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

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

Enjoy reading!

Jaime had always loved Cersei's hair.

Her long golden hair.

He could still remember how, as a child, he would spend hours combing it, sliding his hand through it and feeling it between his fingers.

When they had grown up, their father had fought them severely, because Jaime much preferred the gold in Cersei's hair to the gold in the Casterly Rock accounts. The eldest son of such a prominent family, as large as the Lannisters, had to learn swordfighting, horseback riding, strategy and bookkeeping, rather than "play with dolls" with his sister.

This had never stopped him from continuing. He had cherished those moments spent with Cersei, when they managed to escape their lessons, in the gardens of Casterly Rock, to slip the flowers he picked into her hair.

When she had married Robert, and had become queen, she had hardly ever worn her crown, which, matched with her husband's, represented antlers.

She didn't need it. Her hair was her crown, a golden crown, a Lannister crown. Not a deer crown. When you owned a lioness' mane, you could not afford to look like a common prey. And that's what Cersei was. A lioness.

Jaime remembered how, when the two of them got together, he would caress her hair as golden as the sun itself, gently chasing it away from her porcelain face. How he would bury his hands and his face in it at the supreme moment, when they became one in every possible way imaginable.

He could not describe the emotion he felt at the birth of Joffrey, Myrcella and Tommen, with their big green eyes and gold curls. Although he could never have claimed them as his children, few things had ever caused such joy, such love in his heart. Except Cersei.

She was all he had thought about when he had been a prisoner of the Starks. For more than a year, he had thought only of his sister with emerald eyes and golden hair. His sister, and all the possible and imaginable ways he could have returned to her, where he belonged.

Then, when he had returned, everything seemed to fall apart.

Joffrey died at his wedding. And he had never seen Cersei so sad. Never had he seen her eyes lose their luster as they had then. She no longer cared for herself, as if she would have preferred to let herself die. Her hair was dull and tangled. It no longer had its golden sheen, nor did her eyes burn with their usual glow of wildfire.

Their brother was accused of the murder, and defended by Oberyn Martell, who lost his life in his fight against the Mountain.

Oberyn's companion, Ellaria Sand, tried to raise Dorne against the crown, and Jaime went to fetch Myrcella, who had been sent there to be married to Prince Trystane.

The last time he had seen her, his daughter was still only a child. But when he saw her again, with her long golden curls, a spitting image of Cersei at the same age, he could not help but notice how beautiful she had become.

Yet her emerald eyes also lost their luster as life slipped from her mind and blood flooded her nose, running down her face and through her hair.

Blood and hair. Scarlet and gold. Lannister scarlet and gold.

When he returned to King's Landing with his daughter's body, he was absolutely horrified to see Cersei's crown of glory torn from her.

Her hair had been butchered by the sparrows, along with her dignity. There was almost nothing left of her opulent blonde cascade, only short strands.

It had been quite ironic to see where the Lannisters of Casterly Rock stood.

Their brother had fled to Essos. Their father was dead. Two of their children had died, and the third fell further into the hands of the Great Sparrow and the Tyrells.

The Tyrells. Their rose may have been golden like the Lannister lion, but they would never be equal.

And Cersei had made it clear to them. She had annihilated their house as cruelly as their father had annihilated that of the Reynes of Castamere. Their hopes for a future generation had been destroyed when Mace, Margaery and Loras had perished.

The golden lion had unexpectedly and violently regained the upper hand over the golden rose.

And the lioness with the golden mane had taken the Iron Throne.

But another queen, with silver hair, had arrived in Westeros.

And that had been the beginning of the end.

Now that King's Landing was on fire, and the silver-haired queen was about to have her victory over the golden-haired queen, Jaime could only think how much he would have endured anything for her.

Her. The only person who had ever really mattered to him, except for his children.

He had thought that after the Long Night, Winterfell and the North might have been his home. Maybe Brienne could have been his home.

He was wrong.

He was wrong, and he understood it the moment he saw her, alone, in the middle of the patio with the map of Westeros. She was standing in the exact spot of Casterly Rock.

A golden lioness, a Lannister lioness.

Casterly Rock, stronghold of the Lannisters.

Lannister, the implacable lords of the Westerlands.

The West, wealth, opulence, gold.

Gold, the gold of the sun, the gold of the lion, the gold of her hair.

And it was when she was in his arms and he buried her face in her golden hair that he understood. That was his home. It had always been there. The gold had been his life. It would be his death too.

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