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Cersei Lannister was infamous for three attribute she possessed.
She was beautiful, she was barren and she was definitely bad luck.
Her first husband, King Robert Baratheon, died eight moon turns after their marriage.
The king’s widow hadn't been yet with child, a fact that delighted the smallfolk of King's Landing, and surely more than just a few nobles, happy not have a Lannister on the Throne.
A major disappointment for Tywin Lannister who had spend a fortune for his daughter to briefly play queen.
The young King Stannis hadn't wanted to marry the widow of his late brother, so Cersei Lannister returned to Casterly Rock .
At a festive Casterly Rock she found his sister in law Lysa with her first born.
Her father smiled, the secret smile he used to share with her long ago as he promised her a dragon Prince, but now he showed any affection for her.
“By the Seven, the only woman who managed to share a bed with Robert Baratheon and not becoming pregnant!” She heard him saying to his brother Kevan.
For Cersei this had been Hell.
Not like she had had any deeply feelings for her husband, but she had loved to be queen,and now she was just a woman, one without any importance or power.
Useless.
She couldn't stand the so-fertile Lysa, the deformed dwarf and even the perfect Jaime.
Her father had made clear that Lysa was the Lady of the Rock, Cersei was just a temporary guest before he could arrange another marriage for her.
Her new husband was eight years younger than herself.
Willas Tyrell a green boy of ten and four.
With a dowry fitting for a king “This way the Tyrells will forget that she isn't a maid anymore. That's the price we have to pay for the few months that Robert had mounted her” She heard a familiar voice jesting.
Sometimes Cersei wished she would stop to eavesdrop, but she hadn't any friend and nobody really talked to her, this was the only way to gather information.
She was glad she didn't recognize the voice.
She reached Highgarden with some hope and lucky to be away from her kin.
Willas was a pretty boy with a peerless skin every woman would have killed for, big doe eyes and fashionable curled brown hair. Eloquent and smart for his young age, a spirited rider and a graceful dancer.
Cersei would never benefit from his husband’s last two qualities.
During the joust in honor of their marriage, Oberyn Martell crippled the young husband.
He would never stand from his bed anymore.
Despite his injuries, he performed his marital duties a few moons later, with the help of his bride, wine, milk of the poppy and his father’s prayers.
Every fortnight Cersei would mount the helpless and pained boy, not knowing if she should pray for an heir or for his demise.
Still, no heir was generated in this awkward nights.
Three years later her brother in law married and made his bride pregnant.
They named their first born Willas.
“I thought Lannisters were known for their fertility!” Whispered one of her husband’s cousin.
His grandmother didn't whisper at all.
Five years late the unfortunate Willas succumbed to a cold.
She wished his family would soon followed him.
Again she was sent to the Rock.
The welcome back at home was glacial, lord Tywin looked at her like she was rotting smelling garbage, he ordered for her to be visited by the maester.
Like the one at Highgarden, he couldn't find anything wrong with her.
Lysa had birthed three healthy boys, Jaime was one of the best jousters in the Seven Kingdoms, Tyrion had married one of his father’s vassal daughter, and was the happy father of perfectly formed twin boys.
Cersei was the only one who had deluded her father's expectations.
The only who hadn't paid her debts.
The day her father announced her new groom, she had cried and screamed so much that they had to force her to drink some dreamwine.
She would marry the recently widowed Balon Greyjoy.
“From a doe, to a rose to a squib” had joked Jaime before looking at her face and lowering his eyes, ashamed.
“Cersei, not be a fool! He already has three sons and a daughter, he will not treat you bad if you are still barren!” Tywin’s tone was very matter of fact.
It hurts.
She had been queen and now she was navigating the beds of half of the great houses of Westeros, for a lord who could make her pregnant.
She hoped this would be her last station.
She married Balon Greyjoy.
She got no pleasure from his bed, the same she hadn't received in her previous marriages.
“You are more a cold fish than a lioness, I will see that you become warm enough for carrying my child”
Despite everything Balon teached her to do, she didn't became warm enough to become pregnant.
Eight years later he rebelled to King Stannis.
This time Cersei not only lost another husband she wasn't fond of, her right hand was smashed by a falling wall.
