Author note

The chronology described in this story, particularly the ten year gap between prologue and story, will not add up with the chronology of the books.

Prologue

The woods were dark and sighing, but fiery and alive with torches; and the voices of the search party as they called out:

'Arya!'

Jaime walked further and further away from them, calling them cretins under his breath. If they were all clustered together in the same place and shouting 'Arya' at the tops of their lungs without getting a response, then shouldn't they spread out slightly? Split up?

Ned bloody Stark. Jaime doubted he'd do well as Hand of the King if he couldn't even organise a search properly.

Nevertheless, the incompetence of it suited him. It meant that he would be alone if he found her. When he found her.

What is it about the Starks? he thought, I would never have dreamed of murdering a child before this bloody trip, let alone two.

The thought of Cersei made him shrug.

There's always a first time.

'You can come in now.'

Cersei's voice had been so soft after the hours of screaming, arguing and smashing wine glasses that Jaime had barely heard her. But he had known that she was calling him, because she was him and he was her, and when he had pushed open the door and entered the room, he had walked across the threshold into chaos. A broken inkwell had been drip-drip-dripping its contents onto the floor and turning the flagstones the colour of blood in the dark; furniture had been upended and broken and smashed; one of the windows had been cracked from where Robert had no doubt attempted to throw a chair through it; and His Grace Robert of the House Baratheon, First of His Name, King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm, had been passed out snoring, drunk, and exhausted on the carpet.

The trouble had started earlier that day, when the eldest Stark girl had come racing out of the woods, her cheeks and hair aflame, bearing the news that her sister's wolf had tried to rip Joff's arm off, and that the Crown prince was now lying incapacitated on a river bank, in grave danger of bleeding to death.

When a search party comprising fifty red cloaks, three Kingsguard and five maesters had returned to the inn less than an hour later; their precious, howling, shrieking cargo bearing nothing more serious than a wound that could have been sustained in an unusually boring mêlée, the story had become infinitely more embellished and dramatic; the brightly coloured threads of Joffrey's memory (imagination?) spinning a great tapestry: a haunting story of a lonely prince by a river trying to protect his lady love…from a skinny little girl of one-and-ten and some lowlife butcher's boy, who had beaten the prince about the head with clubs; disarmed him; thrown his sword into the river and commanded a great fearsome beast of a wolf to tear him limb from limb; only to disappear faint-heartedly into the woods and leave him there to die.

Jaime had stood biting his tongue for much of the tale (Renly Baratheon had had less success and had had to be led from the hall crying with laughter), and Jaime had watched Cersei with a combination of pity and love and disdain as she had sat there holding Joff's hand, believing every incredible word the boy said.

The girl was still missing – gone to drink blood in her lair, no doubt – and no sooner had Ned Stark led a large party of Stark and Lannister men into the woods to search for her that Cersei and Robert had begun to argue; and the real bloodbath had started.

Cersei and Robert had screamed at each other for hours; their argument carried out in voices that could no doubt be heard from Dorne to the Wall and continuing in the same tedious bloody vein for most of the night. Cersei had demanded that Arya be punished in the old manner by having her hand struck off; Robert had called her a mad, cruel bitch; Cersei had declared that she would accept nothing less; Robert had called her a mad, cruel bitch; and so it had continued on and on into the early hours of the morning; Cersei growing angrier, Robert growing drunker; and Jaime outside their chamber door; a small part of him agreeing that losing a hand was an excessive punishment for making a fool of Joffrey; the rest of him trying to stop himself from bursting into the room and sticking a sword in Robert's belly; particularly when the king began to throw things.

If he lays a finger on her, I'll kill him; king or not.

But Robert hadn't hit her, and Jaime hadn't killed him, and when Robert had finally passed out with the argument unresolved, Cersei had called Jaime in to the chaos; and they had both stood staring at the enormous blubbering mess on the floor; the fire lighting identical candles in their golden hair.

Jaime had smirked at her.

'Do you want me to carry him to bed?' he had asked.

Cersei's lip had curled in disgust.

'I'd prefer it if you carried me to bed,' she had replied.

She had undone the laces of her bed robe and stepped out of it, and he had carried her to bed and fucked her. And it had been as if the days and weeks and constant refusals had never happened; as if her green eyes had not coldly flashed 'no, not here' on the road north, and at Winterfell, and then again on the road south after that bloody incident with bloody Bran Stark. It had been as though Jaime hadn't hated her and loved her, hate and love both, for all that time; for her coldness and restraint and her violent green eyes and easy ability to be without him. Because her ability to be without him was a lie, and it always would be. They could not be apart. Sometimes she convinced him otherwise, as she had done for the past six weeks, but it was a lie, a lie, a lie; a lie that felt like the truth when it was happening, but a lie nonetheless; an impossibility.

