Jaime I
"Fuck this."
Jaime sighed. This was going to be a long, excruciating trip.
"How did we ever survive the Long Night? So fucking cold." Tyrion elaborated, "I feel like my dick is gonna freeze off and it's not even autumn yet."
Jaime gritted his teeth in mild frustration, "Tell me what's more important, brother, the fate of humanity or your frigid dick?"
Tyrion grumbled, "Well, since-"
He cut him off sharply, "Don't you dare say dick. Don't you dare."
Tyrion groaned, "My ass hurts, too. Couldn't we have gotten a wheelhouse?"
Jaime frowned at the horses beneath him and his brother and sighed, "I don't ride in wheelhouses. Plus, it's too much work."
"Oh!" Tyrion laughed, "Maintaining your dignity, aren't you?" His chuckles tapered down, "Brother, just think of how many things wounded your ego before we were brought back. And you say you're too proud to ride in a wheelhouse?"
Jaime sighed. More than enough things had put him in his place before they were rocketed back into the past; his brother was right in that regard. By the time he met his end, you could've even called him a man of humility. But when there wasn't, in fact, a constant threat of death, and when luxuries were free for the taking, he allowed himself to swell with a moderate amount of pride. He deserved it, especially if they were to stop the Long Night. And grown men (knights of the kingsguard, no less) riding in wheelhouses when there were perfectly fine horses were far too humiliating.
"You have to make a good impression," Jaime argued, "We don't know if Ned Stark is aware of our predicament. If we roll up in a wheelhouse it'll make the impression that we're lazy and that we haven't had to work for anything in our lives."
Although he wasn't gazing at his brother, he could still sense his eye roll.
"Please, we've got Jon to back us up. I wouldn't be worrying too much about this if I were you, brother. I would worry about this godsforsaken cold."
Jaime snorted and he could see the puff of air coming out of his nostrils, "We're not even close to Winterfell, yet. We're nearing the Neck, I presume, it's bound to be a lot colder as our journey progresses. And we both know it was much colder than this during the Long Night. Has a glimpse of sun weakened you so, Tyrion?"
"Maybe it has!." Tyrion closed his eyes and tilted his head back and a ray of light caught his face through the trees, illuminating it. He sighed and a small smile came upon his lips. His quirked an eyebrow and opened an eye to peer at Jaime, "The sun's bloody amazing, you have to admit."
Jaime nodded- he did have to admit it. When he had first woken up in King's Landing he thought he had gone to the afterlife. He was warm. There was light. He sat transfixed that night, staring at the sunset over the keep. It was abstract, maybe, all pink and orange smudges and violet splatters, and light yellow streaks, but it was a gorgeous painting nonetheless. One that he knew would be etched in his memory for a long while yet.
The sun had been little more than a distant memory during the War for Dawn, a faint remembrance of warmth and a vague recollection of a yellow glow. It was so dark then. So cold. The moon had hung big and low in the sky, instilling an ominous sense of foreboding throughout all of the survivors, and the clouds were heavy and dark and had almost always spewed wet lumbering snowflakes down upon the brittle, frosted, grass. He remembered his shivering endlessly in his thinning furs and torn leather boots, cursing at the night, the cold, wights. It was a hard life. A hard, tedious, and somber life. If he had just gotten a glimpse of the sun in that time, if he had just felt its pleasant rays, Jaime's hopes would've been restored. He would fight with a reawakened vigor. He would do anything to see and feel the sun just for another fleeting moment.
"All of us are slaves of the sun, aren't we?" Tyrion remarked after a moment of silence, "Even if you immerse yourself darkness there will always be a time when you crave the light."
He agreed and their horses walked on.
Darkness was a heavy blanket that had smothered Jaime all too many times before. Cersei had been beneath the blanket for so long she had gained control over it, to use it to smother others with little to no hindrance. She had thrown that blanket over his head and by the Seven, it was oppressive and soul-sucking and bleak and heavy. So heavy that he couldn't lift it off him himself.
In his last life (for he had begun to call it so), he had pretended it wasn't there. Or maybe he had convinced himself that it wasn't a problem. It was though. And when you crave light but only admit it in the deepest corners of your mind it's lonely. And then the blanket gains a few pounds.
As the sky got darker and the air got colder, his soul seemed to absorb the little daylight they received. Only about a year after Cersei died, three since he had distanced himself from her, Jaime was able to finally lift the blanket and throw it into the wind. There was no sunlight left to absorb by then.
It was a weird limbo, a grey area. The clock seemed to tick, and tick, and tick, but nothing seemed to have phased him all too much. His soul was trapped in a perpetual dusk, straddling the line between dark and light in a purplish haze.
