As she stares down the hulking beast, Talya is the most afraid she has been in a while. Her hands shake as she loosens her sword belt and drops it beside her Doc Martens. The bear hears the clatter and turns towards it with black eyes. It smells badly, like the rotten forest and blood and whatever cage they keep it in. She's known a smell like that.
She's always liked bears. They're so large and ferocious. She likes watching them in nature documentaries when they come out of hibernation and scratch their broad backs on sturdy tree trunks, or leap into the river to catch plentiful salmon. She liked that Brother Bear movie from Disney. Now she's staring down a bear and she's starting to think she should choose a different animal to like.
The bear huffs and turns back around to Jaime Lannister covering the lady knight Brienne of Tarth. He is no longer causing such a ruckus to draw attention to himself. They stare at her now, full of fear, waiting to see. Jaime Lannister braces himself and holds the sword aloft.
"HEY!" Talya screams at the top of her lungs, waving her arms around. "HEY BEAR! Yeah, Agent Oso!"
The bear turns, steam rising from its snout. She waves her arms more dramatically, jumps and throws out her limbs. The beast rears up and roars.
Good god, she gapes, staring at the wild thing. Still, she bends her knees in preparation.
"I'm tasty looking right? Come and get me."
Talya runs straight at it.
FOUR DAYS AGO…
One lord watching becomes two, then three, until the entire war council follows Talya to the library of Riverrun while Ser Brynden brings Ser Jaime's sword. The library holds no special magical presence nor significance to the Kingslayer. Talya likes it because its quiet. Even the maesters of Riverrun have better things to do than stay in the library all day.
Ser Brynden Blackfish arrives with the sword and presents it to her with a hesitant expression. He must be upset that she is defiling his home with magic. Oh well, she shrugs. Talk to the king.
"Here it is, my lady."
"Cool," Talya places it on a table. "Alright. If someone would find me a large bowl, I'll be right back. I'm going to the river to get some water."
Robb kisses his teeth. "We've just climbed all these steps and you—"
Talya doesn't hear the rest because she's already apparated out of the room and into her chambers. She grabs her water bottle and her prized dagger. She's glad she's the kind of witch that always carries an athame, a special knife used for rituals. It was brought to Westeros with her when she was summoned. The hilt was ebony polished to mirror-shine, the end nut and cross-guard inlaid with white gold and decorated with amethyst for inner peace, pure black onyx for strength, malachite for transformation, jasper for steadfastness, garnet for passion. Her grandmother, who taught her everything, blessed it. Talya has never used another blade. Though she doesn't need it for this, just the familiarity of holding it in her hand brings her warm comfort.
When she returns with her water bottle full up from the river, she pops into the library and almost rips Robb Stark in half because he's standing right in that spot!
If she were a lesser witch that would have been the end of the King in the North and herself, their bodies some mangled horror of limbs crossing and uncrossing through their unnaturally shared flesh. As it is, she self-corrects at the last moment so she kicks him over with a jerk of her leg, falling hard on her knees as he sprawls beside her.
"Woman!" He snaps.
"My guy, what the fuck are you doing?" she shouts back, livid, her heart racing as her stomach unknots itself. "I almost killed you!"
"What?" Robb gasps. "I wasn't even doing anything!"
"Don't ever stand where I just left! I almost landed inside of you."
Robb cringes in realization, making a single grunt of disgust. He rises gracefully and the men still haven't even acquired the single large bowl she asked for. Finally, it arrives, carried by a girl servant that watches them all with interest. There probably haven't been this many lords in Riverrun's library for centuries.
She chooses a table in the sunlight and it shines warm against her back. She arranges all the pieces, the bowl in the center and her bottle beside, her dagger just above it though sheathed. She lays the gilded longsword across the table and rolls her neck before speaking a silent prayer.
Let me look through with sunlit eyes so I may see rightly. Cast Your vision through me and let my sight be true. Let me feel your love, and ease my shadowheart.
