The GoT universe belongs to GRRM, DB & DW.
Alert: Slight AU - Canon Divergence for the end, and the scene of the rape of Cersei by Jaime which does not exist in this version.
Enjoy reading!
''No, Robert, I do not want to...''.
Protests that no one is there to hear.
Blood on her thighs that no one is there to see.
A deep wound that no one is there to help him endure.
Robert grunts like an animal, stinking of wine, as usual, his eyes darkened by lust and alcohol and, pressing his hand against her mouth so that he can no longer hear her, sinks into her, causing her much more pain than she wants to let on.
She holds back her sobs, which she saves for when she's with Jaime, because he doesn't care, she can cry all she wants, he doesn't care of her anyway out of the question that she shows him how much he hurts her when he doesn't consider her better than one of his whores, or even worse, out of the question that the lioness bows before the deer, even if he is crowned, predators don't bow before their prey, then, Cersei doesn't want to cry.
She doesn't want to cry, and yet, the pain is such that a tear escapes from her eyes, then two, then three, then torrents, and then she cries, she really cries, but Robert doesn't care, he keeps forcing himself inside her, even if it means making her bleed, it doesn't matter to him, he doesn't care anyway, and, at the supreme moment, fills her with his vile seed, without looking at her for even a second, when for the first time in front of someone other than her twin brother, she lets her diamond tears leave her emerald eyes to stain her porcelain cheeks, when for the first time in front of someone other than her twin brother, she cries all the tears of her body.
When Cersei wakes up, alone in her bed, only one tear runs down her cheek, one single tear, because it is all she has left, she has no more, her other tears, it is he who took them from her, who stole them from her, or at least that is what she thinks.
The soft summer breeze blowing through the window brings a pleasant coolness to the heaviness of this late summer night, and the full moon illuminates the room with its white light, casting shadows on the walls.
But when Cersei looks at them, it is not just the simple shadows of the furniture that she sees.
She sees much darker shadows, shadows of the past, shadows of the atrocities that took place in that room, atrocities that no one is aware of, or cares about, because after all, what could be more normal than a husband who stands up for his rights, no matter what?
And she can't stand the sight of those shadows, not anymore.
Robert is dead, but when the shadows start dancing on the walls, it is as if he is still there, waiting for her to claim his rights over her body, as one claims his rights over a mare to be covered, waiting to hurt her, waiting to rape her, waiting to torture her.
Then, mechanically, she gets up, she gets up to go to Jaime's apartments, as she did when she was a child and the storm was thundering too loudly outside, the waves were crashing violently on the cliffs of Casterly Rock and that scared her, even though she would never admit it to anyone, not even to herself.
Instinctively, she gets up, but when she finds herself in the hallway, and the shadows continue to dance on the walls, even outside her apartments, she remembers reality.
Jaime is not in her apartments in the White Sword Tower. Jaime is not in the Red Keep. Jaime is not in King's Landing. Jaime is not there. Jaime is not with her.
Jaime is in the middle of nowhere, alone in the North, a prisoner of the Starks, while Cersei is in the middle of the Red Keep, alone in King's Landing, an eternal prisoner of Robert, even though he is dead.
She is alone, even though Jaime had promised her time and time again that she would never and never again, that when he wasn't there, she would only have to look at the moon and think very hard about him, and that it would be as if he was there with her, but that night, that's not enough. She doesn't want to look at the moon anymore, because with the moon come the shadows and the nightmares, because with the moon comes Robert.
She is alone, stuck in the corridor plunged in darkness, with nowhere to go. She doesn't want to, she can't go back to her room, and Jaime is not there.
Her footsteps, almost mechanically, still lead her to the tower where the apartments of the Kingsguard are located, up to her twin's room, which she knows she will find empty. But it doesn't matter. She just needs to feel the reassuring presence of her brother, her twin, her lover, her other half, to make her forget about everything else.
When she enters, she finds the room in the same state as when her brother left it. She has formally forbidden the servants to clean it, or even to enter it.
The bed is undone, the sheets are no longer fresh, a thin layer of dust accumulates everywhere, and above all, there are shadows dancing on the walls.
But don't let that stop you. It doesn't bother her.
She lies down on the bed, burying her face in one of the pillows that still has Jaime's scent.
It's as if when she was burying her face in her brother's chest, when he was closing his muscular arms around her, as if it could have erased reality, as if she had never existed, as if they were the only two people in this world.
In this room, too, the shadows are dancing, but it doesn't matter.
Cersei finally dozes off, as close to Jaime as she can get when he's away.
A few days later, Tyrion returns to King's Landing with a letter signed by their father himself, provisionally naming him Hand of the King.
Cersei is furious to see her brother, the bad one, unfortunately, arriving just like that, settling down, making himself at home.
