FIC: See So Much, or Live So Long (Jaime/Brienne) for tehgiantsquid
Recipient: tehgiantsquid
Title: See So Much, or Live So Long
Rating: R (some language)
Pairing: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth, Sansa Stark
Word Count: ~3,000
Summary: Jaime Lannister would have thought that being defeated and disgraced would, at least, spare him ever having to attend another high-born Westerosi wedding. And yet, somehow, here he is.
Warnings: Deals with a speculative ending to the series, so very little that happens here is strictly canon. However, spoilers for events (and suggested future events)in "A Dance with Dragons" will be mixed in. Since this is future fic, and since it's ASOIAF, you can expect grim fates (including death) for canon characters.
A/N: Title is a paraphrase of the last line of "King Lear", The oldest have borne most; we that are young/Shall never see so much, nor live so long.
Only when the dark-haired girl entered the sept and, wearing the cloak of House Martell, climbed the altar to wait for her groom - only then did Jaime Lannister realized he had expected the princess to look like his dead sister.
Jaime leaned to murmur in Brienne's ear. "She looks nothing like her grandmother."
"You don't know that." Jaime gave Brienne a curious look. Even after all this time, he didn't think anyone could question his knowledge of Cersei's face. "Most people have two grandmothers. She might take after the Dornish side."
As Brienne spoke, her fingers pressed into the tendons of his good wrist. She always sat on his left, Jaime had long ago surmised, to increase her opportunity to at least try and silence him in a dignified way. If she really wanted to punish him, he supposed, she would have sat on the right and made him jump with pain. At present, he acquiesced, and turned his attention the wedding parties.
If the bride took after her Dornish father, the groom's broad shoulders and equine face were all Stark. Odd, because his mother had favored the Tully side. She still did, Jaime saw, as Sansa met her son at the foot of the altar steps. They both wore the livery of House Baelish, although there was hardly any Littlefinger in the boy's face, and as for the man himself . . . One might argue Petyr had played well at the game of thrones, until forced to note that he wasn't around to enjoy the fruits of his labor.
Next, the bride's mother turned to the assembled crowd, and that was a Lannister face. Jaime hadn't seen Myrcella since she was a child. In the intervening time, she had been wife, mother, and widow, her Dornish husband as dead as Sansa's Littlefinger. Myrcella didn't precisely favor her mother (didn't favor Jaime) but, now approaching middle age, she was still fair in her own way. Even the sideswept hairstyle she had been forced to adopt in her youth had become a sign of fashion. The Myrcella Look. Maybe now it didn't matter it had been given to her to disguise the loss of her ear in an attempted kidnapping.
He must have been watching Myrcella more keenly than he realized, because the pressure Brienne placed on his hand took on a different quality. Her eyes shifted to look into his. Tell me what you're thinking, she asked him without having to ask.
"I'm thinking," he said, "there aren't so many men at the top. Not that you would mind, but this court has become a bit of a henhouse."
Brienne looked upward to the banners of the ruling family that decked the rafters of the sept. "Those aren't hens, love. They're dragons."
*
When the dragon girl had finally taken the throne, Jaime found that he rather liked her. She didn't think much of him, but, well, he had killed her father. Jaime was the son of a murdered father himself. With enough time gone by and, allowing for some extraordinarily divided loyalties, Jaime could at least mentally recreate the killer's point of view. However, Jaime had known Tywin Lannister well enough to understand why someone would want him dead. Daenerys had never met her own royal father and, however different she might be from Aerys Targaryen, she was bound to have some sentimental attachment to the idea of her dead patriarch.
Still, she had allowed Jaime to live. The last Lannister, stripped of lands and titles, but left to make his own way - provided anyone would have him. He sometimes wondered if it was because she thought he had been complicit in Robert's death. (He hadn't; that fancy had been all Cersei's. It would never have occurred to Jaime that removing his sister's husband was worth the bother). Jaime might be more forgivable in the queen's eyes because he hadn't usurped the Targaryens. He had merely killed one. Most of the time, though, Jaime believed that the queen's mercy had nothing to do with Jaime himself. No, Daenerys didn't care a fig for Jaime Lannister.
