The dreams started in the middle; in the middle of that place between life and death; between opening his mouth and letting water gush into it, and passing into the black fog that marked the crossing to the other side. As he died, he dreamed of Ser Rickard and Mother, together in the ocean, swimming out to sea to look for him. He dreamed of them not finding him until he was dead. He saw his own interment in southern soil; Mother sitting on her haunches with her arms wrapped around herself, flying at the septon as he arrived uninvited, 'There are no gods, you fucking fool, can't you see?' Ser Rickard tried to raise her to her feet, but she screamed at him too; the slightest human touch unbearable to her as her nails tore bloody pathways in the flesh of her own cheeks.

He had woken, then, too weak to shout in horror, and he hadn't died.

The dreams hadn't died either. They came every night. He knew that they couldn't be real – the things in them were too stupid – but that didn't stop them from troubling him.

He saw a lioness, thin, meagre and starving, stalking the grounds of Casterly Rock; her eyes glowing green in the darkness.

He saw Ser Rickard sitting on his haunches in the middle of a room filled with broken furniture. His head was in his hands. He was whimpering something.

The door banged open, and Mother walked in.

'You will not believe the night I've had,' she said; crossing to the (predictably intact) liquor cabinet and taking a long draught of wine straight out of the bottle.

She had barely set the bottle down again before Ser Rickard had leapt to his feet and had crossed the room to where she stood; startling her.

'You alright?' Mother asked, 'you look –'

Ser Rickard touched her face. Mother stared at him. She stared at the room. She stared at Ser Rickard again.

'Jaime, you didn't think –'

He saw Mother lying on the floor in a dark room that looked like a cellar; crying, whimpering and vomiting into a pool of her own sick. A thick, white mist was descending on her; enveloping her limbs and becoming her clothing; its tendrils wrapping around her throat, and nose and mouth, until she couldn't breathe.

Mother's limbs began to twitch. Lucion began to scream. And Ser Rickard was there again; always him; bursting into the room and turning Mother over and bellowing;

'What the fuck have you DONE?'

The lioness was circling them, and neither of them could see her; Mother, who was dead, Ser Rickard who was cradling her body and crying because she was dead, and Lucion screaming and screaming as the lioness pounced; and the feeling of her claws digging into his own flesh yanked hold of his shoulders and shook him back into the waking world; so badly that it ripped the breath from his lungs and made him choke on his own tears.

He wrote the next day to Casterly Rock; demanding to know if his mother was still alive. A raven came back almost immediately, in Ser Rickard's handwriting, saying that she was much better.

Lucion crumpled up the lie and threw it into the fire.

From Ser Jaime Lannister, at Casterly Rock, to the Lady Genna Lannister, at Riverrun.

My dear Aunt

My stubborn little shit of a wife will not allow me to engage so much as a skivvy to help her through her illness. She professes herself too weak to leave her room and get the fresh air that she needs, but she is not, apparently, too weak to have a drawer of knives brought up from the kitchen, or to spend hours throwing them at the doorpost. As a consequence of her recklessness, I am veritably glued to her side for most of every day, and am unable to get to the training yard as often as I would wish. I have threatened her with a sound thrashing, but that seems to have had no effect whatsoever.

My shame at being unable to control my own wife being now outweighed by utter fucking desperation, I wonder if I might ask you to pay us a visit at Casterly Rock and advise me on the situation?

Your respectful nephew

Jaime

Oh, and please don't bring your husband. I can't guarantee that Arya won't chop his balls off the first time they meet.

From the Lady Genna Lannister, at Riverrun, to Ser Jaime Lannister, at Casterly Rock.

My dear Jaime

Is that your way of saying that you can do nothing to help her and it's driving you insane?