Arya had never been to a wedding before. She had never had occasion to – and she would probably have refused to if she had – but on the basis of what she had picked up here and there during her years at Harrenhal, she had come to think of such things as ritualistic masterpieces of precision that celebrated the bride's becoming one man's property instead of another's by trussing her up like a pig for slaughter. While Arya certainly didn't consider herself a pig for slaughter at her own wedding – not anymore – she did consider herself a newcomer to anything beyond fighting, running and serving wine, and fully expected to blunder her way through the entire ceremony while Jaime moved from one ritual to the next with that infuriating natural grace that characterised his every move. She was pleasantly surprised, then, when the draping of the cloak and the binding of the hands presented no problems at all; Jaime's fingers warm against hers as they folded into the silk of the cloth that bound their hands together; seeming to making it stronger and harder, like Valyrian steel.
Arya had not kept the Seven since her father's death, and as the septon droned tediously and interminably on about the seven gods that she did not believe in, she glanced repeatedly at Jaime out of the corner of her eye and wished she were alone in a godswood with him, being wed by no one but themselves. He sensed her gaze, and winked at her, and she realised that she was being ridiculous. Had they not happened to be at Casterly Rock on that particular day, she would gladly have married Jaime in a ditch on the side of the road; though Sansa would not have permitted it, and neither, she suspected, would Lady Dorna. The two seemed to have become fast friends in an infuriatingly short space of time, and had made Arya and Jaime wait three hours so that they could personally decorate the sept with flowers and candles and other silly things while Janei ran about waving ribbons and getting in everybody's way. All three of them stood side by side now, with Kevan, congratulating themselves on their handiwork as the time came for the exchange of the wedding promises; and suddenly Jaime was looking blankly at Arya and Arya was looking blankly at Jaime, and the sept was utterly silent as they simultaneously realised that they didn't know the fucking words.
'Do you know them?' Arya hissed.
'No,' Jaime hissed back in amusement, tall and glorious and hers, 'do you?'
Arya rolled her eyes and earned herself a glare from the septon.
'Why in seven hells do you imagine I'd know wedding vows by heart?' she asked with genuine interest.
Jaime shrugged.
'It seems a normal thing where women are concerned,' he replied with mirth in his voice, and Arya wanted to laugh with him, and fight with him, and punch him in the shoulder for being such a shit.
Eventually, the septon made them repeat the words after him; and when Jaime kissed her as her husband; it was all the vow she needed.
Arya was insistent that they leave for King's Landing the day after the wedding; thinking that Jaime would be too proud to openly state that he wanted to get both the journey and the execution over and done with. She was deeply moved, therefore, when he completely failed to take the hint – a deep, golden glow in his eyes telling her that his obtuseness was deliberate – and told her that they should stay at least a few days at Casterly Rock before returning to what he eloquently called 'that cesspool of shit they call a capital.'
Arya loved Casterly Rock. It was not as old as Winterfell, but it was old enough to have that whispering from the stones and walls that was the mark of true age; and a rawness and a roughness in the halls carved directly from the Rock that reminded her of home. There were caves beneath the castle that echoed constantly with the sound of thunder; thunder that was really the sea crashing on the rocks below; and she had lain flat on her stomach and put her ear to the ground – knowing, and not caring, that Lady Dorna would scold her for ruining her gown – and listened intently to that storm; feeling it in her bones. It was the roar of a savage monster that could not reach her; the rock like a shield from the chaos outside; and she gasped as she felt Jaime's lips on the back of her neck, and his hand undoing the laces at the back of her gown; gently, clumsily, one at a time; his lips brushing every inch of skin that was slowly and gradually exposed; until her gown fell from her body and she turned, and shuddered, as Jaime's mouth found hers.
As the time for their departure drew nearer and nearer, Arya learned that Lady Dorna had been making use of their time at Casterly Rock to have a gown of appropriate expense and crimsonness made for Arya, just for their entry into King's Landing. Grateful as she was for her new aunt's concern (and suspicious as she was of Sansa's complicity in the matter), the idea made Arya feel…rather cross.
Jaime, on the other hand, was furious.
'My dear aunt,' he thundered, upon learning of it, 'I'll thank you not to take it upon yourself to make decisions on my lady wife's choice of wardrobe!'
'The dear child's wardrobe is of little concern to me,' Lady Dorna had replied with perfect calm and sweetness, 'but I'm sure you'll agree that the first Lady of Casterly Rock in thirty years cannot make her first appearance in the capital wearing second-hand gowns or breeches,' she gave Arya a withered look, 'especially when Cersei has brought House Lannister's reputation so low. The smallfolk need to be kept loyal.'
