"How did you learn to speak High Valaryian?"
Brienne stumbled in his peripheral vision. She was off to his right, weaving through the trees.
"I…" she started, her eyes still focused on the ground as she slid around a trunk, briefly disappearing from his view. "My mother. It was the only language she spoke with me."
Jaime's brows rose. The answer made sense, though it was surprising, but then it begged the same of her mother.
"Is she an Academic?" he asked, thinking he must have come across her work though he could not recall any Tarths. She might have kept her own family name, he considered.
"She's dead."
"Ah," he replied, his tone light. "How old were you when it happened?"
There was no response for several long seconds and Jaime noticed a few dark birds overhead, flitting between the stark foilage.
"Eight."
He nodded and stepped over a downed log. "I was seven." She glanced at him and his mouth quirked up in a small, understanding smile that widened at her surprise. "Do you have any siblings?"
Her expression became stormy once again. "I came out here in part because I like the quiet," she grumbled pulling ahead of him.
"Oh come now, we must have some sort of conversation."
"Not really."
"I'll start us off."
"When did you ever stop?"
"I have two siblings. A sister and a brother."
The sound of leaves crunching underfoot was her only response.
"I am technically the middle child," he continued. "though as a twin, it's hard to say if that really matters. My brother hates being the youngest almost as much as Cersei despises him for the same."
"Your sister hates your brother?"
That got your attention, he thought and filed it away for later consideration.
"Quite. And he mislikes her as well."
A look of genuine unease crossed her face. "That's terribly sad."
"I agree. I love them both." He let that hover between them. "I think Tyrion would like you."
With a much-aggrieved sigh, Brienne slowed. "You don't know me enough to say that for sure. You don't know me at all."
"So complains the woman who will not speak to me."
"I'm not complaining."
"It does not matter that I do not know you. I know Tyrion and I know how fond he is of oddities."
Brienne's face flushed and she turned away, leaving Jaime behind to catch her.
"I think you and your brother are confusing fondness with derision and mockery," she snapped through gritted teeth.
Jaime grinned as she verbally stepped right into his trap. "Tyrion is a dwarf."
She stopped short, looking for the lie, and he held his hand up to just below the mid of his abdomen.
"Seven years younger than me and he's never been taller than this. So no, not amusement. Kinship."
Looking slightly chagrined, she resumed her walk at a more sedate pace.
"He's fond of me as well," he said meaningfully and he heard her light scoff.
"And how exactly are you an oddity, inability to tolerate silences aside?"
"You'd be surprised," he said tightly, the joy of teasing her vanishing when he recalled all the parts of himself that others found inadequate.
"Doubtful," she responded though she had looked quizzical at his change in tone.
They walked in silence until flurries started to drop in the air and Jaime flexed his fingers, trying to will some of the warmth back into them. He shivered and thought back to that moment at her small camp when his hand touched hers... Had it just been a fanciful imagining spurred on by the adrenaline of their argument? He was tempted to test the theory and weighed the odds of getting slapped if he tried to take her hand again.
Grimacing, he dismissed the idea for reasons not even having to do with his certainty that she could knock him flat. Jaime was well aware he could be a right asshole but he wasn't that kind of asshole and she was obviously prickly about her personal space.
Maybe if he approached it as a jest...
"You know-" he started but Brienne held up her hand to silence him, her eyes unfocused.
"Listen."
Holding his breath, Jaime thought he could hear faint rustling and high-pitched whimpers in the distance. Exchanging a glance, they changed direction, moving as one slowly through the underbrush towards the distressed sounds. Jaime palmed the hilt of his knife, worried they would find an animal mid-impalement, and prepared himself for the sight.
Together they crouched and Brienne peered around the tree trunk that shielded them when they were close.
"Oh no," she murmured and rose immediately to her feet. Jaime snatched at her sleeve to pull her back but she just covered his hand with her own (warm again, so warm) and gestured forward before pulling away.
Moving to stand beside her, the reason for the disturbance was obvious.
"A wolf," he breathed out.
The creature was massive, its shoulders near as high as Tyrion was tall. Its dark grey fur was raised in warning along with its gleaming teeth exposed by snarling lips.
"It's trapped," she whispered, pointing to a hind leg. The lighter-colored fur there was matted with blood but he could still make out the glint of barbed wire that had tangled around it and caught in the brush.
"Maybe... If you could keep its attention, I could try to cut the wire," he said moving around Brienne while the wolf's eyes followed him. Feeling a swell of pity for the creature, he took a testing step forward only to be jerked back when the animal made a mad lunge, its jaws snapping before it lapsed into a series of pained whimpers.
