A low, husky moan brought Cersei out of a deep slumber. The room was dark as night; hiding the source of the sound. All she could initially discern about her surroundings was that the bed was hard and cold beneath her flesh that tingled with an exquisite fire.
"Ooooooooh," came a repeat of the earthy, deep pitched sound. Coinciding with the cry, her muscles in legs, belly, and arms clenched and unclenched as pleasure radiated out of her long denied velvet purse. And only then did Cersei realize she was the one moaning in gratification.
"Yes, no, yes," she whimpered softly at the intimate touches making her wetter and wetter; warmer and warmer; burning in delight.
He had at last returned to her.
She would not be denied any longer her perfect twin.
Her other half.
Two making one.
He was her light.
"Take me," she commanded, thighs aching for the powerful thrusts she remembered so well and yearned for.
No answer came to her plea. But she felt his weight upon her legs and touch upon her mons; that and the darkness he refused to pierce with his golden shaft confined her.
"Take me," she pleaded, pelvis involuntarily thrusting up towards the caressing that was driving her mad.
She must see him. Feel him. In her.
She willed her fingers to stop curving and her arms to cease clutching tight against her heaving body. Her need was too great. She reached out to lay hands on him, to grasp his hair, to drag him and his familiar weight up upon her.
"tsk, tsk, tsk," came the quiet remonstration.
"Jaime?" she gasped.
"No one."
Anger coursed out in a torrent. The black enveloping her senses was not the Night. It was his false creation, his lies, his attempt to control her; a silk bond, but bondage none the less. Cersei would allow no one, and never Robert, to make chattel of her.
Striving, furious, desperate hands now sought a different relief. The blindfold was wrenched off to reveal a startling vista. Cersei discovered herself back in King's Landing. And worse, she sat upon the top seat of Iron Throne with her dress pulled up to her hips and ugly, greedy Robert kneeling between her naked, damp thighs.
Humiliation soared through her. Gathered at the foot of the raised dais was row upon row of great lords, proud ladies, and colorfully dressed courtiers; heads all raised up in anticipation at her and her glistening prize. Their faces she could not spy, for the Throne Room was poorly lit, casting shadows to blind her. But their wagging tongues she heard, the hall full of the buzzing of her lesser. They were all her rivals, her enemies; jealous and feeble and contemptible. She was the daughter of the Rock, a lioness.
"You have only to ask and you shall receive your heart's content, Cersei," Robert smirked up at her.
She contemplated the truth of it a moment. "Die!" she screamed, foot lashing out to smash her tormentor in his fat, sweaty, oh so pleased with himself face.
Robert immediately tottered back. Hands that reached out in search of purchase instead caught and sliced themselves upon the sharp blades and barbs molded by the flaming breath of Balerion the Black Dread. "AAAAAGGGHHhhhhh," he sang sweetly, blood spraying out from a multitude of cuts.
Cersei felt herself moistened more from the excitement of it, her goal at last within reach. The powerful Lioness' paw thrashed out again in fury.
And the hapless Stag stumbled backward, tumbling down the throne's dangerous stairs; soft belly and even softer genitalia eviscerating themselves on a litany of protruding, warped cold steel –the deadly blades now warming themselves with his wretched viscera, watery crimson, and weak seed.
Lady-like, royally in fact, she rose up in triumph; her dress, a deep green that matched her eyes, falling gracefully down into place. As she stood to her full height, the golden sun, long hidden, emerged to shine brightly through the windows on high; illuminating her. She appeared beautiful and flawless and strong.
Jaime at last revealed himself, materializing from the no longer faceless crowd; his golden armor burnished and brilliantly framed by his white cloak. The light highlighted his blonde curls to perfection. He knelt purposefully by the exsanguinating corpse of no one. "Robert is dead," her twin jubilantly proclaimed.
She quivered from a powerful climax of both joy and body.
"Long live Queen Cersei," a familiar voice cried out. It was her father, pushing his way to the front; eyes shining with intelligence and parental pride.
