Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot. Everything else belongs to G.R.R. Martin and HBO.

Summary: "In the songs all knights are gallant, all maids are beautiful, and the sun is always shining." Jaime Lannister learns that this is true.

A/N: Slight spoilers for the series and books (if you've not read them). If you want to keep reading though, be my guest. My thanks to the kind people who left reviews. And um, if you liked it, let me know? I'd like to think I have not botched this...

The Kingslayer and the Maiden Fair

II.

"Who wants to die defending a Lannister?"

She might have smiled, as she tastes the echo of those words in her mouth, had the circumstances been less grim, less surreal. Brienne stands in the bowels of a great pit, deaf to the crowd that has come to see what must, in their eyes, be a contest between two beasts of sorts. Not that the outcome is all that uncertain. She thinks back to a dark night, a quiet tent, a king crowned with gold antlers with blood pouring from a wound, a hissing black shade that brought an unnatural chill with it. Renly Baratheon was a king and the first man she had fallen in love with. And Jaime Lannister…

"Jaime Lannister sacked the Riverlands. He pushed Bran out a window and my brother will never walk again. He knowingly put two false kings on the Iron Throne—his own bastards bred of incest—and served them." Sansa is a furious swirl of blue silk and grey satin as she paces the floor. In an inconspicuous corner, nearest to the door, stands her faithful Hound. Sandor Clegane meets Brienne's eyes briefly and she cannot quite make out his expression. But she knows he would do no less for the fair and slender Queen of the North who has swept in like a winter wind.

"He also kept his oath to your lady mother, Your Grace. He rescued you from the Vale and from Petyr Baelish. I would never have been able to take you away if not for Ser Jaime. Well, I might have," Brienne shrugs slightly, correcting herself because she is not one to lie and exaggerating means inching towards that line. "It just might have been far more perilous."

Sansa comes to her, clutches her hands and Brienne has never felt more conscious of her overly long fingers, her large knuckles, her calluses. "I am not denying his good deeds. But he has to pay for whatever else he has done. Not you. You serve Winterfell, you pledged your service to me. And I command you not to die."

For a moment, it is Catelyn Stark who is holding her hand and beneath the youthful tones of Sansa's stern words, Brienne senses the same pure heart that had once been her mother's. "You would never ask me to commit a deed that would bring me dishonour, Your Grace." For one moment Sansa's face tightens like a fist and Brienne understands that she is truly angry. "Ser Jaime saved my life. I have to repay him."

"You are all I have left of my mother." And he killed her. The unspoken words hang between them. The lit candles of the room draw shadows on the young queen's face and grief seems to lengthen them. "How will you defeat a dragon? Must both of you die?"

"You heard the Dragon Queen, Your Grace. Death pays for life. I think she might spare him. He may remain a prisoner for always but she will let him live."

"Then might not a swift death be kinder than an endless length of days penned up like an animal?"

Sansa's words have an edge to them that were never there. Or perhaps she had spent too much time apart from the Queen in the North. There had been men to lead at the Wall, wights to battle, wildlings to train and the usual ridicule to endure until she proved her worth with Oathkeeper. Brienne finds her large hands pressing gently against Sansa's, a fruitless kind of reassurance. She bends her knee to her lady, and says in a voice so soft she knows the Hound cannot hear. "Then perhaps when some years have passed, you might ask the Dragon Queen for him. And when you have him, tell him to repay this debt owed you."

Once upon a time, and it seems another lifetime to Brienne as she slides a gloved thumb upon the sword's pommel, feeling the grooves of curved manes and claws, Jaime had told her she was the only person in Westeros who believed he did not have shit for honour. His face had been flushed with wine, his emerald eyes brighter than the rubies hammered into the Valyrian sword she wore at her side, the sharp planes of his face softened by good humour and the poor light of the inn's room. And he had looked at her, long and appraisingly. "And why is that so, wench?"

"Brienne," she corrected automatically and sternly, and Jaime muttered something about Tarth being the original breeding grounds of humourless wenches. Brienne turned back and looked into her cup, still half full in spite of Jaime's best efforts. "Because you have been kind. I do not think your father raised you that way. But in spite of your family, you are. In your own way."

