Chapter Text
The waxing moon hung high in the sky and wolves howled in the distance. It was late, she should have been in bed with a warm fire crackling instead of walking the chilly courtyards of Winterfell. It wasn’t too horrid inside the castle, surprisingly the keep was actually rather warm, not warm enough for southerners once night fell, simply manageable. But she had craved a dip in the hot springs or even a bath. Her breath floated in the air before her and above her stretched an endless canopy of stars with not a cloud in sight, there’d be no more snow tonight.
A trickle of her rage still lingered over all that Robert had done to shame her over the past two days, over their whole marriage really. If the previous and current days were any indication for how their stay at Winterfell was to be then it clearly signified more embarrassment was to come. Hence she needed a relaxing soak so as not to act impulsively and kill the man too early and in his best friend's home.
With the servants asleep she had to go to the hot springs which would have been her first choice anyway, the pools were said to be heavenly. The guard normally posted outside the noblewoman’s spring was absent, and only after seeing the lock on the door did she see why. In her heavy robe of fur, she huffed in annoyance, she left the warmth for nothing.
But the slightest bit of light caught her attention, from the top of the nobleman's spring a soft glow shone. A guard was absent from that door too, was it the guard inside, someone with a key or just a dying fire, if a man was inside she could kick them out easily, people were so eager to please their queen. Looking at the falsely shut lock Cersei knew she was in luck.
Quietly she slipped through the door. Taking note that only one of the clothing bins was full. Lifting her skirts she skipped the pre bathing washing area and stopped at the corner before the heated pool. Cersei stepped out into the open but the occupant didn’t notice her.
At the end of the pool sat Eddard’s bastard; eyes closed and at peace. He was only in up to his belly button which gave her a nice view of his well shaped abs and chest, it gave her ideas. The boy was young so he wasn’t quite as handsome and masuline as some of his father’s cousins, and he was no Jaime, but he was pretty. His youth and bastardy would mean his word couldn't compare against hers should he be stupid enough to speak up. She turned around back to the clothing bins and quietly lowered the bar at the door, this could scratch the itch she had since reuniting with Robert on their travels.
After a long day in the yard and lessons, Jon took advantage of the key to the spring that he had been entrusted with. The hot water just relaxed him, his muscles became pudding rather than tight and bruised. On top of his training he had once again dreamt of the mutiny. He craved the warmth of the springs, he craved heat and flames that seeped into his heart rather than cold steel, he needed to remind himself he wasn’t rotted and blue eyed.
A scratching sound reached his ears and his eyes shot open but nothing was before him. He let himself be suspicious for a moment before telling himself it was just some pesky bird on the roof. But as he was starting to relax again he closed his eyes again, that was until he sensed someone’s gaze.
His breath caught in his throat at the sight before him. Cersei Lannister stood bare, naked as her nameday and exposed for his study. The woman, who’d become the Mad Queen, whose son would order his father-uncle to die, the same son to torture Sansa, she who tried to kill Margaery. None of that could stop his mind from admitting that she was truly and utterly beautiful from head to toes. She was the very definition of tantalizing. His mouth was as dry as Dorne yet at the same time as wet as the Neck at the sight of her very form. The one positive thing about her was undoubtedly her appearance.
Cersei’s pride bloomed under the bastard’s stare, she couldn’t help the smirk that grew on her face. With each slow step into the water she added a sway to the hips and a little bounce that gave a little jiggle to her teets, enough to make even a Stark entranced. Robert tried to dishonor her with the Stark girl, the girl rejected him and he failed. She would succeed, this Stark would want her and fuck her. The thought of her revenge using Robert’s best friend’s son was even better, it was enough to bring a hunger between her legs.
“Your Grace, I-I don’t think this is appropriate…” She rather liked the sound of his Northern lilt. It was exotic and different, perhaps it was a little barbaric. His nervous hesitancy also pleased her, more submissive.
As she approached him she dipped her body fully into the hot water before bobbing it back up and let the droplets of water roll down her breast. Jon's instincts made him want to catch each one in his mouth and stop them at the source.
The boy gulped. She tracked his gaze to her tanned nipples. Around his eyes were vertical scars that made the boy seem older and tougher, more worthy of her, battle hardened but still pretty. In the orange light, the violet of his eyes was visible, she could almost imagine they were Rhaegar’s rather than a Dayne’s. Tearing her attention downwards as she came within reach of him, the sight of more scars surprised her. A half dozen silvery slivers littered his chest, the most notable was the intriguing one above his heart, she traced it with a finger.
