THE DRAGON QUEEN [ Jon Snow ]

XII.

CHAPTER TWELVE
[ the void ]

MUCH OCCURED IN THE FOLLOWING WEEKS. Loras and Margaery Tyrell imprisoned by a band of religious fanatics in King's Landing, along with Cersei Lannister. Stannis Baratheon dead and defeated after marching on Winterfell with all odds against him. Cersei Lannister then paraded through the streets naked by the same fanatics that imprisoned her, having food and shit thrown at her as she was made to walk all the way from the Sept of Baelor to the Red Keep.

Visenya Targaryen might have despised Cersei Lannister, but still she was horrified. No living being deserved to be treated that way. Cersei deserves a clean death, free of such torture and humiliation, she thought, even if she would not grant me the same kindness.

It was one evening, moons after Tyrion's arrival on Dragonstone, that it happened. Visenya was alone in her bedchambers, freeing her hair from its braids and changing into her nightclothes, as she did every night. It was quiet, peaceful, as it was every night on Dragonstone.

It hit her like an axe to the chest. The pain, the searing pain, and the immediate knowledge of what has happened. She knew because it was much like having your heart torn from your chest and crushed into dust. She knew, because they had always been bonded by something deep and mysterious.

Jon was dead.

She felt him dying, as if a part of her was being taken with him. As if part of her heart was being severed and stolen away.

She was on the floor by the time it was over, the pain now a dull ache in her chest. Inside the deep, endless nothingness where her love once was. He is gone, is all she could think. He is gone.

The void was perhaps worse than the burning. For once she was full of love, then full of pain, she was now nothing. Empty.

Tears she did not recall shedding dry on her cheeks as she rose from the floor hours later. The void inside of her ached to be filled by something, anything, and she found herself leaving her chambers in search of that something. Her feet carried her down the halls to Oberyn's bedchambers, where she stopped and rapped on the door.

It opened moments later, for the Dornishman was always up all hours of the night, and he appeared in the doorway. "My Queen," he greeted, startled, "is something wrong? Has something happened?"

Yes, she yearned to tell him. A part of me has died and I do not think I shall ever get it back again.

Instead, she asked, "does your offer still stand?"

It took him a moment to understand what it was she was asking him, but when he did, he nodded. "Always, My Queen."

"Good." She pushed past him and entered his chambers, then waited for him to close the door and walk over to her.