Jamie was surrounded by cold water as he kept sinking deeper and deeper into the lake that could soon become his liquid grave. The metallic armor along with his missing arm tampered with his frantic effort to raise to the top and Jamie struggled to master the will to fight.
Images kept springing through his mind, memories of times long gone.
"Lannisters pay their debts" his father's steady voice kept echoing. His house's noble catchphrase sounded so ironic that instant; a juvenile attempt to forego all the crimes his family had committed to remain at the top of the social and political ladder. And, his misery was partly routed on his family's sins, but mostly on his own.
"Kingslayer" , an insult so commonly used to describe him that it became integrated in the core of his being. Once he was young, once he cared, once he would try to salvage his reputation. Not now. Now he knew. The heroic young man that had put an end to the Mad King's tyranny, the savior of half a million men, women and children had now fallen from grace, seen and done things that would render him every bit as awful as that loathed title implied.
Jamie was tempted to render on the emptiness that threatened to take over him. What was left for him to fight for after all? Every last one of his children had passed away, the victims of his and Cercei's greediness that were probably doomed from the beginning as products of his incestuous relationship with his sister. The woman he had loved all his life and would die serving, could scarcely keep her sanity after their losses. Cersei resorted to deeds resembling those of the king he had once broken his oath to kill. Except now, Jamie was an accomplish, an enabler, someone his younger self would have despised.
"Oathbreaker" that was all people would remember him for. How fitting would it be, had this word been his last thought as well. As he was about to release the breath he was holding, the voices never left him, screaming
"Oathbreaker, oathbreaker, oathbreaker"
"Oathkeeper" Brienne's voice whispered uninvited, challenging his resolution to let go. Jamie marveled at the power of that single word that propelled him to the surface.
He reveled this breath that he was gifted to him so unexpectedly. His unfathomable sins were still presents, would always be present reminding him that he would need to atone for them for the rest of his life. He had long stopped casting his hopes on people, convinced of the futility of redemption. Yet, there he was contemplating the way he would use the second chance that was handed to him.
There was a single person in the whole world that he believed in; Brienne of Tarth and she deemed him worthy. "Oathkeeper". That was all he needed.