MOONSHINE ○ JAIME LANNISTER

واحد وعشرين

The water rushes through her hair the same way the feelings surged through her—through half-lidded eyes and soaked skin, she saw Jaime watching her with a gaze that could not be described in even the most poetic of songs.

It was a stranger feeling than everything she had ever experienced. Back in her home, she did not even have to lift a finger to wade in the cleanest of waters, to engorge herself in fluid that did not smell like urine nor of the overpowering floral scents that the ladies of the castle adorned themselves with. Here, with Jaime perched upon a rock, feeding himself a slice of salted and cured ham, observing every motion she made as she waded through the emerald river bank.

"Nice view?" She teased, adjusting the strap of her one-piece swimming garment, wondering how amazed the court ladies would have been if they had seen her in her natural habit, wearing her natural wear. Over the months she had spent in King's Landing, it never failed to amuse her, the reactions that she garnered effortlessly, and probably with much scandal.

"Are you trying to compete with my guanciale?" He laughed out, taking a sip from one of the wine goblets for their picnic escapade, "Because I think you're winning."

She laughed at him before submerging in the water, the usual sting in her eyes from seawater no longer present, as she basked in gratefulness. There was nothing like finding a non-polluted, swimmable river that was not too long of a ride from King's Landing; it was a miracle actually.

Underwater, her thoughts cleared and drifted away with the flow of the river, and she let go of all the worries, the events, the people, of the time that had passed by her. All she could think about was that when she eventually surfaced, she would look into the eyes of the golden haired man who loved her deeper than any ocean on the face of the earth.

So when she did, she swam right up to him, her hands resting on some kind of linen that he had laid out on the shore for her to get up on. He still sat, wordless, but focused on her.

"Is there something that you want to say?"

Perhaps he just could not find the way to articulate to her what he felt over everything that he had done. After all, she was not asking the lion to repent, but it definitely felt like the guilt was palpable in the air. The sadness in his eyes was not as obvious as his desire, which materialised as he held a hand out to her, intertwining her fingers that were dripping with his own, much larger in comparison, hand.

The environment immediately caught up to her, as she felt the strangely arctic climate course through her skin, creating goosebumps to whatever was exposed. The water could not protect her anymore, but she didn't need it—instead, he embraced her in an almost automatic reaction, a machination he had learned after memorizing her entire body and its circuitry.

Flora tried to pretend as if his touch was not the bandage mending her back together, holding each piece in place, scared of the fragility of a body that threatened to fall apart due to the burden of moving to King's Landing. She pretended, acted, but it was nothing but mere pretense as she felt the words caught in her throat, struggling to speak a word as he looked at her as enigmatically as his intention.

She did not have to speak however, as he silenced all her worries, all her emotions with a simple kiss, his hands snaking to embrace her in a way no other man had ever done. There, under the mid-noon light, shaded by a singular tree next to the river bank, she felt more at home than she was on the shores of her family's castle.

"Do not apologize." She almost demanded of him, as she rested her chin upon his shoulder, feeling a scar on the small of his back, caressing it with tenderness, "Just stay with me."