Chapter Text
Prologue : The Dread
The dim light of their torches was becoming a dun blur, for suffocating dust whirled at every new blast above their heads in the collapsing Keep. Soon it would be pitch-dark, and sure enough the bellowing beast would come for them, its breath igniting and erasing this world. The last wall that Jaime Lannister checked showed no hole they could break through in a feasible escape.
Conceiding defeat as he definitely halted his hurried attempt at finding a way out among the ever more numerous rubble, Jaime turned around and she knew. The monstrous implication of his desperate, ashamed eyes struck her. Cersei Lannister let out a first choked sob, then another one, shooking her head no with not even strenght left for proper denial. Her brother rushed to her side. Something was abrased mere meters away and fell, forever blocking the corridor that led them there, led them to that punishment. Everything she repressed and fought roared freely into her unbearingly ailing soul to agitate even more what would be their last moments.
Had it been a public execution, beheading or any torture, she would have been brave, she would have been that unflinchering woman she always made others believe was her core identity. But Jaime knew better, and most importantly, genuineness was a necessity when life was coming to a brutal end. In front of the man that she loved, throat throttling with the knowledge of their fate, she had no dignity or attempt at peace.
« I want our baby to live » she tried firmly, briefly blocking the tears. « I want our baby to live ». Her voice broke, and so did her heart. It was an impossible dream, and they only would ever know nightmare or so it seems. The words she uttered had no pretense left as Jaime began to hold her adoringly, but she felt his passion affirming her ache. As the clang of fallen stones and the blare of dragon worsened, Cersei recognized that feeling she had pointlessly begged never to face again. Something that paralyzed her, yet urged her to flee, to no avail. The worst feeling a living being could abide, and that perhaps some could spend their existences blissfully ignoring until the very end. The utter certitude of death, impending death, inescapable and awaiting her or a loved one. Them both today, the three of them, even. A gruesome doom overpowering and stricking her family. Far too often she sensed it poison her bloodstream, whenever she saw one of her children be eternally taken away from her and removed from the living side, but also when her own Lady Mother died and it all began in fact, that endless pit of misfortunes, each always more piercing than the last had been. Now Cersei could feel the sensation at its worst, all-consuming, just like it had been twice before : when Joffrey started to choke on blood on that wedding, and when she saw Myrcella lifeless on the deck of King’s Landing’s harbour, a couple of months after her return.
« Not like this » Cersei whispered almost incoherently. « Not like this, not like this. Please don’t let me die Jaime, don’t let me die ! I don’t wanna die… Not like this, please not like this oh no, not like this… » Jaime understood, she was sure of that, that her plead was about her unborn child. He held her so tightly against himself, but her very slender figure was rounded howhever, rounded where another being was slowly growing. A new realization dawned on Cersei, while the dragon’s fury was battering the walls. She was six months pregnant, ten days close to the seventh month. No child should see the light this early, but for her child anyway, there was apparently no light but a fleckering chaos outside, waiting to kill him or her all the same. She had to try. Cersei reached for Jaime’s dagger at his side with such unexpected last strenght that he did not stop her motion fast enough, but immediately his eyes widdened as she began to gesture it towards her own stomach, absolutely unsure where to cut, but determined as scarcely ever before.
« Please » she besought him, « we have to try. We could protect him with what’s left of my body, and… » For it was now clear that Cersei’s decision was taken, wincing in pain and brows furrowed in total disapproval Jaime violently tossed the dagger away. « How could you do this to me on our last moments ? » he roared, and she cried out again. « Would you want his or her last sensation ever to be the cut of that thing you can’t even handle because you’re shaking ? Or to left him be crushed here, alone, vulnerable ? To live worse than death at the hands of that mad thing ? » She thought the exact same when she prepared to spare Tommen the ordeal of Stannis. But as death was now unavoidable, Cersei would have given everything for her child to at least stand a chance. Her brother was right, she knew, but she could not think straight. She tried to reach for the sword but he hindered her pathetic attempt.
Jaime berated her, but his tone was caring, his own agonizing feelings subdued to focus on her. « Our child is not ready to be birthed, and I’m never letting you do this ». He resumed the embrace again, entwining her. « I’m so sorry Cersei, I am so sorry, but we are together now. If you simply come into my arms, everything that our child will remember is love, and a somehow peaceful end. Look at me, just look at me ! » he added, seizing her shoulders. Nothing else matters, only us. The look he gave her was utter love, nothing hateful, not even regrets to besmirch this four decades feeling that they shared. Euron, Brienne, Robert, none of them ever existed. They were indeed the only ones left, the only ones in love, ever. And his words, at this so grim instant, were perfection to her.
