brienne shelves it all. She glances to the side at Jaime and then juts her chin at the expanse of camps and crowds around them.
"Anything you'd like to see? I'm sure there's a group sparring somewhere, if you're curious about their ways..."
JAIME LANNISTER
“While I admit to curiosity about their ways, especially in combat, that can wait until later. Right now, my being here is about you. Unless you think I wouldn’t be welcome here beyond this moment and ought to take advantage of my admittance into the boundaries of their camps.”
He’s serious about that. Jaime knows what sort of reputation he carries, even if the truth of why he slew King Aerys II is now something of public knowledge. But that one good deed that somewhat absolves him of the title Robert was so kind as to bestow him with when he allowed him to keep the white cloak fastened to his shoulders does not absolve him from the rest of the horrific things he’s done or been an accomplice to. He did not lift a finger to stop his family members, especially his sister. He carried out Cersei’s orders and did as Tywin commanded. He fought on the wrong side of wars and skirmishes against the North, and his father was responsible for the death of Robb Stark.
There were Northerners who still did not care for him, even if he had secured the trust of the Stark children. It wouldn’t be a longshot to assume that the Wildlings felt the same. They’d undoubtedly heard of him.
A few of them have called him King Killer in passing, much to his amusement.
King Killer.
BRIENNE OF TARTH
Her interest piqued, Brienne latches onto the subject in order to distract herself from her worries. The free folk have been mingling sparingly but peacefully enough, thanks in part to Tormund's firm leadership and the fact that they're all banding together now that they're steeped in Westerosi lands.
She glances at him, trying to discern what he might mean, and decides to err on the side of caution and say nothing. Brienne takes him along a straight shot through the encampment, assuming his people will fret if she keeps him away too long. She really doesn't want him to have to deal with the resurrection of her old nickname and being harassed by his people on top of it all.
"They don't have quite the same views of boundaries and ownership that we do. You'll be fine unless you offend the wrong person, but it's only the Thenns you'd have to worry about. And they—well, your association with me will aid you on that front. Why do you think you wouldn't be welcome?"
JAIME LANNISTER
“Because I’m Jaime Lannister.”
Not a Lannister, but himself, specifically. He says it so readily, the statement tumbling from his lips so easily it’s almost heartbreaking. He can feel the incongruity in his words and how they don’t entirely line up with the man he’s been as if late, but he’s believed in them for so long that it’s difficult for him to believe he would be anything other than unwelcome. It’s just the way things are and his mane is no less ruffled by people not wanting him around than it is at any other given moment.
BRIENNE OF TARTH
At that, Brienne does close the space between them and thread her arm through his. She takes a moment before speaking because while what she has to say is technically a positive sort of thing, it's hardly an easy subject to speak on from any perspective.
"They don't care," she says. "They aren't northerners, Jaime, they're tribes of free folk who have come together first for Mance Rayder, and then Jon Snow, and now Tormund. They're people who value strength to an alarming degree. They don't care for property like we do, and they certainly don't care about kings."
The last she says quietly, for it's a very pointed thing to say to Jaime Lannister.
JAIME LANNISTER
That’s a very difficult thing for him to fathom, for kings have always mattered. The value the life of a king held, even a mad and corrupt one who no one was sad to see deposed, has mattered for the majority of his life. It mattered than Jaime put a sword through his back, it mattered that he was the one to kill him. That blame and that importance has shaped Jaime’s life in irrevocable ways, defining who is as a person, and more importantly, who he sees himself as.
“They should care. They’ll have better luck with the northern lords in they band together with them in distaste for a lion and his pride crowding the entrance to a wolf’s den.”
BRIENNE OF TARTH
It shouldn't make her laugh, but it does. He's so used to this, to making himself a target willingly. As if it allows him control of some kind—no, that's not quite fair. Brienne has seen the kind of control it can offer, though she's only been able to make so much use of that method herself.
But it's also funny because despite how self-loathing it sounds, it strikes Brienne as another indication of Jaime's capacity for arrogance. He truly thinks that if the Wildlings shun him it will somehow erase all of the tales and the warnings and the biases (both deserving and not so) the Northerners especially have grown up internalizing. So Brienne does laugh, and she gives him a soft elbow as they near the edge of the encampments.
"They don't see lions and wolves, Jaime. You great houses play at your animals. Meanwhile, there are skinchangers and wargs walking among us right now." She sighs, wondering how best to explain. So she tells him part of how she learned this: "Tormund asked me, once, about you. And when I explained that Kingslayer was meant as a derogatory, he laughed and didn't believe me. I didn't tell him your story, because I didn't need to. They see our way of life as constricting, and they see men who declare themselves lords and kings as no better than thieves. The deed that has damned you most of your life down here is natural beyond the wall. That you didn't then assume the throne is respectable."
