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The first thing you should know about Cersei Lannister is that she never wanted any of this. She hadn't wanted to die or to be born as one of the most delusional villains of recent fictional history. She hadn't wanted to be married to Robert Baratheon or become Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. Most of all, she hadn't wanted to play the Great Game.
But we rarely get what we want in life, and this is doubly true if that life takes place in Westeros. She had died and become Cersei Lannister, only daughter of the Great Lion. Her betrothal to Addam Marbrand had been broken after the Rebellion so that she could become the new king's consort. And in order to survive King's Landing, she had been forced to play the Game.
Which brings us to the current moment. Cersei sighs and tilts her head to rest against the wall of the wheelhouse. They are riding up the Kingsroad to Winterfell, where Robert will demand that Eddard Stark become his Hand.
Some things, Cersei thinks, never change. She supposes she should have expected it. Jon Arryn had been killed by his wife instead of the Lannisters in canon, after all. Perhaps he had been too close to discovering the cuckoo in his own nest instead of the king's in this world. But with him dead, there is no one Robert will have as Hand except his foster brother. Cersei, knowing how her counterpart had failed, hadn't even bothered suggesting her father as Hand. Well, partly because he was already Master of Coin. Unlike her counterpart, Cersei does her best to keep her father happy instead of being certain she is Tywin Lannister with tits.
She prefers to take the path of least resistance in life, especially a life as dangerous as this. Robert hadn't much cared about who his Master of Coin was when she suggested it, so she had gone to Jon Arryn instead. Jon Arryn had looked between the penniless Lord of the Fingers and the unimaginably wealthy Lord of Casterly Rock, and picked the queen's father. Baelish is one of the king's counters, Cersei thinks. He must have been furious. Does that mean Jon Arryn's death was her fault?
"Are we there yet?" A small, high voice breaks through her thoughts.
Cersei blinks and looks down. Her youngest daughter is tugging at her dress, looking pleadingly up at her for the umpteenth time that day (damn Jaime for telling her they'd get there today). "Not yet, Cassie." She says, smoothing the rumpled black nest. "You'll know when we get there."
"M bored." Cassana complains, hiding her face in Cersei's cloak, then sneezing and pulling it back out of the cloak. "Want to get out."
Thankfully, before Cersei can scream or cry at the prospect of having to find something else to occupy her four year old (it's been at least two months on the road, they ran out of new things to amuse Cassana with after a week), Tyrion leans forward and starts making faces. He has Cassana giggling in thirty seconds flat, and Tommen and Myrcella with her. Joanna's pretending not to, thinking herself too old, but Cersei can see the twitching lips behind her hand.
Well, that's the children amused at least. Gods bless Tyrion. She doesn't know what she'd do without him.
Cersei looks out of the window. Her elder three are riding with their father amicably enough for once, thank the Seven. Lyonel does not appear to have picked a fight with anyone today, by some miracle, and he and Steffon are riding on either side of Lyanna. They are all roaring with laughter at some joke Jaime has made, which has gotten even Robert sniggering.
For a moment Cersei wonders what the joke was, and then decides that she's better off not knowing. At fourteen and twelve respectively, the twins and Steffon have reached the stage of life where they find dick jokes the height of comedy. Robert just never left that stage.
She settles back into the wheelhouse, watching idly as Tyrion transitions from aimless faces to a fantastical story about Symeon Star-Eyes. By the time the royal party rattles in through the gates of Winterfell, Tyrion has been through eight stories and his voice is getting hoarse.
The relief Cersei feels at getting out and finally being able to stretch her back and legs is indescribable. Travelling of any kind since she lost the twins last year has been uncomfortable, and riding is out of the question for at least another year. Hence the wheelhouse. She would have preferred not to travel at all, but where the king goes, so too does the queen. It's murder on her legs and lower back though.
Once she's surreptitiously cracked every bone in her spine and neck, she takes in her surroundings. Winterfell is grey and grim and cold, but beautiful in its own bleak way. The air is clean as it never is in the cesspit of King's Landing.
