Chapter Text
When it's all over, Danaerys proves herself only half as mad as her father, and she strips Jaime Lannister of all lands and titles and gives them—and him—to Brienne instead. It's ironic, Brienne thinks as her horse crests the last ridge to Casterly Rock, that she is no longer either a maid or of Tarth. The war has taken almost everything from her, but it's given her treasures untold in return.
Jaime halts his horse next to hers, green eyes searching first the Rock, and then her face.
“What do you think?” he asks, gesturing with his ornate golden hand at the castle looming before them even though they're still a few leagues away. She studies it, her belly jumping nervously. Casterly is the largest and best-defended castle in Westeros, and it's easy to see why, now that she's here. Miles of rock carved with windows and walls, and a ringfort standing proudly at the top, so high up there are clouds obscuring the view of it. Inside, she knows there are stairs and lifts, paths wide enough for horses to carry people from one end to the other. It is an unwelcome maze to strangers, and Brienne has never felt stranger than this moment, knowing it now belongs to her.
Her eyes track the crenellations and lookouts, the arched openings and the faint, dark forms of people she imagines she can see in them. “I think it's a lot for one person to command,” she says.
“They say only a Lannister can love the Rock.” Jaime chuckles. “Though I suppose they say that about the Lannisters, too.”
Brienne glances his way, and there is a familiar sadness in his eyes, the weight of all the people he's loved who have died, the burden of continuing to live in spite of it all. Her heart surges in her chest towards him.
“That's not true,” she murmurs.
A smile breaks like sunlight through a storm across his face, and his sadness recedes. “And how would you know that, my lady wife?” he teases. Brienne feels heat rise to her cheeks. He knows her feelings for him; she had first spilled them at his feet in the darkest hours of the Long Night, and she still whispers them to him in the dark here in the spring. She's not quite brave enough yet to say them in daylight, however.
“You know very well how,” she manages, and Jaime clicks his tongue thoughtfully. Preparing some prodding response, she's sure, but the rest of their party—the remaining Lannister soldiers that had followed Jaime to Winterfell and follow her to Casterly now; a much smaller group after the wars—ride up, providing a welcome distraction.
“Not far now, ser,” one of them says. It's Ser Franklyn Jast, the son of a minor house bound to the Lannisters. He has been relentlessly polite during their journey, calling her ser and my lady with equal reverence, and providing whatever she needs, often before she thinks to need it.
(“What does he want?” she'd asked Jaime as they'd readied for bed in their hastily-erected tent a few nights in. Brienne had insisted that they could sleep on the ground like the men; Jaime had insisted a Lannister would never do so. She had muttered that perhaps that was the problem.
“He wants your favor,” Jaime had told her. “I don't doubt he's praying for me to keel over so he can take my place.”
She had frowned so intensely at him that he'd had to sit down from laughing.)
Brienne nods politely at Jast now. “Have you been to Casterly before, Ser Franklyn?”
“No, my lady, but my father has told me many stories.”
His father... she struggles to remember what Jaime had told her of House Jast. He's been doing his best to prepare her each night for all she must know as the new Lady of the Rock, but the Lannister ties are made of many intricate knots. So far they have untangled only a handful, and she is clumsy at even the simple ones.
“I remember Lord Antario well,” Jaime says, tugging this knot loose for her. She shoots him a grateful look. “He escorted my father's body to the Rock.”
Ser Franklyn nods, his chest puffing proudly. “It was a great honor for him, my lord.”
“I'm sure one day you'll gladly do the same for me,” Jaime says blithely, and the poor young man goes white-faced, his eyes skittering to Brienne and back. Jaime barks a laugh that shakes Jast.
“Forgive my husband, Ser Franklyn,” Brienne says tightly. “The journey seems to have broken his sense of humor.”
“How can that be, when I am the only one laughing?” Jaime protests.
Ser Franklyn glances between them nervously.
“Ser,” Brienne says, sparing him from more of Jaime's pointed tongue. “Please ride ahead with a few others and alert the castellan to our arrival. I'm sure we'll all want food and baths and places to rest as soon as we arrive, and I don't wish to spring our needs upon the unsuspecting household.”
“Of course, my lady,” he says, relieved. “Immediately.”
He wheels his horse away with one last, anxious glance at Jaime, and Jaime snorts.
“So easily unsettled by a jape. You'd think fighting a horde of nightmarish monsters would have given him a firmer spine.”
“I suppose that makes you more terrifying than an ice spider, then.”
Jaime shudders. “That seems unlikely.” They watch Jast select a handful of riders and head off at a thunderous pace. “They'll be there well before nightfall at that speed. We should arrive tomorrow.”
Tomorrow. Brienne stares once more at the immense structure that is now hers in every way, from the thousands-year-old rock to the people working inside of it. She can feel it pressing down on her from even here, and worries she will not be strong enough for the weight of this task. At least she has Jaime to lend her his support.
“Will they be celebrating your return?” she asks.
Jaime shrugs. “It's been many years since I've been here, and my father was respected but not loved. Most likely they'll be much more eager to meet you.”
“They don't even know me.”
“Everyone knows the famed Blue Knight.” He says it proudly, all of his teasing gone, and it warms her.
“As they know Goldenhand,” she says with just as much pride.
“To them I am more likely still the Kingslayer.” His voice is too dark for the way he glows golden in the sun.
“Then they will learn who you are and be happier for it, just as I have.” She squeezes his arm, feels the steadiness of him through the thin leathers he wears. They are only lightly armored; their trip has been a peaceful one. No one is eager to fight these days.
Jaime swallows hard. “We should continue.” It's a gruffly-delivered suggestion, but she knows it comes from an overflow of emotion, so she simply nods in silent agreement.
Brienne urges her horse forward, and they continue down the road, side by side.
Casterly Rock is enormous, the first place Brienne has ever felt truly small. It's a peculiar and vulnerable feeling and she decides that is why, when they dismount in the courtyard as the staff stands there in a line three-deep to greet them, she lifts her chin and says, “What's all this?” as though she hadn't been born to a noble house herself.
Jaime, at her side as he has been since his arrival in Winterfell before the Long Night, leans closer and whispers, “They're presenting themselves to the new Lady of Casterly Rock. You, sweetling.”
She gives him a sidelong glare—he's stopped calling her wench and started calling her that instead, and she isn't sure how she feels about it, but the courtyard in front of all of their servants is not the place to discuss it.
“Who's the castellan?”
“Ser Damion died in the War of the Queens, my lady,” an older woman says, stepping forward. She looks as though she's been hewn from the rock under their feet, her face full of jagged edges and crevices, her limbs all sharp angles. “I have been leading the household in his absence.”