“How?” her voice was low and husky.
Jon shivered under her touch. Half-lidded emeralds met amethyst, his pupils ate away at the violet hungrily. “Knife fight, they had the numbers and I was unarmed.” He kept his legs together and his hands kept his cock hidden from her.
The Lannister woman gave a soft snort, “Hardly a knife fight then.”
“There were knives and it was a fight…” Jon stilled as a dainty hand gently came to rest on his lower thigh.
Cersei relished the way such a simple touch of her hand had so much power over the boy, it made her feel so powerful. “Have you ever stabbed someone?”
He couldn’t find it in him to shake his head, he could barely even speak. “No.” The warmth of her hand was incredibly distracting even within the hot spring. Jon wasn’t even a greenboy anymore but he sure felt like one under the lioness’ gaze.
She pulled her hand away, it wouldn’t do if he finished so quickly, Cersei was here to relax and clean after all. Her back and rear still ached from long days in her wheelhouse. A good thing it was she had a fine subject in her company to service her needs. Turning her back to him she sat on the step below him, her spine between his shins. “Massage my back. The dreadfully long journey here has been bruising.”
It took Jon only a moment to recognize what this was, he was already caught in a spider’s web and the only escape was obedience and deception. He could only hope she didn’t take this too far. His body played the mummer’s act well enough, in fact it almost seemed to crave it. Spreading his legs to have better access, he shakily brought his hands to her back and began rubbing circles, gliding in search for tight muscles. The better and quicker he did what she asked, the sooner he’d get out of this mess and could relieve himself.
Her skin warm and tempting in the yellow-orange glow, her golden locks shimmered in the firelight. He idly wondered if every inch of her had been kissed and if that would have made her a kinder woman than the cruel queen she may yet become, his lips were certainly itching to find out. Perhaps she still had some heart, she had yet to lose her children. It was doubtful that she’d ever have a heart as stunning and beautiful as her exterior though.
If Cersei moaned under the bastard’s massage it was purely for the relief he gave her aching body. She thought him rather talented despite his shyness. “Have you ever touched a woman before?”
“Aye.”
“And have you bedded one?”
Once again he replied simply like a dimwitted Northman, “Aye.”
A pity, she’d have liked to have been the sole stain on the boy’s honor as his mother was Eddard’s, there was something exhilarating about being tempting enough to break even the most honorable of men. Though it did mean hopefully he wasn’t as inexperienced as she feared, if he is as good with his cock as his hands she might actually feel some pleasure from the act itself. “I am not some serving girl or whore, I am a queen and expect you to continue to treat me as such. Move on to my legs now.”
Jon’s rising anger at being treated and commanded around like a servant was tempered by the sight of her long leg glistening as she rose one out of the water. He may rightfully be a king if Aegon decides to abdicate again, but damn him for wanting to treat this horrible but gorgeous woman like the queen she is. He wanted to kiss a path from the bridge of her foot to her folds and feast on her until she said his name like a prayer and begged like she should be before him. Fucking out all his dislike and hatred for her was also appealing. It may have been his cock speaking but that sounded like a great idea, the girls wouldn’t be happy but that was probably inevitable with the situation he found himself in.
She rose and took his vacated spot, he caught just a glimpse of the golden patch of trimmed hairs before they were submerged into the water. A leg held above the water as a mockery of a lady holding a hand out to be kissed on the knuckles. The way the act pulled at the muscles in the queen's hamstrings and calf had him suppressing a groan.
The sweetest of kisses was pressed onto the top of her foot, the boy was truly treating her as his queen, kissing her boots and all. Propping one leg on one of the stairs below her, he rested her foot on his thigh and ran his hands all over her smooth leg. This was worshiping and she could not be more aroused. Whenever she pried her eyes open to watch him through heavy lids, she’d see Rhaegar in his place for just a second before the face would elongate and the hair curl and darken.
Her subtle moans, sighs, and whimpers were driving him mad. The way her heavy breathing and little shudders moved through her taut stomach. Or the way the pair of supple welcoming breasts were pushed out just crying out for him to suckle on. Gods, she was tempting, she made him as lusty as bastards are said to be.
After over two and a half moons without fucking, Cersei didn’t care at this point if it was the bastard or Jaime. The trip to Casterly Rock had been good for not just seeing her home and Father but also being away from Robert. She lifted herself out of the water and spread her legs giving him a clear view of her greatest weapon. The air was hardly cold by any means but her nipples could cut diamonds. “Please me.”