Then he woke up.
And there was light.
But there was Cersei.
He braced himself and steadied himself, preparing for the weight to settle over him once more. It wasn't that big of a deal, he came to find out. He just shrugged the blanket off when Cersei tried to entangle him in it. He just popped his shoulders up and it fell away. After carrying the weight of the world the blanket felt like nothing.
Jaime rolled back his shoulders and straightened his back before swiftly kicking his horse into a moderate trot.
"Let's make some more distance before it gets too dark to see," Jaime suggested, "Time doesn't stop even for the stars."
Tyrion rolled his eyes, exaggeratingly shivered, and huffed a burst of misty breath.
"I swear to every god that may or may not exist, Jaime, if I lose all feeling in the lower half of my body, you're gonna have to pay for my liquor for at least a moon."
"Not more than one a day, brother," Jaime said with a small laugh, "We don't want you either pissed or hungover in front of Lord Stark."
Tyrion gave an exaggerated groan but didn't refute nonetheless. But before his horse could begin a steady trot, he heard the faint sound of a twig snapping nearby. He froze, ears straining.
"What are you doing?" Tyrion questioned, and Jaime wanted so much for him to shut his mouth for once. "What happened to picking up the pace, brother, because it seems like you're doing the exact opposite."
Jaime steadily brought a singular finger to his lips in the universal sign for quiet. Tyrion raised his eyebrows, but complied nonetheless.
He slid off his horse as gracefully as he could and his boots landed in the mud with a squelch and a small slide. Tyrion followed his lead. His eyes scanned his surroundings, eyeing the thick foliage with caution. He held his breath for a few seconds, listening intently to his environment.
There!
Jaime whipped around and drew his sword, pointing in the direction they came from. He could've sworn he heard a crumpling of leaves. He inched forward, wishing for a moment that he had eyes on both sides of his head like animals of prey did. His eyes found something on the ground any normal person wouldn't have noticed, but made his stomach lurch in sudden fear.
A misplaced rock laid atop the leaves, nothing around it of its sort. A diversion. To draw his focus away. He barely had time to draw a sharp breath before he heard a fearful gasp from Tyrion's direction and cold steal touch the collar of his shirt.
Shit.
He turned around slowly and his heart might as well have beaten straight out of his chest. There were about six soldiers, armed, two on horseback, Jaime noticed. One had a dagger placed firmly against Tyrion's throat.
"Disobey and your brother will lose his head, kingslayer," a weathered looking man growled
Jaime had half a mind to grab his sword and fight them off- he was one of the best swordsman in Westeros, after all. He restrained, though. Six against one was hardly an even fight, and Tyrion's throat was almost sure to be slit. Plus, that sword wobbling at his adam's apple would do nothing but harm if he tried anything.
He looked at his brother and breathed deeply. His eyes fearfully flitted to one of the older men of the group. After prying his eyes away from an ugly scar that marred nearly the entirety of the man's face, including, by the looks of his leather eyepatch, his right eye, his eyes found what Tyrion was motioning towards with a start.
He winced and decided to raise his hands shakily into the air. They were hastily and roughly yanked behind his back and tied with a slip knot.
The man wore the blue sigil of House Frey.
"Spies, you are!" A shorter man spat out, "Why else would lions be snooping in Frey territory?"
"We're to broker a deal with-" Tyrion tried to explain in haste, but was promptly cut off with a resounding shout of Silence!
"Say whatever you wish to the Lord when you are brought before him," one said. "We're to bring you to him. We'll get a little extra money from it, surely, and protection for the rest of our lives."
"Maybe he'll propose a ransom!" A nasally voiced one laughed, "Or keep them to do his dirty work!"
"Shut up, Randyll," the older one snapped, "We take them to Lord Frey, nothing that comes after is any business to someone like you."
His eye examined Jaime and then Tyrion almost lazily.
"Yes," He hissed, "Looks like the Lord will be in for quite a treat when he gets his hands on you two."
Looks like they weren't going to be able to get closer to Winterfell for a while.
Jaime shuddered. He wasn't even sure his father could get them out of this mess.
A/N: I don't usually do this but here we go: Yes, I did temporarily delete this. Yes, it is back. I hope it gets as much support as it did pre-delete. And second, just to clarify a few things people were confused about in the comments, Little Finger isn't going to be trusted and/or relied upon. The people who captured Jaime and Tyrion have ulterior motives that are not clear. It may seem like a stupid move to make. It is a stupid move to make. They never once said that they were carrying out orders to capture the two. Now that that's cleared up, I hope you enjoyed it. I might add an author's note here and there to clear things up. Try to keep the comment section friendly.
