It's not long before Cersei breaks her unbearable silence, although, much to Jaime's aggravation, what attention she does pay to the rest of Westeros isn't directed at him in the slightest. No, instead – as per Tyrion's invitation in the middle of their rapid correspondence exchange – it's just another envoy that she sends to the North, while Bran Stark and his court are still there. It's nothing too hostile, really, regardless of the tension that reigns over Winterfell once her people are invited in. Her actual emissary is a woman, young and rather nervous, a whole flock of Lannister soldiers following at her heels and, notably, "No Ironborn?"

"She wouldn't get on a ship while even one of them was on board," one of Cersei's men had scoffed when Jaime had asked, though he'd quickly sobered up afterwards. "I can't blame her, considering. Her Grace wanted us to keep the girl safe until she's sure she can return her to her family."

Had she been a slave, then? It's difficult to tell – despite her timid eyes and low voice, she has the confidence of a free woman and it's only easier to see when she speaks.

The king of the Six Kingdoms had decided to attend his own council meeting this time and his sister had followed his example. Sansa Stark is far more nervous than the newcomer, as if the mere mention of his sister is enough to taint her castle and she's far from alone in that sentiment – next to Jaime, her other brother is just as tense, chancing the occasional look in his direction when he's not busy looking over his siblings. It's still difficult to place together what exactly he's doing here week after week, but it's the last thing Jaime thinks of as Madelyn Lastel, as is apparently her name, gathers the courage to speak.

"My king, my queen," she greets, as if still unsure of the proper etiquette for this. Cersei had barely had the time to work on her, he'd say, and she lowers her eyes towards the scrolls in her hands before she hands them out to their recipients. "Her Grace sends her regards. I'm to represent her in any and every way during my stay in the North. Her credentials, if you will." Her blue eyes stray between him and Tyrion for a moment before she reaches out across the table with yet another letter. He doesn't need to take a second look.

"This is the royal seal," he confirms to no one in particular as the Stark siblings unroll their own messages. The Queen in the North's face pales even further at whatever it is that she sees inside, but it's not terror this time, nor the same dread that she'd had written all over her features on the day she'd been told of Cersei's survival. It's confusion instead, and a bit of interest, and Jaime ducks his head quickly lest a smile escapes. He can see his twin's touch all over the girl despite the years that had passed since her escape from King's Landing and she reminds him of her an alarming amount. It's easy to imagine what Cersei had seen with one look at her – the fragile outer shell and the determined glint in her eyes; the anxious hold she has over family and potential power and the world at large. It must have been like looking into a mirror and seeing a particularly unpleasant memory of her own past and it's nothing Jaime himself hadn't experienced before, come to think of it, once he recalls the absurd conversation he had had with Jon Snow upon the man's departure for the Wall when he had still been little more than a child. It's a frustrating thing, seeing someone carefully thread into decisions that had taken his life in the direction it had taken, and endlessly fascinating at the same time.

It's the King that speaks first and it's just the beginning of the scroll he'd received, but the sound of his voice is still enough to hush them all. "As a sign of good faith, I send you one of your countrywomen in my stead." He looks up. "Are you from the North, My Lady?"

"The Riverlands, Your Grace. Her Grace did me a great kindness. I meant to repay it as well as I can."

"A great kindness?" In the few times Jaime had seen the boy back in King's Landing – and during his frequent appearances during his stay in Winterfell – Jaime had seen whatever entity had kept hold over him slip away bit by bit until Brandon Stark had started becoming visible through the cracks again and he is still as damnably curious as he had been as a child, it seems. Starks never learn.

With one exception, perhaps. His sister picks up the thread of the conversation before he can prod further. "Are you free to leave? If you are indebted to her—"

"At any time, Your Grace." Madelyn chances another look around the table. "It would not be the wisest decision for me to be left without her guards now, I said, and she agreed. She thought she would have me deliver her demands for her in the meantime. Her Grace would have come herself, but she's intent on sailing back to her homeland as soon as possible."