She takes a deep breath and opens her eyes. She grabs the longsword and fills her mouth with saliva. The blade and cross-guard are gilded but the hilt is wood and hide. She doesn't allow herself to feel disgust; Talya has done worse in the name of Magic. It does feel weird touching her dripping tongue to the lion head pommel in front of so many men though. It won't be happening to any of you unwashed narcissists, she asserts in her mind.
The Greatjon's laugh booms in her ears and tunes them out as she tastes along the hilt and cross-guard. Saliva spills and wets the blade as she moves her tongue along. Here, it tastes metallic and bloody and washes away the sour, sweaty flavor of the grip. She licks every inch of the blade, moving it down in her hands carefully, ever aware of the sharp edge because her own blood mustn't contaminate any of it..
She catches Robb's eye as she works her tongue to make more spit, watching with his mouth agape. She winks and Maege Mormont laughs like a hyena. Her mouth feels numb and tingling, saturated with the brimming power of magic. She spits it all into the bowl and pours the river water atop it, just enough to submerge.
She holds her right hand over the water and raises her left over her head, extending all the way up, her finger pointing. She draws her fingers in congruent circles, drawing deeper and slower breaths with each circumference as the water begins to bubble. Finally, when her head feels weightless and separate and the water churns like the rapids, she moves her right hand and touches her fingertip to the water.
One last breath, the taste of Jaime Lannister's sweat on her tongue, the blood of his enemies in the back of her throat. She leans down and dips her head.
. . .
. .
.
Talya isn't breathing but it feels like she is. As she blinks in the darkness, the water is cool and still and with her ears submerged, she hears only the strange, slowly reverberating echo of a breath that isn't hers. Whose is it? Perhaps the echo of a past life or an ancestor that watches over her; perhaps the presence of one of the gods that listens to her prayer. It could be the dying breaths of Jaime Lannister's enemies or Jaime Lannister himself. Whatever it is, it lulls her to peace so that she doesn't know if it takes a minute or an hour for the vision to form.
The first thing she sees is the night sky, the moon a perfect crescent. She is beautiful when full but there is nothing as seductive as the sublime arch of her inside curve and the precise point of her ends. That's her pretty pose—she wants to be cherished tonight. Her view is unsteady, like a camera off its tripod. The weight of her incorporeal form lists as she orients her all-seeing gaze.
She is on a battlefield, among many tents and fires and siege engines in construction. The men screech and scatter as cavalrymen butcher them. They tear tents down and light the camp ablaze as they stampede in escape but Talya does not panic; why would Magic kill her in a scrying? Is Jaime Lannister so special?
The answer is: no, he's not. No one is, nor will they ever be. We are all but threads in a grand tapestry we will never see, mere atoms of gas in the timeless explosions of stars whose heat will never touch the mortal earth. We are meaningless and futile on our own. Don't try to be special—it won't ever happen, not in the way you want it to. Aim lower, for substantiality, and be kind to your neighbor.
One man in particular, in golden armor and beautiful flowing blond hair jumps out of his tent. He screams in anger as he watches the destruction before him. That must be the Lannister. He looks just like Prince—and something clips her shoulder and Talya slams into the ground, her joint twinging and aching.
What? She hisses as she writhes. She sees her legs and body like one sees smoke pooling. Her intangible body aches and smoke fills a cavity in her shoulder. A raven screeches and wings flap around her head.
She leaps to her phantom feet. The raven swoops overhead and cries once more, diving at her.
"What the fuck!" She bats her hands at the foul creature. It's just a bird; what the fuck?
It cries once more, the sound drilling her head. Her body locks up and her hands fly over her ears to protect them.
That's no normal bird. She doesn't know what it is but it is not normal.
