The entire game of Thrones universe belongs to GRRM and DB and DW.
Have a good read!
If there is one thing that has been repeated to Jaime since he was a child, it is that he must not cry.
Crying is for women. Crying is for the weak. Crying is for fools.
You're a Lannister. The Lannisters don't act like fools.
And, all his life, Jaime listened. All his life, Jaime held back his tears, prevented them from sinking. All his life, Jaime didn't cry.
When the Sisters of Silence took Mother after Tyrion was born, Jaime didn't cry.
When Cersei married Robert Baratheon, before he could find a way or another to force their father to let them marry, Jaime held back the tears of rage and anger that burned his eyes and threatened to fall, and Jaime didn't cry.
When, in the evening, by the light of the candles, he saw and touched with his fingertips the blue, green, yellow, or red stars that were constellating his sister's pale skin while outside, the silver stars were constellating the night sky, he did not shed tears, not a single, ever, when he would have needed it, so much needed, so much the pain of seeing his twin suffer without being able to do anything. But he had to be strong for her. He must have been strong for her. He had no choice. He had to be strong for her, so Jaime didn't cry.
When he had been imprisoned by Robb Stark, abused, abused by all those men who wished only one thing, to see him endure unimaginable suffering, as compensation for their sons, their brothers, their fathers, their fallen friends, fallen into the hands of the Kingslayer, he refused to give them the pleasure of thinking that they had succeeded in breaking it. So Jaime didn't cry.
When Locke had cut off his hand, his right hand, his sword hand, he had not let a single tear fall. Of course, he had screamed. The pain was incomparable to all the pain he had ever experienced, how could he not scream? But Jaime didn't cry.
When Joffrey died, he had no sobs, no tears to remember. He had been sad, of course, but this son, he had not rubbed shoulders with him enough, and the main facet of his personality which he had witnessed had been of such cruelty that, when the death knell sounded, Jaime didn't cry.
When Myrcella died in his arms, it was different from Joffrey's death. Of course, he had not known her any better: it would have been just as dangerous for any of his children, and for Cersei. But Myrcella was sweet. Myrcella was nice. Myrcella was the spitting image of Cersei at the same age. Myrcella knew. Myrcella knew, and even told her that she was happy to know. Myrcella was glad he was her father. And Myrcella died a few minutes later. Jaime before prevented the tears from flowing from his eyes, because he was sure that if they began to fall, he would never be able to stop again. So Jaime didn't cry.
When he had learned of the humiliation and suffering that his twin had endured at the hands of the sparrows, when they had locked her up and treated her less well than a prisoner of war would have been, less so than when he had been taken prisoner by the Starks, he had wanted to scream, he had wanted to shout, he had wanted to cry. But it would have been useless. It would not have taken the Great Sparrow out of his head, it would not have brought back Cersei's dignity. So Jaime didn't cry.
When he heard about Tommen, he didn't know what to say. His son, his last son, his youngest son had chosen to end his life. In a sense, he thought that, wherever he was, he would be happier than where he went. So Jaime didn't cry.
When he and Cersei had finally narrowly reached Tyrion's intended canoe so that they could reach Pentos, with the hope of a new life, he had felt tears of joy burning his eyes. He was going to be able to live the life he had always dreamed of, with Cersei for wife and the baby. Their baby. Cersei's as much as hers.
Their baby was going to live, and they were finally going to have the right to be happy. They were finally going to get the right to happiness.
But happiness is short-lived. Happiness is fleeting.
One cannot escape death, nor can one escape fate.
The beauty of illusions and the euphoria they provide are too often overtaken and overwhelmed by the horrors and ugliness of the world and realities.
Cersei's hand becomes cold as the winds of winter in Jaime's warm as a dream of spring.
And this time, after holding them back for a lifetime, diamond tears flow from Jaime's emerald eyes.
Diamond tears flow from Jaime's emerald eyes as his golden queen joins the silver stars.
''I want our baby to live...''
''Don't worry, I'm sure your wife will be fine...''
''Push...''
''A pretty little lady, in perfect health...''
''What do you want to call her?''
