In which Cersei Lannister is even more of a coldhearted bitch and, somehow, that is a Good...
The Queen That Was Promised (GOT/Cersei-centric/Not SI)
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Selwyn
Tomorrow Will Come
- Location
- Mongolia
In which Cersei Lannister is even more of a coldhearted bitch and, somehow, that is a Good Thing. So begins the rule of Cersei of House Lannister, the First of her Name, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Lady of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm.
Long live the Queen.
...
Index
Arc I 'Dal Niente'
1.1 1.2
...
'Dal Niente' 1.1
The horrid little woman in front of her smiled through blackened gums and Cersei had to bite back the urge to order her whipped for insolence. It took more than a little effort and Melara's whispered simpering behind her did little to elevate her dark mood and Cersei already had a frown on. She glared at the hunched woman venomously, her first question already on the tip of her tongue.
-a black-haired woman ran from her home, bare feet slapping against pavement as she fled from the men that had invaded it-
"When will I wed the prince?" she asked.
"Never," the old woman croaked in reply. "You will wed the king."
Cersei's face wrinkled in puzzlement. It wasn't bad but… "I will be queen, though?"
-a shot rang out and the woman stifled a cry as it blew through her shoulder, stumbling half-way-
"Aye," the crone nodded, her face falling into shadow so that only her eyes could be seen, glowing in the dark balefully as she watched the two young girls standing in her tent. "Queen you shall be and queen you will remain and men will bow for you."
A cruel smirk stole its way across her face, me, cast off my crown? Never. Cersei considered her last question more carefully than the others, to make as much of it as she could. "Will the king and I have children?" she finally asked.
-there was shouting but she stiffened her back and kept running, mind already storming through various plans through her haze of pain and indignant fury-
Maggy opened her mouth to speak… and stopped. Her dropping eyes flickered as she blinked rapidly. When she finally looked back at Cersei, her eyes lost the mocking glimmer and instead adopted an appraising stare. "Oh, aye. Two-and-ten for him and five for you."
Cersei frowned this time. Her thumb throbbed with dull pain and the blood was still dripping down onto the filthy rug of the tent. How could that be? She thought but her questions were done. However, the old woman was not done speaking.
"Black shall be their brows and black their fates," she croaked. "They will not be your heirs and they will not see the future your hands will make, morghe ābra, and when you drown in red, winter will wrap its hand around your little heart."
-there was another shot and this time, it went through her thigh's artery. She fell instantly and blood began to flood out in red torrents-
"What? I suspected you a fraud but now I see that you are only mad," Cersei sneered contemptuously.
Maggy just stared at her. The silence in the room grew too great until Cersei turned to Melara with an imperious expression, "I bore of this," she sniffed. "Let's leave."
The other girl blinked her. "But – but I haven't got my own telling yet," she protested. Cersei frowned at her and snapped.
"Fine. But I'll be waiting outside."
-the woman was still gasping faintly when the men caught up. One came forward and held his gun up to her face, a smirk upon his face. Despite the weakness of her limbs, the woman managed to flip onto her back and she stared right back at the man, challenge in her eyes-
Melara nodded and Cersei swept out the little tent. She already knew what question the girl was going ask – as if Jaime would ever be hers. Idiot.
Outside, it was cold. The chill failed to penetrate her dress but it nipped at her nose and Cersei rubbed her hands, thinking about the prophecy. Two-and-ten for the king and five for me. Not my heirs. And whatever else gibberish she was spouting, she thought spitefully. What nonsense. This was a waste of my time.
-the woman smiled, flashing white teeth, and a low laugh rattled out her throat. "You killed me," she grinned, "But you still failed," her eyes mocked him where her mouth could not and the man snarled-
Melara was just coming out and Cersei turned to face her, haughtily examining the girl's pale face. "Well?" she demanded. "What did that crone say to you?"
"She said I'd die tonight," Melara whimpered.
Cersei rolled her eyes.
-she laughed and laughed and laughed. "You thought you could end me but you can't," she croaked at the face of death. The man spat at her before withdrawing and with a bark of command, the men backed away from her-
"Don't be si – " Cersei paused. Blood drained out of her pretty face and the girl suddenly could not breathe. Feeling as if a massive fist was squeezing he chest, Cersei clutched her head as it began to pound, knees shaking like a newborn foal's and a low, unwilling whimper slithered its way out her gasping mouth.
"Cersei?" Melara sounded shakier than before but Cersei could not muster the effort to think of something scornful to say.
-the woman watched them go with a smile on her face. - Blood had stained the length of her legs and her vision was already darkening but she still enough life in her to whisper, "Long live the queen." That said, the woman finally let go of her life-
Cersei gasped and fell.
