Chapter Text
Keep them safe for me, Jaime, and I swear, I will fix this as soon as I get back. We will fix this together.
Sometimes—often—almost every night, Jaime lays abed, frozen with delayed dread of the future-that-wasn’t. They stumbled within a hairsbreadth of a precipice, and they did it blindly. Signs were there, startling, attention-grabbing signs that a halfwit beggar would have seen and acted upon. Not they. Not him. Jaime Lannister, heir of Casterly Rock, the youngest member of the Kingsguard in the written record—What a wretched joke.
Keep them safe for me, Jaime—
He would have failed. He would have betrayed the last vow he ever swore to Rhaegar. If not for the cat, he would have lost everything. He would have nodded, believed Varys’ forked tongue and allowed himself to be separated from his charges. Rhaegar entrusted his wife and children to his care, he took him to the side and asked, asked. He hadn’t demanded, hadn’t commanded. And Jaime would have fallen for the cheapest, most ridiculous lie. He knew Father had taken the city. He knew Lannister men were looting and pillaging, and that it was only a matter of time until Baratheon and his Stark dogs arrived to mop up what was left. And still, when Varys came, spinning whatever deranged plot he had decided on, Jaime had left. He locked his Princess and her children in Maegor’s Holdfast, told them everything would be fine, and left to wait on the King—if that order was even legitimate and not something Varys had invented from whole cloth.
He was on his way to the throne room, in fact, when Balerion darted out from underneath a cart and wove between his legs. Rhaenys would appreciate his company, he had thought, scooping up the kitten that was meowing with more pathos than a scraggly alley kite has any right to. It’s been rough for their Princesses as of late, what with the Stark girl and the King and the rest. Rhae feels deeply, much like her father, and her gentle heart often leads her into bouts of near-paralysis when she gets overwhelmed. Animals help, he had learned. Uncomplicated love from a pet helps soothe the worst of the dips in mood.
If not for the cat, he wouldn’t have loped back to Maegor’s Holdfast. If not for the cat, he would have been too far to hear the screams.
***
The precise sequence of events is shrouded in a fog; he suspects that whatever blessing let him kill two men above him in age and skill also blurred the actual memories enough that he could remain nominally functional. He hadn’t dwelled on the corpse of the dead infant, hadn’t let himself think about the image of Amory Lorch with his hands around the throat of a girl who hadn’t had her third birthday.
He must have killed him quickly and silently because Clegane doesn’t hear him. Doesn’t stop. That’s probably a boon, all things considered. Jaime is better trained, but he’s younger and a lot smaller. Not too small to stab the beast through the neck, grab his hair with his right, and swing to the left, while pulling sharply to the right. The corpse falls to the ground, functionally headless and Jaime has to—He needs to—
The fog descends hard and fast. How, precisely, the two of them managed the logistics of freeing Elia from the corpse and redressing her without disturbing her wounds too much is a mystery Jaime doesn’t need solved.
“Rhaenys is fine,” he says. Lies. “Alive. Unconscious. We need to—We need to leave. Quickly.”
Clegane and Amory Loch are Father’s men. Lannister dogs. They—He blinks, shakes his head. Never mind that. That doesn’t matter. For now, the Princess can be classified as wounded, mostly immobile. Right.
A small ray of light in the incomprehensible catastrophe they found themselves in is that Eli still feels some measure of trust for him. Namely, when he starts ripping the heavy armour from his shoulders and chest, she doesn’t for the moment consider he has ill intentions.
“I will carry you both,” he pants. “Quickly—” The cloak is at least useful for one thing: they can wrap Rhae up and tie her to her mother’s chest. “Good. Here—Princess, you will have to be my eyes and ears. Everybody we encounter is an enemy. Everybody. Man, woman, serving child. You let me know if someone is coming, I will put you down and kill them.”
The words barely permeate; she’s in shock. That might very well be for the best. “Jaime—He—What is to become of us?”