The command awoke his sense of honor but that hint of need underneath the hard edge caused a civil war inside him. “I- This is wrong. The king…” Not even Jon could say he was at all convinced by his halfhearted and incoherent protest.
“That king publicly shamed me and attempted to force himself upon your family. Broke her wrist, or did you forget? What loyalty do we owe him? Don’t you not want revenge? I know you want me.” She leaned forward, stretching to run a finger down his hard cock, and a nice cock it was, already a good deal longer than Robert though not as absurdly thick and disgusting and he lacked the coarse forest of hairs that the Baratheon did.
Yes, Jon wanted revenge. Robert may have given them back the New Gift but that didn’t heal Minisa’s wrist nor wipe away the memory of his actions. But Robert wasn’t the only one he wanted revenge on, Cersei did enough in the other timeline, though at this point the worst she'd done on a personal level was sneer at his home. The touch on his shaft made him take a step back but her spread legs beckoned him forth. Like before he took her leg by the ankle but this time he kissed his way upward. He did want her and he hated himself for it.
Regardless they both knew he had little choice in the manner, her presence here with him alone made that so. Should he do anything to Cersei’s disliking it only took a few choice words from her to Robert and he’d be sent to the Wall or executed. For the exact same reason he couldn’t say anything, at best he could demand a trial by combat or reveal Cersei’s infidelity with her twin but she’d postpone for the Mountain, that would limit his champions if he was allowed one, he also had no proof of her relationship. So he might as well enjoy it.
Leaning back on her elbows Cersei watched the bastard slowly climb his way up her legs with his kisses. The way his dark violet eyes burned with lust as he stared overtop the crest of her breast to hold her gaze the entire time stirred her. She was going to stop him so he would stop teasing her but something in Cersei wanted to savor this moment. Was this to be expected of a submissive partner or was this just the way a wolf treats its partners and makes them truly feel queenly? When he finally reached her core and licked at her entrance she shuttered and moaned. Yes, nothing could be more queenly than having men kneel and supp on one’s cunt. If only she had a king’s head between her legs then she’d be the most powerful person in the realm in truth. Men may be the ones who rule the world but women can so easily rule the men if they aren’t insufferably weak.
Jon lost himself in her folds. If his eyes weren't locked with hers then they were closed as he moaned into her. She was as delectable in taste as she was in sight. The gods were cruel to give such grace to a woman with a blackened heart but that didn't stop him from sending thanks.
Her hands held his head into her core. Cersei hated every pitiful whimper that escaped her but this… this was something else, this was what she deserved. He used his tongue every which way on her slit and even slipped his fingers in and found that sweet spot inside her that Robert never so much as tried looking for. She can't remember a time she peaked so quickly and so overwhelmingly.
He lapped up her climax like it had been his prize. As if already sensing her increased sensitivity his mouth found another target: her breasts. One hand soothed her hips, the other kneaded the breast which had been denied his wonderful kisses. How a boy who hardly suckled at his own mother's teats was so good at it she had no idea.
Through her heavy breaths and moans she managed to ask: "Where did you learn such a thing with your tongue?
Jon chuckled to himself. Why do they always ask that? "My mouth wets at the sight and the urge just comes."
"No one taught you this?"
That slight little smirk of his returned though it was hardly any different than his passive face. There was still a little shine around his mouth from her essence, instead of disgusting her it was strangely pleasing. "No, I just did it." What a curious boy- man.
His body was burning for her and she clearly noticed it. One hand abandoned its post at propping her up to wrap around his cock and pull him towards her. "My command has yet to be fulfilled. I told you to fuck me." Her index finger moved to tease his stones before it traced upwards to the shaft and continued until her touch disappeared from him and he was left chasing it.
When he finally bumped her between the legs, he stilled before a shiver shook him. Those beautiful eyes stopped staring and rose to meet hers. "As you command." His voice was husky and gruff and the utter yielding in his words excited her, it was like taming some handsome but wild beast. With that he moved to fill her, his head going to her neck to press his lips there too.
Jaime let her into Robert’s room with a questioning glance, it was late, very late. He didn't question her though, likely he expected her to take some form of revenge on their 'king.' Of course she already had and was now simply covering her tracks.
Cersei had spent far longer with the bastard than she had expected. When the boy had slowed almost to a stop for the first time inside her, she'd thought he had finished but the bastard had used the time to take control of himself and prolong the encounter. Not that he had needed it much with how he had used a hand to tilt her hips until his cock hit her just right with every thrust.
