AN: I am deeply sorry for the long overdue in a update, but here it is. There was a stroke of inspiration, and more will come, I promise. Hope you have a good read. Language warning, of course.
He felt her eyes on the back of his head since departing that gods damned cave. It was natural.
Jaime guessed it was a matter of time before Aela started asking questions about his attitude towards those… things. How he had wanted to get atop a dragon and burn the caves that were filled with them. To his shame, he thought about it for a full second before realizing he sounded like that insane lunatic, Aerys II. 'Burn them all!'
The knight supposed if he had been born with silver hair it would have been alright to think that way, but he was a Lannister lion, not a dragon. Regardless, it was a waste of time to think about such things, this was not Westeros after all.
The Companion master archer claimed those things were mere pests, they were a mere nuisance almost. He could hear Tywin Lannister himself mockingly calling the wildlings useless and harmless. Jaime remembered no finer and more ferocious warriors than the Free Folk, even that idiot, Tormund, was a ferocious fighter. It was not good to dismiss so easily, arrogance made him pay more times than he could count.
To the former Lannister commander, the Draugr were terrifying, and would remain on his list of things to kill without a second thought.
"You would like going to a dwarven ruin less, if you are so terrified of draugr." Aela had commented with an amused snort on the way back when he voiced his concerns about getting into Nordic caves.
There it was again, about those blasted dwemer. Elves that were dwarves? Aela claimed they were as stall as them but grew beards and had an affinity for magic, mining and… defying the gods apparently. He had been shocked at first, but now he merely sneered at their mention.
Pointless, but then again such information would be useful to someone like his little brother, not to him. Jaime could care less about an ancient race of elves that wiped themselves out in their hubris and arrogance. Besides, Jaime had defied the holy seven themselves many times by fucking his sister and cuckolding a king, and he was still alive. And he attempted to kill a child too. The dwemer were probably just ancient idiots, drunk on their power. If anything, they sounded like the valyrians.
It was a long trek that, thankfully, had been without incident. As it was already getting dark, so they decided to set up camp close to a lake. It was a good position to defend, and it seemed plentiful of food. Feeling like he was back as a squire for Lord Crakehall, Jaime took care of the horses. He wanted to laugh. 'Yes, I am squiring for Lady Aela of House… Jorrvaskr?'
Aela had made a fire and both were warming up. The moon was out and to Jaime, the surroundings were hauntingly ethereal, while during the day it was another kind of beautiful. The sounds of nature were calming to him. He was a soldier, used to camp in the wilderness. If there was something amazing about his current ordeal, besides joining an elite band of warriors he idolized was the scenery. Even the master archer was not half bad to look at but he should not dwell on such things. He still thought of the wench at times. Besides, Aela was a good friend.
"Are you going to start talking?" The aforementioned archer got the attention of Jaime. She then smirked and tossed him a bottle, which he caught. "Whenever there is something I need to speak about, I get drunk."
"Don't you have to be sober in order to have your thoughts in place?" Jaime replied with an amused smile. "Oh, what the hell do I know?" He then took a long gulp, earning laughter from the other Companion.
The woman laughed even more. "You know, I sniffed the air, trying to smell if you had taken a shit during your hollering. Your reaction was that compelling."
Jaime scowled. "Those things deserve to be wiped out."
"Well, dragon cults were quite numerous in ancient times, so draugr are bound to be just as numerous."
"The fact that ancient nords worshipped those horrid creatures astounds me."
For true, Jaime had been shocked and horrified that ancient nords worshipped dragons. And that apparently dragons… spoke. As in words, just like any other man. He could only imagine if Drogon spoke. Probably ask his fair haired mother 'permission' to annihilate some cities or burn a few of armies.
Nothing major, really.
"The past is the past, Jaime. You have not told me much about yours, just the composition of the… seven kingdoms?" Aela was smart, and she was good at remembering, to his annoyance. "For starters about your past, why were you so concerned with your hand?"