Death, most likely. If they’re fortunate, they will be cut down without extended torture.
“We are going to Dorne,” he says instead. “To the docks. Find a Dornish vessel. Hide.” His head is swimming, mind buzzing with an omnidirectional whine. When lost, follow orders. Keep them safe. “It will work. You will see.”
***
True to his word, Jaime treats every person they encounter in the back alleys of the Red Keep like an enemy. Thankfully, the warriors have better things to do; Jaime only has to put his Princesses down to kill two servants and—and this he does with some relish—Varys. He will never know if the Spider just happened to cross his path or if he was coming to find Jaime personally. Whatever the case may be, Jaime will cherish the look of profound surprise when Jaime stabbed him through the throat for the brief time he has left.
Thankfully, the White Bull had made sure nobody knew the ways in and out of the Red Keep better than the Kingsguard. Assassins, he said; hah. If only Jaime only had assassins to worry about. Half of the Kingdom is coming for his Princesses, and he doesn’t—What is happening—
Following muscle memory and instinct, they find themselves in the western tunnels underneath the Keep proper. It’s easier to breathe in the pitch dark, never mind the stale, putrid air. The childish part of Jaime he never managed to grow out of appreciates the perceived security of it. If you can’t see them, they can’t see you, and he so desperately doesn’t want to be seen. His strength is running out, and hysteria is the only reason he hasn’t yet collapsed. Aegon is already—His stomach rolls, a piercing bolt of fear working through his ears, stabbing into his spine. Father had—Never mind that. Run. You are surrounded by enemies on all sides; Targaryen loyalists will drag them to the King. Baratheons and Starks will likewise execute them, if they had arrived, and Father—
Father is sacking the city and has sent his sworn knights to torture and execute Elia and the children. The politics of it are straightforward. Father kept back until Baratheon and Rhaegar clashed, and would have backed the winner, whichever one that was. If anything, Baratheon would have been his first choice. He is unwed, after all, and Cersei always wanted to be a Queen. The calculus is simple enough that even he can follow it. Cersei on the throne. Jaime, free of the much hated White Cloak, returned to Casterly Rock to be properly trained. Father, residing in King’s Landing, acting as Hand, moulding the Kingdom in his image.
Eli has no role to play in Father’s game. She is a superfluous piece and so she will be removed.
Keep them safe for me—
The world should burn before a hair should have been harmed on Princess Elia’s head. She only ever improved the world. Most people are, in Jaime’s experience, as terrible as they are allowed to be. Elia’s chosen weapons were kind smiles and a scholar’s mind. And now she—Now Father—No. It cannot be borne. Any plan that includes sending the Mountain to brutalise a mother in front of her children is to be opposed. To the death, if need be. His life was never such a precious resource that he wouldn’t spend it for such a worthy cause.
“We’re almost there,” he mumbles, voice oddly choked. Why—Oh. Eli is crying, shivering in his arms like a wounded bird, and he is, apparently, crying with. Stupid. Conserve your energy. You are a knight. A knight on a mission. There will be time later for sentiment.
***
The city is full of Lannisters and rebels; Jaime slips by in the chaos without having to draw his blade once. The group lingering at the Mud Gate is a different story, but they are little more than peasant boys. Jaime kills them all in minutes, and that’s that.
The spark of hope that lit up at her words dims. All the ships in the dock are on fire, abandoned. The rebels might not have a navy yet, but they know how to deal with wooden vessels well enough. It was foolish to hope for even a second, but—What else is there to do but die on their feet? Jaime will grant his Princesses a swift death, once the pursuit catches up—
“Look, Jaime,” Eli rasps, pointing—
“Right you are, my Queen,” he chokes out and jogs up to the fishing boat, beached a way off the docks. It’s a rickety old thing, little more than a bowl-shaped raft, but it floats and—And it’s not like they are spoiled for choice. At least there is a small cabin with a cot inside for Elia to rest on before— “Perfect. Please, rest. I will—” He blinks, swaying on his feet. He hasn’t rowed in years and—And there is an army—Armies—“I will get us out of here. ”
The boat is beached a ways off the port. Jaime considers the ridiculous situation—he’s scaling down slippery, algae-covered rocks, with Princess Elia and Princess Rhaenys in your arms. You could slip, fall and kill them. You could drown. You don’t even know if the boat is seaworthy—
It’s not. Seaworthy, that is. It doesn’t matter, however, because the world ends before he even gets close enough to check.