Arrows fly—she can hear them whistling, the ominous displacement of air—and three pierce her shadow form at her thigh, hip, waist. The raven shrieks and bites her ear lobe. She screeches in burning anger and snatches it out of the air, her hands just catching it near the tail-end.
It has three eyes, and the third is full of Knowing.
Again, that cursed croak that shakes her to her bones. Behind the bird is a little boy, his lean face aghast. Her numbed hands release the damned thing and she falls.
…
Someone catches her under the arms. She is dripping wet and half-drowned, gasping for breath. She feels her ear, whole but aching, and her hip and thigh. She doesn't bleed but it hurts like she walked into a table. That shouldn't be. That shouldn't have happened.
"Lady Talya?" Robb asks hesitantly.
"I'm fine," she coughs, standing on her own. "I breathed wrong."
"You were breathing?"
"Whatever," she snaps. Robb's look darkens. She takes a deep, aching breath and tries to calm down. "I'm fine."
That was a fluke. No creature could ever harm her in a scrying vision, she's never heard of such a thing because that just doesn't happen. She's scried a hundred times for all sorts of nonsense. She's seen people masturbating and caught them cheating, murdering, everything under the sun. Nothing has ever seen her, nothing has ever touched her. She didn't even know she had a body of smoke like that.
Was it speaking to her? It cried and she didn't hear anything but it was too focused, too intent. It couldn't have spoken to her. Scrying is both a dream and not a dream, so she can't understand words people speak, only look and discern for herself.
It was looking at her—and that eye…
No. She pushes it out of her mind. It was just…it was a little prank from the gods. Ha, ha, crazy birds. Very funny.
She ignores all the critical eyes and centers herself once more. She starts again, and her hand shakes as she touches it to the water before she submerges.
The first thing she sees is steam, rising from the unsteady black floor in great plumes, so thick that it threatens to choke her. Will she choke? She is shaken now, and afraid. Her body twitches away and attempts to pull her out once more but she hunkers down and sinks like a stone further into the vision. The dark will protect her, won't it? She knows how to fight it.
Talya feels hot and damp on her face like she too is there. It looks like a huge sauna, perhaps a bathhouse since it is the medieval times. Two blond men sit in a pool together, one bearded, the other—oh, the other is actually a woman. That must be the lady knight, Brienne of Tarth. They call her Brienne the Beauty. Now, Talya knows the epithet is an insult. She's ugly, no scar necessary, and battered too. Talya understands. The bearded man is Jaime Lannister, much less handsome than the first time she saw him. He is gaunt, a half-corpse, covered in dirt and his eyes full of anguish.
Jaime Lannisters speaks words that sound like nothing to her. His face contorts in anger and he raises his right hand purposefully, splashing out of the water like some fish—only his arm has no hand. It ends in a stump, stitched crudely and livid red, no fingers or palm or anything. Nothing. His face twists more and he weeps.
Oh, fuck. But where is he?
The torment, cruelty and pain are palpable even through the vision. Jaime Lannister is full of it and guilt, all of it so heavy that it pulls her like gravity, sinking below the steaming black water. Talya lets herself go, untethered. There is more to see.
The sky brightens. It's midday and cloudy. Jaime Lannister is dressed now but dirtier. Maybe she is looking back now? This is the worst scrying she's ever had. She is never, ever going to do this again.
He trudges along, his severed hand hanging around his neck from a chain, his clothes still bloody, Brienne of Tarth trussed up behind him. They follow a group of unseemly men, Talya knows just from the look of them. They are led by a tall, gaunt man atop a...a zebra? They have zebras in Westeros? His helmet is shaped like a goat's head.
Jaime looks around, his eyes dead and unseeing. They are near a shore and he looks out across the water to a distant isle in the center, white and red and swaying. He shivers and Talya wrenches herself from the bowl. Lord Bolton is looking right at her.