Jaime inhales sharply and Brienne casts him a curious glare. “My cousin,” he explains softly. “I didn't know.” She presses her hand briefly to his wrist and then scans the line of people again, and it sinks in that there is not a single healthy adult male among them. It is mostly women, some elderly men, an injured teenager or two, and children. Every one of them ramrod straight and skinny with hunger and rigid with fear. Knowing who had once controlled Casterly Rock, Brienne doesn't blame them. Especially when the only fighters are at her back.
“What's your name?” she asks the woman.
“Ella Lannister, my lady. Ser Damion's mother.”
She announces it with none of the grief that Brienne would expect, but it's there in the ragged corners of her eyes, and Brienne inhales deeply, inclines her head. She tries to think of what her father would have said. “I'm sorry for your loss. Thank you for your dedication to the Rock and the people here in these dark times.”
“Will you be replacing me?” the woman demands.
Brienne blinks, surprised, and looks to Jaime again. His handsome face is unreadable; he's giving her all the responsibility here. As he should, she knows, based on Danaerys' commands. They had only been allowed to marry with the understanding that Jaime could not perform any of the duties of a Lord. He was to be, in the Queen's words, “a consort, living his life at Lady Brienne's pleasure and nothing more.”
They'd talked of that edict later that night. Jaime had been lounging in their shared bed, casually rubbing salve into his stump as Brienne had stood on the opposite side of the room, trying to discern his true feelings.
“My dream life,” he'd assured her with a sly grin.
“But your knighthood—”
“I wasn't using it anyway.”
“Jaime,” she'd sighed. “What of Casterly Rock, then? I am no Lannister.”
“Thank the gods for that.” He'd waved his stump in the air, brushing away her concerns. “And you will be a Lannister, as soon as I wrap my cloak about those square shoulders.”
“You don't have to,” she'd said, quietly, half-hoping he wouldn't hear it.
But Jaime always heard her, even when she was not speaking true. “Brienne.” He'd stood, pressed his palm to her injured cheek. “I want to. I told you so on the battlefield.”
She'd covered his hand with her own. “Even I am not so naive as to believe everything a man says in the midst of a fight he's certain to lose.”
“I was always certain we would win,” he'd said. “I'll ask you again now that we're no longer in battle, if that will help you trust my intentions.”
Brienne had met his solemn stare and her worries had settled. “There's no need,” she'd said. “I trust you.”
She turns now to Ella and makes her first decision as the Lady of Casterly Rock. “You will officially be named castellan as long as you perform your duties well.”
Ella looks stunned, and she bows her head. “Thank you, my lady.” She glances up at Brienne from under her lashes. “There's never been a woman castellan before.”
“There's never been a woman knight before, either,” Brienne says. “Yet here we both are. We will do the impossible together.”
And there, faint beneath the grief and the worry and the weight of the responsibility placed on the other woman's bony shoulders, Brienne sees the first tremulous flicker of hope.
Ella's name is the only one Brienne remembers once all of the introductions are done. There are a crowd of Lannisters—a pride, indeed, Brienne thinks wryly—sheltering there, watching her with the same predatory stare as any lion, and Jaime warns her that more will come, too, to meet the new Lady of Casterly Rock.
“My Aunt Genna will certainly want to meet you,” he says that night as they ready for bed. Their rooms are enormous, with thick carpets on the floor and a bed so ornate she'd laughed aloud upon seeing it. Jaime shakes his head, looking almost pleased. “You'll like her, if she doesn't eat you alive.”
“You should handle her,” Brienne insists. “That's not a Lord's job, but a nephew's.”
“Even with four good hands I couldn't have handled Genna. But she's the key to winning over the rest of the Lannisters. That task, fortunately, is on you.” He tugs at Brienne's shift, pulling her into him, though she avoids the kiss he so clearly wishes to give her. A gentle breeze sneaks in through the closed shutters of their windows that face the sea. “I have yet to meet man, woman, or child able to resist Brienne of Tarth.”
“Brienne Lannister,” she reminds him, and does kiss him then, quick and a bit timid, still not fully convinced her affections will be eagerly returned. Return them he does, though, with a passion that distracts her from all of her worries.
When they are sweat-soaked and tangled together afterward, Jaime's head nestled on her chest, Brienne draws her fingers through his already-graying hair.
“It seems too soon for your hair to start turning.”
“I've told you before, wife, you've married an old man.”
She lightly tugs at his curls. “You've plenty of years left.”
“If I'm lucky, yes. If the price for this life is my vanity, it's one I'll gladly pay.” He noses at the side of her meager breast, follows it with open-mouthed kisses, a fire that makes her shiver. “Mayhaps you should take advantage of me while I have my strength, though.”
Brienne rolls her eyes, but she does, happily.
“You run everything with impressive efficiency,” Brienne tells Ella a few days later as they complete their last tour of the top levels of the keep. The Rock, as everyone calls it, is a sprawling maze above and below, and Brienne isn't entirely sure she'd find her way well if dropped in the middle of it blindfolded, but the key areas are becoming more familiar, and she hadn't gotten lost once on the way to the Great Hall that morning, though every hewn staircase had looked the same.
“Thank you, my lady.”
It grates every time, the use of my lady when Brienne walks about in breeches, when she's been knighted and anointed with battle scars. Jaime had advised her to let it lie, but the rebuttal sits heavy on her tongue, often crowding out the other words she wants to say, so that she says nothing. She's certain many of the servants think she is slow-witted, or afraid, or both.
“What about the farmers and the surrounding lands? Are they equally cared for?” Brienne asks. They're standing at the top of the gatehouse that guards the smaller entrance to the Rock and looks out upon the fields stretching in colorful lines into the spring afternoon. A faint breeze rustles at her hair. She's taken to wearing it loose since they've been here in an attempt to embrace her new status, but it would take more than long hair to make her a lady.
Ella clasps her hands behind her back. “They care for themselves. There's been no one to take up their grievances since Damion.”
“There's you,” Brienne says, furrowing her brow.
“The farmers are not interested in hearing a woman's opinion of their business. My lady.”
Ella is easy enough to read that even three days in, Brienne can see her frustration. “What other duties have you been kept from?”
“I complete all my duties.” Ella won't even look at her, only stares with firm determination at the horizon.
“Ella.” Brienne has learned the simple power of a name, and Ella sighs and faces her. “You've done well. But there are responsibilities I have to the people of the Rock, and I cannot fulfill them if I don't know what they are. Ser—“ Brienne bites it off and corrects herself. “Jaime informs me that the head of Casterly Rock also acts as the Shield of Lannisport. Have you had conversations with anyone from the port?”
“No, my lady.”
“Who else has not listened to you?”
“My husband.” Ella smirks, so quickly that Brienne wonders if she imagined it. “My son, too, come to think of it. They're both gone, though, so it matters not. The rest I can bear. Men are only good at being borne, first as babes and then as troubles. Though Lord Jaime seems to listen to you, my lady, if you don't mind me saying.”
