Eleven years into King Jon's Reign during The Bloodless War.
On Essos' South Western Shore. (Part two- six weeks later)
….
"Jon?" Samwell Tarly ducks into the tent with his King's informal name falling from his lips, only to find he's most definitely not alone. Jon raises his eyes at Sam who clears his throat, giving him a worried look. "Your Grace.." He murmurs, nodding to Sansa, then to the Gishcari High Priest. "Your Highness." He looks down at the paper in his hands before handing it over.
Sansa watches Jon's face as he reads, his eyes pinching together before turning to his sister, and slipping it to her. She has to bite her tongue to keep from gasping.
"Gather everyone." He tells her softly, touching her hand. She nods as she rises, her eyes never leaving the High Priest.
"Stay with him." She whispers to Podrick Payne on her way out of the tent. "Sam, with me please."
"Volantis has fallen." Jon tells his Gish counterpart, his eyes pinched.
"To whom?" The man startles, Jon notices, eyes pressing deep into his.
"To the plague."
…
"Where's Arya?" Jon demands as he stomps into the tent.
"Jaime's gone to find her." Brienne tells him, moving another chair from along the edge of the tent wall.
"My newly appointed Master of War still thinks he's my sister's glorified squire." He hisses."Her stupidity in wandering off in situations like this is wearing thin." The King grumbles looking at Sansa. "We'll have to share your Hand."
"Good thing he's quite versatile." Sansa mumbled, gesturing for her husband to sit between her and Jon. Tyrion smirked at her. "What do we know?"
"The Triarch's are dead and what's left of the Tigers are slaughtering the Elephants." Arya's voice rose as she clamored into the space with
Jaime at her heels. "That's what the people are telling in the streets."
"Do we send aid?" Sam asked quickly.
"To whom exactly?" Brienne rubbed at her face. "I don't really want to pick a fight with the Tigers."
"I agree." Lord Commander of the Queen's Guard Beren Tallhart exchanged a quick nod with his counterpart.
"So we do nothing, giving the Gish another gain?" Tyrion sighs, his frustration evident.
"There's nothing we can do anyhow. The plague is untreatable." Maester Theomore tossed his hands into the air.
"If that's what this is." Jaime mumbled, raising an eyebrow at Arya.
"He was surprised." Jon whispers, looking back over his shoulder at Jaime. "When I made the announcement. The High Priest. He was surprised."
Jaime seemed to consider it for a moment, his eyes clicking to his wife. She bit at her lip.
"Gishcar has wanted to defeat Volantis for centuries." Theomore shook his head, looking at his cousin.
"Again, what proof do we have?" Arya raises any eyebrow at Jaime like it's a challenge. He shakes s head.
"I told you, it's nothing but a feeling."
"I tend to trust Jaime's instincts on things such as this." Tyrion sighs, looking at his wife.
"There are people smarter than us out there that think it's a plague." Meera Reed casts her suspicious eyes over the crowd. Jaime swallows back whatever he's going to say about this glorified swamp creature when he sees Arya's head shake.
"I appreciate that our Masters of Wars have differing opinions Jon, however I'm not sure the origin is any of our concern. It's the influence. The Gish will take Volantis. That leaves Bravoss and Myr, correct?" She looks at Tyrion who nods. "Once they take them, what's to stop them from crossing a very Narrow Sea? Sansa asks her, her head tilting on its axis to face her brother.
…..
Tyrion finds his brother in the war tent staring at a map of Essos, his eyes bloodshot and his posture hunched.
"Have you found all the answers?" He whispers slowly. "Did the map maker blend them into the water of the Narrow Sea? Should I get you an eyeglass?"
"You mock me." Jaime exhales slowly.
"Where's your Lady?"
"She's at the docks. She's taken to personally overseeing our supply shipments. It's her pregnancy paranoia getting the best of her, she hast to have all the control instead of most. It happens in the last few months, every time."
"I meant your other Lady." He grins.
"Arya is off being Arya." His brother doesn't look up from the map. "She's no Lady, and not my concern anymore. Just the thorn in my side."
"Is this your pregnancy paranoia? Maps?"
"Look at it Tyrion." Jaime rolled his fingers across the little red beads that marked the plague on the map. "It makes no sense."
"Explain it to me." He sighs.
"It should be fluid, moving like lava. A natural disaster." He gestures at it. "But it moves more like arrows shot from a bow, landing and spreading and stopping when it meets some unknown boundary, like an attack. " His head shakes again. "This is no plague."
"The Maesters-."
"Sam is a wonderful man, educated and kind. This is not his area." Tyrion sees a glimpse of the old Jaime in his flippant Lannister tone.
"He has known war."
"Wildling and White Walker wars, not strategy of noblemen with a history rich of battles behind them."
