CAESAR LANNISTER

Caesar absolutely hated his extended goodfamily. They were just too prickly and frozen a pack of wolves who knew not a good jape when they heard one and looked at him as though he ought to be ashamed of himself. But such came from having married a fish whose sister was Lady of Winterfell, and so he would have to break his fast as quickly as possible, for Lysa insisted upon eating with the Starks at all meals during this tournament, and while his wife was in King's Landing with their four children he attempted to put on a good show of family for them at least—though Caesar suspected that Tygett, his eldest son at three and ten namedays might be beginning to see through the ruse he and his mother had crafted by living apart.

Tygett, whom Caesar had named for his favorite uncle growing up, despite his Lannister green eyes, was completely a fish otherwise, and sitting next to his year elder cousin Robb, could have easily been mistaken for his twin brother. But beyond the Tully looks Caesar thought he could see a bit of the lion in his fiery temper that his northern cousin lacked. Lysa said he was exactly like her younger brother Edmure in temperament, but Caesar was convinced it was a Lannister trait—there had to be something Lannister about his heir and future Lord of the Westerlands—once father and he had died of course. Today Tygett would compete with his cousin Robb in their first tournament against squires from all across the realm. For Tygett it would be a chance to display his skills, and for Caesar it was an opportunity to show that his brother wasn't the only Lannister who could train decent warriors of his own blood.

As one of the Stark's serving girls blushed furiously when Caesar gave a sly wink to her—it was good to still be thought of as attractive, Caesar had to admit—he was distracted by a sudden shriek.

"Tommen! Not so much food," scolded Lysa

His only child beyond his bastards to look anything like a Lannister—except for his mother's Tully blue eyes—simpered like the kittens he was so irritatingly fond of.

"I'm starved!" complained the boy.

"You're always starved," grumbled his younger brother, the completely Tully looking six namedays old Robin, who Caesar was convinced was his deceased gooduncle Brynden Tully come again to make his life even more difficult.

"Robin," warned Caesar, to which he received a sigh and a roll of the eye. After that had passed, Caesar then turned to his other son and quipped, "Your mother is quite right, Tommen. Any more and you'll have no need for any padding under your armor when you train." He then took a rather large bite of a peppered sausage.

Lysa, Catelyn, and Stark all stopped in various stages of eating to stare in wonder at him, while the soft boy's blue eyes began to well up with tears before he rose from the table to run away and cry.

"Father," began Myrcella, but who thought better of it when she met with a firm glance from him. The Lannister-Tully-Starks then continued breaking their fasts in utter silence—which was one thing Caesar actually appreciated about his goodbrother, was his ability to be quiet.

After the morning meal had finished it was customary for Caesar on the morning of a tournament to visit the Sept and pray to the Warrior, and though it was only Tygett competing this day, alongside Robb, Caesar still insisted that they stop by the Sept of Balor and light a candle before the Warrior. It also gave Caesar a chance to speak with Tygett alone—something that Lysa was reluctant to allow. After kneeling before the alter of the Warrior and lighting a candle for Tygett's sake, Caesar then rose and indicated for his auburn haired son to follow him.

Patting his son on his back as they left the alter, "On the day of my first tournament your great uncle Tygett took me and your uncle Jaime to the closest Sept and together we prayed to the Warrior. Now, I do so with you and I can hardly be prouder."

"Was that the same tournament that you sired Gared?" asked Tygett pointedly, his green eyes staring directly at Caesar. Gared Flowers was the name of his eldest bastard, a boy he'd sired off of a Reach whore at a tournament at Oldtown nigh eight and ten years earlier.

"No. I was your age, and your grandfather held a tournament in Lannisport so he could show off your uncle and myself," Caesar grimaced.

"Why do you dishonor mother, father?" asked Tygett petulantly.

"I think we've spoken enough," clipped Caesar as he took his arm from around his son's shoulders.

"No, we will talk about this!" insisted Tygett, stopping and almost shouting so the entire Sept could hear them.

"Lower your voice. You are too young to understand," snapped Caesar in a hushed tone.

"In three years I'll be a man grown!" protested Tygett in a slightly hushed though still huffy tone.

"And I'll decide when you are you'll be old enough to understand, until then we will not speak of it," growled Caesar with a firm grasp to his son's shoulder.

"Fine, then I'll ask Uncle Jaime…" murmured Tygett.

That Caesar could not have, and he made sure his son understood him by turning and grabbing him by his shoulders and saying, "You will ask your uncle nothing! Do you understand me?"

Tygett, much to Caesar's surprise, pushed back and declared, "I'm not some child you can bully like Tommen, father! I'm almost a man grown!"

"A man grown has no need to remind others that he isn't a child," sneered Caesar.

"Do you love mother?" demanded Tygett.