Brienne's face grows warm. “He is a good h-husband.” The word, husband, feels awkward as she says it. She'll have to say it more until it doesn't emerge in a stutter. It makes her think of Pod, who'd stayed in Winterfell at Brienne's request. She hadn't been sure how welcoming the Westerlands would be, and the boy had been through enough already. Ser Hyle was watching over him and Lady Sansa both, and that would have to suffice. She misses the boy's shining face at her side, though, the kindness with which he approaches every situation. He could have taken the children under his skinny wing and taught them well.
I'll send for him eventually, she promises herself.
“Ella!” The shout comes from the courtyard down below, and they both spin to search for the caller. It's one of the younger scullery maids—barely even eleven, Brienne guesses—who skids to a halt, her cap askew, her face sweaty and red. “Pardon me, Lady Brienne,” she says, sketching a truly awful curtsy. “There's been an injury in the kitchens.”
“Get the maester then,” Ella says, grabbing up her skirts and hurrying for the stairs. Brienne follows after. “Why did you come for me, daft girl?”
“The maester won't listen to none of us,” the girl says, casting her glance vaguely toward Brienne before retreating to Ella. “Says he's busy. Says it's not serious enough.”
“Father's balls,” Ella curses. “Come with me, girl. If you'll excuse me, Lady Brienne?”
“No,” she says, and both women come up short, wary and wounded. “I mean, I'll come with you. I can help with the injury and then I wish to speak to Maester Creylen myself.” When Ella doesn't agree, Brienne folds her arms over her chest, a move she knows makes her seem as impenetrable as the Rock. “Am I not the Lady here?”
“Aye,” Ella mutters. “That's the problem.”
“I want to know that the people here are cared for. Let me help.”
Ella takes her in. “You're no true Lannister,” she says and it is both suspicious and surprised at once.
“I'm only a different sort,” Brienne says, thinking of Jaime. “Lead the way.”
The castellan looks like she's ready to refuse again, but she only huffs and stomps off toward the kitchens. “We'll deal with the girl first. Who is it, Jeyne?”
“Mara.”
“Of course it is. Girl's got as much sense as a dull spoon.” Ella sounds worried, though, and by the time they arrive at the kitchen she's got her skirts bunched in her hand and she's nearly at a run. Brienne keeps up with her easily enough, grateful for her breeches. She takes in the scene at the same time Ella does: a pot of stew spilled all over that a couple of girls are cleaning, another young woman—Mara—on the floor, her hand clutched to her chest, tears falling soundlessly down her round cheeks while two of the older women cluck over her. Everyone else is still preparing food for the evening meal, though every pair of eyes turns to Brienne as soon as she darkens the doorway.
One woman approaches, hesitant, her head half-bowed. “What do you need, m'lady?”
“She's here to help,” Ella says, though she spits the last word like it's poison. She kneels on the hard ground next to the crying girl and Mara doesn't even seem to see her when Ella reaches for her hand. “Let me take a look.”
Mara remains unmoving, clenched around her wounded arm, and Brienne knows shock when she sees it—she'd seen it enough during the fighting in the Long Night. Men with wounds that had needed tending who had refused to go inside, to do more than simply stand there staring at their missing limbs or their bloody chests or their fallen comrades.
“What happened, Mara?” Ella asks, to no response. She turns to Jeyne. “Get some ale and food. We need to wake her up.”
“Wait,” Brienne says, crouching a short distance away. “That won't help. Look at her—she can't eat like this. I've seen it before. She needs a blanket, and someone to talk her through it.”
“She needs food, maybe water splashed on her face.”
“No.” She catches Jeyne's attention as the girl looks between the two of them, torn. “Get a blanket. Quickly.”
Jeyne glances at Ella, who's frowning so deeply it looks permanently etched on her face.
“Lady Tarth has spoken,” Ella says, and it's a sly dig that Brienne knows she shouldn't let go, but Mara needs attention more than Brienne's ego does, so she shoves it aside for later and creeps closer to the girl.
“Mara,” Brienne says, pitching her voice low and soft. “We're here to help you. You've been burned and we need to take a look at the injury. I'm going to take your arm now but I won't hurt you, I promise.” She doesn't wait for a response, just pulls the girl's rigid arm enough into the light to see the extent of the damage. It's bad—swollen and shiny red, the top layer of skin gone. But it's not blackened, not like the men caught in the dragon fire had been during the Long Night, and it will heal with time and the right poultices. For that, they need the maester. In the meantime, there are other things that can be done.
When Jeyne comes back with the blanket, which the older women tuck around Mara, Brienne bids them keep talking to the injured girl and then takes Jeyne aside.
“We need cool water and some sort of loose covering. Anything will do, as long as it's not dirty. Do you know of anything we can use?”
Jeyne glances at Ella, who stands, too. “Cheesecloth.”
“That will work. Can you get that, Jeyne?” The name brings Jeyne's attention fully on Brienne and the girl nods, eagerly. “Good.” They stare at each other and Brienne says, “Now, please,” and the girl scampers away.
“It'll stick to the wound,” Ella says.
“It will keep it clean until we can get the maester. Once we have Mara's arm wrapped, you'll take me to him.” Brienne purposefully does not phrase it as a question.
Jeyne returns with gratifying speed and Brienne kneels by Mara again. The blanket and soft words seemed to have helped because she looks up when Brienne says her name, though her eyes are hazy with pain.
“I'm going to wrap your arm now,” Brienne says, taking it gingerly in one hand. She could circle the entirety of Mara's bicep with her palm if she wanted, so she slows her speed and increases her gentleness. Ella stands over Brienne's shoulder, arms folded over her chest, silently watching the work, and Jeyne observes from a distance away. The girl has kept her head surprisingly well for her age, and Brienne gestures her nearer.
“Yes, m'lady?” Jeyne asks, a little nervous still, but much less. She seems ready to act at Brienne's merest word.
“Watch carefully,” Brienne says. “This is a useful skill.”
With expertise learned from unfortunate experience, she wraps Mara's arm loosely in the cheesecloth, showing Jeyne how to start it, how to hold the covering in place as she pulls it over and around, how to tie it off and where. She rips the end of it with her big teeth and Jeyne grins—fleeting, but ferally pleased. It reminds Brienne so much of Arya Stark that her chest aches.
Standing, Brienne wipes her hands on her breeches and turns to Ella, who looks thoughtfully at the bandage. “Take me to Creylen,” Brienne commands, and the castellan inclines her head.
“Happy to,” she says, heading in the opposite direction of the Maester's chambers. “You're not going to like this,” Ella tells her as they wind through hallways and down stairways that Brienne is sure she's been down but seem brand new. “When the Maester is busy it can only mean one thing.”
