[ Ofelia III ] she was half blade and half silk, difficult to forget and not easy for the mind to follow
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One thousand. Twilight deepened. The cloudless sky turned a deep purple, the colour of an old bruise, then faded to black. Two thousand. The stars began to come out. Three thousand. A half-moon rose. And still, they walked over dead crusted leaves and light snowdrifts. Four thousand. The silence was deafening, the whipping storm wind and the shaking of branches the only thing to be heard. Five thousand. Suddenly, she stopped.
"Here?" Jaime asked doubtfully.
"Here."
"No shelter from the wind? No defense from wild animals? No stream or food source? I thought you woodland wenches knew how to survive in the wilderness."
Five thousand paces from sunset. Toyne has long ago taught her the only way to be untraceable was to act completely erratical. "Here," she repeated, stone cold.
She pushed him down by the shoulders and sat the boy at the base of a wide oakwood, and began to wind the rough hempen rope around the base, tying him with it. Until they got back to her detachment, she would not be able to sleep soundly.
"We need a fire," he spat.
"No fire," she said sharply. They would know the Lannister boy was missing by now, and hunting parties would be racing down the kingsroad. A fire in these sparse woods and the knights would come like a moth to a candle. "You think me a fool."
"You would be more of a fool to let us starve." Sighing, she reached for her leather satchel and pulled out an apple and several strips of salted beef and tossed them one by one at him, his hands catching the food despite the loops of rope restricting his movement. She watched as his teeth hungrily sank into the ripe flesh of the fruit. "You don't have to tie me up, you know. If I wanted to flee I already would have."
"You say one thing yet your mind betrays you. I see you glancing at my sword, waiting for the opportune moment to grab it and slash my throat. I see you leaving heavy footprints in the snowdrifts and mud, hoping to leave a distinguishable trail. And I see your fingernails working away at the rope fibres when you think I'm not looking. In truth, you are a coward, Lannister, too scared to fight me properly, like a man."
"Let us duel, then," Jaime said, his voice cracking as sharp as a whip in the empty woods, dripping with arrogance and self-determination.
She snorted. If that was the level of intelligence she was dealing with, she may as well not bother tying him up at all. "And why would you want that, I wonder?" She asked, half-distracted with the knot she had returned to tending.
