ASOIAF/GOT fic: These, our bodies, possessed by light
Pairing: Jaime/Cersei
Rating: R
Length: 1792
Status: Complete
Warnings: Canonical incest, sex, swearing
Notes: Written for got_exchange Round Three. Title and cut text from Richard Siken's poem "Scheherazade."
These, our bodies, possessed by light
She has sent away her maids, a bevy of mousy girls who scuttle about as though she will have them killed if they breathe too loudly. Two weeks she has dealt with them, let them bobble frightened curtsies and tiptoe about her as they fit her gown, but she has no more patience left for them. As soon as they finish lacing the stays - tight and tighter still, she must be perfect - she orders them away. The flee, and at last she is alone, none but her reflection for company.
The mirror shows her exactly what she wishes to see.
Her dress is gold silk, frothed with Myrish lace; a golden cage for a golden queen. Bound up in it, Cersei looks more a treasure than a woman. Fitting, she thinks. In her wedding dress she is the wealth and allegiance of Casterly Rock, hung with gold and bought with blood, a jewel given to adorn the Baratheon king's new crown.
The Targaryen crowns have all been melted down, dragons consigned to the fire and destroyed by it, reforged into Baratheon antlers. Perhaps as a girl, young and enraptured by the silver prince, she would have mourned. But she is a girl no longer, and so instead she finds it fitting; the dragons are gone, slain by the man who will take her as queen.
Robert was forged in battle, a king born of war. She measures him against her memories of Rhaegar, and does not find him wanting. There is no air of madness about him, no melancholy weighting down his limbs. He moves with the strength that felled a dynasty, and as she watches him she thinks that perhaps he is truly the king for whom she is meant to be queen.
But all thoughts of Robert Baratheon are swept away as the door eases open to reveal her brother. Jaime steps from the shadows of the hall, shining and resplendent, ever the reflection of her own self, blindingly, brilliantly gold.
"My queen," he says, and the words shiver through her, as if they have more weight coming from his lips than they do in her own mind.
His eyes are hot upon her, dark with lust and a jealous possessiveness that finds it's match in her own eyes. They are one and the same, a single soul in two bodies, twinned and twined, each reflecting the other. Her breath hitches, comes sharp in the face of all that golden beauty, but she will be queen, and so she finds her voice.
"Come to pay your respects, ser?" she asks, royal and haughty save for the tremble in her voice that belies the heat pooling in her belly, the want flooding her veins.
"Indeed," he replies. His voice is low and rough, desire naked in his tone, but he makes no move cross the threshold into her chambers. Into the queen's suite.
She has not bid him enter, she realizes. Ever the dutiful knight, he waits for his queen's command.
"Ser Jaime," she says, "brother."
He shudders at the word.
"Brother," she says again, "come and greet your queen."
He prowls toward her, a lion, and she meets him as a lioness, her mouth hungry on his. Their lips and teeth and tongues crash like the waves against the shore at Casterly Rock, wild and relentless until Jaime pulls away, pupils blown wide, breath catching in his throat.
"Tell me," he says, and his voice is hoarse. "Tell me what you want."
What she wants.
She wants everything; need is a heavy, molten thing in her bones, thick like honey in her veins. She wants him buried deep inside her, wants his body slick and hot against hers, wants to seize him in a kiss and never pull away, just press and press until they fuse together, until nothing can prize them apart.
She aches with the wanting of it, but Jaime's breath fans hot against her face, pushing away everything but her golden brother, standing before her as he waits for her command.
"Kneel," she tells him.
He does.
Hours from now, Robert will place a cloak on her shoulders; she will share his bed and give him an heir and find some undiscovered corner of her heart for him to hold, some small part of her that doesn't belong already to Jaime. But all that will come later.
Here, now, with Jaime's mouth hot against her cunt and all her senses eclipsed by her golden brother, Robert has no claim on her.
It is Jaime who crowns her queen, holding her fast as she flies apart against his clever tongue, shaking and shuddering as her bones turn to glass.
He kisses her, his mouth still slick with the taste of her, tangling his fingers in her hair as he whispers against her lips.
"Queen, sweet sister, you are queen."
And she is.
They are married in the Great Sept of Baelor at high noon, the Kingsguard arrayed around them. It is Robert who places his cloak on her shoulders, a crowned stag for a crowned queen, but it is Jaime she thinks of. Jaime, always Jaime. Only ever Jaime.