She was impressed with his champion.
Brienne was no "maid of Tarth" by the time of Jaime's pardon. She had married Hyle Hunt, but borne him no children, and the two had returned to Dragonstone, together, to offer services to the new queen. Daenerys had never questioned her right to be there, never questioned Brienne's right to fight for Jaime, either. But Daenerys, declaring she had seen enough of the fighting pits in the East, had refused her request for a trial by combat. Then she had released Jaime into Brienne's stewardship anyway.
Hunt was dead, a victim of the war. Brienne was a knight, and also a childless widow. Jaime had nothing but a name that was worse than worthless.
They went back to Tarth together.
*
"You like it here," Jaime accused Brienne, as they made their way from the sept to the great hall.
"It's your childhood home."
"That's hardly a reason for me to like it."
Although Daenerys had kept her seat in Dragonstone for the last quarter century, this momentous wedding was held at Casterly Rock. At Myrcella's request, perhaps? The lands all fell under the name of Baelish, now, but through Myrcella's daughter, former Lannister lands would be back in Lannister hands. Not that there was anything in the great hall to remind him of the home he had known. The stone walls still stood, but they had been burned out from the inside (burned with Cersei inside them; don't think about that), and replaced by something more . . .Targaryen.
"She does enjoy her dragons," Jaime mused, as they walked through the great arch, and saw the banners of red, gold and green. "I'd rather hoped she'd bring one or two along. I haven't seen them since -"
"No one has," Brienne said shortly. "It's not just because you've been away from court."
"Interesting," said Jaime.
"Meaning?"
"No one's seen a white walker since . . .then, either. I've been back here half a day and already heard people swear they never existed."
"But that's - Jaime, we saw them." He caught the slightest hint of a shudder at the memory, and instinctively brought a hand to her shoulder. He stopped himself from doing more than that, remembering that they were on display in a way that rarely happened. An ambiguous sort of display, true. He was no one. She was a middle-aged widow, who had won unique honors and possessed respectable property. (When Tarth's islands had turned out to contain mineral deposits useful both as fertilizer for the new agricultural methods, and as a raw ingredient in explosive powders, Jaime couldn't resist saying that the world should have devoted less attention to Tarth's sapphires, and more to its batshit). She fit in here, if not with the lovely, tiresome ladies of the exalted Westerosi families, then with the battle tested knights, for whom a broken tooth or a scarred cheek served as badges of honor.
No one would have expected Brienne of Tarth to grow into a great beauty, and she had not. But then, Jaime had not found his way to elegant old age, either. For a decade after hearing of Cersei's fiery end, he had shunned mirrors, had turned away, even, from his reflection in a goblet or in a puddle of rain. He had loved her so long, then despised her. It took her defiant death, on the heel of Tommen's senseless one, for him to realize he no longer hated his sister. He hadn't sorted how he did feel about her, though, and avoiding the image that so resembled hers had been a way to hold off that sorting. It had been Brienne, finally, who held a glass in front of Jaime, urging him to lift his eyes. When he did, he saw a face he hardly recognized - lined, suncracked, running to jowly. There was an echo of Cersei around the eyes, but as much of his own damn father.
"That face isn't hers, anymore, Jaime," Brienne said. "It never was."
Jaime had kissed her then, as though these were the words he had been waiting for. He had, it turned out, been waiting for many years.
But that was in Tarth. Here he was the undefined retainer of a widow who, even in the dragon girl's odd stew of a court, was a bit of an oddball. Eccentricity had its license, and age coupled with wealth had even more. Still, his history being what it was, Jaime doubted that Brienne, with all her honor, was eager to advertise their true relationship to the entire court.
So he took his hand off her shoulder and said, "I see Daenerys Targaryen has succeeded in impressing you."
"She's kept the peace. For twenty-five years. Who would have believed that before? And now all this -" Brienne nodded around, at the platforms with their high tables, bearing the insignia of Westeros's great families. "A sensible system of succession that takes the interests of the entire kingdom into account."
