"Blades or the ring today?"
"Ring," replied Jaime setting his duffle down next to Addam's gear.
"Grappling or gloves?"
"Gloves. I need to hit something."
"Oh, lucky me."
"If it's any consolation, I'd rather it were my father."
"It's not. You nearly broke my jaw last time you were angry with him."
Jaime grimaced and made a mental note to pull any headshots as he popped in his mouthpiece.
His weekend home had just been the latest in a lifetime of unfruitful attempts to speak like a human being with his father.
"Still teaching at that backwater university in the Riverlands? Is their history department so robust that you haven't been offered tenure yet or is your work so lackluster it hasn't warranted it?"
He should not have bothered. Nothing was ever good enough for Tywin Lannister.
"Lannister men do not cry like maidens over childish fairy tales."
"Stop dragging around that godsdamn blanket. You're not an infant."
"Lannisters pursue careers that are to the benefit of their House, not to indulge their pet fantasies."
"Real men actually bed women, Jaime. You know what they say about you, don't you?"
He could hear the words from his father throughout his life in all their lovely variations, over and over in his head and all in perfect clarity.
Pity those won't fade.
He was to learn High Valarian because it was the mark of a Great House but gods forbid he pursue a career that actually utilized that knowledge in academia. Casterly Rock was filled with artifacts regaling the history of Westeros but his publications putting the same to paper were met with derision. He was supposed to look like the masculine ideal, but actually having the skill to fight was brutish and beneath the Lannister name. And with his looks and body, he was expected to fuck and womanize, discreetly and never with a sex worker, until a suitable woman to be his wife was selected.
Admittedly, the last in those disappointments to his father perplexed him as well. His understanding of the sex drives of men and women alike seemed to suggest he should want to bed others. For awhile he tried, found a few partners that physically appealed to him, and with enough stimulation, was able to have reasonably good sex.
But the experiences left him feeling hollow afterward, the mechanics of it no different than any other task with a specific goal. He would have been just as content to go to the gym or fix something around his home; at least afterward he would have felt productive.
He blamed his dysfunction on the brief experimentation he and Cersei had done as teenagers. They had been old enough to know better but they were so lonely and he loved her so much… Maybe the experience had broken him, mixing up the signals in his brain between familial love, romantic love, and lust. He grimaced at the memory and thought about how he rarely saw his sister without a drink these days and her strings of short-lived and volatile relationships. Maybe it had broken her a bit too.
Though in truth, none of the Lannister children developed what would be considered a healthy relationship with sex. From what he could gather, Cersei wielded sex like a weapon with her lovers and if Jaime struggled to find a reason to sleep with someone, Tyrion was incapable of finding a reason not to. And that would be all well and good for his little brother if it hadn't led to some seriously dangerous behavior that on numerous occasions had Tyrion anxiously awaiting test results of varying severity. Jaime couldn't fathom fucking as he knew it to be worth that.
He thought suddenly of Brienne and barely dodged the gloved fist Addam had aimed for his nose. It had been two weeks since the end of term, and though the memory of the pink and blue he associated with her had not faded, he was starting to wonder if he embellished them a little. Ah and there was another reason for his disappointment. His roster for his next semester's class had come out and one name was notably absent.
"Seven hells, Jaime," hissed Addam as he spun away, his hand going to cover where he'd just struck him in the side. "Either go lower in the flank or higher in the middle but not at my godsdamn floating rib."
"Sorry," he muttered, pulling off his headgear to toss it angrily at his bag and sat heavily on the bench. "Maybe I should just go for a run."
Addam glanced at the row of treadmills.
"Not those. I can't stand running on those. It's just picking up your legs and letting the ground move beneath you," said Jaime and his friend's face pulled down into a frown.
"It's freezing out."
Jaime shrugged, shoving his gloves into his bag. "I don't feel it much."
This was true. He always felt a cold sheen regardless of the temperature or how many layers he wore, a specter's cloak over his skin that he just could not shake. Between it and the color loss, he wanted to scoop his soul from his body and lock it away to keep it safe from whatever this was that made him feel like he was screaming underwater.
"Jaime, is everything alright?"
He stood and lifted his bag to turn towards the door.
"Sorry about the rib, Addam." He called over his shoulder.
Once in his car, he hesitated, his hands repeatedly flexing over the wheel trying to decide where to go. The track was out of the question as was his neighborhood. He wanted… well, he wasn't sure what he wanted but he definitely didn't want to be around people right now.
The forests that bordered the Red Fork of the Trident were known for their trails but the woods there were dense and not a summer went by without a hiker going missing. This past year had seen an unusually high number of disappearances; five, if he recalled correctly.
But it was the only choice that appealed to him at all.
He glanced at the map in his hand and back to the entrance point, reviewing his planned route. A mile-long branch that lead to a loop, he could repeat the path until he became more familiar with the area to safely explore. While Jaime did not mind flirting with disaster on occasion, he was not stupid.
Slipping the map back into his jacket and confirming his keys, phone, and pocket knife were in place, he stepped across the threshold of the wood and started a light jog. The snows of the winter season hadn't started yet, so his footing was sure on the uneven ground despite the dips and holes that had been worn by previous travelers.
