You Know Nothing || Cersei Lannister (GxG)

XXIII.

This chapter is dedicated to @mariaantonia55 for reading and voting😘

<Paityn Stark>

There came a small knock on my door in the late afternoon. I had been reading, something to pass the time while Sansa avoided me and Cersei had affairs to take care of.

"Come in." I called, and she entered, the hem of her long red robe dragging behind her. "What's wrong, love?" I asked, taking in the worried expression on her face.

"I have to tell you something." Cersei said, beginning to pace back and forth on the cold stone floor as I put my book down, listening intently. "Once, whenever I was young, I went to a psychic named Maggy. I demanded that she tell me my future. She told me that I would marry a king, and that he would have several children, while I only had three. She told me... she told me that I would be Queen, until another would come along, younger and more beautiful than I. This-" she gesticulated wildly as she spoke ten words for every breath. "That- smirking whore from Highgarden- she's the young and beautiful Queen that usurps me. She's already got her talons in Joffrey, she- she's... so good at acting good. I just know it-" she huffed as she paced, her heels clicking on the floor and her hands balling into fists.

"Love," I cooed, taking her hands in my own. "Slow down. Who's the smirking whore from Highgarden? Why do you think she's trying to usurp you?"

"Because the prophecy-" she began, a wild look in her emerald eyes. It was as if... the green was fading.

"Shh." I told her, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear and sitting her down on the bed. "Talk to me. Pretend I'm the only other person in the world."

She sighed, chuckling as she leaned into the touch of my hand, holding my palm to her cheek. "My little wolf, if you were the only other person in the world I couldn't think of any reason to stress for the rest of my life. But since you aren't... I'm always worried for my children. You know that. They can't look out for themselves, and the gods know my son has no idea how to rule a chamber pot, let alone the Seven Kingdoms. I fear that I may be... a bit overbearing at times. And, I fear I may suffer in grief for it."

"Tell me, my Queen, of this girl from Highgarden."

"You remember the one." She sighed. "Brown hair, pretty face, obviously quite proud of her chest area..."

"The one you told your son to cast my sister aside for?" I asked, and she sighed once more.

"Yes, yes. That one. Margaery Tyrell." She made no attempt to deny the fact or even move her hands anymore. "I must confess... I made a mistake. She has no interest in my son. She just wants to be Queen. And I fear that she will turn Joffrey against me."

"You're doing quite a bit of fearing, I'm afraid. Why do you think this?" I asked, playing with her cold, ringed fingers.

"I told you, I may have been too overbearing with my children, and now any chance they get to be rid of me, they take it. I can't... live like this anymore."

"Cersei..." I told her. "You're a good mother. You have concern for your children, and you'd like to protect them for the rest of their lives, but the truth is, you can't. There comes a time in every parent's life when they have to let go, and trust that their children can make it on their own. You're getting close to that time with Joffrey, and you know you've already surpassed that time with Myrcella."

"Yes." A tear rolled down her cheek. "But I wonder... must I let go?"

"Yes." I responded. "You must trust the gods that everything will be okay."

"The old or the new?" She asked me. "The Seven? The... Lord of Light?" She mocked the name as if it were Stannis Baratheon himself and not his beliefs.

"All of them." I told her. "Plus the Drowned God, the Many-Faced God... the Black Goat of Qohor. I pray to all for their mercy on us."

"You're starting to sound like your sister, you know." She teased lightly, lacing her fingers into mine. "The gods aren't merciful, that's why they're gods."

"You don't know this, love. Think about it this way... despite all the things we've done- many that gods and men alike condemn- and the people we are... we're still living, aren't we? There must be purpose hiding somewhere."

"You are my purpose." She brought my hand up to her mouth and kissed my knuckles. "And I suppose you're right."

"I always am, aren't I?" I teased, and she rolled her eyes, laying her head on my shoulder.

"Where would I be without you?" She asked me quietly, and I pressed a kiss into her golden hair.

"I don't know, and I hope I never have to find out."

~

Moments after Cersei's breathing was stable and it was clear she was asleep, I took her fingers gently from between my own and slipped out of the bed, taking my circular mirror from the desk.

I looked at my reflection closely; my long, slender face, framed by dark hair that brushed my shoulders. I touched my sharp nose as my dark eyes- shaded even more by the single few candles that lit the dim room- followed me. I brushed the faded scars on my pale skin; the one separating my left eyebrow, the one in a horizontal line near my right ear, and the one on my jaw where Arya had cut me with a kitchen knife (on accident, of course.)

My eyes left the mirror for only a second to glance at Cersei, soft snores leaving her parted lips, and when I glanced back at my reflection, a young lion was staring back at me. I gasped, and the image faded away, returning my normal reflection to the mirror. I placed it back down on the desk and rested my hand on the wall beside the full length mirror, staring deep into my own dark eyes.

"You are a Stark of Winterfell. You are a direwolf." I whispered to myself, squeezing my eyes shut. "You are not a Lannister of Casterly Rock. You are not a lion."

"All that could change, my love." Cersei's lips brushed my ear as she spoke, wrapping her arms around my waist.

"How?" I asked as she kissed the faded scar on the right side of my face.

"If we were to be married, you would take my name, wouldn't you?" She asked, my fingers slipping inside of hers as she nipped at my skin lightly.

"We will never be married." I told her, and she stopped kissing me. "You know that."

"Maybe." She said. "And maybe I want to imagine hearing you say the words and wrap me in your cloak of protection and having my kids think of you as their other mother."

"Why imagine things?" I asked her, our eyes meeting, to which she replied,

"Why not? Life would be so terribly boring without imagined things, don't you think?"

"I suppose so." I said, and she released me from her grasp, only to pull me back into a forward embrace, my hands on the small of her back and her head on my shoulder.

"We could go to Dorne." She whispered. "Or somewhere south, where it's sunny and warm and no one cares who you fuck."

"What about your daughter?" I asked. "And your sons? And King's Landing and Casterly Rock and-"

She took my face gingerly in her hands and pressed her lips to my own, cutting off my words.

"One day, when I believe my work here is done, and my children will be okay without my protection, and I'm ready to leave everything behind, I swear to you that we will be married. When this happens, you will get all of my time and love and attention, and no longer will you be a Stark. You can leave your old life behind and we can build a new one, together. But until that day comes, my little wolf, you are mine and mine only. Remember that." She told me, kissing my forehead.

"If I know nothing, my love, the one thing I do know is that I am yours."