He is delicate and brittle.
He tries to kneel more comfortably.
His gift stains the marble, dark and warm.
(She will keep this in her memory: the sweetness of his blood.)
There is no weakness in his eyes.
His body is his weakness, the bone of his forearm white against his flesh.
A fine and lovely gift.
Another: Cersei's golden hair, tarnished by red and rusting in the wet.
Daenerys will take a final gift from him.
She will take him to husband as Drogo took her to wife.
(It will be a strange and delicious gift.)
He will bend.
~o~o~
His rage is a scar like his cauterised wound. Infection draining into his blood.
No place it can go. No sense in feeling it.
The outer life, rather than the inner, then.
Metal sharpening metal. Air sparking and heavy.
A sword falling on his wrist, the heavy wet crunch. (He knew she'd do it herself.)
Sweat and blood soaking him.
He'll be her pet, his silver chains made from her silver hair.
(At least he'd chosen his golden chains.)
He could snap those pretty bones like twigs, if he weren't bound. He didn't need his right hand to kill her.
~o~o~
"You took what was yours." Jaime thrusts his maimed arm at her. "With fire." An acrid scent lingers on his skin. "And blood."
Daenerys raises herself up to her full height (such as it is) and glares up at him.
She grasps his stump, still hot and red. "It was mine to take. It was given to me as dowry."
Jaime rolls his eyes. Fucking Targaryens.
"Yes, because you are Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen, and everything you want is yours by right, you of the good claim, the birthright, the gentle heart."
~o~o~
He sleeps on the floor in silver chains.
He lay himself down willingly, Dany wondering at the weakness in his eyes.
Perhaps the hand she cut and burned died with her father, replaced by a shadow hand.
No less discerning, no less brutal, no less graceful, but something stolen from his bones to give it life.
His dead king could not give him back his true hand.
I took his grace as my birthright.
She has felt the softness of his blood.
She will give him back his marrow.
She killed his shadow, and will put fire in its place.