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Chapter Text

The Father's face is stern and strong,
he sits and judges right from wrong.
He weighs our lives, the short and long,
and loves the little children.

The Mother gives the gift of life,
and watches over every wife.
Her gentle smile ends all strife,
and she loves her little children

The Warrior stands before the foe,
protecting us where e'er we go.
With sword and shield and spear and bow,
he guards the little children.

The Crone is very wise and old,
and sees our fates as they unfold.
She lifts her lamp of shining gold
to lead the little children.

The Smith, he labors day and night,
to put the world of men to right.
With hammer, plow, and fire bright,
he builds for little children.

The Maiden dances through the sky,
she lives in every lover's sigh.
Her smiles teach the birds to fly,
and gives dreams to little children.

The Seven Gods who made us all,
are listening if we should call.
So close your eyes, you shall not fall,
they see you, little children.
Just close your eyes, you shall not fall,
they see you, little children.

Brienne runs a hand over her face as she lies in bed, sleep still heavy on her eyes. She lets out a soft moan, knowing that she will not slip back into the realm she abandoned the moment on she pried open her eyes to the real world.

The dream was far too pleasant to awaken from, and Brienne wished she could linger a moment longer.

It is a dream she has had many times by now. In fact, Brienne long since lost count of how many times those familiar images flared up behind closed eyes, danced through her head to a melody unknown, because it is a dream she developed inside her head ever since she was all but a girl that was dragged past the gates of the septry so many years ago.

The dream begins always the same way: A gust of wind that brushes over thick grass, making the blades whisper words no one understands. A single bird flits across a blue sky with a shriek echoing across all lands. The sun is shining brightly, warming the earth, yellow dots hopping over fresh, brown soil.

And then it appears before her, a stretch of land that is hers and hers alone.

To the far left, a grove made of oaks, shrubs, and willows. The thick, green boughs of a willow swing in the wind, hanging down from the tree that is likely a hundred years old to the far left. Closer to her, the periwinkles and cornflowers jump out of the brown, mossy soil to the point that Brienne can smell their singular scent, which was long since embedded into her memory. A stream out of sight that patters assiduously, feeding the earth with the water it needs to grow life.

And then, a house to her right, built of red, rough stone, with a roof made of straw that shines like a golden crown in the sun. The property is surrounded by a small wooden fence, some poles a bit crooked, imperfect, but sturdy no less. A house that is small in size, nothing fancy, no palace, no castle, but hers. Hers.

Smoke is climbing up through the chimney, announcing that someone is waiting inside, though she doesn’t know who.

Brienne walks towards it, then, past the wooden gate. The wind catches in her hair. The leaves rustle in the breeze. Once past the gate, which is swinging in the wind with a squeaking sound, Brienne stops in her tracks, inhales, then exhales.

And that is when she knows.

That is when she knows for certain that she is home.

Home.

Brienne pinches the bridge of her nose, her eyes suddenly a bit wet. The mere thought of home brings back the past she tries to push away as far as she can, as much as she finds the strength to do it. Because the loss, even after all those years, is still too fresh, still throbs beneath Brienne’s skin as though it was only yesterday that the invisible wound was inflicted.

During the nights, the thoughts roam around the past memories the most. They have Brienne beckoning day in, day out, to fade from her mind, but they don’t. She prays to have them removed to leave nothing but the present, nothing but a pale future. And that is perhaps why that dream of the small house by the grove is ever so tempting, feels ever so good.

Her little stretch of land, if only imaginative, is Brienne’s one comfort in a world that is rather scarce in handing out those favors to those in need.

The blonde woman long since gave up on the idea of seeking solace granted by other people. She tries to find it in her actions instead, tries to find it in the present, and does her best to leave the past to where it belongs, to a land far away, to be hidden away in the midst of the night, but not to be exposed to the light of day.

Brienne lets out a long sigh, brushing her callused fingertips over her freckled face to ease the tension out of her cheeks, relieved that the wetness from her eyes fades away at last.

It is a new day, and we must be thankful for it. The Seven take, but the Seven also give. And we must be grateful for both, because from what they take we learn, and from what they give, we learn to appreciate, Brienne reminds herself, the words of her septa still roaming through her head after all those years as clearly as a bell’s chime.

She lets out a long sigh before pushing back her roughspun blanket and flips her long legs out of bed, her toes curling when they touch the cold stone ground. Brienne reaches blindly into the small nightstand right beside her bed to fish out the stockings she always keeps there during the colder months. She slips them over her feet, no longer feeling the cold when they touch the ground.

Brienne stands up, pulling her nightgown of rough linen over her head as she walks over to the small basin set on top of her wooden shelf, which is four steps away from the bed exactly. She could walk this small chamber blindfolded and always know where she is, as much time as Brienne spent pacing in it, yelling, cursing the Gods, every single one of them, Father, Mother, Warrior, Maiden, Smith, Crone, Stranger, then, after a long time, accepting the fate now hers.

She leaves her nightgown sitting beside the basin, shivering for a moment as the cold air brushes against her bare skin, which has the fine, blonde hairs covering her body stand up. Brienne rather likes the summer times, and she hopes that they will soon get past the rather crisp spring so that the water is more of a refreshment than something having her skin crawl. Letting out a shaky breath, she pours the water into the basin, which has Brienne think for the briefest of moments just how much she misses the deep blue sea, but pushes the thought away again as she plunges her hand into the water, ignoring the biting cold as she starts to dab the sponge against her freckled skin.

The young woman dries off, relishing the warmth that spreads throughout her before quickly pulling her under dress over her head, only to proceed to put on the gray dress she washed and dried last day. She opens one of the drawers to retrieve a fresh white bandeau and starts to wrap it around her head, struggling to fit her unruly curls beneath the fabric. The veil is attached with more or less ease, now that the curls are already tugged away, which is always the hardest part of her morning routine.

Brienne shakes her head as she proceeds over to the chair one step to the left, three steps in direction of the bed, to retrieve her belt to buckle around her thick waist. Coupled with shoes, the picture is complete: A septa like all the others roaming around the septry.

Or so Brienne reckons, because she long since abandoned mirrors from her chamber. When she first arrived here, Brienne smashed whatever mirror she could find in her chamber in an act of defiance, only ever her own septa in mind as the looking glasses shattered into a million pieces along with her heart.

After that, Brienne was no longer given one by the other septas. They feared that the stubborn child would only keep destroying the precious glass. Once she had proven herself to be obedient in her service to the Seven, one of the older septas offered her to take a mirror again, but young Brienne only ever told her to keep it for another septa.

“It is lost on me, good sister,” she only ever told the other sister, reckoning that the pretty kind who like to look at themselves in the mirror out of the habit may have more use for it than she. In the privacy of their little chambers where no one can see them but themselves, they can privately marvel at the beauty they otherwise hide under veil and plain dress.

“You look freakish big, child. Freakish big and mannish. Don’t let the men have you believe otherwise. You must always be weary of the compliments the lordlings pay to you. They only say those things to win your lord father’s favor. Trust me in this, Brienne. You’ll find truth in your looking glass, not on the tongue of men,” was what he septa used to tell her when she was not in a septry yet, skipping down other halls, halls that were her father’s.

Roelle was seemingly wrong about that in some way, or so Brienne reckons now, because she does not require the looking glass to tell her the truth about her looks, she knows it without it all the same. And in a septry, you do not find sweet compliments for her on the tip of the tongue of men by any means.

For that, the septons around here are too old, have sworn to silence, or do not bother to care… Most of the time, at least.

Though, of course, that doesn’t protect her from the scrutiny of the brown brothers and young septons who yet have to learn the teachings of their Faith, which should forbid them from judging a woman by her looks.

And so, the mirrors were cast from Brienne’s chamber altogether, for good. She doesn’t need to look at herself. She doesn’t have to try to look fancy despite being freakish big and mannish, which is one of the few merits Brienne found in her life, not having to bother about that anymore. Even if the young septons and brown brothers may make their jokes every now and then, Brienne finds strength in the certainty that, in the eyes of the Seven, her looks don’t matter.

Perhaps Septa Roelle had the rights of it in that regard.

Brienne sits back down on the bed filled with straw, and reaches into her nightstand’s drawer to retrieve her worn, leather-bound, slightly faded Seven-Pointed Star. She flips open to a random page, runs her fingertips of the ink on the paper, and starts to read, her lips moving as Brienne recites the words that she long since knows by heart but reads anyway. It is to keep herself aware that this is the vow she took, whether Brienne wanted to or not. That this is her oath to keep now. To serve the Seven. Father, Mother, Warrior, Maiden, Smith, Crone, Stranger. They are her lords and ladies now. And will be for the end of her days, Brienne knows.

Once finished with her personal morning prayer, she gets up and puts the booklet into the pocket of her plain dress, if only to remind herself of the weight of the vow she took.

As the tall septa means to head outside, she finds her feet still, her eyes transfixed on the window, from which she can see the property below, the patch where they grow herbs and other plants, the cut-back trees, neatly aligned, and the high fence stretching around the entire septry, perfectly even.

Looking back at things now, Brienne supposes she should count herself lucky that she had this chamber assigned to her. It has a direct view on the garden, but far more importantly, it has a direct view on the woods beyond, the wildly growing trees and shrubs, where owls hoot, crows caw, and where sometimes a doe with its fawn will stick its head out once night starts to spread.

A bit of an escape, if only through stained glass.

However, Brienne learned by now that she has to appreciate the little things, that she has to cherish them. The great deeds, she will not do. The great quests Brienne still remembers from her children’s books, tales about fair maidens in high towers rescued by the gallant knight, riding up on a white stallion, ready to slay the dragon, the ominous evil threatening of the lady he lost his heart to, she knows she will not undertake them.

I won’t be a lady, I won’t be a knight. I am a woman of the Faith, and as such, I will spend the rest of my days, she reminds herself as she tears her gaze away from the window.

And that means she has to find the goals in her life that are possible, she has to work for them, has to labor hard for them, but Brienne was never afraid of hard work and effort. As Goodwin used to tell her, if there is one thing she never lacked, then it was endurance.

Brienne proceeds towards the door, not looking back through the window as she closes the gate behind her.

The only direction that mattes now is ahead.

As she continues walking down familiar corridors, Brienne finds herself strengthened with every step she takes.

Today may be the day to start a new chapter after all.

Brienne blinks against the sunlight invading her eyes as she pushes open the gates leading outside. The rays of light shine down her head and for a moment, Brienne wished she could just take off the veil again to feel the sun dance over her curls, but that is no longer an option ever since she took her vows.

Thus, Brienne carries on towards the far end of the property, to where their little sept is located.

While it is still quite some time until the morning service begins, Brienne is always eager to get there early, though she is the only one, as it appears, because normally, the sept is empty when she arrives.

And today is no different, most likely.

It hasn’t been for the past years, Brienne thinks to herself as the sept comes into sight. However, it makes no difference to her. Today is a good day, she is certain of it. The sun is shining brightly, the sky is a rich shade of blue, and perhaps the Elder Sister will finally give way to her request that Brienne has repeated to her so many times by now that she almost lost count, but really just almost.

No, she will. She is going to most definitely, Brienne reminds herself forcefully. She has to. Has to. Has to.

Inside the sept, Brienne is caught up in an awe that didn’t wear thin over the years. She loves the small church, its seven wooden beams holding up the roof with a distinct pattern of scratches and bumps in each of them, a few even bearing some initials that the rather rebellious septas and septons left over the years, the tiled floor that shines bluntly in the morning light, its painted windows, reflecting all colors of the spectrum, the small dove’s nest on one of the beams that no one seems to have caught in ages. It is here, right at this place, that Brienne feels close to serving, feels close to her own oath, close to the Seven.

Brienne stands in the middle of the rows of benches for a moment, folds her big hands and bows her head in prayer.

Father, Mother, Warrior, Maiden, Smith, Crone, Stranger, I thank you for your gifts and blessings, but I pray you, please let the Elder Sister agree to my request, so I can serve you ever the more, so that I can keep my oath in best spirit.

She opens her eyes again, but then retreats to the entrance, preparing to approach the Elder Sister at once the moment on she comes inside.

Slowly but surely, the first septas pour into the sept as well, all still drunken with sleep, some sighing, some yawning, some their eyes still halfway closed as they waddle over to their usual seats, quietly chattering about all sorts of things.

However, Brienne pays no attention to their words, she is transfixed on the entrance, waiting for her chance to arrive. And at last, the Elder Sister, Septa Aurane, makes her way inside the sept, her features, as usual, grim as she hobbles inside on her aching legs. Brienne intercepts the older woman meaning to proceed to the front row.

“Septa Aurane. Seven blessings to you,” Brienne calls out, hastily positioning herself in front of the older woman.

“And to you,” she replies. “What do you want?”

While Brienne is sometimes rather irritated by it, she does appreciate Septa Aurane’s straightforwardness. The Elder Sister does not hide behind fancy words most of the time, and Brienne rather deals with that than whispers behind her back.

“I wanted to speak to you another time, about perchance getting an opportunity to serve as a governess at a noble household, to educate some of the young ladies,” Brienne begins, chewing on her lower lip. “As I requested a number of times by now.”

“I do recall,” the Elder Sister replies, her face as stoic as ever.

Brienne lets out a light cough before continuing, “You and I both know that I worked very hard, especially on the skills a governess is meant to pass down to the children given into her care. I read as much as I could in our libraries. And I even educated the newly arrived septas in the arts of sewing and the like for quite some time now. I have not misbehaved myself in any way, have not gotten a single reproach.”

Brienne practiced the words a hundred times in the safety of her own chamber so that they would roll off her tongue smoothly now, even though Septa Aurane seems less than impressed with her regardless of her efforts.

The Elder Sister studies her for a long moment, then makes a “pah” sound, clicking her thin, veiny lips. “True enough, Septa Brienne, you have made yourself very useful around the septry. And there is no way of denying that you have put great effort into your studies, in order to learn the things the septas are meant to teach to the young ladies if they are chosen to be governesses at noble households.”

Brienne blinks. “So… is there perhaps a chance that I can become the governess for some young lady?”

“Answer me this, Septa Brienne: What happened the last time when you were given leave from the septry?” the Elder Sister questions, narrowing her wrinkly eyes at the young septa before her.

Brienne chews on her lower lip, then bows her head. “I… tried to run away.”

She ran for dear life.

She ran back to a life she knew was no longer out there, no longer waiting for her, but Brienne’s feet carried her down the yellow, pebbled path anyway, didn’t allow her to stop until she was caught in the next town over.

Brienne carried the bloody blisters on her feet with pride, she can still recall, no matter the punishment she knew awaited her as the septons who dragged her back to the septry made sure she didn’t jump off the wagon again.

“That you did. We tasked you to get something from the market, and you never had any intention to return,” the Elder Sister huffs.

“I was still young back then. Still only a girl just recently flowered, Septa Aurane. Then you do… all kinds of foolish things,” Brienne says, chewing on the words, because she actually does not want to excuse it.

To this day, Brienne does not see the wrong in having run away, does not regret the now faded scars on her feet and legs from where the pebbles cut into her skin as she rushed away from the septry as fast as her feet would carry her. She was a young girl who wanted to choose the vow to take for life. And while Brienne embraced her vow to the Seven by now, she did not by the time they still had to force her to wear the bandeau and the veil to cover her unruly curls. She made her oath once she knelt in the sept and muttered the words years later. Before that, it was the promise others made in her stead. And for not wanting to keep a vow she never made, Brienne cannot see the wrong being on her side.

And if she were here under different circumstances, Brienne would love to tell the Elder Sister just that right at this moment, but she keeps those words behind pursed lips.

However, Brienne also learned that if you want to see something achieved at the septry, you have to be careful with your words, you have to select them with the same amount of care with which you choose the herbs for the ointments and balms they brew.

“Oh, most certainly, and you were forgiven in the eyes of the Seven for your disservice, for you repented dutifully for your sins. As you said, you were young back then, and that is when we follow cravings far more often than duty,” the older septa agrees. “But now you tell me this, too, Septa Brienne: What of the time when you were not at all too long when you jumped the fence?”

“I chased a thief,” Brienne insists.

And she didn’t just chase him. Brienne caught him and knocked the man into the dust before he could make it past the woods.

While she has some understanding that the poor, in desperation, may take something not theirs to satisfy the hunger, she had little sympathy for that man. His garbs were no rags, he was well fed, and as the man later confessed when brought before Septon Orys, he actually stole to sell whatever goods he could find to impress the girl he fancied. However, what made Brienne so very furious with the man was not even the nature of his motives, but that he had to try to take one of the statues representing the Seven. He could have taken the golden cup that sits not far from the figurines cut from white marble, but the thief had to take the statue of the Father.

That was a sin that made her fist hit him only the harder as she secured him and he tried to get away from her grasp, cursing at her to let him go, calling her some many things that were most definitely not courteous.

But he had to take the Father, and Brienne could not accept that. Of all things available, he had to take the Father. And while Brienne is aware that this is irrational without a doubt, she could not stop the fury from bleeding out of her.

You don’t take the Father, you just don’t. You don’t, you don’t.

“And we have told you several times that it is not up to the septas to chase them if they dare invade our property. The brothers were not far away, they were right behind you. And don’t have me believe that you didn’t seek a chance to jump that fence. You were gone quite long, too,” Septa Aurane tells her, narrowing her eyes at Brienne. “And now don’t you dare lie to me, you are not good at it, Septa Brienne.”

The younger woman chews on her lower lip. It would be a lie to claim that she did not consider. It would be a lie to say that she didn’t leave the man on the floor, knocked out, started to walk away from the clearing, towards grass shone silver in the moonlight, to where the groves may have hidden her away, but then the brothers came, and Brienne shouted out to them, returned to the man she had knocked into the dust and walked back with the septons sent after the thief and her.

“… People have weakness at times, Septa Aurane. I am not free of that sin, I confess it, but I came back, and I left with the truest intentions in mind, I swear it by the Seven. I wanted to protect the septry,” Brienne argues vehemently.

This is the one home I have – and I am not supposed to try to defend it?! she wants to scream, but does not.

“And in any case, I told you time and time again that we have a special situation, with the septons here now, too, but in other septries where there are just the women around, they have to handle criminals, too, don’t they? Why do we require the men?” Brienne goes on, wanting to smack herself for letting that truth slip out when she actually wants something of the older septa with a facial expression as stony as likely her heart is.

“Because most other women do require the men to carry out what you can do for matters of what the Seven have given to you with your height and strength. You can jump that fence, no bother, you can likely knock some many men into the dust, no bother. But Septa Brienne, what if the other septas follow your example? What if they end up getting hurt, getting killed because they follow your teachings?”

“I didn’t say that we should teach the septas that they ought to unsheathe a sword whenever they see a thief come near the septry, but if they knew how to defend themselves, they may fend off danger on their own. They may be able to protect themselves. Because not always is a septon around to carry out the task for them.”

“Just how many times will we have that discussion until you understand, Septa Brienne? That is plainly inacceptable. It is forbidden by the virtue of our Faith, the vows you and I took when we put on the habit and dedicated our lives to the service of the Seven,” the older woman fumes.

And Brienne knows she should stop, she knows she must, but her mouth keeps working anyway, stubborn thing it is, “But I was just trying to say that while I know us septas are not like the septons, are not like the men of the Faith Militant, there might be use in teaching the women some of those things, just in case…”

“I will have none of it. You have it very good here, Septa Brienne. Don't ever forget about that blessing granted to you, despite the fact that you were quite a rebellious child during your younger years… and continue to be even these days, if in different forms. You don’t have to worry about criminals, thieves, about taking up axe or sword. That is the fortune you and everyone else here enjoys. Because we have septons who can well defend us if need be, and if not, it is not to the septas to raise the weapons. We are here in silent service. As the Seven-Pointed Stark commands it,” the Elder Sister lectures her.

“I am aware, Septa Aurane. And I… I beg your for your forgiveness. That was actually not what I meant to speak of for that matter… The point is this: Even if, as you say, I did something sinful by jumping the fence to chase the thief, you must remember that I have atoned for just that sin. I asked your forgiveness, and you granted it. I asked the Elder Brother for forgiveness, and he gave it. I wiped the floors for months, did whatever task you assigned to me without a single complaint on my lips. I have spent hours on my knees in this very septry, praying to the Seven in silence, contemplating my mistakes. So, don’t you think that after all this time, I should be given a second chance? Is it not the Seven-Pointed Star that says…,” Brienne goes on, well aware that she sounds all but desperate now.

However, she is only interrupted by the older woman, “Do not lecture me on the scriptures, Septa Brienne, I have read them far more often than you have in your entire life.”

“I did not mean to…,” Brienne stammers, now at a lack of words. She is surprised when the older woman motions a little closer, now looking almost understanding as she goes on to say, “Listen now… Brienne. I have thought about it for a long time, I know of your wish to serve a lady, as a governess. And I do understand the fancy, but… frankly speaking, your flesh is weak in that regard. Where you are otherwise so strong… that is your one fault that you bear deep in your body. And I would not want to expose you to the threat of sinning if I knew of another way of preventing that.”

Brienne blinks at her. “Which is?”

“You are to be promoted for your good faith and service, but you will remain tied to the septry for that matter, so to ensure that you do not bring sin upon yourself for matters of your nature being weak in that way,” the Elder Sister tells her. “You will come to serve me more often, if you wish to take up on the task, help me with the administration of certain matters that fall upon me as the Elder sister of this septry. That is a great responsibility and privilege, I may remind you. So, I hope you see that I have not neglected you in my considerations, but quite on the contrary, want to give you an important position, in fact one that, by far, exceeds those of a simple governess.”

