This Fine Frenzy
A/N ~ Drumroll please… Ta-da! Most of you have probably been kidnapped and forced here from Super Jock and Awkward Girl, but to those who haven't, thank you for your interest. This has not been put in crossovers because reasons. Without further ado, the five upcoming fandoms that Jaime and Brienne will be tossed into with fairly little regard for their safety… Divergent trilogy by Veronica Roth, Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling, The Walking Dead universe belonging to AMC, The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Claire and last but not by any means least, The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. Before each chapter will be a brief description of the world, for those who are unfamiliar with any.
Disclaimer ~ I am the reincarnated spirit of the world's first author, hence, inadvertently, I am the creator of all of these fandoms. Also, all other fanfiction writers. Oh, snap.
AU ~ Divergent is another dystopian future, where civilization is divided into five factions, each of which value and live solely by a certain trait. The Dauntless are the tattooed, pierced policemen, guards and so on, who are brave above all else; Amity dress comfortably and value peace; Abnegation are the grey-clad selfless people who mostly make up the council; Erudite are researchers and teachers, living by intelligence and Candor are the unwaveringly honest. At the age of sixteen, you take an aptitude test, whose clandestine results tell you which faction you are best suited for, but ultimately, at your Choosing Ceremony, you can opt to transfer from your born faction to whichever faction you want. However, if you transfer, you abandon your family – and if you fail to complete initiation into your faction, you must live factionless, doing the work nobody else wants to do, and struggling to get by on what little food and clothing the government provide you with.
i. The Transfer
"I vote Amity goes first."
"Go on, Amity!"
"Jump."
The roof of the building Brienne Tarth's feet were planted on made up one side of a fathomless square. The cut on her hand still hurt. The grazes on her knees and elbows were still prickling, from when she'd landed awkwardly jumping from the train. They'd left a dead body there, an Erudite transfer who didn't quite make it. Brienne was thankful she wasn't the only one fazed by that, but there was little else to be thankful for. She hadn't known people died trying to complete the Dauntless initiation. She hadn't known one of the leaders of your new faction told you the members' entrance to the compound was to throw yourself off a building either.
Brienne swallowed. They were talking to her. She'd have to jump in a minute, no matter how badly she wanted to run back home and tell everyone it was an accident, she wanted to stay in Amity. She wondered what would happen if she did that. She'd probably end up factionless, driving busses and cleaning up after other people, asking passing Abnegation people for food. No, she couldn't do that. Even it going back to Amity was an option, it wouldn't be worth it. Her test had said Dauntless, although her tester did tell her there was a strange Amity-ness ingrained in her. And she hadn't been happy in Amity, when she'd had a family and a shadow of a chance.
Just because she'd been standing there so long, silent, uncomfortable, unsure how to proceed, she wanted to stay there, prove to all the other Dauntless transfers that she didn't have to do anything they said. But they all had to jump if they wanted to complete initiation. That was the way it worked. She might have said something, that would have made her leap more favourable, if she was anybody else. Instead, Brienne jumped.
A scream prepared to tear itself from her throat as her muscles tensed and her head pounded from inside out, but she swallowed it, forcing herself to be her faction's prime quality. Her faction. The wind and it's choir were everywhere. And then, just as it was over and she was finally realizing the stinging in her arms, the mesh that broke the fall was some sort of net, another person, another initiate, was plummeting into the net beside her. Brienne rolled, still searching for air, but not nearly far enough. The boy who had dropped down, a transfer from Candor, gingerly grabbed for the hands that were offered from solid ground, pulling himself across. Yes, that was what she needed to do. She needed to stand on solid ground again.
Brienne made her way up, and the ex-Candor, more stylishly put together than any of the other black-and-white faction she'd ever seen, made his way to her. "Sorry about that. Those fools up there were quite insistent. It's all a bit of fun if you look at it the right way."
He was also possibly one of the most handsome human beings she had ever seen, so it wasn't just looking like a rabbit trapped in the headlights that she nodded awkwardly at him, trying to seem polite without knowing what to say, but feeling precisely like one too. "It's fine,"
"Renly, by the way." He introduced himself. Renly-by-the-way had his shoulder-length hair, black and soft, tied back with a ribbon.
"Yes, it's all very charming, Mr Gender Confused, but for the time being it's Ms Gender Confused's name I need, presuming it's not 'Amity'? You were the first jumper, after all." The voice belonged to a man all in black, as was the custom for Dauntless, sauntering foreward through the crowd to stand beside a red-haired woman who, by the look on her face, could not stand him. He probably would have been even more attractive than Renly, all golden curls and flashing smiles, if Brienne could tolerate anyone who used that tone of voice. "Well? Surprising as it is, you may have to speak if you don't want to end up factionless." His green eyes were expectant and irritated and slightly amused.
Brienne swallowed. This was a chance to start a new life. A life where she didn't associate her name with the painful, sarcastic alliteration that always followed. But she couldn't think of anything else. "Brienne."
The green-eyed Dauntless man rolled his eyes at Brienne in a way that made her loathe him and his pretty blonde hair, and turned to face the crowd of her new faction. "Well there you have it then; first jumper – Brienne!" He made her name sound like an insult.
