He is only fourteen but Jaime knows that Rhaegar Targaryen must be the biggest bloody fool in all the Seven Kingdoms.
Not because of that business with the Stark girl. That did make him quite the idiot, for running off with some pretty maiden, but instead Jaime hated Rhaegar for not loving Elia Martell.
Oh yes, some would say he was fond of Elia. But anyone could tell he wasn't in love with his wife. Rhaegar would speak to her kindly at feasts, and hold her hand in public, and Jaime would feel his teeth grind from the utter falsity of it all.
Jaime has heard some people say that his sister Cersei is the most beautiful woman in all the Kingdoms. He's also heard the same said of Lyanna Stark, or even Ashara Dayne. It's all lies. Lyanna Stark, the she-wolf, she's the reason that Rhaegar left Elia in the first place. The Dayne maiden may be pretty, but without her violet eyes she's just be another girl. And Cersei is beautiful, truly, but she is comely on the outside and horrid on the inside and the opposite of Elia.
He watches her from across the courtyard, her dark hair spilling over her shoulder with grace, her deep eyes sparkling as Rhaenys grabs for her gown. Elia Martell is the most beautiful woman to walk this earth, Jaime knows.
§§§
Her skin is always hot, like the Dornish sands.
Jaime likes it when she needs to hold his hand or arm when he escorts her across the Red Keep, even though Cersei gets mad at him for that. Sometimes Elia's dark hair brushes across his face, and it smells a little like Dornish spice, and he loves her for not wearing the perfumes of King's Landing, or worse, the Targaryen perfume.
He's only fifteen and sometimes he fantasizes about seeing Elia Martell naked, and the idea is more tantalizing than the sight. Jaime wants her company more than her body, the opposite of his sister, because Elia has a lovely kind voice when she talks and when her hot skin wraps around his it's more than he's ever needed.
"Ser Jaime? Could you help a lady to her chambers, please?"
"Of- for certain, my princess."
It is close to nightfall, and the setting sun makes Elia's dark hair shimmer with magnificent pinks and oranges. She rests her hand on his strong arm as they walk along the corridors, and their shadows loom tall in front of them.
Rhaenys is a sweet girl, always talking with one hand in her mother's and one holding her black kitten. Elia laughs to her daughter, and though Rhaenys has her father's hair and eye color, the warm eyes and hot skin are pure blessedly Martell. Even Aegon, only a babe that Elia sometimes lets Jaime hold, has his mother's laughing sweet eyes that Jaime loves.
She doesn't speak much to Jaime in public because she's Elia Martell, the dragon's wife and the king's captive, but when it's dark out and only the stars are watching she talks to him freely. About her home in Dorne, mostly, and Jaime knows she misses home by the reverent way Elia will explain in detail the juicy oranges or the shimmering sands. Jaime would like to take Elia to the Water Gardens, let Rhaenys and Aegon play by the side while he swims about with his princess, but he is a lion knight and she has to pretend to be a dragon.
He shows Elia to her chambers, and as always the princess has a smile just for him.
§§§
It's a nice life at first, even with Rhaegar gone with the Stark girl. Jaime does his best to ignore the tension building from all the kingdoms, the hatred pointed directly into the Red Keep, because all he wants right now is to live happily with Elia.
And then because of Rhaegar everything changes for the worse.
§§§
For a moment Jaime is proud of Robert Baratheon for killing Rhaegar Targaryen, even joyous that this storm lord would be on his side. Jaime goes to sleep that night with the imagined image of a fallen dragon prince bloody in the river.
He dreams of speaking to Elia the next day, even running away with her to Dorne where they can raise her children as their own. But the dawn brings a fresh new horror.
The army is laughing and jesting amongst each other when they enter, and Gregor Clegane is the first one through, and they are laughing with the smell of death and something more worrisome thick in the air.
Jaime is young compared to the knights and he's laughing too, shouting who who who did we kill. When they tell him more dragons, he assumes another Targaryen, and it confuses him. Who who who, but it's no noble dragon knight that has been slain, it's two small children with their blood sticky on the Mountain's fingers.
He's dazed and stupid because even when he realizes that Rhaenys and Aegon has been butchered, Jaime hopes Elia is still alive, but the Mountain is retelling the tale of how he-
No.
No.
NO.
Elia Martell has been raped and slaughtered at the hands of Gregor Clegane, by the order of Jaime's father Tywin Lannister-
No, Jaime thinks, his entire body freezing, no no no please you horrid fucking gods don't let her be killed, she's innocent and it's all fucking Rhaegar's fault-
He can't kill the Mountain and he can't kill Robert and he can't kill his father, so he just leaves the castle and runs.
§§§
Jaime doesn't know how it happened but he is now facing Oberyn Martell.
"Your father," are the only words Jaime can comprehend, and Oberyn is slashing down at him but Jaime's better and he blocks the Viper's thrust.
"Wait!" screams a voice, and Jaime then realizes it's his own voice, "no! I never wanted to hurt Elia, please I loved her, it's my father's fault and it's Robert's fault and it's-" but the Viper has halted and Jaime can see that both of them are crying.
Blindly Jaime tells the Martell man everything about Elia that he knew and loved, and it's a rather strange declaration of love but it's his.
Most of what Oberyn Martell says next eludes Jaime because all that he can hear is his own pulse thumping in his ears, but the last sentence is one he won't forget.