She makes her way over to the Starks as smoothly as she can, tucking one hand into the crook of Robert's elbow as he releases a laughing man from a fierce embrace. Robert stiffens a little at the reminder of her existence, but doesn't shake her off. "Ned," he says, "this is Queen Cersei. Cersei, my dearest friend in the world, my foster brother Eddard Stark, Lord Paramount and Warden of the North."
Eddard Stark looks suspiciously like Sean Bean in his Lord of the Rings era. Younger than he had been playing Eddard, but still grim. She smiles her sweetest smile. "An honour to finally meet you, Lord Stark." She says. "My husband has told me so much about you."
The smile she gets in return is small, but still more genuine than any she has gotten in King's Landing. Then she and Robert meet Catelyn Stark, also looking like a younger Michelle Fairley, and the Starklings. Robb, Sansa, Arya, Bran and Rickon, with Jon Snow in the back behind Theon Greyjoy. Perhaps it is just because Cersei is looking for it, but she fancies she can see something of the Silver Prince in the boy. A faint violet tinge to his grey eyes, something in the shape of his lips and nose, and the curve of his jaw. Perhaps she's just seeing things.
The rest of the Stark children are much as she had expected. Robb is a polite heir, Sansa is staring dreamily between Lyonel and Cersei herself, Arya is glowering at everyone, Bran is looking curiously at everything, and Rickon looks ready to bite something. Yes, very much like she had thought they would be.
Robert lists off their children with somewhat less care than Eddard had, but at least he got them in the right order this time. They are behaving, thank the Seven, even Cassana seeming spellbound by the strange castle they have found themselves in. Lyonel bows to them as she had told him to, kisses Lady Stark's hand, and then takes his place on Robert's other side. Cersei breathes her quietest sigh of relief. There. Her heir is no Joffrey.
"Take me to Lyanna, Ned." Robert says after a minute, shaking her off his arm. "I want to pay my respects."
Well, that had lasted longer than he had hoped. Cersei doesn't bother to say anything, knowing it will just get her snapped at. Unlike her canon counterpart, she isn't jealous of Lyanna Stark's shadow - the mirage is welcome to have Robert, she certainly doesn't want him. She takes her son's offered arm instead as the two men walk off.
***********
When Robert returns to their chambers afterwards, he is in a somewhat better mood than before.
"I have a Hand again." He tells Cersei, waving her back down to where she had been sitting on the floor with the girls and their dolls. "And Ned's agreed to the betrothals."
"Both?" Cersei asks, surprised. She had expected Lord Stark to only accept Sansa and Lyonel.
Robert ignores her, lowering himself down into a chair that creaks dangerously and beckoning Lyanna over to him. "You're to be a Stark, girl," he says, twirling one dark curl about his finger, "like you were meant to be. Are you pleased with the match your king has made for you?"
"Very much, sire." Lyanna says smoothly, dipping to kiss him on the cheek. Robert's face twitches from pleased to irritated, the way it always does when Lyanna acts contrary to her namesake. He doesn't join the children in their games, but he doesn't send them out either, which Cersei decides is good enough.
Robert has little more interest in Cersei's children than he did in her counterpart's children, even though Cersei's children are all the spitting image of him (save for Joanna, with her namesake's vivid green eyes). Part of it is, admittedly, Cersei's own fault. She dislikes her husband and doesn't want her sons to become men like him, who whore and kill and drink their way through their days. It's no way to live. She won't have her children live like that, so she keeps him away from the children wherever she can.
At the feast that night, Cersei keeps her eyes averted from the maid giggling on her husband's knee, as if that will make the humiliation any less (she doesn't care what Robert does, but public infidelity is still public infidelity and he doesn't even try to be discrete).
