Brienne Tarth had not been 'in the zone' in a week. The writing zone, that was. She had a manuscript due to her publisher in a month, but almost nothing to show for it. Everything she tried was terrible, and she was starting to get grumpy about it. No matter what she tried, no matter how perfect she made her environment for prime writing, nothing was happening. With a sigh, she wriggled in her chair for the perfect typing posture, and…
…jumped when her phone rang, shattering the peaceful ambiance she'd so carefully crafted for her writing session. She sighed in relief, glad for the interruption.
Brienne turned off the volume of her music and began the search for her phone. It took a while, because her fat gray-and-white calico, Perriane, had decided to hatch it under her fluffy bulk. By the time Brienne unearthed it, the call had gone to voicemail. She checked the message and heard a plea from one of her closest friends that was so disturbing that her first words, upon phoning her back, were, "Sansa, what the hell."
"Please, Brienne," said Sansa, more than a hint of a whine in her voice. "Please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please!"
"How old are you?" Brienne muttered, wishing she were the dishonest sort to feign poor cell reception or a battery gasping out its last breath. She clamped the phone between her ear and shoulder so her hands were free to resume typing, and type they did, at a speed rendering her fingers almost invisible to the human eye. "I have a deadline. You know this."
"But you can write anywhere!" Sansa said. "That's how you got Mom and Dad to stop hassling you for quitting your job to write full-time! 'I'm not chained to any one location!', you said. 'All I need is a laptop!' you said. 'I can come visit you more often!', you said."
"And I do visit them often," said Brienne. The Tarths and the Starks were such closely-bonded friends that all the respective children called the others' parents 'aunt' and 'uncle'. With the Tarths living on their ancestral isle, and the Starks freezing their kiesters off in Winterfell, any way they could spend more time with each other was eagerly seized. "Even more, now that I'm living in King's Landing. But I don't see how my going to Westerlands with you lets me spend more time with Aunt Cat and Uncle Ned."
"No, but you'll be spending more time with Arya and me!" Sansa exclaimed. "You know you miss us," she added in a wheedling tone.
"Less and less with each passing moment," Brienne grumbled, though it wasn't true; Sansa lived in Highgarden and they didn't get to see each other very often; meanwhile, Arya was still in college up in White Harbor. Brienne hadn't seen her in a year. "Where did you hear about this ranch? Why are you so desperate to go?"
"From Margaery!" Sansa was an editor working for Tyrell House, the imprint that published Brienne's murder mysteries. She had become friends with the granddaughter of the publishing company's terrifying matriarch. Margaery had, according to Sansa, recently gone on a vacation to a dude ranch in the middle of what Arya termed Buttfuck, Westerlands, whereupon she had met and promptly fallen in love with one of the employees. The romance of it had gripped Sansa with a fervor most only showed during a religious conversion, and it appeared that she'd made it her life's work to persuade four other hapless fools into staying with her at Brightroar Farm and pretend to be cowgirls for a week or two.
So far she'd roped— har har— her sister, Arya, into it, as well as her best friend Jeyne Poole and fellow editor Arianne Martell. The group had to have five people in it, though, and Sansa was determined that Brienne would fill that slot.
"You don't have to do anything you don't want to," she persisted. "You already know how to ride a horse and shoot from growing up on the farm, so you won't need lessons for that, plus if you just want to stay at the main house and write, you can do that!"
Brienne heaved a sigh, feeling herself weakening. Summer in King's Landing was a sticky hellscape of boob sweat and rolling brownouts, and as someone who worked primarily at home, she was starting to get cabin fever from spending ten hours a day feverishly trying to finish her latest mystery, The Grilling Season, about a caterer who solves murders. Her previous book, Main Corpse, had done so well that Tyrell House was pressing her to churn out the next in short order.
That would make two publications in a single year, and frankly, Brienne was feeling the strain. Getting away from the city and having some time to herself began to sound like a fine idea.
"Okay," she sighed. "When?" At Sansa's reply, she sat up from her slouch and shrieked, "Tomorrow?"
"I'll pay for your ticket!" Sansa shrieked back. "I'll even pay extra for you to have a second checked bag!"
"Crone's Teeth." Brienne pinched the bridge of her nose, feeling a headache threaten. She plugged her earbud/mic cord into the phone so she could text while talking to Sansa, and furiously swiped a message to Arya.
Brienne: What has Sansa got on you?
No One: threatened to tell mom and dad im dating gendry
Brienne: Oh, no.
No One: if they find out im dating dads BFFs son theyll have the wedding invitations sent out by tomorrow
Brienne: Shit.
No One: yeah
Brienne: ...see you in Westerlands, I guess?
"You're a bad person and should feel bad about yourself," Brienne told Sansa wearily.
"Yeah, yeah," Sansa replied, unrepentant. "Your flight arrives in Lannisport 3:30 tomorrow afternoon, and we'll all take a smaller plane together to the little local airport near the ranch." She gave a little high-pitched squeal of excitement. "This is going to be so much fun! This will be the best vacation ever!"
