Chapter 8: The Family We Choose

Jaime Lannister had spent the better part of the journey from Casterly Rock to King’s Landing thinking about more details of his life than he would like to admit. In the past, all he would have done was think of Cersei.

However, since warding that Stark boy, his father seemed to bring Jaime into his confidence more often. The son of Tywin was starting to feel as though he were important to the plans of their family. Ever since taking the white cloak of the king’s guard, Jaime felt his father was disappointed with him, almost as much as he was with Tyrion. Truth be told on that score, Jaime knew that was not true.

Tywin had always been unfair to Tyrion. There were rumors that the Mad King had taken more liberties during the bedding ceremony for Joanna, and that he might have done something to her before Tyrion’s conception, and that Tywin had either known about it, or that Aerys had implied he had done something to Jaime’s mother and rubbed that action in Tywin’s face before Tyrion was born.

Regardless if any of that was true, the simple fact that when Tyrion was born, their mother died. That was enough for Tywin to consider Tyrion a monster. That Tyrion was a dwarf had led Tywin to say that the gods had punished the baby, and by extension, the House of Lannister itself.

Those things were not fair. Of that, Jaime knew.

His mind split off into so many tangents and possibilities about his family, but more and more recently, on this ride, he recognized how long and hard the journey was, which proved tiresome for Jaime. He enjoyed being carefree and pretending that nothing bothered him from anyone.

He wished he could simply be back in the west, not for his father or even for Jon Stark, but because while he was being a teacher, nothing else mattered. He was always thinking of new ways to help Jon improve, yet as he worked, he knew the world was moving forward in one way or another.

The boy was irritating in his persistence; the natural talent was not there, but there was an impressiveness to the boy’s tenacity.

Any teacher or master of arm’s would expect a lord’s child to stumble through mistakes and become competent, far better than the minor lord’s children who became knights and far better than any of the sell-sword and commoners who were knighted.

Instead, Jon’s resolve had helped him learn quickly. Where he failed, he adapted. Where he fell short, he watched and listened to Jaime as though the words and actions of him were of value rather than simply being the Kingslayer.

In so many ways, Jon was everything that Tywin would want in a son. Jon was dangerous at eight years old, and in time, that same lethality the boy possessed would only grow. Jon wanted to understand, so he might improve, so that he might be worth of the opportunities he had been afforded.

This was when he thought of Cersei ... His sister ... his one and only lover.

He was very nearly in the city. She was all Jaime had ever wanted. The union he shared with her was singularly. From Tywin to Tyrion to Jon to Cersei, the thoughts were seamless. In her, Jaime needed never be anything more than what he was.

He was her reason to smile, and she was his. They never needed to be anything other than who they were to make one another happy. They had been bonded in the womb, and that link could not be broken by anyone or anything.

To say he needed her was an understatement. While lesser men pleasured themselves, thinking of all of the women they had in the past and could not have at all, he did not. His escape of carnal release was through Cersei or not at all. His arousal, his seed, his very body belonged to her in that way.

Jaime had almost fought with his father when he tried to wed Cersei to Rhaegar and successfully married her off to Robert.

The two had spoken about such plans. They knew it was possible, but one of the reasons Jaime had taken the vows of a white cloak was to communicate to Cersei that he would not let anyone but her have him.

He dismounted in the Red Keep’s courtyard and handed his horse to a stable boy.