"She'd have to say that, wouldn't she? A ruler with no husband, no child. Never mind that there are no such thing as, 'Interests of the entire kingdom.' Or a sensible system of succession, for that matter." He could see Brienne beginning to get exasperated with him, and besides. What was the point of arguing about politics? "You're right about one thing. Twenty-five years is a long time for peace to hold in Westeros."
When Brienne raised an eyebrow at him, Jaime realized he hadn't conceded as much as he meant to. "That might explain the rumors," she said, "That Rickon Stark has been wandering the halls muttering, 'Winter is coming.'"
"He's a Stark." Jaime laughed. "That's what they do." Brienne kept glowering at him long enough to convey the point. "I dearly hope you're not suggesting I'm turning Stark in my old age."
"I'm suggesting that having your doubts about the future is good and well, but this might not be the place to display them."
"The lady is wise," said a crisp, arrogant voice behind him. "All of Westeros should be able to rejoice in this day."
Jaime turned to see a pair of blazing blue eyes, looking up at him from beneath a halo of hennaed red hair. "You more than most, Lady Baelish. It must be a great sadness that your husband can't be with us today." He paused, to let it sound as though he were just remembering the next part. "Either of your husbands, actually. Do you hear from my brother at all?"
The comment was worth making, just to watch Sansa's jaw stiffen. "I never married your brother. I was Cersei's prisoner. I never consented, and we didn't -" She stopped, and shook her head. In truth, Jaime remembered little of the girl Sansa had been, but he had a flash of the way her childish lips would pucker in disapproval when one the knights told a crude joke. Of course, she wouldn't want to recount the sexual technicalities that allowed her to disclaim the name of Lannister. But that wasn't the point, anyway. She continued, "No one hears from Tyrion. He ran off to the East like the coward he was. If he's still alive, he's drowning in wine in a Tyroshi whorehouse."
"I like to think so," Jaime answered. "It's exactly the kind of old age my brother would have dreamed for himself."
Brienne, who had been standing quietly and a bit aloof, tried to nudge him discreetly. He (deliberately) ruined her gambit by turning his back on Sansa entirely and saying, "Yes, my lady?"
Sansa stepped around him to greet Brienne with what she must have meant as cordiality. "It is lovely to see you, Lady Hunt. They say my mother was fond of you." Then, as if she had used up her entire reserve of courtesy, Sansa went on, "I've never comprehended why you can abide this one. This Lannister." The way she growled the word, it might have been a threat in a foreign tongue.
If Brienne had an answer to give, Jaime trampled over it. "I find it interesting," he said, "That you can't abide the name 'Lannister,' and yet your son is being married in Casterly Rock. With Lannister money."
"Myrcella's whim," Sansa sniffed. She glanced toward the high table, where Jaime's daughter sat by the queen. Daenerys smiled at something Myrcella was saying, not a courtly smile, but a look of the real girlish delight she could still summon. Sansa's lips pursed again. "Dany is far too indulgent of her." Jaime almost laughed in cruel amusement at that 'Dany.' She was trying, just too hard, to impress him with her importance, and something in that effort was fear, and fear was weakness.
"I suppose my presence is part of Myrcella's whim as well?" Jaime asked.
Then Sansa's face changed, into one that could be taken as a show of compassion. "Myrcella? I'm sorry if you had that impression. I'm afraid Myrcella's interest in the family history doesn't extend to an uncle she hardly remembers."
"Oh, that's very good." Jaime could give credit, where it was deserved, even to a Stark. Three decades ago, Sansa's father had started the whole nonsense by making a fuss about the true parentage of Myrcella and her brothers. Now, when it was convenient for the realm to forget, he was demoted to unimportant uncle. He thought again of Myrcella's dark-haired daughter. A determined observer could almost believe there was some Baratheon in her, after all.
Sansa almost ruined the force of her remark by looking too pleased with herself, but it was worth remembering the woman had lived with Petyr Baelish for twenty years. Lived with him, and then outlived him. Probably outlived him through a window in the Ayrie, if Jaime's instincts were correct. But maybe that wasn't fair. Maybe it was only what Jaime would have done in her place.
"Please be clear on this, Lannister," Sansa said. "You were asked to attend this wedding because I wanted you to be here."