But the moment's pause had led her to the most succulent of ideas. An idea that had led her to ensnare the bastard with her legs and forced him to spill inside her, more than once even if he had protested. It had been an impulsive decision at the time but as he had guided her back to her room avoiding the guards, she had time to fully comprehend its merits.
With Jon Arryn, Stannis, and possibly the bastard’s father looking into her children she needed something to appease the living two until they could be removed. The boy's hair was dark enough to be mistaken as black, and Robert himself had the dragon's blood, amethyst eyes or even blue-grey could be explained, grey wouldn't be possible but she could hide the babe and claim it fell to a sickness should its baby blue turn that unfortunate color. If anything it guaranteed her at least a year to enact her plans. A fourth child would also prove that ugly witch wrong.
Of course the father being a bastard and a Stark was far from ideal but Jaime fathering another child on her would do nothing to protect her and her children. At least the bastard was good-looking, and he'd hardly made it a chore to bed him, quite the opposite actually. There was also the sweet irony that a Stark bastard would cuckold Robert considering the man's love for the Northern house, particularly the boy's father.
So here she was in her pig of a husband's chambers as his loud snores echoed throughout the room. He'd be beyond drunk and hungover on any regular night and after the previous night's occurrence as well as the morning's, he'd be as lively as a brick. Another of her fortunes was the fat oaf's love to sleep bare. He happened to be whoreless as he'd spent the day hovering around Eddard trying to mend their relationship, that hadn't stopped his glutinous intake of wine.
Moving Robert's sheets the man hardly stirred. Shifting her skirts and lowering her underclothes to access the pool of seed that had escaped her, she collected some and smeared the sheet, his legs and the small girthy cock.
It was far from an ideal process but preferable to actually letting the man atop her again like she had done when carrying her children. At Winterfell, the washers were not given Lannister gold like the Red Keep.
And considering Robert’s guards were Jaime, Trant, and Blount, it was easy enough to claim Robert took his marriage rights and make her anger at him known. All that was left to do was clean herself in her room.
Cersei was always surprised by just how dull the man had to be that it was so easy to do all this.
Now she would have to continue to bed the bastard and fortify the odds of conceiving a child. That part of the plan was surprisingly going to be much more of a pleasure than expected.
The First Keep lacked the warmth of the newer keep but between the fire and the bastard’s exceedingly toasty skin Cersei was comfortable being completely bare. It was another cold night, as cold as the last where they’d awoken to three inches of snow that melted before noon.
It was her final night at Winterfell and one of the last chances for the bastard’s seed to settle inside her. The timing of her moonsblood was unfortunate, it ended shortly before her arrival and was expected shortly after her departure, forcing her to bed the Stark more than perhaps necessary. She wouldn’t know if he had been a waste of her time for at least another sennight if not longer.
Cersei had them fucking almost any chance they got and all over Winterfell. Together they had practically marked the entire keep; in every alcove he’d taken her underneath her raised skirts, in his chamber and in hers, in the Godswood, in the glass shielded gardens, in her wheelhouse, in the hot springs, and even once at the hour of the wolf in the middle of the Great Hall while he sat on the stone throne of the Starks. There was only one place she never got to claim no matter how much she wished; the crypts, before Lyanna Stark’s bones. The bastard had fiercely rejected that, and she didn’t push so as to keep him pliant.
He’d also been slightly stubborn about his holy woods, not because of his gods but because of tales of sorcery and magic. Allegedly those with the greensight could see across the realm and even time through the eyes of the weirwoods, and so he took her deeper into the closed forest to have her. The Stark feared a century old Targaryen bastard witnessing them. Cersei had thought him paranoid and gullible but let him have his way once again and peaked stronger at the dream of wielding such a power.
Atop his cloak, in one of the rooms the servants had cleaned but not furnished before being tasked to prepare for her and Robert’s visit, Cersei let the bastard’s hands caress her sweaty skin. Like always, he’d feasted on her cunt, then spilled thrice inside her. He had quite literally kissed the cheeks of her arse, knelt before her and kissed her ankles, it was worship and she relished it. He spoiled her, lavished her as she always should be, pleasured her beyond satisfactory. She’d give him that, he had that youthful vigor and talented tongue, as well as the normally disgusting Stark selflessness.
If only she was treated like the queen she was everyday. “Your father is not taking you with him south?” It was Eddard’s loss, the boy was a talented swordsman, nowhere close to Jaime but exceptional enough for his age. Cersei would easily admit it was for the best her toy did not join her travels.
“No. He didn’t think the south was a good place for a bastard or a Stark.”
She scoffed, “My husband has sixteen of them.” A fact she’d never forget.