Brienne's dreading discovering what it is, but before she can even ask, Ella stops at a door and knocks with surprising force.
“Go away!” Creylen shouts. “I told you I'm busy.”
Ella pushes the door open anyway. “Busy fucking the washer woman,” she announces. Creylen is half-propped against a stack of bagged grain, his robes pulled open to expose his lower half, which is covered by the woman kneeling at his feet, pressing her ample breasts around his cock as it thrusts between them. Brienne flushes red and averts her eyes as the two scramble for coverings.
“Ser Brienne!” the maester gasps, yanking his robes down. The tip of his cock is still poking out, as though keeping an eye on the proceedings, and Brienne clamps her hand over her mouth to hold in her mortified laughter.
The washer woman bursts into tears, holding her shift against her chest. “It's just a bit of fun!” she wails. “Please don't whip me, my lady. It'll never happen again, I swear it.”
That drives the laughter out of Brienne. “Whip you? For... this?” She curses her pale skin that is surely showing every ounce of her nervous embarrassment, but no one seems to notice.
“Lord Tywin was generous with the whippings,” Ella says in a low voice. “Bit of a relief when he went away, though Damion took after him sometimes.”
“There will be no whippings,” Brienne announces and that silences all of them, even the washer woman, who quiets into sniffling.
“Best not be too hasty,” Ella advises. “The threat of whippings is all that keeps some of them in line.”
“No. As long as I'm in charge, there will be no more whippings. That's not to say there will be no punishment, but it won't be that. Ever.”
“As you say, my lady.” Ella's disapproval is clear but Brienne simply lets it wash over her, a familiar feeling that she's used to ignoring. People have been disapproving of Brienne all of her life. But she knows this is the right choice and she will not be swayed.
“Creylen, you are the Maester of Casterly Rock, are you not?” she asks of the nervous man.
“Yes.” His cock is swiftly deflating and the robe slips over it finally, hiding it away.
“And a maester's job is to help those in need?”
“Yes.” He's sullen now, the sweat drying on his bald head.
“Then why did you send Jeyne away when she called for you?”
Creylen seems to understand the gravity of his answer and Brienne relishes for a moment the feeling of holding him at a sword's point with mere words. This must be how Jaime so often feels.
“My lady,” the maester begins, wringing his hands in front of him. “As the Maester, I have a keen ability to know when my skills are truly needed.”
“You were able to discern that through the door?” Brienne asks and Creylen's mouth twists unpleasantly.
“I know these women better than you do. They are constantly squawking over the smallest injuries.”
“She burned herself quite badly,” she informs him with steel in her voice. “She needs poultices to heal it, or it will scar and perhaps make the arm unusable.”
Creylen can't quite meet Brienne's eyes. “I'll look at her.” He half-turns away, shuffling about a few parchments she hadn't noticed before.
“You'll go now,” she informs him and when he faces her, he's not sneering, but it's close.
“I said I'll do it.”
Channeling Jaime, she lifts her chin. “If you don't leave this room before I count to three, I'll remove you from it—and then from the Rock as well.”
Creylen's mouth drops open. “You cannot have a keep without a maester!”
“It appears I have that now.” Behind her, Ella makes a noise that is distinctly a covered-up snort. Creylen looks furious as he tugs on his chains and mutters something Brienne doesn't make him repeat, and then he brushes past her. The washer woman has hastily dressed and is edging towards the doorway when Brienne spies her. “You,” she says, and the woman halts immediately.
“I'm so sorry, m'lady, I didn't know the girl was hurt. Creylen said—“
“Whatever it would take to keep you available to him. You know maesters have sworn a vow of celibacy?”
The washer woman looks confused. “He said that meant he couldn't get drunk.”
Brienne sighs, long and slow in a desperate bid for patience. “It means he should not be... that he must not...”
“He can't be fucking anyone's breasts,” Ella supplies while Brienne flushes again.
“Well what about their—“
“No.” Ella rolls her eyes. “Gods be good, Serra, didn't anyone ever teach you anything?”
“Mostly just the wash,” Serra says with a shrug.
The state of the keep is one thing, but the state of the people who live in it is turning out to be quite another. “Please avoid Maester Creylen in the future,” Brienne tells her. “Or I will be forced to take further action.”
“You said no whippings.” Serra's shoulders hunch, her voice going thin. Brienne wonders how many whippings this poor young woman has already had.
“There won't be. But you can be moved to other parts of the Rock, or perhaps returned to your family.”
A look of genuine terror crosses Serra's face. “I swear I won't do anything with his cock, m'lady.”
Ella snorts again, though this time she doesn't hide it.
“Very good,” is all Brienne can manage, before she has to flee the room. Her father's tutelage for running a keep had never covered anything like this. When Ella joins her on the walk back to the courtyard, she's smirking.
“Bit of a prude, then?” she says and Brienne halts.
“You called me Lady Tarth earlier. In the kitchens, in front of the other women.”
Ella folds her arms over her chest. “I did.”
“You will refer to me as Ser Brienne, or 'my lady,' or Lady Lannister in the future.”
“And if I don't? You're not going to whip me. You can't afford to move me elsewhere and lose me as castellan.” Ella raises her brows. “You seem stuck.”
“You're right,” Brienne admits, and genuine shock flickers across the other woman's craggy face. “You can continue to disrespect me, sowing discontent amongst the servants here. I'm sure they would be happy to take your side over mine in every matter. You could become the effective Lady of the Rock, and I could return to Tarth with Jaime, leaving you here in charge for the rest of your days. Days where the well-being of everyone is your responsibility alone, without any of the power that I and my husband command. You've been running things here long enough that you know what that's like. How ill-fed the children were, how unreliable the resupplies.”
Ella's lips are bloodless slashes in her face.
“Or,” Brienne says quietly. “You can show me the same respect I have shown you, and we can learn to work together. We can protect the girls from the predatory maester and we can make sure the children are fed and laughing. We can remake the Rock into a place of contentment, instead of fear.” Brienne shrugs. “The choice is yours.”
She starts to walk away—she hopes towards her solar, though she might be utterly turned around. The hallways of the Rock are unforgiving of mistakes.
“Wait,” Ella says and Brienne hesitates, looks back. Ella points to the west. “Your solar is that way, Lady Lannister. Look out the windows and follow the sun. Lord Tytos loved his sunsets.”
With a small, grateful smile, Brienne nods and heads towards the sun.
That evening, she and Jaime lay abed in their smallclothes, while Jaime rubs his stump soothingly up and down her back. They've discovered that the motion is relaxing for both of them, and Brienne is belly-down, head turned to face him, eyes half-closed already as she tells him about her day.
“No whippings at Casterly Rock,” he muses. “That will be a first.”
“Surely it's not so strange,” she says, smothering a yawn.
