...Is it too late to say sorry? I just want to quickly say thank you to everyone who is still following and everyone who left a review while this fic wasn't updated...it's literally you that kept me going.
Too long of a wait? Yeah...I know.
Jaime
When he rose from the numbing and paralysing darkness that had washed harshly over him, he could still smell the wetness of the forrest around him. His heavy, drooping lids, did nothing to help or relieve his disorientation, but as he slowly pried them open as a throbbing ache clenched through his head, he wished that he had just left them closed instead.
It seemed that his consciousness was highly awaited, as was made abundant by the group of gruff band of men circled around him. Some sneered wordlessly, some rose to attention, but all seemed to wait for something else to happen before anyone made a sound.
Where am I? It was obvious -if not by the forced form of transport then by the harsh rope binding his wrists around a pole behind him, that he was being held prisoner. Jaime could honestly say, if anyone wished to ask, that being a prisoner had worn thin on him the last couple of times he had graced the position, and he hasn't missed it since. So who's prisoner was he this time? Where is Brienne? Her eyes had been blurry and tearful before everything went to darkness, but more than anything they held true terror, and Jaime had good sense to be worried when she was.
Jaime looked around as best he could as his joints uncurled from their lingering soreness but still, the faces remained unfamiliar so long as there was silence.
"Who are you?" He heard himself ask -a sad attempt at a roar as he realised there was another rope tied around his neck just loose enough to let him breathe comfortably.
In answer to his question, the inglorious assembly simply parted in its middle, and Jaime had just enough of his vision to make out a hooded figure approaching. Hoods are never a good sign.
The air turned eery as the figure drew closer, taking its time and in its own speed, and knowing his mind was probably fooling him by seeing a wave of black surround the figure, Jaime knew that he was afraid. And he was. As soon as the figure came close enough and the hood was dropped in the stark light of a lingering day with only the bustle of trees' shade to hide under, Jaime knew that what he was seeing was something that would remain with him for all his days to come. If I should live through this one.
Before him stood Lady Catelyn Stark -one of his past captors. Except, there was nothing really there for her to truly look like what he remembered. There were nail marks dragged beneath her eyes, deeply sunken into her shriveled, white skin, and a large, deep, incision on her throat -one he knew was inflicted upon her at the treacherous event his father had orchestrated. Her complexion was pale and translucent enough for him to see the lifeless veins caught just beneath the surface, with eyes shining wildly. Crazed. Horrifying. Could it be? Had she survived the Red Wedding? The last I had heard of the woman was that she was tossed naked into the Green Fork. But if anyone could survive it, perhaps it was the stubborn Stark mother. For a moment, despite the shock, the discomfort and the glaring terror, Jaime was almost impressed. Almost.
"Lady Catelyn." He spoke simply, deciding it was no time for a jest. It rarely ever was, in his estimation.
Her head lifted almost pridefully at his address, and as her head rose higher and her dead skin seemed too un-supple to support the stretch, her long, thin, fingers reached up to the gash on her throat and pulled the gaping hole to a thin line. The sound that followed sounded like there was parchment stuck and waving around the throat the voice escaped from.
"Lady Catelyn is dead. Years, now. But she still speaks to me, and I know all about you."
"Then who might you be?" Who are you but the Ghost of the Tully turned Stark? Who are you but the She-Wolf, alive with only vengeance in her eyes?
"Lady Stoneheart was the name they gave me." Jaime quickly scanned the name through his thick skull in search for a ring of familiarity. Stoneheart, Stoneheart, Stoneheart. Nothing.
"We've travelled a long time to find you, Kingslayer." The creature continued, spitting the last word out like it was the insult Jaime had always known it to be.
"You succeed in making me feel like an honoured guest."
"You should feel honoured." The senseless, suffocating sound cut through the air once more, "There is some honour in justice."
At that, Jaime chuckled lightly, mindful of the rope around his neck and how easy it was for it to constrict should he throw his head back in full laughter.
"What justice do you think you are serving, my lady, with these band of ravagers?" By what right, does the Wolf -or whatever that is, judge the Lion?
"Yours, primarily." He could almost see a bitter smirk climb its way on the haunting visage before him, and as much as Jaime would like to admit he was nothing like his father, he, too, despised being laughed at. In him rose a challenge, just enough heart and fight for the Lion to devise an escape.