"Hells," swore Brienne quietly as she released her hold on his upper arm.
Jaime began to look around for anything he could use to block the animal's front half from spinning around to bite when he saw Brienne pull a multitool from her pack.
"Stay right there and don't move," she said to him as she stood and faced the wolf.
What the hell does she think...
This time he was the one reaching out, his arm wrapping around her middle to spin and push her back behind him.
"Didn't you just see what it tried to do to me?" He hissed, his fingers squeezing her thick sweatshirt to press into the solid flesh underneath. "We need something to brace its head, or at the very least give it a different target to bite."
Brienne looked down at where he still held her and gently extricated herself from his grasp.
"That will only agitate him."
"Better it than you," he replied automatically and she took a step back from him looking deeply confused, before shaking her head as if to clear it.
Her voice was maddeningly calm when she finally spoke, eyes settling on his. "Let me try. If it lunges at me, I'll stop and we can do it your way."
For once she looked at him with something other than scorn or dismissal and Jaime found himself nodding.
She gave him one small smile of assurance and stepped around him to face the distressed creature now twisting against its bound leg, its growls and cries blending together
"Gīda aōla. Kesan daor ōdrikagon ao, lēkia," she said in a low, soothing tone and the wolf focused its amber gaze on her, its chest heaving and lip curled.
This is a bad idea. This will never work. His heart pounded against his ribs and he fought the instinct to yank her away. Stupid stubborn woman.
Maneuvering closer to the injured limb, her movements were slow but steady while she continued to speak.
"Kesā sagon dāez."
The great wolf calmed though it continued to watch her warily.
"Kesā sagon dāez," she repeated and, in a moment that made Jaime's stomach lurch, reached out to smooth her palm down the raised fur on the back of the animal.
Impossible. Unnatural.
The tension in the wolf lessened and Brienne crouched down and went to work, the tool in her hand quickly snapping apart the tangled wire. After a moment, she hesitated, repeating her whispered words to the wolf before she undid the last piece around the leg, and pulled the embedded barbs from flesh and fur.
It snarled once and jumped away, limping tentatively on the leg before it tore off into the forest.
Brienne let out a relieved breath before returning to cut away the wire and prevent any future ensnarements.
But Jaime... Jaime could look only at her.
"How did you do that?" he asked a little breathlessly and Brienne bit her lower lip before rising.
"I'm good with animals... better than people, anyway," she explained, not quite meeting his eyes as she tucked the tool next to a worn leather book in the front pocket of her bag.
Look at me, he wanted to snap at her but instead, he just forced a wry smile. "Teaching a dog to sit is a little different than getting an injured, fucking massive wolf to allow you to touch it."
But the woman only shrugged, slinging her pack over her broad shoulders. "I'm just glad it worked." Shuffling her feet, she tucked her loose hair behind an ear. "You don't need to come back tomorrow."
His eyes narrowed with an almost bored look. "Yes, nothing at all dangerous or eventful happened today," he deadpanned. "How silly of me to insist."
"I only mean to say," she sighed closing her eyes as if to summon her patience from a deep well, "that tomorrow is my last day out here... for the time being. "
"Then there's no reason for me to not check-in if you won't be here long tomorrow."
He smiled caustically when she glared and pushed past him.
"You know, I don't think there's ever been a woman so eager to be rid of me before."
She spun around, her spine straightening. Despite the mud on her knees and the disarray of her hair, she looked almost regal.
"There are no women like me. There's only me."
His mind threw forward several snide and cruel responses but they all died on his tongue at the sad, solemn look on her face.
They hiked back to her camp with no further exchange except for Jaime's quiet promise to return in the morning.
Later, he sighed as he stared up at his apartment building, finding it somehow less appealing than the cold dark forest.
He flipped on the lights once he was in the door and shed his jacket.
Then, he froze.
Because on the counter, he could see stains sunk into the stone slab, the light red swirls now apparent over the grey.
The pomegranates.
Startled, he looked around but the rest of his apartment was as colorless as he remembered. Abandoning his jacket to the floor he stepped forward, his fingers tracing over the color he had not seen properly in years while his throat bobbed in a dry swallow and his eyes burned.
Slowly, filled with equal parts dread and hope, he walked into his bedroom, to his closet, and kneeled on the ground to remove the box he had tucked away long ago. He gripped the lid, closing his eyes before he yanked it off.
And there was the folded tapestry of his family's coat of arms, the rich Lannister crimson unmistakable against the surrounding grey, and Jaime barked out a half-hysterical, half giddy laugh.
I can see it. I can see red.