Chapter Text
It has been years he has not seen her; and the same unforgotten fever seizes him again, as soon as he steps into the Old Palace, as he breathes her same air, as he treads her own paths: he begs to meet her, alone. Her first times in Sunspear, jealousy bit him harsher than usual; for her lustful husband – who can hold his wine far better than Robert, and is not so easily gullible, for randy Dornishmen, and randier Dornishwomen too; but now he just needs her, and she could have bedded half Dorne and the Free Cities too and he wouldn't care. Cersei hasn't showed up yet, and maybe she never will, too busy with Myrcella's wedding. Jaime, though, can't find in himself to leave: lest she come, and he miss what could be, for all he knows, his last chance to fuck her, hard and well and truly, and hear her call out his name once more, and die on her, and feel alive again.
He waits for her in the shadows, still and soundless, blending in seamlessly with the surroundings. A secluded retreat, sheltered by overgrown vines, said Cersei, where nobody ever enters. Nobody; unless meaning mischief. By now he knows enough of the Martells' mores, and gathers this must be a favourite tryst spot.
A short run in the nearby terrace; whispers and laughters he can't make out. Even Cersei, now, speaks usually Rhoynar; and her soft skin is darker, her glorious mane sports silver highlights, which he would put down to the sun only. Dorne has marked her, in more ways than one, and he finds it quaintly befitting. Once upon a time, a time when he believed in dreams, in honour, in future, when Arthur Dayne believed in him, Jaime fancied everything Dornish, for no better reason than being Dornish.
A lifetime in a white cloak made standing unobtrusively a second nature, so he holds his service years relaxed yet alert stance. That's why they step in the dim archway - in Dorne sunlight is often shunned, to ward off the punishing heath – and brush past him without even noticing. A knight of the Kingsguard listens to everything and hears nothing: it's not the first time he overhears what he would rather not know, what he should better try to forget, what he never could, try as he might.
It's her second husband: Prince Oberyn, and Jaime assumes his hollow title was all it took for Cersei. He will never understand her lust for high-flown styles – the Prince of Dragonstone, the King, you name it. He is dubbed Kingslayer, when his father, who ordered the sack the same city that opened him its gates, is the Saviour of the City; Lord Commander - of the sorriest lot to ever don a white cloak, Shield of Lannisport and Warden of the West, charges he ran away from, even Ser – his honorifcis weigh upon him as lies, burden, failures.
Silver now contends with jet on Martell's head, yet he swaggers in with a jaunty bounce, holding by her waist a slender blonde not a third is age, attired in utmost finery; a veil hides half her face.
Jaime Lannister's heart skips a beat, and he feels dizzy as always before his twin: he would know that gait in a thong, it can only be her, but twenty years younger. Belatedly he realizes it's Myrcella; she cuts teen Cersei's same figure.
How like him to mess around with his step-daughter, to be married the same day; and to his own nephew on top.
I fucked my sister, on her wedding morning, recalls Jaime; and Myrcella is their child. Another nice family tradition; she could have picked kinslaying or kingslaying. Heartwarming: our daughter takes after us in everything. He feels like killing Oberyn Martell on the spot; but he lacks both a sword, and a hand to wield it.
“Snatched you out of the commotion, at last.” Mirth rings in his voice, as he sweeps her up to a frayed weed seat he has just dusted with his sleeve and demands. “Don't sneak away. We need to have a talk.”
Haphazard shafts of light dapple the dusty floor, catch motes dancing lazily, and outline their gazes, their smiles, their gestures against the dusky greenness.
“Myrcella Baratheon, listen to me just once: you are now to enact the royal princess: but for a day, stop talking like you were bred and born in a Shadow City hovel! If you go for shanty neighbourhoods so be it, but least pull out a Flea Bottom gabble: you can't possibly drawl like that...”
She switches to the Common Tongue as well and tilts her head, dropping her veil. “Is it you who presumes to teach me how not to?”
The Prince's thick accent reminds him of his sworn brothers Lewyn and Arthur, whose drawled 'Raise, Ser Jaime' still rings into his ears. Any other time, he would have made fun of the dragged out vowels; but they added to the words solemness and sung aloud, for all to hear, the very Sword of the Morning made him a knight.
“Stay put: a curl out of place, Seven forbid... Your mother is already wrought up for the nuptials.” He laughs, and pins orange flowers on her dishevelled locks. “Lucky you I have some experience at fixing a messed hairdo on the run.”