"And," The redhead interjected the shouting Dauntless crowd who gathered to welcome the new initiates. "Renly, who jumped right on top of her." Brienne tried to swallow, but her mouth was suddenly very dry. The other initiates were landing in the net now, one by one, and all met with cheering and fist-pumping. When everyone stood on steady ground once more, the redhead, whom Brienne thought somebody called Catelyn, and the idiot man who looked like a fairytale knight, led them through a dimly-lit tunnel, whose sloping roof gave Brienne the discomfiting impression they were going down into the earth. The Dauntless-born initiates who'd chosen to stay with their birth faction seemed to all know each other and ignore the transfers, and the transfers all had friends from their birth factions. Brienne was the only transfer from Amity, and she'd never had friends in her birth faction anyway.
Eventually, the group came to a sharp stop. The Dauntless-borns seemed to be half-scared and half-awed by the golden-haired guy, whispering darkly. Brienne swore she knew why, she just couldn't place a reason. "This is where we divide." The woman – Catelyn – told them. She had a habit of over-pronouncing every word she said, and it made her sound far wiser and older than she probably actually was. "Dauntless-born initiates, you come with me. I can assume you won't need a tour of the place." She paused before leaving, turning to her fellow Dauntless with annoyance in her blue eyes. "Behave, Lannister."
Lannister, the handsome one, gave a look that seemed to scream he would do the opposite of that, before Catelyn and well over half of the initiates went off into the shadows. Lannister; the name sounded so familiar, but she couldn't place where from. Brienne wished that Catelyn could have been in charge of transfers, and Lannister taken the Dauntless-born. She already liked her more than the man who turned to address them then. "Right, children. My name is Jaime Lannister, and for the next few weeks, I'll be your instructor. Before we do anything, you should know I was looking foreward to coaching the Dauntless born, before the Tully witch stepped in, so if I'm harsh with you, it's only because you're doing things wrong." He paused, to let that sink in for a moment. Another Candor transfer, a slender, pretty boy with a shower of brown curls, whispered something to Renly, who smiled. Jaime Lannister glared at them. Brienne wondered what she was doing there. She should have just stayed in Amity. "We are about to enter what we so lovingly know as the Pit. I'd like to say you'll learn to love it one day, but by the look of some of you, I doubt that'll happen."
Through a set of double doors, the Pit rose stories high, shops and supplies and activities carved right into the rock, connected by stony stairways with no railings. Brienne stared as a gaggle of children, no older than ten, ran furiously down one of them, so fast she inwardly willed them to be more careful. Then Jaime, seeming thoroughly bored enough for Brienne to wonder why he was even doing this job, showed them the chasm, a river battling below a sharp drop of the Pit floor. "Amazing," Renly marvelled lightly from behind her. She panicked momentarily, thinking he was addressing her and expecting a reply, but it was the brown-haired boy and his friends who started talking. In any other faction, Brienne would have been happy that the next stop on the tour was a crowded room full of tables and people eating; in this faction, not only were the initiates greeted by more fuss and noise, but apparently, everyone found time to talk even more than they did in Amity while they ate.
She found a few empty seats and tried to stop gaping, taking one of hamburgers filling the table. Then Renly, the boy with the curls, and the crowd they'd already attracted sat on the same table. The only thing worse than sitting alone at lunch again was sitting with the friendly people and sticking out as usual, looking like she was trying to be a part of their crowd – which she wasn't – and failing miserably – which she was. Renly's attempts to start conversation were the worst. After dinner, she was almost thankful when Jaime Lannister appeared from a Dauntless crowd and showed them down yet another uneven, dark hallway, stopping before a wooden door.
"A few ground rules." He glanced around the transfers in a way that demeaned them all, not just Brienne, which she supposed wasn't a bad thing. "Training room by eight every morning. Training's every day from eight to six, you get a break for lunch, after six… Do what you want. You'll get some time off between initiation stages. I wouldn't advise you to leave to compound without permission and an actual Dauntless, because bad things will happen. I never really cared about these rules, but I never had me to answer to. In here is where you sleep, hence the beds. Yes, there will be empty ones, frankly we thought more of you would make it."
"There were twelve of us when we left the Choosing Ceremony, slayer." Renly's curly-haired friend pointed out, in a stuck-up and lazy manner that rivalled this Jaime Lannister's. Brienne was still struggling to figure out where she knew him from.
"What's your name?" Jaime asked, sauntering forth a step, like a lion or some other predatory animal.
"Loras." The boy announced, nose in the air. "Loras Tyrell."
"Well, Loras, Loras Tyrell, first rule; shut up. We never expect many of our transfers to get to the compound and we're never disappointed. If you don't want to get factionless mud on your hands, I'd learn to respect my elders. This is not a game." Loras opened his mouth to protest, but Brienne watched an ever-smiling Renly motion for him not to bother. "Anyway, first stage of initiation – you're trained apart from the Dauntless-born kids, but you aren't ranked apart. They're already better than you lot."
"Ranked?" Loras Tyrell retorted. "What use is ranking us?" Renly, amused, rolled his pretty eyes. Brienne decided she didn't like this Loras Tyrell, and though the look on Jaime's face told her she wasn't alone, it also made her wary.
"Why, so that the foolish, the cowardly and the weak are determined. It gives you an insight into your position here. And it tells us who we cut from the faction." He smiled pleasantly. "Only the top ten initiates are made members."
The silence roared in Brienne's ears. That was it then. Eleven Dauntless-borns, and nine transfers, including her. Over half of them would be on the streets before the year was out. A strange part of Brienne thought maybe that wouldn't be so terrible. But the rest of her was tensed and terrified, and absolutely determined. She had to become a member. She swore she would. She would.