Brienne had exactly zero faith it would be even remotely as good as Sansa was convinced, but at the very least, whatever calamity occurred could be recycled into grist for her next novel. It could take place on a beef cattle ranch and be titled Prime Cut… the murder weapon would be, of course, a carving knife…
"Okay gotta go now bye," she said to Sansa and hung up, already preoccupied with outlining her upcoming masterpiece.
.
.
The flight hadn't been bad. Brienne didn't know Arianne or Jeyne very well, and at first had been a little alarmed to find herself sandwiched between the two on the plane. But she quickly learned that, while not similar to the people she usually became friends with, they were decent sorts and she could enjoy their company.
Jeyne was a bit timid, and had a habit of hiding her smiles and laughs behind her hand, as if embarrassed to admit she found something amusing. Arianne looked like a sexpot— and was a sexpot, if her frank opinions on copulation were any indication— but she was also frighteningly smart, with a devilish sense of humor. By the time they landed in Lannisport, Brienne had begun to believe she'd be an even better match as an editor than Sansa, though she felt terribly disloyal for even thinking it.
Arya barked orders to the porters to ensure none of the luggage was lost in transit from the main terminal to the charter terminal, and as they all shuffled into a minivan to be driven there Brienne marveled over the number of suitcases Sansa, Jeyne, and Arianne had brought with them. Garment bags, shoe cases… were they expecting something fancy to occur? She had read over Brightroar Farm's website very carefully, and nowhere did it say that evening wear and heels would be needed. In fact, it was strongly suggested that everything be very sturdy and able to withstand long hours on horseback.
Brienne somehow doubted silk cocktail dresses fit that description, but what did she know? She hadn't worn a dress in years, and had no plans to do it again any time soon. She met Arya's rolling eyes and knew the other woman shared that opinion.
The chartered flight to Lannisport was uneventful, but by the way Jeyne and, amusingly, Arya screeched in alarm every time the plane did anything like ascend, turn, or descend, one would have thought a fiery death was imminent. By the time they landed, Jeyne was trembling, green, and looked like she fervently wanted to Volanti-kiss the tarmac in appreciation that they were once again safely on the ground.
The pilot helped them get the luggage out of the minivan but as soon as it was all out, he gave them a jaunty salute, got back in the plane, and left them there alone in the middle of nowhere. There was nothing but a ragged little shack by the pitted old runway desperately needing to be repaved.
Arya scowled and opened her mouth to complain, but her sister, well-practiced in the ways of heading her off before she got rolling, cut her off.
"NBD!" Sansa said cheerfully. "We'll have a little time to ourselves to enjoy this beautiful place!"
It was beautiful, but it was also daunting them, unused to being utterly alone in a strange wilderness, and as the minutes passed with no sign of anyone coming to get them, Brienne began to put together a plan for what to do if they were stranded there.
"Weren't we supposed to be picked up at six?" Jeyne asked at six-thirty. "We've been waiting for an hour." She paused, and what little color she'd regained after their chartered flight faded away again, leaving her pasty-white. "What if they forgot about us? What if there's no cell service out here in the middle of nowhere? What if there are banditos?"
They all squinted at her, and then very slowly, as if to calm a spooked horse, Arya said, "Jeyne, this is the 21st century. And we're really far from Sothoroyos. And we're not in a fucking spaghetti western. There are no banditos."
"Okay, maybe not Sothoryos ones, but… bandits? Westeros bandits?"
Arya gave her a repressive look and walked away, toward a hill that looked like it would give an even better view of their surroundings. One by one, they followed her and spent some minutes in silence, just appreciating the natural beauty around them. Ragged shack aside, they were in the middle of complete wilderness, with no civilization to be seen for miles and miles.
"I like it here," said Arianne, looking out at the wide prairie to the east, then the mountains rising in the west. "Feels like there's space to breathe."
Brienne thought so, too, even as she raised the hood of her sweater against the faint chill coming on as the sun set. She loved living in Flea Bottom, now that it was gentrified, but sometimes the closeness of the buildings, and how their height cut off the sky overhead— the thickness of the polluted air— the density of sound, always a constant hum in the background, punctuated with horns and squealing brakes— got on her nerves. She suddenly felt very glad that Sansa had bullied her into coming on this trip and had a weird, fervent conviction that something incredible was going to happen.
The others kept climbing the hill, phones out to take pictures as the sun began to set, but Brienne thought she heard a vehicle approaching and went down to see if it were their tardy ride to the ranch. A huge double-cab pick-up truck zoomed toward them at a good clip, and when it came to a dusty stop, she saw Brightroar Farm and a lion rampant proclaimed on the side in gold, contrasting nicely with its dark-red paint.
A man climbed out from behind the wheel. Not your average man, though. No, this one was was divinely, improbably handsome, with a sculpted jaw and a profile fresh off a Braavosi coin. Longish golden hair swung around that startling face, glinting as the tawny light of sunset gilded him from head to toe, a half-god come to earth.
For the first time in her life Brienne was stricken dumb. Her blood raced through her, tingling in her fingertips, and every cell in her body came alive to shout, this one.
