Hear me Roar - English version

CHAPTER 36 - Joff...

               Tyrion sent for me. Apparently, Sansa has refused to eat for days. He told me she wasn't sleeping either, and that she refused any contact. I understand her. I spent entire days on that bench, watching the waves crash against the rocks, and I found no comfort in it. If I had the luxury, I would isolate myself from society too.

               I enter the Godswood. I never come here. I have no need for it; I have always hated praying. Furthermore, since those revelations regarding my powers and R'hllor, I have preferred to keep my distance from any place of worship. I cannot deny, however, that the atmosphere here is heavy.

               My sister is settled lower down, her gaze fixed on a void. I know what she is thinking. Sansa is imagining their deaths; she is thinking of the suffering our mother and brother endured. It haunts me too. I don't know, therefore, if I am the right person to help her.

               Nevertheless, I join her on the bench anyway. She takes my hand in silence. Neither of us says a word. There is nothing to say.

               We will never go back home. And if either of us ever sets foot in Winterfell again, everything will have changed. The people we knew will no longer be there, and the walls will have been stained by the crimes of our enemies who betrayed us.

               The Boltons live there now. The mere thought of Ramsay being in the place where I grew up makes my skin crawl. He walks where I walked. And he must surely kill where my father forgave.

♐︎

"For a forty-year-old, one-handed knight?"

               It would seem Joffrey takes a malicious pleasure in tormenting his uncle. Or rather, his father. I wonder how he would behave if he knew the truth about Jaime. Would he hate him? For never being enough, for never taking care of him? Or would he be happy to learn that he is not the son of that drunkard Robert? It amounts to choosing between greyscale and the bloody flux.

              When I enter the room, Ser Jaime bows before me. Since his return to the capital, we haven't spoken much. However, we appreciate and respect each other greatly.

"Leave us."

               Ser Boros waits for Joffrey's permission to leave the room, but the King looks away. I fear he has no desire to talk to me. I understand him. Since the Red Wedding, I haven't stopped shouting at him. his lack of empathy and his cruelty finally affected me to the point where I could no longer remain silent.

"You too, Ser Jaime."

               What is peculiar about the Lannister's position is that he is one of the richest men in the country, the descendant of an ancestral house. And yet, as a Kingsguard, he is forced to obey my every whim.

               Once both men have left, I am finally alone with Joffrey.

"What do you want?" he asks me. "I haven't done anything to displease you this time, it seems to me."

"Well... I consider that we should reconcile."

               Joffrey's incomprehension disarms me. I thought he would be happy that I was proposing a truce, but he only looks surprised. Or rather, convinced that I am lying to him.

"Why...?"

               Perhaps because I hate the feeling of finding myself at the edge of the bed, alone. Because I am pregnant and the days are getting longer. Perhaps because I am tired of arguing with him. And perhaps because I miss his gentleness.