The Brave Companions—just thinking the name filled Brienne with cold fury. Brave Companions. They knew it was false and called themselves that anyway. By now, Brienne knew they did it because they knew they were the opposite. If they had any courage it was the wrongly-earned. They had no strength of heart—they had no hearts. They propped themselves up on the vapors of their withered souls.
Her rooms were so high in the Kingspyre Tower that when she looked out the window the people looked as if ants. They scurried along the dark stone like startled little mice. When it came time for meals, they were brought to her room. The first few days it was a plain, meager girl that never responded when Brienne tried to speak with her. Where is the Kingslayer? Does he live? Are the Brave Companions still here?
The girl opened her mouth wide and Brienne recoiled. She had no tongue.
"I'm sorry," she said mournfully. "Can't you nod?"
The girl closed her mouth and left.
Then she shared that bath with Jaime Lannister. He told her what truly happened the night he killed King Aerys and that haunted her still. She dreamed of herself in his white armor, a golden sword in her hands, the Mad King cackling from atop the throne as he dripped wildfire onto the stones below.
"Light it, Ser Brienne. Do your duty. You swore an oath."
"I swore to protect the innocent!"
"You swore to do my bidding for the rest of your days!"
Brienne killed the pyromancer and The Mad King descended and sneered in her face, his breath hot and rank. He was feeble and defenseless and calling for the murder of hundreds of thousands of innocents, of him and herself. She threw him off and readied her stance. The Mad King laughed.
"You're going to kill me, Ser Brienne?"
She woke before she knew.
The day after that bath, something changed. Jaime was gone, for one. He didn't say goodbye but she watched his party leave from her rooms and the tongueless girl that brought her a meal at midday deigned to nod when she asked if Jaime had gone.
The girl that brought her supper that night was different. She was a woman, for one, and no servant. Brienne had known servants all her life and this one was too proud. She was very tall, just a few inches short of Brienne, and brown-skinned. Like Brienne, she was ugly, disfigured by the vast scar on the left side of her face that ruined her. They'd probably put her in that cursed bear pit. Vargo Hoat loved to watch people in that pit and Brienne was not so high up that she couldn't hear the contenders' screams.
She placed the tray smoothly on the small table and straightened the silverware on a napkin. When she was done, she turned and leaned her hip against the table, watching Brienne with bright grey eyes.
"Dinner is served, my lady," she said with a crooked smile. Her accent was sharp and foreign, not unpleasant but something about her made Brienne's hair stand on end.
"Who are you? What happened to the other girl? The mute?"
The dark woman shrugged. "I don't know. They told me to bring your meal. Is it true you're a knight?"
"I'm not a knight." Brienne corrected.
Her mouth twitched in a languid smirk, such a careless expression that Brienne knew she was no servant. No servant, low or high, would have ever put their face in such a manner, certainly not in front of a lady, even Brienne. Brienne squinted at her suspiciously.
"They were talking about you," the not-a-maid told her. "They were calling you the Lady Knight and they said you were traveling with the Kingslayer. He's a knight, even though he's an oathbreaker and a sisterfucker."
Brienne grimaced. He was those things, but so much more. Who was this foreign woman in a dress too nice to be a Harrenhal servant, too proud and eloquent, to point it out? She'd served supper as was her duty. Brienne doubted they allowed servants to chat and dally in this cursed castle.
"What's your name?"
"I'm Talya. I'm a lady knight myself, you know. I've got a sword and everything. I keep it hidden."
Brienne stood, looming above the dark woman. She didn't shift from her leaning position, only watched her, completely at ease. She looked her up and down and grinned crookedly.
"You're so tall," she marveled.
"Who are you?"
"I'm Talya. My turn for a question now. Where is the Kingslayer?"
"You should know better than me, you're the maid."
Talya snapped her fingers and pointed her index finger at Brienne with her thumb sticking up. The snap was overly loud for her elegant hands and reverberated in the room. Brienne shivered. "So you don't know where he is," she surmised and crossed her arms under her full bust. "Why not?"