Love? What is Lysa filling his head with? Songs of knights and their lady loves no doubt. Well… there's more than one way to undo that! It's for the best, the boy will be better off knowing life is not like a song.

"There is nothing sweeter in the world than the… love of a woman. Your mother…" Seven damn her. "…your mother has never… loved me. And when a husband is in such a position, he has the right to find… love where he can. And if he cannot find it from his wife, he turns elsewhere."

Tygett nearly demanded, "And that is why I have so many half-brothers and sisters? Because mother doesn't love you?"

Caesar smirked, knowing that he'd sowed the seeds necessary, "Aye. It is easier in some respects to be a woman. Without any labor they are given love for free, while we men slave for it and oftentimes never receive any reward for our pains."

That and women seem to have forgotten that moontea exists. If I were a woman, I'd drink hardly anything else but moontea.

Caesar seemed to have given something for his son to think on, as the boy remained quiet the entire rest of the journey to the tourney grounds. He left Tygett to ready himself and did not look forward to returning to Lysa—who he saw continued to sit with her sister and the Starks, Myrcella and Sansa sitting near one another exact duplicates of their mothers at younger ages, giggling as they admired many a knight on the field. Tommen had somehow snuck one of his cats with him and was trying to introduce the pet to his cousin Bran's pet direwolf pup—which was already the size of a typical dog. No, he did not wish to join them, but he knew he would have to, for appearance's sake.

And then his eyes caught sight of a swath of golden hair, and he turned to see sitting almost directly across from his trueborn family were his twin brother accompanied by all of Caesar's bastards—the youngest five of the seven, in addition to his bastard cousin, Joy Hill, each born with distinctive Lannister hair. But worst of all was the fact that Unella sat next to Jaime, holding the youngest bastard—the one he'd gotten on her—Tywin, to her chest.

This he could not stand. Lysa likely had already seen the "Golden Pride" as his bastards were called behind his back, that damage could not be undone. Unella with Jaime, though…

He hurried over to the opposing stands and did his best to call down Unella without being seen with either his bastards or her.

"Papa!" squealed Lanna Waters, his second eldest bastard daughter as she rushed to hug him like Myrcella used to great him until recently, when she thought it rather unlady like to do so. Lanna did not have any of those concerns, and Caesar for a brief moment showed some affection for the child by rubbing his gloved hand through his daughter's hair.

Unella came down next, with Adryanna Sand—her other child he'd sired on her when he'd visited her in Dorne all those years ago close at her heels, and Tywin Hill still nuzzled at her chest, half asleep. Tywin was the only bastard he'd had a choice in naming, and he'd done it to dig at his father's idea of legacy.

"I'd rather speak to you without an audience," he confided to her.

"No, we are in public now, and can't afford to be seen being so… intimate," she mocked his own words to her back at him.

"Lanna, my pet, perhaps you and Adryanna could pester Alys for me? I would like to speak with her next," requested Caesar, and Lanna and the sulky-eyed Adryanna ran off to speak with their eldest Valeborn sister.

"Why are you with him?" demanded Caesar ferociously, ignoring the sleepy Tywin on her shoulders.

"He asked me to come, so I did. Why are you so upset? Do you think I might return to Castemere with him and your Golden Pride when the tournament is through?" challenged Unella.

Damn her Dornish impudence! If she wasn't so gods damn attractive…

"Jaime has always been rather jealous of me. He's always wanted what was mine, ever since we were little boys. Father gives me Castemere, and after I grow bored with the place and its quarrelsome lords, Jaime asks to be made my castellan and lives there. I rode out to join the rebellion when father wanted to stay put, Jaime ends up killing the King. I sire a few bastards… he collects them and raises them in my own castle to spite me. Now he wants you…"

"If this is the way you're going to act, mayhaps he should have me. He's certainly better in bed than you," hissed Unella for which Caesar raised his hand to slap her, but at that moment Tywin opened his little eyes and stared at Caesar-and he lost his nerve.

"I want you gone from the stands," he declared furiously before trudging off back to where his trueborn family sat. He ignored the calls of "father" he heard behind him from Alys as he did. He arrived just in time to witness Tygett's joust.

"There you are, you nearly missed Tygett compete," commented Lysa, playacting as though she actually cared whether he missed Tygett's joust or not. As he entered, a man who Caesar knew to be Lord Baelish—a childhood friend of his wife and goodsister—rose and excused himself from the box. The man was a fingerlord from the Vale and in charge of Gulltown's custom house. His name popped up more than a few times in Lord Arryn's conversations with him about possible appointments to positions as the Keeper of the Keys, or the King's Counter that as Master of Coin it was Caesar's job to appoint. But there was something about Lord Baelish that Caesar didn't trust. He didn't know the man well enough to discern what it was, and he did not want to know the man any better than he did. Caesar made a note to ask Lysa about what he had wanted when they were alone.

