XVI.

                                    

                                          
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
[ riverrun ]

                            

                                
                            
                              
                                  
                              
                              
                                
                                  
                                  
                                
                              
                             
                            
                            
                          
                          
THE SIGHT OF RIVERRUN, EVEN SURROUNDED BY LANNISTER MEN, BROUGHT HER GREAT COMFORT. A place from her childhood, and a place where, she knew, a surviving member of her family currently resided. Her uncle Brynden Tully, the Blackfish. 
From their place atop a nearby hill, Visenya could clearly see the golden head of the Kingslayer. He rode around his men on his white horse in his shiny red and gold armour, and it was there that she watched her messenger be brought to him. The messenger — a boy, a second son of a second son of one of the houses in the Reach — remained there for several minutes conveying his message to the Kingslayer. Not long after, he returned, telling her, "the Kingslayer agrees to meet with you, Your Grace."
She left Aurane and Grey Wind, the only two of her closest circle she brought with her, and waited for him at the agreed upon meeting place — an open clearing between hills half a league away from both armies. He arrived not long after she did, all of him gleaming in the afternoon sun. Every bit a Lannister lion. 
But this Kingslayer was not the arrogant, cocky man she met at Winterfell years ago, this much she could tell. This Kingslayer was older, tired, beaten down. This Kingslayer had lines on his face, bags under his eyes, and one hand. The years since his imprisonment had not been kind to him, and it nearly made her smile. 
They both dismounted their horses, and met in the middle of the clearing. "Ser Jaime," she was first to greet, giving him the respect he did not deserve. 
"My lady," he replied, inclining his head to her. 
A smile tugged at her lips at his pointed usage of an incorrect title, but did not form. "I will make this quick. I have little time to spare, and what I do have I do not relish spending with you. I have brought with me eight thousand men. I understand this is the number you have, total, coupled with Walder Frey's men. My men joined with the Blackfish's outnumber you, easily. 
"You have two choices: stay and fight and die, or be captured and sent to rot in a cell on Dragonstone until I return to take your head, or, turn back, and go home."
The Kingslayer studied her for a moment, as if attempting to read her. But, as Tyrion had told her before she left Dragonstone, reading people was not a skill that Jaime Lannister possessed. "Why give me the choice?" He finally asked. "Why not draw your sword, cut me down where I stand, and rid the world of the man that killed your father?"
She smiled as she answered him, coming to realize that Tyrion had been entirely in the right. The Kingslayer cannot read people. "You give me far less credit than I deserve, Ser," she said. "I have three reasons that hold together the paper-thin restraint keeping me from drawing my sword. First, I owe you a debt. You knew who I was when you visited Winterfell, and yet you said nothing to the usurper, who you knew would have had my head within the hour. For that, a life debt is owed, for which I am repaying you, right now.