Chapter Text
JAIME
The world was black, the air dank and cold around him. Distantly, he could feel the muscles of his legs moving beneath him, slow and stumbling. A light snow pattered against the fabric of the hood over his head. Ropes chafed his arms, the hemp constricting whenever he moved. His clothes were wet and clinging to his skin, drawing shivers from his body with every breath.
I’ve got to stop ending up in chains, Jaime thought bitterly as he slogged through the frozen mud. He could not say how long he and his captors had been traveling, only that they rarely stopped, resting just a few hours at a time before continuing on. His heels and calves were sore from so many days on the road, and he was certain walking was going to prove a difficult task when they finally reached their destination.
Jaime had never been to Greywater Watch, but growing up his maesters had described it to him well enough. The castle was the capital of the Neck and the seat of House Reed, enveloped in the swamps of the North. Accounts claimed it impossible to find by ravens and enemies alike, due to the fact that it had no set location; like all villages in the region, it was built upon a crannog, a man-made floating island that allowed the stronghold to be moved on a whim. No doubt they were taking him there to answer to Lord Howland Reed, ruler of the Neck and loyal vassal to House Stark.
House Stark. Jaime fought back the urge to laugh at his own stupidity. Of course the northern lords would declare for Jon Snow, bastard-born or not. The blood of Eddard Stark ran through his veins, and that was enough to make him fit for the position of King in the North, especially with Winterfell now firmly in his grasp. Cersei must have suspected as much, and sent him anyway just to rid herself of his presence. If not, Jaime had very little faith that she would dispatch reinforcements when she did catch word. Would she weep if he was killed? Throw herself down over his lifeless body and curse the gods? The notion was hard to conjure. Before, he would have given his life for hers, and she did not care whether he lived or died. A large part of him questioned if she ever had.
Eventually the group halted again, pulling Jaime from his thoughts. He assumed it just another rest stop, but when they ripped off his hood, he saw that they stood on a bank before the Castle of the Reeds. Indeed, the fortress was situated on a large bed of reeds and timber, bobbing in the middle of a heavily overgrown bog. The hold was encompassed by a tall fence, and the only way to reach it was by boat. Small wonder foes deem it difficult to obtain.
Jaime was pushed down into one of the skiffs along the shore, and a few crannogmen hopped in after him, using oars to propel them through the water. Snowflakes drifted down through the air, catching in his eyelashes and adding to the white already piled on the thatched roofs of the castle. He wondered if winter would turn the slow-moving river to ice.
Upon arriving at the open gates of the island, Jaime was escorted to the largest of the buildings, a circular domed structure made of much the same material as the surrounding complex. The ground - nothing more than woven marsh grass and wood - was unstable under his feet, and he was half-dragged, half-supported across the yard. He did his best to avoid the stares of the people who stopped at the sight of him, their lichen-colored eyes wide and fearful.
The crannogmen were a small people, short and slim, and Lord Howland Reed was no exception. The chair he sat upon in the main hall dwarfed him, cypress driftwood twisting around his body until he all but disappeared. His skin was cinnamon, beard dried moss, irises virescent. He seemed molded from the very fen he called home.
“Caught him in the middle of one of our ambushes,” said a crannogman as he shoved Jaime to his knees before the dais. The floor rushed up to meet him, sending a shot of pain through his bones. “The lion didn't put up much of a fight.”
Not with ten poisoned spears at my throat. The bog devils had bled his host every step of the way, first killing the ravens in their cages, then picking the men off night and day until half of them were lost to the mire. Jaime was no stranger to guerrilla warfare, but the crannogmen were masters of the difficult terrain, and had led him deeper into the Neck when he tried to turn back the way they had come. Soon he had been moving in circles, and it was only a matter of time before he was captured, with no way to send for help.
“You're not so great a general as some would insist,” said Lord Reed. His voice was gravelly and deep, at odds with someone of his stature.
“I'm afraid I've never been very good at battles,” returned Jaime. “My father could attest to that, if he were not rotting beneath the ashes of the Sept. Besides, I hear Jon Snow has earned that reputation instead.”
At the mention of the King in the North, Lord Reed stiffened.
“I assume you're sending me to him?” prodded Jaime.
“I might. Or I might send him your head.”
“That certainly would save time.”
Green eyes glared at green, and Jaime felt his pretense of bravado slipping with each passing second. I must needs tread lightly. An unarmed man with one hand is no match for a room full of warriors with nets and knives.
Finally, Lord Reed broke his gaze away. “Give him something dry to wear, and feed him. You’ll leave within the hour.”
As Jaime was led from the room, he heard Lord Reed calling for a pen and piece of parchment. If the raven left soon, Jaime calculated, it would reach Winterfell in less than three days; four if the weather was harsh. He tried desperately not to imagine how Brienne would react when she found out he had been taking up arms against the Starks, to no avail. All he could see were her lips pursed in anger, eyes betrayed, disgusted. The image cut him deep.