"Long live Queen Cersei!" the entire Throne Room burst out.
A wolf howled. A second and then a third joined in. Then the whole chorus of vicious beasts erupted; filling the darkness and bringing Cersei fully awake. A dream only a dream, she realized. Night still hung over Winterfell. And within a cold, heartless Northern castle, the Queen of all Westeros discovered a fiery, sodden mess about her pubic hair and dripping down between her inner thighs.
Full red lips spread in a wicked smile at the lingering memory of one hazy dream and the birth of another more solid vision. Soon, a well-shaped, gold be-ringed hand slipped under furry blankets and beneath the hem of a silken nightgown, seeking fulfillment and providing the dowry of a lioness' promise.
Joffrey chewed his slab of black bread and honey thoughtfully. Cersei appreciated the time she spent with the handsome, strong, young lion of her pride. Normally he would not be with his mother in the morning room of Winterfell's Royal Quarters breaking his fast, but already off with his dog honing his martial claws.
Not today, Cersei thought amusedly. Oh there were many loud noises from out in the castle's main yard and most subsidiary courtyards too; of horses and men and hounds gathering. But blissfully, no sound of her bellowing, large mouthed husband from either within or without the Great Keep.
"No, Tommen, finish those fish and your crackling," she admonished her younger son as he rose up from a half finished plate.
Guiltily, he drooped back down, doing as he was bid. "I want to play with Bran," he half mumbled and half whined while dutifully picking back up his fork.
Joffrey snorted disdainfully at his brother. Had she chastised her eldest, he would have fought her over it; forcing her to cow him one way or the other.
Tommen's meekness, on the other hand, troubled Cersei just as much, but in a different way; more a mouse than the lion he should be. Too plump as well, not lean and sleek and strong like her and Jaime, or Joffrey. Perhaps his not finishing would have been for the best. In her few moments of weakness, she sometimes wondered whether her youngest might be Robert's after all; though she knew it to be impossible.
Then Myrcella stepped in, taking a different tack in support of her younger brother, "Where's father, Lancel? I wish the hunt to start," she commanded, not yet at her young age having come to the realization that where men were concerned disappointment inevitably lay.
Her cousin cleared his throat. "I did not have duty with him this morning, cousin," he answered, putting the best face possible on his situation.
Lancel, while properly attired and ready to attend Robert on the hunt if called upon, would likely not have been present here in the morning room if Cersei had not given him proper incentive to provide his protection against further of Robert's degradations. Her spies, yesterday, had whispered of her cousin's shaming and exile from her husband's presence; 'Just like Robert to defend the honor of whores,' she thought disgustedly yet again.
"What did Tyrek or Olyvar say?" her beautiful daughter continued.
Lancel's mouth twisted briefly at the mention of the Frey squire. "Tyrek is searching for him. Apparently no one knows where his Grace went off to when that damnable loose direwolf came barreling through the useless lot of them."
"Nymeria's sweet," Tommen protested. "Arya lets me pet her."
"Poor Ser Arys and Poor Ser Meryn," Myrcella lamented of the wounded, badly embarrassed Kingsguards.
Robert's disappearance last night, from what Cersi had heard, was more than a tad odd and not at all like him when he wanted to get his cock wet. Countless times, to her shame, he just went off and fucked who he desired; other's sensibilities be damned.
"Duty or no, father is the King, and with both the white cloaks incapacitated, you should be searching for him with all the others, cousin," Joffrey sneered at Lancel.
Cersei laughed scornfully in answer to her son's barb. "If Robert can't find his way out of whatever … wine soaked cellar he's lodged himself deep into, then he should hand over his crown to someone worthier of it." And she lessened the sting aimed at her Joffrey by smiling at him; though it had been difficult for her to say "wine soaked cellar" instead of what words first tried to force their way out of her mouth.
Lancel smiled sweetly at Cersei and added with proper contempt, "Lord Stark's men should suffice to discover your father. Winterfell is their piddling, little castle; nothing like the Rock or the Red Keep."