She makes polite conversation with Lady Stark about running castles and raising children and pretends she doesn't see the pity in the other woman's eyes. They watch as Lyonel and Sansa talk about tourneys and Lyanna and Robb talk about Robb's direwolf. Lyonel promises to win a tourney once Sansa comes south and crown her Queen of Love and Beauty. Robb promises to introduce Lyanna to Grey Wind.
Well, at least that is going somewhat better than canon. Out of the corner of her eye, Cersei sees Jaime hauling Steffon away from the dark corner he'd found a serving maid in. Steffon is, alas, her Joffrey. He's not a bad boy, nothing like her counterpart's Joffrey, but he's the one most likely to take after his father's drinking and skirt chasing.
Thankfully, Jaime and Tyrion are keeping him from complete debauchery at the ripe old age of twelve. Her other children are mostly behaving, except for Myrcella who appears to have found a bosom companion in none other than Arya Stark and is excitedly gesturing with a knife. Oh dear.
She can see the frown on Eddard Stark's face, turned not towards the suspiciously violent-looking girls, but towards the king. Well, she supposes it isn't too much to assume that Mr Honor-Above-All disapproves of publically breaking marriage vows. And Cersei happens to know, unlike everyone else in Westeros, that he isn't being a hypocrite when he is acting judgemental of infidelity. Maybe he'll be able to get Robert to be somewhat more discrete once he's officially Hand.
Cersei spends the rest of the feast talking to Catelyn Stark and ignoring the world around her. It's quite nice to talk to someone who is so blissfully unpretentious. Oh, Catelyn Tully was raised to play the Game. But fifteen years as queen in all but name in the isolated North have made the other woman delightfully honest instead of sly like everyone in King's Landing. Lyanna will be happy here, she thinks, as long as no one expects her to be her namesake come again. That burden seems to have fallen to Arya Stark anyway.
Tyrion and Jaime tease her about having a new best friend the next morning, but she can see that they're glad she isn't isolating herself as she often does. In Cersei's defense, she's spent the majority of her marriage pregnant or recovering, and also she really, really hates playing the Game and dealing with people in general. She would have become a septa if her father had ever let such a wonderful bargaining chip out of his grasp.
Unlike canon, there is nothing wicked for Bran to discover in the abandoned tower. He climbs up, slips in through the window, and joins the game that the younger four Baratheon children had been playing while the others were out hunting. (That's one thing Cersei approves of about Robert's parenting - in his nostalgia for a woman he hardly knew, he's happy to let their daughters ride and exercise and hunt, so if anything does happen to them, Cersei at least has the surety that they can feed themselves and shoot anyone who tries to hurt them.)
Tommen tells her later in awed tones that Bran had climbed down the outside of the tower instead of going down the stairs and he'd still beaten them down. Cersei smiles and says that Bran must be a truly wonderful climber then. Behind her eyes, she sees the tv version of her twin shoving the little boy from the tower window.
After a month or so, the party move off down the Kingsroad once more. This time, Bran Stark comes with them, not being bedridden and unconscious. Catelyn Stark still stays behind with Rickon and Robb to act as Regent.
The journey down is fairly uneventful, what with there being no Joffrey to fight with Arya and demand Lady's death. Arya, Sansa and Lyonel do happen upon Steffon with a local girl, but Lyonel just hauls his brother back to the wheelhouse where Cersei makes him ride with them for a week. No son of hers is fathering a bastard if she can help it. Steffon tries complaining to his father, but Robert doesn't much care about his son's failed conquests. More women for him, Cersei supposes, as long as he is the kind of man to be disgusted by the thought of sleeping with the same woman as his son. She honestly doesn't know.
In King's Landing itself, the Tourney of the Hand goes much as Cersei remembers it, down to the fight between Ser Loras and Ser Gregor. She watches Sansa blush prettily as Ser Loras gives her a red rose, and then blush again when Lyonel gives her a bracelet with a glare aimed at the older boy. For a moment, she considers reassuring her son that Loras doesn't like women, but decides against it. Loras and Renly probably wouldn't appreciate her blabbing to her son of four and ten. Robert still fights in the melee, but Cersei hadn't bothered to try stopping him. Why would she want that fight on her hands? Robert does what he wants, he always has.