"-because in Dorne, in our family, we are the viper's nest-" Oberyn's voice rougher than his sister's but the same undercurrent of strength- "and if you were to step in the nest, Lannister, what does if matter who will bite first?"
"I don't understand-"
"Revenge, Lannister. Elia isn't going to avenge herself," and the rest of his speech is lost because Jaime's eyes are clouded with the vision of one man who can be killed, and he's riding back to the the Red Keep as Oberyn Martell salutes him.
§§§
Rhaegar has more of Rhaella in his features, to be sure, but when Jaime points his sword at his back Aerys suddenly looks an awful lot like his son.
It's his father's fault and it's Robert's fault and it's Gregor's fault and it's Rhaegar's fault and mayhaps it's even Lyanna's fault (or mayhaps Jaime just needs someone to blame), but Aerys is the only one that Jaime can kill right now to repay Elia. He kept her in the Red Keep, made her marry Rhaegar.
When the sword is rammed smoothly into Aerys Targaryen, blood spatters onto Jaime Lannister's hands and it's the blood of the fallen Targaryen dynasty and it's the blood of Elia Martell.
He doesn't understand, at least not yet, why anyone could despise him for that.
§§§
Jaime lies with Cersei quite often after Elia's murder. Not because his love for Elia has shifted into his sister's body, but because Cersei is warm and comfortable to lie with.
Occasionally Jaime remembers that he could have been married to Elia Martell, and the thought chokes him up because what a wonderful future would have been if his mother had not died: his days spent in Dorne amongst the golden sand with his princess, raising children with warm smiles and emerald eyes and dusky skin and golden hair, but this fantasy hurts too much to pursue.
Occasionally Jaime remembers that Cersei could have married Rhaegar Targaryen. She was in love with him, after all, and mayhaps the dragon prince could have loved his sister. He would never have left Cersei for Lyanna Stark, and there would be nothing to fight over, no deaths.
Everything could have happened right, Jaime thinks, and he can't blame just Rhaegar or Robert or Aerys, because everyone has a say in the murder of Elia. Cersei blames Tyrion for their mother's death, for example, so could Tyrion have killed Elia? Could Lyanna Stark be to blame, for her coquettish grin and beautiful eyes that seduced the dragon prince?
It's everything and everyone who killed Elia, Jaime thinks, everything and everyone that's going to kill all of us.
§§§
There's something he mislikes about Eddard Stark's bastard, something in his gray eyes and the way he stands. Jaime can't put his finger on it until the feast at Winterfell, when Jon Snow is out swinging his sword and Jaime realizes who the bastard looks like.
The graceful fighting stance, the set of the jaw, the shape of the ears- they're trivial details, but Jaime knows a man with the same traits. Well, he knew.
His mother is a Stark, for certain, but his father is not Eddard Stark or Brandon Stark or anyone with Northern blood. The bastard may not have the violet eyes, the silver hair, but his father is Rhaegar Targaryen and Jaime hates him for that.
§§§
Jaime hates all the Stark children, to be honest, not just because they smile at Robert Baratheon and call him their family, but because they don't know about the things their father and uncles and comrades did, and they don't want to know. Or maybe it's just because they're sweet innocent children like Rhaenys and Aegon were, and because of their father being on the right side they are alive.
The boy, Brandon, he finds Jaime and Cersei together one day in the tower, and what Jaime does next can't be explained save for the sudden vision of a boy with a silver-blonde head smashed against the wall.
"The things I do for love," Jaime hears himself say as Bran falls, but not for Cersei's love because Jaime does everything for Elia.
When he looks down, Bran is a twisted mass of innocence and Jaime thinks on little Aegon and he suddenly feels sick.
Elia wouldn't like Jaime for that.
§§§
His mind goes wild during the Whispering Wood because Robb Stark is so much like Rhaegar Targaryen, and he can't explain it but the Stark boy is exactly like the dragon prince to Jaime.
When he hears of Robb Stark breaking his oath to Walder Frey and marrying the Westerling girl, his mind goes blank and Jaime panics. He doesn't care what happens to Robb Stark, but it's Jeyne Westerling and the unknown abandoned Frey girl that Jaime worries for.
After Roose Bolton so effectively sends Jaime's regards, Jaime asks what has become of Jeyne Westerling and the Frey girl. The Leech Lord is confused, but only slightly so. He recants that the Westerling girl has run away, the Frey girl safe. Jaime is gladdened but does not show Lord Bolton.
He's gladdened because two girls as innocent as Rhaenys or Aegon were spared from the same mindless fate that Elia Martell did.
§§§
In the end, it all comes down to the wench. Brienne.
She's tall and strong and pale and ugly, every inch the opposite of Elia Martell, but he's going to protect her. He fights with the wench to teach her to be better, because even if Elia fought bravely against the Mountain she was still raped and murdered. He screams "sapphires!" because no woman deserves to feel what Elia did, and because the wench's life might redeem him.
Jaime has heard of "redemption in the eyes of gods" but all the redemption he wants is Elia Martell's, and he only wants her laughing eyes.
Later Jaime says "I dreamed of you," as the wench stands there, bloodied and sweaty, but he isn't talking to Brienne of Tarth.
I dreamed of you, Elia. And you told me to save Brienne, isn't that so?
Sometimes Jaime thinks that it's Aerys' ghost, causing him to do all the unspeakable evils he's done after the rebellion. But when Jaime Lannister the Kingslayer does something good, it's because of Elia Martell.