She is furious, because with Tyrion, there are other shadows that come, not those of Robert, no, those of Robert, they are always there, they don't leave her, they live deep inside her, with the wounds that he left and that never really closed, They live deep inside her, and they resurface every night, every moment of peace that Cersei thinks she has, every time the silver moon is high in the ink sky, they come back, they taunt her, they haunt her.
With Tyrion, other shadows reappear, shadows that she had buried far, far away in her memory, but shadows that she could never have forgotten.
Black shadows, black, much blacker than Robert's shadows, much blacker than all the other shadows that haunt her, perhaps because they have been there for much longer or perhaps because they herald his end.
And when your tears have drowned you, the hands of the valonqar will tighten around your white throat, and make you breathe out your last breath of life.
Every time she meets Tyrion, every time she meets death, shadows come dancing on the walls at night, tangle with Robert's shadows, and no longer desert her.
Cersei has found a way to temporarily get rid of the shadows that perpetually haunt her.
She drowns them in wine, which she begins to consume more and more regularly.
It's not good, alcohol abuse is not good for anyone, her septas hammered at her all through her childhood, how unworthy of a lady to drink too much, and she saw what it was doing to Robert, and what he used to do to her after drinking whole barrels of it all by himself, but it's the only thing that allows him to escape the black shadows, distant echoes and dark ghosts of the past, if only for a few hours.
She even starts drinking with her brother, when the two of them lock themselves into conversations that last much longer than they can bear.
She doesn't want to share this moment with him, but without really knowing why, she does it anyway.
After all, he, too, has things to drown, the contempt and disdain of a father and sister and the absence of a brother, and even finds himself doing it with the sister in question.
So they drink, both of them, and that is the only time they both share, even if unintentionally.
Tyrion sees Cersei slip into Jaime's empty room night after night.
After all, he's not a good sleeper either, and often stays up late at night, bent over huge dusty tomes.
And the more the evenings go by, the more Tyrion thinks that the sooner Jaime comes home, the better.
Even though he loves his brother with all his heart and misses him very much, it is painfully obvious that it is Cersei's absence that weighs the heaviest.
Of course he knows about his brother and sister. They have never been particularly discreet, even if they thought so, these beautiful golden fools. He knows, he has always known, and he has never said anything.
He often thought about how people used to describe this kind of love. He could never understand why it was such a problem.
When he was a child, he heard all the adults say how wrong it was, a sin of the worst kind, an abomination.
But when Tyrion looked at his brother and sister, he couldn't bring himself to say it was wrong.
Cersei loved Jaime and Jaime loved Cersei. They were not hurting anyone.
They weren't hurting anyone, so why wasn't it right?
Jaime finally returns to King's Landing.
He comes back with one hand missing, but it's him, it's him, and that's all that matters to Cersei.
Jaime has returned, so the shadows are going to leave and stop tormenting her every day and every night.
At least that's what she thinks.
And it's obviously not.
The shadows continue to dance on the walls, and Cersei continues to drink to chase them away.
He soon realizes this. How could he not notice it? He knows Cersei better than he knows himself, of course he does:
''You drink more than before''.
''That's right''.
That's right. That's all she answers. That's all that comes out of her mouth, when she would have liked to shout so many things, but those things don't want to come out, perhaps because they are like shadows, buried too deep inside her to ever leave her.
When Jaime tries to initiate a sensual contact for the first time since his return, Cersei gets up, slips through his fingers, and when he notices that something has changed, she tells him that absolutely everything has changed, but she doesn't tell him what.
She doesn't tell him that despite Robert's death, he is still there, with her, and that she can't get rid of him, that she can't detach herself from him, that she can't get rid of this hold that ruins her a little more every day, any more than she can detach herself from a few words spoken by a witch deep in the woods.
She doesn't tell him, and ends up bursting into tears, without him understanding why.
But he doesn't need to understand.
He gets up and goes to take her in his arms, hugging her against his chest, while she collapses, all trembling against him.
Since Jaime came back, the shadows no longer dance.
Cersei doesn't drink as much anymore, she spends her nights in the arms of her twin, who keeps her safe, as always, from everything, from Robert and Maggy the Frog, from torture and death, from the blood that flows and the tears that drown.
But no form of peace is made to last forever, and Cersei knows that.
When Joffrey dies poisoned at his wedding, the shadows return.
They come back stronger and darker than they have ever been.
Cersei wakes up with a start every night, the ghost of Maggy the Frog dancing with the other shadows on the wall, her voice still ringing in her ears.
Gold will be their crown, gold will be their shrouds.
And when your tears have drowned you, the hands of the valonqar will tighten around your white throat, and make you exhale your last breath of life.
Then Cersei will start drinking again.
When Myrcella dies, Cersei knows that Tommen will be taken away from her, too.
Prophecy is inescapable, inexorable, inevitable.
Jaime doesn't believe it, thinks it's nonsense, promises to protect her and Tommen, that nothing will happen to them, that you shouldn't believe the words of a crazy old woman.
