i never thought much of the courage of a lion tamer

[thethingsidoforlove]

Who: Jaime Lannister and Fauxlivia Dunham
What: Monsters are nothing more than animals, having a bad day.
Where: Sangwine.
When: Right now!!
Warnings: Animal death. 8(

Sometimes, trouble just finds you. Jaime may have a talent of running headfirst into it, but that can only account for half of the situation he's in now.

One of the horses is already dead, half-gutted, half-eaten. It's famously known by contemporary society that female lions are the true hunters, but this one finds itself quite without a pride to tend to his every whim. A fighter himself, muscular, mane bushy and nearly black where it isn't golden, his muzzle rosy red and dripping. The dead gelding is a mess where it lays, still tangled in the rigging that ties it to abandoned carriage, and its partner-- miraculously still alive and miraculously uninjured. But after the lion had slow-choked its partner, it will only be a matter of time before he improves the size of his dinner.

Around him, the cobbled street is mostly dead in its abandonment, the hour grown dusky and late in the date. The little Sangwine village has emptied, more or less, as people temporarily relocated for the safety of Sobek Croix. Athough Jaime had expected to find looters upon venturing out, this was a little more than he'd bargained for. Smarter men would probably fuck off around now.

Instead, as he does so many times in his life, he draws his sword.

A flowerpot that had been sitting innocently on the sill of a nearby window is sharply hurled, breaking against the lion's shoulder and spattering dirt and pottery. The horse, the one that's still alive, shrills and tugs more against its restraints, the carriage rocking but ultimately going no where when still attached to the unmoving carcass. The smell of the predator is an assault on the gelding's senses, hooves working against the cobble as if it might break out into a useless attempt of a gallop at any moment.

But the lion turns for this new distraction, and Jaime's mind goes to the more savage carnival shows, where both fighters and criminals were thrown into pits for the purpose of besting the beast or getting jeered at while being consumed. It's not the most heartening thought. He still smiles, a little. He likes and is irritated by the poetry of this.