Chapter X: Questions that Need Answering
A/N: Extreme apologies on the long wait. I have not abandoned this story, I will finish it. This chapter won't have any Robb/Marina, this will be in King's Landing. I will also be speeding things up. Thank you to darkwolf76 for her help with this chapter. Enjoy the update, the next one won't be as long a wait! SSD
Ned had finally got his hands on the book that Jon Arryn had been reading shortly before his death. It was dreadfully dull, but there had to be some importance.
He read aloud,
"Lord Orys Baratheon, black of hair." He looked further down, before continuing, "Axel Baratheon, black of hair. Lyonel Baratheon, black of hair. Steffon Baratheon, black of hair." He turned the page, before reading, "Robert Baratheon, black of hair." Then the pattern broke, "Joffrey Baratheon, golden haired."
That was something that gave him some pause before continuing to read the list of Robert's trueborn children, "Marina Baratheon, black of hair. Myrcella Baratheon, golden haired. Tommen Baratheon, golden haired.
How was it, that generation after generation of black haired Baratheons, only one of Robert's children coming out with his dark hair? A Baratheon several generations back had taken a Lannister wife. Their only child, a boy who'd died soon after birth, had black hair. So there was no reason for the Lannister golden hair to suddenly leap into prominence.
The queen was protective of her golden haired cubs. That much Ned had seen in his time as Hand of the King. How was she with her dark haired daughter?
Ned flashed back to a memory of an event that had happened a few months after Marina's arrival…
Ned was watching his wife read a story to Sansa, Arya, Bran, and surprisingly Marina was there as well, listening to Cat finish the story. The young princess had a smile on her face.
Soon after Cat had finished he watched as she gave all of her audience a hug before they left, even Marina.
But unlike the rest of the children there, Marina had seemed to be slightly uncomfortable with the attention that Cat had given her. It was as if she had never been shown any kind of affection from a maternal figure, outside that of her septa.
And something that he'd noticed during the royal visit for the wedding: Marina seemed to have little comfort around her mother's family. In fact, the only one he'd seen her interact with really was Tyrion.
And Lannister dwarf was the only one that Marina had shown any real kind of joy at seeing.
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Cersei was sitting in her solar, musing over words she had heard many years before.
"Aye. Queen you shall be... until there comes another, younger and more beautiful, to cast you down and take all that you hold dear."
Marina had definitely grown in the past five, nearly six years. While her looks were pure Baratheon, the beauty she had obviously came from both grandmothers.
Cersei had heard the whispers while in the North. They were that Marina had grown more beautiful than her mother. And upon seeing her oldest daughter for the first time in five years, she could not help but notice that she had indeed grown quite lovely. The Stark boy certainly had not been able to keep his eyes off of her.
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Things had started happening very quickly for Ned Stark. First after visiting another one of Robert's bastards, Jaime Lannister had attacked him over Cat's abduction of Tyrion Lannister on the road, then a Lannister guardsman speared him in the leg.
Investigating at that last brothel had led Ned to one conclusion: Joffrey, Myrcella, and Tommen were not Robert's children at all with their golden Lannister blonde hair. Marina stood out in the whole group with the black hair and blue eyes she'd inherited from her father.
The true line of succession to the Iron Throne was Stannis, Renly, then Marina. She was still third in line, but that was still something to think about.
He'd asked Cersei to see him in the gardens for a chat. Ned had some hope that it would give him answers to his questions.
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"Do you love your children?" Cersei asked.
"With all my heart."
"No more than I love mine."
"The ones that your brother Jamie fathered perhaps. But it seems you had no love left in your heart for your one child that's really Robert's. "
"How dare you! I love all my children the same, even if one of them has a drunken fool for a father." Ned could tell that Cersei really wanted to slap him.
"When your daughter came to Winterfell, she could barely look at my wife. Catelyn was the first real mother the girl ever knew. Even when you came for her wedding, you couldn't even spare your Marina a little affection on the happiest day of her life."
"Lord Stark, I never had the chance to be a mother to my child. My husband took her away from me and gave her to you to turn into a little wolf," the woman sneered.
"Perhaps Jon Arryn arranged to protect the girl. She has grown into a wonderful young woman that I proud to have as a good daughter, while you can barely stand her. If you hate her so, I don't understand why you would let Robert get you with child."
"In the rare event that Robert leaves his whores long enough to stumble drunk into my bed, I've always finished him off in other ways. In the morning he doesn't remember. There was only one unfortunate time when he came to me sober enough, to actually fuck me properly. And that resulted in Marina."
"You've always hated him." Ned said simply.
"Hated them? I worshiped Robert. Every girl in the seven kingdoms dreamed of him, but he was mine by oath. And when I finally saw him on our wedding day in the Sept of Baelor, lean, fierce, and black-bearded, it was the happiest moment of my life. And that night he crawled on top me, stinking of wine, and did what he did, what little he could do, and he whispered in my ear 'Lyanna'. Your sister was a corpse and I was a living girl, and he loved her more than me."
"So you made your daughter suffer for her father's sins?" Ned queried.
"I love Marina just as much as my other children, but my others always needed me more than she did. Robert barely gave anyone attention but his whores, but the few times he has actually remembered he was a father; he only could spare affection for his little black haired doe. My other children needed at least one parent to love them. I would have given Marina more attention when she was older, when it came time to make her a woman. I would have taught her how to be strong and given her all knowledge I have. What greater love is there than that?" She sounded like she actually believed that it was a good thing.
Before Ned could speak, she went on to say, "But then Robert decided his little doe was too precious to ruin, so he took her from me, and sold her to the lord of a frozen waste land."
"When the king returns from his hunt, I will tell him the truth. You must be gone by then, you and your children. I will not have their blood on my hands." It was no fault of a child who it's parents were.
"And what of my eldest daughter Lord Stark? Should I take her away as well, or will you allow my husband to harm her as well?"
"She is Robert's true daughter and my good daughter. She will have nothring to fear. I will protect her from Robert's intial anger, and she will be safe when he realizes she is truly his. You need to take the rest of your children and go as far away as you can with as many men as you can, because wherever you go, Robert's wrath will follow."
"And what of my wrath, Lord Stark? You stole one child from me and would endanger the rest. As you have seen with your own wife, there is no one more deadly than a mother defending her cubs."
"You should have taken the realm for yourself. Jamie told me about the day King's Landing fell. He was sitting in the Iron Throne and you made him give it up. All you needed to do was climb the steps yourself. Such as sad mistake."
"I've made many mistakes in my life, but not sitting on that chair and taking your daughter from you, were not one of them."
"Oh, but they were. When you play the game of thrones, you win, or you die. There is no middle ground."
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Ned watched as the Queen left without stopping her, not that he could. Trouble was going to be coming, he knew that much.
A/N 2: Well, things are just getting interesting. What did you all think of this one? Please tell me what you think! Sparky She-Demon