Jaime Lannister arrived at Tarth just hours before the ceremony was to begin.

He had limited time to find her.

He wished he could dispense with the niceties of being met with horses and fanfare, but of course, he was there under false pretenses.

He planned to kidnap the princess of Tarth.

Princess of Tarth, he laughed at that title. Brienne would laugh, too, as he told her about it while they were spiriting away, back to Kingslanding.

The courtesies of the Tarthians was a blur. He was atop a horse when he saw her.

Dressed in white as he'd expected but the sapphires - sapphires around her throat, embedded in her gown, at her ears. At first she was just glinting blue in the sun, and then he saw she wore OathKeeper slung low across her hips. She was standing with her back to him, talking to a very large gentleman.

As he approached her, he grew more and more uneasy, uncertain about what his role here should be.

He knew he had to help her, but Brienne wasn't much for kidnapping. She would want to help him fight, of course, and know that he knew she was armored, he felt a bit better about it.

He scanned the countryside. Guards at the gates. Standing among the wedding goers.

He slid down off his horse, and felt a tap on his shoulder.

Before he could turn, a huge hand fell on his shoulder and he was jerked around, swinging about like a ragdoll.

The man stood at least a foot taller than Jaime, and had a wide, open, handsome face. He was running to fat, but just barely, and had wide, blue eyes. Being accosted so by such a large man would usually make Jaime reach for his sword, but this man had a kindly, honest nature, and you could tell so in his round face, his earnest gaze.

"Ser Jaime Lannister!" The man boomed, in a low, surpisingly rich baritone. "You've come for the wedding! Brienne will be so pleased!"

"Yes," Jaime said, haltingly. "And you are?"

"Gerald Pedalth, the sixth," Gerald said proudly, "Master of the Tiering Isles."

Jaime had never heard of him, but that wasn't rare. He looked around for Brienne, but only found simpering girls, gathered around to the the lion flags of the Lannisters.

"And proud groom to the lovely Brienne," Gerald continued, and Jaime took a sharp look back at him.

This man? This lumbering giant, was Brienne's intended? He didn't seem cruel at all, or have ulterior motives? Jaime hoped not to have to kill him.

"Congratulations," Jaime muttered, and then cleared his throat. He smiled at the giant of a man, and asked, "Where is Brienne?" with all the courtesies his father had ever forced him to learn.

Gerald clapped a hand on his back and pushed him toward a tent, decorated in white and blue, where several women were gathered around a large, ornate white chair.

Jaime stepped away from Gerald, waved a hand and a smile at him, and started toward the tent. He raised a hand to stop his men from coming with them. He would need time to form a plan with Brienne.

As he approached the tent, he saw that the girls were braiding blue flowers into a maiden's gold hair, hair that was a little past the shoulders and curled up towards the ends. Beautiful hair, like spun silk through the girls' fingers, Jaime thought.

"I'm looking for," he started as he stepped under the blue rafters to get into the tent," and then the girls parted as the maiden in the chair turned round.

"Jaime?"

Jaime found himself looking into the face of Brienne of Tarth, but a softened face, somehow, rid of her warrior's beauty. She was wearing a bit of rouge, her lips painted with gloss, and her blue eyes looked like glints of ice in the sunlight. She looked like a maiden, this Brienne, like an innocent maiden playing dress up, and Jaime's words caught in his throat.

Brienne stood up, brushing the girls away like flies, and lifted her dress somewhat unceremoniously, almost to her knees, and it was at the sight of those scarred, bruised knees that Jaime came back to reality, just as Brienne's soft, lightly scented arms were around his neck.

He allowed himself a small second to marvel at how they'd washed the adrenaline from her body, had made her smell of petals and water, and then he pushed her away, looking into her eyes for fear, or nerves, or that warrior rage that was so familiar.

He found none of these things.

"It's so good to see you again," she said, earnestly, and kept one hand on his shoulder, as if to remind herself he was really there.

"Brienne," he said, and her name broke in his throat. "What's happening, here? What should-" he doesn't like the uncertainty in his voice. He likes even less what he thinks that might mean.

"I'm getting married, of course," she said, smiling at him.

Jaime's heart, strange thing that it was, seemed to be making a downward drop into his stomach, a feeling which made him feel as if he were being catapaulted down a steep hill.

"I'm happy, Jaimie," Brienne said.