Jaime was startled as the horn blew behind him, the angry driver giving a rude gesture out the side of his window. Jaime returned it with equal fervor.
It was his fault for looking at the stop sign for so long, but he didn't care.
When he'd awoken that morning he'd spent several long minutes staring at his ceiling, reassuring himself that it wasn't a dream, that he once again could see red. Not the pale, faded imitation, but the vibrant, brilliant color and all the variations in between. The long, relieved breath he'd expelled when he finally took in the distinctive color again left him sagging against his bedpost.
But why? Why could he see it again?
He could only fathom that it had something to do with Brienne, and that was hardly an answer at all.
Why could he only see blue when he looked at her eyes? Why did he seek out any excuse to touch her and feel the warmth that burned beneath her skin?
The thoughts made him uncomfortable and irritated, and that was the mood he was in when he later found her at camp.
She turned from where she was kicking dirt on the fire, her hands on the straps of her overstuffed pack.
"What?" she asked, frowning at what he could only assume was the scowl on his own face.
"You certainly didn't waste any time," he muttered, nodding to the empty place where her tent had been.
"I said you didn't need to come today."
Jaime forced his face and body into a more relaxed position. "I know, but I thought I'd show you the markings on the way out."
"I saw them." She turned and kicked a bit more dirt on the embers.
"And?"
"And what?"
"Thoughts? Insights? Any similarities to anything in High Valaryian?" he asked, his arms going up at his sides in exasperation.
"I don't have anything to share."
Jaime scoffed.
"You went on for nearly two thousand words about the misuse and over-simplification of gendered pronoun translations alone in your last essay and you have nothing to add to this? I don't believe you."
"It wasn't two thousand words."
"It was. Because of you, I'm implementing my first ever word count limit on any future essays."
"I doubt other students will be a problem."
That, Jaime was certain, was true.
"I did it," he said slowly in a tone he knew would annoy her, "in case you took any of my other classes."
She looked briefly pained as she shouldered past him, her face downcast and Jaime felt most of his ire melt away.
"Why aren't you?" he asked and followed.
"Why aren't I what?"
"My gods, you are quite the parrot today. Why aren't you taking my course next semester?"
"With you always this pleasant, is it truly any wonder?"
"I am quite pleasant," he countered with a grin and fell in step beside her. "So pleasant in fact, I once had a student get a minor in historical studies by happenstance, simply because she took all my offered classes."
"And how would you know if it was by happenstance?"
"She told me when she propositioned me after graduation."
Brienne made a noise of disgust that Jaime wasn't sure was directed at him or the student.
"You still haven't answered my question," he pressed more quietly. "And I think I know you well enough now that even if you did find me odious, that wouldn't stop you from getting your degree if my course was required. So why aren't you taking my class?"
"I'm not taking any courses."
That brought him up short. "None? You're not enrolled at all?"
She was silent a long while, leaving Jaime to wonder. He supposed she could have graduated but he doubted it. If her degree was related to historical studies, his course would typically be taken in the first or second year and usually was not of interest to the other degreed students so near graduation. That left financial or familial issues or…
Jaime felt something in his chest twist with a new concern.
"Something came up," she answered finally.
"Brienne, do you have a place to stay?"
"What?" she asked, alarmed.
"Are you homeless?"
She relaxed her shoulders and looked at him askance. "What would make you ask that?"
"You've been living out in the woods for days on end in winter. I have yet to see any sort of transportation you own or signs of other people in your life. You say you aren't finishing school but won't tell me why. It is a more than reasonable question at this point."
She pressed the fingers on her right hand to her temple as if the conversation gave her a headache before leveling him with her steady gaze.
"I have a home. I have family. I am here because I choose to be."
Jaime stared back into the blue of her eyes and, seeing no deception, gave her a nod. They were silent until they crossed the marked row of trees, their gazes meeting briefly across one etched trunk before they continued.
