The Finding of Lya Stark

Bridges

The days melted into weeks as we continued along our path through wooded areas and huge fields of corn towards Kings Landing. I had fallen silent again, the moment with Jaime in the night had faded for both of us and he was now teasing Brienne and I constantly. I was conflicted on my feelings towards him and only spoke to Brienne when necessary not speaking with Jaime at all. I spent my time trying to figure out what was going on in my head. It didn't help that I was sleeping even less now as the occurrence of my dream about him had increased in frequency as well as vividness.

We stop for Jaime to urinate frequently to the point where I think even Brienne no longer cares. I'm sure Jaime mocked us both for standing guard on him while he goes but if he did I didn't notice. After one such stop at the edge of a forest, right after some hedges Jaime's needling gets even more annoying, bring Catelyn up into the topic. I shift taking in his words about how her honesty hasn't gotten her anywhere. I fade out again as he continues to talk.

Suddenly we're stopped and Brienne is gripping Jaime's hair pulling his head back. I blink staring at them completely bewildered. "We don't get to choose who we love," Jaime says gently and I realize he must have offended her. The sound of a horse interrupts us and we turn to see who it is.

I sense Jaime's eyes on me as Brienne does the talking with the man leading his horse with sticks tied to her back. She tells him we're heading to Kings Landing and they converse on our chosen route. I glance over at Jaime a couple of times who is still looking at me. I can't help but blush and look away, stealing glances every few seconds. The man continues on and Jaime finally says, "he knows who I am."

"No he doesn't."

"Maybe you're right what if you're not."

"I agree with Brienne, why would he recognize you?"

"I'm the most recognizable face in Westeros."

"Why because you're so handsome?" I say suddenly annoyed with him.

"What if he tells someone?" he says ignoring me.

"He's an innocent man."

"More innocent than Lady Starks daughters?" Brienne shoves him forward and starts walking grabbing my sleeve to pull me along because I had been seething and unaware of their departure.

We stand Brienne staring out across the water while Brienne picks on her for trying to decide. "We'll take the bridge," I say, wary of crossing the river. Who knew how deep it really was and the water was moving fast enough to carry us away and allow Jaime to escape. Though I wondered if he would really try. He had continued to look at me since we came upon the man and I knew that he at least found me attractive and was friendly with me. We had kissed before, but that was a long time ago and probably held no meaning here.

We start across the bridge Jaime mocking my decision and then refusing to cross the bridge in the middle. Brienne tries to yank him along but he won't let her. Something seems wrong. "Jaime, c'mon let's just cross already," I say going to tug on his sleeve.

He stares at me as if he had forgotten I was there. He licks his lips and I'm not sure what he's going to do. He's backing me up and I let him not struggling. "I like you," he says suddenly. "More than I thought I did," he kisses me on the lips quickly. "I'm sorry." He shoves me over the railing of the bridge.

I scream as I go over and hit the water. I sink down to the bottom quickly and then struggle to stand up, to at least get my head above the water before I drowned. I push myself up and stand up on tip toe tilting my head back so I can breathe. There's a lot of voices coming from the bridge but I can't understand anything as I struggle to keep my head above the water. I manage a deep breath before I sink back under momentarily, long enough to start panicking and then I'm back up and the voices are gone.