“But I want to teach the young,” Brienne insists. “I want to be a governess.”

She wants to be out of here, if only for a while. Brienne wants to walk past that gate, if only for a few years, if only for a single day.

She wants to hear children’s laughter. She wants to hear a father’s voice as he lectures his children, a mother’s voice as she sings a lullaby to her tired boys and girls. Brienne wants to hear the echo of a life that ended the moment on she was dragged past the gates of the Sept. She wants to witness it one more time, if only from a distance.

Brienne doesn’t want to spend the rest of her life within just this septry. Her vow was to serve the Seven, but she doesn’t have to be right on this side of this forsaken fence to achieve such.

Can’t I have them both? Why can’t I have them both?

“And you will teach, but only those who come here,” the older woman tells her.

“You mean septas.”

“And septons, in a certain way,” the Elder Sister adds, which has Brienne frowning despite her distress.

“Septons?” she repeats.

“I have talked to the Elder Brother, and he agreed that you are a suitable candidate for the task – once it may arise, that is. Though we don’t know when or if that is going to be the case. However, if new septons arrive, it would be your responsibility to introduce them, show them around our septry, give them a first taste of our codices and see to it that they follow the Faith in our faith. That is a great offer, Brienne, one you should not dare refuse.”

Brienne’s shoulders fall, all lightness that she felt in her step before now weighing heavy on her knees. “So… I won’t ever be allowed to teach a young lady at a castle or stronghold? I won’t ever be a governess?”

“Not for now, no, but the Seven may change their minds eventually. As of now, this is the best, for you and everyone else.”

“… Because I am ugly, so you can have me show the young septons, the brown brothers, or whoever around this our septry, I understand,” Brienne mutters.

“Your looks make no matter anymore, Septa Brienne, don’t make yourself ridiculous. For what do we all wear the habit, the veil, hm? So that we all look the same, so that we are looked at not for the impurity of our bodies, but the purity of our faith,” the older woman argues. “But I am very much convinced that you can be a great septa. I just do not think your interests match your talents. You want to be a governess, I know, but… your talents lie elsewhere, you are needed elsewhere. The Seven need you for another task, Septa Brienne. We want you to remain faithful and free of sin, so that you can get yourself to the Seven Heavens once your time comes. Thus, I want you to understand that I do so in best faith to be serving your salvation.”

“And I have no say in my own salvation?” Brienne asks sharply.

“Not for now, no,” the older woman replies. “Your mind is jumbled as of late. And that is natural. Those times come and go, and they can only be mitigated through prayer and meditation. However, it is those times that test us, they expose us to the temptations this wretched world holds. And since we are all sisters here, it falls to us to ensure that you, our sister, stay safe, stay clear of sin.”

The Elder Sister looks at her for a long moment before going on, “You still have to find your place in this world, Septa Brienne, and we do our best to help you settle in. That is what we are here for. We guide you like the Crone guides all those who have lost their way.”

You just want me to yield, Brienne thinks to herself bitterly. You want me to accept the place you choose for me, not let me make my choice.

“In any case… the service is about to begin, and we should take our seats, Septa Brienne. I assure you, we do not make such decisions easily, and of course, we may revisit your case once the time arises. So, think about the offer I just made you. Give it some time, some prayer, and then you will certainly find the answer in your heart.”

“… I understand,” Brienne replies, swallowing thickly. “Thank you for your time, Septa Aurane.”

The older woman nods before hobbling to the front to take her usual seat.

For a moment, Brienne feels like crying, no air getting into her lungs no matter how deeply she breathes in, but then she reminds herself that she cannot, that she must not, not in front of the other septas, not in front of the Elder Sister, or anyone else for the matter.

Don’t let them see your tears…

That was her one escape, her one chance to get a taste of the world Brienne once shoveled into her mouth not knowing that it could come to an end so suddenly.

“Brienne! Brienne!” a voice rings out behind her. She whips her head around, trying to hold back her tears as she sees Meredyth approach, a young septa who has not been here for long, and not by her own choice, either.

Meredyth was one of the girls who ended up in the service of the Seven to atone for promiscuity, at least that is what the young septa actually prides herself with ever since she arrived at the septry: “You’d have no idea how many men were enchanted by me. They wanted nothing more but get between my legs. And they did things for me, oh, it was most wonderful, I am telling you. I got silks and dresses, flowers and Dornish plums. Well, until that one noble lady had to find me on my knees, in her bedchamber, her husband’s cock still in my mouth. Which, I may add, considering my stay now here… was not at all worth it.”

Brienne had both the pleasure and the pain of having to show the young woman around – because Meredyth was always quite outspoken about how she does not want to stay here. Her defiance reminded Brienne only ever so painfully that she shared the sentiment, still shares it, actually, but shamefully gave up some time ago in favor of teaching some young lady, which, as this talk proved just now, is no more than a fiction either. This tale is about as real as her dream of a red house with golden straw roof by a green grove, with a bright sky above.

It’s all but a dream, and it seems that I must awaken…

“What was the talk about?” Meredyth asks as she catches up to Brienne.

“Something private,” she replies curtly. The younger septa tilts her head to the side with a grimace, wrinkling her small, broad nose.

“I reckoned as much,” the younger woman huffs, rolling her green eyes at her. “Will you tell me, though?”

“Not at this point of time, no, the service is about to begin,” Brienne replies. “We should take a seat now, should we not?”

“Brienne, c’mon, you have to tell me those things. It’s incredibly boring, particularly as of late. Can you imagine? I listened attentively to Septa Rohanne recounting that one time she got athlete’s foot. That was the most interesting thing that happened to me this entire week. Imagine,” Meredyth insists. “The athlete’s foot, Brienne. The Seven may help me and just kill me already!”

“Nothing interesting I would have to tell anyway,” Brienne argues. “And now you should sit down.”

“Ugh, you are never any kind of fun. Sometimes I don’t know why I put up with you,” Meredyth grumbles as she takes her seat at last, waving around with her right hand dismissively.

Brienne sits down beside her. “You put up with me?”

“Well, you put up with me, we both know that, but I also have to put up with you in turn, in some regards at least. Seven Hells, I am going insane, Brienne. Insane, I am telling you,” the young septa pouts, looking ahead. “I am not made of the stuff that it takes to be a septa. Just how much more proof do I have to bring of that before those stubborn mules understand it?”

“They won’t give you leave no matter how badly you behave, trust me in this,” Brienne argues, taking out her worn Seven-Pointed Star. “They will only ever give you more chores to do.”

“Which is complete nonsense. Think about it! They should take the good ones only. The faithful ones who want to twist their legs into a knot so that no man may ever crawl between them.”

“Meredyth!” Brienne hisses.

“What? You know it’s true. Think about it, Brienne: When you make a fancy necklace, you take the shining gemstones only, and not the pebbles lying right next to it, don’t you? They should take the likes of you, hm? Trustworthy, virtuous, oathkeeping, all those things that are far too tedious for me to bother to care about.”

“Well, I am seemingly not made of the right stuff either,” Brienne sighs, looking at the small statues by the altar representing the Seven. “At least that is what the Elder Sister says.”

Or do you think I am made of the stuff, she wants to ask them. Do you think the same Septa Aurane thinks of me? What stuff am I made of? And what is it good for? What is my place in the world, according to you? Where would you guide me, Crone? To where does your lantern point?

“If that is true, then perhaps the septons and septas here are even more insane than I am. Which is about as reassuring as it is frightening,” Meredyth huffs, sliding down the bench a bit, reminding Brienne yet again of herself during her younger, rebellious years.

“We will have to trust the Gods to guide us,” Brienne says, though truly, she does not believe in what she is saying right at this moment.

“So long they don’t guide me to Septa Rohanne’s athlete’s foot again, I shall rejoice and praise all of their names, if I didn’t always forget about the Stranger for some reason,” Meredyth huffs. She turns her head. “Oh, and so the brothers arrive now too. They are always later than us. Why are they?!”

“They know when Septon Orys leaves, so they can go just shortly before he starts to make his way to the sept, while we see to it that we arrive somewhat around the time we reckon he is not there yet,” Brienne explains with a sigh, not bothering to turn her head as the brown brothers and septons start to sit on the other side of the septry.

Soon, the Elder Brother of the septry makes his way inside as well, everyone falling completely silent at once. Septon Orys steps before the brothers and sisters, says his morning greetings in his usual, almost melodic baritone, before he goes ahead to recount the story of the Stranger.

Brienne hears nothing much of it, though she knows the story by heart anyway. Thus, she leans her head back, allows her gaze to travel to the ceiling with chipped paint, to come to rest on the small bird’s nest sitting on one of the wooden beams. A strange sort of feeling of familiarity rushes through Brienne as she keeps looking at the thing, unmoving, unchanging, the dove sitting in it, making no attempt to get away as they pray to the Seven.

Because, as it appears, she is stuck here the same way.

No matter how brightly the sun shines outside.

The Gods give and the Gods take, and today, they have taken.

Father, Mother, Warrior, Maiden, Smith, Crone, Stranger, do you hear me? Is that the destiny you have chosen for me?

Or do I get to choose – and if so, just when is the time for me to choose it?

When do I get to choose a life that is mine?

Or is that, too, only just a dream?

Chapter Text

Book in one hand, dripping cleaning rag in the other, Brienne goes about her chores of the day, which is to clean the banisters of the main staircase set at the heart of the sleeping quarters. Gladly, she is mostly undisturbed during that time, since Septa Aurane and her proctors roam around outside by the herb gardens to oversee that the young septas don’t confuse Goldencups with Poison kisses.

Or else we will have yet again quite a few young septas trying to stop the itching by rolling in the mud like little piglets, Brienne thinks to herself, smirking faintly for a moment. Which was quite an amusing sight last time it happened.

While other septas are busy cleaning around the hall with dark, shining tiles, alongside her, they know better than to lecture Brienne about her habit of reading a book whenever assigned such tasks. For Brienne, it’s something to take her mind off of what her hands are doing routinely.

As of late, she found herself with a particularly strong appetite for books, though Brienne strictly constraints herself from reading fiction. Those stories of all kinds of elsewheres are far too tempting for her to dive into. Into worlds that are far more pleasant than hers, far more comforting, simply better. Getting too close is far too tempting to just linger there and never come out again, because Brienne knows that this is a luxury she cannot afford to dwell on.

Thus, the young septa is back to reading books firmly rooted in what is around her, in what is within her reach. Thence, she is back to reading book after book about how to cultivate plants on all kinds of soil, dictionaries and lists of plants common in the region, and chronicles by some successful farmers and landscapers and their practical experiences with farming.

Brienne learned to appreciate the illustrations a lot, which have the ability to create landscapes that only ever exist on the page while still not entirely a fiction, a place that is both no real place and a place at the same time. While they have some root in reality, they are still perfected images of what an ideal garden could look like, how to divide the fields, the patches, where to let a big oak grow and where to allow for a willow to swing its heavy boughs in the breeze.

And along with that, Brienne found what she considers quite useful knowledge as to how to create that world that only exists thanks to parchment and ink, when to plant which shrub, which tree, which flower, when to water them, when to cut them back and how, when to let them rest so that the soil does not exhaust itself.

She felt tempted a few times to request ink and quill from one of the septas to make her own small illustrations of her imagined place that is perfect in itself, the one that floats around her eyes as she lays sleeping, and sometimes even while she lies wide awake. However, Brienne always quickly abandoned the idea, somewhat frightened to be taken for a dreamer.

As the young septa had to learn, or rather relearn painfully, being too idealistic, dreaming too far ahead in one direction, can have your hopes shattered into a million pieces at once, with a single word spoken.

“Brienne! Brienne!” Meredyth’s booming voice rings out as the petite septa with a mouth far bigger and louder than it should be, judging by the size of her body, rushes up the stairs, her footsteps echoing throughout the entire hallway.

“I don’t know how often I have to tell you that I normally hear you the first time round,” Brienne sighs, rolling her eyes as she turns to look at the woman who covers the last bit of distance between them, slightly out of breath.

“Can never harm to make sure. You flit away despite your size, Brienne. You are always so busy that one can never know just where you find work to do,” Meredyth argues, waving at her with the back of her hand. “Look at that, you even read while cleaning the stairs. It’s still a miracle to me that you bother to sleep at some point of the day.”

“Oh, I sleep, no doubt,” Brienne huffs, slightly averting her gaze to look at the dark tiles shining below her.

And I dream, but I dream too far, as it appears.

Meredyth snorts at that. “And that is about as much free time as you take for yourself. As I said, you are making yourself far too busy around here.”

“As we all should. You might be able to recall that this is what we are being taught to do,” Brienne sighs. “That this is what the Faith wants us to do.”

“Oh, I know what we get taught, and reminded of endlessly, day in, day out, but you’d have a far less paining back if you did what I do and just listened to their teachings… instead of taking them to heart… and then found ways to get around doing the work they require us to carry out,” the younger septa replies, speaking up as boldly as ever.

Some of the other sisters turn their head in their direction, eyeing Meredyth with scrutiny. Though the young septa seems not to care at all about that.

“Do go on, sisters, I am not sharing with you how I get around the work you are too foolish to escape,” Meredyth calls down, before turning her attention back to Brienne. “See, I even make for shit for a teacher, and yet they keep me. Talk about fools.”

“So, judging by what you just said, it’s your work I have to make up for? Is that what you are trying to tell me?” Brienne asks with a hint of a smile.

Meredyth rolls her shoulders with a toothy smile, never afraid to show her big gap in the front from where she lost a tooth after one particular “adventure” of hers that, for all the younger woman told Brienne, involved a married lord, his bedchamber, his wife, her robes, and a flying chamber pot.

“If you only realize just now, that is hardly my fault,” Meredyth huffs, amused.

“I thought you had some urgent business to tell me about,” Brienne exhales, dropping the cleaning rag into the wooden bucket by her feet with a plop, before running the wet hand over her dirtied apron, leaving traces of her handprint there.

“Oh, I do, I do,” the younger septa chimes, getting excited all over.

She is always quite jumpy in her mood, Brienne long since accepted that as Meredyth’s routine.

“Now come,” she urges Brienne, pulling on her wrist.

“To where?” Brienne asks, already staggering after her as they rush down the stairs.

“Somewhere where we are a bit more… amongst ourselves,” Meredyth replies, waving at the other septas giving her a glare as she rushes past them, dragging Brienne along whether she wants to or not.

They keep walking until they reach the quarters’ atrium, which is normally vacant during the day, and is in fact once they arrive. Brienne always liked the place, though it doesn’t beat the small sept with the bird’s nest, of course. However, the dance of light as it falls on ivy that climbs up the stone walls? Brienne always tends to think that it is in places such as these that the Seven reveal themselves, even if they are hidden away in the light raining down on their heads, making emeralds of what is shrub, and gold of what is stone and wood.

Meredyth lets go of her hand, pulling Brienne back to the urgent news her fellow sister is so eager in sharing with her. Brienne straightens out her gray dress, stuffing her booklet full of wonderful illustrations into one of the pockets.

 “So now, what is the upset about?” Brienne asks, tilting her head to the side.

“Oh, spectacular things, Brienne! Absolutely spectacular!” Meredyth says, stretching out her arms as though she was thanking the Seven for the blessing of some news beside Septa Rohanne’s athlete’s foot.

“Such as?” Brienne questions, cocking an eyebrow at the younger woman.

Meredyth motions closer with a grin spreading across her features. “Rumors.”

“About what?”

“That new brothers are coming to the septry,” Meredyth replies, looking at Brienne expectantly, though the older sister can do nothing much but look at her with a grimace, her lips shaping an “o” as she says, “Oh.”

She didn’t talk to Meredyth about the matter ever since the decisive day in the sept.

The younger woman steps closer, one hand on either hip as she studies Brienne. “Wait, I thought I was going to see your mouth opening wide at the news. We didn’t see any shoats in ages! Brienne, this is big news! Big news for a place where nothing is going on! I expected a bit better from you.”

“Septa Aurane hinted at that not long time ago,” Brienne explains, her voice faint. “But it sounded like it would be rather in the distant future.”

Meredyth gapes at her. “AND YOU DID NOT TELL ME?”

Brienne rolls her shoulders. “Because you always react like that.”

“Do you have any idea what lengths I had to go to get my hands on that shred of information? I had to talk to Leona, who has the most annoying lisp I have ever heard, and she said that I had to talk to Gladys who talks SOOOOO slowly. And Gladys then talked to Willa for me, and Willa confirmed it after she heard the Elder Brother talk about it with the Elder Sister after service was over. And now you are telling me that all I had to do was ask you?” Meredyth pouts, gesticulating wildly.

“I keep telling you that you should not listen to gossip.”

“You are evil, you know that?” Meredyth pouts, but then her mood swings back around along with her steps as she keeps hopping circles around the atrium. “But in any case… Of course I have to listen to gossip! What else is there to listen to? The Silent Sisters’ songs?”

“You should not speak so disrespectfully of them,” Brienne hisses, looking around. “Or else, they may make you one of them after all. And I can’t imagine that you wouldn’t want to talk ever again.”

“The Seven may forbid,” the young septa novice says. “That is one of the last freedoms we have.”

“Precisely. So we should better mind our own business,” Brienne argues.

“What else is there to entertain ourselves with, hm? And now don’t say prayer and duty. You tell me so way too often,” Meredyth huffs, rolling her eyes at Brienne, to which the older sister only ever glowers back in turn.

The younger woman remains unimpressed by Brienne’s glares, however, just continues to stroll through the atrium almost as though she was trying to dance. “What? You know I don’t want to be here. I never made that a secret. Not everyone is like you, Brienne.”

Brienne shakes her head, letting out a shaky breath. If only Meredyth knew that she would rather be anywhere but here, too. The older septa is just focusing on what she has left, and that is duty and prayer. The greatest freedom she may have enjoyed would have been to become a governess, but that ship sailed, far away, as it appears. It left her without a single chance for Brienne to get onto the boat, even if she leapt into the water and swim after the boat to somehow break free from the land holding her feet still. And that, in turn, means that Brienne truly has seemingly no chance but to follow her faith.

To fall in line.

Yield.

Brienne shakes her head, Septa Aurane’s words still fresh on her mind, the implications within them waving at her like invisible daggers short before delivering the final blow.

That she is too unladylike, too rebellious, to ever teach a young girl in what it takes to be a lady. And Brienne wants to scream at the Elder Sister each time. She wants to shout it at the top of her voice: That she was a lady once, that she was a noble lady in another life. Tall in frame to be sure, mannish most certainly, behaving more like a boy than a girl a lot of times, but a woman, nobly born to a high lord, who was generous, good, caring, and loving. They had a castle with windows even more beautiful than those at this small sept. And that she had a last name that belonged to her, that was hers. Brienne wants to scream it, wants to shout it, not just to Septa Aurane, but even to Meredyth who seems to think that she never gave it a fight, always loved the idea of being in this place.

She wants to shout, but her lips are sealed.

Because this septry is her home.

The Faith is all Brienne has left.

Because everything else – it was ripped away from her years ago.

And Brienne knows, deep down knows, that she could do well to teach the young what she was taught before Septa Roelle brought her here, left her here to rot in a gray dress, bereft of her name, bereft of who she once was.

But it isn’t happening. Brienne won’t ever get the chance, it seems. Because the Elder Sister won’t have it, won’t have her.

So truly, what do I have but my faith?

What does she have left but prayer and duty?

“No, I am quite unique, shall I say?” Brienne replies, a sad smile tugging at her lips as she lets her gaze wander over to the archway of the atrium from which you can see the rest of the property, the high fence, and beyond it the road that she wants to take one of these days to get away, to break free.

“Oh, there is no one quite like you, I am aware,” the younger woman huffs, amused.

“Well, gossip or not, you should not get overly excited. Nothing much changes whether new septons arrive or not,” Brienne argues.

Just that it will likely set into stone my duties, bound to this place. Once I pick on the task and show them around the septry, I will be caught in the web and find no escape, Brienne thinks to herself bitterly. I will climb into my own bird cage and close the door shut once I am inside.

“But some may be our age, and not yet wrinkly or fat… or both,” Meredyth argues, rolling her wrist at the other septa.

Brienne grimaces at her. “So what?”

“Oh, Seven Hells, Brienne, don’t be dense. Some young men right within our reach, hm?” Meredyth grunts, gesturing expressively, speaking with arms and legs all at the same time, the way she always does.

“We have very strict rules on the matter, I may remind you,” Brienne replies bluntly. “As I have done… some many times by now.”

“They only apply if you get caught,” the younger septa argues. “So long you don’t get caught, they can’t punish you.”

“The Seven likely would not agree with that,” Brienne answers, tight-lipped, feeling a faint heat rise to her cheeks.

“The Mother and the Father did it at least once, or else they would not be mother and father,” Meredyth points out to her. “I just don’t understand why we are not supposed to… be true to that part of the Seven and have a little fun while at it.”

“Because we are to act like the Maiden,” Brienne tells her.

“Until we become all Crones with cobwebs between our legs, I know. And the septons are what? Smiths until they become Strangers?” the younger septa replies, tapping her index finger against her lower lip pensively. “I suppose so. Or Warriors who become Smiths? I never got that logic.”

