GoT S8E4 Ch. 04 - Apotheosis

***

Sansa knocked softly on Brienne's door. "Brienne? It's Sansa. I know you sent word you were unwell. I just wanted to see if the maester was needed."

"You may enter, Lady Sansa," she said. She almost sounded normal.

Sansa came in quickly and shut the door. Brienne sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the floor. She was undressed, still in her nightshirt, but she wore an armoring coat and her boots sat on the floor next to her. "How are you, really? The guards at the gate said Ser Jaime rode out before dawn. They said you had words?"

Brienne took short breaths and rubbed her eyes, but tears came anyway. "He's ridden South."

"Is he to join the Northern army?" Sansa asked.

Brienne's tears still threatened. "I couldn't say," she said with a sigh.

"But what do you think?" Sansa pressed, a small voice nagging her at the back of her mind.

Brienne looked up, studying Sansa's face. "My lady, I believe he's gone to die with his sister. But I wouldn't want the Northmen to know this, if possible. At least until everything is done in King's Landing, I would hold out hope he's gone to aid his brother, or at worst to speak sense to that poisonous woman. I don't think he'll fight for her."

"I see," Sansa said. Brienne was pale, and her eyes and nose were red, as if she'd been crying. "Forgive me, but how are you? You were obviously close. As much as I didn't care for the Kingslayer, he was always good to you."

"Please don't call him that. He's a shit and has other crimes to his name, but that name isn't fair, my lady. Please don't use it with me," Brienne said in a dull tone. Noticing Sansa's confusion, Brienne continued, "Do you know what wildfire is?"

"It's green fire, explosive, and burns hot. Tyrion used it to destroy Stannis' fleet in Blackwater Bay. It's also what Cersei used to level the Great Sept of Baelor, or so I'm told," Sansa said.

"Yes, exactly. Mad King Aerys had his pyromancers place it everywhere under the city. At the end of Robert's Rebellion, when the rebel armies approached, King Ayres was going to have the pyromancers blow up the city and everyone in it. So Jaime killed the pyromancers, and then sixteen-year-old Jamie killed the king, saving the city and everyone in it. When the rebels arrived, no one wanted an explanation, they only wanted to judge him."

Sansa sat down in a chair at the table, facing Brienne. "All those people. What kind of king destroys his own city? And all that judgment - all these years. Even my father."

Brienne took a deep breath. "As you say. Jaime is not wholly bad," Brienne said. "No matter what he thinks." Brienne fell back into the bed, sobbing, curling up with her back to Sansa.

Sansa realized again, as she had at his trial, Jaime Lannister was the reason she was sitting safely in her own keep. He had attacked her family, but out of loyalty to his brother and House. When she had been a Lannister, he had been polite. What had she done - what would she do for the honor and safety of her family? "I am sorry, Brienne. Ser Jaime is a complicated man. But I asked about you - how are you?"

Brienne hiccupped a few breaths, as if trying to answer, but then simply wailed. Heartbroken was not too strong a word, it was plain to see. Sansa stood and went to the bed, sitting on it and rubbing Brienne's back. Her mother had done this, when she was small, and it had always calmed her down. Brienne continued to cry, as if an entire life's frustrations and sorrows were coming up, like she was purging sickness from her body. Sansa kept rubbing her back.

She was surprised by the depth of Brienne's feelings for the - for Jaime. Her mother trusted Brienne. She trusted Brienne. Brienne trusted and cared for Jaime. Perhaps there was more to him than she would have guessed. She felt bad now, for how she had treated him after the Battle of Winterfell. The tasks she knew he would loath. Her questions about his intentions toward Brienne, toward her House. For basically telling him his sister was going to die in the sacking of King's Landing. Perhaps she had been out of the North too long.

When the large woman had calmed a little, she said through hiccups, "We, what we had, it wasn't enough for him to stay. I just - I just wasn't enough." The crying started over again, and her sturdy frame was wracked with heaving sobs.

"You can't think that," Sansa said, her own faded conscience now biting at her stomach. "He did respect you, did care for you, he told me so himself. Your opinion mattered to him. Knighting you - he said it was the honor of his life. He knows your worth."

Brienne rolled over to look at Sansa. She had never been pretty and was less so now. Her face was all puffy and red, and sorrow pulled the corners of her mouth down, even as the tears made her blue eyes sparkle. "He said that?"

"Truly," Sansa answered. Sansa had seen Jaime with Cersei, and she had seen Jaime with Brienne. He had been different here at Winterfell, as if chastened. "You made him laugh, with real mirth. Cersei never did that. And your common interests. He never sat with her talking of swords and training, and martial whatnot. They did not share war stories. She barely listened to him at court, and she always seemed disappointed with him. Your smile made him blush, like he was embarrassed to be cared for so much," she continued. "And, whatever happened in your bedroom, he kept that to himself. Tyrion said he tried to get him to talk, but that all he would say," these words had made Sansa a little emotional when she first heard them, and they did so again now. She wiped her eyes. "All he would say was that you were to be treasured."

Brienne started crying again, but this time through a smile, at least briefly. "Treasured. But not enough." She rolled over and gave her back to Sansa again.