"Just to tell me that I'm not very important?"
"Not to tell. To show everyone here. To show them that you don't matter at all." As if on Sansa's cue, a musician launched into an up-tempo Northern tune, and revelers began to rush for the center of the floor. "Now if you'll excuse me," she said, "I want to take every opportunity to dance."
"Lovely idea," Jaime answered. "I should ask if they know 'The Rains of Castamere.'"
The fire returned to Sansa's eyes. "I doubt anyone remembers that old bit of doggerel."
"I could hum a few bars. It comes back very quickly."
"No, Lannister," she said coldly. "That one won't be coming back at all." Turning on her heel, Sansa left them.
Despite the raucous music, and the buzz of laughter and conversation all around, Jaime had no trouble sensing Brienne's silence.
When she did speak, it was to say, "You hate 'The Rains of Bloody Castamere.'"
"Do I?"
"Yes." Then, turning to him, she asked, "Why must you always speak like that?"
"I remember a tale my old septa used to tell. About a scorpion and a dead frog. Perhaps it's just my nature."
"I remember that story. The scorpion dies, too." Lowering her voice, and stepping close to him, Brienne said, "You are not entirely safe here. But I suppose you've been too busy composing clever remarks for that to occur to you."
"Not at all. A good deal has occurred to me. For example -" Now it was his turn to step toward Brienne and put his good hand around her wrist. "It has occurred to me that, if I was summoned down here to fulfill a vendetta of some Stark - or Baelish, or Martell, or some fucking Greyjoy for that matter. I don't recall ever doing anything to the pirates, but I've given so many people so many causes to hate me. And it's been so very long. Not to mention any grudges that might be held against me by my misbegotten daughter, or -- all seven gods and the old ones of the North forbid - of her dear friend Dany. If any of these people have decided I'm a dangerous enemy, do you think it matters one bit what I say to them?"
"It might matter in your favor. If you could bring yourself to be kind."
"Kind?" Jaime repeated. "My darling wench of the Sapphire Islands. Do you think there's a man, woman, or child in this hall who would trust me if I chose to be kind?"
Jaime was certain he had scored an unanswerable point, one even Brienne would have to concede.
She stepped back from him and lifted her chin. With a slight tremor in her voice, she said, "I do. I have. Many times, for many years. Perhaps, in all that time, it is I who have been mistaken."
So it was Jaime, after all, at a loss for words. When he found some, they were wrong, but he said them anyway. "You're worried about me."
When she raised her hand to wipe off a tear, she did it almost violently. "I'm always worried about you, you idiot."
He stepped close and put his hand on her shoulder. "Dance with me," he said.
"What good will that do?" She shrugged his hand off, and he moved it up to her face.
"The good," he said, "is that that no matter what happens. Today or tomorrow or when we're all dead or buried or being governed by Rickon Stark's pet direwolf. The good it does is that we got to dance."
And so they danced.
When they moved, together, to the center of the room, when Jaime put his stump of a hand against her broad back, and then, when the song slowed and her lips rose to press against his, Jaime didn't even look to see who was watching.
END
Endnotes:
*The prompts by tehgiantsquid provided a lot of the ideas I used in this story. I incorporated two.
(1) Primary prompt: "The Endgame. Jaime has been pardoned by the crown (whoever that is) but has been stripped of all his titles and lands. Brienne, having spoken for him at his trial, is the only one who is willing to take him in. Their relationship can be sexual or just platonic, but they obviously love each other and value on another deeply. A Jamie!POV is preferred but not required."
(2)Secondary prompt: "I love the idea of Sansa totally screwing with Littlefinger. She's older and less naive now, trained under his tutelege in the game of thrones. She's playing him perfectly, making him think she's totally under his control, when in reality, it's the other way around. It can include her using him sexually, playing with their "father-daughter" relationship. Her ultimate goal is to destroy him, though, because of what he did to her/her family."
**The story of the scorpion and the frog (which I think is well-known enough, but anyway you can Google it) is widely circulated as a folktale, although it's very likely a spurious one invented by Orson Welles for the film, "Mr. Arkadin." The idea of it being an actual folktale that would exist in Westeros thus seems appropriate.