The bastard rubbed her hip southingly. “And yet I doubt they are very much welcome in the Red Keep.” From a Stark it almost sounded condescending. He’d been welcomed by his lord father in the keep but would Catelyn Stark let him remain has yet to be seen.
“Only as much as you are welcomed here without your lord father.” Their relationship was an odd one, despite having fallen at her feet, he is by no means blindly infatuated with her. There was no pretext of romantic incantations on either side, it was this that allowed her to speak so rudely to him, else she ruin the mummer’s act that may have been needed with other men. Sometimes it irked her that he could resist becoming deeply attracted to her, a small wound to her pride.
He growled behind her and its vibration could be felt along her back. “Lady Stark has yet to wish me dead, simply away.”
“To your knowledge.”
“Perhaps,” he conceded. “I wouldn’t recommend going through with any such dark desires, the disappearance and death of a bastard raises questions and unwanted attention. You wouldn't want any rumors, and I would prefer you not attract suspicious eyes that may lead to me.”
It was obvious he was trying to protect Robert’s spawns for whatever reason, but admittedly it was fair advice. Stannis would only use it as even more evidence against her and would never crown any bastards before himself; he'd follow succession by tradition, Stannis would be king before any bastard whelps. She couldn’t speak with the bastard about that however. Cersei eyed the fire and then the albino direwolf pup that guided them unseen throughout the keep every night with ease. It was smart and it was beautiful for a beast. “Tommen and Myrcella are taken with your wolves.”
His soft rolling chuckle was much more pleasant than the previous topic. “Aye, the direwolves are a good judge of character.” He left it unsaid that the wolves disliked Joff and her.
“How big will they grow?” There was something attractive though uncivilized about taming such a predator. Back at Casterly Rock they had lions in cages but there was a power in expressing one’s control over nature, like the Targaryen’s with their dragons. It was as if nature itself acknowledged and submitted to the strength of their will.
“Their mother was the size of a Bran's pony, probably nearly as tall as me on all fours. She might not have even been fully grown.” She could hear the pride in his voice.
Cersei bit her lip, “Gods.” The thought made her a little wet. The man behind her was of greater stock than she gave him credit for, Stark and Dayne, noble blood, king’s blood. She’d mostly ignored Tyrion but she’d overheard him telling her children stories about the North, of magic, wargs and skinchangers. If the ability resurfaced in this generation of Starks, her child may inherit the power.
Rolling over with renewed purpose, she straddled him, letting her breasts hang above his face. And so she rode him, tamed the beast tamer. For once they didn’t need to restrain their moans, though he was still nearly as quiet as his wolf. She didn’t let him delay himself as he liked when they had time so neither of them lasted long. His old cloak would undoubtedly bear the stains of their countless releases.
Sighing contently as she dismounted, Cersei prayed her womb would accept his children if it hadn’t already. She’d almost miss the pleasure he gave her. With Jaime suddenly reclusive and reserved, she doesn’t know when the next time she’ll feel so good.
Raising behind her, his icy breath felt wonderful on the warm skin of the nape of her neck. His head dropped to rest between her shoulders as he breathed heavily, it was strangely intimate. “You are a hard woman to please.”
“I’m the queen, I have high standards.” She’d be sore tomorrow, and tired, but sleeping was the ideal way to spend her time while traveling through the North. “Though you do an adequate job for a bastard.”
He scoffed but accepted the backhanded compliment. “With your standards, I’ll accept adequate.”
“You should be honored, you perform far better than the king,” and perhaps Jaime, loathed she was to admit, but she didn’t say that.
“A truly remarkable feat, our king is the best in the land in terms of experience.” His dry sarcasm actually made her laugh. A Stark bastard mocking Robert Baratheon all the better, Cersei is pretty sure that Robert actually is fond of the boy as well.
She smirked. “The problem is he doesn't remember any of it.” He does recall some nights and that only makes it worse.
His hand came to grace her thigh. “I’d drink too if I couldn’t remember sleeping with my queen.”
“Robert can’t even remember the nights we made our children.” Cersei spoke before she thought through her words, but she gave nothing away. The bastard wouldn't understand the true meaning.
Regardless, he stilled for half a second. “A pity, I’d remember putting a babe in you.” He had a knowing tone in his voice. “You have never pet Ghost, have you?”
The change of subject struck her as odd. “No, the wolves have no care for me.”
“He won’t bite, I promise.” And a Stark’s word means as much to them as debt to a Lannister.
“If he bites, I’ll have his skin for a cloak.”
