Day Two: Snow had fallen, snow on snow (Jaime/Cersei/Sansa)
Giftee: simply_aly
Title: Snow had fallen, snow on snow
Fandom: A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones
Pairing: Jaime Lannister/Cersei Lannister/Sansa Stark
Rating: M+
Word Count: 2025
Prompt: A fairytale plot (could be AU), but with all the roles mixed up. (So Jaime's not the hero and Sansa's not the damsel and maybe Cersei's not the villain.) And a happy ending is not required.
Notes: This story is loosely based on Hans Christian Andersen's "The Snow Queen", with Jaime as Kai, Cersei as Gerda, and Sansa as the Snow Queen. I've visited this idea before in a drabble, but this is a fuller adaptation. The title comes from "In the Bleak Midwinter" by Christina Rossetti.
A pain erupts behind his eyes, stinging and immediate. It happens often now; Jaime cannot say when it began or why it began, but it torments him daily. His jaw tightens and his blood boils with fury- he clenches his remaining fist until his fingernails scrape the flesh of his palm- he wants to scream and rage into the heavens...but the wide winter sky, with its palette of whites and greys and icy blues, would surely take no interest in his suffering.
These are the days when he sees her everywhere. Every snow-covered tree branch becomes her white neck, delicate enough to snap in two. Every glimmer of morning sunlight on pine boughs reminds him of gold and green, her hair, her eyes...he wants to burn the forests down, to drown her colors in furious licks of orange and red.
Everything assaults his senses; he finds himself screaming at servants and snarling at knights and glowering at anyone who dares to cross his path. Eventually, he shuts himself away in his chambers, complaining of sickness. He lies in the dark, the heat of his anger searing his skin, sweat mixing with tears as his head throbs and throbs and throbs. His heart splits like an open wound; the agony will surely take him soon.
He languishes somewhere in the realm between sleeping and waking when he hears his chamber door open. Surely a servant or a page; the pain twists like screws in his temples, and he opens his mouth to demand that the fool leave him at once.
But then he catches a whiff of juniper, accompanied by something floral and sweet and feminine. Moonlight trickles through his window casement and limns the approaching figure in silver: a woman, tall and lissome, hair wild and unbound, wrapped in a cloak of pure white fur.
“My Queen,” he whispers. And so she is. He found her, he rode at her side, he fought to win her this barren, icy, forbidding place she calls home. The pursuit and conquest kept him anchored, kept him occupied- he finds it easier to be the winter queen’s man than to think of what else he might be. But now the prize is won; she sits the great throne of wood and stone, eyes blue as ice and hair red as blood and skin white as snow. Without the urgency of the fight, he leaves himself vulnerable to the old aches and the old sorrows- what some call peace, he only knows as emptiness.
She perches on the edge of his bed; the light reveals her more fully now, and he can clearly see the glitter of her blue eyes, unfathomable as ever. The fur she wears is thick and plush, and for a moment, he wishes nothing more than to bury his hands and face in it. But then the stinging pierces his skull and his body burns as if taken with fever- he falls into his pillows and sucks a laborious breath into his mouth as his heart rattles against his breastbone.
And then she touches him. Her tiny hand rests on his shoulder, and he can feel the chill of her cool skin through the sweat-dampened tunic he wears. The heat that racks his body begins to melt away; she leans over him and brushes the back of her other hand over his cheek, and he shivers with a relieved sort of pleasure.
“You’re in pain,” she says in her matter-of-fact way, her face drawing close to his own- even the whisper of her breath feels deliciously cold. He nods his acquiescence, and she drops the fur from her shoulders. She’s bare underneath, molded from ice and snow, flawless in her pallor. Her eyes twinkle; he’s nearly hypnotized by the way the moonlight sparkles in the blue of her irises. And then her lips, red red, full and soft and as cool as the rest of her as she presses her mouth to his.
His tongue moves past her lips; the more he has of her, the less he feels the pain. His fingers and toes tingle, then go numb- she’s like milk of the poppy, but more heady, more potent. She deftly removes his tunic and breeches, and he moans when she splays herself over him, chest to chest, stomach to stomach, groin to groin. The last of the scalding, feverish agony drains away, and he wraps his arms around his queen, holding her close, bruising her ruby lips with his kisses.
Fighting and fucking- that’s all that chases the nothingness away. She takes him into her, and she’s cool there, too- every inch of her a salve, a palliative, meant to soothe and gentle and comfort. He loses himself in her, again and again and again, until she gathers his head against her breast and guides him into a deep, deep sleep.
He dreams of summer. He’s a child again, wading barefoot in the shallows at the base of the Rock, sand between his toes and sea-salt in his hair. She rushes to him from the opposite end of the beach, the sun combing its fingers through her curls, a warm blush staining her cheeks.
“I want to play knight and damsel,” she insists, tapping his shoulder with the bouquet of wildflowers she holds.
“Very well,” he laughs before reaching down to grab a long stick of driftwood, which he brandishes like a sword. “What shall I save you from this time, my lady?”
“No,” she replies, wrinkling her nose and shaking her head. “I want to save you this time.”
