The Lonely Lioness - Cersei Lannister Quest

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Well, the vote was for power and revenge no matter the price. No matter the price does not mean "no matter the price except for my children."
 
Chimeraguard said:
Well, the vote was for power and revenge no matter the price. No matter the price does not mean "no matter the price except for my children."
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> Vote for explicate tragedy
> results in tragedy

Why would the QM do this? 🤔

Who knows, maybe we're actually deploying giga brain strats and will be finishing a massive ritual that empowers ourselves with the all the lives currently inside Westeros's largest city. Probably not, but it could happen.
 
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Hm, if Cersei did place an order for more wildfire, well, there is already enough wildfire spread around to destroy King's Landing, so it would seem a bit redundant to situate the new caches of wildfire under King's Landing as well.

Cersei explicitly has no problems with dying, so long as she drags her enemies down with her. The question is how this new order of wildfire plays into that objective.
 
Power does not come without sacrifice, after all. All that matters is that Cersei will gain the power to exact her revenge.
 
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Tzaphquiel said:
Power does not come without sacrifice, after all. All that matters is that Cersei will gain the power to exact her revenge.
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Revenge against who though? We don't exactly have an archnemesis guys, most of our problems were either background things we would never think to blame on anyone save maybe Robert, or self inflicted.
Hell, we arent even personally invested against the Targaryan pretenders, its all just business. So...unless that vote was a reflection of Circi being paranoid and thinking everyone is out to get her, or her showing self-awareness and avenging herself against herself...I don't really know what the goal is.
 
High up Cerseis shitlist right now are Olenna (for usurping her), Renly (for marching on KL), Tyrion (for being Tyrion), Tywin (for betraying her) and the whole world for conspiring against her to make her miserable.
 
Stannis sweep!!!

Lannisters pretenders and Baratheon pretenders and their Tyrell masters are gonna burn in wildfire while Azor Ahai protects the people.

Probably gonna sweep in from the back, take out the remnants, claim the remaining lands under his protection, kick the ass of the Targaryen pretenders, go north and kick White Walker ass, and be proclaimed president of the Republic of Westeros.

No crowns, but presidents don't need crowns.
 
Lol, I can understand Cersei hating Olenna, Renly and Tywin the most right now, but Tyrion? They haven't even interacted in the entire quest! Girl is nutter than a fruit cake.
 
digital2 said:
Lol, I can understand Cersei hating Olenna, Renly and Tywin the most right now, but Tyrion? They haven't even interacted in the entire quest! Girl is nutter than a fruit cake.
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He is the Valonqar after all. Or so Cersei thinks, at least. And in her mind, Tyrion murdered their mother (she died in childbirth).
 
There was also Tyrion's role in this extended debacle. That he was unwilling and not the one who started it are irrelevant to Cersei. She has probably added it to the long list of her grievances against him.
 
Tzaphquiel said:
Hm, is it truly a surprise? Cersei has always hated Tyrion. The enmity long predates the starting point of the quest, after all.
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Oh, I know Cersei has always hated Tyrion. I just assumed that she put it on the backburner when there are far more pressing things to worry about. But I guess, even when she's near her end, she can't stop her obsession with the Imp.
 
digital2 said:
Oh, I know Cersei has always hated Tyrion. I just assumed that she put it on the backburner when there are far more pressing things to worry about. But I guess, even when she's near her end, she can't stop her obsession with the Imp.
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I mean, she believes Maggy's prophecies (and hey, why not, prophecies seem to be very effective these days). She absolutely believes it is Tyrion specifically who will come to kill her. That holds true even with so many others attacking her. In her mind, Tyrion is an existential threat to her, due to that prophecy.
 
Are Maggy's prophecies even a thing in this continuity? I don't remember Cersei mentioning them at all.
 
Interlude - The Visitor
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    • Interlude - The Visitor​

    The Great Sept of Baelor had changed since the last time she had walked through its gates. All the golden filigree was gone. The giant statues torn down and replaced with simple wooden effigies standing on marble plints far too large for them. Half the lamps were not lit to save on oil, casting the place into a dim light at this hour of the night. Oddly enough, Cersei approved of the change. Stripped bare of all its pretentious and frippery, the sept was just an empty room. Without jewels and silver to blind the gullible, the Seven were just figures made up to scare the smallfolk. If a place as allegedly holy as this could be defiled so easily, what did that say about the power of the gods?

