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maidenjediFANDOM: Game of Thrones
RATING: PG-13
PAIRING: Jaime Lannister/Sansa Stark
CHARACTERS: Sansa Stark, Jaime Lannister, Brienne of Tarth, Podrick Payne
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rarepairfest 2017SUMMARY: AU. Jaime has joined Brienne and Podrick on their quest, having fled King's Landing in the wake of Tyrion's escape. Months into the journey, they have found Sansa and seek to fulfill their oath by taking Sansa to the Wall. Sansa is wary, but there is a side to the Kingslayer she has yet to see.
NOTES: I consider Sansa to be, at a minimum, 15 at the time she weds Tyrion on the show. So for this, I put her mentally at 16.
Title from: "Our own heart, and not other men's opinion, forms our true honor." - Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Story also archived on AO3.
“My lady, you must come with me, now.”
She blinked down at the corpse – the corpse, the Mother have mercy, that is Petyr Baelish and he is dead – and tried to reassure herself it could not speak, not with a dagger in its throat, and anyway, corpses do not speak, and….
“My lady!”
It was a woman’s voice, harsh, highborn. Sansa did not turn around; she reached down, and pulled the dagger from Baelish’s throat. Blood stained her dress; she cared not.
“Do not come closer!” she said, hoping her voice would not betray the fear that bubbled in her stomach. “I killed him. I….” She could not finish the sentence.
“Lady Sansa, my lady Stark, do you remember me from the inn?”
And Sansa at last turned, and took in the sight of Brienne of Tarth once again. She nodded, now sure her voice would crack if used.
“Come with me now. We must leave, before the company awake and find their lord in this state, and you wielding that weapon.”
But there was no company; there was no one but Sansa and Petyr. He had distracted the Knights of the Vale, dismissed them on false errands to chase imaginary leads on dead persons, keeping Sansa close by out of imagined fear for her safety. And it worked, it worked, they went and she was alone with him and then…
It was over.
“There is no one.” Sansa stepped toward Brienne, her legs shaking. Faintness overtook her and Brienne caught her up before she could fall.
“Nevertheless, we must go. Ser…he waits in the woods, we will get you home.”
Sansa closed her eyes, the protest about her home, what home, never quite reaching her lips.
-
“You swore.”
“Brienne….”
“You swore. Lady Catelyn did not give this charge to me alone. You swore.”
“The Boltons have Winterfell. We are a band of merry folk, true, but we are somewhat lacking in numbers, don’t you think?”
“The Wall, then. She has kin there. Jaime…”
“Brienne. Don’t throw Catelyn Stark in my face every chance you get. I am protecting her daughter where I had failed before, but there is not much more I can do; my face is too well-known, and hated in every corner of Westeros. You are her sworn sword. You can take her to the Wall without me.”
“What exactly is waiting for you in King’s Landing?”
“Who says I’ll go back there? I hear Pentos is lovely in the fall.” He turned to make ready his horse, and found Podrick had done it for him. He swore under his breath, and paced. They would need to leave, and soon, whether Sansa was recovered or not.
Brienne stood, arms crossed, and stared at him. It was a glare he could not escape, and he finally returned it.
“She won’t have you back.”
And there it was. The truth. Brienne, to her credit, refrained from smirking in victory.
“I wouldn’t go back to Cersei,” Jaime sighed, the fight taken out of him. “Even if she would have me now. I don’t know who I am without her, I don’t know who I am without this,” he touched his sword, “but I am not Kingsguard now. And I can’t face….”
Honor. Fucking honor. He had let Tyrion go, and Tywin Lannister was dead. If he had not been a Kingslayer, what court of opinion would not hold that he was, in a way, a kinslayer?
His honor was shit. This one oath would have to do. Brienne was right.
“Alright. The Wall.”
-
Sansa woke up to this exchange, and held her breath as her mind cleared and she realized it was Jaime Lannister speaking.
He was not the same knight who had come to Winterfell; Sansa could admit that much. She had known him to be a smirking, cocky knight, the smudge of his legacy wiping out his good looks and the glory of his white cloak and golden armor. That seemed an age ago, and it was. She had not heard how he came to lose his hand, how his hair had grayed. She had no idea why Brienne travelled with him now.
But it was clear, they each considered Sansa to be their responsibility. Whatever her mother had made them promise, they were bound to it.