That night, Brienne could hear eight other people falling asleep around her.
One of them was crying. Brienne would have, but no tears would come, and after all, she couldn't let these people deem her a classic Amity, or weak. At home, she'd had her own room, where she could hide away, by herself, but she was sure she could try to get used to this. As she was falling asleep, a horrible thought occurred to her; for her to evade being factionless, if the Dauntless-born initiates were really as good as they all said – the majority of the people in this room with her, would have to be cut.
"Those of you who are not completely inept will learn two things today; how to shoot a gun, and how to win a fight, though I expect most of you will at least learn how not to. Initiation is divided into three stages, which don't have an equal say in your final rank. Technically, if you're useless in this stage, you can cling to the tiny and feeble hope of increasing drastically over time." Jaime Lannister, as ever, made it quite clear he did not want to be doing this. Not for the first time, Brienne Tarth's thoughts drifted back to the Dauntless-born initiates, who not only had been ready for this their entire lives, but who were being instructed by somebody who actually cared about them making it through. Jaime swept the line and shoved guns into their hands. Brienne could have sworn he gave her hers more violently than the rest.
Never, really, had she expected to hold a gun, and Brienne wasn't sure if she liked it or not. On the one hand, it felt too dangerous for someone like her, and she was overly cautious about setting it off. On the other, it felt really good. Like she was worthy, and safe. Sort of. The scathing eyebrow-raise she got from the gorgeous Lannister robbed her of that a little.
"Each stage of initiation is designed to prepare you, as much as it can. The first stage is physical, the second emotional and the third mental. Stand back." Jaime commanded, and Brienne watched as he expertly clicked the bullet into place, facing the wall of targets. He glanced around, annoyed. "I said, stand back, Giantess. And tell the girl with the ribbon to restrain her pet. Wouldn't want any of you to piss yourselves on the first day."
Brienne forced herself not to stare at the floor like she wanted to, but at the target in front of the instructor as she took a step back, feeling a familiar rush of discomfiting heat rushing to her too-tight head at being singled out. She swallowed her embarrassment. She couldn't afford to be so awkward about things now that she was going to beat out the rest and get through Dauntless initiation. Renly and Loras stepped backwards, the latter annoyed and blushing. Brienne was ripped from her thoughts by the loudest noise she'd ever heard crashing into her ringing ears. Jaime strutted back and gestured to the bullet hole in the centre of a target.
It was then, just that expression he made, that Brienne realized why he was familiar to her. He'd been at her elder brother's Choosing Ceremony, years ago, but it wasn't his. He must have been a true Dauntless member for a year or two. Her father nudged her on the shoulder and said, "He shouldn't be here. Faction before blood." When you choose a faction, you abandoned your family, and your previous life. But he'd turned up anyway, snuck in to watch his disfigured younger brother choose Erudite. Brienne had wondered who he was, but she hadn't had to wonder long. "And if I'm not mistaken, he's Jaime Lannister, the boy who challenged the old Dauntless leader in his first month as member. The old man was sacked when he was beat. They call him the Kingslayer, as a joke. But not a very funny one."
After lunch, Brienne and the rest were shown to the wooden room with the painted circle in the middle, to find punching bags along one wall and a board with their names written alphabetically down it. It was thankfully easier than the shooting, for her, at least.
She was used to this. It was familiar. She could just imagine the people she didn't like, the phrases of her childhood on the tough leather and let it all out. Jaime, the Kingslayer, made his way through the room, insulting people at random, granting them nicknames and mocking them in ways that he and everyone not on the receiving end found quite funny, correcting postures.
"Calm down, Amity." He muttered at her, when, inevitably he came to her, and set her insides roiling. "And stop using your knees so much. You've got too much muscle for that. Speaking of which, I'd like to know how a little Amity girl like yourself learned to fight like that. Well, not little, strictly speaking, are we?" This was ridiculous. He was their instructor, he was supposed to be there to help, not made small talk. "Not doing anything illegal, I imagine." He smiled infuriatingly and moved onwards, to snap something at Loras. Once again, Brienne felt herself turning scarlet.
Amity was the faction of peace. So nobody ever really wanted to disrupt calm waters by asking questions. Particularly not about what the weights were doing under her bed, or the combat theory books doing on her library card.
It wasn't about aggression. From an outsiders perspective, she liked the way Amity was run. But she liked feeling safe more.
Her head was too hot.
One day, when they'd progressed to hand-to-hand combat on the painted circle, until one initiate was unable to continue, because there were an odd number of transfer initiates, it was Brienne's name that had an empty space beside it. She was almost disappointed in a way. There was something satisfying about it all. The first day, she'd been up against a girl called Asha, who was slighter than Brienne was, but faster. It took a while, particularly because they were both a little unsure, but Brienne had won.
The two who were up at the moment were Loras Tyrell and Ambrose, the ex-Erudite. Renly leaned across Brienne to make a bet with Asha that Loras would win. Brienne didn't understand why Renly liked Loras so much – Tyrell was always at his side. He was very full of himself. Renly should have realized that. Ambrose was bigger, but he didn't move his feet, and Loras was winning. Absurdly soon, when Ambrose was on the floor, Asha was cursing, and Loras was kicking him in the stomach, Jaime Lannister nodded his approval and glanced at the time. "Thanks to the girl with the curls' astonishing ability to kick someone when they're down, we've got time to spare."