“The point is that you should keep those thoughts out of your head right from the start,” Brienne tells her with a hesitant grin, which falls at once the moment she catches herself sounding far too much like Septa Aurane.

“What do you think got me here in the first place? Those thoughts have company in a long time by now, just like they share in good, very good memories of red velvet on white, silken sheets of lords and lordlings as we did what the septas want to deny ever existed. And nothing much is going to change about that,” Meredyth huffs, tapping her index finger against the left side of her temple. “And I want it to stay that way, actually. That is what keeps me sane in all this, going astray.”

“Well, but that doesn’t mean you should… stay with a septon,” Brienne insists.

“But I can at least entertain the idea of how some of them look like once they shed the ugly robe?” Meredyth chimes with a wicked grin. “Imagine what it feels like…”

“So long you pray to the Seven to forgive your sins?” Brienne suggests, her muscles tensing.

“Ah, I knew there was a loophole! I just think all the sinful, pray forgiveness, and do it all over! At last something makes sense here!” the younger woman laughs, throwing her head back. “But anyway… something new is happening, even if it’s just old men, and that is exciting enough for a boring place such as this. I was waiting for a change. And as it appears, my prayers have been heard.”

She holds her hands, palms up, high in the air, as though to catch the blessing of the Seven shining down on them in the atrium.

“Let us praise the Seven,” Brienne snorts, amused by her fellow sister’s antics. Meredyth lets out a small laugh as she starts walking about the atrium again.

“Will you tell me what has been up with you ever since you last spoke to the Elder Sister or do I have to keep teasing?” she questions.

“I just have to… well, make some rather big decisions for myself,” Brienne replies as truthfully as she can, because she hasn’t decided yet. “About my future… here at the septry.”

Maybe she should not take the offer, despite the fact that Septa Aurane told her that she should better not refuse.

Brienne is used to the life of a septa without any privilege. And if she is not granted the privilege of being a governess, then perhaps it might be for the best to enjoy no privileges at all, even if it is presumably tempting to grow into the role of a proctor. Because Brienne fears that the echo of what could have been will only tear her down ever the more once it comes to resonate in the present.

“I thought the biggest decisions our kind gets to make are about where the next privy is going to be raised, who has to do the dishes, oh, and maybe if we get lucky, who has to take over the library duties on tops of everything,” Meredyth scoffs.

Brienne moves her broad shoulders. “I quite like the library duty.”

Meredyth rolls her eyes at her in turn.

“See, that is when I have to put up with you. Unbelievable!” she snorts, but then stops to look at the other septa with her typical smile, revealing her tooth gap. “So? You are not telling me?”

“Not just yet, I am sorry. But you will be one of the first to know.”

“I better be the first or at the very least the second,” Meredyth warns her. “What other friend do you have but me?”

“Not many, that's for sure,” Brienne snorts.

She was never good or set out on making friends. The boys back home always only made fun of her. The girls gave her looks of misgiving because of her mannish stature that already came to the light very early on in Brienne’s life. And since she was brought to the septry, Brienne stayed by herself for the most part. She doesn’t like to open up to most of the septas. She knows she is not very good at reading people. It made her weary.

Because one can never know what septas may whisper to the Elder Sister if she were to ask a bit more forcefully.

“So you better see to it that you keep me entertained,” Meredyth chuckles, before pointing at Brienne. “Oh, and speaking of which, the next time you know some gossip, you will tell it to me straight away.”

Brienne shakes her head. “The gossip is doing you no good.”

“And that is what I like about it,” Meredyth snickers. “Well, I suppose that this is all that requires privacy, so we might just as well head back, right?”

“Most definitely,” the older woman agrees. “I have to finish the banister in time, or else I will have to do nightshifts again. And it is a pain to clean the stairs with nothing but an oil lamp.”

That also makes it difficult to digress by reading books to take her mind off of the banisters, out into the light, or out into the night, respectively.

“But there is one more question I have to ask,” Meredyth argues as they start to walk back.

Brienne’s lips curl into a frown. “Which is?”

“Will you take over my library duty? Please?”

“You are incorrigible,” Brienne calls out, holding the flat of her hand against her forehead as they keep walking.

“Now, that is hardly any news.”

Brienne’s father didn't want her to take up sword and shield at first. He was very much against it, actually. She can still remember his face, the contours stretched into grimaces of fear and irritation, but his daughter had something else in mind.

These days, Brienne tends to blame it on her septa for having spoken the truth to her so very early on in her life. That she is ugly and mannish and makes herself looking ridiculous in fine silks and girlish colors, which Brienne did fancy earlier on, twirling through Evenfall Hall with glee, humming the songs she always listened to with excitement when the bards and singers travelled to the isle for feasts and banquets. Back then, she believed herself to be as graceful as one of the dancers who came along with the bards and singers.

And as her septa told her, Brienne was all but living a foolish dream, believing herself a dancer, a singer, or anything close to graceful.

To her, the conclusion seemed rather straightforward, thus: Brienne couldn’t be a lady, so she would have to become a knight. With wooden sword, to be sure, over with bruises and cuts from the many times she ended up losing until her father had Ser Goodwin train her, but nonetheless quite happy with that choice she made.

Until Brienne got told that this was no good either.

Seemingly, people can’t make up their mind on what they want me to be or not to be, Brienne thinks to herself, sitting on her bed as she sharpens her dagger, brushing the whetstone over the metal at a steady rhythm.

It was the only item of value Brienne bought when she ran away for the first time. She ran to the next town, rushed to the next best forgery, and demanded the cheapest dagger the man with bald head and soot smeared over his face had to offer. At first, he wouldn’t give her one, arguing that she had no reason to use it for, but Brienne somehow managed to convince him.

There is hardly a simpler blade than this one, but Brienne prides herself that she still has it after all this time. It was challenge enough to keep the dagger hidden when the septons caught her. She reckons that it was luck that she thought fast enough to hide it away, tore a stretch of linen from her under dress and hastily wrapped it around her thigh. Gladly, the septons didn’t pay attention to the small trail of blood running down her leg, because Brienne was over with red scratches anyway, from all the pebbles that had cut open her skin.

That is one of those scars she is rather proud of.

Brienne runs her thumb over the blade, listens to the quiet sigh of steel, but she is ripped out of the tranquility of the task when there is suddenly a knock on the door. Brienne already wants to call out for the person to wait a moment, but the door already opens, so she quickly pushes the dagger under her pillow, leaving her hand on top of it.

“Septa, Septa Aurane,” Brienne stammers, rather caught off guard by the fact that the Elder Sister came all the way to her chamber. Normally, she has the septas ordered to come to her, not the other way around.

Something is wrong here.

“I hope I did not disturb in an important matter,” the older woman says as she approaches on her short legs. “Though you should know that you are not supposed to lock yourself in during the day.”

No, but in the night, so that we don’t slip away, Brienne thinks to herself as she watches Septa Aurane come closer. During the day, you want to be sure that we do nothing out of sight.

In fact, that seems to be the biggest part of it all, to watch them.

“I didn’t lock it, but the door fell shut as a gust of wind came through the window, and I wanted to finish my prayers first,” Brienne replies, hoping with all of her heart that it will come off rather smoothly.

However, she doesn’t consider it a total lie, it’s just that she prayed to the Warrior and the Father while she polished the blade. And that is the right Brienne reserves to herself, if only privately, to serve the Gods her way.

“I see, I see,” the Elder Sister replies, taking her seat next to Brienne on the bed, which creaks under her movement.

“Is there anything I can do for you, Septa Aurane?” Brienne asks, nervous as to whether the Elder Sister may catch sight of the dagger from that angle. Her fingers curl under the pillow, hold closer to the cold steel.

Because she cannot afford to lose the dagger, too.

The older woman folds her bony hands in her lap. “I believe I told you not long ago that I wish to give you more duties around the septry.”

“Yes, you did,” the young septa answers. Though Brienne would rather have duties outside it. However, that doesn’t matter to anyone but herself.

“Well, as it turns out, what I told you about back at the sept comes about far sooner than later,” the Elder Sister tells her. “New brothers are to come to the septry little time from now.”

“Oh,” Brienne says, not knowing whether she sounds passable enough about something that Meredyth told her not long ago. However, it made something solid inside Brienne’s heart that she rather would have kept as a distant idea for a while longer.

Because once the brothers come, she will have to make her choice.

“I also didn’t come around but notice that you did not give me an answer to the offer I made you, Septa Brienne,” the older septa continues, cocking an eyebrow at Brienne, to which the younger woman swallows thickly, “Well, it’s as you said, I had a lot to ponder, a lot to pray and meditate about. It’s an important task that awaits me if I were to take the offer.”

“Indeed, which is why I thought I would have my answer rather sooner than later,” the Elder Sister points out to her.

“It’s as you told me, Septa Aurane. I had a certain wish of how my life would look like for the next years. And my heart still clings to that idea… a lot. Which made it only ever the harder for me to commit myself to the great offer you made me,” Brienne explains.

Though truth be told, she is just wrestling with herself in the vain hope to get away from that, because that dream of hers, she wants to keep it. She wants to hear children’s laughter again. She wants to see the world beyond the fence again.

“You have to learn to let these things go, Septa Brienne. Now I know, it sounds impossible, it sounds hard… and it is. It takes effort and discipline,” the older woman tells her, now almost sounding empathetic.

Brienne frowns as the Elder Sister claps her on the thigh once before folding her hands in her lap again. “I came here when I was ten-and-eight, still as green as summer grass despite my age. And I was certain of that one thing: That I did not want to be forced to wed some stranger who’d likely mistreat me, that I wanted something pure in a world full of sin. And back then, I did not know if I could keep those vows, could stick to all of those rules. And I found myself tempted to go away a lot of times, I will confess it.”

The younger woman blinks. She never heard that story before.

“But I let the Seven guide me, and they guided me away from sin, away from the easy path of giving in to temptations laying on the side of the road. And I think that you can do the same. You have the endurance for it,” the Elder Sister goes on. “And if it is you any comfort, Septa Brienne, the Seven have blessed you with a plain look that keeps a lot of temptation away from you already. You have other things to wrestle with most certainly, but some quarrels you don’t have to fight. And I am happy for you that you don’t have to fight that temptation, too.”

Brienne bites the inside of her cheek. She knows that the Elder Sister actually means somewhat well with what she says, but that doesn’t make her words any less cutting. Brienne knows she is ugly. She banned mirrors from her chamber for just that reason, so not to constantly have to remind herself of something that is fact.

But that doesn’t mean the invisible daggers draw blood anyway, no matter how much time has passed since Septa Roelle lifted the scales off her eyes to tell Brienne the plain truth that this is what she is.

“You most certainly have a point, Septa Aurane,” Brienne says, having to force the words past her lips. She will have to pray at least seven times tonight for all the lies she told by now.

Though does that mean that she has a point? That I am a sinner after all?

“Well, as I said. I would want you to take up on the duty to show the new brothers around. And hopefully hammer it into their heads with the same force with which the Smith brings the hammer down on the anvil what they are permitted to do… and far more importantly what they are not supposed to do,” the Elder Sister continues, looking Brienne deep in the eye as she speaks.

“And why is not one of the young septons doing the task, if you don’t mind my asking? That is how we handled it ever since I came here,” Brienne questions. That was also one of the thoughts that kept her awake as of late.

Just why would the Elder Sister let her do something that normally falls under the responsibility of the men, especially since Septa Aurane is one who is quite strict on keeping the two apart.

“It was upon Septon Orys’s request. He said it would be good if one of the septas handled the matter,” the Elder Sister replies. “And I tend to agree with him, I may add.”

“But why exactly? I don’t mean to appear nosy, it’s just…,” Brienne mutters uncertainly.

“Well, in this particular situation, asking questions seems rather natural, Septa Brienne,” the older woman replies. “To put it simple, I suppose you are aware that we have a rather unique… setting here, with septons and septas on the same property.”

Brienne nods her head slowly. “Yes.”

“And we are aware that this gives rise to… sin, potentially. We want to narrow that risk down by ensuring that the men know their place. So long they only talk to other men… they will try to fantasize about those kinds of things that lie on this side of the property, even at the risk of corrupting their salvation. However, if you give them the reality of the situation, they will likely learn their place far sooner, having to realize that it is not nearly as tempting as they believe it to be. At least that is our hope,” Septa Aurane explains.

Brienne lets out a shaky breath. She knows rather well how that relates to what happened some time ago at the septry. A septa and a septon had entered a secret union. The septa was soon with child, tried to hide it away for as long as she could under her gray robe. And to make the tragedy only the more sickening, ever the more frightening, it was a stillborn child. The young septa was sent away shortly after she had recovered from the birth, as was the septon. They were sent to different septries, thousands of miles apart, and if Brienne is to believe some of the rumors flitting across the hallways, the young septa is now one of the Silent Sisters, so to keep hidden the simple truth that no matter what the Elder Brothers and Sisters do, temptation finds its way even inside the septry.

Or perhaps it’s rather this: Love finds its way inside here, no matter how much they try to keep it away, try to cast it out.

However, according to Septa Aurane, the destiny the septon and the septa suffered was the Seven judging them for their sins, punishing them for their crimes. But Brienne is not at all sure about that.

How can love be sin?

“And that is the only reason?” Brienne asks.

“No, not the only one. The reason why we ever considered to change our ways was that the septons and brothers to arrive are… quite curious cases, demanding certain measurements to be taken,” the older woman answers.

Brienne squints her eyes. “I beg your pardon?”

“There will be rather young septons amongst them, you must know, lads who need strict rules to keep them on the right path,” the older woman explains.

“Well, we had that before,” Brienne argues, the corners of her mouth curling into a frown. She saw them come and go, even the young ones, but that never involved the septas taking over the task.

“Yes, we did, but we will also get some runaways from other septries. Which is to say that we will get to see some brothers who have… quite a past behind themselves,” Septa Aurane replies.

“Such as?”

The Elder Sister chews on her lower, veiny lip. “Have you heard of the Kingslayer?”

“Who in the realm has not?” Brienne huffs.

A man who slew King Aerys, shoved a sword through his back like a coward.

Brienne heard the tales, and they chilled her to the bone. That man took an oath, and betrayed it, even though Ser Jaime Lannister took the vows, even though he said the words, and supposedly, meant them. And then, seemingly, didn’t have the guts to kill the Mad King from the front, but took the coward’s approach, when the person he meant to kill had his back turned to him.

And now they have a man as a ruler who has little to give on the common folk, rather spends the money on tourneys at the capitol, and none of his attention is committed to what is going on with the Faith. Or that is at least what Brienne heard other septas talk about. She wouldn’t ever know. She has never seen Robert Baratheon, she has never set eyes upon the Kingslayer. Brienne only has other people’s words on the two to make up her mental image of them. Inside her mind, the Kingslayer always has a wicked smirk tugging at his lips, shadows flitting across his features, but what that man may actually look like in reality? Brienne does not know.

Though of that one thing she is certain: Jaime Lannister shoved a sword through Aerys Targaryen’s back. He killed the King and was thereafter known as the Kingslayer.

And such a man is now supposed to come to our septry?

“Well, do you know what was ruled after his act of treason?” Septa Aurane goes on, pulling Brienne back to her chamber and the old woman’s wrinkled face.

The younger septa nods her head slowly. “There was a trial. While he was found guilty as charged, not denying the act in any way, King Robert ruled that he would not have to die for it. I suppose because, in the end, the Kingslayer helped in the same cause that brought the King into his position, which would have undermined his own claim to the Iron Throne. The Kingslayer was given three choices: A quick death if he wished for it, to take the Black and join the Night’s Watch, or…”

She stops, blinking, and the older woman nods, seeing that Brienne comprehended, affirming, “Yes, to join the Faith. And that is what he did.”

“And he is now… he is now coming here?” Brienne asks, still not quit believing it.

The Kingslayer – at their septry.

The Kingslayer – one of their brothers.

The Kingslayer – meant to dine at their tables, meant to pray with them, work with them live with them.

The Kingslayer – her fellow septon now?

Brienne shudders at the thought.

“Yes,” the Elder Sister replies.

“But why?”

“Because he kept escaping from the last septry he has been to… and the ones before that… and another… I seem to recall also another incident that was rather shocking… Our convent is more secluded, and actually bears better fences than most. The Elder Brother of the other septry beckoned us to take him. And so we did,” Septa Aurane explains to her.

But what did you get in exchange for that? Brienne wants to ask, but then does not.

While charity is a virtue demanded by the Faith, Brienne also knows that it takes more than a lot to make the Elder Sister go out of her usual ways, the same being true for Brother Orys. Septa Aurane would likely not just take in a man the likes of the Kingslayer, or novices who are known to be thieves, if not for a very good reason, and that reason likely being somewhat profitable.

“So that means… with the next cart, the Kingslayer will arrive. Along with other thieves and lads who do not know the rules of our septry… or the Faith more generally,” Brienne says, trying to process that.

“Yes, they don’t know their place in this world yet. Just like they don’t know it in the septry. And that is why I want you to do the service, to teach them just that,” Septa Aurane replies, nodding her head slowly.

And that even though I don’t know my place in this world myself, you said?

Oh, how much Brienne wished she was allowed to speak her mind to the older woman in that way. If only she could tell her, if only she could make use of her strengths rather than being constantly reminded of her limitations.

“So, will you do that service for our septry? For the Seven?” the older woman asks, and Brienne can see it in her eyes: Septa Aurane already knows the answer about to slip from her mouth.

It’s actually no question, it’s certain knowledge.

Inevitable.

Given.

The Elder Sister found a place for Brienne in this jumbled, chaotic world, and that offer just now is showing the older woman’s way of showing her the path there. It’s one step in a certain direction, and if it were to go according to Septa Aurane’s wishes, Brienne would instantly make a step forward, and never leave the path again.

But what in this septry does not go according to her wishes?

And what goes according to mine? Brienne thinks to herself, though she also knows the answer to that question: Nothing.

The young septa swallows thickly. “If that is what you think I should be doing, then… then… I suppose that is my task now.”

She can see a pleased smile spreading across the older woman’s face.

“Trust me in this, Septa Brienne, you will soon find the merits of a higher position here at the septry. If all goes well, it is only a matter of time until you will be one of the proctors,” Septa Aurane says. “And who knows? Maybe you are going to be an Elder Sister like me. That may well be your destiny.”

Brienne gives her a forced smile, not knowing how to say “no” but also finding it not in her heart to say “yes” either. Because she doesn’t want to be a proctor, she doesn’t want to be an Elder Sister. Brienne never wanted any of this. And while she reconciled herself with the fate of being a septa for the rest of her days when she took her vows, Brienne did not reconcile herself with that. She never had any ambition to become a proctor, let alone an Elder Sister. For that, Brienne disagrees with too much. For that, she thinks that even if she were an Elder Sister some time in the distant future, Brienne would not be able to change something about the system that feels like a cage to her ever since she was dragged past the gates.

It feels wrong to her, simply wrong.

It doesn’t feel like this is her path, and Brienne actually does not want to walk it, but if what the older septa says is true, then that is her only way of coming forward, of not standing still, and if there is one thing driving Brienne mad, then it is to be tied to one spot, to be unmoving, unchanging.

“So…,” the Elder Sister says, patting her thighs once more. “Tomorrow, you will go see Septon Orys about the matter, right after the morning prayers. He will give you all instructions necessary and offer some advice as well, I am sure. And then, once the new brothers arrive, you will welcome them and ensure that they know the rules and keep them to their heart as close as they should their faith.”

“… As you will, Septa Aurane,” Brienne replies, her throat suddenly dry.

“Then all is well, Septa Brienne. I am glad to hear that you won at least one of the battles currently raging within you. I have best faith that you will find it in your heart that it was the right choice,” the Elder Sister speaks before hopping off from the bed and making her way over to the door.

“Thank you for your confidence, Septa Aurane,” Brienne mutters.

“Well, you better not disappoint it,” the older woman says, back to her usual, sharp self. “And the door stays open again, yes?”

“Of course, thank you,” Brienne stutters.

“Seven blessings to you, Septa Brienne.”

“And… to you.”

With that, the Elder Sister is out the door and away.

Brienne withdraws her hand from underneath the pillow which she held in front of the dagger to keep it out of the septa’s view, frowning at the red smears on her index finger. She presses the pad of her thumb against the cut with a small hiss.

That will likely also leave a scar, if only a small one.

Brienne lets out a shuddered breath as she glances out the small window, down to the fence below, her thumb sliding over the dried blood over and over.

That is a scar she doesn’t feel proud of at all.

Chapter Text

Brienne still cannot quite believe that she is now standing by the gates, expecting the new brothers she is supposed to show around, as though she lived in the men’s quarters, as though she is a part of this part of the septry that she is actually forbidden to enter at any other time but this. The young septa only ever walked through it the last she has spoken to the Elder Brother, as Septa Aurane had tasked her to do, and then once more this morning as Septon Orys showed Brienne around one more time to ensure that everything went smoothly and that she knew where everything was.

The tall septa brushes her fingers over the fence, clutches at the metal beams which are cold to the touch, reaching high up into the rather gray sky. Brienne feels an incredible urge to move forward, upward, away, but restrains herself, instead only grabs the metal tighter.

Perhaps it is a wink of fate that Brienne is now supposed to show some men their place in the world, despite the fact that she doesn’t know hers yet, and despite the fact that Brienne once was told that she would be taught a woman’s place.