It was as well, Sansa thought, thinking on what she had done, on what she had escaped. Brienne must have followed her from the day they met and Sansa had rejected her service. Sansa wanted to be indignant over that, but she’d been short-sighted, blind.
What else had she been wrong about?
Her companions continued to talk in a low voice, planning their voyage, and Sansa let them talk for awhile before stirring. She would keep her own counsel awhile longer.
-
Brienne had been sure, this mission would be hers alone. Jaime had pressed Oathkeeper on her, gifted her with the armor, and it was all with the understanding that she would fulfill their oath on her own. Podrick notwithstanding, she had felt the burden settle comfortably on her shoulders as she and Jaime parted ways. She had even reconciled herself to the idea that she may not come back from it.
Her surprise on seeing Jaime ride up beside her, weeks into her journey, was great. And Jaime assured her, it had been his intent to stay behind. The hurt in his eyes was evident; it was two or three days before he would talk about what happened after Brienne and Pod were seen safely out of the city gates, and only once he’d procured a skin of wine.
Podrick was asleep. Brienne added wood to the fire; she hadn’t dared speak to Jaime beyond necessity since he’d joined them. His demeanor had forbade it, even had she been the kind of maiden who would press him.
That night, though. The stars winked above them. The night air was innocent, fresh. Inviting of confidences, small and world-breaking.
“I had to.”
Brienne started, the tone of Jaime’s voice so raw, so familiar.
“What? What did you do?” she said, almost too low.
He shrugged, and drank. “I let my brother go. I had to.”
And he described the dungeon cell in which his brother had been kept. The way the trial, Tywin Lannister’s machinations, Cersei’s manipulations, everything had culminated in a final, terrible battle. He left off the manner in which Oberyn had died, though Brienne knew enough of the Mountain to picture it and shudder.
“He didn’t do it. I know. Tyrion did not kill Joffrey, he never would have….”
Brienne had no idea what to believe; she’d seen Joffrey clutching his throat, the agony and then the rage that consumed Cersei. She’d also seen the utter disbelief, no sign of triumph or satisfaction, which likewise consumed Tyrion.
But Jaime wasn’t done.
“The bells tolled, and I knew, I knew, and I think I always knew it would go just like that. Tyrion would have his revenge.”
The rest spilled out in half sentences, and Brienne had to pick the truth from slurs and curses. Cersei had confronted Jaime in the Sept of Baelor, and that night, he’d gone. He left the white cloak on the table beside the Book of the Brothers. On his page in that wretched, revered tome, he’d scribbled: “After the death of the Hand of the King, Jaime Lannister resigned from the Kingsguard, to uphold a final oath sworn to a great lady of the South.”
“So you’re here, then, to stay?”
He was slipping off to sleep, spent, but nodded. “Can’t let you have all the fun, wench.”
-
Sansa never had much of a head for geography. Winterfell had been her whole world until the march south on the Kingsroad, and even in the city, she’d known west from east only if the sun was at a pivotal point. Leaving the Vale, she’d been under cover, though she’d discerned from the landscape that Littlefinger had been taking her north.
It was the same now, with her new companions, except they were on horseback. Before, with him, cover had been paramount; she suspected the pomp and fanfare that necessarily accompanied a caravan would run contrary to whatever aims Brienne and the Kingslayer had. It was a hard ride, for Sansa especially, unused as she was to cross-country riding such as this, but better since they had found her a mount of her own. It was necessary, though. They kept off the main road, and rode for a day and half a night before stopping. North, always north. The Boltons held Winterfell, but there would be safety at the Wall, if not elsewhere. Sansa said little, after being assured they were not headed back to King’s Landing.
“No, Lady Stark,” Jaime said. “We will head north, to your people. Jon Snow is at Castle Black; if no other place is safe, it will be with him.”
She was still quite surprised, and not a little frightened, that she rode alongside Jaime Lannister. Tyrion had told her never to fear him, and Brienne trusted him. He had come all this way to protect her. A notion which made Sansa scoff, and yet north they rode.
Sansa breathed in the cold air, and wished that the journey could come to a quicker end.
-
“My lady,” Podrick said, riding up beside Sansa. “You can trust him.”
Sansa didn’t reply. Podrick pressed, adamant.
“He left King’s Landing to find you. To join us, that is, to find you. He gave my lady Brienne that sword.”