They couldn't give a jot for making alliances with the Westerosi, northern or otherwise. Will they lift Jaime on their shoulders and celebrate him a hero? No. But whatever sharp looks he gets here are based solely on what he is in the present moment. Which is mostly a very fine kneeler who follows Brienne around and bows at Wildlings. So, not the worst!
JAIME LANNISTER
That he didn’t assume the throne is commendable... He’s never looked at it that way, let alone had someone put it that way. To think these people view him better than those who knew him well and served alongside him twists something deep in his gut. It’s alarming, to see — in spite of knowing, because oh, does he ever know and know well — that this highborn life is stifling and its pathways narrow.
It stuns him into silence for some time, a true feat indeed. Getting Jaime Lannister to shut up is quite the accomplishment. She ought to be commended herself for it.
“...perhaps I need to work on presenting myself as something other than despicable.”
(He needs to learn how to see himself as something other than positively loathsome.)
BRIENNE OF TARTH
They walk in silence, but Brienne feels like he's saying a lot with his sudden reticence. He's not lobbing sarcastic questions back at her and he isn't circling back around to the very thing she doesn't want to think about at this moment. It's nice to walk with him, she realizes, tucked into his arm and not having to shorten her steps the way she has in the past when—gods, she realizes, it's only other women who have ever dared keep her company so close. Catelyn had, and then Margaery Tyrell. Both with ulterior motives, both ultimately doing Brienne no harm in the end. Both so diminutive beside her.
Jaime speaks again, startling Brienne from her reverie to realize that they've reached the edge of his camp. She slows them to a stop before entering and releases him as if her escort is no longer needed now that she's delivered him back home.
"I think such things begin from within," she says, reaching up to pick some of his early dinner off of his collar before straightening it. Her hands linger after she smooths the cloth out, and she finds herself caught in his eyes for a few moments. "And I think you would have plenty of help if you looked around for it."
JAIME LANNISTER
“So long as that help doesn’t come in the form of bloody Bronn. I suffered through his tutelage when he taught me to swing a sword with my left hand. I am loathe to discover what his version of improving one’s view of their own self worth would be.”
It’s a joke, but one he makes with a lighter tone than his japes have been in the past. And it’s not a refusal of her words, either. It may have taken some time and distance between them, but Jaime is finally learning to listen — really listen — to what she’s saying to him. More importantly, he’s actually taking her words to heart.
He smiles at her with unguarded affection, because there is no reason to mask it. “Thank you for tonight,” he says. “For the past few days, really, that you holed yourself up with me. And for allowing me to accompany you, to take part in this.”
Jaime reaches for her then, stepping in, aware of the movement behind them as people move about the edge of his camp, but not caring a flip about it.
“In us.”
He kisses her, sweetly, out here in the open for all to see.
BRIENNE OF TARTH
Her stomach all but drops out of her body entirely.
At first, she panics, body going rigid with the instinct to shove him away. Her hands ruin the tidying she'd just done on his collar, fisting into the cloak tied at his throat in ready. Brienne's breath hitches before everything else seems to stop.
Except for Jaime. Jaime's soft lips against hers, and his nose grazing against hers and his arms around her body. When they pull apart, she's utterly stupefied, the breath in her lungs long gone while she stares at him with wide eyes and her mouth hung open in disbelief.
She blinks.
"You're welcome." How it doesn't come out a stutter, she couldn't say. She finally bites her lip before half-smiling at him and bidding him goodbye. The short walk through Winterfell's gates leaves her feeling at once lighter and like she's trying to swim through molasses.
Then she's swept up in trying to balance her duties—training, ranging, providing what counsel she can about preparations and handling correspondence from her very unhappy father in the midst of a rebellion. Then there's the matter of trying to track down the Red Woman and that blacksmith the Brotherhood and Davos seem to think is far more helpful than his stubborn belligerence would indicate.
There are whispers at first, and then a deluge of ravens: King's Landing has been taken in a swift and mostly bloodless move by Daenerys Targaryen. Amid the chaos and scrambling to suss out ravens from the capital itself and slews of them from Riverrun and the Eyrie, Brienne receives one that sends her asking where she can find Jaime with such ferocity she scares three servants before she gets an answer.
She tracks him down, her father's missive clutched in her hand, white as a ghost.
1 - DONE
JAIME LANNISTER
BRIENNE OF TARTH
JAIME LANNISTER
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JAIME LANNISTER
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JAIME LANNISTER
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