-but her time was not done yet and the woman, the morghe ābra, was reborn.
…
That night, Melara Hetherspoon died. The master charged with Cersei's care reported that the girl slept for the most of the day upon collapsing and not even her twin brother's urging could wake her from her slumber. She continued to sleep well into the second day before suddenly waking in a fit of screaming, jerking and convulsing so violently that she tumbled off her bed even when the master summoned for people to hold her down.
It was only after repeated assurances that she relaxed, though she refused to lay back down again, preferring to pace around her room like a trapped beast, eyeing everyone and anyone who approached her with intense suspicion. Her sudden illness had been more severe than expected – the poor girl had no idea what was happening at all and it was only after Septa Saranelle came in that she seemed to relax.
The woman was then detained for days simply speaking to the girl, often explaining things that she should've known, sometimes even having to reiterate who she was and her position in the world. Although the illness failed to rob her of her mental faculties, they'd taken her memories and the maester had no idea why. Her lord father had been deeply displeased by this, though the assurance of her mental ability had mollified him somewhat, while her brother was frantic with worry. Little Tyrion, young as he was, had no idea what had occurred to his sister and simply went on as a babe would.
Still, Cersei had gotten back on her feet after a third night spent in bed. A few more days of constantly shadowing her Septa while peppering her with questions followed and she often avoided all other people, seeming to regard them with deep mistrust no matter how familiar they ought to be to her, something that caused her brother a great deal of grief and her father annoyance on top of their already heavy burdens. A week after her ailment, Cersei's grasp on her surrounding world seemed to return and she stopped her flow of constant inquires (much to her Septa's relief).
Nothing else happened afterwards, so swift it was as if Cersei had never been ill at all, and the master could only shrug and declare her healthy once again. Cersei returned to her lessons with Septa Saranelle, played with Jaime, and by all rights, seemed to be completely past her bout of ill health. No one, not even the other lords and ladies, knew what happened as Lord Tywin carefully limited the number of servants that attended his daughter. Only Septa Saranelle, the maester, and a couple loyal men knew.
That is, except Maggy, and when one day she ran into the blonde girl who she'd given her foretelling to almost a month back, she could only crook up the corner of her mouth and murmur, "A crown of gold, morghe ābra, suits you."
The girl – Cersei Lannister but also not – tilted her head and smiled, flashing straight white teeth in the sun.
"I know."
…
Long live the Queen.
...
Index
Arc I 'Dal Niente'
1.1 1.2
...
'Dal Niente' 1.1
The horrid little woman in front of her smiled through blackened gums and Cersei had to bite back the urge to order her whipped for insolence. It took more than a little effort and Melara's whispered simpering behind her did little to elevate her dark mood and Cersei already had a frown on. She glared at the hunched woman venomously, her first question already on the tip of her tongue.
-a black-haired woman ran from her home, bare feet slapping against pavement as she fled from the men that had invaded it-
"When will I wed the prince?" she asked.
"Never," the old woman croaked in reply. "You will wed the king."
Cersei's face wrinkled in puzzlement. It wasn't bad but… "I will be queen, though?"
-a shot rang out and the woman stifled a cry as it blew through her shoulder, stumbling half-way-
"Aye," the crone nodded, her face falling into shadow so that only her eyes could be seen, glowing in the dark balefully as she watched the two young girls standing in her tent. "Queen you shall be and queen you will remain and men will bow for you."
A cruel smirk stole its way across her face, me, cast off my crown? Never. Cersei considered her last question more carefully than the others, to make as much of it as she could. "Will the king and I have children?" she finally asked.
-there was shouting but she stiffened her back and kept running, mind already storming through various plans through her haze of pain and indignant fury-
Maggy opened her mouth to speak… and stopped. Her dropping eyes flickered as she blinked rapidly. When she finally looked back at Cersei, her eyes lost the mocking glimmer and instead adopted an appraising stare. "Oh, aye. Two-and-ten for him and five for you."
Cersei frowned this time. Her thumb throbbed with dull pain and the blood was still dripping down onto the filthy rug of the tent. How could that be? She thought but her questions were done. However, the old woman was not done speaking.
"Black shall be their brows and black their fates," she croaked. "They will not be your heirs and they will not see the future your hands will make, morghe ābra, and when you drown in red, winter will wrap its hand around your little heart."
-there was another shot and this time, it went through her thigh's artery. She fell instantly and blood began to flood out in red torrents-
"What? I suspected you a fraud but now I see that you are only mad," Cersei sneered contemptuously.
Maggy just stared at her. The silence in the room grew too great until Cersei turned to Melara with an imperious expression, "I bore of this," she sniffed. "Let's leave."
The other girl blinked her. "But – but I haven't got my own telling yet," she protested. Cersei frowned at her and snapped.