Cersei returned the look appreciatively. They were both, Lannisters; both lions.
"I am sure the hunt will commence one way or another soon enough sweetlings," she reassured her children. Receiving their smiles, Cersei next happily speared up a piece of venison and started to greedily devour it. Meals were ever so much more pleasurable with only her pride in attendance.
And then an ominous thought grabbed her in mid chew, causing the hunk of deer to catch in her throat. Her pride was incomplete. She was incomplete. Jaime was missing.
"Cersei?" Lancel shouted, leaping to his feet as she choked on half gnawed stag.
When Tyrek has arrived with word that the King was at last found and coming; unlike her children chomping at the bit, she had regally returned to her room to change. The day seemed like one demanding she wear her heart's own true colors: fiery crimson and striking gold. And despite being "found," Robert maddeningly still made his own hunt wait.
From the balcony of her bedchamber she watched trusted Lannister retainers help Tommen and Myrcella to mount. If they spied her up on high and waved for her attention, she would acknowledge them; but Cersei refused to make a fool of herself by waving like some pathetic mummer's show desperate for all the castle to see.
Joffrey already bestrode his frisky roan stallion; eager to be gone, with Clegane faithfully by his side - after Darry, she had particularly ordered her son's shield to always stay by his side no matter how fearsome a beast might be charging the King. She sighed; Joffrey never once bothered to look up. Cersei knew instinctively his thoughts were elsewhere and the thought to seek her out would not cross his mind; now or later. A disappointment that would only grow worse once he wore the crown, she realized.
The low buzz of indistinct voices below her turned into a bit or a roar as Robert finally waddled into view, staggering as badly as the damned Imp after thorough sousing. He propped himself up from falling to the ground by leaning badly on that Frey squire of his. Several more weasels followed dutifully behind, ready to pick him up should he embarrassingly land on his ugly face.
Even from far above, Cersei swore she could smell the remnants of stale drink and slutty quim on him. "Did you enjoy her, Robert?" she muttered darkly to herself. "Or were you so drunk, you don't even remember the horrid cunt?"
He could have had her willingly, if he had properly begged she grudgingly admitted; before that foreign bitch showed up to turn his oh so easily turnable head. Now that would never happen. "You almost had me convinced, you and your 'No One'," she whispered bitterly.
Thinking evil thoughts of that red haired bitch, Cersei moved her discerning eye over the crowd; searching for any sign of the so called lady, but seeing nothing of her among the streaks of sunlight or shadows cast by Winterfell's many towers.
This Melisandre, she admitted, had a certain exotic aurora about her; far from being as beautiful as Cersei, but sadly not actually unattractive. Had he teased her last night like he had mocked my velvet purse over the last six weeks, she wondered? There had been so many … ways her husband had tortured her body. More like he had not been intimidated by the slut and mindlessly plowed her field with his seed, she decided.
The memories caused her loins to inadvertently start to ache. "I need you, Jaime," she choked out. And then Cersei turned away from the scene below and stepped back in to the safety of her bed chamber; while silently renewing the vow she had made to herself in the middle of the night.
Without the multitudes, Winterfell did hold a certain quaint charm, if one could look past the mud and snow and cold. The hodgepodge of uncoordinated building made for an intriguing maze of old, moss and lichen covered stone keeps and towers and ruins to walk amongst; never knowing when you might come upon a small garden or a hot pool off of which an intangible mist rose into the cool castle air. The godswood was ancient and foreboding in a crude First Man sort of way; not to be lightly trodden through by the civilized.
The glass garden, however, offered Cersei and her party a consistent bright spot in the gloom of the Northern. Most days she would visit it, and today, with Robert off, was no exception for her and her ladies-in-waiting, and dear cousin.
"Lady Catelyn did not do poorly in her choice of flowers," she said, while gently holding the bloom of a goldencup as her feather headed young ladies played touch me not among the raised banks.