Ser Humfrey would likely lament about that turn of fate very much, Brienne thinks to herself, only slightly amused as the images of that encounter flit across her eyes for a moment or two, the fear and shame that painted over any uplifting surge of pride Brienne may have felt after she brought the mace down on the man one last time to have him yield overbearing.

So, perchance, that is actually what Brienne should take from all this, or so the young septa wants to believe: That she gets to show other people their place in the world, when her one betrothed thought he could teach her hers. Even if that means that the place Brienne meant to choose for herself… is not hers to keep.

The sounds of horse hooves pawing over dust and pebbles and the screeching of old wooden wheels pull Brienne out of her thoughts and back to the reality that this is her new duty now, the one duty she will likely ever serve.

Sealed with blood.

On two horse carriages, roughly a dozen of men are huddled together on hay and straw, their heads bobbing up and down with every bump in the dirt road. Brienne steps over to the gate and pushes the heavy construction made of iron open, finding not much trouble with that because the Seven have gifted and punished her with great strength in her body. The septons riding the carriages nod at her briefly before swinging the reins to signal the horses to move forward and hence past the gates.

Once all are past the fence, Brienne shuts the gate again, the tight knot in her stomach only ever growing stronger. She never thought it would bother her as much to welcome the new members. Brienne is used to teaching the young septas, let them know what awaits them here, show them around, introduce them to the septry’s rules, but she never opened the gates for them, or more importantly, she never closed them behind them, never locked them in.

The carriages come to a halt, and the men start to hop off the wagons one by one, some muttering, some silently contemplating as they take in their surroundings.  

Brienne studies the new brothers as she ensures that the gates are properly locked. Some stretch out their limbs after the long journey. Some chatter as though this was a day like any other, some look on blankly, perhaps even with a bit of curiosity, while others look nervous, sad, terrified, even, as they make their first tender steps around the septry now supposed to be their home, reminding her almost of scared children.

The latter expression is the one Brienne finds most familiar, and perhaps also most understandable, finding herself far too much in that expression, in those movements.

She sucks in a deep breath, runs her fingers over the still healing cut on the digit which Brienne cut on her dagger the day she agreed to a position she never thought she would have to fill in, reminding herself that this is her vow now, too.

I made a promise, and so it is mine to keep. I made a promise. I promised. I promised.

“Seven blessings to all of you, brothers,” Brienne begins, raising her voice as loud as she can to grab all of their attention. Septon Orys reminded her to speak as boldly as she can, to leave no doubt that she is “taking charge,” as he had told her with a grin.

The men turn slowly for the most part, seemingly very surprised that it is a woman addressing them, as they look at the septons on the carriages wordlessly asking them how the septa dare speak to them when they expected one of them to do the task. Though the older septons on the wagons only ever shrug at them, nodding in Brienne’s direction.

“I welcome you at this our septry,” Brienne goes on, ignoring the lack of attention of some, and instead focusing on those who maintain eye contact with her. “I am Septa Brienne, and I have the privilege and duty, granted to me by both the Elder Brother and Sister, to welcome you and introduce you to the septry and the people within it.”

“I thought the Elder Brother would do that?” one of the men argues, making a face at her. “Y’know, someone of authority?”

“No, the Elder Brother and Sister normally don’t stand by the gates to welcome the novices. Usually, one of the septas or septons, or more precisely one of the proctors, is assigned to the task. But fret not, brother, you will see Septon Orys soon enough. And he will welcome you all, just like he will give you a first blessing after the long journey,” Brienne replies, trying to keep her voice even and her facial expression as blank as possible. “For now, however, it is up to me to show you the septry. And since time is running fast, we should be on our way. So, if you were so kind to follow me?”

Brienne does not wait for a reply, but just starts to walk ahead as the men trot after her following a short moment of confusion.

And somehow, Brienne feels like the Crone already now, guiding young men towards their place to be, holding up her lantern to show the way. Though she is not yet certain if it is for good or bad to where she leads them.

They make inside the men’s quarters, which, as Brienne was surprised to learn, are not at all that much different from that of the women. She somehow expected something else once the doors opened for her, but safe for some slight differences in the architecture, they are almost exactly the same. The rooms have the same size. The windows have the same glass. The washing house is no bigger than theirs. The staircase could have been cut from the same tree if she were asked.  

Apparently, they make less of a difference in that than Septa Aurane makes them between the actions we are supposed to undertake or leave alone. While our quarters may look the same to make us equal in that way, she wants us to act very differently.

“You will spend most of your free time in this building. This is where you find your sleeping quarters, which we will go to right away. The Elder Brother’s study is also located here, on the upper floor, which I will show you, too. Please remember that the Elder Brother is not there for every small question or service you may ask. Turn to him only with urgent requests, if possible.”

“And who do we turn to for the small things?” one of the younger novices asks quietly.

“You can always ask your fellow brothers for advice, just like the proctors will offer the information you may be seeking,” Brienne says in a mild tone.

“And what of our fellow sisters?” an older brother laughs throatily, nudging his fellow in the side as though he just made a grand sort of joke. Brienne has to try hard not to roll her eyes at the man.

She sucks in a deep breath before explaining calmly, “… While this septry grants refuge to both men and women in search of their Faith, it should be duly noted that the men are to stick to this building, whereas the women occupy the other. Which is why any urgent request you may be having will likely be directed towards a septon automatically, for the lack of septas present for when those questions may arise, brother.”

They start to climb the staircase, and Brienne can’t help but recall how this whole scenery reminds her of a goose leading goslings around.

“Why are you having them together anyway?” another asks, scrunching his broad nose.

“Lack of means to handle it otherwise,” Brienne replies simply as they now start to walk on the first floor. “We have no money to occupy or build another separate septry with, which is why our superiors decided to have a joint septry, let’s say. That was done hundreds of years ago, and it works just fine, for us at least.”

“Oh yeah? I heard some other stories,” one of the novices huffs.

Brienne lets out a shaky breath. Septon Orys warned her that this may be one of those things the new brothers would come to, because, as he put it, “the thrill of stories that sound scandalous are for the easy minds, and of that… there are far too many in this world.” And looking at the fellow before her, Brienne must say that the Elder Brother may have had a point on that matter.

“My good brother, as I tell my fellow septas time and time again, you do better not listening to any piece of gossip flitting around,” Brienne tells him sharply, though she tries her best to keep her tone clear of any emotion or frustration. “Rarely do they hold ultimate truths, and it is such that we, as brothers and sisters of the Faith, should be seeking.”

“Well, it’s not so much gossip when our Elder Brother said it back at the septry I have been to before,” the man argues.

“But even your former Elder Brother likely did not have all the details of whatever truth may have been hidden in the gossip that made its round. For you, it is important to remember that we live after a strict codex here, the conditions of this septry’s architecture notwithstanding. So long you stick to the codex, you will not create any gossip surrounding yourself. And I suppose that this is what we all should strive for. Whatever gossip concerns other people… it should not concern us,” Brienne replies.

“If that is what you say, sister,” the man huffs, unimpressed.

“Aaaand we move to the right,” Brienne shouts out, ignoring him. “The Elder Sister is Septa Aurane. Please refer to her as either ‘Elder Sister’ or ‘Septa Aurane,’ not just ‘Aurane’ or whatever else. She does not appreciate it to have the title granted to her by the Faith ignored or forgotten, after she labored very hard to gain the position she now inherits for many years. You are to treat her with the same amount of respect that you are to offer to Septon Orys, your Elder Brother. She has led the women’s quarters of the septry for nearly three decades now. And I will give you that one fair warning: Do not disappoint her if you can help it, or else you will regret it.”

“What is she going to do? Chase us with her walking cane?” another man laughs, apparently the one who got nudged by his fellow before.

Brienne is already fairly sure that these two are going to be a handful of work.

“The Elder Sister does not rely on her cane, but can walk around without all the same,” Brienne points out to the man who seemingly thinks that he is particularly smart. “However, she carries around a club that she is not afraid of using. One young brother of the Faith had his nose broken when he misbehaved himself in the septry.”

To this day, Brienne partly admired the older woman for that while at the same time finding herself judging Aurane for the act. Because she forbids Brienne from catching a thief, but the Elder Sister reserves the right for herself to “lecture” those who misbehave by far too much. That one septon in question, while all worked together in the gardens, tried to pick an argument with her about how he didn’t want to do the labor she, a “wretched woman” had assigned to him.

Needless to mention that once the nose broke with a crack, the rebellious brother went about cutting back the trees the way said “hardheaded wench” had demanded of him without a single complaint falling from his lips.

“And here I thought that we took our vows not to be violent,” another mutters, though Brienne cannot spot him in the crowd.

Likely not the bravest fellow.

“Yeah, that’s more of what the Faith Militant does, isn’t it?” another agrees.

“We have nothing to do with the Faith Militant, brothers. And as concerns Septa Aurane and her club, she only uses it on rare occasions. As I said, do not give her a reason, then you will not have to suffer her wrath and you will spare our Elder Sister the pain of having to pray for forgiveness for the sin of violence she thereby commits,” Brienne says, keeping her voice leveled the best she can.

Brienne stops for a moment, then, the crowd of men bumping into one another, at least those who don’t pay attention. “As I said, this is the hallway leading to Septon Orys’s study. The door at the very end – that is his. If he is not in his study, you will likely find him either in the libraries, working on the book he is currently writing, or in the patch where we grow the berries.”

“Why the berry fields?” one of them asks with a grimace of irritation.

“He quite fancies the taste, let’s say,” Brienne replies, frowning at herself for knowing that man’s quirks despite the fact that she rarely interacted with the Elder Brother throughout the years.

Perhaps the brothers have the rights of it – upon reflection, the septry is a rather strange place after all, at least if compared to the rest out there.

“And we proceed to the dorms, my brothers. Please follow me,” Brienne calls out, waving her arm before she starts to walk again. “Breakfast follows after the morning prayers, which are held together in the Sept at the other end of the garden, which you can see over there. Food is served over at the women’s quarters, in the separate building that you can see right beside it. You are to directly head to the kitchens, and not roam around the women’s quarters. Whoever comes too late will have to go without meal. Thus, I advise you strongly to stick to the schedule.”

“So, the women and men dine together,” a man states, though he means it as a question, seemingly not quite believing what he hears, which Brienne well understands, because normally, they wouldn’t even be on the same property.

“Yes,” Brienne replies quickly. “We found that it is most effective for us. Preparing two separate meals for each quarter leads to waste of valuable food and even more valuable time that we can otherwise commit to our service to the Seven. Therefore, we all dine in the same room, but you are to keep on your side of the hall. Just follow your fellow septons to know which one it is.”

“And here I thought that we wouldn’t ever see a woman up-close again. Ha!” one of them laughs.

“You will not see much of them, rest assured, brother. We only get together for the meals, the prayers at the Sept, and occasionally for work in the gardens or other chores to be carried out around the property. Or if you are eager to read books, you may also come across a septa there on rare occasion, since the library is shared by both,” Brienne explains, whirling around. “Speaking of, you can find the library right over there. It is open to you until after the last meal. If you want to read in the night, you have to ask Brother Narbert for the key. Though he will not give it out easily, I may warn you.”

Brienne points over to the other side of the circular hall framing the entrance hall below, thereby creating two long wings, one for the people, one for the objects such as precious books, working materials, and other storages that built up over the centuries.

While Brienne has not been inside the men’s quarters until she was assigned her new set of tasks, the young septa spent some many hours at the library. However, she never entered from this side. Only Brother Narbert, the Elder Brother and Sister, and one of her proctors, hold keys to the large archive full of wonderful books. For those who want to enter, they have to come from the outside. There is a small staircase leading up to the first floor from which then even the septas can enter without ever disturbing the order of separation.

The Elder Brothers and Sisters thereby also found a way to cut down contact between septas and septons by virtue of their differing schedules, which make it almost impossible for a septa to be in the library at the same time as the men tend to show up there. However, it can happen on occasion, granted that some septas have a particular appetite for books. And yet, no contact of that sort happens without supervision, of course.

And that is how the septry creates shared spaces within the separated spaces. You just have to keep some doors shut, put a lock on it, and have a guard in place, easy as that.

“Please bear in mind that you are supposed to come in from outside. You likely saw the small staircase as we made our way in here. It leads directly to the library. If you want to enter from this side, you require the keys,” Brienne explains.

And the Seven will know how much Brienne fancied the idea of having a key, if only to lock away in the library after the closing times, if only for a couple of hours, to be perfectly undisturbed, and the doors, for once, opening to her instead closing.

Considering that… maybe that whole new task assigned to me may be not the almost bad, Brienne thinks to herself, trying to calm her frantically beating heart. Perchance that can get me a key after all.

“Other than that, you are to stay on your own. You are not allowed to come to the women’s quarters, unless you have asked the Elder Sister or one of her proctors for permission. They are called Septa Gale and Septa Daria, both of whom you will be introduced to during dinner. If you do it anyway, and are caught in our wings, you can expect severe punishment. Needless to mention that you will have to wrestle with your conscience in the eyes of the Seven,” Brienne goes on to explain.

“What is the Elder Brother going to do? Bind us to celibacy? Again?” the one who is still busy nudging his friend calls out, now almost shaking with laughter.

Brienne tries her best not to roll her eyes at the man. The Elder Brother warned her that they would ask some many questions, pose some many challenges, but reminded the young septa that they are “lost travelers who have to be brought back to shore,” a task apparently resting upon her broad shoulders now, even though Brienne is not yet certain how she is supposed to do it – or if she even wants to do it.

“You can believe me that much, Septon Orys does not take kindly that rule to be broken. You can expect severe punishment to follow if you disobey,” she warns him.

“Wouldn’t you find it unfair, then, since you get to roam through the men’s quarters?” the brother teases, much to Brienne’s annoyance. “How comes the good Elder Brother allows for that?”

“Because Brother Orys can be most certain that people like me will not break the rules,” Brienne quips through pursed lips. “And trust me in this, brother, I have little intention of sticking around here. My duty is to show you around for matters of introduction, a task assigned to me by both the Elder Brother and the Elder Sister. Everything else will be decided and handled amongst yourselves – and I have no part in it whatsoever. I am just a visitor, a small guidance.”

A lantern in the darkness. But just how much light does she cast?

“It’s because she’s so ugly no one would take her anyway, even if she slept right next to us in our beds,” another man whispers, to which most others laugh. Brienne shakes her head with a heavy sigh. One should think that living at a septry would protect her at least from such slights.

But far from it, or so it appears.

“You are not to leave the men’s quarters especially during the night, unless you get asked or sent for by the Elder Brother, the Elder Sister, or one of their proctors,” Brienne goes on, trying her best to keep her voice even, not wanting to give them the satisfaction of realizing how deeply those comments cut despite the fact that Brienne is so very used to the blade. “We have three meals, one in the morning, one in the early afternoon, and one in the evening. We have prayer times before each meal to thank the Seven for their gifts, and another four throughout the day.”

“Of course it has to be seven,” one of them groans.

“Precisely. You will hear a bell calling for prayer whenever it is time,” Brienne replies sharply, pointing to the archway allowing for a view beyond the dorm. “The wash house is over there. You can’t really miss it. Behind it, you will find the privies. Please be mindful of your fellow brothers and not make a mess of either one. If you do, you will get sanitary chores more often than you’d like to. At least so in my experience.”

“And the women don’t do it for us?” the same man from before snickers.

“No, the women are not obliged to clean after the men here. This is a septry, not a household. After all, and we are septas, not wives. That means we don’t have to clean after husbands, for we have none other than the Seven themselves to serve,” Brienne explains, hoping to sound somewhat dignified, even though that makes her stomach turn downside at once. Because yes, this is no household, it's a septry.

It’s not at all a home, or is it?

“Well, looking at that one, she should consider it a fortune,” she can hear some whisper, even spotting a finger pointed at her, though Brienne does her best to ignore it all. “Who’d take that to bride, no matter how good she may clean the privy, aye?”

“Is there a training yard of some sort, sister?” one of the men who remained silent throughout asks all of a sudden, cutting right through the sniggering as though his tongue was a blade to wield. Brienne frowns as she sets her eyes on the man. He was also the only one who did not laugh along, she can tell.

“A training yard for what, brother?” Brienne questions slowly. The man lifts his head, and they young septa must say, that man is quite a handsome fellow, especially compared to the pimpled novices and bald and thick-necked older men standing around him, with his bright green eyes that pierce through the crowd like gemstones held against the light, and while unkempt and hanging down the sides of his edgy cheekbones, his hair looks thick and golden. However, Brienne can’t help but wonder how comes the man seems so bad at shaving his scalp for the tonsure that he is over with healing scratches, some of which look achingly deep. Nevertheless, he actually has more of an aura of a nobleman about him than that of a brother of the Faith, clad in the simplest of cloaks hanging down his body like a rag, and yet bearing a kind of dignity Brienne has rarely seen.

“Sword fighting, combat, those sorts of things,” the man says, rolling his right wrist in her direction, which earns him only laughter from the others, some jokingly bumping against his shoulder. Though the brother seems unaffected by the scorn, Brienne notes, as though the comments cannot touch him, cannot cut him.

And deep down, Brienne wished she had the same kind of confidence emitting from her like that brother seems to have it as part of his body. The young septa is sure that she comes across as far more uncertainly as she would like men the likes of those to know. While Brienne always reminds herself that words are nothing but wind and that she has to let them wash over her, has to just brush them off, she cannot help but marvel at this man’s confidence, as he keeps his head up high, not a single muscle giving away his game.

Brienne wets her lips, contemplating, before replying, “… As I said, this place is a septry. We take no wives, no husbands, and we also do not take up sword, shield, or axe, unless it is to our self-defense.”

“If so, they should train said self-defense, too, no? Wouldn’t you agree, sister?” the man with blond hair argues, folding his arms over his chest. “Otherwise, putting a sword in their hands is about as useful as giving them a feather to use against a man coming at them with a battle axe.”

Brienne blinks, for a moment reminded of herself and her struggle against Septa Aurane about having the septas taught at the very least the arts of self-defense. And that even though Brienne only ever had good intentions in mind with that, wanting to protect the people she now calls her family.

Because nothing is more hateful than failing to protect the ones you love.

“… That may be, brother, but the rules are the rules, and we are to abide them,” Brienne says, the knot in her stomach momentarily knocking the air out of her.

She doesn’t want to say it, she doesn’t want to affirm it.

And yet… I do.

“Why am I to follow foolish rules?” the brother huffs.

“Because they are the rules,” Brienne replies, not knowing a better answer. Because her actual answer would be to tell him that he is right, that those rules bear without sense, that they put those at risk that she wants to know protected.

Brienne presses her thumb against the healing cut of her index finger until it hurts.

“That doesn’t make them good,” the newly arrived brother insists.

“No, but that makes them the rules to follow,” Brienne says, trying to come up with something else, but finds no other words.

The rules are the rules. The septas and septons made them long time ago, and they rarely get revised, are simply stored away like outdated books that contain theories on all kinds of topics that have been refuted. Brienne has read a good number of them. That is how it has always been, and that is how it is likely to continue for a long, long time.

Because the mills of the Seven grind slowly.

Very slowly.

“Hear that? The Kingslayer is up to oathbreaking already now,” one of the other men croons quietly, the others joining into the chorus of silent laughter.

She can see on the man’s face that he hears the voices, too, the mockery, the insult. However, the brother is far better at not letting it show on his face. She can see it only in his eyes, which, for the fraction of the moment, seem to shatter into a million pieces, only to be restored as he puts on a snarky grin, bobs up and down on the heel of his feet, and acts as though he laughed along with them, though really, he does not.

The young septa lets the words just uttered wash over her again as it hits her only just now.

The Kingslayer.

Brienne swallows. That is the man the people always speak of in hushed voiced and with bowed heads? That is the man who slew a King? That is the man who is known in all of the Seven Kingdoms under the name he was made to carry for his sin?

That is the Kingslayer?

Though what is most sickening for Brienne right at this moment is the realization that she found herself agreeing with an oatbreaker, with a man without honor.

Does that make her one, too? If she finds herself agreeing with his words, finding no counter argument to what he says on the top of her head? Find it right in her heart what he speaks from the bottom of his dark soul?

Perhaps Septa Aurane was right all along…

Brienne presses her fingers together ever the tighter to somehow ground herself.

“I will now show you the sleeping quarters. After that, you will see Septon Orys for prayer and further organizational issues. He will instruct you on your new duties, starting tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow already? Last time I changed the septry, we had a week to accustom,” one of them pouts, surely having hoped for some time off before having to resume the labor that is party of the daily life at the septry.

“We at this septry believe that you best accustom by diving right into the routines. You have today to roam around, familiarize yourself with the property, and once morning rises, you will likely see that the work will do well to help you connect to your fellow brothers and sisters,” Brienne tells him, now feeling a bit more like speaking truthfully, because she accustomed best once she started to labor.

So long Brienne was stuck in her chamber, she wanted to crawl up and down the walls. The young septa can still trace some of the scratch marks she left there when she first came to the septry, clawing at the life that was ripped out of her hands, not ready to yet embrace the one she was left to live.

However, once you work, you have a sense again, once you work, you have something to do. You have a purpose again after it was forcefully ripped away from you, leaving you with the belief that there is no sense in your life anymore, that you might just as well disappear from the face of the earth and no one would know you gone.

And it makes forgetting a bit more bearable, of the purpose you once had, in another life.

