[ He laughs, first, at the sound of responsibility. At the thought of separation. ] Cersei and I are the same. You can't separate something that's whole without blood. [ He says this with conviction, with a bitter mix of pride and love and resignation; nothing else matters, but perhaps if he'd been a different man, other things might have.
Evidently, however, caring about things only ever leads to pain. Loving Cersei hurts, sometimes, but it's a pain he's willing to bear. Loving Tyrion hurts, sometimes, but it's a pain he's willing to bear. Loving his father had hurt all the time, and still Jaime had done it all the same. And loving his children-- Myrcella and Tommen, at least, and Joffrey in this bizarre way he found inescapable, even for how despicable he was...
Jaime will carry any pain as long as it's carried for his family, and he's not sure what to feel about that. He's not sure if he can run away from it, and if he even wants to. But it's too late for him to be anything else, he knows this much, and so he takes the jug from Melisandre's shaking grip and lifts it in a small pseudo-toast before he tilts his head back and gulps it down. A bit of the drink spills out the corner of his mouth, but this time Jaime doesn't bother wiping it as it crashes into his leathers and drips down. ]
My children [ he claims them, here and now, alone with this woman who spoke to some god and lit things on fire ] weren't your fault. You didn't even know them. [ Licking the excess off his lips, he hands the jug over with the smallest sway. Jaime is the only Lannister who can't hold his wine, embarrassingly enough. ]
I didn't even know them. Not really. I don't know if I wanted to, any more... I suppose if you tell yourself something enough, you might start to think it's true, [ Jaime's head tilts, the grin on his face sharp ] but falsehoods are always exposed in the end.
[ This is unwise, she has already had too much, and used too much of her power the night before. This is not like poison, she cannot clean it from within herself, in wine, she, too, is merely human. She spills none of it, in spite of her untidy movements and the blurry edges the world has taken on.
It takes more than one attempt to hand it back.
How many times, she wonders, had he spoken those words? To his sister, more of a wife than Selyse had been to Stannis, perhaps? Certainly not to strangers, they had tried to find evidence of that to no avail. Not that it matters now – they are gone, ascended if they were lucky, though she sincerely doubts that. ]
I cursed your oldest, once, with blood. [ That isn't knowing, though. ] But these things are fickle. It isn't what killed him any more than it killed the Young Wolf. And what killed Renly...
[ Everybody wants a miracle. Very, very few people want to know what it takes to wring a miracle from the hands of God. ]
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Evidently, however, caring about things only ever leads to pain. Loving Cersei hurts, sometimes, but it's a pain he's willing to bear. Loving Tyrion hurts, sometimes, but it's a pain he's willing to bear. Loving his father had hurt all the time, and still Jaime had done it all the same. And loving his children-- Myrcella and Tommen, at least, and Joffrey in this bizarre way he found inescapable, even for how despicable he was...
Jaime will carry any pain as long as it's carried for his family, and he's not sure what to feel about that. He's not sure if he can run away from it, and if he even wants to. But it's too late for him to be anything else, he knows this much, and so he takes the jug from Melisandre's shaking grip and lifts it in a small pseudo-toast before he tilts his head back and gulps it down. A bit of the drink spills out the corner of his mouth, but this time Jaime doesn't bother wiping it as it crashes into his leathers and drips down. ]
My children [ he claims them, here and now, alone with this woman who spoke to some god and lit things on fire ] weren't your fault. You didn't even know them. [ Licking the excess off his lips, he hands the jug over with the smallest sway. Jaime is the only Lannister who can't hold his wine, embarrassingly enough. ]
I didn't even know them. Not really. I don't know if I wanted to, any more... I suppose if you tell yourself something enough, you might start to think it's true, [ Jaime's head tilts, the grin on his face sharp ] but falsehoods are always exposed in the end.
Especially the lies we tell ourselves.
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It takes more than one attempt to hand it back.
How many times, she wonders, had he spoken those words? To his sister, more of a wife than Selyse had been to Stannis, perhaps? Certainly not to strangers, they had tried to find evidence of that to no avail. Not that it matters now – they are gone, ascended if they were lucky, though she sincerely doubts that. ]
I cursed your oldest, once, with blood. [ That isn't knowing, though. ] But these things are fickle. It isn't what killed him any more than it killed the Young Wolf. And what killed Renly...
[ Everybody wants a miracle. Very, very few people want to know what it takes to wring a miracle from the hands of God. ]
You haven't been much of a liar, here.