“My father used to make misbehaving servants whip each other. The one who drew the most blood could be done first.”
Brienne opens her eyes to see the bitter downward sweep of his mouth, the darkness in his eyes. “That's awful,” she whispers.
“He was.” Jaime's stump stills on her back, his eyes dimming. She has not seen that look on him in a while. Since just after Cersei died, she thinks.
“Jaime?” she whispers. He blinks and it is as though the world awakes again when he focuses on her, his stump resuming its tender path, his smile returning to its rightful place on his pink lips.
“But you would never do that. In truth, you've done the opposite. Perhaps you'll make them embrace each other until one of them passes out from lack of air.” When he teases her, his beauty seems to expand, overwhelming any response, and all she can do is scoff and lightly smack him on his bare chest. It makes a pleasantly meaty sound; he's been keeping busy with the squires and the master-at-arms, and though he complains daily of new aches, he seems happy.
“Are you truly all right not being the Lord of the Rock?” she asks.
“After hearing about your day? I feel blessed.”
Brienne shakes her head, but she can feel the smile threatening.
He draws his stump down her arm, raising the pale hairs there. It always looks like a forest to her when he does that, and he does it often with the simplest touches. He makes her as wet and salty as the sea with his tongue; his cock makes her burn hotter than the fires in a mountain's heart. He draws all the world on my body.
“Besides,” Jaime continues, “my father was a terrible man, and a worse master. It's better I not follow in his footsteps.”
“You wouldn't be like that,” she says, fierce and certain.
His mouth curls gently. “Perhaps not. Perhaps I would. Best not to find out.”
“Do you miss being a knight?” This she offers much more softly; they haven't spoken of it beyond the night of Danaerys' announcement.
He's quiet a long time, his stump making circles on her arm. “I miss the admiration,” he finally says, almost a whisper. “But you proved that a knight does not need a title to be a knight. You were one long before I called you ser.”
Brienne's eyes go blurry with tears, and though she turns her head the other way, too overwhelmed to trust herself to speak, she knows Jaime has noticed because he tugs her into him, folding his arms as far around her broad chest as he can.
“Do you think Ella will listen?” he asks, and she's grateful for the chance to talk of something else.
“I don't know. I can only hope.”
“At least you've got Jeyne at your back.”
Brienne snorts. “She seems... scrappy.”
“That's perfect! You love scrappy: Podrick, Arya, me.”
“Jaime,” she says on a laugh, turning in his arms.
“I'm very scrappy,” he says in mock seriousness. “Surely you remember our first fight, when I nearly beat you.”
“You did not!” she huffs, offended, even though he's openly smiling now. “I nearly drowned you.”
“I was biding my time until I could pull you under.”
“If you had bided any more time, you would have had to pull me to the afterlife.”
Somehow, his grin grows even bigger and he leans forward and kisses her soundly. “All these years later, and still so sure you were winning.”
“I'm not talking about this any longer with you if you're only trying to incite me.”
“But it's so enjoyable,” he pouts, then leans forward again and she gives him her cheek. He kisses it and then nuzzles at her ear, presses more kisses down her neck until she's tingling as though she can feel his lips all over. “I suppose I shall have to incite you in other ways, wife.”
Brienne thinks about protesting, but he's already succeeding, so she lets it pass. This time.
A week later, Brienne is in the yard in the late morning, training while the guard and the squires are off getting food and taking care of other business. She has trained with them a few times, though she doesn't spar with Jaime while they watch—it feels like a peek into their relationship that she doesn't want to share—but she has always preferred when the yard is empty and the only sounds are her own pounding heart, her own shuffling steps, her own labored breathing. The Rock's size allows for the yard to be mostly secluded, so even the normal business of the day only faintly filters in.
She practices forms first: movements against only the air, her training weapon a dull, heavy blade that has none of Oathkeeper's life, but is safer for everyone. It is a relief to lose herself in the familiar, after so many days of the unfamiliar. So many new names, so many hard faces. Casterly Rock is big enough that she has seen few of the Lannisters at all, hidden away in one of the lower levels on the other side from her own chambers with Jaime. She is grateful for the chance to learn her way around the castle before she must also learn her way around his family.
After some time at forms, before the ache in her arms gets too bad, before the sweat does more than stick her shirt to her body in patches, Brienne pauses to get water and discovers a small audience has gathered.
She stares at the group of six girls watching her with eyes wide as their fists.
“Hello,” she greets them. They look to be between eight and thirteen, and one of them steps a bit out of the shadows to reveal herself as Jeyne.
“M'lady,” she says, giving that terrible curtsey again. Brienne doesn't bother to teach her otherwise; she's bad at it herself and has stuck to bowing for all of her introductions. The mockeries for her perfect bow have always seemed more bearable than those for her imperfect curtsies. “I hope we didn't bother you.”
“No, I was simply taking a break.” She's sweating still, and her throat is dry, so she edges towards the bucket of well water one of the servants had brought earlier. “What are you doing here?”
“Watching you.” Behind Jeyne, the five other heads bob in agreement. “None of us seen a lady fight before.”
“I do not fight so differently than a man.”
“You do,” Jeyne says with a kind of awestruck wonder. “You're better than any man.”
Brienne flushes, covering it by getting a ladle of water and drinking, trickling the rest over her head. “You must not have seen many fights,” she finally says kindly. “I have experience in battle, that's all.”
Jeyne doesn't look convinced. “I've seen knights come through here, m'lady. Good knights. Famous knights. None of 'em ever moved good as you.”
“Then you must not have seen Ser Jaime practicing,” Brienne says, forgetting her husband's lack of title in the rush of her memories. “He was at least as good as I.”
“He's not now,” the littlest one pipes up, and one of the other girls clamps her hand over her mouth.
“Sorry, m'lady,” the older one says.
Brienne nods at them, considering how to respond. “It's true that his skills are different. But his understanding is greater because he's had to learn them twice.” He has yet to beat her soundly in a sparring session, but he has beaten her, through a combination of luck and skill, and he always holds his own. She's not the only one who'd been battle-tested in the war against the Others. In Winterfell, she had seen how having to so recently re-learn his own combat skills had made him a good teacher to the young men. She hasn't had a chance to watch him yet here at the Rock, but she's glanced out the window to find him hunched over one of the young boys, showing him a grip, or walked past when Jaime was shouting orders as the squires scrambled to obey, the mirth in his eyes clear to her.
The sun is already warm today, and she peers up at it, feeling her free time quickly dwindling. “I need to get back to practicing,” she tells the girls, and they all nod in agreement and remain where they are. Brienne had expected them to disperse. All right. She returns to her spot, six pairs of eyes watching her every movement. Brienne has been under the stares of some of Westeros' most horrifying monsters, has fought in front of kings, and she has never felt as nervous as in this moment, with these six girls avidly drinking in her every move.
