Chapter Text
It was night. It rained. The drops of water fell with fury. Perhaps they only asked for passage to the warmth of a home, perhaps they only wanted to break crystals, erode stones and let each soul witness the rage of the sky.
She was just a little girl in her bed trying to sleep. She was cold. Her nurse had left the balcony open to cool her room, without foreseeing the storm. She could not move. Not even to close the doors or draw the curtains, not even to grab the blanket at the foot of her bed. Anyway, why would she? The sky was breaking and nothing could protect her. Such a little girl so lonely, so powerless in the face of the immensity of the universe. It had already hatched a plan and she could do nothing to change it. She was only striving to move as little as possible. Just enough to breathe. She let the air in. Then out. Drowned.
If I stay still, everything will stop with me. Nothing could happen. Time will not run and nothing will change. She kept repeating herself, like a mantra.
The noise of the rain was only silenced by the thunders. From time to time, the sudden light of a lightning illuminated the darkness of her room. In those seconds, she made sure that everything was still in its place. Her eyes, two bright emeralds uncovered, remained open, did not want to see but could not stop looking, only closed for a second to ask:
I wish my mom would come in. Her mother was pregnant, weak and needed to rest. At any moment her little brother would be born and everyone was ready for that moment. She knew that she would not enter, but how much she needed it, a human embrace in which she could abandon herself. She was thinking of her, when she heard her. A scream. One deep painful heartbreaking cry. It slipped down her throat and clung to her insides. Fear. She had never felt so much fear.
Drops. Thunders. Screams. Their sounds mixed, louder and louder, with less time between them. After much hesitation, she summoned all her courage to turn in her bed and adjust her body so that she could look the angry night through the balcony and reunite her eyes with the Moon.
She loved the Moon. What she liked most about her classes was when her teachers told tales about the Moon, her past and present, hundreds of stories and adventures of warrior and indomitable women whose strength was captured in that symbol. Full moon as the truth, the pupil that discovers everything and new moon as the secret, nobody knows anything about it. Decreasing moon like a bow that shoots arrows and knocks down targets until it discharges and growing moon like a cradle where to rest and recover, longing and musing, mother and lover, because it also welcomes and rocks a privileged few.
She didn't know if there were gods because she didn't know if there was justice, bur she venerated the Moon. If anyone could stop whatever was happening, it was her. She stared at her. Please make it stop.
The storm continued, perhaps less intensely. The screaming stopped. Mommy? She rose determined to go in search of her mother and that embrace.
The girl ran through the corridors in the dark, her hands clinging to the wall on the right to orient herself. Her white nightgown melted with the air of her speed and her long wavy hair hit her back to the rhythm of her footsteps.
At last, she saw light coming out of a room and heard murmurs. She approached the busy room. She only saw movement, everything was going very fast, she could not distinguish faces or words. The air was dense, full of misfortune. At that moment no one had eyes for her.
The overwhelming first sentence she could understand came from the Maester:
"Lord Tywin, there's nothing more we can do. She's... dead."
Her mother was pale, eyes closed, surrounded by blood. It seemed impossible that from that body so peacefully left, only a few minutes ago, those charged vivid cries would have come out.
“He killed her... Everybody out! Take that horrible assassin beast out of my sight.” Her father pounced on her mother, protecting her from the curious glances of all the servants.
She looked in the direction that his father's contemptuous gaze pointed. A maid was carrying a helpless baby, covered in rags. She tried to see his face. Thunder. Ray. Lightning that illuminated everything. Then she saw his face perfectly, not normal, deformed. Scare. She stifled a scream. Was her brother a monster? Did he kill her mother?
Everyone came out, she was dragged by the crowd. Nobody had noticed her presence yet. She looked through the scene one last time out of the corner of her eye before the door was closed. Her father was sitting on the bed, embracing her mother's lifeless body. His loaded eyes were waiting for the door to shut to let out a first tear that would be followed by an uncontrollable infinity. She will never forget that expression. He had been snatched from his love. A part of him died that night, the luminous one. Only anger remained in him.
After that, the images were shadows, the sounds were echoes. She did not know what she was doing there, she did not even know who she was. In her stomach roared the need for the only person who could remind her.
Jaime. She ran desperately to look for him.
That was the moment when her nurse finally noticed her, but lost her as her figure faded in the length of the corridor, although she sensed where the girl was going.