A Valyrian steel sword, Sansa had noticed. Like the one Joffrey had named Widow’s Wail. She knew, she suspected, where that steel had come from. “A Lannister sword on which to swear an oath,” she said. “I would not be so trusting, Podrick.”
“But you trust her. You do? Am I mistaken?”
Sansa had to own that much. She didn’t know why, really, but Brienne’s earnestness was hard to deny, her honor on her sleeve for all that she wore a Lannister-red scabbard and lion-tipped sword. So she assented, thinking Podrick satisfied, but again he spoke.
“My lord Tyrion always said, his brother Jaime was not what he seemed. I have not known many knights, Lady Sansa, but I have seen few willing to hold to oaths they swore to the dead.”
She looked at him then, and he flushed red. “I just meant….”
“I know,” she said, not wanting to take it further. It was something to think on, anyway, for Sansa could agree with Podrick that far. She’d known a handful of knights, and none were like the knights of the stories and songs.
But no song had ever been written about a knight who abandoned his home to keep a girl he hardly knew safe, because of a promise he made her dead mother.
“I will try, Podrick. That’s all I can say for now.”
He smiled, and again flushed red, realizing just how far he’d overstepped his place and relieved he had achieved something anyway.
Sansa went on, and watched the Kingslayer’s form on his horse ahead, thinking of knights and ladies and the end of summer. Red and gold had overtaken the green in the trees around them, and the further they went the fewer leaves they saw, the more gray and white took over the land.
She was a lady of summer, and had known no real winter. It was her mother’s refrain, when imparting a hard lesson, that winter would come, and Sansa would need to harden herself. Winter didn’t simply mean the cold and dark season; Septa Mordane was fond of reminding Sansa that a woman grown could face more winters than summers, no matter the weather. What she had endured thus far was enough, and yet she knew there was more to come.
The Kingslayer – and already, she was uncomfortable with the name – sat straight in his saddle, a knight even in his drab and bulky clothing. What had he seen in service of the realm? Sansa thought she had few illusions left, but watching Jaime Lannister she was reminded of songs celebrating those knights of the realm who suffered much for their cause. Honor had many faces; wasn’t Tyrion honorable, wasn’t the Hound, in their ways?
She had much to think over.
-
Brienne and Sansa sat by the fire, a small one. They dared not risk too much, even though at this point they were well clear of sellswords and southron mercenaries. They were in the North, though giving Sansa’s home as wide a berth as possible.
Jaime was hunting with Podrick, an affair that took the skill of one and the ability of the other. Brienne had paced their perimeter as well as possible for awhile before taking a seat. Sansa stared into the fire, feeling very much alone, and useless.
Brienne sat down and took her sword out, and began to polish it. She had not used it in days, only drawing it a couple of times when it seemed they might be drawing closer to population than they wished. Sansa watched her, fascinated again that a woman could be so outfitted. Arya would have loved Brienne, she thought.
The thought of Arya hurt. There had been no word of her, and though Brienne told her she and Jaime were sworn to protect both girls, they had not seen Arya during their travels. Of course, their first goal had been Sansa, more because they could narrow down where she might be. Sansa knew, they thought Arya gone, too. What gave Sansa any hope at all was remembering that Arya knew how to fight. Maybe not so well as their brothers, but hadn’t even Sansa proved stronger than anyone might have guessed?
She still carried the dagger she’d used to kill Petyr, slept with it in her hand. But she needed more than that. So she spoke.
“Will you teach me?”
Brienne frowned and looked over to her. “Teach you, my lady?”
Sansa held her dagger in her hand, and held it now for Brienne to see. “It was an accident, how I…how Lord Baelish died,” she said. “He came at me, and I grabbed this from his waist. It was an accident, luck even. I have no skill, no cunning. I need to learn.”
“If you wish. I can show you how to defend yourself, at least.” Brienne continued to clean her own sword. “There are some moves you can use, some basic defense. You’re right, it would be a good idea.”
Each smiled to herself, a step made in a direction toward a firmer friendship. It made Sansa brave, and she asked Brienne a question that had been burning.
“How did you come to trust the Kingslayer?”
Brienne bristled, and Sansa was surprised to see it.
“That isn’t his name.”
Sansa colored. “I’m sorry….”