"We can talk about whatever it is you want, but first you must release the lady Brienne." Your fight is with me. And it wouldn't hurt to have their attention turned to something else, if only for a moment.
"She is already free. Her and that boy. You have nothing to bargain with, Ser." I am Lord Lannister now. And Brienne...walks free as I lay bound on the ground. Either the Brotherhood has a sincere wish to avoid collateral damage, or Brienne has something more to do with this than just coincidentally leading me here.
"I'm sorry." Now he remembers it, the way her eyes had brimmed, a quiet sob as all went dark, how her voice had been stained with her lost sense of faith.
For a moment, the shock of the very idea that that wench could be used against him caused him to cast his eyes down at the uneven ground, wondering just how he had gotten there. He lifted his eyes, hidden beneath dusted dun lashes, and stared back into the ghost smugly awaiting his response.
"What charges do you hold against me, my lady? Besides my last name?" The world sprawled along his tongue bitterly awaiting the judgement and condemnation he had long since been familiar with. All but with Lorraine. Never, Lorraine, my lady.
"Your last name is why her neck is barely latched on to the rest of her." A gruff and assuming bandit sounded, attempting to step forward before the creature raised her hand suddenly to silence him and the step he was about to take. They are under her command. How is that possible?
"Your golden hair is the last of your treacherous worries, Kingslaye-" Despite 'her' eerie visage and the admittedly compromising situation Jaime was in, he thoughtlessly interrupted her. He had almost gotten used to not hearing the double-edge of that word. He had almost forgotten that he had once been, and still very well may be, the monster that people warned their children about.
"Kingslayer, yes, I was unfortunate enough to be the man who killed the King that had your betrothed strangled trying to reach his burning father."
Jaime was sure he had heard the sound of cackling before - with all those old women at court trying to keep themselves youthful through malicious sport, Jaime had thought he had had his fill of wicked laughter. But right at that moment, as his ears curled in disgust at the heavy heaving and gurgle that fought its way out of the wicked thing's throat under the guise of a wide and empty grin, Jaime knew that whatever he had heard before could not have been cackling. This laugh was made purely out of the witch's hour.
"You speak as though you plunged your sword through him for the poor Starks." She mocked him as lightly as her blackened heart would allow. "It was all for your own skin." Jaime now remembered why he never bothered defending himself before - there was usually no point in doing so. However, in this situation, one might be able to argue that anything would be good enough to at least try; but on that front at least, Jaime had stopped trying, years ago.
"If you say so." He wore his mask again - complete with a smirk that suggested he knew more than she did and a careless voice too bored for its current company.
If the thing...Lady Stoneheart, was at all taken aback by his reluctance to start begging for his life, then she certainly hid it well. No, she knows me better than that. She stood before me once before, much like this, with more than a sword at her command, and still I would not beg. Instead of surprise, it was rage that lined her countenance in a hot red cloud surrounding a pool of murky paleness. I know that rage. It is Catelyn Tully's.
She charged forward, her feet firmly cracked into the ground with every step, and her washed eyes radiated with a hot, pressing need for vengeance.
"You shoved my-...Bran Stark, from a tower." The flaps that cut through her throat waved in the air as she spat the words at him, and yet despite seeing what rotting flesh and bone lay beneath the cover of her dead skin Jaime could also see Catelyn Stark again -just a flash of the she-wolf
"I did." He hadn't denied it the first time, either. It was so familiar, he could almost smell the Whispering Wood again and replay the clash of the young wolf's steel against his over and over.
"Nothing smart to say for yourself now?" Coyness is not as handsome as you think it is on you, Lady Stoneheart. He cocked his head to one side before answering back - two can play at this game.
"We've already had this conversation. And as I recall, I was tied to a pole back then, too." His air of nonchalance was enough to burn the ember of her hatred once more, and her limp eyes lit once more with the memory of his past sins. For once, Jaime thought to himself in an unsure coalition of fear and rebellion, my sins just might get me out of trouble.
"Your family put a knife through Robb Stark...my beautiful boy..." In that moment, through the shriveled skin and haunting eyes, Jaime could see Lady Catelyn in all the clarity his knocked out head could afford him with. It was her defining quality -the one thing that he knew would cling to his memory of her if he were to forget everything else, was the boundless love and protection she kept for her pups.
