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Jaime Lannister was never a pious man.
He had, with Cersei, received his name in the Sept of Casterly Rock, and was anointed with the seven oils, but their father had taught them, after catching them both kneeling in that same Sept at the age of four, after Mother's death, that the gods were cruel and merciless, and that this was the very reason why they were gods.
Although the monks who had been charged with their education had always preached to them that Faith was the way to go, that, when one was so high-born, it had to be used to help poor sinners to see light, the Light of the Seven, and to come out of the depths of darkness and sin, they had never heeded their instructions.
They had never heeded their instructions, because they themselves were sinners. Of course, they had never been told. No one had ever known. Except Mother. Without Mother, and her horrified look when she found them both naked in the same bed, they would never have known that what they were doing was wrong.
After all, they were playing. They were only doing what they had always been asked to do in public.
From the moment they were born, they had been presented together over and over again. They were so beautiful, so adorable, those beautiful little golden lions, holding hands in their sleep, only a few months old, blessed by the Seven Gods for the greatness, the glory of their father.
They had grown up and were always together. They were still holding hands, and they were crisp, with their little pink cheeks, golden hair and emerald eyes. When their mother would take them with her to see her ladies, they would rave about how cute they were, and would only ask to see more. Jaime could still remember their voices and cooing:
''Give your sister a kiss, Jaime! You two are so adorable...''.
Then Jaime listened, and kissed Cersei's soft cheek with his fleshy little lips.
They used to sleep together, huddled together like a pair of kittens, and couldn't bear to be apart. Then, one day, in bed, they had the idea of doing exactly what they did in front of Mother's friends, and which seemed to please them very much. So he had kissed Cersei's cheek, and then, naturally, his lips moved towards hers. If Cersei had been a little surprised at first, she had let him do it, and then quickly got a taste for the new game.
They had even enjoyed it so much that they had done it again, several times. As time went on, Jaime started dragging his little hands first over his sister's shoulders, then over her arms, then over her face, then all over her body. It started with them still dressed, but gradually they had gotten undressed and ended up totally naked.
And one afternoon, while they were in their room, playing this game that they found so much fun, their Lady Mother came in and surprised them.
To say that she had horrified them was an understatement. She had separated them, had the door to Cersei's room guarded, and threatened to tell their Lord Father if she ever caught them doing that again. She didn't even say the real name of the thing, as if it was so appalling that even the idea of naming it was unbearable to her.
Jaime didn't understand. How could being with Cersei, when it was by far his favorite thing in the world, be so bad?
And then Lady Joanna had died, taking the secret of their forbidden games to her grave. And they had done it again. Even knowing full well, even knowing that what they were doing was wrong for the Seven for whom they had been taught respect and devotion, they had begun again. Because it was right. It couldn't be wrong, they both felt far too good to be wrong.
And they had grown up. Their games had gone further and further, until one day they had jumped into the abyss. They had tasted the forbidden fruit. And the feeling of wholeness, of fullness, that followed had been so bewitching, so intoxicating, so delectable that they had never stopped. Never mind about faith. Never mind about sin. Never mind about the gods. Never mind about everything.
Even the oath that Jaime had taken before the Seven, when he became a member of the Kingsguard, he had flouted and broken it. For him, the fact that he had sworn something before the gods did not mean that he attached any special importance or consideration to it. As proof, he had always told himself that if one day he had to marry someone other than Cersei, he would be obliged to swear an oath to his wife in a Sept, but that he would do so knowing full well that he would never be able to honor that oath. His heart belonged to Cersei, long before they came into the world, and it was not seven statues, a serious looking septon and empty words that would change that. Nothing, nothing in the world, could change that.
But now Jaime couldn't help but pray. Praying silently, in his head, all the gods, the seven new ones and the countless old ones, the Lord of Light R'hllor, the Red God, the God of Death, the Dothraki gods, all the gods that were damnable and even the ones that didn't exist. All of them.
The Red Keep was collapsing, destroyed by the assaults of the Queen of Dragons and her monster.
The Red Keep was collapsing, and Cersei was, for all he knew, still inside.
He had told Brienne that he had not hesitated to push a child through a window, to strangle his cousin with his own hands, and that he would have gladly killed thousands of men, women, and children for Cersei. If he had to pray for her and the baby she was carrying to stay safe and sound, he would.
He would do so, as he kept running to the castle, eager for all that Cersei stood for. Poison, sin, love, desire, lust, worship. She was his sister, his life, his love, his twin, his mirror, his best friend, his loss, his death, and he was attracted to her like a magnet. Few people could have found someone who represented to them all that Cersei meant to him. She was his everything, and he had to reach out to her, no matter what, no matter what.