"Who is he competing against?" asked Caesar as he took his seat next to Lysa.

"A squire who insists on wearing a helmet," commented his goodsister Catelyn

"He's such a mystery!" fawned his niece, Sansa.

"I bet he's quite dashing," giggled Myrcella and the two little fish girls continued to chatter away.

Tygett for his part looked splendid in the fine red and gold armor that Caesar had had made for him for this occasion. He shook hands with his masked competitor before each went to their separate ends of the field to rise to their mounts.

Queen Jana, Robert's buxom Tyrell wife, then rose and dropped a handkerchief to indicate for the two boys to charge at each other, and in a moment it was all over. Tygett didn't have a chance as his competitor had aimed his lance high only to suddenly jerk it into place at the last second as a dodge to fake Tygett out. Caesar recognized the move immediately and looked across the field to the box where his brother sat—Unella still by his side, godsdamn it—and he knew immediately who the mystery boy was. Gared was too old to compete amongst the squires anymore and Crys Pyke was sitting sourly between Adryanna and Lanna. That only left Leon… Leon Rivers. The boy he'd sired a day or two before his marriage to Lysa.

Seven damn him!

Tygett looked sulky, and the helmeted Leon jumped off his horse and with an ever gallant display assisted his half-brother up from the muddied pit. Caesar prayed that Leon would keep his helmet on for the rest of the tourney.

Let him be a mystery…

But Tygett, sour at having lost, grabbed at his half-brother's helmet and pulled it off to reveal to everyone exactly who had beaten him, and Caesar wanted to die right there and then. Lysa of course knew the boy immediately. He was the son of her formerly favorite handmaid and beyond his Lannister hair looked exactly like his mother. She rose without looking at anyone but the red-faced Tygett storming off the field.

"I must see to my son," she murmured as she left.

Mayhaps it was all the wine he had had at the feast after the tournament. Mayhaps it was Lord Baelish's constant appearances through the meal. Or mayhaps it had been the glares he'd received from Lysa and the Starks throughout the meal on one side of the hall, and Unella upon the other. Either way he ended up flirting and later taking the silly little Northern maid into his private chambers. Something was fuzzy about his senses—they all felt wrong, but he dismissed that as he tumbled through the sheets with the Northern wench.

The next morning he was found dead in his bed by the Northern maid. His death was shocking as no signs of foul play could be determined. It was as though he had fallen asleep and simply died with no other explanation to it.

Nine moons later, after his father's death, Caesar Snow was born and fetched by his uncle Jaime to join the Golden Pride.

LANNISTER FAMILY TREE

Tywin LANNISTER, Lord of the Westerlands and Casterly Rock
m. Joanna LANNISTER (died in childbirth)
-Caesar LANNISTER, Lord of Castamere, Heir to the Westerlands and Casterly Rock
-m. Lysa TULLY, Lady of Riverrun
-Tygett LANNISTER [13] (named for Caesar's favorite uncle; has Tully looks, but Lannister eyes; often compared in personality to his Uncle Edmure Tully; if he didn't look & act so much like a Tully, Caesar would consider him his favorite)
-Myrcella LANNISTER [10] (is completely Tully in looks, is thought to be a twin to her cousin Sansa Stark, with whom she is in frequent contact with via Raven; her mother's favorite child)
-Tommen LANNISTER [8] (has Lannister looks, but his mother's Tully eyes; a sweet boy who is overly fond of cats and kittens, Caesar thinks him an embarrassment)
-Robin LANNISTER [6] (is completely Tully in looks, is thought by Caesar to be Brynden Tully come again) -s.r. Various Women The

Golden Pride (all were born with Lannister hair)
-Gared FLOWERS [17] (gotten on a whore at a Tournament in the Reach)
-Alys STONE [15] (gotten on a whore at a Tournament in the Vale)
-Leon RIVERS [13] (gotten on one of his betrothed's maids at Riverrun a few days before the marriage)
-Crys PYKE [10] (gotten on a whore during the Greyjoy Rebellion)
-Lanna WATERS [9] (gotten on a whore at a Tournament in King's Landing)
-Adryanna SAND [7] (eldest child off his Dornish mistress; was born in Dorne and raised there until Unella came to King's Landing at Caesar's invitation)
-Tywin HILL [4] (youngest child off Unella, was born in the Westerlands and promptly given to Jaime to raise; he is the only member of the pride that Caesar named himself, as a mockery to his father)
-Caesar SNOW [conception] (gotten on a maid of Catelyn Stark's)

-Ser Jaime LANNISTER, Castellan of Castamere
-Joy HILL (natural daughter of Gerion LANNISTER, ward of Ser Jaime's)

-Maester Tyrion (rapidly rising at Oldtown, seeking to be the youngest Grandmaester in the history of Westeros & replace Pycelle)