''I'm sorry, but there's nothing I can do...''
''No...''
''My condolences.''
Jaime wakes up with a start, to find that the sky is black in ink, it is still the middle of the night, that there is no noise, except that of the waves that come to ground tirelessly on the sand and that he is desperately alone in this big cold and empty bed, which he still shared with his half only a few days before.
He wake up and realizes that the dream is over, his dream of gold, their dream of gold, their dream of a better life, that he now swims in a perpetual nightmare, that there is no more of them, there is nomore dream, their dream of a lifetime, because he is alone, with their little lion cub, because he is alone and that she is not there.
Because he is alone and Cersei is no longer there.
Because together, that's what they should have been, and together they're not.
Jaime grabs the feather pillow next to his, and burys his face in it, deeply inspiring the faint fragrance that persists in the fabric, a perfume he knows well, that he knows better than anything, because this perfume, he has sensed it all his life.
A scent of lavender soap, and something else it is would be quite unable to identify, but that smells home.
Feeling a tear rolling down his cheek, he who had almost never shed it before that fateful day. Jaime gets up, and, without even taking the time to put on shoes, leaves the room, then the house, ending up directly on the beach, his bare feet in the sand, first dry and thin, and then getting wetter as he gets closer to the sea.
Once he has his feet in the water, he pulls out from under his shirt a pendant, which no one knows he has around the neck, something he could not get rid of, something extremely precious that he absolutely wanted to keep. He looks at the lion engraved in gold, the only remnant of his inheritance, of the inheritance that his father spent his life building, and now one of the only vestiges of Cersei. Her pendant to her, which belonged to their mother before her, and to her mother even before. Then he raises his head, and looks at the stars, as they did with Cersei when they were separated for a long time, where they drew their strength, because they knew that their other half was doing the same thing, wherever they were.
He wonders what it would be like if he lay down there, if he would lie down and never get up again, if he would lie down to let the ocean waves take him away, far away, where Cersei is now, where his other half is now, where the love of his life is now and where he can no longer see it, where he can no longer hear it, where he can no longer hug her, where he can no longer kiss her, where he can no longer tell her how much he loves her.
But he is interrupted in his thoughts by a noise that comes from inside the house, a noise to which he is not yet accustomed, perhaps because deep down, he hopes that all this is a long nightmare from which he will wake up, to find Cersei sleeping snuggled up against him, their two bodies separated by his rounded belly, in which grows safely a new little lion cub to love and protect.
But he goes into the house, into his house to pick up his crying little girl, alone in the room.
His daughter. His daughter, and Cersei's, the last little piece of her left, except for the clothes and jewels from which he could not bring himself to separate.
Little Joanna always screams when he arrives near the cradle, her big emerald eyes bathed in diamond tears, which, floodnt her little porcelain face and her gold curls, just like her mother's.
She doesn't even calm down a little when she sees her father coming, but her tears dry up when he takes her in arms, and he begins to gently cradle her by whispering to her:
''I know, I know... I miss her too...''
Joanna is growing up, and it's hard for Jaime not to break down in tears every time he realizes how much she looks more and more like Cersei over days, weeks, months, years.
When she takes her first steps and she says her first word, he can't help it, he cries, he cries because he is proud, of course, because he finally has a child, because he is finally a father, but also because he is alone, he is alone when he would have wanted Cersei to be there, too, because he would have liked to be able to hear her laughter indefinitely, to be eternally dazzled by her smile, her true smile, the smile that only he or their children managed to snatch from her, the smile that could have illuminated a room plunged into darkness, a smile that he sees every time Joanna stretches her little lips.
The hardest part is when Joanna asks him why for the first time.
Why isn't Mommy here, Dad, why isn't she with us?
He knew full well that the question would come one day, it was inevitable, inexorable, it was bound to come, it was only a matter of time.
Every child Joanna meets has a mom and dad, so why not her?
That doesn't mean it's hard, too hard, to respond to Joanna, how to explain the cruelty of the world to a three-year-old?
How can we explain to her that if her mother is not there, it is because she gave him life, in the most literal sense there is?