“No,” Brienne sighed, deflating. “No, don’t be sorry, Lady Sansa. To all Westeros, the Kingslayer can only be a Kingslayer, because after all, the Mad King is dead and his is the sword that did the deed. That is undeniable. And the tale – well, it is his to tell, should he wish.” She shifted, and her voice took on an odd tone. Sansa wondered what Brienne was remembering as she spoke. “Only he didn’t have to tell me, I never asked. He just…he was tired, and death had come so close. I don’t think he knew exactly what he was going to say. But I have to trust him, after that. After knowing. Kingslayer is a word that hides much.”
Sansa looked at Brienne, who met her lady’s eyes with a sad look. “I always believed there was one sort of honor in this world. I was brought up on stories of the great knights, their heroism. Ser Arthur Dayne was a friend of my father’s, and sometimes I can remember him, astride his steed, riding away. I am probably imagining what I remember, truth be told. I didn’t realize that until very lately. Arthur Dayne was a man, after all, and what horrors had war shown him? Did death weigh on him, even as he straightened his shoulders to face the dawn? I wonder. And I know, all at once, that it must. And does his honor stand the test of the truths in his life? I suppose it depends on who is singing the song.”
Sansa was struck by that notion, thinking over her acquaintance with the knighthood. She recalled her heart beating wildly at the sight of Loras Tyrell. In truth, what had he done, that such glory could rest easy over him? She fell for a dream, not honor.
“Do you believe the King….I mean, Ser Jaime, to be honorable?”
Brienne’s countenance, always serious, looked more so. Her eyes shone as she replied, “I do. That is why I believe he will see you safe, because he must. And it is more than keeping to an oath sworn. He has chosen it over all things. That is powerful, my lady.”
All things. His sister, his Kingsguard oath. And Sansa had heard even the more favorable tales of the young Jaime Lannister, so eager to serve his king at a young age, to leave his father’s keep and his inheritance behind to serve as Kingsguard. What had it taken to break that oath to begin with?
Sansa found herself fascinated by the question. She knew what the Mad King had been; Septa Mordane had been willing to fill in the gaps left by her mother’s vague retellings. What happened to Rickard and Brandon Stark was murder, not justice, for there had been no wrongdoing. Sansa had likewise lived under the thumb of an increasingly mad king. She knew what it was to want to see such a king dead for his crimes, his insanity. Her heart had burned for vengeance. What had Jaime’s done, seeing what the Mad King was capable of?
Is there truly anything that can override a sacred oath? Sansa had begun to believe, yes, there was.
Podrick’s loud walk interrupted the women’s reverie, and the night went on as always, a bickering over the way to cook their quarry, yawns and nods taking over before they were done eating. Jaime took first watch.
Sansa lay awake, watching him watch the woods. She watched as he let out a deep sigh, rubbed his fingers through his short hair and over his growing beard.
“I’m doing as you asked,” he whispered to the woods. “I will see her safe. If you have any sway with the gods where you are, Catelyn, see that they pave a path for that purpose, and consider the debt paid.”
Sansa bit her lip and turned over. Sleep came fitfully.
-
Sansa Stark had always been a reputed beauty. In Jaime’s experience, a reputation for beauty usually came with a reputation for character flaws some men could overlook. What’s more, he really hadn’t wanted to notice, but Sansa lived up to the tale and then some. Her character was hard to discern, she hid so much.
She was barely more than a child, and his brother’s wife besides. What the Faith may or may not do with those unfulfilled vows mattered little, because other vows stood between Jaime and the path his new thoughts could lead him down. He could not rightfully look at Sansa as more than his sworn charge; he could, if he stood still and thought of her, see Catelyn Stark rise from her long sleep to wreak destruction as retribution. Tyrion had told him, Sansa had withstood much in her time in the Red Keep. Knowing his sweet sister, and having witnessed what Joffrey could be capable of, Jaime was firmly convinced her captivity had been worse in many ways than his.
Missing hand notwithstanding.
But it was the fact of her treatment up to this point that kept him from thinking much more than she was, indeed, becoming a woman deserving of a reputation for beauty and grace. The road was not so hard that it stripped her of it, as it might some; the colder the weather grew, the more she glowed. She had a decided distaste for their style of travel, but never complained. He could admire that, at least.
He was not so far removed from King’s Landing, though, that he could forget what he’d given up, what he’d all but spit on as he rode from the keep. If his honor couldn’t stop him, Cersei’s ghost would.
-
They went on, and every day, Sansa became less frightened and more trusting. Jaime was not attentive; he left the conversation to Brienne, the close care to Podrick. But he never went far, and he placed himself between the world and Sansa directly.