“Rosamund couldn't be quicker.” She acknowledges.
“Whom do you think she learned the trick from?”
“Her too?” She chuckles back.
He locks eyes with her, no longer playful. “Are you really sure, Cella? I shall yet harry Doran for a delay.”
“Now? I am getting married in hours!” Tuts Myrcella. “Won't that cause troubles?”
“Too much time I didn't cause any of import. I'm getting old, and lazy.” He airily answers. “You are worth getting into troubles for. Both of you are so young...”
“Young we may be, but not utterly foreign to the ways of the world, as you would like us to believe.” Jaime can almost see a wicked glint in Myrcella's eyes. His same green flicker; but, gods be good, the Prince is right, now she drawls like any Dornish, and as loudly. She picks at a a wisp of grey hair on his temple. “Nor will we wait and say our vows before a Septonhoary and doddering as you were when you did...”
“A woman of the world, are we now, Princess Myrcella?” The Prince scoffs. “All in all, it's your own life, and I'd better leave it up to you. If you really... ”
“Yes, really-really.” She gushes. “Isn't he handsome? The Lady Mellario says he looks rather like you at his age, and since Trys splashed at the Pools he looked up to his uncle.”
“Shameless flatteries won't fool me, my Princess. I am not accountable for my nephew's marriage frenzy: in him I fear quite a lot of Doran, who dared a love marriage, only to spend the best part of it fighting with his wife, till they grew tired of their own yells.”
“I have been squabbling with Trystane since I set foot in Dorne.” Myrcella shrugs it off. “There is no one I love arguing with half so much, and the same goes for him. If we spend half of the time quarrelling and half making peace, we will be wholly happy in one another, don't you agree?”
Oberyn doesn't muffle his chortle. “What you agreed disagreeing on, pray tell?”
“I am all for a love match, but Trys would rather stick to tradition.” Myrcella pouts. “Lamest excuse ever: uncle Doran is not one I would call boldly unconventional.”
“Respect for the Prince of Dorne, girl.” He demands.
“Trystane has always been at variance with me on the matter, and keeps putting forth your arranged marriage with mother roughly works.”
“For we have never been overly involved with each other, had time aplenty for a wide range of mistakes before, and hopefully lost some misbegotten notions about married life along the way, learned at times indiscretions better be discreet, and -”
“Spare me your screed, maester.”
“And, tell him, it would work even rougher had I not grown good at dodging flying items.” Oberyn rubs thoughtfully a scab on his chin. “Still room for improvement, though; when she sets to it, your mother is more challenging than a hard-fought match. Ellaria should be the jealous one, but she understands a woman whose daughter is about to wed needs to be reminded often how desirable she is.”
How Cersei could ever get along with her husband's mistress, instead of clawing her eyes out, utterly mystifies Jaime; but she does, and well. Well enough to barely arch her brow and turn him a scowl when the youngest of the Prince's bastards asked Lordjaime if she could call him uncle. As Myrcella does.
“No doubt where your marksmanship comes from; I won't fault your lacking skills if you let Trystane win battles by rights lost: I recall orange tasting kisses as the sweetest.”
“How do you know we staked kisses?”
“Blissful youth, as the world never truly existed before you...” He wags his head. “You were not the first who grew up at the Water Gardens, battled with blood oranges and played at kissing, till the play turned serious.”
“Who was her?”
Cersei. So he would have to answer, if asked by his daughter. The Prince is wrong, though; no one is more serious than children at play, and with her, everything has been in earnest from the beginning, before it even began, the whole world at stake, for his twin was all his world, and her image fills him, his eyes, his mind once more.
“A sorrowful story, unfitting for a wedding.” Martell's thickened voice rescues him from thoughts of Cersei.
“A first kiss with no less than the most beautiful woman in your days?”
“Not really: back then, she was mostly pimples and sharp angles.” He remembers with a sad fondness. “For all her violet eyes, Ash had yet to grow into the role.”
Memories of Harrenhal take him aback. Ser Barristan claimed Ashara Dayne as the worthiest of the crown of Love and Beauty, but Jaime was sure Cersei was the most beautiful woman ever - she still is – as he was he would win the tourney. His first glorious steps into manhood looked like walking into a golden dream; then everything went awry.
