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Chapter Text

Come home, Brienne’s father says.

Just two words on a scroll, sent by raven to Winterfell. Nothing more.

Come home.

It’s still winter, and although there is a war on, and although the war is coming North, it can’t get to Winterfell before spring. The snows are too thick, the Neck impassable for the Lannister army.

So now, in winter, the Lannisters are retaking the Reach. Moving towards the Stormlands. Spring is when the killing and the dying will happen for the North. Spring is most like a year away, at least.

So Brienne goes home. She is glad to go home – Winterfell has been difficult since they defeated the dead. Things between the Starks have been strained. Lady Sansa takes her meals by herself in her solar – the King in the North takes his in his bedchamber. Lord Bran spends his days in the godswood.

Lady Arya wanders the woods all day. Some say she is hunting, though she brings back no prey. Others whisper that they have seen her, high in the treetops, jumping from tree to tree, little more a ghost in the snowscape.

Others say she is looking for her direwolf.

Brienne knows not. She is not part of their lives any more, other than a figure ignored outside a door, a figure ignored limping behind them. It has taken her near seven moons to recover from the injuries she sustained fighting the dead. Seven moons to learn to walk without dragging her foot, seven moons to heal the bite marks on her face and hands. Three more to get her fitness back, to swing a sword with anything like the dexterity she used to.

In that time, Winterfell has changed a lot.

She is sworn to protect the Starks, but they are not a cohesive unit to protect. Instead, they are four separate entities with four separate lives. Mistrustful of each other, mistrustful of anyone who tries to cross the divide between them.

So Brienne goes home. Swearing she will return to Winterfell before the snows melt, swearing she will return before the Lannisters try to come North. Leaving Podrick in her place, to carry out her vow in the meantime.

No one much seems to care.

No one but Podrick comes to wish her farewell as she packs up her horse in Winterfell’s frozen courtyard; no one but Podrick waves her goodbye.

It had been Podrick who had pulled her out of the melee of the dead outside the walls of Winterfell, Podrick who had pulled her inside the castle during the retreat. Dragged her to the crypts and left her bleeding in Lady Sansa’s arms, bitten and broken and half-conscious.

Brienne does not look back as she rides away.

The ride to White Harbour is ponderous and slow-going – through the snows, through the wary, half-starved towns, through the flood of refugees fleeing the war-torn south. Brienne keeps to herself – the stares are enough. A woman in armour, a tall woman, a scarred woman who limps in the cold.

She sleeps in inns every night, telling herself she is being generous with her coin to help the smallfolk out. In truth, she needs the warmth of the fire, the softness of a bed, the comfort of ale and wine in her belly to dull her pain and ease the nightmares. She is not so strong, not so hardy as she used to be.

She sails from White Harbour on a cold, clear day, on a small fishing vessel she hopes won’t attract much attention. Boats like this come in and out of Tarth all day, every day. There would be no reason to suspect this one carried the Evenstar’s Daughter.

Come home.

The scroll sits in her pocket, sending the occasional wash of terror through her. What if her father is ill, perhaps dying? What if the war has reached Tarth without her knowledge, and this is some sort of trap? What if he has decided enough is enough, and it is high time she wed? Produced an heir.

She lies in her hammock in the dark belly of the boat and tries not to be frightened. Tries not to picture her father wasted by disease or murdered by Lannisters. Tries not to imagine wedding a strange man and becoming a mother.

She tells herself she will be back in Winterfell for spring. That she will be there to defend the Starks against the Lannisters, that she will die an honourable death on the battlefield, protecting Lady Catelyn’s children.

Her father is fine. The war is far away. House Tarth does not need an heir.

On the boat, Brienne still wakes screaming every night.

Come home.

Brienne comes home. Wrapped in her fur-trimmed Northern cloak, her Valyrian steel sword at her hip. Her face scarred and her leg sore. Brienne sets foot on Tarth for the first time in near a decade.

It’s colder than she ever remembers it being, and greyer, too. It’s winter, tis true, but the people seem thinner and older, the buildings dirtier, the streets more cramped and full of filth. Even the trees in the hills seem sparse and forbidding. Above them, high on the hill, even the marble glory of Evenfall Hall looks small.

Tarth has never looked this way. Tarth has always looked like home. Tarth is as scarred as the Evenstar’s Daughter.

Brienne makes her way home carefully, watching for any signs of a Lannister presence on the island – seeing none. The people look hard and careworn, as people always look in winter, but she sees no fear in anyone’s eyes.

The guards at Evenfall look the same. Some are new, but most she recognises, and they recognise her, after a fashion. Most look shocked by the scar on her face, and by the fact she is limping a little after her climb up to Evenfall.  One of them offers his Lady his arm.

It is strange to be the Lady once again, after being a guard for so long. She smoothes her hair and adjusts her cloak, and allows them to lead her to her father’s solar.

Father is overwhelmed to see her. Overcome. He dismisses his advisor, the maester Rambton, and his face crumples the moment they are alone together. He holds her, sobbing, for long moments.

Brienne holds her father too, relieved. He looks older, yes, but not ill. Not frail. His back is as broad and strong as it ever was when she puts her arms around him.

So, no Lannisters. No illness. That only leaves ...

“Look at your face!” her father cries. “Gods, half your cheek is –”

Gone. Destroyed. Eaten away.

For a heartbeat, Brienne is back there, screaming in the frozen mud outside Winterfell. Pitch dark, the weight of a thousand scrambling bodies suffocating her, the horror of snarling, biting teeth and the searing pain of her breaking leg.

She nods.

“How – how was your journey?” her father asks.

“Long,” Brienne replies, though as journeys go, it had not been. It just felt as though she were stepping between one world and another.

“I am thankful that you came.”

Brienne nods. “My duties in Winterfell...”

“I understand.”

“I must return before spring.”

Her father nods, unhesitatingly. Perhaps it is not marriage and motherhood he has summoned her home for, then, either?

“Please, Brienne. Your rooms are prepared. Take a moment to bathe and change and rest.”

“Thank you, father.”

“Then I would beg you return to me.”

“Why?”

“There is something I need to show you. As a matter of urgency.”

A matter of urgency.

Come home.

“Of course, father.”

Her father smiles fondly, and watches her leave.

She almost does not remember the way back to her rooms – not only has she not been home in near a decade, but she also has not thought about home much, either. Not enough to remember the wide marble corridors, the grass carpets, the lush beauty of the central atrium. These things have never once come up in her thoughts.

Brienne stops for a moment in the atrium, marvelling at the sprout of the Dornish ferns around the fountain. Above, the thin wintery sun streams through the skylight, and suddenly the memories hit her, all at once. She and Galladon, running through this room, all shrieks and giggles. Clambering in the stone fountains, splashing and screaming and soaked to the skin. Their father’s amused despair.

The memory makes her smile, and she realises how long it has been since she smiled.

A dark shadow passes over the skylight, big enough to block the sun for a moment. A black cloud? Brienne peers upward, but sees only a grey winter sky. The cloud is gone as soon as it came.

She heads to her room.

Little has changed.

So little that it is like stepping back to the moment she left. As though she went out of the door with her bags packed for Highgarden, forgot something and returned a heartbeat later.

The smell of the room, the light through the curtains, the fall of the sheets and the drapes on the four-poster bed.

She walks around, touching objects that were once so familiar they didn’t warrant a look. Her hairbrush, on her dresser. Her robe hung on the back of the door. Her washbowl, a towel folded neatly beside it. Filled near to the brim with cool water from the courtyard well.

Brienne strips off her cloak. Almost drops it to the bed the way she would have done in Winterfell but then thinks better of it – her cloak is dirty. Wet with mud from her ride, smelling like fish from the boat she sailed in on. In Winterfell, these things don’t matter – everyone is dirty. No one is vain. Nothing stays clean for long in the North.

But Tarth is the South. There are clean white sheets on her bed; the rug beneath her mud-spattered boots is pink. This is the bedchamber of a Lady.

Lady Brienne of Tarth has always been unconventional, tis true. But she needs to be clean; she needs to smell good.

Her handmaid comes at her call, and she is new—a small girl with jet black hair and delicate hands. Her name, she tells Brienne in a tiny, shy voice, is Caryss.

Brienne bids Caryss draw a bath for her, watching as the girl drags a copper bath before the fireplace and then carries pail after pail of water into the room, heating them over the fire. She does not look at Brienne’s face once.

Brienne removes her armour before she realises she has no one to clean it. Nowhere to store it. Later she will take a walk about the courtyards to find herself a squire. Then, a walk about the armouries to borrow an armour stand for her chambers.

She props Oathkeeper against the wall. Her father, she realises, did not remark on it.

Perhaps he did not notice, she thinks, though it is gaudy enough. You would have thought something bearing the sigil of the enemy would attract the eye.

The bath is ready, and Brienne disrobes entirely.

Now Caryss does look at her – she can’t keep her eyes off Brienne’s body. The bitemarks, the scars, the long rake of bear claws at her neck. The slight crooked shape of her right leg, the slight twist of her foot at the end of it.

The handmaid’s eyes are wide and shocked.

Brienne clambers into the water, pleased at the heat of it. She does not mind the handmaid’s stares – she has long since grown accustomed to eyes on her body in the communal baths at Winterfell. She is too old, too weary to care what anyone thinks of it now. Her body is remarkable. An object of desire maybe not, but it had been strong enough to stagger to its feet to defend the innocents in the crypts that night, when the dead burst from their tombs. Strong enough that she had stood on a broken leg and swung her Valyrian steel sword with her broken fingers while Lady Sansa cowered behind her. Strong enough to have recovered from it all in the moons that followed, too.

She scrubs herself with lye and a brush, surprised by the amount of dirt that comes off her skin. Surprised too, when Caryss picks up the pile of clothes she has just removed and scurries away with them, promising to wash and mend them.

Mend? Her breeches are a little threadbare in places, and her jerkin has a couple of ties missing, but …

Brienne notices that her bags have not been brought to her chambers. Perhaps her things have been spirited away to be “mended”, too.

Once she has finished bathing, she wraps herself in a towel and seeks out something to wear. Fearing she will open her armoire to see nothing but all her old gowns. But no, there, hanging, instead, is a wardrobe full of new clothes. Tunics, some silk and some linen, in shades of blue and claret. Several leather jerkins, black and brown and oxblood. A doublet. In the drawers, new smallclothes, new breeches, in leather and linen again.

Brienne dresses. Brushes her wet hair back. It has grown longer during her journey, and she usually would cut it the moment it grew beyond the bottom of her ears, but she doesn’t. She has always worn her hair long on Tarth.

She debates with herself about the sword, but then buckles it about her waist anyway. It gives her something to do with her hands.

Then, she returns to her father. As promised.

Come home.

Her leg feels looser, after her bath. She does not limp so much on the stairs as she goes back up to his solar. Her scarred cheek feels tighter, though, thanks to the lye.

“Come,” her father bids her, as soon as she walks through the door.

He pushes past her, and she thinks he will make for the stairs back down into the rest of Evenfall, but he does not. Instead, he strides in the other direction, into the skyway. The skyway is a covered walkway that connects the four towers sitting at each corner of the castle. They are old and rickety now, and not used much.

Brienne, mute, follows him. It is cold outside, up this high. Not Winterfell cold, but a salty, gritty kind of cold that irritates more than it freezes.

“Be careful,” her father warns, as they cross a particularly wobbly section of planks. Brienne tiptoes gingerly across.

She follows him around, through the southeastern tower and onto the eastern skyway. Abruptly, he stops. Right in the middle. Turns to stare over the flat, crenellated roof of Evenfall Hall.

“What is it?” she asks.

Her father doesn’t answer. Instead, he points.

Brienne follows the direction of his finger with her gaze, and sees … something?

A pile of burned wood, covering half the western ballroom roof. Blackened branches, twisted trunks, littered with … with bones? Brienne squints, but there’s no mistaking them. The corpse of a cow, charred black. Animal skulls, numerous shapes and sizes.

“What … what is it?” she asks. “Who did that?”

Her father shakes his head. “Not who.” But then he gasps and steps back a pace, his eyes on the sky. “There!” he cries.

Brienne turns, looks upward too.

There – a vast black shape silhouetted against the winter sun. It turns. Swoops. Tucks itself into a dive, headed towards the ballroom roof, to the heap of charred wood.

“A dragon?!” Brienne gasps. “Dear gods!”

By her side, her father nods.

A dragon … a dragon. A dragon, here on Tarth. Making its nest on the roof of Evenfall Hall.

As she watches, the great beast lands by its nest, somewhat awkwardly. Hopping and then teetering and then landing on only one of its feet. Is it injured? But then she sees.

It holds its left foot up, off of the ground. That claw is curled around a body – a human body, decayed, partially skeletonised. Nothing more than a clatter of bones and cloth.

Nothing of the body’s face is left, and Brienne is too far away to have recognised the features if she hadn’t been, but …

The form is small. Delicate. Still partially dressed in a black leather riding coat. Clumps of white hair cling to the skull.

“Oh, gods …” she breathes.

This is not just a dragon. This is Drogon, the corpse of Daenerys Targaryen clutched tight in his left claw.

Come home,

her father said. And this was why.

Chapter Text

Brienne sits in her father’s solar. Her hands are shaking.

Father pours her some tea, and she wraps her hands around the thick stone mug, for warmth. For comfort. The tea is fragrant and spiced ever so slightly with Dornish pepper. This is another thing she has forgotten – the smell and taste of her father’s special blend of tea.

Maester Rambton refuses a cup. Instead, he paces, his chain clanking against his skinny ribcage as he does.

“It’s Drogon,” Brienne tells them both. “Daenerys Targaryen’s dragon. The body he carries is hers.”

Her father nods. “We thought as much.”

“It is sad,” Rambton says. “Such a creature …”

“They called her the Mother of Dragons,” Brienne says over her mug. “I suppose he does not wish to let his mother go.”

Silence falls between the three of them. Brienne sips more of her tea.

“Why is he here?” she asks then. “I mean …”

“We do not know. It … he appeared a moon ago, a little before I wrote you that letter. Where he has been before, we have no idea. Why he chose to land here, of all places, we have no idea.”

“Perhaps, after what happened at King’s Landing …” Brienne muses. “Where could a dragon possibly go?”

“Back to Valyria,” her father sniffs. “That’s where it should be.”

“Drogon does not know that,” she reminds him. “He has never set foot there.”

“It cannot stay here!” her father cries.

“He’s built a nest,” Brienne muses.  “That would suggest he does not intend to move.”

“I agree,” Rambton nods. “It’s mating behaviour, but …”

“Drogon is the last of his kind.”

“Yes.”

Another pang of sadness for the dragon – a dead mother, a mate who will never come. Only the cold, lonely rooftop of Evenfall Hall, a pile of burned sticks and a rotting corpse for comfort.

“How many people know?” she asks.

“Half of Tarth at least!” Her father wrings his hands. “You saw it flying around – there’s no hiding that.”

“I don’t suppose there is.”

“No doubt the news has already left the island, probably enough times that someone somewhere will take notice. It will get to our enemies, if it hasn’t already.”

Did his eyes slide to the sword then, when he said the word “enemies”? Oathkeeper was propped against Brienne’s chair, its lion-headed hilt golden and gleaming.

“It can’t stay here,” repeats Brienne’s father. “We need to find a way to move it on.”

“How?” Brienne asks. “Tis not some dog you can throw rocks at, father. If you irritate it, it could burn us all.”

“I know not! Could we … lure it with some food, perhaps? It seems to like our cows and goats. If we put some out to sea, on an old fishing hulk, perhaps it would –”

“It has built a nest, my Lord,” Rambton reminds him. “It considers Tarth home.”

Father sits down at this desk, his head in his hands.

“What will happen if the Lannisters know?” he asks.

“Then, I suppose, they will come for us,” Rambton replies. “But they would need to be cautious.”

“Cautious? Of us?”

“They would know not if we can use it.”

Brienne’s broken, nerveless fingers almost slip on the mug. “Use the dragon?”

“Would that not be your fear?” Maester Rambton asks. “If the Lannisters had the dragon land on Casterly Rock? That somehow they would tame it, come and use it against us all?”

“The Lannisters defeated the dragons,” Brienne reminds him. “What do they have to fear?”

“No,” Rambton reminds her. Perhaps he thinks she did not hear what happened, sequestered so far in the North. “The Kingslayer defeated the Dragon Queen. Through deceit and trickery. They still have a great deal to fear if someone were to ride that dragon again.”

Brienne sighs. She looks out of the window, over the bustling town far below, over the harbour and the market, over trees in the hills and the marble quarries behind them. Rambton is right – they are in danger. Great danger.

“If the Lannisters come here …”

“Then we can’t resist them.” Her father, too, looks out over the beauty that is Tarth. He sips his tea.

The silence hangs in the room like a shroud. The air feels thicker, harder to draw into the lungs. Even the tea feels stiflingly spicy.

The dragon … the dragon changes everything.

Fighting in the Stormlands is concentrated around the main houses – Storm’s End. Dragonstone. Tarth is a poor island by comparison, with little strategic value, and they have no worth to the Lannisters beyond a token oath of loyalty. If the Stormlands fall, Brienne’s father will bend the knee to the Lion Queen. If they do not, he will not. Either way, life on Tarth will continue more or less as it has since the time the Evenstar was a king.

But now …

“What are we going to do?” Brienne asks, her voice small.

Neither man answers. Slowly, it dawns on her that they are looking at her.

Oh.

This is why she is here. She is their military advisor; their Master of War. She has been brought home so she can plot their strategy.

She is the only one among them who has fought in a war, she realises; the only one who has commanded a host of men. So, of course, they would expect her to know what to do.

Never mind that she lasted less than a minute on the battlefield against the dead – never mind that she had given her men precisely one command – to stand their ground – before she was knocked off her feet in the first wave of wights.

Stampeding feet on top of her – teeth sinking into her face. The sound of her own screams. Darkness, darkness, crushing darkness and pain and –

Brienne forces herself to look at her father. To stay in the present.

“We should send a raven. To Storm’s End,” she says. “We need men here, a guard force, something to keep the island secure in the event that the dragon doesn’t move on. Enough to put the Lannisters off an immediate invasion, at least.”

“I tried that,” her father tells her. He is shaking his head. “I had no reply – I can’t even be certain my ravens reached them.”

Brienne clenches her jaw. In siege situations, the besiegers shoot any raven that goes in or out of the castle. She fervently hopes her father did not mention the dragon in any of his messages.

“Then our first order of business is defence,” she says. Trying to sound more confident than she feels. “Recruit men of fighting age. Train them. Equip them.”

“From the island?!” Brienne’s father says.

“We may have to.”

“Brienne, you know we can’t do that.”

“I know we never have done it.”

“Because we can’t. Our population simply isn’t large enough. The men are needed on the fishing boats, especially in winter, to keep everyone fed. Nor do we have the ability to make so much armour or that many weapons. If every blacksmith on the island ran day and night …”

“All right.” Brienne holds up a hand. The logistics of why they had never raised an army on Tarth had never really been something she had thought about. “Then what?”

“You’ve seen the dragon before?” Rambton asks then. “This dragon.”

“Yes?”

“Do you think …” he exchanges a glance with her father again. “Is there a chance?”

“A chance at what?”

“That we could use it. If the Lannisters came.”

“Use it?”

“To defend the island,” her father interjects.

Brienne scoffs – it sounds like a jest. “You know what happened after Daenerys Targaryen died, don’t you?”

“Yes, but –”

“But what?” The dragon had gone mad, they said—burned everything in its grief and rage. Half of the Dragon Queen’s own forces. A tower and two buildings in the Red Keep. Most of Flea Bottom. “How would we manage him? How would we even approach him? He could destroy Evenfall, the Hall and the town. The risk …”

“I thought you may know something,” Rambton says. “That maybe you had seen how the thing was controlled.”

“By a Targaryen,” Brienne says firmly. “By someone who had no compunctions about burning people alive.”

“I … oh.”

Rambton glances at Brienne’s father.

Brienne’s father looks back to her.

“No,” Brienne tells him, ensuring her tone brooks no argument. “We should not even try. Even if we were successful … using a dragon is horrific. It is not something an honourable man would even consider.”

“Then what are we left with? If the Lannisters come here looking for the dragon? Bend the knee and let them do with it what they will?”

“No. Of course not.” As her father said at the beginning – if the Lannisters had a dragon, if they somehow had some way to tame it, then …

Then the Stormlands would burn. The Reach, the Crownlands, every castle and every keep that ever defied Cersei Lannister, whether they bent the knee or not.

Winterfell would burn long before spring came, too.

**

Later, Brienne eats dinner with her father.

She asks about cousins, friends, servants. He asks her about her injuries. What happened during the battle against the dead. He cries when she tells him.

Reliving it all, finding words to say it in, means she can’t sleep. Her bedchamber seems too full of darkness, too many shadows that move across the windows, too many unfamiliar sounds. Some of them sound like nails digging into her skin. Even the weight of the blankets feel like they will break her leg all over again.

Brienne gets up. She lights candles. Dresses again, in fresh clothes – the ones she wore after her bath have been spirited away by Caryss, even though they were clean enough to have lasted another day at least.

She takes another walk about Evenfall, trying to familiarise herself with her home again. Trying to feel as though she is at ease. The atrium at night. The sweet wood smell of the ballroom. The warmth and welcome of the kitchens.

Her leg is sore in the low night temperatures, the knee aches and throbs as she climbs the tower to her father’s solar once again.

He is not there. She hopes that means he is sleeping better than she.

It matters not; it is not her father she wants to see.

Brienne walks carefully around the skyway – it’s cloudy tonight, and there is not near enough moonlight to see the rotten planks.

The whole way around, she hears the dragon. He is there, in his nest.

A deep rumble of breath, drawn in, blown out. Is he snoring? She does not know if dragons even sleep at night. Brienne makes her way around, wishing she had found herself a cloak, and certainly gloves.

There is the sound of movement in the darkness. Brienne does not like that feeling – things unseen in the darkness. Part of her still expects a horde of hissing, screaming wights to hit her like a wall.

She rounds the southeast tower, and then the clouds part.

Now, she can see him again. Drogon. Each of his scales lit to shining with pale white moonlight—his skin dancing with light. He’s curled in a ball in his nest, wrapped in his own wings. His eyes are closed.

He takes her breath away. Freezes her with dragonfear. He is beautiful. Terribly beautiful.

Drogon twitches, the way a hound does in its kennel while it’s sleeping. Dreaming, she thinks – though what do dragons dream of? Fire and blood, most likely. Death, destruction.

“How are we going to defend you?” she whispers into the cold night air. Her breath sails like smoke as she speaks.

The dragon’s eyes open. A roar bursts from his throat, so loud that Brienne leaps backwards in fear. Clings to the guardrail on the opposite side of the skyway. Her hand flies to her sword.

Drogon blinks. His head flicks from side to side, as if he does not know where he is. He lets out a second roar, lower and more plaintive.

A nightmare. The dragon had a nightmare, Brienne realises.

Then, she realises he has seen her.

He lifts his head, and tilts it, regarding her. Brienne doesn’t move; she doesn’t breathe. The spines and spikes around his head catch the moonlight every which way. He is like a gemstone, glistening, shining.

His throat glows – like firelight glimpsed through shuttered windows. She feels the heat of him even at this distance. Brienne remembers the great long jets of flame that poured down on the dead from above, half-glimpsed in the agonised delirium as Podrick dragged her from the battlefield.

The skyway isn’t safe, she realises. If he chose to, Drogon could burn her where she stood without even getting to his feet.

He chooses not to. Instead, he lets out a little snort of smoke, and puts his head back down on his wing.

Brienne’s paralysed muscles slowly release. She crosses back across the skyway towards Drogon, resting both hands on the handrail to watch him. He snuggles tighter about himself, bringing his tail around his body, covering himself in a wing.

Still in his claw is the corpse of Daenerys Targaryen. He’s brought it up close to his face, nuzzling the exposed bone of the skull almost as if it’s a toy he holds for comfort at night.

Mother.

Drogon shifts, turns onto his other side.

Brienne stands and watches him a little longer, until the moon passes back behind the clouds.

Chapter Text

The next day, Brienne rides out onto the island.

She spends a little time in the town, visiting the sept, paying her respects to her mother’s tomb in the family crypt, meeting with the Septon and the townsfolk and the market traders.

The Evenstar’s Daughter has not been forgotten.

She is given wine, and fish, and a beautiful blue velvet cloak with a sable trim that she insists on paying for. She has not worn anything near so colourful in years – this would have been beyond showy in the North. But she is not in Winterfell now, and she is not a Northerner after all. It feels nice to wear the colours of her house again.

After she has done her duty in the town, she heads up into the hills, alone.

Winter has frozen the ground solid, of course, but the smell of the woods is the same as it has ever been. Rich and green and wet and earthy. The ever-present smell of salt adds something unique, she decides – it smells like no other forest she has ever been in on Westeros.

Home. It smells like home.

As she urges her horse further up the snowy hill, she becomes aware that there is something above her. Dark. Circling.

It is Drogon. So high up, she could have mistaken him for a bird.

Perhaps that is how he hunts, she thinks – unobtrusively, on high. Swooping down on his prey at the last second with fire and claws.

The thought chills her more than the snow for a moment – what if he is hunting her? That bright blue cloak certainly stands out against the white of the snow, the green of the conifers. Perhaps he thinks to add her bones to his collection on the ballroom roof.

But he does not come swooping down. Drogon circles. He is always overhead.

Midway up the hill, the forest clears, and there is a place to stop and rest. A fallen log to sit on, a flat rock to make a fire.

Brienne slides from the saddle – uses a blanket to cover her horse. Feeds him an apple and a small bag of oats. She pats him and whispers soft words to him – the dragon has him nervous.

Her leg is hurting – throbbing in the cold. It’s stiff as well, she notices as she limps about in a search for kindling. It’s been seven moons since it was broken, and she’s starting to wonder if it will ever improve. It’s not that she isn’t grateful – she can walk, after all, and there had been a moon and a half where she’d had to shuffle about with a stick. Things have improved a lot from that.

But her aching leg, the stiffness and the unresponsiveness of her muscles unsettle her. Unlikely as it is, were she to be set on by bandits right now, she would be at a disadvantage. Battling her body before she could even cross swords with them.

She mislikes that.

She lights her fire and sits before it on the log to cook the fish she was given in the market. Watching the steam rise through the cold air, massaging her thigh, her calf, her ankle through her breeches.

Above her, Drogon circles.

He still has the Dragon Queen’s body in his claw. Brienne can see the loose bones of her limbs flopping as he flies. How is it still holding together, she wonders?

Brienne eats her fish and warms the bones of her own leg. Her horse eats too, whickering nervously nearby.

When she has finished, she stops to pack up her things in the saddlebags. It has grown colder, near cold enough to snow perhaps, and that is infrequent on Tarth, thanks to the salt in the coastal air.

She considers turning around, heading back for Evenfall, but she has got this far. She’s warm enough in her nice new cloak, and her belly is full. There’s no reason not to.

“Come on,” she tells her horse. “We can do it.”

The horse snorts in response, and protests a little when she removes the nice warm blanket.

“It’s not far,” she tells him. “And it – it’s been a long time. I think I should.”

Still stroking her horse’s head and whispering softly to him, she tugs him towards the path. Drogon is still overhead. Still flying in circles.

Is he following her? Or trying to hunt something in these woods?

Brienne mounts up. Snuggles back into the sable trim of her cloak and pulls a pair of gloves on over her stiff, frozen fingers. The horse trudges reluctantly onto the path upward. Brienne shifts in her saddle, the ache in her leg now spread to her hip, thanks to her riding.

The snow peters out on the path here, turns to hard frozen mud as it wends once again into the forest. Above her, she hears Drogon flying now, a distant leathery slap of beating wings. He is flying a little lower.

The lake is silent. The lake was always silent.

It is deep and still and very, very blue, the deepest lake on Westeros, so far as she knows. All around it is silent, save for the rustle of the trees, save for her breath, and her horse’s.

Brienne stops. She dismounts again. Walking as close to the water’s edge as she dares.

Deep. So deep.

Drogon is overhead. She sees his shape reflected in the surface of the water. Circling. Circling. It looks as though he is both far above and far below.

“Hello, Galladon,” Brienne whispers. “I finally came back.”

Her brother’s bones are in here, somewhere. Lost in the depths of the lake when he swam into its embrace on a bright summer day and never resurfaced. For years, Brienne believed that he would swim back out one day, tell her what a fine adventure he had been on, trying to find the bottom. That down there were mermaids and sea fairies and friendly fish who had taken care of him and played with him now that she could not.

It had sometimes kept her sane, that thought, through the lonely childhood that followed.

Part of her still clings to that belief, even now.

She has seen dead men live again. Dead children, too. It is not so implausible.

She imagines Galladon now, pulling himself from the water, tall, skinny, blond as he had always been. Shaking the droplets from his hair, shivering from cold because it was winter and it had been summer when he had drowned. She imagines reaching for her horse’s blanket, just to put around his shoulders, get some warmth back in him, dead all these years. He would be so cold.

She imagines putting her arms around him – tall where she once was small. Then, holding his head to her belly, telling him she missed him, that father would be so happy. Father finally had an heir; she finally had a companion …

She imagines Galladon lifting his head. Looking up at her.

His eyes would be ice blue.

And as she looked, she would see more of them, more children emerging from the lake. Dead, drowned, waterlogged – reanimated. Adults too, a horde of them, shifting and clicking on their loose wet bones, arms outstretched, mouths open, running at her, biting at her, trampling her –

“No!” she cries, far too loud.

The dead aren’t here; it’s just a lake—the lake where her brother died.

Above her, Drogon lets out a cry as well. She steps back from the edge, breathing hard.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers to Galladon, somewhere in the lake. She did not mean to bring her horrors here. Galladon’s memory deserved better than that.

She turns to go back to her horse when there is a huge disturbance of air all around. The lake ripples wildly, as if someone had thrown a shower of gravel across its surface.

Drogon swoops down, landing on the opposite side of the lake. Hopping on his single foot to keep Daenerys’ corpse aloft.

He brings down two trees with his wings as he does. They crash into the lake, rolling over and then slowly sinking into the depths. Down to find Galladon, playing with the mermaids.

Drogon looks at Brienne, his head tilted to one side, almost quizzically.

She is frozen once again – petrified. Gods, this close, he is huge. So hot, his skin steams in the winter air, his breath rising like smoke from between his teeth. He seems almost unreal against the still quiet of the lake. The sapphire blue of its waters are dull and cold next to his magnificent beauty.

Brienne’s horse is terrified. Screaming and neighing and trying to back away. This breaks her paralysis, and she grabs his bridle, soothing him with gentle words and soft pats. Never taking her eyes off the dragon.

Across the lake, Drogon watches.

He snorts. Makes a low noise at the back of his throat.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Brienne tells the dragon. But she almost laughs at herself. How could she possibly hurt him? But there is something nervous about him. Something trepidatious.

The dragon dips his head, looking into the lake. Perhaps looking at his own reflection now that the ripples from the sunken trees have stopped.

The claw that holds the Dragon Queen moves closer to his chest.