Her Grace this, His Grace that. So many kings and queens had started dotting their presence over the maps of Westeros that they have almost arrived back at their starting point, with seven kingdoms ruling over themselves as they please. It's a pleasing image, Jaime has to admit, and one he and Cersei had indulged frequently when they had been too young to understand why they wouldn't be allowed to rule in their own right. They had fixed the crowns of the princess and princesses of the Rock that had once roamed their halls on each other's heads just to see how they would fit and his twin had laughed at the image of him bending his head under the gold and jewels she'd bestowed upon him. It hadn't lasted long – Cersei hadn't been allowed to remain a girl forever, even if the crown had slipped far less often off of her head. Tywin Lannister had always meant to make a queen out of his daughter. If only you could see her now, Father, setting war alight again for the power you would never give her.

Because this is what it is, truly, and it's Cersei's own wording that makes everyone stand on edge – it's not a negotiation she means to start; it's a demand.

"Is she on her way to Casterly Rock already?" It sounds so scandalised, every word laced with disbelief, that Tyrion has to gather his bearings before he speaks again. "She might do well to remember that the Westerlands are still part of the Six Kingdoms, regardless of what my sister means to rule over."

"Not Casterly Rock, My Lord. Not— just yet." She either doesn't know enough to feel confident to speak on her behalf, or she'd been instructed not to do it, but it's a worrying idea all the same. It's an odd array of allies that Cersei has started surrounding herself with, each of them stranger than the last, and the fact that she had managed to earn such unwavering trust from all of them isn't really a surprise – he had seen her talk her way into alliances with nothing but her conviction that she could, the sharp twist in her inviting smile, and the intimidation of her past. "Her Grace's travels are her own concern. Your response will reach her no matter what, should you choose to give it."

"We will. I did write her that I would rather— we will," Tyrion repeats, clearly heaving realised how fruitless it would be to try and reason with their sister when she hadn't even deigned them with her presence. This is what he had wanted, doubtlessly, to see her in person. He can't blame her since she's not precisely hiding now, but it's still difficult to imagine what could be more important than this. It amuses him to picture it, if only for a minute – his sister in all her southern splendour, surrounded by nothing but northerners and half-savages. Jon Snow would have been particularly perplexed by her, as evinced by both their initial meeting and the fact that he only chooses to speak up now.

"Would it not be up to the King to send a response?"

"It is, of course." Tyrion sends a look towards Cersei's messenger and then a fleeting glance towards Jaime, as if realising that he's in a potentially hostile company. It stings to be included, but not enough to make him flinch – he's borne enough of both his siblings's resentment over his supposed betrayal to seem relatively unmoved by it now. "It's just that I am not quite sure—"

"I am." Brandon Stark, who had been busying himself with his scroll – no, with writing down a response, it would appear – had finally pulled himself away from it to join the conversation of his kingdom's future once again. "I'm not going to war."

"Your Grace." Had he not known his brother better, Jaime would have thought he'd sensed panic in his voice, mixed with a strange, fond sort of resignation. "This is a usurper we are speaking of."

"Is anyone in the Westerlands feeling usurped? Not from what I have seen." It's impossible to tell whether it had been another one of his strange visions or if he had just spoken to his subjects, but Jaime manages to spare him a little admiration for the confidence either way. He turns back to their guest with a smile that should likely feel more welcoming than all-knowing but doesn't quite make it there. "My Lord Hand tends to drag negotiations out for as long as it suits him, but I can give you a response for your queen now, if you wish to return to Pyke already, Lady Lastel."

"I would prefer to wait until you're certain of it, if it please Your Grace." It's just as well that Madelyn prefers staring at her own hands instead of anyone on the King's council, or she might have looked even more distressed at the idea of displeasing anyone at all. "You must have a lot to discuss before you come to a decision."