Jaime dropped back to trail behind her so he could focus on the treetops and hoped to find something that proved he had not imagined the deer incident. Maybe then she'd believe him and not insist on being out here alone. Maybe then she would help him find out what was going on.
The overcast sky was a vast canvas the overhead branches stretched across, reminding Jaime of breaks spreading over weakened ice.
A few moments later, the pattern broke, and he reached out, his fingers brushing against the sleeve of Brienne's forearm.
"Look," he said and gestured upward. She followed his motion, squinting up at the trees to the dark mass above
"What is it?"
"Don't know," he said, abandoning the trail to walk right up the base of the tree that held it. "Can't properly make it out from down here."
Jaime stripped off his backpack and examined the trunk for the best hand hold and grimaced at the sap leaking from the tree. His clothes would surely be ruined if he managed this.
"What are you doing?" asked Brienne as she eyed him warily from around the bark.
"I'm going to climb up there and take a look."
"You must be joking."
He ignored her as he eyed the lowest branch. It was thin and reedy, but if it would support him long enough, there was a suitable one to pull himself up just above it.
I can do this, he thought taking one last look up. Can't be much harder than climbing the cliffs at Casterly.
The voice inside his head whispered that Casterly was his home, his domain in the sun and the surf and the spray of the ocean; and this cold, barren forest was not.
Backing up, Jaime ran at the tree and used his feet on the trunk to push him up high enough to snatch the limb in the air. He pulled his body weight up, his fingers brushing against the stronger branch just as the one he held snapped.
He stifled a grunt when he dropped to his feet, silently cursing his aging body as his knee cracked from the impact.
"Oh, for the sake of the gods," muttered Brienne. She unbuckled the support strap from her pack and jerked it from her shoulders, all the while practically shouting how much of an idiot she found him to be through her eyes. Stepping between him and the tree, she nodded to a point even further behind her and Jaime moved back, brow raising when she toed off her shoes.
Both shot up when she reached for the hem of her sweatshirt.
At the flash of pale skin, he thought she would be naked underneath until the wide band and straps of a sports bra came into view, the clusters of freckles over her shoulders disappearing under the dark material.
He felt strangely warm as he followed them with his eyes, watching how they shifted over the muscles of her back. Her very, very well defined back.
Though he never doubted she was strong, her ill-fitting clothing made Jaime imagine her to be built much like the larger college athletes: a soft middle with sturdy, thick limbs that mostly hid the muscles beneath.
Instead, her power was writ clear upon her arms and back, the individual muscles twining together to narrow slightly at her waist.
He couldn't look away, his jaw dropping slightly as he watched them all moving in a mesmerizing dance as she reached for the fly of her jeans. He felt his cock twitch when her thumbs hooked into the loose fabric and she shimmied them down her hips, revealing boyshorts that clung to the firm curves of her ass and the two dimples set just above it.
It occurred to him, at that moment, that maybe he shouldn't be watching, lest he give credence to her earlier accusations, but he found himself fascinated, curious, and more than a little rattled.
He'd never been spontaneously aroused like this.
Well, at least not since….
Jaime cut that thought off and half-heartedly averted his eyes to the ground, but that only allowed him to take in her legs, which he mused made up nearly two-thirds of her entire body. She had freckles there too, splattered lightly over strong thighs and he wondered if he could feel them if he ran his palm over the skin there or if they were as smooth as they looked.
She carefully folded her clothes and avoiding his gaze, set them down on a dry spot of earth before she straightened and ran at the tree. With a soft grunt, she leaped up, easily grabbing a thick branch even higher than the one Jaime had gone for. In a move of surprising dexterity, she lifted one leg between the space of her arms to hook her knee over the wood and pulled up until she was crouched upon it.
It seemed to Jaime only an instant more before she was halfway up, moving in an unbroken flow of efficient movements that reminded him of the jungle cats he'd seen on a trip to Essos once.