Then—surprising herself—she turns back to the small group. “Do you... would any of you like to learn?”
Jeyne's eyes go impossibly wider. “To fight?”
“Yes. If you wish, we could begin training. Not every day, but sometimes.”
“Yes!” That was the littlest one, barreling forward with her hands clenched in gleeful victory. “I want to.”
Three of the others, including Jeyne, hurriedly agree. The other two look hesitant and Brienne smiles a little at them. “You don't have to, if you don't wish,” she assures the girls. One of them, who looks to be the oldest of all, shrugs.
“I just like to watch. I'd ride the horses though, if I could.”
Brienne glances towards where she thinks the stables are located. “Perhaps we can see about that,” she murmurs, and the girl gasps in excitement. “I cannot promise it, though. I can only promise the sword training, because I will be teaching you.”
The girls nearly fall over themselves in their thrilled thanks, curtseying and touching their foreheads; Brienne wonders if she'd been wearing skirts, if the girls would have grabbed them. Skirts. Brienne eyes the girls' worn dresses and scuffed slippers critically.
“You'll need proper clothes first,” she announces. “And you'll have to make sure your work doesn't get pushed onto others.”
“This is our free time,” Jeyne tells her. “We usually go down to the cliffs so Tess can make eyes at the dock boys.”
“I do not!” Tess, the oldest one, shouts.
“You do too! You said you thought Cedric was handsome,” Jeyne retorts.
“She said that about Lord Jaime, too,” the youngest one adds, and Brienne quickly hides her smile behind her hand, pretending to rub at her mouth in contemplation. No matter how much he feigns complaint at his so-called 'advanced age,' the attention Jaime has always attracted just by being himself has grown no less as he's gotten older and streaks of silver have begun to highlight his golden hair. She suspects it has in fact only gotten worse, the rugged lines adding charming creases to the corner of his eyes. They certainly fill her with a pleasant, buzzing warmth when he smiles at her, as he does so frequently.
“You shouldn't say that, that's Lady Brienne's husband,” Jeyne admonishes the little one.
“She's right,” Jaime says, appearing at the edge of the yard, and the girls all go straight as young saplings, every cheek pink, including Brienne's. When she turns to warn him from disciplining the girls, he's grinning, a diagonal, roguish slash across his beautiful face, the sun a cloak across his strong shoulders, and she is as grateful as the first time that he is hers, and she is his. “I am Lady Brienne's husband,” he continues cheerfully. “I shall be referred to as such as often as possible.”
“Jaime,” she says on a sigh, but there's nothing but fondness behind it, and he swoops in to kiss her scarred cheek. The girls giggle, which only spurs him to do it to the other cheek as well. Her impossible, irrepressible husband. Her heart fills with love for him, for the way he turns to the girls and clasps his golden hand behind his back as he takes the pose of an intent general.
“Now, what's this I hear about training?”
“I offered,” Brienne starts and he holds up his natural hand. The movement startles her into silence.
“You there,” he says, indicating the youngest one. “I want to hear it from you.”
“Well,” the girl says, lingering on the word, eyes darting to Brienne, who nods encouragingly. “Lady Brienne said she'd teach us swords. If we wanted. I wanna fight.”
“I can see that.” He scratches his bearded chin. “There will be bruises and bloody knuckles and sore muscles.”
“I don't care.” The girl hikes up her skirts to show ripped hose, and a long cut visible through one of the holes. “I got that climbing the rocks just yesterday.”
Jaime tugs at his own breeches, tilts his leg to show them a scar Brienne knows of on his calf. “I got that doing the same,” he tells her, and the girl looks suitably impressed. He lets them drop, and Tess sighs in disappointment. “Lady Brienne is an excellent fighter, so you'll be in good hands on the days she trains you. But if you'd also like a good hand,” Brienne rolls her eyes, “then you can join the younger boys' training after lunch on the other days.”
“Are you sure that's wise?” Brienne asks, frowning.
“I'm confident of it.”
“But the boys—“
“Will learn not to underestimate their opponents. And the girls will test themselves against the kind of people they're most likely to fight, should it ever come to that.” He looks serious now, and Brienne thinks of all the men she's faced, how much easier it had grown after she'd fought the first one and each one after that. She nods.
“All right. Alone with me in the late morning on even days, then with the boys after lunch on odd days. That won't interfere with your work?”
“No, m'lady,” Jeyne says breathlessly. “We'll get all our work done.”
“You'd best. If I find out the other girls are being forced to pick up your slack, then you'll be pulled out of the rotation until you make it up to them.”
“Yes, m'lady,” they mumble as one.
Tess steps forward. “What about me? M'lady. You said I might learn the horses.”
“On the even days, when the others are with Lady Brienne, you can come with me,” Jaime says. “Any of the rest of you who don't wish to fight are welcome to join us. On the odd days, I can see about our stablemaster putting you to work. He could use your youthful energy.”
That's true. Alan, the elderly man left behind at the Rock to care for the lingering horses, is well advanced in age, moving with a slow, shuffling step, and spending half his day coughing from the dust he kicks up.
“It's settled then,” Jaime says, clapping his thigh with one hand and making all of them jump. “You'll need suitable clothes first.”
“We'll make them,” Tess promises. “We'll be ready in four days.”
Jaime looks to Brienne, ceding control back to her, and she is grateful as always for the ways he does that so willingly. “Very well. In four days, at this time, you'll join me here. Jaime can take those of you who'd rather to the stables, the rest will begin training with me.”
Brienne knows the limit of her own free time has long since passed and she looks up at the position of the sun and barely restrains her frustrated groan. “Off you go now, we all have work to get back to.”
The girls curtsey and run off with squealing thanks, chattering amongst themselves like a flock of excited young birds. She's certain she hears one of them say, “Lady Brienne's husband,” and she chuckles. Jaime steps closer and winds his arm around her waist, pulling himself up against her side. For a moment, she rests her head against his and she can feel the contented hum he makes where their temples are touching.
“I hope this is the right thing,” she says quietly.
“It is. You'll change those girls' lives.” He sounds so proud that she feels it tingle all the way down to her toes.
“They deserve a chance to learn if they want it. There's no reason for them to be kept from it just because they're servants, or girls. I was desperate to learn as a girl, so much so that my father had no choice but to let his master-at-arms teach me. But I was also the Evenstar's daughter and there was little I could be denied. ”
Jaime nudges her head around enough to place a tender kiss on her lips. “There's nothing I would deny you now.”
“Even agreement that I beat you that first fight?”
He kisses her again, and she tastes his smile. “Almost nothing, then,” he whispers, his lips brushing hers with each syllable. “Will you spar with me, ser?”
“Ella's waiting for me. We're making a plan for what we need from Lannisport.”