In his thoughts, he conjured up, he implored, he begged, he prayed that she would be alive when he arrived, as the castle kept falling down, with towers, sections of wall and roof coming off and crashing down.
Alone at her window, silent, Cersei couldn't stop herself from praying in her head either.
Although she hadn't done so for years, and had several times spat in the faces of the Seven, like when she had blown up the religious high place of Westeros, she could only hope that it would work this time, against all the other times it had failed.
When her mother had died. When she had married Robert Baratheon, and prayed that he would be kind and loving to her. When her first little boy had died.
She prayed for Jaime to come back. She prayed for his survival. She prayed for the baby's survival in her womb.
The baby. Her precious little cub. Since the night before, he had been restless, kicking her in the stomach and kidneys, as if he had felt the palpable tension in the air, the tension of all the hours before the great battles. Because of this, she had hardly slept, and felt exhausted, worn out.
And, while she was still standing at the window of her room, immobile, imperial, she felt a sharp pain tearing her entrails. A familiar pain, though stronger than she remembered. But after all, even though she didn't like to admit it, she was getting older, and she had heard many people say that it became more and more painful with age.
The dragon queen was burning all of King's Landing, and Cersei was going to be trapped here, trapped in the bowels of the Red Keep. There was no way she would move in her condition.
She was about to try to force herself to her bed, when a flash of pain far worse than the previous one forced her to bend in half and grab the window sill to stand on her legs.
She was still in shock, her right hand on her belly, her left hand on the marble window frame, bent over, her face twisted in discomfort, and she didn't hear the door open, letting Qyburn, who had come to give her news from her forehead, through.
When he saw her in that position, he immediately understood what was happening. He was worried. Not only was Cersei already quite old enough to conceive a baby, but Jaime wasn't there for her, to help her through this ordeal when she needed him most, and the battle was raging outside, which would only add stress to the queen. Luckily, she had the advantage that this wasn't her first delivery, which would already make things a little easier.
Qyburn rushed over to her, and took her by the hand, supporting her as best he could without causing her more pain and directing her to her bed. She was bound to be better lying down than standing, and it was totally unnecessary to add more pain to her than necessary. She was already going to suffer enough as it was.
A stone fell in the room, and hit a vase in her fall. Fortunately, Cersei, in full contraction, had not seen it. Panic would not be good for either the mother or the baby. However, if the delivery could take place quickly, it would be better for everyone.
Now that Cersei was on the white sheets of the bed, her skirts up, her milky thighs exposed, it became obvious that she was now losing blood. A lot of blood. Too much blood.
After a while, during which Qyburn had not let go of the queen's hand, he decided it was time to get a basin of hot water, and clean, dry towels and cloths. After reassuring Cersei, who had implored him not to leave her alone, he left, not without tearing her heart out.
After all, he considered Cersei to be his daughter. She had had a father who had cared very little for her, seeing only what she was through her sex, without realizing how intelligent she really was, and that she was much more like him than he thought. And this had struck Qyburn in a way that he couldn't explain at the time, but was crystal clear by now. So, he set out to protect her, to help her as best he could. And she had accepted his help, even making him her Hand when the Iron Throne had rightfully returned to her. And now she was lying there, suffering, without him being able to do anything to relieve her pain, and fearing every second that it would be too much physical effort for her, and that she would stay there. But he quickly drove the thought out of his mind. Cersei was a fighter. She had survived much worse than this. She had gotten up, after falling into the depths of decay. She was like a phoenix, rising from the ashes. She was going to survive. She had no choice.
The castle was now half destroyed and, second by second, was falling more and more into ruins.
Even as he entered the Holdfast of Maegor, Jaime realized that it was partially collapsing. But he had to go anyway. He had already been in the throne room, and Cersei wasn't there, which meant she had to be in her room. He didn't even want to think about the possibility that she might be in one of the parts of the castle that had already fallen into ashes. It was impossible.
He was running down the marble stairs, almost slipping and falling at every step, but it didn't matter. He had to find Cersei.
When he reached the floor where the queen's apartments were located, he felt a wind of panic sweep over her.
The corridor was almost completely destroyed. The roof was no longer there, gone, as if by magic. Stones were falling from the walls in a hurricane of stone and dust, and several small fires were burning everywhere.
