JAIME

"I'm hungry", he found himself muttering.

"So are we all, Lannister", replied an annoying voice.

He was greatly irked with the person who the voice belonged to. For all his gregariousness Brandon Stark seemed frankly a short witted person. He could only imagine a few people who would come barging into the Red Keep demanding Prince Rhaegar's head. Although it was not entirely Stark's fault, Jaime found himself getting angry over every little thing these days, perhaps it was the raging hunger coursing through him.

After escaping the city they had ran briskly for a while before encountering a village Jaime knew existed near the King's Landing. He had to discard his armour and sell it to buy the horses, of course he couldn't sell the whole set as to not arouse suspicion. They had to throw the Kingsguard breastplate somewhere in the jungle much to Jaime's regret. Then on, they had to survive on wild berries and fruit on through the Kingswood. Game was plenty but they couldn't risk their time hunting for it.

Jaime looked on to the prince who was sitting on a small log by the small fire they had lit up to keep themselves warm. The boy had seemed pale of late which was understandable with the kind of food they had been eating. Although it was not the Prince's condition that Jaime was thinking hard on but all of the utterly ridiculous things that had happened ever since he had happened on the Prince's solar. Viserys was mature, far too mature for someone his age and it seemed to put Jaime on edge for some reason. The Stark lords thought him to be some kind little Prince with a good heart but he had known how the Prince acted before that fateful day. Always hiding behind his mothers skirts, a whimpering little child with none of that resilience he was showing in these conditions. He had not complained even once throughout their hard journey, he didn't speak as much as he did that day before the escape nor did he even once lament about the hunger that was consuming all of them. He would sometimes observe Lord Rickard looking at him with the same curious gaze. Why had the Prince rescued the Starks? Did he even know of the repercussions of his actions? War was inevitable when Rhaegar kidnapped Lady Lyanna, but the kind of war would no doubt prevail over Westeros after the Starks return was hard to think about without shuddering.

"What are we going to do now father?", enquired Brandon, interrupting Jaime's thoughts midway.

When Lord Rickard looked at his son with a blank look, Brandon expanded,"I-I mean how are we going to go ahead now, where are we going to go for shelter, surely not all the way to the north like this!"

Rickard seemed to contemplate for a while before replying,"Perhaps the Tullys, but even then I doubt whether they can provide us with protection, Hoster has always been a careful man and I won't begrudge him for putting his family's safety above us, perhaps Prince Viserys's presence may be helpful but even then I'm highly in doubt.."

Jaime opined,"Perhaps we could go to the Wester-"

"No, lad', cut in Lord Rickard sternly,'your father is more cunning than Hoster, without a solid alliance, he'll most likely keep you and the Prince and turn me and my son over back to Aerys, besides it's far too away from here."

Jaime fought back a scathing reply. His father wasn't as cruel as they made him out to be, or so Jaime thought. He wondered what his Lord Tywin would think about his current actions. Had he inadvertently put his family in danger? Sure the West couldn't be invaded from the east but it could surely be attacked from the South by the reach. He missed his Cersei and wanted to do nothing but go back to her sweet embrace. He missed Tyrion too, his funny little brother.

Prince Viserys tried to assure the Starks," Perhaps the Tullys would take us in, isn't Lord Brandon betrothed to Lady Catelyn, and with my presence with you, he would no doubt be compelled to give us guest right."

"Aye, you may be right, your grace, perhaps that's the best option, said Lord Stark gruffly.

"If you don't mind me asking, your grace, how will you be going about ahead if we reach safety to the Tullys, I still doubt your decision to come with us, you could've just left us on our way and let us escape by ourselves, you could've have been safer that way."

The boy fumbled about a bit, searching for words before saying,"I-I just couldn't my lord, it may be harsh to say this of my own father but he really is as mad as they say he is.. I used to wander the around the Red Keep when I chanced around-'

Huh, that was strange. He was mostly on guard duty to the boy and he never came out of his solar without his mother.

-a conversation between one of the pyromancers and my father, they were talking about placing wildfire caches all throughout the city-'

Wait. What!

-it was then that I understood how mad he could be, A king burning his own city, have you ever imagined anything like it?"

Lord Stark and his son looked shocked and so did He. By the Seven, the king was more crazier than he ever thought he could be.

"And that's not to say about the time when he started to tell me to stop following my brother around became according to him Rhaegar was plotting for his throne."

At those words Lord Stark's face went momentarily blank as if remembering something before the rage returned to his face

"But he was indeed plotting behind his back, your grace."

Viserys appeared surprised before Rickard continued,"He sent a letter to me before Harrenhal asking for support to 'peacefully' overthrow his father, I pledged him my support after hearing about your father's condition from Lord Arryn. Rhaegar seemed a noble man then. And then he disgraced and made off with my daughter."

There was an awkward silence after that, the Prince looked awfully apologetic but couldn't find any words, some awkward conversations were made before the Lord Stark called for everyone to lie down and sleep for the night.

XXXXX

Jaime opened his eyes to bright sunshine and forced himself up as his muscles creaked due to the excuse of a bed he had slept on last night. It wasn't even a bed actually, just the mud floor, exhaustion had made him fine with sleeping anywhere as long as he got some good shuteye.

Rickard was already up and so was Brandon, the two had made a bed made by leaves and other riff raff they could find in the forest last night to make the boy comfortable as they felt some kind of gratitude towards him. He was still sleeping comfily in that awful excuse of a bed.

He was asked to wake the Prince which he did after which the four sat down for some more berries for breakfast.

"Where are we right now?" asked Brandon.

"Somewhere near the Saltpans I reckon, we carefully avoided Maidenpool a couple of days ago. Next up is Darry, we should be careful there, we have already killed one of them and they are fanatical royalists too."