Baelish is still in the capital, alas, Cersei notes. She has considered trying to get rid of him before, but that feels too much like playing the Game. She doesn't want to play the Game. She just wants to live a quiet life, and to keep her children safe. It's a stupid wish, she knows, and when she has to play then she plays the way her father taught her. But she doesn't do it unless she has no other choice.
In the end, Robert dies much as his counterpart had - gored by a wild boar while hunting drunk. Cersei muses about coincidences and fixed points as she sits by her dying husband's bed. She hates him as much as her counterpart had, she's sure. He's cruel and petty and fixated on a girl who scorned him. He humiliates her by openly sleeping with others, makes her marriage bed a misery, and hardly gives their children the time of day. But he's still been her husband for fifteen years and Cersei doesn't know what will happen without him.
Lyonel's only four and ten, too young to take the throne without a Regent. You would think that Robert would last at least that long considering his wife wasn't actually trying to kill him. But the thing you should understand about Robert Baratheon is that he thrives in conflict. In a way, the original Cersei had been the best possible wife he could have had. They had hated each other's guts and fought like cats and dogs, and Robert had lived on pure spite. Cersei of this world is frankly terrified of her husband and despises conflict. She bores her husband, she knows. She's killing him as fast as her counterpart had, just by trying to keep the peace. (Part of her, a tiny, wicked part, whispers good)
So Robert is as fat and discontented as he had been before, despite Cersei's best efforts. She had given up shortly after Cassana's birth. If her husband wished to drink and fuck his way into an early grave then he would do so, and his wife would not be able to stop him.
Now he has done so. She tries to feel more for the dying man than irritation that he didn't hold on enough for them not to need a regency. After a few minutes, she gives up.
She sits by Robert's side as he dies, doesn't interefere as he places Eddard Stark as Lord Protector with her father as Hand, and desperately hopes that they will keep peace in Westeros. Her husband is dead. She is no longer queen. She wants to raise her children and never get involved with politics again. Alas, Cersei has never gotten what she wants.
Instead of the war starting with Catelyn kidnapping Tyrion and Tywin razing the Riverlands, it's Lysa taking Tyrion (who's journey to and from the Wall had been unchanged) and still Tywin razing the Riverlands. Lyonel's two regents split the court between them in a matter of weeks, the Ironborn take the opportunity to rebel, and Stannis arrives from Dragonstone with the announcement that a Targaryen army has taken it.
A Targaryen king. A Baratheon king. An Arryn king. A Greyjoy king. The North and West at war. It is a war of four kings and two lords, not five kings, but it is a war all the same.
Cersei should perhaps be more surprised when her father calls her and Tyrion to his office. He informs them that Tyrion will be marrying Yara Greyjoy, who has been taken hostage in the latest battle. Tyrion blanches white. "I'm a dwarf." He points out. "And she's a trained fighter. Who's to say she won't kill me the moment we're alone?"
"Figure it out." Tywin says unsympathetically. Cersei doesn't dare squeeze her brother's hand under her father's eye, but she gives him her best supportive look. She and Jaime will help him with whatever he needs.
"Cersei." Their father continues. "Doran Martell has asked for your hand if Dorne is to maintain neutrality in the matter of the new Targaryen threat. He will come to King's Landing within the next four moons."
Wait. Cersei doesn't know this. She was to have been sold off to the Tyrells - Loras or Willas, depending on book or show. Why Doran Martell? She swallows hard. "Must I marry again?" She asks, her voice wobbling a little.
"Yes." Tywin says flatly. "We must form as many alliances as we can and you are still fertile. You were dutiful enough the first time, what difference the second?"
"Have I not done enough?" Cersei demands, folding her hands to try and stop them shaking. "I married your Baratheon. I gave him seven children. The next king will have Lannister blood, the next Warden of the North will have a Lannister bride, the next Lord of Casterly Rock will be a prince. Have I not done my duty?"