Her overwhelming presence and strangely powerful pain caught Jaime off-guard again, and once more he was faced with the familiar nagging insistence of defending himself from his accusers.
"That wasn't my doing." He started with desperation anew, "I was still journeying to King's Landing with Brie-...The wench." Her name had turned sour in his mouth, and yet he still could not find it in his resentment to look at her. His eyes only belonged to the strange, vindictive creature before him. For once, he was telling the truth. In this hour of the damned, Jaime Lannister was telling the truth. But, as expected, Lady Stoneheart was not satisfied by just that, and stepped over his words with no hesitation.
"You vowed to return the Stark girls to Lady Catelyn, and yet you still stood and watched as Sansa Stark was wed to the imp - given away like unwanted flesh to a dog." Her eyes sparked at the memory almost like the sound of Sansa's whispered vows winced their way to this damned wood. He saw what it meant to wed a Lannister to them -to wed a monster, in the disgust that the disgusting creature herself heaved out at the expression. "You Lannisters could not rest until you had seen all the life she had left leave her. Couldn't you?"
"Believe it or not, it was for her own safety." He was sure that lady Stoneheart was not the only one within that unholy congregation to scoff at that. "Tyrion never hurt her." My brother has never laid a finger on a Stark. You knew him -Lady Catelyn knew him before she became...this.
"You swore to return her to Lady Catelyn." The thing spoke, but Jaime could no longer discern the face from the name spoken.
"I sent Brienne in my place." He answered in a feverish response -was this what it was like to defend yourself with a tool you knew the world should listen to? The truth is so...unfamiliar.
"To bring her to you!"
"To keep her safe! If anyone were to find out that I was protecting or had even found her at all then my sister would have her head!" And mine.
His last words hung in the air spaciously, but as Jaime looked around he could painstakingly see that whatever impact he had made was not firm enough to hold this band together in agreement.
"I take no words from an oathbreaker. Hang him." The words clacked out of the creature's mouth with as much regard as a child would have when throwing its doll to the floor in anger.
"No!" Is that really all your anger needs Lady Catelyn? Is that really the end you'd give a man as despicable as I? You would once swear that I was no man at all.
"No!" Brienne's voice echoed in a storm just as his plead to -what he was sure would be, no avail.
The unbound and unafraid wench slowly stepped forward into the circle that had been huddle about the spectacle of the Kingslayer's conviction, and as the air whispered through the meek strands of hair attached to her scalp -barely enough but still, somehow, visible, Jaime saw the same defiance in her that he had witnessed once before. It almost felt like years ago, now.
"You said he has no honour, and that is why he deserves to die-" The tall woman started before being interrupted by the inhuman one.
"I have no need to hear my words repeated back to me. Stop wasting my time-"
"But that's not true!" Would you weep for me, Brienne, had this not been your own doing?
"Brienne stay out of this!" You wench, you stupid, stupid ogre!
And yet, she did not head his warnings. For when had she ever? Instead, she only continued, swamped by treacherous, blood thirsty bandits.
"You said that he killed the Mad King to save himself...that his crime wasn't worth the lives saved. Then answer me -is one life taken not worth the millions saved in its place?"
May the Gods damn you, Brienne of Tarth.
All the heads had turned to him then - eyes accusatory and confused. It was the head he feared the most at that moment who spoke up, and he hated the sound of her throat fighting to force the words through.
"What does she speak of?" Her question was spat to the floor in which he was bent, along with some other fluids, he was sure, but Jaime kept his head down. He didn't know whether to laugh or scream - sure, honour was not a topic of much concern or consequence to him, but he hardly thought he'd feel such shame in admitting it.
"Tell them!" The lanky woman now shadowed over his head, prodding him - pleading him, to confess something he'd only spoken of in the fever of a bathhouse. He'd never told that to anyone - not even Lorraine, and here the wench stood extorting him to pour his soul out before those that are not even worthy to lick his boot.
"Haven't you already done enough?" He faced her for the first time since arising from the deep, dark haze, and found desperate blue eyes staring back. How he hated her in that moment for asking him to do such a thing - for putting him in that position to begin with. He wanted to hate her, even though he knew he probably never could.
