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Chapter Nine: Looked Like Freedom
It was the last match up of the tournament. And try as he might Jaime could not hide the smile on his face as he climbed up into the saddle of his horse. He was so close to winning this tournament that he could almost taste it. Earlier in the week Evelyne had suggested that if he could not join the Kingsguard he should consider joining the Faith or the Maesters guild. Neither of those were particularly bad ideas, but Jaime would never be able to do it.
He was made to be a knight. He had known it on his seventh nameday when his father had put a blade in his hand and sent him off to learn how to use it.
He loved tournaments not simply because he loved to win, but because it seemed as if it was in his blood. He loved the smell of sweaty horses, dirt, blood. He loved the sound of lances clashing into each other and denting armor. He loved the soreness of his muscles after a day of riding in the lists. And yes, he loved winning as well.
The crowd was cheering loudly. It would be Jaime riding against one of Princess Elia's brothers. Oberyn Martell. They called the young prince the viper. And Jaime was prepared to show the young prince exactly what lions did to snakes.
He rode his horse once down the lists, making a show of deciding who he would ask for favor. Though everyone knew. He had heard their whispers, they knew that he would single out Lady Evelyne Forrester. He knew several men were placing bets on whether or not she would give him her favor.
She looked beautiful when he came to a stop in front of her. She was sitting next to Lyanna Stark again, both girls dressed in black. The black fabric of her dress made the red in her hair come alive. For a moment, when the wind stirred, it looked as though flames were streaming from her head.
She smiled at him as he held out his lance over the railing of the stands. "Lady Evelyne," he greeted her. "Would you do me the honor of giving me your favor?"
She stood up faster than he had expected, but she did not move to the railing right away. Her blue eyes darted to her right, glancing down the stands to where the two redheaded Tully girls sat. He could practically read her mind.
No matter how many times he had told her that he was no longer to be betrothed to Lysa Tully she was still worried that all the attention Jaime was giving her would upset the older woman. He smiled at her, meaning to be reassuring, "It's just you, Evelyne," he told her.
Her blue-eyed gaze landed on him and her eyes narrowed, "Incorrigible," she muttered as she moved down toward the railing.
"Am I being too forward again, my Lady?" he asked her, smirking.
"As always, Ser Knight," she countered. She was smirking too as she untied a strip of dark green velvet from around her wrist so that she could tie it around the tip of his lance. She did not look at him while she tied the knot. "They're going to think us in love," she whispered to him.
"They'd be half right," he told her.
She looked up at him sharply then and he winked at her. She pursed her lips to keep from smiling and shook her head. "Ride well, Ser Jaime," she told him, her voice little more than a whisper. "Strike true."
"And come back to you?" he asked her.
He was being too forward again, she was right, he was incorrigible. She did not scold him though, instead she nodded. "You still have one more question to answer after all."
"And I would hate to disappoint you," he told her, reaching up to lower his visor.
"Than don't," she commanded. She stood in front him for another a moment and then she nodded and turned to walk back to her seat.
He would not disappoint her, he decided as he rode back to his side of the lists, prepared to ride. Prince Oberyn nodded to him, lowering his own visor and Jaime's heartbeat picked up as he waited for the signal to start riding.
It always went like this during a tourney. His heartbeat would pick up, his breath would become shallow, but as soon as he started riding everything would slow down. It would seem to last forever as he rode down the length of the list, he would be able to study his opponent, he would be able to read them. Were they holding too tight to the horse? Too lose? What was the angle of their lance? Where would they strike him?
This ride was no different. They were given the signal, and even though he could hear the wind rushing past him as he rode toward Prince Oberyn it felt a lifetime before they reached each other. Oberyn rode with his lance held high until the last moment, he meant to give Jaime no hint as to where he would strike. He was fast, like the snake they named him after, but Jaime was faster. Before Oberyn could fully lower his lance Jaime had lowered his and trust it forward.
In his desperation to strike first he had miscalculated. It was a mistrike, not enough to knock the Dornishman off his horse. He hit the man in his stomach, hard enough to bruise, hard enough to knock the air out of his lungs. He would win the point for this ride, but not knock the man to the ground.
The Dornish prince was laughing as they rode to the ends of the lists and turned again, preparing to ride again. Jaime did not know Prince Oberyn very well, but he appreciated the man's humor. This was a man who loved the fight as much as Jaime did. Win or lose, he loved the fight.
The second ride his aim was worse. And Oberyn was faster. They both lowered their lances, a glancing blow as they slid against each other. Oberyn's lance hit Jaime's chest, causing Jaime to lean back, arching his chest toward the sky to stay seated on his horse. The arm holding the lance flew up and the tip of the lance caught Oberyn under his chin, sending his head craning back and knocking his helm off.