Tywin raises an eyebrow at the uncharacteristic outburst. "Your duty is never done." He says.
"Please, Father." Cersei does not cry, but she is close to it. "I am tired, I have made one marriage for alliance and it was miserable but I did my duty. I did it. I did everything you wanted. Let me rest now. Let me have my children. Please. I can't do this again. Don't take me from my children."
Tywin puts down his quill, folds his hands and leans forward. "Perhaps you misunderstand me." He says. "This is not a negotiation, Cersei. You will marry Doran Martell whether you wish to or not. Now get out and start planning for your wedding."
She is shaking all over when the door closes behind them. Tyrion pulls her down, and wraps his arms about her. They both stay there for a long time, holding onto each other and saying nothing about the dampness seeping into their shoulders. It's some time before either of them manages to stand up and walk back to the royal apartments.
Lyonel is furious when he gets the news. Tommen bursts into tears when Lyonel storms in demanding why she's letting Grandfather take her from them. "Don't go Mama!" Tommen cries, tightening his arms about her neck. "Don't leave me!"
But Cersei, like all women in Westeros, is bound to the will of the men in her life. It had been her husband, but with him dead and her son still a child, Tywin Lannister owns her now. If she had been born into the body of a Targaryen, she might have had a better chance at being mistress of herself if she'd gotten a dragon, but alas she is a Lannister. She has enough gold to bathe in it, but gold cannot free you the way a fire-breathing magic mountain can.
So she holds her little boy close to her, and then opens her arms for the rest of her children to crowd in. She cannot hold them all at once, but she does her best and blinks back her tears viciously. She is their mother. They need her to be strong for them.
Lyonel tries his best to argue with Tywin about marrying Cersei off again, bless his heart, but as fierce as her boy is, he is still just a boy. His grandfather brushes him off with platitudes about how it is for the best, and that one day Lyonel will understand. For now, however, Lyonel is fourteen, facing the loss of his mother while he is being forced to reign from one of the most dangerous seats in the world.
He turns away from the Lannister faction at court and leans more towards the Stark faction, who are not in favour of marrying the Dowager Queen to the Prince of Dorne. Eddard Stark is not a stupid man, but he is also not a cruel man. He saw his sister rebel against an unwanted marriage until it led to the death of thousands, and while Cersei is not a teenage girl or a romantic, she thinks Eddard Stark has learned his lesson about pushing women to the edge of desperation.
The Lannisters start to lose favour as the king turns towards the Starks. Lyonel starts to bring Sansa to Small Council meetings with him, and demanding that their marriage be set as soon as Sansa flowers. She's still a little star-eyed girl now, but Cersei can see the wheels beginning to turn behind those innocent blue eyes. The court of King's Landing, even with her father's protection, is still an education for such a sheltered girl. Sansa Stark is starting to grow up.
All of this is good, but it does not take away from the fact that Cersei's father has already signed her away to a man she has never met. She exchanged one letter with him, after the Rebellion, and that is the extent of their interaction in the entirety of their lives. So why did he ask for her?
The question turns around and around in her head, like wheels of fire when she's trying to sleep at night. By day, she puts on a brave face, and tries to cram in everything she had ever wanted to teach her children (be kind and brave my sons, be wise and careful my daughters, the Great Game is dangerous, my children). By night she cries into her pillow until one child or other comes in after a nightmare.
In the evenings, she takes her meals with her brothers and her ladies, and they pretend everything is fine. Or they get drunk and complain until the sun comes up. Either one works.
And so the next four moons pass. It isn't a four moon journey from Sunspear to King's Landing, not by ship at least, but going by ship would mean passing occupied Dragonstone and the war for Storm's End. Even by land, it isn't that long of a journey, but Doran Martell has his ailments which most likely necessitate a slow journey.
When Doran at last arrives, it is with his brother and Ellaria Sand by his side. Arianne has been left to rule Dorne in his absence then, Cersei thinks, smiling her best smile at the man who has bought her from her father. Fuck the Great Game.