"This wretched lot," Lancel scoffed. "This is nothing compared to the fields of poppies seen to the east of the Rock; or the lavender and lilacs your noble father keeps within. This lot is little better than gorse and wild onions."
Cersei's laughter tinkled with delight, lavender and lilacs had been her mother's favorites. Her hand left off the flower to lightly, briefly touch his face. "Said just like a man, Lancel. Though I care little for Lady Trout; she is trapped here as much as I am, but with no chance of escape from this arranged marriage to the North. I imagine this is the sad best she can do to remind herself of Riverrun."
Her cousin chewed his lower lip in thought at those words; perhaps calculating which part of it, the explicit or the inferred, to respond to. In doing so, his mustache, his first and still quite unimpressive, was dragged down.
"Everything seems dull besides Casterly Rock," he decided.
"So true, cousin," Cersei agreed. A fuller mustache might agree with Lancel's pretty features. How he got them, she didn't know; as stout Uncle Kevan and chinless, flat-chested Goodaunt Dorna were neither in the least what she would call attractive, even generously for family. Of course she never liked it when Jaime went on one of his periodic jags of refusing to shave.
"Though, I suppose King's Landing lays claim to a few things that not even the Rock can," he added to temper his initial claim.
"Yes, the Iron Throne for one," she said with a knowing smile. Thoughts of it sent chills of excitement over her body and radiating delectably into her deepest recess.
"A pity his large arse must sit upon it," Lancel growled softly with sweet, sweet darkness.
Unrestrained delight erupted from Cersei's ruby lips, immediately drawing the attention of her attendants. Her cousin's face suddenly turned red, having spoken the unspeakable words. 'When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die.'
"Your Grace?" Tyella, the boldest of her ladies-in-waiting, asked at her outburst.
"I am in a playful mood and desire my heart's content. Go find my golden Pentos bracelet," she commanded. That it was a lie barely crossed her mind. "Lynore, go fetch a plate of those date stuffed pastries we had the other day. Sybell, find a bottle of Arbor gold. And Denyse, your dress is simply dreadful, go change it before I order my cousin to rip that rag right off of you."
They all bowed and scurried off to obey, knowing her talons were sharp. It satisfied her to see others tremble before the lioness.
"I have wine if you desire it, Cersei," Lancel said modestly. She turned back to him and found him holding out a wineskin.
"Robert's?" she asked sternly.
He nodded shyly. This one was not as strong as Jaime. Still, he might have his uses.
"What's my husband's is mine too," she commanded. Her cousin handed the filled bag over. She uncorked it, tilted her head back, and drank deeply. A red. Blood from my prey, she imagined. Satisfied for the moment, she pushed it back into his hands with another command, "drink."
He placed his mouth over where her lips had just been and raised up the skin; slaking his thirst. Not as stronger or as handsome as Jaime, but prettier somehow in a masculine way, she decided as she studied him.
He lowered his arm.
They stared at each other; no words exchanged. Winterfell, all the North, at that moment was quiet but for the beating of her heart.
And then, oh so softly, from a long ways off; as if ... as if, she heard: "Then I took this fair maid by the lilywhite hand."
Green eyes stared back at her. Once again she was in that dismal inn off Weasel Alley. It had been a long time since she remembered that night.
"I placed a kiss on her sweet rosy lips,"
"The bard," Lancel whispered, trying to break the mood.
"Shhhh," she told him, placing the tips of her fingers on his rough lion lips.
"And I drank your beauty till it filled me."
Each twin, dressed in roughspun, badly dyed clothes, had snuck out of the Red Keep, away from father's guards to that inn. Now she wore silk and velvet.
"To the meadows we wander'd away; I placed my love on the primrose bank."
That night, the first time with Cersei has a flowered woman and Jaime has a belted knight, they lay together.
"And I drank your beauty till it filled me."
Her belly felt warm and her loins warmer.
"Then early next morning I made her my bride,"
But Jaime was not here. He had not made her his bride. She must have him anyway.