The child arrived to her twin brother's chambers. There were almost no guards watching the stronghold that night, everyone was awaiting the birth. She opened the door urgently and approached the bed.
“Jaime… Wake up, please.”
“Cersei? What are you doing here?” He said drowsy. Was she real o was he still dreaming?
She threw herself into his arms and burst into tears. That seemed real to him. He woke up completely and sat up with her in his arms.
“What happened?” He asked without breaking the embrace.
“Mum… hurting, bleeding… she died.” Her voice was broken.
That could not be real. He must have been asleep. That was a nightmare. But it was real. Tears began to fill his eyes.
The nurse arrived, followed by another handmaid who was holding a candle.
“You know you are not allowed to be here.” She took Cersei and carried her away in her arms. The other maid, grieved and only obeying, held Jaime.
“No. Let go of me.”
“Leave her.”
They both kicked, cried, shouted, stretched out their arms so that they could touch each other. Cersei managed to free herself from the grip and fell to the ground. The nurse grabbed her arm and pulled her. Cersei bit her wrist with rage and when she released her, she ran towards her brother. The maid let Jaime go who also ran to his sister. In the middle of the way they met and melted into an embrace that seems unbreakable.
The nurse was about to reach them again. The maid stopped her:
“They are two children who just lost their mother. Let them be together. They need each other.”
She doubted.
Nurse Delia was not a heartless woman. On the contrary, she was affectionate, protective and maternal, she loved those children as if they were her own. She had a daughter who lived only a few weeks. She helped Joanna breastfeed the twins. She wanted to do it alone, but two was too much. She was a little worried about the bond the twins had.
Cersei was born first and then Jaime, grabbing her ankle. They were literally one soul in two bodies. They could not separate. The being of one was inconceivable without the other. When they were days old they cried if they were separated, they were neither hungry nor cold, everything went away when they came back to be beside their sibling. When they were a few years old, they could not play hide-and-seek, the one who searched always knew where the other was, finished counting and went directly to the exact place where the other was. The truth was that it was not their favorite game, they didn't like to lose the other but maybe it was worthy for the joy of meeting later. They slept together, hands intertwined or embraced. Perhaps then they really didn't know they were two different people. But over the years they began to discover it and never ceased to marvel at their other half. How could be so similar and different: two opposite reflections. She had to wear long braided hair and dresses; for him, a short loose wild mane and trousers. They wanted to know the body, the container, which kept the other half of their soul. They began to explore themselves when they were alone. It was just an innocent curiosity. They had always bathed together and were used to seeing each other's naked bodies. Then they started to sleep together naked, they liked the contact with that other flesh. Soon, the exploration with the eyes was not enough, it did not satiate them, they needed to touch, to feel. It wouldn't last long. One lazy morning, Delia went to Cersei's room hoping to find the two of them because in Jaime's there was no one and it was time to get up. She found a bundle in the bed that emitted laughter covered by sheets and when she uncovered it, she found the siblings naked and Cersei playing with Jaime's tail. That image troubled her and she ran to tell Joanna. Joanna moved Jaime's chambers to the other side of the castle and had more maids watching the twins. No more bathing or sleeping together and even playing together unsupervised. She warned them that if they repeated that, she would tell their father and threatened them that they would never see each other again. The first weeks were terrible. They couldn't sleep if they weren't together. At night they got sick. Violently. They trembled. They had fever. Their bodies no longer knew how to be. And if they had been separated during meals, they wouldn't have been able to eat either. Maesters didn't understand what was happening to them. Joanna and Delia did. They belonged together.
And now Joanna had gone… Delia didn't have enough authority to maintain those arrangements and she always thought they were too strict. Besides, she understood they needed love, now more than ever. Finally, Delia nodded. She and the handmaid left.
Cersei and Jaime stayed embraced. Now time had definitely stopped. Now they were safe. She no longer heard the storm, he didn't even notice there was one. In the middle of all the dark chaos where everything crumbled, the other was just clarity and support. In the middle of that emptiness by the absence of a mother, they felt... whole in each other's arms. In the depths of that pain they had found a pinch of... relief. No one would ever separate them anymore. How bad was it to feel a little relieved at the loss of a mother? Did that prove that what they were doing was monstrous, a sin? But what did they do? They just loved each other. How something that felt so good could be so wrong. All these questions stopped mattering at that moment. Nothing else mattered. Only them.