"Fine. But I'll be waiting outside."
-the woman was still gasping faintly when the men caught up. One came forward and held his gun up to her face, a smirk upon his face. Despite the weakness of her limbs, the woman managed to flip onto her back and she stared right back at the man, challenge in her eyes-
Melara nodded and Cersei swept out the little tent. She already knew what question the girl was going ask – as if Jaime would ever be hers. Idiot.
Outside, it was cold. The chill failed to penetrate her dress but it nipped at her nose and Cersei rubbed her hands, thinking about the prophecy. Two-and-ten for the king and five for me. Not my heirs. And whatever else gibberish she was spouting, she thought spitefully. What nonsense. This was a waste of my time.
-the woman smiled, flashing white teeth, and a low laugh rattled out her throat. "You killed me," she grinned, "But you still failed," her eyes mocked him where her mouth could not and the man snarled-
Melara was just coming out and Cersei turned to face her, haughtily examining the girl's pale face. "Well?" she demanded. "What did that crone say to you?"
"She said I'd die tonight," Melara whimpered.
Cersei rolled her eyes.
-she laughed and laughed and laughed. "You thought you could end me but you can't," she croaked at the face of death. The man spat at her before withdrawing and with a bark of command, the men backed away from her-
"Don't be si – " Cersei paused. Blood drained out of her pretty face and the girl suddenly could not breathe. Feeling as if a massive fist was squeezing he chest, Cersei clutched her head as it began to pound, knees shaking like a newborn foal's and a low, unwilling whimper slithered its way out her gasping mouth.
"Cersei?" Melara sounded shakier than before but Cersei could not muster the effort to think of something scornful to say.
-the woman watched them go with a smile on her face. - Blood had stained the length of her legs and her vision was already darkening but she still enough life in her to whisper, "Long live the queen." That said, the woman finally let go of her life-
Cersei gasped and fell.
-but her time was not done yet and the woman, the morghe ābra, was reborn.
…
That night, Melara Hetherspoon died. The master charged with Cersei's care reported that the girl slept for the most of the day upon collapsing and not even her twin brother's urging could wake her from her slumber. She continued to sleep well into the second day before suddenly waking in a fit of screaming, jerking and convulsing so violently that she tumbled off her bed even when the master summoned for people to hold her down.
It was only after repeated assurances that she relaxed, though she refused to lay back down again, preferring to pace around her room like a trapped beast, eyeing everyone and anyone who approached her with intense suspicion. Her sudden illness had been more severe than expected – the poor girl had no idea what was happening at all and it was only after Septa Saranelle came in that she seemed to relax.
The woman was then detained for days simply speaking to the girl, often explaining things that she should've known, sometimes even having to reiterate who she was and her position in the world. Although the illness failed to rob her of her mental faculties, they'd taken her memories and the maester had no idea why. Her lord father had been deeply displeased by this, though the assurance of her mental ability had mollified him somewhat, while her brother was frantic with worry. Little Tyrion, young as he was, had no idea what had occurred to his sister and simply went on as a babe would.
Still, Cersei had gotten back on her feet after a third night spent in bed. A few more days of constantly shadowing her Septa while peppering her with questions followed and she often avoided all other people, seeming to regard them with deep mistrust no matter how familiar they ought to be to her, something that caused her brother a great deal of grief and her father annoyance on top of their already heavy burdens. A week after her ailment, Cersei's grasp on her surrounding world seemed to return and she stopped her flow of constant inquires (much to her Septa's relief).
Nothing else happened afterwards, so swift it was as if Cersei had never been ill at all, and the master could only shrug and declare her healthy once again. Cersei returned to her lessons with Septa Saranelle, played with Jaime, and by all rights, seemed to be completely past her bout of ill health. No one, not even the other lords and ladies, knew what happened as Lord Tywin carefully limited the number of servants that attended his daughter. Only Septa Saranelle, the maester, and a couple loyal men knew.
That is, except Maggy, and when one day she ran into the blonde girl who she'd given her foretelling to almost a month back, she could only crook up the corner of her mouth and murmur, "A crown of gold, morghe ābra, suits you."
The girl – Cersei Lannister but also not – tilted her head and smiled, flashing straight white teeth in the sun.
"I know."
…
Last edited:
Selwyn
Tomorrow Will Come
- Location
- Mongolia
'Dal Niente' 1.2
Cersei silently walked through the corridors of Casterly Rock, a hand tightly gripping the skirt of her voluminous gown so as to keep it far from her feet, and her eyes darted from side-to-side to see if anyone noticed this breach in her manners. No one, however, was near these parts of the keep. Beyond a few servants sent down to clean it out, few visited the lowest parts where the old prisoner's cells were kept. The chill and dank gloom, with the added spookiness, discouraged most.