He smiles and nods his agreement. But before his sister can name her terms, he drops his stick and jumps in the water, paddling toward a tall, craggy rock several lengths away. He climbs to the top of the rock and reaches his arms out, squealing at the top of his voice, “Rescue me from my tower, ser! Hurry, before the wicked monsters return!”
A determined gleam flashes in her green eyes, and she tosses her flowers into the surf; he watches as the waves tear them to pieces. She’s wearing her new red silk slippers, but she carelessly kicks them off- they too disappear into the murky waters. And then she swims, gown and all, fighting the choppy waves, moving closer and closer.
She tears the skirt of her dress to ribbons as she climbs the sharp edges of the rock formation. When she reaches the top, she throws her arms around him and kisses him full on the mouth, parting just long enough to say, “I saved you. You’re mine.”
The pain in his head returns the next morning, as harsh as ever before. Jaime walks out onto the grounds, hoping that the icy winter air will bring him some small relief. The Queen has shut herself away with her bannermen for the day; the memory of the previous night brings a thrilled flutter to his heart, but it proves far from enough to placate him.
Wispy clouds hang in the sky, drifting into formations. One gathering in the distance resembles the curve of a woman’s hip, the tapering of a small waist, the swell of full breasts- his hand clenches again, and he finds himself spinning, spiraling- only thoughts of her treachery occupy his mind, punctuated with the occasional morbid fantasy of how he’d like to fuck her and tear her to shreds and hold her and grind her bones to powder.
He falls into a nearby snow drift, desperate for the touch of cold against his skin. This snow is freshly-fallen; he opens his mouth and lets the clean flakes coat his tongue. So many moons of dirtied snow, dented with footprints and horse tracks, stained with dirt and grime and so much blood...the blood of the Boltons and their supporters, the blood of the Valemen who rode North with their lady...the blood of little Pod as he lay dying from a stab-wound...the blood of Brienne when an axe caught her from behind, burying its head between her shoulders...
He screams into the drift, the powdery snow muffling his cries.
The Queen comes to him again that night, after he cleanses himself of the melted snow and returns to his chambers in a blur of pain and perspiration. He pins her beneath him, running his tongue along the curve of her neck, lavishing kisses on her breasts, parting her legs and tasting the cool, herbaceous sweetness of her sex. All the while, she rubs circles into his back and combs her little fingers through his hair; she kisses her own arousal from his lips and tilts her hips until he thrusts into her, and the it’s the numbness again, the chasing away of thoughts and fears and anguish and loss- he’s only here, only now, wrapped in his Queen’s embrace, safely inside her. She sighs her pleasure, echoing the winter winds and distant wolf howls, and he’s drunk on her, dizzy with need, unable to think of anything but the brush of her fingers and the roll of her hips.
He spills inside her, and he falls asleep still kissing her lips.
He dreams himself in his father’s study at Casterly Rock. He’s seven years old, and he frowns at the letter tiles set in front of him. Lord Tywin had commanded that he spell a list of words with the tiles; he’s been at it for hours, but to no avail- the letters in his head refuse to remain in place. He grinds his teeth and grunts his frustration- it is a beautiful day, but he’s not permitted to go out to play until he completes the task.
The door creaks open, and she approaches his table with an indignant frown, demanding to know why he hasn’t come out to join her in the yard.
He tells her of his assignment, and she orders him to recite the list for her. He does, one by one, and she hastily moves the tiles about until they spell the words correctly.
“What’s the last word?” she asks.
“Eternity.”
“Eternity. That means forever.”
“I know what it means,” he sniffs, and she places her hands on either side of his face, pressing her brow to his.
“Like you and me. Forever.”
She turns her head, her cheek still pressed to his, and arranges the tiles.
“All finished. Now come.”
He grasps her hand, fingers entwined with fingers, and they dash away. Together.
(Forever.)
He wakes, and no pain lurks behind his eyes or hammers at his temples. The familiar rage still simmers in his blood, but he welcomes it, for he knows where it must go and what it must do.
His phantom right hand tingles as his heartbeat quickens- it is time to ride south, to face down golden hair and green eyes and betrayal and yearning and hate and love, to scrape the marrow from the skeleton of his past and find out what “forever” really means-
He turns his head to see the Queen standing at the foot of his bed, swathed in her white fur cloak, watching him impassively. His stomach twists, and he wonders how to explain, how to ask-
And then she nods, slowly and deliberately. He moves down on the bed and reaches for her, intending to pull her back down and fall into her for a third and final time-
But she steps back and shakes her ruddy head. Something shines in her eyes, something that quite resembles tears, as she turns on her heel and sweeps through the door.
A short time later, Jaime hears a jingling of bells in the yard below his window. He glances out to see the Queen’s sledge soaring through the thick snow, heading for the Northern hills.
She’ll not be there to see him off. He’ll saddle his horse and gallop for the kingsroad, the sleigh bells still echoing in his ears, and although the agonizing headaches will never return, he’ll feel a new pain blossoming in his chest, which he’s sure he’ll carry with him until the end of his days.