In the end, the only article of clothing they could find close to his size was a torn, musty cloak, yet Jaime huddled under it gratefully. When they handed him a plate of food, however, he raised his eyebrows.
“It’s quite difficult for a man with no arms to feed himself,” he stated. The men looked at each other a moment, considering, before one of them stepped forward to slice the ropes away. His arms screamed as he flexed them this way and that, but it felt good to be free of the restraints for a time and get the blood flowing again.
When he turned to the dish on the table, his stomach grumbled. The fish was cold and greasy, the frog soggy, but he ate until their bones glistened.
“Time to go, Lannister.”
Jaime was tied up with fresh rope and taken outside through a door so short he had to crouch to avoid knocking his head. An escort waited in the yard, armed with frog spears and round leather shields. One of the men bore a standard with the sigil of House Reed - a black lizard-lion on a grey-green field. The group wasted no time in ushering him out the front gates, dumping his body unceremoniously into the same boat they docked earlier and rowing to shore. The strand squelched under his boots, slimy and frigid, and before long his toes were numb.
The journey to Winterfell was arduous, lasting nearly a fortnight. As they moved farther north, mucky swampland gave way to soldier pines and sentinels, and temperatures dropped considerably. Snowfall became a constant obstruction, coating everything in white and turning people to shadows. Jaime had never experienced such weather, and had to give the northerners credit for enduring it. The last trip he took to the Stark stronghold had been with Robert’s court five years ago, after Jon Arryn’s death, and it had not been nigh so cold. Summer had still been in full swing, he remembered, and he and Cersei had had to keep from fucking the whole way to the castle for fear of being caught. But in that broken tower…
A stab of guilt coursed through him, and the phantom fingers of his sword hand twitched. He yearned for a drink.
Eventually, through the grey mists of morning, the ramparts of Winterfell emerged on the horizon. The keep was all dark stone, standing like a huge rocky outcrop atop its hill. As they neared the entrance, Jaime noticed direwolf banners snapping above them in the wind, declaring the Starks’ return to their ancestral seat. Not a month ago, he knew, the flayed man of House Bolton had been in their place. It is a game of thrones, he thought, and it is like to never end.
“State your business,” called down a guardsman.
“We bring the Kingslayer,” answered one of the crannogmen. “Lord Reed sent him to stand trial before the King in the North.”
Jaime lowered the hood of his cloak, and the soldiers exchanged glances. They were Knights of the Vale, he saw, dressed in the sky blue and white of House Arryn.
“King Jon is away. He will answer to the Lady Sansa.”
The gates were opened, and the crannogmen brought Jaime into the yard. No doubt the entire household had been made aware of his capture due to Lord Reed’s letter, and Jaime kept his head bowed to evade their seething glares. I may as well be my sweet sister.
A northerner announced their presence in the Great Hall, standing in front of the table where Lady Sansa sat. She was much older than Jaime remembered, a woman grown, with flowing auburn hair and irises like shards of ice. Enveloped in furs, with her locks fashioned in the northern style, the girl was a spitting image of her mother.
“Bring him here,” Sansa ordered. Her voice was steel, hard and cold and sharp. She is no longer a child full of dreams, he realized. The world has robbed them from her, piece by piece, until all that remains is someone who knows how to survive.
Jaime was thrown down before her, yet it was only when the northman moved from his line of sight that he noticed Brienne at her side. When his eyes found hers, his body tingled all over, and his breath caught in his throat. No amount of worrying had prepared him for the mistrust in her gaze. She looked at him as though he were a stranger. No , he thought, blood running cold, she looks at me as though I am a monster.
“My lady,” Jaime began, turning to Sansa, but whatever he had planned to say next melted on his tongue. Words are wind, and my actions have spoken louder than any.
“Kingslayer,” returned Sansa. Jaime flinched. His heartbeat was thudding loudly in his ears, and despite the quiet of the room, he could hear her silently accusing him of every wrong he had ever committed against her family. The weight of her stare bore into his soul, daring him to defend himself.
“I swore a solemn vow to your mother that I would protect you,” he said finally, despite knowing full well it would make no difference. Nothing will sway them, but I must try. I must try. “My sister wants you dead, and sent me to reclaim Winterfell. But you must understand that I planned on negotiating a peaceful surrender. My intentions were never to cause you harm. You have my word.”
“Your word?” Sansa was incredulous. “Your word? Like the words Roose Bolton uttered as he plunged his dagger into Robb’s belly at the Red Wedding? ‘The Lannisters send their regards,’ I've heard it said. Others claim he mentioned your name specifically.”
“I had nothing to do with that, I promise you. My father-”
“Yes, your father. He was an evil man, and you his son. What of helping the Freys take Riverrun from my great uncle? Of killing him for defending his home?”
