Chapter Text
Tired and dirty after working so many hours in the engine of her small airship Sword, as she liked to call it, she turned all lights off and went to her chamber. After checking that the alarms, sensors and screens were working she went to change. It had been a busy day and the war was far from over. Cameras were not enough anymore, almost transparent spherical cameras from the Lioness were spotted more than once during the last days. They were getting desperate to recover her brother from the cold hands of the Stark Enterprises.
Brienne did not know the Commander of the Northern Lands, Robb Stark. She worked for Lady Catelyn, the only one who defended her innocence after the mysterious death of her previous Commander Lord Renly Baratheon. The clock Lady Catelyn kept in her complex but beautiful corset was a hidden camera, the only one that had worked that strange night, a design by Arya Stark, it used kinetic energy, unlike the other cameras... A fog had arrived, planes and bikes stopped working, she was checking them with her Commander when the fog involved him and one minute later he was dead. It had all the signs indicating an attack by Stannis and the Red Woman. She was famous for being able find inexplicable ways to plant cameras at the most complex places and for being able to decipher and cause interference in all her enemy camps. How did that fog killed Lord Renly even inside his pilot gear, she could not tell.
Despite her innocence she knew that without him there was no future for her in that camp. The group disbanded as quickly as the morning after his death. She could not let Lady Catelyn return to her son's compound alone, she would not have survived. The ferocious plants would cover the area 2 days later. After the last war against the Others, the strange creatures of the North, and the bombs that have almost wiped out the human race, months of radiation had change the aspect of many plants and animals.
Wolf were bigger than once before and many reptiles as well, some even talked about dragons. Plants were the same, while some remained unchanged others, the pioneers, were faster now and harder to remove, full of spines and some even of venom. The alarms and protection field were not only due to the human enemies now. Biologist were strongly required in any compound, a plant that seemed food could actually be one of the venomous one or one of those that cover fields in a matter of seconds. The towns that survived were now built sustained by high structures, in order to avoid the plant invasion that occurred when an idiot used the wrong seed, or when an enemy did the same on purpose. Brandon Stark was known for having a natural ability with plants and Rickon Stark with animals. Despite their young years they were required here. It was known that Arya Stark was a genius with machines and that Sansa was being trained in politics but they remained captured by the Lannisters.
When she was about to throw herself to her bed she saw it and sighed. Another corset... A purple one this time. Lady Catelyn had been trying to convince her that she would look better in one of them and that they were pretty useful. It was true they had many holes to put bullets, guns and even clock-like-cameras like the one that had proven her innocence but still she felt ridiculous inside them. She did not have enough breasts to wear them and if she had once tried to wear nothing but the corset on her upper body – like the Lioness was known to do – then everybody would have seen how small they were. No, she felt more comfortable with her pants and her jacket, they had enough hidden holes for all her guns and gadgets.
A Raven – another spheric robot, Ravens were black and used to carry messages- arrived the following day. Lady Catelyn went to the control cabin taking Brienne with her, Arya Stark had vanished soon after her father's fusillade, a wolf spy had managed to infiltrate and send the information to the compound. It was believed she was dead, no one could survive the wild forests alone these days. Lady Catelyn could not control her grief and cried on her room for a day. Brienne could only hold her and listen to her. She was beyond herself with grief, the last video conference with Arya had ended very badly when Arya said she wanted to kill Joffrey, the heir of King Landing's industrial city, the biggest on Westeros, also heir to the Lannister Corporation and a perfect match for Sansa Stark according to the software. It had been too dangerous to say that out loud, she shouted at Arya and tried to downplay what her daughter had said but Arya had not understood. The young girl had taken her complains seriously and shouted back.
She continued telling her she had lost her husband, her father and now her child to this war. On one side, they had done all to rescue her husband and kids, but the real reason was that the North required to be governed by itself. The Lions could not understand that the Northern Lands demands of energy were higher than theirs. The North required new technology and the Lannisters did not want to lose monopoly or leadership on the energy production. The Starks were remarkably good and inventive when it came to new technologies – biogas, geothermic, kinetic energy – and they had been experimenting on them in secret for too long. They needed to be free to try them and the Lannisters had become impossibly bureaucratic. In these times, when a failing protective shield could mean the end of their crops and a certain death in minutes – especially for those who could not afford floating or high structures – there was no time for bureaucracy.
The weather in the South was nicer and less dangerous plants and animals roamed there compared to the North. Some villages even seemed to have managed to survive without protective fields. There was rumor that in reality they were using solar energy without paying for the Lion taxes, or that somehow they have managed to tame monsters and venomous plants alike. No one could tell for sure. Even then, the wild forest that surrounded King's Landing was as wild and dangerous as any other in the North. It was very unlikely that a 12 year old could survive it, even one as clever as Arya.
When the day had almost ended she took Brienne to the cell where they kept that monstrous Lion called Jaime. He was renowned for being a good pilot and a better gunman, it was said that no one had better aim than him. He was also infamously known for the one who had betrayed his Commander many years ago. She could not stand the sight of him, a man that had spat on all that she believed to be sacred but still had not been expelled from the White Army.
He laughed and made jokes about how big Brienne was, about how little he cared that they called him traitor and how idiotic are people who believe in keeping oaths. He was obviously drunk, Lady Catelyn had seen to that. He confessed to having thrown Brandon from the window of the tower. Brandon could have died, could have fell even lower, to where the crops were, but the weirwood had saved him. He still had lost the ability to walk and his legs had to be changed to robotic ones. The monster insisted that Brandon had spied him and his sister. He was not ashamed of loving his sister, even when the genetic disadvantage of having kids through that union was explained to him by Lady Catelyn. Irresponsible was not even starting to cover it. That was a crime against humanity. A world such as the one they lived in, where humanity was still being reconstructed and they needed strong kids that could grow into stronger adults. They were looking for all possible ways to eradicate all type of diseases and what he and his sister did jeopardized bringing back long since eradicated diseases back. It was too much risk. That men was a selfish monster.
By the end of that strange “interview” she was sure Lady Catelyn was going to kill him when she asked for her gun. Reluctantly, she gave it to her but the beautiful lady only pointed it at Jaime and made him promise to never attack the wolfs or the fishes and that he was going to give her daughter Sansa back to her. Then she extracted what looked like a mirror from her corset but when she opened it it was full of buttons. She pressed in a combination Brienne did not know and a noise of shutting down was heard. The cameras were down and the cell opened.
“Take Sword and here you have provisions, use the underground tunnels, no one has been using them in ages, no plant can grow there and I know you just installed that radar interference gadget so you should be fine”
“Lady Catelyn, that gadget is still in beta stage... it might work though” she said a bit unconvinced, she owed her so she said “Of course, please take care of yourself while I'm gone” and grabbed that drunken monster, dragging him to the hangar. She needed to be quick, guards were probably alerted by now that one area was suffering malfunctions. She feared for Lady Catelyn but there was nothing else she could do but obey.