Darry, damned Darry, sighed Jaime internally, Darry was bad news. And he had thought they'd get some calm after days of rough riding.

They hadn't taken the obvious way to Harrenhal as they suspected royal patrols on the road. They'd rounded off from Rosby to Duskendale eventually Maidenpool and now Darry after Which they'd head west to Stone Hedge hoping the Brackens would be gracious before eventually on to Riverrun.

After breakfast Lord Stark put him on to work for more finding more Berries to last through the day and he grumbled as went into the forest again. He dare didn't defy Rickard Stark.

As he went in search of food a humorously ironic thought headed his way, he was a Kingsguard not a week ago and now, look where he was finding berries. What a shame. Perhaps they'd call him the Berry lion. Gods! Tyrion would never stop calling him that.

XXXXX

After a few hours of berry picking, he headed back the path to the camp before stopping abruptly as a chill went through him, something felt wrong, awfully wrong, to be fair he had thought Brandon would come calling for him as he had spent far too long scavenging for berries, but he didn't. Usually Jaime would blame his tired mind for the paranoia but today just did not felt like that day.

He clutched his sword tightly in his hand as he crept carefully.

"To think I would find you band of traitors.."

Jaime heard a voice in the distance along with clangs of steel and definitely indicated some sword fighting.

"You would be given justice you damned barbarians.."

Now Jaime sped through the pathway

"Perhaps I should just kill your son for the insult you dealt the king, the king wouldn't mind all that much you know."

Jaime ran faster

"Please don't." He heard a little voice squealing.

He came to the clearing to find three men overpowering Brandon while a fourth one was taking his blade out of his sheath. A Darry Knight on a horse stood threatening Lord Rickard while a couple more men fought the old man. Another Darry cronie was dragging Prince Viserys towards the Knight who was looking surprised at the resistance of the little boy.

Then Jaime's gaze fell back to the sword rapidly being raised upwards in the air, about to swing down on Brandon.

One moment Jaime had instinctively raised his own blade and the next moment he had rammed it through the man's neck. The other cronies were startled and crept back, Jaime utilised the pause to get Brandon back up and place his blade in his hands again.

He felt the Darry Knight speaking,"My…is it an Oathbreaker I see there, so the rumours were true, a Kingsguard Knight did go along with these traitors while kidnapping a royal Prince."

"They didn't kidnap me!" screamed the Prince, "Let them go!"

The Darry Knight looked curiously at the Prince before looking back at him.

"What spell have you woven around the Prince, traitors?"

"The boy came along with us, we didn't kidnap him", implored Lord Rickard.

"And you expect me to believe that', cuckled the Knight,"I am Marq Darry, brother to Lord Raymun and in the name of the King-'

"Marq Darry…never heard of you, frankly there are so many of you that it's hard to count",taunted Jaime, he wanted to get Darry coming towards him away from his safe position as he spoke next," We even killed one from your flock on our way out."

An angry visage crossed the Knights face as he strangled out,"What?"

"Seems like you haven't heard your news properly, Ser Jonothor was so puny I doubt how he even got into the Kingsguard."

Tyrion always said he had a talent for pissing people off.

"In fact, he died screaming when we took his puny head off."

The Knight charged at him with a roar, just as he expected.

Jaime hoped Brandon would take care of the cronies while he faced Darry. Brandon seemed to be doing just fine, for the moment at least.

As the Knight came trotting down slashing his sword Jaime deftly spun around dodging the slash while expertly cutting the rear legs of the animal as it staggered before collapsing and throwing the knight his back. Marq Darry staggered to stand but the fall had winded him and he lamely tried to parry Jaime's slashes before succumbing to vicious swing at the waist. As Jaime went to finish the man he heard an anguished scream and Brandon yelling out to his father who had been dealt a savage thrust through his stomach. Brandon's momentary distraction result in him also losing his dominance over the one remaining man he had to fend off. The swordsman slashed at Brandon's thigh which caused him fall down and get a sword pointed at his neck while his comrade aimed a finishing blow on Lord Stark.

Jaime suddenly found himself facing two difficult choices in whether to save son or father. He didn't think the duo would be bested so easily. But the long travel and the poor food had done no good for them. That was why Lord Stark had fallen so quickly against some lowborn swordsman.

As Jaime hesitated the man raised his sword up high and aimed down at the heavily bleeding Lord who seemed resigned to die when suddenly a knife emerged from the lowborn's stomach, bloodily coming out the other side. The man coughed up blood and turned around to see the Prince standing there shuddering from the blood on his hands. The man had shock etched on his face, he uttered an aghast "M'prince" before falling down.

Jaime took advantage of the only remaining mans slight look to the other side to swing high and cleave his head right off.

He found himself exhausted. Dead exhausted. Wasn't really a surprise considering his condition wasn't much better than the others although he didn't feel any of it during the battle.

He looked towards Lord Stark who seemed close to unconsciousness, the little Prince was doing his best to stem the blood flow but it wasn't working. Jaime couldn't move, he felt so exhausted, he could fall down any moment, Brandon was lying on the ground holding his thigh while screaming his name and pointing behind him.

Jaime turned around quickly to see find that Marq Darry had somehow pushed his bloody self up and was only a hand breadth away from thrusting his knife through Jaime. A bloody smile smelling of revenge on his slowly dying face.

And yet Jaime couldn't move.

The dagger came closer and now was only inches away when he registered several hooves and men entering through.

Fresh blood splashed on his face. It wasn't his thankfully as Marq Darry's head was rolling on the ground. Jaime staggered and collapsed because of the sudden motions. In his rapidly blurring vision he bleakly saw a trout banner and about twenty men led by a man with a black trout on his armour.

He faintly heard the Knight say, "You lot seemed fucked up!"

And then the Berry Lion's vision blacked out.

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