P A R T I V
Notes | My two OC's are Reila Stark, Jaime's
love interest (I've decided to name her for the
remainder of this mini series) and her daughter,
Joanna (Lannister) Reed, Robb's love interest.
Recap | Joanna attempts to speak to her biological
father, Jaime, but is interrupted by Howland Reed
who shows up at Robb's camp site unannounced
and assaults Jaime for claiming that Reila never
stopped loving him despite being married to Reed.
❪ joana ❫
Silence washed over the huddled group of drunken soldiers in a wave as I approached them, their necks craning to get a glimpse of me.
I had the eyes of nearly all the men, but I only met Fabian's. He looked away with disinterest, burying his mouth behind his mug of ale and leaving my cheeks to burn despite the chill.
"Excuse me, gentlemen," I announced, defiantly tipping my chin into the air. "I wish to borrow Ser Fabian Glover from you."
I saw Fabian shake his head, still refusing to look at me. But slowly, he pulled himself up to his feet before making his way towards me.
"I need you to take me to Lannister again." I told him once he'd led us away from the crowd and into a nearby tent for privacy.
"I can't do that." He quipped.
"Fabian–"
"I have strict orders."
"That you could bend–"
"M'lady, I won't." His stern tone put me in silence for longer than I'd intended of prolonging. "And after what happened last time, I don't know why you'd think seeing him again would be a good idea."
"It'll be quick. Fabian, please. It's important and no one else can know I'm going to see him."
"Even the King can't know?" He raised a scrutinizing eyebrow. "Because if I remember correctly, last time things didn't go your way when I agreed to help you, you spread your legs to Robb Stark so that you could—"
"How dare you!" I threw a hard shove at his chest so that Fabian staggered away from me.
"That was what happened, wasn't it? Will it happen again? If I say no are you going to fuck me into saying yes?" And before I could react, he strode forward till we were nearly chest to chest. "I'm sure, Lady Stark, that what you have to offer is beyond my dreams," He began, voice gravelly. "But I won't have myself reduced to just another person you manipulate in order to have your way."
His words felt like a slap across my face, and if I hadn't spent the previous night confessing every one of my sins to my mother, Fabian would have succeeded in not only striking me with his words but tearing me apart limb to limb with them.
"You're exactly like him." He spoke again with a stunned shake of his head. "It really should be no surprise that Lannister is your father."
I opened my mouth to voice my dissent, but Fabian's hard shoulder was already knocking into mine as he shoved past me, slipping out the tent before I could stop him.
My mouth hung open at the quickness of it all and just as I was about to chase him, someone else stepped into the tent and backed me further inside.
"Who are you?" I demanded to know, wide eyes flickering up to examine the stranger's face.
"A friend of Fabian's." He grunted. "You can call me Alfred."
"I do not wish anything of you, Ser Alfred—"
"'M no knight, m'lady. Just a squire."
I gaped up at him, eyeing his frightening height and stick thin arms. But then as my eyes scored further down his frame, I found something more appalling.
He had no hands. In their place were nubs of scarred skin.
"I can help you." He insisted and my wide eyes shot up to his youthful face. "I can take you to the prisoner. All I ask from you in exchange is for your services."
"Services?" My eyebrows furrowed.
"The services you provide for the King." He deadpanned making my face fall. "Your cunt, your mouth, your hand— anything will do."
No, I wanted to scream at him, but the taste of bile was so pungent in my mouth that my tongue forgot how to form the word.
"I will keep this a secret, m'lady." Alfred whispered coaxingly. "You have my word."
No, I wanted to refuse him with. I had no reason to trust him, and if it was anything I was taught before stepping foot in a camp of the Starks' bannerman, it was to never easily trust anyone.
There are very few honorable men left in this world, Robb had warned me. I don't even think I'm one of them. Not with the thoughts you evoke from me. Thoughts so vile your father wouldn't think twice that I'm his nephew before beheading me.
Every man had their vices, some far more dangerous than others. Asking me to pleasure him was one way the wicked monster inside Alfred showed its colors. But it would be in exchange for something I wanted. And he was lacking the parts necessary to give him the dexterity to hold the upper hand against me even with his astonishing height.
I did not trust Alfred, but he was a bee without its stinger. I could not trust him, but I could still use him. Fabian was right. I was best at bending men to carrying out my will.
Just like daddy dearest.
"You will take me to Lannister two hours after nightfall." I asserted calmly. "After I've successfully met with him, I shall give you what you want, but I shall only use one hand and nothing more."
❪ reila ❫
Howland's knuckles were still crusted with Jaime's blood. It was like he was parading around with the gore—that or he wanted me to see for myself what he'd done and how unapologetic he was about it.
I couldn't tear my eyes away from the sight since the alternative meant looking up into his face.
Betrayal ate at our hearts like venom, killing everything we'd spent the past eighteen years building. Looking into Howland's eyes now meant remembering the day he fed our stillborn child to the lizard-lions of the Neck's swamps, depriving me entirely of any chance to grieve my babe's death. I hadn't understood his actions for fortnights until Howland himself finally decided to explain himself.