“I have to get back home,” Brienne tells him. Pulling on the horse’s bridle to encourage him to move towards the path.

Drogon lets out a sound, half a snort and half a growl, emanating from the back of his throat. He leans forward, right across the surface of the lake, stretching his great neck out to its elegant full length.

Close. Impossibly close.

For a moment, Brienne thinks he is inviting her to touch him. She lets go of the bridle and reaches out, stretching her arm, her hand, the crooked fingers that were bitten and broken by the wights outside Winterfell.

She wonders what he will feel like. Smooth, she imagines. Smooth and hot.

Drogon pulls back, opens his mouth and roars, full-throated and full in her face. Just the gust of breath from his mouth knocks Brienne off her feet.

Then, he jumps across the lake in a single bound and snatches her horse in his jaws. Leaps into the sky with him already half-eaten.

Brienne, rigid with dragonfear on her arse in the snow, can only watch in horror as her saddlebags and blanket drop at her side. Blood spatters across her face and chest.

It takes her a moment to get to her feet. To collect herself and her belongings.

She is covered in blood, absolutely dripping.

She looks back over the hills, to the distant marble walls of Evenfall. Already, she can see the shape of Drogon landing on the roof, head bowed, probably eating her poor horse.

“Thanks a lot,” she says.

**

By the time she has cleaned herself off with freezing lakewater and trudged all the way back to Evenfall, night has fallen.

The castle is busy, men running to and fro, the braziers in the courtyard all lit. It feels as though something is happening.

Brienne’s father is in the western hall, calling, pointing, directing the castle guard. Telling men to get up to the battlements, telling Rambton to loose ravens, telling them all to ring the bells and warn the town.

“Father!” Brienne calls as she limps across the hall towards him. “What is happening?”

“Brienne, thank the gods – I did not know if you had been captured!”

“Cap-captured? Who – father, what’s going on?”

“Why are you … what is all this blood?” he asks, looking at her clothes. Even her brand new cloak is spattered. “You’re not hurt?”

“No, my horse –”

He nods, simultaneously relieved and too busy. “Come.”

Brienne follows her father up into the southwestern turret stairs now, up the stairs towards his solar. Still carrying the bloodied saddlebags, still limping from her long walk home.

His solar is all but dark, lit by a single candle on the mantle. He pushes Brienne towards the window, pointing out into the darkness.

“There!” he cries. “On the other side of the bay.”

“What?” Brienne asks, but then she sees.

Fires. Many fires – cookfires, campfires. As she stares, her eyes adjust to the low light, and then she sees row upon row of tents – and many more still being erected in the night.

“Gods!” she says. It is a warcamp.

Her father nods at her shoulder. “Exactly as we feared.”

Brienne closes her eyes. Even in the darkness, she sees that the tents are red.

The Lannisters are coming.

Chapter Text

At dawn, Brienne makes her way up to the skyway to get a better look.

Of course, she was not mistaken last night. There, on the opposite bank of the strait, is a Lannister warcamp. Red tents and cookfires as far as the eye can see.

“It’s the Kingslayer,” her father says as he approaches, carrying two mugs of his pepper tea.

Brienne takes her mug gratefully and wraps both hands around it.

“It is.” She had seen Ser Jaime’s tent at once, though she has yet to see the man himself.

“He must have left Storm’s End,” her father says morosely. “Perhaps they have fallen?”

“We would have heard, surely?”

“Mmm,” father agrees. “Most like they are here for the dragon.”

Brienne nods. She sips her tea.

The dragon in question is nowhere to be seen – his nest is empty, though Brienne can see the remains of her horse have been added to the pile of bones on the side. A shattered skull. A ribcage with some charred meat still clinging to it.

“What are we to do?” her father asks after a long moment.

Brienne sips her tea. “They are not on the island,” she notes. “Only across the strait.”

Father nods. “Yes, I thought that a strange choice, myself.”

“If they intend to besiege us, they have made it difficult for themselves. The fishing boats can still leave the harbour, the grain stores can still be accessed. Tarth is pretty self-sufficient, for a small island. They could sit there for decades.”

Her father chuckles. “I had not heard the Kingslayer was a fool.”

Brienne rubs her scarred cheek. Her hand is warm from her mug, and it feels good. “He is not.”

They both stand in silence for a moment, looking out across the strait. Brienne’s new blue cloak whips in the wind, and her leg still aches from her long walk home last night.

“I suppose we wait,” she says eventually. “That’s all we can do.”

**

At noon, they receive a raven from the Lannister camp. It bears a small scroll, sealed with a lion.

Maester Rambton brings the message to the solar at once and spreads the scroll out with nervous fingers at Lord Selwyn’s command. The three of them crowd the desk, practically bumping heads to read it. It is short, and signed in Ser Jaime’s name – though, Brienne notes, it is not written in his own hand.

“I would parley with the Evenstar,” Brienne’s father reads aloud. “We mean you no harm. Come alone at the Hour of the Pigeon. Ser Jaime Lannister.”

Her father stands up straight. Smoothes his doublet. “The Hour of the Pigeon? That’s – that’s not long!”

Brienne shakes her head. “You’re not going.”

“I’m – I’m not?”

“No! You are the Evenstar. You don’t go at his bidding. Not at a time he dictates, not on your own, without any assurances of protection whatsoever. Who does he think he is?”

“He’s the Kingslayer,” Rambton reminds her. “Who happens to be on our doorstep with a rather substantial army.”

“Even fewer reasons to trust him. He and his sister are oathbreakers, both.”

Rambton and her father exchange glances.

“Besides,” she reminds them both, “as far as he knows, we have a dragon.”

Brienne’s father chuckles, nervously.

“No,” Brienne says. “The Evenstar is far too busy to deal with Lannisters. I’ll go in your stead. But I won’t go alone; I’ll take five men of the household guard with me. And he can wait until the Hour of the Frog.”

“Are you certain that’s wise?” Rambton asks.

“I know Ser Jaime,” she tells him, her hand going instinctively to the hilt of her sword. “It’s best to keep him on the back foot.”

**

As she promised, Brienne takes her time. First, she takes a bath, making sure that she has thoroughly soaped every finger and toe. Ensuring her nails are well-scrubbed and that her ears are very clean. Then she sits on her bed and polishes her armour, doing it slowly, methodically. Being careful to scrape every last piece of mud out of every last crevice. Polishing it until it gleams. Then she sits down to sharpen her sword, and rub the lion on the hilt until that, too, shines.

Ser Jaime.

Ser Jaime is here.

Ser Jaime Lannister is a thought that Brienne has not allowed herself to think for a long time. Not since the Dragon Pit, not since the Lannister betrayal.

Not since Ser Jaime decided that loyalty was not to be fucked and stood by his sister in the South while the dead poured through the Wall in the North. Not since he had killed the Dragon Queen in the war that had followed. Killed her not with honour, but with Lannister guile and deceit.

Brienne had not thought of him much at all, as she had recovered from her injuries. She had known where he was at all times, of course – as disparate and disjointed as they had grown, the one thing the Starks had come together for was a weekly briefing on what the Lannisters were doing. Ravens, messages, Lord Bran’s strange abilities had kept them all apprised.

Over the moons, Jaime Lannister had become a token on a map, moved from one kingdom to another at the head of his army. Taking back whatever castle his sister fancied that moon.

Ser Jaime has been a distant danger, nothing more.

Caryss helps Brienne into her armour, patiently listening to Brienne’s instructions on how to buckle it and lace it. She holds a looking glass while Brienne checks her appearance, smoothing her hair and straightening her belt.

Just as she fastens her new blue cloak about her shoulders, her father knocks on the door.

She bids him enter, and he comes in, carrying a bundle under one of his arms. He stops in the doorway to look at her.

“My gods,” he says as he looks at her in all her armoured finery. “You do look most glorious, Brienne.”

“Thank you, father.”

“You will do House Tarth proud on this day.”

“I hope to.”

“You will,” her father tells her in no uncertain terms. “You have already. Watching you go out into the world, serving Lord Renly, serving the Starks  … with honour and courage … I could not have been more proud of you.”

For a moment, she is stunned. All she can do is stare at her father, her eyes filling and her chin wobbling. He is proud of her. He is proud of what she has done.

“Here,” he says, holding out the bundle to her. It is wrapped in folds of azure velvet.

Brienne takes it. Opens it.

“Father …” she breathes.

It is the sword of the Evenstar.

Echo is no Valyrian steel, but its glittering silver hilt, adorned with crescent moons and starbursts, is a beauty. It is so named because it is said to be forged in the likeness of Galladon of Morne’s sword, The Just Maid. As a girl, Brienne had coveted it more than any of Tarth’s treasures.

“You should be wearing it this day,” her father whispers.

Brienne cannot find breath to speak, cannot even find breath to breathe. Instead, she pulls her father into her embrace, far too hard against her armour, the sword caught awkwardly between them.

Her father smiles at her. Strokes her unscarred cheek with his thumb, up and down.

He helps her to remove Oathkeeper, and wear Echo on her hip.

**

Next, Brienne takes her time to select five of the household guard. She goes not for strength or prowess, but for the tidiest, the best turned out. The most square-jawed and shiny-haired and handsome. She finds banners for them to carry, and tabards bearing the house colours. She understands Lannisters – Lannisters are all about display.

She has to borrow a horse.

Her father waves her goodbye from the castle gates as she leaves, his eyes tight and fearful. Brienne waves back, forcing a smile onto her face for his sake. Trying to look relaxed, as though she has nothing to fear.

It feels strange; it has been a long time since anyone cared that she was heading into danger.

She and her escort make their way through the town and down to the ferry. The townsfolk, too, look worried. Mothers hold children in the doorways of their houses; the traders are packing the market down early.

When she and her guardsmen finally board the ferry, it is long past even the Hour of the Frog. It is growing dark, and the cookfires of the camp on the far shore are well ablaze.

The banners stream out behind them as they approach the edges of the Lannister camp. Caught on the winds just as snow begins to fall.

“I am Brienne of Tarth,” she tells a patrol as they approach. “I speak for the Evenstar.”

They lead her through the camp without a word, and it is the faces of Lannister soldiers who turn to watch her pass now. Men outside their tents, men using latrine pits, men sorting armour and weapons and men running drills. They are so young, she thinks. Boys – some of them barely in their early teens. Is this what Queen Cersei is forced to recruit now?

Presently, she is shown to Ser Jaime’s tent. She waits outside while she is announced, her belly in a knot and her heart thudding hard.

“My Lord,” she hears from inside. “Lady Brienne of Tarth is here. To speak for the Evenstar.”

She hears the sound of dropped cutlery. Mumbled curse words.

Then – Ser Jaime.

Ser Jaime.

He pushes open the tent flap, looks up at her, still sitting on her borrowed horse. At the guardsmen she has brought with her. For a moment, he is dumbstruck, his eyes wide and his mouth open.

Then –

“I thought you were in the North,” he says.

He looks different – his hair is shaved short and close, his beard grown long and thick. So very different. For a moment, Brienne can’t speak, either. She had forgotten him. She had forgotten him altogether.

He jerks his head in the direction of his tent, and then turns and disappears inside. Brienne dismounts. Hands the reins of her horse to one of her house guard.

She tells her men to wait outside, and then follows Ser Jaime into his tent.

Inside, his tent is warm and luxurious, by warcamp standards. He has a woodstove, well ablaze. Carpets on the floor. A dining table big enough to seat six men, laid out with candlesticks and silver cutlery. On it, his dinner sits, half-eaten. Venison and greens.

She realises he is looking at her. At her face. Her scar – the expression on his face dark and unreadable. She stares back pointedly, hoping he will take the hint and stop. He does not.

“What happened?” he asks. His voice is strangely soft.

“An army of dead men,” she reminds him archly.

His face contracts into a sneer. He turns away. Pours a glass of wine and holds it out to her. She refuses with a shake of her head – she is here to parley with a potential enemy, not drink with him like a friend chance met at a tavern. He drinks it himself, swallowing the whole lot in three swift gulps.

Silence falls again. Brienne takes the opportunity to study him – he looks so different, somehow. His shorn hair and thick beard are obvious, but it is more than that. His armour is dirty, the leather a little worn around the edges. He does not wear his customary silk scarf about his neck.

He isn’t wearing his golden hand.

He looks dangerous, she thinks. Dangerous in a way he never has before.

“What are you doing here, Brienne?” he asks once he has drained the glass.

“I might ask you the same question. I live here.”

“I thought you were in the North.”

“So you decided to invade while I was away?”

“Does this look like an invasion?”

“An army camped on our doorstep? You’ll forgive me if I say yes. Unless this is the Lannister mummer’s division, and you’re here to give my father a show?”

Ser Jaime scoffs. He scratches his shaven head. In doing so, he dips his head, and his eyeline meets her swordbelt. There, the pretty, ornate silver hilt of Echo sits instead of the golden lion of Oathkeeper.

Jaime glances at her face again, his eyes narrowed.

Brienne says nothing. She lets the silence hang.

“There have been rumours.” His eyes move back and forth as they search her face for expression.

She gives him nothing. Stands in silence until he elaborates.

“Rumours that a dragon may have been sighted around here.”

She has been told so many times that she is terrible at deception, that her face can’t hide her feelings very well. It’s a good job that she only has half a face left. “A dragon?” she asks innocently.

“Yes. So the … the Queen …”

Brienne raises an eyebrow.

“The Queen wishes to investigate.”

“Investigate. With an army.”

“Precisely.”

Now they are both mute. Glaring at each other. Stubborn and blunt-edged. Waiting to see who will crack first.

It is Jaime. “Seriously – what happened to your face?”

“A dead man chewed a hole in it,” she snaps.

“Oh. Are you – are you all right?”

That stumbles her. Not even Lady Sansa had asked that, not even after Brienne staggered to her feet to defend those sheltering in the crypts. “I’m – I’m still hale and hearty enough to fight you, if that’s your concern.”

Ser Jaime blinks. “It’s not.”

Silence again. She sees him glance again at the sword.

“How long do you plan to stay here?” she asks, wrapping a hand about the hilt. “Dragon spotting?”

“Well, that depends.”

“On?”

“On how long it takes me to find it.”

“And what happens … if you do find a dragon?”

“That rather depends, too.”

“On what, exactly?”

“On what the Queen wants to do.”

Brienne sucks in a breath between her teeth. Hisses it out, almost a laugh. “Of course it does.”

Jaime scowls.

“Is that all you wished to say to my father?” she asks when he continues to say nothing.

“Yes,” Jaime says airily with a wave of his remaining hand. “You really needn’t have dragged your retinue of pretty boys out in the cold – it’s quite simple. We are here to investigate the rumours of a dragon. The Crown requests and requires Lord Selwyn to provide any information he is able to, and to lend us assistance where it is necessary.”

“And that’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“I’ll be sure to relay it.”

“Please do.”

She turns on her heel, steps towards the exit.

“Lady Brienne?”

“Yes?”

“I am … pleased to see you.”

Brienne grunts and pushes her way out of the tent.

It would be easier to believe if he didn’t have an army camped outside her home.

Chapter Text

“That was all he said?”

Brienne’s father paces the floor of his solar; his gaze does not leave the window that overlooks the strait. On the opposite bank, the Lannister warcamp lies, a blood-red scar on the fields, threatening and ugly.

“That was all,” Brienne responds. “The Lannisters are here because of the dragon, and the Evenstar is requested and required to assist them should the need arise. Ser Jaime was not discourteous about it.”

Maester Rambton scoffs. “The threat is implicit, of course.”

“Of course,” Brienne agrees. Just the Lannisters’ presence is threat enough.

“Have they seen the dragon for themselves?” her father asks.

“I don’t believe so. But they do believe the rumours enough to bring all those soldiers all the way here. That’s … not a small encampment.”

“Where is the dragon now? Do we know?”

“No.” Brienne had been up on the skyway before meeting with her father – Drogon’s nest was empty, and nothing looked to have been disturbed since last she had seen it.

“The watchmen have caught no sight of it since last night,” the maester tells them. “Apparently, it flew off towards the east of the island as darkness fell, and we’ve had no reports since, not even a complaint about livestock being eaten.”

“Dare we hope it has departed?” her father suggests. “Across the Narrow Sea and to Valyria?”

Brienne frowns. “We have no reason to suspect Drogon won’t return,” she says. “And if he does, the Lannisters can’t miss him on the roof of Evenfall. We should prepare for that.”

Father sighs. “What do you think will happen then?”

Brienne thinks for a moment. Thinks about Ser Jaime – the way she has tried not to think about him for so long. “Then they will make a move,” she says. “Perhaps not a military one, not at first – Ser Jaime is a prudent tactician, and he’s no sadist. If it were just him, I would say he would treat us honourably.”

“But?” Maester Rambton asks.

“But his sister is his weakness. And it’s she who sits the Iron Throne. If she commands him to take the dragon …”

Then he will do whatever she wants, Brienne thinks morosely. No matter how dishonourable. He will act passively and helplessly even as he willingly does her bidding.

We don’t get to choose who we love.

“If the Lannisters cross the strait …” Brienne’s father looks out of the window again, at the hundreds of tents that disappear off into the mists. “If they try to take the castle …”

“If they cross the strait, it will be over in an hour,” she says.

“I’ll bend the knee,” he tells her straight away. “If it comes to that. I’ll not see my people put to the sword.”

“Father, the dragon –”

“Dragons can take care of themselves. We did not ask it to come here, and we are not equipped to defend it.”

“I know, and I agree. But … we must remember King’s Landing. The last time Ser Jaime cornered Drogon, half the city burned.”

Her father chews his lip. She knows what he is thinking – the dragon’s fire had been strong enough to melt stone, strong enough to destroy part of the Red Keep and most of Flea Bottom. No one had been able to stop Drogon, not even people who had been close to Daenerys Targaryen. They had all burnt.

“We must play this carefully,” Maester Rambton urges. “We must play the Kingslayer carefully.”

Brienne swallows. Trying to imagine her father, Maester Rambton, even herself, playing the Lannisters. It’s just embarrassing.

Father doesn’t look too convinced either – he’s still gazing out over the warcamp, still with his teeth worrying at his lip.

“Perhaps it has gone,” Maester Rambton says at last. “It does not usually stay away from the castle for this long.”

“We can only hope,” says Brienne’s father in a sombre voice.

**

The dragon does not return.

A full day and night pass without sign of it. The Lannisters, however, remain.

Evenfall Hall remains subdued. The guards drill endlessly in the yard; the servants scurry about with heads down, pinched faces and fearful eyes. Brienne’s father stares out of the window a lot.

Brienne is busy. She commandeers her father’s solar, poring over maps of Tarth, maps of Estermont, maps of the little unnamed islands that dot the coast. She calls in anyone who saw the dragon that night, anyone who saw it leave.

There continues to be no news. No one reports missing cattle, either.

When she isn’t studying the maps, she’s out setting up watch stations so they can observe the Lannisters. Hidden in trees, up on the roofs of buildings. Huts and clearings in the mountains. If Ser Jaime makes a move, she wants to know about it.

At night, she cannot sleep.

Her bed feels wrong, the blankets too soft, the mattress too yielding. Her whole bedchamber feels small and suffocating. Panic seems just a heartbeat away.

Where has Drogon gone? Has he truly left the island altogether?

Brienne can’t allow herself to believe that, not while the Lannisters are out there. But if the dragon is still here – then where is it? It is true that there are very few towns and villages on the island – most people are concentrated near the coasts for fishing or on the flat lands for farming. But Drogon is big – and he’s terrifying, too. He’s not easily missed.

She gives up on sleep in the early hours, just as the first tinges of blue touch the sky above the Lannister encampment. She washes and dresses, puts Echo at her hip and her new blue cloak on her back, and heads up to the skyway.

Drogon isn’t there.

She stays awhile, both scanning the horizon for the dragon, and watching the camp for Ser Jaime. She sees neither, though Jaime’s tent glows a little from within, as if he has candles burning. He must be awake too. Working, perhaps, perhaps writing letters to his sister. She imagines they are florid and explicit, full of longing to be back by her side.

It starts to snow.

The sun comes up.

Glowing gold on the sapphire of the ocean, twinkling sweet and soft on the snow. Bathing both the conifers in the mountains and the moon-white marble walls of Evenfall.

Home is beautiful. She has quite forgotten. Home is so much more beautiful than the stony gloom of Winterfell.

She wonders if Galladon of Morne ever watched the sun come up like this, as he surveyed his island home. Did he stand here, too, marvelling at Tarth’s beauty as the sun kissed all the same hills and mountains, beaches and trees?

Well, not here, she corrects herself. Evenfall Hall was not yet the seat of Tarth in the time of The Perfect Knight. He would have watched the sunrise from the eastern side of the island.

Morne was …

Brienne puts a hand to her mouth.

Of course. Morne …

Brienne rushes down the stairs from the skyway, passing her father on his way to his solar. He hails her and hugs her, but Brienne cannot wait.

Morne.

Morne …

It would be the perfect hiding place for a dragon. Isolated. Wild. If he was there ...

Brienne goes to the piggery, finds the boy asleep. The pigs too – only one fat old boar wanders about the muddy pen. No good. The sheep are kept away from the castle in winter years; the ride down there would take too long. The goats, too.

In desperation, she goes to the kitchens – and there she finds it. There, by some miracle of the Maiden, is the hanging carcass of a pig. Freshly beheaded and stripped of its entrails, awaiting butchery and a trip to the smoker.

Her father always was partial to smoked bacon for his breakfast.

Brienne hefts the carcass over her shoulders and head for the stables.

She takes a horse, a stocky black mare, ties the pig behind the saddle, and heads out onto the island.

The snow falls, thick and silent as she rides down the old coastal path, headed east. The same direction that Drogon was last seen heading, the same direction as the old ruins of Morne.

There is not much left of them now, and few modern maps even bother to mark them – Morne simply had not occurred to her until her stray thought about Ser Galladon this morning. But they are mostly deserted, especially in winter. The mountains are taller here, the forest thicker. From here you can’t see the Lannister tents or smell their cookfires. Here it is quiet, peaceful, almost. Here, a dragon could come and go and be seen by no one.

The air is salty so close to the Narrow Sea, so the snow does not settle into more than a dusting of wet slush. Brienne rides through on her plodding little mare, just breathing the air, listening to the waves, trying to find a sense of calm.

But even the sound of the mare’s hooves in the slush reminds her of Winterfell. Even the smack of the cold air against her face, even the clank of her own armour as she rides. Everything reminds her of running hordes, of biting teeth, the sounds of her own bones snapping.

Things will get better when spring comes, she tells herself. The cold is oppressive, the winter holds too many bad memories. When spring comes, everything will feel more hopeful. It will be easier to get stronger, easier to put it all in the past.

Here … she is approaching. A tumbledown tower can be seen poking there among the trees.

Brienne brings the mare to a stop at some distance. Hobbles her and ropes her to a tree to be cautious. If Drogon is here, she really can’t return home having lost a second horse. The road back to Evenfall from here would be far harder on her injured leg.

Instead, she unropes the pig from the mare’s hind quarters and lugs it back across her back and shoulders once again.

The weight of it makes her leg ache almost at once, and the smell makes her shudder—dead flesh – weighty, crushing. Brienne’s mind conjures images of the pig turning around to sink its teeth into her cheek even without a head.

Slowly and carefully, she plods up the path. Here ahead lie the ruins of Morne.

Once, the Kings of Tarth had ruled from this place, before bending the knee to the Targaryens.

There is not much left of their ancient city now – a few archways, some crumbling towers, eroded flagstones that once made up the courtyards. Overgrown and tumbling down. Now Morne is part of the road, just somewhere you pass through on your way to somewhere else.

Today, the ruins are deathly quiet.

Strangely so.

Being a mix of coast and forest and mountain in such close proximity to one another, Tarth sports a huge variety of fauna. Deer, rabbits, hares, newts, toads, frogs, an abundance of small mammals and hundreds of bird species. Usually, the forest is alive with the sounds of them.

Today, here, there is nothing.

It is strange enough that Brienne stops walking. Waits and listens. The air is warm, too. No snow has settled here, not even as slush.

Then she hears it. So quiet it all but disappears in the swish of the branches of the trees. Breathing.

Slow. Deep. Huge.

Drogon.

Drogon is here.

Here, where he can’t be seen from Evenfall, where he can’t be seen by the Lannisters.

She almost smiles – she could not have thought of a better hiding place herself. She listens for his breathing again – he is in the west of the ruins, perhaps. And sure enough, she peers that way and sees him, partially obscured by the trees, hiding behind the two old towers. There – she can see part of his wing sticking up over what remains of the battlements. His head is low. She can see his eye peering at her through a hole in the bricks. He does not move.

Nor does Brienne.

Instead, she speaks. “Hello, Drogon.”

A stupid thing to say to a dragon, to greet him like an old friend. But she keeps her voice light – calm. She hopes that he understands the tone.

Drogon lifts his head above the broken wall, his breath rattling in the back of his throat like a warning, his teeth bared. He watches her.

Slowly, slowly, she lets the pig slide from her shoulders.

“Are you hungry?” she asks. “I don’t think you’ve been hunting.”

He snorts, but quietly. Shakes his head.

She drops the pig to the ground. Backs away from it.

Drogon doesn’t move. Brienne keeps talking.

“Why are you not hunting? Do you know what’s happening? Do you understand?”

Drogon growls again, so slowly he sounds more like a giant cat, purring. He lifts his huge head above the wall a little more, towering over Brienne, over the ruins, too.

“That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” she asks the dragon. “You feel safe?”

Now she could see the corpse of Daenerys Targaryen, clutched against Drogon’s body like a tiny doll. Little more than scraps of bone held together by her rotting clothes. She had lost a leg, Brienne noticed. Her head didn’t look to be attached by much now either.

“You’re … you’re frightened of the Lannisters, aren’t you?” she breathes. “After what happened to Daenerys.”

Drogon takes a sudden dive towards her, clearing the ruined wall in a single hop. His jaws opening to snatch the pig from the ground before her. He cooks it with his fiery breath and then swallows it in a single gulp. Bones and all.

Brienne freezes, utterly paralysed by dragonfear.

Drogon backs away, a steaming hiss coming from between his teeth. He creeps back behind the wall.

It seems impossible. Daenerys Targaryen’s magnificent beast should be afraid of nothing. Truthfully, he could fly over the island right now and burn the Lannister camp where it stands before anyone can so much as man a scorpion.

But he hasn’t. Instead, Drogon fled to the other side of the island under cover of darkness. Cowering in the ruins of Morne, too frightened to even eat.

It seems impossible.

But the things that have happened to him … Brienne knows but a little of Daenerys Targaryen’s journey towards Westeros, other than it had been difficult. Traumatic. She had heard the Dragon Queen had been captured, violated, abused by those she had trusted.

Brienne knows more of her trials in Westeros. Drogon’s brother Viserion was killed by the Night King in the frozen North while beyond the Wall. Killed and then turned into a wight, forced to fight against his brothers. Then, after the battle, the dragon Rhaegal had somehow been felled by Euron Greyjoy with a scorpion mounted on a moving boat. Drogon had been present again.

Worst of all, he’d had to watch while the Dragon Queen herself, the woman he considered his mother, was felled in front of him. Felled by Lannister treachery. By Jaime Lannister himself.

Drogon is strong; there is no doubt about it. His rampage in the capital is evidence enough of that. But he is not a weapon – not a thing like a sword or a spear or a morningstar that can be swung again and again. He is a living thing, who loves, and feels and wants and needs. He cannot burn his way away from his own pain.

He cannot fight forever.

“You should stay here,” she whispers, finally finding a voice that will come out of her throat. “I – I can protect you better.”

Although she doesn’t know if that is true – she does not see how she can protect him at all. But she can feed him, at least. Perhaps keep him hidden long enough for Cersei Lannister’s avaricious eye to turn to another prize.

At least Lannisters grow bored easily.

“You need food,” Brienne says, softly. “One pig will barely touch the sides. I will … I will see what I can find.”

She backs away, eyes locked on Drogon’s, holding up a hand as if that can somehow ward him off. She only chances to turn around on the coastal path when she is certain she is out of the dragon’s reach.

Drogon doesn’t strike. He watches her go, his head tilted—his eyes on her. Making a soft noise deep in his belly.

Chapter Text

Days pass.

Drogon does not return to the roof of Evenfall. Instead, he remains hidden at Morne – Brienne smuggles food to him every day. It’s getting to be an issue – the castle’s piggery is severely depleted, and it’s not much better for the sheep.

Yesterday, Brienne bought a brace of goats from the market instead. It cost her a pretty penny and lasted Drogon all of ten heartbeats. But she has started to notice that he is less tentative with her now. Less aggressive.

The Lannister camp remains in place, still watching. Still waiting.

Her own watchposts report scouting parties sailing around the island in small boats, presumably searching for the dragon.

Brienne drills the house guards. Sends patrols to ride the coastal paths, to deter any landing parties that Ser Jaime might attempt. Any spies.

Her father seems a little brighter. He seems to worry less.

Brienne has not told him that Drogon is hiding in Morne – it seems dangerous to tell anyone, even him. If the Lannisters cross the strait, it is better that she is the only one who knows. She knows that, but still – she has never lied to her father. Never even omitted the truth before.

Perhaps this is what ruling is like, she thinks. Protecting people is not so clear cut as fighting for them.

The Evenstar has ceded his solar completely to Brienne’s efforts now, and she runs their defences from there. Consulting with the guard captains, meeting with the watchmen. Negotiating with farmers for their livestock.

The Evenstar’s Daughter. Tarth’s defender. Her father is proud.

And then she gets a letter from Ser Jaime.

It comes just after dawn one morning, as she has been walking the skyway to banish the last vestige of her nightmares, to work off the early-morning stiffness of her leg. From up here, she can check the watchposts, try to see if there has been any changes at the Lannister warcamp overnight.

Caryss runs up to her – she has been assisting Brienne these past few days with errands around the castle. She has still not had the time to find a squire.

In her hands, a scroll.

“The ferryman brought it across,” Caryss tells her, shivering in the morning mist.

Brienne takes it – it is sealed with a lion. She pops the seal at once with her thumbs and unrolls it.

This time, it has been written in Jaime’s own hand.

Brienne

it reads. Terribly informal.

Staring at your island is boring me to tears – can’t imagine where you are hiding your dragon. I’m sure you’re tired of staring at my tents too. Come eat dinner with me so we can stare at each other instead?

Jaime

Brienne blinks. Reads it again. Is he – inviting her to dinner? There? With him?

Her first instinct is to send a scroll back, with instructions to shove his dinner up his arse, but … she has a relationship with Ser Jaime. A strange one, granted, one that she isn’t sure she can trust, but one that she would be a fool to ignore in the current circumstances.

So as evening falls, Brienne readies herself once again in her best armoured finery, sporting the tabard of House Tarth and wearing Echo at her hip. This time she does not take the house guard with her. They are stretched thin enough as it is.

She borrows the black mare from the stables again – she is a sturdy horse and doesn’t frighten easily, even with a dragon nearby.

**

Ser Jaime doesn’t come out of his tent this time to greet her – instead, she is shown inside by two soldiers who make Podrick look middle-aged.

