one-shot collection [multi-fandom]

May I Have This Dance? || Brienne of Tarth

All night you had listened to the jeers, the bets, the snide comments. All night you had put up with it, but no more.

Waltzing across the grand hall to the young girl slouched in her chair, you stopped right in front of her and stood there silently, waiting for her to look up at you. The girls straw coloured hair was hanging limply in front of her face as she gazed down at her shoes. Following her gaze, you found nothing special about the shoes, nor the floor.

With a small smile, you bent down on one knee, peering up at her face, trying to catch her eye. Slowly, her chin lifted, ever so slightly, enough for her long hair to part from her face, just enough for you to see her crystal blue eyes. Tarth was named the Sapphire Isle, not because it had any sapphires, but for its blue waters, but in this moment, you knew the true sapphires of the isle were rimmed with puffy red eyelids, tears swimming in their depths.

'Brienne the Beauty' they had all called.

'Brienne the Beauty' they had all sneered.

'Brienne the Beauty' they had all laughed.

But one glance upon her face, you knew behind their sneers and their japes and their laughs, was the truth. She was a beauty.

So blinded by their own insecurities, they could not look past, nor embrace, her height.

With a soft smile, and an even softer grasp, you took her hand, and whispered 'trust me.' A single glance to the minstrels was all that was needed before a lively jig filled the halls. The sound of laughter as the two of you spun around the halls drowned out the whispers and the stares of the noble men and women of Westeros.

'Let them stare' you said, spinning around once more, feet kicking wildly, out of time with the beat of the music, and not a care in the world. 'Tonight isn't about them, it's about you.' And it wasn't until the earliest hours of the morning, long after the nobles had left, and the minstrels stopped playing, did you part from the great hall, smiles upon your lips and hearts soaring in the sky.

~0~

When years would pass and they would laugh at the beast of a woman, all she could do, was think back to that one night, so many years ago in her father's hall, where she danced all night with the stranger she never saw again