“And that may be why they dislike you.” That dry tone was back in his voice. “Ghost, come.”
The white direwolf pup rose to its feet and padded over. It was already nearly of height with her knees when she was standing. Ruby red eyes glittered as it watched her with intelligence no animal should have. Cersei could see why Myrcella and Tommen fell prey to it, the wolf was absurdly beautiful with the most gorgeous coat of fur.
A thumb rubbed a circle on her encouragingly just below the joint of her pelvis and leg. “Go on. He’s very soft thanks to Sansa’s brushing.” She almost forgot about her initial suspicions about the half-siblings’ relationship. Between Cersei and the wildling princess he was said to bed, she'd forgotten the redhead.
Tentatively she lifted a hand before the wolf’s nose, letting it sniff it, surely even a direwolf could smell nothing but sex from it. When it lowered its head, she dragged her fingers through the fur between its ears. The beast leaned forward into her hand until its nose nearly touched her stomach. “It is soft!" Ghost was a pet worthy of a queen, in beauty, manner, rarity and power.
Jon hummed in response. She’d forgive his undignified reply just this once.
The wolf had enough pets and returned to its post by the door.
“We should return, you leave before noon.” He spoke with no emotions in his voice to theorize his thoughts. It was late, very late, so he was not wrong.
Cersei was much too sore for another round. If she was with child then she was with child, if not…then she was no worse off than before. He couldn’t speak against her without endangering himself. She rose, bending to demand one more kiss to the cheek of her arse. His seed was still wet and sticky between her legs, she’d have to deal with that before she enters her quarters.
He helped her dress, it was a needless gesture but she enjoyed the servitude. When she was wrapped back up in her discrete hunting greens, the bastard poured what remained of their second water jug into the fire and blanketed them in shadows. Despite the darkness the wolf and Stark guided her with a hand on the back to the courtyard in the middle of the abandoned keep. Under the moonlight his hair took a silver look and his eyes… maybe it was just her mind playing tricks.
When she had washed herself of his release, he made no move to leave. “Cersei.” He sighed. “You should try and spend more time with Tommen and Myrcella.”
Gritting her teeth, she narrowed her eyes at him. “Was that a warning?” Eddard Stark had denied betrothing his daughter to Joffrey and offered a son to Myrcella instead and asked to foster her as well. She’d delayed the fostering but one day Cersei's daughter would return to this cursed land if Robert does die soon enough.
“No. It is just…they would like to spend more time with you.” He was having trouble picking his words. His tongue was many things but silver it was not. “They feel you favor Joffrey too mu-”
She cut him off. “You mislike my son.” That was the worst thing about him. Joffrey hated the bastard and it was mutual. Admittedly Joffrey rightfully hated all the Stark, though in return they disliked him back.
Not hiding it, he simply shrugged. “Tommen and Myrcella are good kids, we like them. Joffrey is just-”
“Careful what you say next.” Cersei hated that she let the boy touch her at that moment.
He ran a hand through his sweaty waves. “It is just that Joffrey seems to bully his siblings. I think they are afraid you’ll favor him over them. They feel like you don’t listen to them. They- they feel unloved-”
A loud crack echoed in the night. Her hand stung from the force of the slap but she stepped forward and glared at his hopefully bruising face. “You! I love my babies! Never tell me how to raise my children, Jon Snow! You are a bastard, you have no mother, you know nothing of motherhood!” She snarled at him before pushing him backwards.
The bastard kept to his feet, at his side his little white wolf silently growled at her but didn’t attack. Those dark violet eyes for a moment looked unnatural and as dangerous as the red of his pet’s, there was a fiery anger to them that was wild and familiar. “Follow me if you want to reach your chambers without being caught.” He didn’t deign to await a response, simply turned and began walking.
She hated him, and she hated needing to rely on him at this moment.
They spoke not one word until she was in her room and he was gone. She wanted to throw things across the room but instead Cersei silently cleaned herself and went to bed cursing him. If only she could have him killed… but a missing bastard would go noticed and Catelyn Stark was too close to Eddard to pin the blame on.
All too soon and hours later she was forced to see the bastard one final time as Cersei departed Winterfell for good. Between Robert’s lady love Lord Eddard, Myrcella and Tommen, Cersei was made to linger in wait as they gave their goodbyes. Joffrey, ever perfect, was ready to mount his horse by the Hound. Her youngests were taking their sweet time however, in less than a moon the Starks had sunk their claws deep in them.
