He had to go back.

In truth, he was quite disgusted with himself for not doing so immediately after she vanished off the trail. It would be dawn soon and the light would be enough to search for Brienne by the time he made it back to the Red Fork Trails. Five people had vanished in those woods and something had put that mutilated deer in the trees.

What the hell had he been thinking?

He shivered when he tossed back the twisted blankets from his torso and legs. His phone showed one missed call from Addam and a text from Tyrion asking how his time with their father had gone. Ignoring them both, he pulled on his layers, forgone his running shoes for hiking boots, and grabbed a backpack he'd shoved a bit of standard gear into before heading out the door.

The unpaved clearing that served as parking to the trail was empty, a detail he found unsurprising for the early hour and the cold.

How did she get here? It's several miles to the nearest residential area, he wondered scanning again for evidence of a bike at least.

Seeing none, he left his vehicle, frowning at the skies when a few snowflakes fluttered in his field of vision.

He fired off a text to Addam saying he was hiking on the Red Forks Trails and he would call him later before he pocketed his phone and entered the wood. Deciding the best place to start was where he saw her last, Jaime returned to the tree. The staining on the branch was barely visible now and he ran his palm over the bark, contemplating the last place he had seen Brienne. He pulled out his compass, intending to head South, towards the water, and sweep East. Though he was certain she was lying about the canoe, it was the only lead he had and he suspected the woman would try to use a bit of the truth to conceal a lie.

The detritus on the ground crunched underfoot as he stepped off the trail, the sound surprisingly loud in the still morning air. Short of an obvious campsite or Brienne herself, Jaime wasn't certain for what exactly he was looking for.

It's not as if Tywin was the 'wilderness explorer' type who taught us any life skills, let alone tracking.

He snorted at the thought. Yes, he could picture it now… Tywin, Jaime, Cersei, and Tyrion all crammed into a tent in the woods without a modern efficiency insight, the mood rapidly shifting from explosive screaming to high-strung tension. He had a hard time deciding on who would snap first, though, and how they would go about it. While he would normally bet on Tyrion growing tired of Cersei's incessant complaining to stab her with a campfire roasting fork, he had the sneaking suspicion his father would decide the lot of them were such disappointments, he'd drown them all in a river first.

Yes, that seemed to fit. Very slow, very personal deaths for each of his wayward children.

Tywin did have that 'eau de family annihilator' if circumstances were just right.

Sighing, he considered if Brienne had family or anyone at all who knew where she was to raise an alarm if she didn't return. An attempt to picture her parents had him frowning into the empty woods about him. Genetics were a tricky lot, Tyrion being the prime example. Though it did not require tall parents to make a tall child, Jaime couldn't see them as anything else, with light hair and fair skin to match the daughter. He wondered which she inherited her eyes from, but could not picture them in the gruff old face of the man he imagined to be her father.

Her mother, then, he decided confidently. And who did she learn High Valaryian from?

Tutors on the subject were expensive and the language notoriously difficult.

And she speaks it… even father could not have tempted away a master with enough coin to stay at Casterly Rock the years required to do that.

He rolled the surname Tarth around in his head, seeing if it matched up to any of the branches of the Great Houses but came up empty. The only Tarth he knew of at all was an Island off the coast on the other side of Westeros from the Westerlands.

Perhaps she just memorized that passage… he reasoned to himself but knew that immediately to be false. Her first essay had shredded apart the Azor Ahai translation from High Valarian in a way only a fluent master could presume to.

The air grew colder and Jaime pulled up his scarf to better shield his face and braced his hand upon a nearby tree trunk. He initially only spared it a glance before he looked again, this time seeing deep gouges extending from under the cover of his palm.

Claw marks? he considered but soon saw, with his hand removed, that the etchings were quite intentional, if indecipherable.

A long line with acute angles branching off two-thirds from the top, the symbol was unfamiliar to him. He saw it again in a tree several feet away.

Stepping away from his path to peer around this second symbol to the trees beyond, his lips parted in surprise when he could already see several more in the distance. Considering, he turned around and found it along the trees stretching out in the opposite direction.

Looking back at his compass, he followed one line of marked trees, noticing they curved in a southeasterly direction before following the other side.

And to the southwest. They would form a circle if they continued on long enough.

He returned to his starting point and tried to take it in, tried to understand what exactly it was he was looking at, and came up empty for a logical explanation. He took a picture of the markings before continuing along his intended path, his going slow as he kept checking the canopy for other grisly sights and the trunks for symbols.

This distraction was the reason, he told himself, that he didn't see the camp until he was directly upon it. A bare patch of earth nestled between the trees, it allowed just enough space for a small tent and dug out firepit, the embers now burning low enough only a few wisps of smoke curled away into the air. A pack, her pack, was dangling where it had been slung over a branch and secured with a rope.

He swallowed, somehow knowing Brienne would already be behind him.

"You, again," she muttered somewhere beyond his left shoulder and he turned to see her frowning. She looked disheveled, her hair wild with the occasional leaf and twig sticking from it and clothing lashed with muddy streaks across the arms and legs. The coat she always covered herself with was gone and Jaime glanced down at her right hand, noticing the way her fingers curled and her wrist bent away from his sight.

Concealing a knife, he surmised and looked back up to see she had followed his gaze. Raising his hands placatingly, he spoke, his voice calm and low.

"I wanted to make sure you were alright."

