CHAPTER 5

As soon as she entered Kings Landing, her life went to shit. Laenna had been pulled out of the carriage and dragged all the way to the throne room.

"The king desires your immediate presence!" and "Move quicker" were all the words given to her as she was dragged by knights barely caring if she tripped or fell. Laenna was very clumsy all her life and rocks seemed to catch her feet and she caught herself on her dress in her haste, and Laenna felt herself as well as they take an inhale of breath as she stopped for but a second to right herself a few times.

Everything about Kings Landing was intimidating and the dragons and skulls and magnitude seemed to slowly sink into her how much worse everything was going to be than what she thought.

Then she entered the throne room and her life turned to chaos. A throne room was supposed to represent the Government, order, structure, justice and control. But all Laenna found here was a breakdown of everything moral in Westeros. Then she saw him. Mad King Aerys they would later call him. A king given up to insanity, who's greatest pleasure seemed to be sneering, he was very ugly, his nails long and his hair wild and out of control, the man seemed like nothing could bring him peace. Laenna wondered if this was how others saw her. Was she such a monster as he.

"Your name sounds so similar to Lyanna Stark's and yet you are no great beauty."

Laenna felt her heart stop at his observation and her eyes immediately turned towards Jaime, he was avoiding her gaze. But she had to see him, surely Jaime would not let her get hurt. Surely, the king would not hurt her in front of all these nobles. So long as that was the case, she would not let his barbed curses cut here.

"I am sorry my king," she said, not knowing what else to say.

"You are here to tell me what you said when Rhaegar touched you, leave nothing out, or there will be consequences"

Laenna realized quickly her next words would be important and words spluttered out of her.

"Your grace, I cannot remember anything, all I saw were some images but I highly doubt they mean anything-"

Before Laenna could finish her rambling, the king raised his hand in gesture and Laenna was slapped across the face by a Kingsguard to the hard cold floor. As she trembled, she did not know what to do, and started trembling and trying to breath again, hyperventilating.

"Do not lie to me."

"I'm not lying, my king, please have mercy," she begged.

"Now we'll see the truth," he seemed to start muttering before regaining his senses.

"Bring it!" he ordered loudly.

As she was forced to her knees, a horrific display started before her. The king took a sharp knife to his wrist and slid it along, as a servant holding a bowl under the bleeding vein aimed to collect it. A bowl of what seemed to be blood was brought to her, although this turned out to be more poison than anything else, it burnt like acid, and her mind turned into a minefield of powerful visions rocking through her. It would not stop, the intense pain.

After that of her ramblings being written down, she was thrown in a small room in the keep, doors locked, a window from up high with a terrifying drop, minimal space left to pace and wait, a small bed for furniture, and stone walls holding her from escaping, and no matter how she begged, she was usually starved and thirsted.

"Please, I beg of you," she had cried weakly against the door, "I just want some water."

Though she had survived. That had been because of a piece of bread being slid under the door every few days and a cup of water being lowered by a rope into her chambers and truly the only voice and face that kept her going at the time.

"Jaime," she whispered through the door.

"I'm here, Laenna. Eat quickly."

Laenna just sat and couldn't stop eating her crumbly bread, "Thank you. Thank you," she whispered, caressing the door, imagining it to be the face she felt as she lay awaking from a fever, cool and present with ever growing stubble.

"Jaime, I'm scared, I don't know if I can survive this much longer," she admitted.

She heard a thump and jumped back, "No, please," he whispered harshly, "Please, hold on, I beg you, Don't. I'll think of something. I'm sure father will come save us."

She cried as she said, "What if he doesn't."

"Then I'll get us out of here, I'll cut through all of them - I don't know - Just don't do anything rash, Laenna."

Laenna thought of what to say as she suddenly heard a sound.

"Oh shit!" he whispered, "I have to go," Jaime said, "I promise I'll be back, just hold on," as his footsteps already retreated quickly.

She lay against the door, eating whatever was left quickly and in fear she stopped breathing as she heard someone come to guard the door.

What she kept thinking as she lay in bed later that night, once again contemplating death for peace, was that he came for her and she guessed she owed him her holding on in return.

But still those shining bits of hope in the form of his voice and his face leaned over the edge holding a rope were few.

Then as this cursed practice was repeated so many times over several days and weeks in that horrid court room and she was returned to that small prison and then brought back again, it was hard to escape the terror that this nightmare would never end and her desire to keep herself alive for Jaime started failing. It felt like she was burning alive every time, like fire was spreading from the very inside of her, threatening to consume her. She wondered sometimes if this is how dragons felt like when blowing their giant flames from within them.

The king had also decided at this point that she was for sure a witch and not just a liar because she had been alive for weeks without food or water, or so he thought, not knowing Jaime snuck her in the lifesaving items.

"You are a liar, yet you are a sorceress who can see the future and who can survive on nothing but air," the court gasped and started whispering amongst themselves, "and you will be punished for it."

It turns out Jaime's attempt to save her life got her hit in the face for every day she was alive since she was here. Black and blue as she was, she tried to keep her focus on Jaime, and as she looked at his face frozen in a look of horror, she tried remembering all the times she watched him train, remembering his opened tooth grin, and every time his hand had ever touched her arm, and every time he ever looked at her. This kept her conscious.

As time went by the king decided one day after much of Laenna's staring in his direction to force Jaime to deliver the blood to her and of course she begged as she resisted.

She looked into his eyes as she cried and begged and thrashed in fear, "Jaime, please, I cannot do this, Jaime it hurts. I'm scared I'll die."

Jaime stared at her with so much pain and fear and uncertainty as he held the bowl, and looked ever more his age than ever before, gone was the traces of the golden knight, and before her, a boy of 15.

It felt so long ago they had spoken and she had last seen him but oh she had missed him, he reminded her of home, and of Tyrion, and of every good in her life she had, and she had realized she forgave his words and his absence and just the fact he didn't love her, because he was just a kid, like her, trying to figure his life out and though all of it still trying to be a white knight.

Jaime listened to her tears and turned to the king in a moment of brave and foolish and utterly un-Lannister-like decision making,"My king, please, this truly hurts her, I grew up with her, I cannot do it. Please, she doesn't deserve this, she's good," he stared at the king pleading, "This can't be right."

With that, Jaime had only refused the first time and he had received a truly horrible punishment and Laenna never begged him again out of fear he might be executed. She never forgave herself either for being the cause of his physical damage.

He was whipped within an inch of his life and would carry the scars forever. Laenna was forced to watch.

By the end Laenna was wheezing and heaving heavily from her sobs and promised Aerys she would give him anything and everything.

"NOOOO! NOOO! PLEASE! I promise I'll never beg him again. I'll do whatever you want! ANYTHING AT ALL! Please! YOU'RE GOING TO KILL HIM!"

But he merely told her this, "He did make a promise of loyalty as well before his king and all the gods and people, and this is his punishment for defying that. Do not forget, because I won't stop at a whipping ."

The guilt, the blood dripping of Jaime's back. This is what being good and defending her had gotten him. Tywin was right, why did she get everyone involved in her shit.

Laenna ripped out her hair as she attempted to help him and was forced to sit back down.

Everytime she had a mouth full of blood, she knew everyone looked at her as a monster. What can you do when a person with a bloodied tongue and red teeth is constantly shaking and screaming and thrashing? She must've looked like a truly wild thing.

It seems even now Laenna has a fear of blood as a result of this, affecting her ability to take care of even the smallest of cuts, and not being able to kiss her childrens smallest of cuts.

Laenna was forever damaged by this and Laenna hated this fact.