She ducks through the flap, greeted by the sight of his table, laid for two. A crimson tablecloth. Golden plates. Polished silverware. A decadent gold filigree candelabra filled with spiced candles. An arrangement of winter flowers.

Jaime is off to one side, pouring wine. He is dressed casually in a supple black leather coat that he has left undone, and breeches that cling to his thighs. A blood-red silk tunic beneath.

“Good evening, Ser Jaime.”

He looks up at her with a smile almost hidden by his thick beard.

“Ah, Lady Brienne. I am very pleased you could make it.”

He raises an eyebrow at Brienne’s full, gleaming suit of armour and passes a glass of wine to her, laughing when her pauldron squeaks as she reaches to receive it.

“Gods, take that off!” he chides. “You don’t need a breastplate to eat dinner.”

Brienne scoffs. “Robb Stark would probably disagree.”

Jaime laughs again and moves behind her, pulling a chair out for her with a flourish. She catches the scent of him as he passes – cedarwood and leather and horses.

Brienne sits. Jaime sits too.

He is all leonine grace in his tight breeches, and she had also forgotten just how well he moves. How hypnotic he is, how clever he is at using his physicality to disarm his opponents.

“So, what do you want?” she asks.

“Well, I believe we have a winter vegetable soup to start, my lady, followed by a roasted suckling pig with baby carrots, sweet onions and a sour apple sauce. For dessert –”

“No. Why did you invite me, Ser?” Brienne interrupts, holding up a hand.

“To dine with me, I’d hoped.”

“But why?”

Ser Jaime lets out an impatient sigh. “Because we are old friends, are we not? Or something that passed for it. Once.”

Once is right. It feels like another Brienne who could have claimed Ser Jaime Lannister as a friend. A Brienne who did not know the weight of a thousand crushing dead men, a Brienne who had more than half her face.

It also seems like another Jaime, as well. Not this shorn-haired, thick-bearded stranger who has conquered half the country. This is the Jaime she imagined when she looked at Sansa Stark’s war map.

Just then, a maid – a pretty woman with broken teeth – backs her way into the tent. She carries two cloched dishes on a serving tray, keeping her eyes on keeping them balanced rather than on Ser Jaime or Brienne. She sets the dishes down carefully before them. Removes the cloches to reveal bowls of thick yellow soup.

“Excellent,” Ser Jaime exclaims as he picks up his spoon. “My compliments to the kitchen tent. Our compliments.”

The serving girl offers a quick curtsey and takes her leave. Brienne picks up her spoon – it is delicate, exquisite silverware, the handle carved into the likeness of a prancing lion.

Only the Lannisters, she thinks. Even Renly would never have carried anything quite so ostentatious from warcamp to warcamp.

She sips the soup; it is good. Hearty. Well-spiced.

“What do you think?” Jaime asks as soon as she lowers her spoon.

“Yes. Very pleasant,” she agrees.

“I’m sure it makes an agreeable change from endless fish.”

“Fish?”

“I see enough boats coming and going – hundreds of them. The whole bloody island must be awash with fish.” He leans back in his chair to sip his wine. He smiles.

Even his smiles look different, Brienne realises. They don’t crinkle the corners of his eyes any more.

“You must be bored if you’re keeping tabs on our fishing fleet,” she replies.

Jaime inclines his head, that same smile still on his face. “Why is it that you are at home?” he asks then. “I truly had not thought to find you here, Brienne. I had imagined you were safely sequestered in the North, keeping all the snarks and grumpkins away from Sansa Stark.”

“My father grows older,” she says with a deliberately nonchalant shrug. “I am his heir. We decided it was time.”

More lies. She is becoming more adept at them, she thinks. Or is it that untruths are easier when there are lives at stake?

“So the Lady of Winterfell released you from your vow?” Jaime asks.

Brienne shrugs again and gestures at her scarred face. Her injured leg. “I am not much good as a bodyguard like this.”

That one does not even feel like a lie.

“Is that why you don’t wear Oathkeeper, too?” Jaime’s voice is low, and there is something indignant about his eyes now, something offended and hurt.

“Echo is the sword of the Evenstar,” Brienne says, her voice intentionally neutral. “My father presented me with it so that I might wear it while doing the work of the Evenstar.”

“I see.”

They fall into silence again, sipping soup. Spoons clinking on bowls. Neither of them looking at the other.

“We’re going North, you know,” Jaime says when their dishes are all but empty. “When the snows melt. My sister won’t rest until Sansa’s head is on a spike.”

Brienne puts her spoon down.

Jaime is looking at her, his eyes holding that strange, unfathomable hurt again.

“They know,” she tells him. “They’re ready.”

Jaime scoffs, and picks up his wine glass. “Are they ready for a dragon?”

Brienne’s eyes go wide. “What?”

Jaime bursts into a peal of laughter, his head rocking back on his neck with mocking delight.

Just then, the serving girl returns to clear their plates, and they both fall silent. Not breaking each other’s gaze, not once.

Jaime’s eyes are definitely not like they used to be, Brienne decides. Not that same flashing green, not alive with mirth and wit any more. Not even the suffering, scared, bewildered eyes he’d had after he’d lost his hand. Now they are dark, intense, the eyes of a man at war. War and war and incessant war. Almost the eyes of an animal. Almost the eyes that Drogon has.

The serving girl leaves with the old plates and returns with new ones, laden with diced suckling pig. Brienne thanks her. Jaime does not.

“Is this what Cersei wants?” Brienne hisses as soon as the tent flap closes behind the girl. “She wants you to tame a dragon so she can use it against the Starks?”

Jaime laughs again.

“She truly is mad.”

The laughter stops. The smile dies on Jaime’s face.

“Taming a dragon, Ser?” Brienne pleads. “Truly?”

“It can be done.”

 “How?”

 “I’d be rather foolish to tell you now, wouldn’t I?”

Brienne groans. “Has your sister learned nothing from what happened in King’s Landing? Did not enough people die then? Was not enough destruction caused?”

“That was different.”

“A dragon would burn you as soon as look at you.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not.”

Brienne shakes her head. “Cersei has sent you on a suicide mission, has she? Really – is there nothing you wouldn’t do for her, Ser? Would you seriously walk into the jaws of a dragon to please her?”

“So the dragon exists, then?” he says with a delighted smile. “It is truly here?”

Brienne scoffs. “Oh, stop! You have been here near a week – don’t you think you would have seen a full-grown dragon by now?”

He shakes his head, still chuckling darkly. “Your soft heart for my welfare gives you away, my lady.”

“My soft heart for Tarth. My soft heart for those boys you call your army – you will kill people if you cross that strait, Ser. My people and yours.”

“Where are you hiding it?” He affects a puzzled face now, scratching his chin as if thinking deeply.

“You would march your soldiers against fishermen and castle guards?”

“Are you keeping it in your castle?”

“Jaime, they are innocents. Are you really so blind to your sister’s lunacy?”

“Would a dragon fit in a barn? A ballroom, perhaps?”

Before she has even thought about it, Brienne reaches across the table, snatches his hand in hers. Clings to it. “Jaime, stop. This is me. I should not be your enemy. I am not your enemy.”

Jaime stops. Staring at her hand and then at her face.

“Am I your enemy?” Brienne asks.

Jaime closes his eyes. He sighs. “You are not.”

“Then stop,” she urges, still clinging to his fingers. “For the love of the gods, stop. There is no dragon on Tarth; there never was.”

Silence falls.

Jaime shakes his head. “Brienne …”

He trails off. Brienne stares at him, willing him to finish.

He closes his eyes. Pulls away from her grasp. “Don’t force my hand, Brienne. I don’t want to fight you. I don’t want to take Tarth.”

“Then don’t.”

“You need to give me that dragon.” The bravado was gone now, the mocking as well. Just those terrible war-torn eyes, boring into hers.

“Go back to your sister,” she urges him. “Tell her it’s not here, that whatever rumours you heard are wrong.”

He shakes his head, bitterly. “I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“I ... it’s impossible.”

“Why?”

Jaime opens his mouth to speak. Stops himself, then tries again. Again, he fails. Eventually, he shakes his head and looks to the opposite side of the tent.

“Don’t force my hand, Brienne,” he tells her again. “I will cross the strait if I have to.”

Brienne stands up. Drops her napkin to her plate and puts her hand on Echo’s hilt. “Then I think dinner is over, Ser.”

She turns and leaves his tent.

Chapter Text

There is a knock at the solar door.

Brienne looks up in surprise and bids the knocker to enter – it is her father, peering anxiously around the door as he obeys.

“You have no need to knock, father,” she tells him. “This is your solar.”

He comes further into the room, noticing her attire – she is dressed in her sleeping shift, covered by a long, claret, quilted robe.

“It is the hour of the bat, Brienne,” he chides. “Have you slept?”

“A little,” she lies. She has been in bed, at least. But no sooner had she extinguished the candles than the cold hand of terror crept up her spine. The usual – darkness, dead men, cold and pain. But now, there was a little frisson of Jaime Lannister in there for good measure. Sleep was never going to happen.

She had got up and come up to the solar to try and make some plans. Something to stave off that feeling of impending dread.

“Perhaps some tea?” her father suggests.

Brienne nods eagerly. Tea does seem to go so very well with strategising, she finds. She’s been looking at the guard rotations for the best part of an hour, trying to figure out where she might squeeze some more manpower for patrols and watchpost rotations. It’s long since stopped making sense.

Rather than call for a servant at this time of night, father makes the tea himself, filling the pot, hanging it over the fire, stirring the leaves until the colour is just right. When it is ready, he places one steaming mug on the desktop and takes his own to the chair on the other side. Brienne puts down her quill, and rubs her eyes.

“I hear that you took dinner with the Kingslayer,” her father says after a moment.

“I did.”

“Well? Is he giving up? Going home with his tail between his legs?”

“Decidedly not.”

“You did tell him the dragon left?”

“I didn’t tell him it was ever here.”

There is a headache forming behind one of her eyes – the pain radiates into the scar on her cheek for good measure.

“Oh,” says her father. “So, what do you think he will do?”

Brienne sips her tea and mulls it over before she replies. “Ser Jaime is a complicated man. And he is determined. He believes the dragon is here, and his sister wants it … he will take the island without hesitation if she asks him to.”

“So … Lord Stannis’s tales about them were true?”

Brienne nods slowly.

“Gods. Lannisters ….”

“Lannisters.”

Her father shakes his head. “Even now, their brother plots against them, too. Did you know?”

Brienne raises an eyebrow over her steaming mug. “I did not.”

“He has been sending letters from Braavos, trying to rally the lords of Westeros to his cause. I have received several; I can only assume the other lords have too.”

“And what is his cause?”

“Deposing his sister, of course. Seeing her head on a spike. He claims he has what remains of the Unsullied behind him, a few others as well.”

“Oh.”

“Not enough to take Westeros by himself, of course, which is why he is sending letters. I ignored his every one – exchanging one Lannister for another seemed like a poor bargain to me.”

Brienne sips the sweet pepper-spiced tea, wondering if the Starks had received these letters. If they had, it was never mentioned.

“They are a … complicated family,” she says.

Her father nods. “You know them better than I.”

“Yes. I … Jaime Lannister and I were … we were close, once.”

“Close?”

“We went through something together. I saved his life; he saved mine.”

“Did you bed him?”

Brienne blinks. It takes her a moment to realise he is asking about sex. “No, Father!”

Her father laughs at her shock. “Why not?”

“Why not? Because he didn’t – I didn’t – it wasn’t that way between us.”

“Ah, because of his sister.”

“No! I mean – no!”

Her father laughs again. “Brienne, you’re blushing! Does talking of the bedroom embarrass you so?”

“Of course not!” But even she can feel the heat in her one remaining cheek.

 “My dear girl, you are funny. You can run a man through, but you cannot talk of taking one to your bed?”

“No! Of course not! Father ... Tarth ... I ...”

“Brienne, are you … still maiden?” He is laughing even harder now.

“Well ... yes! Obviously!”

“Oh,” he says, with genuine surprise. “I had assumed …”

“I had assumed I would be expected to marry.”

“Well, yes, at some point … I hope you might know the joy of a child. There are so very few of us Tarths left, after all.”

“Yes!”

“But you have been out in the world. Adventuring. Fighting. Meeting people, serving with honour. I had imagined part of that would be … well … sex.”

“But father … my – my worth as a bride –”

“Is you,” her father says firmly. “Not a few drops of blood on a bedsheet.”

“I … I should think many prospective husbands would not see it that way.”

Her father chuckles. “I think we established a while ago that you would not entertain wedding such men?”

Brienne can not help but grin, as well. “Men like … Ser Humfrey?”

Her father grinned back. “That was who I was thinking of, yes.”

They shared a conspiratorial grin at the memory. Even though her father had been mortified at the time, he had not punished her when she had broken Ser Humfrey’s collarbone. Nor had he hesitated to show the old knight from the castle once he had been strapped up by Maester Rambton.

“No,” she confirms. “I would not entertain marrying a man like him.”

“Then what do you have to worry about?”

Brienne can not answer that question.

She sips her tea, quite lost for words. Father had expected she would lie with men? He would not have minded – it would not have mattered for her marriage prospects? Not at all?

It is quite … shocking, almost. How much might that knowledge have changed things? Not much, is her first instinct. It wasn’t like men had beaten her door down in an attempt to bed her anyway.

Her options had pretty much just been Tormund Giantsbane.

**

As the sun comes up, Brienne receives another missive from Jaime Lannister.

I’m sorry our dinner ended so abruptly,

it says.

I look forward to my return invitation. So long as you have nothing to hide, of course.

He hasn’t even signed it.

Brienne puts it into the fire. Then, she goes to her chambers to take a bath – the warm water helps relieve the ever-present ache in her leg, and since she can’t sleep, it’s the most relaxing thing she can think of.

Certainly more relaxing than trying not to imagine what bedding Tormund Giantsbane would have been like.

Perhaps … perhaps she has been hasty in throwing that letter into the fire. It annoyed her, of course – as it was meant to – Jaime is a superlative pest. She can imagine him grinning to himself, imagining her reading it.

But … what if she were to call his bluff?

What if she were to invite Ser Jaime to Evenfall?

It would be a bold move – not without risk, most of all to Drogon – would he know that Ser Jaime was on the island? Might it send him into a panic?

But it would look as though she had nothing to hide. Jaime could inspect all the barns and ballrooms he wanted and see that she was not concealing a dragon in any one of them. Would that be enough for him? Would he turn his aggressive gaze elsewhere?

And she would serve him fish.

Her bath finished, dressed in leather breeches and an elegantly cut velvet doublet, Brienne ventures back to the solar on her much-improved leg, and writes him a reply.

Ser Jaime,

she inscribes.

It would be my pleasure to host you for dinner one evening – perhaps on the morrow would suit?

She thinks about writing more, but … let him wonder. She rolls the scroll and seals it with her father’s seal.

Her seal now, she supposes.

She rides it down to the ferryman herself.

**

After breaking her fast and holding yet another meeting with an irate guard captain about his men being overworked, Brienne rides to Morne.

She sneaks out from a postern gate, wrapped in a hooded cloak – no doubt the Lannisters have spies keeping tabs on her movements, and she does not want to lead them right to Drogon.

Today, she brings the dragon the freshly slaughtered corpses of two pigs from the dell. Slim pickings, she knows, but Drogon seems to eat less when he is not flying about to hunt for it.

Today, when she visits him, he is asleep.

Curled about the base of what had once been Morne’s granary, a ring of melted snow about him. The ragged bones of Daenerys Targaryen clutched beneath his wing.

“Drogon,” she speaks softly as she approaches him, careful not to startle him and be mistaken for a threat or his meal.

She has fashioned herself a sledge for pulling the animal carcasses into the ruins. She pulls it up to where the dragon sleeps.

He opens an eye. Regards her; regards the dead pigs. Closes his eye again.

“Are you not hungry?” she asks.

He makes a snort. Turns his head the other way.

“Truly?”

Then, on the other side of the courtyard, she notices the remains of the sheep she brought him yesterday. The corpses have been burned, she sees, half-heartedly, but little has been eaten.

“Drogon?” she asks again.

He makes no response. Panic flutters up in Brienne’s chest – is he unwell?

How would she tell? She cannot touch him to feel for a fever – and he is hot enough to steam at the best of times. Moreover, she knows nothing of dragon physiology. Is he not eating enough? Not drinking? She has never seen him drink.

Perhaps he is pining.

Brienne remembers that her mother had owned a little dog. A sweet-natured scruffy black thing with bright eyes and an excitable bark. What had been her name? Brienne could not even remember.

After her mother had died, the dog had died, too. She remembers that. The dog being lost. Bewildered. Not excited to play any more, not eating either, no matter how much she and Galladon had tried to coax her. She remembers her curled in a corner, hugging one of mother’s slippers, all the life gone from her small body.

One day, she had not been there any more. Father had sat them both down and told them in his most serious tone that the dog had gone to be with mother. It had been the wrong thing to say, of course – both Brienne and her brother had broken down crying, begging that they might go too, to see mother. To be with her again.

They had cried, and father had cried. It had all hurt so very much.

Brienne sits down.

Usually, she would deliver the food she had brought to Drogon, turn on her heel and ride back to Tarth, wary of being seen, wary of being out of the castle too long.

But today, she sits, on part of a fallen-down wall, her leg grateful for the rest, her scarred face stinging in the biting wind.

“I don’t know much about dragons,” she says softly, after a moment. “But … this is a lonely place. Morne. No one comes up here much, least of all in winter.”

She pushes the heels of her hands into her thigh now, pressing hard into the muscle, trying to rub some of the pain away. Drogon doesn’t stir.

“That’s good, of course. It feels good to be alone, when you don’t really understand your place in anything any more. When you’ve lost a lot.”

Fresh snow starts to fall then, not thick enough to be a blizzard, just slow, meandering flakes that swirl about the ruins on the breeze. Silence. So much silence.

“I suppose you … you haven’t known anything other than war in a long time.”

She sighs, and it comes out of her mouth in a slow cloud of steam. Into the snow.

“War takes a lot. It does. No matter how just the cause, no matter how much you love those you fight for. It takes from you. I understand that.”

She looks over the ruins now, thinking of all the wars there had been in the time of Morne. How simple and perfect they had always seemed in stories and songs.

“And for you … All you’ve ever been is death. A weapon. That’s all anyone sees you as. Something to protect them, something to murder their enemies for them, something to be wielded. Even though you loved who you fought for, you were still just a tool to them.”

Beside her, the huge mass of Drogon rouses a little. His eyes open just a little too.

“That is hard to deal with … afterwards. Now.”

She looks at Drogon. He is looking at her, too.

“You made a nest on the roof of Evenfall. To mate, the maester thought. Did it feel like time for that? Did it feel like time for something new?”

He has not built a nest here, not among the ruined stones of Morne.

“Something new is hard. With old ghosts chasing you. It’s …  difficult. I understand.”

The dragon makes a soft sound, a weary sound.

“But it’s the right thing to do. We can’t always be weapons; we have to have our lives, as well.”

And then Drogon lifts his great head and stretches his great neck. He perches the very tip of his enormous chin on Brienne’s leg, just gently, just carefully, and looks into her eyes.

The feeling is awe-inspiring. Terrifying. Every part of Brienne wants to run. Every part of her wants to scream. But he is so gentle. So soft, and the heat of him radiates throughout her injured leg, and that feels good as well.

“We will have that,” she whispers softly. “We can, Drogon. We can have our lives, I promise.”

Chapter Text

The next evening, Brienne waits for Jaime at the ferry. Sitting on her black mare, flanked by the same five guards she chose for their first meeting.

She is dressed nicely, as befits the Evenstar greeting an important guest for dinner – in a midnight blue velvet coat with a fine silk tunic beneath and soft leather breeches. She has forgone her armour tonight – she is at home after all – though she still wears Echo at her hip.

Ser Jaime crosses the strait right on the appointed hour, sat atop his own horse on the weatherbeaten old boat.

He looks quite splendid, she thinks, dressed in a red leather jerkin and matching breeches. A black cloak about his shoulders too. Splendid and dangerous. Even alone, he looks like he is coming to conquer.

“Good evening, Lady Brienne,” he bids her as he rides off the ferry. He trots up beside her, plucks her hand from her reins and brings it to his lips.

She replies with a bow of her head. “Welcome to Tarth, Ser Jaime.”

“Yes indeed,” he proclaims, looking about himself. “I am most excited to be here.”

“I trust you are hungry?”

“Famished.”

“Good. That is good. Shall we … head up to Evenfall?”

“Most definitely.”

Without another word, Brienne wheels her horse about and rides on, setting a pretty pace on the road to Evenfall.

Ser Jaime grins and follows her, his beautiful stallion effortlessly keeping pace with the mare.

They pass through the outer gate together, and there Jaime stops for a moment. He looks up – up at the high marble walls of Evenfall, at the four delicate spires topped with terracotta roofs, up at the carved wooden splendour of the skyway.

Evenfall Hall is not a large castle – probably it would fit twice over into the courtyard of Casterly Rock, but it is a beauty. Jaime looks to Brienne, quite astonished. “Your home is lovely, my lady. The view from across the straight does not do it justice.”

Brienne nods. “The marble mines produce some truly spectacular pieces. Evenfall is testament to that.”

“Yes. Quite spectacular.”

But his eyes are not on the castle any more; now his eyes are on her. Gods … for a moment, they are the eyes of the man she remembers, the man she had trusted, the man she had held naked in a bathtub in the bowels of Harrenhal. Jaime’s eyes. The ones that crinkle when he smiles.

He looks down; he looks away. He looks troubled.

Brienne leads him to the stables to pass the horses to the stableboy.

“Would you care to inspect inside?” Brienne asks as he brushes the dust from his cloak. “Make sure I am not keeping a dragon in one of the stalls?”

Jaime laughs. “Perhaps after we have eaten. It would be a shame to have to start an invasion on an empty stomach.”

“Then we had best not delay dinner any longer, Ser. It might be a long night.”

He laughs again, and follows her into the castle. She is careful to lead him through the main entrance – she does not want him to catch even a glimpse of the postern gate from where she leaves to feed Drogon.

She takes him upstairs in the northwestern tower – she had asked that dinner be laid out in the Evenstar’s private dining chamber. It is smaller and more intimate than the main hall, more conducive to important conversations.

“Will your father be joining us this evening?” he asks as he takes his seat.

“I am afraid not, Ser. My father has been quite unwell.” Of course, it is a lie, but she and her father had discussed it earlier – Brienne has a rapport of sorts with Ser Jaime. Meeting her father now will only complicate things.

“Do you have him tied up in his bedchamber, my lady? Drugged up on dreamwine so that you might rule in his stead?”

“Of course not!”

“Perhaps he is concealed in the walls then, spying on our every word.”

“He trusts me to speak for Tarth by myself.”

Jaime makes a face. “It was a jest, Brienne.”

“In poor taste.”

Jaime rolls his eyes, but he says nothing more. Instead, he gets up again to wander about the room, looking at the portraits on the walls. Generations of Evenstars, dressed in silks and fine linens, depicted before various images of the sapphire waters of Tarth.

“Which is your father?” he asks in a strangely soft voice.

“There,” she points out the portrait of Lord Selwyn, painted in his younger days when his hair and beard were still as yellow as the sun, when he was broad and vigorous and smiling before a backdrop of cliffs and gulls and merry little fishing vessels.

“Hmm,” says Jaime. “Of course. I see the resemblance.”

“Truly? Most people say I look like my mother.”

“Ah, is there a portrait of her?”

“No. Just – just people who remember her say that.”

“Do you remember her?”

Brienne shrugs. “Not much. Not enough to remember her face; I was very young when she died. So my father ... he had to be a mother to me as well.”

“Then I am sorry I won’t be able to meet him.”

“Yes, he … he sends his regrets.”

He is almost too close to her – close enough that she can smell the leather of his jacket, close enough that she can feel the warmth of his body.

Just then, the servants bring in the first of their four courses – a smoked fish terrine peppered with Dornish spices. They sit down – Brienne in her father’s chair at the head of the table. Jaime to her right.

It is still taking Brienne a little time to adjust to spicy food again after so long on Northern fare, but Jaime eats the terrine with gusto, pronouncing it delicious and hoping that her kitchens will send his the recipe.

He keeps looking at her – trying to read her, Brienne thinks. Probably wondering why she is so red in the face. Probably not realising it is because of the peppers.

The second course is a pickled winter salad – beets and greens and carrots. Again, Jaime pronounces that she is spoiling him – it’s too delicious.

The main course is a mutton dish, rich with a pureed plum tomato sauce and a hunk of warm bread on the side, thick butter melting into its pores.

Brienne pours Jaime glass after glass of wine – he drinks far more than he used to, she notes, though not enough to get drunk and loose-tongued. Instead, he talks carefully of Tarth – asking questions about the art, the architecture, the history of the island. Asking about her childhood, her brother, her father, her mother.

All the time, he is looking into her eyes. All the time, it feels like he wants something from her. Not once does his smile touch his eyes.

Next, they eat a sweet honeyed pear tart, smothered in cream. Jaime digs his fork in, eating enthusiastically. When he is finished, he leans back in his chair with a satisfied groan.

“Ohhh, I’ve missed this,” he says, throwing his hand over his full belly.

“Pear tart, Ser?”

“Four walls. A roof. Actual warmth. You can never warm up in a tent. Your boots never really get dry.”

“That’s very true.” Brienne remembers the wretchedness of trying to get her clothes dry in Renly’s warcamp – and it had still been summer then. Fighting a war this long in winter must be misery incarnate.

She gets to her feet.

“Come,” she bids him. “Let’s retire to the solar. My father keeps a bottle of Tyroshi pear brandy in his desk. That and the fire will get you warm.”

“Pear tart followed by pear brandy? It’s like you planned it.”

She arches an eyebrow at him. He gets to his feet willingly enough, though.

Brienne’s leg is stiff from sitting through the meal, and the first few steps lance pain up her thigh. She bites back a wince, but –

“You’re limping.”

She holds the door open for him. Says nothing.

Jaime goes into the solar, where as promised, there is a fire well ablaze in the hearth. Brienne offers him the soft chair before it and goes to her father’s desk to find the alcohol. A curvaceous bottle of clear brandy sits in the bottom drawer, a whole pear fermenting within it.

Jaime is still watching her.

“I’ve noticed you limping a few times now,” he says as she pours the brandy.

“Have you?”

“Yes.” He takes a glass from her.

Brienne takes the chair from behind the desk and sits before the fire too. Beside him. Trying to ignore his gaze.

“What happened?”

She takes a big swig of the brandy before she answers.

“Dead men broke my leg,” she says on the gasping exhale of hot air after she swallows. “My thigh bone.”

“That’s a hard one to break.”

She nods and drinks again. “It was crushed. I was. There were so many of the wights they … they knocked me off my feet. Trampled me. My armour saved my chest but … my leg …”

“Oh.”

“It took a long time to heal. Moons … before I could walk, before I could even stand on it. You can’t see it so much through my breeches but … it’s not set straight. And it aches. A lot. Most of the time.”

Jaime is silent; he looks away, into the dancing flames of the fire, his brow furrowed. He sips his brandy.

Brienne sips hers, too. Tries not to think of the smothering weight on her body, so many of the dead that she couldn’t see, couldn’t even breathe, couldn’t –

“Keep it warm,” Jaime says suddenly. His eyes are on her face.

“What?”

“Your leg. You should try to keep it warm as much as possible. My … my hand … my wrist – what’s left of it – it hurts in the cold. Much more. Particularly in this blasted thing.” He holds up his golden hand.

“Why don’t you take it off?” she suggests, the words leaving her mouth before she’s even thought about them.

“Now?” His eyes blow wide – for a moment, he looks quite afraid. As if she’d suggested he get his cock out instead of his stump.

“Why not?” Brienne reaches down to her own leg – unlaces her boot and toes it off. She stretches her leg out before the fire to warm it. “I’ve seen it before, haven’t I? Many times.”

He puts his glass down, his eyes not leaving hers. Then, he pushes his right sleeve up with his left hand, and pulls at the laces on the golden hand’s leather cuff.

Beneath, the skin is red. Chafed, blistered. Chapped and sore to the point of bleeding in some places. Jaime rubs it softly. Easing the soreness out of his muscles. Flexing his wrist as if he still had a hand and could wiggle its fingers.

“That needs a maester,” she tells him.

“I have two.”

“They haven’t given you anything? An ointment, a salve –?”

“I’ve got two of those, as well.”

“You haven’t been using them.”

“There’s not much point.”

“Of course there is!”

“It’s the cold. The damp. This damn thing being too heavy all day. What difference will an ointment make?”

She can’t answer that.

Jaime sighs, long and deep, and settles even further back into the chair. He, too, toes his boots off, stretching his stockinged feet out beside Brienne’s. Wiggling his toes to get some warmth into them.

Brienne drinks her brandy. Watches the flames. Massages her leg.

She turns to talk to Jaime, to ask what he thinks about the brandy, to ask if he would like more … and realises that he is asleep.

His eyes closed, his mouth open, snoring softly. Not looking like a Lannister or a conqueror or a man who wants a dragon to please his abhorrent sister now. He just looks like a cold, exhausted man given respite by a warm fire.

Brienne creeps to her feet. Tiptoes around the back of his chair to get the thick, soft lambswool blanket that her father always keeps there. He loves to reminisce about how he’d wrapped her in it as a babe and walked the skyway with her in his arms at night.

Gently, Brienne drapes it over Jaime’s legs, tucking it carefully down the sides of the chair so it doesn’t slide off. So it’s sure to keep him warm.

She eases herself back into her own chair and stretches her feet out again.

He is smiling at her. His eyes are half-open. “Thank you,” he whispers sleepily.

Brienne nods. Goes back to staring at the crackling flames.

“Brienne?”

“Hmm?”

“What do you think would have happened if I had come North?”

“North?”

“After the meeting at the dragonpit. If I had defied my sister and ridden to Winterfell, if I had somehow been able to convince the Starks and the Dragon Queen that I was no enemy, but there to fight for the living?”

Brienne looks at him. “I – I don’t know.”

“I wouldn’t have let the dead men hurt you,” he whispers. His eyes on her scarred face. “I would have pulled them off. I would have died trying.”

Gods – she can see it. She can almost see it. On her back in the snow. In the dark. Screaming while they pressed her down, while they scrambled on top of her, while they –

And then – Jaime. Jaime pulling them off her, Jaime in his golden Lannister armour, killing them, helping her to her feet, holding her steady with his arms wrapped about her as Drogon breathes fire all around them.

She can see it – she can almost, almost see it.

“I would have fought,” he is saying, though her blood pounds in her ears so hard she barely hears him. “I would have fought well. Hard. I would have made you proud of me.”

“P-proud?”

“Do you think you would have been proud? Do you think you would have been pleased? Happy?”

“I don’t understand. Of course I would.”

“Of course you would.”

He looks into the fire. His eyes look far away.

“What do you think might have happened between us? If I was a good man – if I had come North to fight the dead?”

“Jaime –”

“Would I be sitting here now, anyway? Would I be here eating dinner with you and drinking brandy with you, and sitting beside the fire with you? With you?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean not as your enemy. Not as your enemy at all.”