Smiles do not come easy to Brienne, but one did that night. And it was Jaime's turn to look down into his cup. It did not hide the convulsive swallow of his throat, or the fact that his shining emerald eyes had a suspiciously wet glimmer. Brienne did him a small mercy by draining her cup and running her tongue thoughtfully over moist lips. "I must say though, your taste in wine… that might be shit. This is rather awful." Jaime's empty cup sailing through the air at her was his only reply, along with a warm laugh that remained with her long after he had left Winterfell, taking his Lannister soldiers with him before the first of Sansa's bannermen arrived to swear fealty to her.

She prays that Sansa, seated so high above the charred stone walls, pale and gleaming in the sun as a white tower, will believe in her belief of Jaime's honour. It would make it worth it. She has no doubt that she will die by fire, tooth or claw this morning. Perhaps all three. It will be a swift death. 'Fearfully agonising. But swift.' Her hand slides down Oathkeeper's grip. Valyrian steel would cut through a dragon's scales, of that she has no doubt. She means to spill Drogon's blood, even if it is only a drop. 'At least no other knight can boast of doing the same.' The thought calms her, if only for a moment. The walls of the pit are burned but strong, and impossibly smooth. There are no handholds, nowhere to climb. A great gate sits directly beneath the dais of the Dragon Queen, its black and red curtains flapping in the gentle wind that circles its way into the arena. That is where Drogon will come from, out of stone and darkness, breathing smoke and flame. "Fire and Blood," Brienne murmurs. The crowd will certainly be getting its fill of that today. It occurs to Brienne to perhaps hate Daenerys, but she is a soldier and she understands justice, broken vows and honour in a clearer way than most do.

"Purer. More naively," Jaime pronounced as they rode side by side one winter white day. "Galladon, the Rainbow Knight, not to mention Florian the Fool that every minstrel feels the need to stuff down one's gullet at every single wedding and banquet. Knights don't believe in ideals and honour like those, you do know that?"

"I am not entirely foolish, Ser. In the songs all knights are gallant, all maids are beautiful, and the sun is always shining. Only in the songs, sung by minstrels before battles and after, by minstrels who use their imaginations most liberally to sauce a war they never saw."

"Yes well, your mouth says that but the heart you wear on your sleeve tells me you believe otherwise."

"I do not—"

"Now, now, there's no need to get flustered and upset. When you flush your freckles just get more prominent. See? It's happening, right now."

Brienne was wondering how unchivalrous it would be to knock him flat off his horse in front of Sansa and all his soldiers, when Jaime took her breath away. "Don't change, wench. I'm only saying that because it would be hopeless to get you to do otherwise." Against the silver sky, he gleamed like summer and he had a look on his face that could almost be described as fond. "And I don't believe in any of the rubbish the bards sing either. But then I see you and maybe, just maybe, one or two of them might have gone some way to getting it right."

Again, Brienne wishes that she could have said something then. Instead, her tongue tied itself into knots and they spent the rest of the ride in silence until they broke for camp. Well, actions always speak louder than words, Ser Goodwin always said. Men may boast, knights might bluster. "Save your breath for your steel and the dance." The words resonate so clearly, so firmly in her head that she could almost believe the tall, gruff master-at-arms is at her side. But he had never taught her to fight dragons.

"You did teach me to never give up though." Brienne speaks to a ghost whom she believes does not hear her. Surely, she slides her boots against the ground, tests the stone, eyes the uneven surface and notes the huge gashes that time and the weather have not worn away. Maybe someday, someone will write a song about this. And knowing her luck with such matters, it will not be something along the lines of Serwyn of the Mirror Shield. In spite of her fear, she smiles then. Such does not matter.

The noise of the crowd rises and Brienne pays them some attention for the first time since she stepped into the pit. Jaime has arrived, she knows it. The guards drag him before Daenerys and the pit is large and wide enough for her to have to squint to see him. She cannot see his face but there is no mistaking that golden blond hair. They will make him watch her die.

The slightest tremor shakes the ground underfoot and Brienne pulls her eyes from Jaime. With a reassuring hiss, Oathkeeper is drawn from its sheath, veins of black and red shimmering in the steel as it draws the sun's light to it. A beautiful blade for one last grim dance. Her heart feels like it might burst and before it begins, Brienne goes away inside, folds her chest in ice, in the fleeting tenderness and kindness she has known, in the memory of a king she loved and who died, a noble lady whose memory she still serves, in the affection of a Queen whom she has been proud to serve, of a lion whom she knows she must somehow love, although she does not know if it is the same as the kind she bore Renly.