He should have never followed through her plan. His was more straightforward: leave everything behind, hunt for honour and glory in the Disputed Lands, build a life for themselves. She in a fat merchant's bed, he an exile, soldiering for who would have him and longing for home; that's where most new lives in Essos end up to. Yet, he still toyed with such fanciful picture on his way to Sunspear, and long enough to forget no one would hire a sellsword with no sword hand.
As if things turned out that different, Cersei is his true home and without her, living in Casterly Rock is exile to him, more than to Edmure Tully.
Oddly, Myrcella's train of thought heads toward the Sunset Sea as well.
“All the Westerlands agreed my grandparents would put Jonquil and Florian to shame.”
“I don't care for tales about Tywin Lannister. Is it him you take your cue from?” Oberyn snaps. “What I know of such marriages, is that Mellario's and Doran's love was too much to fit in the same kingdom with them both.”
“Be it as it may, I won't take the risk. As to arranged marriages, it's not like mother scored the best records. ” She bits her lips and hurriedly adds. “I mean...”
He pats her nape. “No offence taken. I know what you mean, but you can't fault him for being wary when his parents had to put the Narrow Sea between them.”
“I can see Trys's point, and we came to a mid-way agreement. Marriage is all about compromise, isn't it? We are having both: out of love or duty, one at least shall work.”
“Here in Dorne, the backup is usually a paramour.”
“Blame yourself: who did teach me to brave new paths? Everyone has the right to his own dreams, it would be unfair to ask Trystane to forsake his own for mine.”
“I am the reckless, the rash one, when reasoned men such as my brother... Was I ever as mad as to dream of a love marriage? Nor of an arranged one, I concede. You two are twice crazy and will have both at the same time, which is plainly an overload.” The Prince huffs and yields. “And I should know better and realize I reached the age of unwanted advice.”
Myrcella proves a gracious winner. “I hope in his forties he will be as handsome as you are.”
“Is it this serious, Cella,” the Prince knits his brow in disapproval, “You are already thinking of the two of you in a thirty years from now?”
She nods, with a still childish moue, and deadly serious all the same.
“If your mother is anything to go by, Trystane will have no reason to complain either.” Oberyn heaves a sigh. “For the poor boy's sake, don't be as jealous and leave him room to breathe.”
“He has been warned: if he tries to follow too closely in your footsteps, I am going to geld him.”
“Not quite what I meant by taking care of yourself, sweetling. Those are the most entertaining parts in a man and you don't want to act foolish.”
“Lions don't like to share: it's called lion's share for a reason. “
Aunt Genna, his own mother, and now Myrcella; lionesses will always want their men under their heels. And Cersei, Cersei most of all. Yet, his twin puts up bravely with her husband and constant infidelities he still makes a show of.
“Firstandforemost, you want a cool head. So my mother warned to Elia: don't fall too hard for your charming husband, if you want his respect... Advice best given Doran instead. If not me, heed your own mother: love is poison; a sweet poison, but a poison still.”
“Why? You love poisons, and showed me how to best handle them.”
Myrcella traces one finger over his cheekbone.
“What's it, a tear?”
“Allow me.” He takes her hand, and leans for a peck on her forehead. “You are the first one to tie the knot.”
“The others didn't dare disobey you.”
“Disobey me?”
“At least, go against your wishes.”
“Am I that feared, by my own daughters?”
She considers. “Worshipped would suit better.”
“I see. Clever child: I'm quite proud of you, you know?”
Myrcella hugs him tightly. “I know. You are the best father I ever had.”
His breath hitches, and he feels his phantom fingers clenching tightly the hilt of a sword he has not been wearing for years. Jaime Lannister braces himself while the room spins around; how can one be so stricken by the loss of something he never had? Yet, he has never known true jealousy before.
He watches his daughter darting off into the sun, her shape blotted out by the dazzle. The Prince follows at a more sedate pace, but soon stoop and scoop up a silken bundle.
“Wait: you cannot marry without a wedding cloak!” He waves the golden shawl, with perfunctory black trimmings in whose swirls no one would read a dance of prancing stags.
“Trystane won't mind, had I nothing on but a night shift.”
“Agreed. The Princeling would welcome you even without and naked as your nameday, but neither would he cherish a boring faithful wife. Keep mislaying your things here and there like a little girl who cannot look after herself, and you will never carry on an affair!”
“Why would I care for affairs? I am a married woman now, or I'll bee soon enough to make no matter.”
Their banters trail away, and Jaime is left only with a barely there scent of orange flowers, faint yet lingering like the ghost of long forgotten memories; maybe, it's just wafting in from the trees without.