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“Little dove…” she whispered softly, oh so softly.
How Sansa wished she was this soft when she was her captive.
“Have you come to watch me die?”
Sansa shook her head. She had thought her once Queen to be dead. Sprayed out beneath the rubble. Burned by dragon fire. Asleep from poison of her own hand, as she had been prepared to do once, to protect her youngest son. Everything but this.
Sansa had never expected to see her die. She had once thought her immortal. That once her own body was rotting somewhere in this keep, from Joffrey’s beatings, her never ending fasting, her grief – this woman – this golden-haired beast of Lannister, this queen of tales, would still rule far and wide.
But now – here she was. Standing before her first teacher. Her first betrayal. Her last mother. Covered in ash. Her dress ripped. Chains broken. Face stricken. And –
“What happened to your hair?” She asked without meaning to. She hadn’t been this uncontrolled in years. And yet, why bother being careful before a dead woman? Why bother lying to the one who had taught her how.
She ran a hand through her hair. Her vanity hadn’t left her. But then again, Cersei was a Queen. Her looks, once, had been the only thing that gave her power. The only thing she could trade and batter away that was hers. The only thing they couldn’t take. Only Sansa now knew it wasn’t true. Everything can be taken away from woman.
“A walk of shame.” Sansa could see it pained her still to say it. It pained her to listen. There are punishments that fit no crime. Cersei scowled. “You pity me, sweetling? After what that bastard did to you?” She said in a sickening sweet voice. “It reached everyone’s ears. How you screamed. How you bled. How -”
Sansa remembered darks rooms and the smell of blood. She remembered screaming until she could only taste blood on her mouth and no more sound came out. She remembered daggers and pins, nails and scissors. She remembered every name she called for in the night. From exhaustion and pain. How she begged for salvation, for her mother, her father, even Petyr. Yet no one listened, so she begged for guidance. And she wondered what another might have done, and she rose.
“- no one saved you.”
There were tears in Cersei’s eyes. Sansa couldn’t understand how it relieved her so. That it pained her to say those things to her.
She saved herself. Theon too. She would never forget him. Or Brienne. But she had been the one to walk out that room prepared to die.
“You are so cruel when you are afraid.” Sansa lowered herself atop her heavy black skirts, so she could look at the lioness better. “And you are so very afraid. You have never been this alone in your life. I can understand that.”
She forced herself to straighten against the wall. “There is still Tyrion, my monstrous brother will always -”
Sansa shook her head. “The North remembers, and I always pay my debts.” She whispered now. She has no rage left for this woman. She has used it all up. It has been burned out of her.
Tyrion was a Lannister. Tyrion had been forced upon her. Had killed her only friend. Had brought a tyrant to their shores and supported her while she burned away innocent men, women, children. His punishment was what honor demanded. What duty commanded.
“Have you come to watch me die?” She asked again and her face was emotionless.
“No. I came to save Jon, like those who came before me wouldn’t do for me. I came to make sure the North would be free. I came because I am a great lady of Westeros and it requires me to do so. I came because I wanted to see you.”
She cocked her head. “Did it bring you everything you though it would?” her voice was acid, dripping with venom.
“I loved you once. I trusted you. I looked at you and saw everything I wanted to be.” She smiled at her naiveté. “I can´t tell who betrayed my trust more – you, my father, Petyr, Jon, I can’t tell.”
She clenched her jaw and said nothing.
Sansa smiled. A sad smile. But a smile all the same. “Well, look at me now. Queen in the North. The most powerful woman in Westeros. The best player and I only have scars and heart ache to show for it. I’m what you all made me.” She swallowed down her tears. “If only it could have been different.”
She got up, took the bottle from her pocket. A small dark vial. Deadly.
Cersei frowned.
“I may be bitter, cold and unrelenting. I may be manipulative and shrewd. But honor does not prevent me from seeing what is right, unlike my father. I still have a conscience, unlike Petyr. And I can still love, unlike you.” She took Cersei’s hand and placed the vial in her palm. Draped her fingers over it. “It will not hurt. I swear it on my mother.”
She let go of her hands and took a deep breath, preparing to leave Kingslanding forever for the cold of the North.
“You were me 15 years before. Hopeful and proud. Ready to please. And how I hated you for it. And how I dreaded that you would go through the same as me,” she laughed. A humorless laugh. A desperate one. She swallowed it down. “There was a prophecy you see, a younger and more beautiful queen to cast you down and take all you hold dear,” she hummed, “I thought it was you, then I thought it was Margaery and then-”
“Daenerys.”
“No. I had already lost everything when she came. My children. My brother. My pride. I think it was you. And my fear. All my fear. I was terrified most of my life Sansa. Of what could happen to me. Of what already had,” her voice was barely a whisper and she could see the tears running down her cheeks, though her face was blank. “There is some freedom when there is nothing to fear anymore.” She looked her right in the eye. “All the worst things have happened. You have nothing to fear anymore, little dove. Dragons and lions. And all that is in between. You have survived us all. And you are still kind… there is something to be said about that.” She shrugged, looking at the vial in her hands and drinking it all in one swoop.
Her eyes never left hers. And when her legs gave out Sansa caught her, and they fell to the ground together. She knew it only took minutes, but those felt like hours, with that woman in her arms, her own tears running down her face, falling on her dead body.
“Myrcella,” she had whispered before her last breath. Sansa’s silent tears became sobs after that, and Cersei’s limp body went cold in her lap.
It was Arya that finally came and got her. Dragged her away while her vision was clotted. Helped her bathe and put her to bed with the most gentle of hands. Didn’t speak a word of it until they were back on a ship to Winterfell.
“I didn’t know. That she was like that… I never thought…”
“She was a cruel woman. Kingslanding made her that way.”
“You are not her,” she said sharply. Refusing to consider it.
“No. But she was once me.”
And no one came for her. No one cared.