It was her brother Jaime who found her crawling, half dead and mad with pain.
He rescued her, found a maester who cleaned her stump, but Cersei didn't got better at all.
“You charlatan! My sister is dying!” he shouted.
How often he had rued the cruel words he had spoken about his sister diminished worth, how he’d jested about her changing houses, how he hadn't done nothing to help her.
With his wife and his father dead, he didn't want to lose another loved one.
“Your sister doesn't want to live. She doesn't fight against the fever.”
He took the maester by his dirty collar.
Bullshit, Cersei had been always a fighter, but he remembered how she had looked since she'd been wed. How few of her proud and mischievous nature had remained after the glares from their father.
How spent she had looked the last time he had seen her, even before their father’s death.
“What can I do?” he had meekly asked, very unlike him.
“You can give her a reason to live, my lord”
What could be a reason to live for his childless, thrice widowed sister?
“Cersei you have to become healthy already!”
“So I can marry? Who is next? Oberyn Martell? A Plumm? A Frey?”
There hadn't been any challenge in her voice only deep resignation.
“I'd hoped you could stay at the Rock, Jason is only three moons old, he needs a loving aunt and I need someone whom I can trust the Rock. Could you be my Lady Lannister?”
She opened her eyes who were suddenly filled with something like hope.
She flushed and he couldn't help but notice how beautiful she was, even in her state.
Half a corpse, half a Goddess.
It was instantly love between Jason and his aunt.
She had prayed so much to have a child, an heir for her husbands, the prove of her worth.
Because she had to have a child.
Jason was Jaime's, so he was her flesh and blood too, how very fortunate for her that Lysa had died.
The other nephews were older, more Tully like, but respectful and loving boys.
Jaime ordered some ivory hands to cover her stump, he had wanted gold, but it was too heavy for her. They were beautiful, elegant creations who masked her handicap.
Her missing hand a reason to abandon the needleworks she loathed.
She decided not to wear black for her latest mourning, Balon had been a traitor to the realm.
Crimson and gold, were her gowns, she didn't need to play the pliant wife anymore nor the dutiful daughter, she was a Lioness of the Rock and she ruled.
How very fortunate for her that her father had died.
Jaime didn't mind her ruling, he was more amused than everything.
Her days were filled, she was happy for the first time since the delusion of her first wedding.
Her happiness was blown away as her aunt Gemma asked her if Jaime was ready to marry again.
A new wife for her brother meant a mother for Jason and a new Lady Lannister, some younger vapid maid, would take her rightful place.
She would make sure that Jaime wouldn't be interested in a new marriage.
She would rule his home and his bed.
She knew what she had to do. Robert and Balon had teached her how to make a man happy.
A few days after her resolution she found herself laying in Jaime’s bed with her brother’s head between her legs, his mouth and tongue doing things and evoke feelings she didn't thought were possible.
When he was finally inside her she felt right and complete, safe and happy.
She wept.
“This is what is supposed to feel like? This...perfect?” her voice a raucous whisper, still in awe and unbelieving.
“Do men feel like this too?” He was lazily kissing her back, caressing her body.
He was proud to be the first man to have pleasured her.
His beautiful passionate sister was eight and thirty and receiving satisfaction for the first time.
“This is how it will always be between us. Perfect.”
And perfect it was.
For scarcely a year.
Cersei was a mother to Jason and a wife to Jaime.
They had planned to travel to a Tourney at Riverrun but little Jason hadn't feel well and the hours spent taking care of him had worried Cersei, Jaime and his three oldest would go without them.
That night they made love, the next day they say goodbye like normal siblings.
Cersei missed Jaime, but she enjoyed to have her little boy all to herself and to spoil him.
She felt fatigued and nauseating, she slept much more than she used to.
Sometimes she would cry, but those were tears of happiness.
For the first time since her mother's death, she felt loved.
She knew that Lord Tully wanted to keep his nephews as long as possible, but she hoped Jaime would find a way to come as fast as he could.
Someday the nausea was very bad, but she dislike the masters who had touched her intimate parts with their cold fingers, and who'd gave her a thousand useless portions.
A moon turn later she felt at long last better, the food tasted better than ever...a raven had announced Jaime’s arrival. She smiled, she had simply missed him.