Title: See So Much, or Live So Long
Rating: R (some language)
Pairing: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth, Sansa Stark
Word Count: ~3,000
Summary: Jaime Lannister would have thought that being defeated and disgraced would, at least, spare him ever having to attend another high-born Westerosi wedding. And yet, somehow, here he is.
Warnings: Deals with a speculative ending to the series, so very little that happens here is strictly canon. However, spoilers for events (and suggested future events)in "A Dance with Dragons" will be mixed in. Since this is future fic, and since it's ASOIAF, you can expect grim fates (including death) for canon characters.
A/N: Title is a paraphrase of the last line of "King Lear", The oldest have borne most; we that are young/Shall never see so much, nor live so long.
Only when the dark-haired girl entered the sept and, wearing the cloak of House Martell, climbed the altar to wait for her groom - only then did Jaime Lannister realized he had expected the princess to look like his dead sister.
Jaime leaned to murmur in Brienne's ear. "She looks nothing like her grandmother."
"You don't know that." Jaime gave Brienne a curious look. Even after all this time, he didn't think anyone could question his knowledge of Cersei's face. "Most people have two grandmothers. She might take after the Dornish side."
As Brienne spoke, her fingers pressed into the tendons of his good wrist. She always sat on his left, Jaime had long ago surmised, to increase her opportunity to at least try and silence him in a dignified way. If she really wanted to punish him, he supposed, she would have sat on the right and made him jump with pain. At present, he acquiesced, and turned his attention the wedding parties.
If the bride took after her Dornish father, the groom's broad shoulders and equine face were all Stark. Odd, because his mother had favored the Tully side. She still did, Jaime saw, as Sansa met her son at the foot of the altar steps. They both wore the livery of House Baelish, although there was hardly any Littlefinger in the boy's face, and as for the man himself . . . One might argue Petyr had played well at the game of thrones, until forced to note that he wasn't around to enjoy the fruits of his labor.
Next, the bride's mother turned to the assembled crowd, and that was a Lannister face. Jaime hadn't seen Myrcella since she was a child. In the intervening time, she had been wife, mother, and widow, her Dornish husband as dead as Sansa's Littlefinger. Myrcella didn't precisely favor her mother (didn't favor Jaime) but, now approaching middle age, she was still fair in her own way. Even the sideswept hairstyle she had been forced to adopt in her youth had become a sign of fashion. The Myrcella Look. Maybe now it didn't matter it had been given to her to disguise the loss of her ear in an attempted kidnapping.
He must have been watching Myrcella more keenly than he realized, because the pressure Brienne placed on his hand took on a different quality. Her eyes shifted to look into his. Tell me what you're thinking, she asked him without having to ask.
"I'm thinking," he said, "there aren't so many men at the top. Not that you would mind, but this court has become a bit of a henhouse."
Brienne looked upward to the banners of the ruling family that decked the rafters of the sept. "Those aren't hens, love. They're dragons."
*
When the dragon girl had finally taken the throne, Jaime found that he rather liked her. She didn't think much of him, but, well, he had killed her father. Jaime was the son of a murdered father himself. With enough time gone by and, allowing for some extraordinarily divided loyalties, Jaime could at least mentally recreate the killer's point of view. However, Jaime had known Tywin Lannister well enough to understand why someone would want him dead. Daenerys had never met her own royal father and, however different she might be from Aerys Targaryen, she was bound to have some sentimental attachment to the idea of her dead patriarch.
Still, she had allowed Jaime to live. The last Lannister, stripped of lands and titles, but left to make his own way - provided anyone would have him. He sometimes wondered if it was because she thought he had been complicit in Robert's death. (He hadn't; that fancy had been all Cersei's. It would never have occurred to Jaime that removing his sister's husband was worth the bother). Jaime might be more forgivable in the queen's eyes because he hadn't usurped the Targaryens. He had merely killed one. Most of the time, though, Jaime believed that the queen's mercy had nothing to do with Jaime himself. No, Daenerys didn't care a fig for Jaime Lannister.
She was impressed with his champion.
