An overdue disclaimer. All characters and places referred to in this story are the creation and property of G.R.R. Martin, with the exception of Stripy the puppy who is my own creation. I do not profit financially from this story in fact seeing as I write most of it when I'm meant to be working at my actual job it is directly contributing to my poverty. Cheers
The girl ran down the wide curving stairs, her bare feet making only a soft slapping sound on the stone. She turned away from the direction of the main entrance, the numerous guards and myriad of servants sweeping, polishing and arranging; heading instead for the back of the castle. She moved quickly and quietly down the hallways, her slim form skipping between the pillars like a shadow.
At the door to the kitchens she paused, peeking around into the cavernous room that billowed endless steam and smoke. Staff yelled across wide tables, equipment clattered and pots bubbled noisily on vast stoves. Seeing the cooks with their backs turned from the doorway, heads in the dinner preparations, she scurried on past. A feast again tonight, she thought, now that Father's home for a week all the staff are busy. Which suited her fine. She reached the servant's entrance, sat on the worn wooden steps and pulled on a pair of old boots that she kept hidden in the corner. Grabbed an overcoat that fell to her knees, tied up the hem of her long gown. Braided up her hair, and fastened it. Then she was outside, running down the dirt path towards the stables.
The ocean breeze was fresh in her lungs, tasting of salt and seaweed. The morning sun warm on her hair. She reached the stables and went along the centre aisle, breathing in the smell of grass hay, leather, manure and horse sweat. Surely the best combination of smells ever.
'I want this perfect.' Her father's words from earlier rang in her head. As she'd sat in the study at the top of the castle, since breakfast time, trying to get the needlepoint embroidery just right. A pastel picture of a bowl on a table, full of lilies. Even the image was stiflingly feminine.
Septa had helped her, but the patterned fabric still hadn't been good enough. The lines of the lily stems were crooked, and her father had sneered looking at it. 'Your efforts haven't progressed since the last time I saw you,' he'd said. The girl had bit her tongue to stop from telling him that was because she hadn't practised needlework since the last time he'd seen her. Like most girlish things he desired for her to excel at, she simply had no interest.
If only Father let her do sword-practise with her brother; she'd always been as good as him playing with sticks when they were younger. She could run just as fast, climb just as high, and hold her breath underwater for just as long. If only Father let her go hunting.
Hunting was another talent where she'd been on a par with her brother. Better, in some ways that required patience, like setting snares for rabbits. He could never be bothered with the all the fiddly preparations; choosing the right spot, setting the wire and concealing it exactly so that the wary rabbit wouldn't notice. Her brother preferred to shoot them with a bow and arrow. But in the end she always caught more rabbits than he did.
These days though, she wasn't allowed to hunt. Or play at sword-fighting with sticks. These days it was all needlepoint and deportment lessons. Which she avoided whenever she could, in any way she could, the servants and nannies being easy to outwit. When Father was home, though, it was a different matter. Then, getting out of her lessons was a real challenge.
Normally she'd just suffer through them and count the days until he left, but this morning the bright sunlight shining through the window of the stuffy, airless study had beckoned her, despite Father's stern words. It was easy enough to give Septa the slip, citing an upset stomach and need for the bathroom. With any luck, by the time Father returned from meticulously overseeing the castle's defences, a task which generally took him all day, he'd be none the wiser about how she'd spent her morning.
There were no grooms around as she entered the tack room, the horses had already been fed and the stalls mucked out. She grabbed a halter, went into the nearest horse's stall. The grey horse willingly dropped its head for her to bridle and stood quietly as the girl tucked up her gown and scrambled onto its back.
None of the horses had names. They were known only as the grey, the black, the dapple gelding, the red mare. Father thought it was sentimental and unnecessary to name animals. Or become close to them. He regarded it as a sign of weakness. Every month or so he sold all their horses and bought new ones, to prevent her or her siblings getting 'too attached'. The first time he'd done it to her beloved pony, when she was six years old, she'd cried, but that was the only time. The look of disdain on Father's face at her tears, and his subsequent order for the pony to be slaughtered in front of her, had made sure that she'd never again shown any emotion towards the horses.
