A/N: I'm sorry it's taken me so long to update! I hope you all enjoy. Please please please drop me a word or two in review! It'd make my day!

Chapter 4: Of Beauty and Truth

One of the very best things about Brienne of Tarth was that she could fuck for hours. Another and no less spectacular thing was that she wanted to. Let other men have their waifish, delicate, indoorsy women—Jaime Lannister was perfectly pleased to take his sword-wielding, men's clothes-wearing, statuesque wench to bed. These were the thoughts on his mind as he made his way to her rooms. He knew she wasn't finished with being attended to, but he simply couldn't wait another moment to see her.

He had silently slipped through the chamber door when Joryn had briefly exited to collect a small pot containing a sugar-salt scrub, the next delight in Lady Brienne's Valentinus gift. Jaime plucked the pot from Joryn's surprised hands as he went to re-enter Brienne's room, delivering the taller and nearly as handsome younger man such a look that so clearly said fuck off you bastard that only the Stranger Himself—or perhaps the Hound—could have inspired it. Joryn almost stumbled in his haste to get away, and Jaime narrowly escaped dropping the pot and alerting his lady to his presence as he went back through the door.

But the Lady Brienne made no move nor noise. When Jaime straightened up, he was treated to the sight of her powerful yet graceful body, shining with remnants of the oil of roses, bathed in winking candlelight cast from the dozens of pillars scattered about the cozy room. She lay on her stomach, head turned to the side and eyes closed. Her yellow hair curled prettily around her face, a few tendrils teased her nape and the tops of her shoulders. Jaime longed to settle himself over her, twirl her lengthening hair in his fingers, and deliver soft, sweet kisses to her hairline, the back of her neck, down her shoulder blades, along the curve of her spine, and below the thin sheet that just covered her delicious backside. A hint of her cleft peeked above the sheet. Jaime swallowed hard. Joryn must have seen it. Jaime wondered how Glenna's son had contained himself from drawing his fingertips down her perfect, round ass…placing the tiniest of kisses at the top of the crease… Luckily for the young man, Jaime was too caught up in thinking about the delights of Brienne's truly lovely ass to really contemplate the fact that Joryn had just seen it, just had his hands near it, around it, maybe even on it… Damn it. It looks like a gorgeous, round, succulent, white peach. I want to bite it... I could bounce golden dragons off that thing, and then I could bite it. He grinned to himself. Now, that's a saucy game for later, indeed… A look of pure peace permeated Brienne's repose. Nothing about her person appeared tense or clenched or somber or preoccupied. She was just relaxed. Truly relaxed. A small smile played about her lips. Jaime just looked at her in that moment. He was in awe. She was so beautiful. She was. Why didn't anyone else see it the way he did?

That was what had caused him to go blind with rage the day that he had cracked Red Ronnet across his stupid bastard's face with his golden hand. No one was going to ever disrespect Brienne again, especially in his hearing. Jaime had been so, so satisfied when Connington's teeth tumbled out of his mouth in a gush of red, even more satisfied to hear Ronnet's stunned, bloody burble calling Brienne by her proper name, even attaching Beauty to it. Brienne was beautiful. She always had been, always would be, and everyone should take a moment to see it. Her very soul lit up her beauty and poured out of the top of her head and seemed to permeate everything around her. As long as you let it. As long as you gave her the space to shine her light. And that was the moment when Jaime had decided that he'd had enough, enough dirt and shit and lies and secrets and disgusting men and suffering women and dead children, enough unhappiness, enough broken, bloody things, enough ugly whispered horrors of things that had happened or were going to happen. He concluded in that moment that nothing was worth doing without her; she deserved to know that he saw her for the true beauty that she was, that his rightful place was at her side to help her with whatever she wanted, whatever she needed, whatever she felt compelled to do. She was beautiful, and he just wanted to be in the presence of real, lasting beauty for once in his life, beauty that was good and genuine and selfless, beauty that spoke to him, encouraged him, pointed him in the proper direction. Even if she just let him be near her for a moment, he just needed to see her and hear her speak a few words, no matter if all she had to say to him was to order him to go fuck himself… Fuck the king's orders. Fuck Cersei, and fuck his dead, stinking father. He was finished here. So he strode back into Black Harren's monstrosity and turned everything over to Ser Bonifer Hasty-Pudding the Goody-Goody and his bloody self-righteous castrated Holy Eighty-Six. And then the Kingslayer had mounted Honor and ridden off to find the Maid, not to save her from a bear and a tourney sword this time, but instead to complete the saving of himself.