***
The first week post-Calamity is even more confusing, somehow. They got used to the smell of burning flesh and screaming pretty quickly, but a lot of people live in King’s Landing. Lived in King’s Landing. There were also a couple of armies. Whatever happened appears to have detonated most of the city, starting from the Keep and spreading. The cascade took a few hours to finish, but by then, the lion’s share of the people had already died, from the fire, the stampede or fallen infrastructure. Hah. Lion’s share.
Jaime keeps his Princesses alive through a combination of miracles and bloodyminded spite. The only reason they survived the initial pandemonium is that they were on an abandoned, worthless stretch of coast, near a deep natural overhang underneath the city walls. Naturally, they scrambled for cover, following a base animal instinct of hiding under the nearest big thing. This saved their lives and continued saving them for hours on end. When boulders, things and people started falling down the cliffside, Jaime, Elia and Rhaenys were safely huddled in the back, a dozen of paces away from the danger zone.
When the debris turns into boulders turns into chunks of rock, he swallows, gathers his courage and gets moving.
“We will get buried,” he whispers to Elia. “We must find a cave.”
Her teeth are chattering. Funny how that happens, considering how damn hot it is. The world is on fire, the air is choked with smoke and ash, but Elia’s teeth are chattering. Come to think of it, so are his.
“Of course,” she says. “Let’s do that. Right away.”
***
Creeping under the outcropping like a miserable family of lizards while all around you flaming rocks are exploding is an experience Jaime wouldn’t have thought a human could survive. On a purely sensory level, he would have thought a human heart would get oversaturated with terror and give up. Evidently not. They’re all made of harder stuff, it seems. Even Rhae, who had woken up when they were still huddled beneath the outcropping hasn’t keeled over. If anything, the girl is the calmest one of the three of them. After the initial, horrific fit of terror, she pulled together better than any knight would. Certainly better than Jaime.
Telling time is, of course, wholly impossible, but he would estimate it takes them at least several hours to find a network of natural caves on the foot of Aegon’s Hill, overlooking the Blackwater Bay. They’re not particularly deep or high, but they’re empty, more or less clean and, and this is the most important part, well-ventilated. They need cover but they don’t need to die from smoke inhalation, either.
The moment Elia lays down on the improvised bed of moss Jaime had fashioned for them, she falls asleep. Keeping with the feel of the thing, she doesn’t wake. She slips out of shock and straight into a fever, complete with shakes and hallucinations. This brings with it its own set of challenges. Jaime had been whittled down most of the way to a mindless automaton, and the temptation to lie down next to her and drift into death was high. He very well might have, if not for Rhaenys. Sweet, vivacious Rhae who never complained about a thing, since she had woken up and even tried to comfort him as best she could. Mindless or not, Jaime cannot allow himself to let Rhaenys watch as her mother dies before her eyes. It cannot be allowed no matter how—no matter how little he wants to examine Elia’s body.
Either he does it or Rhae does. It’s him or the two-year-old traumatised girl-child who already watched her baby brother be brutally murdered. Rhae deserves better. If Rhaegar is dead, which he has to assume he is, then—Then Rhaenys is what’s left of him. She deserves the world like he does—Like he had. And Elia—Elia is a strong woman. She survived King’s Landing for years. She bore the humiliations and abuse without flinching, without so much as flicking a lash. Eli could survive anything. The fever—
“Heat is good, Princess,” he babbles, holding them both close to transfer some of his body heat. “Purifying, like your Great Sun. Your Lady Mother is purifying her body, cleaning herself from the bad man’s touch. She will wake when she is finished.”