Just as well, as it was the isolation that she sought out.
The girl lit the few torches she had added in since her last visit and found the single cushion smuggled down from her rooms and sank down on it. It had a few more stains since the last time and the plushness of it was constantly wearing down but Cersei couldn't be bothered to care overly much. Closing her eyes, she leaned back against the cold stone walls.
Lessons with Septa Saranelle alternated between absolutely awful and tolerable. The days where she learned to embroider, learned the history and houses of Westeros, and a countless other little things a lady needed to know were tolerable. The days she learned the rules of lady-like behavior and what was expected of her were the awful ones.
Clenching her fist until her knuckles became white, Cersei recalled the Septa's nasally, gaspy voice and the simpering words as she delivered her lesson.
"A woman's desire should not matter in the bedroom and it is your duty to uphold your honor as wife. In submitting, you both please your lord husband and do your duty to bear heirs."
She'd tried to argue against it, of course. Demanded to know why the lady was supposed to be only a brood mare and why her husband's pleasure was a duty on her part and not on his. When she'd said that, however, the Septa had gasped before immediately summoning her father.
That conversation had not gone well, either.
"Septa Saranelle tells me that you've been arguing with her."
She remained silent, mind whirling with things to say. Finally, she decided on something neutral as an opener.
"She said some things I disagreed with."
Tywin raised a white-gold brow in askance. "And what would that be?"
"She said… she was teaching me about a lady's duties. Motherhood and wifehood. While I don't think they're all that bad, I want to know why that's our only duties. Why don't women rule as well?"
If he'd been that sort of man, he would have snorted. But as he was Tywin Lannister, he only quirked a corner of his lips, which was his equivalent. "Do you think you ought to rule?"
Inside, she thought she should. She had, in fact, and had been damn successful at it. But that was not proper and instead, she only said, "I wouldn't know. But a lady of a house should know how to aid her husband in his duties."
"And that's why she bears his children," Tywin said. "That is their duty, not leadership."
She grit her teeth. From where he could not see, her nails were digging small crescent marks into the flesh portion of her palm. Her face remained serene as she spoke, "What if the husband dies or is otherwise unable to lead? There have been many marriages where the husband was duller than the wife. The Seven know that uncle Steffon couldn't find his way out bed if aunt Genna weren't – "
"I wouldn't finish that, if I were you," Tywin cut her off. The look in his eyes, formerly vaguely tolerant amusement, now was replaced by cool appraisal. "You are a beautiful girl, Cersei, and that alone will secure you a favorable marriage. Add our family name and you could very well be queen. However, you are not as smart as you think you are. Don't drag your family down with your foolish ideas."
Cersei wanted to reach over, grab him by the lapels of his tunic, and hold the dagger she'd taken to concealing under her gown and hold it under his throat. She wanted to see how long he could keep up his perfect cool before he broke. She wanted a million other things but on the surface, her face could've been carved from glass for all the emotion it showed. "I see," she said softly. "I believe that I understand. Thank you, father, for clearing up my misconceptions."
Tywin didn't say anything. He instead considered her silently before looking back down at the piles of papers on his desk. "You may leave," he said and in his voice, she could tell that he was dismissing her before she had even left.
Cersei bowed her before sweeping out, the drag of her skirts rasping and her back so straight it could've been carved from the same stone that made up Casterly Rock.
So few words exchanged yet so much behind them. In this world, in this land of ladies and lords and knights, she was little more than another pawn on the chess board, meant to bear the next generation and secure alliances with other houses and little else beyond that. Not even her own father believed in her.
To be brought down so low was… infuriating. Cersei raised her hands and examined them. The fingers were long and tapered to delicate points. The nails were carefully groomed and trimmed without the slightest trace of grime beneath them. Her skin, milk white and soft, didn't have overt blemishes or callouses – all signs of someone who never did anything like labor in their entire life.
Yet the memories of another life overlaid a different set of hands on her own. They were smaller and tanned. Sometimes they were stained with flecks of blood and grime. They were always covered in a wealth of scars, some on the knuckles, some white and shiny with age, and some still scabbed and pink. When she looked in her mirror, she saw both golden hair and coal-black tresses. She saw a face – beautiful in a sharp dagger-like way, with lips set into a perpetual smirk that didn't reach her black eyes – that hovered just above her own skin.
Cersei wasn't sure what to make of it. Surely everyone else didn't have second faces whenever they looked upon themselves, right? If they did, no one said anything about it. Still, she knew that she shouldn't speak about it. Her father and brother had always been more distant after her illness. Cersei herself didn't know what to make of it.