"They've been keeping me up here. I haven't left in days."
The dark woman tutted. "That's no good for me, Lady Knight. I have another question for you. Did you ever see Lord Roose Bolton here? He's shorter than us, super pale, white eyes, whispery voice. He wears a lot of pink."
She must be an assassin but who would ever hire an assassin to kill Brienne? Certainly not the Starks or a river lord. She had stolen the Kingslayer and was technically a wanted criminal, especially after ser Robin Ryger sailed after them and failed to capture them. But the Starks were honorable and above such devious tactics. Brienne also knew that Lady Catelyn was honorable, the most honorable woman she had ever met. She wouldn't allow Brienne to be hunted down and killed in her sleep by some hired knife. Perhaps one of the Tyrells who took her for a kingslayer.
"If you mean to kill me," Brienne stepped closer to the woman—she could upend the table and break it upon her— "I must warn you. It won't be easy." she took another step, only four feet away from her. A lunge and she would have the table edge. She would cause a ruckus and the plot would be foiled.
For all the countless fights she'd been in, Brienne had never fought a woman. This would be interesting. The shorter woman surely hid a blade somewhere. Did she know how to use it? She had a womanly shape but her arms were toned, her shoulders straight and strong. She had made it out of the bear pit.
The woman smirked and nothing of her stance changed. She didn't even tense. Brienne frowned.
"I'm sure it wouldn't be. Thanks for the offer but that won't be necessary. You don't have the Kingslayer."
"I can't allow you to kill him, either. He and I have an oath we must keep."
She rolled her eyes. "I'm not going to kill him and you didn't answer my question. Have you met Lord Bolton while you've stayed in Harrenhal?"
Brienne raised her chin. "No. He left just before we arrived. Why? Were you meant to kill him?"
"No, I was just curious. Now my curiosity is sated." The woman stood upright and closer to the door. She was smooth and quick. "It was nice to meet you, Brienne of Tarth. I think you're very brave to be a lady knight in a place like this. Good luck to you. I will leave you to your dinner. Buen provecho."
With that, the strange assassin slipped out of her room. Brienne eyed her supper warily. Was it poisoned? She took the tiniest bite of meat she could manage. When she didn't fall over gasping a few minutes later, she cleaned the plate.
It was good she ate when she did. The next morning, the Brave Companions personally yanked her out of bed. She tried to fight them off but they outnumbered her seven to one and tied her hands and feet together, dragging her down the hundreds of steps. Vargo Hoat waited for her at the bottom of the tower, a little bit of drool oozing out of his mouth. The odd, mild-mannered ex-maester Qyburn stood beside him clutching a missive.
"You thaid you were from the Thapphire Isle! Your father only ranthomed three hundred dragonth! I want your weight in thapphireth!" Hoat crowed.
Brienne spat on the ground before him.
He tried to rape her, right there.
She bit his ear off.
They put her with the other prisoners in a vast, one room cell under the Widow's Tower. It was dark and smelled like feces and sweat and sickness. Timeon groped her as he pushed her into the cell. She was one of fifty-two prisoners and fifteen women, though the women cowered and sent her away from their side.
That night it rained. The cell didn't flood but water slowly dripped into the cell and left it smelling dank and moldy. When they brought food, it wasn't enough. The men fought each other and Brienne fought them to steal enough portions to give to the women. They smiled at her then, and welcomed her into their warm pile.
On the third day, they summoned her. The sunlight blinded her after so long in the dark. It was midday and she was cold and sore from sleeping on the stone floor. Disoriented and hungry, Brienne blinked furious awareness into her eyes. She looked up at the high walls. She thought she saw that brown-skinned girl-assassin again but it was only a shadow.
They didn't throw her into the bear pit; that would have been too easy. Zollo and Togg Joth dangled her over the edge and the rest of the Bloody Mummers laughed as she struggled, terrified. The bear watched her with flat, black eyes. Brienne writhed and screamed. They dropped her in. She landed on her feet.