He sits up. Reaches out. Cups her face in his hand – the scarred side. He runs his thumb down her ruined cheek.

Brienne is frozen. No one has touched her scar. No one at all, save the maester who stitched her together and cleaned her with boiling wine. She has barely touched it herself.

“Do you think that might have been what happened?” he whispers.

She takes his hand. Squeezes his fingers. Pulls them away from her face.

Chapter Text

As the sun rises, Caryss brings another letter from across the strait. The usual scroll, rolled tight and sealed with a lion.

Brienne breaks it open as she walks through the halls towards her father’s solar – greeted by the sight of Ser Jaime’s scratchy left-handed writing.

Thank you for warming me up last night

the first line says.

There is more. She doesn’t read it. Instead, Brienne screws the parchment up so fast she almost drops it. What is he thinking? Anyone who read that would think … well, they would think improper things. Entirely untrue improper things. Her face burns.

Jaime had done no more than touch her face. Well, he had touched her scar – run his thumb back and forth over across the raised flesh. Gently. So gently.

Brienne reaches the solar, shuts the door quickly behind her, goes to throw the screwed-up scroll into the fire.

She changes her mind. Takes it to the desk and spreads it out to read the rest.

Thank you for warming me up last night. I slept so well afterwards  – for the first time in moons.

Dinner was excellent too – my compliments to your kitchens. I should very much like to return, to see more of your island. More of Evenfall. If you’ll have me.

Jaime

P.S. Remember to keep your leg warm!

Brienne sits down. Reads it. Reads it again.

He is clever, she thinks, clever with his compliments and his advice and his disarming touches. Luring her into inviting him again, giving him a chance to poke around for signs of Drogon.

But … while he is occupied with these games, while he is eating dinner and talking about her family and falling asleep in front of her fire, he isn’t invading. He’s entertained – she knows that a bored Lannister can be a dangerous thing.

She gets some parchment and a quill.

Ser Jaime,

she writes.

It would be my pleasure to invite you for dinner again. How does tomorrow suit you? I am happy to give you a more extensive tour of the castle if you wish.

Lady Brienne

P.S. Remember to use your ointment.

She rolls it, seals it, and calls for Caryss, to take it down to the ferry.

Then she takes a quick breakfast with her father, eggs and pickled sardines on toasted hunks of bread. Talks with him about the winter grain reserves, about a river to the south of the island being choked with stones. She talks little of her dinner with Ser Jaime, though her father asks a few questions.

What can she tell him? That Ser Jaime had enjoyed the food? That he had fallen asleep before the fire and spoken gently of paths not taken? That they had barely spoken of the dragon once? How would any of that sound? She could not even explain that to herself.

Thank you for warming me up last night.

After breakfast, she has a sparring session with Ser Justan, the captain of the guard, working and working on her footwork, trying to get her leg to move the way it used to, trying to get her foot to feel steady beneath her. It is frustrating, ending up on her arse in the snow when her body does not respond fast enough. Embarrassing to be tripped and then kicked over by a guard captain, with a move she saw coming a mile off.

He is pleased with himself, though. To have beaten an injured woman. The egos of such men are so transparent.

As she is getting up, as she is brushing the snow from her breeches, Caryss returns with another scroll. The same tight roll, the same seal.

Brienne thanks the guard captain for kicking her arse. Takes the scroll up to the solar to read it.

Not dinner.

it says.

How about a ride on your island? Show me something beautiful.

I’ll take the next ferry.

He hasn’t even signed it.

The next ferry? The ferry constantly runs back and forth across the strait. If his message came on the last ferry, then … allowing time for the scroll to arrive at Evenfall, find its way to Caryss and then to Brienne …

She rushes to the window – gods! There he is! She can see the shape of him, dressed in his armour, atop his stallion on the deck, being punted across the strait right now.

How typical – to take her unawares, to try to catch her out. If she had been indisposed, if she had been out of the castle … Well, the last thing she needs is for Jaime to be roaming the island unsupervised.

Without a chance to change her muddy breeches or wash the sweat from her face, Brienne races back down the tower stairs, out through the parlour, back to the courtyard. Yelling at the stableboy to saddle her mare.

She has to ride like the wind from the castle, galloping down the muddy Evenfall road and through the rutted town tracks, but she makes it. Ser Jaime is just leading his stallion off the ferry as she arrives, her body covered in sweat, red in the face, out of breath.

He offers her a devilish grin.

“Lady Brienne! Thank you so much for the invitation. It is lovely to be back on your island once again.”

“Ser Jaime,” she pants.

If he notices her dishevelled appearance, he makes no mention of it. Instead, he mounts his horse and looks expectantly at her.

“So … where are we riding?”

Brienne has to think fast – her first instinct is to lead Jaime somewhere far away from Drogon, but he is probably expecting that. If she takes him south, there is the danger that he will concentrate his boat patrols towards the north of the island – and there he might spot the ruins of Morne. Perhaps it is better to take him somewhere nearer to where the dragon hides, but not close enough to put either of them in any danger of seeing each other.

“Do you care for waterfalls, Ser?”

“Waterfalls?”

“We have the most beautiful falls in the north of the island. They are known as the Triplets, after a former Evenstar’s triplet daughters.”

“Fascinating.”

“If you would prefer something else –?”

“Waterfalls would be lovely, my lady. Along with the pleasure of your company, of course.”

So Brienne rides on, leading Ser Jaime on a sightseeing trip.

She takes him carefully along the island’s western coast at first, the side that faces his warcamp. There is nothing new there, nothing that he and his scouts haven’t already seen.

After a while, the coastal path turns and wends its way into the thick forest that covers the island’s interior. There, the sunlight that had blared bright across the beach turns to dappled leaflight instead.

Ser Jaime seems happy. No sooner have they ridden out of sight of his camp than he becomes his old self again, garrulous and teasing, observant, astute and quick to laugh.

He chatters about Tarth’s trees, the birds, the beaches, comparing and contrasting them with Casterly Rock and the Crownlands. With the Vale and the Riverlands and the Reach. He talks of knights he knew, and mischief he got up to with his brother in his youth. Pithy little anecdotes. He mentions nothing of what he said last night. Nothing about the fact he had not come North.

It was the pear brandy, Brienne reasons, and the near flagon of wine he had drunk over dinner. The peace and warmth of the hearth at Evenfall. She knows it well – it could make a man sentimental. It could make a man feel safe to speak mawkish things.

Jaime has a tendency to be mawkish at the best of times – it is hardly surprising.

As they ride, Brienne keeps her eyes on the treeline, glancing every so often in the direction of Morne when she is sure Jaime is looking elsewhere. She wonders what Drogon would do if he caught Jaime’s scent on the breeze. Would he attack? Or would he attempt to flee?

And what would Jaime do?

“Are you hungry, Brienne?” Jaime asks, suddenly.

Brienne realises he has pulled his stallion to a stop. “What?”

“Hungry.” He points to the sky. “It’s nearly noon, and my breakfast was trifling at best.”

“Oh. I didn’t – I … do you want to go back?”

“No need.” He opens his saddlebag to reveal he has packed provisions. A loaf of bread, a wheel of cheese, several jars of pickled vegetables. Wine, too.

“That was …” She wants to say presumptuous, but … “Uh … good planning.”

“I wanted to make a day of it,” he smiles. “With you.”

“Well, it’s not much further to the Triplets,” she tells him. “We could stop there a while. To eat.”

“Wonderful.”

He is quiet now, as Brienne leads him off the forest path and into the brush, picking their way between the trees. Quiet as the breeze picks up, quieter still as it starts to snow. They come to the river, that strangely tranquil sound of water smoothing shale. Of pebbles being clattered by the current.

“We’ll have to leave the horses here,” Brienne says, pulling her mare to a stop by the riverbank. “The way ahead is rocky and too narrow.”

Gods, her leg is stiff and sore as she dismounts – her time in the yard this morning had perhaps not been the best idea.

Jaime watches her with a furrowed brow as he pulls the saddlebags off his stallion. Ties the bridle rather clumsily to a tree.

“It’s just up here.” Brienne leads the way, pushing through the narrow pass, holding onto the smooth rock walls for support.

Jaime follows. The sound of the water is louder and louder now, the river rushing through the rock beside them, foaming and frothing and dancing and jumping from the falls. Beneath their feet, the rocks are wet and slick from the river runoff – too unstable for horses even if they had been able to fit them down here.

As they near the other end of the passage, Brienne’s foot turns beneath her – chance caught on a loose rock, the foot of her injured leg. She goes down, bashing her knee and sending a spike of pain lancing up her thigh. Unleashing a most unladylike curse from her mouth.

Jaime catches her, grabbing at her arm and somehow keeping her from falling on her face.

“Careful,” he says.

Brienne is too busy trying to stop herself from vomiting to reply.

He dumps the saddlebags and helps her to her feet, his arm slung around her back, his golden hand against her hip. “I’ve got you,” he tells her. “Lean on me.”

Her knee is still screaming – she still feels sick. But she nods; she lets him lead her.

He helps her along the pass, his arm still around her, limping along until they emerge in the clearing beyond. There is a flat rock there – he helps her to sit on it.

“That leg isn’t good,” he tells her, almost admonishing her for it.

“You think I don’t know that?” she bites back. Clinging to her knee, rubbing it through her breeches.

“You need to be careful.”

“Careful? I was walking! I was literally walking.”

“What would you have done if I wasn’t here?”

“Good gods, Ser – I stumbled! There’s nothing broken! What do you think I would have done? Waited until it stopped hurting, cursed my luck and got to my feet again.”

“You could have hit your head on those rocks. Or –”

“What?”

“You have to be careful!”

“Of course I do; I have to be whole and healthy for when your sister wants me on the headsman’s block.”

It is too much – she knows it as soon as she says it. But the pain in her leg and the embarrassment of the stumble … she’s snappy and irritable. And his cloying attentions are too much.

Jaime says nothing. He lets go of her. Goes back to fetch his saddlebags, dropped when he caught her from her fall.

Brienne sits on the rock, still rubbing her leg. The pain has receded now, more of a dull throb than a sharp stab.

Jaime opens his saddlebag. Sorts through it, sullenly.

“Want some wine?” he asks after a while, holding the skin out to her. “For the pain?”

“No, thank you.”

He grunts. Drinks some himself. “It’s beautiful.”

“What?” Brienne blinks. She looks up to realise he is looking at the falls, the Triplets. Three waterfalls, one on top of the other, water thundering down from one to the other. She’d quite forgotten where they are.

It has been many years since she was last up here, and even then, it had been summer. It is beautiful, she realises, even more so in winter. The long gleaming icicles on the overhang, the kiss of winter sun on the frost, the shimmer of snowmelt on the rocks …

Jaime shakes his head. “Is everything on this godsforsaken island absolutely jaw-dropping?”

He’s taking the piss now, of course. Staring at the Triplets while he takes another swig of wine. Picking up a pebble and skimming it across the surface of the river. Then another. Then another. Harder and harder. Sort of angry.

Brienne watches – he has the motion down beautifully, even with his left hand. Four perfect skips, the pebbles barely kissing the surface of the water and then skittering onto the opposite bank.

A child who grew up by the sea, she thinks. Skimming stones is as natural as walking.

“I can do five,” she tells him.

“What? Five skips? It’s too narrow.”

She eases herself to her feet, testing her knee. It’s probably bruised, but the ache is no worse than usual. She’s fine.

She bends to pick up a handful of pebbles. Weighs them in her hand. Selects one. She comes to stand beside Jaime on the bank.

“Not a hope in all the hells,” he scoffs.

She skims the first stone. Watches it fly towards the water, watches it skip … once. Twice. Three times. The fourth, it drops into the water with an audible plop.

Jaime laughs.

“Give me a chance,” Brienne grins. “I’m out of practice – there’s not much opportunity to skim stones in Winterfell.”

“I can see that.”

She selects another stone, leaning back to put some weight behind her flick – and promptly sinks it on the first throw.

The next one, she manages only three skips, the one after that another four. Jaime is practically hopping with delight, skimming beautiful four-skippers every time.

“Perhaps it’s my leg,” she suggests.

“Your leg?”

“My balance is off. Where my leg didn’t heal well.”

“Oh, it’s about balance, is it?”

He promptly lifts his own leg, arches back and throws his next stone one-footed. Again – four perfect skips.

“It doesn’t look like it’s about balance to me,” he smirks.

This only makes Brienne more determined to get the five, and soon they are flinging pebble after pebble across the water, laughing and teasing and poking fun at each other’s technique. It’s easy, and fun. Brienne doesn’t remember anything being fun in a long time.

When they break to take their lunch, neither of them has managed more than four skips, and Brienne is forced to admit that the river really isn’t wide enough to do five.

They sit together, perched on the flat rock, passing bread and cheese and wine and the pickle jar between them.

Jaime chats easily, his smile dancing in his eyes, looking far more like the man who had fallen asleep in her father’s comfy chair last night than the conquering Lannister who had been camped on their doorstep these past few weeks.

Right now, it would be easy to forget who he is.

Easy to let her guard down, easy to enjoy his company, to lean into the brushes of his fingertips as he passes food and wine, easy to let her eyes linger on his.

It would be easy to just be Jaime and Brienne and forget everything else in the world.

They stay at the Triplets until the sun starts to sink from the sky, bathing the trees with gentle auburn light. They pack up the saddlebags together and head towards the narrow passage in the rocks, back to the river, back to the forest.

He turns to her to thank her for a lovely day, and he sounds so earnest. The golden lions of his armour glow like embers in the evening light, the green of his eyes deep as a summer sea. Brienne wonders how he would have looked in the cold dark of the night outside Winterfell – she imagines beautiful still.

Beautiful … this could all have been beautiful.

But she thinks of Drogon, cradling Daenerys at Morne. Of herself, waking in the night bathed in sweat and shaking from her dreams. Her father’s eyes, full of fear as he looks out over the warcamp. Jaime as he walks away at the dragonpit, saying And tell her what?

There is nothing beautiful about this at all.

Chapter Text

The ferry sets sail across the strait; Brienne watches it go.

Jaime watches her right back, standing beside his stallion on the deck, holding his bridle. With the setting sun behind him, dipping behind the crimson fabric of a hundred warcamp tents, he looks every inch the Lannister. His eyes are flint-dark and full of trouble. Not at all the man she skimmed stones with, laughed with, ate a picnic with just this afternoon.

Brienne returns to Evenfall, for dinner with her father.

They eat together in the private dining room, a sweet broth of cockles and samphire followed by a sea bass ceviche with creamed fennel.

“It has been good to see you for a meal, Brienne,” her father says as they await dessert. He swirls the white wine in his glass. “It feels as though the Kingslayer has seen you more than I have these past few days.”

Brienne smiles. “I am sorry, father.”

“No need to apologise. The work of the Evenstar can be a painstaking business. What have you learned?”

Brienne takes a sip of her own wine. “Ser Jaime is a guarded man,” she says after a moment. “Moreso than he used to be. But he …”

“Have you managed to convince him the dragon is no longer here?”

Brienne shakes her head. “We need to deal with him carefully, father.”

“Have you considered just being open with him? We have nothing to hide – what if we just let him and his men look for the dragon?”

“We don’t know where it went.”

“Does it matter?”

“It matters if it went somewhere on the island.”

Her father blinks. “Is that a possibility?”

“There are mountains. Caves. Lots of trees. Plenty of places for a dragon to hide, especially in winter.”

Her father is quiet.

The door opens, and Brienne looks up, expecting it to be dessert. Instead, it is Caryss, her brow furrowed.

“What’s the matter?” she asks her handmaid.

“Milady, two of the watchposts have just sent word. The Kingslayer has sent boats out.”

“Boats?” Brienne gets up from the table.

“Yes, milady.”

“What, an invasion?” Brienne’s father asks. He, too, is on his feet. “Is he crossing the strait?”

“No, milord. Watchposts report the boats are just circling the island. Scouting, they think. But there’s a lot of them. Far more than usual.”

Brienne and her father abandon their dinner and head up to the skyway. It is all but dark out, far too dark to see anything. There are lights on the water, here and there, but they could just as easily be fishing boats.

“What is he playing at?” her father asks. “What can he possibly hope to see in the dark?”

“Perhaps he’s hoping we can’t see him,” Brienne speculates. “He’s not scouting. As soon as it’s full dark, he could land anywhere on the island, or let men off to swim ashore.”

“They plan to search the island by stealth.”

Brienne chews her lip. “We can’t let them.”

“Don’t worry,” her father grins. He nudges her arm and points to the sky. Black clouds are roiling on the horizon, out to sea. “A storm is coming in – he’d be foolish to leave his boats out there much longer.”

**

Snow.

Darkness.

The sound of footsteps.

So many footsteps the earth shakes, so many it’s all Brienne can hear. She screams at her men to stand their ground, and then the dead are on her, and she is hit, knocked over, crunching to the snow. She is screaming and screaming, and their hands are on her, all over her, grabbing her. Holding her. Shaking her. Calling her.

“Milady! Milady, you must wake!”

Brienne wakes with a cry, shoving the hands off her, shoving the body away from her, sitting up in her bed sweating and shaking.

It is not the dead. It is not the dead. She is home.

Home, on Tarth. In her bedchamber in Evenfall Hall. It is dark. Cold. There is Caryss, sprawled on the floor by the bed. Caryss, who was trying to wake her. Caryss, who she shoved to the floor.

“Caryss – gods! I – I was dreaming, I –”

“Tis quite all right. Milady I –”

The handmaid gets to her feet – she looks quite shaken. Brushes her skirts down. She, too, is dressed for bed.

“What is happening?” Brienne asks.

“Your father bid me wake you, milady. The storm –”

As if to illustrate, a crash of thunder echoes through the room, followed almost immediately by a bright flash of lightning.

“The storm –” She had slept through it. Despite the decade she has spent away from home, it seems as though she is still a woman of the Stormlands at heart. It didn’t wake her. “Why - why did my father wish to wake me for the storm?”

“There’s – there’s a fire, milady. In the forest to the north.”

“Lightning?” Brienne pulls back the covers, rushes to the window. Her room is on the wrong side of the castle to be able to see the fire for herself, but there is activity in the castle courtyard below, men rushing this way and that, saddling horses. Shouting to each other.

“Maybe, milady,” Caryss replies. “Out near the old ruins of Morne.”

“M-Morne?!”

Brienne doesn’t wait for the reply. She tears past Caryss and out of her room, flying up the corridor in her nightshift, ignoring the searing pain in her leg. She hurtles down the stairs, through the kitchens and into the main hall. Father always directs things from the main hall whenever there is a crisis.

Sure enough, there he is, Maester Rambton at his side, looking at a spread-out map of Tarth.

“Father!”

“There you are Brienne. There’s a fire –”

“I know – out at Morne.”

“Yes – it could be lightning of course. The snow is preventing it from spreading too fast, but if it’s the dragon … I’m sending men out there to –”

“No. You can’t.”

“What? We need to know, Brienne.”

“No, I –” she steps close to him, then, looking over her shoulder to ensure no one else is in earshot. Just her father and the maester. “It’s too dangerous. Father, I know Drogon is at Morne.”

Her father’s eyes blow wide. “Brienne!”

“You cannot send men out there – he –”

“Since when?”

“Since he left the rooftop the night that the Lannisters arrived. I have been feeding him. Caring for him.”

“And you did not see fit to tell me?”

“I thought it better if fewer people knew.”

Her father’s jaw clenches tight. His blue eyes turn to steel. “I am the Lord of this island, Brienne.”

Brienne swallows. “I know.”

Her father looks over her shoulder. “Ser Justan! Recall the men.”

“My Lord?” protests the guard captain Brienne fought in the yard yesterday. “They have not yet –”

“Recall them.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Her father turns his glare back to Brienne. “You have been feeding the dragon, you say? Does it trust you?”

“I – I think so.”

“Then go. Move it. If the Lannisters send their stealth invasion, the first place they will look is somewhere that caught fire.”

Brienne nods. She runs back to her chambers. Throws on breeches, throws on boots. Her armour, her sword, her long blue cloak. Packs her saddlebags with some essentials.

Outside, the snow falls thick and hard, and when the lightning flares, it lights up a million dancing snowflakes so bright it almost burns.

Brienne rides through it. Rides the northern road to Morne.

She sees the fire in the distance, the snowfall glowing red against the sky, lit up bright.

Move the dragon

her father said. How is she supposed to move the dragon?

Brienne rides hard. Harder still.

The world is white, the world is cold, dizzying with snowflakes, every tree a reaching dead man, clawing for her cloak, her neck, her face. Beneath her, her mare pants and sweats as she gallops. The snow burns Brienne’s scars and makes her leg throb as she bounces in the saddle.

Move the dragon.

She can see the fire now, crackling and licking at the trees. Hissing in the snow.

There – the silhouettes of the ruins, jet black against the flames. And there – Drogon. His wings spread, his neck arched, spines and scales and teeth.

Lightning cracks across the sky – huge – enormous – a bang so loud it shakes the earth. The storm is right above them.

Drogon roars – his silhouette thrashes against the backdrop of the flames and the snow and the lightning. Gods, she realises. He is frightened! Terrified. Has he never seen a storm before?

The lightning streaks the sky again, and he unleashes a colossal breath of fire into the forest.

Thank all the gods, it is too wet for most of the trees to catch, but the sheer force of his breath splinters them – full-grown conifers!  He sends sparks and shards into the night.

Brienne slides frantically from the mare’s back – jarring her leg as she kits the ground.

“Drogon!” she screams, hoping to the gods that he can hear her over the burning trees, over the rumbling clouds. “Drogon!”

The dragon turns towards her, hissing, spitting sparks. The channels of his throat lit up with fire.

“Drogon, it’s me!”

He stops. His eyes aglow in the light from the burning trees.

“It’s me,” she says again. “It’s all right, you’re safe; it’s me.”

He makes the most pitiful sound, a terrible deep whine from the back of his throat. He lowers his head, dips it toward Brienne.

She reaches for him, for the smooth snow-slick spikes atop his nose. He lets her stroke him, trembling at her touch, making that same whining sound, though softer now. Gentler.

“It’s all right,” she tells him. “It’s just a storm. It can’t hurt you; I swear it.”

He nuzzles her with his nose, even the gentle nudge almost enough to knock her off her feet. She strokes him, whispering. He lowers his head to her belly. His huge breaths slow.

“It’s all right,” she says again. “Just a storm.”

Another fork of lightning splits the sky, but this time, Drogon doesn’t flinch. He has his eyes closed. Nuzzling into her touch as she strokes him. Soothes him.

“Just a storm,” she whispers.

Suddenly, he snatches his nose from her hand, so fast that the spikes of his skin rake her fingers. He looks to the east – his teeth bared. A hiss coming from between them.

“What is it?” she asks, trying to peer through the darkness, through the thick blizzard, to see what he has seen.

The next flash of lightning illuminates it. There – in the distance, down the road, between the trees. A man. Another. A group of them, moving up towards the fire. Some carrying torches. Some carrying swords.

Her father’s men? No – the next white bolt shows her. They are boys in red armour. Golden lions.

Lannisters.

Lannisters! Somehow, despite the storm, Jaime has managed to get men on the island.

She doesn’t think they have seen her – or Drogon. They are down the ridge a little, past the ruins, moving slowly and carefully in search formation. Drawn to the fire, just as her father had feared.

Brienne thinks quickly – she has to hide, she has to hide Drogon.

Move the dragon.

“Drogon!” she whispers.

But he is moving away, stalking in the direction of the Lannister soldiers. Hissing through his teeth again.

“Drogon!” Louder.

He stops. Turns around. His throat is full of fire again, glowing.

“No. You don’t want to kill them.”

He makes a sound, a low, rumbling growl.

She beckons. Does he understand? “Come on! Drogon … We have to –”

She moves backwards, still beckoning frantically, moving deeper into the ruins, deeper into the overgrowth. Away from the fire.

Drogon hesitates. But then another enormous flash illuminates the landscape, and another crack of thunder shakes the ground. There are lots of Lannister men, twenty at least, a swarm.

The dragon seems to shudder. He draws Daenerys’ corpse close to his chest – protective. Loving. Saving her from the Lannisters.

He turns around. Follows Brienne into the ruins.

Move the dragon

The dragon is moving.

She sneaks past the granary, past the fallen tower. Stumbles on the loose rocks that were once part of a wall. It’s dark here – they are well away from the fire. Only the snow and the lightning are bright.

Through the ruins. Further out.

Further out, there are the remains of an amphitheatre – once used for drama or bloodsports? No one has ever told Brienne. All that remains now is a tall, curved section of a wall, a few rows of stone seats, and half of the arena floor.

It’s big, though. The remaining floor overhanging the chambers beneath. Big and wide enough for Drogon to hide in.

Behind them – torches in the darkness. The Lannisters have found the ruins. Brienne can hear voices – men shouting to each other, calling, giving orders.

“Here!” she calls to Drogon, trying desperately to keep her voice low. “Down here.”

There is a hole – a big one. Carefully, she lowers herself from its broken edge. Below is pitch blackness – it shouldn’t be too far to drop, but gods – she has not been here in years. What if it’s further than she remembers? What if the chambers below are broken, and she is dropping onto fallen bricks or jagged rocks? What if there are a hundred dead men in the darkness, waiting with their nails and teeth and putrid flesh?

She takes a breath to steel herself and lets go. She hits the floor with a deep screaming pain in her leg, but it’s flat, thank the gods! Just a crunch of snow and shale.

It’s black down here, but not completely dark – she can see the sky at least. The falling snow.

Then Drogon. Drogon, his wings spread, ducks beneath the arena floor, hopping along on his single foot with Daenerys clutched close in the other. He curls himself into the blackness beside Brienne, hot and huge.

Together, they wait.

Together, they watch the snow fall and the clouds move; together, they listen to the distant voices drawing closer and closer.

Lannister soldiers with torches, she can see them again. Above them in the amphitheatre, searching the ruins. Searching the treeline.

She hears footsteps above. Boots in snow. She can hear the crackle of a torch, spitting in the snowfall. One of them is close. So close.

Brienne and Drogon shrink back into the shadows, hardly daring to breathe.

The boots above stop moving. Turn around. Walk about. Lightning flares. Thunder rolls, dies away again. The snow swirls.

Then – gods – the sound of boots on stairs – coming closer. There are stairs? She needn’t have risked her neck jumping down here?

A flash of lighting – then a glow. Someone is down here, holding a torch.

Brienne shrinks back against Drogon’s wing, but she’s fooling herself; she knows it already. The dragon is huge – hot and vast.  There’s no missing him.

They see the shape of the man, holding his torch before him, long shadows cast behind him of his limbs. He wanders for a moment, sweeping the torchlight around the walls, lighting up the overgrown weeds, the snow rapidly melting from the heat of Drogon.

He turns towards them, and the torchlight falls on his face. On his shorn head. On his thick beard.

It’s Jaime.

She sees him.

He sees her.

He sees her pressed up against Drogon’s wing. Drogon, a slow, low sound building up in his throat.

Jaime’s mouth drops open. His eyes go wider than she has ever seen them. He gapes up at Drogon. Up … and up … and up.

Drogon … he is huge and terrible. He unfurls his wings. Lifts his neck. His thick scaled skin grows hotter and hotter and hotter. Brienne can hear it, deep in his throat. The fire.

“No!” she cries. Without thinking, without stopping to consider, she throws herself in front of Jaime, her arms outstretched, her body a shield. “Drogon, no!”

A flash of lightning. A roll of thunder. Fire in Drogon’s throat. In his mouth.

Behind her, Jaime is frozen. Petrified with dragonfear, not even trembling. His torch gutters in the wind from the storm. In Drogon’s breath.

She feels the searing heat of Drogon’s body; she feels Jaime’s heart thudding in his chest behind her. She hears the wind roar, the thunder roll.

The moment lasts a lifetime. Longer even than the moment Brienne was on her back beneath the crushing wave of the dead.

Then Drogon hisses – furiously. Extinguishes the fire in his throat and turns away, lashing out at one of the old stone pillars with his tail. It cracks and crunches, and for a heartbeat, Brienne clings to Jaime, fearing the whole arena will fall on top of them.

Slowly, carefully, Brienne moves away. Her eyes moving between Drogon and Jaime.

Drogon has his head down, his nose pressed against the battered corpse of Daenerys Targaryen. Making a soft, piteous noise deep in his throat.

Jaime is looking at Drogon. Still shocked – still frozen in place. His mouth moves, but no sound comes out. Finally, finally, he looks at Brienne.

She shakes her head. Pleading silently.

Jaime nods. Turns on his heel and carries his torch out of there, plunging Brienne and Drogon into darkness once more.

She hears him climbing the stairs back out. She hears him shouting to his men. Clenches her hands into fists so tight her fingernails burn her palms.

She creeps closer to the hole to hear him.

“There’s nothing here,” he tells his men. His voice is remarkably clear and strong. “It – the fire … it must have been caused by lightning.”

Brienne hears someone else speak, but their voice is swallowed by the storm.

“There’s no point freezing our balls off out here tonight – there’s nothing, no signs of a dragon. Wait for a lull in the storm and sail for camp; I’ll walk to Evenfall. I need … I need to speak with the Evenstar.”

Brienne hears murmurs of agreement. Then she hears bootsteps, walking away.

Chapter Text

Brienne hides until the sun comes up, soothing Drogon through the storm.

She sits on the floor of the chamber beneath the arena, Drogon’s enormous chin perched on her thigh as he falls slowly asleep. His warmth radiates through her aching leg, his breath gusts against her clothes, his weary head slumps in slumber.

“I need to go,” she whispers softly once he is completely relaxed. “Ser Jaime …”

Jaime. He saw Drogon …

He saw Brienne with Drogon, knows that she is protecting him … and he walked away. Lied to his men. Distracted them and purposely moved them away from where she and the dragon were hiding.

Why? She needs to know.

She shifts, and Drogon opens one enormous eye.

“Ser Jaime is headed to Evenfall,” Brienne finishes. “On foot. I must catch him before he gets there.”

The dragon moves his head, lifting his chin from her thigh as if letting her up. Tucks it under his wing.

“Stay under here,” she tells him as she pulls herself to her feet. “Sleep. I’ll be back soon with some food.”

Drogon makes a soft noise and buries his head further under his wing. The daylight has begun to creep under here now, little more than a pale grey. The wind has died down outside, but the sky is still rumbling – this could easily last for days. The Stormlands are aptly named.

Brienne trudges through the snow to find her mare quite easily – her truly unflappable horse is almost exactly where she left her, chewing the grass through the snow without a care in the world.

She rides toward home past the burnt and splintered trees – thanks to the constantly falling snow, the damage has not spread as far as it might have done, and it looks quite plausibly like a lightning strike. Not that it matters – Jaime has seen the dragon.

Jaime is heading to Evenfall.

The snow still falls, thick and hard, and the thunder rumbles still, though calmer now. More distant. The road home is heavy with snow.

She crests the brow of the next hill – there he is. He has not got far. A crimson-cloaked figure marching in the snow.

Brienne remembers how Jaime’s golden armour had gleamed in the torchlight as he searched beneath the arena. His shock and terror when he saw Drogon. The way she felt his heart beating through his breastplate as she’d shielded his body with hers.