It's the only excuse she offers as she pushes her chair back and exits the room, quickly followed by her guards, and Snow takes her place immediately so that he can be next to his sister, snatching the letter out of her hand as she shakes her head. It's impossible to look away, Jaime finds, in more ways than he can think of. For one, he's far more interested in that scroll than he could ever be in whatever long-winded offer of mock-peace his twin had doubtlessly offered the King of the Six Kingdoms, and it's more than that – there's something about the urgency in Sansa Stark's eyes that feels painfully familiar; an imploring demand that her half-brother bends to immediately. He lets the scroll curl back into its natural shape and nods; reaches for her under the table until she offers him her hands and suddenly, he understands.

It makes sense, now, why Jon Snow had come for a visit to a place that should no longer feel like home and had somehow forgotten to go back to his Wall and his exile. He has his duties, to be sure, but he also has a sister.

It doesn't surprise him in the least when the man speaks and what first comes out is, "If there is a war, the North will have to stand down."

Tyrion hides his grimace as soon as Sansa nods her agreement, but it's not soon enough for him to escape her glare. "Surely if your brother, the King, is in need of help, you would answer."

"My brother, the King, made his choice already." Now that she considers herself safe again, she clearly also feels much freer to speak her mind. "What other choice is there?"

"There's plenty of choice." None of it pleasant, judging by his tone alone. "And there is much less inevitability to this than you seem to imply. Regardless of what she might have convinced you of, my sister is just one woman. Though I've oddly never tried it, she must be easy enough to kill. A wise choice would be letting her take Casterly Rock and, in the whirlwind of the changing rule, easing someone into her household until they get close enough to dispose of her."

"Which would still leave her with a husband and an heir to rule in her stead." He shouldn't interject and this is not a conversation he and Tyrion should be having surrounded by these particular people at all, but he can't help himself. "You understand that, don't you?"

"I said that it's possible, not that we should do it." He should know better than to let his brother needle him like this, but Jaime still bristles when Tyrion goes further down his line of thought. "The boy is an infant. The Ironborn are not in the habit of keeping regents and one of the ever so faithful relatives our sister keeps around will soon try to take over in her husband's stead. More will come forward after that, each with worse claim than the last, and Casterly Rock will fall within the year as they all tear themselves apart inside it. The fact that Cersei's heart is still beating is the only thing keeping all of the Westerlands and the Iron Islands from getting at each other's throats. That would spare us the war as well. Killing one woman to save hundreds would be the easiest solution possible."

"Now you're proposing this?" He doesn't want to give him the satisfaction of sounding betrayed, but it's not easy – not when this has been bubbling up for quite so long, anger flaring until there is nothing else left to hold him up. "Your solution could have saved us all a lot of trouble two years ago."

He regrets it the moment he sees the flash of hurt in Tyrion's eyes, but Jaime refuses to look away – might as well admit to thinking it, now that he's had the guts to bring the horrible truth out in the open.

"The point I was trying to make," his brother grits out, the rest of the council forgotten as he leans over the table, "was that the easiest solution possible is not necessarily the wisest one. When I proposed Bran as the next king, I brought up the freedom of choice involved in deciding who rules over the ones doing the choosing. What would it say about me if I try to take that choice away now?"

"What would it say about us." It's a correction rather than a question and Brandon's voice is reproachful enough to startle Tyrion out of own vision of the future. It had all been hypothetical, of course, and nothing but more of his brother's usual thinking out loud, but it still feels like a betrayal and, to make it worse, one that someone else had now intruded upon. "I am not starting a war, Lord Tyrion. If the Westerlands would like someone else to rule them, it's only right to let it happen."

"That is certainly admirable," Brienne allows before her queen had had the chance to bring her own say on the matter to the table. She's remarkably well-versed in all of Sansa Stark's concerns, as any sworn protector should be, and it's much easier for her to voice them – it comes off as attentiveness rather than cowardice if it isn't the queen herself being quite so concerned. "But there are still concerns that remain. Allowing Ironborn onto the mainland for good has its risks. The North has been subjects to their raids often enough, as has Winterfell in particular."