The girl couldn't resist giving the grey horse a pat as she rode it out of the stables. Its neck was firm and smooth, and there was no-one around to frown on the small show of affection. She gathered the reins, which felt supple and fitted easily in her hands. A welcome relief from the blisters on my fingertips from the needlepoint, she thought.
Although the courtyard at the back of the castle was often busy with delivery boys, garden staff or builders, today it was uncommonly deserted. She guessed all the staff had been put to work out the front to make the Lion's Mouth entrance as pristine as possible while Father was here. The girl almost laughed. The gods are smiling on me today, she decided, as she dug her heels into the grey's flanks and trotted briskly across the cobblestones. Along the laneway at the side of the granary, past the old belltower, through the narrow, leaning gate that led out on the bluff, the wind whipping her hair.
She urged the grey into a gallop and raced along the top of the cliff, down the long slope to the forest below. Once in among the trees she slowed and let the horse catch its breath. Her hair had fallen loose from its bun and smelt like the sea.
The horse and the girl wound their way through the shady thickets, along tracks she knew as well as she knew the corridors and rooms in the castle. Her brother and her had spent many days playing hide and seek here, inventing battles and plundering make-believe enemy encampments. She rode for about an hour, enjoying the calmness of the forest and the freedom of the horse's steady movement underneath her, before turning back.
Deciding to take a different path than usual home, she noticed distant rays of sunlight sparkling through the tree trunks, and could hear the faint sound of water burbling. She pushed the grey through a twisting maze of shrubs and bracken until they came out into a small clearing bordering a hidden rock pool. A waterfall dropped off a high shelf of rock through a shroud of mist. The water of the pool was magically, vividly, blue. Clear and inviting.
The girl's first thought was that this was something she had to share with her brother. As soon as possible. He absolutely loved out-of-the-way places, the more hidden the better; he also loved swimming. The fact that she'd managed to find a perfect place like this without him just made it all the more delicious. The girl was bursting with anticipation as she pointed the grey's head back on the path to the castle and dug in her heels.
Racing up the cliff path, she couldn't see any movement on the castle's turrets, and once through the leaning gate she saw only one gardener too busy at his work to notice her. She didn't dismount and lead the grey back past the granary, but rode directly into the courtyard, remembering how empty it had been when she'd left only two hours ago.
The extra ten minutes she'd save by not going the long way back to the stables was ten minutes earlier she'd be able to locate her brother and tell him of the swimming hole. His reaction was foremost on her mind. He's going to be so excited, she thought. It seemed luck was with her again as the courtyard was empty.
It was dim in the stable block as she rode through the open doors. She swung down off the grey's back and blinked to adjust her eyes from the bright light outside. Suddenly a hand grabbed her arm and she was unceromoniously spun around. The horse shied and the girl let out a yelp of surprse.
Her father's eyes stared into hers. They were pale blue, like the centre of a candle flame where it burned the hottest. Dressed in red and gold finery, hair combed back in immaculate lines, his gaze flicked down to take in her crumpled dress and dirty hands. The girl's stomach dropped and her mouth went dry.
'So,' Father said, with a sardonic quirk of his thin lips. 'The seamstress returns.'
'I just... it-it was...' the girl stammered, unable as always in the paralysing presence of her father to formulate any kind of decent excuse. Not that anything she could have said would've mattered at that point. Father gestured for a groom to take the horse and strode out of the stables, half-carrying, half-dragging the girl beside him. She knew nothing would be gained from trying to talk her way out of whatever punishment he had in store for her, so she didn't speak.
They went up the front steps and through the giant Lion's Mouth archway, past the guards who studiously ignored them, acoss the great stone entrance hall, the girl's muddy boots slipping as she tried to keep up with his long strides. Down the long corridor to the curving staircase, then up the stairs. By the time they reached her bedroom door her arm felt completely numb.
Father kicked the heavy door open and flung her inside. She tumbled headfirst onto the bearskin rug, her chin hitting the floor and knocking teeth through her lip. Skinning her elbows on the granite as the rug rucked up from her momentum.
