It's already well past noon by the time the last ship sails into harbour and by then, despite the unrelenting sun beating down on her, Cersei's smile feels all but frozen on her face.

It had been somewhat refreshing to see her own bannermen's ships once again, as it usually tends to be, but she's more than ready for it to be over all the same. There's still a little time left – Euron and his gods-forsaken raid are enough to keep her in the dark about just how long it would take for her to sail back to the Westerlands – but calling at least one representative of the houses that had allied with her had seemed like a wise move all the same, to learn whether Casterly Rock would be in any way defended if nothing else.

But even that is over by now – this late into the day, there's only one arrival still pending and it's as dreadful as it's important. She had sent everyone else away save for two of the knights of her Queensguard, standing a respectable distance from her, close enough to interfere if such a need should arise and distant enough to not make her seem afraid. Lord Harlaw, she had been told, did not take lightly to being faced with anyone he deemed too cowardly to occupy his presence, royalty or otherwise.

Her time in the Iron Islands had certainly taught her a lot, but more than any kind of worldly wisdom, Cersei had managed to unearth an impressive amount of bad blood between her own people and the Ironborn. Marrying into the Greyjoy family had saved her from the worst of it – there had been at least two separate destructions of the Lannister fleet and the unfortunate case of Rodrik Greyjoy's capture and his subsequent fate, inflicted by one of her ancestors some century and a half ago – but the rest of the islanders had not forgotten or forgiven anything quite so easily. The Harlaws had been a fine example of that since the very start. Cersei had had no choice but to initiate contact despite her husband's warnings; the entire island of Harlaw had fallen under their command many years ago despite Johanna Lannister's efforts to wipe them out to the last man and trying to handle them through messengers and raven scrolls would be equivalent to losing. It's one thing to try and negotiate with mainlanders without being personally present, but no mainlander she had ever known had been as prone to indignant outbursts as the calmest of her current subjects are.

Still, Cersei finds, it's difficult to keep the smug smile threatening to break out at bay when the ship with the silver scythe greeting her proudly from its sails anchors itself less than fifty feet away from her. Sigfryd Harlaw, their current Lord, had done his very best to offend her without slighting his king as well, and had failed soundly by sending one of his salt wives to represent him when being summoned to take his place in a council. The woman had caught her eye back then – for her desperation to get back home more than anything else – and soon enough, she'd sent a raven back to ask to have her as one of her ladies in waiting, which Lord Harlaw had reluctantly allowed. Coming in person and bringing her alongside with him is as much of a defeat as she'll get from him for now, but it's enough for her. She would need to act quickly so as not to arouse suspicion and it's nothing Cersei hasn't handled before; nothing as intimidating as the man himself as he approaches her now.

"My Lord."

"My Queen."

"My Lady." She beams back at her while her husband lowers himself to kiss the tips of Cersei's fingers, the thrill and apprehension of being addressed by a title she'd never truly had apparently too strong to hide. Her hasty curtsy is yet another manifestation of it, just before she glances fearfully in Lord Harlaw's direction. There won't be any more of that soon enough.

"Your Grace."

"You are most welcome to Pyke. My royal husband would receive you as soon as you've settled into the castle and your lady wife may come with me if she wishes to see her new home."

Harlaw narrows his eyes at her and stays quiet long enough for Cersei to be tempted to offer a clarification before spitting out, "Will my lady wife be returning to her home by the end of this visit?"

"If she so wishes, I would be happy to grant her a leave of any duration she chooses." She irritates him to no end, as she does with the majority of the highborn on the Iron Islands; he's made no effort whatsoever to hide it. She's too refined, too fond of talking in circles instead of making her point straight away and while the smallfolk seem to marvel at the change, it drives her supposed political allies to distraction. She's seen it in Euron's eyes too, especially at the start, when he hadn't been used to her yet, and it's more than easy to revel in it. "Her family must miss her dearly, I'm sure."

The mockery irks him further still, but it's not worth it to start a dispute over this; she'd relied on that quite a lot. Apart from this one, Lord Harlaw had at some point acquired two more salt wives and a rock one and had kept everyone but his Ironborn lady as little more than slaves. Few islanders would dare to kidnap a highborn girl at such an already uncertain time and losing her wouldn't affect anything but his pride.

Cersei had been introduced to the idea of salt wives shortly before her arrival, when she had asked about one of the women in the Iron Fleet's employ, only to realise that she hadn't served as part of the help in the true sense of the word. She'd entertained herself for an evening by asking Euron what kind of wife she would qualify as and watching him stumble through the search for an appropriate answer, only to finally land on 'You're my queen', but the reality of it up close had made it all seem far less amusing. She had quickly learnt to distinguish them, not just by the distinct plainness of the native Ironborn, but by the vacant expressions in certain women's eyes, the frequent bruises, the wide array of appearances from the entire known world.