"I wouldn't call the Ironborn a lasting concern." If there's a hint of gloating to the words, then it's only fair – anyone reckless enough to trust Cersei with all their power and then give her precisely what she wants is a person who deserves to be disposed of if she so wishes.

"I would." The Queen in the North had worked up the courage to share her concerns, it seems. "The Westerlands are free to have whichever ruler they please, but once she reaches the continent, what would stop your sister from marching on any other kingdom she chooses? Her men take great pleasure in plundering any place they find that they know they won't face consequences for; what is stopping them from doing worse once she gives them the chance?"

"They are not her men." Their house – and their bannermen along with them – had always been too dignified for outright stealing unless they're truly desperate, and Cersei is above that by now, he's certain of it. "Her Lord Commander assured me that she has their respect. If their queen commands them to keep away, they will."

"And what happens if she doesn't?"

"She will. I'll make sure of that, if that's what it takes. This can be further negotiated, as I'm sure the King agrees."

"Indeed." Jaime dares a look in the boy's direction and regrets it as soon as their eyes meet. There's something unsettling about the knowledge that he's only here now – in Winterfell and in this world at all – because of a precious piece of information that he had given him, but it's even more difficult to bear it when he's acutely aware that it had only taken him this far. What he wants most of all is to return home and learn more of Cersei's policies just as he had assured everyone he would; see her build the life she had always wanted, at long last, and become part of it when she inevitably allows it. It's a perfect, seamless picture when he imagines it and it's all the more painful for it. If he goes now, perfect and seamless would be the farthest things from what reality has to offer him – which, for all he knows, is more years of a life she endures because of the circumstances she'd found herself cornered into. He wouldn't be able to take it and it's cowardly, so cowardly, to not want to face it. The realisation that his absence means that she's safer in the very least is a small comfort and he clings to it desperately enough to hurt.

But no one – not even her savage of a husband – would harm her over a diplomatic visit, surely. The silver lining is so thin that he's half-assured that it's just his imagination, but Jaime holds it close to his heart regardless, even more so when Brandon continues.

"Send for Lady Lastel. Tell her we've come to a decision."

~.~

Despite Tyrion's extensive efforts to outline a course of action for him, Jaime had managed to escape the politicians and their continued bickering once the council meeting had found its natural conclusion. His brother had pulled him to the side and urged him to make good on his word of seeing this through by staying Cersei's hand until her position could be secure and yet as limited as possible. No one else can keep this under control, he had said and had then promptly returned to the hall, as if it's obvious enough that further arguing would only waste his time.

This. Her is what he means; no one else can keep her under control, but then again, that doesn't make too much sense either. Jaime had never made enough of an effort to stop Cersei from doing anything that wouldn't impact them both disastrously to know whether she would let herself be swayed. It's not that she doesn't trust his judgement – there are plenty of aspects of ruling, mainly war, that he understands better than she does and that his twin had readily placed in his control – but that she's too cautious of having everything taken away once her iron grip over the situation has to loosen somewhat. It's an impossible thing to achieve once her trust in someone has wavered (and he doesn't have to be there to know that it has, not after he'd left her) – she has enough gold that more of it means little to nothing, just enough power to seize her kingdom for herself without struggle and the influence that would give her her subjects's loyalty, and an heir to inherit to build a steady legacy for. It's much more power than she'd had when ruling from the Iron Throne, though he's not entirely sure whether she realises it just yet.