    But it was a building high on a hill. An the green flames whispering in her ears knew just where to place the substance. It had been done before after all. Not even two years ago, the same pyromancers who were now with her had taken out the old jars of wildfyre from their hidden caches. Now they would put them back. And twice as much of it. The guild had not objected. They were just glad to have the ear of a queen again after so many years in obscurity, blissfully unaware of the sins of their predecessors and how they would compound with their working in this night.

    She had to give credit to the departed Grand Master Rossart. He had crafted a true work of art under Aerys the second. Thousands of caches, some just a few jars, others rooms full of barrel sized clay pots. And all hidden well away from prying eyes. The larger storerooms could not be concealed from the Alchemists themselves, though he had found a way to spread them just so that they would set each other off with the aid of the smaller ones. No one but him and a few close confidants knew of the whole scale of it. And now only the dead and Cersei knew.

    Aimlessly, only a small oil lantern in hand, she wandered through the halls and catacombs, faintly remembering the path she took during her last visit. The fat High Septon had been leading her to Eddard Starks cell. Now she wondered what had become of him. Last she heard, he was leading the Night Watch north of the Wall. A shame he was not here anymore to witness her wrath. Or that Shay Waters girl that had commandeered there sept for the last few months before fleeing Kings Landing all of the sudden. So many out of her reach. Even to the very end, she would be denied her due.

    As she walked, lost in her thoughts, she could feel the heat along her neck. Bony claws wreathed in flame running over her skin. Cersei looked around. Polished black granite walls seemed to swallow the meager light she had brought with her. The searing heat tucked on he arm, beckoning her onward. It took a moment for her to realize where she had wandered, but the urns of finely wrought stone, ivory and gold were hard to misunderstand. Jaherys. Aegon. Daena. Alysanne. Maekar. Names of men and women long past. Kings and queens. Princes and gallant knights.

    Her hand trailed through the dust clinging to the walls as the heat kept guiding her. So many urns. So many dead. And it was just one family worth of them. How many men and women had spilled blood for this city and the metal thing standing in the keep? Even now, they were slaughtering each other for a chance to sit on Aegons monstrosity. She had to think of Stannis in that moment. How much he had given if the rumors were true, and now she had little reason to doubt them any longer. The heat grew hotter as she wondered. Boney claws digging into her flesh as she considered. Blood was power, was it not? How much then would a throne drenched in it weigh in the scales of fate?

    "We are nearly there," a faint voice whispered into her ear with the crackle of a dying fire. She passed an empty alcove with a freshly polished brass plate bearing the name Robert Baratheon, though she barely registered it. It was the next one the demon was guiding her to. The urn within was simple. Insultingly so almost. A simple cylinder of polished stone, only the gold lettering of Aerys II Targaryen giving away that it was important. And the heat.

    Searing. Crackling. Hungering. Cersei could almost hear the screams again of men and women given to the flames. See them writhe before the throne in chains. Her hand stretched out towards the vessel, ready to flinch away, but the pain she expected never came. The stone was hot as a forge to her touch, but yet it did not even sting to feel it. The warmth felt almost welcoming. "Imagine, girl. They had their dragons. I had my fire," the voice spoke once more, now loud and clear. "Now, you could have me. Ash can become flame once more, if the right price is paid for it. And then they all will burn. That is what we both crave, do we not? To see them pay for what they did to us. Even fate itself is not beyond the reach of the thiefs blood. All you need to do is take it."

    Something moved in the dark and suddenly Cersei was painfully aware that she had wandered off all on her own. Just a figment of death and flame for company that, which would fare poorly against steel. With one hand she held out the lantern to the movement, with the other she went for the back of her bodice. A dagger. A tiny one. Which she barely knew how to use. It had been meant for emergencies, and while this was one for certain, she had suddenly little hope of it making a difference.

    In the flicker of the lanterns flame, she saw a disheveled man in badly mangled armor. The breastplate seemed to have been mended multiple times, all the lacquer beaten off it, and only the faint remnants of an embossing visible. A strip of rough hemp cloth was draped over one of the figures eye, blending into the matted and tangled hair of the man. He had no blade drawn, but one hand rested on the hilt on his belt. But what was truly strange to Cersei was that he too gave of that faint heat of hidden flame. Much weaker than the creature haunting here, but also calmer. Brighter. Without the ill concealed malice radiating of the demonic thing clutching her shoulders tight.

    "You will regret this," he rasped in a hollow voice, his eyes transfixed on the flame of the lantern.

    Despite the threat, he made no move to unsheathe his blade. Or even to come closer. Her hand tight around the daggers hilt, Cersei answered him. "What will I regret?"

    "Listening to him." He nodded vaguely towards the urn.

    Cersei felt the rancid, searing breath of the monster in her neck as it hid behind her. "He is like me," the thing whispered. "Though he still had flesh for the warmth to creep into."