Jaime waited for the earth to swallow him whole, closing his eyes. Maybe defying and trying the seven's patience had not been a good thing. They could not grant his wish and kill him at this very moment. The gods were useless, as always. Oh, he forgot that this was not Westeros. The seven were probably long forgotten by now, as useless deities should be, left in the past where they belong.
"When the enemy overran our lines, I was still a one armed golden fool." Jaime moved his fingers on his right hand, sometimes still shocked he had it. "It was replaced with a golden hand you see? So they named me the golden fool, or one armed Lannister."
Aela raised an eyebrow but did not reject his statements. "How did you lose it?"
"Defending the honor of a woman." He replied with a smirk. "It was… painful but nevertheless, it was an experience."
What an experience, to have been useless for years after the incident. Only the wench saw in him what others did not. He still did not know what made him compelling to her but he had been lucky. Now, he hoped Brienne was happy. Probably ecstatic raising red haired children with that insane lunatic wildling. Jaime scowled at the thought but sighed. He would let it go, later on. He just needed time.
"Our captors were nasty and cruel, wanted to rape her." Jaime almost growled. He still got riled up thinking about it. "I ran my mouth and it turned out that they did not like it so..." He gestured at his hand and made a chopping motion with his left.
Nodding, the woman began putting more wood into the fire, eyeing Jaime a few times. "What was the enemy? The one who overran your lines?"
'I need to be drunk.' Jaime took long drinks from the ale, and was satisfied to see Aela's face moving slightly. Nords did brew strong drinks. The blurrier, the better, as Tyrion liked to point out in his drunken escapades.
"We called them White Walkers." He began, not slurring his words but eyes closing somewhat. "They appeared in the far north, amassing an army of three hundred thousand corpses." As the archer's eyes widened, Jaime continued. "They felt no fear nor did they tire, they just ripped you apart limb from limb, or bit you until there was nothing but your skeleton. A horde of death."
"They looked like draugr?" Aela questioned right away.
"Aye, the main ones." He answered without hesitation, shuddering and taking another long drink. "Pale blue eyes, bodies freezing, faces like something carved out of stone, white haired… and fearsome with ice swords." The knight took a deep breath. "You think your draugr are mere pests? These walkers led wights, corpses that were just hungry for blood, in rampages. They wiped out settlements and reanimated the fallen to incorporate into their armies." He scowled. "Only valyrian steel or dragonglass would do the trick. Anything else was useless."
Aela stayed silent, looking at him with wide eyes. "You know, here in Skyrim, we sometimes have a problem with necromancers."
"Idiots who raise the dead?" Jaime asked. Tyrion had always liked to read on far eastern Essos. He remembered him talking about those things, and in particular the lunatics who liked to play with death.
"Yes. They are mostly a nuisance." Jaime rolled his eyes at her. "I am serious, outlander, they are mostly idiots but sometimes they actually get smart and start covens, get organized and become a problem. Sometimes we have been issued contracts to exterminate them."
"Sounds like a lot of work."
"It is." Aela smirked at Jaime's face. "But, the pay is great."
"I am sure it is still not enough to support Torvar's drinking." The blonde man drawled.
Aela spit out her ale and began to laugh hard. She kicked the dirt close to her as she tried her best to hold it.
Jaime laughed at her, finding her laughter amusing. "What else do you have here? There are those useless dwarf elves, then extinct dragons, now necromancers who like to play as gods…"
Finally calming down, Aela looked at the fire and then at him, a gleam in her eyes. "Have you ever heard of werewolves?"
Jaime shook his head. "No, I have heard of direwolves."
"No, werewolves are… different." Aela smirked as she stood up and began making a snarling face. "They are huge man wolves, capable of tearing you apart in a breeze, extremely strong and fast, easily able to outrun a warhorse."
"…Great." Jaime gulped and drank more ale. The Starks considered themselves wolves, and he had pissed them off so many times. Maybe the gods in Skyrim liked to piss on his luck too. "They were once human or look like one? I am confused."
"A matter of debate." Aela shrugged, her eyes looking around the camp. "Some say they were cursed by Hircine, the daedric prince of the hunt." There was an almost reverent tone in her voice, which confused him. "Or, made by witches to guard their covens. Regardless, no one has seen them in years, so who knows."