Brienne was no "maid of Tarth" by the time of Jaime's pardon. She had married Hyle Hunt, but borne him no children, and the two had returned to Dragonstone, together, to offer services to the new queen. Daenerys had never questioned her right to be there, never questioned Brienne's right to fight for Jaime, either. But Daenerys, declaring she had seen enough of the fighting pits in the East, had refused her request for a trial by combat. Then she had released Jaime into Brienne's stewardship anyway.
Hunt was dead, a victim of the war. Brienne was a knight, and also a childless widow. Jaime had nothing but a name that was worse than worthless.
They went back to Tarth together.
*
"You like it here," Jaime accused Brienne, as they made their way from the sept to the great hall.
"It's your childhood home."
"That's hardly a reason for me to like it."
Although Daenerys had kept her seat in Dragonstone for the last quarter century, this momentous wedding was held at Casterly Rock. At Myrcella's request, perhaps? The lands all fell under the name of Baelish, now, but through Myrcella's daughter, former Lannister lands would be back in Lannister hands. Not that there was anything in the great hall to remind him of the home he had known. The stone walls still stood, but they had been burned out from the inside (burned with Cersei inside them; don't think about that), and replaced by something more . . .Targaryen.
"She does enjoy her dragons," Jaime mused, as they walked through the great arch, and saw the banners of red, gold and green. "I'd rather hoped she'd bring one or two along. I haven't seen them since -"
"No one has," Brienne said shortly. "It's not just because you've been away from court."
"Interesting," said Jaime.
"Meaning?"
"No one's seen a white walker since . . .then, either. I've been back here half a day and already heard people swear they never existed."
"But that's - Jaime, we saw them." He caught the slightest hint of a shudder at the memory, and instinctively brought a hand to her shoulder. He stopped himself from doing more than that, remembering that they were on display in a way that rarely happened. An ambiguous sort of display, true. He was no one. She was a middle-aged widow, who had won unique honors and possessed respectable property. (When Tarth's islands had turned out to contain mineral deposits useful both as fertilizer for the new agricultural methods, and as a raw ingredient in explosive powders, Jaime couldn't resist saying that the world should have devoted less attention to Tarth's sapphires, and more to its batshit). She fit in here, if not with the lovely, tiresome ladies of the exalted Westerosi families, then with the battle tested knights, for whom a broken tooth or a scarred cheek served as badges of honor.
No one would have expected Brienne of Tarth to grow into a great beauty, and she had not. But then, Jaime had not found his way to elegant old age, either. For a decade after hearing of Cersei's fiery end, he had shunned mirrors, had turned away, even, from his reflection in a goblet or in a puddle of rain. He had loved her so long, then despised her. It took her defiant death, on the heel of Tommen's senseless one, for him to realize he no longer hated his sister. He hadn't sorted how he did feel about her, though, and avoiding the image that so resembled hers had been a way to hold off that sorting. It had been Brienne, finally, who held a glass in front of Jaime, urging him to lift his eyes. When he did, he saw a face he hardly recognized - lined, suncracked, running to jowly. There was an echo of Cersei around the eyes, but as much of his own damn father.
"That face isn't hers, anymore, Jaime," Brienne said. "It never was."
Jaime had kissed her then, as though these were the words he had been waiting for. He had, it turned out, been waiting for many years.
But that was in Tarth. Here he was the undefined retainer of a widow who, even in the dragon girl's odd stew of a court, was a bit of an oddball. Eccentricity had its license, and age coupled with wealth had even more. Still, his history being what it was, Jaime doubted that Brienne, with all her honor, was eager to advertise their true relationship to the entire court.
So he took his hand off her shoulder and said, "I see Daenerys Targaryen has succeeded in impressing you."
"She's kept the peace. For twenty-five years. Who would have believed that before? And now all this -" Brienne nodded around, at the platforms with their high tables, bearing the insignia of Westeros's great families. "A sensible system of succession that takes the interests of the entire kingdom into account."