Myrcella approached almost every girl and exchanged farewells, even the Stark boys received such. Cersei’s daughter even spoke with the bastard who sported a large red-purple bruise across the left side of his face. Whatever was said between them made the young man smile a smile that in all their moments in the dark the queen had never witnessed. His wolf had taken to Myrcella as well as any of the Starks, running circles and licking at her hands like it was a normal dog. The sight nearly made Cersei snarl.
The interaction between the eldest Stark girl and Myrcella took the longest. As the final goodbye everyone waited on them, Cella had looked to almost move away but was ambushed by another direwolf to dirty her dress. If it wasn’t bad enough the two girls shared an embrace. The redhead had already corrupted Cersei’s daughter, this was the very reason she didn’t let her children interact with lesser lordlings, they’d only sully her babes. Though Cersei could see the uses in her children having blindly loyal subjects like Robert had with Eddard.
With Myrcella finally on her way, Cersei chanced one last glance at the Starks, if only to savor the bastard’s bruise. She was proud of that slap, it reminded him of his place and had been fueled by her love of her children. He stood straight and strong as if he didn’t bear a mark of his weakness for all to see. Surrounded by his half-sisters, the blonde wildling woman, the Tyrell girl, and his bastard cousins, he hadn’t even spared her a glance until then. Those dusky amethyst eyes tracked Myrcella to Cersei, his gaze was emotionless and chilling like cold stone.
Not wishing to give a bastard even more undeserving attention, Cersei turned. What did he know of parenting? He didn’t even have a mother. His only connection to parenthood was given to him by her, and even then it was only a possibility and he would do little but provide the seed. The bastard knew nothing of nurturing a prince or princess as if they were the most precious of flowers with the strength and power of lions. Had she easy access to moon tea she might have drank it just to spite him, even if it ruined her plans. She couldn’t do so though, the potential child had far too many uses.
“Tommen, Myrcella, come.” The two speed up to match her pace to the wheelhouse, it was much better than their previous slow mopey shuffling. The rest of their departure went by mindlessly.
More moons of hellish travel and she’d be back where she belonged, in King’s Landing as its queen. Traveling would be miserable whether Cersei was with child or not. She’d be far away from the North and it dour skies. There Cersei would only have to suffer a single Stark, a Stark that may be investigating Jon Arryn’s death. She may just have the perfect weapon growing inside her to use against him.
A fortnight passed and she’d yet to bleed. The idea had made Cersei giddy to the point of sickness, which all but confirmed her state. Her fourth child grew in her belly. Fear nipped at her heels though, it would be moons until Cersei could prove that damnable witch wrong. Moons in which anything could happen.
Tommen and Myrcella were content enough to whisper between each other most of the day. The two did not interact with Joffrey much because he mostly rode with the men as a prince should. He joined them for luncheon and supper but they never spoke with each other. Her eldest may not spend time with his siblings but he was the heir and had expectations and duties that kept him away, there was little to fret about.
The biggest annoyance was the change in Jaime, since the first days in Winterfell he'd been distant and dazed. He confided in neither her nor Tyrion. Without him, she had no one to converse with making her days tediously boring and lonely.
As the days passed and a moon's turn, most of the procession knew of her bouts of vomiting. Robert had waved her off when she'd informed him of the child growing, the slight downward shift of his eyes and big gulp of wine his only reaction.
Her husband must have shared the news with his friend as Eddard Stark's gaze followed her often when she'd leave her wheelhouse. He'd even given her a bland congratulations. There were times Cersei suspected he knew, that he somehow knew she may carry his grandchild. But Stark had little subtlety and the bastard wouldn't be so idiotic as to inform the man. Her state of living was a sign Eddard knew nothing. He would have needed to have been told at Winterfell, where he'd have been safe to tell Robert and even potentially save his bastard, before he had to worry of a babe inside of her.
One night as Cersei lay abed in her wheelhouse she thought of how different her lovers had been. Robert had cared little for anything but his own pleasure, even going so far as to imagine she was his wolf bride. Jaime, Jaime had pleased them both but they'd never really had the security to be anything but quick. With Jaime she'd also often imagine herself in his body, strong, quick and male, his strength would be hers whether because she and Jaime were two halves made whole or because he was under her thumb. The bastard was different, like with Jaime there was mutual pleasure but it wasn't the same. It didn't feel as if she was with a part of herself, somehow sleeping with a bastard had made her feel more powerful than with a king or the heir to the greatest kingdom of Westeros.
The boy, a man in truth as she'd never bed a boy, seemed to always be focused on her pleasure. Even those times when they both seemed to take their rage out on each other, he'd never corner her but allow her to use all her strength to meet his hips with her own in painful yet blissful slaps. There was never a point she felt beneath him even when she literally was, at worse she felt equal. Now that was a disgusting thought, equating herself to a bastard.
