edge_of_forever | (no subject)

It had been days, weeks if he had counted correctly, though, with constant sun or moon the days seemed to blur from one to the next -- connected by a string of endless confusion and incredible indifference and apathy. He had lived to see a year come and go in the dank cells of Riverrun, he had faced Robb Stark and his direwolf, he had lost the most beloved thing to him -- his sword hand and now he was on a ship with no sails that traversed an ocean of black instead of blue and none of it made sense to him.

Of the few pleasant thoughts he had of his father was the night his mother died giving birth to Tyrion. Casterly Rock had been a riot that night, maids running in and out of the room with hot water and clean sheets, he had to hold back Cersei from running into the room. I want to see, Jaime! I'll have babies one day, I want to know! She battled with him but he didn't let her, father would be angry if she barged in. But, later that night after the screams of his mother had faded away and died out to the sounds of Tyrion's tears Jaime was taken out onto the balcony of his father's room. Tywin's heavy had rested on Jaime's shoulder and he explained that his mother was gone, that she had gone off into the stars to be with the gods. It had been the only time Jaime had seen his father vulnerable and now that day meant nothing, the stars were a place like any other with comings and goings and among those coming and going ... was not his mother.

He had made no friends in this place. He didn't understand it and if he had spent a year in the captivity of Robb Stark, he could survive a year here -- it was far more pleasant than any cell he'd ever seen. It was a cell nonetheless and he wandered its halls like a ghost that went mostly unseen and unheard from and although that image of his mother in the stars had been ripped from him by this place there was something incredibly pleasant about watching those stars slowly creep by and from the observation deck he saw them best. As he paced toward the enormous floor to ceiling window his arms came behind his back, his only hand gripping just above the scared flesh of where his right hand had once been.

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Jaime had perfected that stance, years and years of just standing at the foot of the throne -- few had been spent in real action, Kingswood Brotherhood battles and then his slaying of the Mad King since he had seen little battle against Robb Stark. He had seen most of his good years wasted away at the foot of the throne of a crazed old man and Robert Baratheon.

Even with his honor being worth shit, he still managed to stand at the foot of that gods forsaken hunk of metal and made it look good. Regardless, in recent times Jaime had begun to find the brotherhood and the entire belief in the Iron Throne to be similarly comical. Though, that couldn't be said in front of Cersei, she would have his other hand for that.

The sound of Sandor's voice, a voice he knew well from the years in Lannister's service, made Jaime turn from the floor to ceiling window quickly and the trait of a knight in both of them made him mimic Sandor's gesture of reaching for a sword that didn't hang from his waist, with a hand he didn't have. The last he had heard of Sandor was that he had fled the Red Keep during the Battle of Blackwater, abandoning his king and his duty. Jaime's head canted slightly as his golden green eyes surveyed him. "Wouldn't it be My Lord Commander, Hound?" As common to Jaime, his tone was snide and his smile appeared to be much more like an arrogant grin.

"It would be, if you were my Lord Commander," Sandor said, shrugging. "Turns out white's not my color." It didn't bother him to have his desertion brought up. He'd never cared for honor, or for his reputation beyond being the second most brutal man in Westeros. Even after everything going so spectacularly to shit after he'd left King's Landing, fighting Dondarrion and losing his money and being saddled with the Stark brat and the massacre at the Twins, he'd still choose it over staying in that city to serve the queen and her power-crazed son.

His eyes fell to the place where Lannister's hand should have been, then back up to the man's face. "I heard you left something at Harrenhal," he said, his own smile closer to a grimace.

"It was never your color. Doesn't suit you," neither did knighthood. The Hound had never been been blessed with the ointments in a Sept, he hadn't spent a night in prayer at the foot of the Warrior ... he hadn't even been knighted on a battle field, been touched by the tip of a blade of even a hedge knight. He hadn't cared for a knighthood and that was well and fine for Jaime Lannister, so long as the Hound hadn't offended the tradition of the White Swords. That wasn't entirely his fault, that had been Joffrey added to by Cersei's decision to rid herself of Ser Barristan one of the greatest knights he had ever seen. Profaning the structure of what the Kingsguard had been.

It was no different than when they called him Kingslayer, it was just another slight that he was seemingly to far above to even notice it ... even if not having his sword hand was far more personal than his reputation. It was his identity. Still, in true Lannister form ... emotions were suppressed and only wit remained. "You win some, you lose some," he rose the severed arm as his wide shoulder shelf rose for a rather nonchalant shrug. "I could still carve you into a half dozen pieces," he talked a good game, consider there were no swords for him to have to prove that with.

He'd never seen Lannister fight left-handed, but wasn't sure that meant he couldn't. Sandor himself wasn't as good with his left as his right, but that didn't mean he wasn't capable. Still.

"I'd like to see that," he said with a wide, snide grin. "Unlucky for us, there's no swords here-- or maybe lucky for one of us." His mouth twitched, the burnt skin pulling. "We've always been on the same side til now. It'll be interesting to see what happens now we're not."

It wasn't that Sandor was dying to start a brawl with the Kingslayer-- he wasn't looking to fight with anyone unless they started one with him first. But he wasn't about to give an inch, especially not now that for the first time in his life, he didn't have to give a damn what the man's last name was or how respectful he was supposed to be. Don't work for him anymore, he reminded himself. And lords or commoners don't make a shit of difference here. He knew if he repeated it to himself often enough, eventually he'd start believing it.

"Would you?" His head canted expectantly and defiant, doubting that Sandor meant that ... even if he didn't know how incapable he was with his left hand. He only nodded at the mention of the lack of swords, though thankful that there were none to be had. "Are there sides to take here?" His green eyes, mocking as they were, glancing around the room -- his head and body half turning to peer about them as if he expected battle lines and sides to be forming.