Spirits soared, thinking they were going to lunch early, but this Kingslayer cut their hopes – and Brienne's peace – down quite harshly, with one sentence. "Amity – you're up."
"There's nobody left for me to fight." Brienne protested, swallowing, unsure of how Jaime was planning on proceeding.
He shrugged, looking nonchalantly down at himself as he spread his arms. "Easy. You're fighting me."
No. That wasn't fair. Or how things worked. He was a member. And older, stronger, better trained. Possibly even Dauntless-born. "But…"
"Your teeth are crooked, Amity. Do the world a favour and shut your mouth." Jaime smiled at the uncertain titter he received from the rest of the transfers, cracking his knuckles and stepping into the ring.
"I don't think…" Brienne started, but she didn't know how to continue, and he was her instructor and he had clearly made up his mind. He was almost as stubborn as she was. Fine, then. If she couldn't back out of this, then she could try. She had no idea why he wanted to fight her; something told her it wasn't to spare anyone else going again.
"Don't you? That's going to make this so much harder for you." He looked to smug for her liking. She gritted her teeth and joined him in the circle. Brienne could tell immediately by his stance that he was very, very good, poised on his feet, hands defending his chest and stomach. She tried to recall everything he'd taught her, everything she'd taught herself, but her brain wouldn't work the way she wanted it to. "Now, this isn't a test. There are perhaps two people in the Dauntless compound who could beat me, and trust me, you are not one of them."
"If it isn't a test then what is it?" Brienne jumped when he moved, circling around the edge of the space.
He cocked his head and told her very seriously, "A bit of decent exercise." He lunged, landing a solid punch on her shoulder before she could even move to defend it, but thankfully her reflexes triggered and she brought her knee up into his stomach before he was properly moved back. Jaime seemed to consider that for a moment, catching his breath. "Good." Another fist headed for the opposite shoulder, but this time, her head was slightly less fuzzy and she managed to bring her arm up to block, lashing her elbow out into his face as he aimed well-placed kick at her leg. That hurt. A lot. Brienne was stubborn that she was not going to fall down at the hands of this idiot, but she did stagger, almost falling, and clenched her teeth, fists tight as she drew herself painfully back upright. Jaime wasted no time in elbowing a shoulder joint, slamming a fist into her stomach. A foot hooked and pulled around her ankle sent her down, panting.
Brienne wanted to lie there, pretend to be unconscious, like she knew some of the others did sometimes, so Jaime would leave her alone and they could all go to lunch. But she would never have been able to do that. She regained her breath for as long as she dared, before grabbing at the Kingslayer's shirt to pull herself up, foot almost connecting with his stomach. He caught it. "You can do better than that!" His voice was rising, as Brienne was back on the floor. Only for a moment.
Ignoring the shooting pain in her leg, Brienne kicked his out from under him. Or tried. He jumped sideways, unsteadily but upright. "Come on, Amity, back on your feet!" Be quiet, she wanted to scream at him; instead, she shoved an elbow into his lower stomach, grabbing his knee. He went down and she had to suppress a grin, no matter how expertly he landed.
Although Jaime caught by a hair the fist Brienne aimed at his face, he didn't manage to block the knee going for his stomach. In fact, she was almost sure she was going to have a chance at winning, when the training room door opened at Catelyn's head appeared in the doorway. "Lannister, what in gods' name are you doing?"
Slowly, they all became better.
There were one or two who had perhaps subconsciously resigned themselves to a factionless fate, but the others were all working hard, searching for scraps of recognition and advice from Jaime Lannister. After he hinted at accusing her of the truth, Jaime had started to pay more attention to her. She was fairly sure he was partly deaf, or had a very short memory span, because he never seemed to know her name, no matter how many times she told him. "Amity," He'd call, "Feet shoulder width apart."
"My name is Brienne." Brienne would say, more annoyed every time. She was not an Amity anymore, and wouldn't ever be again. Even if she'd even up factionless, her last faction would always be Dauntless.
He'd roll his eyes, and go off to correct someone else's shooting stance, and the next time they were fighting – because soon the transfer initiates moved on to attempting to beat one another unconscious in the painted circle, something Brienne was actually not bad at – it'd be back to, 'Giantess', 'Miss Gender Confused'(when he was addressing Renly as well, the same way as when they'd dropped down into the net a thousand years ago), 'First Jumper' (not in a nice way) or, back to 'Amity.'
But there was one thing she was glad of. Jaime Lannister had never, not once, referred to her as Brienne the Beauty.
The one thing Brienne had been trying not to focus on since watching her blood drip onto the Dauntless coals at the Choosing Ceremony was that she knew quite well one of the other transfers into Dauntless, from school. He had been a Candor, like Renly and Loras, but had lied perhaps a thousand times a day, every day since he was born, so it had been no problem for him deciding whether to stay or leave his faction. His name was Hyle Hunt, and she recognized him from school. When they were both twelve, he'd been the one who'd come up with the nickname, and the one who'd gotten it to stick. Like when they were twelve, he managed to get everyone else referring to her as it again now. At least, it had to have been him, because he was the only one who would have known and done it. Loras, perhaps, because she recognized him faintly from school too, and she got the feeling he didn't like her. Renly she wouldn't have even disgraced so much to consider. Renly was always so nice, to everyone. Renly was perfect, as ever.
She hadn't ever really spoken to Hyle Hunt, but something very strange was starting to happen – he was beginning to befriend her.