"She'd have to say that, wouldn't she? A ruler with no husband, no child. Never mind that there are no such thing as, 'Interests of the entire kingdom.' Or a sensible system of succession, for that matter." He could see Brienne beginning to get exasperated with him, and besides. What was the point of arguing about politics? "You're right about one thing. Twenty-five years is a long time for peace to hold in Westeros."
When Brienne raised an eyebrow at him, Jaime realized he hadn't conceded as much as he meant to. "That might explain the rumors," she said, "That Rickon Stark has been wandering the halls muttering, 'Winter is coming.'"
"He's a Stark." Jaime laughed. "That's what they do." Brienne kept glowering at him long enough to convey the point. "I dearly hope you're not suggesting I'm turning Stark in my old age."
"I'm suggesting that having your doubts about the future is good and well, but this might not be the place to display them."
"The lady is wise," said a crisp, arrogant voice behind him. "All of Westeros should be able to rejoice in this day."
Jaime turned to see a pair of blazing blue eyes, looking up at him from beneath a halo of hennaed red hair. "You more than most, Lady Baelish. It must be a great sadness that your husband can't be with us today." He paused, to let it sound as though he were just remembering the next part. "Either of your husbands, actually. Do you hear from my brother at all?"
The comment was worth making, just to watch Sansa's jaw stiffen. "I never married your brother. I was Cersei's prisoner. I never consented, and we didn't -" She stopped, and shook her head. In truth, Jaime remembered little of the girl Sansa had been, but he had a flash of the way her childish lips would pucker in disapproval when one the knights told a crude joke. Of course, she wouldn't want to recount the sexual technicalities that allowed her to disclaim the name of Lannister. But that wasn't the point, anyway. She continued, "No one hears from Tyrion. He ran off to the East like the coward he was. If he's still alive, he's drowning in wine in a Tyroshi whorehouse."
"I like to think so," Jaime answered. "It's exactly the kind of old age my brother would have dreamed for himself."
Brienne, who had been standing quietly and a bit aloof, tried to nudge him discreetly. He (deliberately) ruined her gambit by turning his back on Sansa entirely and saying, "Yes, my lady?"
Sansa stepped around him to greet Brienne with what she must have meant as cordiality. "It is lovely to see you, Lady Hunt. They say my mother was fond of you." Then, as if she had used up her entire reserve of courtesy, Sansa went on, "I've never comprehended why you can abide this one. This Lannister." The way she growled the word, it might have been a threat in a foreign tongue.
If Brienne had an answer to give, Jaime trampled over it. "I find it interesting," he said, "That you can't abide the name 'Lannister,' and yet your son is being married in Casterly Rock. With Lannister money."
"Myrcella's whim," Sansa sniffed. She glanced toward the high table, where Jaime's daughter sat by the queen. Daenerys smiled at something Myrcella was saying, not a courtly smile, but a look of the real girlish delight she could still summon. Sansa's lips pursed again. "Dany is far too indulgent of her." Jaime almost laughed in cruel amusement at that 'Dany.' She was trying, just too hard, to impress him with her importance, and something in that effort was fear, and fear was weakness.
"I suppose my presence is part of Myrcella's whim as well?" Jaime asked.
Then Sansa's face changed, into one that could be taken as a show of compassion. "Myrcella? I'm sorry if you had that impression. I'm afraid Myrcella's interest in the family history doesn't extend to an uncle she hardly remembers."
"Oh, that's very good." Jaime could give credit, where it was deserved, even to a Stark. Three decades ago, Sansa's father had started the whole nonsense by making a fuss about the true parentage of Myrcella and her brothers. Now, when it was convenient for the realm to forget, he was demoted to unimportant uncle. He thought again of Myrcella's dark-haired daughter. A determined observer could almost believe there was some Baratheon in her, after all.
Sansa almost ruined the force of her remark by looking too pleased with herself, but it was worth remembering the woman had lived with Petyr Baelish for twenty years. Lived with him, and then outlived him. Probably outlived him through a window in the Ayrie, if Jaime's instincts were correct. But maybe that wasn't fair. Maybe it was only what Jaime would have done in her place.
"Please be clear on this, Lannister," Sansa said. "You were asked to attend this wedding because I wanted you to be here."
"Just to tell me that I'm not very important?"