The babe had had yellow hair. Not the straw yellow that some of his cousins had or the dull platinum his sister had, but the luminous gold color belonging only to the lions of Casterly Rock.
I hadn't slept with Jaime Lannister in nearly twenty years and yet my husband had found a way to convince himself that Jaime had fathered yet another child of mine.
So many things had broken inside of me that day. I still couldn't fathom with what certainty I believed I could forget the sight of the swamps being polluted with blood after the vicious monsters that lurked within its depths tore my babe apart while Howland watched.
It was his crazed expression I could not unsee– would not unsee for that long-standing insecurity of his had finally contorted itself into actual malice.
"Joanna had come to speak with Lannister last night, why?" Howland was the first to break the silence between us.
"She knows." I revealed on a sigh. "She overheard us some years ago. She knows Jaime is her father—"
"He is the shackled prisoner of Robb." Howland ground out. "My daughter was in his filthy sty last night, why?"
"Ask her yourself." I shook my head and Howland surprised me by taking ahold of my chin in his fingers and roughly jerking it up to make me look at him.
"I've hurt you." He spoke, voice wavering.
"You've hurt us." I corrected him.
"Because I've always hurt on my own." His eyebrows pulled together like he was experiencing pain. "I've loved you since before you even knew who I was. I fell in love with you from the way Ned used to talk about you– from the stories he would tell me about your childhood in Winterfell. And when I realized that the woman I'd fallen in love with wanted so badly to give her heart to someone else, I started to hurt and it was far worse than any sword wound I've been dealt."
"Howland—"
"I've hurt on my own ever since. But when you gave me Meera and Jojen, I felt whole– I thought your heart was finally mine. But that was never true, was it?" He didn't wait for an answer. "I thought if I could make you feel the same hurt I did, you'd finally understand how unfair what I have to endure is—"
"Unfair?" I whispered. "You never had to wed me. I told you everything about what me and Jaime were– what me and Jaime conceived and you still asked for my hand. If it was torture you endured because of that, then you brought it upon yourself. It was your mistake for wanting to make a woman whose heart belonged with another man your wife!"
"I gave you so much, Reila— how was it not enough?"
"It was enough." I insisted fiercely. "I learned to love you, Howland. I learned to put Jaime in the past and love you– it was you who couldn't let my past go—"
"How can I when Joanna is a splitting of image of him." Howland hung his head. "When I see the way you look at her with so much sadness when she isn't noticing– when I have night terrors of your belly growing again with Lannister seed– when I know your heart still beats for him!"
"You're hurting us." I reminded him, the strangled sob crawling out from its lodging place in my throat.
"So be it."
There weren't much more words we could exchange after that, but Howland did ask for my permission to take Joanna back home to Greywater Watch.
I'd brought her along for Robb's march against King's Landing with the intention to wed her to Richard Karstark's boy and ease tensions. Joanna and Torrhen Karstark had been betrothed for one day before Jaime had cracked the boy's skull open while he'd been on guard duty that night.
As soon as I'd heard about it, I'd known he'd killed the boy for more reasons than one. And Howland had heard about it too and was now using it as a reason to take Joanna back home.
"It's not my permission that you need, but Joanna's." I told him in earnest.
"What about me?" A soft voice called over to us as the girl in question slipped into my tent.
"Come back home with me, Joanna." Howland asked my daughter. "Meera and Jojen miss you. Your place is at Greywater with them."
"I . . . I can't. I must stay here by Robb's side." She asserted, tipping her chin up. It was new habit of hers she'd developed while answering to the Stark bannerman for the past several months. "He needs me. He needs you too. Your men, your strength. Stay and fight with us."
Howland looked at Joanna like she was someone he did not recognize. His eyes misted over with affliction, and I couldn't tell if he was proud of her loyalty to Robb or if he felt betrayed by it.
"I cannot. I will be taking my leave at daybreak. You have until then to make your decision."
"I've already made my decision."
I shed tears for Howland in that moment. He was right. It was unfair. Unfair that a girl he helped me raise since she was a babe would now strike her loyalties elsewhere— with the King, my nephew, and his real cause. But Howland, of course, would find a way to convince himself that Jaime was involved in Joanna's decision.
But the world was so much bigger than tragic, dead romances, and my daughter knew that. She knew Robb Stark would be forever hers in one way and yet would marry one of Hoster Tully's daughters for the sake of his war. And she would not fight him against it or limit herself to his love like Howland did with me.
Joanna would not hurt the way he hurt. She knew what the world truly was like and what it demanded of her. She would rather sacrifice the kind of love that made even the strongest of hearts bleed out than to drag out her own death from self-inflicted poison.
She did not intend to survive like a cockroach, but to reign like a lion.
She was a Lannister after all.
A/N | In true Lannister fashion, I had to make
Joanna relentless. I have another part planned after
this where I'll bring Jaime and Robb ( and the smut )
back into the mix, so this was more or less a chapter
that was mainly dedicated to ending Howland and
Reila's romance.
Shout out to @TheAzorAhai for requesting this
and rejuvenating my interest for this storyline! xx