Jaime

It was quite more tolerable with Alys once again in his company to be in Kings Landing while Robert rose to kingship and things were being settled for this new reign. He even felt better able to ignore the impending arrival of his sister and her marriage to Robert, focus turned instead to Alys's laughter as she tries to teach him a new strategy that she hopes will let him beat Tyrion. It was easier to ignore the whispers of 'Kingslayer' as well.

Though of course other whispers had popped up with more interest since his and Alys's return to each other's companionship.

Harder to ignore, to be certain, as it was more pointed whispering whenever the lords and ladies of court happened past the two of them. Especially when the most prevalent part of said whispering was babbling and cooing on Alys's lap while she explained once again the move she is trying to teach him.

Jaime eyed the babe, and sighed. He hadn't brought it up, not in truth. He'd alluded, and carefully prodded in hopes that she'd trust him well enough to at least give him the benefit of not being lied to.

Which, in a way she did, if the subject came about she simply moved them away from it.

There was plenty other things to talk about it seemed, including her inevitable return north. A thing he didn't look forward to. Though in truth he had little clue where his own path lead from here.

"Perhaps I'll be accompanying you all on the Kingsroad," he remarks once, after she'd mentioned a letter from Benjen exclaiming his anticipation of her return. "If you're brother gets his way." He shakes his head, fiddling with his knight piece in his hands, "riding from one life oath to another."

Alys frowned, and let out a low sigh. She hadn't told him as much, but he'd gotten the sense on more than one of the few occasions where her brother had come across them in each others company that he was quite the point of tension between the siblings.

"You'd hate the wall." Alys says, taking the piece that Jon was attempting to swallow and wiping it carefully of spittle on her dress. Jon didn't seem to mind the loss of his toy, the babe now reaching for the hair delicately cascading down over her shoulder. Tangling his little fingers into the dark strands. "Far too cold, and the armor is much less shiny."

He smirks as as he looks back to her from Jon, "perhaps, but I've heard I am quite dashing in black." She shakes her head, a smile playing at her lips in return as she sets the piece down and shifts Jon on her lap again, pulling her hair carefully from his fingers.

Jaime glances to him again. "Whoever his other parent is," He speaks slowly, not wanting to risk her anger too greatly. "He's lucky to have the Stark look. I believe I see the beginning of that scowl I've seen a few times between you and your brother." He flashes his smile and holds a finger out to Jon, who blinks at it with eyes that look much like Alys's. "I fear Lord Stark risks it being frozen that way every time he sees me."

"You haven't really done much to soothe that tension." She informs him as a pair of ladies' pass by the trio on the bench, Jaime notes them whispering between each other and soon Alys had shifted Jon in her lap so he was even further from Jaime. "Though Starks are a stubborn bunch, so it's not likely to be easy." Jaime nodded but his eyes follow the pair, when they were far enough off he spoke lowly "you know, it would be easier to keep your ruse if you had someone to place Jon's fatherhood upon." She glares at him before letting out a sigh, shaking her head and cradling Jon closer to her. He continues on, "You're the gossip of the court, well besides me of course with my king killing." He lets a short chuckle escape to attempt to diffuse the tension he brought.

"They can gossip away, no one will come up and question because there is no point in it." She tells him as Jon rests against her chest his eyes shutting and opening as he struggles to keep awake. "Besides, once I head north with him people will move on to some fresher topic that is left in front of them. No one will care about a northern bastard once he's left their field of view." "It would still…"

"Enough," she states, voice firm in a way now familiar with topics of Jon, "as I said, who his father is doesn't matter. I should go, get him in bed so he doesn't end up in a foul mood later." She stands, "I will see you tomorrow, Ser Jaime." And with a turn of her skirts she leaves him sat upon the bench watching after her until she and Jon disappear around the bend.

He shuts his eyes and lets out a huff before reopening them and packing the chess set up. He fiddles a second longer with the piece Jon had claimed earlier and gives it another wipe down before putting it away.

He left the garden himself, ready to spend the rest of his day swinging his word at a guard and awaiting Tyrion and Cersei's arrival the next day.

Alys

Alys fussed a second more over Jon, though Wylla laughed and waved her away. "I've got him, Alys, don't make you're brother late."

Alys frowns but nods, "okay," she peers over at Jon one last time before nodding and slipping from the nursery and back into her room proper where Ned was waiting to walk with her to the Sept of Baelor for Roberts official coronation. It was a small affair considering, but after it seems there would a lavish enough feast. Alerie had spoken boastfully of the Tyrell's offering to provide the food for the event.

And in a month they'd be celebrating again, likely in even more lavish standards, with the marriage of Robert to Cersei Lannister.

It seemed a lot especially as Dragonstone is still untaken and news of the former Dragon queens pregnancy is abundant. But also made well enough sense to Alys, partially because of the fact that Dragonstone was still there with Targaryens still hiding upon it. Robert has to show his reign is true, to show that peace is coming and that that small hold out is not worth risking more war for.