'And how will wearing a dress accomplish this?' Jaime protested.
'Jaime,' Arya interjected sullenly, 'leave it. Your aunt is right.'
'Thank you, Arya, dear,' Dorna said, looking sincerely moved as Jaime continued to glare at her, 'I shall also have the official jewels of the Lady of Casterly Rock brought up from the strong room. They have been cleaned quite regularly despite their not being worn for so long, and putting on something noticeable may spare you a great deal of trouble down the line.'
Dresses? Jewels? Trouble down the line?
'You don't need to put up with any of this bullshit,' Jaime told her when Lady Dorna left them; his eyes very large and sincere and angry.
'Yes, I do,' Arya smiled sadly.
But I love you for pretending that I don't.
So when they reached King's Landing with Sansa, Kevan and Janei; Kevan having accepted to enter into talks with Tyrion about becoming Regent; Janei having convinced her mother to spare her for one week; Jaime wore crimson instead of his habitual black, and Arya wore crimson instead of hers.
The gown she wore was made of an immensely delicate fabric that she had never seen before. Tiny strands of gold seemed to shimmer and erupt out of the red each time she stood in the sun; her hair was dressed and braided; and she had chosen the least ostentatious of the jewels (the Lannisters' idea of unostentatious being a thickly-wound necklace of spun gold that ended in a ruby pendant the size of a pigeon's egg) to complete the process of looking as little like herself as possible. She did, however, enter the capital riding astride and with Nymeria beside her; and she didn't really care what people thought of either.
She watched Jaime's face constantly for signs of worry or distress, but he gave no sign that Cersei was in his thoughts at all; making his usual blistering comments on the rank smell of King's Landing and comically wondering why Tyrion didn't make use of his obvious talent for unplugging drains and cisterns to make the place a little less fragrant.
They expected the forecourt of the Red Keep to be as dusty, noisy and busy as it would be on a normal day. To their surprise, however, they found Tommen waiting on the steps with his entire retinue and without his crown; a fragile blade of ivory trapped in a garden of daggers.
The boy king was grave, and solemn, and pale to the point of gauntness, and he had lost an alarmingly large amount of weight far too quickly; the former roundness of his face supplanted by sharp cheekbones and the angular jaw of a much older man. Arya stared at him in anxiety, thinking that he looked closer to a hundred and twenty than twelve, and as she dismounted, she could see that Jaime, Kevan and Sansa were staring too.
'Your Grace,' Jaime greeted formally; rapidly burying his fingers in Nymeria's fur and holding her back when she began to lope forwards with the firm intention of sniffing out the entire Kingsguard.
'You are welcome back to King's Landing, Uncle,' Tommen replied with equal ceremoniousness, courteously ignoring Nymeria's growl as she returned to Arya's side, 'and may I wish you and Lady Arya joy of your marriage.'
'Thank you, Your Grace,' Jaime said.
Tommen was still looking at Nymeria.
'Lady Arya, is that a direwolf?' he asked in disbelief, a hint of childhood in his voice.
'It is, Your Grace,' Arya answered, smiling, 'she's my…pet.'
Nymeria growled, offended.
'Then we shall have to come to some sort of arrangement, my lady,' the boy king remarked, smiling back at her with great sweetness and politeness, 'the palace has rather a large population of kittens. We wouldn't want one of them to be mistaken for breakfast.'
Nymeria growled again. Arya glared at her. The growling stopped. And Tommen continued his courtesies.
'Ser Kevan –' Tommen greeted.
'He called him 'Ser Uncle' before,' Jaime whispered to Arya, a hint of sadness in his voice.
' – I'm delighted that you have accepted to come to the capital to discuss the Regency. I very much hope we can persuade you to remain here with us. We are in dire need of help after my royal mother's follies.'
The poor, poor boy, Arya thought as Kevan bowed low, clearly having similar thoughts.
'I find that I might very comfortably be able to serve a King who comes into his own forecourt to receive guests, Your Grace,' Kevan observed approvingly, 'I have never heard of any king, Westerosi or otherwise, acting with such graciousness, and I must say that I approve.'
Tommen smiled despondently, touched by the compliment despite his evident misery.
'Uncle Tyrion and I have had many interesting discussions on how a king should act,' he told Kevan, 'but sometimes I do not agree with him. He sends his apologies that he is not here to greet you – he is holed up doing battle with Lord Tyrell. Again. He did, however, express the wish that I send you, Uncle Jaime and Lady Arya up to him immediately. He wishes you to be fully appraised of which stories are rumour and which are fact.'