She rides up beside him. Pulls the mare to a stop.  “Ser Jaime –”

Jaime turns to her, hissing. His eyes ablaze. “You have the dragon!”

“I don’t have him,” she whispers back, even though there is likely no one for miles around. “He’s here. On the island. He’s not mine.”

“You lied to me.”

Brienne looks down at him, incredulous. “Of course I did!”

“You’ve never lied to me before.”

“You’ve never been at the head of an army about to invade my home before!”

“I – oh – let me up!” he demands, holding out his hand to be pulled into the saddle.

“I’m not going to Evenfall,” she tells him. “Drogon needs food.”

“Fine.”

She grabs his wrist and yanks him upward. He swings into the saddle behind her, his cloak billowing about them both. The mare trots on.

“I wasn’t going to invade!” he spits as soon as they start moving.

“That’s not what you told me.”

“I needed the truth about the dragon! Of course I told you that.”

“Then it seems as though we both lied, doesn’t it?”

Jaime scoffs, the hot gust of his breath on the back of her neck.

“I didn’t tell my men,” he says. “Last night. I led them away. Sent them home.”

Brienne urges the mare on faster. “Are you going to tell them? Are you going to tell your sister?”

Jaime doesn’t answer – Brienne sighs.

He stays quiet as they ride further up the eastern coastal road. Snow falls all around them, thick swirling flakes. The mare has to plod to keep her footing.

Ahead, half-buried in a snowdrift, is an old stone hut. Once, it had served as a guardpost for the Tarth family’s holiday manse that lies, long-unused, in the forest to the west. Brienne stops without a word – it is here she has arranged with a farmer from the south of the island to leave Drogon’s meals every day. Jaime is silent and sulky as she dismounts. He says nothing as she disappears into the hut.

It is not until she has emerged from the hut with a sheep carcass slung across her shoulders that he speaks again.

“Is this for the dragon?”

“What do you think?” Brienne grunts, and hefts the sheep onto the back of the mare.

Jaime jumps down to help with the second carcass, though his single hand proves quite hopeless at keeping the half-frozen thing balanced between them.

“You told me your sister wants you to tame the dragon,” Brienne says as she hefts the second sheep on the back of her horse. Wrapping ropes about its torso. “Was that a lie too?”

“No,” Jaime grits his teeth as he tries to pull the knots tight on his side. “It was not.”

“Tell me – how were you meant to do that? You didn’t exactly look like you had a plan last night.”

Jaime makes a face. “Maybe tame is the wrong word.”

“Then what’s the right word?

“I don’t know … enchant it? Perhaps?”

“How? How, Jaime?”

Jaime looks away. He trudges to the front of the horse and waits while Brienne takes hold of the mare’s bridle. They must walk back to Morne now; two people and two big sheep would be too much for her to carry. “Fucking … Euron Greyjoy.”

Euron Greyjoy? Now Brienne is really confused.

But Jaime has gone, walking ahead in the snow, much faster than she can manage to lead the mare.

“What about Euron Greyjoy?” she demands, shouting at him through the swirling snow.

At first, he doesn’t respond, but then she sees his shoulders sag in his cloak, and he stops, and waits for her to catch up with him.

“He has … something, all right?” Jaime tells her as she draws next to him. “A – a thing he took from the smoking ruins of Old Valyria. I don’t even know what it is. Only that it’s an artefact he claims will bring a dragon under his control.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

Jaime shakes his head. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen this thing.”

“So … according to your orders, when you located the dragon … what were you to do?”

“Send a raven to King’s Landing.” He grimaces. “Wait for Greyjoy to turn up and enchant the dragon with his magic toy.”

“And are you going to do that?”

Jaime chews his lip. He doesn’t answer for a long moment. “No,” he says eventually. “I don’t believe I am.”

Brienne lets out a breath she doesn’t know she has been holding. “Thank you.”

“Don’t … thank me! Gods, don’t thank me for betraying my house. My Queen. My …” He looks away, shrinking back into the crimson hood of his cloak.

“It’s the right thing to do,” she tells him. “You know it is. Drogon is … he’s not a weapon. He’s … he’s hurt.”

“Hurt?” he looks back to her, his green eyes sharp and narrow.

“He’s a living thing, Jaime. And he’s been used as nothing but a weapon of war his whole life. He shouldn’t be used to make your sister’s enemies capitulate. He doesn’t want to burn more people, cause more destruction. He wants to rest, and mourn, and ….”

“And of course, you’ve been caring for it,” Jaime says with a mocking laugh.

Brienne nods.

“Of course you have. Gods! I should have known I was in trouble the moment I laid eyes on you again.”

“Trouble, Ser?”

He just shakes his head.

She looks at him, confused. He looks so much like he wants to say more.

But he turns his head, focusing on the road ahead. The road to Morne.

He doesn’t say anything when the ruins appear over the brow of the hill. Nor does he speak when they stop to tie the mare to a tree.  Nor when she ducks behind the rise where she has stashed her sledge. He helps her lug the two sheep off the back of her horse and lash them to the sledge. Takes one side of the ropes and helps her pull it through the ruins of Morne. Down towards the amphitheatre.

Jaime Lannister, on Tarth in the snow. Part of her cannot believe he is here. Striding through the white, his crimson cloak billowing in the wind. The snow that has fallen during the storm comes near up to his knees.

Carefully, Brienne slides the sledge down the steps to the lower level of the amphitheatre. Drogon lies there, still sleeping, still wrapped in his own wings. Opens one eye to regard them and promptly closes it again. He twitches in his sleep.

“Is it … dreaming?” Jaime whispers. He is halfway down the stairs, his eyes practically falling out of his head at the enormous sight of Drogon. “It dreams?”

“Why would he not?”

Jaime does not answer.

Brienne tugs the sheep off the sledge, one at a time, laying them out before the completely uninterested dragon. Behind her, Jaime creeps down the steps, very gingerly.

“Gods ... it’s fucking terrifying up close,” he whispers.”You trust it not to eat you?”

“Him, Jaime. Not it. And he’s had plenty of opportunities to eat me if he wanted to.”

“Do you trust him not to eat me?”

Brienne scoffs.

Jaime skulks the rest of the way down the stairs, almost on his tiptoes. She notes that he is careful to keep himself behind her, in case Drogon wakes.

“How did you approach him?” Jaime asks, his voice barely above a whisper. “How did you get him to trust you?”

“I didn’t. He approached me. Followed me.”

“How? Do you have secret Targaryen blood or something?”

With the sheep in place, Brienne takes a moment to sit down on the sledge, to rub her sore leg. Working her thumbs in to the muscle, turning her ankle in circles to get some feeling back into her foot. At least here, beside Drogon, it’s warm.

She thinks on Jaime’s question. “Perhaps because I’ve treated him honourably.”

Jaime laughs his usual cutting laugh. “Honourably? A dragon?”

Brienne shrugs – she’s too cold and too sore to be rising to Jaime’s bait. “I’m not interested in riding him or using him to smite my enemies. I haven’t tried to do anything but care for him.”

Jaime falls silent.

Brienne gets to her feet and hefts her sledge over her shoulder. Jaime follows her up the stairs and back above ground. They trudge through the snow together, almost knee-deep in places, cold enough to soak their breeches and make Brienne’s leg ache all the way down to her toes. Jaime has his eyes on her.

He helps her stash her sledge back behind the little ridge. Then he helps her to the mare, his arm linked with hers, mindful of keeping her weight off her injured leg.

The snow falls even harder now, so hard it’s difficult to see. It’s so cold that even breathing hurts. Brienne’s scar stings, her leg throbs and all she wants is a warm hearth, some wine in her belly and some sleep.

Everywhere she looks, she feels as though the dead are there. Behind every tree, underfoot in the snow, just out of sight in the swirling blizzard. They could be there, coming for her; they could grab her. Pull her down, break her bones and bite her flesh and –

“Brienne!” Jaime has hold of her, his hand tight on her shoulder. “Brienne, are you all right?”

She nods, but she’s not. She’s shivering, her teeth chattering. She can’t even make her voice work. She can almost see them.

“Perhaps we should stop here for a while,” Jaime suggests. “Take shelter, make a fire somewhere. Wait until the snow eases.”

He, too, looks exhausted. Careworn. His cloak covered with snow, and his beard full of ice. It has been a long night, for both of them. Brienne nods.

“How about in there?” He points with his golden hand to the squat tower of the granary, half its roof missing and its walls all but crumbled. “I’d feel safer if we weren’t with the dragon.”

“All right,” Brienne manages. She just wants to be out of the snow now; it’s dizzying. It’s far too much.

She leads the mare into the ruins, finding that, unfortunately, the horse won’t fit through the door of the ruined granary. Luckily there’s a sheltered nook right outside, part of the castle’s old mill or bakery perhaps.  There, the wall has crumbled enough to get the mare inside.

Brienne pulls one of the blankets out of the saddlebags and drapes it over the horse’s back. She tethers her to the wall and feeds her a couple of apples, rubbing her elegant nose as she eats. Here they will hear her if she’s distressed, but mostly she just looks like she wants to rest.

Brienne brings her saddlebags and the extra blanket into the granary; Jaime is back already with some dry kindling he has found where the trees are thickest, some bigger branches for when the fire gets going, too. He assembles his kindling in the middle of the floor below the hole in the roof; Brienne lights it with the flint and tinder from her pack, blowing softly on the little embers until they burst into flame. She sits with it a while, feeding it progressively bigger sticks until it has properly caught.

The warmth feels good; the warmth is life, it’s sanity.

“Here,” She turns around to see Jaime huddled behind her under the spare horse blanket, holding one side of it open for her. Next to him.

He is smiling, a little, as she settles beside him. Shifts a little of his weight against her. He is amused by the way their armour crunches together and amused when his golden hand clangs against her breastplate as he adjusts the blanket.

“Better now?” he asks, and the firelight dances in his green eyes, and his gaze is so soft and not at all dangerous.

He is the Jaime who gave her Oathkeeper, the Jaime who jumped into the bearpit. The Jaime who confessed his secrets in the bath.

“Yes,” she tells him. “Better.”

“Good.”

He reaches under his cloak and pulls out a leather bottle from a pouch on his belt. Pulls the stopper open with his teeth.

“How about a little strongwine?” he offers.

She takes the bottle from him and takes a sip. It’s powerfully hot, enough to make her eyes water. To make her cough.

“That’ll get you warm,” he tells her with a grin. The ice in his beard is melting now. Dripping off his chin.

“It certainly will,” she laughs.

And it does – the fire, the blanket, the strongwine … the warmth of Jaime’s living body through his clothes. That dread feeling that the dead were all around her seems almost silly now. Far away.

She leans back against the granary’s wall and yawns.

“Is it your turn to fall asleep on me?” Jaime asks softly.

“Mm, perhaps.”

He drinks. “Don’t worry. I promise I won’t steal your dragon while you sleep.”

Brienne laughs. “I’d like to think I can trust you.”

His smile slips, just a little. “Yes. I … of course. Always. You … you were never my enemy, Brienne.”

“Nor you mine. I don’t want that.”

Jaime nods. Sips his strongwine. He stares into the fire.

Beneath the blanket, he shifts his leg a little. His knee touches hers.

“After all,” he says, his voice so soft it is almost a drawl. “Last night, you … you threw yourself in front of that dragon to save me.”

Brienne lets out a huff of laughter. “Perhaps I did not much fancy your sister’s wrath, Ser.”

Jaime laughs too, but his is short, and somewhat bitter. “I am not sure Cersei would shed many tears over my worthless corpse.”

“No?” Brienne whispers. It is not her place to ask, but ...

“Would … would you, my lady? Perhaps?”

“Perhaps what?” she smiles. She is not sure what he is asking.

His eyes search hers now, narrowing a little, as if he were peering for something written deep in her soul. “It’s still there, between us, yes?”

“What do you mean?”

“I know, things have been difficult. Circumstances have put us on opposite sides of so much war. But … do you really not know?”

Jaime puts his bottle down, takes her hand, and holds it. His fingers are warm through his gloves and hers. So warm. His thumb moves back and forth across her knuckles. Her hand jumps in his, but something in her belly flutters at his touch.

“I’m in love with you, Brienne,” he says. His voice like melting butter. His eyes rich and deep as the ocean. “I’ve been in love with you for a long time.”

“In – in love?” Brienne can’t breathe. Can’t move. She can only stare at Jaime, staring at her.

He offers her a rueful smile. “I’m afraid so.”

She stares at him – at him, at Jaime Lannister. At his square jaw and green eyes. His golden skin, his thick beard. The shape of his lips, the shape of his brow.

Jaime Lannister.

She knows this face, has seen it cutting and cruel, throwing insults at her as they trekked to King’s Landing, seen it wicked and alive as he fought her on that bridge with everything he had. She’s seen it contorted in pain, as well, and lined with old sadness. Slack and near unconscious as she caught him in the bathtub in the bowels of Harrenhal.

But she’s seen this face gaze at her, as well. Softly, as he passed his Valyrian steel sword to her. Achingly, as she rode away to find Sansa Stark. So, so gently when she was at Riverrun, and he was telling her the sword was hers, it would always be hers. And at the dragonpit … they had looked at each other, hadn’t they?

She remembers his eyes on hers, looking, looking again. And she remembers herself, looking to see if he was looking, still looking.

I’ve been in love with you for a long time.

Oh.

Jaime turns to pick his bottle up again, but she doesn’t let him. Puts a hand on his cheek, turns his face to hers.

“Brienne –” he says, all in a rush. His breath so close she breathes it in.

She moves her lips forward, almost touching him, almost touching his. Her mouth open; his open, too.

She doesn’t know how to do this, doesn’t know how to kiss him, doesn’t know if she can do it right or do it well or do it without exploding in his arms, but –

Then she’s surging forward, kissing him, actually kissing Jaime Lannister, shocked by the warmth and the wet and the breath in his mouth, shocked by the soft squash of his lips against hers. Shocked by the flicker of his tongue, licking into her open mouth. The obscenity of it all, the intimacy.

“Brienne …” Jaime sighs. He pulls back to smile at her, and god, he looks so divinely happy, here in this tumbledown ruin in the middle of nowhere on an inconsequential island like Tarth. So, so, happy.

Brienne smiles - she wants to be happy too. She leans in to kiss him again.

Chapter Text

It is a strange thing, to lose her virginity in a ruined granary in the middle of the day.

To hear the whistle of the wind, to have the snow falling through the broken roof, to see her breath as she pants and gasps and giggles. The wind in the nearby trees, the distant sound of the sea. To have sunlight to see Jaime, and to have him see her.

It is not at all how she imagined it would be.

If she had ever dared indulge herself with thoughts of how sex might happen for her, it had always involved duty. An arranged marriage, a reluctant husband, a darkened room. She had not imagined ardour, or declarations of love. She hadn’t imagined daylight.

She had certainly not imagined Jaime Lannister.

She and Jaime are kissing, but they aren’t going to stop at kissing – that’s obvious already. Already, they have discarded their armour, and now their hands are starting to steal beneath each other’s clothes, as well. Jaime is gentle, so very gentle, but he is hungry, too. He wants her.

His kisses are a meltingly tender clash of lips and tongue and teeth that taste of strongwine and him. His hand is everywhere – on her face, on her neck, on her hip, on her breast.

Again and again, he says her name, almost as if he can’t quite believe he is doing this with her.

“Brienne,” against her neck. A gust of warm breath.

“Brienne,” as she pulls the ties on his jacket. Between kisses, his eyes excited.

“Brienne!” as she dares to let her hand drop and brush against the heated bulge in his breeches. Almost a groan.

I’ve been in love with you for a long time.

The desire is a strange thing, too. Jaime’s most definitely – the passion in his eyes, the eagerness of his caresses – but her own desire, too. Brienne had not anticipated that it would feel quite so irresistible. That she would feel consumed by it, consumed by him, that she would be desperate for him to consume her more.

Now Jaime undoes her jerkin, fumbling a little with the laces, his fingers flitting keen and excited on the skin he reveals about her collarbone. Mouth following fingers, a press of moist lips, a trail of his tongue.

He pulls her shirt from her breeches and tugs it up, exposing her breasts, pulling her up onto her knees to get her nipple in his mouth.

And oh, the sensation of that! The mortification first, but … cold air, hot breath, wet mouth. Rough fingers on her softest skin. Darts of pleasure spiralling down, down deep to the pit of her belly. Down further. Jaime lifts his grinning lips to kiss her lips, and even the feel of his spit left cooling on her breast makes her shiver with delight.

Snow falls through the roof, the ground is hard beneath her knees, and Jaime is kissing her, and kissing her, and kissing her.

“Want you,” he murmurs against her mouth. “Please, Brienne.” Another kiss, then he pulls away with the need burning in his eyes. “Please?”

He doesn’t need to beg her. Gods, if she had words, she’d beg him too. Her body has taken over her mind – the wind doesn’t matter, the snow doesn’t matter, nor the dragon nor the war, nor his sister nor the future. There is only now. Burning for Jaime, melting for him, that terrifying, treacherous want.

She nods, and he kisses her, hard and grateful and relieved.

He pulls away, spreads his cloak out on the floor with a trembling hand.

“I think you’re going to love this,” he tells her—an excited whisper against her cheek.

She already does. She loves the physicality of it as they squirm together now, the play of her body against his, the way she can use her battle instincts to read him, to respond to him – inflicting pleasure instead of pain. Fucking him seems so very much like fighting him.

They tumble backwards, down onto his cloak, Jaime kissing all over her face. She’s on her back on the cold ground,  and he’s on top of her, his hips spreading her legs around him and his searching hand holding her down.

He’s pressing against her, pressing her down with each grind of his hips, pressing the air out of her and gods, suddenly …

Suddenly, it’s not right, it’s not good, the weight of him on top of her, his mouth moving on her mouth, then her chin, then her cheek ... she can’t breathe, she can’t move, she’s not strong enough ….

“Stop!” she gasps. Shoves Jaime backwards. Off her. “Not … not like that!”

He sits up, his eyes wide, his lips wet with her spit.

“Are you – are you all right?”

But she can’t speak, her throat is paralysed, there’s no air in her lungs to make words. She feels nails on her skin. Biting teeth.

“Brienne?”

“No! Not ... not like that. I can’t ... it feels ...”

It feels like the dead. Like suffocating beneath them, like being buried until her bones break. She doesn’t want to feel that, not here, not now, not with Jaime.

She lays there and watches snowflakes drift in through the roof and down towards them. Melting on their heated skin. Landing in Jaime’s beard but not melting there. The room is full of the sound of her panicked breathing. He is breathing fast as well, for a different reason.

She puts her trembling hand to her scar. “When – when they …”

“Ah,” he says. His face softens in understanding. “We should stop.”

“No!” she cries, a little too forcefully. She takes a deep breath to steady herself. It had just been Jaime, just the weight of his body, just his ardent kisses. She wanted them so much. “I do … I want to do this, I –”

He nods, the concern furrowing his brow. “Perhaps you had best climb atop me.”

“Yes,” she stammers, reaching out to take his hand with nerveless, trembling fingers.

He squeezes them. Still smiling, still with the corners of his eyes sweetly crinkled.

“Don’t worry. Tis not exactly a hardship.” He kisses her. “To have my lady above me instead of below.”

It is too cold to be completely naked with him – the fire is not near big enough to keep the chill from a granary with snow falling through the roof. Shirts will have to stay on. But she needs his skin – powerfully. The soft parts of him, the reality, the pulsepoints and the body hair and the smell of his sweat. She had thought desire an abstract thing, like honour; she had not realised how physical it would be.

She grabs for the blanket. Kicks off her breeches. Goes to him.

He draws her close again, but carefully, gently now, holding his hunger at bay while he places tender kisses on her scar, stroking the fall of her hair behind her ear. Gazing into her eyes.

“Brienne,” he whispers.

Jaime … Jaime … Jaime …

He coaxes her atop him, straddling his hips, the hair on his legs dragging against the inner part of her thighs. She brings the blanket around them both. They are both silent – intent, breathing quickly but deeply.  He is careful to keep his touches light, she notices. He does not cling to her or hold her against him – He does not want her to feel restrained.

And she does not.

“You sure you want this?” he breathes urgently against her shoulder. Despite the cold, there is sweat on his forehead. A glow of red in his cheeks. “All of it?”

“Yes,” she whispers back. “Are you?”

He nods, resolute.

His cock pokes at her thighs as they shift one way and then the other to get their angle right. Brienne widens her stance – Jaime shifts further down the wall.

And then it’s happening – he is there – pushing blunt and firm against her sex, pulling back to adjust, squirming a hand between them to hold himself in place and then ... they get it right; her body yields, and he slides halfway inside her, all in a thick wet rush. She gasps; he moves his hand to her thigh. He pulls back a little, pushes up again, encouraging her to sit all the way down on his lap.

Jaime’s inside her. He’s completely inside her, all the way.

Brienne laughs – a joyous explosion of excitement.

Jaime laughs, too. He kisses her.

It doesn’t hurt, not a bit; it feels good. Exciting and full of promise. Like they are circling each other in the training yard, waiting for the other to strike.

They kiss again, and then Jaime starts to move beneath her, his eyes fluttering closed and his mouth dropping open, just a little. His hips roll in slow, lazy circles beneath her, and Brienne picks up the movement too, moving hers in counterpoint; the motion quite instinctive.

It builds, it builds; their movement goes from gentle rocking to arching, straining, groaning, grasping. Anything to keep hitting that building note of pleasure, again, again, again, again. Wrapped around each other, his shirt chafing her shirt against her nipples, again, again, again, again. Leaning into him for long, endless kisses.

He loves her. He loves her. He’s loved her for a long time.

“Oh, oh, fuck,” he pants.

She feels his hand dart from her thigh to her arse cheek. And then he’s groaning, long and low and loud, suddenly filling her with hot pulses of his seed.

“Oh, fuck. Fuck.”

He slumps against her shoulder, his body boneless and wrecked in her arms. He’s muttering apologies between anxious kisses, telling her he couldn’t hold it back, that she’s too good, she’s too much, she’s more than he can resist.

“Wait, I can –”

His hand wends its way over her hip to her belly, moving to the slick on her thighs. They’ve made a mess. He nudges her up with his stump so his softening cock slips from her body and slides two elegant fingers into her in its place.

Brienne whimpers. Jaime grins, shifting close to rub his nose side to side across hers. Nudges her to start moving again, wanting her to pick up where she left off.

Oh, Gods …

She makes a sound – half a sigh and half a cry. Jaime’s grin gets wider. He curls his fingers inside her, presses against her with the heel of his hand. He is watching her, she realises, finding out what she likes. Acting accordingly.

She moves with his hand, against his hand, arching and sighing and whimpering and begging. The world gets even smaller; no Evenfall, no Tarth, no Morne. Even the granary does not exist. There is only Jaime’s hand, only Jaime’s circling fingers, only his eyes on her eyes and his eyes … his eyes ….

Jaime is in love with her.

How had she not noticed he was in love with her? He has had it in his eyes for years.

His eyes hold so much yearning, so much sadness, too. It is the gaze of a thousand wasted kisses, a thousand times they could have been together, lain together, known each other. The gaze of a man who wants to find her and be found himself.

He is in love with her. He is in love with her. Jaime is in love with her.

Her pleasure blooms then, a wave of spreading joy so strong it whites out the world completely. No air, no light. No ground beneath them. Vanished and gone. The cry that escapes her sounds like singing.

She comes back to herself weak and delirious, kissing Jaime – big, long, melting tongue-kisses. Jaime wipes his hand on the blanket and lets out the most sated, delicious sigh. He falls back on his cloak, his clothes all undone and his expression wicked and wanton. She sits atop him, their legs tangled together, trying to keep the blanket over them both.

“Gods,” he sighs. “You don’t know what you do to me, do you?”

“What I do?” she asks.

“You do have this … rather unnerving effect on me, you know that? I see you, and ….” He trails off, gently stroking her face with the backs of his fingers. “Are you … all right?”

She turns her face to kiss his palm. “Of course.”

He leans up, and they kiss, but the rest of the world begin to creep in … the war, the dragon, his sister. Her father. Where could they go that would ever be safe for them?

“We should get dressed,” she says softly.

“It is a little cold to be gadding about half-naked,” he admits. Not quite able to meet her eyes.

She stands up, on weak, unsteady legs. Takes a few cautious steps across his cloak. Surprisingly, after such a physical encounter, her injured leg is in no worse pain. It must be the warmth. It must be the sweet, relaxing feelings flowing through her. Strongwine and pleasure.

She finds her tangled breeches, steps back into them and laces them. Finds her boots. Puts some more wood on the fire. Behind her, she hears Jaime putting on his jacket.

She finds her own, immeasurably grateful for the extra layer of warm leather. Falls to her knees to sort her armour and her cloak.

Suddenly, Jaime is there behind her, pressed against her, his arms about her waist. His head is bowed between her shoulderblades. His breath warm as he sighs.

“I love you,” he breathes. “I don’t want this to be the only time we’re together.”

Brienne wraps her arms about his arms and squeezes. “Nor do I.”

She has no answers, no proposals for the future, but she doesn’t want to let him go.

Chapter Text

Brienne wakes up, and the fire has gone out.

Jaime is crouched beside it, poking with a stick, feeding little pieces of tinder to the embers and muttering curses when they don’t catch.

“Good morning,” he says when he sees her awake, even though it is clearly turning evening. “I think it’s stopped snowing.”

She pulls herself up all in a rush, suddenly remembering she is lying on Jaime’s cloak, under her horse’s blanket. Suddenly remembering where they are. What they did.

She smells of him. Her mouth tastes of him. Her skin tingles where he touched her, where he breathed on her, where he mouthed her.

When she fell asleep, Jaime had been under the blanket with her, she recalls. He had snuggled in behind her, wrapped his arms around her. She remembers him stroking the curve of her hip through her clothes. She had been warm and happy; she remembers nothing after that.

“Can you relight this?” he asks her now, nudging her fire kit towards her with his boot. “You need two hands for a flint and steel.”

His shirt and jacket hang loose from his right wrist – his golden hand still sits on a pile with his armour. He looks relaxed, his face soft and his clothes creased.

She gets up and takes her kit with a smile, and he watches her. His eyes are soft on her hands as she lights the fire, striking the flint and steel together, making sparks shower onto the little pile of wood shavings he made. Blowing it gently to get the new flames to spread.

Once it burns big enough to take a larger piece of wood, she moves away, shivering, searching for her cloak.

“How do you feel?” he asks as she finds it, discarded beneath her breastplate.

“Cold,” she tells him, wrapping the cloak about her shoulders and snuggling into the black sable trim.

Jaime throws another stick on the fire. “No, I mean … does it feel different? Not being the Maid of Tarth anymore?”

She looks up – expecting to see him smirking at her, but … no, his eyes are mellow. Serious.

“I don’t think so. Is it supposed to?”

Jaime shrugs. “I don’t even remember losing my virginity.”

Silence falls between them. Brienne watches the fire dancing in his eyes.

“Is it true, what you told Lady Catelyn that night? The night she sent us away?”

“What?”

“That you have lain with no other woman but your sister.”

He takes a very long time to answer. “Yes.”

The word hangs between them for a moment, the silence so deep that even the crackle of burning sticks is deafening.

“So, how do you feel?” she asks when she can bear it no longer. Her voice is barely a whisper.

Jaime lets out a little snort of laughter through his nose. “Like a new man.”

“Were you … are you and Cersei still ….”

“Fucking? Together?” He sighs. “I don’t think we are.”

Brienne watches him as he sits back down on his cloak by the wall, covering himself with the blanket again. Holds his hand and his stump out to the warmth of the growing fire.

He waits for a long moment before looking up at her. “There was a babe.”

Brienne swallows. “A … a babe?”

“Mine – or so she told me. I had known perhaps a moon when you came for the summit at the dragonpit. And she – she promised me things. Things I had wanted all our lives. Raising the child as my own, by her side. A public acknowledgement that I was the father. An end to the secrecy. Things I had waited thirty years to have.”

“This is why you did not come North.”

She throws another stick onto the fire. A bigger piece of branch, as well, to catch while the smaller one burns.

“Yes, it is,” Jaime replies. He tips his head back so it rests on the granary wall, his eyes gazing up through the hole in the roof. “For the sake of a child in my arms, I threw away the last of my honour. Threw away my chance to be with you. Killed the last of the Targaryens.”

“What happened?”

Jaime laughs, but it is utterly devoid of humour.

“There is no child, is there? I have not heard that Cersei bore a child.”

He says nothing. Watching the thick clouds pass overhead.

“Is there a child, Jaime?”

“We needed Euron Greyjoy,” he says then. “We needed his ships. His men. To keep her on the throne. She … baited him. Made him believe she would wed him in exchange for his navy. When the war was done.”

Brienne nods – none of this surprises her.

“But the war was never done. Not even once the Dragon Queen was dead. Too many had sided with the Targaryen cause, or the Northern cause, or had simply looked at Cersei wrong during a banquet once.”

Jaime rolls his eyes.

“So we still needed Euron Greyjoy. With his thousand ships and his two good hands.”

“And the babe?” she asks again. She needs to know. She has to.

“She went to Qyburn. Had him cleanse it from her before her belly started showing. Because we needed Euron Greyjoy so that she could keep the throne. The fucking throne. Over our child.”

“Gods, Jaime …”

“I protested, of course. Begged at her doorway like a weak fool, hoping it would move her into relenting. Hoping her feelings for me, for what we had, would stir her.”

He falls silent, chewing the inside of his cheek.

“Instead, she sent me away at the head of her army, to take every single castle in Westeros by force. I have not seen her since.”

Brienne does not know what to say. She wants to take him in her arms, hold him and comfort him, but … she wants to slap him, too. How stupid, how dangerous can he be, for love of his sister? How much mayhem has he blindly caused in Cersei’s name?

She wants to run away from him, too. To saddle her mare and ride for Evenfall as fast as she can. A man who would cause war after war in the name of love is a dangerous thing, a burden, a responsibility.

“I finally saw it – I am no different to her than Greyjoy. Another man to string along while I am a useful weapon to her. There will be no peace. No happiness. No time to have the things I thought we always wanted. She will ask a kingdom of me and give me nothing in return, not ever.”

“No,” Brienne agrees.

“I … I regret it. You and I … we could have been … if I had come North, we could have been ….”

It is as though he cannot bring himself to speak it aloud.

Brienne nods. “Perhaps.”

Jaime lets out a weary sigh. “Come,” he says, holding up the corner of the blanket beside him again.

Brienne drops the stick she has been holding and goes to sit beside him once more, settling down on top of his cloak, her leg pressed against his leg on the cold ground. He covers her with the blanket and then wraps an arm over her shoulders. Brienne wraps both of hers about his torso, and presses her head to his shoulder.

Jaime shifts. Leans down. His lips seek hers, his eyes open and asking a question he does not seem able to ask with words.

Brienne kisses him; what will it hurt to indulge herself once more? They are in the middle of nowhere, not another person for miles.

They kiss and they kiss, and it all starts again.