The high septon sends up prayers to the Seven and Robert kisses her before the gathered court; they pronounce her queen.
Yes, she thinks in answer, I am.
Queen, sweet sister, you are queen.
Those are the words that echo in her head as Robert's men tear at her clothes, deposit her in the king's chambers, naked but for her ferocious pride.
I am queen.
Robert pounds into her with no finesse, made rough and sloppy by drink - he reeks of it, his breath foul and his mouth tasting of bitter Dornish wine. She says nothing, merely lets him rut furiously against her. She will have bruises come the morn, but bruises she can live with, this once. He won't always be this lost to drink, surely-
"Lyanna," he grunts, and her thoughts grind to a halt.
"Lyanna," he says a second, a third time, before he shudders and groans and spends himself in stuttering bursts.
He collapses on top of her, drunk and lost in memories of a corpse.
The weight of him is suffocating, spread on top of her as he is, a burial shroud for a marriage she knows is dead, as dead and cold as the bones of his fucking Stark, deep in Winterfell's dark crypt.
I'm alive, you bastard, she wants to scream, I'm alive, I'm right here, damn you-
She swallows the words, lets them burn as they slide back down her throat, settling heavy in her stomach. The taste of them is bitter, like failure and despair and all the other things that a Lannister never feels.
She tells herself they taste like hate instead, and when he shifts against her, the Stark girl's name again on his lips, it's not a lie at all.
The night is long, and she does not sleep.
Robert is dead to the world, still lost to drink and exhaustion, when she takes leave of their bed. She stands naked in front of the ornate mirror, lets the morning show what the night has wrought. There are bruises across the span of her hips, the shape of his hands printed in black and blue and purple all across her pale skin.
She catalogues each bruise, committing them all to memory. A Lannister always pays her debts, and Cersei is a Lannister first, a Lannister last and a Lannister always - she will repay Robert Baratheon, the first of his name, tenfold for each mark, for every utterance of a dead girl's name. Her hands linger over a particularly dark bruise, tender and sore beneath her breast, and for every second she stares at it she hates her husband a little more.
Her hatred sings in her veins, gives strength to her aching limbs, and she moves from the mirror to wrap herself in Lannister crimson. Her dressing gown is red and bold as blood, and it suits her now as it always has.
She bares her teeth at her reflection in the mirror, a mockery of a smile, predatory where it should be demure, wild where it should be tame. She laughs at the thought, armors herself with its truth. She is a Lannister, a lioness to her core, and someday, she vows, someday, she will pick her teeth with the bones of this stag. Her husband will die, and when he does, she will sit on the Iron Throne with Jaime at her side, a golden queen and her golden knight. The image is blinding, glorious, and she closes her eyes and lets it fill her vision, feels a true smile curling her lips.
Let Robert have her false smiles; they are all he shall have of her.
She stands and throws open the chamber door, lets her eyes fall on Jaime's golden form, gleaming bright even in the shadows of the hall. He stands silent and still, a sentinel with his hand curled dangerously around the pommel of his sword. He looks every inch a member of the Kingsguard, life and blade pledged to the king. But Jaime's eyes are burning, alight with the same rage that beats wildly through her veins. He is no knight of the Kingsguard - his life and blade are hers, always her, only hers.
"I'll kill him," he says, and she knows he would, knows that he would even if he hadn't killed a king already.
"No."
She breathes the word against his lips, pressing herself against him, heedless of her bruises, uncaring of the hard planes of his armor. His hand strays from his sword, strokes the pale line of her throat, tangles in the wild fall of her hair.
"No," she says again. "I will."
She drags him to her, licks into his mouth, hungry and desperate and he responds in kind, shuddering against her, and they are two halves of a golden sun, pressing together, burning hot and bright and gold, brother-self and sister-self with no space between--
They blaze as though nothing can touch them, and this, this is the future she will forge, a golden future for a golden queen.
She is queen, a Lannister and a lioness, and nothing will stop her.
Hear me roar, she thinks, exultant, as she and Jaime fumble their way to an empty chamber, struggling until they are naked as their name day, bodies joined as one as they were always meant to be, buried in and wrapped around each other until they lose where one ends and the other begins and the world shatters around them, bright and hot and endlessly gold.
