Riverrun was quieter than ever. Since the war had begun, tension seemed to weigh on every stone of the castle, as if the walls themselves carried mourning and anger. Her mother, Catelyn Starkk, barely left her chambers. Grief had taken everything from her except her hatred for the Lannis. So when Jaime was captured in the Battle of Whispering Wood and brought to Riverrun, she didn't even want to look at him. She didn't want to breathe the same air as that man.

And you were given the task that no one else wanted.

Every day, with a bowl of food in your hands and a flickering torch, you descended the damp, dark stairs to the cell where Jaime Lannis was chained to the walls of the dungeons of Riverrun. He never seemed uncomfortable. Even imprisoned, even wounded, even with the dirt and cold biting his skin, there was an air of arrogance about him, a glint in his eye that said he had never learned to lose.

The first time you entered, he laughed. A low laugh, laden with scorn.

"They sent Catelyn's little girl to take care of me?" He tilted his head back, the chains jingling softly. "I hope you know how to do better than just stare at me with that look on your face like you want to kill me."

You ignored him. You left the bowl on the floor near him and said only that it was either that or nothing. Jaime smiled with that same insolent air.

"Aren't you even going to say good night?"

In the early days, it was always like this. Every visit was a battle. He provoked you, you tried not to react. Jaime seemed to enjoy every angry look, every short answer. And yet you kept coming back.

Maybe it was pity. Maybe it was just duty. Or maybe it was the way that, sometimes, when he thought you weren't looking, Jaime would look at his own wounded hand and his ankles marked by chains with something that almost seemed... human.

In the third week, you started treating his wounds. None of the guards cared. Who else but you would have the courage to approach him? Jaime didn't complain, but he didn't make it easy either.

"Are you going to pull harder just to see me suffer?" he said, his voice low, when you tightened the cloth bandage over a cut on his arm.

"If you want, I can let it get infected" you replied coldly.

He smiled. Not in that arrogant way. Not entirely. There was something almost tired behind the smile.

"You're more like your mother than you think."

But it wasn't true. You knew that. Because, unlike her, you came back every day.

Time passed. And between one exchange of taunts and another, something changed. Not suddenly. Not in a way that could be explained. One day, when you left food for him, Jaime just said "thank you." No sarcasm. Just the word, raw, simple.

The following night, he didn't mock you when you treated his wounds. He just sat quietly, his eyes fixed on the stone ceiling, and you realized that without that armor of arrogance, he looked less like a lion and more like a lost man.

Still, he never stopped testing your limits.

"Don't you think you've been here with me long enough?" he asked once, with that half-smile that still carried danger.

"I'm not the one who's trapped" you replied dryly.

Jaime laughed again, but this time the laughter died quickly.

"Maybe that's why you keep coming back" he muttered, almost to himself.

You didn't answer. You couldn't. Because, somehow, he was right.

And that night, as you locked the cell door, you felt something different tighten in your chest. It wasn't pity. It wasn't hatred. It was something you didn't want to name.

Jaime Lannis was still an enemy. And you still hated him for everything he stood for. But within the cold walls of Riverrun, as the rain beat against the windows and the night seemed endless, you knew it was getting harder and harder to lie to yourself.

Perhaps it was the way that, even in chains, he still found a way to look at you as if he were the only one who truly saw you.

And that was dangerous.