    "I don't know what you are talking about," Cersei lied to the man, but he did not even seem to pay her any attention.

    He was still staring at the lanterns flames, as if they carried something important within. "The flames consume. Always. They take whenever they brush past you and if you invite them in, they will take so much more. They will take and take and take, until there is nothing left but bitter ashes in your mouth."

    The dagger slowly slid from its sheath, though Cersei kept it pressed close to her back. "What are you talking about? You are not making a lot of sense." She wanted to keep him distracted and talking. She also wanted to know.

    "I had a home. Once. I remember nothing of it and yet I long to return to it. Would I even know it for my home if I walked past it?" Wetness crept into his remaining eye as he talked. "My lord keeps a charred letter close to his heart. He knows not the words that once stood on it, or why it mattered to him. Whenever someone tries to tell him, his eyes become vacant and he forgets the words before they are even spoken. But he knows that he lost something dear to him. That they left him. The flames always leave the pain."

    For the first time since he appeared, the man looked at Cersei. A thin trail glistened on his cheek as his pleading eye bored into her. "Don't listen. Don't become like us. Your grief is the only thing the flames will never take from you."

    "It is not as if I have much else left," Cersei threw back bitterly. They had taken it all already. He crown. Her brother. Soon what remained of her freedom. This man could prattle all he wanted. She could still have here revenge and that would be enough for her. That they could never take from her once she was done.

    "You say that so easily, and you might even believe it, but you are wrong. There is so much they can yet take." The man sighed and deflated, head hanging in defeat. "My lord bade me to warn someone of what you were planning. I asked him why I should not stop you, and he said I would not be able to. Said that your fate was set already and was no longer ours to change. And that some evils need to come to pass to avert others so much worse."

    Cerseis heart beat ever faster with every word he uttered. His hand glid up the sheath and settled on his swords grip. The demon was quiet. Her hand almost cramped around the daggers hilt. Briefly she considered just tossing the lantern at him, but that would have meant to throw away her only source of light. The mans hand shook as it tried to pull the blade from its sheath. It inched forwards a fingers width, then stopped once more. She tore her eyes from the sword and to the mans face. A single eye stared with an empty look into the nothingness. His hand fell from the swords hilt.

    Carefully, she approached him, dagger brandished at him. But he did not move. Made no attempt to escape or to draw his own weapon. Was it a trick? She was almost within arms reach of him when he moved again. Not to defend himself. He just laughed mirthlessly while falling to his knees. "I lied to her," he whispered as his eye fixed on the dagger. "Now I have a regret after all. I regret forgetting what I came here to do. It was something important, wasn't it?"

    She did not answer him. The blade went into his throat, parting flesh easily. Too easy even. And not a single drop of blood came from the wound. Like a puppet without its strings, the man fell backwards, leaving Cersei alone with her demon once more.

    "What an odd visitation," the thing of flame and hatred whispered from her shoulder while gazing down on the corpse. "You don't intend to fall for his cheap warnings though, do you? You hold the keys to the power you crave. No sense in doubting your path now."

    "No," she answered while setting her lantern down. "We have come too far to turn back now." Cersei stepped to the urn and took it with both hands, the heat flowing into skin, flesh and as deep as her bones. "He said that fate is already set. Then let us fulfill it."


    AN: And that finishes the setting of the stage.
     
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    • Damn it, Shay is gone? My plans have gone up in smoke. And by the looks of things, so will King's Landing soon enough...

    Azel said:
    "You say that so easily, and you might even believe it, but you are wrong. There is so much they can yet take." The man sighed and deflated, head hanging in defeat. "My lord bade me to warn someone of what you were planning. I asked him why I should not stop you, and he said I would not be able to. Said that your fate was set already and was no longer ours to change. And that some evils need to come to pass to avert others so much worse."
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    I will say this quote almost made me hesitate. Not because the possibility of Cersei becoming some mindless zombie, but because it seems to imply that if Cersei doesn't blow up King's Landing, an even greater evil will happen, which I'm curious about. But nah. Like Cersei said, we have gone too far to turn back.
     
    Hm, just as well that Cersei never ordered the investigation of the wildfire. As a result, only she and the dead know the full scale of the plan.

    One wonders how much bigger the explosion will be now.

    Cersei is correct. She has come too far. She cannot go back even if she wanted to do so. All that is left is to fully embrace her role on the stage and play the part with all her vigor until the curtain falls. So many are beyond her wrath's reach, alas.

    Well, it cannot be helped. Take as many as she can with her. It will have to be enough.
     
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