Brienne blinked a few times in rapid succession, looking genuinely perplexed. "Well, clearly I am."

"I don't think it's safe for you to be out here."

The woman huffed a short laugh, her posture relaxing though the confusion had not left her face. "I am aware of the risks of being out here and have taken precautions. This is not my first time staying in this wood."

Jaime frowned, frustrated that she didn't seem to be taking the matter seriously. "What are you doing out here anyway that's so important?"

"I could ask the same of you," she replied tartly.

"I already told you."

"Yes, it is completely normal for grown men to follow women they don't know into the woods and encroach upon their camping space."

His lip curled at the insinuation. While Jaime could admit to himself his slight infatuation with her, it was pure curiosity. He was no more sexually attracted to her than he was to anyone else, and he was most certainly not a rapist or any of that vile sort. He should have, he knew, responded with reassurances that he was only concerned for her safety as any decent person would and offered to wait while she contacted a friend or relative to tell them where she was and who she was with.

But he did not.

"Like anyone would believe that's why I am here," he snarled and her eyes narrowed dangerously.

"Only an idiot would think assault is about attraction instead of power. And I've met plenty of men who wanted to prove they had power over me. Every single one of them has regretted it."

A twinge of shame passed through Jaime but his pride kept his eyes on hers. "I'm not them."

They glared at one another until Brienne stepped aside and gestured back the way he came. "Your concern has been noted, sir."

"I'm not putting my back to you until you stow that knife."

Her brow lifted in surprise and a moment later she unfurled her grip, a black glistening blade unlike Jaime had ever seen rotating in her hand before she stooped and vanished it into her boot.

"Will you leave?" he asked when they had drawn even.

"No."

Her blatant dismissal of him and his concerns rankled and Jaime found himself responding "Then I'll be back tomorrow" with no small amount of spite.

The responding scowl was furious and he tasted victory. "There is no need for you and you are most certainly not welcome."

Jaime shrugged. "I've been told that my entire life by people whose opinions I care for far more than yours. It hasn't dissuaded me yet."

There was a flash of something behind those blue eyes, but Brienne just gave a frustrated growl and turned away.

He was seated in his car before he realized he had not asked her about the symbols on the trees.

"Ungrateful woman," he muttered under his breath and withdrew his phone to study the etching again. It did not remind him of the early writings of the First Men or the Andals, nor the imagery of the Seven or The Old Gods who were worshipped almost exclusively in the North. And though he was not near as knowledgeable on the Wildlings that once lived on the perpetually frozen tundras at the ends of the world, he did not recall any of their works having similar aesthetics.

If not Westeros... he thought and put his car in reverse. Then Essos.

Hours later he emerged from the university library, successful, with several carefully folded photocopies in his hand. From an early religious sect out of Asshai known as the Shadowbinders who worshiped the fire god, the symbol was a rune used by the priests and priestesses to utilize and maintain their magic in areas even in their absence.

He'd found several, each with a purpose ranging from the specifically malevolent to surprisingly mundane, but the one that matched the picture on his phone was practically benevolent.

Shield. Protect.

Whatever had put that deer in the tree had not made those marks, Jaime was certain.

He was surprised to find her camp unmoved the next morning.

"I am not leaving," she snapped at him from her seat by the fire.

When she offered nothing else, he sat across the flames to study the woman who was steadfastly refusing to look at him. The forest debris was gone from her blonde hair and her clothes were fresh despite the boots still caked in mud. Oversized sweatshirts and baggy men's jeans seemed to be her preferred ensemble choices though Jaime could not imagine anything else looking much worse. Eyeing the sweatshirt, he thought it must be a variant of blue.

Would go nicely with her eyes... not that I can see either at the moment.

"So, what are we doing today?" he asked loudly and smiled at the alarm writ clear upon her face.

"We?"

"Yes, 'we'. And I'm not going to just sit here and stare at your dour face all day."

Lightning fast, she rose to her feet and spun away from him.

"Godsdammit," he grumbled, scrambling up to charge after her. "Brienne, wait!"

When she did not stop, he reached out, his fingers clamping around her trailing hand. It was only an instant of contact before she wrenched her grip away, but Jaime was left momentarily stunned, his hand unconsciously flexing from the sudden warmth running from his fingers to elbow.

"Do not touch me," she hissed through gritted teeth.

Swallowing, Jaime dropped his hand from where it was still held out.

"Look, I just want to figure out what is going on. I would come back even if you weren't here, but since you are, we can look out for each other while I do what I need to do and you do whatever is so important to you."

When her expression remained suspicious, he pulled the photocopies from his back pocket and angled himself so she could see.

"I saw this," he said, jabbing a finger at one of the pictures, "carved into the trees back there. Two days ago, I saw that deer. I don't know if they are connected but something is happening and I need to know what it is."

When he looked up to guage her response she had already turned to move towards the camp. "And why does that require us to stay together?"

The papers in his hand drooped as he stared at her back while she busied herself with some of her belongings. Jaime considered repeating his line about his generic concern but paused, deciding to be a bit more honest since he was getting nowhere. It was a truth that nagged at him that first night when he tried to sleep and continued to chisel away at his peace yesterday after he left.

"Because," he said softly, " I have a feeling something terrible will happen if we don't."

Brienne's hands stilled and she looked back over her shoulder, her gaze wary.

"Fine," she muttered after a moment and rose, "Where to first?"