Brienne was older than Sansa, but in many ways still - young. Sansa took a deep breath and tried to remember herself as a young girl, a stupid romantic girl. She had cried when her father suggested breaking her engagement to that monster Joffrey, not that she knew any better at the time. So, perhaps Brienne was due a good cry, but she'd be damned if she'd let the woman blame herself for Jaime's damage. "Sometimes, things happen to people, and it changes them. It changes who they are, how they think about themselves, the world. It was like that for Theon Greyjoy. Ramsay Bolton captured Winterfell from Theon. He beat him, tortured him - unmanned him. He convinced Theon that his name was Reek and that no one loved him, only Ramsey loved him. When Yara Greyjoy, Theon's sister, came to rescue him, he wouldn't leave. He couldn't get himself to believe that anyone loved him that much, that it wasn't some trick Ramsey was playing. He chose to stay with Ramsay because all that torture, all that pain, all the things that Theon had done before - they made him believe he didn't deserve good things.

"I didn't know this about Ramsay, when I married him. He hid it from me, until our wedding night. I expected a little pain, my septa was very clear about that, but what Ramsay did, what he continued to do - I am not the same. Theon saved himself, he saved me. And then you saved us both," Sansa left off, emotions she hadn't thought about in some time bubbling up from the pit of her stomach. Sansa realized she had been using her pain, her rage, what she had learned at the hands of her tormentors too much. If they were their inside her, so were her father and mother, Maester Luwin and Septa Mordane. The South had had many lessons, but she was in the North now. She needed to remember.

"You tried to save Jaime. His leaving here had no more to do with you than Theon's not leaving had to to with Yara. Theon got free, in the end, but Jaime has been tortured by that snake of a sister his entire life. They were born together. I don't think he knew how else to be, until you. The Lannister sigil should be vipers." Sansa observed that the tears had stopped, though the heavy hiccups remained. "And now, the poison has sunk too deep. Despite how he cares for you, treasures you, laughs with you, she has already blighted his heart. He is already dead. You cannot blame yourself."

Sansa wondered something else. She waited until Brienne had calmed even more. "Can I ask you something, something private? I - I just, if I am going to do Jaime the kindness of hiding his disgrace as long as I can, I would like to know one last thing, and then you should have the rest of your cry out."

"You may ask anything, Lady Sansa. I have no secrets," she said.

"Alright then," Sansa said. "Jaime Lannister can be a shit, and Jaime Lannister can be honorable, but is he - was he good to you? Kind, as a man should be to a woman?"

Brienne started, and then turned over and sat up, looking Sansa in the eye and studying her face, making Sansa feel like a bit of a vulture. "I can see this isn't for jest, Lady Sansa, so I'll give you a better answer than Jaime gave Tyrion," she said, taking Sansa's hand. "Jaime is a shit, and a coward, and right now I hate him, but he was a tender lover, from the first to the last. Not that I expect it to happen, but were I ever to come to care for a man again, and he for me, it would be no hardship to take him to bed. What happens between women and men can be a joy, should be a joy."

It was Sansa's turn to cry. She wiped the tears away. "I'm sorry. These will be over in a moment. My mother always said much the same, and bore my father five children in happiness. I have to trust both of you. The stupid, romantic little girl I once was still adores a love story, even a tragic one," she said.

Brienne leaned back against the headboard next to Sansa. "I hope, Lady Sansa, that whatever happens, whatever is or has been horrible in this life, that we never give up on fairy tales, not really. But instead of the handsome knight there is the broken one, and the fierce maiden, rather than the fair."

Sansa laughed and wiped her tears. "Where the princess saves herself and the king, and the ending is both bitter and sweet."

***

Sansa read the raven and passed it to Brienne. Brienne read the scroll, hardly knowing what the words meant.

~~~

Attack on King's Landing began as planned. Queen Daenerys successful in destroying Iron Fleet, remaining Scorpions, and bringing down the main gate. Northern forces began the sack of the city. Soon the bells rang for surrender. Despite the bells, Queen Daenerys and Drogon razed the city with Northern forces still inside. Most of the Red Keep was destroyed. Cersei, Euron Greyjoy, and other advisors presumed dead. Northern forces fell back upon attack of the city after surrender, but upon writing, whereabouts unclear.

~~~

***

It was strange, being in Winterfell, in her room, safe and warm.

Brienne entered her room, placed her cloak on the pegs, and looked to the fire, but her eye stopped on a flash of red. On her bed, on what had been Jaime's side, was a long bundle of red cloth, and a letter bearing her name in a rough script. She sat on the bed next to the bundle and unwrapped it. It was a beautifully embroidered Lannister banner swaddling Widow's Wail. She wept silently, as she read the letter. When she was done she pulled Oathkeeper from her sheath and laid the two swords together. After a moment Brienne laid down on the bed and cried herself to sleep.

In the morning, after tending to the swords and the fire, she dressed and went about her day.

***

~~~

Ser Brienne -

People are full of contradictions. They want things one way. Then they want them another. You are either a beauty or a beast. A hero or a kingslayer. They are almost always half-right.

As you know, I have only been with two women in my life. A beauty and a beast. You are the beauty, who has tried to offer me grace at every turn. You very nearly made me an honorable man, Ser. You are my better self.

I know you will eventually forgive me for choosing my worser part, so I leave you Widow's Wail as remembrance of me. Keep it always with Oathkeeper. They belong together.

We don't choose who we love, but know this - one Jaime died in your arms in the baths at Harrenhal. We both tried to make the Jaime that rose from that bath a good man. Sadly, I am too much a coward. If I have any luck, I will die with Cersei before I ever have to face the shame of leaving you. It would be a good joke, by both the Old Gods and the New, if I had been fated to die twice, both times in the arms of the woman I love.

Farewell Ser-

Jaime