“Like Ba-le-ri-on,” Rhae whispers. “Yes?”
“You’re such a clever girl, I’ve never met cleverer—”
***
He can’t do much about Elia’s injuries except clean and bandage them. As far as he can tell, she has bruised—or cracked—ribs and severe bruising around her neck, abdomen and pelvis. If there are wounds in the more intimate areas, he hasn’t found them because he hasn’t checked. Doing this much already made him dizzy with stress.
On the upside, the world seems to have finished dying, so he figures it’s safe enough to venture outside. Elia’s infection—if, indeed, she has an infection—won’t get better in a damp, wretched cave. If he remembers things correctly, Winch Towers should be within walking distance, even after accounting for all the destruction. There might very well be some supplies there that the fire hasn’t reached. Even if not, it should be flat, dry and airy; better in any way than the deathtrap they’re in now.
Getting there takes most of the day. The tower on this side of the river is in far worse condition than its twin across, but it looks to be most of the way whole. Getting to it, however, will require some creative thinking. There had been a small avalanche or two, and the fire burned everything there was to burn.
With all that said, Jaime grew up in Casterly Rock. He knows more about scaling down perilous cliffs than he does anything else. Carrying Elia and Rhae is, yes, a handicap, but nothing about this has been easy. Nothing about this should be easy. This is clearly Gods’ punishment, their judgment of the power-hungry, silly mortals with their airs and their self-importance. Since the three of them are as mortal as any of them, it wouldn’t be a good idea to look unbothered and unhumbled by the punishment.
Everybody is roughed up by the time they manage to haul their bruised, exhausted bodies into what remains of the Winch Tower—the top two-thirds have been blown off, so there’s no cover, but the fire hadn’t caught it, so the floor is dry wood and there’s still supplies here and there if you know where to look. Supplies, in this case, include a cot for Elia and a rudimentary kitchen that he should be able to figure out.
None of that matters right now. After depositing Elia onto the cot, he grabs Rhae and curls up on the floor with her on his chest, exhausted past the point of reason.
***
In the end, it’s not the Lannisters or the Dornish or the Baratheons that find them. A smuggler’s ship docks a little way away from the tower, presumably for the same purpose they had; meaning it’s dry and flat and abandoned. Jaime has, by then, recovered his strength and dipped further into insanity, so he’s at his most dangerous.
“—it’s a simple evaluation,” he concludes. “Either you take us to Dorne and my sister’s family rewards you handsomely, or I do my best to kill you all. Try your luck, by all means; I doubt it will turn in your favour.”
They get loaded up onto the smugglers’ ship without much fuss. Granted, the word of anyone who dares to come to a place of judgment to loot is not all that valuable, but Jaime is even more dangerous in close quarters where they can’t spread out and bring him down with ranged weaponry. He will stand against their crew of eleven untrained men in a ship without worrying much.
He and Rhaenys sleep in shifts, to his chagrin. It can’t be helped, however; one must always remain awake lest the smugglers let their ambition override their common sense and try something foolish. He can’t imagine why they would, but—King’s Landing exploded in Wildfire not two weeks ago and he can’t possibly see how that could have been an accident.
Say what you will about Targaryens, they know how to make a last stand. Aerys was a twisted, worthless madman, but he was a dragon. The mortals had chased him down to his lair, and he laid waste before them rather than let them have any of his treasure.
Never mind that. Focus. The world is reeling, so you’re in some luck. The—The death of almost everyone he’s ever known is, yes, horrific in a way that’s difficult to conceptualise much less accept, but—But nobody knows the Princesses are missing. Nobody is looking for them. The smugglers are incentivised with both bad and good, Elia’s fever hasn’t broken but it has gone down and Rhaenys is eating enough roasted fish and fresh fruit for a girl her age.
***