Talya cringes as she watches the Brave Companions/Bloody Mummers drop Brienne of Tarth into the bear pit. Her stomach twists into knots. In a minute, she could pop into the pit, grab her, and pop fifty miles away from Harrenhal. She can save her. She wants to save her, and yet something stays her and it's twisting her up and burning her like acid.
She was sixteen when she was bitten.
It was late fall on Breakneck Ridge, a mountain in New York. Her grandmother hiked there when she was younger but she was old now. It fell to Talya to be the trepidatious witch and climb the summit to gather their herbs and ingredients, to touch the stone off that trail after the first checkpoint that Grandma always touched for luck. It was beautiful and hard and Talya loved it. Like in everything, she had her brother Augustin to watch over and protect her.
How could she describe what it felt like then to be her? She was beautiful and so prodigious. Magic came to her like suckling; she hardly needed meditation and study. She understood it intrinsically and it leapt to her fingertips. Everyone else tried to make magic do something for them questioning why it wouldn't come to them but Talya knew that wasn't the way.
What could you do for magic? Did you hear it in song, see it in the dizzying final stroke of a painting? Did you read on the page as you skipped along the words, seeing images alongside? You must lend it credence in every moment of every thing you do. Talya felt it in every step she took, every breath, in every flash of her bright eyes. She held the very world in the palm of her hand.
It was the full moon on Breakneck Ridge. There were werewolves on the peaks, she knew that. There were many in the city. They came for the anonymity and fled to the woods upstate, some of them to the Hudson Highlands like she. Talya knew this and set her wards accordingly.
Ah, the follies of youth. She put all her trust in magic; she did half the work and expected it to do the rest. It always had.
Not then, though.
Augustin was at the campsite cooking dinner but she was downwind taking a piss. As she was walking back she had crouched to the ground because as the moonlight broke through the canopy, the shell of a giant blue-black beetle was illuminated, casting it iridescent. Talya crouched and watched, fascinated, as it made its way across the fallen leaves, shining prettily. It was such a pure shade of black and so reflective. It was only one moment. She was getting up.
The beast smashed into her side. She flew, rolling midair and crashing into the stony ground. Her head smacked and pain burst, her vision speckling with black. She heard the snarling, drooling shadow from every which direction she turned. It smelled like rotten trees and dampness and raw meat.
She scrambled to her feet but it was upon her again, tearing into her shoulder. Her collarbone snapped like a twig and she screamed, her throat tearing and her vision blacking from the pain. She had never broken anything before and it hurt. Nothing had ever hurt so much, not a stinging hex, not a curse, not anything magic. It was a real pain, human and unavoidable. It bit her again on the torso and cracked her bottommost rib.
Her veins burned and her wand vibrated in her hand. She stuck it in the beast's middle but her mind was blank of spells. She knew nothing, only pain and more pain and the unyielding weight of the beast on top of her. She struggled to keep her eyes open. It had black eyes but oh, they burned. It had such a monstrous face. They make monster movies but they are nothing but paltry tricks. Wait until you see a man with a snout, his skin black and wrinkled like a gorilla, sweating and not sweating, his nose wide and wet, his jaw long and pointed. It had teeth half as long as her fingers and hands like spiders with black claws more than an inch long—above, the sky was deep purple-blue, the stars shining and clear, and its hand was arching up, black with shadow. She flinched—
Her face—
She killed it, of course. There was no spell in her mind, just two things. One: she would not die on this mountain and have her brother find her body. Two: she would not let this creature kill her.
Bite her? Fine. That was nature. She would never leave a ward half-done again. But maul her? Ruin her? Ruin her?
It snapped at her forearm and she dropped her wand. She put her hand in its mouth and ripped.