Every day, when they got to the training rooms, he'd nudge her and make some joke about hoping he wasn't paired against her, particularly after that beating you gave the Kingslayer. He gave her half his share of Dauntless cake once at lunch when he couldn't finish his, although he didn't look so stuffed to Brienne. He gave her some salve he'd found in one of the shops when he saw her knuckles were stinging. He even asked her to com with him when he got his first piercing – through his lip, which went wrong, somehow, and left a little scar, though he laughed it off.
Brienne wasn't sure whether to be pleased or annoyed when some of the others started to follow his example. Something Ambrose, an Erudite transfer, started to go easy on her when they had to fight, even though she probably could have beaten him anyway, and recited every joke he knew to try and make her laugh. Even one of the Dauntless-borns, Ben, offered to sit with her at lunch. She'd always thought that if ever the day came when she had a proper friend, she'd be happy about it. But she just felt oddly suspicious. Every time one of them smiled or payed her a compliment she wanted to hit something. Why are you being kind? Not one of them had shown any interest in her before Hyle started to talk about things that happened in school, or mock Jaime Lannister's turned back when he once again refused to acknowledge her name.
Well, it was Jaime Lannister who had answered her question.
They were throwing knives at the targets on the wall, when he motioned for her to follow him. So she put down her blade and broke away from the line of transfers. They were hanging around by the door, and although Brienne had a good three or four inches on him, it felt like he was looking down at her, with something other than irritation or contempt in his green eyes. "What is it?"
Jaime drew in a breath and sighed it out. "Let's go outside," He opened the door, motioned for her to go out into the hallway and closed it with a gentle click behind him. The way he was looking at her, made her head prickle. A hundred worries were bouncing around in her head; was he coming to tell her that she was a lost cause, and had been cut early from initiation? Or maybe something had happened to her father. Had Galladon done something, over in Erudite? She steeled herself. She wouldn't look away, she wouldn't. Her palms were sweating, her hair coming loose from it's tie. "Look, you know Hyle Hunt, don't you?" There were flecks of anger caught on his beautiful face. "Well, I've recently been informed of a particularly disgusting bet started by him, involving you, and some of the other initiates. It's been broken up now, rest assured. Some of the other Dauntless leaders didn't think you should know, but fuck Victarion Greyjoy, I think a person deserves to know when an increasing barter on their virginity is being made."
It took a minute for that to sink in. Brienne wanted to run away, back to her home in Amity and never leave it again. Her throat was crammed uncomfortably with words she couldn't form. "I don't… We're all in the same bedroom, I –"
"It appears knowledge of this little joke was quite exorbitant around the initiates."
Fucking… She didn't want to go back in there. She didn't want to stay out here either. She knew Jaime Lannister. He'd be laughing when he told this story in days to come. She didn't want to stay in Dauntless. She didn't want to be anywhere. But she couldn't leave, she wouldn't leave, or let them know they'd won. When she went back in, a transfer called Asha made a joke about wanting to go outside with Lannister. Nobody laughed.
That night, as she didn't sleep, she realized quite strangely, that Jaime hadn't called her Amity. He hadn't called her anything.
The next day, she was up against Hyle in the fighting, and she had a sneaky suspicion Jaime had something to do with it. She broke his nose, his collarbone, and bruised his rib to the bone.
Jaime started referring to her as Manhands.
The day after he first started up with that, she was the last one left in the training room, changing a bandage on her ankle, whilst everyone else had hurried off to get new tattoos or snacks or read a book in the dormitory, whatever they did after six. He was gathering his things, and the fixed point in the distance that she had settled on was unintentionally close to where he was moving. He turned around to push out the door, and he smirked and asked her, "You staring at my ass, Manhands?"
Like with most things he said to her now, she felt that horrible prickling tightness in her head that told her she was blushing. She did that too much. She hated the way she blushed, blotchy and red. "No, I don't…"
"Of course you don't." Jaime cut her off before she could find an ending to her sentence, leaning against the wood of the door.
"You're don't teach people by calling them names." Brienne heard herself saying. "That's hiding and… None of what you're doing makes you brave, it just makes you a coward."
The look on his face was one of pure shock mixed with anger and something else, something Brienne couldn't put her finger on. She got the feeling he was going to take that out on her in training later. She shouldn't care. It sounded like Jaime Lannister had been living too long without anyone making him face reality.
He pushed out of the door without saying a word.
Her father showed up on Visiting Day, they told her later. She didn't want to see him. She was afraid at the sight of him she'd collapse and beg them to let her go running home to Amity.
And somehow, although it seemed far too late at the same time as feeling far too early, the first stage of initiation ended. She was ranked second. Second. She was almost too shocked to celebrate. Four initiates were cut; one Dauntless-born girl whose name Brienne did not remember, and three of the transfers. Lancel. Ambrose. And Hyle Hunt. His empty bed made her feel strangely proud.
It was the night before they began the next stage of initiation that Brienne found herself, unable to sleep, roaming the half-emptied Pit, and without remembering how she got there, leaning on the railing of the chasm, watching the white river stories below churn and crash, the sound of it helpfully eliminating the sound of her thoughts. They had been warned that the next stage would be harder. She didn't really understand how. Primarily emotional, they'd said. How? "Room for an attractive second?"
Brienne jumped slightly, turning to see Jaime Lannister appearing, leaning his muscular forearms on the railing. She felt a faint sinking feeling in her stomach. She had hoped it was Renly. She wouldn't let herself look at him. "This is your compound."