She got up on her hands and knees and turned to look back at the door. Father was standing there, regarding her with distaste. He looked as he always did, superior and cold.
'You'll stay here until you learn how to obey instruction,' he said. 'That may be a long time, but until you do, you won't be leaving this room.' He turned to go, then paused and turned back. 'Oh. And the horse you rode today will be butchered. You seem way too enamoured of the beast.' He left the room, and she heard the thick metal bolts shoot through.
The girl tasted blood from her lip. She smacked her palms onto the floor in frustration. Got to her feet, picked up the rug and hurled it with all her might into her mantelpiece. A vase shattered and candlesticks scattered to the floor. As she marched over to her bed, the crunch of broken crystal under her boots was satisfying.
She ripped off her hated and now dirty gown, tearing the row of pearl buttons and the delicately stitched fabric. Then she threw herself face-down on the bed in her underclothes, cursing with every swear word she'd ever overhead from the servant's quarters, and some she made up herself.
Eventually her anger faded and she rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling. It was a very high ceiling, ornately patterned, and she imagined she was actually hanging upside down and about to hurtle into its depths. That would be preferable to spending a beautiful sunny day locked in my room by myself, she thought.
Time passed slowly. The shadows on the walls moved across her room as the day lengthened into afternoon. Cooking smells wafted in, and her stomach grumbled. From her high, narrow window she could hear voices, wheels creaking, horses snorting, and the everyday goings-on of the castle. She felt so alone. Bitterness filled her. Bitterness toward her father, and her brothers who were doing gods knows what without her.
Suddenly the door rattled and the bolts clicked. She sat up. The door opened marginally and the lithe figure of her brother slipped through. He closed the door, looked at her and held his finger to his lips.
She grinned. He grinned back. He ran across the room lightly and launched himself onto the bed beside her. She giggled and swatted at him as he rolled over, nearly pushing her off. 'Shhh!' she said, but he had a mad look in his eyes and grabbed her under the arms, his fingers threatening to tickle. She wriggled and buried her face into the silk counterpane to stop her laughter bursting out. Finally she managed to rid herself of his hands and they both lay back on the bed, heads together. His hair was tousled and damp with sweat from whatever weapons practise he'd obviously been doing all day, and she again felt a stab of envy.
'You'll get in trouble, being here, Jaime,' she said.
He shrugged. 'What else am I gonna do?'
'Annoy Tyrion?'
'He's in the library. Again. If he fills his head with any more words it will explode.' Jaime yawned, loudly. 'I heard you snuck out.' He gave her a look that was at once sympathetic and admiring. She knew it was difficult for him too, not being able to share adventures with her as they'd always done. After years of barely being apart longer than a few minutes in any given day, of sharing secret languages and every thought that came into their heads, of never discovering anything they didn't immediately share with the other... now they were supposed to spend most of the day separated? Doing completely different things? It was unnatural.
'You'd sneak out too if you had to needlepoint a fucking bowl of flowers,' she said. There was a shocked second of silence at her swearing, then they both collapsed into fits of laughter.
'Shhh!' she warned, trying to smother him with her pillow. He grabbed it off her, tossed it onto the floor. Jumped up out of bed, his long limbs nearly knocking her over, and began to dance a little jig in front of her. He looked so funny she couldn't stop herself from laughing again, louder than he had. He bowed, accepting he'd won the round. 'Come on, Cers,' he said. 'We're not sitting around here all day.'
'The day's nearly over,' she pointed out. 'And... Father said -'
'Still plenty of sun outside,' he observed. 'And, fuck Father.'
She smiled then, at the memory of what she had to tell him, and he saw it in her eyes before she even opened her mouth. 'What? What?' he demanded, grabbing her hand and dragging her up off the bed excitedly. 'What is it?'
'I have to show you something,' she told him, buzzing with the same excitement he'd infected her with. 'It's amazing!'
'What is it, a place? A thing? What?'
'A place. You're gonna love it!'
Jaime's eyes shone with anticipation, and she knew they were a mirror relection of her own. Her blood sang along with his at the thought of adventure, and hand in hand they slipped silently out of her room.