Happy Coronavirus Self-Quarantine! Here's a little something for you to do. And if you're reading this ten years from now... kids, ask your parents.

Brienne of Tarth felt the chilly creep of astonishment turn the dew collecting on her skin clammy as she stared out over the thicket of blood-colored canvas pentagons that had turned the pastures on either side of the Kingroad into a mobile monument to lethality. She drew the back of her hand across her forehead, feeling it slide inside its glove. Jaime Lannister wasn't bringing an army to Riverrun. He was bringing an invasion force.

Didn't he know he was supposed to be joining a siege-in-progress of twenty-five hundred? Being on the march, it was unlikely he knew they were gone. So much the better. It wouldn't hurt him to stay ignorant a bit longer of the fact that Sansa had made his mission harder.

She had quietly left before dawn and ridden hard to find this encampment before the morning's breakdown was complete, leaving Podrick behind to keep an eye on said charge. Now she's unprepared for the vulnerability of facing this behemoth without him at her side... a vulnerability he will never, ever hear about.

A man in full red and gold regalia was already galloping towards her as if planning to run her over. Brienne corrected her horse's instinct to shy away, keeping her hands where the sentry could see them.

"Who goes there?"

In lieu of giving her name, she simply stated, with an air of total authority, "I'm here to see Ser Jaime Lannister. Tell him I have his sword."

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"Really? You actually found her?"

Brienne stiffened. "Why shouldn't I find her?"

"I just assumed she was dead."

"Why would you assume that?"

"In my experience, girls like her don't last very long in the real world."

"I doubt you know many girls like her."

He finally noticed the color rising to her cheeks. "Well, I'm proud of you. You fulfilled your oath to Catelyn Stark after all, and damn the odds. Of course," he moved closer to look her in the eye, "my sister wants Sansa's head on a pike. She still believes the girl was involved in Joffrey's murder, so there is that little... complication."

It now sounded almost as if an actual city was tumbling down around them. The encampment was on the move, and neither paid the slightest attention to it.

"You're right. My oath remains unfulfilled. Our oath remains unfulfilled."

His pleasant expression collapsed instantly, to be replaced by a glimmer of suspicion. She forged ahead anyway. "As you just pointed out, Lady Sansa will never be safe from her enemies until she's reclaimed her ancestral seat and the lands that rightfully come with it."

"And with what army is she planning to do this?"

"That's not your concern."

"Then why the hell are you here?"

"To ask for your patronage one more time." He gave a quizzical tilt of the head. "What's the saying? Lannister gold buys Bravosi steel?"

"Ah. Now we come to it." Jaime slowly rotated away and leaned against his dining table.

"Of course, King Tommen could spare us all a lot of trouble by simply returning the North to its rightful warden. I don't suppose you can make that happen?"

"I wish I could share your faith in this girl. For all I know, she did kill Joffrey."

"You can't possibly mean that!"

"Why not? I was wrong about my own brother." He turned to face her. "I suppose she didn't kill Bolton and his bastard either?"

Jaime seemed to take her confusion over how to answer that question as affirmation. His tone instantly, dauntingly became more formal. "Cersei is going through more than you can imagine as we speak. Why should I add to her worries by fomenting rebellion for Sansa Stark?" He crisply clipped off each syllable of the name.

"Because you're a knight, Ser Jaime. I know there is honor in you."

"Honor. You clearly haven't met enough knights." He waved her toward the exit and walked away.

The lather from her horse's flanks, so warming minutes ago, had congealed into a freezing paste that was trying to glue her thighs together. She was tired, she was hungry, and somewhere in her skull, a dam burst and flowed down to her lips. "Tell me what happened to Walder Frey's wives."

"What?"

"You heard me. The old man has had a remarkable number of wives. What happened to all of them?" Jaime hestitated. "Yes, I know Lady Catelyn killed the latest. What of the others?"

The bluntness of the question compelled an answer. "I know at least one of them ran away. One died by her own hand, two in childbirth- though there were rumors that poor condition contributed. The other two were said to have run away as well."

"And that makes seven," Brienne whispered. "Yet you're going to fight for this man?"

"Not for him. For my king."

She threw up her arms. "Then I can't say I think much of your king." Immediately, she knew she'd gone too far. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that."

