( COMPLETE. ) ROSE | ❛ loving them was tragic. letting them love her back was dangerous. ❜
in which they both loved her, and in the end it didn't matter.
CERSEI LANNISTER / OC
JAIME LANNISTER / OC
standalone short story.
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rose. a short story. the end of the story. part five ━ the girl at the end of the story.
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❛ the little girl who turned her claws into wings, and her sharp teeth into songs. she spread her wings and flew. ❜
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POTENTIALLY TRIGGERING SCENES AHEAD. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.
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KING'S LANDING.
CERSEI REMEMBERS THE DAY AS CLEARLY AS ANYTHING.
As clearly as the day she became Queen. As clearly as the day she birthed her first child. The memory of it is seared into her soul, her grief a potent, poisonous thing. When you lose the one you love, it leaves a hole inside of you. One that, for all the world, can never be filled.
Jaime remembers, too. Golden hair and pale skin and all that blood.
They can both remember, but only Rose knows how that day came to pass.
On that day, a broken girl sways in the wind, a light and fragile thing, as if a single gust might tip her over.She spreads her arms wide, and feels the gritty stone ledge beneath her bare feet, and thinks she is free for the first time in years. Nights wrapped up in the arms of her cousins cannot compare to this. They quiet the demons for minutes, maybe hours ━ but this, Rose, this will quiet them forever.
She thinks of the things she is leaving behind. The people she loves whom she does not want to hurt. She thinks of her sweet, pious mother, who gave birth to a baby boy named Lancel a month or two ago, and that her new brother will grow up never knowing her. Rose hopes, though, that he'll know how much she loves him already. Part of her thinks it is better this way.
Her father gains an heir and loses a burden.
She thinks of Jaime and Cersei, whom whisper of the great plan that Cersei has concocted, and how it will never come to pass. This will be better as well. Jaime will marry Lysa Arryn or some other worthy woman, and be named as Lord of Casterly Rock when Tywin dies, and he will be happy.
Cersei will be happy, too. Someday she will marry a prince, if Tywin has his way, and she will have the golden-haired children that she sees in her dreams. She might even name one of them after the cousin she loved and lost that night.
This way, Rose doesn't have to choose. This way, Rose gets to be happy, too.
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ON THE DAY BEFORE CERSEI AND JAIME INTEND TO INFORM THEIR FATHER OF JAIME'S INTENTIONS TO WED ROSE, SOLDIERS FIND HER BROKEN BODY ON THE GROUND BENEATH THE TOWER SHE STAYED IN.
Cersei will insist, later, that Rose had been pushed, she must have been pushed, because Rose would not kill herself. Rose would not leave them behind. She's furious, because the culprit must be found, and she cannot face the idea that Rose would leave them. That Rose is dead at all.
When Cersei is Queen, once the war is over and the world is different, she will never have the courage to step inside that tower. She'll order Rose's room to be sealed, and no one will ever step foot in it again. She will not find the note that her cousin left upon the nightstand. It gathers dust as the years go by, and Cersei will never let go of the idea that one of them, a golden lion, could kill herself.
I LOVED YOU BOTH. I'M SORRY. I WANT IT ALL TO STOP. I'M SORRY.
Tywin has his niece's body laid out in the Great Sept, because she is his favourite brother's daughter, and she is a Lannister, and she deserves the respect her family name provides. When Jaime goes to see her, he cannot keep himself from crying.
He cannot look at her and see the painted stones resting over her eyes. He cannot look at her and see the faint pinkish hue of her once-golden hair, because they could not quite get the blood out. Her body will be interred in the tomb at Casterly Rock, at his and Cersei's request. Tywin agrees, because they were so close to their cousin. The girl deserves all the ceremony they can offer.
She was brave, after all.
Ser Kevan does not wait to bury his daughter. He leaves the next day, and returns to his keep to see his wife and hold his new son and heir for the first time. He tells Lady Dorna that their daughter is dead.
It is not the sort of news that should be delivered by raven.
Jaime Lannister applies for a position in the Kingsguard as soon as he can. If he cannot marry Rose, he will not marry anyone, because nobody can compare to her. In part, he understands better than anybody. He is the one who found her in the stables. He was the first to lay eyes on how truly broken she was.
He is the one who told her that she could be a bird, if she wanted to.
I DIDN'T MEAN TO LET HER DOWN.
There is a guilt in his stomach that eats him alive. When he tries to talk to Cersei about it, she denies that it ever happened. She says that Rose was a lion, and that lions are brave and strong, and that a lion would never try and jump from a tower.
It is then that Jaime realises that, while Cersei loved Rose with all her heart, she never understood her. She'd never understand her. She does not realise that Rose was never a lion, like them.
Rose was always a bird.
And she only ever wanted tofly away.
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A/N: we've reached the end of rose. i hope this chapter is okay !! i know it's very abrupt and very very short, but death is abrupt and i only wanted to showcase how rose came into this mindset and how her mental health wasn't really recognised or helped, and how other characters coped with a; her death and b; realising that rose hadn't been well all this time ( specifically jaime, because cersei is in denial. she was in denial when rose told her about her mental health, and she's in denial now rose is dead. she never really stops being in denial. ) i hope none of you are disappointed by how short or abrupt this is !! i couldn't think of ending this story in any other way, and i hope you're all okay with that. rose has been such a complex character to write, and i sincerely hope i've done her justice ! EDIT: even when editing this chapter, six months after first publishing it, i can't think of anything i want to change. maybe a short-ish excerpt set in the future where jaime tries to enter the tower and cersei stops him?? and maybe i will write that one day if anyone wants it, but for now, i still think this chapter was my best shot at ending this story appropriately.