One last dance. All the world shrinks to this moment, to warm stone under her feet, to the press of skin against leather, to a black gate from which she can see smoke rise. Rubies glitter in the sun and in her mind, they fall like rain upon the Trident.

One last dance.

Jaime knows hatred intimately. He still hates Vargo Hoat, and in his dreams—the good ones—he cuts the man to ribbons slowly and almost lovingly with a sword in his right hand until the golden blade is a thick bloody black and the screams that echo in his ears when he wakes are not his own. He hates Fat Zollo, the Dothraki who took his hand and sometimes Jaime still believes, the best part of him. For awhile, he hated Cersei for betraying them, for cutting him off in a way that was as painful as the three seconds and beyond after the arakh slashed down. The sight of Daenerys' bloodriders draws a snarl from him and the gleaming arakhs at their side, slivers of fear. Jaime despises the involuntary twitch of his fingers and phantom nerves as his eyes glance over these to the Targaryen queen seated on a great chair with swathes of crimson and black that float airily on the wind. Oh yes, he hates and if hate could kill, Daenerys Targaryen and her ilk might burn like grass smothered in wildfire.

But they do not and Jaime cannot help but turn to stare at the great pit, at the impossibly high walls which are bloody ridiculous because really, dragons have wings and even knights in song do not best dragons in open combat. So why in the seven hells is Brienne standing there, waiting to die? Where is Sansa Stark and why has she allowed this… 'Fucking mummer's farce. Everyone is just waiting for the dragon to spit her out.'Oathkeeper leaps like a flame under the sun in her hand and the sight makes Jaime ache all over again, bone-deep and breathless and sick but proud because the Maid of Tarth is showing more courage than an army would. He is in chains and rags, he has no sword hand (and even then this is not a duel he can hope to win for her), he has no House, he is no one. That she does this for him makes Jaime feel a hundred times more worthless than he already knows he is but it straightens his spine and lifts his chin and he turns away from her because he must needs speak to the Dragon Queen and he does not think tears in his eyes will sway her.

"Kill me." The words come out splintered, like a spear shivered when it crashes against armour that does not yield. Jaime clears his throat, takes a step towards the dias, is shoved back and he cannot but help notice that the stone beneath his boots is warm enough for his skin to feel it. The fucking dragon is underneath the floor he stands on, in some great hole and it is just waiting to be released. "Your reptile is already warmed up and the gate is just over this wall. I don't think the fall would kill me." Jaime makes a show of peering over the edge and steps back again. "Yes, I'd definitely survive that though I might break both legs and some other unfortunate bones. But that would make it a better game, wouldn't it? Give the crowd the show you've brought it to bay for. Give them a crippled lion for your dragon to toy with."

Daenerys looks at him as though he were a fool, a mad dog barking and reminds him so much of both Tywin and Aerys that Jaime stops for a moment. "So maybe I'll just toss myself over and while I'm at that, you can get your eunuchs or your Unsullied, whatever they're called, to open up that door I see at the far end and let her through it." He gets as far as dodging the guards behind him and makes it close enough to touch the wall's edge with his hands. Then he is dragged back and two hard blows to his stomach respectively knock the wind from him and possibly crack a rib. Only years of ingrained Lannister pride keep him on his feet without support.

Daenerys speaks in a foreign tongue and it sounds too guttural to Jaime's ears to be High Valyrian. Stone trembles, people draw back and smoke spirals through the air. The gate is lifting. 'Mother, Maiden and Warrior.' He has not prayed in over a decade but even he realises the thought for what it is as it slashes its way through the panic that suffocates him. "Is this what you gained the Iron Throne for? Your father burned worthy and unworthy men with wildfire and now you want to better him by using a dragon on a knight that's worth all your Dothraki, any of your Kingsguard?"

Jaime looks at Barristan Selmy who meets his gaze with a blank coolness that the former and younger Lord Commander recognises. "Oh yes, there it is," he mocks, raising his voice. "Didn't we all look like that when Aerys was on his throne and in the throes of his madness? I still remember Rickard Stark. I still see Brandon Stark. And I can still hear Queen Rhaella." Selmy's stern face, with its fine parchment of wrinkles and silver brows, never changes. "Honourable as always, to the very end." Jaime inclines his head. "You always were the better man, Ser." Even Tyrion, who is—strangely enough—nowhere to be seen would be proud of the knives in his words. Bravado disguises desperation and Jaime knows he can expect no help from the man whom he replaced.