Swallowing thickly, he found this display of athleticism perhaps even more captivating than her unintentional striptease.
"Who are you?" he murmured to himself and backed up to better keep her in his sight when he stumbled over her abandoned pack, accidentally dislodging some of the contents.
Cursing, he picked up the worn leather book and brushed off the speck of dirt. The spine of the thing was well broken in, the edges of the blank cover bowing outward from hours and hours of use.
With a glance up at Brienne, he thumbed it open, fanning through the middle of the handwritten pages, and grimaced, assuming it was a journal. His finger slipped as he went to close it, the next page turning underneath.
His breath stilted in his chest.
There, right on the page was the rune from the trees.
Algiz, he read, For protection. Combined, many can create a barrier to ward off or contain an Other.
It was one of many sketched in multiple neat rows, some of which he recognized from the library and others he did not, each with descriptions written in High Valaryian underneath.
She knew.
Jaime felt all warmth drain from his body, his fingers going numb where he gripped the book. His breath coming fast, he started to flip the pages, words and illustrations floating before him.
Shadowraiths, ice spiders, wyverns… he skimmed, catching something about other worlds and the creatures that dwelled within, their weaknesses, and strengths.
He felt sick when he came upon a roughly done drawing of a deer impaled.
Bait for a jotnar. Must be fresh.
She knew.
He felt surprisingly calm as he turned the page once more.
A huge, solid black figure, as tall as the trees drawn around it stretched across the page. The caption underneath was etched deeply into the paper and underlined, as if even writing it distressed the author.
Se Blēnon.
"The Mountain," whispered Jaime.
"What are you doing?"
In his distraction, he hadn't noticed Brienne dropping down from the branches.
"You did this," he said simply. It was the only explanation that made sense. "You carved the rune into the trees-"
She jerked the notebook back from his hands and snatched up her clothes, quickly replacing them.
"You've been lying to me this whole time."
"I never lied."
"You never struck me as one to quibble about semantics," he bit out, the numbness fading as the anger started to creep in. "A lie by omission, then."
"A liar is better than a thief," she snapped back, lifting the book in accusation but he ignored it for the flimsy deflection it was.
"Is that what you've been doing out here this whole time? Writing in that thing about imaginary creatures, carving runes into trees to what? Play pretend?" His face twisted in disgust and horror. "And it was you, wasn't it? You put that animal up in the tree."
Her face flushed, her indignant gaze dropping to the ground. Nothing else could have announced her guilt more.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" he whispered when she said nothing further.
At that, her head jerked up. "You think…" she hissed, "You actually think that I could- that I did this for, that I'm just-" her words cut off abruptly and Brienne's face smoothed out into something blank and distant though Jaime could see the tears filling her eyes.
"What you think doesn't matter," she finished woodenly and grabbed her pack to shove in her book, and marched away. "What anyone thinks doesn't matter."
"This is not okay, Brienne. You are not okay."
He ran to block her path but she smoothly slid around him.
"Stay out of my way. I owe you nothing."
"You need professional help," he tried again, more urgently.
"What I need," she said sharply, her eyes flashing though she did not let up on her stride, "is for you to leave me alone."
Jaime was about to retort when they broke through the tree cover to find themselves at the trail entrance. He hadn't even noticed how far they'd walked.
"Brienne? Is everything alright?"
A man was leaning up against a truck parked next to Jaime's car, his dark eyes narrowed and darting between the two of them.
To Jaime, he was just on the smaller side of an average build, his lightly lined face and brown hair making it difficult to ascertain his age. Though he had addressed Brienne, the man was glaring at Jaime with a similarly assessing look.
"I'm fine," the woman replied sharply moving quickly to the passenger door where she climbed in.
The two men glared at one another, causing Jaime to smirk.
Go ahead and try me, he thought, You'll be sorry for it.
After a long moment, the man pulled open his door and climbed in, and together they drove away, leaving Jaime in the clearing alone.
"Fuck."