'I cannot be without you,' Cersei had whispered, her fingers caressing his back as he fucked her, 'you are my other half, my other –'

She had cried out as his cock had hardened further inside her, and he had been overcome by a sudden, euphoric vision of Robert waking up, and seeing, and realising, and screaming as Jaime sent the life tearing out of him; and stood over him and watched him die before returning to Cersei and fucking her with Robert's blood still red and wet on his hands. He and Cersei could not be apart; pretending that they could be was a lie, and one that she would never have to tell again; not to him, not to anyone –

'I want –' Cersei had moaned, clutching him, 'I want –'

They could not be apart; she could not bear it, as he could not; he had known that she was lying to him; he knew every time it happened despite the anger and the agony it caused him. She might sometimes pretend otherwise, but she wanted him; him and no one else.

'I want – '

Me and no one else.

'– her dead,' Cersei had finished, arching her back as she found her release.

He came. He collapsed on top of her. He had breathed with her lungs and she with his lungs, and their hearts had beaten perfectly in time, and Robert had been alive on the carpet, not dead; but for a while, they could pretend that he was.

'Go out and find the Stark girl and kill her,' Cersei had gasped, whispering frantically in his ear as her chest had heaved against his, 'don't bring me her hand, bring me her head. Kill her for me, brother, sweet brother. Kill her for me.'

And he had wanted the Stark girl dead too, because what he wanted and what Cersei wanted would always be the same; they would always be the same; even when she pretended otherwise; even when she lied to him; even when her eyes told him that they could be apart, and live.

So as he stood there in the dark wood, the rest of the party far behind him now, Jaime's blood rushed at the thought of Cersei's skin, and how familiar it had felt, and the relief and the rapture that had come from that familiarity. But there had also been pain and worry and panic; the pain of a woman who had almost lost her son; who had almost endured that hurt; that hurt that would also have been his hurt. Nobody could be allowed to do that to them; to threaten them with that. Least of all a daughter of Eddard Stark. Stark had already taken more than was his due, both from him and from Cersei, because Jaime and Cersei were the same; and there was nothing like blood for pain and revenge; the blood of a child for the blood of a child.

The woods were very dark. He had no torch, but he could see. The trees rose up around him like giants; speaking to each other in the language of the leaves; passing their words along on the wind. And a voice came to him on that wind, a very small voice; a high one; the voice of a child.

'You have to go,' the voice said, 'they'll kill you if you stay. You need to run. Leave!'

Found her.

As he edged forward, the earth became damp beneath his feet. There must be a spring nearby, or a stream.

A stream. Arya Stark was on her haunches next to it, small and thin and loud; and next to her was a huge, pale shape trying to lick her face. The wolf. His hands strayed to his sword and dagger.

'Just go!' the girl insisted, shoving the wolf away from her, 'go, stupid, do you want to die?'

The wolf whimpered. The girl's voice cracked. It was an audible sound; like a branch snapping in her throat; like a blade snapping during combat; like a chain breaking.

She leaned forward and put her arms around the wolf's neck; as though it were a person rather than an animal. The wolf whimpered again, and she whimpered with it. Then she shoved the beast away again. Hard. Brutal.

'Go,' she commanded, tears heavy in her throat, 'Go!'

The wolf edged a few feet away from her, then turned again; as though unsure of what to do; as though leaving the girl were against nature.

And the girl was picking up a rock, heavy and jagged and cruel, and throwing it. The beast yelped in pain as the stone struck its muzzle, drawing blood, and the girl's face and body were turmoil and upheaval and contradiction in an unspoken language go stay go stay go stay.

'GO!' she shouted.

The wolf went. It loped off into the trees like a shadow and did not look back. And the girl sat where she was and cried; apartness heavy in her lungs and voice; her own strength, her own loneliness, choking her.

He watched her for a long time. The night grew darker around him. She brooded, and hugged her knees, and sniffled, and Jaime looked at her head and neck, remembering Cersei's words.

Kill her for me, brother, sweet brother. Kill her for me.

Jaime walked slowly towards her. She looked up, and recognised him. Her gaze travelled from his face, to his hand on his sword, and back to his face again. The grief that seethed in her eyes became an angry glow, and he could tell that she knew why he was there. He saw her wanting to run, and her feet not letting her. Shock. Realisation. Inevitability.

She overcame them soon enough. She ran. He ran after her. And when he caught her, she screamed.

He expected her to scream for the wolf. A long time had passed, but the beast couldn't have gone far, and though she had struck it and hurt it, it would certainly return to protect her if she screamed loudly enough. She must have known that.

Instead, she screamed at him.

'You leave Nymeria alone!' she shouted, her tiny wrists twisting and her nails scratching as he restrained her with one hand and drew his sword, 'you leave her alone!'