Still, Alys felt she would much rather be spending her afternoon with Jon or with Jaime.

When they arrive at the Sept, a great building that Alys had yet to visit in all her time here, she glances about the place. It's stunning, that much she can recognize. And even with her faith holding in different gods she can't help but feel the greatness of it. Though it doesn't hold the same haunting feel of the Godswood she associates with her own faith. As Ned leaves her to go converse with Jon and Robert she glances up at the immense statues of the Seven.

She misses the weirwoods of her own faith. It had been so long since she'd knelt before one, and though she was fond of the heart tree here she missed the proper ones of her faith.

She turns her gaze away from the gods of the south, and instead looks about the nobles now gathered awaiting Robert's crowning.

Alys can't lie and say she isn't specifically looking for Jaime, and she can't lie and say that her heart feels a flutter when she spots him stood across the way. He's smiling, a thing she's very happy to see, and she's equally happy to see the source of it in a boy she figures to be his brother.

She doesn't head over, for one not wanting to interrupt him and his brother's talking, but also because Oberyn steps up beside her. "I met him once," he nods, "he was only a baby though. And not as exciting or monstrous as they'd made it seem he'd be."

"Monstrous?" Alys shakes her head, "he's just a boy. Regardless of how he was born or that he's a dwarf."

Oberyn just smiles at her, and soon their attention is drawn to the ceremony itself as it begins. Alys pays some attention, but she also finds herself glancing Jaime's way from time to time. He's watching with what appears to be bored disinterest, though occasionally a smirk plays to his lip and he turns to the other side of him where a woman stands.

Alys presumes it's likely his sister, though she can't get a good glance at her.

The ceremony goes by, and Alys watches Robert rise with his crown firmly upon his head. She can't help but think of Lyanna, of what she'd think if she'd lived to see this herself.

Would she be up there beside him? Or would she be hidden away like Elia and Rhaenys because of Jon.

Alys decides she does not wish to think of it at all.

Cersei

Kings Landing is welcoming, and long awaited.

Seeing Jaime again after so long is as wickedly sweet as she hoped, though they hadn't been able to truly greet each other the way she wished. Her arrival had been beside Tyrion and her welcome had involved father and her betrothed.

Though she didn't much mind the second. Robert looked every bit as she'd expected. Tall and built and looking already like a king even without the crown yet secured upon his head. He was no Rhaegar, but at that thought she simply reminds herself that Rhaegar was killed by Roberts hand at the Trident, smashed in and left in the rivers with his chest-plates rubies floating away with his blood.

And what did it really matter, whether her husband was white or black of hair, if marrying him made her queen?

She smiles to him, as she should, when Robert walks down at the coronations end. He gives her the most sparing of glances before he is passing by her and continuing down out of the Sept to make the procession back to the Red Keep.

It's during this procession that she manages to get Jaime alone, though not until they've entered the keep itself. But in the chaos of it all she pulls him away and down the halls until they find an empty room hidden away.

She's on him that instant, pulling greedily at him until his lips find hers and she's glad to have the passion returned as he pushes her hard into the wall beside the closed door. "We can't take long." She whispers with a smile as he moves his mouth to her neck. "It wouldn't be good for the new kings betrothed to miss his coronation feast." And Jaime growls against her skin in a way that sends shivers through her. "Don't leave a mark," she scolds.

"Don't marry him." He replies in turn, leaving her neck to meet her eyes with his mirroring ones, and she shakes her head with a roll of her eyes. "Braavos is nice this time of year I here."

"Not as nice as a crown." She states plainly.

And Jaime frowns, and she feels exasperation at the sight. "This is everything we wanted when you joined the kingsguard in the first place." She reminds him, "we'll be together, here in Kings Landing."

"And you'll be fucking the king while I stand outside his door listening to it." Jaime replies with a bite to his tone, stepping back enough that her back leaves the wall and she feels just that bit more annoyed.

"I won't love him," she states, bringing a hand to his cheek. "Me and you. We are one, that is not something any other would understand. For either of us."

Jaime looks at her, his eyes showing some deeper thought behind them though Cersei couldn't decipher what it was yet. He gives the slightest inclination of his head, before kissing her palm and stepping back. "We should return," he nods to the door, "It wouldn't be good for the new kings betrothed to miss his coronation feast." Jaime leaves first, checking for it to be clear while she frowns at his throwing her words back his way and lets out a short frustrated breath before going to the door after him.

She follows through the halls until they make it to the feast proper, her gaze studying her brother as he seems to stew in his own annoyance in mirror to hers. She wished they'd had longer in that room, that he hadn't ruined the moment with his daydreaming. The only relief to this annoyance was that they'd have all their lives here, when she's queen and he's reinstated in the Kingsguard.

Until then she'd hardly let his sour mood influence hers, and thus she makes her way to where her betrothed sits laughing beside his hand and the Stark lord. In hopes that she'll manage to make that part of her life here at least some measure of enjoyable.

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