The girl's grey eyes sang to him of long ago as they looked down at him; empty, emotionless, dead. When he was her age, he had seen eyes like hers each time he glanced into a mirror. Once the emerald green light of them had faded, he no longer heard the screams, smelt the burning flesh or saw the King clap his hands as he watched, lips parted in ecstasy, his shrieks of laughter echoing the cries for help as the dragon skulls watched from the walls of the throne room like sentinels.
But he had heard, smelled and seen, and he did still, lurching out of sleep and straight into Brienne's arms, memory convulsing within him, its poison running into his blood.
Brienne.
But only the girl stood over him, the tip of her sword pressed to his chest, drawing blood. Her face was beginning to plague him, his thoughts in turmoil as he sought, in vain, to reconcile her beauty with some part of his memory that would explain the familiarity he felt when he looked at her. Her foot was nestled in the crook of his elbow with brutal strength, the Valyrian steel sword still clutched in his hand, alone in reminding him that he was still alive; that he still drew breath.
...
The wind was abruptly knocked out of him as his back connected with the counter. The girl spat in his face and drew a broadsword half as tall as she was from her belt. She was clearly in her cups: the ruins of a braid hung down her back and her cheeks were flushed, but her grey eyes, which turned slightly upwards at the corners, were alert. And enraged.
'Draw your sword,' she hissed at him.
Ten years ago, he might have impaled this insolent pup simply for getting in his way, but he was exhausted, hungry and alone (his stomach clenched at that) and in no mood for brawling with children.
He was briefly struck by the notion that he had seen this girl before, but brushed the idea aside as he bowed to her in as provocative a manner as he could manage, wiping her spit from his cheek. He doubted the girl would actually be capable of killing him, and he laughed out loud at the realisation that the possibility might still matter to him.
'Put the sword away, little girl,' he said, waving his stump in her face by way of explanation, 'There is no honour in defeating a cripple.'
The girl shrugged, and swung the blade at his head.
He would never know how he managed to get his sword out of its scabbard in time. The blow she dealt was tremendous, impossible, and he stumbled backwards towards the center of the room, the girl rounding on him as the innkeep shouted what sounded like 'No, Cat, not again!', patrons rising mechanically from their chairs and clearing the room as though this were a regular occurrence. The girl slid backwards into a stance he did not recognise and waited for him.
She is going to kill me.
...
He remembered Brienne as she lay dying, her beautiful eyes bright with pain, her young life suffocated; for him, for what, for nothing, for nothingness. He felt her loss scrape against his skin, his chest and the phantom fingers of his hand. Of course it was her fault as well, the stupid, stubborn, block-headed wench. Loyalties, ideas, ideals that had never even existed. Brienne's ghosts had killed her, sacrificing her to the dark.
And me with her.
In the girl's grey eyes, he saw the look. And he remembered who she was.
'Forgive me,' he murmured.
She drove her sword into his throat.
'Your crimes are past forgiveness, Kingslayer.'
And choking on the blood that bubbled up his throat and into his mouth, he laughed.