But Cersei does, and that's enough to make more shadows dancing around her.
Jaime promised to protect Tommen and Cersei, but he failed to protect Tommen from Cersei.
Tommen dies, and Cersei becomes queen.
A new part of the prophecy is fulfilled.
You will have three. Their crowns will be gold, their shrouds will be gold.
You will be queen.
A new part of the prophecy is fulfilled, and shadows come dancing back, which have been building up for years, and which Cersei can't get rid of, which continue to haunt her.
All that remains is the new queen, and the valonqar.
The new queen arrives in Westeros.
Daenerys Targaryen is young. Daenerys Targaryen is beautiful. Daenerys Targaryen has three dragons. Daenerys Targaryen wants to conquer the Iron Throne.
Queen you will be, until another one comes along, younger and more beautiful, to throw yourself down and take all that is dear to you.
New shadows come to dance among the old ones.
There are too many of them now, far too many, and even wine is no longer enough for Cersei to make her forget.
Just as Cersei begins to feel Jaime pulling away, tearing at them more than they ever were, she discovers that she is pregnant.
The happiness this news brings is so intense that it almost eclipses the shadows.
Jaime was right.
It was possible to escape the prophecy, and this little lion cub, this fourth little lion cub proves it.
She is going to have a fourth child, with a golden crown, and that she will protect as long as she can from this world of horror, this world of atrocities, this world of shadows.
Winter is coming to Westeros.
And with winter comes the White Walkers.
They come to ask Cersei for her help to eliminate them, but she lies, and Jaime leaves.
Jaime leaves, and she is sure that he hates her now.
When she can't sleep, like so many years ago, years that seem so far away that it might as well be centuries, she buries her head in the pillow that Jaime used to use when he slept in her bed.
But she's thinking about something.
Jaime is her little brother. That's what she has always tried to argue to their father, that's what she used as an argument to support her birthright.
Jaime was born just a few minutes later, holding his foot.
He is her little brother.
He is her little brother, and he probably hates her at least as much as the other one.
Jaime can become her valonqar, too.
The shadows are dancing.
The next day, at dawn, she sends Bronn by Qyburn, to send him to the North, to go and kill his brothers, to go and kill the valonqar, to go and kill the prophecy, to go and kill her death.
The shadows cast by the flames on the bricks of the Red Keep are immense, much greater than those Cersei has always known, and yet, she has known shadows, she knows only shadows and flames.
The shadows that have ravaged her for years, and the flames that are destroying her world.
The prophecy is almost completely fulfilled, and that is the only reason why the shadows of the past and the future are dancing among the flames.
She has married the king.
She had three children with golden hair and shrouds, and will probably never know the fourth.
She became queen, and Daenerys Targaryen arrived.
Daenerys Targaryen set her city, her world on fire and blood.
There is only one thing left.
There is only one thing left.
There is only one thing left, and that is exactly why the shadows are there.
Stones fall, the castle collapses, and Cersei is alone in the midst of chaos.
And when your tears have drowned you, the hands of the valonqar will close around your white throat and make you breathe out your last breath of life.
As this phrase resonates in her head, even louder than the previous times, Cersei hears footsteps and turns around.
He is there.
Jaime is there.
He is there, in front of her, wounded, dying, but he is there.
''He's here to kill you," the shadows whistle.
Tears flow silently on Cersei's cheeks, and Jaime looks at her.
As he tries to approach her, his good hand stretched forward, Cersei instinctively steps back.
And when your tears have drowned you, the valonqar's hands will tighten around your white throat, making you breathe out your last breath of life.
Jaime continues to move forward, whispering to her:
"Cersei, it's me...''
She looks at him, all the pain of the world present in his emerald eyes.
''I know... The prophecy... You came to kill me...''
He continues to move towards her, but she no longer has the strength to move back. Her legs are shaking, like her whole body, she is paralyzed, she can't do anything anymore.
And when your tears have drowned you, the hands of the valonqar will tighten around your white throat, and make you exhale your last breath of life.
She feels a hand around her neck.
She closes her eyes.
She is waiting for death, now she has been waiting for it for years, in truth.
She feels the palm of her twin on her neck.
She feels the palm of her twin on the back of her neck, but she doesn't feel the life slipping from her lips as she draws her last breath.
Jaime pulls Cersei to his chest, holding her tighter than he ever held her, while she trembles with fear, and she lets herself go, she clings to him, and huddles in his embrace, because he is Jaime, and Jaime is the only one who has ever been able to protect her from the shadows.
He runs his good hand through her short golden locks, caressing her hair, and plants a kiss on the top of her head as she leans against his shoulder.
His hand now cradles her head, he sways gently with her as he whispers to her:
''I told you already, my love: Fuck the prophecies, fuck fate... There is only you and me in this world, only you and me. Because nothing else matters, only us.''
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