those whom fortune favours (Game of Thrones/Sleeping Beauty)
Once upon a time, there was a realm governed by a fair and just king who loved his wife very much. When the queen gave birth to his first child, the realm celebrated. They named her Talia and claimed she was as lovely as the moon and as bright as the sun. But the king angered a wicked fairy who cursed his daughter to one day die from the sting of a flax. The king ordered all the flaxes burnt to protect his child but it wasn’t enough; one day the princess pricks her finger on the splinter of a flax and falls into a deep sleep. The prophecy foretold doomed princess Talia, though not in the way the fairy predicted.
The king, distraught and guilty abandoned his castle and moved his court elsewhere. The princess slept on, unaware that she had been left behind, until a neighbouring king stepped into her fortress, following after a falcon. He found her so lovely that he took her then and there. When the deed was done, he went back to his kingdom.
Talia, the forgotten princess of a kingdom who mourned her before her time awoke to two children when she fell asleep a maiden. The king came back and admitted to his deed, then acted as if she should thank him for it. He wanted her love, he said, and longed for the affection of Talia, Sun and Moon. She played along. What else could she do?
Her father was long dead; no one bothered to guard her in her sleep.
She watched the children she didn’t remember birthing and waited as the man made preparations to take his prize home. They were all she had now, and she could not help but love them, no matter how much the sight of them sometimes made her want to gag. She waited and cared for them as best she could. She was only sixteen. Guards were sent for the twins, then for her. It was then that she learnt that her rapist-turned-lover had a wife. Soon after, said wife died as a consequence of her attempts to kill Talia for the slight of catching her husband’s attention.
The king was now free to marry.
The queen was dead, long live the queen, they said. The people sang songs about their king’s Sleeping Beauty, his Sun and Moon and the love that conquered all. Those whom fortune favours find good luck even in their sleep, said a storyteller.
No one asked Talia what she thought of it. She didn’t volunteer an answer.
One day, the fairy who had cursed her visited Talia and looked at her for a long moment. Then she apologised.
“I was angry at your father and I took it out on you. You suffered for it more than he did. How can I repay you?”
“Help me leave this life,” she asked. “I never want to see my husband again.”
“What of your children?”
Talia watched them from the window of her tower. Her oldest son, heir to the throne of the rapist king was fighting his brother in the courtyard with a wooden sword. They looked happy. They knew nothing of their father’s sins.
“Let them mourn me. They are old enough to be orphans now. I have nothing left to give.”
The fairy inclined her head and granted her wish.
Talia closed her eyes for the last time.
And Cersei Lannister opened hers.
She screamed.
*
She should have known the fairy’s magic would have unpredictable results. She certainly hadn’t expected reincarnation.
She resigned herself to a miserable second life.
And yet, things were different.
Her father was not a king, for one, though he had the power of one.
Tywin Lannister was not called just and fair, far from it.
Cersei observed him a lot when the man had time to spare for her in her toddlerhood.
And often she wondered what her new father would have done to the fairy who dared curse his daughter if he had been the king that called himself Talia’s father. She did not believe he would have rested until she was awoken again. He certainly wouldn’t have abandoned her to a lonely castle. Certainly not when the solution to break the curse was as simple as removing flax from her finger.
Reluctantly, she loved him for it.
She came to love lady Joanna Lannister too.
The woman was just as sharp as her husband, and just as fiercely devoted to her lion cubs.
But her new parents in this life were inconsequential faced with the true miracle she was gifted with.
Unlike Talia, Cersei was not born an only child.
And when Joanna first caught her stare with unfathomable eyes at the twin she shared a crib with when they were but babes, she softly took both of their tiny fists and clasped them together before saying to her:
“Jaime will be your fiercest protector, little one, and you will be the first lady to hold his heart. You two will do great things.”
And Cersei believed her.