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Brienne had gone to the garden to prune a bush that had overgrown an acceptable shape; it had taken her less than ten minutes. The house was too quiet, and that was not normal when one had two little children and a puppy.
“Hey, kids! Do you want some cookies and milk?” Brienne called from the kitchen while she washed her hands in the sink.
Not a sound.
“More for me!”
Nothing.
She had left Genna and Duncan in a room they had conditionate for the children to play in the moment they knew she was pregnant with their first child; the boy had been building a castle with plastic blocks, and the girl leafed through an illustrated book about Goldenhand the Just and The Blue Knight. They weren’t there, only the scattered toys. There was no sign of them either in the living or the dining. She also checked out her study, even though they knew they mustn’t enter without permission. That left Jaime’s office.
Her husband was in the middle of a video call.
“Have you seen the children?” she asked him.
In other circumstances, Brienne wouldn’t have interrupted him, but she was getting nervous. They were well-behaved children, but when they got an idea into their heads, it was better to brace oneself. Like the time Genna submerged the hair of her favorite doll in red paint because she wanted –the doll, not the girl– a change of look. Or when Duncan disarmed almost half of Jaime’s classic car models to assemble the “best car ever” with their parts before they caught him.
“Weren’t they in the playroom?” Jaime replied, confused.
She didn’t answer him. Panicking, she ran for the stairs.
“Genna? Duncan?” she called again, climbing the steps two at a time.
“Now the nose,” Brienne heard his son as she reached the landing.
“Okay. But don’t move. You’re almost ready,” Genna replied.
The voices came from the bathroom in the hall. Brienne let out a breath she didn’t know she had been holding.
Seven-year-old Genna was applying black paint on five-year-old Duncan’s nose with her fingers. While the boy’s face was painted white, his eyes sockets and mouth were black pits. The girl was so focused on the task she didn’t notice their mother’s arrival.
A chuckle took her out of her astonishment. She turned to see a grinning Jaime, phone in hand, recording a video. Brienne turned again toward her children, caught red-handed –nay, black-handed. She didn’t know if scold them or laugh.
“Genna Alysanne Lannister-Tarth, what in the name of the Seven are you doing?” she asked, trying to maintain a serious face.
“You mustn’t call the gods in vain,” the pair replied, parroting her teachings back to her.
“They got you there,” Jaime said, snorting; he was enjoying himself too much.
“Not helping,” Brienne muttered. “Okay. Who’s going to tell me what’s going on?”
“I want to look like Spots,” Duncan said without blinking.
Brienne sighed. Jaime laughed.
Spots, the puppy they had adopted the week before, was white with, as its name stated, black spots, including big ones covering his eyes. The dog was sitting on the toilet seat watching the action without making a sound, eyes wide as saucers.
Brienne glared at her husband until he gained some semblance of control; although, she was pressing her lips together to avoid following his lead. She took a deep breath, and looked at her daughter, “What are the rules?”
“I can only paint under your supervision.” After the doll’s makeover, Brienne kept a vigilant eye on her daughter when paint was involved.
“And?”
“It must be on a canvas, white paper, or my sketchbook… But this isn’t painting, momma. It’s a transformation,” Genna added.
“Yeah, mom! I’m no cavas.”
Jaime lost it. His laugh was so contagious that in no time the rest imitated him. Spots joined the madness, jumping, barking, and wagging its tail.
“Why do you want to look like Spots?” Brienne asked Duncan after they managed to calm down.
“He looks cool,” was the answer, as simple as that. Blessed innocence.
Brienne crouched in front of her son, tall for his age, and told him, “Sweety, you need nothing to be cool, you already are.” Then, she turned toward the girl, “And you, missy, won’t use paint for a month.”
“But mom!” the girl complained, outraged.
“No buts, Genna,” said Jaime; he finally had put down the phone.
They washed out all the paint on Duncan’s face and Genna's hands, and sent the kids to their bedrooms until dinner time, though not before Jaime made a photo shoot of the kid posing next to the dog. Thank the gods, Genna had used her watercolors and not Brienne’s oil painting; otherwise, the mischief wouldn't have been so amusing.
“Are you going to use the video and pictures as blackmail when he’s older?” Brienne asked while they climbed down the stairs.
“Bet on it,” her husband replied, grinning.
“I don’t remember being this… creative when I was little.”
“Were you ever little?”
“Ha! ha!... I imagine Aunt Genna must have some stories.”
“Oh, yes! She has tons.”
Jaime had lost her mother at an early age, and Aunt Genna had done her best to fill the void. That’s why their girl was her namesake.
“They’re going to send me to an early grave, but I wouldn’t change a thing.”
“Me neither.”
Jaime had been carrying Spots in his arms. He let it at the foot of the stairs, hold Brienne by the waist, leaned and kissed her.
“Ew!”
Brienne turned to look up and discovered two heads snooping through the bars of the upper floor railing.
“Go back to your rooms!” Jaime yelled without releasing his wife. This was followed by running feet and doors being closed. When Brienne turned back to look at him, he was watching her, a soft smile on his face. “Do you want to have another?”