He was much more at ease with the clatter of swords, she knew it full well. Neither Jaime nor Cersei did envision to die trapped, even though most of their macabre foreboding absolutely involved the two of them leaving mortal world at the very same time. But he became her solace as he always had been, especially stoic and heroic to her, soothing her with his loving words, ignoring his own fear or last needs even, to catter to hers in that infinite moment of vulnerability. She buried her face in his beloved neck, gently, and managed not to cry to simply cherish their last embrace, terror still besieging her from the inside, just like guilt. It has to be the two of us alone, not a third soul with us, Cersei thought, deeming that begging fruitless nonetheless. Suddenly, Jaime disentangled from their loving resignated last embrace, and she saw some strength and will to survive displayed everywhere on his so tired features. « Inside the skull, now ! » She had adored his voice always, and never heard it as fierce as this before, oddly enough. Why ? Can’t he see we’ll die ?
He turned her around with a painful groan as more blood probably escaped his injured torso. She looked at him with exhaustion and a fleating hope that she dared not admit nor think. The astounding noise of Daenerys Targaryen burning down the Red Keep was oblivious enough not to let anyone hope. But Jaime had a brief, almost mad laugh, and Cersei saw tears flowing down his cheeks.
« HERE ! » For a wounded man, grievously injured one-handed knight, he was more strong than ever. Cersei felt her wrist almost dislocate as he compelled her to move, and indeed a couple of fallen stones landed on their previous spot some seconds after his resolve, earning another frantic and exhausted laugh from Jaime. He was urging her to reach the incomplete skeleton of Balerion the Black Dread, whose long dead head was indeed gigantic enough to host two or even three humans curled up, Cersei could suppose. But the irony of this plan was making her hopeless.
« Cersei, once in our life, you’re going to trust me ! Our child will live only if you go inside. The skull will lessen the collision ! NOW ! » Obedient to him alone, she who spent her whole life giving the orders, she agreed to seclude herself inside the centuries old skull of one of the unnatural beasts that the ancestors of her rival – and so to say murderer – did mount, long before the drunkward abusive man she herself killed claimed that throne. Forsaken throne, she felt it more than ever before in that instant. Her dearest hopes could never tally with the cruel reality, but she had to let him try. She would do everything for him, years of pain and resentment washed away at the moment she saw him tonight, just when she had thought to loose everything. Her brother did not tender to help her go inside, he urged her. Cersei held Jaime’s only hand with all her strenght and love, enabling him to secure her ribs cage against his forearm, and closed her eyes. In the silence of her worried mind she briefly prayed, for the survival of her child and for Jaime’s. She mattered not much to herself, only has her fifth child vessel for now, and so she hoped to see the sun again for that innocent’s life sake. How could she bring forth innocents had always been a mystery to her, and this child was no Joffrey, she was sure of that, he would be like Myrcella if he ever…
She prayed, with the frowns of Septa Unella disturbing her a little bit. More mighty, the image of her Lord Father Tywin Lannister heartless and judgemental face shamed her, why would she pray, though only for a short moment. Had I not listened to you all along, Cersei finally understood, I’d have led a better life, happier life. And I bet you asked the Gods or someone to spare you, when my brother killed you on a privy. Cersei could see no logic in the memories plaguing her, albeit those of Tyrion and that horrible witch almost three decades ago were not new to her, just like her beloved children’s last convulsions. She saw Myrcella’s and Joffrey’s gazes too, and the hauntingl figure almost falling from that window, Tommen, when she saved him from his absurd suicide plan, reasoned him with her unfruitful mother love that he never understood. Cersei saw the witch’s face again in her mind. Maybe she could have been wrong, Cersei thought with a joyless grin, I had four children after all even though the first one did not live long, and I could have had five with this…
A prodigious growl muffed all thoughts and actions. The ceiling of the tunnel collapsed alongside most of its walls. The violence of the shock was unprecedented to her. It was not war, it was boundless destruction, just like the Night King did. Cersei lost consciousness within seconds, her last meaningful thought being the surprise that it did not burned her, and that she was not feeling pain except that unknown thing hurting her back, like a stake in her omoplate. Jaime mumbled rushed things she could not hear. He shook her with terrified groans, and replaced her head more tightly against his chest. She felt – guessed – him remove the stake from her back. Thank you Jaime, I love you.
She still clung to his hand while fainting.
All her life, she had felt like a monster.