“Very well.” Another kiss, lingering, a promise for later. “Another time.”
“Of course.” It's Brienne who extricates herself first, and only because she can already feel Ella's impatient disdain at her being late because she doesn't want to stop kissing her husband. They stand, still nearly touching, for another long moment, until Jaime huffs, brushes a kiss across her ragged knuckles, and then takes his leave.
“Jaime,” she calls out, and he turns back, smiling and open to her. He truly would deny her nothing, all of his jesting aside. The weight of that steals all her thoughts but one, and it lingers on her tongue, too big to feel comfortable in her mouth: I love you.
Before he inclines his head and sets off again, she sees in his eyes that he already knows.
The girls arrive as promised four days later, and Brienne discovers that teaching them is not the same as teaching Podrick had been. The boy had not had more inherent skill, but he'd been around squires and knights, he'd known some of what to expect, and he'd understood the language of swordwork.
The girls have all of his enthusiasm—and more, to tell the truth—but none of his experience, so Brienne spends the first day letting them hold a real sword for the first time and talking about its creation and its purpose. Not Oathkeeper, of course, but not one of the dull training blades, either. It's live steel, gleaming in the sunlight, and by the end of their hour together, the girls don't recoil from pressing a finger to the flat of the blade. The youngest one, Willow, gets over her fears the most quickly, and Brienne notes that she'll need to keep a close eye on her. That kind of energetic bravery is valuable, but Willow will be quick to injure herself if left unsupervised.
Tess and Lynora show up as well, and head to the stables with Jaime. It's clear that Tess cannot seem to stop blushing around Jaime, that she's eager for his attention, and when Brienne speaks to him about it that night, he nods with a rueful smile.
“I'll be careful with her,” he promises. “But it helps, too, that one of the stableboys is a bit in love with her already. By the end of our hour, her looks were more frequently for him than for me.”
“Thank you for helping them,” Brienne says, brushing her hair out. It hasn't gotten any thicker or less limp with the extra length, and she wonders if she should try to do something more with it now that she's Lady of the Rock. The portraits that grace the walls of the keep show a lineage of stunning, aristocratic Lannister women, all of them more perfectly suited to this role than Brienne.
“Of course,” Jaime tells her. He walks up and takes the brush with his natural hand, runs it through her hair in smooth strokes, and she relaxes into his ministrations. He's done this before; not just here, but in Winterfell in those days before they'd left.
(“I am not a horse,” she'd told him the first time he'd asked.
“I didn't think you were,” he'd said, frowning. “I wish only to help. I like to take care of you.”
She has not denied him since. She likes it, too.)
“The girls aren't ready to train with others yet. Today was the first day any of them had even held a sword.”
Jaime makes a considering noise. “You want to give them time alone first?”
“I do. I've told them I'll meet with them every day for a fortnight. After that, they'll go with you every other day as discussed.”
“That sounds wise. There will be room, whenever they're ready.” He must catch her gnawing on her lower lip because he asks, “What's wrong?”
She meets his gaze in the mirror that she's seated in front of. “I'm worried about how it will go, when they train with the boys.”
“I'll be there.”
“I know. But the girls will need to fight some of their own battles.”
“Like you did.” He's smiling at her, gently, but there's sadness there, too, and she turns to catch his wrist.
“This isn't an easy path. It will be easier that they're together, and that you're there to show the boys how to be a good man.” Jaime's chest swells with his inhale. “But I know what awaits them. I know how most men and boys feel when a woman faces them with steel in their hands. They forget themselves in the rush of their pride; they attack only to defend their ego and not to spar. The girls could get badly hurt, or worse.”
“I won't let them.”
She rubs her thumb over his wrist, takes the brush and sets it aside to entwine their hands. “You can't be everywhere at once, and they have to get hurt a little. But I worry about it all the same.”
Jaime tugs her up and wraps her in his warm embrace, his body urging hers to relax into his own, to share the burden of her worries with him.
“I won't let anything serious happen to any of them. I swear it,” he pronounces with his mouth at her ear.
“I trust you.”
His arms tighten around her. “I won't let you down.”
For all of her life, Brienne has wanted this: someone to hold her and promise her their support, who would not think less of her or her abilities when she shared her fears. That she might rest in the safety of another's arms for a time, gathering strength to continue to fight her own battles. Of all the people that these boys and girls might learn from, she is grateful that it is Jaime who will be watching out for them, the way he watches out for her.
“You never have.” They're wound around each other for a long minute, their chests rising and falling in time, until Brienne cannot tell where the line of her body truly begins where it's melded to his. She kisses his neck and forces herself to pull away; shivers when the air rushes cool between them. “Have you thought yet about how you plan to make it work?”
“I have some ideas. I could use another trusted person at my side. I considered asking Peck, and then you'd have Pia here, too. He's not too far, he could be here in a month from when I send the raven.”
She nods eagerly. “Yes, you should do that. We have the space and it will be good to see them again.”
“It will. This place is too full of Lannisters as it is.”
“It will only get more full of them when Genna finally arrives. Though there's still been no word from her. Why has she not responded to our invitation?”
Jaime shrugs, then urges her to sit before the mirror again, grabbing the scented hair oils he uses on himself and beginning to massage them into her scalp. She's surrounded by the smell she marks as his, and it soothes her. “Either she wants to make you anxious, or to let you settle in.”
“Which do you think it is?”
“I truly don't know. Perhaps both. My aunt is like my father in her desire for the Lannister legacy to continue. With the Rock given to you, but as a Lannister by marriage, it makes her unpredictable. Most likely, she's testing you, and when she arrives it will be more of the same.”
Brienne makes an unhappy face at him in the mirror. “What is the purpose of such a test when the Queen has declared this? Why does your family spend so much energy waiting for others to fail?”
“We're no worse about that than any other Great House, sweetling.” She makes another face and his brows lift. “You don't like that, do you?”
“What—sweetling?”
“Yes.”
“Why do you call me that? What happened to 'wench'?”
Jaime tilts his head curiously, brows furrowed. “Did you prefer that?”
“No. But you never call Lords or male knights 'sweetling.'”
“I might if I was married to one.” She glares at him and he grins briefly. “I don't call them 'wench' either, to be fair. Is that why it bothers you, though? Because you think I don't see you as a knight when I say it?”
Brienne caps the oil bottle and turns around to face him directly. “Do you?”
He crouches at her feet, his hand holding on to her thigh to steady himself. “I see you as you, Brienne. Knight and lady. The first of your kind, but gods willing, not the last.” His voice is nearly trembling with sincerity and heat rises to her face and sinks between her legs.
“Sweetling is so... dainty.”
“It is. But so are your toes.”
“What?”
Jaime's eyes are as bright as his heart. “Give me your leg, my lady wife, and I'll show you.”
