So color me shocked at the response I got at the teaser chapter, one of those few times I can honestly say I was a bit humbled by the reaction of my long time readers.

As an aside I wrote this chapter in thirty minutes listening to "See What I've Become" by Zack Hemsey while I was waiting for my prescriptions to be prepared, so yeah, bit short but what can you do?

That being said we're going to be skipping rocks on the lake here to get to the era that matters, this chapter is the birth of Cersei and Jaime, next will be Tyrion, and after that I'm hemming and hawing over whether Mordred meets Rhaegar or Robert first. The former will lead to romance shenanigans, the latter to a night of drinking and quite likely a fist fight, whoring, and more drinking.

I forget which reviewer over on my other story put it when I initially teased this idea, but Mordred and Robert are either going to be arch enemies, or the best of friends, there will be no middle ground there.

If one were to ask how best to describe Mordred Lannister, they would most likely focus on her intellect, regal bearing, and a sense of subdued playfulness. Less a lion, more a bemused cat, but no less dangerous for the fact.

That she was only three and had garnered such a reputation was something most did not speak of; though this day, a day of days, she was about to become something she had never been before.

A sister.

Mordred was about to become an elder sibling, someone meant to guide, lead, and protect her blood and...and...

She smirked.

And she could not fucking wait.

She had failed her father Arturia, or she had failed her...or they had failed each other...gods above and below was her past life confusing. Still, her smirk fell at that thought, but... she had not failed Kairi, who in the back of her mind she viewed as her laid back necromancer substitute dad. Sure, they had died and all, but they had not failed their mission even if it had cost them everything, but she had learned from the experience.

Familial feelings were not bound by blood, though that did help. Dying for a cause you believed in was acceptable, just make sure you made the other son of a bitch pay for it. At the last, cigarettes were fucking disgusting despite the fact that Kairi seemed to live off the cancer sticks, fitting for a necromancer really.

So, Mordred Lannister, first of her name, sat outside the maester's chambers, listening to her mother scream, silently praying to gods she did not believe in, hoping beyond hope her family would make it through this.

There were more screams, more cries of agony, then she heard a different sort of crying, a child's cry.

Mordred did not move, but she stopped crying...wait no she had not been crying, only cowards cried. The tears must have been set off by the candles, or the incense blowing out from the cracks in the door, no way in hell she had been crying in fear.

Fear after all was the little death that would consume you if you let it.

What was that pop culture bullshit that the Grail stuck in her head again? Fear leads to hate, hate leads to anger, and anger leads to suffering...

Gods above and below did that not sum up her entire existence.

She tried to ignore the ache in her chest at that thought, which was only accomplished because her mother let out another scream of pain quickly echoed by another child's cries.

Her mother was panting in agony, and there were two children crying now.

"Twins," Mordred whispered as a smile turned up the lips of her cherub like visage.

She sat alone in the hall for another hour before the door was opened and the very tired looking Maester looked down at the distraught little girl.

He smiled kindly while gesturing into the room, "Would you like to meet your sister and brother, my lady?"

Smiling Mordred hopped off her chair and entered the room, seeing a stool beside the bed the small girl clambered up it and took a seat, staring at the bundles in her mother's arms in wonder.

Joanna met her daughter's gaze and smiled lightly as she whispered out, "Oh my little Dread of the Rock, let me introduce you to your siblings." Shaking her right arm ever so slightly she continued with, "This, is your baby sister Cersei," she then shook her left arm equally as lightly, "And this is your little brother Jaime."

Crawling up onto her mother's bed Mordred placed shaky hands on both of them and muttered the only word she could think of, "Beautiful."

Her mother only laughed weakly at that, "Yes they are, my wonderful little Dread."

Something...sharp, heavy, and...utterly indomitable settled upon Mordred's chest at that moment, staring at the two new born children in her mother's arms she came to a rather simple conclusion.

"Mine."

These were her little brother and sister, these were Mordred's family, family she needed to protect and all the heavens and hells in the entire multiverse could fuck off because she was going to make sure they grew up happy, loved, and taught how to defend themselves.

"Yes, your's little one, your siblings, your family," Joanna muttered.

Her siblings, her family, she owed it to them to protect them, they were not simple subjects, they were more than that, she owed a debt as the eldest sibling to keep them safe.

And after all, a Lannister always pays her debts.

I've got the strangest feeling Mordred and Tywin are going to be seeing things eye to eye on a great many subjects, and that is both hilarious and terrifying even as the writer.