Both her wrists were caught in his left hand, her pulse was hysteria and frenzy beneath his fingers, and all the time she did not look at him, not even when he raised the point of the sword to her throat. She looked over her left shoulder, and over her right, and then tried to see around him, oblivious to the glowing steel danger at her throat – or uncaring.

Seven hells. She cares more for the bloody wolf's life than she does for her own.

The world turned quiet after that.

Perhaps it was the realisation itself. Perhaps it was the courage and the anger in her voice. Or perhaps it was the freedom that she had given the beast without a thought for herself; the freedom that she refused to take back; that she would not take back; even in the face of her own death.

Whatever it was, it made him sheathe his sword; the sound like a needle on glass. And she stared at him for a moment, and ran.

I should follow her.

He didn't.

He watched her small form flying away into the trees for a moment; agile as her wolf had been only minutes ago; what must have been only minutes ago; but which now felt like hours; and he scarcely had time to wonder what the fuck he was going to do when a sharp yell rang out of the darkness, and the sound of a body hitting earth. And swearing under his breath, he went after her.

She was lying on her side clutching her leg. The limb did not look broken, but her small, ugly face was screwed up in pain; her eyes delirious with it and glaring at him with an expression of profound disgust, and not a trace of fear.

'Do your fucking worst,' the little girl growled.

Her words should have seemed comical to him. Under any other circumstances, he would have laughed. But there was an anger in the way that she spat out the words: a viciousness that was not childlike, or affected. It was innate. Buried deep. Sleeping.

'I'm going to help you up,' he proposed, as though he hadn't just tried to slit her throat.

'Fine,' the girl replied, her tone showing a similar willingness to forget what had just transpired.

But no sooner had he pulled her to her feet that she was off again; trying her best to run away; her leg not allowing her to; and before she had gone ten feet Jaime had caught her again; slinging her over his shoulder and beginning the journey back to the inn while she screamed and struggled like a demon; her efforts valiant, but useless. Jaime let her yell for a while. Then she started to irritate him.

'If you don't stop that, I'm going to clout you around the head,' he threatened.

'Put me down!' she shouted.

'You can't walk.'

'I can walk!'

'Liar.'

'Murderer!'

'Is that your idea of an insult, little girl?'

'It's not an insult; you tried to kill Nymeria and you tried to kill me!'

'I most certainly did not.'

'Yes, you did, and when I tell my father about it, he'll have you killed!'

'I think you must have been dreaming, my lady.'

'I was not dreaming!'

'It's nothing to be ashamed of. Children often have nightmares in the woods.'

'It wasn't a stupid nightmare, and when I get my own sword back, I'll chop your stupid head off!'

Seven hells, Jaime thought when they eventually reached the inn after half an hour of bickering, she's absolutely fucking exhausting.

He found Robert awake and still arguing with Cersei (downstairs, this time), and as Jaime unceremoniously dumped the girl onto one of the common room chairs; ignoring her disgruntled yelp of protest and stepping away from her, Robert asked him why the fuck he had been out searching instead of remaining at his post.

Jaime straightened up.

'It was my royal sister's command, Your Grace,' he declared coldly; his face like stone as Cersei, her eyes like wildfire, asked him if there had been any sign of the beast during his search.

'None, Your Grace,' Jaime replied, 'it seems to have disappeared.'

The little girl stared at him; anger, disbelief and shock turning her eyes black, and Jaime looked firmly back at Robert as though waiting for another instruction, determined not to observe her.

The stern and condemnatory tones of a familiar, stick-up the arse voice rang out from the corridor behind him.

'What is the meaning of this? Why was my daughter not brought to me at once?'

'Ser Jaime took her straight in to the king, my lord –'

The common room door burst open, and Ned Stark stormed into the place like a hurricane; his angry glare shifting from Jaime to Cersei to Robert to the girl, as though deliberating on which one he should murder first.

It must run in the family.

Ned Stark walked quickly to where his daughter sat, and took her in his arms.

'Are you alright?' he demanded; affection and fear heavy in his voice.

'I'm sorry,' she replied, embracing him with admirable composure, 'I'm sorry; things just –'

Stark kissed her forehead and held her close and looked emotionlessly at Jaime.

'Thank you,' he said.

Jaime snorted, and waited; waited for the child to open her mouth and accuse him.

The girl looked at him, and said nothing.

Scared, probably. She must be scared I'll try it again.

Her eyes were the colour of rain and fog, and her voice was the texture of iron.

'Thank you, Ser Jaime,' she said flatly, 'I hope to repay your kindness someday.'

As Jaime excused himself and walked away, he almost laughed out loud at the child's blatant and pathetic attempt to be sinister.

How does she plan on 'repaying my kindness someday?' he thought, sending me an angry letter? Trying to stab me with a knitting needle?

He put it out of his mind immediately; as he did with all insignificant things. For the time being, there was Cersei to worry about.

Cersei, and the things he did for love.