"Nah," Jaime shrugged her reply off. "I just live here. Couldn't be a Dauntless leader. The days are too long and the lives are too short." Brienne nodded purely because she didn't know what else to do. Now he mentioned it, she hadn't seen any old people in the Dauntless compound. Where they thrown out when they could no longer be of service? Or did they just not live that long? There were times, like this, when she didn't know what she'd been thinking at her Choosing Ceremony. She'd not been particularly happy in Amity, but she hadn't been forced through immense physical pain in the name of preparation, and people didn't bet on who could get her to sleep with them there either. And yet, still, when she considered a life had she chosen a different faction, it just… didn't work. "I'm sorry I'm a bastard to you." He stated. "It's just who I am." For the first time, Brienne noticed the bottle clutched in his hand. He didn't seem drunk, but judging by his words…
"Kingslayer." She hadn't realized she'd said it out loud.
Jaime laughed. "You're really something, aren't you?"
No. I'm not anything. "You're drunk."
"Maybe!" She could tell that he was looking at her while he spoke, which made the whole situation a deal more uncomfortable that it already was, so she fixed her eyes on a point far below, a jagged edge of a rock that rhythmically vanished under the spray. "But still sober enough to want to be more so."
"What?" He wasn't making any sense. Be more sober or more drunk? Or both. Why did she care? Tomorrow, her second place ranking might disappear, like the rock in the chasm. Worn down and washed away by whatever they were up against.
"Do you ever wonder…" Jaime started, but he trailed off, either because the alcohol had stolen what he wanted to say, or because he decided he didn't want to say it to her. "You know you only almost beat me because I was tired and hadn't fought in a long time."
"I didn't almost beat you, Lannister." She snapped. She was about to finish it, and win, when Catelyn Tully walked in. She was still puzzling over why he even bothered to fight her. "I am grateful for the practise, but you could have just set me up against one of the others." Or let us go, what, five minutes early? "Why did you fight me?"
Jaime's pacified face told her he probably wouldn't say. She could smell the booze on his breath. "You have no idea, do you?" No, that's why I asked you. "You – you're the best in there. At this stage." He added with superiority and resentment. Even drunk he was the same insufferable idiot.
"Okay."
"And…" He leaned in close, and Brienne tried her best not to recoil from the stench of downed whatever it was that he was drinking. His voice was almost mocking, but there was something in his eyes that said he wasn't lying. He was making fun of her. Wasn't he? "I dreamed of you." Brienne swallowed, feeling like a complete idiot, through a deafening silence that lasted a decade, before Jaime spoke again. "How tall even are you?"
That was random. But definitely not about dreams or fights, so it was good. "Six foot three, four. Why would you want to know?"
"Fucking hell." He wasn't answering any of her questions, Brienne realized with annoyance, so she decided not to reply to any more of his. "So you're like, giant woman."
"Yes. You've been calling me Giantess since the first day of training." She'd go back to bed in a minute. Why would she care if Jaime Lannister toppled into the chasm and drowned in a drunken stupor? No, she swore she would get into Dauntless, and if he was her instructor, then she should probably make sure he didn't die.
"That must be shit." Although it sounded like a simple statement made by a heavy, alcohol-sodden mind, Brienne wondered if that was a hint of sympathy she detected in his voice. No. Of course not. He was Jaime Lannister, after all. It was, though. Shit. You could never hide properly when you literally stuck out of a crowd.
"Yes." Hardly anyone got properly drunk in Amity. If you were too inebriated, it would doubtlessly cause disruptions or aggression.
"Cause you're really ugly."
"Yes." Brienne sighed, exasperated.
"But you've got very pretty eyes."
"I'm going to go now, Jaime."
The second stage of initiation was torture.
The first day was the worst. Sitting in a darkened hallway, until Jaime Lannister called her name with dark shadows under his eyes. Maybe Brienne should have told him to stop drinking, grabbed the bottle from him and thrown it into the roaring abyss. She could have, easily. Guilt twisted in her stomach. They weren't separated into transfers and Dauntless-born anymore. She tried not to be scared, but the people who were going into the room with him weren't coming back into the hallway. When the Dauntless-born girl who had gone in before Brienne, Arianne, was done, Jaime irritably told one of the other Dauntless-borns, Obara, to take her back to the dormitory.
The room contains a metal recliner, similar to the one from the aptitude test, computer screens, and as little light as possible. Brienne stared around, trying to piece together what was going to happen. What simulation she was going to be put under – that had shaken the second-ranked Dauntless-born so hard she needed to be escorted back.
"Sit down, Brienne," He told her, tiredly. People should not drink when they know they have to operate simulation technology the next morning. She scolded herself for being so caught up on the fact that he called her Brienne.
"What simulation –"
"Facing your fears, Amity. Literally. Until you can slow your heart rate and calm down. It's fun. Now sit down." Jaime snapped, emphasising the Amity in a way that it almost cancelled out the previous Brienne. and Brienne fought every inch of her body that told her to keep standing up, just because she could. He noticed he was holding a syringe full of orange-tinted liquid. He looked angrier than she'd seen him before, like he was back in the hallway, telling her about Hyle, and his movements were light and quick and sharp, pushing her head to the side, and plunged the needle into the skin of her neck. An ache spread like wildfire through her throat, and the last thing she saw was Jaime's hands, clenched into fists.