She clenched her fist and watched the other hand follow suit. Those hands were certainly a woman's – nothing could conceal the delicate femininity of the palm or the roundness where a man's would have been hard angles – but they were nothing like a lady's. Yet Cersei knew that these hands were not earned from a lifetime of labor and hard work like a peasant girl's would have been. These hands were born from a life spent holding weapons, from hurting people, from holding the world in a glove of iron.
These were the hands of someone powerful.
She closed her eyes. The conversation with her father had been a dismal failure. He refused to consider anything she had said – had in fact, seemed to consider her lower than before. After leaving, the burn of anger in her belly had required hours of stiff-backed walking through the keep, the severe coldness of her expression successfully warning away others from her path. Cersei wanted to rage at him, to demand her rights as a person, not just a woman, to demand to know why on earth she should be kept so low simply because she had been born with breasts and a womb. Yet her lips refused to move and her expression hadn't budged an inch because she knew, like she knew that the sun was hot and that the sky was blue, that Tywin wouldn't listen to a single word. His hand around her would only grow tighter and his judgments harsher.
There would be no sympathy from that quarter.
So, buried under hundreds of tons of stone and dirt, in a place where the darkness was kept at bay by the light of a few sputtering torches, Cersei swore to herself that, when she was queen and when she had a crown that matched the gold of her hair, that she would hold on to power with both hands. That her husband would tend on her, not the other way around, and men would bow for her like Maggy had said that night in her tent. That power would be hers because she had been the one to take it, not because she leveraged her name to take it.
She would be powerful.
…
When she finally resurfaced from her brooding, Cersei immediately crossed paths with Jaime, who was sweating heavily from training. Seeing her, his face cracked into a golden smile like the sun coming from behind a cover of clouds, and he rushed her into an embrace despite her squawk of dismay. She squirmed through it, edging away from the uncomfortable grooves of his boiled leathers and the stench of his sweat, until he let her go with a laugh that became guffaws when she batted it the back of his head.
"You need to relax," he grinned when he finally calmed. "You're always so stiff."
"Well, I'm not the one prancing around with a sword," she sniffed as she straightened the wrinkles in her gown. "Go and bathe – you stink worse than a pig."
"Not many pigs can claim mastery of the blade," Jaime shot back, falling astride her. "You're in a sour mood. What happened? Fight with your Septa again or something?"
"Septa Saranelle is a fool," Cersei shrugged. "Once I accepted that, she became far more tolerable. It's just father…"
"Ah," Jaime said lightly. While he didn't know the specifics of his sister's quarrel with their father, he knew enough to stay well away from it. "Do you want any help or…?"
"Its fine," she said a touch too quickly.
Jaime frowned. "Are you in trouble? I can talk to him, if you like."
Cersei shook her head and the sunlight that squeezed in through the windows glanced off her locks to burn them into a bright golden hue. "You know what he's like. Nothing will sway him. You just keep training, brother, until your sword-arm can best any man in the realm. No need to worry your head over my behalf."
"You know," Jaime said dryly, "It should be my job to keep you reassured, not the other way around. I'm your brother."
"And I am older," Cersei responded. "As the older, better-looking – "
"Hah!"
" – and wiser sibling," she continued as if he hadn't said anything at all, "I'm more suited to the job of assuring."
"You keep thinking that," Jaime laughed as they reached the turn for their separate rooms. He waved to her as he went down the opposing corridor. Cersei paused half-way down and watched him bounce along, a small, crooked smile on her face. Jaime was a few bare minutes younger than her as her twin yet she couldn't help but feel infinitely older than him. He was easily deflected with small japes and his attention was that of a bird's – quick, fleeting, and ever-changing.
Where he smiled and laughed and glowed, Cersei found herself mimicking her father – or better yet, the other face – with half-smiles and raised brows that said nothing yet hid a whole speech.
On the topic of her family… Cersei's eyes turned to the nursery adjacent to her corridor. On slow, plodding feet, she slowly walked to the door that held a room with a cradle in it along with a conjoined playroom. Pushing it open, Cersei peered through and her eyes landed on the babe's bed pushed against the wall. It was draped with rich Lannister crimson and gold but the small child held in it was hardly worth the finery around him.
Tyrion, her youngest brother, was a dwarf, or at least that had been what Septa Saranelle had said after she pushed for more information on his deformity. He was the cause of her mother's death, though she did not know how. The maester had said it'd been a combination of the weakness after birth and her own weakening health but she knew her father believed that Tyrion had been the one to kill her truly.
Stepping in, Cersei regarded the child held in the cradle.
He was young and, aside from a somewhat large head, looked perfectly fine to her. A bit ugly, yes, but all babes were unsightly creatures until they could walk and talk. Tyrion didn't look like the ill-formed monstrosity the servants whispered about or the hellish spawn her father thought him to be.