Sunlight filtered through the canopy above, the shafts of light brightening and dimming his vision in an irregular pattern. Winter, though once his least favorite season, now wore the mantle of least hated. It was harder to miss color when there was less to be seen.
Perhaps I should look into a job at Winterfell University. It snows eight months out of the year there.
He picked up his pace and lengthened his strides once the path smoothed out and the rhythmic pounding of his feet synced with his breathing, his thoughts quieting as he entered a near meditative mental space. The woods around him were quiet except for the occasional call of a hawk far above and the babbling of a nearby brook that fed into the Forks. The frigid air hurt his lungs but his exertions melted a bit of the cold on his skin and he could breathe again. He pushed himself harder, relishing the burn in his legs, and the harsh rasps of his own breath in his ears, while the rest of the world fell away.
After his third pass on the loop, he slowed then stopped and hunched over, taking in deep pulls of air while his palms rested on his knees. The run had been good. A fight would have been better.
The sun was rapidly descending below the tree line but, not quite ready to return to his apartment, Jaime slid to the ground at the nearest tree and rested his arms out over his bent knees. The bark sent little pricks of discomfort through his hair into his scalp and he had just closed his eyes when he heard the soft 'whap' of a drop of liquid against the waterproof material of his coat. Peering through his lashes he frowned at the thick dark liquid on his sleeve.
Sap, he thought just as another fell right behind it.
The drops joined and beaded off his coat, the viscosity too low to actually be the thick, sticky liquid that was in abundance in the trees here. Curious, Jaime ran the fingers on his opposite hand through the remaining liquid and held them up to the best light.
For a moment Jaime froze, because even with his vision as it was, he still knew the liquid was red. Glancing up, he scrambled away from the base of the tree, a shout of alarm choking off before it even really began.
High above, near sixty feet if Jaime had to hazard a guess, a deer was impaled upon a thick, sheered-off branch, the blood from the wound seeping out to fall to the ground.
"Fuck," he breathed out.
How the hells is that even possible? And just, well-
"Fuck."
He returned the next day, camera in hand and a larger knife in his pocket, to document the strange findings. After checking with his contacts in the wildlife department and watching their perplexed and disbelieving expressions, he was determined to document the event in the hope to find a plausible answer.
He found the tree, the branch still stained dark from the blood, but the deer was gone.
"What… it was…" he muttered as he circled the trunk looking for signs that an animal had made a climb for the carcass and backed away when he found none.
"What are you doing here?"
Jaime spun, his hand automatically closing over the hilt of the knife concealed in his coat pocket. The rush of relief that came was immediately followed by shock.
Brienne Tarth was standing before him, her face pinched in suspicion but he hardly noticed.
No, I did not misremember her eyes at all. They are truly astonishing.
When he didn't respond, she tried again, more slowly this time.
"Professor Lannister, what are you doing here?"
Finally hearing her, he bristled at her tone. "I believe this is a public trail, is it not?"
"It is. But you're staring at that tree as if you expect it to come to life at a moment's notice."
He frowned, looking back to the offending branch. "I was here yesterday and I saw… it's going to sound mad but there was a deer, its body run through on that very branch. No one I asked had heard of such a thing so I came back to-" He lifted the camera in explanation and looked back to Brienne, expecting to find the same disbelief that had followed every time he told this story. But instead, she was staring at the branch, her brows and lips drawn tight.
"You should leave now, sir," she replied as she shifted the heavy pack that lay across her shoulders and pushed past him and off the trail, "and I wouldn't return to these woods for some time."
"Do you know what did this?" he snapped at her back and she paused, glancing back to him over her shoulder.
"No, but at the very least it is a bad omen."
"And at its worst?"
"Something I'm sure neither of us would like to encounter."
She stepped deeper into the wood, much to Jaime's alarm. "And where the bloody hell are you going?"
"Camping."
"You tell me to leave and not return for my safety but you intend to stay? Overnight?"
She hesitated once more, her eyes darting from his face to the ground and then the sky before settling on a spot of nothing over his shoulder. "I'm hiking to the Red Fork. I have a canoe waiting that will take me downstream to a campsite far from here."
"Liar."
That brought her to a full stop and she whirled on him. "This is not your classroom-"
"And yet you still call me 'Professor'."
"-and I am no longer your student-"
"My name is Jaime."
"And I owe you no explanation, lie or not."
"You are literally the worst liar I have ever seen so I appreciate sparing my intelligence the insult of any future attempt."
Her face went slack with shock before twisting into outrage. "Not a problem as I don't intend for us to ever speak again beyond today."
He grinned at her, the one that had gotten him almost anything he wanted when it was followed up with a wink, and was about to reply when his phone buzzed impatiently. It was a text from Ygritte from the wildlife/husbandry/fisheries department with a link followed by the words 'Closest I could find but he looks a bit on the small side'. He clicked on it and frowned as an article on a bird called the Northern Shrike popped up.
-will often impale its prey, typically still alive, on spikes, thorns, or an otherwise suitable surface and leave them there until they are ready to be consumed-
"Have you heard of the Norther-"
Jaime's voice died off as he looked up from his screen to find himself alone with nothing but empty space.