They both got a strike, but neither was enough for a point. Jaime was still in the lead.
But now he was worried. His aim seemed to be getting worse. And Oberyn seemed to be getting better. At the beginning of the first ride Jaime had been so sure that he would win, but now he thought he might lose.
Without lifting his helm he glanced toward the stands, unbidden his eyes sought out Evelyne Forrester. She was no longer sitting with her friends. Or even standing at her seat. She had moved down the stands and was standing at the railing, exactly where she had given him her favor. Her fists were clenched in worry and even from this distance he could make out her furrowed brow. She was worried about him.
As if she could feel his gaze on her she lifted her eyes to his helm covered face. She did not look away, she did not blush or drop her gaze. She remained there, stubbornly staring at him. Willing him to win.
He nodded once and adjusted his grip on the lance.
And then he was off one last time.
This was it. He urged his horse to ride faster than ever before. He dropped his lance, angling it across the wooden rail and toward the other rider. He kept his eyes focused tight on the green velvet tied around the tip of the lance and fluttering in the wind.
It was still fluttering in the wind a moment later when the lance crashed into the Dornishman's armor, hitting true, just under the right collarbone.
The armor was dented. The lance shattered. The rider twisted to the right and back. His arms flew in the air in a wild attempt to keep him balanced. But it was too little, too late. By the time Jaime had ridden to the end of the list and brought his horse to a stop, Prince Oberyn had fallen.
And Jaime Lannister was the victor.
The crowd was on its feet. Men were yelling, women were clapping, children cheered and danced. Money changed hands at wagers won. But, as if looking through a tunnel, the only thing that Jaime could see was her smile.
She did not cheer. She did not dance. She did not even clap. But she smiled. And she nodded. There was enough approval in that nod to help him make one final decision. Once he had officially been declared the winner he was given another flower crown with which to name his queen of love and beauty.
He did not have to deliberate this time, he did not have to debate or wonder what his sister would think. He rode toward where she stood, confident. She was waiting for him, her lips turned up a bit at the corners in a soft smile. "Well done, Ser Jaime," she congratulated him when he reined his horse to a stop in front of her. "You had me worried for a moment."
He smiled at her, "You should learn to have more faith in me, Lady Evelyne," he scolded her playfully.
"I shall remember that the next time I see you ride."
He grinned at her, she was certainly more welcoming than she had been the tournament before. He held the flower crown up in his hands, "Would you do me the honor, Lady Evelyne?" he asked her.
She bit her bottom lip, as if debating. But it was for show. He knew she would accept. She had not remained standing by the railing to turn him down. "You know that you want to," he told her, his voice almost a song as he teased her. "Why deny yourself?"
She shook her head and for a split second he wondered if she really did mean to turn him down. But then she leaned closer to him, bowing her head so that it would be easier for him to put the crown on her head.
Once he was done she stood up straight, "What now, Ser?" she asked him.
If he were any other man he would have gone to change out of his armor. If she were any other woman she would have hoped that she might see him again before the wedding celebration. And that would have been it. But he was not any other man. And she was not any other woman. He took off his helm and dropped it, letting it fall to the ground beside his horse's hooves. His squire would pick it up later. "Would you like to go for a ride, my Lady?" he asked her.
Her eyebrows arched, "Now?" she asked him, glancing around to find the easiest way to leave the stands. There were stairs, but they were far away from where she now stood.
He nodded, holding a hand out to her. "Now," he confirmed.
She smirked at him, and her eyes sparkled as she slipped her hand in his. Then, she gathered her skirts in her left hand so that she would not trip over them and she climbed, first one foot and then the other onto the railing. Her grip tightened a bit on his hand as if she were afraid that she was going to fall.
But it was a stupid fear. Jaime would never allow that. He reached out his other hand for her elbow and carefully guided her over the railing and onto his horse. She sat sidesaddle in front of him and he wrapped his arms around her, under the pretense of grabbing the reins.
She smiled at the whispers behind them, "We've shocked them," she told him, turning to grin at him over her shoulder.
Jaime chuckled, "Let them be shocked then," he told her before he snapped the reins and sent the horse galloping away from the lists.
-.-.-.-.-
Evelyne did not want to admit how much she enjoyed riding with Jaime Lannister. But it was hard not to appreciate his arms wrapped around her, holding her perhaps a bit too close to his strong chest. His armor wasn't exactly comfortable, but he seemed to have a plan for that. After they rode from the lists he brought her to his pavilion where she stayed on his horse and he made quick work of taking off his armor inside the tent.
When he came out she thought he might climb on the horse behind her again. But he surprised her. He played the gentleman and he stayed on the ground. He took the reins from her hands and walked the horse through the camp and toward the town.