Talya's moved on since then. She's more powerful now than ever before. Every month she dies and is made anew. Has it been easy? No. Even seven years later, does she want to face down another wild animal? Of course not. But—but—
Oh, that's Jaime Lannister yelling at the lisping Vargo Hoat now. She didn't even hear him arrive. She just knew she should stick around for a few days. She has perfect instincts. He's looking desperate, very desperate, half-dead and feverish.
He leaps into the pit.
"What is wrong with these people?" She shouts.
Talya apparates from the room she's been stowing away in to the marble seats around the pit.
"Who ith that?!" Vargo Hoat bellows.
Talya is already untying her boots. She almost leaves them up there but takes a look at the Brave Companions and drops her Doc Martens into the pit. She drops down her bookbag too and climbs onto the ledge.
"No, thop that right now!"
Talya drops. She lands in a low squat, almost on her butt, but rises easily. Her heart thuds and she can't breathe. She knows that rotten, animal smell. The bear turns to her, eyes black, sniffing curiously. It grumbles, agitated. Can it smell her otherness? She takes off her sword belt, hands trembling, and drops it near her boots.
"No! What are you doing?" Brienne of Tarth shouts. The bear turns back to the two Westerosi and she takes one last deep breath.
"HEY!" Talya screams at the top of her lungs, waving her arms around. "HEY BEAR! Yeah, Agent Oso!"
The bear turns, steam rising from its snout. She waves her arms more dramatically, jumps and kicks out her legs. The beast rears up and bellows, showing deadly sharp yellow teeth. Oh my god.
"I'm tasty looking right? Come and get me, motherfucker."
Talya runs straight at it, all instinct, and let's her body take control.
When her brother asked once, she told him the transformation was hot and painful for only an instant. It wasn't a total lie. She didn't want him to worry over what he could never change. It is still a brief instant of pain. The pain of swallowing a volcanic eruption. The brief pain of every single bone in her body imploding and reforming into that of a wolf still within her soft human skin. Fur bursts out from under her skin a thousand times faster than it would ever grow. Her mind severs from her body and there is no closer moment to death...until she turns back.
In Westeros Talya is numbed from the pain but no less aware of her body. She knows to throw herself down with her arms in front of her, because to have them spread apart would crack her wolf ribs. Her hips narrow and tilt so they mutilate her human-wolf uterus. No fetus could ever survive it. There is still the moment when she can stop it, where she has not reached the pinnacle, where she can revert back. She has never had the discipline to stop herself. It would be false. She lets her savage mind sever the tie from her un-savage mind. A wolf will shield her memory.
The screams that shake the yard are ten times as loud to her sensitive ears. The bear that was about to attack her falters in surprise to see the woman become a wolf. His hesitation may just be her victory.
She barrels into the beast, biting its thick neck. Jaime and Brienne are screeching in terror but she tastes the bear's blood. It tastes like a meal. She bites again and again, her jaw locking.
The bear stands on its great legs and Talya dangles. One of its great paws strikes at her haunch and she unlocks her jaw and drops to the sandy ground. The pain matters none. In the corner of her ear Jaime and Brienne clutch one another, crying. Talya dashes to their side of the enclosure and Jaime dares swipe at her with the dull sword—what the fuck, asshole? She's saving his life right now.
With a running start, she leaps onto the bear, biting at its vast neck once more. She's no bearologist but all mammals must have a major artery in their throat? Perhaps that's just the wolf in her talking. She loves this.
The bear falls backwards and she tears and bites and the blood is hot and thick down her throat. Oh, it tastes good, and fur gives way to meat, oh.
When she's done and the bear is dead, she stands on its great body and howls. The men at the marble rails above them hold loaded crossbows and she becomes a woman again, nude and covered in blood. Her hair has come loose but her curls fall just short of her breasts. She turns to Jaime and Brienne. He's pissed himself and she stares at Talya with wide, sapphire eyes. They're very pretty.
"Well, don't look so happy to see me," she grins, her teeth bloody.