But he doesn't expect what comes next, he doesn't expect Joanna to take her silence for an answer, and then asks:
''It's because she didn't love me, is it? Is that why Mommy left? Because she didn't love me?''
And that hurts, much more than anything Jaime has heard in his life, it hurts to hear that one of Cersei's children thinks she didn't like her, or at least not enough, not enough to stay, while Cersei had given her life so that her little lion cub could see the sun, while Cersei would have killed herself , would have destroyed cities just to make sure her daughter was safe.
So Jaime's taking Joanna to the beach.
The little girl is all excited, usually she is not allowed to go outside at night, not when the sky is ink color and the silver stars shine, so much so that she does not notice the serious expression of her father.
She wants to run, but Jaime holds her firmly by the hand, and draws her to his lap when he sits on the sand.
Once she is calm, he points his finger at the brightest star in the sky, and says:
''Look, Joanna, she's here, Mommy...''
The little girl doesn't understand and look at her father.
When she sees a tear running down his cheek, him she has never seen crying, she raises her little hand to his face, and wipes it with a slightly awkward gesture.
Seeing her father cry, she understands that her mother is not there, and that she will never return.
Then she cries, too.
Jaime feels his heart break when the old lady he managed to convince to help him educate Joanna asks his three-year-old daughter if she knows what's in the sky, and Joanna says yes, she knows, she knows what's in the sky, in the sky, there's Mommy. And even more when the old lady replies with a laugh that no, it would surprise her, that in the sky there is the sun, the clouds, the moon, the stars, but certainly not Joanna's mother.
Joanna was six when she first saw her uncle.
She thinks he's funny, her uncle. He's small, he tells jokes, and he really likes books.
She does not understand why he is there, the only thing she captures from the snippets of conversation she hears between her father and her uncle about the reason for his coming are the words 'exile', 'mad' and 'tyranny'.
But she understands that this one has known her mother when, when she should be in bed, she catches Tyrion telling Daddy that she looks like her, you know, Jaime, she looks so much like her, and they both hug each other crying.
A few days later, Jaime finds Joanna applied to write a message on a piece of paper, applying herself as best she can to form her letters from her round and childish calligraphy.
He observes her without saying anything, but when she throws her letter into the fire that purrs in the chimney he asks her why.
And she answers him, as serious as a child of her age can be, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world:
''I wrote to Mommy. You told me she was in the sky, and the smoke from the chimney rises into the sky. Then my message will go up in the sky too, and Mommy will be able to see it and read it. Do you think she's going to answer?''
But Jaime doesn't answer, and just hugs his daughter. Joanna feels her father's tears flowing a little in her hair, but it doesn't matter, she doesn't say anything, and squeezes her dad very hard, as if he too was going to go away to join her mother and the stars.
The old lady who told her that Mommy was not in the sky is not coming back. Now, it's with Uncle Tyrion that she learns a lot, especially in books, because Uncle Tyrion loves books a lot, and he says that's what makes people sharpen your mind.
So in the morning she learns languages, writing, reading and many other things with her uncle, and in the afternoon she learns to ride horses and fight with a sword with her father.
Years pass.
The years pass, and it's just the three, in the little house on the beach.
Joanna now knows why her mother is not there with her.
She grew up with the stories about Cersei that her father and uncle were willing to tell her.
Stories that seem to him to come from another world, from another life.
Stories of queen and knight, stories of forbidden love, when it should not be, because it's not bad, it's good, and people are just too stupid or too blind to understand it, stories of wolves, lions and dragons, stories of distant kingdoms and castles, stories that could have been told to her like tales when she was a child, but which a girl her age should no longer believe, but she doesn't care, she thinks so, because these are the only things she knows about her mother, these stories, she has nothing else to hold on to, she doesn't know anything else about her mother.
She can't help but feel guilty sometimes, knowing that her mother died by birthing to her.
But the greatest feeling of guilt she ever felt was when, one day, when she was fifteen, in the middle of an argument, she told her father that she would have preferred it to be her mother, who was there, not him.