"Now is not the time to play at being humble!" It almost felt like a quarrel had by the shit-smelling coast of King's Landing, or somewhere as they crossed a bridge in the Riverlands. Only now it was not a game of getting on the ugly girl's nerves. Now, whether he liked it or not, it was his life on the line. And his life now was comprised of more than just a secret love, or a winded dream that could never be made complete after his cloak had been soiled. No, there was Lorraine now - Lorraine and Casterly Rock and Tyrek and her cat...and the promise he had made.
He kept his head steady - that was the only part of him he could afford to move at that moment, and he mustered up enough lubrication in his throat to cough up one single word.
"Wildfire. The King's caches of it under the city. He knew he had lost and was going to burn the whole city with him." He heard the unheard gasps. He had ripped apart the lie - the ideal - that had been force fed to them by the crown, by Jaime himself as well. King Aerys was doomed from the very start and, consumed by greed and blind loyalty to his marvelously golden hair, the unceremonious Lannister took it upon himself to finish the job himself - to steal the moment from brave King Robert. Now they knew the truth - would it matter? Would they care at all? They'd have to care about the lie in the first place to care about the truth.
"That doesn't change your other crimes." Oh, yes, of course. His inner monologue reflected in resignment whilst his pulse thumped harshly in alarm and, perhaps even more obviously to the naked eye, the beast of a woman shot up further in his defense.
"It proves something! He's not hopeless! Give him a fair trial!"
The hollow face nearly laughed at the suggestion; perhaps what prevented it from doing so was the deafening silence that followed Brienne's cries. It neither confirmed nor denied anything. Interesting, Jaime thought to himself, the band of misfits might actually find themselves at an impasse. He couldn't help but be slightly surprised at the glimmer of hope that there existed some sort of basic competency for critical thinking and not just following orders even though, as Jaime was well aware, following orders was a highly appreciated talent in times of such turmoil.
"He gave me this!" She tossed Oathkeeper squarely upon the mossy ground, its crack against the dirt muted by its softness and Brienne's own limp attempt at a toss. "He gave me this to protect your daughter with...The sword his father forged for him out of Ned Stark's steel! Your husband's steel! This man is changed and he has good in him...are you so dark that you find that worth killing? Is that all this Brotherhood stands for now... petty vengeance?!"
The silence that followed stunned even him.
Oathkeeper shone like a diamond upon the filthy, barren soil surrounded by those unworthy to look upon it. All except one perhaps, if there was anything of Catelyn still inside of her. And it would seem to Jaime that Brienne's plan relied heavily on that assumption.
The two beings stared each other down with an air of ungracious harmony between them - both sentient enough to be regarded as beings but separately too ferocious in their own regard to be considered women - or, he thought as he recalled all the women he had known closely throughout his life, perhaps ferocity is just what makes a woman after all. They both knew that in this wordless battle one must yield, but it seemed that neither one of them knew what the outcome would be.
"A trial by combat. Choose your champion and I will choose mine."
Even the creature yields to a beast as such.
"I am my own champion." Though the creature had not addressed him when making its announcement, Jaime remembered that his mouth was not yet bound or gagged, and if he were to taste freedom, it would be gained by his own hand.
As soon as the words ventured out of his dry mouth, and without any particular hurry or excitement, Brienne stood before him - with her back to his face - and disregarded completely what he had only just proclaimed for himself. As is my right.
"I volunteer to fight on Ser Jaime's behalf." That's Lord Lannister to you now.
"No-" He was tired, but not too tired to fight a half-minded bandit. Regardless, he wasn't about to chance his one way out of this conundrum by trusting the very wench that got him in it in the first place.
"Now is not the time," She hissed as she suddenly turned around and met him at his level, "you stubborn fool. I brought you here. I'll get you out." In her eyes of sapphire, there was determination. There was regret. There was pain - there was always pain. But most of all, there was promise. Just as steadfast as her pain, there had always been promise.
Still in silence, he dared not cower his head back, but nodded his head slightly, "My life is entirely in your hands, Lady Brienne. Do not waste it." The sneer he had intended to find shape in his mouth betrayed him and impersonated a smile at the last instant. Green searched into blue, but what was trust when you had been taught all your life that everyone who was not you was the enemy?
