The Arena pays well, but it's a difficult thing to maintain full time. The toll it forces you to pay in body and spirit is a steep price when you're a baseline human, even a relatively formidable one such as Jaime Lannister. Injury that hits too critically can mean you've lost your ability to earn at all, months of rest and healing because even once you're well, it's a foolish thing to go immediately back into the field where you could do worse harm to yourself.

His livelihood depends on his health, even if he gambles it every time he comes here. Today, he is bettering his own statistics by only coming to watch.

Most of the time, Jaime doesn't strike up much conversation with strangers, for all that he doesn't shy away from it either. But he doesn't recognise Valerii, and sidles over, bringing with him the scent of leather and horse. He is not in his tin man regalia of beaten steel, but his clothing is neutral and archaic enough that he still resembles the knight he claimed to be, down to being as clean and sharp as any soldier that Sharon brushed shoulders with.

"Where soldiers come when they have no army," he speculates, finding a place to lean.