Beneath a small pile of stone, Jaime saw a dead body, which he quickly identified as that of Qyburn, the man who had healed his amputated hand and who had become a trusted adviser to Cersei.
The panic he had felt when he saw the state of the corridor was nothing compared to the panic he felt now that he was standing over Qyburn's dead body. If he was here, something must have happened to Cersei. He would never have abandoned her in the midst of this chaos.
A small voice whistled wickedly in her ear.
''He would never have abandoned her at all...''.
It was too much for Jaime. The thought that Cersei might be dying somewhere, or perhaps even already dead, gave her wings to run to her apartments and storm into them, even if it meant giving her a heart attack if she was inside.
He entered, and heard almost silent weeping, but not for him, who had been practically the only one to hear it from the Known World.
Stones had fallen into the room, and much of the roof, causing a great deal of dust to fall, which bleached almost everything. He rushed over, and saw Cersei, in her bed, half lying down, half sitting, with her thighs apart, and bathed in a pool of blood and amniotic fluid.
She looked him in the eyes, and he could read in her eyes all the despair and pain in the world.
She was there, giving birth, alone, frightened by what was happening around her, because Jaime had preferred to leave to honor an oath he had made, to prove to all of them that he, the Kingslayer, was also a man of honor, a man who knew how to keep his promises, rather than stay by her side, when she needed him most.
He heard her moaning his name, his delicately chiseled features twisted by the suffering she felt throughout her body, and he approached her, as if by automatism.
He took her in his arms, as gently as if she were made of glass, so as not to hurt her, and kissed her on the temple, embracing her tenderly, and taking her hand in his. Alone in the world.
He realized something that hadn't hit him before. If Qyburn had died, it meant that no one was there but him to help Cersei deliver their baby. For her previous deliveries, there had been Pycelle, and a whole army of midwives. But there was no one there. Only them. And it was totally impossible to move Cersei. In any case, it would have been useless. By the time they arrived at a maester's house in one of the free cities across the strait, the baby would already be there. In any case, Cersei could certainly not walk.
This meant that it was Jaime who was going to have to welcome his son or daughter into this world. He had seen it done before, as he had attended all four of his sister's births. But he had never done it before. Even if he had tried it before, it would certainly be more difficult with one golden hand than with two hands of flesh.
He knew that at some point Cersei would have to push, and that was when the baby would be expelled from her belly. But he didn't know when she would have to start. He assumed she must know. So he went to stand behind her, supporting her back, leaning on her, giving her his golden hand to hold and rubbing circles on her back with his flesh hand, hoping that this would soothe her and allow her to relax a little. He whispered in his ear:
"Tell me when you feel the baby coming...''
He didn't have time to finish his sentence when he saw a liquid spill between his sister's open thighs. The water pouch had just broken. He didn't know exactly what it meant, but since he had attended Cersei's previous deliveries, he knew it meant that she would soon start pushing, and the baby would soon be here.
A column that once supported the ceiling crashed to the floor, a few meters from the bed, in a deafening crash.
Breathing breathlessly, in complete panic, Cersei turned her head towards the column just as it collapsed. A tear rolled down her cheek. Jaime didn't know if it was pain or fear.
He had moved to the bottom of the bed, still giving Cersei his hand, but now he was ready to grab the baby when he got there, which should be any minute now. So he tried to soothe Cersei.
''It's going to be okay, my love, it's going to be okay. It's going to be over soon. Our little one will be here soon, and as soon as he gets here, I'll take you away from here. We'll start a new life in Pentos, where it will be just us. Us and our little lion cub, and we'll be the only ones who matter in this world.''
Then Cersei nodded, smiling almost through her tears, and starting to push with all her might, grabbing Jaime's golden hand and squeezing it as tightly as she could, just as she had done all those years before with her hand of flesh.
The more time passed, the more Cersei pushed, the more Jaime realized that he would soon meet his son or daughter, and the more he prayed, however vainly, for everything to go well, as much as it was possible under those conditions.
It was a dream he had never dared to have, not while Robert or their father was still here. But when Cersei told him she was pregnant, he found himself imagining himself playing the father, teaching their son to ride a horse and fight with a sword, or their daughter for that matter, taking care of the baby, being the one to reassure him when he grew up and had nightmares at night, watching him learn to walk, learn to talk.
And now that he was about to meet his child, he couldn't help but wonder if he would be a good father.
When the baby came.
In a final push, in which she put all the strength she had left, Cersei expelled the screaming, red baby from her womb, which Jaime grabbed.
The baby was there.
She was there.
Their little girl.
