You Know Nothing || Cersei Lannister (GxG)

LXXI. (THE PENULTIMATE CHAPTER?)

A/N: this new layout is wEiRd. Anyway, welcome back, you guys! We're rapidly approaching the end of this fic and... well, it's been nice reading your comments and suggestions and seeing you add this story to your reading list and vote for chapters... I told myself I was going to wait to get emotional for the very last chapter, but here we are. Thank you all so much for supporting me in this endeavor, and watching me mature in my writing (for almost two years now! Wow!)
A/N, 2: Also, the Dragonpit meeting in my story is a tad different from its show counterpart!

"What's wrong, love?" I asked as she sat on the throne with perfect posture, ringed fingers wrapping around the handles, her neck bent slightly from the weight of the crown. I couldn't help but think: she looked as though she truly belonged there. She always had, even when sitting at her husband and sons' sides.

"You are to kneel when addressing your Queen." She tilted her head towards me, but I couldn't see my lioness behind her eyes. It was just... emptiness.

"Cersei, are you alright?" I approached the platform, keeping my shoulders forward in submission.

"You are to use precise language when addressing your Queen." She continued, saying things that had absolutely no meaning. At least, not to me. I mean, I wasn't one of her subjects. Granted, I would protect her at all costs, but I wasn't required to get on my knees unless I was tasting her.

"Cersei..." I held my hand out in surrender. As I got closer, I could see the tears streaming down her face. "What is it? What's the matter? Cersei, please tell me so I know how to comfort you."

"You can't comfort me." She showed some semblance of herself at last. She took a short, shuddery breath. "You won't understand it. You won't appreciate it."

"Who cares if I understand or appreciate it?" I replied, grabbing her hands. I knelt before her, finally. "My sole purpose in this life is to love and support you. To be a shoulder to cry on. To pour your wine in the morning. To-"

"News... Winterfell... your bastard brother."

"Jon? But I thought he took the black-"

"He died, so they say. Mutiny." She stood, wandered behind the throne, as if playing hide and seek. "The Red Woman brought him back somehow, and there's been- there's- I can't-"

"Cersei!" I exclaimed. "You will tell me why you are so incoherent this moment or I will... I will..."

"White Walkers." She said. "He says that they're beyond the wall and that they're coming."

"White Walkers? Jon died?" I leaned against the throne's arm and sat in the short stool beside it.

"The Targaryen girl has ventured across the sea somehow. She now seats at Dragonstone. Your bastard brother seems to have made an alliance with her."

"I don't- I don't understand. How could all of this have been going on right under our noses and we had no idea?"

"I've been so lost in politics, and you." Cersei reached out, hand settling on my shoulder. "They're on their way down here as we speak."
"What? Why?"

"To beg for my armies, I suppose." She crossed to the table and poured herself a glass of wine. "I don't trust them. I don't trust my brother, I don't trust your brother, and I don't trust the Targaryen girl and her dragons."

"But what if they are telling the truth, my love?" I asked. It was so quiet that you could hear the flames whistle in the torches. "What if winter is coming for us all?"

"You're afraid." She dismissed the thought.

"You're afraid." I corrected. "Just moments ago, you were wondering what to do. Cersei." I stood and crossed to her, running my fingertips along the indentions of her face. "You don't have to know all the answers, and you don't have to pretend to know all the answers. At least not for me."