Cersei I

The day had been warm and bright and merry. There was nary a cloud in sight and the sun's yellow rays stuck her long hair and the gold engravings of her wheelhouse. The first proper day since they had crossed the Neck on the way to Winterfell, the queen thought. A proper day ought to be warmer than the hells of the North. A sharp lurch and stop of the wheelhouse brought her out of her musings. She gestured at Tommen and Myrcella to continue their game of cyvasse as they waited to be informed of what had happened.

"We should go and see what happened," Tommen insisted, "instead of waiting out here like babies." Sansa took the chance to whisper something in Myrcella's ear and her daughter quickly took Tommen's king with her Lord Hand.

"You are a prince, Tommen. The greatest prince of Lannister, my darling boy. Lions do not go worrying about the forest." Her son swallowed and accepted her words as he always did before a knock sounded on the door. The queen bid them to enter, and Aenyra walked in with a curtsey. The girl looked as obedient as she always did and Cersei gestured at her to speak.

"Prince Edwin bid me to tell Your Grace that the wheel of your carriage got cracked somewhat. He commands everyone in the wheelhouse to step out while it is being repaired," Aenyra said, paling at the last words as Cersei's mouth twisted. Commands?! The son of that drunk presumes to give commands to me? The girl quickly shuffled out of sight, turning her head to the side on seeing the cyvasse board.

Her golden children were too cooped up in the wheelhouse for the last leg of the journey south—that oaf Robert had allowed his little hind of a daughter and Edwin to ride separately from her, their mother!—so she allowed them to come out.

Edwin was still sitting on his horse, beside the Targaryen boy who stood as quiet as a mouse. Robert's hostage's eyes went at once to his sister before passing to the rest of her party. Edwin's attention was slower to come to her, letting one of the Redwyne twins complete one of their pathetic jokes before addressing her entourage. She descended upon them and with a smile she did not feel, and held out her hand for them to kiss. Royal protocol dictated that a Queen-Consort came before the heir, for as long as the king lived. As such, the highest respect had to be paid to her and even the Crown Prince fell under that. Most queens did not make use of it, for it was their eldest son whom they would undermine. Her eldest son would have been a magnificent king, she had known it in her bones for all the nine months she carried him. But her beautiful, golden Joffrey had died and Robert's son had stepped into his shoes.

So she stood there smiling while both boys dismounted, the hostage Targaryen being quick to pay his respects and kneeling to kiss her ring. His companion was slower, with a glower on his face that he could not hide. He is behaving like the child he is, she thought. Joffrey and Tommen would always be better. She made Edwin do the same as his friend —Joffrey would have known how to deal with a Targaryen traitor, but this second boy born of her womb only gave honours to a snake—and relished making him kneel in the mud for Tommen as well. Robert's son softened when he bowed to Myrcella and flashed her a smile that looked more like a grimace. No one could resist her daughter, not when she looked like Cersei come again.

Edwin took a deep breath before turning his blue eyes towards her. His eyes. Robert's eyes, Robert's hair, Robert's nose, not as sharp as a Lannister's, Robert's large, ungainly hands she had been forced to feel on herself. Edwin had nothing of her in him at all, no sign to mark her his mother, no sign to mark her different from any other broodmare who could welp the king's son. "I hope you, Myrcella or Lady Sansa were not discomforted over much, mother—"

Tommen pouted and she interrupted the dark-haired boy. "Do you not worry for Tommen's comfort as well, you uncaring boy?"

"I hope you are well, Tommen," he managed to ground out after a moment.

"Your brother was almost thrown back from his chair and his perfect golden hair went rather askew," she added, re-settling her son's flowing hair. It was almost as long as Jaime's.

The stag's son clenched his jaw and said nothing. Cersei had almost decided to prod him on before Sansa spoke up. "Your hair looks very nice, Prince Tommen. I am certain you are the most adorable prince the Crownlanders have seen for decades."

That irked her. "Why should a prince, the son of the king, care for what some peasant thinks? And I shall not even remark on what your comment implied about your own betrothed, Lady Sansa."

The girl looked at her with wide eyes that poured with stupidity, stupidity enough for trying to speak against her, the queen. The little fool seemed to struggle to think of something to say as all eyes of the court swung towards them before the Targaryen spoke up. "I am sure that the prince only enquired after the ladies first as any gallant knight should. Prince Tommen is his father's son, and so did not need worrying after." His face was as blank as ever even as both of the betrothed couple shot him glances.

Cersei turned her nose at him and left without gracing the hostage with a reply, her court trailing after her like ashes in the wake of wildfire. They all sat in the chairs someone had brought for them as Lord Tywin's daughter turned to Aenyra. "What were you doing in your carriage?"

She looked up, surprised to be addressed by someone so far above her station but gathered herself faster than the Stark girl. "I was planning to sew, Your Grace."

"Sew what?" She asked impatiently.

"The buttons of a gown of mine fell off, Your Grace. I thought to mend it before we reached King's Landing…." She trailed off too late, aware of the mockery she would face for admitting to do a servant's work.

Cersei gave a smile to encourage the bootlickers as they laughed at her admission before speaking up. "Is that appropriate work for a noble lady, I wonder? I suppose a father's blood has to show somewhere and the gods know you don't have a horselord's looks. Though I could have sworn my husband appointed some knight's wife to you, to care for you and your siblings."

