It is dark, a murkiness akin to the blue-black tint of bruises. These are the early hours of day, far before dawn could have parted the blackened skies and laid its golden promise upon them. A cold breeze sings across the hallways of the Red Keep, speaking of omens in every whisper.
Cersei lies on her side – still, taut –, shivering underneath the slight cloth of her nightdress. She savours her final night as a bride, a queen-to-be. The deal has been sealed – when the sun looms high amid its cerulean dome, her fate shall be interlaced to that of the one true King. The weight of that thought has a twofold impact upon her – it entices her uttermost desires, just as it appals her, in its magnitude. It evokes aeon-old tales of godlike glory and wealth beyond meaning, of a legacy cloaked in gold – and it reverberates ancient promises of power. The might to lay blades of steel to the ground, to arouse armies into bloodlust; to shed blood or to retain it, letting it ripen like fruit within the bodies of vassals.
But the quarrels of steel-clad men and the treasuries of kings hold little importance, for now. Her brother lies beside her, and his skin is upon hers, and the pace of his breath is her own. There shall be time enough for kingdoms, she muses. There shall be time for many things.
"Have you slept?", she inquires, her voice little more than a whisper.
"It would have been hard to. I can sense your restlessness, your eyes wide as a cat of prey's."
The low rustle of his speech unravels the tension from her every muscle and sinew. She draws closer to him, and suppresses a smile.
"Quite regrettably, time comes for me to find myself as prey rather than as a huntress."
"That hardly sounds like you, sweet sister. Soon enough, your claws shall be sharp as ever. You were never one to be tamed – not by Robert, not by any of his kind. Not by any other than your kind."
"You flatter yourself, brother", she scoffs, a smirk audible through her words.
"Perhaps I do. But that would hardly render my words untrue."
Cersei never responds to that. She merely shifts positions, allowing her eyes to pierce him, her lips to meet his.
"Will you let me have you, before King's Landing seizes you as her own?"
She is silent still, but there is assent in her eyes, in the gentle parting of her thighs. His touch is molten gold and he gleams, unearthly, under scarce speckles of starlight. He undresses her in motions swift as the unsheathing of his blades. Soon, she is bare – a vision of uncanny light. Her hands seek him, and beseech him for closeness, and the softness of linen is a prelude to the relish of his unclad skin. He rises above her, supported by arms and knees, and contemplates.
"How odd, this", Cersei remarks, caressing his chin with her long fingers. "A knight knelt above his queen, rather than before her."
"Yet I am knelt all the same, my queen – and quite subject to your will."
"How gallant, brother. A maiden might have swooned at words like those."
"And you won't fall for any of that, will you, sister?" Jaime smirks. "You are far more than a maiden."
"Or far less."
She finds a certain enjoyment in the tension of secrecy, in this persistent defiling of herself. Impurity suits her, so long as it is kept within the coils of their embrace, the shelter of their little den. She wraps her hands around his nape, weaves them into the flax of his hair. Closer, closer still. Bid by her hands, Jaime presses his cheek to her chest, inhaling the scent – pure, raw – of her skin. His lips cover the outline of her bones, trace the pathway designed by her throat.
"You shall be the most beautiful bride Westeros has ever borne witness to."
Cersei grins at these words. She takes some pride in envisioning herself at the apex of perfection – revelling in her image. Her gown shall be golden and crimson – shades cut out for her, it seems. Colours woven as an ode to a woman regal and tarnished, ready to relish in the taint of her own blood.
"I shall be twice a bride, then. I have become bound to you far before another could hope to claim me."
"To wed oneself – there is such pure, unrepentant narcissism in this. I could not have expected any less from you, sweet sister."
"Oh, but you are no less vain, my love."
Jaime strokes her face, feather-soft, as their eyes meet, green flames set ablaze. He turns to her body with lips and teeth and kisses that descend towards the curve of her bust. She reclines, all feline grace upon her sheets, and arches her back – offering, demanding. His breath is warm against her breasts, her nipples. She sighs and writhes beneath him, quelling her moaning as they had learned to do as younglings, when he would touch her and she would touch him and they would reach a sort of bliss unvisited by any living soul.
