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[RIVERLANDS, STARK CAMP, NIGHT]
[A guard checks on the prisoners in the Stark encampment. JAIME and ALTON share a cell.]
"Who did you say your mother was again?"
"Cynda Lannister."
"I have never heard of her" Tyrion blinked in surprise.
"Perhaps she's from the lesser branch" Myrcella suggested, her voice slightly strained.
"Perhaps" Tyrion shrugged, ignoring the strain in her voice. She's been exposed to a lot of emotions, the imp wasn't surprised much.
"Is she the fat one?"
"Well, perhaps she's gotten a little larger than she-"
"No, no. There's only one fat Lannister. If she were your mother, you'd know it."
"Our Aunt Genna would whip your hide if she ever hears that" Tyrion teased, making Jaime roll his eyes.
"Aunt Genna is not fat. She is thick from childbirth but not fat" Jaime clarified.
"Whatever you say brother" Tyrion smirked.
["I squired for you once, you know." Alton said
"When?" Jamie asked
"The tournament, the day of Willem Frey's wedding." Alton replied
"I went to Willem Frey's wedding?" Jamie asked
"You did. Your squire had gotten so drunk the night before that he threw up." Alton explained ]
"Is your memory always that dull?" Joanna questioned her son almost amused.
"I don't remember things that are not important" Jaime shrugged, finally at ease seeing his mother not ignore or glare at him.
["He threw up on his horse on the way to the tourney grounds. What was his name?" Jamie asked
"Bryan." Alton answered
"Poor lad. That was my brother's doing, I seem to recall." Jamie said]
"It was" Tyrion cackled.
["I remember you. You'd never squired for anyone before." Jamie said
"That's right. I ran up and volunteered. My father was furious. Afraid I'd embarrass our family in front of the Family." Alton replied
"You didn't, though." Jamie stated
"You remember?" Alton asked
"You knew when you were needed and when to go away. It's a rare talent. Most of my squires, they mean well, but young men with big jobs, they tend to overdo them." Jamie explained ]
"Am I to assume he is important then?" Joanna asked with a brow raised.
"You are bound to remember when probed that much" Jaime defended himself with a smile. He remembered it now too, though not in exact detail.
"When I think back to that day-"
[GUARD rattles their cage and shushes them before walking away]
"You were saying?" Jamie asked
"I-Never mind. It's embarrassing"
Jamie looked around himself and asked "More embarrassing than being chained to a post covered in your own shit?"
"I remember everything about that day, your helmet, your horse, the rake lines in the dirt along the list, where the sun was in the sky when you knocked Balon from his horse, and the dent in your shield when you handed it back to me. I'll remember it all until I die. That was the best day of my life. And I remember being on the field after it was over. All the competitors were done. I was the last one out there. And I couldn't leave. I couldn't bring myself to go and sit with my family at a table so far on the edge of the feast you could barely even see the bride. And I couldn't bear to tell them what it had been like squiring for you when I knew that they could never have the faintest idea what I was talking about." Alton explained
"I understand completely." Jamie said
"You do?" Tyrion raised a brow.
"I was a squire once, brother" Jaime rolled his eyes.
["I was sixteen once. I also had to replace someone's squire on short notice."
"Which knight was it?"
"Barristan Selmy. The fight against the Kingswood Outlaws. Before your time."]
"You never told me you squired for Ser Barristan once," Tyrion said in surprise.
"I tend to not since it was so short" Jaime shrugged. "Lord Sumner had joined the hunt for the Kingswood Outlaws with the Kingsguard sent to take them down. For a small while, I was squire to Ser Barristan as well."
"What was he like?"
"He was a painter. A painter who only used red. I couldn't imagine being able to fight like that, not back then. And to help him do that, to be a part of something that perfect. I don't need to explain how that felt, not to you."
"Jaime Lannister, a poet? You are still full of surprises brother" Tyrion teased.
Jaime rolled his eyes.
"It's like stepping into a dream you've been dreaming for as long as you can remember, and finding out that the dream is more real than your life."
"Did you squire for him again?"
"No. I didn't have your gift. He couldn't take a step without stepping on me. I was awful, a complete liability. Until one of the outlaws decided to take on a sixteen-year-old squire. It's a good thing I am who I am. I'd have been useless at anything else. I'm not well-suited for imprisonment. Shocking, I know. Some men are. Ned Stark, I imagine he made an excellent prisoner right up until the end. Not me, though. My life has left me uniquely unfit for constraint."
"And you were doing so fine until then" Tyrion sighed, the Stark contingent turning to glare at the Kingslayer.
"I apologize for nothing" Jaime smiled, much to the eye-rolling of his mother and brother.
"And have you thought about escaping?"
"Of course. Every day. Good prisoners breed good jailers, apparently. The Starks are very careful. But there is a way, I think. It wasn't possible until now."
"What is it?"
[JAIME looks out at the guards.]
"It's actually quite simple."
"Well, let me help you."
"You'll only have to do one thing."
"Jaime..." Tyrion groaned. He knew exactly what his brother was about to do.
Their mother on the other hand did not.
"Tell me."
[JAIME whispers]
"You'll have to die."
Joanna stares in shock at how easily her son killed Alton. It was not that she was repulsed by the act of killing an enemy. No, she was a Lannister and was raised with what her sons had to do in mind. It was the fact that Jaime killed his cousin, another Lannister, his blood of all things!
"Do you think that might earn him the monicker of Kinslayer too?" Obery questioned, his tone dripping with amusement and condescension.
"Of course, it would be him of all people who would do it" Ned Stark scoffed. "An Oathbreaker can't be expected to do better."
Jaime let the criticism come to him and roll off him. What was the opinion of these sheep to a lion like him?
But he was bothered seeing the look of horror on his mother's face.
He tricked and then strangled his distant cousin and fellow prisoner, Alton Lannister to death in their shared cell/pen. When Torrhen Karstark, a guard and son of Lord Rickard Karstark, came to investigate the noise, Jaime strangled him as well.