**

They do not leave Morne until nightfall, warmed-up, sated, and a little heady from more strongwine and more sex.

They part on the coast road, not daring a kiss goodbye but a quick squeeze of hands beneath their cloaks. Jaime confesses that he has a signal point where he can light a torch for a discreet pick-up by his men. Brienne wonders if she should be concerned by that. Wonders how many times it has been used.

She watches him as he heads towards the north of the island, making his way through the snow in his hooded crimson cloak. She watches him until he is so distant he could be a child, a small, dear figure silhouetted against the purpling sky. Then, just as he is about to pass into the trees and out of her sight, he turns back, and holds up a hand. As though he had known she would still be watching him. Brienne waves back, her chest full of something that might be the cold but could just be emotion.

She allows herself that – that moment of softness. That moment of thinking that there might be some way they can have each other, some way that what they have started in the sweet haven of the granary isn’t going to tear them both into pieces.

Brienne rides back to Evenfall.

It’s slow going; the road is all-but choked with snow, so much the mare almost has to wade in places. By the time Brienne rides back through the gates, the evening sky has darkened to black once more.

Her father rushes from the castle and through the courtyard to greet her, throwing his arms about her before she has even dismounted her horse.

“Brienne – I have been so worried.”

A wave of guilt – she left Evenfall in the early hours of this morning, in a storm, promising she could move a frightened dragon. Of course her father has been worried.

“I am fine, father.” She hands the mare off to a stableboy with a grateful nod. Turns to wrap her arms about her father too. Squeezing him tight. “I decided to wait the storm out rather than risk returning – I didn’t want my horse to lose her footing if she became snowblind.”

“You are wise, Brienne, as always.”

He ushers her inside the castle, his hand still curled tight about her elbow. She puts her own hand atop it, clutches her father’s fingers. Once inside, he checks their surroundings before speaking in a low, urgent voice.

“And the dragon? Did you move it?”

Brienne shakes her head. “He was terrified by the storm; I had to conceal him beneath the arena at Morne. He would not calm. I – I had to stay with him.”

“It’s still there now? At Morne?” her father asks.

“Yes. Fed. Sleeping.” She had checked on Drogon before she had left with Jaime – he had burned and eaten part of one of the sheep she had brought, and had fallen back asleep in his hiding place.

“And there were no signs that the Lannisters had landed?”

Brienne takes a deep breath. “No,” she lies.

“Ah good, the storm saw them off then, at least for now.”

“Perhaps.”

Her father’s brows set in a worried line. “Come,” he bids her. “You’re half frozen – let’s get some tea by the hearth. We need discuss all this with Maester Rambton.”

So, Brienne finds herself in the solar, sitting by the fire in the chair that Jaime fell asleep in, her baby blanket spread across her knees. Her father presses a steaming mug of his Dornish pepper tea between her frozen hands. Maester Rambton paces the floor.

“Perhaps we should come clean,” the maester says. His voice so high it is almost shrill with panic. “The Kingslayer is already sending scouting parties out – it is only a matter of time before he discovers the dragon at Morne.”

“Come clean?” Brienne asks. “To who?”

“To the Queen. The Kingslayer – we cannot hide the beast forever, and if they find out we have lied …”

“We can’t do that,” she tells him. “Cersei Lannister wants to use Drogon. Against her enemies.”

“Then I say it is better to not be among those enemies! If we have helped her to gain the dragon, then we’re less likely to be on the receiving end of its fire.”

Her father sighs. “You have a point, maester.”

“Father, no!” Brienne cries.

“Brienne …”

“No. Drogon is not a weapon. Not a thing. He is a frightened, traumatised creature who has seen enough of death and war. We have a duty to protect him.”

“We are not equipped to protect him.”

“That does not mean we shouldn’t try.”

Her father takes a deep breath. He looks to the maester. “Rambton, would you give us a moment, please?”

The maester nods. “Of course, my Lord.” He squeezes her father’s shoulder on the way past, his chain clanking as he closes the door behind him.

Brienne’s father picks up his mug of tea. Pulls his chair to the hearth as well, so he is seated opposite her. “Brienne, you are an excellent soldier. A truer knight than any I have ever met, even though you do not bear the title. I could not be more proud of you.”

“I – I thank you, father, but –”

“This situation … it isn’t about being a knight.”

“Father –”

“It’s about being a ruler. And that means you must put your people first.”

“I am.”

“You’re not. You’re putting us all in danger. And I know you do not want that, and it has never been your intent. But things are different when you make decisions for a thousand innocents as well. A true knight is expected to sacrifice his own life for an honourable cause. But as a ruler … you cannot choose to martyr others. You cannot make that choice for the guards in the castle, nor the fishermen at sea, the traders in the market, nor for their wives or their innocent babes. They must come first, no matter what else is at stake.”

“What of the people Cersei Lannister will murder? What of other guards and fishermen and innocent babes?”

“Tarth cannot protect them. We are a small island, Brienne. We can only look out for our own.”

“Father, we –”

“My darling, it is never easy to make decisions like this. Sometimes the innocent suffer. But as Evenstar, I must put Tarth first in all things.”

“It is short-sighted! Including for Tarth, to hand that kind of power to Cersei. She will use it to subjugate us all.”

“Perhaps so. But the Evenstar must weigh up the balance of possibilities and probabilities. If we are found concealing the dragon, the Queen’s ire is assured. What may happen in the future, if she can bend the thing to her will, is not.”

“Father, she is –”

“I know what she is.”

“And yet you would ally Tarth to her cause? The people you care so much for?”

“I would save them from her. If I can. Many Lords will do the same, I assure you.”

“You have made that decision. Already?”

“I am thinking on it.”

“Father …” But she trails off. What can she say? That she spent most of the day fucking the Kingslayer at Morne? That he knows about the dragon, but he has assured her he will not betray them to his sister? She can quite imagine how that would sound coming out of her mouth.

“I must,” her father says. “I am the Evenstar, and they are my people.”

Brienne nods. “I understand. But please, father. Please. Give me a few days, yes? Perhaps I … perhaps I can …”

Move the dragon.

Do something. Anything. Figure this problem out.

“A few days,” he says, patting the hand that he holds. “You have already performed miracles. I would be a fool not to believe you can accomplish one more.”

He bids her goodnight, and Brienne sits for a while, staring into the flames, drinking her tea and warming her leg.

Afterwards, before bed, she takes her tea up to the skyway to look out across Tarth.

Out in the direction of Morne, all looks quiet from up here. Just miles and miles of snow-covered trees, all the way out to the deep black of the ocean on the other side of the island.

And on this side, just across the strait … the twinkling flames of the campfires in the Lannister warcamp. The soft red glow of the candlelight in the tents.

She sees Jaime’s tent – it too is lit from within by gentle candlelight. Brienne takes a moment to indulge her soft feelings again, that sweet tide of longing that washes over her chest as she thinks of him, walking around in there, eating dinner, drinking wine, getting ready for bed with the scent of her skin all over his. He loves her. He loves her. He loves her.

Selfish, she thinks, forcing her gaze to turn from the Lannister camp and over to the south side of the island. There the snow twinkles on the rooftops of the town, torches and lanterns glowing in the windows of the huts and houses.

Her people. Her guards, her fishermen, her wives and her babes. She imagines them sitting by their hearths as night draws in, tucking children into bed, eating food and stoking fires and lighting candles in their homes.

Her father is right. They do not deserve Cersei’s wrath.

She turns back for a moment to Jaime’s tent, and her feelings hurt too much to think about. She finishes her tea, and then she goes to bed.

**

The next morning, she tries to send a message to him. To Jaime.

She vacillates, of course, writing a dozen messages that range from pouring her heart out to terse requests to meet. She burns them all.

It is only when she realises that her breakfast is long cold and her fingers are stained with ink that she just swallows her pride and asks Caryss to request that the stables saddle her mare.

Despite the snow, the town is busy, and the market is bustling. Brienne watches it all for a while as she waits for the ferry, thinking on what her father told her last night.

Her people.

Hers above all else.

The snow starts falling again as Brienne takes the ferry across the strait. Even Jaime’s camp, with all its constantly burning cookfires, is all but swamped. She sees soldiers everywhere clearing the snow from the main thoroughfares, clearing the snow from the tops of the tents.

She is escorted to Jaime’s tent. He is outside, ticking off a boy who may be a squire but could equally be an officer.

“Lady Brienne!” He looks up at her with the shock plan on his face. “I – I was not expecting you.”

She nods, immediately flustered by how good he looks. How viscerally she can remember the expression on his face as he spent himself inside her. For a moment, she can’t find the breath to speak. She can’t seem to stop blinking. “For-forgive the unexpected arrival, Ser Jaime. I have an urgent matter I need to discuss with you. Urgently.”

“Urgently?” he asks, with a quirk of his brow.

“Yes.”

“Of course.” He clicks his fingers at a nearby woman, bent over a washtub scrubbing a pair of his breeches. Brienne recognises her as the woman who brought their food the first night she dined with Jaime. “Wine for the Lady of Tarth,” he says.

He leads the way into his tent, and Brienne follows.

“It is … good to see you,” he whispers as soon as the tent flap closes behind her. “I would kiss you, but …”

“I know.”

“I want to.”

“I know.” She wants to kiss him, too. He’s so close she can smell his skin, so close the warmth of his body makes her body react. She glances at his bed, his thick warm blankets, his soft silken pillow. Imagines tumbling into it, wrapped in him, kissing him all over. She glances away.

Jaime’s eyes are on her, the same heat on his face, too.

Then, his maid enters with a flagon of wine, and Jaime walks behind the table, his expression suddenly all business. Bids the maid put the flagon on the table and then dismisses her. He pours the wine and hands Brienne a glass.

“You – you have to leave,” she whispers as she takes the glass. “You – your men. Your camp. Today. My father wants to tell Cersei about the dragon.”

“What? Why?”

“He believes it the only way to save our people from her wrath. That sooner or later, you will find Drogon, and realise we have been hiding him. He believes the first place Cersei will burn is Tarth.”

“Oh.”

She waits for him to say more, but he does not.

“Is he wrong?”

He starts to speak, and then stops himself. Opens his mouth again and then closes it. He sighs. “It’s not going to come to that.”

“Are you sure?”

“I won’t let it.”

Brienne chews her lip. Puts her wine glass on the table, untouched. “Forgive me if I ask for specifics, Ser.”

He makes a face. “Do you not trust me, Brienne?”

“I don’t like to be blindsided – it’s not a question of trust.”

“I did not tell my sister you have the dragon. I have no intention of doing so.”

“Then you need to leave. Give up your so-called search, before my father does your job for you.”

“I –”

“What? Can you not do it? Are you not allowed to decide for yourself that this is a fool’s errand?”

“The Queen –”

“Oh, still the Queen? When will your departure suit Her Grace?”

He waves his golden hand, as if the whole subject were impossibly vague. “She will grow bored sooner or later. When the spring comes, perhaps? Then she will want to send the army North, for Sansa.”

“The spring?! Perhaps? We don’t have that long. I may be able to delay my father a few more days, but –”

“You must talk him out of it. It’s a foolish notion – Tarth is less than a mummer’s fart to Cersei, I assure you. If he hopes to find favour –”

“He hopes not to have our people burnt.”

“Then we are on the same side. If I’m here, faking a dragon hunt, then my men aren’t dying, either. They aren’t trying to take some meaningless holdfast in the arse end of nowhere whose lord Cersei has taken exception to.”

“Cersei!” she cries. “Stop talking of Cersei! Why are we are all still dancing to her song?”

Jaime looks away. His voice is small and strained. “She sits the Iron Throne.”

Brienne sighs. “The throne you bought her. The throne you continue to buy her now.”

“Do you think I like this?” he demands then. “You think I like endless war played out like a schoolyard spat? I don’t. I thought I was buying peace. That once her enemies were vanquished, she could rule, and be satisfied.”

Jaime shakes his head. His mouth thins into a grim line.

“My sister is still the Queen, even though I am no longer hers to bed. For both of our sakes, I must give the appearance of loyalty, surely you see this? I can’t openly disobey her without putting both of us and your father’s precious bloody island in danger.”

Brienne shakes her head.  She can’t even look at him for fear that she will cry. She stares at the table instead, her wobbling chin making her scarred cheek sting.

Just then, from outside, a voice calls. “My Lord, may I enter?”

Jaime sighs. He shoots a look at Brienne, a look that’s hard to interpret. Weary, sad, troubled. Sorry? Perhaps all of them or none of them. “You may enter, Ser Dorin.”

It is the boy that Jaime had been telling off when she first approached his tent. He looks nervously from Brienne to Jaime.

“Speak,” Jaime bids him. “My Lady of Tarth is our ally, not our enemy.”

Brienne resists the urge to scoff.

“My Lord, the watchpost … on the Northern spit …”

“What of them?”

“They have reported ships, my Lord.”

Jaime’s brow creases. “Ships?”

“The – the Iron Fleet, Ser. Flying Euron Greyjoy’s pennant. He is headed our way.”

Chapter Text

“What did your father do?” Jaime demands as soon as Ser Dorin leaves the tent.

Brienne is momentarily stunned. Her head afire, trying to understand. “No … no, this can’t be my father’s doing.”

“Then how is Euron Greyjoy here? Why is Euron Greyjoy here?”

“Jaime, it can’t be my father. He did not know Drogon was still on the island until the night of the storm,” Brienne reaches for him, clutches his arm. “Even if he sent a raven off the moment I departed –”

There is no way the Iron Fleet could have sailed from King’s Landing to Tarth in that time.

Jaime grunts.

“Could it be one of your men?” she asks.

“How? Why? My men are loyal; I have given them no reason to doubt my commitment to this cause. Besides … most of them are boys – they have no real ambition other than living long enough to see their mothers again.”

They both fall silent.

“Stay,” Jaime blurts after a moment.

“Stay?”

“Hide in here somewhere, under my bed, perhaps? Listen to what Greyjoy has to say?”

“Why?”

“So you fucking trust me, all right? So you know I’m not Cersei’s lapdog anymore.”

“I didn’t say you were Cersei’s lapdog,” she protests.

“Well, in case you were thinking it.”

“I’m not thinking it, either.”

He sighs. Looks back to her with imploring eyes. “I would feel better if you were here. We could … perhaps we could resolve this together?”

His eyes are so troubled, and so full of exhaustion that she finds herself nodding. Wordless.

Together. For Tarth. For Jaime, as well.

So, with no small amount of trepidation, Brienne finds herself squeezing under Jaime’s bed. In her armour, there’s little room – she doubts very much she could get out in a hurry, particularly with her injured leg. Above her, Jaime messes about with his blankets, covering the gap between bed and floor as much as he can so she can’t be seen.

Brienne wriggles on the cold floor, trying to get comfortable, trying to banish that terrible, oppressive feeling that the mattress will fall on her and crush her, that there might be dead men in the shadows beneath the bed. It’s absurd, of course. But the darker it gets, the worse it feels.

Her breath starts to come in ragged pants, and suddenly, she’s swamped by it, that terrible sick feeling of terror. Trying not to vomit, trying not to crawl out of her own skin.

“Brienne?”

Jaime is on his knees beside the bed, a flap of blanket pulled away, peering at her.

“I-I don’t like it,” she pants. “I don’t –”

He reaches in, grabs her hand. Pulls it. “Come out … we can find somewhere else –”

“No. No, I can … I can do it.” She takes a deep breath. Slow, shuddering. “It’s just a bed. It’s just –”

But then there is the unmistakable sound of boots in snow outside. The sound of the tent flap opening and then –

“Kingslayer!” a voice calls, in the clipped accent of the Iron Islands.

Euron Greyjoy is here.

“Go!” she urges, a frantic whisper.

Jaime shoots her a pained look and lets go of her hand before scrambling to his feet – Brienne slides back towards the far side of the bed. Shrinking into the shadows.

“Kingslayer!” Greyjoy booms. Brienne can see him, a little, through a crack in the blankets – he has his arms flung wide and his face pulled into a spitless grin.

He looks different than when she last saw him – turning his tail at the dragonpit and pretending to run back to the Iron Islands as part of Cersei’s ruse. Now he has longer hair that curls about his ears – he wears finer leathers, too. A thick gold chain about his neck. His time in Cersei’s service has afforded him well.

Brienne forces herself to focus on the man, to watch him, listen to him, but his feet scraping the planks of the floor sound so much like skittering nails. Like creaking bones. The bed is so close to her face, and her breath is so loud, so fast, so much. She feels like her heart will burst from her chest.

She sees Jaime move across the tent towards him. Brienne’s heart is so loud she is certain they must be able to hear it.

“Greyjoy.” Jaime all but growls the man’s name.

“Don’t you mean Your Grace?”

All Brienne can see are Jaime’s feet, but she can imagine his face. There is a long silence. She grabs the hilt of her sword, the cold metal biting into her palm, solid and real and reassuring. She closes her eyes. Thinks of Tarth – of her father’s smile and the sapphire waters and the lake where Galladon drowned.

“What, Cersei didn’t write to you?” Greyjoy asks now, but Brienne barely hears him over the sound of her own heart. “I would have thought she would have told her own twin brother about her wedding.”

She misses Jaime’s response, concentrating on keeping her breathing slow. Quiet.

“Perhaps she wanted it to be a surprise, eh?” Greyjoy’s booming braggadocio cuts through her terrible dread. “Well, are you surprised? Goodbrother?”

“Nothing Cersei does surprises me,” Jaime says. His voice sounds strangled and bitter. Brienne opens her eyes, but she still can’t see any more of him than his boots.

For some reason, Euron Greyjoy guffaws, and then slams his wineglass down hard onto the table.

Brienne digs her fingernails into her palms. She can do this; she can. It’s just a few moments. It will pass … it will pass.

It does not help that the ground beneath her is freezing. It has been covered by the wooden planks and then by carpets, but they do little to stem the cold from seeping into her bones. The cold is terrible. The cold reminds her. Her leg aches, her cheek stings, the pain punchy and intense. It remembers, too.

“We’re working hard on an heir,” she hears Greyjoy say. He feels miles away. Another world. “A son, to rule the land and sea alike. The skies, too – once we have the dragon.”

The dragon … Brienne closes her eyes again and thinks of Drogon. His warm body, curled around the columns in his underground hideout. Of how it feels when he puts his head in her lap. How his eyes close when she strokes his nose.

“You find that funny?” Greyjoy asks. Did Jaime laugh at him?

“Funny … no,” she hears Jaime say. “Laughable, perhaps. Is Cersei still holding out hope of owning her very own pet dragon? I do seem to remember her drawing pictures of herself riding dragons when we were children. Who would have thought she would still be clinging onto that fantasy in her forties?”

Brienne opens her eyes to see Greyjoy shaking his head. “Oh, she was so right about you, Kingslayer. She knew you didn’t have the vision for this.”

“Vision has nothing to do with it. I’ve been here quite a while. Don’t you think if there was a dragon, I would have seen it by now?”

Brienne sees Greyjoy narrow his eyes. He leans over the table toward Jaime, his voice so low it is almost a hiss. “Oh, there’s a dragon.”

“Where?” Jaime laughs. “It’s not a very big island. Dragons need to hunt – they need to take to the air. Unless you’re hoping to tame a seagull ….”

“Perhaps if you’d done what you were meant to do and taken the island ….”

Take the island!? Brienne’s eyes fly wide. Jaime had been meant to take the island? Now her heart pounds for an entirely different reason.

“That would have been absurd,” Jaime scoffs. “As soon as I got here, I realised what a ridiculous waste of men and resources that would be. The Evenstar is no enemy of House Lannister. He’s been nothing but obliging.”

“But his daughter is sworn to House Stark. My wife doesn’t like her very much at all.”

But you love him. Brienne remembers Cersei’s face, that almost feral delight she had taken in Brienne’s awkwardness. Gods, she had known. Even then.

That feeling of sick dread creeps back into Brienne’s throat, and suddenly in her mind’s insane eye, it is Cersei on top of her in the snow outside Winterfell, Cersei with slashing teeth and suffocating weight. Her golden hair matted with snow. Her evil green eyes turned bright shocking blue.

“My sister doesn’t care for Lady Brienne because she saved my life,” she hears Jaime spit. “On more than one occasion. Surely Cersei should put such petty jealousies behind her now that she is a married woman?”

This seems to anger Greyjoy. “She wants that dragon,” he snarls. “You should have taken the island by now.”

“I am the commander of the Lannister army,” Jaime grits back, leaning into Greyjoy just as hard. Brienne can see his face now – he looks dark. Dangerous. “We don’t take anything unless I give the order. I’m not sending my men to die until I know there’s a point to it.”

Greyjoy laughs in his face. Walks away, out of Brienne’s sight, still laughing.

“It’s too late for that; you took too long, Kingslayer,” he tells Jaime. “Now, you don’t get the glory of presenting the woman you love with the thing she wants most in the world. Now you have to watch me do it.”

“What are you going to do?” Jaime asks him.

“I’m going back to my ship to prepare for the ritual. Then I’m going to sleep, I’m going to drink and eat and dance and give the Evenstar the night to shit his breeches. I’ll be back at dawn.”

Brienne hears the flap of canvas – feels a rush of cold outside air invade the tent. He is gone.

“Fuck,” says Jaime.

Brienne pulls herself out from under the bed, rucking the carpets, pulling the blankets off in her frenzy to escape. Gasping as if she has been underwater, sucking in sweet lungfuls of air, shaking and sweating and fighting the urge to throw up. “Please tell me it’s over.”

Jaime is still by the table. “He’s gone. I’m sorry.” He’s at her side then, offering his arm, helping her to her feet. “Gods – are you all right?”

“Small places …” she explains between shudders. “They aren’t good.”

“Here, breathe with me,” Jaime doesn’t let go of her arm, and he turns her numb body to face him. His eyes hold hers as he draws a deep breath through his nose. He blows it out between his lips. Slowly. Slowly. He breathes in again.

Brienne nods, consciously bringing her breath in time with his. Slowly, gently, again and again. Holding his eyes, holding his arms. Until her trembling stops, until her heart steadies.

He is here; his body is real and strong and whole; he is not his sister, he is not a wight. Those things can’t hurt her. They can’t hurt her here.

Jaime rests his forehead against hers. Presses a kiss to her lips and runs his thumb softly over her scarred cheek. “All is well, Brienne. All is well.”

Once she has calmed, he lets her go, goes to his table to pour her a glass of wine. “I used to be like that. The way you are now. For a long time – after Aerys.”

Brienne looks over to him. He’s smiling, slightly, but his eyes are sad.

“The wildfire under the city,” he shrugs. “It was all still there, and I couldn’t tell anyone about it in case they wanted to use it or removing it caused an accident, but I couldn’t help but have nightmares about it.”

She nods, taking the wineglass from him.

He pours himself a glass too, and for a moment, they drink in silence. Brienne has never seen Jaime look so exhausted. So careworn.

“Greyjoy … he wants you to invade Tarth?” she asks after a moment. “I couldn’t … I missed a lot, but ….”

Jaime shakes his head. “I don’t know. He’s brought the whole fleet, but … against who? Your fishing boats?”

“My father will bend the knee.”

“He is right to,” Jaime nods. “I would do the same.”

She helps herself to more wine, needing its comforting warmth in her belly. “We have … only house guards. A few archers among them. We couldn’t hope to fight.”

Jaime grins a little. “You put up a good bluff, my lady. With your retinue of beautiful men.”

Brienne grins too.

But then he looks at her with his handsome face so sad, and the grin drops off his face. “You should go. Go North, back to Winterfell. Cersei will …. If she knows you’re here …”

North. North, to the cold and the black. To the home of the dead, to the place that had ripped her apart and broken her to pieces. Her first instinct is to violently refuse.

Of course, Brienne sees sense in what Jaime is saying – to run from this madness before she is caught in Cersei’s claws, to go back to her duty to Lady Sansa, to defend Lady Catelyn’s children as she had once vowed she would. She had told the Starks she would be back, after all.

But her father …

His eyes as he had sat down in front of her last night in the solar, the soft firelight warming the space between them. His eyes so soft and gentle. Father …

Tarth must come first. Always. A knight had herself, but a ruler had her whole people. And even Drogon had chosen to make Tarth his home. Was he not one of her people now too?

She shakes her head.

“I will not leave Tarth,” she tells him. “Drogon too … I would save him, if I can, from whatever fate Euron Greyjoy has in mind. And … and there’s … you.”

Jaime swallows, the apple of his throat moving up and down beneath his skin. “Well, I had thought maybe … maybe I should come with you.”

Brienne blinks. She is stunned – he has quite stunned her. All she can do is stare at him.

He smiles and gives a slight shrug. “Perhaps it wouldn’t be too late to go North, after all?”

“Truly? Jaime ….”

He says nothing to that – instead, he puts his wine down and walks towards her. Takes her arm just above the elbow as if he means to pull her somewhere.

They are so close they are breathing each other’s breath, and oh …

Then he goes on his tiptoes, and they are kissing, a crunch of her armour and a creak of his leather surcoat. Jaime’s beard rough and scratching, his tongue achingly sweet and soft against hers.

“Jaime …”

His hand plunges into her hair, and her hands slide over his neck and into his beard and over his cheeks and his chin, and she kisses him, and she wants him, and she loves him, and she never wants to let him go.

“We should stop,” she whispers, not stopping for more than a breath. Leaning into him harder, licking into his mouth like she can’t live without the taste of his tongue. “We shouldn’t do this here.”

“What does it matter now?” Jaime murmurs, nuzzling kisses into her upper lip, her lower lip. Both her lips at once. “I love you. I want to lie with you again. Why shouldn’t we have that?”

This is wonderful. Beautiful. Brienne feels so buoyant as he strips off her armour, pulls off her jacket, her tunic, her boots, her breeches, pulls them all off, drops them to the floor where they stand. Stands back from her to take his own off, showing her his body even as she shows him hers.

It feels so much, so intense – so overwhelming. The sight of her skin has never been anyone else’s before.

He’s naked and she’s naked and she’s never felt so naked in her life.

The screen that separates his sleeping area from the rest of the tent is a beautiful lace-carved thing that offers no privacy whatsoever. There is just that, and just the canvas of the tent. Outside, the sound of horses, the sound of soldiers, shouting to each other. Inside, Brienne is naked, just her skin.

Jaime … Jaime …

Jaime takes her to his bed and kneels between her legs, clinging to her arse with his stump while he pushes his face into her sex. His hand sliding upward for her breast.

Gods … he did not do this at Morne – it is a thing she could never have imagined Jaime doing to her. Her body melts at the touch of his tongue, and she gasps and shudders; it is as though he has stolen all her breath through her cunt. She reels, dizzy, faint, her knees too weak to hold her.

She has never felt weak in front of a man before, not like this. She wants to shout about it, cry out and call his name and tell him all about the surge of pleasure clawing at her, body and mind.

“Jaime –” she moans, and then that’s all she can think. Jaime … his tongue, making her fly, spread against the sky as wide as Drogon. Her knees give way and she stumbles to the blankets of his soft bed, her back arched for the heavens, shuddering again and again against his face.

When she opens her eyes, he is smiling at her from between her thighs. His beard wet.

“Come here,” he whispers, and takes her arms, guiding them about him so he is wrapped in her. Reclines on his pillows and pulls her leaden, sated body atop him like a blanket.

“I love you,” he tells her.

She kisses him and tastes herself on his lips. Lifts up to guide him inside her.

“I love you,” he tells her again, a strained whisper, his head tilted back and his neck corded with tension.

She sits up on top of him, her palm pressed to his heart as she starts to ride him, rising and falling with her hips as she does when she’s in the saddle of her mare. Now it is Jaime’s turn to fight his desire to cry out, biting his lip, moving his hand from her hip to clap over his mouth, burying his face in his silken pillows.

When he spends, he whispers her name, hoarse and desperate.

Afterwards, she lies naked on her belly while he kisses her absently along her spine. On each cheek of her arse, as well.  

They should get dressed. They should stop this, but they don’t.

The bed is too warm, the rest of the world too cold to want to leave again. Doom approaches at dawn.

Chapter Text

Brienne stays in Jaime’s bed far, far longer than she should.

But she likes so much how it feels to be in bed with him, draped atop him, pressed against him. He seems to like it, too. He makes no move to get up.

She likes his warm skin, his sure embrace, the sated softness of his gaze. She likes his beard rubbing on her shoulder as he talks, the silky hair under her fingertips as she strokes his chest.

She likes that it feels comfortable to be naked in front of him – that her battered, recalcitrant body is something he wants to hold, something that responds to his touch, something that can still feel good and new and whole.

But most of all, Brienne loves the way they feel so sweetly familiar with each other, as though they have been doing this for years. They have almost been in love for such a long time.

“What do you suppose your father would say,” Jaime murmurs, running the smooth scar of his stump up and down the forearm she has slung across his chest. “If I were to ask for your hand?”

Brienne raises an eyebrow. Lifts her head from the pillow. “In marriage?”

“No, as a spare for my missing one. Of course in marriage!”

For a moment, Brienne cannot breathe. “I think … I think that he may have some questions.”

“Mmm,” he hums, suddenly looking quite crestfallen. “It would be a difficult thing to explain, indeed.”

They fall back into silence; the fingers of Jaime’s left hand stroke a line from the nape of her neck to the crack of her arse and back again. He lifts his head to place a kiss on the tip of her nose.

“Perhaps if I had gone North ...” he whispers.

“Perhaps.”

“But then we would have had to explain ourselves to the Starks.”

Now it is Brienne’s turn to feel heavy-hearted. Trying to imagine Lady Sansa’s face if she had asked leave to wed a Lannister. Trying to imagine how suffocating it would have been to have this relationship in Winterfell. It would have been cold. Hard. Unhappy.

“What if I … ran away? If I hid?” he asks then, his voice barely more than a whisper. “If I were a farmer or a fisherman or a stablemaster in Evenfall? On Tarth?”

“I think your sister might come looking for you. I think she might guess where you were.”

But you love him.

Jaime hisses out a breath between his teeth. “She’s a married woman now.”

“Yes, I heard.” She studies Jaime’s features for a reaction, but can’t quite read one. “How do you … feel about that?”

He screws up his brow. “I …” He trails off. Opens his mouth as if to say something several times before he finally speaks. “It’s a complicated thing.”

“Oh.”

His hand stops moving on Brienne’s back. “I’m not jealous.”

“That’s good.”

“I feel … sad for her, I suppose.”

Brienne caresses a circle on his chest, watching her fingers tangle in the silver-shot fur between his nipples.

“Once, we were all each other had. All we had in this world.” His fingers start stroking Brienne’s spine again. Up and down. “Now, she’s broken. Gone. Beyond the point that I mean anything to her, even as a brother.”

Brienne waits; he looks like he wants to say more. As though he is trying to put his thoughts into words. His brow is so furrowed, his eyes so sorrowful.

“Cersei loved me once … she did. My lovely golden-haired fair maiden. She used to smile and laugh and sing.”

He sighs. Looks to Brienne with weary eyes.

“I am sad that part of my sister is dead.”

Brienne reaches for him. Turns his face towards her and kisses him, and he kisses her back so softly she thinks she might melt at the sweetness of his tongue. The kiss is long, and wet, and breathy.

