worlds collide memething!

[puella_nerdii]

Stolen from Mith! (Like she stole my heart, and other such ridiculous endearments.)

Step One: Choose one from Column A, one from Column B.

COLUMN A: FAN CHARACTERSFinnick Odair (The Hunger Games) - everyone's golden god (and he'd rather he wasn't

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[puella_nerdii]

The Lady Helen is the first of the Vale-lords to arrive at Arryn's funeral, and already clad in black. She arrives by ship and said she chartered the first one she could find when she heard the news, but the journey from Gulltown to King's Landing ought to have taken longer than that. He can't say precisely how long she should have spent at sea, but it should have been longer, he's sure of it. And from the way she smiles at him after she delivers the news, she knows it as well as he does.

What else does she know? The thought chafes him for the ride up to the Red Keep, prickling at the back of his skull.

Lady Helen draws her horse beside his. "I'm afraid Lady Lysa took the news poorly," she says. Her voice is deep for a woman's, almost a rasp. "Doubtless it was the shock."

"Doubtless," Jaime agrees, and keeps his gaze on the road ahead, tightens his grip on the reins. Lady Helen offers nothing in reply, but she's staring at him, he knows, taking in his armor piece by piece as though she's sensing for the cracks and chinks. Jaime shrugs more of his cloak over his shoulders, but it does little to discourage her. Their horses trot in time, almost loud enough to bury what she says next.

"He was not a young man, but none of us expected such a sudden departure." She sighs, a small hmm at the back of her throat. "He seemed so healthy when last I saw him."

"If I had a dragon for every man I've seen cut down in his prime," Jaime tells her, "I'd be richer than my father. And Jon Arryn was past his."

"Yes, well." She smiles. He wishes she wouldn't do that. "The circumstances are somewhat different, you must admit."

"Are they? It's dangerous business to be the Hand of the King. Lord Arryn was luckier than most of his predecessors."

"Dangerous indeed." Lady Helen seems to float in her saddle, barely bouncing with the motion of her mount. It unnerves him. "I wonder what business of the king's he was on before he died."

The sun retreats behind a cloud, and Jaime is far colder than he has any right to be. His sword hangs heavy at his side, but it's of no use to him now, not in the middle of King's Landing in broad daylight. Within the walls of the Red Keep -- well, that's another matter.

"Well, I suppose it's up to the next Hand to pick up where he left off." She peers at him over the bridge of her nose. "I wonder who that might be."

"I don't want it," he says flatly.

"Nobody wants it, ser," she says. "But someone must."