It broke them all down.
During stage two, under the watchful green eyes of the Kingslayer, Brienne is running from a fire, is paralysed completely whilst her father is killed, has to kill her father, and Galladon too, drowns in a raging, limitless green sea, is trapped in a desolate pit with a bear and just a wooden stick for protection, and she hangs time and time again. They fill her dreams too, but she is not handling it the worst, not by a long shot. Tyene Sand, a Dauntless-born, went silent for days after one simulation.
And perhaps the worst part was that every time Jaime Lannister pushed an inch towards being kind to her, he tugged back a metre. He was by turn indifferent, arrogant, alright, and downright aggressive.
At one point, she had a dream that wasn't a nightmare of the stage-two simulations. At first it was about Renly, but then she looked closer and his face had turned into Jaime's.
The rest of the initiation seemed to pass in a blur.
Because before long, Brienne Tarth's final Dauntless initiation day was dawning. It was chaos. Absolute chaos. A few weeks ago they had been introduced to what was known as their fear landscapes. A simulation of obstacles based on their stage-two fears, in which they were aware of the falseness of it all. They had to face on of the obstacles in Catelyn's fear landscape, as one excersize; Brienne conquered her fear of a mystery man slitting her throat quite quickly.
Their final exam of a sort was timed. The top ten became members. The rest became factionless. No pressure or anything. As a kind of progress report, after what seemed like years of the fear simulations, they were ranked again. Brienne was fifth, which was hardly bad, but she'd been second. And the Dauntless-born were getting better.
Initiation day was ridiculous; by midday, over half the Dauntless population were inebriated, and they all seemed to be everywhere, crowding the Pit with raucous shouts, filling hallways entirely, shouting across stairways to each other, like too much water flowing through not enough tube. At lunch, it took Brienne almost an hour to get from the dormitory to the food counter, but she wasn't really annoyed by that. None of the initiates were; they were too preoccupied. She had planned to get out of the way of the crowds and take her lunch back to her bed, but somehow, like the green, rock-filled ocean waves from the simulation, the human torrent of Dauntless swept her off-course, into a hallway she barely recognized, staring down at the tops of a hundred heads, holding a wrap beneath her jacket to stop it getting crushed.
"First Jumper!" A familiar voice was shouting at her from a little way down the hallway, the other side. No. If there was one person she did not want to see on her final test day, it was Jaime Lannister, the Kingslayer. Judging by his choice of nickname, he wasn't overly pissed off at her. Brienne had learnt. She wished she hadn't, sometimes. He always used Amity when he was being genuinely hostile to her. Giantess and First Jumper came when he was being smugly antagonistic. Ha hadn't called her Brienne since it accidently slipped out on her first simulation.
Her body relaxed in an verbalized sigh, insides twisting. Why today? All she wanted was to eat her lunch and have it not taste like cardboard, and try to plan out how she could make the best if she was factionless by nightfall. And what job did she want to do? If she wasn't factionless, she'd move into one of the apartments the other side of the compound; thankfully. Some of the other initiates had gotten used to sleeping in a room with so many others; Asha had made a joke about having all of them move in with her. But it was still Brienne's daily nightmare, one discomfort she could always count on. She'd been getting up early every day to go and get dressed in the girls toilets, and she had actually considered finding the least-busy hallway and dragging her bedding there. "What do you want, Kingslayer?" Brienne asked, stopping in the middle of the crowd, exhausted. She resolves to tell him to leave her alone today at least. At least after today, she'd never have to see him again. not properly anyway.
Jaime smiled elusively and gestured for her to come with him. Brienne just shook her head. She refused to deal with him right now. Instead, she finally gave in to all her pent-up irritation and utilized her height, shoving through the crowds and trying not to step on anybody. Almost back to the dormitory, she felt a hand on her shoulder and jumped, turning around. "Leave me alone, Lannister."
"Oh, get over yourself, woman, and come with me." Jaime told her, irritated as he always seemed to be with her, but not truly frustrated, grabbing her wrist and yanking in the opposite direction to the dormitory.
"I have to face my fear landscape in an hour and a half."
"So? Life is for living, that's why you left the tree huggers." Jaime paused, softened. "I want to show you something."
"Oh grow up!" Asha, running down the corridor in a workout top shouted as she passed, with a feverish, nervous look in her eyes. They were all working through the anticipation the best way they could; exercise, food, crying, celebration, hiding.
"Brienne Tarth, come with me right now, and stop looking so red all the time. It really makes your freckles pop." Jaime demanded, and Brienne sort of had to. Because he'd called her Brienne.
"Amity." Brienne said, scolding herself for every word she couldn't stop, stunned. "You call me Amity. Or Manhands. Or First Jumper, or Giantess, or… You don't call me Brienne. And you don't know my last name."
"Really?" Jaime queried, eyebrow raised. Even pulling stupid faces he was stunningly gorgeous. For anyone else it would have made him harder to hate, but in Brienne's case it just made it much much easier. "You'd be surprised. Now come on. Wouldn't want to have to tell anybody that a female human – that is, if you are indeed female – turned down an opportunity to be alone with me." He was smiling.
"That doesn't make you more attractive, Jaime. It makes you annoying." Brienne didn't know where that came from, so she turned her face away, swallowing. Fear made Candors of them all. As it turned out, the fear of facing her fear landscape was more daunting than anything her landscape could throw at her. Maybe that was why her fears kept changing with every simulation.