"No, you shouldn't. I'm a Lannister. Don't ask me to choose between you and my own house. You'll lose."

"I'm asking no such thing. You may be a Lannister, but you're not like the rest of your family."

"What does that mean?" A pale face poked through the tent flap, mouth forming an oval, and was brusquely waved away.

"You never cared much for gold. No indulgent baubles for you, no nights spent at whorehouses." She gestured around the tent, luxurious by traveling standards, but far from ostentatious. "I'd wager your chambers at King's Landing don't look much different from this."

"You spend a lot of time thinking about my chambers, do you?"

"Stop it!"

"Has it ever occurred to you that I can afford to not care about gold because my family has so much of it?" Brienne propped a hand on the hilt of her sword and stared accusatorily back at him. "Don't look at me like that." Her eyes narrowed. He sighed. By now, he'd perambulated all the way around the table and come up to meet her from the opposite side.

"Lovely. Now you sound like my sister. 'Gold wins wars, not swords.' 'You were too busy gallivanting around with the knights to listen to Father.' 'Lannisters always pay their debts.'" Jaime reached down to turn a fork absently between his thumb and forefinger. She watched with bated breath. When he spoke again, his voice was much softer, much slower. "The Stark girl is the last of her house, is she not?"

"The last known."

"It's not just a song anymore, seeing it happen to the Baratheons."

Brienne rapidly blinked twice. "King Tommen is-"

"Of course. Of course, I only meant he's the last of his house too." She didn't bother to correct him. Stannis Baratheon could only be a distraction from her purpose now. He looked up at her from beneath beetled brows. "Well, you say I have a debt that's not paid in full. As a Lannister, which I very much am, I can hardly let such an obligation lie fallow. As for Cersei..." His hand reflexively went up to run through his hair. "What she doesn't know won't cost her any peace."

Brienne felt an almost violent gush of relief loosen cold, stiff muscles. In that moment, she realized she hadn't been expecting to succeed. Her head was suddenly too light, but outwardly, she only smiled.

"There's something I've never seen before," Jaime smirked.

She gathered her dignity. "Can you spare a cart, Ser Jaime? I have only a horse."

"No. I'm afraid I don't drag chests of gold around with me. But I can have one delivered to you from a nearby outpost. It's not a problem, though you will have to name a place."

"The Inn at the Crossroads. There are a few things I'd like to do there anyway." Brienne half-turned, feeling she was forgetting something. "Oh!" She unbuckled her sword-belt. "I believe this is yours."

He pushed away her proffered hand. "It's yours. I gave it to you. Besides, I have its twin." A few inches of blade were bared for her appraisal. "Forged from the same steel, in fact."

Her fingers drifted outward as if to touch the deadly edge, but made it no farther than a few inches. "Isn't that Joffrey's sword?"

"It's my sword."

"What did he call it? Widow's Wail?"

His laugh startled her, not least because it was genuine. "It's all right, you can say it. My nephew really was a cunt. But her name is Windreaper now."

"Windreaper. That's beautiful. No blood in it. But I'm surprised Tommen didn't claim her."

"Tommen chooses not to wear a sword. His brother would have done well to show half as much humility. A fine Valyrian steel sword is wasted on someone who will never use it."

Brienne bared a few inches of her own blade and let her eyes flick a few times between them. "Hmmm. Not quite twins. Not really even sisters."

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The tent city had largely vanished around Brienne, returning to slightly the worse for wear greensward which she marched across with chin at a jaunty tilt and shoulders thrown back. Crisp air had never stung her lungs so sweetly. Her mistress had chosen wisely after all. Lady Sansa's faith was fully repaid, and, for the first time, she saw a path that actually might lead all the way past the walls of Winterfell unfolding in front of her. They had a powerful ally. Of a sort.

Not to mention her secret relief that she wouldn't be traveling to the Arbor. It was never easy, being an island girl who got miserably seasick.

She retrieved her mount from its thoroughly impatient steward. After several minutes of ambling down the road, even the last lingering smell of the tent city behind her, a question suddenly popped fully formed into her brain. Out of all of Walder Frey's wives who were reputed to have run away, why was Jaime so sure one of them did?