He descends further, caressing waist and hips, entwining fingers to the feathery hair above her mound of Venus. Her breath grows quicker, quivery; she spreads herself wider, perhaps out of sheer instinct. Her half-shut eyes hold a glint of expectancy. He kisses her thighs first, grazes his teeth against the soft skin – almost tentatively. As his lips fall upon hers, he seems eager and tender at once. His tongue is precise, hungry, as he tastes the folds of her cunt. She is drenched and warm, stirred into a fever, and each motion of his leaves him wetter with the gist of her.
Cersei squirms against her brother's mouth, laden with a pleasure that strikes her as a quaint sort of torture. As he slides a first finger inside her, she takes a hand into her mouth, afraid, ready to bite down. A second finger follows, a7nd then another – she bites her hand, her lip. She could have bitten his skin raw and bloody, she thinks. His tongue, his fingers – it all leads her to an abyss of sorts, a state of vague dizziness. And as he reaches into the core of her, a trickle of crimson emerges from her entrance, crawling along his hand.
A sudden retreat. She groans, overwhelmed by the newfound sense of emptiness.
"Cersei—You bleed. Are you hurt? Have I hurt you?"
The had been children and youths and lovers together. They had hurt each other before, by inexperience or desire. But that was not it. She had felt nothing but the tantalising pleasure he had just withdrawn from her.
"You—No, I am not hurt.", she retorts, almost exasperated. Yet, her tone eases once she takes notice of her brother's distress.
"'Tis my moon's blood – it must be. No moon in the sky, see? It is time for a woman to bleed." There is a hint of bitterness in her words, but she eyes him with softness. She takes Jaime's hand, smearing her own fingers with blood. With a firm grip, she pleads for him to return. "You can't hurt me, you fool. You were crafted for me."
Every particle of you is mine, every inch imbued into me as we were made.
"Come, now. Come home to me, brother."
Her grasp grows firmer still, strong around his wrist, now. Unyielding. She pulls him to her and his will matters little, for she is all hunger – but he seems to vibrate, full, taut. As he climbs onto her, she seeks to envelop the heated flesh of his cock. He seizes her lips, her taste fresh in their mouth and breath. Her hand upon him feels like his own, but better still – a perfect fit.
Cersei wriggles underneath his weight, dislodging him with arms and legs and. She crawls over him, then, breath as the chants of a madwoman, and bestrides him. As cock slides into cunt, flesh combined, conjoined, their blood boils them into nothingness. They exist only with mouths and hands and sex. They move with a will to melt, to let their skin dissolve, liquid, fluid as they once were within the womb that begot them. To vanish into each other.
It is frantic, this melding of theirs. Woman's blood washes hip and groin, skin and bone. They fall upon each other in torturous silence, limbs intertwined until the notion of distinct flesh has lost its significance. But there is sound at the verge of their climax – a muffled, faint sigh drawn in unity, a palpable tension akin to the plucking of strings.
And for a fleeting moment, there is nothing.
The half-dim sky engulfs them as they dissolve, languid and undone. Liquefied, ever warm, he is spent inside her, and her flesh clenches and softens around him. Blood and seed are one within her womb. Conjoined still, they drift into a state of drowsiness. Cersei lies upon her brother, tangled to the gossamer-like gilt of the hairs of his chest. Motionless, eyelids heavy with the weight of strain, he appears to have crossed the veil into slumber. She gazes at his pale eyelashes, at his face, soft and dishevelled, and she loves him.
Her hands are incarnadine and her sheets are a battleground. Ripe and dark, inside his veins and overflowing from her womb – blood is all there is.
Dawn is close, with its rosy clouds and beams like powdered metal. She is all crimson, and empyrean lights grace her with a mantle of gold.
She is to be queen.