Laying her hands on the sides of cradle, Cersei ran a curious finger down the curve of his forehead and the slope of his bulbous nose. She had thought the same about him too, once. Thought that he was an awful blight, a curse sent down from the gods to steal away her mother, a return, perhaps, for the beauty she and her brother had been born with. But looking at him now, she couldn't help but wonder why she would do something so foolish.
Tyrion was just a babe. An ugly little babe that everyone whispered about – they'd already assigned him his identity since he was born and that was something she could sympathize with. He was bound in his cage of deformity and she was bound in her cage of womanhood. Jaime was bound too, but he was happily held in his cage of heir and firstborn son so she could not sympathize as well with him, even if he had his share of hardships. But Tyrion… Tyrion was special. Tywin – father – didn't believe in him, either, and would never be as indulging with him as he was with Jaime.
Tyrion would know the cage and just for that alone, Cersei felt her heart swell with a well of affection because it more than made up for his ugliness. She traced the swell of his cheeks and the small dimple in his chin before drawing back, closing the door behind her softly so she would not disturb the slumbering babe.
…
Back in her room, Cersei shut the door behind her before sitting in front of her vanity. It had become ritual to sit like this every day and stare at the other face in the mirror, to trace the lines of her bones and see the places where the two faces mismatched. Black eyes gazed out at her from the confines of the mirror, something like amusement sparking out from them as Cersei observed the differences between them.
"Who are you?" she whispered at the face.
It said nothing back. Cersei tried to adopt the expression it held – a quirk of the lips, a certain tilt of the head, a twinkling of the eye – that spoke of absolute confidence and belief in one's own authority. The expression that resulted was a comical parody – the smile too forced, the brows knitted in consternation, the whole image too frozen to be taken seriously. Cersei relaxed her face and instead frowned like she was wont to do.
To her dismay, she only appeared to pout.
It was girlish, proper, and very, very endearing. It was the face of someone to be made into a pretty pet and companion, not someone who would be powerful.
It wasn't the face of a queen.
Cersei deepened her frown into a scowl, watching the soft curves harden into harsh lines.
Someday.
…
Cersei silently walked through the corridors of Casterly Rock, a hand tightly gripping the skirt of her voluminous gown so as to keep it far from her feet, and her eyes darted from side-to-side to see if anyone noticed this breach in her manners. No one, however, was near these parts of the keep. Beyond a few servants sent down to clean it out, few visited the lowest parts where the old prisoner's cells were kept. The chill and dank gloom, with the added spookiness, discouraged most.
Just as well, as it was the isolation that she sought out.
The girl lit the few torches she had added in since her last visit and found the single cushion smuggled down from her rooms and sank down on it. It had a few more stains since the last time and the plushness of it was constantly wearing down but Cersei couldn't be bothered to care overly much. Closing her eyes, she leaned back against the cold stone walls.
Lessons with Septa Saranelle alternated between absolutely awful and tolerable. The days where she learned to embroider, learned the history and houses of Westeros, and a countless other little things a lady needed to know were tolerable. The days she learned the rules of lady-like behavior and what was expected of her were the awful ones.
Clenching her fist until her knuckles became white, Cersei recalled the Septa's nasally, gaspy voice and the simpering words as she delivered her lesson.
"A woman's desire should not matter in the bedroom and it is your duty to uphold your honor as wife. In submitting, you both please your lord husband and do your duty to bear heirs."
She'd tried to argue against it, of course. Demanded to know why the lady was supposed to be only a brood mare and why her husband's pleasure was a duty on her part and not on his. When she'd said that, however, the Septa had gasped before immediately summoning her father.
That conversation had not gone well, either.
"Septa Saranelle tells me that you've been arguing with her."
She remained silent, mind whirling with things to say. Finally, she decided on something neutral as an opener.
"She said some things I disagreed with."
Tywin raised a white-gold brow in askance. "And what would that be?"
"She said… she was teaching me about a lady's duties. Motherhood and wifehood. While I don't think they're all that bad, I want to know why that's our only duties. Why don't women rule as well?"
If he'd been that sort of man, he would have snorted. But as he was Tywin Lannister, he only quirked a corner of his lips, which was his equivalent. "Do you think you ought to rule?"
Inside, she thought she should. She had, in fact, and had been damn successful at it. But that was not proper and instead, she only said, "I wouldn't know. But a lady of a house should know how to aid her husband in his duties."
"And that's why she bears his children," Tywin said. "That is their duty, not leadership."
