Chapter Text
After was an eternity, it seemed to Brienne, a spell of time so preternaturally calm she often found herself wondering whether she would soon awake as though from a dream. But she did not dream, she knew. This was merely peace. This was everything that followed.
As he dozed in the grass beside her, she ran a lazy hand through Jaime’s hair. It had grown long in the months since the war, the honey-gold strands curling at their ends.
Spring had come, and with it the lingering light of a lengthening sun. In the meadow where they lay, the pink heads of wildflowers tipped gently in the wind, and below them Brienne could hear the changing of the evening tide as the waves crashed into the cove. She could stay there forever and not move. The horses would like that as well, Brienne thought as she glanced idly at their two mares making themselves fat on the young grass. But the sun was only two hands from the horizon, and soon they should be getting back to their guests. Lady Arya and Lord Gendry had arrived with a small party in tow from Storm’s End only that morning. She would need to wake Jaime if they were to make it back for the feast that had been prepared in their honor.
“Husband,” she said in a voice that barely reached above a whisper.
“Wife,” he grumbled in return, and her heart jumped as he rolled toward her and draped an arm over her middle. His palm fell across her wrist, and his touch was heavy and warm.
Brienne sighed out through her nose. A while longer, then. She shut her eyes, smiling.
Theirs had been a great deal more modest a wedding than the one the King and Queen had enjoyed in the capital, yet still each time Brienne thought of it she felt her cheeks warm at the memory. It felt to her that half of Westeros had come to her little isle of Tarth to see her wed the Lion of Lannister. Boats crowded the harbor, and she had never known the halls of her childhood to be so full.
As the evenstar rose in the east, the great procession began. Their guests carried long-stemmed candles as they wound their way from the white walls of Evenfall Hall down through the small godswood to end at last at the sept that leaned out on a crag over the sea. It was the same procession her mother once made, and the same her mother’s mother made. Brienne had been comforted by that, even while she felt the press of people around her and as ever sensed their eyes upon her.
She was dressed that day in a fine gown the color of the night sky, which itself was simple enough, but for the long sleeves of silver cloth and a sash embroidered with suns and crescents. Her maids had set pins tipped with pearls into her hair, giving her the glistening look of having just emerged from the sea.
She might have felt ridiculous, were it not for Oathkeeper hanging on her hip, or for her father’s smile as she turned to look for him, or for the memory of her mother, or for Jaime.
He’d worn the twin to her sword at his own waist, but for their wedding day he had the stones changed to sapphires. She did not notice until he swung the cloak of crimson and gold over her shoulders. Brienne could still remember the pang of tears in her eyes as she had looked up from the blade at his hip to meet his gaze. I had a little dagger called Sapphire once, when I was a girl, Brienne had told him one night as he brushed his hand along the length of her bare back. It had a little blue stone at its hilt.
When he saw her looking, Jaime’s mouth stretched to a grin. To the roar of the crowds, she leant forward then captured those lips in a kiss, and his stump rose up to cradle her face.
Their wedding feast had stretched on into the early hours of morning, but at last she and Jaime escaped from the crowds, Brienne leading him by hand away over the hill and down a crumbling bit of cliff to the little cove where she spent many hours swimming as a child.
“Is this where you brought all your suitors?” he groused. Once that would have stung her, but Brienne only answered with a laugh. She lobbed a stone in his direction, and it went skittering past his feet.
“Your clothes, Lord Jaime.”
She was stepping out of her gown already, shivering where the night air touched her. She could feel him watching her, and she turned.
He was staring, unmoving. Behind her, the sea tossed under the moon and stars.
Then, slowly, he tugged away his cloak and let the rest of his clothing fall to a pile beside it.
Brienne moved backward into the sea. The water lapped against her calves, and she winced. It was cold, not yet warmed from the winter storms. She made herself walk further into the waves until the water encircled her waist.
Jaime edged into the water after her. His eyes widened as he lowered his body deeper.
“It’s bleeding cold,” he shouted, and she laughed, emboldened, giddy. She found his hand beneath the water and pulled him to her.
They’d come back to the cove often after that night. They would walk along its edge, tossing stones into the clear water, while they talked over the latest news from King’s Landing or resolved together how to address this or that petty concern among the stormlords. Sometimes Brienne would come alone and turn up the hill to the high bit of meadow that pointed west, where she had brought stones by the handful and placed them in a ring to mark Podrick’s grave. His body was not there, but when she visited that bit of cliff by the sea, she felt near enough to him. And she would shut her eyes, letting the cold spray touch her, and remember the long road that bore her back to this place.
Jaime stirred beside her, rousing her from her thoughts. The sun had dropped lower in the sky, and far off the sea birds were crying. Arya and Gendry would be waiting. She took Jaime’s hand, threading her fingers through his. Absently she moved their palms together over the swell of her stomach. There would be a child soon. Both Brienne and Jaime sensed it would be a girl and had talked long into the night about the babe, the world they would show her, the world they would give her to find on her own. Perhaps tonight at the feast they would tell Arya. Brienne smiled at that.
“Time to go,” she said. She touched his temple lightly.
Jaime hummed his defeat, sighing out a warm breath over her skin.
They rose and went together.