“I only intended to take him prisoner. The Blackfish was a skilled warrior and a respected knight, and I admired him greatly.”
Sansa laughed. It was hollow and disbelieving, and the sound sent shivers up his spine. “Ah, so you only spare those you admire. Tell me, if my brother had been a knight, would you not have pushed him from that window?”
Jaime felt his heart drop into his stomach. Every part of him seemed to lose sensation, as if he were floating above his own body, watching the scene play out on a stage.
He could not justify attempting to murder a child. Just thinking about it made him want to retch. Who had he been back then? What had led him to make such a choice? His mouth was full of cotton, unable to do anything but gape.
Suddenly a noise came from the opposite end of the hall, startling everyone. Arya Stark stood in the doorway, a storm raging on behind her, sending a flurry of snow into the room. She held onto the handles of some sort of cart, and in it sat a boy.
“Jaime Lannister,” said Bran.
When Arya recognized him, her face contorted in rage and her fingers flew to the sword at her hip, but her brother stayed her hand. Bran gestured for her to move them forward, and she pulled him across the floor until they were only yards away. The young man pushed himself up on his elbows, shifting in the mound of pelts so he could look Jaime in the eye. His legs laid useless beneath him. “You've lost a hand.”
Jaime nodded, eyes flitting to his stump. He had brought his golden hand with him when he left King’s Landing, but hadn't been wearing it when he was captured by the crannogmen, and now the severed end of his right wrist stuck out from his sleeve.
“I cannot begin to tell you how sorry I am, for… everything,” Jaime said, and meant it more than any apology could possibly express.
“It appears we're both cripples,” replied Bran, not unkindly. Strangely, the boy did not seem particularly malicious towards him, and even gave him a faint smile. “We’ve all changed since then, haven't we?”
“I suppose so,” said Jaime.
“Some of us not much, it seems,” interjected Sansa, tone venomous. “You have once again taken up arms against the North, and you will be tried accordingly. We will wait until King Jon returns to make a final judgment.” She turned to the crannogmen. “For now, lock him in the kennels.”
Jaime was hoisted up and taken out into the blizzard once more. The kennels were a series of large indoor cages separated by a hallway, and branched off the main courtyard across from the Great Hall. Although a thick wooden door protected them from the worst of the icy conditions, the air was still well below freezing inside his cell, and his damp cloak did little in the way of insulating heat. Before the crannogmen took their leave, however, they cut his restraints for a second and final time, allowing him to stretch out his frozen limbs as they locked the bars around him.
The minutes ticked by like hours in the solitude, and Jaime found himself eager for a distraction. Unlike his imprisonment in the Stark camp years ago, after the Young Wolf had trapped him in the Whispering Wood, there was no battle excitement to watch, no fellow inmate to keep him company, no sky to tell time. It was only him and darkness and never-ending cold, and occasionally a rat or two. No dogs actually inhabited the place.
In truth, he did not need to escape boredom so much as his own thoughts. Images of his past deeds streamed through his mind on a loop, incessant, torturing him more than the constant drip of water in the corner. Attacking Eddard Stark in the streets of the capital. Killing cousin Alton in an attempt to escape captivity. Throwing Bran out the window. He had shoved a ten-year-old boy from a tower hoping it would lead to his death, and did it without batting an eye. Even after, when he heard he was paralyzed, the remorse had been faint. Small. Nothing to keep him up at night.
Now it took away any hope of sleep.
That, and the doubt in Brienne’s sapphire eyes. Whenever he closed his eyelids and prayed to the Seven for unconsciousness, he saw that expression on her face again, clear as day. It was the same look he had received for nearly twenty-three years, from shopkeeps and farmers and soldiers and lords and noble ladies and fellow Kingsguard, and even her, in the beginning, before the bath at Harrenhal. Before he bore the truth to her in a fever-induced speech, and she learned of Aerys, of his obsession with wildfire, his desire to burn every resident of King’s Landing. Then she had known, had really understood. She began to call him Jaime after that, he recalled. The memory brought a smile to his lips.
He would give anything to hear her say she believed he was honorable again, to hear her tell him he was a knight. Ludicrous claims, to be sure, but warming nonetheless. She had taken his gift of a sword, named it Oathkeeper, and gone out to do good on his behalf because she had seen something in him that no one else ever had, not even Cersei. And now she took him for a liar, a man who could betray his vows, betray her, without a care.
How could he blame her, though? The woman was naive and stubborn to a fault, but she was not stupid. He had been under his sister’s spell his entire life, that was obvious enough, and no doubt Brienne still questioned his level of devotion to her. If history was any indication, it was high enough to prompt him to kill a child, and Jaime despised himself for it.
Time passed in an endless cycle of self-loathing, and ghosts haunted whatever dreams he managed to have.