Madelyn Lastel – or Madelyn Harlaw now, she supposed – had caught her eye for several reasons. She had only been taken a year and a half ago, in the chaos when Westeros had been left without a ruler for a time, and had expressed the ardent desire to go back home as soon as possible when Cersei had managed to coax out some honesty of her. The fire in her bright blue eyes only seems to diminish when she looks at her husband, but she'll heal in time and until she does, it's unlikely she'll be more resolute to stay loyal to the person who had freed her more than anyone else.

The husband in question must be aware of that as well, if the loathing written all over his face is anything to go by, but his suspicion isn't enough to force him to break his peace with his king by insulting the queen outright. Not yet, anyway, and she would have to figure out a way to prevent it from happening when she inevitably managed to make him snap.

"As you will." He gives a stiff bow before departing. Judging the last, venomous glance he had given them both, Cersei would have worried that she would be one lady in waiting short by this evening should she leave him unsupervised, but it's not particularly likely to be a problem – after all, Madelyn wouldn't stay on Pyke for too long.

"How have you been?" She asks as soon as they're alone and the woman's expression brightens once more. She casts a quick look back towards the ship and then follows her decisively as they leave the docks behind and head for the front entrance instead.

"Better. He has not— He was angry," she admits at last. "But he wouldn't hurt me. Thought you would be angry."

"I would have been." She's very young, little more than a girl, and women her age tend to be easily impressed by a queen who takes their side in a conflict, no matter how petty. Perhaps this time, she can keep it all from falling apart like it had when it had come to Sansa Stark. "I'm glad you're here now."

"So am I, Your Grace." Excitement steals its way into the sheer relief from before. "The last time we talked, you said I would be sailing north."

"I haven't changed my mind. Today, preferably, before anyone has had the chance to ruin the opportunity." It had been rather difficult to force said opportunity to happen to begin with and she is not missing it this time. "And I want you to speak on my behalf."

"Surely there is someone better for the job. Don't misunderstand me, I would be thrilled, but—" She stops in the middle of the corridor, eyes lowered as she desperately tries to find something to focus on apart from Cersei's inquiring gaze. "I am nobody in the eyes of the people you want me to speak to."

"You won't be a nobody anymore when your time in the North is done," she assures her. It's a reasonable fear, and one she'd had to deal with before, despite the more fortunate circumstances of her own birth. Who can a woman be, once she's alone in the world with no one to rely on? It had started getting easier to answer that question the more time she had spent with no one to fully trust around her, but then again, it would have always been easier – there is a significant difference between Tywin Lannister's only daughter and the sixth child of a carpenter in the Riverlands. "You will be representing your own homeland as well."

It takes her a moment, but Madelyn makes a noise of acknowledgment once she'd seen through the plan. She's surprisingly quick, given the life she'd had, and even outside of all her manoeuvring, Cersei would have liked to keep her on her side as long as possible. "It would be easier to appeal to the King that way," she nods. "If he sees someone from his mother's birthplace."

The King, and his sister along with him. "Indeed." She quickly latches the door shut once they enter her study and picks up the sealed scrolls she had prepared. She'd had enough time to think her next move through and the sudden visit to the North had turned out to be a wonderful opportunity for her to gather exactly the kind of information she would need. "You will give him this – him, and nobody else." It's not as crucially important as the other bit of communication she had tried to initiate – still too sensitive for a raven – but it would frustrate Tyrion greatly to be left out of his king's correspondence. It would grant her a better grasp on Bran Stark, too, should he respond, and the last thing she needs is her brother's hands all over it. "And this to the Queen in the North."

It's easy to tell the messages apart – the second one is significantly thicker, even if the royal seal is unmistakably hers on both. It's a sensitive enough task that it would be far wiser to carry it out herself, but she can't. Not just yet, anyway – it's where Jaime is now, if her information is to be believed, and she couldn't possibly face him with a horde of Ironborn breathing down her back. Perhaps when she finally reaches Casterly Rock, there would be an opportunity—

And this is the last thing she should be thinking of now. It's the new king and Sansa Stark she's negotiating with for once, not her own family, and the sooner she pushes the thought of the family in question to the back of her mind, the easier it will be to handle each passing day. Thinking of home had never helped anyone get there any faster. She had seen as much less than a year into her life in King's Landing.

"I will, Your Grace. Is there anything else you would like me to deliver?"

"Wish my brothers a safe voyage home." If Jaime is quite so intent on following her with unsolicited advice through their relatives, then she might as well return the favour. Ever since Damion had brought her the news from the capital, along with the retelling of what their meeting had consisted of, the thought of her twin hadn't given her a moment of peace. It isn't much of a change when compared to her usual state of mind, truth be told, but she had still managed to find an ounce of comfort here and there in her existence before, when she had thought he would never bother to seek her out again. The possibility of it alone is enough to nearly drive her mad and, worst of all, it's unlikely that he had meant to do this – no, he had just wanted to interfere as per usual, resorting to action when his words failed him.

It's one of the many ways in which they're a near-perfect mirror of one another – her words had failed her too, in the end, just when it had mattered the most.

