I.
Stone crumbles to powder. All is dust, gold dust within her sight. In the wake of the Great Sept's explosion, the wind becomes thick, laden with numberless specks of rubble. At the height of her tower, Cersei stands, observant. She enjoys the roughness of the air grazing her throat, the caustic touch against her lungs. The scene is dazzling as it unfolds – it elates her, fills her mind with an unvisited sort of peacefulness. Her eyes, bright green ignited, burn half-intoxicated with the sheer, splendid horror of it.
There had been former glimpses, she recalls. They had been there for years. She would have visions of flames and charred stone and dismantled cities. Perhaps these scenes had become engrafted in the filaments of her eyes, imprinted after the countless frames that slithered through her consciousness. Or perhaps they had been engraved into her fate ever since the very dawn of times, woven into the threads, the very gist of her. Her mind would drift toward strange thoughts, borrowed reminiscences of mad fools consumed by the fire in their minds. She had seen something like them in the murkiest, innermost corners of her, and it had terrorised her.
Her hand rests upon the balustrade as she inhales the corrupted air. These ghosts of old hold little interest for her, now. She spares no thought for terrors. Tangible fire burns before her gaze and within the cloisters of her skull, blazing and glorious. Flesh roasts and wastes away – there are hints of it amid the smoke. She recalls gilded gardens, then, filled with roses whose scent is rot with sweetness, a prelude to withering. She thinks of soaring little sparrows, soiled to the bone with soot, blood and dirt; of pious hypocrites and sycophants and traitors – of dead gods. An old promise resounds.
"When I am queen, they will burn."
And so, they do.
II.
Cersei sits upon the throne and molten blades threaten to lacerate her. She cares little, for she is untouchable. No steel shall mar her skin, no iron shall break her. Her eyes are fiery with pride, cheeks flushed with the heat of her. From afar, Jaime watches her ascend, an apotheosis consecrated with fire and the ashes of their immolated son. His gaze is spectral upon her, a touch fainter than a whiff of wind. There is no warmth in it.
Her coronation is brief – not a moment longer than it ought to be. Eager, hurried, the Queen retreats to her room. She longs for her brother, for there is a hunger inside her, a yearning insatiable even by the vastest of fires. A lash of wildfire licks her insides, churning against her innards, leading her body into a fevered state.
As she comes into bed, her skin has the warmth of a lioness' belly. There is fresh sweat upon her, and the droplets dribble onto Jaime's body as her limbs coil around his. He cannot bear to touch her, he thinks.
But she climbs upon his body with a will to devour him. Her hands are deft, and she is all wetness and sweat around him. She is nimble, tainted with despair - selfish. Amid her frenzied motions, she finds her release. It is death – sweet, brief death laced with the seed of him, the worn-out falling of her body upon his. And then silence. A dense silence, punctuated by the disarranged pace of their breath. As she basks in the moments of afterglow, all is dust, gold dust within her sight. A balefire burns behind her eyelids; she inhales the scent of her lover's skin, and lets it burn farther.
She had been born with a death wound, severed from her body – split into a second self. Fire ought to suit her, she thinks. Through ash they should reconcile, these morsels of skin torn apart by fortune. Gods are unclean, after all. Immoral, unseen - a half-tangible humming in the air, an ominous whisper of sin. It should be only fitting for them to leave this world like this: melded into each other's dust. Aerial, untouched – final. No cleanliness in this.