"Not to tell. To show everyone here. To show them that you don't matter at all." As if on Sansa's cue, a musician launched into an up-tempo Northern tune, and revelers began to rush for the center of the floor. "Now if you'll excuse me," she said, "I want to take every opportunity to dance."
"Lovely idea," Jaime answered. "I should ask if they know 'The Rains of Castamere.'"
The fire returned to Sansa's eyes. "I doubt anyone remembers that old bit of doggerel."
"I could hum a few bars. It comes back very quickly."
"No, Lannister," she said coldly. "That one won't be coming back at all." Turning on her heel, Sansa left them.
Despite the raucous music, and the buzz of laughter and conversation all around, Jaime had no trouble sensing Brienne's silence.
When she did speak, it was to say, "You hate 'The Rains of Bloody Castamere.'"
"Do I?"
"Yes." Then, turning to him, she asked, "Why must you always speak like that?"
"I remember a tale my old septa used to tell. About a scorpion and a dead frog. Perhaps it's just my nature."
"I remember that story. The scorpion dies, too." Lowering her voice, and stepping close to him, Brienne said, "You are not entirely safe here. But I suppose you've been too busy composing clever remarks for that to occur to you."
"Not at all. A good deal has occurred to me. For example -" Now it was his turn to step toward Brienne and put his good hand around her wrist. "It has occurred to me that, if I was summoned down here to fulfill a vendetta of some Stark - or Baelish, or Martell, or some fucking Greyjoy for that matter. I don't recall ever doing anything to the pirates, but I've given so many people so many causes to hate me. And it's been so very long. Not to mention any grudges that might be held against me by my misbegotten daughter, or -- all seven gods and the old ones of the North forbid - of her dear friend Dany. If any of these people have decided I'm a dangerous enemy, do you think it matters one bit what I say to them?"
"It might matter in your favor. If you could bring yourself to be kind."
"Kind?" Jaime repeated. "My darling wench of the Sapphire Islands. Do you think there's a man, woman, or child in this hall who would trust me if I chose to be kind?"
Jaime was certain he had scored an unanswerable point, one even Brienne would have to concede.
She stepped back from him and lifted her chin. With a slight tremor in her voice, she said, "I do. I have. Many times, for many years. Perhaps, in all that time, it is I who have been mistaken."
So it was Jaime, after all, at a loss for words. When he found some, they were wrong, but he said them anyway. "You're worried about me."
When she raised her hand to wipe off a tear, she did it almost violently. "I'm always worried about you, you idiot."
He stepped close and put his hand on her shoulder. "Dance with me," he said.
"What good will that do?" She shrugged his hand off, and he moved it up to her face.
"The good," he said, "is that that no matter what happens. Today or tomorrow or when we're all dead or buried or being governed by Rickon Stark's pet direwolf. The good it does is that we got to dance."
And so they danced.
When they moved, together, to the center of the room, when Jaime put his stump of a hand against her broad back, and then, when the song slowed and her lips rose to press against his, Jaime didn't even look to see who was watching.
END
Endnotes:
*The prompts by tehgiantsquid provided a lot of the ideas I used in this story. I incorporated two.
(1) Primary prompt: "The Endgame. Jaime has been pardoned by the crown (whoever that is) but has been stripped of all his titles and lands. Brienne, having spoken for him at his trial, is the only one who is willing to take him in. Their relationship can be sexual or just platonic, but they obviously love each other and value on another deeply. A Jamie!POV is preferred but not required."
(2)Secondary prompt: "I love the idea of Sansa totally screwing with Littlefinger. She's older and less naive now, trained under his tutelege in the game of thrones. She's playing him perfectly, making him think she's totally under his control, when in reality, it's the other way around. It can include her using him sexually, playing with their "father-daughter" relationship. Her ultimate goal is to destroy him, though, because of what he did to her/her family."
**The story of the scorpion and the frog (which I think is well-known enough, but anyway you can Google it) is widely circulated as a folktale, although it's very likely a spurious one invented by Orson Welles for the film, "Mr. Arkadin." The idea of it being an actual folktale that would exist in Westeros thus seems appropriate.