Doran smiles and kisses her hand, and says how nice it is to finally meet her. Cersei smiles back and says the pleasure is all hers. Lyonel, her first boy, her brave one, does not even smile as he stiffly greets the Dornishmen who have come to take away his mother. His attitude is only matched by that of the Dornishmen themselves as they greet Tywin Lannister and Eddard Stark.
At the feast that night, Cersei is sat beside Doran and away from her children. Taena is looking after Cassana for her, and the other six tend to pair themselves up to watch each other. She isn't worried exactly, except perhaps that Steffon will indulge Arya and Myrcella's violent tendencies, but she despises being tucked in a corner with only a stranger near her.
She and Doran talk stiffly about nothing at all for the whole evening. Cersei keeps catching her father's eye. She knows what he wants. He wants her to smile and soften, to draw the prince in and do everything 'right'.
Well she did it like that once before, back when she thought she could change anything in this cursed world. Back when she thought that what she did mattered. What did it get her? Robert was bound to marry her anyway. Even if she'd hated him like her canon counterpart, he would have gone through with it. Her best efforts had brought only his apathy.
Besides, Doran Martell is much cleverer than the stag had been. He would notice if she was being false. She can see his black eyes darting everywhere, their movement almost hidden by the drooping lids above them. He is quick and sly, this man, and that terrifies her.
There is a tourney the next day. Doran does not joust for obvious reasons, so he spends the whole day sat beside her in his chair. Cersei hates it. She had known what would happen once, but now, the whole world has been thrown off course. This is new territory to her, and she wants to scream. This was never what she wanted. She should have just run off and become a septa in secret and never let her family know where she had gone.
Lyonel wins the tourney and crowns Sansa with golden roses. The girl's pretty blush rises again, and she blows Lyonel a kiss, which he pretends to catch and press to his heart.
"You should be proud of your eldest." Doran says. "You've raised a fine young man."
She smiles. "Thank you, your Highness." She replies, and turns to Tommen who's fighting with Cassana over some sweetmeats.
In the afternoon, Lyanna's competing in the archery. She doesn't win, but she comes third, which is admirable enough at four and ten. Cersei claps so hard that Tywin throws her a warning glance, one he doesn't throw at Jaime or Tyrion or her children, who are all cheering madly for Lyanna.
"You love the children very much." Doran observes.
"Of course I do." Cersei replies. "They're my children."
"You love all children, do you not?" He says, leaning ever so slightly on the 'all'. Surprised, Cersei turns to meet his gaze full on. She hadn't thought he would bring it up here, right under Tywin Lannister's nose, but then he is Oberyn Martell's brother.
She hesitates. "You would know." She says at last. It had been her one real attempt at playing the Great Game. She still doesn't know whether she regrets it.
Doran only smiles, a flat, sly smile that sends shivers down her spine. They hadn't met back then, but she imagines he had looked a little like this when he had learned what she had done.
They are married a week later in the Sept of Baelor. Her father gives her away even after her son had tried for the honour. It is the Baratheon cloak taken from her this time - Cersei wouldn't mind so much if it wasn't being replaced by a silk Martell cloak.
"Bring your children." Doran tells her on their wedding night, playing cyvasse fully clothed in their shared chamber. "There is room for every child at the Water Gardens, and I imagine they shall be happier away from this place." He moves a rabble into place with a soft clack.
Cersei is silent for a moment, before replying with a question as she moves her own dragon. "Why did you ask for my hand?"
"Call it sentiment." Doran says, taking his trebuchet back a pace.
"We had never met." Cersei says flatly. "You had no cause to care for me."
"There are those I love who do." Doran looks up at her as he takes one of her rabbles. "They could not bear the thought of you bound to a callow youth who would resent and misuse you."
"Will they be in Dorne?" Cersei asks hesitantly. Last she heard they were in Braavos, but with everything that is happening, she wouldn't be surprised.