Hear me roar.
Feedback is love!
Rating: R
Length: 1792
Status: Complete
Warnings: Canonical incest, sex, swearing
Notes: Written for got_exchange Round Three. Title and cut text from Richard Siken's poem "Scheherazade."
These, our bodies, possessed by light
She has sent away her maids, a bevy of mousy girls who scuttle about as though she will have them killed if they breathe too loudly. Two weeks she has dealt with them, let them bobble frightened curtsies and tiptoe about her as they fit her gown, but she has no more patience left for them. As soon as they finish lacing the stays - tight and tighter still, she must be perfect - she orders them away. The flee, and at last she is alone, none but her reflection for company.
The mirror shows her exactly what she wishes to see.
Her dress is gold silk, frothed with Myrish lace; a golden cage for a golden queen. Bound up in it, Cersei looks more a treasure than a woman. Fitting, she thinks. In her wedding dress she is the wealth and allegiance of Casterly Rock, hung with gold and bought with blood, a jewel given to adorn the Baratheon king's new crown.
The Targaryen crowns have all been melted down, dragons consigned to the fire and destroyed by it, reforged into Baratheon antlers. Perhaps as a girl, young and enraptured by the silver prince, she would have mourned. But she is a girl no longer, and so instead she finds it fitting; the dragons are gone, slain by the man who will take her as queen.
Robert was forged in battle, a king born of war. She measures him against her memories of Rhaegar, and does not find him wanting. There is no air of madness about him, no melancholy weighting down his limbs. He moves with the strength that felled a dynasty, and as she watches him she thinks that perhaps he is truly the king for whom she is meant to be queen.
But all thoughts of Robert Baratheon are swept away as the door eases open to reveal her brother. Jaime steps from the shadows of the hall, shining and resplendent, ever the reflection of her own self, blindingly, brilliantly gold.
"My queen," he says, and the words shiver through her, as if they have more weight coming from his lips than they do in her own mind.
His eyes are hot upon her, dark with lust and a jealous possessiveness that finds it's match in her own eyes. They are one and the same, a single soul in two bodies, twinned and twined, each reflecting the other. Her breath hitches, comes sharp in the face of all that golden beauty, but she will be queen, and so she finds her voice.
"Come to pay your respects, ser?" she asks, royal and haughty save for the tremble in her voice that belies the heat pooling in her belly, the want flooding her veins.
"Indeed," he replies. His voice is low and rough, desire naked in his tone, but he makes no move cross the threshold into her chambers. Into the queen's suite.
She has not bid him enter, she realizes. Ever the dutiful knight, he waits for his queen's command.
"Ser Jaime," she says, "brother."
He shudders at the word.
"Brother," she says again, "come and greet your queen."
He prowls toward her, a lion, and she meets him as a lioness, her mouth hungry on his. Their lips and teeth and tongues crash like the waves against the shore at Casterly Rock, wild and relentless until Jaime pulls away, pupils blown wide, breath catching in his throat.
"Tell me," he says, and his voice is hoarse. "Tell me what you want."
What she wants.
She wants everything; need is a heavy, molten thing in her bones, thick like honey in her veins. She wants him buried deep inside her, wants his body slick and hot against hers, wants to seize him in a kiss and never pull away, just press and press until they fuse together, until nothing can prize them apart.
She aches with the wanting of it, but Jaime's breath fans hot against her face, pushing away everything but her golden brother, standing before her as he waits for her command.
"Kneel," she tells him.
He does.
Hours from now, Robert will place a cloak on her shoulders; she will share his bed and give him an heir and find some undiscovered corner of her heart for him to hold, some small part of her that doesn't belong already to Jaime. But all that will come later.
Here, now, with Jaime's mouth hot against her cunt and all her senses eclipsed by her golden brother, Robert has no claim on her.
It is Jaime who crowns her queen, holding her fast as she flies apart against his clever tongue, shaking and shuddering as her bones turn to glass.
He kisses her, his mouth still slick with the taste of her, tangling his fingers in her hair as he whispers against her lips.
"Queen, sweet sister, you are queen."
And she is.
They are married in the Great Sept of Baelor at high noon, the Kingsguard arrayed around them. It is Robert who places his cloak on her shoulders, a crowned stag for a crowned queen, but it is Jaime she thinks of. Jaime, always Jaime. Only ever Jaime.