She grit her teeth. From where he could not see, her nails were digging small crescent marks into the flesh portion of her palm. Her face remained serene as she spoke, "What if the husband dies or is otherwise unable to lead? There have been many marriages where the husband was duller than the wife. The Seven know that uncle Steffon couldn't find his way out bed if aunt Genna weren't – "
"I wouldn't finish that, if I were you," Tywin cut her off. The look in his eyes, formerly vaguely tolerant amusement, now was replaced by cool appraisal. "You are a beautiful girl, Cersei, and that alone will secure you a favorable marriage. Add our family name and you could very well be queen. However, you are not as smart as you think you are. Don't drag your family down with your foolish ideas."
Cersei wanted to reach over, grab him by the lapels of his tunic, and hold the dagger she'd taken to concealing under her gown and hold it under his throat. She wanted to see how long he could keep up his perfect cool before he broke. She wanted a million other things but on the surface, her face could've been carved from glass for all the emotion it showed. "I see," she said softly. "I believe that I understand. Thank you, father, for clearing up my misconceptions."
Tywin didn't say anything. He instead considered her silently before looking back down at the piles of papers on his desk. "You may leave," he said and in his voice, she could tell that he was dismissing her before she had even left.
Cersei bowed her before sweeping out, the drag of her skirts rasping and her back so straight it could've been carved from the same stone that made up Casterly Rock.
So few words exchanged yet so much behind them. In this world, in this land of ladies and lords and knights, she was little more than another pawn on the chess board, meant to bear the next generation and secure alliances with other houses and little else beyond that. Not even her own father believed in her.
To be brought down so low was… infuriating. Cersei raised her hands and examined them. The fingers were long and tapered to delicate points. The nails were carefully groomed and trimmed without the slightest trace of grime beneath them. Her skin, milk white and soft, didn't have overt blemishes or callouses – all signs of someone who never did anything like labor in their entire life.
Yet the memories of another life overlaid a different set of hands on her own. They were smaller and tanned. Sometimes they were stained with flecks of blood and grime. They were always covered in a wealth of scars, some on the knuckles, some white and shiny with age, and some still scabbed and pink. When she looked in her mirror, she saw both golden hair and coal-black tresses. She saw a face – beautiful in a sharp dagger-like way, with lips set into a perpetual smirk that didn't reach her black eyes – that hovered just above her own skin.
Cersei wasn't sure what to make of it. Surely everyone else didn't have second faces whenever they looked upon themselves, right? If they did, no one said anything about it. Still, she knew that she shouldn't speak about it. Her father and brother had always been more distant after her illness. Cersei herself didn't know what to make of it.
She clenched her fist and watched the other hand follow suit. Those hands were certainly a woman's – nothing could conceal the delicate femininity of the palm or the roundness where a man's would have been hard angles – but they were nothing like a lady's. Yet Cersei knew that these hands were not earned from a lifetime of labor and hard work like a peasant girl's would have been. These hands were born from a life spent holding weapons, from hurting people, from holding the world in a glove of iron.
These were the hands of someone powerful.
She closed her eyes. The conversation with her father had been a dismal failure. He refused to consider anything she had said – had in fact, seemed to consider her lower than before. After leaving, the burn of anger in her belly had required hours of stiff-backed walking through the keep, the severe coldness of her expression successfully warning away others from her path. Cersei wanted to rage at him, to demand her rights as a person, not just a woman, to demand to know why on earth she should be kept so low simply because she had been born with breasts and a womb. Yet her lips refused to move and her expression hadn't budged an inch because she knew, like she knew that the sun was hot and that the sky was blue, that Tywin wouldn't listen to a single word. His hand around her would only grow tighter and his judgments harsher.
There would be no sympathy from that quarter.
So, buried under hundreds of tons of stone and dirt, in a place where the darkness was kept at bay by the light of a few sputtering torches, Cersei swore to herself that, when she was queen and when she had a crown that matched the gold of her hair, that she would hold on to power with both hands. That her husband would tend on her, not the other way around, and men would bow for her like Maggy had said that night in her tent. That power would be hers because she had been the one to take it, not because she leveraged her name to take it.
She would be powerful.
…
When she finally resurfaced from her brooding, Cersei immediately crossed paths with Jaime, who was sweating heavily from training. Seeing her, his face cracked into a golden smile like the sun coming from behind a cover of clouds, and he rushed her into an embrace despite her squawk of dismay. She squirmed through it, edging away from the uncomfortable grooves of his boiled leathers and the stench of his sweat, until he let her go with a laugh that became guffaws when she batted it the back of his head.
"You need to relax," he grinned when he finally calmed. "You're always so stiff."
"Well, I'm not the one prancing around with a sword," she sniffed as she straightened the wrinkles in her gown. "Go and bathe – you stink worse than a pig."