Tentatively, she does, and he removes her utilitarian footwear one at a time, massaging her feet, kissing the top of each before setting them on the floor and tapping her toes.
“See?” he says, beaming up at her. “Adorable.”
Brienne looks down at her feet. They are huge for a woman, and even for most men. Boxy and ugly, as callused as her hands. One of her nails is jagged and the rest have been trimmed short. She hasn't had a bath today and so her feet are dirty, too, and she thinks perhaps slightly smelly from being jammed into her boots as they'd trained in the sunshine. It's been a warm spring, but after the winter they've had, she welcomes the light.
“You've clearly lost your eyesight. There's nothing dainty about them.”
“They're charming.”
“Jaime.”
“Admit it.”
“I will not.”
“I'm your lord husband,” he says, puffing up proudly. “You swore to obey me.”
“I did no such thing!”
“In your heart you did, I could sense it.” She's laughing now, and so is he. “Mayhaps I'll call you Ser Sweetling, would that be better?”
“Don't you dare.”
“I'm afraid it's too late. You'll have to make me stop.”
“Very well,” she says, launching herself at him.
After she has bested him—gladly, by the dazed happiness in his eyes as he lays naked and panting and askew in their bed—she cleans herself and returns with a cloth to help clean him as well.
“Do you really hate it?” he asks after a bit as she wipes the sweat from his thighs. Brienne looks at him, frowning in confusion. “'Sweetling.' Does it bother you so?”
She considers it as she runs the cloth over his stomach, softer now than it had been when they had first lain together. Jaime is softer now, and she's not sure if it's his age or his experiences that have smoothed his sharpest edges, but she loves him the same as she had loved the glittering knight with his slicing ways. Brienne knows her own coarse corners are being rounded off by the dull wear of peace. There are conflicts to settle amongst the people, and books to update with goods and trades, debts to collect and loans to provide from the deep mines of gold under their feet. The responsibilities as Lady of the Rock are numerous and sobering and leave little time for the life she'd had before.
But the life she'd had before had not had Jaime, either, with his mischievous smiles and his yearning heart and his eyes that see her as she is. If those eyes take her in and name her as he says, then perhaps she can accept it as she accepts him in all of his pieces.
“It is only... new to me, I suppose.”
“New, but it suits you even better than wench. It captures your kindness, which I admire so.”
Her cheeks warm, but she smiles shyly all the same. A smile only Jaime seems capable of coaxing from her. “Very well,” she says as though she is relenting to his demands, even though the idea of him saying it now makes her heart flutter in pleasant anticipation. “I don't wish to be called that in front of others, though. I'm already no lion, I don't want them to see me as a house cat instead.”
“That's fair.” He sits up on his elbows and arrests her hand still idly running the cloth over his body. “It's true you're no lion,” he says. “You're better than that: you are the sun. The Rock is a dark and foreboding place, Brienne. Your presence lights it. It lights all of us.”
She drops her gaze to her hands, clenched tightly around the cloth. Her whole body is hot, inside and out, as though his words have ignited the sun inside of her. “You go on too much,” she murmurs.
Jaime gently tugs her chin up to look at him. He's sitting now, intent and serious. “The fact that you doubt my words means I don't go on enough. You'll see. Lannisters are clever and cunning, and entirely undone by honest souls. The Rock has never been conquered through force, but you'll conquer it through kindness. Simply be yourself, and none of us will have a chance.”
Overwhelmed, she stands, restless, picking up their clothes, tucking the cloth on the table. “Does that include you, my lord?”
His serious mien lightens as he smiles. “Myself most of all, sweetling. I am yours, as I swore in front of the Queen herself.”
“As I am yours.” Brienne folds her arms over her bare chest. Being naked in front of Jaime is simpler sometimes than accepting his fierce praise. “It's late and you've distracted me enough. We should sleep.”
“If we must.” He re-arranges himself on the bed, still naked, and motions for her to join him. She hesitates, glancing at her shift, before putting out the lamp and lying down next to him without putting any clothing on. The fire crackles across the room, and drowsiness overcomes her quickly. Jaime rubs his hand over her arse, making her shiver awake. “I much prefer these nighttime clothes,” he says.
“Sleep,” she reminds him with a yawn.
He hums, squeezes her, and then his hand retreats to her lower back. “Good night, sweetling.”
“Good night, Jaime.” As she drifts off she thinks she should find a special name to call him, too, and then a dreamless sleep overtakes her.
For a fortnight, Brienne trains the girls. They're forced to begin with basics that even the youngest boys already know, and she takes her anger at the unfairness of it out on the training dummies after each session. The girls need these skills more than anyone; it would be unfathomable to Brienne that no one has ever thought to teach them how to wield even a dagger, if she hadn't been treated the same as a girl. Even her size and face and shape had not been able to make up for the fact that she was a woman.
After three days, another girl joins them, dressed in loosely-patched breeches and a shirt so big she's had to tie up the back with twine. Finding clothes has not been difficult with so many of the young men dead in the war. She's older than Tess, already on the cusp of womanhood. Her eyes are so big with nerves they look like white marbles in her dark face.
“Hello,” Brienne greets her. “What's your name?”
“Darlessa,” she mumbles. “Jeyne said you were training girls.”
“I am. Do you wish to learn how to fight?”
Darlessa nods quickly. “Please, my lady. I need it.” The way she says it breaks Brienne's heart.
“Of course,” she says. “Jeyne, take Darlessa to get another training sword, and then show her as I did you the first day.”
“Yes, Ser,” Jeyne replies with all the seriousness of a true squire. The girl has been a quick study, dedicated and intent on every word Brienne says, and she gets Darlessa set up smoothly, talking about the sword with unexpected confidence already.
Pride flares in Brienne's heart to watch them, their fair and dark heads bent towards each other as Jeyne explains and Darlessa pays attention. It burns brighter watching as Willow trips over her feet and pops immediately back up again, as Brella and Rosey work on the form that Brienne had shown them yesterday. They are eager young flowers, not yet bloomed, and Brienne is helping them grow thorns to keep them safe from unwanted hands.
More girls join as the days pass. Not every day, but enough that by the end of the two weeks, there are eleven where there'd once been four. Willow is still the youngest, but the oldest now is Mara—her arm healing nicely, and a determined set to her jaw that Brienne admires.
Ella comes to watch one day, but leaves without saying anything. Some of the older women come after that, and they are loud in their encouragement of the girls. Brienne has asked Jaime to keep the boys at bay, and so it is just her and the women every day in the late afternoon spring sunshine, and they are some of the happiest hours of her life.
Then, the day before the girls are supposed to have their first session with the boys—just as they're all gathering and filling the yard with nervous, excited chatter as they talk about the impending change—Genna Lannister finally arrives.