Chapter Text
Brienne clutched her navy tote bag with white-knuckled hands and stared at the monitor above the ticket desk.
Flight 4076: King’s Landing
Departs: 3:50 PM
Boarding in: 10 minutes
She dug into the back pocket of her dark skinny jeans, searching frantically for the little slip of paper she’d held just seconds before. What in the seven bloody hells had she done with it!? Her jeans were empty. She tugged the bag up into her arms and swiped through the ephemera that had collected after waiting three hours in the Braavos International Airport – a granola bar wrapper, celebrity gossip rags, a tablet, a mobile reading device, a half-eaten bar of dark chocolate.
Finally! Her fingers scrabbled against the cool, rustling sleekness of paper, and she pulled out the boarding pass. Only this one didn’t say anything about Flight 4076, only listed off a number of embarrassing items she’d purchased at the nearby concession stand in a fit of pre-flight anxiety. Did she really need the puffy neck pillow now clutched firmly beneath one arm? Or the extra pair of earbuds incase her own, perfectly serviceable pair failed mid-flight. Or three granola bars? Probably not.
She really was a terrible flier.
Crumpling the receipt in her hand, Brienne resumed her search, only to be stopped mid-swipe by a deep voice just off to her right side.
“Brienne Tarth?”
She looked up. A godlike man stood just off to the side, peering quizzically at a boarding pass clutched between sculpted, golden fingers. Her boarding pass. Brienne swung her bag up onto her shoulder and squared her shoulders.
“Yes,” she said loudly, “I’m Brienne Tarth.”
The god took one glance at her and then quirked his mouth into something between a smirk and a leer. Brienne resisted the urge to scream; she’d seen that look a dozen times on a dozen different faces – usually male, usually attractive – and not once had she come away with her dignity in tact.
This particular face was slightly more than blindingly attractive, and Brienne would stand by her assessment of “godlike,” despite the fact that she now had to add “asshole” to the file, as well. He was her height, which was to say, strikingly tall, with long golden hair, a chiseled jaw dusted in a sandy five o’clock shadow, and green eyes that sparkled with mischief.
Trouble. That’s what this one was. Trouble.
Brienne schooled her features into the familiar scowl that had men like him scrambling away in no time. She stepped forward, ignoring his broad shoulders and well-tailored grey suit. He wore a dark blue tie the same color as her tote, and it set off his tan astonishingly well.
Shut up, Tarth! Gods she was a wreck at the airport.
The man was still watching her with an amused expression, the boarding pass now pressed close to his chest, as if he didn’t quite believe her and needed to check some identification first.
“You’re Brienne Tarth?” He asked. He flicked his eyes up and down her body, taking in her sensible nude flats, long, jean-covered legs, white button down, and – horrifyingly – the lurid pink neck pillow tucked under her elbow.
He raised his eyebrows. “To be honest,” he said, “I almost didn’t believe you were a woman, but the pillow gives it away.”
Brienne huffed in annoyance and readjusted her bag. “It was the only color they had!”
The man laughed, a beautiful, musical sound that anyone else would have found charming but Brienne only found infuriating. She glanced at the monitor above the ticketing desk.
Boarding in: 1 minute
“Look,” she said, “can I have my ticket back? We’re about to begin boarding and I’d rather get this gods-forsaken flight over with if it’s all the same to you.”
He held her ticket out to her and Brienne snatched it back, scanning to make sure it was, indeed, her boarding pass. She glanced up at him and mumbled a gruff ‘thank you.’ She was being rude, and she hated to be rude, but she couldn’t help herself. The airport brought out the worst in her.
The god looked like he wanted to say something else, but a woman’s overly-friendly voice filled the intercom and drowned out whatever he was about to say to her.
“Welcome to Flight 4076 to King’s Landing. We will begin boarding by welcoming our VIPs, Gold Members, and any military members currently flying with us today. Please make your way to the First Class line at this time.”
“Well,” said the god, picking up a sleek black briefcase Brienne hadn’t noticed resting by his ankles, “that’s my cue.”
He nodded to her once and then pushed through the crowd to hand a similar boarding pass to the ticketing agent. Brienne scowled as the agent simpered at the man and took his ticket, no doubt heart a-flutter at the prospect of serving such an attractive customer. Of course he was VIB First Class Gold. She watched the woman titter as the man said something conspiratorially in her ear.
Brienne had learned long ago that sometimes the world just wasn’t fair.
*
Fifteen minutes later, Brienne’s shoulder was a knotted mass of angry muscle, and she was tired of waiting in line for what seemed like a hundred people to board the plane before her. Really, she thought it was better to get a seat up front in Coach, but now she realized that she was an idiot for 1) not anticipating that everyone else in the back of the plane would board before her and 2) being too polite to push to the front of the line when her seat section was finally announced.