They make for the sleeping quarters, which are almost the exact same as they have them at the women’s quarters, Brienne had to realize when Septon Orys showed her around, which seems like a strange sort of unifying matter in a property that relies on being apart while being one part after all.

Quite strange indeed.

Brienne walks down the narrow corridor, extending her arms to either side to signal at the rooms there.

“Each of you has a chamber to himself,” she goes on to explain. “The Elder Brother’s chamber is out that door, down the stairs, and then following the corridor running parallel to this one you stand in right now. You can’t really miss it.”

The septa turns around and starts to walk towards the men again. “Once night has come, you are to stay in your chambers.”

That was the one thing she found out was different: The men don’t get locked away during the night upon principle. While Septon Orys called it a matter of precaution, so to protect the septas from any sort of harm coming to them, Brienne considered that a rather unfair treatment, even though he pointed out that some will get locked in if they misbehave or try to run off.

She is well aware that it all relates to the incident of the stillborn child, begotten by a union of a septa and a septon at this septry, but Brienne finds it uncalled for that the men generally do not have to suffer the same confinement once night stretches around the property.

Why not lock them all up, too? Brienne wanted to ask, but did not, just nodded her head as she received the orders. Or even better, why don’t you just stop locking us up altogether? Perchance, if you followed your own teachings that you make me carry out now, the people here would not seek it as much. Perhaps if you didn’t make it such a forbidden thing, people would see that it is not worth the try.

However, all those things, Brienne never spoke them aloud.

“During the day, you are not supposed to lock the doors,” she goes on to explain, her voice even and as confident as she can muster.

“Why is that?” the question inevitably comes.

“A man of true faith has nothing to hide, didn’t you know?” another jokes, patting the man who just spoke on the shaved scalp. “As that tonsure is supposed to remind you, in case you forgot already.”

“Well, I have seen some things that you should better hide under that robe of yours,” the other laughs.

“You do not have to leave the door completely open, but slightly ajar is enough, brother. We are granted that much of privacy,” Brienne assures him with a smile that she doesn’t feel on her face. “So? Are there any questions, brothers?”

They shake their head at her, likely just hoping for her to finally leave so that they can go about their business the way they want it – and probably laugh about her even more than they permit themselves with her still standing before them.

“Well, then you can proceed to move into your chambers,” Brienne announces, pointing at the rooms.

The men start to roam around, as busy as bees, quarreling over who gets which room. Brienne is surprised when she feels someone pulling at her sleeve. She whirls around to see the Kingslayer standing close to her.

“What, what is it, brother?” she stammers, somewhat caught off-guard to have the man so close to her. There is an aura about him that has the fine hairs on her neck stand up straight, rubbing against her bandana.

“Are we assigned chambers or do we get to choose which one we take, sister?” he asks quietly.

“They are all the same as far as I am concerned. They are all the same size,” Brienne replies, blinking. Septon Orys told her that they may start to quarrel about the matter, but that they will likely be more concerned who their neighbor is once they figure that there is nothing to be gained from either of the chambers for matters of their size.

The older man licks his lips with a grimace, before he explains in a quiet voice, “I don't care about the size of it, but some don’t have windows. And I’d rather have a chamber with one. Makes me cagey not to be able to see the sky, you see.”

“Just choose one that has a window, then. You will have to come to terms with your brothers, not me. You can choose whatever chamber you see fit,” Brienne answers. “That is entirely up to you.”

One of the few choices you will get to make here, she wants to add, but then does not.

The blond man looks at her for a long moment, then nods his head slowly. “Alright, thank you, sister.”

Brienne frowns as the Kingslayer steps over to one of the chambers with a window, looking almost relieved to have one with a way to look to the outside. And Brienne can’t begrudge him for it. She never traded her chamber even though she could have gotten herself another after all this time, but Brienne always refused. She wanted to keep the one with the window looking right on the fence, and the grove beyond. To her, it didn’t matter, so long there was a way to see the world they no longer belong to, are forced out of as they are forced into this cramped, strange place they now call their home, when really, it is not.

“You will hear a bell once we are having dinner. As I said, be sure to be on time. You wouldn’t want to leave a bad first impression on those meant to feed you,” Brienne calls out after all have made their decisions regarding the chambers. The men look at her, quieting down a bit, though the chattering does not completely cease.

Though she reckons that what Septa Aurane and Septon Orys wanted to see achieved works out just fine: The men couldn’t be less than pleased about this septa being the embodiment of the reality they now call theirs, which is far less fanciful than it may sound to be part of a shared septry. As the Elder Brother told Brienne while he walked her through the hallways, showed her the rooms she now shows to the newly arrived brothers as though it was her place, though it is not: “They will have heard all sorts of stories about this our septry. And that will darken their minds with thoughts of sin, with temptation of that which they do not know, or have not known in years even though their flesh may still ache for just those acts that mean their corruption. However, if confronted at once with the reality of what life here looks like, or so we hope, their appetite won’t even come to bloom, will wither before it ever sees the light. You see, Septa Brienne, it is worth a try, to see if that doesn’t help keep our brothers on the path towards salvation.”

And judging by the looks on their faces, what they may have fancied as a temptation or distraction seems to die down indeed.

Not that this makes Brienne feel much better about herself. In fact, her stomach turns into even more of a knot because it works, which only ever reminds her that it seems that Septa Aurane had the rights of it.

Brienne isn’t made for the life she fancies either.

“Or else they’ll snot and piss in our food,” one of the men jokes, which has the others join the chorus almost instantly. Brienne shakes her head.

Perhaps it’s a fortune that some of them are not to be wed, they would only ever give their wives grief, she is certain of that.

“I will leave you to yourselves, then. Use your time to accustom, to familiarize yourself with this place and its people. Welcome to our septry, brothers,” Brienne announces.

“Welcome to the rest of our lives, everyone!” another man echoes sarcastically.

And Brienne agrees silently as she walks away with bowed head and hunched shoulders, a small trail of blood running down her index finger as she goes, her footsteps haunting her as she proceeds down the unfamiliar yet familiar hallways.

And I led the way inside.

What kind of a Crone does that make me?

I pray you, Seven, just who am I becoming?

And is that the person you have chosen me to be – or was it just the Elder Brother and Sister?

Or is it just me?

I beg you, send me an answer, send me a sign.

Am I walking the right path or did I get lost along the way?

And if I did, please show mercy with me, and guide me back to the light again.

Father, Mother, Warrior, Maiden, Smith, Crone, Stranger…

Jaime is less than pleased with the “new arrangements” that unfolded before him ever since the carriage that brought him here wheeled past the gates of the septry, as Septon Willas called the sudden change short before it was decided that he was to leave to a new septry.

Or to put it more accurately, Jaime is pissed about said “new arrangements.” A lot.

While Jaime managed to fetch himself a chamber that has a window, at the very least, it doesn’t make this septry any more appealing, let alone bearable. In fact, he finds it even worse than the last one he has been to. And Septon Willas had his proctors hit those brothers, with the Smith’s force, who did not sing the songs the right way, or had them have their wicked joy locking the novices up in the washing rooms in case they were too bold in their words or thoughts to “wash them of their sins.”

This septry pisses Jaime off because it has high walls, high fences with sharp edges, and is Gods know where exactly. All those conditions that will take time to move past, will require effort to steal around, and will cost him valuable time, valuable energy that Jaime could well use otherwise.  

Septon Willas shall be damned. He got me by surprise that one time, but that is not repeating itself, Jaime thinks to himself, balling his fists, relishing the pain of his fingernails digging into the skin of his palm, which does well to help Jaime ground himself.

The brother has no intention of staying here, even if Septon Willas seemingly thought he outsmarted him, broke his will at last. The first chance he gets? Jaime will slip away again. o matter the costs, no matter what it takes. And the old Elder Brother can whine about being defeated by the Kingslayer of all people.

Is that act dishonorable? Without a doubt. Does it bother me? Not in the least.

Jaime doesn’t care for the dishonor others see in him, or rather, what the others want to see as an act of disgrace, when truly, it is just a matter of survival.

Lions are not meant to be kept in cages. They grow small and weak behind iron bars, they perish as their flesh decays while still on the living bone.

He is the Kingslayer to the rest of the world anyway, for all times, it seems, so what does it matter if they continue to take him for a traitor, an oathbreaker?

Jaime has nothing to lose, not anymore.

He lost everything already as he stood in the great hall of the Red Keep. He knew he’d lost it the moment on Aerys’s blood dripped down the edge of his sword, each drop cementing his future more and more until it became unmoving, unchangeable. He knew it when he put on the armor to carry out the deed. And Jaime knew it without a second of a doubt when the words were spoken that cast his destiny into stone at last.  

As of now, Jaime only has himself and that little life he lives now. So what does it matter if they catch him, club him, pull him back to the septry by the ankles first, down the dirt road, through dry grass, mud flats, or puddles? The worst they can do is kill him. And Jaime, over time, had to realize that this may be more of a fortune than a curse, actually. Looking at the meager life he lives now, hollowed and thinned out by the edges, he likely should have let Robert have his head.

Though Father never would have granted it. Had Robert made that mistake, Father would have succeeded to my honor as the Kingslayer, just that the King he would have slain would have been a stag, not a dragon. And he would not have bothered shoving the sword through the man’s back, but Tywin Lannister would have gone right through the fat belly.

Tywin Lannister was likely the last to expect his oldests son’s choice. Because the option the patriarch would have favored, to have Jaime return to the bosom of the family, or rather the family empire meant to last a thousand years, was not open to him to choose.

It was Death, Wall, or the Faith.

There was no middle ground, no easy way that would have led Jaime back to the Rock, back home. Even Tywin Lannister, for all of his pride, had to live with the choice his son made that day, whether he wanted to or not. And Jaime thought that the latter of the three was the least evil, which is why he chose it, much to his father’s shock, it seemed, judging by the older man’s expression as his oldest son uttered the words, head held high despite the fact that it was just the bones that held up his body and kept it from collapsing upon itself.

Which was a big miscalculation in the retrospective, Jaime thinks to himself with a snort. Give me a clean death, but one that bears some sort of meaning, and yet, here I am hanging in the limbo of nothingness.

He considered some many times to just fetch a dagger, a knife, a rope around the neck, even, something, anything, if only just to end this misery. Jaime had a rope made of his bed cloth one time, early into his first stay at a septry. He had set up the small chair that creaked under every movement. Jaime was most convinced that he was ready to leave the world, no matter how, so long it was now, now, now.

But then, something stopped within him, came to a pause, didn’t let him go just one step further. And so, Jaime kicked the chair over with a thud, tossed the makeshift rope to the ground, rolled on the other side of the bed, closed his eyes and pretended to sleep, having come to the painful realization that he could not follow through with something that should be easy, no matter the temptation, no matter the wish for it to end.

Because that is the kind of disgrace that even Jaime could not and still cannot bear.

Once Jaime dies, he wants to die a somewhat meaningful death. He suffered through enough disgrace, at his own hands and at that of others, through all those accusations from people who do not understand much of anything that went on inside the Red Keep all those years ago because they weren’t there, haven’t seen, and even those who saw, kept their eyes shut while wide open, didn’t ask, assumed, made fact, and Jaime reconciled himself with that.

At least a good death I should get, if the Seven are not as much of bastards as I take them to be.

However, until then, Jaime might just as well try his best to get out of this death trap of a septry. He has no interest to spend year after year working his hands bloody and his back humped. Jaime doesn’t mind the labor, but he minds it in the service of a people who seemingly have forgotten about their own teachings, the ones they sing and pray day in day out, muttering the words without knowing what they actually mean.

At least that is what Jaime became painfully aware of when he joined the first septry, or rather was forced to join. Because he can’t imagine that what he saw is what the Seven mean to teach, want their faithful followers to carry out in their name. Not that Jaime ever bothered reading the Seven-Pointed Star any more than he was made to do it by the brothers when they forced him to pray along. Yet, he can’t seem to imagine that how the septries he has been to are run is in the fashion that the Seven would want it to go.

If the Gods are true and just, that is.

Jaime saw that one Elder Brother who slipped his filthy fingers up young novices robes or had them come to his chamber late at night, “to pray together,” as he called it. And for as long as Jaime was there, which was truly… not very long… he spent his time fighting back, because Jaime didn’t mind the trouble, didn’t mind the punishments that such disobedience entailed. He called the lads back, told them not to go up to the Elder Brother. And that night, he went into the bastard’s study and just punched him so hard in the face that the good Septon lost two front teeth, and then kicked him so hard in the crotch that Jaime has good hope that the Elder Brother may have joined the eunuchs thereafter.

Not that the lads were really thankful for it, or considered Jaime their savior for the act. And not that he expected it, even less so wanted it. They likely knew as good as he did that this didn’t earn them the love of the proctors of the septry by any means. Jaime reckons he did that actually out of selfish reasons in that way.

Said act cost Jaime his spot at the septry, however, so he has not seen much of the consequences of his little time of “praying together” with the Elder Brother in private. He didn’t even make an attempt of escape back then. He simply let himself be loaded on a wagon like a wet sack of flour and allowed them cart him off to the next location.

As though that solved the problem. Because the problem wasn’t me alone. It was them.

But he knows that makes no difference. It never makes a difference.  

No one wants to burn out the wound, has the courage to cut out the infected flesh with all of its pus and badness. No, they leave the wound festering instead, pretend the cut isn’t there or is healed with some heartfelt prayers.

Jaime thought that this was a spirit that had manifested itself in the Kingsguard alone, which was bad enough in itself, but the realization that the septries were only other kinds of evils gradually had him lose faith in everything.

He believed in his family.

He believed that he would protect them no matter the costs, that he would manage, and that his brother, sister, and Father would devote the same kind of determination to his cause. But that did not happen.

He believed in his fellow brothers, he believed that the men who had served the realm for years by the time that he came to the Red Keep, still as green as summer grass, would know what is evil and what is not, what is good and what is bad. But then he had to stand side by side with what used to be his childhood heroes made flesh, and he had to stand vigil as the former Queen’s cries rang down the corridors, at the hands of the King. He only ever was told that they were meant to protect the Queen, yes, but not from the King.

He believed that they would come back when all hell broke loose. When the sack on King’s Landing happened, and when the pyromancers roamed around the Mad King’s head like flies around a cadaver. He believed they would come riding back. Ser Arthur had told him that, but he never came back. Only later did Jaime learn that the man had been slain by honorable Eddard Stark in Dorne.

He believed in some sort of godly justice. Jaime wanted to believe in it. That the bad would get punished, that the good would be rewarded. And with that, Jaime didn’t even consider himself being one of the good. He knew what he did was treason, no matter that he wore the golden armor of his family, not the one given to him when he took on the White. Jaime knew there was no honor in the act.

But it needed to be done.

If that meant his own damnation, then Jaime was willing to pay the price. To let justice ring, if only hidden away in the shadows, for no one to hear, for no one to see, to bear witness.

He believed in this justice until he had to realize that he was yet again made plaything in a bigger game than himself. What once was the Mad King’s way of cutting his father one last time to drive him from the capitol when he had Jaime become a member of the Kingsguard, thereby bereaving Tywin Lannister of his firstborn son, his heir, had simply taken a new cloak. Robert assumed the authority Jaime granted him, wanting nothing to do with their little games and intrigues. He wanted to leave it to the thinkers and politicians, to the lords and ladies who bother about power and whose it is to keep.

And so, he believed in that sort of justice to come to him, but it was not justice. The choices given were, in essence, all the same: to hide it away, to keep hidden a truth that is too uncomfortable for most other people to bear.

That he, the Kingslayer, who has done such an act of disgrace, was serving justice.

That the unjust did the just.

That, in order to do the just, the unjust had to be done.

That it was without alternative.

That there was good reason, now back to slumber in the crypts beneath the city, hopefully to be forgotten one of these days, so to never rise to the surface again in endless green.

And because that is so uncomfortable, hard to swallow, hard to take, it seemed easier to have the people forget, forget the green fire, the Mad King’s reign, only remember his title and who killed the man who bore the title, the institution – and Jaime was meant to be forgotten along with that, was meant to go to death with that secret.

Certainly, Jaime kept his own secrets regarding the matter. He didn’t want to share, couldn’t, even. Some things he buried so keep inside himself that he didn’t find the words even if someone had asked him.

Not that someone did, though.

There were never questions, there were just observations, judgments, sentences.

However, the secrets Jaime keeps now hidden in his heart, behind high walls made of stone and iron, they are only one part of a story that even those who like to pretend to having had no clue can only ever deny because they put it all on his shoulders.

Anyone who says that the atrocities committed by the Mad King were not a widely known knowledge is telling lies.

Anyone who says that no one knew about the Mad King’s fable for wildfire is telling lies.

Anyone who says that there was no way to know just how far he went with his fancy for the green liquid is lying.

Anyone who claims that there was no way of knowing that the Mad King was indeed mad is lying.

The rest? What Jaime knows? It is details to complete a picture, giving it a new dimension, one that is far more destructive, for more disruptive, far more frightening.

But that doesn’t make the tales already out there any less horrendous and any less real.

But that didn’t matter.

Because nothing matters, it seems.

The Wall, Death, the Faith, all those choices Jaime was presented with – they all stemmed from the same idea – to have him silenced, to have him take to the grave with him the secrets, the tales untold, and those to simply be forgotten to take away from the shadows cast upon the Iron Throne Robert Baratheon now calls his own.

He believed that politics would end at that, but they didn’t. Jaime was yet again just another plaything getting tossed around to buy silence, to smooth over the edges of a new rulership that stands on very shaky pillars.

To Jaime, it seems to be an almost epic twist of fate that whatever that remained of his faith was shattered when he joined the Faith.

And now he is stuck at this septry, which is ever the harder to get away from.

The Gods must be testing me – if they exist indeed.

He glances out the window, cranes his neck.

Maybe if I got myself a rope or some bed sheets and a bit of the straw from the mattress…

“Hey, Kingslayer!”

Jaime rolls his eyes as one of the brothers who arrived with him strides inside without even bothering to leave him that bit of privacy. For a moment, he feels tempted to correct the man, but then thinks better of it.

Jaime, my name is Jaime.

“What can I do for you, good brother?” he asks, flashing a bright smile that he obviously doesn’t mean, which doesn’t go unnoticed by the other man, who only rewards him with an annoyed grimace in turn.

“The Elder Brother’s been calling for you,” the brother tells him. “I bet he’ll have some interesting stuff to talk about.”

“Oh, nothing too interesting, I am afraid,” Jaime says as he gets up from the bed. “They always want to know how I did it.”

“Did what?”

“Earn my name,” Jaime answers before pushing past the other man with raven hair and continues to make his way to the study. Jaime knocks on the door before heading inside, finding Septon Orys leaning over some scattered parchments. The older man looks up, offering Jaime a crooked sort of smirk that doesn’t look at all too enacted, which is quite a novelty to Jaime. He is far too used to forced and dishonest smiles.

“Seven blessings to you, brother Jaime.”

“Seven blessings to you, too,” Jaime replies in a flat voice, not meaning that at all. “You have called for me?”

“In fact, please, have a seat,” the Elder Brother says, gesturing at the chair before him.

“Thanks,” Jaime mutters before sitting down on the wooden chair, which creaks under his weight. “So? What can I do for you?”

“Well, I don’t think it went without your notice that your stay here… is a rather complicated matter,” Septon Orys begins, folding his hands under his chin.

“Hm, I wouldn’t say complicated, really, it is just that no one really wants me here, that I don’t really want to be here, but that by virtue of the choice I made, no one gets what he or she wants as I remain tied to the septry, whichever it is I am currently at,” Jaime says with a lazy smile.

“As you say, there were quite a few incidents wherein you tried to break out,” the older man says, studying him carefully, seemingly trying to come across as the benevolent but fatherly type of septon. Jaime has seen those kinds of men before. Sometimes that is what they actually are, and other times, those prove to be very dangerous, hiding well behind their kindness.

And Jaime is not yet sure to which category Septon Orys belongs. Though he reckons he is to find out in due time.

“I almost managed once. But then I had to get something to eat, and that was apparently the death of my sweet journey,” Jaime replies, doing his best to keep his voice light, and his smile even lighter.

Because smiling at the dangers he faces is the one thing that Jaime reckons gives him the aura of being unafraid, and that is something so deeply entrenched as the son of the patriarch of House Lannister that even robes and tonsures cannot wash away.

“Brother Jaime, I want to be as honest with you as I can, as the Father demands it of us,” the Elder Brother says, leaning forward slightly.

“Which is ever the more appreciated, Septon Orys.”

“You are here now at our septry because Elder Brother Willas asked us to take you in because neither were you happy there, nor were you able to serve the Seven, as you should by virtue of the oaths you took in the eyes of our Gods and the Realm,” the older man begins.

“As I said, there seems to be that strange sort of conundrum,” Jaime chuckles. “Quite a messy business, those.”

“We surely hope that you will not mean to escape another time now that you have come here to us,” the septon says, though it’s rather a request, Jaime is rather certain of that.

“Since the Faith tells us that we should not lie… I am not keen on making any promises regarding the matter. Now, I am aware that good Brother Willas hoped that knocking me out before the carriage arrived would keep me disoriented a while longer before I knew where I was. However, I reckon that you and I aware that this is… not too sound a concept. I mean, unless you manage to keep me away from any map until the rest of my days, I will only ever know the region, but is that truly worth it?”

“I am well aware, Brother Jaime. However, matters of precaution will become necessary,” the older man continues, his voice even, as though to calm a wild beast.

