An Honest Woman | Female Jaime Lannister | GOT/ASOIAF

Before II

"She's better off without me," The queen said, looking out to sea again. "Maris... Lyonel... what kind of a mother am I, where two of my children don't make it past thirteen, and even more don't live past the crib? I've failed them, I've failed Arthur, I've failed you, Jaime. What kind of woman keeps silent about her husband raping her closest friend?" Jaime opened her mouth, feeling Ned Stark's hard eyes on her without even looking his way, but Ashara continued, voice soft and heartbreaking. "It hurts too much. I just want it to stop hurting,"

"I'll hurt, if you do this," She found herself saying, voice more raw than it had been in years. "You're my friend. You can have more children, easily. You still have Cassana. Your living brother and sister, they'd grieve for you, and I knew Ser Arthur, I know he wouldn't want this, no matter what you'd done. Lord Stark would grieve for you,"

"Everyone would grieve," Stark agreed in a low voice. "Ashara, you can't truly believe that this is for the best?" Even he had dropped her title.

"Just come down, please," Jaime added. "You know I don't beg easily, but I am begging now," She gave a weak smile, which the queen returned, ever so faintly.

"I'm sorry," And then she leant forwards.

"No!" Jaime snatched at thin air, as Stark gave a similar yell beside her, both of them lunging forwards, only to see the slender purple figure crash into the rocks below, disappearing into the waves. 

They both stared in dead silence for a long moment, before looking at each other. She couldn't quite wrap her head around what had just happened. Ashara couldn't be dead, not when they'd just been speaking to her, seconds before. It was surreal, impossible, yet Jaime had just seen it with her own eyes.

"Gods," Stark's voice was scarcely more than a whisper, as the reality began to sink in. Jaime was silent in agreement. She felt her hands shaking, and for once didn't bother trying to conceal the horrified, wide-eyed look on her face. She hadn't been this shaken since she killed Aerys, and even then...

"My lord," Guards were just starting to reach them. "My lady, where is the queen?"

"Somewhere near the bottom of Blackwater Bay," Jaime snapped, face instinctively switching back to her usual mask as she turned back out to stare at the rocks below. She's dead, she's dead, she's truly dead.

She heard Stark talking to his men, then several minutes later felt his hand on her arm. It was a mark of how shocked she was that she let him guide her down the steps, and despite the solemn, cold look on his face, she felt his hands shaking too. He was a hardened battle commander, a soldier, who beheaded his criminals himself, but there was a difference between watching men die in battle, and seeing a broken woman jump to her own death. Or is there more to it than that?

He didn't speak to her and she didn't speak to him, merely escorted her to Maegor's Holdfast. Helia came to the door, and Stark left her in her eldest daughter's capable hands. Jaime was grateful he didn't try to talk, but the man was like her in that respect at least, preferring to keep any sadness close to his chest.

Jaime felt like an old woman as Helia wordlessly poured her a goblet of wine, and she took it without protest, draining it in one swallow.

She remembered walking those walls once, long ago, with Elia and Ashara. She was the youngest of the three, and the most foolish. She did not have Elia's quiet, gentle strength or Ashara's intelligent, alluring manner; Jaime was overconfident, golden and too reckless by half. 

How was it that she was the last of the three of them? She had always expected to die first, yet here she was, both her friends gone. The Kingslayer, alive where both the Princess and the Queen are dead. If that was not proof that being good did not save you in the end, she wasn't sure what was.