It was the sort of day Brienne most enjoyed. The sun had begun to peek through the clouds and burn off the fog that shrouded the valley. She could tell were much closer to King's Landing, because the sun warmed her shoulders as it rose higher into the sky. Every now and again, she truly missed Tarth and the scent of sun-warmed cypress trees and lavender that drifted into her father's castle, with the undertone of salt from the Straits of Tarth.

'When is your name day?' Jaime's voice intruded into her reverie of deep blue water and verdant hills, the grass waving in the ever-present breeze from the sea.

'Why?' Brienne still found herself wondering what darts Jaime would use with information she provided him about herself, even if she did trust his word that no harm would come to her.

Jaime shrugged. 'Why not? After everything we've been through, it seems as if it's something we should know about one another.' He paused and batted a bee away from his face. 'Mine is the third day of the eleventh moon,' he supplied helpfully.

Brienne made an irritable noise under her breath. 'I dislike my name day,' she muttered to her horse's ears.

'Why?'

Brienne's hand twitched and she clenched it into a fist. 'My older brother died and was buried on my eighth name day,' she said tightly, then pressed her lips together.

'I'm sorry.'

Brienne's shoulders jerked in a shrug. 'It's the twenty-second day of the fourth moon,' she coughed.

Jaime frowned calculating the date. 'That's tomorrow.'

'Is it?' Brienne tried to sound nonchalant, but her voice was flat and emotionless. 'Doesn't matter. Haven't celebrated my name day in years.'

'How old will you be?' Jaime asked curiously. Brienne could have been eighteen or thirty. She had one of those faces where she probably looked thirty when she was eighteen.

'A gentleman never asks a lady's age,' Brienne said stiffly.

'I'm not a gentleman, and, as you're so fond of saying, you're no lady.' Jaime grinned impudently at her.

'Twenty-eight.'

'Still wet behind the ears, then.'

'Piss off,' Brienne muttered grumpily.

Jaime laughed quietly and kicked his horse into a canter.

He said not a word to Brienne the next day, but disappeared when they stopped for the night in a small village. When Brienne emerged from the tiny chamber assigned to her, Jaime waved her to a seat across from him at the long communal table. A small paper-wrapped parcel sat in the place he'd indicated, the ends twisted closed. 'A happy name day to you,' he murmured, as Brienne unwrapped what proved to be a small, slightly squashed honey cake. 'If it were King's Landing, it would be lemon cake,' Jaime said apologetically.

Brienne blinked rapidly. The aroma of honey and spices hung heavy between them. 'It will do.' She didn't smile, but the slight scowl she usually wore softened. Brienne picked up the knife next to her plate and neatly sliced the cake in half, then placed one half on the edge of Jaime's plate.