How fitting, because the Septon means to fight a lion.

“And what matters would that be?” Jaime asks, cocking an eyebrow at the brother, who then replies, “We agreed that for you, special measures have to be applied to ensure that you settle in at this our septry as fast and smoothly as possible.”

You could also just tell me to fall in line, but that wouldn’t be as elegant, would it? Jaime thinks to himself, though he knows that the old man wouldn’t admit to it even if he were to say it aloud.

“Again, what measures are that?” Jaime repeats, unimpressed.

“Having your doors locked at night. That you are not to be outside without one of your brothers, or on occasion sisters, accompanying you. No work by the fences, unless you are ordered to by one of the proctors, the Elder Sister, or myself,” the septon informs him.

“So, I am a prisoner to the Faith now, is that what you are trying to tell me so subtly?” Jaime asks with his smirk being the only thing to hold on to right now.

The Elder Brother shakes his head once, twice. “No, we just mean to fulfill our obligations to both our Faith and you, our new brother, which is to bring you back on the path towards salvation.”

“Which is curious because I never asked for the favor,” Jaime argues.

“You may not ask for it, Brother Jaime, but we consider it our responsibility to bring you back on the path towards the Seven Heavens, as it is our duty to all those who find home and protection in this septry. You are one of our brothers now, you are one of our own, whether you like that circumstance or not,” Septon Orys tells him. “And that makes your salvation our obligation as much as it should be your own.”

“And yet, I seem to get a very special treatment despite the fact that we are all one now,” Jaime scoffs, toying with the rope tied around his waist.

“And you find that surprising?” the older man argues. Jaime smirks at that, before answering, “Not at all. I mean, if I were you, I would probably chain the Kingslayer up somewhere in the dungeons… if you have them, fearing that perchance he will find a way to make a dagger from a Seven-Pointed Star to stab the man whom he is to serve right in the back, the way he has done it before in the eyes of men and the Seven.”

He rather has them fear him than leave him under the illusion that Jaime will go just do as he says because he offers him a hand. Jaime doesn’t need that man’s help towards salvation. He long since gave up on that. Jaime knows he is heading straight for damnation. And he discovered that there is something liberating in knowing that you are one of the damned.

“I have good faith that you will find it in you to accustom to us and our way of worship of the Seven. But I am also aware that it will require both effort and time from us as much as of you. And I want you to be aware that the matters of precaution we currently take can be rearranged, granted that you abide the rules,” Septon Orys goes on.

“So, a bit of freedom is my reward? And here I thought that the Faith was what made us free, fly as high as a bird into the sky,” Jaime snorts.

“I do see that you still need time to meditate and ponder the new circumstances, which is why I will not keep you for much longer. I just wanted to let you know what awaits you from now on,” the Elder Brother tells him. “I don’t want to make the mistakes Brother Willas seemingly made, not letting you know of certain things. I wish to see that changed.”

“Very much appreciated, Elder Brother. I always enjoy knowing just when the bear trap is going to snap around my ankle. Then I can ready myself for the pain,” Jaime says, flashing a smile that means just one thing – that he doesn’t want to smile. “But answer me this, if you don’t mind.”

“Yes?”

“Who is my prison guard in all this? Who holds the keys? Because surely, I hope not that it’s the freakish tall septa who led us around. I reckon she’d beat me with a club in a heartbeat,” Jaime laughs.

If the woman’s words are to believed, she is one of the very devoted ones, and Jaime can’t have watchdogs on his tail while he is planning his escape, even less so when the woman could very well wrestle him to the ground and win, judging by the sheer size of her body.

“You are no prisoner. You are one of our brothers now. And as to Septa Brienne, she is a faithful servant to the Seven, and has been for many years. We are grateful that she took over the duty of showing our novices around,” Septon Orys argues.

“I was wondering about that anyway. I mean, I do understand that things are handled differently around here, but to have a septa show us the men’s quarters? It did get me by surprise,” Jaime comments.

“You will find in time why we made that decision. As of now, all you need to know is that the septas are not primarily responsible for seeing about you,” the older man explains to him, though Jaime doesn’t find that answer satisfactory at all.

“So the septas won’t chase me down if I were to make an attempt at climbing that fence?” Jaime asks with a smirk.

“Most won’t, but some might,” the septon answers.

“You mean this Septa Brienne will?” Jaime chuckles, still pondering what opportunities may come out of the information he receives. “She looked like it.”

“You will be supervised by whoever has time for you. Be certain that one of the brothers or sisters will be with you at all times,” Septon Orys tells him, as though those words were actually meant as reassurance. To Jaime, they are a threat, no matter the soft voice they are spoken with.

“It’s always good to know to be watched that thoroughly.”

“Is there something else you’d want to discuss, Brother Jaime?” the Elder Brother asks, seemingly fed up with the younger brother’s ways already, which does well to please Jaime. He has no intention to be nice or liked around here.

“No, that was very… illuminating. And now, as you say, I will have to ponder and meditate those revelations,” Jaime says. “Who knows, maybe they will show me some greater truths about the Seven and just why they seem to be so keen on looking away when you are all busy staring.”

“I think you will require a lot more meditation, then.”

“Oh, of course. I have plenty of time now, don’t I?” Jaime asks, pushing up from the chair. “We swear only just for life, right? That leaves so much time to ponder and meditate Gods, men, the world, and how it’s all going to come to an end.”

“I will see you at dinner.”

“As you will, Brother Orys.”

“Seven blessings to you.”

“And to you, and whoever may be watching me silently already now,” Jaime says, walking over to the door. “And thanks another time for the quite warm welcome.”

With that, Jaime exits, walking down the narrow corridor leading back to his small chamber, all the while pondering what he just heard, because Jaime knows better than to let anything come to close of him in that regard. He has a new goal already, and that is to find a way out of the locked chamber.

And for that, he will need a lot of meditation indeed.

Because lions aren’t made for cages.

And proud beasts like that will eventually find a way out.

They always do, because you cannot tame them.

Ever.

Hear that, Father, Mother, Warrior, Maiden - and the rest of you bastards?

Chapter Text

Jaime lets out a weary sigh as he makes his way inside the common hall where the brothers and sisters seem to take their daily last meal for those condemned and damned.

He must say, once inside a septry, they look painfully much the same, the people in them included. While Jaime is rather good at remembering faces and people, a skill that his father let his teachers hammer into his head when Jaime still lived in the certainty of being a lord one day, long before things as foolish as Kingsguard even came to his young mind, he found himself somewhat blinded by the brothers’ and sisters’ sameness. Septas and septons all turned into a mass of robes, browns and grays meshing together, making him nauseous the more time he spends around them.

And this septry is no different. The only person who stands out to him by virtue of her stature is the septa who showed them around the men’s quarters, presumably to earn the Elder Brother’s and Elder Sister’s favor. Or so Jaime reckons.

Why else would someone volunteer to the task?

He can easily spot her in the mass of gray, her head peeking out like a single, slightly crooked, sunflower planted into a patch of one kind of daisies. Though Jaime is a bit surprised to find her in conversation with a rather outgoing septa, judging by how loudly and boldly the short woman with tooth gap speaks, waving her arms around wildly, as though her words were simply not enough to convey what she means to say.

He took this Septa Brienne to be a rather lone wolf amongst the sheep after all, so it is rather surprising to Jaime to see that she apparently has what appears to be fellows, even more so outgoing ones.

But how does it go? Opposites attract, right?

“Now get walking, Kingslayer,” one of the septons who came here with him mutters from behind him, pushing against Jaime’s back to make him move forward.

“Easy there. I suppose there will be enough food to even fill your big stomach, dear brother,” Jaime laughs drily as he starts to walk to the next best free bench, ignoring the glances that earns him because, naturally, no one wants to sit with the Kingslayer.

Not that the Kingslayer wants to sit with them either, though.

He is little surprised that glances get stolen at the new brothers from the residents, and him in particular. Jaime can hear the soft murmurs, which are swelling into a mixture of laughter, muttering, gossiping, storytelling of a story they do not know, do not own, a song they don’t know how to sing and sing out of tune anyway.

Jaime sits down on the next best bench he can spot, not caring for the side glances from his fellow brothers at all. They are all but shadows inside his mind, flitting away once he closes his eyes or lets them out of sight.

When the Elder Brother and Sister start to give their speeches about the septry, its rules and privileges, its great merits and responsibilities towards the Faith, Jaime momentarily considers starting to sing Six Maids in a Pool only to see their faces, but then again, Jaime’s neck and head are still throbbing from the last assault that disobedience earned him, so maybe he will simply eat his meal in silence today and return to his usual rebellious self for when it matters.

The meal, after the speeches and prayers, is mostly taken in silence or quiet murmuring, which Jaime tends to welcome. People babble too much, as though much of anything was going on in these places when, clearly, it isn’t.

Brienne, meanwhile, tries her best to look at her bowl of soup, which she didn’t eat more than a few spoonfuls from, her stomach still upset after she welcomed the brothers to the septry.

“You still didn’t tell me about the men’s quarters, Brienne. BRIENNE. Hello?” Meredyth says, pulling the taller septa out of her thoughts buried at the bottom of her soup bowl.

“Hm? Sorry. I was…,” she mutters, looking at her with a grimace. Meredyth only rolls her eyes at her in turn. “Away again. I know that from you well enough. You have to focus, though.”

“I told you, they look very much the same as ours,” Brienne sighs.

As much of a rift as there exists between the quarters, deep down, they are all the same, it appears.

“Did you talk to the Kingslayer yet? He is actually handsomer than I thought him to be. Normally, people will say about lords and ladies that they are far prettier than everyone else because they are royals, even though they compare to piss buckets in looks. But that one? Even with the tonsure, I wouldn’t mind welcoming him to my bed…,” Meredyth chimes, looking over to the Kingslayer dipping dry bread into his soup bowl, minding his own business. Brienne pulls on the other woman’s shoulder, hissing. “Stop that now.”

“Oh, you know how I mean it.”

“And you should stop meaning that all the same,” Brienne mutters forcefully.

“What’s the matter with you? I thought this is a good day?” Meredyth huffs. “I mean, you just got promoted.”

“I wasn’t promoted,” Brienne insists.

She was tied to this septry, that is what happened. This was no promotion, this was signing a deal without a parchment, without dried ink. It was giving in to the circumstance that even her small dreams of raising children won’t ever become reality.

“Well, call it what you will, but you have to see the opportunity. I mean, you are one of the few who gets to go to the men’s quarters,” Meredyth whispers, leaning in closer. “You could finally get some experience.”

“Oh, will you leave that now?” Brienne grunts.

“You know I won’t. The Seven know what I would give for having something beside my hand to scratch the itch,” Meredyth sighs, looking over the brothers sitting huddled over their food. “I would even take one of their hands just for a change…”

“Meredyth, in all sincerity. During meal?” the taller woman snarls in a low voice, fearing that someone will hear them, well aware that her fellow septa could not care less.

“After meal we are working, you might recall. Talking about those matters is actually rather safe. No one bothers to listen so long you keep it low, you silly goose. And anyway, even if the Elder Brother himself were to hear me, he would shame himself by perking his ears at a septa’s needs underneath her robe, hm?” Meredyth mutters, leaning in a little closer. “And in any case, they can’t blame me. We have new men here. A woman has needs, even though she is supposed to restrain them. If we had none, there would be no reason to restrain ourselves. So, deep down, they are aware that those needs are there and that they are… itching every once in a while. They just ask us not to do it… doesn’t mean we can’t use a bit of fantasy.”

Brienne shakes her head. “I won’t have that kind of discussion with you.”

“You are such a killjoy. Though I suppose the Kingslayer may not be worth the adventure, no matter how pretty he is,” Meredyth sighs, leaning her chin on her hands. “I mean… if he kept true to his vows, he is a virgin. That means the man will likely not last long… and if that scratches the itch… I dare doubt it.”

“What part of me not wanting to partake in such conversation did you yet again fail to understand?” Brienne grunts.

“I understand very well. I just ignore it.”

“As always.”

Meredyth tilts her head to the side. “So you really won’t tell me what’s on your mind? Even though I keep bothering you with what I know drives you insane for dinner conversation?”

“As always,” Brienne sighs, though this time with a hint of a smile, before her eyes drift back over to the Kingslayer another time. She can’t even tell why her mind keeps going back to the man. Maybe it was that he asked for the training yard that does not exist or a place with a window.

“You know, you have to get better at stealing glances. There is no doubt in my mind that the Kingslayer is very well aware that you are looking at him more often than at much of anything else,” Meredyth says before shoveling another mouthful of soup into her mouth with a grin.

“I am not.”

“Oh, you are. And no harm done, just be a bit more discreet about it,” Meredyth chuckles. “But anyway, fascinating, isn’t it? We now have the man in our septry who murdered the last king. I always thought no interesting people come here, but that man surely knows so many juicy royal secrets I would die for hearing.”

“It’s not worth dying for hearing some secret,” Brienne huffs.

Secrets in general don’t seem worth much to her.

“Then what’s worth dying for in your opinion? Let me guess! The Faith? Honor? I bet you would say honor. Oaths. That sort of thing, hm?” the other septa teases.

“Love,” Brienne answers simply, not looking at the other woman.

“Love?” Meredyth repeats, not having expected that reply.

“I think that’s worth dying for,” Brienne says quietly.

She would have gladly given her life for her father.

She would have given it for Goodwin.

She would have given it for Renly, for a time, until everything turned another way, out of place.

Brienne well knows that she doesn’t seem to be the kind of person, but she believes in love, she believes in the power it has, both to build and destroy.

“Who could have guessed that you can be so bloody well romantic, hm? Seems like I have to watch out that you don’t elope with your sweetheart, whoever it may be,” Meredyth says with a smirk.

“I am not eloping.”

Running away seems to be no longer an option, not if Brienne wants to honor the vows she took. Though perhaps that is part of the process. Perhaps the girl who jumped the fence is truly just that – a girl. And Brienne tends to believe that, perchance, it’s time for her to stop acting like one. Who can say? If she becomes proctor or even an Elder Sister, she could wind up running the septry closer to what she finds right, teach the septas how to fend off a thief, open the gates more often, those kinds of things, but from her current position, from where Brienne currently stands, she can’t do much of anything. So, maybe, that really is the development she has to undergo to have a chance to not just change something about her condition but that of the others as well.

Perchance that is her one way of making a difference, of having a purpose beyond herself – if it isn’t educating the young, being the septa she didn’t find in her own, maybe it is this.

And what else do I have left if not this?

“Well, if I am your sweetheart, let me know when you think we can elope at last,” Meredyth snorts.

“You are not my sweetheart.”

Meredyth only ever laughs at this. “Oh, now you are hurting me.”

“I have one question for you, however,” Brienne says, looking away when she finds herself stealing glances at the Kingslayer again. She can’t prove the other septa right, now can she?

“And what would that be?”

“Do you know any more of why the Kingslayer ended up here?” Brienne asks.

“Well, he slew the King. So it was either the Wall or this… or death. Which makes this perhaps the least misfortune, which should be telling about how bad the other alternatives were,” Meredyth says, shrugging her shoulders.

“I know all that,” Brienne argues. “As anyone does, but do you know any more about why he was brought to this septry?”

“He’s a troublemaker, that’s all I know. And judging by how he is called, I don’t think it’s farfetched to say that he has some issues with… authority.”

For a moment Brienne wonders whether she actually has that one thing in common with the man, but quickly abandons the thought, not wanting to think about how much more of a sinner she may be for that very circumstance.

Brienne abandons her meal thereafter, folds her hands under her chin, and simply observes the new brothers, some of whom seem to settle in better than others, who are too busy behaving themselves the same way they did when she first showed them around.

They are supposedly part of the future of this place, granted that they are going to stay.

And as it appears, she will share in that future.

The only question is in what way she is going to shape it.

Working in the gardens was always a strange mixture for her.

A part of her enjoys the physical labor, another takes happiness from seeing things grow, taking the shape she gives it, following some of the advices she read in the books she devours some many times during her free time. That part resides in the present.

Another part looks forward to the next harvest, to when the flowers come to bloom. That part has its place in the future distant and close.

And the other part, obscured in the shadows of the willows and oaks, swaying in the winds, has its home in the past she would rather lock away at times, bury deep in the ground in the hope it doesn’t come to bloom again. The part that remembers how often she used the opportunity to escape from the septry during that labor and how she was walked back while the other septas gave her looks of misgiving. And while Brienne still holds to heart that words are but wind and that she has to let it all wash over her, it made the pain of shame weigh ever the heavier on her broad shoulders, made her cuts and scratches pound and throb with even greater intensity and made her tears burn even hotter on her freckled cheeks.

Working in the gardens far too often brings her back to what she missed, tried to run back to, knowing very well that there was no way for her to come back. It reminds her of what she missed and still misses – and tries to replace with purpose.

Brienne straightens up, wiping sweat from her brow, glancing at the sun shining with particular intensity today. She runs the tips of her fingers against each other to feel the fine kernels of soil rub against them, for the fragment of a moment thinking back while thinking forward as she thinks about what it would be like if this was her soil, from the place she keeps dreaming about, the place she owns only inside her mind.

She grimaces when she hears shouts from further down south of the garden, pulling Brienne abruptly back to the present day. The young septa sighs as she gets up, her knees screaming from the strain after kneeling in the patch for so long. While she likes gardening for all those reasons, Brienne’s size always makes those kinds of tasks rather difficult when she has to do them for hours without relent or rest.

The tall tries to spot the source of the noise, already starting to walk ahead.

Making her way past the shed where they keep hay for the animals, Brienne soon finds the reason for the strange noises as she catches a glimpse of two of the new brothers just recently arrived. They try to pull a carriage out of a large puddle of mud they maneuvered into, which was fed by the heavy rain last week that didn’t dry even though the weather was dry these past few days.

The brothers turn around, surprised to see the tall septa approach.

“Do you need some help?” Brienne asks, nodding at the carriage on the verge of falling over.

“We can handle it,” the taller of the two answers promptly.

“Yes, I can see that,” Brienne scoffs, nodding at the carriage.

They are half her size, even combined, they are more likely to fail at the task. Sometimes Brienne would love to curse the Elder Brother and Sister for not letting the men do the tasks that would fit their physique. Those young men still need time and food to grow the muscles it takes to do the labor that their brothers do now that they are matured.

In fact, they would likely be of more use planting potatoes and parsnip.

“Looks like you loaded in too heavily,” Brienne comments, assessing the damage, glad to see that the axis didn’t break.

“We thought that would spare us time,” the shorter one says, puckering his lips.

“You wanted to spare yourself the effort of going all the way back to the front gate to gather the sacks of flour brought from the mill, I am aware,” Brienne huffs. “But for the next time, please bear in mind that the carriages don’t hold as much weight. They sink into the earth too deep. A bit more and the wheels would break off the axis.”

The men frown at her, wrinkling their noses. Brienne shakes her head as she comes closer. Those are the things that do not change, no matter what: People always seem to see something in her that she is not, or are surprised at what she is or what she knows or doesn’t know.

In any case, she is rarely what people expect her to be.

“Let me try something,” Brienne says, not taking no for an answer.

She gathers some of the fabric of her robe in her hand to tie up a bit higher, so not to get it dirty before stepping into the mud to grab the yoke, bowing down until she can get one shoulder beneath the wooden beam. “Now, you two will go to the other side and when I tell you to, you are going to push as much as you can. Yes?”

The young men look at her rather irritated, but Brienne pays no attention to that. She has other to do than worry about men not wanting to recognize that they are not as strong as her.

She broke a betrothal for that in what seems to be twice removed from where she is now.

“Now push! Push!” Brienne shouts, and the lads do as she tells them. The young septa lets out a growl as she pushes as well, hoping that it will not take too long to get the carriage out of the mud.

Her ankles sink deeper and deeper into the cold, brown mass. Brienne can already feel the wet sand against the soles of her feet, creeping upwards.

“Just how much did you load in?!” she grunts.

Normally, when someone overloads the wagon, it takes her a bit of a push, but right now, her legs are on the verge of giving up due to the weight.

Small wonder that they had such trouble maneuvering the carriage at that rate. Perchance I should have told them about that when I introduced them instead of showing them their rooms.

Brienne suddenly feels a presence beside her. She turns her head to see the Kingslayer pulling on the opposite side of the wagon to help get it back in balance. Brienne cannot deny she is a bit surprised to see him there. She reckoned that this new brother would likely try his best to do as little as possible. A nobly born son who has known life outside the palaces of the realm for not so long as far as she is concerned.

“Stop! That’s not going to work,” he shouts at her.

Brienne wants to scowl at him for that. She knows she can do it. It may take a while, but the tall septa has gotten every carriage stuck on this muddy path by now, the Kingslayer won’t tell her what she can do and can’t do.

It’s enough that the Elder Sister tells her about all the things she cannot do, cannot have.

Brienne doesn’t need another voice to sing that same solemn ballade.

Enough is enough.

“It is. I just need to get the right angle to push up,” Brienne grunts, tightening her grip on the yoke, setting her jaw into a straight line, not wanting to hear anymore of what she can’t do, what she mustn’t do, even less so from a man who seemingly didn’t learn those lessons himself yet.

“Your legs are going to give up on you any moment now,” the Kingslayer argues, pointing at her shaking limbs.

Brienne wants to get up at once to smack him for the effrontery of embarrassing her in front of the young brothers, but the young septa knows better than that.