His hunting skills could not quite overcome his handicap every day, and he took turns with Brienne, who often went with Podrick under protest. She had to admit it worked better for all their sakes, though it was a chore. The first few times, Jaime would studiously avoid Sansa, and she returned the treatment.
But theirs was a small company, and no two members of such a group can afford to cut off all contact with one another.
Sansa practiced drawing her dagger, moving her arms and her legs in the proscribed defensive manner. She was something of a sight to behold. They had been more than a fortnight on horseback, sleeping out-of-doors, taking shelter when possible but not in terribly luxurious accommodations. Accordingly, Sansa's clothing was a mix of what cured skins could be hastily sewn together - her skill was on display here - and the clothing she'd worn when last in company with Littlefinger. The dress, unsuitable for riding, had been altered to better protect her legs, and yet billowed now in the wind as she moved. Her hair stood out against the grey and white landscape, her hood having fallen back; the dye had begun to fade, and streaks of Tully red now twisted through her braids. It had been raining occasionally through the morning; her face was streaked as though tears fell, but her fierce expression told the truth.
Jaime had determined to give her space, to not watch her too closely. But there was little else to distract him, and she had a way of moving that would captivate any rescuer, however determined he might be not to fall for it.
Sansa was focused on her movement, but her senses were alive to the fact that she was not alone. She and Jaime had, so far, not been so alone together, for any length of time. Brienne had been sensitive to Sansa's hesitations. It had been necessary today, as game was scarcer, they had to go further afield. So she ignored her company and made do.
But she caught a glimpse of him watching her. And she told herself she wasn't looking back, but his eyes were sad, his countenance calm and alert. He was a knight, and she was a lady. There was something in that, even now, even with everything they had both been through and seen.
She stopped then, a little out of breath, her back to Jaime.
The world was so quiet just then. Sansa held perfectly still, trying to listen for movement. Had Jaime so much as shifted on the log he sat upon, she would have heard the leather scratching against the wood.
He could not take his eyes off her, and she knew it.
She turned to face him. He stood; Sansa was tall, but he stood over her even at this short distance. For the first time in so long, the strains of songs echoed in her memory. Jaime was not wearing armor, no gold shone anywhere on his person, save his close-cut Lannister mane. He was scarred and still bruised, and all at once Sansa knew, she wanted to hear those stories. Yes, even the unpleasant ones, the stories that would hurt in the telling as much as they had in the living. Summer child though she was, Sansa had come to understand, it was those that made a person who they were, not titles or houses or names.
She stepped closer. Jaime tensed but did not move. They were within arm's reach of one another.
"Ser Jaime..."
"You don't have to call me 'ser,'" he responded. "I am what I always have been, though right now, I serve no one and nothing but an oath."
She narrowed her eyes at that. "I would...I would ask you to reconsider."
"Reconsider?"
She nodded, and reached out to touch his maimed arm. He wanted to move back, and certainly to jerk that arm away, but his hand, unbidden, moved to cover hers.
"Don't serve an oath or a promise or anything of the sort. I would ask that you serve me."
She looked up at him, guileless.
"Don't be a knight, Ser Jaime. Be my knight."
He gripped her hand tighter, and swallowed hard. "I will, my lady. I will."
-
Jaime Lannister had sworn many oaths. Broken many of them. His honor was a shattered thing, if it had ever existed, as far as many in the kingdom were concerned.
But when the knight, in battered, makeshift armor, with a hook where once a golden hand had been, and a sword of dubious use, took a knee in front of Sansa of House Stark, there was a shift in the wind.
He had sworn to her mother he would get her home. It may have been enough, after all that had happened. But he chose to swear fealty to the daughter, so that she may learn to trust him.
“Lady Sansa, you have my sword.” He finished the words with a bow of his head, and he waited, mud soaking his leg. Rain poured down his head, darkening his hair.
Sansa took a breath, intending to condemn him, wanting to lash out at this prone Lannister, to command Brienne to take his head. Her enemies encapsulated in this one man, who started the war that killed her family.
But this was not Jaime Lannister, Kingslayer, in front of her. This was a broken and reshaped man. She knew not why, not yet, but she accepted him.
She was willing to see where it might go, and offered a smile to him that told him more than she could ever speak aloud.
For what it was worth, he returned it, and offered his arm in return to lead his lady on to their final destination.