Maybe her biggest fear was fear itself.
"So it does speak!" Jaime declared. "I wondered if you did. Now come on. Before it's too late."
Brienne looked in the direction of the dormitory doorway. Inside, there were probably the other initiates, talking to each other, sharing things, thoughts, feelings, jokes, hopes, plans for their jobs and apartments. And she gritted her teeth, wondering if she'd rather sit on her bed, eating without tasting, as her worries multiplied, feeling increasingly awkward and embarrassed at sitting there, quiet and excluded whilst everyone else interacted like that – or go with Jaime Lannister. "Fine."
Brienne stared at the ground rather than a multitude of scalps inches below, the hand that wasn't shielding her lunch curled into such a tight fist her bitten-down nails were digging too far into the skin of her palm. This was some kind of joke. He was going to take her somewhere, humiliation would be involved and she would go, never look him in the eye again, and that would be that. She could handle that. She was used to that. Anything other than that was unknown waters and she didn't want to navigate it.
He led her up stairways and hallways and through the glass building at the top of the Dauntless compound, until she finally realized where they were. The words were still echoing in her mind. I vote Amity goes first. Go on, Amity. Jump. So she'd thrown herself through the space between the buildings, and landed in the net.
This was the place that she had stopped being Amity, and had become Dauntless.
Brienne stared around, fazed and confused, as Jaime Lannister settled on the rooftop and withdrew a chocolate bar from his pocket, leaning back on his elbows and staring into the sky. She didn't understand. She didn't know what to say. "Why are we here?"
His gazed turned immediately back to her, studying her face. She really wished he wouldn't. "I wanted to remind you that you, of all people, belong here." How did he manage to keep his tone so casual, always, so conversational? Didn't he worry about what to say or how?
"What do you mean?" She withdrew her wrap from her jacket, letting it fall to her side. Somehow, the idea of putting food into the writhing snake pit that was her pre-initiation-final stomach was sickening. She'd just gone to get it for something to do other than listen to the other laughing around with each other.
"For the love of god, woman, sit down." She sat down, reminded of the first simulation, when he called her Brienne, then snapped at her like there was nobody else he loathed more. Jaime turned on his elbows to her direction, throwing her the last square of chocolate. She caught it and stared at it. "Forget Renly and his ribbons. You were the first jumper. A big, misfit Amity girl that you were. You were Dauntless long before you stepped foot on this compound. So I just wanted to tell you not to worry about your tests at all. You of all people don't need to. But, naturally, you won't accept anything I tell you, because you're all about the storybook honour, and I got old Aerys sacked. So I brought you here to see for yourself."
She didn't know how he knew about that. Honour was the point of it all, but she'd never expressed that in words since arriving at Dauntless."I'm not worried about my test –"
"Of course you are!" Brienne swallowed. Even from the start, with all of his mocking implications, it sometimes seemed Jaime knew what she was thinking before she even did. "Look at you; you left Amity, the peaceful, for a pit full of tattooed soldiers – and I'll stop here to note you've not gotten one tattoo or piercing since arriving here – you've aced fist-fighting, some assholes who don't belong in any faction started betting on how desperate you were for affection, your fears are more quickly conquerable than they should be. You're worried you don't belong here, and you have been since your blood touched those coals, but let me tell you this, look back over every moment of your time since then and you will see just how Dauntless you are."
He spoke so offhandedly, but how were you meant to respond to something like that? What were you supposed to say? "I… Thank you, Jaime, but I don't…"
"Don't what?" Jaime Lannister was a ridiculous thing; just being around him made her feel clumsy and slow and gave her a strange desire to hit him. "Don't feel calm about facing your fears in order to evade becoming factionless? If you did, you wouldn't be human. I didn't." He had a look on his face of trying to help her to understand. "But I didn't just bring you up here to confirm my faith in you."
"Then why?" Brienne didn't need to ask. But she felt like she had to anyway.
"To try something." Jaime replied honestly, with a wry twist of smile on his face. "To do this."
Slowly, he looked her right in the eyes, rested his fingertips under her chin, and leaned his forehead against hers, with the skyline of the world for his halo. When his lips touched hers, gentle and firm, for once in her life, Brienne's first impulse was not to freak out and count all the things she was doing wrong. She didn't even take the time out of reality to pray her heart didn't explode through her chest, the way it was thrashing. Eventually, when his hands were in her hair, he withdrew.
"You do have the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen. And if you tell anyone that I didn't feel calm about my initiation test, I will punch you in them." Jaime told her.
She was still petrified of the fear landscape. Of being ranked last. Of being factionless. Of everything that the next hour would hold. But she was also fearless.
That was the strangest thing about Jaime Lannister.
He made her contradict everything about everything.
Brienne wasn't ranked first.
She was ranked third.
Only because a fear she hadn't faced before stalled her for a while. It involved Jaime Lannister, and a bet. Quite symbolic. She was sure that the Dauntless guys were laughing themselves silly at it.
They all thought she was the first person who actually enjoyed guarding the fence.
She never did get a tattoo.
And slowly, Jaime Lannister became her best friend, in a way full of metaphorical pigtails, until they were both ready to revisit the roof.
And it was then that Brienne swore she became truly
Dauntless.
A/N ~ I got serious writers block towards the end, as you may be able to tell, but as for the rest of it, I actually liked this one! Next up… The Lion, a Harry Potter AU following Jaime as this one did Bri.