As soon as she was in his arms, Jaime grabbed the bloody sheet and used it to wipe her as best he could, afraid of hurting her, afraid of breaking her, afraid of breaking her, so tiny and fragile did she seem. She already had fine blond hair and big green eyes. Emerald green, wildfire green.
She was perfect.
Once she was cleaned of the liquid that had stained her, Jaime approached Cersei, who had let herself fall back, relaxing a little, resting after that trying birth, almost forgetting the battle raging outside these walls. He gently placed the little girl in her mother's arms, who opened the bodice of her dress, allowing her access to her breasts and her first meal.
Jaime sat back behind Cersei, making her lean on him again, feeling tears of joy burning in her eyes at this almost unreal vision, so perfect was she. How could he have doubted Cersei's love for him when she was giving him the most beautiful gift?
The two loves of his life. They were perfect. Both of them.
While the little one was suckling greedily, Jaime couldn't hold back her tears, and let them flow freely, but silently on her cheeks.
Cersei looked at him, smiling at first, but she worried when she saw him burst into tears, Jaime could tell by the way his face had suddenly darkened.
He grabbed her cheek, smiled, and looked her straight in the eyes. Emerald against emerald.
''Thank you my love. Thank you so much. You have just made me the happiest man in the Known World. She is perfect. You are perfect. You're perfect, everything's perfect.''
Reassured, Cersei returned to her original position when the little lion cub yawned after finishing eating. They both looked at her as she closed her tiny green eyes, sighing with contentment as she cuddled deeper into her mother's protective embrace.
Jaime looked at her, then at Cersei.
"What do you want to call her?"
He couldn't believe his ears. Not only had she just given him a daughter, strong and healthy, but she was giving him the honor of naming her?
''Cersei, I... I don't know... Are you sure?
She looked at him and smiled.
''Of course.''
''I was thinking of... ...Joanna.''
Cersei smiled again.
''Welcome, Joanna Lannister...''
They were running again.
As soon as Cersei had had the strength to stand on her legs again, they left, and started running again, well aware that they had to leave the Red Keep and the city as soon as possible, from now on.
So, they had just taken the time to take some clothes, for the three of them, and some jewelry, which they could sell once they arrived. Jaime considered himself fortunate that Cersei always kept clean clothes for him in his room, since their frolicking had been going on there mostly, so as not to arouse suspicion about clothes that were torn, soiled, wrinkled, or hastily put back on. She also had everything planned for the baby, whether it was a girl or a boy, and Jaime could not help but admire her sense of organization.
And they were off again, running through the castle, which was falling apart and partly burning down. Cersei held Joanna close to her, and the little girl didn't seem to notice the danger hovering above them.
Now, for Jaime, it was a completely different story. There was no room for error. It was one thing for him to die with Cersei, but with Joanna... Moreover, even if she wouldn't die with them, it would probably be the dragon queen or her men who would find her, and who knows what they might do to Cersei and Jaime Lannister's daughter? No, he had no choice. He had to get them out, and the sooner the better.
The stones were falling at an impressive speed now.
Cersei held Joanna in one hand, clutching her as if her life depended on it, and in the other held Jaime's hand, which dragged them into the depths of the Red Keep. She knew where they were going, he had told her when she had asked him, just as he had first taken her by the hand to take them with him.
He had told her that Tyrion had planned everything, that a boat would be waiting for them in a small cove with a smuggler to take them to a ship, which should transport them to Pentos without any trouble.
The small cove was located very close to the castle, toward the underground passages that led to it, with an exit that was supposed to be secret.
They arrived at the room where the dragon skulls were stored. Joanna had begun to cry after hearing part of the stairway they had taken collapsed, and Cersei tried to calm her down, rocking and humming in her ear.
The hall was already full of rubble that had fallen from the ceiling and vaults, but miraculously the exit was clear.
They started running, running for their lives, running for their baby's life, running for their freedom.
They barely made it through, as stones began to fall, obstructing and clogging the entrance.
They arrived on the wet sand of the cove, and actually saw a small boat, with a serious looking man, with gray hair and beard, but whitening.
He held Cersei's hand to help her climb into the small boat, she was still holding Joanna, who had fallen asleep. The smuggler, Ser Davos Seaworth, if Jaime remembered correctly, pointed out that Tyrion had not said there would be a baby with them. He replied that the baby was the main reason they were so late, and the Onion Knight seemed to accept this answer, and asked no more questions.
As they left the cove, all three of them alive and well, Jaime couldn't help but think that, for once, his prayers had paid off.