A blush crept up on Aenyra's face and she looked properly chastised as she claimed not wanting to increase her madame's work. She looked towards where both her brother and Edwin stood silently, within earshot.

"There is no ball you would need to attend regardless. Myrcella is very tired and she needs a carriage to sleep in," the queen added lightly.

"The wheelhouse is where the princess sleeps in," the senseless girl pointed out. A sterner look from Cersei had her bowing to the lioness' will. "I will ride for the rest of the way, if it please Your Grace and the princess," Aenyra said.

"Mother!" Her Myrcella had an affronted look on her face. "I am not so drowsy that I will fall like water down a pipe," she protested. "A noble lady should not be made to ride when there is a perfectly serviceable wheelhouse for me."

"But Aenyra is not a noble lady, daughter," Cersei reminded her. "Certainly, she would cede her place to a princess."

"I would be glad to be helpful to Your Grace in any way I can be, to repay your kindness in raising me as you have."

"We are to reach the capital by tomorrow, my ladies," Edwin spoke up. "Will it not be grand to be back in King's Landing?"

The queen sniffed in disgust. "If you call that shit pile a city. The sewers of Lannisport are better made than the great buildings of King's Landing."

"Lannisport is the queen of all cities in the Seven Kingdoms," her Tommen faithfully parroted.

"For myself, I prefer Highgarden," Edwin said. "As beautiful as any place in the Westerlands and twice as warm."

"We are talking of cities, you podge," Tommen taunted his brother. "Not castles."

"Tommen," Edwin warned in a diplomatic tone that reeked of the hostage boy's influence.

"My apologies, Your Podginess," her brave son refused to bow to the boar's son.

Cersei asked the rest of the girls which cities they liked best, though she could not care less. But if these silly little chits stop Edwin from complaining to his brute father or his whore of a sister, it would subject Tommen to one less scolding.

"Lady Celaena and I were talking of the Free Cities and how lovely they must be," her daughter said. Cersei shared a worried glance with Myrcella's septa. Who knows what that girl might start teaching my daughter? Robert kept that one close, and Cersei wondered if the girl had spread her legs for him yet. It baffled most of the court why the king would give a shit about the Targaryen, yet Cersei knew the girl would not appeal to her husband, plain and flat-chested as she was.

"I have only seen White Harbour," Sansa hesitantly ventured, the presence of her prince seemingly emboldening her. "But my mother says it is only a fraction as great as the cities in the south."

"Lady Catelyn speaks truly," Kaeron's cold voice rose for the first time in the conversation. "White Harbour is the smallest of the major cities of Westeros, and much younger than all but King's Landing besides."

"Then which city do you like best, Kaeron? You've seen as many of them as I have," Edwin said.

"Our destination and the city you will rule from, my prince," he replied smoothly, eyes on his dark-haired sister who stood talking to the Arryn girl. "King's Landing."

Men came to tell them that the wheelhouse that been repaired soon and Cersei led her children into it, putting Tommen and Myrcella to bed. She waited for the handmaidens to brush her hair before drifting off.

The tent smelt of rosemary and death. Cersei stood on the threshold alone though there had been three of them in life, foolish girls who had been tempted by Lannisport's gossip. She walked in.

Square-cut rubies glittered on the shelfs that lined the walls, beside jars of pungent odours. Maggy the Frog had dropped an emerald into her pot when they had entered in life but in the dream, the witch sat expectantly, reaching towards her with a knife. Cersei took the gold and black instrument and cut her thumb, letting the blood be sucked by the woodswitch until her gums turned red. Perhaps this time it will be different, the queen thought. She had gone north and seen the little rose herself; married to the wolf pup, she would never take her crown.

Maggy the Frog did not say it every night. Some nights she would mumble nonsense like Robert did in his sleep, for the nights she had shared his bed. Some nights she would not say anything at all, just stare at her with twisted, yellow eyes.

"When will I wed the prince?" Cersei wanted spit to leave her mouth instead of the words, yet her body meekly followed the path of the past.

"Never," the crone replied and the queen remembered her heart had stopped when she heard that. "You will wed the king."

"I will be the queen though?"

"A queen you shall be until there come the others: younger, kinder, fairer, wiser. All you love will forsake you for them."

The little fools had thought that only a baren queen could be powerless, too ignorant even of Queen Rhaella, whose screams echoed through the Red Keep even then. "Will I have children?"

"Aye, children you will have. Three shall bring you pride and joy. One shall be your collapse. You will see them rise and you will see to their falls. And just when you feel safe and whole and happy, your joy will turn to ashes in your mouth...then the valonqar shall wrap his hands around your throat and choke the life out of you."

The crone melted in front of her, her bone and blood forming a sea. The queen drowned in it, depp deep down, until the golden hand of her twin reached out to her. She grabbed as hard as she could but Jaime in the dream was not as strong as life. He slipped into the water, and sank impossibly fast. It was not possible to save him, she thought. Jaime would not want me to drown trying to save him.

Another face appeared above the water, this time Margaery Tyrell's. She took Cersei's throat in her hands and pushed her under the water, even as the lioness struggled. Her hair was turning silver from gold, then grey, and then white. The little rose's mousy brown hair turned darker, until it was the Baratheon black hair and blue eyes she was looking at. That whore is trying to kill me, the golden queen realised.

Cersei woke with a scream on her lips and water on her neck. The smell of King's Landing greeted the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms before its sight did.