She had run away afterwards, thinking that she would be arguing when she came back to be gone without asking for her rest and for saying that to her father, when she knew very well that he was doing his best with her, and that their mother missed them as much as the other, and to their uncleant too. But sometimes she would have wanted her mother to be there, for a woman to be there, someone who could understand her better than her father and uncle.
After running for a good five minutes, she stopped, out of breath, and decided to go home and apologize to her father, who must probably have been worried about not knowing where she was.
When she entered the house, she thought she would find her father waiting for her in the lobby, arms folded, his emerald eyes blazing with anger. But no, there was no one.
But when she had advanced down the hall, to go to her room, she had heard her father's voice coming from her parents' room.
She had gone there, and had seen her father, his eyes red and swollen, traces of tears on his cheeks, in front of several dresses that Joanna had never seen, and which must therefore belong to her mother.
Jaime had reached out his closed hand, saying nothing more, and Joanna had reached out hers. His father then told him to close his eyes.
She had reopened them when she had felt a metal object in her palm and had seen a necklace.
A gold necklace, with a lion roaring on it.
And, instantly, even without having never seen him before, she had known.
She had known it was her mother's.
His father had told her the story of this necklace, everything, everything he knew, without omitting anything, and Joanna stood there, listening to him, sitting on his bed with him.
She had put the necklace around her neck and had vowed to take the utmost care of it.
And then she had hugged her father very tightly.
''I love you, Daddy...''
''I love you too, Joanna... And I know that Cersei loved you too... She loved you so much... Before you even came into the world, she went to war out of love for you, and I can swear to you that, wherever she is today, she is very proud of you... You look so much like her... ''
And it's true. Joanna is the spitting image of Cersei, even more than Myrcella was, and Jaime can only see his twin at her age, and imagine that he went back in time, that it is Cersei who is in front of him, not Joanna.
The years continue to pass.
Joanna grew up, married, and eventually became pregnant.
Jaime cannot prevent the growing fear deep down of him from going up and overwhelm him, as the last time he saw a child born was disastrous.
Everything's going to be fine, he thinks, it's going to be okay. Joanna is young, she's healthy, she's got time, she's got her life ahead of her.
But only here, Jaime thought that Cersei too, had life before her, a new life to devote to him, a new life to devote to their golden dream of freedom, their golden dream that ended having barely had time to begin, dissipating completely after spending years fading away.
That is why he waits with Tyrion at the door of Joanna's room, in which his daughter, son-in-law and a midwife are locked, making the hundred steps, turning like a caged lion, not holding up, until the door opens on the fly, and his son-in-law and daughter invites them in.
Joanna is still all red with effort, exhausted but radiant and she holds in her arms the prettiest little girl Jaime has ever seen. A little lioness with golden hair and green eyes.
Seeing her, Jaime feels a kind of bittersweet feeling. Of course, he can't be happier to see his granddaughter, he never even imagined uttering that word one day, but it is also sad, sad, because the new little lion cub is also a reminder of the promise they made with Cersei, the promise to see each other's gold hair spinning silver, the stingy taste of a broken promise.
The midwife approaches.
''Does this little lady have a name?''
A wave of memories returns to Jaime, morbid memories, memories that he could never forget, and that he may never forget.
''A pretty little lady, in perfect health...''
''What do you want to call her?''
''I'm sorry, but there's nothing I can do...''
''No...''
''My condolences.''
Except, this time, there is no scarlet pool of Lannister blood, or no pools of blood from the scarlet banner to the roaring lion.
Only Joanna and his son-in-law, who answer with one voice:
''Cersei...''
The midwife smiles, it's a very unusual name, very pretty, for a very pretty little lady.
She leaves the room, and before Jaime can record anything else, he finds himself with little Cersei in his arms, he could almost swear that she smiles at him, before snuggling up in his grandfather's arms.
They do not see the silver stars that begin to illuminate the sky, not even the brightest, nor do they see the Golden Queen watching them, and their smile from up there, watching over them, as she never stopped doing.
Thank you for reading! Please take the time to leave a small comment, it's always a pleasure ^^