Until the end of time

The wench looked as ugly and awkward as ever, he decided when Tyrell left them. Someone had dressed her in woman's clothes again, but this dress fit much better than that hideous pink rag the goat had made her wear. "Blue is a good color on you, my lady," Jaime observed. "It goes well with your eyes." She does have astonishing eyes.

Brienne glanced down at herself, flustered. "Septa Donyse padded out the bodice, to give it that shape. She said you sent her to me." She lingered by the door, as if she meant to flee at any second. "You look . . ."

"Different?" He managed a half-smile. "More meat on the ribs and fewer lice in my hair, that's all. The stump's the same. Close the door and come here."

She did as he bid her. "The white cloak . . ."

". . . is new, but I'm sure I'll soil it soon enough."

"That wasn't . . . I was about to say that it becomes you."

Plssss tap on it for better quality

asoiaf blackout poetry.

*deep breath* I have one question. Just one. It is this: what has been going on, under and amid all the layers of calculation and trauma and still more calculation in this man's mind, to make this his response to her unexpected appearance?

Not "Lady Brienne." Not "wench." And not a moment of hesitation; just instantaneous recognition (despite her exhaustion and disfiguring wounds, good god), the gesture of respect that he owes no one in this camp and few in the realm, and a title that few men have ever given her without a sneer.

Just saying.

The possessive I read as fairly normal. However. As you say, the fact that it doesn't occur to him to mistrust her says a lot both about how exhausted he is, and about what he believes about her. I mean, this is Jaime Lannister, who is so tired that he is barely eating, frequently dissociating, having flashbacks at dawn, and also, at this precise moment, reflecting on the constructed nature of history and the charms of the unknowable. Truly the fact that this man is a history nerd is THE hottest thing about him. Anyway. To him enters Brienne of Tarth, and this man who has been learning distrust for *checks notes* almost two decades and more than half his lifetime does not even consider the possibility that she might not be telling the truth. She gets no cross-examination. No questioning. Or at least, if that happens, we don't see it. All we know is the report afterwards: that he abandons his post, his role, his campaign, with barely so much as an explanation to the small army surrounding him, because it (apparently!) does not even cross his mind that she might not be telling the truth.

She is the most fundamentally upright person he knows. Her convictions run counter to everything he believes about how the world works. But in this moment! in this moment, he follows her as though he believes in her version of reality itself, where knights, including her, are truthful; where oaths are kept; where it is possible and even desirable to follow personal loyalty into the mouth of hell and come back. This woman, with these scars, he trusts absolutely. And perhaps for the first time in her young life, Brienne is lying.

First Sight

“He will bring a rose for you,” her father had promised her, but a rose was no good, a rose would not keep her safe.