As they moved through the streets people stopped to stare at them, but Evelyne did not notice them. She was too busy staring down at the man who walked beside her horse, studying him. When they had first met she had been quick to make up her mind about him. She thought him conceited, full of himself, vain, and silly. Now, she still thought all of those things. But she allowed herself to notice that he was skilled, intelligent, he could be kind, and there was something about him that excited her.
As if he could feel her gaze on him he smirked at her, he did not turn to look at her, he kept his green eyes facing forward, but Evelyne felt as though he was still watching her. "The first time I met you was on a horse," he told her, his voice gentle and teasing.
She smiled too. "It was," she agreed.
He chuckled at her stubbornness. "Riding down the road as if your were running from the seventh hell itself," he told her. "Your hair wild and flying behind you."
Evelyne laughed, "What you must have thought of me," she mused. "It must have seemed very improper. No escort, and all."
He shook his head, turning to look at her for the briefest of seconds before he brought his gaze forward again. "I thought you looked like freedom," he told her. She raised her eyebrows at him, waiting for more. She thought she knew what he meant, but she could not be sure. He smiled, though the look in his eyes was distant, as if his body was with her, but his mind was not. "I grew up in a world where ladies are always so well-behaved. They keep themselves upright and at a distance. They are to be admired, but not known. Looked at, but not held. Romanced, but not loved. And you were the complete opposite of all that. This wild girl tearing up the road on a horse that was going much too fast. You were someone I wanted to know. Someone I wanted to hold. Someone, perhaps the only someone in this world, that I might be able to love." He shrugged his shoulders, finally coming back to her, finally turning to look at her, "You were freedom from everything I had thought I had known. And you were beautiful."
Evelyne's lips quirked into a smile at his words. Someone I might be able to love. That was real. He wasn't lying to her, he wasn't playing the game of courtship. If he had been he would have said someone I loved. Instead there was an uncertainty about it that she appreciated. He was not saying he was in love with her, he was saying that if given the chance, he could be.
"And then I spoke," she told him, implying that all of his praise only lasted until she had spoken to him.
He chuckled and shook his head at the memory, "And then you spoke," he repeated. "Gods you were an odd one. I had saved you, any other woman in the Seven Kingdoms would have been eternally grateful to me. They would have smiled pretty smiles, whispered pretty words, and fallen on their knees begging me to love them. But you looked at me as though I were a stableboy, perhaps lower than a stableboy even. You were stubborn, and rude, and short. You had not needed saving, and if you had, you wouldn't have chosen me to do it."
Evelyne laughed, looking away from him and missing the way his smirk softened at the sound, "It was your smirk," she admitted to him. "You looked much too proud of yourself for saving me. I thought that you would congratulate yourself enough for the action that you did not need me to congratulate you as well. The more you smirked the angrier I got."
"And the angrier you got the more I smirked."
She nodded, "And the more determined I became to hate you."
"The more you hated the more intrigued I became."
"Are you telling me that if I had acted the part of a proper young lady you would have left me alone?" she asked him, laughing at the thought.
"You would have bored me if you acted like a proper lady," he told her with a shrug of his shoulders. "I would have treated you as I treat every other woman I meet."
"With a cool politeness and practiced disdain."
He grinned up at her, "Much the way you treat all of your admirers, my Lady, myself included."
"Am I treating you disdainfully now?" Evelyne questioned him, a soft smile resting on her lips.
"No," he told her, glancing away. "But it's there, just below the surface. And should I say something that makes you uncomfortable you will pull it on like armor."
She could not deny it. He knew her well. Her disdain was her armor. She looked away from him for a moment, "Tell me about her," she said, finally turning back.
"I would be happy to oblige, my Lady," Jaime told her. "But I do not who you would wish me to talk about."
"The woman you love, the one your sister told me about. The one you cannot have."
She was watching him, she did not miss the way his jaw clenched at the mention of his sister. She wondered if they had gotten in a fight. "She shouldn't have told you about her," he told her, his voice hard.
Evelyne tensed at the sound of his voice. She had merely been curious. She had not meant to make him angry. "You don't have to tell me anything if you do not wish," she told him, her voice as cold as his. "I was merely making conversation."
He smirked ruefully and shook his head, "And I did not mean to scold you, Evelyne," he told her. "You must accept my apology. You only caught me off guard. Why do you ask about her? What do you want to know?"
Evelyne looked away from him, pretending to be less interested than she truly was, "I just wondered how I compared to her," she told him. "For curiosity sake."
