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Jaime sits at the desk in his room, one hand clutching his golden curls while the other encloses a feather, lost deep in thought.
"Why are you brooding?" Cersei asks from behind him, rolling on his bed slowly, making her disappointment no secret. He is supposed to play with her, not get lost inside his own head. It belongs to her, too. Everything that is his belongs to her.
He is hers and hers alone.
"I am not," he sighs, focusing on the parchment in front of him again.
"Yes you are," she retorts.
"Cersei, I assure you, I am not brooding, I am just thinking," Jaime rolls his eyes.
And she keeps him from it. Writing is difficult enough without her constantly distracting him, leading his thoughts astray.
"Which is the same thing," his twin sister snorts. Jaime lets out a weary sigh.
"Is it that boy-girl, isn't it?" Cersei asks, narrowing her eyes. She stops rolling on the bed, fixing her shining eyes on him.
"Why would you care?" he retorts, not looking at her.
"You completely ignore me," she replies. "That is why I care."
"I am not ignoring you, Cersei. I never could," he assures her, though his eyes are fixed on the parchment in front of him.
"You are ignoring me at this very second!" she cries out.
"I have to write her a letter. I promised her," Jaime tells her.
A Lannister always pays his debts.
To Jaime's understanding, that means that a Lannister always keeps his oaths.
And his oath to Brienne was to write to her, so he has to finish this letter.
Because oaths are very important, if not the most important thing in the world.
"Let one of the clerks write it for you. Then this is dealt with. Who cares whose handwriting it is?" Cersei exhales.
"It must be my letter. I promised her that I would write her, not anyone else," Jaime replies sternly.
Because there is no one like him. Just him.
"You are not good at it. It's enough that Father forces you into reading and writing against your will. If she makes you do it, too, then she really means no good," Cersei argues. "I, by contrast, would never ask you to write me letters. And do you know why? Because I know you and because I would never expose you to such embarrassment."
"She didn't ask me for it, I offered it," Jaime corrects her.
And to tell the truth, Jaime doesn't know if he should take offence in Cersei's statement. Brienne pushes him to his limits, sometimes even past them - to make him improve. She made him pick up the sword every single time he lost to her, to try again and try harder. She left him the book so that he could continue to tame the letters even after she was gone. His twin sister, by contrast, never challenges him past the limits binding him. She doesn't even push him anywhere near these boundaries. In fact, Cersei seemingly wants him to stay the same and stay in the same spot for all days still to come.
She doesn't want him to change.
But why would Cersei not want him to develop further? Why wouldn't she want him to grow?
"You are totally boring ever since the Tarths were here," Cersei grunts, getting up from the bed. She leaves the room without another word.
He never wrote to her, but that boy-girl makes him?
Cersei bites her lower lip.
And why is Jaime not already chasing after her to comfort her, as always?
She peeks her head into his room another time, without his notice. Her brother is still sitting over the parchment, seemingly not a single thought on his mind to chase after her, fulfil his obligation to her.
Cersei lets out a feral growl as she turns away another time, cursing him and the ugly boy-girl who leads his thoughts away from her.
She disappears back into her own chambers with a grim expression, her mind twisting and turning to find a way to weave the future another way.
Jaime, unaware of this, just goes on contemplating, staring at the parchment in front of him.
What story can he tell Brienne?
Dear Brienne,
I hope that you are faring well and beat up all the other boys and girls who dare call you names.
This is my last sheet of parchment, so you will have to deal with the errors that follow.
It has been boring lately. That is why it took me so long to write to you.
I hoped for something interesting to happen to tell you about, but it didn't, so I can only write to you that I grew by half an inch and that I got a new wooden sword from my Father. It has a leather handle and our family banner on it. It is far better to wield than the one I fought you with before. So I am convinced that the next time we see each other, I will beat you with it for sure.
I managed to read ten more pages of the novel. It is as good as you said. I am interested to find out what happens next to the knight.
Did anything interesting happen on the voyage back to Tarth?
Are you yet back there?
How is it in Tarth?
I asked Father if he lets me visit, but he did not decide yet.
I hope to hear… read from you soon.
Until then, make sure you are less of a wench the next time I see you.
Jaime
Brienne twists her lower lip between thumb and index finger as she reads the words again and again, a broad smile on her face. She sits on the windowsill of her chamber, knees drawn up to her chest, her free hand clutching the letter she received only this morning.
That is the first letter she ever got.
Or well, of course Brienne received letters before, but this is the first personal letter she ever got.
The first letter by… a friend?
Her eyes roam over the letters again. A few words were crossed out, there are blotches of ink all over the page, and the handwriting is rather awful and very hard to decipher at times, but to Brienne, this is the most wonderful letter she has ever gotten in her entire life.
Till last she feared that Jaime didn't mean it - and only made a joke at her expenses. That is what she is used to. However, then she held the parchment in her hand, and made it reality that Jaime meant it after all.
She gets up from the windowsill at an instant and goes over to her table, settles down, and picks up the feather.
Dear Jaime,
Thank you for your letter.
I, too, hope that you are faring well – and that you are getting better with the sword, or else I will have to come to Casterly Rock to protect you for the rest of my life, I fear.
I am glad that you enjoy the book so far, but you must read it till the end. It will be worth the struggle, believe me.
I, too, have grown, by one inch, which means that I am still taller than you.
Concerning your sword, I just want to remind you that a sword does not make a knight, but that a knight can use any sword to fulfil his duty.
The only swords that are of finer quality are those made of Valyrian steel, obviously, but that is something you know as well as me for sure.
We returned to Tarth the past moon. While the view of the sea was priceless, it was still a rather boring journey back. Not a single monster appeared out of the waves, not a single enemy came to attack us. In fact, the most interesting thing that happened on the journey was that I chipped a tooth when the flow was high one day and the ship whipped back and forth in the gust hard enough to force my head against the railing, my mouth colliding with the wood.
Now the fish have their dear fun with my chipped tooth - if not some mermaid, which would be much more interesting in my view.
I must say that nothing interesting happened here in a while. My father is away for a business meeting in Sharp Point, which means that I am mostly with my Septa.
I don't like her much.
Or at all.
It would be a great pleasure if you could come to visit Tarth one day. Then I can show you what Tarth's doors and windows and corridors look like. You might be surprised how much they are alike to those in Casterly Rock.
I hope to read from you soon again, but please bear in mind that you do not have to hold back a letter only to have something outstanding to tell. Once you read the whole story of the Travelling Knight, you will hopefully understand what I mean.
Until then, train the hardest you can and cry less.
Brienne
Jaime puckers his lips as he goes over the letter once more. Brienne's handwriting is so neat that you could use it to print books with it. He can't help but marvel at the accuracy, when his letter was more of a mess, to be honest.
He gets up from his bed, tugging the letter into his chest pocket in all secret, because, obviously, no one should make the mistake to believe that he feels some personal attachment to the letter, or to the Maiden of Tarth by extension.
She is his wench, fine, and he wants to fight her again, but it's not like he is in desperate need of contact with her.
Yet, Jaime Lannister finds himself sitting at his desk by dawn, writing the next letter to Brienne already.