~.~

It's only after Madelyn's ship is well out of her sight and she's made sure that no one who could potentially protest had seen it happen that Cersei wanders away from the harbour and into the less frequented surroundings of the castle, still right by the water. Her cousin is already there waiting for her when she reaches it, of course – invisible as they tend to be most of the time, her Queensguard is always in the closest proximity possible – and she lets herself collapse right next to him, the fine lace that her gown is edged with disappearing into the wet sand as soon as she touches the ground. Back in King's Landing, it would have been an appalling lack of care – seeing the Queen waste such a precious garment on a whim would have been a scandal if anyone had seen – but there is no one looking at her now. It's a difficult thing, finding the pleasure in something as utterly miserable as her life tends to be on occasion, but she had slowly learnt to manage it.

"I saw you sent Lady Harlaw on her way," Damion starts at last, uneasy as ever with the long stretches of silence that her presence usually provides. "I would have come sooner, but your royal husband insisted on keeping me around the fleet during his preparations."

Of course he had. Euron's reins around her tighten just a little every time she steps out of line in a way he dislikes. It doesn't happen too often – she knows how to get a rise out of someone without directly provoking them into violence, but it still all feels like playing with fire on occasion. "My royal husband isn't particularly fond of leaving me unattended with my male relatives, though I suppose you've noticed that yourself by now."

For all his efforts to keep his expression unaffected, Damion's laughter – more of a half-restrained huff, really – bursts out before he had had the chance to school his expression into something more disciplined. "This is no laughing matter, Your Grace."

It's my life. What bigger laughing matter than that? "You're still laughing, aren't you? It's good to see it," she assures him when he makes to justify himself. "I always assumed you would have been disgusted, once you realised that everyone had been right."

"I mean no offence, Your Grace, but it's been quite a while since I realised. Your brother was the only one around back then. If there had ever been any disgust to speak of, it died before we took Highgarden."

"How?" And this is a terrible idea, it truly, truly is. She doesn't need to speak of Jaime now. What she had needed had been to forget, slip back into the even, uneventful anxiety from before, back in the time when she had been living day to day with only her and Loren's survival in mind. It's that state of mind that had carried her through the destruction of King's Landing and the wandering from town to town; through her wedding and everything that had followed. She had survived it all without Jaime and the fact that he insists on barging back into her field of vision, no matter his methods, should be much more unwelcome than they are turning out to be. "By then, the truth was already out for everyone to see, but it must have still taken something else for you to know."

There has to be something else to it, Cersei thinks with an edge of desperation. The alternative is accepting that the realm had torn itself apart – that her family had been torn to shreds – over Stannis Baratheon's assumptions. It's not an easy option to swallow.

"He would speak of you sometimes. Back before we got to the Reach. It was a long way and— it's not an easy thing, Your Grace; marching half across the continent on the orders of a monarch they've never seen to a battle with an uncertain end. Men lose sight of their end goal on occasion. More so in an army, where many others feel the way they do. When they needed a reminder, Ser Jaime would make the rounds, as commanders tend to do, to lift up their spirits. He would speak of the glory awaiting them, or of the gold and the food they were going to seize for themselves and when he'd run out of promises to make, he would turn their attention to their Queen. It was all pretty stories to keep them at peace, no doubt, but it painted a beautiful future."

"All stories do." He had been so far away, back then. She had paced the halls night and day without a single piece of news to cling on to. The thought that any of this had occurred in that time – that anything at all had occurred then, in fact, other than the blood and fire and death of Daenerys Targaryen's first attack – is nearly enough to bring her to tears. It's a startling sensation; one that she had held back for so long that she had nearly forced it out of existence.

"Oh, they do. Trust me, I've heard my fair share of them. But back then, in that tent— it was so easy to believe, the way he spoke of the future you would build together. Back when I first arrived on Pyke, you asked me why I had decided to follow you." He meets her gaze this time, the memory fading away in favour of the picture she must be painting now. Given how directionless she feels, it can't be a particularly enticing sight, but it must be good enough for him. It always had been until now. "This is why. He believed it. It took meeting you for me to believe it too."

"I hope I can prove you right sooner rather than later." He must long for home too, after all these months – the Lannisters had always been strongest in their birthplace, even if it's just the two of them for now. Or three, really; more if she gets the outcome she's hoping for. Chances are, her son might never know anything but the Rock as a home once he grows up. Her priorities had shifted a significant amount since the day she had first realised that the possibility of him existed at all, but this, it appears, remains the same – there is nothing she would like as much as bringing her family back into their home. It's been so many years that it's terrifying to think of the emotion it would invoke when she does cross the gates, but Cersei carefully puts the fear away. It belongs to a woman she's yet to turn into; one who had finally claimed what had been there for her to take for years.

"You already have. Though, I must say," Damion ventures, his smile as daring as it is nervous, "I can't quite imagine what life will be like when there's no longer a goal to chase."

If Cersei had ever known the answer, she had forgotten it a lifetime ago. "We'll find out soon enough."

Despite herself, she rather hopes that Jaime might be there to see it happen. She had always enjoyed proving him wrong a little too much to let him miss it all.