The high septon sends up prayers to the Seven and Robert kisses her before the gathered court; they pronounce her queen.
Yes, she thinks in answer, I am.
Queen, sweet sister, you are queen.
Those are the words that echo in her head as Robert's men tear at her clothes, deposit her in the king's chambers, naked but for her ferocious pride.
I am queen.
Robert pounds into her with no finesse, made rough and sloppy by drink - he reeks of it, his breath foul and his mouth tasting of bitter Dornish wine. She says nothing, merely lets him rut furiously against her. She will have bruises come the morn, but bruises she can live with, this once. He won't always be this lost to drink, surely-
"Lyanna," he grunts, and her thoughts grind to a halt.
"Lyanna," he says a second, a third time, before he shudders and groans and spends himself in stuttering bursts.
He collapses on top of her, drunk and lost in memories of a corpse.
The weight of him is suffocating, spread on top of her as he is, a burial shroud for a marriage she knows is dead, as dead and cold as the bones of his fucking Stark, deep in Winterfell's dark crypt.
I'm alive, you bastard, she wants to scream, I'm alive, I'm right here, damn you-
She swallows the words, lets them burn as they slide back down her throat, settling heavy in her stomach. The taste of them is bitter, like failure and despair and all the other things that a Lannister never feels.
She tells herself they taste like hate instead, and when he shifts against her, the Stark girl's name again on his lips, it's not a lie at all.
The night is long, and she does not sleep.
Robert is dead to the world, still lost to drink and exhaustion, when she takes leave of their bed. She stands naked in front of the ornate mirror, lets the morning show what the night has wrought. There are bruises across the span of her hips, the shape of his hands printed in black and blue and purple all across her pale skin.
She catalogues each bruise, committing them all to memory. A Lannister always pays her debts, and Cersei is a Lannister first, a Lannister last and a Lannister always - she will repay Robert Baratheon, the first of his name, tenfold for each mark, for every utterance of a dead girl's name. Her hands linger over a particularly dark bruise, tender and sore beneath her breast, and for every second she stares at it she hates her husband a little more.
Her hatred sings in her veins, gives strength to her aching limbs, and she moves from the mirror to wrap herself in Lannister crimson. Her dressing gown is red and bold as blood, and it suits her now as it always has.
She bares her teeth at her reflection in the mirror, a mockery of a smile, predatory where it should be demure, wild where it should be tame. She laughs at the thought, armors herself with its truth. She is a Lannister, a lioness to her core, and someday, she vows, someday, she will pick her teeth with the bones of this stag. Her husband will die, and when he does, she will sit on the Iron Throne with Jaime at her side, a golden queen and her golden knight. The image is blinding, glorious, and she closes her eyes and lets it fill her vision, feels a true smile curling her lips.
Let Robert have her false smiles; they are all he shall have of her.
She stands and throws open the chamber door, lets her eyes fall on Jaime's golden form, gleaming bright even in the shadows of the hall. He stands silent and still, a sentinel with his hand curled dangerously around the pommel of his sword. He looks every inch a member of the Kingsguard, life and blade pledged to the king. But Jaime's eyes are burning, alight with the same rage that beats wildly through her veins. He is no knight of the Kingsguard - his life and blade are hers, always her, only hers.
"I'll kill him," he says, and she knows he would, knows that he would even if he hadn't killed a king already.
"No."
She breathes the word against his lips, pressing herself against him, heedless of her bruises, uncaring of the hard planes of his armor. His hand strays from his sword, strokes the pale line of her throat, tangles in the wild fall of her hair.
"No," she says again. "I will."
She drags him to her, licks into his mouth, hungry and desperate and he responds in kind, shuddering against her, and they are two halves of a golden sun, pressing together, burning hot and bright and gold, brother-self and sister-self with no space between--
They blaze as though nothing can touch them, and this, this is the future she will forge, a golden future for a golden queen.
She is queen, a Lannister and a lioness, and nothing will stop her.
Hear me roar, she thinks, exultant, as she and Jaime fumble their way to an empty chamber, struggling until they are naked as their name day, bodies joined as one as they were always meant to be, buried in and wrapped around each other until they lose where one ends and the other begins and the world shatters around them, bright and hot and endlessly gold.
Hear me roar.
Feedback is love!