She had thought him to be submissive but the belief just felt incorrect on deeper investigation. The way he'd kneel before her to kiss at her ankles or worship her legs and body, the way he'd lick her cunt, how could that be anything but servitude?
It took her nightclothes dampening at the memories to realize how much power she'd given him over her. She had let him see her bare, let him bed her, done so repeatedly, let his seed take root in her, she'd let him do as he wished to her with his lips, fingers or cock because it satisfied her. Cersei had allowed herself to become pudding under his touch, was that not power? Even in a position of submissiveness he had never been powerless even as she forced him to please her. He had taken pleasure in her ecstasy, enjoyed every single moment she'd writhed under or often above him and she thought she had been powerful. It said something to be so confident in one's own power that they'd do something inherently unassertive.
It infuriated her that she'd fallen into his trap or rather that he'd somehow twisted it so her trap had become his. At the same time she didn't regret it, all those nights she'd never felt more powerful, more queenly, even knowing didn't negate those feelings of control and power. Oddly Cersei craved it more, maddeningly so.
Closing her eyes, Cersei let her hand gently glide across the skin of her breast, they ached and her mind conjured the way the Stark bastard would have soothed her and her hand mimicked his. Eventually the hand would rest on her already budding belly and the babe inside it. Jaime had never much cared for the children, never cared to see her with his child, but she knew Snow would have, he was a sentimental Stark. Had her daydream been real his lips might have replaced the hand, especially where it traveled to next with that kiss of his.
It was only once she had pleasured herself that remembered her anger. Her lust had blinded her. In a fit she slammed a fist uselessly against her bedding and recalled the feeling of clapping her palm loudly against the bastard's cheek. That was the thought that should have aroused her, not a hand on her belly like some insipid romantic.
Her rage and climax had drained her of energy and she struggled to keep her fiery thoughts alive against the all engulfing shadow of sleep. Cersei succumbed to an all too familiar dream, nightmare.
She was a girl once again, young and foolish. The tent was the same as the day she walked in twenty years prior, still smelling of far too many aromas to be pleasant. The dumpy hag was still an ugly wart riddled crone of a woman.
Everything went the same way as always, Fat Jeyne Farman fleeing, Cersei waking the witch, those yellow eyes and greenish jowls, the sickening sight of the frog suckling the blood from Cersei’s thumb, the questions.
“When will I wed the prince?" The future queen had asked.
The witch gave the same answer that doomed her. “Never. You will wed the king."
Dumber, the answer had confused the younger Cersei. She should have left it at that, shouldn’t have let the sorceress curse her. "I will be queen, though?" Cersei wished to drag herself away.
Revealing her gummy maw in a disgusting show of evil, the squat elderly gave the second fortune. “Aye. Queen you shall be…until there comes others-” Others? Not ‘another?’ “younger and more beautiful, to cast you down and take all that you now hold dear." It was different only slightly, but different all the same, for the first time there was hope. The meaning hadn’t changed but it was possible.
Cersei could defy the prophecy. Just how she’d skewed it after two decades of the same haunting future carved into her mind, she had little idea.
Her younger self remained ignorant to the momentous revelation that just occurred and continued as if nothing had happened. For the first time Cersei had wanted her to ask the third question. "Will the king and I have children?" She may live, her children may live.
"Oh, aye. Eight-and-twenty for him, and five for you.” The witch droned.
The hope quickly fled, Cersei had somehow made it worse. Would Robert live to sire twelve more dirty bastards? She’d have two more children but what little did it do if they were to wear their golden shrouds and for Cersei to still meet her end with her monstrous imp of a brother’s grubby whore stained hands around her throat.
“None shall hold their crowns, stones will be their eyes and scars will mar their flesh. And the valonqar shall wrap his hand about your pale white wrist and awake you in hell.” Maggy once again foretold the death of her babes, even the one inside Cersei now.
Little changed despite the words, Cersei would fail. She would die, her children would die. It was worse than before, they shall not be kings and queens, they will suffer and be mutilated. The only saving grace is Tyrion would meet his end before her.
She ignored the rest of the nightmare and soon woke, already plotting how to manipulate a change that would save her. Cersei had time, she had to birth this child and another. Robert wouldn’t live to sire twelve more fat fawns on whores, Cersei would see to that. What mattered was that it was possible to change the future and as the queen Cersei had the power to bend it to her will.