"Be silent, Kingslayer." Daenerys waves a dismissive hand at him and Jaime wishes he could add Queenslayer to the already lengthy list of charges laid at his feet. "It is a choice she made freely, even when I gave her room to free herself without shame from this trial."

"The wench is as stupid and naively stubborn as she is homely," he growls. "She lacks the good sense to make a discerning choice—" Then his throat closes up as the grating of turning chains stops. The crowd holds its collective breath and the arena holds the silence of a thousand graves. Then Drogon steps out, walks beyond the space where it was held and the pit shakes. Even Jaime's eyes widen as he stares at the back of that massive skull, the long neck that arches like a great serpent, the black scales that don't shine but which seem to suck down the sunlight into darkness, the curved horns that twist and rise to sharp ends that he has no doubt will split armour as easily as Valyrian steel would naked skin. 'And they say the dragon is not done growing,' he thinks numbly. No wonder men screamed "Balerion!" even in their death throes. And then the dragon spread its wings and the sun seemed to go out. 'I wonder if Tyrion has ever been so close to a dragon. I wonder what he would say now.'

But his brother has deserted him and Jaime cannot find anything that would vindicate any resentment he might feel at that fact. In all truth, he never resented Tyrion for doing that. He does think he is beginning to understand the kind of rage that led Tyrion to climb a secret passage and murder their father, the anger that he has fed on for years. Tyrion's words, spoken so long ago in darkness between them, now might be his own. If they killed Brienne…

…I can't begin to tell you what you've earned. But you'll have it, that I swear to you. A Lannister always pays his debts…

She will kill him anyway. This might kill him. Despair dampens blinding fury and Jaime knows there is no vengeance worth seeking if it ends here today. 'A Lannister always pays his debts.'

"What do you want?" He turns to Daenerys Stormborn, daughter of Aerys and a strange sense of déjà vu seizes Jaime. This is the second time he is going to beg a Targaryen. Jaime barely feels it when he goes down on one knee, and then the other. "Tell me what you want from me and I will pay it. She's worth a thousand of me when I was fifteen and unspoiled, she's wiser than I'll ever be and…" He falters, swallows, grasps for words to move this queen. "You showed mercy to innocents and the oppressed. She is innocent. And honourable."

Danerys rises from her great chair and moves like wind over water down the steps of the dais until she stands before him. "What will you give?" Cool fingers touch his chin and raise his head so he is blinded by the sun that lights her silver-gold hair and turns it into a crown of flame. "How will you pay for her life?"

He has offered to die. But she does not want that. She wants him to suffer. Drogon roars and it is so near but seems to echo over a great distance because Jaime is thinking about Qyburn, about a great spurt of blood and the clean cut of white bone and utter disbelief as he watched his wrist come apart from his hand. He is thinking of phantom pains and twitches, of dreams where he is whole, of swords he will never wield and tears shed in hours turned bitter because he is so fucking helpless and it is just one hand, only one hand.

He thinks about his father and how Tywin smelt as the guards pulled him from the latrine. Was it fear or just a dying body's natural functions? Jaime thinks he might faint but he'll be damned if he's the first Lannister to piss himself in front of a king or queen. So when he lifts his arms and holds out his left wrist to her, he keeps his eyes opened and on his hand. "Take it," he whispers, and it takes every ounce of courage he has not to snatch his arms back and cradle his hand against his chest. He knows exactly what will happen when she does and he is so frightened but… "Quickly." He can't recognise that tense, hoarse voice as his own.

There is movement. Someone clad in horsehair leggings moves forward and Jaime wants to scream and laugh because it is an arakh again and he is back at the bloody sept with Vargo Hoat and Fat Zollo and life is over because if he does not die this time, he will find some way to kill himself.

Would that he could change his mind. But either way, the Dragon Queen will have her blood and Brienne will not die by fire. Jaime clenches his jaw so hard that his face hurts and he cannot stop himself from shaking, the chains from rattling so that they sing his shame. But he keeps his hand out, green eyes wide and staring, and waits for the blade to fall. He should go away inside, but somehow he feels… 'I don't think that will work this time.'

And then Daenerys Targaryen shifts and Jaime watches the strike come down in a silvery arc he has relived in his nightmares. And in spite of himself, he screams.