"And Theomore?" Tyrion raises his eyebrow.
"You should have left him in White Harbor and gotten yourself a better maester. Our cousin is an idiot." He sneered. "I'm beginning to think that's the gene pool that made me the stupidest Lannister. It makes me wonder about our Dear Mother."
"Don't talk ill of our dead mother Jaime, no matter how irritated you are." Tyrion huffed.
"Sorry." He sniffs, not sounding at all sorry.
"You should take a break, you look like shit." Tyrion announces dramatically, and Jaime coughs out a laugh before turning to him.
"It's Ren's sixth name day." He rubs his hand down his face, returning to the version of Jaime he loves. "And we're halfway across the world." He blinks at his brother. "Looking at a plague and seeing a weapon that I have no idea how to beat. It's been nearly six months already. Will we be home before he turns seven?"
….
The jars are beautiful. That's what she's thinking as she moves the wooden box across the docks and sets them on the pallet for things that have already been through inspection and cleaning. They're a fine thin pottery that looks almost clear. She runs her hand across one carefully looking it it's perfectly curved shape.
Another wooden pallet drops heavily beside her, shaking the jars violently, her hand surges forward as they crash together.
"Sorry Ser." The other worker mumbles as she hears the shattering sound and feels the hot heat against her palm. She flinches back, the tear in her skin widening as it runs across the edge. The clear liquid from the broken container splashes up against her arm, dotting her tunic. It smells smokey, like a boar on a spicket over a hickory fire. She inhales it deeply, her eyes blinking against the burn that hits her. She's sure there is a puff of smoke before she turns her face away coughing. When she turns back the air is clear.
"You alright?" Podrick gives her a quick look and she can feel the blood running from her clenched hand, flowing out from between her fingers.
"Yes. Yes." She sighs, running her hands across her rounded abdomen."I just cut myself."
He winces at the blood.
"You should get that clean." He tells her and she tries not to roll her eyes. He's over protective when she's with child, she's relieved he hasn't yelled for someone to fetch a maester or bring a cart around.
"Take over for me?" She gives him a small smile, her unbloodied hand curving under her belly. She'll never admit how tired she is, not to him, not to her exhausted war worn husband and probably not even to herself.
"Of course." He nods and she smiles at him. When she's pregnant she always thinks of how Podrick was really her first child. Even before Jaime pushed Ty into her arms, he'd given her a child, she'd already been a mother in some weird sense. He tilts his head. "You're sure you're okay?"
"Fine." She tells him, touching him with her good hand and moving back up the hill towards the encampment.
…
It's the strangest feeling in the world, staring at your own body and not feeling it at all. She moves her fingers across the palm of her left hand again. Nothing. The angry cut seems to be mocking her. The deep ache is still there, but yet no sensation on the actual skin. She dabs at it again. She must have damaged something. It must have gone deeper than she thought.
She blinks. Then blinks again harder, like it will clear her muddled mind. So odd. The baby moves again, and she looks down at her stomach, seeing the faint ripples of his foot or elbow press out. She feels almost drunk. She needs more sleep. She shakes her head hard in an attempt to regain her senses.
She doesn't need this now.
"There you are. I've been looking all over for you. I sent Sam all the way down to the docks and they said you'd left. I went to the-." She pulls her gaze towards the incessant rambling and he stops. "What happened?"
She doesn't have time to answer before he's in front of her, holding her hand up to his face and examining it.
"Shit." He mumbles. "This probably needs a stitch."
"It's fine." She says, marveling at how normal her voice sounds.
"I don't think it is." He grimaces. She looks at his face, tugging her hand back.
"What's wrong?"
"There was another ugly outburst today at the treaty meeting." He rolls his eyes pulling her hand back. "Will you at least let me wrap it?"
She nods and he's moving them to the basin and holding up the ointment. He smirks at her and unscrews the cap as she holds the jar.
"About?" She prompt as he washes the area again before applying the salve and wrapping the cloth around it.
"Women and their place in a civilized society." He looks up at her, his eyes rolling. "It doesn't hurt?"
"What?"
"You didn't even flinch." He wrinkles his nose at her.
"I told you, I'm fine." She tries to pull her hand away but he grips at her wrist. "So, what was decided our place in civilized society is?"
"Sadly nothing. They were insulting and Sansa and Yara both withdrew with objection and refused to return. Jon refused to go on without them. Now they're in freaking formation-." Her spine stiffens to alert, and she feels the weirdest jolt of… something not quite like pain, up her spine. This time she winces.
"Why didn't you start with that?" She hisses, pulling away roughly. The room sways as she grabs her breast plate. She can't fully wear armor now, she's too heavy with child, but if she keeps the lacing loose and holds her cloak just right, an non observant person won't see the difference.