"That the world might have nothing to say;"
Her hand slide across his soft cheek and clutched the back of his neck. Green eyes widened. She saw a fiery lust within growing. She nodded at him knowingly, pulling him closer and closer.
"I crown'd her the sweet Queen of Love;"
He didn't hesitate when their lips met. His arms wrapped around her back; holding tight.
"And she let me drink her beauty once more."
He didn't taste or feel like Jaime. But Robert had his whores. So why couldn't she quench her ache with a lion? She reluctantly unclenched from his embrace. Someone, servants even, might come upon them. "Where can we go?" she whispered desperately.
"I know a place, my love," he answered huskily.
Once inside the ruined tower, they came to grasps again; appetites near insatiable. Several smallfolks had seen them and bowed as they passed since leaving the glass garden. Luckily none had spied them in the last hundred feet or the dash within.
"I need you, Cersei," her cousin moaned. "So beautiful. So perfect."
She felt his hard, burning need pressing against her softer, wetter belly. "Not here," she gasped. "Further up. Up," she wheezed, and then snatched the skin at his side, seeking to satisfy her thirst. He joined her; laughing, euphoric.
And then they ran up the uneven, old stairs, giggling together at the urgency and madness of it all. After multiple circular flights they could go no farther, the steps onward in utter ruin or missing completely. This left them in some small hall with a row of windows looking outward and the moment to kiss with abandon.
Cersei felt herself turning and turning in her need and agony. "Touch me," she commanded Lancel when she could stand it no longer; grabbing his arm with one hand and hiking up the hem of her dress with the other.
His hand touched her most private, most powerful part hesitantly. "More, more," she chanted, raising her pelvis up and down on the exploring digits. "Take it … take it … out."
"Oh please. Yes. Yes," Lancel agreed; green eyes mad, blonde hair askew.
She helped him with his belt and his pants fell away to reveal a proud cockstand.
"Oh yes. Yes!" She agreed, holding it, pulling it forward; ready to impale herself on the fiery shaft full of blood and ...
"NOOOOOOOooooooooo!" screamed Lancel, suddenly stumbling backward; desperately reaching down for the pants fallen about his ankles. His face was frozen in terror; green eyes now petrified, staring past her towards the stairs.
Frantically she turned to … "Robert!" she shrieked, seeing him hazily in profiled in the dimly lit floor. He glided remorselessly towards her without seeming to move his legs. "ROBERT!" she screamed in pure horror, her husband entered a patch of light shining through a window to reveal an apparition with no true legs, just a swirling shadowy mass.
And then it was upon her, an insubstantial appearing hand reaching out for her. Cersei stumbled backwards, towards the fumbling Lancel and the window frames. Her husband's ghost was not to be denied, she felt a strong hold grasp about her neck.
"No, no, no, no," she spewed out in disbelief.
The thing pulled her in closer, revealing only one half of the shadowy thing to resemble Robert; the other part of the shadow being a smaller, scarred, warped form of a man – some impish, misformed demon from the depths of the Seven Hells. "Valonqar?" she choked out in terror as the evil creature's grip on her neck tightened.
Her feet scrambled for purchase as it forced its way and her towards the flailing Lancel.
"Gods forgive me. Gods forgive me. Gods forgive me," the mouse hearted lion begged. "It was her. HER! I didn't mean to! I wouldn't have! Father forgive me!"
With that, Robert's staggering, weak willed squire found his back and naked arse pressed against a broken, ruined window frame … and then falling backward out of it; limp cock flapping as the wind carried away his yellow piss.
Cersei tried to grab a lungful of air as stars danced in front of her eyes, but couldn't; until the shadow of her husband's vile soul launched her too out of the broken tower. She was a lion of the Rock. She would show no fear at death's approach. 'When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground.'
And then Lancel's pitiful shrieks for mercy ended in an explosion of gory Lannister crimson as his body shattered on the fast approaching ground beneath Cersei.
Against her will, a cry of "Noooooooooooooooo!" escaped her full, ruby lips ... until the ground heard her scream no more.