As Kevan politely declined the invitation on the grounds that he had to get Janei settled, Arya glanced sideways at Sansa, and noted that her sister looked noticeably crestfallen at the fact that Tyrion hadn't sent for her too. Arya grinned in spite of herself, and when she looked at Jaime, she saw that he was grinning too. King Tommen had just been introduced to his cousin Janei and was blushing worse than a maiden passing a brothel at midnight.
'Why don't you wear a crown, Cousin Tommen?' Janei was asking, 'aren't kings meant to wear crowns?'
'The crown gives me a headache,' Tommen replied, not seeming remotely offended by Janei's omitting to address him as 'Your Grace', 'I'll have to wait for my skull to get thicker. I'm told that most men don't even notice when it's happening.'
'Tommen is sounding just like Tyrion,' Arya remarked to Jaime as they approached the Hand's solar.
'He is,' Jaime agreed, his expression conflicted; 'he's far too impressionable for a boy his age. Cersei saw to that.'
'Who can you trust if not your own mother?' Arya replied.
Jaime snorted as they reached Tyrion's solar.
'Whatever he thought of Cersei, I think I'll speak to Tyrion about it anyway. The boy must be allowed to become himself at some point, though I must admit that he's –'
Jaime was cut off as Tyrion's door flew abruptly and noisily open to reveal a furious Lord Tyrell; his boots jarring on the flagstone floors as he swept past them and muttered indignantly to himself about impertinent imps and demon monkeys.
Arya and Jaime grinned at each other and entered the solar, where they found Tyrion attempting to drink an entire flagon of wine in one gulp.
'Wine so early in the day?' Jaime remarked as Tyrion signalled to them to wait until he had finished.
When the wine ran out, he clonked the flagon down on the table and came to them; looking paler than Tommen and so exhausted that he could hardly stand. Jaime sat on his haunches and embraced him, and Tyrion quietly returned the gesture without making the slightest effort to joke or laugh.
It was that embrace more than anything else that made Arya understand the gravity of what had happened while she and Jaime had been away. She did not know Tyrion well, but she knew that he liked to laugh, about everything, even when he was miserable. Jaime was exactly the same. And yet here he was, not laughing and not smiling. Not even to himself.
Tyrion kissed Arya's cheek and welcomed her to the family in as warm a way as he could manage in his present condition, and he waved to her and Jaime to sit while he tottered about looking for more wine.
'You look drunk, brother,' Jaime observed.
'I'm not drunk, I'm exhausted,' Tyrion replied, returning to his seat with a pitcher of wine, 'the Iron Bank of Braavos is pestering me daily with calls for Cersei's head on a spike – though they'd rather have the money that is owed to them; and Mace dull-as-paint Tyrell is pestering me hourly in his attempts to convince me that he'd make a better Regent than Uncle Kevan. Each time he comes to see me, I sit there looking into his face and thinking that if I had to have a Tyrell for Regent; it would be Margaery rather than him. Impossible, I know, but the thought amuses me. We wouldn't even have to have Ser Ilyn see to Cersei. We'd simply have to give her the news.'
He did not smile when he said it, and his mismatched eyes grew darker and darker.
'How is Cersei?' Arya asked, knowing that Jaime would sooner die than ask the question in front of her.
Tyrion did not reply immediately; his face an agony of conflict and strife and terrible, uncontrollable thought; his sister's name like a curse that made his armour crumble to dust. He undid the top clasp of his doublet and took a long draught of wine; the alcohol only seeming to turn him whiter.
'Cersei,' Tyrion said eventually, with a sudden flippancy that instantly put Arya on her guard, 'is being treated uncommonly well for a person with such an impressive list of crimes to her name. She isn't in the black cells, but she might as well be for the way she carries on. Perhaps I should put her in a rabbit hutch and see if she takes to it –'
He's blathering.
'What is it, brother?' Jaime asked, his face a mirror of her own realisation.
Tyrion's face was like ash, and his eyes were delirious and spent.
'Please forgive me for not keeping this from you,' he pleaded numbly, as though every word caused him pain.
'I forgive you; now what is it?' Jaime insisted.
Arya knew the answer before it came.
'She wants to see you,' Tyrion told Jaime, as though every word caused him pain, 'it is all she talks of, and all she will hear talk of. She wants to see you before she dies.'