"Because we still have time and you were bleeding all over the damn ground?."
"Who's with Jon?" She huffs, pulling at the laces with her single functioning hand. Her heart beat has filled her ears now and she's quite sure would faint if not for her sheer will.
"Gilreen. Are you alright?" He reaches for her.
"I have to go." She snaps, still struggling with her breastplate.
"Let me help you." He snaps back. "I know a few things about working with one hand." He pushes hers away and pulls at the leather. "The more hurried you are the longer it takes. There." Brienne has the oddest desire to sink into his body and make him hold her. He must see something in her face, his eyes softening and his mouth drawing flat. He brings his hand to her chin. "Are you alright?"
"It's just a cut." She hears her Lord Commander voice the same way he does and his hand drops away with a nod.
"Yes Ser." His tone is clipped, and even though he's not really her subordinate any longer. It's meant to pull her back to him, to disarm her. She doesn't seem to notice.
"Are you coming or not?" She calls as she makes her way out the tent flap.
…
Jon and the High Priest seem to be in some type of stand off, it looks more like two men bored at a social gathering then an impending battle. He sighs, letting his eyes slip over the crowd. Sansa is rod straight, next to Yara who looks as if she might skin someone. Arya shifts beside him and it distracts him for just a second, he might have even leaned in to mutter something to her if his eyes hadn't fallen on his wife.
He feels something rip at him when he sees her, a hot feeling that courses through him. She's sheet white, beads of sweat on her brow, her eyes dilated and unfocused.
He watches her body sway almost imperceptibly to anyone who was not watching, but he's seen her go down before. It's a common event for her in pregnancy, but this isn't that. He must have made some kind of noise because Arya's face snaps to his, then across the field to where his eyes are trained, suddenly alert.
"Shit." She mutters as he tries to peel away without anyone noticing, moving carefully around the back of the group before speeding his stride. She doesn't flinch when he grasps her arm; doesn't startle. The heat in his gut turns to ice.
"Pod." He whispers to the man beside him, his voice low and deadly. "You're on the King now."
"Ser?" He mutters facing forward.
"Stay on Jon." He grumbles, weaving his lame arm around his wife's chest. Podrick looks up, his eyes taking in his Lord Commanders pallor.
"Jaime.." Brienne's voice comes out in a slow labored breath. "Something's-."
"I know." He tells her softly in her ear. "I've got you." He's pulling her back, slipping her behind her former squire before looking back a the man. "Stay on the King." He tells him seriously. His eyes meet Arya's who gives him a firm nod before focusing a second on Pod, before her gaze settles on her brother. He pulls her back towards the nearest tent.
"I can't.." Her words come out softly, but he can hear the fear in them as her body becomes heavier against him. Lannister mutters out a curse before bracing himself as she goes slack, positioning his arms so he can cradle her against him. He can't remember the last time he's carried her. He's lifted her, grasped her, and tossed her, but it's been years, maybe a decade, since he's carried her. He's relieved to find he still can, at least now, when his adrenaline is racing through his body like wildfire.
He stumbles the two of them into the Maester tent where Tarly looks up with a start.
"What happened?" The Maester rises quickly as Jaime tosses the gold cloak to the floor.
"I don't know." He yelps, pulling off the breast plate he'd just secured an hour before, touching her face. "She's on bloody fucking fire." He pushes his palm into her cheek and winces.
Sam's by his side in an instant, he feels it too. He lets go and grabs the basin. Jaime is unbuttoning her shirt and peeling it away. She stirs in protest then.
"Shhh.. It's me. It's me." He tells her, watching the hitch in her breathing.
"Jaime somethings wrong." She mumbles. "I feel.." Her body writhes slightly under his hands and Sam hands him a washcloth.
"Do you have pain?" The Maester asks her softy, his hand coming down to rest on her abdomen. He finds it reassuringly soft.
"No." She shakes her head. "I can't-." Her unfocused eyes land on her husband as he moves the cloth across her neck. She hisses at the coolness. "Cold."
"You've got a fever." He says by way of explanation, her face wrinkles, her eyebrows drawing tightly. Her restlessness increases and her hands grab against his jerkin before she hisses and pulls it away. He grabs her wrist, suddenly remembering the injury. "She cut her hand."
"Infection." Sam sounds relieved, but he hasn't seen what Jaime's seen. He stares at it, his mouth agape. Sam has already started rattling off what herbs he'll give her.
"This is no infection." His voice rasps out of him, and the Maester looks puzzled, before he sees the palm. The gash has deep back and purple edges hiss back tiny red blisters dotting the rest of it.
"How long ago-?"
"An hour. Maybe two." He swallows hard. Sam shakes his head. Tarly voices what Jaime can already see.
"It's the plague."