Her new husband smiles as he moves a trebuchet into place. "Of course they will. They are eager to see you again."
"I would like to see them too." She says, unable to keep the wistfulness out of her voice. Those had been better days.
Doran wins, of course. "You are better than I was told." He says magnanimously, as he tips over her leading piece.
"That was six and ten years ago." Cersei replies, standing to tidy the board away. "I am a slow learner, but that is enough time for even me to learn a little strategy."
Doran smiles, leaning back in his chair as she moves to the sideboard to pour them both some wine. They drink in companiable silence for a few minutes.
"Alright." She says after a glass or two. "Lyanna is being sent North in two weeks with the Lord Protector's younger daughter, and Lyonel will never be allowed to leave as long as he is king. But you will get all of the others to Dorne no matter what my father says."
"Will Lyonel listen to you when the time comes?" Doran asks, swirling the wine in his glass idly, belying the glittering of his black eyes.
Cersei swallows hard. She hates the Game. "He's a boy with a crown, but he is still my son. He will listen."
"Very well then." Doran leans forward, extending his hand. "Your younger children will come with us, and your son will do his duty." They shake hands, before Doran levers himself out of his chair and limps to the bed.
He does not say anything about consummating as Cersei settles stiffly on her side of the bed, and she does not bring it up.
**************
A week later, Cersei departs for Dorne with her new husband and five of her children. Tywin refused her request to go North for Lyanna's marriage, saying that he wanted her to be cementing her place in Dorne as soon as possible. It had left a bitter taste in her mouth, feeling like she had traded Lyanna for safety for the younger ones, even when Lyanna had promised that she didn't mind.
Doran is kind enough to her children. He doesn't seem bothered by Cassana clambering over him, or Joanna peppering him with questions, or Tommen hiding behind the great mass of his chair. Myrcella and Steffon prefer pestering the Red Viper to his quieter brother but they don't seem any more apprehensive of their new stepfather than they had been of their blood father. At nights, he and Cersei talk. Sometimes polite nothings. Sometimes about their failed marriages. Sometimes about the Game. She hates nights when they talk about the Game.
It takes three weeks to travel to a port where they can take ship without risking running into the major sea battles. But once they are on the ship, the journey is smooth enough, only a week and a half from the little port to Sunspear. Her children are almost disappointed when the voyage ends and they have to disembark.
Cersei walks demurely beside Doran's chair as Areo Hotah wheels him down the gangplank. She's wearing a dress he had given her, red and gold silks in the Dornish style, and an elaborate circlet that declares her Princess of Dorne. It is a somewhat easier burden to bear than the queen's crown had been.
The first person to greet them is Doran's daughter, Arianne Martell. She kisses her father's cheek, says a few polite niceties to Cersei, and moves on to greeting her uncle. Remembering what Arianne had been like in the books, Cersei says nothing. She smiles politely as Quentyn and Trystane greet her, and then all eight of Oberyn's daughters. In another life, she had loved Dorne's storyline, and that is the only reason she can keep them straight now.
Last of all comes a figure she had never thought to see again. "Hello Cersei." The figure says, smiling brightly. There are fine lines about her eyes now, but there is meat on her bones and less tension in her shoulders. It's been sixteen long years since they last saw each other, yet suddenly it feels like only yesterday.
Cersei smiles back, taking the proferred hands. "What are you doing here instead of Dragonstone?" She asks. "Do you not want to be with your son?"
"Rhaenys is marrying Edmure Tully." Elia replies. "She wanted me here for the wedding, and I wanted to be here to see you again. It's been too long."
"It has." Cersei says. Sixteen years since they were at court together, two young women thrust into a Game for which they were unprepared. Sixteen years since she smuggled Elia and her two tiny children out of the Maidenvault, trusting to her father's name and her sunlit hair to stop any of Tywin's soldiers questioning her. Sixteen years since she made her only real move as a player of the Game of Thrones.
Maybe it's time to start playing again.