I beg of you...do not waste it.
Fleeting strands of brown flashed in the corner of his eye as the shameless band of misfits shuffled out of their place and vied for their chance to serve their lady. Has she sown honour where honour comes to die? Thought Jaime to himself, even after death the Starks seem to be a cause worthy of a man's life. Perhaps that is why honour was so valuable to them.
"I'll serve as your champion, gladly, m'lady." A tall man stood out wearing shackled and rusted armor - but still, it was armor and more than the others had, and he offered his sword in bent prayer to the lady of the forest. Before any other men could lay their own lives down to the lady's hellbent cause, the creature spoke up.
"May the Lord of Light be in your favour." She croaked out with a steady gaze on Jaime. He could not look away just then. This woman...this creature was judge, jury and executioner. His fate hung tentatively in the balance - a call, a screech, an order from her and it would be sealed.
Little did he know, did any of them know, it had already been decided where and when Jaime Lannister would draw his last breath; and it wasn't to be in a dense Riverland wood.
"I, Brienne of Tarth, in acting as Jaime Lannister's champion, challenge you to a trial by combat. May the Gods enact Justice." Her voice sounded...unsure for a moment. Had she lost faith in his cause? Had she lost faith in him? Jaime could not discern whether it was her wavering resolve that he heard of mere fear - his eyes were wholly captive, just as he was, to the horror of the haunting lady.
"I, Yoren of Duskendale, in acting as Lady Stoneheart's chamption; the champion to justice! accept your challenge of a trail by combat. May the Lord of Light bring you justice!" This Yoren spoke with vigor and passion - only dead men speak like that, Jaime thought to himself assuredly.
Still in his seat of captivity, still tied to a pole, still incapacitated and bound in shame, Jaime watched the possible last day of his life ensue before him. Completely silent. Entirely helpless. Wholly reliant on another.
With a masculine growl, the wench took her opponent on the offensive. Her sword pierced the air as the near-nameless Yoren moved to quickly evade - but Brienne was always quicker. Brienne, among the darkening forest, moved like a tree that would not be cut down by man - nye, today this tree weld its own axe and seemed to smite its revenge. Just like she did him, she wore out her opponent with her many and small attacks; she was calling many a battle just to vanquish her opponent in war. The sun was setting, and Jaime's green orbs lost themselves in the quiet yet deadly extension of limbs and swords in the air just feet away from him. It was almost like a dance put before him by the Gods - to taunt or to teach? He could not yet discern. And yet, with every reassuring strike Brienne dealt to her opponent Jaime felt the danger of hope sting in his throat. Every time it struck him that he could walk out of her exonerated it also occurred to him how it could all turn to dust in his mouth in a moment. Everything he had ever been and never had a chance to become - all his lands, all his coming nights with Lorraine, all the glory he would never know, gone in an instant. His eyes glazed over, almost like a warg in a trance, and he could feel the sun caress his cheek once more. He could taste the salt of the sea not too far away and, somewhere in the distance, he heard her hum serenely once more. He closed his eyes, come back to me, it glazed his ear in a whisper and he demanded his memory to relay it once more like the holy reminder that it was to him.
But before he could repeat it to himself his prayer was interrupted by a final, animal howl and the sharp, unforgettable yet familiar sound of blood and bone bidding their farewell. His green orbs snapped open to witness Yoren, now on the ground, lifeless and bloodied. His eyes were still wide open as the blood continued to seep through his open mouth, hot and dirty. In his blood could have been Jaime's doom - yet here he stands (or sits) to breathe another day.
He looked up in disbelief at his approaching champion - his savior. His doom. Her wide face fell and rose in exhaustion and yet she looked on, prodding him for a response, prodding him for the reassurance that she had done what needed to be done for him - could he not see that yet?
He could see nothing save for the cool wash of relief. He could still not tear his eyes away from the seeping blood on the leaf-covered ground; the evidence of his victory. Their victory. Even as he felt the binds that tied him loosen from the pole, his eyes were trained on the lifeless corpse who had to be here, who had to lose for him to win. I suppose I owe you a thanks, Yoren. Wordlessly, he allowed Brienne to help him up. I stand now, exonerated? Perhaps. Innocent? Far from it. But I stand, all the same. With their palms still clasped in one another's, their heights annoyingly uneven, Jaime's thanks were lost somewhere between the accusing trees standing witness and the wind that had died when Yoren had.