"Daedric prince? What are those?" Jaime scrunched his face, trying to remember if he read about them before.
Aela looked at Jaime for a long moment and then at the fire. "Daedric princes are powerful entities, or deities depending on who you ask. Some are considered somewhat good, like Azura, Meridia and Hircine." And then she scrunched her face in disgust. "And some evil, like Molag Bal, Mephala and Vaermina."
At his questioning gaze, she provided an example. "Azura, daedric prince of dusk and dawn, considered one of the positive ones…" She made another face of disgust. "In contrast, there is Molag Bal, daedric prince of enslavement and domination."
"That one sounds like a cunt." Jaime said with some bravado but inside he was feeling concerned. They sounded like powerful entities and in this world, full of magic, anything was possible. Why were the gods such vicious cunts? He remembered Tyrion complaining once.
"Some of them present themselves in dreams or speak to you in whispers, they say." The archer reached for her own ale. "Whispers like the wind, soft, almost enticing, sweet, leading you into their web and then…" She shrugged. "Darkness and destruction… well, depending on which daedra has an interest in you."
"Well, I hope I encounter nothing of the sort." Jaime replied with a smirk. "Have enough with those damn walkers around."
At her laugh, both continued to talk before eventually deciding to have Aela take first watch. She was still drinking and Jaime felt a little concerned that a bandit or an animal might get close and the archer was drunk off her arse but she was also alert and taking her surroundings seriously. Sometimes, Jaime had the feeling Aela did not get drunk easily.
Jaime's eyes closed. He thought about what he told her, and how Aela never seemed to judge, just listen and ask a few questions here and there. Just like the first time he talked to her about Westeros, she did not disappoint.
"Jaime…"
The former Lannister commander opened his eyes and was shocked to see so much light around him. He felt he was standing on firm ground, and yet he could not see anything around him.
"Woe to the dead, Jaime."
That voice, again.
He started feeling terrified. It was sweet, almost innocent in a way but carried power. How, where the hell was he? What the hell was speaking to him?
"Woe to the dead, Jaime." It said again.
This time, he finally woke up.
With a gasp, Jaime's eyes took in his surroundings. Aela was nowhere to be found and the horses were still tied to the tree, one of them looking at him with what seemed to be clean annoyance. Jaime smirked, another one being miserable, good. He was not alone.
"You must have had quite the dream." Aela suddenly appeared. "I could hear you all the way to the lake."
"And what were you doing over there?" Jaime asked, annoyed as he gathered his wits. "Probably hoping something would just come in to the camp and have its merry way with me?"
"Fishing, your highness." She replied sarcastically, showing him two huge fish with her right hand. "You know, since we need to eat."
Jaime wanted to smirk in amusement. "I will cook, my lady." He replied, satisfied she looked annoyed at his response. "Just one more day and we can be home."
Aela smiled softly at his comment. "Yes, home."
"I meant Jorrvaksr." He said with a wink and then grabbed the fish from her hand, beginning to gut one of them. "Danica will always have my thanks but that mead hall… that is my home."
The huntress was extremely satisfied with that comment. Sure, some of the things he had said last night were… concerning but why lie about it? She could not understand a motive to do so. She was terrified of those white walkers he said were fought in his homeland but thankfully, they were far, far away.
Aela heard Jaime curse as he got blood on his shirt. When he took it off, her eyes roamed his back, full of scars. 'That's a warrior indeed.' She was able to deduce from the very beginning that he was a soldier, and he looked like one.
She could not wait to greet their fellow companions and the laughter of Jaime almost shitting on his armor while fighting draugr.
The archer frowned. No, it would not do. Jaime was her friend. Besides, there were many other things to tease the man about.
"These fish are enchanted, I tell you!" He complained, making her laugh.
Aela has a certain view of things, naturally. She is not shocked easily when living in a land like Skyrim and Jaime, well he is still learning. I quite enjoy writing the Kingslayer, to be honest.
Hope the best for all of you, stay safe!