XOXOXOXOXOXO

Of course when Jaime found Brienne there wasn't time to revel in her beauty, or make grand speeches, or even fall on his knees before her in a cascade of spotless white cloak and pledge her his sword for eternity as he had imagined doing. No. He had come across her finally, in the dark and the damp of the Riverlands, filthy and exhausted, disheartened, no closer to finding Sansa Stark than when he had first left her. He'd ridden up and she'd simply slowly removed her hand from Oathkeeper's hilt and nodded to him, not even a ghost of a smile on her lips. Their horses fell in step together, side by side; for miles, the wet squelch-crunch of leaves under the horses' hooves was the only sound in the forefront.

Then there followed times of defeat and dead ends, and even more horrific encounters with various forms of life. "When did 'dead' stop meaning dead? By the gods, should we set the supper table for my doting father tonight? Oh wait—don't forget to save room for Joff and my mother as well! And why not your mother too? And your siblings? If Sansa and Arya are still alive, are they also dead? If they are, in fact, dead, can they also yet live? Are we alive? Or are we dead? How would we know?! Seven hells! Is the Stranger sleeping or laughing?!"Jaime railed loudly and drunkenly to Brienne on more than one night, to which Brienne in her quiet way would look at him, sigh, and say something like, "Isn't it the ironborn who say, 'what is dead may never die'?"

"What in all the seven fucking bloody hells is that supposed to mean?!" Jaime would counter, and Brienne would look at him again, shake her head slightly, and turn her gaze back to their campfire.

One night, Jaime finally roared, "Enough!" and Brienne nodded acquiescence, and the two made their way to Casterly Rock to regroup and rest and figure out what was the right thing to do next.

And at Casterly Rock they had been for several moon-turns, and they decided that they would choose to live, since alive they appeared to be. So it was there that the Maid of Tarth gave herself to the Golden Hand, and it was there that the Golden Hand gave himself to the Maid of Tarth, and together they began to prepare for whatever was to come, and their love grew strong and steadily.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Brienne stirred a little but did not open her eyes, and Jaime shook himself from his reverie and approached her, awkwardly popping the lid off of the pot of sugar-salt scrub. He scooped out some with his one good set of fingers, and swirled the grainy but deliciously-scented substance over her back and down her arms. Brienne's skin pinkened under the exfoliation, and a tantalizing citrusy scent filled the air. She sighed deeply in contentment, and Jaime in that moment slid the sheet from her backside and began a roughened caress over her peach of an ass and down her hardened legs. He slid his hand back up to tease her hips one at a time, then under her backside at the top of her legs, then, practically salivating, he slid the pad of his thumb lightly up the crease of the cleft of her ass. Brienne softly moaned and seemed to melt into the table. Jaime whipped off his tunic and placed a knee on top of the table, moving up to cover her with his body, his good hand returning to the soft caress of her ass. Balancing on his right arm, his left knee between her legs, his right knee next to her right hip, Jaime lowered his bare chest to her bare back and began to kiss and lick her neck. He reveled in the salty-sweet tang the scrub left on his tongue, and his fingertips eased themselves between her buttocks and ghosted over her woman's place. He began a low lion's purr deep in his throat upon feeling her wetness on his fingers. She shifted slightly under him, opening her legs wider, and his purr turned into a growl, his own arousal growing achingly. His licking at her neck grew more intense, and he slid his tongue down, down her back, licking at her hips, teasing the sweet indentation at the top of her ass, and then he slid two fingertips just inside of her entrance. Brienne gasped deeply in pleasure, sighing, "Oh Joryn, yes, like that, " and Jaime froze, blood thundering in his ears.