This chapter was written as part of the Facebook challenge "Sur Votre 31":
- Invite : ''Water''.
- Number of words: From 100 to 1000 words.

All the universe of Game of Thrones belongs to GRR Martin, DB & DW.

Context : AU - Season 8

Enjoy reading!

If the glory of the Targaryen came from fire and that of the Stark from ice, then that of the Lannisters came from water.

Cersei often thought about it, looking at the huge expanse of water that formed the Blackwater Bay.

People often disdained water in favor of fire and frost. After all, both were deadly. The flames burned anyone who got too close, and the ice could freeze to death in the strongest man in his sleep. Yet water worked in harmony with both of these elements.

Water extinguished the fire.

Fire melted the ice.

Ice froze water.

She and her brothers were constantly told, as children, how water with silvery reflections had restored the Lannisters reputation. How it had, thanks to their father, decimated the Reynes.

It was not just the rains that had wept over Castamere. It had been a real flood.

A flood had swept them all away, they had mocked the lion who had no control over fire or ice.

But the lion mastered water. And that was enough.

However, water had a completely different meaning for Cersei.

She was born in Casterly Rock, with her twin brother Jaime, by the sea.

Their mother had taken them to the beach at a very young age. They had spent hours playing in the waves, running on the dunes.

Then their mother died. And they hadn't gone back to the beach. It wasn't the same without her. The sand had lost its usual shine, not as golden as their hair, or the roaring lion in their coat of arms.

Even the water, the sky and the clouds had become dark.

But a few years later, Jaime picked her up from her lesson and, claiming to her septa that she needed to go to the latrine, she followed him to the beach.

They lay quietly on the sand, Jaime hugging Cersei while the foam came and tickled their feet.

It had become their secret escapade.

They could stay for hours like this. They imagined what their lives would be like when they grew up, when Jaime would be like Father, when they got married.

Sometimes they would undress, running in the sea, jumping, laughing in the waves.

Then they grew up again. They had changed. But they kept going to the beach, in the salt water of the sea. No matter how much Cersei had been told over and over that it was wrong for a woman to show herself naked to anyone other than her husband, they didn't care. They kept going. They kept going, because it wasn't wrong. It was good.

But one day, some maids caught them naked in a little cove that they thought was secret, and dragged them to their father.

He refused to believe that the two servants had found them naked and hanged them for lying. But he had formally forbidden Jaime and Cersei from returning to the beach at Casterly Rock.

They had taken their father at his word. They had not returned to that beach.

Instead, on their fifteenth birthday, Jaime had quietly taken them out of the castle and taken her to Lannisport.

There they had been no one. No one had recognized them. No one had seen them. No one had heard them.

The sea water they had swallowed splashing in the water like when they were children and drying on their lips had a taste of freedom when they kissed.

But that day had quickly ended, and now there was nothing left of it, except memories, dreams, promises and a shell, which Cersei had always kept as her most precious treasure.

When she touched it, it was as if she was touching with her fingertips the freedom she would never have again.

When she had become queen, it happened, when Robert was hunting, that she would go down with Jaime to the bank of the Blackwater, in which she dipped her feet.

It wasn't much, but it allowed her to forget.

She would close her eyes, just feeling Jaime's presence beside her, and forget who she was.

She was no longer a queen. She was no longer a Lannister. She was no longer Cersei.

She was the breath of the wind, she was the waves of the ocean, she was the rays of the sun dancing on her hair, she was the grains of soft sand.

And now that fire and war were raging around her, that the Red Keep was collapsing, that she was sure she was going to die, she would have given anything to be able to forget and go back.

To forget the blood that stained her hands. To forget that she was Queen of the Andals and the First Men. To forget all that she had lost.

She approached the edge of the highest tower of the Red Keep. The wall had been torn down. If she got too close, she could fall into the water.

Smelling the familiar smell of salt, she closed her eyes, and she remembered.

She remembered Casterly Rock. She remembered the beach. She remembered the water. She remembered Jaime.

Jaime, who wasn't there. Jaime, who wasn't there anymore. Jaime, who had died during the Long Night.

Jaime, who had died because she was thirsty, thirsty for the water of glory and power.

She had to join him. That was the only way to be free. To be with Jaime.

If anything was to be her liberation, it might as well be water.

The water was stronger than the flames. And Cersei had never loved flames, except for her love for Jaime.

So she approached the far edge, looked ahead.

And the bird that had been caged since he was a baby took flight.

He took flight, and went to land in the water.

The water that was to be her freedom.

Thank you for reading!
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Don't be too hard on English, it is not my mother tongue.