Brienne nodded and waved her hand at an elderly couple who wobbled on ahead of her with nods of thanks. It was the fifth couple she had allowed ahead of her, but then what could she do? There were a large number of older, infirm, and young families traveling on this flight. She wondered what that said about the airline. Surely they must have a reputation for safe flying if so many vulnerable travelers chose to fly with them? Or perhaps they, like Brienne, were just cheap.
Finally, it was Brienne’s turn to board. She handed her boarding pass to the ticket agent – a young woman with long brown hair and a pretty, pert mouth the size and shape of a rosebud. The agent swiped her pass and the computer beeped; her face lit up like fireworks had just gone off.
“Oh,” she exclaimed. “Congratulations, Ms. Tarth, it looks like you’ve been upgraded to First Class!”
Brienne frowned at the computer screen, but the woman blocked her view with her arm. “I don’t see how that’s possible,” Brienne muttered.
The agent smiled indulgently and waved at the empty waiting area behind them. Brienne glanced back, surprised to see that she was the last person to board, thanks to her chivalry.
“That can happen sometimes,” replied the agent happily. “We get a last minute cancellation and suddenly you get bumped up.”
Brienne resisted the urge to roll her eyes as the woman bounced at the term ‘bumped up.’ She should be happy to be bumped up to First Class. First Class meant better seats and better food and safer seat belts. No one would look at her funny in First Class when she popped a Vicodin and slugged back a plastic cup of rosé; wealthy women traveled like that all the time in the movies.
Brienne smiled at the ticketing agent and headed for the doorway. “Thank you,” she said. “I really appreciate it. Which seat am I in?”
“Oh,” the agent exclaimed again. “Seat 4A! I think you’ll really enjoy your flight with us today.”
*
Brienne was still puzzling over the woman’s parting wink as she ducked onto the plane. A stewardess with long red hair and a lilting Northern accent welcomed her aboard. Brienne nodded and turned into the First Class section counting the rows. One, two, three –
“Brienne Tarth!”
She blinked. It was the god. Seated happily next to the window. In her seat.
She looked up at the row numbers again, and then at the letters that indicated each seat. “A.” Window.
“You’re in my seat,” she said.
The man glanced at his ticket, grinning. “Seat 4B. A window seat, if I’m not mistaken.
Brienne ground her teeth. “You are mistaken. B is an aisle seat; A is a window seat.” She gestured to the signage just above her head, jabbing her finger against the thick plastic for emphasis. “It says so right here.”
His grin widened, and it dawned on Brienne that every frustrated look, every irritated growl she made only fed his desire to rile her up more. His next words, then, surprised her.
“You’re absolutely right, A, my mistake.”
She blinked at the moniker – did he just call her “A”? – but was momentarily distracted when he stood suddenly and stepped out into the aisle next to her. She could smell his expensive cologne and feel the heat coming off of his body. He smelled of pine and citrus. Something musky too. Sandalwood, maybe?
Gods, he was much too close for comfort!
Brienne muttered a quick ‘thank you’ and shoved into the seat he had just vacated. She tucked her boarding pass into her tote and pushed the bag beneath the seat in front of her, as the man took the seat next to her.
First Class really was more spacious than coach. There was enough leg room here that her knees just barely brushed the seat in front of her; in Coach, they would have been knocking into the next person’s seat, no doubt making them think an obnoxious child had been sat behind them and was now kicking their chair.
Unfortunately, First Class was still on an airplane, and that meant that Brienne’s arm was a finger’s width away from the man’s own; the scent of his cologne and his body heat flooding her senses once again. Her hand shot up and she adjusted the vent above their heads, suddenly blasting her short blonde hair with a cool jet of recycled air. She grappled with the seat belt, trying to locate the two errant halves. Finally succeeding, she snapped herself into place and tugged the belt until was tight against her waist. She fidgeted against the seat and then checked the window to ensure there was a blind she could draw down once they were ready to take off.
She was just about to readjust the air when she felt his eyes boring into her skull once more. Brienne settled her hands in her lap, trying not to twist her fingers about, and looked over at him.
“What?”
“Can I ask you a question, A?”
“My name isn’t ‘A’, it’s Brienne. As you well know.”
“Can I ask you a question, A?”
“Gods, yes, what? What is it? What do you want?”
He was possibly the most irritating creature she’d ever had the misfortune of encountering. If she ever saw that ticket agent again, she would tear the pretty girl’s pretty hair right out.
“Are you afraid of flying?”
Brienne closed her eyes. Dear gods. She would kill this man.