Control. It's such a flimsy, subjective power to have, especially when it comes to someone like Cersei. He had not once demanded it of her, even when she had offered, and she had – although he'd kept his memories firmly locked away ever since his visit to King's Landing, the images slip through now, too frequent and typical for him to forget. It's a smug, shameful little thing, but it's there all the same; a habit of Cersei's from the countless nights they'd spent together. There are few things in life she enjoys as much as fucking and the frequency of it, in their later years in particular, must have made it at least a little more mundane, but it had never gone away, much to his pleasure – her gasp, cut off as if in surprise, when he enters her for the first time, and the near awe in her eyes as she seeks his gaze. It's the sort of connection she lives for, Jaime knows, and in those moments, she would have brought the sky down for him if he had asked. He never had; had only wanted to keep her where she was, and on occasion even that had proved to be too greedy, given the life she'd led, but it's a cherished image all the same – Cersei when he's the only thing that exists to her. Tainting it with trying to hold her back as one would a feral dog is beyond his capabilities, but it's not something he can explain to Tyrion.

Still, making the journey south seems inevitable at this point, dangerous or not. He had been putting it off for long enough and if someone has to ease the three newly shaped kingdoms into an alliance of any kind, he might as well take the job. The North won't miss him particularly and there isn't much he's leaving behind apart from the illusion of stability, but it still strange; the nervous, giddy anticipation that rises up whenever he considers it.

It's peace she wants, he had assured Tyrion when he had asked, peace and freedom, finally. It had seemed so simple then, almost as simple as the thought of keeping her on the Iron Throne and securing their future together, but he had assumed that he'd be less of a gullible fool about it when he'd been stung so many times. Evidently not.

Peace and freedom. He hadn't had either in quite a while, not fully, and it's another thing to anticipate; another thing that he knows his twin can give him even when she doesn't have it for herself. It's with that in mind that he heads back for the chambers where guests tend to reside – he doesn't have much he would like to take with himself and plenty he'll need to leave behind, but preparations need to be made either way.

It's only apt that Brienne meets him halfway.

She had been on his mind for the better part of the afternoon as he had weighed his limited options to see where they would take him, and he had come no wiser out of it, unsurprisingly. Ever since the war with the dead and the subsequent victory, he hadn't known what to make of her. She had come and gone of Winterfell and the North itself as she'd pleased and so had he and the connection he had crafted with her without conscious effort over the years had held, for better or for worse, even if the newer, physical aspect of it had put a strain he hadn't expected. It had thrown him off at first, only for the realisation to catch up with him gradually – of course it would. It must have shamed her; the fact that anyone could have guessed about this new development while she remained unmarried. It had all been so distant for him after so many years of laughing in that particular idea's face, but it had taken her quite a while to approach the same attitude. She had never made it fully, and it doesn't look particularly promising now, either – she's stone-faced when he insists on looking into her eyes when she speaks.

"Queen Sansa released me from my vows today," she confides at last and, despite his determination to deliver his own news as quickly as possible, Jaime finds himself frowning.

"Why would she?"

"The king's protection is inadequate, Lord Tyrion said when he arrived. He's in search of a better Lord Commander than he has now. She was happy to let me go if it means keeping her brother safe. He tends to be in danger much more frequently than her, I imagine."

"You never said." Had he known that she'd been planning such a thing, he could have... He's not entirely sure what he could have done, truth be told. "When did this happen?"

"Around the same time your brother convinced you to serve as his raven, I imagine, while his correspondence with the Iron Islands was taking place." Her expression softens somewhat when he doesn't respond, too taken aback to fire back at her. "Many wishes for a safe voyage home."

"Thank you." It feels too much like begging for a middle ground, like looking for a compromise he'll never get to keep, but, "There are still days before any of us departs from here, I imagine."

"There is still a little time, yes." Brienne looks away again and he can't hope to bring her back down when she's as resolute as she's clearly feeling; isn't sure whether he should. It's the same air that she'd carried ever since the meeting that he had slipped out of while Tyrion and Cersei's envoy had carried on with their verbal duel and the sight of it is as unnerving as her silence had been until now. "And though I hope for the same, they are not my wishes. Just your sister's message."