It was a glowing woman who welcomed him back.
It didn't take long for Jaime to explain the changes in Cersei.
He witnessed Lysa’s four pregnancy and Tyrion hadn't spared with any details from his own experience.
His sister was pregnant. After three childless marriages, she was carrying his baby.
A lion.
His poor lovely twin didn't have any idea,she thought she had only missed him.
A daughter, she would surely give him a daughter as beautiful as she was, a little lioness whom he would spoil rotten.
He could already see her breastfeeding their little cub, looking at him like she often did, like she couldn't believe she wasn't dreaming.
After the streak of foolish proud happiness not only he had been the one who had satisfied her, he had been victorious where three men had failed, he felt fear.
Lysa had died for a mere cold, so frail she had been after giving birth to Jason. Their own grandmother and mother had died in childbed. Hadn't heard than childbirth was as murderous as a battlefield?
Cersei wasn't a young girl anymore.
Not to mention how Cersei couldn't gave birth to his bastard.
She was a grieving widow.
He was Lord Lannister, and he would have to marry her to someone, something he would never allow to happen.
He kissed his sleeping sister and woke the maester up.
He needed a portion.
He didn't felt like he was betraying her, this would be surely be safer for her than to carry a child full term, he felt sorrow for the child he would lose.
Cersei was more important to him.
He was there as Cersei began to wince and to moan. He was there as she began to cry and her skirt became dark, soaked with blood.
Only the maester and himself witnessed the painful torture Cersei had gone through.
He would never forget how her pained cries became desperate wails once she saw what her body had expelled.
Never in his life he had hated and despised someone more than he did himself in that moment as the feverish Cersei begged for his forgiveness for not having been able to give him a child.
He kissed her, caressed her hair, trying not to hear how she thanked him for having be there for her and for loving her despite her failures.
He wanted just to forget everything.
Cersei didn't seem able to recover, the fever never left her, she couldn't stand from her bed.
She hadn't wanted to be visited by the maester
One day he saw her smiling, really smiling for the first time since her abort.
She took his hands and placed them on her belly.
“It must be a girl. She couldn't hold her twin by his heels, like you did with me.”
Jaime was shocked.
He forced Cersei to allow the maestar to visit her.
“Lady Cersei was carrying twins and the portion made her lose one “ explained the master.
His face was full of fear and pity as he told him that both children in his sister's womb died with and that the swelling and the movement were caused by his rotting.
His sister would die.
Jaime never left his sister’s side anymore.
Soon her room started to smell like wet hay, her eyes were sparkling, her cheeks rosy, she was emaciated till her bones, with a big grotesque swollen belly.
It was growing too fast and too big for any normal pregnancy, but she was blissful unaware always caressing the bulge, talking about the daughter they would have.
He had to fondle the bulge who would bring her death.
“Jaime” she woke up from one on her feverish slumbers.
“Yes, sweet sister?” he couldn't rest, he'd killed her.
She had trusted him and he had killed her.
“She'll get a sword, when she is old enough?” She asked him frantic
“Of course she will! Our daughter will be the best sword woman in Westeros”
He could see how happy she was and he knew, he would never be happy again.
Death was merciful to Cersei Lannister.
No once was she aware of her dying.
She didn't saw how the flesh melted from Jaime’s face now filled with raw desperation.
She didn't recognize Jason's crying.
In her delirious dreams she live through the stations in her life, but she wasn't alone, Jaime was always with her.
He was a Kingsguard in King's Landing, he was her sworn shield and the father of her children.
Her only ray of light amidst the darkness of the Red Keep.
He was a barden in Highgarden, where they kissed among roses.
He wrote songs about the golden Rose from Casterly Rock.
He was a pirate who kidnapped her from the gloomy halls of Pyke, she was alternatively his salt wife, his friend and his best sailor.
The fear to be ‘rescued’ by her husband only made their coupling more thrilling.
At last she was at Casterly Rock and she saw Jaime, an older Jason and a little blonde curled girl.
Both men were teaching the little girl to fight with a sword.
“Mama look at me! I'm good!” The three winked and smiled at her.
She smiled back.
Cersei Lannister died with a bright smile on her lips.