She could hear the smile in his voice though she would not look at him, "There's that armor," he murmured. He was quiet for a few minutes and just when Evelyne was about to tell him that he didn't need to answer her question he began to speak. "She's beautiful," he told her, "much like you. Though she's fair instead of flame. I once thought that you resembled her in your personality and mannerisms. But the more I know you the more I realize that I was a fool for thinking it. You are fire, you are movement and life, and passion. People come alive near you. You enchant."
Evelyne could feel her blush burning at her cheeks. She was not accustomed to praise like this. "And the lady?" she asked him, hoping to guide him away from talking about her.
"She's molten rock," he told her. "Capable of seeming warm, but ultimately when you get too close, and if given enough time, she becomes hard and cold. Where you make me feel alive, she made me feel uneasy. She can be cruel. Her disdain is not an armor, but a way of life."
Evelyne was quiet for a moment, "And does she know how you feel about her?" she asked.
Jaime smirked, "She knew how I felt about her," he told her. "She knew that I thought myself in love with her. And she did not care for my love. But lately I have begun to realize that whatever it is I felt about her, it was not love. I do not yet know if she knows that I have learned that. But she will."
"When?" Evelyne asked him. "When will she learn."
Jaime grinned, "When you agree to marry me, my Lady," he told her, his tone jovial. Evelyne smiled at her and shook her head. She would not give him the satisfaction of arguing with him or agreeing. So she remained silent. "You have one last question, Evelyne," he told her after a minute or so.
"What?" Evelyne asked, momentarily confused.
"From your letter," he clarified. "You have one more question from your letter."
"Oh yes," she agreed with a nod. "How did your father respond to my rejection?"
Jaime chuckled, "He told me that if I still wished to marry you, then I must woo you."
"Woo me?" Evelyne echoed. "Is that what the letters were for?"
Jaime nodded. "How am I doing so far?" he asked her, laughter ringing in his voice.
Author's Note:
Gah! It's been so long! I'm so sorry guys!
For those of you who read HHNF you know why I was gone for so long, but for those who only read this story I'll give you a brief look into my life.
I went away on vacation for the 4th of July. I came back and had a friend visit. Then I went to work. Then I had another couple friends visit. On top of that I suffered from some GoT related writer's block after I fell down the Les Mis rabbit hole. Every time I sat down at my computer the only writing I could do had to do with Les Mis.
It was both a tragedy and magic. Tragic because my GoT stories got neglected, magic because I now have FOUR Les Mis stories coming down the pipeline. So if you're interested in that kind of thing ... keep your eyes open for them.
But for now ... back to Game of Thrones. And back to Jaime and Evelyne.
Hopefully you guys are still here too!
As always! Thank you, thank you, thank you for your wonderful reviews!
lilnightmare17: I'm glad that you liked the last chapter! And I hope you're still here to enjoy this chapter too! Thank you so much for your review!
The Mikaelson Cupcake: I'm glad that you enjoyed the jousting. I have to confess that I don't know much about jousting, personally (obviously) so it was all based off of some slight research and a lot of guessing. But I'm glad it's enjoyable.
As for his answer to her second question, that might turn out to be my favorite quote of this whole story. So I'm glad that you liked it too!
HPuni101: Thank you, dear! I'm glad that you enjoyed the last chapter and I hope you enjoyed this one as well!
jaimefan: I'm glad you've enjoyed the story so far. It's a bit of a stretch to see Jaime offering a rose every time he rides, it is very much like Loras Tyrell. But from everything I've researched about jousting (admittedly, I haven't spent months on it) it was a regular and expected occurrence from knights riding in the lists. So while Jaime might not be prone to giving a woman flowers, it would be expected of him in a tourney setting.
Starrside: Thank you! I hope you enjoyed this chapter as well. Maybe after this I could write a Ned/OC, but I think that might be hard for me. I love Ned Stark. I love the idea of writing about a young Ned, but unfortunately I cannot get my head around him being with anyone besides Catelyn. There are some characters that feel like they're made for an OC (Robb, Jaime, Jon Snow) and there are some like Ned, who got it right the first time and I'm not sure if I'm confident enough to play around with that.
HonestIndian: Thank you! It took me a while to update. But I hope the wait was worth it!
Dexter: See author's note above as to why I haven't been updating. But I'm back. And will be back again before the end of the week. I promise.
Tom: It has been a long time. And I'm so sorry for that. But I hope this chapter was at least somewhat worth the wait. You guys got a lot of Jaime/Evelyne interaction as a quiet apology for the wait.
queen cersei: I'm here. Back and typing. I am so sorry for leaving you guys waiting for so long. But I hope this chapter at least sort of makes up for it! Don't worry, I have not stopped writing this "awesome story."
That's all I've got for now! Thank you so much for reading and reviewing.
You guys are rockstars!
Until next time,
Chloe Jane.
