Chapter Text
“Brienne!”
Brienne enters the cell at Lady Catelyn’s call. She braces herself before looking at the miserable excuse for a creature, gaunt and pale, lazily sprawled against the furthest wall. He sniffs the air before staring at her with his inhumanly green eyes. A cruel smirk touches his mouth as he turns his gaze back to Lady Catelyn.
“Why, Cat, I didn’t think you cared.” His voice is droll, his eyes flickering between Lady Catelyn and Brienne. “I haven’t had virgin blood in so long. My mouth is positively watering for a taste.”
Brienne can’t prevent the hot blush that floods her cheeks. The vampire’s eyes practically twinkle.
“She may be as ugly as an aurochs,” he says, pinning Brienne in place with a look, a deadly predator even leashed as he is. “But she blushes deliciously.”
Brienne’s hand automatically curls around the pommel of her sword, drawing it out just enough so that the blade catches the torchlight. Lady Catelyn raises a hand to halt her.
“Watch your tongue or I’ll have it cut from your head.” Lady Catelyn’s tone is a vicious, cutting thing. “Lady Brienne is to be your gaoler, not your dinner.”
The vampire’s expression sharpens, an alert glint to his eyes that belies his weakened appearance.
“Am I not restrained enough for you?” He jerks at the cuffs around his wrists, the chains rattling so loudly the sound echoes in Brienne’s ears. “What’s this beast to do? Is it to set me on fire? Pour water blessed by the high Septon down my gullet?”
The fury in his voice is enough to send a shiver down Brienne’s spine. Nothing about him seemed a threat when she first walked into his cage, but now she can see the predator that haunts the nightmares of all of Westeros.
Lady Catelyn appears unaffected, her carriage never faltering as she stares at him. “Your family holds my eldest daughter captive.” The vampire’s expression wavers, the anger replaced by a hint of curiosity. “Lady Brienne will return you to your family in exchange for my daughter. Should she be released, my family will agree to an accord with your family that no harm shall be done to a Lannister at the hands of a Stark.”
“And what makes you think my father will ever agree to this?” The vampire’s tone is cutting.
“Because if he does not,” Lady Catelyn steels her spine, her voice becoming even colder, “I will behead his heir.”
--
He is to walk to King’s Landing. He, the heir of Tywin Lannister, is meant to traipse his way through a forest, starving and shackled by the largest human woman he’s ever laid eyes on.
The most curious thing about his beast of a captor is her lack of fear. Jaime is accustomed to that sickly, bitter stench of fear whenever humans are near. But this brutish, homely thing doesn’t seem to be frightened. The only thing he can smell is that tempting call of purity and -- something underneath that the sets his back up and makes the nape of his neck tingle. It makes him want to growl like the animal everyone believes him to be.
“Tell me, beast, have you ever been bitten?” Jaime stumbles when she shoves him forward, his toe catching on a root sticking up from the uneven ground. “No, I don’t suppose you have. I would smell it on you.”
He glances over his shoulder to catch a glimpse of that mulish expression she seems to wear like armor.
“You should try it,” he continues. “You’re not like to get penetrated by anything else with that face.”
She yanks at the chain in her hand, the shackles at his wrists jerking him off balance. He laughs.
“Is that all it takes for you to lose your composure?” Jaime throws a smirk over his shoulder. “Come now, surely you know you’re as beautiful as you are a scintillating conversationalist.”
The beast doesn’t respond, not even to glare at him. Her eyes are trained on some far point, as if he is naught more than a saddle pack.
“It’s a long walk to King’s Landing, do you intend to pretend muteness the entire journey?” When the beast still doesn't respond, Jaime tries again. “I don’t do well with boredom. It makes me act out. I’m sure you can imagine what that might entail.”
Jaime braces himself, turning, and launches at her, fangs bared to catch any available flesh. In the blink of an eye, her armored knees pin his arms at his sides and the silver chain is wrapped around his neck. He hisses at the searing pain of silver against his skin and battles against the strength of her. She is bigger than him, but if he was at full strength --
“So you aren’t only as ugly aurochs, but as strong as one, too,” he says, voice choked by the press of chain against his throat. “Are you sure you’re human?”
“Listen, Vampire,” she spits the word at him like an insult. “You would do well to remember that I have slain countless of your number at full strength and you, you’re as weak as a kitten.”
She stares at him with a burning hatred. If he didn’t know better, couldn’t smell the blood pumping furiously through her veins, he would wonder at those eyes. They’re just as inhumanly beautiful as any of his brethren’s, glinting like shattered sapphires surrounding an endless void. He knows on some bone-deep level that if he ever allowed himself to tumble into that void, he would never claw his way back out.
“Unchain me,” he growls, snapping his head toward her. “Let me free and you’ll see the lion within, I swear it.”
The beast tightens the chain around his neck, cutting off the already sluggish flow of blood, rendering him light-headed and dizzy.
“I’m not so easily provoked,” she says. “You may anger me, but you won’t make me forget my duty.” Jaime can feel himself losing consciousness, slipping into the black that threatens the edges of his vision. “Without you, there is no saving Lady Sansa. If I were to kill you, your family would unleash a terror the world hasn’t known since Castamere.”
She loosens the chain, finally, allowing the blood to flow again. Jaime gasps in relief.
“I may not be free to destroy you as you deserve, but I can make this more unpleasant than even a Lannister could imagine.” With that, she stands and tugs harshly on his shackles until he regains his footing. She circles behind him and shoves at his shoulder once more. “Walk.”
So he walks.