An Honest Woman | Female Jaime Lannister | GOT/ASOIAF

Kingslayer

ASOIAF genderbend is always fun, but sadly quite rare. I thought I'd try it with one of the best conversations in the series. This one got away from me a little, so see the end of the chapter for a longer note. 

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"Go back to your ale and leave us," Catelyn commanded the gaoler, taking down a nearby hanging oil lamp. The shadows jumped and flickered around the gloomy dungeon as she did so. "Ser Brien, see that I am not disturbed," The big knight nodded, moving to stand just outside the cell. 

"My lady will call if she has need of me,"

Catelyn took a breath, steeling herself, then pushed open the heavy door. It was colder in here, pitch black until she stepped in with the lantern, and smelled absolutely foul. The lamplight revealed  patches of niter on the walls, an overflowing pail in one corner and a huddled shape in the other. The flagon of wine stood untouched on the old straw underfoot. So much for that ploy.

The prisoner raised hands grey with dirt to cover her equally dirty face, the chains around her wrists clanking. 

"Lady Stark," Her voice was hoarse with disuse. "I fear I am in no condition to receive you,"

Kingslayer. 

Catelyn couldn't bear to think of the woman as anything but a murderess and a liar, for the idea that a wife and mother could do the things she had done was too much. It just seemed wrong, unnatural... She felt for the woman's children, disgraced by her actions, and her late husband. Though the gods could hardly have come up with a more absurd, mismatched pair than Stannis Baratheon and Jaime Lannister. They say she killed him too.

"Look at me, my lady," Anyone else, and Catelyn would have felt pity, even disgust, at a highborn woman being treated like a common criminal. With this one, however, her heart was hardened. 

"The light hurts my eyes. A moment, if you would," 

Jaime had been allowed near no blade of any kind after her display on the night she was taken in the Whispering Wood - her cousin Daven's crushing defeat - and her hair had grown wild and long. Hanging in unwashed tangles to below her waist, the mane of curls still glinted gold in the lamplight and made her look like the lion on her house's arms, magnificent even in chains. Her once-fine bodice and skirts were tattered rags, rotting on her body, her face was pale and wasted, yet the woman still had the nerve to be beautiful. Though her beauty did not disguise the danger.

"I see you had no taste for the wine I sent you," Catelyn said.

"Such sudden generosity seemed somewhat suspect,"

"I can have your head off any time I want. Why would I need to poison you?"

"Death by poison can seem natural. Harder to claim that my head simply fell off," Jaime squinted up at her, cat-green eyes growing used to the light. "I'd invite you to sit, but your brother has neglected to provide me a chair,"

"I can stand well enough."

"Can you? You look terrible, I must say. Though perhaps it's just the light in here," She smirked, knowing full well she herself was in a worse-looking state. "Are my bracelets heavy enough for you, or did you come to add a few more? I'll rattle them prettily if you like," She was fettered at the wrist, but not the ankle - Catelyn did not get too close for this reason, having seen the vicious way she could fight - though she could neither stand nor lie comfortably as the chains were bolted to a deliberately awkward point in the wall.

"You brought this on yourself," She reminded the woman. "We granted you the comfort of a tower cell befitting your birth and station. You repaid us by trying to escape,"