“Come here,” he whispers against her lips when they part. His hand slips down to her hip, encouraging her atop him once again.

Jaime smiles as she takes him back inside her, stretching out on his pillows beneath her, the candlelight dancing on the aged perfection of his body. He is beautiful beneath Brienne’s hands, beautiful to look at, beautiful inside her, rocking with her harder and harder and harder. Using his fingers to tease pleasure from the place where they are joined, pleasure that builds up and up and up until Brienne is sent soaring into a climax of such sweet intensity that she can’t believe her body can produce such feeling. Jaime’s grin gets even wider – he quickens his pace and hurries to his own release as soon as she finishes, not even bothering to hold back his cries.

**

Afterwards, they dress together in companionable silence, helping with ties and buckles and passing each other pieces of clothing that have become entangled with their own.

“I wish you could stay all night,” he whispers as he watches her lace her pauldrons.

“I need to speak with my father. He must be worried – the Iron Fleet, and …”

He nods. “I know.”

He toys with his wineglass on the table for a moment, rotating the stem between his fingers, back and forth.

“I should come with you,” he suggests.

She almost laughs, but catches his look and – he’s serious. Not a trace of teasing on his face.

“I should,” he pushes when she doesn’t respond. “I – I have not met your father, after all.”

“You haven’t.”

“And … he should hear the situation from me. I am the commander of this army. I – I represent the Lannisters and –”

“All right.”

He looks up at her, a little surprised. “I promise I won’t do anything rash. Like ask him for your hand,” he grins.

She grins too, then nods. “Very well.”

It begins to snow again as they mount their horses, and Brienne’s leg protests the cold all the way back across the strait on the ferry.

Jaime chatters idly as they go, talking of the weather, the birds he’s seen over his camp, how temperamental his stallion can be if he hasn’t had the right type of oats. He seems so buoyant, so carefree, so strangely effervescent.

He seems the happiest he’s been since Brienne has known him. Ready to laugh, ready to smile. Sort of … free.

Every time she catches his eye, his face splits in that oh-so-handsome smile, the one that makes her belly flip. She catches herself smiling back, every time. They are like two honeymooning fools, she thinks. Eyes full of the moon for each other.

As soon as they ride through the outer gates of Evenfall, however, the guards immediately rush forward, halberds in hands.

Brienne brings the mare about, standing her protectively in front of Jaime on his stallion.

“Ser Jaime has come to treat with the Evenstar,” she announces. “You will give him passage – he is my guest.”

Ser Justan nods, and beckons for his men to lower their halberds. “Of course, my lady.”

He motions to a couple of guards to act as escorts. A wise precaution, Brienne thinks – she is proud of the training she has given them. They have no way to tell if the Kingslayer is holding her hostage to get to her father.

After they have handed their horses off to the stables, Brienne leads Jaime into Evenfall, taking him in through the Nightstone Court, where the biggest of the castle’s many fountains trickles softly in the afternoon air. Sculpted in its centre are two statues – the Maiden herself, dressed in a clinging gown, her ringlets tumbling down her back, presenting the robust, armour-clad Ser Galladon of Morne with The Just Maid. The water sprays from The Just Maid’s hilt.

Ser Jaime seems so rapt he almost backs into the well.

“For a small island, you certainly seem to have your share of craftsmen,” he notes as he recovers his balance.

Brienne smiles. “It is a beautiful island. I like to think it inspires beautiful works.”

“I’m feeling quite inspired myself.”

The innuendo in that is quite plain, and Brienne feels her cheeks heat up under his smouldering gaze. How in the name of all the gods do people in sexual relationships keep their minds on their business, she wonders. It seems all she can think about is the taste of Jaime’s skin.

As they head towards the doors to the southwest tower, they open before them, and Brienne’s father emerges. He is dressed quite regally in a long surcoat coat of duck-egg coloured samite, trimmed in white fox fur.

“Brienne,” he greets, but his brow is tight. “You have brought the –”

“Father, may I present Ser Jaime Lannister?”

Jaime steps forward, his boots crunching in the snow. “It is a pleasure, my Lord Evenstar.”

Brienne’s heart pounds. Her throat feels tight and dry.

Her father gives a stiff nod, looking Jaime up and down. Jaime mostly looks up – wide-eyed – somehow, he doesn’t seem prepared for Brienne’s father being taller even than she is.

“We need to talk,” Brienne says, breaking the mutual stare.

“Yes,” her father says heavily. “Perhaps we should go upstairs to my solar?”

“Thank you, my Lord,” Jaime replies with a gracious bow.

Brienne follows the two of them up the winding staircase of the southwest tower, slow because of her aching leg, her hands quite skittery on the bannisters.

Jaime slows down to draw next to her, offering his arm, concern on his face. She accepts with a soft smile, leaning on him to ease the pain in her leg.

Jaime meeting her father had not been a disaster, she thinks. Neither of them had tried to kill each other on sight. She had managed to avert her father calling Jaime Kingslayer, too.

In the solar, Brienne’s father takes a seat behind his desk, his elbows resting on its surface and his fingers steepled in front of him. Jaime stands opposite. Brienne closes the door.

“I presume you have come to explain why the Iron Fleet is anchored in our strait?” her father begins. “Do you think perhaps we are hiding an armada of warships as well as a dragon?”

“I don’t, my Lord,” Jaime responds. “They are here on orders from the Queen; I did not request their presence.”

“And what are the Queen’s orders?”

“The same as they ever were. Find the dragon.”

“And if you do not?”

Jaime looks to Brienne. Tilts his head, just a little. “My Lord, you conflate Euron Greyjoy’s purpose with my own. I already know the dragon is here. In the ruins of Morne – I have seen him for myself.”

Brienne’s father shoots to his feet, looking back and forth between the two of them. Confusion on his face – not understanding why Brienne has not reacted.

“You knew of this?” he barks at her. “You knew he knew?”

“Ser Jaime is not our enemy,” Brienne explains. “He did not tell his sister that the dragon was here, and he does not intend to.”

This does little to abate her father’s confusion. He is still looking between the two of them, wanting rather desperately for something to make sense. “Brienne? Will one of you explain this to me?”

It is Jaime who answers. “I have come to believe that my sister possessing a dragon would be … a dangerous thing. I had no intention of telling her I had found it.”

“What were you going to do?” asks Brienne’s father. “Keep it for yourself?”

Brienne sees Jaime’s back stiffen. “I am not interested in that kind of warfare,” he says. “Nor in taking the Iron Throne for myself.”

“Is that so?”

“It is. My plan was to wait here with my men until Cersei grew bored of the notion. Then I would have left you in peace.”

“So why is the Iron Fleet here?”

“It seems that Euron Greyjoy has newly wed my sister. And he seeks to impress his new bride by gifting her with the dragon where I have failed.”

Brienne’s father lets out a long breath. “So despite your sudden attack of altruism, which I suppose you are expecting me to be grateful for, we are looking down the shaft of the same sword?”

“Yes,” Brienne says.

“I do not know what Greyjoy intends to do,” Jaime continues. “How he intends to find the dragon or what he will do with it when he does, but I believe he will take the island. Probably on the morrow.”

Brienne’s father sits down again. He sits there for a moment, looking small. Deflated. “Well, what am I supposed to say to that?”

Silence. Brienne looks to Jaime. Jaime shrugs. “I do not know, my Lord.”

“Well, thank you most kindly for letting me know, Kingslayer. Unless you plan on lending me your army on the morrow, I am not sure what I am expected to do with this information.”

Brienne closes her eyes.

“Well, I mean … I have no choice, do I?” her father continues. “I will have to bend the knee to that … that … pirate. Surrender the island to him.”

“I’m sorry,” Jaime says. “I truly didn’t want –”

A shadow passes over the window. Nothing – just a shadow. Jaime stops – trails off. Looks. Looks again.

“Was that –?”

Then, there’s a sound, a dull thud, from somewhere above them. Jaime’s eyes meet Brienne’s, wide; her father gets back to his feet.

A roar – loud enough to shake the castle. Furious and plaintive and terrified all at once.

“Gods – that’s Drogon!” Brienne cries. She scrambles for the door.

Behind her, Jaime and her father dash up the stairs towards the skyway. She bursts through the door, out into the whirling snow, ignoring the screaming from her leg at her run. Onto the skyway.

There, in the middle of the snow, a huge black shape, spikes and scales and teeth and wings. Sitting in the middle of his nest, landed right in the same place as he did when she first saw him.

“Gods,” her father breathes. “It’s back.”

Drogon.

His nest is covered with snow now, but the heat of his immense body is already thawing it, already melting it away from the blackened sticks and the blackened bones.

Gods, Brienne can scarce believe he is here – he looks so huge, so impossible. The sight of him fills her with despair and dread in equal measure.

It’s snowing, thick, but not a blizzard. There is no way that Jaime’s watchposts, Jaime’s camp, Jaime’s men, haven’t seen him. Drogon would have had to fly over half the mountains to get from Morne to Evenfall Hall. He’s so big … so very very big.

She looks with despair over to the Lannister warcamp – it’s in action. Men running this way and that, grabbing pikes and shields and helms, manning the scorpions.

Jaime catches her eye. He too looks desperately at his camp – and at Euron Greyjoy’s warships beyond.

Drogon roars again, that same mournful roar they heard from the solar. Spreads his wings against the snow-filled sky and unleashes a jet of flame out across the rooftop.

There is something wrong, she realises. Something isn’t right.

“Drogon!” she calls. “Drogon, stay calm.”

He reacts to her voice at once, making a far softer noise from the back of his throat. Turns around to see her, up on the skyway with her father and Jaime.

“Drogon, it’s all right. What – what happened? What’s the matter?”

He lopes over to her, making another desperate sound. Reaches up with his head to the skyway, crunching into the wooden railings in his effort to touch her.

Her father backs away, terrified. Grabbing at her arm. “Brienne!”

“It’s all right, father,” Brienne tells him softly. She reaches over the railings, reaching for the scales on Drogon’s nose. The dragon reaches back, making a soft snorting noise. Nudging at her hand with the warmth of his snout.

She pets him gently, comfortingly – he continues to make low, troubled sounds.

“Something’s the matter,” she says.

“What?” asks Jaime, his eyes still on his warcamp across the strait.

“I … I don’t know.”

Drogon backs away then, all in a rush, one of his wings shaking, violently. He thrashes, tossing his great spiked head from side to side.

“Brienne?” her father asks. “What is it …?”

“I don’t know,” she says again.

Drogon jumps backward again and then, without warning, he takes to the air. For a moment, his vast black wings block the daylight, and all three of them on the skyway are plunged into shadow, sheltered from the snow, feeling that rush of heat as he flies overhead.

And then he is gone, a black shadow against the white snow, flying off towards the sea.

“What’s it doing?” Brienne’s father whispers. “Where is it going?”

Brienne cannot hope to answer. She, Jaime, and her father all stare as Drogon takes a low swoop around the island, first off toward Morne and then north, over the forest, over the mountains. Turning back to fly the western coast, up the beach, towards the ferry, over the town and down past Evenfall again. Looping up to start his path again.

Visible. Unmistakeable.

A dragon flying through the snow.

Around and around he goes, the same path, the same route. Never deviating, never changing his route or his speed. It is like he is pacing, again and again.

“Gods …” Jaime breathes next to her, and when she looks at him, she realises he isn’t looking at Drogon any more.

He’s looking out over the strait, to where the Iron Fleet is anchored.

There, pouring out of the ships, are dozens of boats – little reaving craft . Heading to shore. Beating drums.

“Oh fuck,” says Brienne’s father, and despite the situation, Brienne cannot help but gasp. She’s never heard him curse before.

She looks to Drogon as he’s flying around the island.

It is then she realises he isn’t carrying Daenerys any more.

Chapter Text

Brienne watches as the flotilla of reaving craft surges closer and closer to Tarth.

In her belly, low and sick, that same feeling of dread she had as she stood outside the walls of Winterfell that night. Waiting for the dead. Hearing them in the dark. Watching the flames of the Dothraki swords go out with Podrick at her side.

Her hand goes to the hilt of her sword, but suddenly, Echo does not feel right. It is not heavy enough, not strong enough … not hers enough.

“Father,” she breathes, unbuckling her swordbelt.

“Brienne?”

Holds Echo out towards him. “You are the Evenstar. You should wear your sword.”

Her father looks at her, concerned. “What about you, Brienne?” 

She looks to Jaime. “I have … my own sword.”

Beside her, Jaime’s eyes go wide. They crinkle a little – as if he is trying not to smile.

Her father nods, and buckles Echo’s belt about his waist. It looks right on him, as it always has, the silvered hilt catching the colour of his surcoat.

She is suddenly desperately afraid. Is she strong enough to defend him, if it comes to a fight? Does she have a chance against Euron Greyjoy, against any of his men, with her leg in the state it is?

And Jaime … would he defend her, defend her father? She had seen Jaime fight when he still had his right hand, but now … could he beat Euron Greyjoy without it?

Gods, even Winterfell hadn’t felt like this. There she had been fighting alongside an army. Soldiers, trained men, men who she barely knew. She and Podrick were close, of course, but it was different. She has never fought alongside anyone she loves before. It makes the fear a thousand times more potent. The thought that she could watch her father die …

Gods, and Jaime, too. Just as they have found each other, just as they have fallen in love! The thought is almost paralysing.

“Go get your sword, my lady,” Jaime says, breaking her out of that terrible reverie. “They will be here soon.”

She looks at him, wordless, and with one final glance up at Drogon’s restless flight, makes her way down the tower stairs to her chambers.

Her chambers are empty, of course, the bed made and her nightclothes laid out on her bed by Caryss.

Oathkeeper is there, resting against the wall by her armour stand. She picks it up, wraps the familiar red-and-gold belt about her waist. Buckles it, adjusts it. Draws the sword and gives it an experimental swoosh through the air to remember its weight in her hand.

It is as though she never put it down.

The Valyrian steel sings. The hilt fits perfectly in her palm. Her sword. It would always be hers.

As she sheathes it, something catches her eye. There, right at the top of the scabbard, something she must have seen and looked at a thousand times. A piece of red leather, tooled into the mouth of the scabbard. Cut into the shape of a heart.

I’ve been in love with you for a long time.

She runs a thumb over it, a sudden lump rising in her throat. Had he –? Even then?

There is no time to think on it now. Brienne grips Oathkeeper’s hilt, throws her cloak to her bed and leaves her room.

The castle has sprung into action now, people running hither and thither, people shouting and arming themselves, people crowding windows on both sides of the castle, looking out at the Iron Fleet, looking out for Drogon.

Brienne catches up with her father as he heads down the opposite set of stairs, Jaime at his right-hand side, the two of them talking animatedly.

“Offer him no resistance,” Jaime advises. “Open the castle gates, tell your men to stand well back, make sure they don’t so much as twitch a hand. Greyjoy loves a scene – don’t give him one.”

Brienne’s father nods. He motions to Brienne to join them – she can’t quite keep up thanks to her aching leg.

“There will be no scenes here,” he assures Jaime. “I will surrender the castle – offer him whatever assistance he needs with the dragon.”

Brienne grits her teeth. Remembers the sad, confused sounds Drogon had been making. He had seemed so lost, so panicked - as if he had come to Evenfall seeking her. Seeking her help.

She couldn’t help him.

“Tell Greyjoy you thought the dragon was a rumour too,” Jaime suggests. “That the smallfolk talked of it, but until now, you had never seen it for yourself.”

“Do you think that will mollify him?” Brienne asks.

Jaime slows a little, so he falls into step with her, the two of them walking behind her father now.

“If he’s in the mood for blood, probably not,” Jaime murmurs, too low for Brienne’s father to hear.

She nods, sharp and scared. Abruptly, Jaime turns, stepping into her path so she almost collides with him.

His eyes catch hers and she’s struck by the intensity in them. He grabs for her hand. Squeezes it tight.

“I am … glad you have your Valyrian steel, my lady,” he whispers. Low and urgent. “Please be careful.”

Brienne blinks. His face is terror-stricken – she has only seen him like this once before, as he begged Lord Bolton for news of his sister when they first arrived at Harrenhal.

She realises that he, too, is not used to fighting alongside someone he loves.

She squeezes his hand back under his cloak. Carefully, so the guards streaming into the courtyard can’t see.

“I will,” she whispers. “And you ... you must be careful, too.”

He leans up, just a little, and for the briefest of heartbeats, she thinks he’s going to kiss her, surroundings be damned, but he gives her hand another squeeze and lets her go.

In the courtyard, Brienne can already hear the sounds of the Ironborn approaching the gates. Bootsteps in snow, wild drums, ululating voices.

She feels sick enough to faint. Scrabbling feet on snow, approaching unseen. A vast wave of them, ready to knock her off her feet, ready to break her, bite her ...

“Open the gates!” her father calls, his voice echoing in the closed courtyard.

The great mechanism in the portcullis begins to turn, trundling chains and clanking pulleys. Brienne looks to Jaime. Jaime is already looking at her. Above them, Drogon turns another circle, looping around the castle.

“Father …” she whispers.

But then the gates are open. A gust of snow blows in, the thick flakes surging forward, dancing briefly before settling onto the flagstones.

Then, there he is.

Clad in black leather, his laces loose and his collar hanging open despite the freezing weather, Euron Greyjoy rides through the gates on a huge brown destrier.  Behind him, a thick stream of the Ironborn, a hundred at least, leather-clad, whooping, bristling with axes and warpaint and dark leather armour.

Euron Greyjoy has a crown on his head now, Brienne notices, an elaborate gold consort crown festooned with lions wrestling with krakens. No doubt a gift from his wife – there is something unmistakeably Lannister gold about it. Her hand tightens more on Oathkeeper’s hilt.

Brienne’s father steps forward to greet Greyjoy. Brienne resists the urge to leap in front of him – she has a terrible vision of him being cut down before he can utter a word. Her heart pounds. Sweat trickles down her ribs.

“Evenstar!” booms Greyjoy across the courtyard. But then his eyes catch Jaime, standing beside Brienne. “And ... Kingslayer? Trying to get the dragon before me?” He guffaws. “Good luck.”

“The Kingslayer has persuaded me to surrender the castle,” Brienne’s father announces. “Surrender the island. To spare the lives of my men.”

A grin spreads across Euron Greyjoy’s face, mad and wolfish. “Has he?”

Brienne’s father bows deeply. “Tarth is yours, my Lord.”

Something in Brienne’s belly drops like a stone. She wants so much to look at Jaime, but she doesn’t dare.

“Well, thank you very much,” Greyjoy laughs.

He slides from his destrier’s back and turns in a circle, his arms outstretched. “One more birdshit-covered island for my kingdom, I suppose.”

He drops his hands, and for half a heartbeat, Brienne thinks he is about to draw his sword. Instead, he yanks at the laces on his breeches, pulls out his cock, and pisses on her father’s boots. Brienne watches her father grit his teeth, so careful not to react.

Jaime grabs Brienne. His hand on her arm, crossing her body, holding her back. Hissing “No!” even as she goes to draw her sword.

Greyjoy gives a big, relieved sigh. Shakes his cock, sending droplets of piss all over the lower half of her father’s surcoat.

“I feel at home already,” he grins.

Brienne’s father bows his head. His jaw tight.

She watches Greyjoy relace his breeches. Drogon sweeps overhead once more, giving that same mournful, terrified cry. Brienne bites her lip so hard she tastes blood.

“And my beautiful wife’s dragon, too! Evenstar, you really did roll out the welcome mat for me.” He turns and beckons to the rest of the Ironborn. “Come – let’s do this on the roof.”

Greyjoy strides forward towards the inner keep of Evenfall, followed by his retinue of men. As he passes, he catches sight of Brienne. Points a finger in her direction.

“Oh, I nearly forgot,” he says. “Take her head.”

Brienne blinks. Frozen for a heartbeat – not certain she has heard correctly. Take her –

“What?!” her father springs forward. “No! That’s my daughter.”

Jaime leaps forward too, putting himself between Brienne and the Ironborn bearing down on her. Sword in his hand, his crimson cloak billowing over his shoulder. It billows over her shoulder, too. Brienne puts her back to his, drawing her own sword. Keeping the Ironborn at bay.

“What in all the hells are you playing at?” Jaime yells at Greyjoy. His voice is desperate, terrified – Brienne can feel the rage coming off him. “You have the castle already! The Evenstar surrendered!”

Greyjoy laughs at them both. “Cersei’s orders. She’s rebuilding the sept. Says she wants a gargoyle’s head for the buttresses.”

“You’ll have to cut me down first,” Jaime tells him.

“Well,” Greyjoy responds, his grin getting even bigger as his hand goes for his own sword. “I guess I’ll be the man who killed Jaime Lannister.”

“Don’t be so fucking stupid,” Jaime growls.

Jaime feels good at her back, Brienne thinks; his body moves well now. Far better than he had when she last saw him wield a sword. His weight has adjusted to his left side – he feels far more natural with his sword in that hand. Deadly – like his body is filled with purpose.

“If you kill me, Cersei’s fucked,” Jaime continues. “Who’s going to lead her army North? One of those poor boys of three-and-ten we’ve lured from the Westerlands on the promise of glory?”

“We don’t need you, or your pathetic army to go North,” Greyjoy hisses back, his eyes wide. Manic. “We’ve got ... a dragon.”

“That’s if your stupid plan works.”

Greyjoy laughs again – he seems to find this whole situation absolutely hilarious. He beckons to Jaime with his head. Brienne, too. “Come on, then. You two get to live to watch me tame a dragon. Then we’ll see if Cersei’s fucked without you.”

Swords are drawn, Brienne is shoved forward by a particularly large Ironborn. Forward again, into Jaime’s back. They and her father are bundled towards the keep.

“Which way to the roof, Evenstar?” asks Greyjoy, and Brienne’s father points him to the stairs. The whole troupe of them – Brienne, Jaime, her father and near a hundred Ironborn file up the spiral staircase.

They emerge into the snow, onto the skyway.

The wind howls up here, bitter cold and whistling through the mountains. In the trees of the forest. Brienne closes her eyes – it is as cold as it was that night outside Winterfell; there is the same chill of death and dread in the air. 

Far in the distance, Drogon calls.

“He can feel it!” Greyjoy declares. “He knows I will soon be his master.”

He snatches a broadaxe from one of his men. Swings it in a brutal arc unto the skyway’s handrail. Three swings, splintering the rail. Kicking the wood out of the way, making a hole.

“What are you doing?” Brienne’s father asks, incredulous.

“I need more space,” Greyjoy declares. He jumps through the gap he’s made, landing in a crouch, down on the snowy roof of Evenfall.

The snow has not yet covered up the blackened branches and bones of Drogon’s nest again, and Greyjoy marches over there, kicking over a large animal skull that may have once belonged to Brienne’s poor hapless horse.

He turns back to look at them all on the skyway. He opens his arms.

“Bring Qyburn to me!” he yells.

Qyburn? Brienne remembers the elderly former maester who had followed them to King’s Landing from Harrenhal. He had tended Jaime’s stump – her wounds from the bear as well. By the time she had seen him next at the Dragonpit, he was Cersei’s Hand of the Queen.

Is he here? She hasn’t seen him.

A burly Ironborn pushes his way through the gathering, dressed in the same split black leather armour and wearing a fearsome horned helm. He carries a big black bundle. It’s folded almost in half, curled in on itself, wrapped in black sheets. Is it a body?

Greyjoy reaches up, and the Ironborn leans down through the gap in the skyway to throw the bundle down to him. He catches it with ease in both his arms.

The bundle starts writhing. Moaning. Shuddering.

Greyjoy shushes it. Rocks it in his arms as if it were a swaddled babe. Then he places it lovingly down on the snow at his feet and starts to unwrap it.

Is it a body? No … not a dead body, at least. Brienne sees legs, arms, thin and emaciated. Filthy rags. A head, a few strings of white hair clinging to an otherwise bald pate. Skeletal fingers fight to cover the face.

“Shhhh, shhhh, it’s all right,” Greyjoy comforts the thing emerging from the blanket. Petting it with his hands as you would a frightened dog. “We’re here now; it’s all over. It’s time.”

Slowly, the gnarled figure gets to its bony feet.

“Gods, is that Qyburn?” Jaime exclaims by her side.

It is Qyburn, Brienne realises, though he looks wildly different than he did at the Dragonpit. He’s tiny, frail, withered. He looks around himself with mad eyes.

Greyjoy continues to comfort him, patting his back, speaking soft words to him, encouraging him to stand.

Qyburn shivers violently. His eyes search the sky.

“It’s here!” he cries, his voice a hoarse husk of a sound.

“I know,” comforts Greyjoy. “That’s why we’re here.”

“It knows …”

“What happened to him?” Jaime breathes. “He looks …”

Qyburn is still bent over, hunched about something he cradles in his arms. It looks like … a rock? A ball? It’s small – perhaps the size of an apple. But no … as she peers at it, it gets … bigger? Is it growing?

It cannot be – and yet it is. One moment the thing is cradled to Qyburn’s belly, tiny and insignificant. The next, he needs both hands to hold it. It’s a sphere, perhaps glass, perhaps metal, shining and reflecting the light from the snow.

It hurts Brienne’s eyes to look at the thing – how is it so bright? The sky is filled with snowclouds – it’s not reflecting – this thing radiates like the sun.

“What is that!?” Jaime demands, shouting down to Greyjoy on the roof.

Greyjoy looks up with that same mad grin. “Zaldrīzes āeksio,” he says. “A dragon master. The priests of Valyria used them to bind the first dragons to their will. And I found one.”

“That’s your plan? Some magical horseshit ball?!” Jaime laughs. “You did see what that dragon did to King’s Landing?”

“That’s on your head, Kingslayer.”

“The fucking thing will burn your face off, Greyjoy!”

Greyjoy points his finger at the wizened form of Qyburn. “It’ll burn his face off first – he’s the one who’s gone half-mad learning how to use it.”

The orb is bigger now, bigger still – and it’s hard for Brienne to look away from. The light inside it seems alive – the way the fire is alive in Drogon’s throat, she thinks. 

The way his eyes come alive when he looks at her.

It occurs to her that this thing is - the essence of dragons? A dragon’s soul, even.

“Oh, fuck,” Jaime says.

“Yes,” Greyjoy encourages Qyburn now. “There we go.”

“It’s happening!” Qyburn cries. “I can’t stop it!”

“Don’t stop it. Let it happen.”

Qyburn moans, a long, continuous sound that rises in pitch until it’s near a scream. He stretches out his arms before him until he holds the sphere at arms’ length. His bony form shudders violently. Even up on the skyway, Brienne can hear the old man’s teeth rattle in his head. She thinks he might shake apart from the force of it.

Then … there is Drogon. His black form looping over the mountains, suddenly deviating from his path. Headed right for Evenfall Hall.

He is in a dive, Brienne sees, his wings flapping madly, his feet clawing at the air as if he’s trying to stop himself … but he can’t.

“No …” she moans, struggling against the Ironborn holding her. It’s working … Drogon is being lured in. Somehow, that thing is irresistible to him.

The orb grows. And grows. Qyburn’s skeletal arms are spread wide on the thing now, now it’s too bright to look at, the light within it pulsing, swirling. Somehow, Brienne sees wings, and claws, and scales and spikes inside it. She feels them in her head.

Drogon lands on the roof with a crash, his claws rending the stone as he flails for purchase. His eyes are huge and wide, and his frantically flapping wings send branches from his nest everywhere. He roars – terrified, out of control. Lets out a burst of flame across the snow.

“Drogon!” Brienne screams. He doesn’t even look her way. He can’t – his eyes are fixed on that thing, that orb. He’s mesmerised. 

“It’s working!” Greyjoy shouts.

Drogon scrambles close – closer. So close his nose touches the orb and then …

It is as though the world freezes. Qyburn’s scream falls silent. Even Greyjoy’s victory shout cuts short.

For a long moment, it’s as though the whole world moves slower. The snowfall slows, the wind drops. The very air feels too thick to breathe. Brienne watches Drogon’s eyes start to slide closed ...

And then it’s over. Drogon flutters his wings and gasps. He stumbles a little, walking back away from the orb. Shakes his head abruptly. Once, twice --

His face changes, and Brienne swallows a gasp. Gone is every trace of gentleness, of sorrow, of emotion. The sad dragon curled around Daenerys Targaryen’s body. The sweet soul who had put his head in her lap and warmed her injured leg.

“Oh, Drogon …” Brienne whispers.

He looks like a beast. A wild animal, enslaved. Brienne thinks she is going to be sick. Everything that was beautiful about him has gone.

Qyburn collapses, shivering. Whimpering. Drogon slowly lowers his head.

“Is that it?” Greyjoy asks. “It’s done?”

Qyburn is nothing more than a bundle of bones now, and the orb is shrinking slowly in his hands. He’s gibbering to himself, eyes wide and staring into space.

Greyjoy yanks him up before him – a human shield, Brienne realises. Drogon stays exactly where he is, not moving, his head dipped low. Euron Greyjoy laughs – a crazed, maniacal, hysterical laugh of joy.

“He’s done it!” Greyjoy turns to his men, his grin huge. He drops Qyburn back to the snow – turns back to Drogon.

Then, without an ounce of fear, he steps up on the dragon’s leg, on his side, and throws himself bodily onto the dragon’s back. Still laughing. Drogon doesn’t move a muscle.

Greyjoy seats himself carefully, testing his weight on Drogon’s scales, getting a feel for balance. He can’t seem to stop laughing.

“I’m sitting on a dragon! I’m sitting on a fucking dragon!”

Brienne silently pleads with every god she can think of to make Drogon come to his senses. Make him shake Greyjoy off, snatch him in his jaws. Roast him with dragonfire and eat him there and then. But he doesn’t.

Gods, he doesn’t. He stands there, docile. Not moving a muscle.

“How do I fly the fucking thing? How do I –?”

He wriggles a little, digs his knees in and clicks his tongue as though Drogon is a horse. Nothing happens. Then he tries leaning forward. Grasps hold of the great spines at the back of Drogon’s neck, just as Daenerys Targaryen used to. And then suddenly, with a great undulation of his spine, Drogon takes to the air, Euron Greyjoy on his back.

Brienne lets out a sob.

She watches, despairing, as Drogon circles Evenfall, Greyjoy cheering and whooping on his back. He surges up to the clouds and swoops back down to circle the northwestern tower. Greyjoy laughing like a madman.

He lands Drogon back on the roof. Already looking like a man drunk with power. Drunk with his own ego.

“So how do I make it breathe fire?” he demands of Qyburn.

Qyburn looks exhausted – he’s flat on his face in the snow now, panting raggedly. “Drac – Dracarys …” he whispers.

“Dracarys?” Greyjoy repeats.

Immediately, Drogon belches forth a vast plume of flame, searing the snow right off the rooftop. So forceful he blows a hole in the walls around the rooftop, blistering the stone, shattering it utterly. Greyjoy leaps back in the saddle, throwing an arm over his own face. He bursts out in another maniacal peal of laughter.

He looks over to where Brienne, her father and Jaime are being held at swordpoint on the skyway. On the dragon’s back, he is almost at eye level with them.