Father, Mother, Maiden, Warrior, Smith, Crone, Smith, she recounts. Give me strength, give me patience, or else I will be peeling potatoes for the rest of the year again.

“My legs are doing just fine, brother. If you want to help, you are more than welcome, but if you just want to talk smart, you might just as well leave again,” Brienne snarls.

“I am not talking smart, I just have a pair of eyes,” Jaime argues. “And I am not afraid of using them.”

That this septa always seems to take whatever word he speaks for a slight tempts him to just turn around and leave again, but Jaime reckons that this may only add sin to the heap he already piled up over the years, and only the Gods will know how much he would have to repent if he dared to refuse the stubborn, holier-than-thou septa about to land face-first in the mud because she will not accept help from anyone, even less so from the oh so evil Kingslayer.

He turns to the young men, reckoning that the mannish septa is likely not to be convinced anyway. “Stop pushing and instead hop on the wagon and unload some sacks of flour to make yourself useful. You maneuvered into the mess, you should get out of it, too. Any halfway sane person would have realized that when the axis is already bending that, perhaps, you don’t want to add another sack and then another.”

The lads look at him in irritation, but hen set out to the task without another word of disobedience, and Brienne wants to scream when the young men instantly listen to the brother’s command as though he had any more authority than she has it. Because apparently, he does not. She has been here for longer, has been serving the Faith for longer.

And in contrast to him, she did not slay a King and got away with it.

If that is supposed to be her path towards a new purpose, a new kind of task, it seems that her beginnings are about as rocky as this cart is stuck deep in the mud, about to break its axis.

When the man then holds out his hand to her to help her stand, Brienne forgets all of her teachings and slaps his hand away. “I can do that myself, brother. Thank you.”

“I was just trying to be polite, you know?” Jaime huffs, shaking his head.

Stubborn indeed, he thinks to himself with a smirk. And rather strong. That almost hurt right there.

“Well, you did a bad job at it, then,” the septa mutters, mentally cursing herself for cursing at the man in turn. Brienne well knows that she would do better controlling her temper, but frustration is getting the better of her no matter her efforts.

She will have to pray some many prayers tonight to ask the Seven for forgiveness if things continue at this rate.

“By offering you a hand, yes, certainly,” the older man huffs, watching as the lads start to toss the bags of flour off the cart, almost throwing themselves along with every sack.

“You can’t just throw them into the mud,” Brienne snaps, observing with horror how the boys are on the verge of destroying much needed food. “We can’t use the flour anymore once it’s soaked with dirt and mud. Are you out of your mind?!”

“The sister has the rights of it. Have you lost any wit you ever had?” Jaime shouts, throwing his head back.

While he can’t say of himself that he was a farmer or ever had to labor hard for his food until he came to stay at a septry, he does know that this is a foolish thing to do. And that should be telling – if a man born with not just a silver spoon but a golden spoon in his mouth knows better, then you should know that you are very much in the wrong.

The men stop in the motion at that, which only makes Brienne want to pull them by the ears – because yet again, they stop at his words, not at hers. However, it makes no difference now anyway, she is aware, and so, Brienne stomps her way through the mud, no matter how hard that task proves to be, to get herself on top of the cart, gesturing at the lads to go away.

“Go over there,” she orders. “I will give them to you. The two of you will carry it the rest of the way onto that dry patch over there. Then we will free the wagon and bring it over to the silo, and once that is done we are going to get the spare ones. Yes?”

“… Yes,” the brothers reply in unison, doing for once, at last, finally, as they are told.

Jaime lets out an amused chuckle. That septa knows how to take charge, he has to give her that much. An Elder Sister in the making, for all it seems.

And so Brienne sets out to work, and starts to hand down the heavy bags of flour, now only feeling fueled to get the task done as fast as possible, because she has no interest in being lectured by the Kingslayer of all people.

“I could join you, you are aware, yes?” the man in question then goes on to suggest. “I mean, not the two ladies, they are likely to toss themselves over along with the flour, but us two? We can likely do this better together – and faster.”

“I can do it myself, thanks for the concern, brother,” Brienne replies, feeling heat rise to her cheeks. “You might just as well leave us. I will take it from here, thank you.”

She can do this. She can toss those sacks of flour, she can free that carriage from the mud. She can do things, she can move things.

I am not without purpose.

“I don’t doubt it. I am simply saying that I can do it, too,” Jaime retorts. “Seven Hells, sister, you are quite the stubborn type, are you not?”

Brienne glowers at him for a long moment, blowing air out through her nostrils. She shakes her head – what is she even trying to prove and to whom?

“Well, if you must, then you take your turn now,” Brienne grunts, gesturing at him. “Be my guest, brother.”

The Kingslayer shakes his head, seemingly amused at best, before he climbs atop the carriage to take her spot.

“Take a moment of rest, sister, we wouldn’t want you to hurt your back,” he says in a teasing kind of voice that tempts Brienne for a moment far too long to push him off the carriage right into the mud, but she thinks better of it. Instead busying herself with grabbing the sack of flour to then hand to the Kingslayer who tosses them down to the lads below. Brienne watches as Jaime swings bag after bag to the lads having a hard time keeping up with him. If not for her own annoyance and frustration, Brienne would likely be amused at the young men struggling to carry the sacks the Kingslayer keeps handing down to them, ready or not. However, as of now, she just feels her muscles aching, sweat sticking to her forehead, and a kind of fury that has her chest contract almost painfully.

The young septa is used to mockery. However, Brienne despises it from the bottom of her heart to be looked down at for matters of her sex. It’s enough to always get that handed to her from the Elder Sister, that she must not protect the people, that she must stay where she belongs. Brienne doesn’t need the likes of an oathbreaker like Jaime Lannister to take the same line.

“I think that should do now,” the Kingslayer announces, stretching out his limbs.

In fact, his plan was to work as little as possible, but apparently, the lads are far too useless to leave them to themselves – and he would not fancy being low on food just because those fools can’t seem to load a carriage properly.

The tall septa hops off the wagon wordlessly to move back to the front, having a hard time to get her feet out of the mud, but Brienne pays no mind to that and instead resumes her previous position under the yoke. “The two of you try to push from the back!”

The lads look at her for only just a moment too long, but then move to the back as well, seemingly starting to grasp that the other two are their best chances of not getting punished for their own folly to spare themselves the effort of pulling the cart back and forth a few more times.

“On three you push as hard as you can,” Brienne calls out. “One, two, three!”

She can feel her feet sinking deeper and deeper into the mud.

“And again, one, two, three!”

Brienne is surprised when she can feel a shift at the front, only now realizing that the Kingslayer moved up to the front to help her heave the axis over the critical point to where it can roll again by taking a hold of the other side of the yoke.

The young septa already wants to say something, but looking at the carriage finally moving forward, Brienne has to admit to herself that she isn’t going to get it done all on her own, no matter her efforts. And so, the two push up as much as they can, and upon the third try, the cart finally moves ahead and out of the mud onto solid ground again, all letting out a sigh of relief at the sight.

“Finally,” Jaime grunts, over with mud about as much as Brienne is. He turns his attention back to the young brothers with a grimace. “I hope that taught you two.”

“Yes,” they answer, bowing their heads.

“Well, I suppose you can take it from here again,” Jaime says, moving up from the yoke again, running his fingers over his face, grimacing at the sensation of speckles of mud sticking to his face.

He didn’t train the arts of sword fighting, refining his skills, for years only just to pull carriages out of the mud, Seven Hells. And yet, that is what it is, no matter his past teachings, this is his present, and if Jaime doesn’t watch it, it may well be his future, too.

Not if I can help it, though, Jaime thinks to himself, rolling his shoulders.

Brienne removes herself from the yoke as well, taking a moment to stretch out her long limbs, but when he sees the Kingslayer shooting her what she can only assume to be a dirty look in direction of her exposed calves, she does quick work to undo the knot, cursing to herself all the while, not daring to look him in the eye, well aware that this will only provoke him more.

She has seen that far too many times before.

It’s always the same.

Always a spiral bringing her back in time to where the mockery cut deeper and she did not know yet how to defend herself against those glances.

The Kingslayer then goes on to ask, “Sister, is there somewhere to wash up a bit or do I have to trot through the men’s quarters like that? I wouldn’t fancy having to wipe all floors I walk through.”

“Follow me,” she answers, not looking at him, but simply starting to walk ahead.

“Don’t forget the ones you unloaded,” Jaime calls over his shoulder to the youths. “And if I were you, I would hurry it up. Imagine what would happen if the Elder Brother were to catch you having piled up the good flour on the dirty ground!”

The young brothers start to hasten, which has Jaime laugh silently as he follows the mannish septa who seems to have about as much misgiving for him as everybody else.

Brienne guides the man over to the small well from which they normally get the water for the plants and herbs they grow in the patches, making sure to keep her mouth sealed and her mind clear. Once there, she takes the bucket and starts to lower it down to the water below, turning the lever round and round again.

Jaime, for his part, sits down on a log, rubbing his hands together to get rid of some of the mud already.

If his times at septries taught him much of anything, then it was how easy one can get blisters on the hands and corns on the feet. He used to ride horses to wherever he had to go, but now he knows it a luxury to have a carriage to take him.

Work and prayer. Prayer and work. It’s always the same in those bloody places. Everything is the same. Over and over again.

And he hates it.

“You are quite busy people around here,” he comments, all the while watching the tall septa turn the crank. “The last septry I was to was rather lazy by comparison. Much more into praying and kneeling.”

“Well, we also do a lot of praying and kneeling,” Brienne says, not looking at him, barely moving her lips apart as she speaks.

“Oh, that one was more excessive than any other I have been to,” Jaime snorts.

“To how many have you been, then?” she asks quietly, and if Jaime is not mistaken, and he is rarely mistaken on those matters, there is a hint of honest curiosity in the tall septa’s voice, though she tries to keep it hidden between the turns of the crank.

“Two more, actually,” Jaime answers.

“Why did you move so often?” she questions.

“Let’s say there were some… differences between me and the Elder Brothers that couldn’t be overcome, not even through praying… and kneeling,” Jaime replies, reckoning that he would do best not to share too much with the septa. For her height, Septa Brienne seems rather jumpy after all, not wanting to get too close to much of anything or anyone, safe for that other septa she likely calls friend.

“Such as?” the septa asks, which does take Jaime by surprise, having reckoned that this would make the woman coil back already.

“I didn’t really want to stay, while they wanted me to stay. So you see the conundrum.”

“You ran off,” Brienne translates.

Jaime chuckles at that. “One could say so, yes.”

And it still fills him with pride just thinking about it.

“And they think this septry will keep you from it?” Brienne asks with a grimace.

“You have a higher fence, I was told,” Jaime snorts.

“Not just that,” Brienne sighs.

Also watchful eyes, locked doors, and neighboring towns which are tightly tied to the septry, which is why any peasant or merchant is likely to report to the brothers and sisters once they come looking for a runaway of their kind.

“Does that mean you tried to run off as well?” Jaime asks, tilting his head.

He didn’t take her to be that daring, really. She seemed rather law-abiding to Jaime, too busy working on her salvation than what is going on right at this moment, working towards the future afterlife.

“… No,” she replies slowly.

Jaime laughs out loud at that. “Oh, you did. Who could have guessed, sister? I thought you were the Elder Sister’s gigantic lap dog.”

“You should better keep your tongue, Kingslayer,” Brienne hisses.

What does he know?

She is no one’s lap dog. She made a choice to go forward, to have a purpose. But how would the Kingslayer understand any of this? He still seems to see himself not as a brother but a knight, someone who is here only for a short while, seemingly not yet aware that no matter how often he changes the septry, his place to be will remain a septry no matter how much he squirms and steals away.

Brienne should know – she was taught that lesson for many, many years.

“Hm, and here I was hoping that we could call each other just brother and sister,” Jaime sighs, trying his best to keep the tune light, though something cut a wound with just that one phrase. “But now you had to bring that name into the conversation. What a pity.”

“By rights, that is what you are,” Brienne argues, chewing on the inside of her cheek.

“By what rights?”

By what right does the wolf judge the lion?

And by what right does this septa judge this septon?

“The Crown’s? The Faith’s? The rights of Men?” Brienne suggests.

“It must be quite nice not to have to care about the rest of the world. The life at the septry is nicely limiting one’s own world and imagination to the bare minimum, isn’t it?” Jaime taunts, not even sure why he does it.

But somehow, the judgment the woman holds in her brilliantly blue eyes seems to cuts sharper than most knives that nicked his skin over the years. Normally, Jaime is well prepared to brush it off, but somehow, her judgment sticks even more stubbornly than the mud keeps being plastered to his face, no matter how hard he rubs against it.

“How long have you lived at a septry, you tell me, Kingslayer?” she questions, making sure to keep her voice leveled and her gaze averted.

Jaime shrugs his shoulders. “A couple of years?”

Longer than he would have wanted to.

Longer than he would like to admit.

Longer than is bearable for him.

“For that you spent so little time here just yet, you seem rather fast to pass judgment, though,” Brienne argues.

Because of that one thing the young septa is certain, he did not spend as much time in the septry as she did. Thus, she is unwilling to accept judgment from a man who likes to pretend to be an outsider, when he is right within and simply did not accept that circumstance as true just yet.

He is no better than her.

And in that regard, he is no different from her, even if the Kingslayer seemingly likes to pretend that he is the only one in the world.

“And you are rather fast to pass judgment over me, even though you don’t even know me,” Jaime argues, snapping his teeth together, not at all liking the way she speaks to him.  

“And you don’t know me,” Brienne retorts, not at all liking how he talks to her.

“It’s good that we settled that, then,” Jaime huffs.

“I am most relieved,” she snaps.

“So am I,” he curses.

Brienne shakes her head. “You really want to have the last word, don’t you?”

“I never yield,” he says with a bit of a grin.

The bucket taps against the wooden part at the top, calling Brienne’s attention back to the task. She unhooks it, grabs the other bucket from beside the well and pours it over before unceremoniously dropping the bucket to the Kingslayer’s feet.

“I could have done that myself,” he says with a grimace, his tone somewhat shifting, having Brienne convinced for only just a moment that he is now shy about accepting her help.

“Oh, don’t bother,” she replies drily.

“I didn’t ask for it,” Jaime insists.

He doesn’t want to owe people debts. While he no longer bears his last name, he wants to believe it true that a Lannister always pays his debts, and Jaime would rather not owe any to this woman, because that would make her blue eyes pass judgment over him once he makes his sweet escape, he is sure.

“And yet, you will use it or else you would be wasting valuable water,” Brienne argues.

She starts to let the bucket back down to the well, her moves steadier than her mind. Brienne doesn’t know just why that man manages to irritate her so, she only knows that he does, which is why she would rather hurry to get back to the gardens and work on the flowers, even though her back is protesting against that quite forcefully already.

Once the full bucket comes back to light, Brienne puts it down on the edge of the well to pour it over her muddied feet one by one.

“Great, I will have to dry those sandals for at least a day,” Jaime laments, looking at the soaked leather sandals with a grimace.

“You have a spare pair up in your chamber, as far as I am concerned,” Brienne informs him, not even looking at him as she goes on to clean herself.

“Still. All that because the lads don’t know how to work a carriage,” Jaime grumbles.

At some point he was tempted to just go on with his ways, but then again, someone has to rescue the maidens, even the ugly ones, because the lads cannot be trusted with the task. They fail to protect a sack of flour, for all he is concerned.

“The novices always have some many lessons to learn,” Brienne sighs.

“I am a novice as well.”

“Which proves my point.”

The corners of Jaime’s lips curve into a smirk at this. “Did you just insult me?”

However, Brienne isn’t taking the bait, and instead simply asks him with a blank expression, “Are you done yet? We should be heading back.”

“Well, even if I as a novice, according to you, still have a lot to learn, you seemingly didn’t yet understand the concept of getting an unexpected break,” Jaime argues, looking up the oak with its boughs swinging in the softest of breezes.

And Jaime has to give the septry that much credit, its gardens are rather beautiful, momentarily reminding him of the lush gardens by the Red Keep, which were a suspicious sphere promising peace that did not reside within the palace’s walls as people burned and cooked in their armors and a madman raged as he pleased until he put an end to it. But it takes him back even further, if only for fragments in time, to Casterly Rock’s gardens, to those he rode to on a horse when he meant to escape yet another reading lesson, picked up a stick and dreamed away to becoming a knight, foolishly, innocently, even, believing it to be a thing worth striving for.

For all its sameness, it may be that there is something particular to this septry after all, if only hidden away deep in its lush gardens.

“Oh, so that is why you helped us? Good to know,” Brienne huffs.

Or maybe there are two things that are particular, upon reflection. Jaime thinks to himself, rather amused. Unique, even.

A crooked sunflower in a patch of daisies.

“I didn’t say that,” he argues.

“Well, I will be on my way to go about my duties. I assume that you won’t get lost on the property,” Brienne says, spotting one of the proctors looking at them, which has her wonder whether the proctor is having an eye on them together or just on Jaime.

“Barefoot?” Jaime asks, nodding at her feet.

“The sandals still have to dry,” Brienne replies simply, shrugging her broad shoulders.

In fact, those small things take her back in time as well, if only for short moments in time, to the times she missed and still misses, to roaming the lands around her home, her boots slung over her back as they got wet while wading through another river or skipping stones by blue waters, feeling every pebble, every stone, the grains of sand and dirt, something that Brienne didn’t know had value back while she still had it, but learned to cherish after it was long since gone.

“Well, might be for the better,” Jaime answers, reckoning he might follow her example. The septa seems to know her way about here after all.

Brienne turns around and starts to walk through the high grass, Jaime getting up to follow her.

“Just be sure to watch your step,” she tells him as they start to walk. “There are rattlesnakes sometimes.”

“What?? Where?” Jaime shouts, jumping back.

“Oh, you will know if you step on one, Kingslayer.”

“You shall be damned, woman,” he curses.

I already am, she almost says, but Brienne manages to keep her tongue, instead starting back towards the work awaiting her elsewhere, back to the purpose assigned, back into the present that may bear a future next season.

Brienne lets a small sigh of relief as she brushes her fingertips over the rows of books neatly lined up, shelf for shelf. For all the pain this place has brought her, she learned that against the odds of her always having been an active child, Brienne developed a hunger for books, a thirst for words written on parchment, a longing for ink dried and the crunching of pages turning.

The young septa feels tempted for a moment to pick out one of the fictional works, but eventually settles for a book keeping her mind from going astray, a compilation of plants native to the Stormlands, which proved very endurable in the past.

Not that this comes surprising to Brienne.

Whatever comes from the Stormlands is made of a sturdier kind of stuff, she should know. Perchance not the prettiest kind, but sturdier, more endurable, no matter the hardship, no matter the pain.

The young septa sits down at the table to start flipping through the pages, finding her lips curl into the smallest of smiles whenever she sees the image of something familiar, something she once held between her own fingers, chewed on while on one of her adventures in the woods, or twisted before her eyes to see the sun filter through it while lying in the high grass, no matter the risk of the rattlesnakes.

The sound of the front door opening pulls Brienne back to the present yet again, hoping that Brother Narbert will not mean to see her out already. While the old brother was never unkind to her, he is not getting any younger, which means that he is likely to retire earlier with every year passing, and Brienne always feels bereft of the time she cannot spend in that sweet escape back in time.

However, to her surprise, the Kingslayer makes his way inside.

“Seven blessings to you, brother,” she greets him quietly, all the while making sure to keep her eyes focused on the book promising escape instead of the man’s teasing kind of grin that never seems to fade, no matter the hour of the day.

“Seven blessings to you, too, sister,” Jaime answers, well aware that this septa seems very focused on minding her own business, almost to the point of being too overt about it, which is strangely charming to him – he rather has people upfront with him instead of having them whisper behind his back.  

Jaime walks along the narrow corridor to which the shelves run perpendicular, smelling dust and parchment in the air.

“… Are you looking for something in particular?” Brienne asks cautiously, all the while scowling herself for even speaking up. The Kingslayer may well have gone about his business on his own, but no, she has to address him, even though Brienne wanted to keep her distance from the man and his piercing eyes and the tease in his smile that makes shoulders tight.

“Do you mean to get rid of me that fast already, sister?” he huffs. “And here I thought we had a moment of bonding over helping the youths with their little mess.”

“I just mean to say that if you are looking for something in particular, I can likely show you faster. I live here for far longer – and spend a great deal of time here,” Brienne informs him, sitting up a little straighter.

“Oh, so you are a bookworm? I know someone who would certainly enjoy that.”

Small in size, but of a great mind, Jaime thinks to himself. And smart enough to keep his distance once it mattered. Which makes him much smarter than his older brother by far.

“It’s one of the few activities open to us around here so I suppose an appetite for books is actually quite common,” Brienne answers.

“Hm, I am quite sure I won’t catch the same disease,” Jaime snorts.

No, reading was never his fancy. He was much more concerned with horse riding, dreaming away of becoming a knight, not knowing what that actually meant. The reading lessons his father forced him into to improve his poor reading only made it harder for Jaime to enjoy books, which is why he learned what was necessary, read what was handed to him, but left the reading for leisure to his sibling instead.

He rather got lost in the fictions of the world instead of that written on the page, even if both, for all that he learned over the years, are very similar.