"You swore an oath!" The shaky cry cut through the silence reminding the uneasy alliance that they weren't alone. The both of them turned to see the vengeful creature standing by Yoren's now useless body with the deepest of hatred lining her skin. Her dead, horrible eyes held in them now as much spite that the dead woman could muster and the flaps of her sliced throat blew harshly against her deep and desperate breaths.
"You swore an oath." The creature repeated; this time quieter yet somehow louder. Jaime could feel the truth, his awful truth, circling her tongue and the scorn of her men had roused them to move around them as well. However, it seemed that Brienne would not allow Lady Stoneheart to have the last word.
"To Lady Catelyn! I have not stopped searching for yo -her daughters." Jaime knew Brienne was too thick to consciously make the decision of making that distinction so precisely poignant in that moment, but he silently commended her all the same - though she would never know it. "Every hour...every moment I am awake I am bound by my duty and to the promise I made to my lady. Every night my head rests, and yet all I remain dreaming of is the moment I can deliver your two daughters to safety or bring them peace in some way." She had absentmindedly mistaken the creature for Lady Catelyn once more, but none dared to note it. "What would you have me deliver them to? A vengeful creature held together by the strings of Essosi black magic? Lady Catelyn's daughters deserve better than to see the ghost of their mother tarnished by such an ugly spirit. I vowed, to Lady Catelyn, that I would protect her daughters, even if that means keeping them away from you."
Silence once again stung the aging the wood.
This Lady Stoneheart, whatever she was, and whatever resemblance she had to Catelyn Stark, it lived and died with the last of the love she carried for her children. She was Catelyn Stark no more, and that realization crept into her slowly but surely.
"Are you sincere?" She lifted a hand to her men, motioning them to stop whatever they were doing. She could still command men like Catelyn Stark.
"You needn't ask - for I no longer wish to explain any farther." The honourable, the noble, the compassionate Brienne spoke hollowly - she had fought and won. She had done her duty. She would continue to do her duty. Lady Stoneheart was of no consequence. You no longer owe her your good manners. Jaime was almost proud.
"Nowhere is safe for them, not the Eyrie or Riverrun, so long as the lions howl in the stead of wolves. Only with their blood are they safe, only with their blood does your charge end." The lady crew closer as she spoke, and with every step she took her visage disintegrated into something...unrecognizable. It was however, her voice that held her together. Her voice that sounded so much like Catelyn Stark's in that moment. What kind of black magic...
"That is what Lady Catelyn would have wanted." Lady Stoneheart finally croaked out with something akin to a smile as she paced the closest that Brienne could allow her. Fully facing them now, undone and yet unbroken, she stood taller in her hideousness and horror than she had with a band of brothers behind her. With one final raise of her proud chin, Jaime and Brienne looked on in confusion as she turned around and walked back to Yoren's corpse, kneeling by his side and holding his head to her abdomen. She knelt deeper into the cold dead earth, and when her lids closed one final time, a blanket of silence covered the bewildered audience as they watched, consumed with their own horror.
"What's she doing?" Brienne asked just as Jaime was about to ask himself. They witnessed, in silent awe and terror as the body of what once was Catelyn Stark, then Lady Stoneheart, disintegrated into ash and the blood that signified his victory mere moments ago moved slowly back into the ashen corpse on the ground. The hands of time had rewinded, the blood that had been drawn now sowed its seed of life once more.
With a blink, with two blinks, and with a third, Yoren awoke once again just as confused as those that looked on. He stood, unsure and in pain, as Jaime witnessed his brothers gather around him in awe, with near worship. No questions, no words, just silent prayer to their God of Light.
Jaime turned his head to Brienne, who held a dumbstruck look he so often hated.
You've dragged me to my reckoning. You've demanded my trial - and won my defense. And now we stand here in the midst of a death that has already happened before and a resurrection of someone who I am sure is of no consequence to me.
Jaime had had enough.
"Now...if that's quite over, I have a war to win." I have a Lady to return to.
It's good to be back.