"Not many pigs can claim mastery of the blade," Jaime shot back, falling astride her. "You're in a sour mood. What happened? Fight with your Septa again or something?"
"Septa Saranelle is a fool," Cersei shrugged. "Once I accepted that, she became far more tolerable. It's just father…"
"Ah," Jaime said lightly. While he didn't know the specifics of his sister's quarrel with their father, he knew enough to stay well away from it. "Do you want any help or…?"
"Its fine," she said a touch too quickly.
Jaime frowned. "Are you in trouble? I can talk to him, if you like."
Cersei shook her head and the sunlight that squeezed in through the windows glanced off her locks to burn them into a bright golden hue. "You know what he's like. Nothing will sway him. You just keep training, brother, until your sword-arm can best any man in the realm. No need to worry your head over my behalf."
"You know," Jaime said dryly, "It should be my job to keep you reassured, not the other way around. I'm your brother."
"And I am older," Cersei responded. "As the older, better-looking – "
"Hah!"
" – and wiser sibling," she continued as if he hadn't said anything at all, "I'm more suited to the job of assuring."
"You keep thinking that," Jaime laughed as they reached the turn for their separate rooms. He waved to her as he went down the opposing corridor. Cersei paused half-way down and watched him bounce along, a small, crooked smile on her face. Jaime was a few bare minutes younger than her as her twin yet she couldn't help but feel infinitely older than him. He was easily deflected with small japes and his attention was that of a bird's – quick, fleeting, and ever-changing.
Where he smiled and laughed and glowed, Cersei found herself mimicking her father – or better yet, the other face – with half-smiles and raised brows that said nothing yet hid a whole speech.
On the topic of her family… Cersei's eyes turned to the nursery adjacent to her corridor. On slow, plodding feet, she slowly walked to the door that held a room with a cradle in it along with a conjoined playroom. Pushing it open, Cersei peered through and her eyes landed on the babe's bed pushed against the wall. It was draped with rich Lannister crimson and gold but the small child held in it was hardly worth the finery around him.
Tyrion, her youngest brother, was a dwarf, or at least that had been what Septa Saranelle had said after she pushed for more information on his deformity. He was the cause of her mother's death, though she did not know how. The maester had said it'd been a combination of the weakness after birth and her own weakening health but she knew her father believed that Tyrion had been the one to kill her truly.
Stepping in, Cersei regarded the child held in the cradle.
He was young and, aside from a somewhat large head, looked perfectly fine to her. A bit ugly, yes, but all babes were unsightly creatures until they could walk and talk. Tyrion didn't look like the ill-formed monstrosity the servants whispered about or the hellish spawn her father thought him to be.
Laying her hands on the sides of cradle, Cersei ran a curious finger down the curve of his forehead and the slope of his bulbous nose. She had thought the same about him too, once. Thought that he was an awful blight, a curse sent down from the gods to steal away her mother, a return, perhaps, for the beauty she and her brother had been born with. But looking at him now, she couldn't help but wonder why she would do something so foolish.
Tyrion was just a babe. An ugly little babe that everyone whispered about – they'd already assigned him his identity since he was born and that was something she could sympathize with. He was bound in his cage of deformity and she was bound in her cage of womanhood. Jaime was bound too, but he was happily held in his cage of heir and firstborn son so she could not sympathize as well with him, even if he had his share of hardships. But Tyrion… Tyrion was special. Tywin – father – didn't believe in him, either, and would never be as indulging with him as he was with Jaime.
Tyrion would know the cage and just for that alone, Cersei felt her heart swell with a well of affection because it more than made up for his ugliness. She traced the swell of his cheeks and the small dimple in his chin before drawing back, closing the door behind her softly so she would not disturb the slumbering babe.
…
Back in her room, Cersei shut the door behind her before sitting in front of her vanity. It had become ritual to sit like this every day and stare at the other face in the mirror, to trace the lines of her bones and see the places where the two faces mismatched. Black eyes gazed out at her from the confines of the mirror, something like amusement sparking out from them as Cersei observed the differences between them.
"Who are you?" she whispered at the face.
It said nothing back. Cersei tried to adopt the expression it held – a quirk of the lips, a certain tilt of the head, a twinkling of the eye – that spoke of absolute confidence and belief in one's own authority. The expression that resulted was a comical parody – the smile too forced, the brows knitted in consternation, the whole image too frozen to be taken seriously. Cersei relaxed her face and instead frowned like she was wont to do.
To her dismay, she only appeared to pout.
It was girlish, proper, and very, very endearing. It was the face of someone to be made into a pretty pet and companion, not someone who would be powerful.
It wasn't the face of a queen.
Cersei deepened her frown into a scowl, watching the soft curves harden into harsh lines.
Someday.
…