In the few books that he enjoyed even as a boy, the knights always wore shining armors, rescued the fair maidens from the towers, slew the dragon and got rewarded for it. It wasn’t until later in his life that he came to realize that slaying a dragon will inevitably mark you as a Kingslayer, and that no matter how many maidens you may have saved, this will very well still get you a choice that is no choice and a sentence that holds no judgment.

“Then what brings you here?” Brienne asks, pulling Jaime away from children’s tales turned bitter, dark, and stale on the tongue.

“Curiosity? A bit of distraction from praying, kneeling, and laboring?” he suggests, making sure to flash his brightest smirk that holds no laughter, holds nothing at all, but has people convinced well enough that he laughs at the world even when he finds himself not wanting to smile at all.

“So nothing in particular. Well, then I will leave you to your own affairs,” Brienne answers, sticking her nose back in her book, scolding herself for being that foolish to even bother to offer her help. The man would likely not ask for her support even if he were about to drown and she was the only one able to pull him out.

“We could also talk some more,” Jaime argues.

Brienne tilts her head to the side. “This is a library.”

“So?”

“You are supposed to be quiet in a library,” she points out to him.

“So not to wake the books from the slumber, you mean?” Jaime scoffs.

“So not to disturb people in their study,” the septa replies shortly. 

“The only people in here are this Brother Narbert snoring by the door, which I find quite charming, I may add, and us two… So us talking would only disturb ourselves, wouldn’t you agree?” Jaime points out to her.

He was quite happy once he found a way to at least momentarily escape the watchful eyes of the proctors seemingly lurking behind every corner. The library, led by the trusted if sleepy brother snoring by the gate, seemed an easy if short-lived escape for Jaime, because so long he is under the watchful eyes of someone, they will leave him at peace.

Even if those eyes are closed.

“And what tells you that I would mean to engage in conversation?” Brienne sighs, nodding at the book in her hands.

“The fact that you were so kind to offer me a tour around this wonderful library?” Jaime suggests, cocking an eyebrow at her.

“I was merely being polite,” Brienne argues.

As it is her duty as a septa, as a servant of the Seven. The young septa realized after that day with pulling the cart out of the mud that she would do best ignoring the Kingslayer. Whatever it is that irritates her about him, she would do better keeping her distance, keeping her own balance. Brienne has other things to worry about, to focus on, working towards her own future, her own purpose, whatever shape it may bear, and the Kingslayer has no place in that. She is most certain of that.

“Then what are you reading? Maybe I am interested in that as well,” he asks.

Brienne shakes her head at that. “I dare to doubt that you would want to read up on Stormlandish flora and fauna.”

The tall septa knows very well that she is one of the few people who ever take the book out of the shelf, judging by the amount of dust that piled up on it when she first grabbed it. Only few people will use those pages to go back in time, escape the present, after all.

“Oh, you do me no justice, sister! I love the flora and fauna of the Stormlands in particular! I heard it’s all but barren rock,” Jaime laughs.

Though he couldn’t name a single one in particular. Likely some kind of grass to grow on barren rock.

“It’s not, as this book will attest,” Brienne retorts, but then calms herself, knowing that this will only fuel his efforts. “So perchance you would actually do well at spending some hours to study it to gain a deeper knowledge of the subject matter.”

“Maybe another time. After all, that is your book, and I would not mean to take something that is yours,” Jaime argues, winking at her.

“It isn’t mine. It belongs to the septry,” Brienne tells him, a faint tone of bitterness swinging in her voice no matter her efforts.

She owns a copy of the Seven-Pointed Star, but that’s it, even though the young septa would fancy owning a few more books. However, it makes no difference in the end, Brienne knows. As they teach and preach, they do not require earthly things, do not require ownership. That ties them to the world too much when they ought to strive towards giving themselves over to the Seven with body and soul.

It’s the future they work towards, the salvation by the end of the road, which means that possession and ownership of things in the present are considered hindrances along the way, wearing septons and septas down, though Brienne always thought that because she is so strong, she may well carry at least some books along.

Jaime continues walking up and down the narrow hallway, all the while wondering whether there is a way to take this as a point of departure for his sweet escape. A sleeping prison guard is always a promising premise to build a plan on, though today is most certainly not the day, since there is a pair of attentive, piercing blue eyes that will make sure that he stays right where he is.

Though it can’t harm to use the time to gather some information while here – for later.

“There is no secret exit, just so that you know,” she says, not looking up from her book only just once as Jaime keeps walking about the small library.

“What would make you think that I was looking for such?” he asks, motioning back to the tall-standing septa with her misgiving, blue eyes and prim demeanor.

“The fact that you confessed that you ran away before and that you keep looking at anything but he books as you walk down the aisle,” Brienne answers simply.

He laughs. “That would never cross my mind, sister.”

Brienne rolls her eyes at that. “Of course not.”

Jaime steps closer, brushing his fingertips of the smooth surface of the polished table made out of dark wood. “Though it begs the question how you come to know that there is no secret way out – unless… you went looking yourself.”

“I will not honor that with a reply, brother,” Brienne replies defensively.

That is none of his concern. It’s no one’s business. It’s her business – and that of the Seven. And the Seven shall forgive, but Brienne does not consider it her duty to profess to a sinner the likes of a Kingslayer.

“You did, didn’t you? Perhaps I would do best sticking around you rather than having the proctors watch every of my steps?” Jaime chimes. “You seem to have the information I am most interested in.”

“Which is why you would do best picking up a book instead, because my past is my business, whereas yours is… well, yours,” Brienne argues.

He shrugs. “We could share.”

“I would rather not,” Brienne argues.

Though she, in fact, once took flight through the library as Brother Narbert laid sleeping. Her plan was not very refined, however. It was only a short time after Brienne had been granted the privilege of being on her own – after she spent days and weeks being watched over by the proctors and the Elder Sister herself after yet another escape attempt that had landed her in the sickbay, having fallen off the fence because one of the septons had been fast enough to grab a stick and throw her off-balance. The young girl broke an arm when she landed on the other side of the fence, only to be dragged back. And when Brienne slipped away from Brother Narbert that next time, she paid no mind to it that her left arm was still wrapped in thick bandages by the time. She made it as far as halfway down the road before they caught her.

But that is certainly nothing Brienne would mean to share with the Kingslayer.

Ever.

“Oh, don’t pretend that you are not interested in getting to know the Kingslayer a bit better. Everyone wants to hear the story, well, the interesting parts,” Jaime argues, feigning a smile.

Because, deep down, that Jaime knows for certain, no one cares about the truth, the very ugly truth that makes not just him culpable but all involved, all those who looked away for years and did nothing as the mad man built an empire on fire.

“I don’t have to pretend, brother,” Brienne tells him. “I don’t meddle in the affairs of others. I mind my own business to the best of my abilities.”

“Curiosity is a part of the human condition, so of course you want to know. Everyone wants to know about Aerys. The Kingslaying. The trial…”

No one cares about the armor he wore, that he changed into the Lannister armor.

No one cares for what had become of Aerys Targaryen before he shoved a sword through his back.

All people care about these days is that Robert won his Rebellion – and that those who broke oaths were punished, at least for the public eye.

“I don’t,” Brienne insists.

“Lying is a sin, you know, sister?” he huffs.

Brienne narrows her eyes at him, feeling her heart beat faster with anger. “You do not have to remind me of what a sin is.”

“I just mean to say that it seems unlike you.”

“You don’t know me well enough to pass judgment over that matter,” Brienne retorts. “Or rather, you don’t know me at all.”

She had enough sins affect her.

She committed enough sings herself.

But that is nothing Jaime Lannister ought to know or will ever know, so long Brienne can help it.

As he said, no one cares for the truth, and that seems to include the Kingslayer himself, even though he doesn’t seem to be aware of that circumstance just yet.

“We could change that if you were to tell me a bit about yourself,” he argues.

“Why would you care?” Brienne scoffs.

“A captive has a right to know his captor’s identity?” Jaime suggests.

“I am not your captor,” the young septa replies more forcefully this time.

A prison guard, perhaps, but she did not pass judgment, she did not confine him to the septry. Brienne couldn’t bear the thought of ever bringing someone to the septry who did not want to commit him or herself to the Seven.

Never.

For that, she knows that pain too well herself.

“Well, you are supposedly now watching me in Brother Narbert’s stead, so I would say you are the closest thing to a captor that I currently have around me. And as the Elder Brother was so kind to let me know, I am not just here in the eyes of the Seven, but also in the eyes of men – and women on occasion,” Jaime says, looking around with nonchalance.

“So they are truly observing you all the while?” Brienne asks cautiously.

She had that herself, but that was only after she had broken the rules. For all Brienne can judge, the Kingslayer didn’t do any so such thing yet. Nevertheless, he is being watched already? That seems rather drastic, but then again, Jaime seems to make no secret out of it that he wants to run away, so maybe he had it coming that way after all.

“Why? Haven’t you noticed my companions lurking in the shadows?” he snorts.

Brienne shrugs. “I thought I was just seeing things.”

“Oh, don’t let your mind trick you that way. Sometimes… things are what they seem. Sometimes they are the exact opposite, but other times… they are just that.”

Sometimes a man known as the Mad King is a mad king.

Sometimes a man who slays a king is a Kingslayer.

But other times the man who slew the King prevented a great deal of evil by shoving a sword through the man’s back.

“Wise words, I suppose,” the septa sighs.

She knows very well that not everything is what it seems. In fact, it is that very circumstance that made her so weary of the world over the years. Her septa wasn’t what she seemed, her fancy for Renly was not what it seemed, the septry was not all that it seemed to be when she first came here, and Brienne herself is a walking example of how the perception of a thing does not necessarily come to mean the same as the essence of that thing, that being.

And that, in turn, will likely make it impossible for her to ever find a kindred spirit, because it lies concealed behind her robe, the layers of linen, the bandeau wrapped around her head and the veil attached to it. How would someone see through that if everyone takes her for what she isn’t? Or isn’t what they take her for?

Jaime exhales. “So you won’t tell me of secret passageways.”

“I tell you that there are none, so you might spare us both the time to discuss the matter any further,” Brienne answers.

“Fine… I suppose you may not be as interesting after all. Pity,” Jaime grumbles. While he was rather certain that this honorable, stubborn septa would rather break her own leg than the precious rules of her precious septry, hope dies last. “Then perchance you can recommend a book to me after all, something to look at so that I can at least pretend to be going about the business meant to be done here, in case Brother Narbert stops sleeping at some point.”

Brienne wets her lips, briefly contemplating whether to treat the man with silence, but then reckons that it would be sinful not to offer her assistance. “Well, it depends on what you would like to read. Fiction? An account on history? Something of the sciences?”

“I should likely stick to something less complicated,” Jaime huffs.

Or maybe I should stick to books with many pictures in them, he thinks to himself.

“Well, while it’s not necessarily a leisure reading, I always found Dragons, Wyrms, and Wyverns: Their Unnatural History by Septon Barth an interesting account. And he has a nice style that is rather accessible.”

“I don’t fancy dragons, really… but…,” Jaime means to say, but then stops for a moment, frowning. “Unnatural History? That sounds familiar.”

Like an echo from the past.

“Sometimes that title is used for short, yes. It’s right over there, upper shelf, second from the left,” Brienne says, her eyes drifting back to her own reading, though she is surprised at the lack of reply from the Kingslayer as he takes out the book regardless of his earlier comment, looking at the book with a strange kind of shock.

“You actually have a copy,” Jaime mutters, the echo ringing louder and louder in his ears.

Can you imagine, brother? They burned so many of them! What a waste! What a shame!

Dragons, brother! Dragons are always an interesting read, you should try it! Try it! You can do it if you try just hard enough! We can read it together, now come! Come!

“A collection of fragments, yes,” Brienne answers. “So you read the book?”

“No. I just know that only few copies exist. Most were burned during King Baelor I’s reign…,” Jaime says with a grimace.

Or so he was told by his brother whose appetite for books could never be satisfied.

What a shame! What a shame! What a shame… the echo keeps ringing louder and louder in his ears and they make Jaime dizzy, wanting to brush them off, wipe them away, buthe noises keep coming, keep evading.

“Yes, we were lucky that septons kept bringing fragments along so that this account could be compiled,” Brienne replies, nodding her head. “While Septon Barth was accused of sorcery, which led the book-burning for all that we know, our septry holds the idea highly that this is important knowledge to pass on to the next generations.”

Other knowledge, they will do well to conceal, the young septa is aware, but at the least the global history seems not awfully out of place. Brienne heard from other septas and septons who came from all across the Seven Kingdoms that they encountered libraries with no single account of those stories and histories.

However, that seems to be the thing with this septry for many years already – the Elder Brother and Sister may make one step forward, but make five back in different directions.

At least that means we have those copies, then.

Though that is all but a small comfort, Brienne is well aware.

“I know someone who would die for reading this,” Jaime replies solemnly.”Or well, I knew, in my old life.”

In the echo of a past no longer his.

Because, in the end, those are all but fleeting memories, of when his family was still somewhat intact, when he knew he could rely on them, but in the end, there was nothing but silence.

And that silence is deafening, all-encompassing.

What a shame…

Jaime flips the book open to a random page, but finds the words and letters dancing before his eyes just like it happened numerous times when he was still young, still believed in knighthood like any bloody fool, and had someone pulling on his shirt to call his attention to this book and that book and this compilation.

But that was in another life, another time.

A time that ended when he accepted his sentence, shed the white cloak and exited the great hall under the eyes of the people unaware that they only drew their sharp breaths of dismay because of the act he was judged for, turned his back on the people who turned their back on him in turn.

Maybe I should have taken the sword over the septry after all, Jaime think to himself bitterly.

At least he would have suffered the pain of betrayal and abandonment only for a short while, then, instead now hanging in the memories he would like to swallow whole so to never expose them again to the light of day.  

But then again, nothing much is to be gained from looking back at the past. Jaime well knows that he cannot go back to where he once was. He cannot un-slay the King, he cannot undo his decisions – and for the former, neither would he want to.

Nevertheless, it seems to him that coming to the library may not have been the wisest decision after all, considering that the echoes he now hears ringing from the past cloud over any plan he may have had to look into the future towards a sweet escape.

Jaime looks back at the page, suppressing any urge to toss the precious book away, alongside the memories of a little brother who could not get enough of them, but seemingly enough of him eventually.

While Brienne tries to keep her eyes focused on an herb only found on the islands in the Stormlands, her gaze keeps shifting over to the man who sat down across from her, staring at the book loosely in his hands. Because she can’t help but think that the man is actually not reading at all as his eyes remain fixed on that one spot and move no further.

She licks her lips, meaning to return to her small adventure back in time to the plants she only learned the names of once she learned to miss them. Back in the day, she took them for granted, but now that she can touch most of them only by brushing her fingertips of dried ink on parchment, Brienne came to realize rather painfully that those things matter more than people will realize, leaving her with only the option of familiarizing herself with their names, their properties.

However, her attention keeps drifting away from the past, back to the present of the Kingslayer staring at the book before him as though it bore some strange kind of magic that King Baelor tried to burn out of its pages, having believed Brother Barth a sorcerer.

Brienne knows she should mind her own business. She has enough to deal with, things to overcome, paths to settle on and plan her way ahead, to wherever it may lead her.  Yet, her mind keeps drifting back to the man whose silence, against all odds, suddenly rings louder than his teasing comments did all the while before, distracting her even more than his words did moments ago.

“… If you need a moment to yourself without a watchful eye, I would suggest that you go to the sept more often,” Brienne mutters, not daring to look up from her book.

“Are you telling me how to get out?” Jaime asks with a frown on the verge of a grin as he puts the book holding nothing but memories too tough to chew and instead focuses on the septa making sure to keep her gaze lowered alongside her voice.

He didn’t expect her to even bother to talk to him. For all it seems, Septa Brienne does not like him much, though perhaps that is actually the courtesy and benevolence the Elder Brothers and Sisters keep preaching about during their sermons, though most will not put action to the words spoken.

“Far from it, you are likely to be watched outside – and you may recall that the sept is rather central, far away from that oh so high fence,” Brienne argues, swallowing thickly. “But you said that they follow you. They will likely leave you to your prayers while in the sept. Our prayers are our own affairs, even the proctors respect that.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Jaime questions.

Because times made him weary of signs of kindness, even the smallest favor, not only because Jaime does not want to owe anyone any debts, wanting to escape whenever a chance arises, but also because the past taught him that even grandeur gestures like being knighted, having the white cloak slung about his shoulders by the King no less, may very well only be a slight of that man to drive Jaime’s father away, so to lose the hand the King found had grown to be a nuisance.

“Since some things ought to be between no one but ourselves and the Seven,” Brienne answers dutifully, but then adds quietly. “And let’s just say that I know what it’s like to wish to have a moment… without the eyes of others on me.”

She would have liked some many times not having been dragged back to the septry, past the septas working in the gardens, looking on with misgiving. Just like Brienne would have fancied some many times not having people whispers as she did her additional chores to repent for her wrongdoings.

“So perchance I should do a bit more kneeling and praying after all,” Jaime chuckles softly.

“I wouldn’t overdo it, but if you need a moment… you can find it in prayer,” Brienne tells him.

“I will bear that in mind,” Jaime says, wrinkling his nose. “Or I might show up here more often? I mean, what do they know whether I read or just walk up and down the aisle, right?”

“You are free to do that,” Brienne answers. “That is none of my concern.”

“Though that means I will be under your watchful eye, right?” Jaime argues, surprised that suddenly, conversation with the woman seems a bit easier than it was by the well.

“As I said, you are free to do that – or not.”

“Hm, I will say the library does have its merits,” Jaime sighs, leaning back. “They don’t come to have books on sword fight here by any chance, though, do they? Preferably with illustrations?”

“Not that I know,” Brienne replies, shaking her head.

“Pity. Now, that would be a study even I could set my mind to,” Jaime sighs.

Because in those accounts, dragons were slayable without retributions, and knights kept their white cloaks clean no matter how much blood spilled on them – and sometimes, Jaime wished that was so.

Just like he wished back to those moments of having his little brother read to him, the little dwarf meaning to impress his older brother by knowing all those words already.

What a shame…

“Perhaps you can convince the Elder Brother of obtaining some scrolls on that,” Brienne suggests.

“I dare doubt that,” Jaime scoffs.

“Me, too,” Brienne sighs heavily.

She has been trying for years, but neither the Elder Sister nor the Elder Brother would ever take her suggestion seriously. What would a septa need a scroll on sword fighting for, after all?

Though of course they do not know that for Brienne, it would mean a small world coming back to her, retracing that which she learned from Goodwin all those years ago, daring to get lost in those memories a while longer.

However, of that the young septa is aware, those are private matters she has better chances praying for than beckoning the proctors or Elder Brother and Sister for obtaining.

“… Though we do have accounts of great battles,” Brienne finds herself going on when silence starts to reach her ears again, surprising herself foremost, as she normally relishes the silence of the library, the tranquility, being alone in her own little world full of memories banned on parchment, set into the ink.

“Those are usually full of lies. Because they never write about how men piss and shit themselves on the battlefield,” Jaime scoffs, if amused, taking solace in having conversation about something that is not the past, not the future, but in fact the present, because most of his brothers will hardly look him in the eye, too preoccupied with watching their backs out of fright that the Kingslayer has a natural disposition for shoving swords through peoples’ backs.

Brienne tilts her head to the side. “Would anyone want to read about it, though?”

“Likely not,” Jaime chuckles softly. “So perchance you have the rights of it that they should rather leave that out. Otherwise it would spoil the surprise for the soldiers.”

“Sometimes people want a more pleasant tale about the horrors of the world,” Brienne says with a grimace.

She would like to spin her story into something more pleasant some many days, but knows very well that the past is dried ink and that they will not alter anymore, no matter how much the young septa may try to spin the narrative some other way, because that part of her story is long since written.

“Sometimes people just aren’t ready for the truth,” Jaime agrees, leaning back in his chair. “If ever.”

“Well, in due time, you may well start to write your own scrolls to tell the story you wish to give to the world,” Brienne suggests.

“Me? A scribe? Oh no, it’s bad enough I am a septon now, but deep down, I am a knight, and knights don’t write history, they make it or break it,” Jaime huffs.

Even more so for a man who still struggles writing most longer texts. He always had a little brother readily jumping into action when things were too difficult.

Let me do it! You are too slow for this! I am better at this than you! One of the few things a dwarf can surpass an older brother the likes of you with!

And after Tyrion was gone from his life as King’s Landing became the older brother’s place to occupy, Jaime was a knight and did not bother for a while about what history would be written about him, until it was too late for him to change the story anymore, and he accepted this as his entry into history alongside the one written in the White Book.

“One can never know what the future holds,” Brienne exhales.

“I am fairly sure that the future does not hold that for me. Perchance you will write down my history?” Jaime argues with a smirk.

“Now, of that I am fairly sure that I won’t,” she snorts.

“One can never know, sister. One can never know…,” Jaime sighs with a grin, reckoning that, for now, the present is not the almost bad a place to occupy, considering that, for once, he is not under the watchful eye of proctors and superiors, but a mannish septa who, against what impression she left last time by the cart and the well, has a bit of kindness to spare even for the likes of him.

Though the again, that likely means she is just the upstanding, holy septa he takes her to be, always trying to do things right.

Yet, he dares to think that he will take her up on the offer of spending a bit of time by himself in the sept these days. For now, he tends to stick to the present, however, because it leaves the memories that keep welling up stuck between the pages of a book.