He grins a spitless grin at Jaime. “Doesn’t look like we need your army after all.” He turns to his men. “Bring the three of them down here – let’s give this thing a little test before we present it to my royal wife.”

“No!” Jaime cries, even as the three of them are manhandled towards the hole Greyjoy kicked in the railing. “Tarth has been nothing but compliant, nothing but helpful. This is how you repay the Evenstar? By burning him and his daughter alive?”

“The crown has some loyal subjects who need rewarding with their own seat. Cersei wants to clear out some dead wood.” He nods to his men. “Tie them there.”

Brienne’s leg screams as she is shoved down through the hole in the skyway, dragged across the roof and forced to her knees. Her hands bound behind her, the ropes fastened to the castle wall. Beside her, her father bargains endlessly as he too is tied. Begging the Ironborn to let them go, to let just Brienne go, that they will be compliant, they will cede the castle to whoever Cersei wants, go into exile, that they will leave and never be seen again.

Jaime fights and spits and curses them all.

Brienne is numb. Staring at Drogon, just wanting to see a glimmer of the dragon she knows, wanting to see something of the sad, gentle creature who could not let go of his mother’s body.

“Drogon,” she pleads as the Ironborn finish tying them. “Drogon, hear me. You … you aren’t a weapon. You don’t have to be.”

High on the dragon’s back, Euron Greyjoy laughs again.

“Listen to me, please,” she begs. “Drogon …”

“Brienne,” Jaime’s voice trembles just a little. The Ironborn back away now, scrambling back to the skyway to get out of the way of the impending dragonfire.

“What?” she snaps. Trying desperately to get the dragon to look at her.

“I love you, all right? I don’t want to die without telling you again. I don’t –”

“You what?!” her father interrupts. “You love her?”

“I do,” Jaime says, his voice clear and steady now. “She – I do.”

But Euron Greyjoy has turned Drogon around now, and is bearing down on them.

“I love you too,” Brienne whispers. She closes her eyes. “I love you both.”

It won’t be so bad, she thinks. Dragonfire is so hot it will obliterate them quickly. Better a hot death than a cold one, crushed and eaten alive on her back, screaming in the snow.

“Drogon,” she calls again. “You deserve the peace you want. A life to call your own away from death and war. Euron Greyjoy does not own you. That thing does not control you!”

“Dracarys,” she hears.

She opens her eyes. Lifts her head to see Drogon, to see the fire in his throat, to see his beautiful fire-coloured eyes. Snow falls between the two of them, soft and slow.

Drogon turns his head.

And then flame bursts from his throat – a huge roar. But the vast, white-hot plume does not hit the three of them, roped to the wall. Instead, it consumes the skyway, engulfs the whole crowd of Ironborn standing there. Cooks them where they stand before they have so much as a chance to scream.

“What!?” Brienne’s father shouts in her ear. She can barely hear him over the roar of the flames. Jaime cries her name.

“Oh, Drogon,” Brienne whispers. “Drogon …”

Euron Greyjoy, too, is shouting, screaming, desperately trying to get Drogon back under his control. Screaming at Qyburn to use the dragon master, use it again, to do something.

Qyburn lifts himself to an elbow, his eyes huge and horrified, his hands clawing for the orb. Drogon turns to him next, snatching him from the snow in his huge jaws. The old man has a brief chance to flail while caught in the dragon’s teeth before Drogon throws him in the air, cooks his corpse on the way down in a burst of flame, and then swallows him whole with a sickening crunch.

Drogon … he spreads his great wings now … takes to the air once again. On his back, Euron Greyjoy screams and yells. Wild, mad. Trying to hang on as the dragon twists and bucks and sweeps through the air. Trying and failing.

Finally, as Drogon rolls over, high in the air, Greyjoy loses his grip and plummets out of the sky. He falls screaming past them, his scream cut short by a terrible dull thud in the courtyard below.

There is silence. Silence and snowfall. Silence and the wingbeats of the dragon, high above. It is as if the world has stopped completely.

Then Jaime, fighting against the ropes, manages to free himself by shucking his stumped wrist from his golden hand. He pulls his dagger from his belt and cuts the ropes binding both Brienne and her father.

She thanks him as he helps her to her feet and he pulls her into his arms, jumping up to his tiptoes to kiss her, hard.

Brienne’s father rushes to the edge of the roof, peering down to where Euron Greyjoy fell.

“He’s dead,” he says, somewhat superfluously. He looks quite bewildered as he turns back to where Brienne and Jaime stand, embracing.

Jaime has not let go of her. She feels his arms tight around her, his face pressed into her neck. She doesn’t seem able to let go of him, either.

“Are we safe?” her father asks. He makes no mention of their clasp.

Drogon lands on the roof again as they stand there. They watch him nose around in the remnants of his nest, making soft, mournful noises

Brienne lets go of Jaime. Approaches Drogon, her hand held out to him.

He drops his head so that she can run her hand over the rough, warm scales of his nose. Nudges against her. His eyes are him again, lonely, woeful. Full of his own soul again. He looks up at the smouldering corpses on the skyway and hangs his head.

“It is … all right,” she whispers to him. Under no illusions now that he can understand her, somehow. “You had no choice. They would have enslaved you. Used you to kill tens of thousands – you would have been a weapon for the rest of your life. You …”

“Brienne –” Jaime calls. She looks back to him – he’s nudging something with his boot. There, on what was left of Qyburn’s black blankets, glinting in the light of the snow, lies the artefact that the old man had wielded to control Drogon. Shrunken small again now, no bigger than the palm of her hand.

“Destroy it,” her father says. “You were right, Brienne. This noble creature should never live in fear of enslavement again.”

Brienne nods. She pats Drogon’s nose. Pulls Oathkeeper from her scabbard and approaches the thing. It is so small she thinks she could probably crush it with her boot, but …

Oathkeeper is Valyrian steel. There is dragon magic in Valyrian steel, somehow. Somehow she thinks this will be the way to destroy it.

Jaime steps back from the blankets, and Brienne swings her sword in a vicious downward arc. The orb shatters. Easily. Like it was made from nothing more than glass.

“It’s over,” Brienne whispers, turning back to the dragon. “Your life is your own, Drogon. Always.”

His head is bent down now, nosing at something in his nest. And then she sees.

“How … how is that possible?” her father asks.

Jaime says. “My brother told me once – he was fascinated with the lives of dragons. His stories said they were neither male nor female. More than a little magical, in that way.”

There, in the dragon’s nest, hidden among the blackened branches and the ruined animal bones, lie two eggs, scaled, shimmering like polished metal in the sun. A green one and a gold.

Chapter Text

The storm clouds have finally cleared.

The sun is bright, and the sky is clear as Brienne rides the ferry across to what remains of the Lannister warcamp. Once again, she is dressed in her Tarth colours, her bright blue cloak about her shoulders, accompanied by five of her father’s guards.

On the deck behind her – two coffins.

One carries the pulverised remains of Euron Greyjoy, removed from the flagstones of Evenfall Hall’s courtyard with a shovel after his fall from Drogon’s back.

The other …

She is greeted at the dock by Ser Dorin, the young knight who was Jaime’s bannerman and who is now presumably in charge of the Lannister army. He is fifteen, Brienne knows. Five-and-ten, and now he is Cersei’s general.

“Well met, Ser,” she greets. “I have brought the remains of Lord Greyjoy to you. And … Ser Jaime.”

Her voice quavers a little as she says it, even though she knows full well who and what lies in that box. The sight of that burnt Ironborn corpse dressed in melted lion armour, Jaime’s melted golden hand on its newly-severed wrist … it had hurt her even though Jaime himself was by her side all the while as they prepared their deception - warm and real and very much alive.

“I’m afraid there was nothing left of Lord Qyburn,” she continues. “The dragon ... well ... the dragon ate him.”

Ser Dorin bows deeply. He has brought men – or other boys, at least — to take custody of the coffins. He motions for them to collect the boxes from the ferry.

Behind him, Jaime’s former army are busy, packing crates and carts and wagons, and the boys take the two coffins straight to load up in the back of a carriage. All around them are collapsing tents. Dismantled scorpions. On the horizon, the last specks of the Iron Fleet can be seen, black silhouettes disappearing up the coast. Sailed by a skeleton crew without a Greyjoy at the helm.

“Have you been in contact with Her Grace?” Brienne asks, even though she is not sure it is wise to ask.

Ser Dorin nods readily enough. “We received a raven back from the capital this afternoon,” he says. “From the new Hand, though. Not the Queen herself.”

Brienne wonders what poor soul has the job of Cersei’s Hand now. “It must have been … a shock. For Her Grace?” Brienne suggests. “Losing a husband. A brother. All in one day.”

Dorin glances back at the coffins. “Yes, I imagine so.”

“We have had no further sight of the dragon,” she informs him, even though he didn’t ask. “He seems to have crossed the Narrow Sea, so far as we can tell. The maester suggested that he has probably gone home to Valyria.”

Dorin nods, but it’s clear his attention is elsewhere. Perhaps he does not want to think too much on the possibility of the dragon. On the possibility that Cersei might send him out again to capture it, once her grief has worn thin. He has seen the burned bodies. The destruction at Evenfall. What hope would he possibly have to capture Drogon now? 

Surely even Cersei could see that.

“Our orders are to depart for King’s Landing on the morrow,” he says. “Shore up the capital’s defences. Return these … the remains to the Queen and await her Grace’s orders.”

Brienne swallows. “Yes. Well …” There is little else to say now, and she is eager to be home. “I wish you a good journey, Ser. And good fortune.”

“Thank you, Lady Brienne.”

He turns away, a boy wearing a man’s skin. She feels so sorry for him. She wonders if he will still be alive in a moon’s turn.

Brienne takes the ferry back across the strait, not looking behind her at the Lannister camp, not thinking about the body in the box that she had told them was Jaime.

She rides home, to Evenfall, but she does not go inside the keep. Continues straight through to the postern gate back out of the castle and takes the coastal road to Morne.

Morne, Brienne thinks, has proved to be somewhere safe for all her secrets lately. It’s all quiet as she approaches; ties her patient mare to a tree and rewards her with an apple from her saddlebags.

The sun is shining on the tumbledown stone, and the snow glistens on every brick, bright and promising. There is nothing but silence as Brienne pads through the snow and climbs the stairs to duck inside the granary.

Jaime is asleep on his bedroll, beside a fire burnt low now. He’s bundled up in so many blankets that she can see little more of him than his nose emerging from the pile, his breath starting to steam in the cold air. Beside him are the remains of his breakfast smuggled from the Evenfall kitchens last night. Brienne watches him for a moment as she reaches for a log to kindle the blaze again.

He has been here three days now, since Euron Greyjoy came to Tarth. Three days since he tried to tame the dragon for Cersei. Three days that Jaime is meant to have been dead already.

He has done little more than sleep since then. He is exhausted. Drained, she thinks. It is as if his body has been weighed down with the burden of Cersei for so long that it has just ... let go when he was finally free of her.

But he stirs now, opening his eyes as she pokes at the fire to help the log catch. Pulls the blankets down and smiles a lazy smile at her.

“It’s done?” he asks, his voice croaky from sleep. He stretches languorously and sits up to don a jacket that is actually Brienne’s. “They accepted it was my corpse?”

“Yes.” She sets the makeshift poker aside and turns back to him. “Dorin didn’t even look at it, just loaded it onto a carriage to take to the capital. They’re packing up the camp – they have orders to return to King’s Landing.”

“Oh. That’s – that’s good.”

Neither of them speak, and it feels like the last vestige of Jaime’s sister sits in the silence between them. The lingering question of whether she will believe the body is his. Brienne knows they are both hoping to the gods that she does.

But then Jaime smiles. He stands up, scratching his beard. “You look frozen, my love,” he chides, and comes over to Brienne and taking both her hands in his single palm. Holding it against the warmth of his chest. Rubbing her broken fingers briskly.

“It is cold,” she smiles.

He nods. “It will be good to get out of here. I could barely sleep last night with the wind howling through that damnable hole in the roof.”

“I’m sorry. But I have good news on that front. Father has finished with the arrangements – we can move you tonight.”

“Thank you,” he whispers. He steps up against her and leans up to press his sleep-warm lips to hers. “Thank your father, too. Though perhaps not quite in that way.”

“You are most welcome, Ser,” she whispers with another kiss.

She breaks it quite reluctantly, but she’s all too aware that fetching Jaime is not the only reason she has come to Morne.

“Have you heard anything of Drogon?” she asks.

“I most certainly have,” he says darkly. “I was collecting firewood outside when he burst out of his hidey-hole in the woods last night. Scared the deepest of the hells out of me, made me step in  a pile of horse shit!”

Brienne cannot help but laugh.

“He came back as I was cleaning my boots – roasted a deer right in front of me and ate it. Didn’t even offer to share!”

She smiles. “So he’s definitely hunting again, even if he’s only out at night? That’s good.”

He nods, and clasps her hand tighter. “Are you going to pay him a visit?”

“I am – are you coming?”

“Ah, why not? I could do with stretching my legs.”

He collects his cloak from the floor, dusts it down and dons it with a smile. It’s another one of Brienne’s – her grey fur-trimmed cloak from Winterfell, the warmest cloak she owns. He has a glove of hers, too, and he pulls it onto his hand with his teeth.

He follows her out of the granary, lending her his arm as she comes down the slippery steps. Mindful of her leg, mindful that it will be sore in the cold. Mindful that she does not slip on the ice, and she finds the thought of that warms her.

They make their way under the floor of the arena, where Drogon lies, curled in his new nest. He has once more amassed quite a collection of blackened branches and charred bones around him. In the centre, beneath the claw that once held Daenerys Targaryen’s corpse, sit the two eggs that had been on the roof of Evenfall.

Drogon cracks an eye as they come down the stairs, and makes a small noise of greeting in the back of his throat.

“Hello, Drogon,” Brienne says. She runs a gentle hand over part of his tail where it is curled on the edge of his nest.

Drogon makes a noise that sounds like a very loud purr.

“Brienne?” Jaime, behind her.

She turns to look at him – he is looking at something on the floor.

“Oh,” she says as she steps close. What remains of  Daenerys Targaryen is tucked carefully to one side of the nest.

“Perhaps we should … bury her?”

“I don’t know that Drogon would like that. He … he carried her around for such a long time.”

Jaime nods. They both stare at the tattered remnants of the Dragon Queen

“He picked her up,” Jaime says in a small voice. Brienne looks down at him, and his eyes look very very far away. “Her body. It was the first thing he did after I ... after she died. Before he burned the city.”

Brienne slips a hand onto his shoulder. He looks back at her, his eyes dark and heavy.

“While she was lying dead on the ground. After I’d put an arrow through her chest as she approached the walls with my brother to negotiate.” He takes a sharp breath.  “It was the saddest thing, you know. As if he was trying to wake her. And then he … picked her up in his claw.”

Jaime looks at his boots.

“ I hadn’t thought that he loved her. I had been thinking of him in terms of a weapon. Something I had to overcome, like a trebuchet or … a warship perhaps. Does that make sense?”

“You sound quite regretful,” Brienne says softly.

He scoffs but then says, “I regret that I didn’t think of it. It … it was my fault he burnt the city. All those people. All that destruction.”

“But you don’t regret killing her?” She leans closer to him, lending her warmth.

He shrugs, clearly doing his level best to look ambivalent. “It was the only way.”

“Perhaps.”

He looks up at her. Not trying to justify himself exactly, she thinks. “We couldn’t take on the dragon – Greyjoy had got lucky as all the hells with the one over Dragonstone – it was injured and slow. But Drogon …”

“So you took out the Dragon Queen instead.”

“It was the only way,” he says again. “Without her, the Dothraki fell back into splintered Khalasars. Without her, the Unsullied had no master. The Northerners went back North. Without her, her armies had no interest in the Iron Throne; they were no threat to us.”

Brienne looks to him – he looks to her. “To Cersei.”

He shifts his weight from foot to foot. He looks a little lost, a little empty. “To Cersei,” he says. “I meant to Cersei.”

It will take him some time, she thinks, before he and Cersei untangle in his head. Before he stops thinking of himself as a Golden Lion, belonging to his house. Belonging to his sister. He looks so much smaller, somehow, dressed in Brienne’s clothes.  So much more fragile.

But then Drogon lifts his great head from his nest, stretches it out between them as he gets to his feet. He nudges Brienne a little, asking to have his nose stroked, which she obliges. Then he turns to Jaime and does the same, his head low. His eyes all but closed.

Jaime reaches out, slowly, tentatively. Places his palm above Drogon’s right nostril. As Brienne watches, the tension drains out of Jaime’s shoulders, and he leans towards the dragon’s enormous head. His own eyes closing, too.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. So softly that Brienne can barely hear him over the sound of Drogon’s rasping breath.

The dragon dips his head back to his nest to nuzzle at Daenerys’ body. Jaime still leaning against the spiked frills on the side of his head.

Drogon extends his claw. Picks his mother’s body up once more.

Jaime and Brienne step away, and then he is gone, with a bound, up into the evening sky, keeping low over the trees so he can’t be seen over the mountains.

Brienne and Jaime watch him circle, swoop low and drop down again, back in front of the arena’s broken floor.

He peers down at them, tilting his head as if he is asking them a question. Hops away again and then comes back.

“You want … us to come?” Brienne asks.

“I think he does,” Jaime agrees.

Drogon waits patiently as Brienne goes to fetch her mare, pulling Jaime into the saddle behind her.

Then he takes to the air once more, at a leisurely pace, circling back when he gets too far ahead for them to follow. They follow the coastal road for a while before turning off, up through the forest, up into the mountains.

“Oh,” Brienne says suddenly, as she sees Drogon dive down into a clearing in the trees some way ahead. “I know where he’s going.”

And sure enough, there she finds him.

Landed by the lake high in the hills, the lake where Galladon had drowned. The lake where she had met Drogon first, where he had eaten her horse the night that Jaime had come to Tarth.

He is bent over the lake’s stunning blue surface, peering into the dark depths, seemingly staring at his reflection. He is quite rapt, as if he is fascinated at seeing another dragon there.

Brienne dismounts her mare, helping Jaime down behind her. He looks about himself at the snow-covered trees, at the vivid blue surface of the lake reflecting all the colours of the sky.

“Your island …” he breathes. But it is her he looks at now, his eyes full of wonder. She reaches for him. Kisses him. Wraps him in her arms.

Drogon makes a soft sound, and they break their kiss to find him looking at them. Daenerys Targaryen’s sad, ragged corpse at his feet.

He bends his head. Nudges the body toward the water.

“Drogon …” Brienne breathes.

He pushes his mother again, and there – she’s in the lake. In the lake where Brienne lost Galladon, the lake where she has imagined her brother playing with mermaids all these years.

Perhaps that is something that Drogon wants, as well. To think that his mother is somewhere at peace. Somewhere happy. Somewhere beautiful.

For a moment, Daenerys floats on the surface, the few strands she has left of her beautiful silver hair splayed out in the water around her. And then, the water soaks into her thick coat, and slowly pulls her under.

The three of them watch as she sinks down into the lake, until she is little more than a speck of vanishing silver strands. They are an unlikely and faintly ridiculous funeral cortege for the last Targaryen, the Mother of Dragons and the Breaker of Chains. A sad dragon, the man who killed her, and a woman who she had never even spoken to. Brienne cannot even recall the rest of her titles.

**

It is dark by the time Brienne and Jaime leave Morne. They follow the road back to Evenfall, sat together on the mare. Jaime’s arm warm and secure around her waist.

They leave the main road by the old stone watch hut, down the disused path beside it. The mare plods carefully because with her heavy burden through the deep snow, in the dark. The path has been cleared of overgrowth, though – Brienne’s father has seen to that.

The house has been empty for such a long time – Brienne remembers going there only twice after her mother died. Never again after Galladon died.

It is a marble manse set in a rolling dell, well out of sight of any road. A peaceful haven where her family had once taken holiday every year. Swimming in the sea during the summer years, building snowmen in the winter ones.

The Summer House, her brother had used to call it, even on the years when it had snowed.

Her father has replaced the gates, she sees – probably the old ones were rusting away. They are huge and heavy, wrought iron decorated with moons and starbursts. It takes both Jaime and Brienne to get them open, pushing them through snow so deep it’s up to their thighs. They continue on, back on horseback, up the wooded bridle path to the house.

The stables have been repaired and filled with fresh hay. Brienne’s mare is grateful for both the food and the warmth. Brienne takes off her saddle and brushes her down – finding it unlikely she will return to Evenfall tonight.

The doors are rusted, but the hinges have been oiled. Rotted planks replaced as well. Inside, even in moonlight, The Summer House is exactly how she remembered.

Brienne goes about the room to light the new candles that have been put into the sconces. Jaime enters behind her, rubbing his hand and stump together to warm them. She sees him blink in surprise at the size of the main room – a large dining table, a reupholstered chaise and chairs around the fire.

There is the smell of dust – but it’s all been cleaned. A fire laid in the hearth. Some pretty curtains at the windows.

“It’s been empty a long time,” Brienne apologises, longing to throw open the windows and rid the air of the musty smell.

“It’s … it’s lovely,” Jaime whispers. “Your father is too kind …”

He looks a little lost, though. A little bewildered. This is going to be the hard part for him, she thinks. Falling in love was so sweet and so easy, and faking his death romantic and adventurous. But this , the part where he leaves everything he knows behind and has to make a new life … that part will be hard.

No gold, no glory. No army, no power. No servants or squires or … anyone. Trekking to the well to fetch water, growing his own food, cooking his own meals. Washing his own clothes.

Not the usual lifestyle of a Lannister, not at all.

She takes him upstairs, shows him the bedchambers. The beds have new mattresses, new sheets, new blankets, the fires laid upstairs as well by father’s most trusted servants. Brienne lights the one in the main bedroom. Loosens her jacket. Kicks off her boots.

Jaime says very little as he watches the flames dance in the hearth. He takes off his own boots. Turns down the bed.

Brienne goes to him as the fire finally begins to warm the room. He smiles up at her, a little weary, and he kisses her. Pulls at the laces on her shirt.

**

“Do you like the house? Do you think you will be happy here?” she asks, as they lay tangled up together afterwards.

Jaime’s belly tenses under her stroking fingers, just a little. “Of course.”

He leans up to kiss her, stroking her face so softly while he does. But there is a line between his brows as he looks about the room.

“It is strange to be a dead man,” he says after a moment. “No one can see me, can they? Ever again.”

“That’s … that’s not necessarily so,” she says, trying to keep her voice steady. “In a few years … or, if your sister …”

“Dies? Or loses the throne?”

She nods; she won’t spare his feelings on this subject, not now. “If Cersei dies or loses the throne. Then you would have no reason to stay hidden. We could –”

“Marry?” His voice is quiet and hopeful.

“Perhaps.”

“Well, your father did not seem to object overmuch when I declared my feelings for you.”

“No, he did not.” He had, of course, been staring into the mouth of a dragon at the time, though. Thinking they all had mere moments to live. 

But he had been willing enough to hide Jaime. To help fake his death.

“Perhaps he thinks a Lannister would make a suitable consort for an Evenstar?” he says against her ear.

“Perhaps,” she says again, with a smile. “One day.”

**

It is two days later when Brienne packs her bags, says goodbye to her father, and prepares to depart Evenfall and Tarth.

Her father rides down to the port with her, Maester Rambton and Ser Justan beside him. Making sure they go at the busiest part of the evening, as the fishing vessels are coming into port and the market is packing up for the day, so that the townsfolk can see the Evenstar’s daughter depart for Winterfell.

The immediate threat might be over, but Cersei is not entirely toothless, after all. And Lady Brienne is sworn to the Stark children – she must protect them. Everyone knows that.

She embraces her father before she boards the boat that everyone knows is headed for White Harbour.

“Take care of everything for me, father,” she bids.

“And you … you must take care of yourself,” he tells her. “Make sure you eat, and rest, and … take time for yourself.”

“I will.” She has not let go of his hand.

“Promise me you will come home again soon, Brienne.”

“Of course,” she says, but she can say no more. Her throat threatens to choke her, and she can feel her chin beginning to wobble. “I – I love you, father. I will miss you ... more than anything.”

“I will always be here,” he smiles. Clasps her close again and kisses her cheek.

She stands on the deck and waves to him as the ship departs, waves until she can see him no more, until the sun is going down and staining the sky red and orange and purple.

She looks back over Tarth, over the forests and the mountains, the beaches and the towns.

In the forest, she can see the crumbled towers of Morne, and thinks of Drogon. There in his nest with his eggs.

A little south lies the Summer House, and Jaime. Cleaning his house. Mending his boots. Planting his winter garden, now. Hidden away.

She thinks of his smile, his eyes crinkling as he looks at her. She thinks of his kiss and his touch and his love.

She thinks of him thinking of her, knowing what she is doing right now.

“Is this far enough, milady?”

She is jolted from her reverie by the captain of the ship.

She looks out at the sea, at the distance they are from Tarth. “It is,” she tells him. It is getting dark now, and she does not wish to be at it all night.

**

It starts to snow again as Brienne rows away from the boat, her bags around her feet in the coracle, a flaming torch strapped to the bow. She waves her thanks to the captain and then turns and sets a fast pace for the shore.

It is full dark by the time she gets close to the beach, and she sees Jaime’s torch, sees the silhouette of him, wearing her Winterfell cloak and waving with his stump.

He wades out to help her pull the coracle in, to help her with her bags, and then when they get to the shore, he kisses her and throws his arm about her waist as they walk up the beach together. Walking the road towards the Summer House. Towards where their home lies now.

He rests his head on her shoulder, and she kisses the top of his brow. Ready to start their lives together.

Ready to live the lives that they have earned.

Chapter Text

The rain has finished, and the storm clouds have finally cleared.

Brienne rides out of the Summer House on her mare at sundown, Jaime waving her off from the front door as she goes. The storm has lasted several days, as spring storms often do in this part of Westeros, and she needs to be out of the house. She needs to get some fresh air and she definitely needs to get some exercise.

Her leg is sore – not so much from the cold anymore, with the warmer weather here now -- but from carrying the increasing weight of her belly these days. Two babes, Maester Rambton thinks – twins .

She has scarce been able to wrap her mind around that yet, though she and Jaime have known for near a week. One babe was surprise enough, but two ?

She takes the path to the beach from the coastal road, now, enjoying the downhill thrill of it. Riding it as she had when she was a girl, when she’d had a long braid streaming out behind her, bouncing in her saddle, laughing and excited.

She does not push the mare so hard as that now, of course, but still, she makes quick work of it. The first heat of the spring sun feels good on her scarred face, and she even feels a little too warm in her sable-trimmed cloak.

Above her, Drogon swoops down over the trees from Morne. Calling to her, an excited roar. Close enough to feel the beating of his wings.

She is on the beach now, still riding fast. The mare is flat out, flying across the sand. Brienne is leaning into it, her cloak flying, her hair caught. Her breath stolen by the wind. It feels good. So good. So good to be out in the sun.

Above her, Drogon calls again. Not a roar, a sound of excitement, a sound of joy.

Brienne wheels her horse about and gallops her the opposite way – Drogon changes direction too. Brienne is grinning. Laughing. Lungs full of seasalt air, hands clenched tight on the reins, heart thudding along with her horse’s hooves.

Racing a dragon. A dragon racing her.

Drogon flies lower, so close she can feel the rush of air around her from his huge form, so close she can feel the heat of him, that terrible fiery heat.

She gallops on, shouting at the top of her voice.

Above her, Drogon roars. Full-throated. Joyous.

Finally, the mare stops. Exhausted, sweating, trembling, as Brienne is. She pulls to a stop, panting and grinning and …

Drogon lands too. In front of her, a little way down the beach. Drops his nose and stretches out so she can stroke him.

Then he takes off again, disappearing back into the forest to hunt, back to Morne to his eggs.

Brienne rides for home. Makes a stop at the watch hut, to find her father has left them a package. He does this at least once a week, sending out his trusted man to drop things off. Today there is a new pair of boots, since hers are almost worn through, a box of fish for the smoker that Jaime has built. A package of her father’s Dornish pepper tea. And there, in the top of the chest, two little tunics, in quartered azure and claret.

So tiny. Brienne holds one of them up, a mixture of excitement and terror rushing through her at the sight of it. Imagining little legs and arms, a little face. Two of them, staring up at her from the crib she is building.

As she rides back up through the gates of the Summer House, the night is drawing in. Jaime has not yet drawn the curtains, and she can see him fussing over a pot on the fire. She draws the mare to a stop and watches him for a while.

These past few moons have not been easy, for either of them. He has been difficult sometimes, mercurial and melancholy and lost, but he has been happy, too. As has Brienne. The nightmares, the uneasiness, the terrible clawing anxiety whenever she’s in a small place are still there, but … now she shares all of it with Jaime. As he shares his with her.

She stables the mare and heads inside, kicking off her boots, kissing Jaime hello and passing him the box of fish for his smoker. He heads eagerly outside to hang it, and Brienne settles on the chaise, warming her leg by the roaring fire, massaging the ache from her thigh.

There is a letter, bundled with the tea, and Brienne tears it open, recognising the slender, pretty calligraphy of her father.

My dear Brienne,

The letter begins.

I hope you are well and that you like the things I have sent you. When Maester Rambton told me you expect twins, I was so excited I could not resist having the little clothes made. I hope that you are resting and eating well.

We have heard no more from the Queen – I have no reason to believe she suspects her brother is alive or that you are anywhere other than Winterfell. She does not seem to be doing much at the moment – her army have not left the capital, and she has made no further incursions anywhere in Westeros. Rumours reach us that she is holed up in a tower in the Red Keep, that she sees no one, that she does not trust even her closest advisers.

I do not know what to make of that – perhaps time will tell.

Some rumours have reached my ears that Lord Tyrion Lannister has employed the services of the Golden Company in the hope of making his invasion soon. I know not how accurate these are, and I dare not make any enquiries that may prove seditious. But know that I keep my ear to the ground as always.

As to your request, I am happy to say I have found a suitable candidate! Septon Blackmont arrived on the island this morning, before he sails for Essos in a week’s time. He is more than happy to perform a discreet wedding ceremony while he is here, and as he will be travelling in the Free Cities for a while, even if he recognises you or Ser Jaime, he is unlikely to spread gossip to any ears that will matter. I hope this news pleases you – I shall bring him out to wed you at the Summer House in a few days’ time.

Please let me know if you would like me to begin making some quiet enquiries about some help for you once the babes arrive? A wet nurse, perhaps? A boy to help with some chores?

I hope too that Drogon is doing well. The maester has done some research that suggests the clutch may hatch within a year, if they do not turn to stone. I suppose the dragon babes will bring their own set of problems, but for now, with all gone dormant in King’s Landing, I feel safer, at least for now.

My dearest daughter, it has been hard, knowing you are so close by, and yet I cannot see you. I look forward to the day when you can move back to Evenfall, when we can be a family once again.

Fondest love as always,

Father

As she finishes the letter, Jaime returns to stir his cauldron. He brings her a spoon so she might taste, his eyes sparkling with love as she leans forward to sip.

They eat together, talk about the wedding, and take some wine.

Then they fall asleep together on the chaise before the fire.